Article in Focus Magazine Feb 2012!!

Focus magazine's interview with Rosalie Skinner

So the interview is now online as well as in print. It's been terrific to hear from people around Coffs who have read the article.
 Would rather they used the cover photo than one of me. Hmm. Still..it is great to have the feedback and news that the Chronicles will be available soon!!

The Unhewn Stone cover is up for the October award.

I'm excited that not only me, but Tiger Matthews, the cover artist, and MuseItUp publishing have a chance to win the Cover Award at Alternative-Read for the month of October (17 days left to vote) but we need your vote, please. We are # 5. The Unhewn Stone at  http://tjbook-list.blogspot.com 

The Unhewn Stone.

My son created the video and wrote the haunting music for it. Thanks Mark and Ryan for performing the instumentals. I'm a very proud Mum and G'mother :)

Touch Of Evil

This is it!!! This is the cover for which we have waited with baited breath. Just a quick blurb for the back, a few adjustments and Touch iof Evil will be available, first as an epub download, then a Kindle and then a fully fledged stack of paper pressed into an A5 book shape.

Ten years!!

Ten f@#$ing years!!!!!

I'll tell the truth. I have reached a point so many times where I've thought YES, I'm READY!! only to have something happen that just stuffed me and my project up. Faith was something that was fading from my life as a writer, despite the good things people I was being told by review readers.


This was the last Hurdle. Of course the picture killed Anton's computer. I would expect no less. But like the Hercules he is, Anton fought the twelve demons from Hell and got the thing done, better than I could have expected. It looks great. Everyone loves it so far. So, I sit here at the desk of pain and reset the clock for launch. My faith has returned, my enthusiasm now simmers back where it should be.


This is it.


Thanks for the patience. I've been talking about this for too long, but please bear with me just a short time more. 


Touch of Evil, coming real soon.


Thanks 

Trials and Tribs, eh?

It never really ends, does it. Kind of like building a house. You have it all set in your mind, then that one little thing is just not quite right. So you change it. As my friends Toni, Lorelea and Amanda are oft to quote (maybe it's a girl thing)

"MEH."

But on we go coz we have to. Took my loverly model - the aforementioned Lorelea - to the photographers for cover photos. But for very very minor details, her face is that of Imogen, the person who leads you though the TV show version of Touch of Evil. 80 odd photos later and it's just not quite right. Bugger, says I, but we will do with what we got.

So finally pick through the photos and we have a few that can be doctored to suit. Jobs right. So I log onto Lorelea's profile to tell her and she has just uploaded a new iphone photo, taken after the photo shoot before she took off the makeup.

It's nearly bloody perfect, the eyes are right, the angle is right, the colour is right. Need to tweak the smile oh so little but it is THE Picture!!!

So I pinches it.

And takes it to the genius known quietly as Anton, husband of my dear friend Robyn, who has Photoshop wrapped neatly around his little finger. In a matter of minutes he has a rough cut of my cover sitting on his screen. I couldn't even get a rough cut of a rough cut in FOUR WEEKS!!!!

So now, the tiredness, the almost boredom I have slipped into with this project has been

cast aside. There is a new feeling of completion in the wind. With a cover, the book has a sense of finality about it. It is becoming more real every day. Looking now at formatting for the ebook version - both epub and Kindle version. I think Touch of Evil is really going to swing there, but I still want a real book in my hands, professionally done and looking good. As most if not all of us do. it's the gold ring, the top prize in what we do.

But for this particular moment, I try something. If this works, then below should appear the rough cut of the cover. Let's see.

Ain't teknologee wunnerful?

Stay tuned for more.

Away we go - Part III

Yeah okay. I know this is the first here, but hopefully the first of many. If all goes well, I will be documenting the continuing growth of my life as a writer. The word hopefully here is significant. But on with the news ...

Last week, before my sojourn to the concrete wilds of Sydney I created my first book. Not had it published or saw it turn up somewhere on a website. From scratch, and using ,materials found in my own home (some of which i bought from ebay - love ebay) I created a galley copy of my new collection (ten years in the making is new, ain't it?) of short stories A TOUCH OF EVIL. I now have a crude, but functional physical book. You can turn pages, look at words, actually read them and all sorts of good booky type stuff. And I am chuffed. Yes, you read it. Chuffed.

Making this thing was a trial, having never attempted that much formatting in one sitting, which turned out to be several sittings, and despite the fact that I still haven't actually gone through the whole thing, I have found errors (hey, there was bound to be some) that on screen I would never have even thought of. Most important is pagination, the layout of where the pages go. I know some wags out there will be hooting with derision. Page one follows page two and so on, they will snicker. My response - awww duhhhhhhhh!!!

No, as I have seen, and on inspection confirmed, there is a method in this madness of laying out a book. The first page of every story needs to on be the right hand page. Therefore, by that logic, page 1 is now right hand rather than left hand. Easy to fix, but on screen who gives a rats, right? Having that one line too many for a neat page ending - a little more tricky to fix, but had me do another edit and I lost some bits I missed in earlier edits, making the story that little bit better.

It also helped me redesign my corporate log for my publishing arm, which - thanks to LULU - will allow me to be the master of my own domain as far as printing and distribution, anyway. And I now look at publishing and think Shit! How do the big boys do it so easily.

But enough. This is my first post here and I hope you enjoy it. Please respond if you have pertinent comments, advice or discussions to add. If you spam me you are toast.

Thanks for reading. More to follow.

Baz.

Welcome Tricia McGill

Sneak a Peek welcomes Award winning, multi published, Aussie Author, Tricia McGill from Cranbourne, Victoria.  Tricia's novels cover the Modern Romance, Time Travel, Historical and Futeristic Mainstream genres. Her latest book, Remy, won the editor's choice and will be released by MuseItUp Publishing in August.
Apart from writing, Tricia loves to travel and, with her late husband, she travelled extensively around Australia, for years, towing a caravan. 

 

I envy you Tricia. What a wonderful way to gather material, soak up the environment and research stories with a true Australian flavour. We look forward to talking about our writing with like-minded people. I'm so glad you are in our group.

Wendy

Congratulations to Wendy on another Contract with Muse.

Today I heard that Wendy's latest submission to Museitup Publishing has been accepted.
Good on you Wendy! Great work.
With two books coming out and having discovered who you will be working with on editing the Unhewn Stone, life will be busy. Enjoy!