Gillo and Russell Woolf from our ABC radio in Perth had a brilliant segment on yesterday about diaries. They wanted to know if any of the listeners had ever kept one. I wish I could have posted it hear for you to listen, because it was so good. But there wasn’t a podcast made of it.…
Last night was our seventeenth wedding anniversary. Hard to believe that so much has happened within that time. Especially when the wedding seems like only yesterday. Two kids, two or three farm bought and sold and bought again. And as with most families, there are few people missing from our family now, who were there…
I love photos. Photos are memories and I’m always snapping, where ever I go. Every time I release a new book, the call comes for new publicity photos. This is one of my least favourite things to do, because I’m much happier behind a computer screen, or out in the paddock, than I am in…
I will never admit to being good with technology! My daughter has been teaching how to use some of the apps on my MacBook and together we created this clip. It’s a collection of my favourite sunsets, both at the beach and on the farm. As I get better at doing these sorts of things,…
Fiona McIntosh, author of the Lavender Keeper and many more wonderful novels, is one of my writing idols. She can write up to three books a year and it’s all thanks to Bryce Courtenay. Fiona attended a MasterClass on writing run by Bryce, some fifteen years ago and, as you will read, it changed her…
In keeping with the TV show A Farmer wants a Wife, I thought it would be a fantastic and timely opportunity to bring you some love stories from the bush. Now, pick your jaws up! Yes, I know I have made a huge issue, about NOT writing ‘just’ romance in all of my books and…
Sometimes writing just doesn’t go the way you plan it! Mostly I love it when that happens because if something happens, which I don’t is going to happen, then hopefully you guys won’t see it coming and get the same thrill and feeling of surprise I got, when I wrote it. (phew, do you…
It has been so long since I’ve posted a blog and I really must apologise! I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as busy and that is really saying something. Silver Gums is due at the publishers in exactly 29 days. I’m still putting the finishing touches to it, so I have been head…
June has been a wonderfully wet month and a very busy one! We were screaming for rain in the first week, but slowly Mother nature built her Cold Front’s a sent them one by one, week by week and let the clouds do their job. Rain it did – the second week of June…
It can be daunting sitting down at a blank computer screen wondering if I know enough words to fill it enough to tell a story. I need somewhere between 90 and 100,000 of the bloody things! And, obviously, they all have to make sense and have a story line in there as well.
Fires can be frightening. They’re unpredictable, one moment moving slowly, the next whipping across a paddock, fuelled by strong winds and dry grass or stubbles. However, this is the time of year that we chose to burn. Chilly mornings and nights, gives us a chance to do what we call a ‘slow burn or…
Do ever feel you can define your life with songs? I do. During earlier posts, I’ve talked about my love of music and how is it a huge part of my life. What I’m really interested in is what music makes your world go around? I went to Boarding school from 1987 to 1991.…
It’s that time of year again… Yes, BABIES! This is one of my favourite times in our farming calendar. And this season, it’s made even better by the 60mm of rain we had about two weeks ago; there is a green pick for all the animals. (By ‘green pick’ I mean the clover and grasses…
Yesterday we woke to our hill being shrouded in heavy, low cloud and gentle showers pushing up from the coast. It was a beautiful way to start the day, especially after the pounding we had on Thursday evening. It was the most incredible thunderstorm I have ever seen and we netted a whopping 46mm…
I’m lucky enough to have a writing partner. He’s pretty good at what he does; he keeps my feet warm, doesn’t answer back and sits there with his head to one side listening to me argue with myself about plot points. It seems that I often bore him though. That’s when he will lie…
A question I’m often asked is, ‘Why are there always colours in your book titles?’ It’s a question with many answers, but the main one for me is the colours of the land. This photo is a prime example – brilliant white sheep against dark, rich green grass and a fluorescent canola crop in…
I was so lucky to meet Tony while in Perth recently. We discovered a mutual love of Michael Connelly’s writing and talked the craft of writing. It was so exciting to listen to what Tony had to say. Fleur: Welcome to the amazing author Tony Park. Tony has published over eight fiction novels plus a…
So I love words. I guess that isn’t surprising since I use them to craft my stories. The English language is incredible. How awesome it is to be able to tell someone in three words that they’re beautiful, or express how proud you are of your children’s achievements. I love the way some words sound…
April marks the start of Aussie Author Month. It’s the brain child of my web guru, Nyssa and two of her fellow book lovers, Kat from Book Thingo and Ali and Rosie at Fangtastic It’s a pretty exciting thing to be involved in. After reading Helene Young’s blog about Snugglepot and Cuddle Pie and Bronwyn…
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’…
Very rarely do I wade into the waters that could potentially be a mine field, however… News of the REDgroup going into voluntary administration, although not unexpected, has placed the publishing world in limbo. Whether or not the reports in the media are a true reflection of the industry remains to be seen, but as…
