Here’s a photo to scare you away from ever visiting Perth — not that I want to do that!

Perth storm clouds

but then the clouds cleared (for a while) and I had an absolutely lovely lunch with some writer friends. Honest to goodness, authors! I think we scared the waiter

I know one creature unfazed by the promised wild weather …

On the positive side, the storms are bringing much needed rain. Toby, my dog, would however like to point out that rain without thunder is possible and would be much preferred. So you have your orders, weather gods!

I’ve been writing. My steampunk romance short story, “Befogged”, is sub’d to Ticonderoga Press’s Kisses by Clockwork anthology. After struggling for inspiration on this one (aiming at an emotionally satisfying romance in 3,000 words is tough), I ended up going for something less heavy on the romance and angst, and much heavier on gadget fun and some tongue-in-cheek history and fictional references. However, that fun inspired an idea for a full length novel. Aaargh! I do NOT have time to write a steampunk novel this year … unless I clone myself. I’m considering it!

My SF story is proving ridiculously difficult to write. I say “ridiculously” because the issue is that its world has become all too real to me. So I’m struggling to make the characters behave and allow me to pull the many tangled threads together for the surprise-twist ending that is the point of the story. But this is a good problem to have — characters living, breathing and tantruming.

Then with all decks cleared, I want to write Brodie’s story as fast as I possibly can. I’ve been thinking of this story for months, so I can’t wait to dive in. I’m determined that this time I will crack the  50,000 word barrier that is haunting me. I can write longer length, and I will!

So I’m writing this while according to science there’s a partial eclipse happening outside the window.  I hadn’t noticed. Oops. Let’s blame the cloud cover.

Have you noticed how once you start writing (or reading) you enter another world? If I’m totally into a scene I’m writing, when I look up, I expect the time of day to be the time in the scene. That can be weird, since I’ll suddenly want dinner at morning tea time

I can also lose track of my responsibilities — like posting on this blog! I have three stories on the go at the moment (2 short and one long). Typically I focus on a single story. Hopping between steampunk, science fiction and contemporary romance is taking all my concentration. I should chain myself to the desk till the two shorts are done.

Adios! my steampunk heroine is about to be kidnapped … the dastardly villain is kind of cute, though

April kicked my butt. I am so not ready for May.

I’m a member of the Australian Romance Readers Association (great group!) and we do a monthly catch up of books we’ve read. In April I only managed 4 new books, and two of those were novellas.  I was shocked. No wonder my TBR pile is getting out of hand! Thank goodness it’s mostly digital, and hence, invisible. It wasn’t that I wasn’t reading. I was re-reading old favourites.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m tired, I like to read books I’ve read before. It’s comforting. I lose myself in a familiar world.

Mostly I’ve been trying to finish my contemporary romance, “It’s Love, Dude”, finish a long short story (if that makes sense?) that weaves in Neanderthals and quantum computing — and now you understand why this story is taking me so long! — come up with a killer idea for a short steampunk romance for an anthology open call, Kisses by Clockwork (Ticonderoga Press), whip out a light romantic comedy of about 12,000 words (which turned emotional and threatened to explode beyond the word limit, and so, has to go on the back burner because it’s not going to fit my writing schedule – darn it) and when all of that is done (ha!) I can start the follow up to “It’s Love, Dude” with Zane’s brother, Brodie. Whew.

Oh, and I also bought a raincoat in the hope that this would convince Fate to test it…and guess what? It rained last night!