Last updated: March 2007
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“Henrietta Dragon” drawn by Andrew McKeirnan of Kephra
Design, Sydney, Australia (www.kephra.com.au)
November 29 saw the successful launch of the third Tropical Writers Group anthology Raining on the Sun. The theme this year is Monsoon, and the weather proved very cooperative. Shortly before I headed off to help set things up there was a torrential thunderstorm which managed to cut power for a couple of hours and take out a couple of sets of traffic lights on the highway. I congratulated the organiser for performing such miracles that she got the weather to be in the right mood for the launch.
I have two stories in this year's anthology, Second Chance and Rufus. Second Chance was the result of the description of a lake in Sweden that a friend visited and felt positive that there were things watching her from the pine forest. The story went through some iterations until it fitted the anthology theme, and there it is. Rufus is a cutesy little romance story, a feel-good kind of tale. Short and sweet, and after I read it at the launch someone came up to me saying how much she loved it.
It's a great feeling when you hear someone say they love your stories. Makes all the hard work worth while and makes me more determined to get my backside into gear and get THAT NOVEL (I've lost track of what I'm calling it now) finished, once and for all. Yes, I know, a story is never finished until it's on the bookshop shelves. But maybe... just maybe... when I get tired of painting walls over the Christmas break I'll get back into it and bash it into shape.
A year since my last update... what have I been doing? Not writing, that's for sure. Well, I have done two short 'stories' on the Sitting Comfortably discussion board for their Survivor Album series. That's been a lot of fun, especially as I wound up using characters from the novel, still in rewrite. I also did some work on my Troll story and it will be appearing in this year's Tropical Writers anthology 'Raining on the Sun' next month. The story got renamed Second Chance and is much nicer for the rework I did on it.
I attended Conflux 5 in Canberra the first weekend of this month - what a blast! Aside from giving me a very good reminder of why I moved north to the warm climes - waking up at 6.30am to 2 degrees Celcius is not fun - I met up with a bunch of friends, made some new ones, nearly laughed myself sick at the trivia game and didn't sell a single copy of Mangoes on Fire. Ah well, sitting at the dealer table gave me something to do during panels I didn't want to attend.
I also chaired a panel at Conflux, entitled Rewriting - the Real Art of a Good Story. I was quite nervous at the calibre of my panel-mates. Liz Gorinsky from Tor, Cat Sparks from Agog Press - I'm not worthy! But once I managed to get them talking amongst themselves it went okay.
Today I heard that a short story I edited for a fellow Tropical Writer has been published in Canada - without any further editing from the publisher! As the author said - kudos to me! The story is called Dog One Man Zero by Diane Andrews.
Back to the editing!
The Tropical Writers anthology, Mangoes on Fire, will be launched on 3 November at the Sapphire Tapas Bar and Grill in Cairns at 3pm. If anyone is in town and wants to come along - please do! I have added a page to the site - click on the book cover to get details of how to buy the anthology. There are some great stories and poems in there - a good smorgasbord of writing.
On the writing front things have come to a screaming halt - I am in major editing mode, with two large projects on the go. However I have decided that November is going to be kept free so I can concentrate on a couple of short stories I want to submit to an anthology - The Kiss of the Lily - and maybe get properly started on the novel rewrite. I can only hope.....
On the Tropical Writers front - the anthology title is Mangoes on Fire. The cover design is stunning and it's full steam ahead with the typesetting and printing. The launch is planned for early November.
On the Tropical Dragon front - I now have a PayPal account. Thanks to my niece Sarah who participated in the Sydney City-to-Surf race this month and was raising funds for the Kids Help Line, I got exposed to PayPal and decided it would be a good move to open an account. I'd been intending to for a while, just never got around to it. Thanks Sarah!
As for The Dragon's Tail...... OMG! The entire plot has been reworked and tweaked and fiddled with and brought back into line with my original premise - a romance story with Jovario as the hero. I started the rewrite this week - I'm going to aim for 170,000 words and then, if necessary, prune from there. Should be an interesting experience as I can use some of what I've already written, but a lot is going to be new stuff. The old brain is going to be doing some interesting imagining, but at least I have a definite outline to work to now - nothing will lead me astray (famous last words!).
The anthology story has been chosen - Bad Hair Day. The group is still doing battle over the title which will be settled very shortly. Once it has been chosen I will be advertising the book for pre-orders.
On the editing front I have been approached by a well-known publisher to be a freelancer for them - it means I will be very busy what with my own writing to do, but it's what I wanted - might mean I get to retire sooner than I anticipated (yay!).
Hubby gave me a beautiful dragon statue for my birthday in June - and she immediately told me her name was Calestina (one of the dragons in the novel). You can see a picture of her on the Writing page. The final edit of the novel is progressing, slowly, but it is getting there.
Another story has been accepted by AntipodeanSF for publication in their November issue, number 114. AND ... drum roll ... I am a contributing author to the Tropical Writers anthology to be published later this year. The name of the anthology hasn't been chosen yet, neither has the particular story I've submitted (we each had to submit at least two stories, three preferably) but when these are known I'll update this page.
Woo hoo! I'll actually have something in a real book that people can buy!
Back in August I sent off a story to an anthology in the US with high hopes. Sadly, as is the case far too often, the anthology wasn't picked up by a publisher, so this little dragon isn't breaking into the US market just yet. I'll leave that to Jenny Fallon for now *grin*
The Mandragon Chronicles have a new name now. I realised after an enlightening night's sleep that the story belongs to Gabrat, the dragon, so why the &*$%($& am I calling the book after the humans? Silly me *shakes head*. The new title is... drum roll... The Dragon's Tail: Book 1 Lost, Book 2 Found. And yes, the use of 'tail' is deliberate but if I say any more it gives away a bit of the plot. "Final" edit is in progress, well, as final as I can make it, so it won't be too much longer before it'll be doing the rounds. Fingers xx'd.
I was chatting with a friend yesterday when she pointed out a review of my short story Sunday Morning. I checked it out and nearly fell off my chair. Of the twenty stories in the 100th issue of AntipodeanSF my story was the one the reviewer liked the most.
In the words of the reviewer, Tansy Rayner Roberts:
My absolute favourite story of the whole issue was Barbara Holten’s stylish and startling debut “Sunday Morning”. It has a great sense of character, a bit of horrific surrealism, and a tantalising last line.
Go to ASif.com to check out the entire review.
Then, to add to the "woo hoo" factor I was checking the Aurealis awards page - a friend had been nominated and I wanted to see which of her stories made it to the list. I scrolled down and...OMG! That's my name. I got nominated! For an Aurealis!
Go to Aurealis Awards and click on Nominated works then select Horror.
Can you think of any better way to end the year? Oh, hang on, there's a very big Lotto draw on tomorrow night - and I've got a ticket *grin*
It's happened. I'm published! My first short story has made it out into the world, thanks to AntipodeanSF online magazine. www.antisf.com It's titled Sunday Morning and you will never look at your lawnmower the same again *evil chuckle*.
A few days ago I was thinking of resigning from one of the online groups I belong to when I saw a message seeking short humorous/sexy (but not explicit/erotic) stories for an anthology over in the US. I sent a query email with a rundown of a story I wrote a few years ago. The response was encouraging so after working over the story to spice it up a little more, it got sent off today with fingers firmly crossed.
The Mandragon Chronicles are now out in the world seeking a home. Yes, it’s finished! I can hear my hubby muttering “finally” in the background. Little does he know … this is only the beginning!
I owe a great debt of thanks to Eneit and Avani for being so patient with me while we did battle to get my 6.5 page synopsis down to two pages. And then I had an epiphany and rewrote it in half a page two days later.
Honestly, writing the synopsis was harder than writing the book!
So now it’s waiting time. And ‘move on to the next story’ time.
I submitted a short story (flash fiction) to an on-line magazine and it was accepted. YAY! It will be appearing on the ether in the September issue 100 and is called Sunday Morning.