Friday, June 17, 2011

Friday fun - more 'honest' book stickers

My previous post about book cover stickers provoked this glorious response from one of my favourite bloggers - Margot over at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist.

Go on, check them out, have a laugh - make some suggestions of your own!

Ah, fabulous Friday, which means the weekend is here, which means after a hard, solid week of editing the novel, for a change I'll get to...edit the novel, and perhaps I'll even do some editing on the novel. So that I don't go completely insane I will take a short break to go attack people with swords, but then I'll do some fun weekend things like...editing the novel.

Fourteen days till deadline...

But to prove that it's not all loneliness and hard work, locked away in my office with only my slightly raving mad self for company, here's a gratuitous cat shot.


Sunday, June 12, 2011

Those pesky book cover stickers...

Publishers seem to be a little obsessed with putting pesky little stickers on books in an effort to boost sales. There have been many examples discussed in the blogosphere, with the unanimous opinion we all hate them. There have been Jo Nesbo books covered in 'the next Steig Larssen.' Well actually publishers, that is not correct, Jo Nesbo is still Jo Nesbo, no amount of stickers will cause him to have an identity crisis. It seems every new crime fiction novel has a sticker on it somewhere exalting it as the next ......................... (insert biggest selling name you can think of, even if inappropriate)

Anyway, I thought I'd take a new approach to the sticker method of increasing book sales, something a lot more truthful...



Do you think it will help?

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Fuel...


A flat white from The Fix today...

It's keeping me going...

Monday, June 6, 2011

Surfacing for air...

My life has been utterly consumed by the looming deadline, and the new novel is finally taking shape the way I want it too, my panic-o-meter has inched down a few clicks. This weekend was Queen's Birthday Weekend in New Zealand, so I indulged in a few frivolous things to escape from the writing.

Hubby and I were invited to a friend's 40th birthday party on Saturday night. The theme was the 70's, so being a bit of a Star Wars fan I jumped at the chance to go as Princess Leia. Who wouldn't want to go as a kick-arse princess with a iconic hair-do? So I hauled the sewing machine out and whipped up the white Princess Leia dress in the morning, which turned out really well, and with the hired wig I was completely incognito. It took a few people a while to figure out who the heck it was! And so weird for a girl with a massive head of curly frizzy hair draped all over her face to suddenly have a sleek, dark brown do and no fringe to hide behind. It was weirdly liberating. Hubby went as the biker from the Village People!!!

Today, as well as doing some writing, I had a day in the kitchen as we had friends coming for dinner and I felt like having a Julia moment so I made a cassoulet. I've always wanted to make one, and although time consuming it was great fun and very satisfying. It took all day, in fact the recipe recommended taking a few days to make it. The bottom of the casserole dish was occupied by a perfect spiral of Toulouse sausage hand made by Hubby, so what with that, pork, bacon, lamb and chicken it was the perfect meat-a-thon with beans! So great food, great company, wine and a G & T made for a perfect evening.

Back to the full on writing tomorrow, and some awesome left-overs for lunch...