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Sydney Writers' Festival is on again, with many great events and fascinating writers here for a week or so. It is rather like the circus coming to town, and I do think that there should be a parade of all the guests on elephant-back down George Street, and hucksters announcing the acts for the day every morning at Central Station. I suppose failing that, there is the website www.swf.org.au Check it out. Many of the events are free.
Ask me questions. Go on. Otherwise I shall have to ask some of myself, and who knows where that will lead.
So please do ask me questions in the comments here. In the meantime, here is a question to be going on with, that I will also answer.
What did you do today and was it a typical writing day?
I've been away the last three days, hence the lack of posts. The time was not entirely devoted to fishing, though I got out a few times and exerted my angling skills upon the local piscine population, without noticeable effect. I did catch a rock cod. Rock cod excel in behaving like a lump of seaweed so they are no fun to catch. They also taste terrible and are full of bones and spines, so their sporting and culinary qualities pretty much guarantee their return to the sea. I think I've caught one particular rock cod every time I've been fishing in the same place.
The accompanying photo is the first page of a novel I started writing when I was 19 and driving around the United Kingdom in a beat-up Austin 1600 with a gold flame stripe down the bonnet. The novel was called CAPTAIN OF GUARD, and I wrote about 50,000 words of it, probably at least half or more of the book.
It's a long way down, in the latest sneak-peek at the film adaptation of Veronica Roth's book Divergent:
Tris (Beatrice) must make the jump if she wants to be accepted into the Dauntless faction. Think you could do it?
This week's You're the Voice visitor is Lucinda:
I'll be honest with you. Up until recently I never understood fandoms. You know, when a bunch girls start screaming because a washed-up celebrity walked in the door. Or why a person would have their birthday cake dedicated to some new young singer?
I had plenty of friends who were interested in things like Justin Bieber and Robert Patterson, yet while I respected their choice and (I'm sorry) in some cases respected the entertainer, I didn't think I knew what it was like to that obsessed.
Until I realised I was a hypocrite.
This perennial question has both many, many answers, and none. Possibly the most honest answer is "I don't know, but thank heavens they do."
I'm always on the look out for books with likeminded (read: animals/pets) characters such as myself.
Meet Ivan. He's a gorilla.
He is awesome.
And so is his story.
5 Reasons to Read The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.
1. Animals (particularly dogs) are smarter than humans. This is a fact. I read it in the Study of the Homo sapiens society dissertation.
CLARIEL is my next YA novel, returning to the Old Kingdom. It takes places about six hundred years before the events of SABRIEL, and is the story of a goldsmith's daughter who also happens to be the grand-daughter of The Abhorsen. Caught up against her will in the internal politics of the Kingdom, she finds herself drawn to forbidden magics . . .
The release date of the book has just been set. It is September 2014 and will almost certainly be simultaneous in the USA, Australia/NZ and the UK from my various publishers. Translations will follow more slowly, I expect.
If you've ever judged a book by its cover, then welcome to coverflip!
The background:
Author Maureen Johnson issued this challenge:
1. Take a well-known book. (It’s up to you to define well-known.)
2. Imagine that book was written by an author of the OPPOSITE GENDER. Or a genderqueer author. Imagine all the things you think of when you think GIRL book or BOY book or GENDERLESS book (do they EXIST?).
3. Now, COVERFLIP! Make the new cover and put it online. Tweet or Tumbl it with the tag #coverflip.
(You can read the full challenge on Maureen's tumblr.)
The results:
(click on images to view the original size)
Original: 
Coverflip: 
