I'm thrilled to welcome Carole Wilkinson to my humble blog as part of her Dragonkeeper Blog Tour!
I've done a little interview with Carole and then afterwards you'll find the competition with how you can win a complete set of the Dragonkeeper Books!
You might have seen the new jackets of her best-selling Dragonkeeper series out and about in celebration of Book 4: Blood Brothers. I wrote a review of the first three books which can be found HERE. My review of the new one is HERE.
I've asked Carole some questions so we can get to know her a little better. So without further ado, I present the wonderful Carole Wilkinson.
Thanks
Michael for hosting the very first blog of my blog tour. And also thanks to the
black dog books girls (Maryann Ballantyne, Sue Lawson, Karen Tayleur,
Bernadette Kelly and Corinne Fenton) who prodded me into making my answers a
bit less monosyllabic, while we were in Adelaide at the CBCA Conference.
My
questions are going to be fairly light and fun, I hope that’s ok!
Today I'm thrilled to have Sue Lawson write a guest post
here at LittleElfMan's. You might know how much I love Sue's writing from my
review of Pan's Whisper and the wonderful post for its blog tour. I'm not going
to hog the stage too much, because this is all about Sue and her great new
book, a historical fiction novel that follows one family's voyage on the
Titanic. I asked Sue to write a particular guest blog and she responded
brilliantly! Over to you, Sue!
Hi Michael, it’s lovely to visit your blog again. This is
the very first stop on the Forget Me Not Tour and I'm very excited about all
the stops I'll be making over the next two weeks!
I had a ball answering your questions about Pan’s Whisper.
Forget Me Not is different to Pan’s Whisper, in that Pan’s
Whisper is a young adult novel and work of fiction while Forget Me Not is a
junior fiction novel and based on an historical event – the sinking of the
Titanic.
So, Sue, you’re packing for a journey to the other side of
the world on the largest ocean liner in the world, and you’ll be starting a new
life at your destination.
(Please tell me journey doesn’t end the same way as the
Titanic’s journey ended!)
Very excited to be hosting a stop in Sue Lawson's Blog Tour for Pan's Whisper!
If you haven't already, you can read my review of it HERE (I'm still a little chuffed that my review made her speechless!)
The other stops on the tour have been asking all the hard and interesting questions about Pan's Whisper and the writing process and all that melting pot of goodies that resulted in the brilliant book. These are all great, and I wanted to know them too, but I read them elsewhere and decided to do something a bit different here.
I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to get to know Sue a bit more, so I've asked her a series of less serious questions for a fun and frivolous way to start this, the last week in the lead up to Christmas.
So let's jump in!
What was the last book you read? I’m studying my masters, so the last book I
read was for that – Pagan’s Crusade – loved it! Now I’m reading masses of short stories. Plus, I have also just read
Karen Tayleur’s latest manuscript. WOW!
(Oo! I've got Six sitting on my to-read-sooner-than-later pile at home. And Snap! I'm doing my Masters too.)
Score out of 10? Pagan’s Crusade – 8/10 Short Stories – vary Karen Tayleur’s manuscript. 10/10 (Can't wait to read it then!)
Any books you have re-read over and over? Heaps – The Outsiders, SE
Hinton, Dirt Music and The Riders both by Tim Winton, To Kill a
Mockingbird, Harper Lee and a few others. Generally though I’m flat out keeping
up with my reading pile, so it’s not often I re-read books. (I know what you mean! Sometimes I find myself thinking I'd LOVE to re-read something, but where's the time?)
Where’s your favourite place to read? I’ll read anywhere. I do love reading in
bed, though I often read until my eyes hurt and have had the book fall on my
face more than once. (What I've noticed recently, is that I'll be reading in bed and then I'll find myself thinking, Wait, why isn't the story progressing? oh, that's right, my eyes are closed!)
What book would you most like to see turned into a
film? That’s a tough one as generally I don’t
love film adaptations (see below for those I did!). I’d probably like to see
Dirt Music because the setting (WA) is so amazing. (Hehe, I've got a t-shirt that says: 'MOVIES: Ruining the book since 1920')
What is the best film adaptation of a book that you
can think of? Atonement. Man I loved that book and to be
honest was a little scared about the film, but loved it. My advice to anyone
who is a romantic, leave or turn it off when the old lady is about to be
interviewed! The other film adaptations I’ve enjoyed are
Lord of the Rings (Wow! I like that far too much!) and Harry Pottter. (Have to say, I'm a bit more than partial to the last two... I've never read Atonement though, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first half the that movie.)
Where was the best Holiday
you’ve taken to? Last year, my husband, daughter and I went
to Italy, Switzerland, France
and England.
We had the most amazing time.
(Nothing like a bit of public nudity :)
Favourite Dessert? Baked Cheesecake with berries. Or Lemon
Tart. (Mmm Cheesecake with berries...)
Dogs or Cats? (or something else entirely?) Dogs – preferable robust, loving and
personality filled dogs like Labradors (We had
two labs when I was growing up – Sam and Rocky) We used to have a Cairn Terrier
called Dougall – now he was a sensational dog! (Is it too embarrassing for me to say I've got a soft toy dog called Dougall?)
Who would you cast in a Bio flick about you? Susan Saradon. She is just a fantastic
actress. (Ooo, good pick! She's great! I loved her in Elizabethtown)
Ideal night out? With friends, at a restaurant – Thai,
Indian or maybe Malaysian.
Ideal night in? Either have friends over for a barbeque or
watch a movie with my husband and daughter.
If you had to pick one food that was the only thing
you could eat for the rest of your life, what would it be? One food – you’re kidding. Okay - fruit,
especially berries. So it’s cheating, but I love food too much to be stuck to
only one kind! (Yes, I know what you mean, Just one??? It is a cruel question.)
Name a guilty pleasure when it comes to your reading
life. Jilly Cooper. I love her books – they baddies are
so bad and the goodies so good. (They do look like a bit of a guilty pleasure...)
Are your dinner plates patterned or plain? Plain. Hope that isn’t indicative of my
personality! In my defence, I love the look of food on plain plates – we eat
lots of veggies and the colours are spectacular. Okay, now I just sound weird! (Not at all! In my opinion, patterned is a thing of by-gone tastes - with few exceptions - who knows, in another 30 years our children or grandchildren might think we're so daggy for having plain plates!)
How many members are there in your family? (let’s
start with immediate then move to extended) Immediate – three of us – my husband and
daughter. Extended – two brothers, one sister, Mum,
Dad, (who died 14 years ago) two sister in laws, one brother in law, two
nieces, three nephews, six cousins, 17 second cousins, two aunts, one
uncle…then there is my husband’s family…his parents, sister and brother, sister
in law, six nephews…okay I’ll stop. We’re a relatively small family. A friend
of mine is one of 18 brothers and sisters! (Sounds like it's big enough when you start looking at extended members.)
What was your favourite board game as a child? (or
now, if you’re anything like me). As a child I loved playing Monopoly – not
so much now. My daughter has been able to whip me since she was about 8. Not
good for the ego. (Monopoly was never one of my favourites, I always seem to loose. But I'm a sucker for Board games in general)
And finally, What’s the most random/left-of-field thing anyone has
ever said to you? “Oh – I thought you’d be blonde.” (Guy at a
pub when I worked in radio. He was so disappointed when he saw me. Wish I had
the words to describe his face! Apparently I sounded short and blonde when I
was on radio – not sure how to take that.) Then there was the time when…I’ll stop
shall I?
(Well, sometimes you just can't live up to expectations! But, that's his problem. I can think of a few witty remarks, but lets keep it PG, shall we?)
Sue Lawson (Left) at the Pan's Whisper book launch with Corinne Fention.
Thanks so much, Sue, for your fantastic answers! I've had so much fun reading them through and putting this post together. It was such a pleasure!
-
Here are some of the places you can find Sue and discover what she's up to:
The RosieBlack Chronicle’s second installment, Equinox, has just been released at the
beginning of November. This fantastic series by the talented Lara Morgan is a
great dystopian sci-fi adventure that has you gallivanting across the Australia
of 500 years in the future and zipping up to Mars and back to uncover evil
corporate cover-ups and save Rosie’s family. Using Lara’s own term, I’ve been
one of her ‘Minions’ right from the start. These books are what I would call
accessible sci-fi. By that I mean it doesn’t get bogged down in astrophysics
(and why should it?) but saves room for all the action and adventure you would
want! With a little bit of romance thrown in too.
This is a
very special blog post: I’m very excited to be involved in Lara Morgan’s Rosie
Black Blog Tour! I got the privilege to ask Lara some questions about Getting
Published, a topic that’s very close to my heart, being that my aspirations lie
in the very same sphere. Also, at the end I’ll let you know how you could win a
set of books 1 and 2 of the Rosie Black Chronicles. So it’s with great
pleasure I welcome Lara to my blog.
What was
your first published work and how did you go about getting it published?
My very
first published work was a short story called Salt and it was published in
the Australian Women’s Weekly because I won their short story competition in
2003. And that win was what really put me on the road to being a professional
writer. I only entered the competition because my sister made me.
Basically she posted me the entry page and nagged me until I just did what she
said. I guess I owe her eh? My first novel was published in 2008. It was the
first in a fantasy trilogy called The Twins of Saranthium, the third and last
installment of which I’m aiming to complete next year.
How did
that experience lead you to Walker Books Australia for Rosie Black?
I guess
after writing two very big adult books, I really wanted to try my hand at
something quite different – which is how The Rosie Black Chronicles came to be.
And at the time my publisher for the fantasy trilogy wasn’t looking for any new
YA work so my agent went to some other publishers and Walker was one of them. I
guess you can say the rest was history.
Sometimes
people don't realise how much work is involved in publishing, particularly the
editing process. How long did Equinox take to write compared to editing?
The actual
writing of Equinox took about five months whereas the editing stretched to
around six or seven. So yes, the editing was longer but I think that can be a
good thing, especially when you’re working with editors who are super committed
to making the book work. I actually kind of expect the editing to take longer
because it’s really at that stage that other people are properly seeing it for
the first time and as a writer you’re getting all this feedback which helps
make it a better book. It just takes a long time sometimes to knock it all into
shape!
What did
the publishing process bring out in Rosie that surprised even you?
There’s not
much Rosie can do that surprises me because we are joined so closely together –
like peas and carrots, or white on rice – but what did surprise me is some of
the plot turns that came out of the editorial sessions when I was working on
Equinox. Obviously I can’t give away any of them because that would be
spoilers, but it was fantastic to still be able to be surprised by plot
possibilities after I thought I’d tied them all up.
Do you have
any advice for writers that are looking to get published?
Be prepared
for the long haul. Getting published can take a long, long, long time from when
you started. It took me ten years to get a book deal and I know we always hear
about those so called ‘over night’ success, but it’s best not to believe in it.
Save that belief for yourself and your work and stay committed to keep trying
even after everyone around you has done that raised eyebrow thing that says you
should give up. Obstinacy is a handy trait to cultivate for a writer. And so is
finishing things. I always tell people to force yourself to finish that first
draft, no matter how bad it is, because all writing is rewriting and most
everything can be fixed in the edit. And enter short story competitions because
you never know, you might win and that looks good on your CV when you’re trying
to get an agent or publisher to read your work.
And
finally, tell us how you feel when you look at your published books.
Everyone
always expects me to be excited, but it’s more complicated than that.
Satisfied, is a more apt description. It’s such a long time from when I’ve
started the book to when I hold that paperback in my hand that it’s almost a
relief that it’s finally done. Most authors understand this reaction but other
people look slightly perplexed, like I’ve told them a joke where the punch line
makes no sense. Which, to be fair, does sometimes happen to me because I cannot
tell jokes. But, anyway that’s how I feel. It’s satisfying, a long deep sigh
with the muttered words, ‘yes, that’s it, it’s done,’ as I put it on the shelf
next to the others. Then I get back to the one I’m working on now, because for
me the story is always most alive at the beginning when it’s just me and the
computer and I’m off in another world. So must dash, Rosie and Pip are waiting
in the wings for book three!
Ciao and
thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Right! So stamina is what I will need on the road to
published-dom… Thanks for the heads up! I’m certainly glad you stuck with it, I
can’t wait for the next instalment of Rosie Black!
Check out the trailers for the first two here:
Finally, as promised: a competition! With a very special thanks to Walker Books Australia
Win a set of The Rosie Black Chronicles Books 1 and 2!
The Competition has now closed.
This is how it will work:
1. Ask Lara a question through the comments below, she will
respond here while the tour is with me. (Be sure to include your name)
2. Like my blog on Facebook (so I can get in contact with
you if you win).
3. Lara will pick her favourite question as the winner and I’ll
post you the books.
Easy!
Thanks so much for joining me here in my humble little blog
Lara, it's been great!
On Facebook you can find Rosie HERE, and Lara HERE
