PRE- ORDER Fleur's newest novel 'Into the Night'
The Esperance Show is next Friday and Saturday and without fail we are usually making hay. Many years ago, we would be showing lambs or involved with the carcass competition (both cattle and sheep), but good quality hay is now more important that anything else. Especially when the season cuts in early like it has…
I thought I’d share some photos I’ve taken this week. It’s been a strange mix of weather: warm and humid, inky black skies and heavy drizzle. Normal spring weather. The sounds of spring are about. There is a constant buzzing – flies. There’s the bellow of sheep as we get them into the yards to…
Here’s a Purple Road. This was taken somewhere between Ceduna and Port Augusta. Would you like to name two characters in my newly finished book, Purple Roads? Well here’s your chance: At the moment, their names are Cam and Belinda. Cam is a truck driver, while Belinda is a stay-at-home mum with four boys. I…
For regular readers of my blog, you may know why I’ve named my third book Purple Roads. First of all, the bitumen in parts of South Australia (where the story is set), looks really purple and secondly, the dirt roads have that look about them too. In Purple Roads, Matt is a farmer who has…
40mm of rain since Saturday has made me dance with joy. There is nothing like a decent steady rain to make people smile, and lying in bed listening to the pitter-patter on a tin roof, there is no better music in the world. So, in honour of the rain, I thought I’d give you a…
Today I’m feeling wonderful, free and light! I finally put the last full stop on Purple Roads, which may not be big news to you guys, but I can tell you that writing this book hasn’t been easy. Writing any book isn’t easy. It requires ‘bum glue’, dedication, passion and most importantly time. It’s the…
We’ve had our opening rains – 30mm over about five or six days. Awesome. You just can’t be unhappy with that. Now I’m going to be a farmer and complain! We need some more. The canola crop is in, we’ve got over 2,000 lambs marked (with another 6,000 to go that I’m not thinking about…
I’m on the countdown to having to have Purple Roads finished. I think there is seven weeks until Allen and Unwin are expecting it. While I was in Perth I managed to edit most of the manuscript, but there is still a bit of tidying up to do, plus a few thousand more words to…
The term ‘white gold’, a long time ago, was used for wool, especially super fine merino fibres that would sell for an absolute bomb. Because we’re mainly meat producers and some of out sheep produce fairly strong micron wool, (which isn’t usually worth as much as fine merino fleeces is), this pile of fertiliser is…
When you have a young family, evening is usually a crazy time of day! Trying to get them fed, bathed, homework done, the list goes on. I’ve had a friend staying with me, for the past two weeks – if you’ve read the acknowledgements in either of my books, you’ll know the name ‘Mrs. Mackay’…
After a few hiccups, we’ve finally got the prologue and the first two chapters of Purple Roads ready for you to read! Click HERE to read.
It’s a long, muddy, foggy road… the writing of a novel! While I’ve been writing Purple Road, I’ve been trying to ‘better’ myself at the writing game. I’m not sure if you know my history, but I wrote Red Dust on a whim. I had an idea and I wrote it down. I didn’t and…
So, I know you’ve all seen the cover for Blue Skies and you’re all probably bored with it, but this book is different! ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I can hear you saying, but it’s true! This is the B-format, a smaller version, from when it came out twelve months ago. It’s also a cheaper version. The thing…
Well last week I wrote in the kitchen, as I was cooking. Today I’ve shifted to the spare room, because it’s really the only place I can spread out all my notes, without interfering with the family’s living area! (You wouldn’t believe the moans that come from the kids, when I take up the floor…
During harvest we tend to work long hours. I always like to have lots of food in the freezer, so all I need to do is pull out a bag of biscuits or slice of cake and there is smoko/lunch/tea. Just makes working a bit easier. Today and knew I had to cook, but I…
Purple Roads has taken a turn that I didn’t expect! Sometimes when that happens, it’s quite difficult; other times it’s great and the words just pour out – I think that’s what I’m about to experience… well I hope I am! I know when I went to bed; the new plot just ran around in…
The kids and I were out in the garden this morning. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day, with brilliant blue skies, a gentle breeze and a forecast for rain. I hadn’t taken much notice of the latter; I couldn’t see a cloud anywhere! But out of nowhere, the breeze picked up, bringing…
This is my road map for Purple Roads. I’ve begun to link the book together by scenes and characters. Anna is in the orange texta and Matt in the green. Every time they pop into another characters scene, I write their name in their colour so I can see straight away that they are involved…
So here we are, writing a third book! I’m not really sure I ever thought this was possible! As most of you know, I sort of fell into writing and never expected to have the response to my books that I have. Purple Roads, well, what to tell you? I’ve been writing as much as…
There is something quite daunting about staring at a blank computer screen and having a story running around in my mind! Knowing that I have to fill the document with 150,000 words, but the story hasn’t quite come together yet, is even more scary! That’s how I’m feeling at the moment. Purple Roads is a book…
We’re having a new competition! Check out these photos – they’re of my friend, Kate. What we want you to do, now that Blue Skies has hit the shelves, is take photos (only decent ones – don’t want to see you sitting on the loo!) of you reading Blue Skies. You either need to post…