Nicole R. Murphy's Blog, page 16

Commentary on Secret Ones

Here's something for you to try – as or after you've read Secret Ones, listen to moi talk about it! A five part audio commentary is now available on the website.

http://nicolermurphy.com/page/Author-commentary-Secret-Ones.aspx

Have a listen and tell me what you think!

What I’m up to now

This has actually been a kinda hard post to write, cause things are not at their best at Chez Murphy at the moment. I'm outa sorts, hubby's not well – there's been days when getting out of bed has been a struggle.

However, get out of bed I have, and worked, and achieved and slowly but surely the darkness lifts and you start to see the way forward.

This week marked the beginning of serious effort on the new project – Battle for Odana. There's been some aspects of this story that just...

Aussie writers and their novels

I haven't been around enough to know this for certain, but it seems to me as a book-buyer and from what's going on that we are having a surge of Aussies getting publishing deals at the moment.

Over the past couple of years, we've had Kim Falconer, Duncan Lay, Kim Westwood, Maria Quinn, Tracey O'Hara, Erica Hayes and Kaaron Warren get their first novels out. Tansy Rayner Roberts, Rowena Cory Daniells and K.J Taylor, after a break of several years, are back with new series. Then you've got...

Finding the new routine

Things are all a bit – strange at the moment. I've accepted that for the foreseeable future, my main employment will be writing. This is a nice position to be in and my husband is the bestest husband in the whole wide world.

On the other hand, it's strange. I mean, because I'm not juggling two jobs plus life, I seem to suddenly have time. I'm not entirely sure what to do with this time. I'm chasing up volunteer work. I'm making sure I get out and about more (I've just rsvp'd to attend a...

The new challenge – weight

Yes, this is a weight-loss post. Move on if it doesn't interest you.

One of the things that became really clear to me over the past couple of weeks is just how much weight I've put on, particularly over the last few months. I knew I wasn't exercising much, and probably wasn't eating as well as I should have, but the holiday showed me just how large and unfit I've become.

I got back home, stepped on the scales and saw a number that I never thought I would ever see. I've seen contestants on t...

Aussiecon 4 – the conclusion

Day five (crikey, it really did go five days, didn't it?) dawned bright and early. My reading was sparsely attended, which was a shame, but Natalie from HarperCollins recorded my reading from Power Unbound and it will go up on the website at some point, so you'll all be able to experience my brilliance :)

Had a coffee with my publisher and a chat about concerns, futures and so on. When I talked about my concern that in book two and three I may have lost the things that people are loving in b...

Aussiecon 4 – relaxacon

So a couple of other people have also commented that they're feeling quite relaxed. Then others have blogged about how manic it is. This all seems to relate to the number of events one is participating in. For a time, I was angry at myself for not being more assertive when I realised there was something wrong with my program participants form and thus for not getting on more panels. First time author, first novel, must be visible. But I was concerned for the con-com and didn't want to bother ...

Aussiecon 4 – going on

So yesterday morning was my first ever Worldcon panel – it was scary, but I'd put some thought into it and felt prepared. Interestingly, the moderator didn't see the topic the same way I did and so very little of my notes were used, but feeling prepared helped a lot. It was an interesting discussion – Fiona McIntosh said a couple of times that she felt she was a ring-in, not writing romance at all but she had some fabulous things to say. She started holding up 'help' signs when Tracey O'Hara ...

Aussiecon – so far

How am I enjoying my first Worldcon – very much so is the answer. It seems very low-key to me, quite relaxed – not sure if that's the size of the venue (which is HUGE!) or everyone's keyed into the Aussie way, but it's not at all scary which I thought it would be.

That said, my involvement is only really ramping up. This morning I have my first panel, so we'll see how that goes.

So Thursday was about signing at Rendezvous Books (weren't able to get stock in unfortunately, but met Carrie...

NZ part two – the Wellington love affair

Ah, Wellington, with your lovely natural surroundings; your quaint wooden homes; your traditional and spunky new architecture; your electronic buses and your fabulously amazing museum – how I love you. Were it not for the whole earthquake thing, I’d move here in a second.

I had two and a half days in Wellington after Au Contraire, and I made pretty good use of them – at least, as good a use as one can when one is tremendously overweight and unfit.

 

Monday morning I booked out of the con...