Detective Dave Burrows country has a special pull on me. I guess that's why I shifted Dave to his little town called Barker. With Dave and his wife, Kim, living there, I got to hang out in the Flinders Ranges every year, even if I hadn't got back there to physically visit.

THE CURE FOR ISOLATION IS CONNECTION!

A long time ago, when I first started writing and this website, blogs were a big thing. I'd pop in here and tell you all about my day, and hopefully you'd leave me a comment and tell me about yours.

There is nothing like the word Haighs for giving a person away as a South Australian!

‘What is Haighs?’ as a friend asked the other day. What?! Only the best chocolate in the world! Better than Swiss, better than (sorry to all native Western Australians!) The Margs Chocolate Factory (only marginally, though) and certainly better than Hershey’s, even though the Americans claim otherwise.

It was lockdown and lockout. The WA government had told me I couldn’t visit my parents in South Australia because the borders were remaining shut for the foreseeable future. I would normally head to their place in the Flinders Ranges for a break.

Writing is a mysterious business. It's a lot of smoke and mirrors; living with imaginary people, crazy Google searches and staying in my head a lot. My imaginary friends talk loudly to me sometimes and too quietly for me to hear at others.

Ah, how much love do we have for Detective Dave Burrows? Well, I for one, have a lot! And obviously you guys do too, because we’re here publishing the 5th in the Detective Dave Burrows series in nine weeks, this baby is going to be on the shelf.

Here we are on the 4th of January. It’s only going be what feels like a few days time we all say: ‘wow, it’s December already, where has the year gone?!’

Anyway, I wanted to start the new year with a bit of a ditty on me for all the new people who have recently discovered my books; I’ve had a few people who have got in contact over Christmas and said they’ve read my books for the first time. I LOVE hearing this!

Merry Christmas. I hope it’s full of love and laughter for you all. I’m sure many of us have mixed feelings about this Christmas. Some of us haven’t finished harvest, and the thought of having to stop for a few days, even to rest, is annoying.

Don’t be silent when you see violence.

The headline of the State Government’s 16 Days in WA campaign to prevent domestic and family violence is a reminder that we all have a role to play in calling out violence in our community, including our regional communities.

As you can see, my whiteboards are beginning to fill up with ideas, character descriptions and a few other things.

You know that horrible sinking feeling when you go to a place in a car park, thinking your car is going to be there, and it's not? It’s a damn horrible feeling, huh?

Last week, I wrote about needing to write two books at a time to make my deadlines. I was getting involved with NaNoWriMo to help do this.

Well, it's November, and November can be an important month in writer-world. November means NaNoWriMo. What does that mean, you might ask?

Tuesday is the D-Day. Deception Creek Publication day.

Ugh. I'm nervous. I always get nervous when a book comes out - you'd think it would get easier, but it doesn't. I have a need for you readers to like my characters, like my story and basically like everything about the book!

I’m often asked what it takes to write a book. Having finished my 19th novel about twelve hours ago, I reflected on the question, whilst sitting on the patio with a wine, screaming: ‘thank god that’s done!’.

So, I compiled a list.