I am having a very shiny, golden birthday week. The lovely Trish Milburn phoned me at work this morning with the amazing news that I'm a Golden Heart finalist for best unpublished manuscript in the YA category. (Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!)

If you followed this post
on my postal debacle, you'll understand how much this means to me.
Without my dad backing me up, my entry might not have made it to the
RWA office in time, so to be among the finalists after all that drama
is surreal.

Congratulations to my fellow finalists in the YA
field: Amanda Brice, Elizabeth C. Langston, Addison Fox and Shoshana
Dawn Brown. I'm told we're all in for a golden ride until the awards
ceremony in July. I'll be saving all my gold coins so I can make it to
Washington, DC.

I'm also soooo happy that my good friends Christine Wells (Historical) and Tina Ferraro (YA) have finalled in the RITA Award for published authors. Both of these mega talents so deserve to be recognised.

What's your good news for the week?

The super talented and hilarious Amanda Ashby is having a monster blog bash to celebrate the release of her second book, THE ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEWBURY HIGH.

She very kindly invited me to guest-blog over at her place this week. You can catch me there on Friday if you're in the Northern Hemisphere or Saturday for those Down Under. (I think that's right. The whole time diff thing is so confusing!) Please come along, comment and win stuff! Actually, you should visit Amanda's blog every day for the next week and catch up with some amazing YA authors.

The Golden Heart contest is one of the most important for unpublished romance writers. Each year, the organisers receive about 1,000 entries in 10 different categories. These are whittled down to 100 entries. Acquiring editors at publishing houses judge the finalists, and the winners are announced at a ceremony often dubbed the Oscars for romance writers. In this contest, though, winning isn't everything--many past finalists have gone on to publication as a result of the comp.

This year, I entered two YA manuscripts. I forked out over 200 bucks in entry, stationery and postage fees. ("I'm stimulating the economy," I assured myself.) I airmailed the mss from Australia to the US on November 15. Usually, it takes up to seven days for mail to reach its destination. Plenty of time, I thought, to meet the December 2 deadline. If entries don't make it to RWA's Texas office by then, they're disqualified.

But yesterday, day 14 after mailing, I realised it wasn't looking good for my entries. They still haven't made it. How can this be? Did they get chucked into the seamail postbox instead of the airmail one? Did the plane's pilot make a detour in Tahiti and decide to stay? Or maybe a disgruntled postal worker delivered the mail to the garbage dump.

Ironically, the same thing happened to me about a month ago, when I had to snail-mail my final-round entry for the Golden Pen Award. The preliminary round in that comp is judged by Golden Heart finalists/winners. Somewhere, somehow, my mail went astray.

Whatever the reason, I had to take action this time.

Or rather, my dad did.

He lives in America, so he told me to email my entries and he'd take care of the rest. Despite sore, arthritic fingers and crippling back pain, he stayed up till the early hours of this morning, printed out a whole pine tree's worth of manuscript pages, collated and bound them, burnt my full mss to disks, and sent them off by FedEx. Three cheers for Dad!

Now getting to the final round in the GH means more than ever. It's one way to pay Dad back for helping me out so readily.

This week I left the company I worked for after almost seven years. Aside from being paid to watch The Bold and the Beautiful, I'll miss my wonderful colleagues.

Just because I resigned doesn't mean I won't ever see them again, though. All I have to do is hang out at YouTube. Here are two of my former workmates, Gibson and Belinda, who are also actors. Gib's in the Ninetendo ads, or TVCs as they're called in the biz, while Belinda is Tall Jan in the All-Bran cereal ad.


Gibson as Cowboy Jed. The TVCs were directed by Bob Dylan's son, Jesse, and filmed in New Zealand. When Gib returned from shooting the campaign, he treated us all to gigantic boxes of Krispy Kremes to celebrate. You can also see Gibson in the Nicolas Cage film Ghost Rider.


And here's lovely Belinda as Tall Jan. (She really is tall). Belinda recently starred in the Sydney production of My Name is Rachel Corrie.

...and Why Blogging Is Great for Your Productivity.

A lot of people, especially Mr. Authorness, thought I'd transformed into a crazy cat lady over the past 12 or so days. Exhibit A: The Secret (Nine) Lives of Us blog I started for my neighbours' kitties (see previous post). Every move those cats made was fodder for the blog. The result was an anthromorphosised view of what I think cats talk about, but I soon realised the blog was an interesting writing exercise.

One of the big challenges for me was to try to make every post a mini-sitcom. Each one needed a story arc, defined characters, and most of all it had to be memorable for my target audience--in this case, the cats' owners.

Formatting it like a play tested my ability to write dialogue without tags or descriptions, something I often get bogged down with. What I've learned from that is when I write first drafts for novels, I can just run long streams of dialogue and fill in the narrative details later. So next time, if I'm stuck for words, I'll try to get into the heads of my characters and write down what they say. Just keep moving and dig deep, no matter how silly or lame your internal editor thinks the story is. Dig long enough and you'll hit gold eventually.

What kinds of writing challenges do you set for yourself?

I'm babysitting two very adorable cats, Lily and BJ. Being such intelligent creatures, they've created their own blog so their parents, who are currently in New Zealand and about to enter into wedded bliss, can keep an eye on them. Please head over to The Secret Nine Lives of Us to say hello and cyber pat the cats.

Hello there! It's been ages since I've hung out here. It's not because I don't love it. It's because my browser freaks out on MySpace. Never mind...

I'm already preparing for the Romance Writers of America annual national conference in July/August. This time it'll be held in gorgeous San Francisco, which means many of us in Romance Writers of Australia can afford the slightly cheaper airfares to the West Coast. One way to offset the cost is to apply for a scholarship awarded by the lovely ladies at Romantic Inks.

On offer to RWAmerica members is a scholarship to attend the 2008 national conference in July/Aug. If you haven't already paid the registration fee (US$425), you can give it a shot. All you have to do is write a 1,000-word essay on what makes you a deserving recipient and upload it here.

Full details are available through the link above. The rules in a nutshell: You must be a financial member or RWAmerica, be able to cover your own hotel, travel and meal expenses, have a polished full ms ready to go, and not be published in trade or mass-market paperback in the last five years. The deadline is midnight Feb 10, EST. Winners will be announced on the RI blog.

Good luck!

Picture this: A proud moment. You've just spent months (maybe years, maybe weeks if you're disciplined) writing a whole entire novel. Your characters are so real they could be made of flesh and bone. The story zings in all the right places. There's an action-packed beginning, the middle is sinewy and not one bit saggy, and the ending – well, you've outdone Stephen King, haven't you?

Then you go to a bookstore and treat yourself. The first tome you pick up is in the same genre as yours and has an enticing title. Its cover is to die for. But when you read the blurb, you want to die for a whole 'nother reason. Why? Because this published book, with its snappy name and shiny cover, is exactly like the one you've just finished writing. Same setting, same plot, same everything.

How does this happen? Is it a product of collective unconsciousness? (Great time-waster here.) Where the heck are you going to find an original idea?

I'll leave the how's and the why's to scientists and philosophers. What you, the writer, need to focus on is your own book. It may seem like the end of the world, but don't panic. Unless you plagiarised whole sections word-for-word (and you wouldn't have done that), you really shouldn't throw your hands up and abandon the project.

What will set your story apart from that Doppelganger? I'm sure you'll find lots of things, starting with:
a. Your voice. It comes from within. Sure, you can mimic someone else's voice, but it won't ring true.

b. Main characters and bit players. Maybe they're motivated by different things; maybe they're more tortured or more emotionally stable; maybe your heroine's tall and the other book's heroine is short. You get the idea.

c. The basic plot maybe similar to yours, but it's likely you'll see twists in other directions.

So your book has a fraternal twin. Where to from here? Choose your own adventure:
a. Scrap your book. (Not recommended – I'm just throwing options around here.)

b. Tweak, revise, polish. Remember, you have the advantage of creating a stronger hook.

c. Do nothing (that includes wallowing in depression) because you're convinced your book is similar...but different.

d. Put your manuscript away to marinate and start on something new.

e. Vow never to read again, that way you won't be influenced by others. (Er...also not recommended.)

f. Google that elusive factory where new ideas for books are invented daily by a crack team. Or is it a team on crack? I think they have a MySpace page...

g. Read widely, keep developing your skills and style, quit comparing yourself to other writers.

h. A combination of the above.

So, fellow writers, has this happened to you? How did you deal with it?

At school, my fellow Antipodean Sara Hantz, was the girl most likely to get sent to the principal's office for disrupting class. Now she's the girl most likely to create a stir when her debut YA novel, The Second Virginity of Suzy Green (Flux), storms the bookshelves on September 1.

In between writing her next book, running a motel in beautiful New Zealand and vetting potential pool boys, Sara sat down to answer a few burning questions.


Tell us about your protagonist, Suzy Green.
Suzy is a typical fun-loving teen, whose life spirals out of control after the tragic death of her sister, Rosie, for which she blames herself. After one major incident she comes to her senses and decides, misguidedly, to emulate high achieving Rosie so she can ease the pain of her parents' loss. When she starts her new school she reinvents herself, including joining the virginity club (for which she isn't qualified), which has some amusing and poignant consequences.

What inspired the plot?
This is a tricky question because there wasn't any one thing that inspired me. I had a title in mind, which I loved - Virgin on the Ridiculous - and I wanted to write something around that (as you can see it's not the title I ended up with, but that's okay because I love the new title even more). I remember brainstorming with one of my crit partners and she told me about virginity clubs and I researched them on the net and came up with the idea of someone lying about being a virgin so they could join. And the rest of the story sort of evolved through my planning.

Describe your writing process.
Little and often. I have a very low attention span and am easily distracted. So, I open my manuscript up first thing in the morning and dip in and out of it during the day. Some times I get more done than others, depending on how busy the motel is and how sidetracked I get on the internet.

I'd love to know more about your Call story.
I'd been writing chick-lit and hen-lit for a couple of years, when in November 2005 I decided to try a teen-lit. After writing three chapters I did what you're not meant to do and started to send it to agents, to test the water. Ooops!!! That'll teach me. The story seemed to hit the right nerve because straightaway five agents asked for the full manuscript and six for partials. I sent the partials and said to those requesting the full that it still needed some tweaking (aka writing) and I'd send when ready. In only a few days one of the agents had read the partial and asked for the full.

I managed to finish the full by January and send to all those who requested it… most of them asked for it by email which was an added bonus… and 10 days later the agent I mentioned above phoned and offered representation. I said yes pretty much straight away. By February I'd done some revisions for my agent and she sent it out to lots of publishers. Andrew, the editor from Flux, phoned asking if I'd be prepared to do some revisions. I said yes (obviously!!!) and he sent me a very detailed letter. I did them. He was happy and then asked me to do some more, saying if they were okay he'd take it to the Acquisitions Committee. He took it to the committee and they offered me a contract. The actual 'call' was staged. First, my agent emailed asking for me to let her know a time I'd be available for a chat on the phone. So I sort of knew they'd offered. So I didn't scream or burst into tears because I'd already prepared myself.

How has your life changed since you signed that first contract with Flux?
Well, now I get up at midday, have a long soak in a bath full of bubbles, then my chef will prepare a light lunch and I'll go to my office and write. I'll write for maybe an hour and then go for a massage, after which I'll sunbathe by the pool reading. The pool-boy will be on hand at all times to pander to my every need… no, not those sort of needs!! I mean peeling grapes and dropping them gently into my mouth.

What??? You don't believe me. Okay… Not a lot has changed, except I have both an agent and editor to work with, and when given a deadline I must meet it. It's also great to have such fabulous editorial input. My books are a thousand times better than they were originally because of their help.

What do you know about publishing now that you wish someone had told you earlier?
That publishing moves at a snail's pace. Two days in publishing time is like two weeks for the rest of us. I'm slowly learning to be patient… but it's very hard for someone who's made impatience an art form.

Your book debuts in September – how are you going to celebrate its release?
Being stuck in NZ I won't be able to stalk all the high street stores looking for it, and placing it to its best advantage. So, I guess I'll be with my family drinking a toast to its success. I'm hoping to enlist friends in the US to go on a hunt for it and send me photos.

What are you working on now?
I'm working on a book called Dating The Megan Russell Way, which is about a teenage girl who sells psychic dating advice to pay off a huge debt.

What's the best part about being a writer?
Being able to make things up! I spent many years in academia, having to research and write papers on some very dry and boring issues. Writing is like a breath of fresh air. Oh yes, and being able to wear track pants every day. Now that really is heaven!

Do you have any advice for aspiring authors who might be struggling with agent/editor rejections?
Hang on in there. Very often rejections don't mean you have no talent, just that your manuscript isn't right for them at that particular time. I believe there's an element of luck involved in all sales. Take The Second Virginity of Suzy Green as an example. It landed on the editor's desk just as he was thinking about broadening their offering to include books set overseas from a different culture. Right place, right time!


Great answers, Sara. Thanks so much!


The Second Virginity of Suzy Green is available for pre-order now at Fishpond and Amazon.

Tired of seeing the same old blockbusters at your local cinema? Most major cities have an annual film festival where you can discover new film-making talent, namely my good friend Brinsley Marlay. His short film, Briefings, is in competition at the Plymouth Independent Film Festival, Massachusetts (July 18 - 22). The taut and suspenseful plot is punctuated beautifully by a haunting score. (Okay, I'm a little biased - my husband did an amazing job with sound design and he composed the score.)

Congratulations, Brinsley and Mr. Authorness! Best of luck.