The Mysterious Life of Writers

  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. Sometimes they fight me. I’ll want them react a certain way,…

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Choice

A new rose for a new year. Gorgeous isn’t it? I’m not sure what rose this is – I think it might be Peace, which if so, if the perfect rose for me coming into 2022. What about you? At the end of almost every year, I write a blog about how I’m going to…

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Working with facts

  I’m not one for maths. Which makes writing a really good profession for me! And, you would think there isn’t any maths at all tapping out words on a keyboard. But this is a myth! I’ve been told a few times, that the only way to make good decisions is to base it around…

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Ideas from nowhere

  As you can see my white boards are beginning to fill up with ideas, character descriptions and a few other things. I don’t always use everything that goes up on these boards, and there’s nothing plotted here, only a place to throw ideas and thoughts at. I’ve been troubling over how to start Book…

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Two at a time…

  Last week I wrote about a needing to write two books at at time to make my deadlines. I was getting involved with NaNoWriMo to help do this. Deciding to spend one week on each book, would mean I should get about 25k into each book by the end of November. Best laid plans…

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What it takes to write a 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. A workable laptop. Not one that dies with only copy of your…

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Where the magic happens…

I’m often asked what my office looks like. Usually it’s too messy for me to take a photo – I’ll have research and papers all over my desk so it’s all at my fingertips as I write. But when I started the new novel (tentatively called Swindler’s List!) I tidied the desk and took a…

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Musings from a writer

This morning, when I woke up my first thought was about writing. (Actually it was about coffee, then writing). I needed to write in my journal, I needed to write my next book. With that in mind, I made that coffee and went onto the back verandah to get my morning outside fix, then went…

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Those new pages feels

Happy New Year everyone! Three days in already. Have you started to reassess your life; write down those new year resolutions? I have – although I don’t know why, because I never seem to stick to the for any length of time! And they’re always the same ones; health, fitness, weight loss. Organisation! Creatives seem…

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My friend, Anxiety

I’ve always told my kids that “if we don’t share our stories, then how can we help people?” That’s why they don’t mind me talking about the challenges they live with; they embrace them and are what makes them who they are (that doesn’t take away, they’ve had extra challenges to deal with and hard…

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Another novel

  I love the ‘new feels’ of starting a new book. It’s exciting, fun and the possibilities are endless. Trouble is, those feelings don’t always hang around. I find I get to about 20,000 words in and get a bit stuck. Those first 20,000 come with a rush of adrenalin and enthusiasm. The next 50,000…

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Percolating

When I was on tour for WITHOUT A DOUBT, I came across this blue door (pictured on the computer screen). I was sitting in a narrow alley way, drinking coffee (because I’m a bit like Detective Dave and nothing happens in the morning until I’ve had my coffee) when I saw it. Hasn’t it got…

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A day in the life of…

‘So, Fleur, tell me, do you write every day?’   ‘Where do you work from?’   ‘Oh, you have deadline? Really?  thought you’d just write and hand it in when it was ready.’ (HA! Don’t I wish!)   These are a few of questions I get asked when I do an event and I’d love to…

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What do you want to read?

It’s time! I’ve been thinking about re-inventing my blog for some time and now that time is right here. I used to love writing blogs – they would get my fingers all warmed up for writing during the day and I LOVED sharing photos and little stories of my farming life with you all. Since…

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2015 done and dusted…

We had some great times in 2015 and I thought it would be fun to look back over the good times. It makes me realise that 2015 wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it was! And it reminds me of the things I’ve learned over this year. This is was the first sunset of…

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New Year resolutions

Happy New Year! Has it been a good start for you? We spent the evening at the foreshore in Esperance having tea with friends and watching the fireworks. It was a really pleasant way to see in 2016. I’ve spent the first two days going through the final edit of Indigo Storm. It’s been a…

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The dawn of a new book

Today starts the dawn of a new book. Which seems crazy because I’m still doing publicity for Crimson Dawn! It’s fun and daunting all at the same time. Sitting down and staring at a blank screen is the scary bit. Having my imagination running amok with characters, plots and exciting things, is the extremely fun…

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