All posts by Princess Fi

One Week Down

We are a week into the New Year and somehow the holidays are fading fast. Here is an update.

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Everythings big in Texas

Real World Stuff

New Years Eve was a quiet evening. We had a couple of relatives over for a meal. Roast Pork and my famous apricot Pavlova for dessert. I did intend to stay up and watch the Midnight Fireworks at Sydney Harbour on television but everyone else went to bed and I was writing my Runaway Christmas Elf story for Wattpad and missed it.

The following day we went to Texas. Texas, Australia. It’s a small town of around 1300 people an hour or so drive west of here on the border of New South Wales. I haven’t been there for around 30 years. We had a picnic lunch and DH and my BIL took some photographs. I was interested to have a look around because I have a partial manuscript I started to write a couple of years ago for a Harlequin competition. The story is called “The Last Virgin in Texas.” I’m good with the snappy titles.

ARC Reviews

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Rabbit Processing Factory, now a museum. A good place to freeze the tale off those plot bunnies.

I’ve finished reading the ARC for the Secret Confessions: Down and Dusty set of short stories from Escape Publishing.  The set is a nice combination of Rural and Erotic Romance. Set in the very small town of Milpinyani Springs, (smaller even than Texas) the eight stories touch on the lives of eight very different women in need of some serious loving. Each one is written by a different Aussi or New Zealand author so there is considerable variety in story and style. They are all pretty warm and some of the language is explicit. I’ve done individual reviews on Goodreads for each of the stories.

Movies I’ve Seen

I took Mother Dearest and No.4 to see The Peanuts Movie this week. I always loved the Peanuts cartoon series as a child so I was interested to see what they did with it. I particularly liked Snoopy in his writing endeavours and his ongoing battle with The Red Baron. The story line basically followed a school year in the life of Charlie Brown and his friends. As an Aussi, this was kind of fascinating. There is also a touch of romance for Charlie Brown.

A dental trip gave me the opportunity to see a movie with No.7, my fourteen year old daughter. She picked Joy. I was curious to see it because it came highly recommended by movie aficionado and romance writer, Heidi Rice and her equally discerning sons. For a movie that wasn’t an action flick and wasn’t a romance, it kept me interested right to the end. No.7 thought it was pretty good too.

I also watched Need for Speed on television. It had a no-name cast apart from Michael Keating and was based on a video game but I enjoyed it. Now I want to write a road trip story.

What I’m Writing

I finished my Seasonal romance short which turned into a novella, The Runaway Christmas Elf, on Wattpad. They have a happy ending, but I’m thinking I might do a little epilogue for Ori and Holly when I have some time.

I had my first writing session for the year with local author Dakota Harrison. She’s working on some exciting projects at the moment. I’m finding it very motivating spending the time talking over progress and then getting into the writing. I spent the day getting up to speed on my Sekrit project. It’s a reunion novella with a musician hero and a nurse heroine set mostly in Brisbane. I’m around half way there so hoping to get it finished this month.

I’m still working on #Spymaster, the second in my Spy series begun with my SYTYCW15 entry. It’s nearly a month since I sent #Spymistress off to several publishers and into a competition. I know it’s a bit soon to expect to hear anything, holiday season and all, but I will admit to checking my emails extra carefully.

That’s about it for the moment. Thanks for dropping by.

Welcome to my new Website and a New Year.

This is always a good time to look at where you are going and plan what is to happen in the coming year.

2015 was a good year for my writing with a new story published on Wattpad for the SYTYCW15 competition. The Spy Who Saved Me. I enjoyed the format and will continue to post stories in progress on the site as it becomes a great motivator with people interacting, reading your stories and wanting more…so far. Previously I had been posting the 1k shorts I wrote for writing challenges but the longer format is very popular.

2016 I’m hoping will be an even better year. I intend to work on my consistency, developing a professional routine that will serve me well in the future. I have #Spymistress out on submission & entered in a competition. I have several other projects at an advanced stage and new projects ready to go.

I plan on continuing with my review reading. I wasn’t as consistent this past year due to changes in family responsibilities but I’m hopeful things are settling down and I wont need so many Prozac reads.

This new website format should be more dynamic and I intend to post here regularly with news and views.

Wishing everyone all the best for the New Year

Fiona Marsden