Last week was my first official solo author event at a bookshop (or anywhere really). It was a fairly fine day; sun was shining enough to take the edge off the breezy winter’s day and there was not a skerrick of rain anywhere to be seen. The basis for a great day spent outside with a table full of books! I preceded the event with a raft of posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I even forked out money toward a paid Facebook advert and printing of posters and cards to hand out. The end result was exactly as I expected. Pretty dismal. That is not to say, I sat alone and unloved in a huddle with just my books for company. I definitely did not. I enjoyed the opportunity to chat to a couple o

Oldest pub in Sydney though it doesn't look like this anymore. Fortune of War I was busily writing the other day and everything was going swimmingly well. My family of characters had come together in a room of their home, which is also a hotel, and needed to go to their rooms to get ready for dinner. At that point, I realised that I need to have a better idea of exactly what “go to your room” entailed for the family (the fictional one that is. My real family know exactly what that means). So I put aside the writing to do a quick sketch of the family hotel. For me, that means opening up InDesign and turning a bunch of text boxes into a 3-story 1880 Sydney hotel. For a start, I had only a vagu

Last weekend, I had a choice to make. Spend Saturday writing or catch the train into the city and do some exploring for research. The morning came bright and beautiful with a chance of showers so I chose the city and hopped a train. Great decision! My new story includes an arc set in 1880s Sydney. You might think that exploring 2016 Sydney isn’t going to help that much, but my purpose was two-fold. 1) to find surviving buildings from that period other than public buildings 2) walk the paths that my characters will be walking. In addition, I visited the State Library and Australian Museum. I went to the Museum first because my daughter works there, the café on the 4th floor has a lovely view