M.J. Scott's Blog, page 5
March 27, 2016
Sunday snippet
Back to The Dark Side, book 2 of my urban fantasy series, The Wild Side for this week’s snippet.
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March 25, 2016
The Shattered Court is a RITA finalist!
So this is a thing that happened. The Shattered Court has finaled in the Paranormal romance category of the RITAs. And I am kind of speechless.
As a romance writer, I have watched the finalists of the RITAs each year since about 2002 and seen writers who are my favourites (and writers who are favourites and friends) and thought “maybe one day one of my books might final”. The first time I went to the RWA conference in 2007 was as a Golden Heart finalist (which is their award for unpublished writers) and that was very exciting but every GH finalist sits in the audience at the awards ceremony and watches the RITA finalists and wants to be one of them one day. And now I am. Not sure it’s sunk in yet but WOOT! And this time I was actually there when the phone call came (I missed my GH call) and got to talk to the lovely Dee Davies directly. I think she heard the phrase “Oh My God” about 50 times! Sorry, Dee! I nearly didn’t answer the call as I thought it must be a telemarketer. Luckily I changed my mind, thinking it might be my Mum 
Congratulations to everyone else who has finalled in either the Golden Heart or the RITAs! So many awesome writers! Go everyone! A special shout out to fellow Aussies Madeline Ash, who is up for Best Novella and to Gabrielle Luthy and Elizabeth King (NZer rather than Aussie) for finalling in the Golden Heart! Yay!
PS Because someone will ask, yes, I am working on book 2. It’s called The Forbidden Heir. No, it’s not done yet. Some books are like that. Hopefully not too much longer!
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March 24, 2016
Long weekend plans aka Happy Easter
Easters that fall early in the year always throw me out. It feels like it was just Christmas and suddenly, bam, Easter which means the year is well underway. Gah!
Anyway, I hope you have a relaxing long weekend with people you love if you get a long weekend for Easter. I’m planning to write and paint and stitch and read and nap and go see the folks. I shall probably also go and see the new Batman/Superman movie. It looks bad and Man of Steel bored me (seriously, how do you make a film that largely is the very decorative Henry Cavill in a skin tight suit boring? It takes some skill. Which apparently the director has) but it has Wonder Woman and if it flops, Hollywood will throw up their collective hands and blame Wonder Woman for it flopping. So I’ll do my bit to prevent that from happening. Because I would like to see a Wonder Woman movie, dammit. Though maybe one directed by someone else.
I might even eat one or two of these
Enjoy the break!
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March 22, 2016
Music fix – theme songs
I’ve just started watching The Affair (which has been on my radar for awhile because I am a Joshua Jackson fan all the way back to the Pacey Witter days. It has a very striking theme song and opening title (song by Fiona Apple).
I do love a good theme song, something that cues you into the show and sets the mood and I own a lot of soundtrack music. Many prime time type shows seemed to be ditching themes and opening titles for awhile (presumably to sell more ads), so it’s nice to see them coming back via cable shows and Netflix.
My all time fave theme song is probably the opening titles of Game of Thrones (composed by Ramin Dajwadi).
The combination of the cello driven music and the emerging locations is still great five seasons in.
Other faves. Battlestar Galactica (The reboot)
The composer is Bear McCreary. Who also does the music for OUtlander which I really like. The Outlander opening title is very evocative and definitely my fave theme of recent years.
So, who’s got a fave theme song?
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March 20, 2016
Sunday snippet
Today’s snippet is from Lawless in Leather (Book 3 in the New York Saints series).
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March 17, 2016
An art challenge – getting botanical
I’m about halfway through a watercolour class which I’m doing online which is always fun. Actually yesterday was the two year anniversary of the very first watercolour class I ever took. I still feel like a newbie at this art stuff but it’s been a fun two years and I’ve learned and lot and have improved a lot in that time. Over those two years, I’d say I’ve learned that I lean more towards a fairly loose, illustrative style which is fine by me. But I’ve always loved botanical art (and am always taking pics of plants and flowers like the above and drawing/painting them) and whenever I find myself stumbling over those very realistic botanical watercolour images, I sort of gaze at them and think “how do you do that?”.
I find realism pretty daunting given that I’m still learning to draw and see like an artist. But I’ve learned enough to know that yes, talent plays a role but a lot of art is skill based. So after finding myself looking yet again at more contemporary (less scientific) Botanical watercolour pics on Pinterest and watching the Ted talk I linked to in my last post about how long it takes to learn a new skill, I decided what the heck.
So I’m setting myself an art challenge to try some botanical art. I’ve signed up for a Craftsy class (and, being me, bought a couple of books, one by Anna Mason whose class I’m doing and the other by Billy Showell) and am going to see what I can do. I’m sure it’s going to be frustrating and a long process. But I figure at worst, I learn some new skills to apply back to my other style and at best, I find out I can do it and that I like doing it.
How about you? Go something you’ve been wanting to try?
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March 15, 2016
Wandering the web
Cool things from the interwebs that have been informing/entertaining/intriguing me lately.
How long does it really take to get pretty good at something? (aka if there’s something you want to try, just give it a go because you don’t have to be an elite master)
I’d like one of these whales. Face it, I like most things this site blogs about.
Giant dog photos are awesome.
Costume embroidery. Cool job is cool. (And damned hard work, I’m guessing.)
Nap more. (Headspace is the meditation app I use these days).
Pen and ink enabling for bullet journals .
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March 13, 2016
Sunday snippet
Another tidbit from The Dark Side, book 2 of my urban fantasy series, The Wild Side.
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March 10, 2016
Books I’m looking forward to – Autumn 2016 edition
Well, it’s autumn here in Australia though Melbourne has decided to celebrate that fact with throwing us what has almost the been the hottest week of the entire summer (typical). So everyone has been inside trying to avoid the heat (or at least, this little bookworm has been inside trying to avoid the heat.) I’ve had a pretty busy few weeks with edits and day jobbing and RITA books to read and other things so am looking forward to the pace slackening off a bit (hopefully with some corresponding slackening off of the temperature) so that I can dive into some reading time.
So here’s the current list of what I’m waiting to get to that’s either recently out or coming soon.
Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs. New Mercy Thompson. ‘Nuff said. Currently on my kindle. I just need some reading time.
US by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy. The sequel to Him, which I really enjoyed. Second on the kindle queue.
Dirty by Kylie Scott (April). Kylie’s Stage Dive series was one of my fave contemporary reads of the last year or so, so I’m very much looking forward to the next iteration of her world and the continued adventures of Vaughn in particular.
Alliance of Equals – Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (I think this was on my sumemr 2015 edition but it’s still not out, so it stays).
The Crossroads of Should and Must – Elle Luna Non fiction that’s been on my radar for a while about following your art and balancing that with real life.
Seven Minutes in Heaven – Eloisa James. Not due until the end of the year but a gal can wait.
A Court of Mist and Fury – Sarah J. Maas
And in Mel’s other hobbies territory, I spotted a book on JRR Tolkein’s Art and Illustrations the other day that is going onto the wishlist. I have always liked his art (the version of The Hobbit I read as a small thing had his drawings and my folks had his Father Christmas letters books which I also loved as a kid).
In audiobook land I’ve been going a bit old school and listening to some Agatha Christie. I’ve read a bit of Christie over the year but by no means a lot, so trying to catch up on some while I’m in a crime sort of mood. Currently listening to And Then There Were None narrated by Dan Stevens aka Matthew Crawley but it’s actually almost too creepy as an audiobook so may have to default back to paper for that one.
As always, too many books, too little time!
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March 8, 2016
Fave writing tools
Since I’ve just finished editing Playing Fast and am working on a couple of other books, writing process has been on my mind. It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my fave writing tools, so I thought I’d update on that. Leaving out my MacBook Air which is my precioussss, here the other technological type things that I use most days writing.
1. Scrivener or Word (I draft in Scrivener, I do any extensive structural edits in Scrivener, I work in word for other revisions, copy edits etc because that’s what my publishers use. Word kind of sucks but I’m used to it. Scrivener doesn’t suck. I write out of order some of the time and Scrivener makes re-0rdering scenes and snippets a dream).
2. Think (blanks out everything else on your screen other than the app you’re using. Scrivener has a full screen mode that does a similar thing but for Word.
3. Write or Die for writing sprints and getting out of your own way drafting. I have the original version. I’m assuming the new one works in a similar way. I don’t use the mode where it eats your words, just the mode where it flashes annoying red when you stop typing.
4. Freedom (for blocking the evil interwebs of eternal distraction) There are similar apps for this.
5. Music (the trusty iTunes or Sonos playlists). Playlists anchor me to my book world, which is handy when one is juggling multiple worlds.
So there you go. These will do me until someone invents the suck the story straight out of my brain device of my dreams for drafting I also like having a notebook around at all times and I have these bad boys in my shower for those inevitable moments of inspiration where you usually lack the ability to write.
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