LittleElfMan's Bibliotherapy: Lara Morgan

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.

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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: