Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Booklaunch: Missing: Presumed Undead, by Jeremy Davies

I was fortunate enough to have been able to attend the book launch of fellow Australian author's latest novel, 'Missing: Presumed Undead'. I had a great night mingling with other writers and fantasy fiction enthusiasts at Notions Unlimited Bookstore (and I immediately fell in love with the place!).

The description of this book excited me from the first:

Reading Jeremy Davies is like Elmore Leonard meets Dashiel Hammett meets Terry Pratchett with China Mieville peering through the window (they got along fine until Terry spilt his tea all over Elmore’s Italian sports jacket . . .), dipped in funny syrup and set in a classical fantasy-style world with the mood and magic driven “technology” of a Casablanca-style 30’s detective story.
It isn’t so much hard-boiled as char-grilled, with a side salad.”

And the excerpt posted prior to the release made me desperate to get my hands on this book.

 Jeremy was even kind enough to sign my book!

(Images from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152685643861978&set=gm.1468553993373155&type=1)

I cannot wait to begin reading this book.You can grab a copy, too, direct from the publisher here or from Amazon.

It's so wonderful to see Australian authors being launched back into the market place. Only a month ago I was able attend the book launch of Adam Browne's short story collection 'Other Stories, & Other Stories'. I look forward to many more such events in the future!

Friday, March 7, 2014

Writerly Words of Advice

I (fairly) recently had the pleasure of meeting renowned author, George RR Martin. This was hugely exciting for me as he is a bit of a hero of mine. Martin has had such a long, successful and fruitful career, so I was super keen to glean some pearls of wisdom from this man on the writing process. I was very lucky to be able to sit in a small circle of people, perhaps a metre away from Mr Martin, and have a nervous but polite chat with him about my writing. He was enormously helpful and very kind.


His advice was simple, and yet extremely helpful. Without mincing words, George RR Martin's tips on being a successful writer were:

1) Write.

2) Keep writing.

3) Get your writing out into the market and keep it there until it sells.

4) Never revise once you have submitted (unless under editorial order).

I have taken this advice to heart. I am currently sitting on number 3 AND number 1 at the same time. This advice has helped me. I hope it will help you, too!

Happy writing!