Today I strode determinedly* into the Co-Op bookshop for a meeting with the manager, in which we discussed the upcoming launch party and decided to set the time for 5:15pm for a 5:30 start. We also talked over designs for the invitations, which as I said in my previous post will be put up here for your enjoyment and possible use.

(*Determined striding is my default gait; for some reason I always walk like I'm on my way to give someone a stern talking to. It must be a pretty comical sight).

Anyway, seeing as how the release of the book is only about a month away, I figure it's time to get on with the next prequel story! Since time has run short, this will most likely be the last one. A shame; I would have liked to do one about Laela's childhood, but that's how these things go. I've begun considering the possibility of writing that story and posting it up here after the book's out.

In the meantime, it's time for part one of Prince Akhane's Travels! I hope you enjoy it.

( Who said there's no place for skeptics in fantasy land? Also, before anyone asks, "Akhane" is pronounced "Ak-ah-nay".  )

I got my notarised passport copy back from Sydney today. Now I just have to mail everything off to the IRS. Joy!

Today I also got a royalty statement from my agent, and I can now tell you that the RRP for the next three books will be $27.26 (yes, they give you royalty information for books that aren't published yet. It's a bit weird).

I've also recently settled on a date for the launch party for The Shadow's Heir. It's Wednesday the 11th of July at the Co-Op Bookshop at the University of Canberra. My good friend Jack Heath will be making the launching speech, and the venue is new. All in all it should be a night to remember!

As before I'll be posting up the invitations here once they're ready; you don't have to be personally invited to come. My launches are open to the public, and the champagne is free!

Today I finally bit the bullet and sent off the forms and what have you so I can get my American tax number.
The whole thing cost me AUS$69.25.

There are no words.

Today I finally decided to stop putting it off and go to the bank to see about sending the Sydney US Consulate their ill-deserved $50.

The handsome bank teller then politely informed me that it will cost $10 to have a bank cheque thingy put together, and I promptly ran away.

I think it's time for another chorus of that Cee Lo Green song.

Okay! As promised, I'm now going to share a bit of my aforementioned other project that I've been working on. It's currently up to 46 pages and looking strong, so I think it's ready to share. Bear in mind, of course, that there's no guarantee it'll ever be published, so this extract I'm about to show you might be the only bit of it that ever sees the light of day. In fact, the last time I put up an extract from a new project (it was several years ago and the story in question involved centaurs, if you're wondering), it ultimately petered out and I never even finished it, let alone showed it to my agent.

This one, though, looks much more promising and the minor inspirations have kept on coming, so I know how it's going to continue and how it's going to end. When or if you read what follows you'll notice the style is quite different from my published works. Which I think is a good thing - it doesn't do to repeat yourself too much, and this is a very different kind of story.

Now then, in your responses to my earlier post you made it clear that you wanted to see an extract and a short description/blurb, so I'm going to begin with the latter and follow it with the former. I like to be thorough (read: I like to bang on), so I'll start with a bit of background. It's not 100% necessary to read it, but it should give you some insight into my thought processes if you're curious. I'm putting it under its own seperate cut in case you really don't want to read it.


( Warning: Katie can't shut up already! )

( The actual extract is here )

Okay, everyone, a quick question for you.

Realising that my publishers and agents all want me to stick with fantasy for adults, but also aware that it's not good to keep all your eggs in one basket, I decided that I'd better make sure that those eggs aren't all griffin eggs (did I just strain the metaphor?).

Therefore, I hastily promised my agent that I could and would come up with another fantasy series for grownups in case we needed something else to spruik. And amazingly enough, that very afternoon when I mulled over what I might do, I came up with something more or less on the spot.

Now, I really can't say whether the new project is for adults; aside from anything else I've always been terrible at picking audiences for my own work (and quite frankly, no-one else can really agree either). But however it may be I started work on a new project some time ago, and by now it's getting toward the 50-page mark and looking strong enough that I know it'll be finished rather than petering out like some of my previous efforts.

It's at this point that I've started wondering whether any of you might be interested in seeing it for yourselves, especially considering that there's been no major news or much of interest going on here lately. So I'm asking you now to see what you think. I can just post up a short summary of what the story's about, or I can go so far as to put up an extract. 

Since people here have become a bit comment-shy recently...

*tumbleweed, crickets, etc.*

...I've decided to provide the question in the form of a poll. No commenting necessary, just click the button!

Poll #1839978
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

What Do You Want?

Today, here in Australia, it's Mother's Day - possibly an adaptation of a British religious festival dedicated to the Virgin Mary, or possibly a feminist creation taken over by the greeting cards industry. Either way, in my opinion it's both good and right to have a day to celebrate one of the most important people in everyone's lives, not least because that person is half of what gave you a life.

My own mother is a PhD at the University of Canberra, and she went into labour with me twenty-six years ago while doing the vacuuming before giving birth at about 1am the following morning.

Now, I've had writing sessions that went on all night, but unless I have kids of my own one day (unlikely), I'll never really know what the original form of creation feels like. But more importantly than that my mother has always been there for me, and the rest of the family, no matter what she herself might want or feel, and that's the greatest gift that a good mother gives after the gift of life itself.

And finally, and more relevantly to this LJ, longtime readers may have noticed that a good number of my important female characters are tough and no-nonsense, but loyal to those close to them. Why? Because that's the kind of woman I grew up with. That's my mum. There's something of her in Senneck, in Saeddryn, in Skade, and probably even others like Elkin and Riona.

(My father, on the other hand, was the unconcious role model for the artistic, solitary and slightly neurotic men that seem to pop up in my books from time to time. But don't tell him I said that!)

Hi everyone.
I'm afraid you've missed out on a long, slightly rambly post about Understanding Your Characters that I started writing this morning, because I ran out of steam and got bored with the whole thing. So I'll boil it down to the very, very short version:

I was watching this video, and that got me thinking about how your characters' greatest fears are one of the most important things you have to know and understand about them in order to write them well. Arenadd's fear of heights, for example, came from a childhood trauma and was, more or less, what killed him in the end.





If you've clicked the link you may have noticed that it's a video of fish jumping, which might not seem terribly relevant to the situation. Well, it probably wouldn't have prompted the thought for anyone else but it did to me, because I'm scared of fish and that video gave me a serious case of the creeps.

Yup. Baring my soul here: fish give me the heebie-jeebies. I won't run away screaming if I see one and in real life they don't generally bother me at all, but I've had some seriously messed-up dreams involving terrifying fish monsters and I eventually realised that I've never actually had a dream about fish that weren't terrifying or at least vaguely creepy. Hell, I could describe the last memorable "fish dream" I had, and it'd put you off smoked trout for life.

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I can't fathom anyone being scared of my adorable pet rat, but it happens.