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Saturday, February 20, 2010

Bad blogger...awesome author contest!

Okay so I'm not the best blogger there ever was, huh. I never wrote a diary as a kid - actually I did give it a couple of goes but I was mortified of the idea of people possibly reading those private most intimate of thoughts? Seriously. I put the word HATE in there. And then a person's name. Even if it WAS true, I didn't exactly want THEM knowing that, did I? I mean I wanted to live a reasonable length of time. And I didn't want my grades to get any lower because one such said hated person had the power to do just that. Okay, yes, it was a teacher. And no there was no way the teacher was likely to EVER see my notebook journal that stayed at home and never went anywhere near a place that might be frequented by my teachers.

I guess it wasn't half-hearted attempts at keeping diaries, it was just paralysing fear of WHAT IF IT GOT OUT?!

Which makes me think. I'm not a very good blogger. But I don't think there's the same paranoid reasoning going on with why I'm so crap. I mean this blog is going to post to facebook, and some of you may have found it through twitter so clearly that's not the reason.

What I've come up with, in this hugely roundabout way, is this: I'm a lazy blogger. So um, sorry about that.

Now. Some people however, are not lazy bloggers. And they do more than just write about themselves. Some people have contests on their blogs. At this point in my career, I don't have anything to give away. But other people DO.

It has come to my attention that Vania of Vania's Life Captures Blog is a great photographer. I love YA covers that have photos of them, especially ones that are portraying a moment in time from inside the book. And if you check out Vania's character photos say oh, here you'll see that she's mega talented at creating potential cover art, and character photos.

I mean, look at these:




You can just TELL something about those women in the photos, can't you? I can. Or at least I can imagine all about them.

Anyway, she's offering to do one of these character shoots. You know, for the winner. So I'm entering. Cos it would be AWESOME. How am I entering? By writing this blog.

I'm pretty wordy today. Saying lots but without a great deal of content.

So um, to sum up: I'm a lazy blogger, and Vania's having an awesome character photo competition. If you would like to see your characters come to life, you could enter too!

The end.

Sairz


Friday, February 5, 2010

The jetsetting life and putting an end to that

I'm gonna put it out there - I co0uld never be a rockstar. Why? Well aside from not being able to read music nor play an instrument (though I learned the drums for a bit but didn't have a silencing kit so felt sorry for my neighbours and stopped practicing), the thing about rockstars is that they tour. A lot.

My point is that on January 16th I left England and after about 36 hours in transit, I got home to Australia. It was awesome to be home. It was warm since it was summertime, and my family was there, and my doggies were there and the cats were around but they didn't really seem to have realised I'd been gone.

And the night after I got home a bunch of friends turned up on my doorstep for a surprise homecoming party!
Wonderful, sneaky sneaky stuff.

However I was home for 10 days before I flew out again, and I was only JUST getting into a sleeping pattern of 10pm or later, waking up at 6am or later. Most nights my eyes were half closed by 6pm and brain disengaged by 8, and I was awake again between 2am and 4am.

SO. I am now BACK back in Australia, after spending 5 days in New York with my big sister. I went to the Winter Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators conference which was held at the super-swish and ladida Hyatt Hotel, and my sister came for the experience.

It was fantabulous and I got a lot out of it. But getting sick just before the seven hour flight followed by fourteen hour flight then one hour flight then two hour drive? Kill me now.

So I could never be a rockstar. I never want to do a long haul flight again. I mean, I WILL, but JEEZ.

The conference was great, I got to spend lots of time hanging out as well as talking biz with my agent Jill, making some new writing buds and seeing some old writing buds. Well, by old I mean ones I made at the Summer conference in LA.

There were lots of interesting sessions at the conference, my favourites of which were Libba Bray's keynote speech - she was just as hilarious as I thought she'd be, and even more insightful - and Eddie Gamarra of the Gotham Group who spoke about Film, TV & New Media and believe me, the man KNOWS his stuff. Unfortunately for me, it turns out I was either concentrating too hard all morning both mornings, or I was jetlagged (I feel like I'll be jetlagged the rest of my life. I didn't even believe in jetlag until I got back from England) and found myself close to snoring a couple of times in the sessions that were run in the afternoons. Oops. Rude bloody Australians, eh.

Anyhoo, home now. I'm moving into my new place sometime next week so I have some packing to do. You know, after unpacking from England and New York I need to pack. And then in two weeks I start my new University course, a Bachelor of Writing & Publishing. That sounds a good fit for me, don't you think? :)

Plus I have an exciting new project to work on!

Hitting the ground running, I think it's called.

Ciao for now,

Sairz