What I've Been Doing … And What's Coming Up
Island Bay, Wellington
I have recently spent some time in Wellington, NZ's capital city. I went up for the memorial service for fellow Tuesday Poet, Harvey McQueen, which was held in Old St Pauls on Friday 28 January. The ceremony was moving and inspiring, as well as sad, and I am glad I made the effort to attend and farewell Harvey, even though I had only known him for a relatively short time compared to many others there.
While in Wellington, I also took the opportunity to meet up with fellow Tuesday Poets and also with speculative fiction author, Mary Victoria, and attend the Red 5 Book Group (a lively speculative fiction book group) on the evening of Monday 31. As authors we work so much in isolation that the chance to spend time with fellow writers was a very welcome one—and of course with 'so much to talk about' and not nearly enough time!
Right now is a particularly exciting and busy time for Mary because her second novel, Samiha's Song, is being launched today in the Weta Cave. And speaking of Weta, I also got to have lunch with Mary and her husband, artist Frank Victoria, in the dining room for Weta Studios—right at the 'beating heart' of the NZ-based film industry. And with The Hobbit film in-train just around the corner, I am enough of an SFF geek gal to feel that my cool cred. has increased exponentially as a result. 
Back home again in Christchurch, it was time to work on blog interviews—with Beth Anne Miller for the Supernatural Underground and my own blog, and also with Mary Victoria for February 15 (watch this space.) I'm also working on finishing off my "Writing Strong Women" guest post for Mary, as part of the guest author series she's running around the release of Samiha's Song, and also another guest post for Concatenation, a UK based SFF site, ahead of the launch of The Heir of Night in the UK on March 3.
Yup, March 3—the UK launch really is that close and later in the week I'll be bringing you a sneak preview on some of the celebratory excitement that will be happening here on the 'big day.'
Work in Progress: WALL2
The main thing that's been happening this week though is that I've been waiting for the ms of The Gathering of the Lost (The Wall of Night Series Book Two) to arrive back on my desk from my editor, Kate, in the US—and arrive it finally did yesterday, all 4-5 inches of it (!), so I am going to be very busy working on that over the next while. But I'm looking forward to it, because so many ideas have been revolving around in my head over the past month since I completed the ms that it will be good to get back into it and begin working through them. And this next round is my favourite part of the process, where you take the basic form of the story and start to add the subtleties—texture, nuance, depth …
