Lily Malone's Blog, page 5

I’m so excited to reveal here on the blog first: the new cover for my latest book with Harlequin MIRA, Water Under The Bridge.

This is a story about almost-Olympic swimmer, Ella, and dyed-in-the-wool sheep farmer, Jake. Water Under The Bridge is Book 1 of 3 new stories set in my fictional town of Chalk Hill, in the great southern region of Western Australia.

The background is the stunning scenery of the Porongurups and Stirling Ranges, wildflowers everywhere, whales at Albany, and the magnificent tall trees of Walpole, Denmark and Nornalup not far away…

So here she is, my Ella… Ta-dah! All she needs is her favourite disco tunes to start playing if you click the picture! (Anyone know the technology to do that??

Sharing a quick video about my hometown – Cowaramup in the south west of Western Australia.

Earlier this year I was involved with the group that put together an entry submission for Cowaramup to be named the ‘Legendairy Capital of Australia.’

After lots of consultation with local dairy farmers and representatives of various local groups and committees, I put fingers to keyboard to help write our town’s submission.

In autumn this year, we got the great news that Cowaramup had won the title of West Australian ‘dairy capital’, and would now go on to represent WA in the national competition with the winner announced later this year.

The State nomination and winner’s announcement all happened right before the Deja-Moo 2017 (a huge weekend of cow-themed fun in Cowaramup), and the team from Dairy Australia came to visit our town during the mid-year school holidays and festival. I can only imagine what those Dairy Australia representatives must have thought – landing in the midst of a cold winter weekend of Cow Onesie frenzy!

[image error]I feel so chuffed to have written a book set in Cowaramup, involving the increasingly famous Cowaramup Cows. One of the speakers in the video is Kerry Sibly (you see him wearing the cow horns in his cow onesie chatting during the vid); Kerry designed the awesome book cover for Butterfly House Book 1, Who Killed The Bride?

Please click the link below to check the video:

Winding down another school term, one week until school holidays in WA. It’s been a landmark kind of term. I’ve been busy, and today I’m feeling lazy.

I’ve finished writing Book 2 of my Chalk Hill Series. This is The Cafe By The Bridge, following Water Under The Bridge (both working titles), with Water Under The Bridge (Book 1)  due out in September 2018. (I’m now under a year till release day and counting!)

Book 2 is currently with three fabulous readers and friends, which puts me in that nail-biting time of waiting to see what they think.

I’m feeling lazy because it’s the most stunning spring day and I’ve just been on a 2.5 hour walk on the Cape to Cape track on the beautiful South West coast. There are wildflowers out, glorious yellow coastal wattle everywhere… and I really do think yellow is my favourite colour in nature’s garden.

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Cape to Cape track, south of Ellensbrook.

Every few metres or so along the track we heard a skittle or scuttle of a gecko or skink (I refuse to think snake)… and we saw donkey, cowslip and pink lady orchids. Plus, my lovely friend Carrie got her arse wet posing for photographs… and that always makes me smile!

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Seconds after this… Carrie got her arse wet

[image error]It’s funny this writing game. One minute I’m on top of the world, the next I’m convinced if I wrote a note for the petty cash tin saying I owe it $5, not even the admin nazi would read it.

When I started trying to write a book the year my youngest child turned 1, (way back in 2010), my definition of success would have been as simple as getting that book published. Easy.

Funny what a few rejections do to that self-confidence and those goals. Fast forward a couple of years after slamming into closed doors, and my definition of success changed. In 2011 & 2012 success for me would have looked something like this:

Final in a writing competition (or fingers crossed, win a competition)
Have an agent or publisher request a full manuscript.

Things started to snowball. In 2011, a scene from His Brand Of Beautiful finalled in the RWA First Kiss Competition; and somewhere in 2012, I got the first request for a full manuscript.

After Harlequin offered me a Contract for His Brand Of Beautiful (as an e-book with digital-first publisher, Escape Publishing) and the book had been out long enough for my first royalty payment to come in, (we’re now talking midway through 2013), my definitions for success changed again.

To be successful, I now needed to:

Earn enough from my royalties to actually buy my hubby lunch at the pub!
Maybe win a reader award, like the Australian Romance Readers Association annual awards or an Aus Rom Today award; or final in a round of the Booktopia Australia’s Fave Author!!
Have a print book published (not just electronic).

So, in Summer 2015-2016, I got my first book in print. It was Fairway To Heaven and it was part of a 3-book anthology called More Time For The Beach. For the first time I earned a four-figure royalty and was actually able to sock some of that cash away for a rainy day (plus buy hubby a nice lunch, and myself a bottle of bloody nice bubbles)!!

My definitions of success changed again. Now I needed to see:

My own story in print – a Lily Malone title all to myself.

In September 2016, an e-book of mine with Escape Publishing (then called So Far Into You) was selected by Harlequin MIRA for print and given the new title of The Vineyard In The Hills. I had my first solo print book, you’d think all my dreams would have come true? I must be successful now, right?

No! The success goalposts moved again!

What is success to me now?

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To be known for contemporary fiction writing as well as rural romance, and specifically to get my manuscript ‘Ashes’ published.
To publish at minimum, 2 books a year
To support myself financially through my writing.
To be a good friend, wife and mother, and good person while doing all this. (In other words, not turn into a raving psychotic author loony!)

That’s what success would mean to me right now (though I’m sure those goalposts will move). What about you?

 

 

 

About Contracts

[image error]Today my new three-book Contract for the Chalk Hill series arrived from Harlequin head office. Book 1 of the Chalk Hill Series is Water Under The Bridge, the book I was working on at the start of this year.

Luckily for me, (and hopefully for readers), Harlequin MIRA’s editors loved Water Under The Bridge and on the strength of Book 1, they’ve signed two additional titles set in fictional Chalk Hill. Book 1 will be out in spring of 2018, with books 2 and 3 following in 2019 and 2020.

You won’t find Chalk Hill on a map. It’s the first fictional town I’ve created in my writing journey and if you did have to pin Chalk Hill on a map of West Australia, you’d aim about halfway between Manjimup and Mount Barker on the Muir highway, slightly east of Rocky Gully.

The idea for the book came after a camping trip I did with hubby and our two boys in spring last year to the Porongurups and Albany… little did my travelling companions know how much I was plotting stories at the time, as we climbed the Granite Skywalk and visited the Natural Bridge and the Blowholes, and saw whales in Lucky Bay!

In Conversation

This coming Thursday July 6,  I”m thrilled to join rural romance West Australian author, Sasha Wasley, at Dymocks bookstore in Busselton. Sasha has a new book, Dear Banjo, out now – getting rave reviews. The ‘In Conversation’ is Sasha’s gig, but I’ve got myself invited along by lovely Beth Herbert of Dymocks to gatecrash the party…

Cow Fairs

Mooooo! Saturday is the big legendary festival of my hometown of #Cowaramup. Not long ago Cowaramup won the accolade of being the ‘Legendairy capital of West Australia’ and later this year we will be judged alongside other legendary state capital finalists, to find the ‘legendairy’ capital of Australia. I’ll keep you posted!

This Saturday marks the birthday for the Cowaramup cows – the life-size herd of fibreglass cows you’ll find in and around Cowaramup’s main street and its parks… Have you visited our cows? It’s great to see the joy the cows have brought so many visitors to our town, and to see that businesses in the town are enjoying the benefits of having people stop and stay a while in the town, rather than dash through…

[image error]Saturday’s fair is called Deja-Moo – the Legendary Country Fair.

It kicks off at 9am on Saturday. Apart from a whole heap of family fun, there are many stall-holders and exhibitions. If you’re planning to come to Deja-Moo – please come and find me with my books in the Cowaramup Hall. You can check out my Cowaramup-set Butterfly House book, Who Killed The Bride?, which I always think of as: ‘Bridget Jones meets the Cowtown Cows…’

I’d love to have a chat! If I was any good at baking or craft, I’d have cow cupcakes and butterfly cookies… but I don’t have any of those (because I’m crap at baking and craft). I do, however, have lolly snakes!

xx Lily

It’s still a long way off, but I am thrilled to let you know about a new and exciting readers’ festival coming to West Australia next year.

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It’s the West Coast Fiction Festival, put together by a great group of top-selling WA authors and it’s featuring brilliant traditional-published and indie-published writers from all across the country, (and some international authors) coming under the one roof at the Rendezvous Hotel in Scarborough on November 3, 2018.

[image error]And guess what? I will be there… just perhaps not with my pink beanie (it will be almost Summer in Perth by then and my ears would melt!)

What is really exciting is that I will have at least one new book out before the Festival, to join The Vineyard In The Hills as print paperback releases. I’ll also be there with Who Killed The Bride? From my Butterfly House series, to wow everyone with what I reckon will be the most unusual book cover in the Hotel that day! (Yes, I am biased!)

[image error]The idea of the Festival is to bring along your own books written by the signing authors (for signatures), plus there will be new books to buy (of course); and authors to meet, greet and have a chat and photo with, if you like

Today is one of those writerly days I’ve dreamed about for, oh, say the last six and a half years…

Today, I signed with The Nash Agency, and I finally can say I have a literary agent.

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The Nash Agency is owned and operated by Haylee Nash. I was lucky enough to have something to do with Haylee when she worked for Harlequin Australia when my debut book His Brand Of Beautiful was published by Harlequin Escape.

Haylee has published some of Australia’s highest-selling books from authors such as Rachael Johns, Fiona McCallum,  Sally Hepworth and Kylie Scott, and has worked for Pan Macmillan Australia, Harlequin Enterprises Australia and Booktopia.

The Nash Agency will represent my contemporary fiction with a book called ASHES, and also my future rural and contemporary romance books, including the Chalk Hill series I’m working on now.

Thank you for your faith, Haylee! I’ll be doing everything I can to do you proud.

I had the huge pleasure last night to join two talented Cowaramup artists, painter Kerry Sibly and sculptor Alan Meyburgh, at the launch of Kerry and Alan’s exhibition for this year’s Open Studios.

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One of Alan Meyburgh’s sculptural creations. This looked amazing lit up at night.

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My connection to this clever and versatile pair is that Kerry illustrated and designed my Butterfly House ‘Who Killed The Bride‘ book cover… plus he lives in the same street as me, and in our street we’re always up for a party.

How’s things at your house this Easter Sunday? At Chez Malone, I have two boys a little slow with that typical Easter Sunday afternoon over-indulgence of chocolate. But the Easter eggs very nearly didn’t happen at all. Hubs and I had gone to bed and he was snoring rather soundly when I sat bolt upright thinking ‘Omagawd! The eggs!’

Yes. Having specially got the kids to decorate the shoe boxes I use for Easter loot with their names and a drawing for the Easter Bunny, I forgot all about filling the shoe boxes with Easter Bunny treats.

So with much prodding at about midnight, hubby was encouraged up and into his jocks to cheerily hide tiny chocolate eggs about the garden for our traditional Sunday morning easter egg hunt, while I counted, divided (equally) and distributed the Easter Bunny eggs into the shoeboxes.

Phew. Crisis averted.

And we can then happily snooze-forward to Easter Sunday.

Hubs is in the wine industry here in Margaret River and Easter is prime-time vintage – which means he had to go to work today, while the kids and I planned Easter Sunday brunch.

Last year, I had enormous success with a German apple pancake recipe I found on the Internet. But I couldn’t find the recipe this year, so I went with Jamie Oliver’s German apple pancake instead.

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#massivefail

I don’t know what I did wrong but it tasted terrible. Even dollops of whipped cream couldn’t help us eat it. My Facebook friends are bringing me to believe that I put the ingredients in the blender in the wrong order. I should have started with the liquid ingredients then added the dry… but I just did my normal and bunged the whole lot in and pressed ‘blend’.

To make matters worse, right at the end I tried to sprinkle a little nutmeg over the apples… and the nutmeg lid flew off which meant a whole heap more nutmeg than I’d planned landed on my apples.

I tell you, baking is never dull in my house!

Whatever you’re up to this Easter, I hope you have fun with family and friends, or just to take time out doing what you like to do.

Me? I’m crossing fingers that I’ll have big bookish news for the blog this week. There, I’ve said it. Hope I haven’t jinxed myself!

xx Lily

Phew!

It’s been quiet here and there is a bloody good reason for that! I’ve been incredibly busy since February when my two boys went back to school. I’ve been head down, bum up, writing to finish my new rural romance, Water Under The Bridge.

This is the book I started in NaNoWriMo last year (National November Writing Month). In November I got to my personal target of 30,000 words on the book. The vast majority of those (particularly the latter half) were drivel… and have since been dumped. Then it was end of school, Christmas, New Year, school holidays, camping, back to school, and I didn’t do much writing in January.

But the day school started in February, my new work/life balance of working two days in my administration job, and writing Wed-Thurs-Fri, kicked in… and I am so happy to tell you I’ve been very disciplined!

I finished my book on Friday last week. I typed these words with such gusto!

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That means I wrote about 53,000 new words (probably more because some of the earlier drivel had to get cut to smithereens), and edited the entire lot, in about 5 weeks. That’s good going. That’s about 10,000 words a week, with edits along the way.

Here’s how I did it (if my tips help any procrastinators out there):

After I dropped the kids to school on Wed/Thurs & Friday, I set the oven timer for my 1.5 hour sprints, and sat down and wrote. I would have done this at least 3 times in the day, so 4.5 hours of writing, usually with a bit of an edit after school.
So that I didn’t go too hard and hurt myself (writers/office workers, all types who spend hours at the keyboard will know that neck/back issues can be a problem) when my oven timer ‘timed’ I’d get up and move and do something else. That might be make a coffee and take a walk around the garden; hang out some washing, empty the dishwasher, go for a quick 45minute walk etc. I’d stretch against the door on my way into my writing room and stretch coming out, using an elastic rope of my hubby’s. My great mate and pilates’ instructor neighbour explained that it was important to stretch/release the chest muscles to counteract how tight typing can make my back and shoulders… and so far it’s worked perfectly.
I made myself accountable for my time – using the adage of “make an appointment with your writing self”… and it worked too.
I didn’t give in to temptation to do other things, like lunch with mates, coffee, longer walks. See – disciplined!
I surrounded myself with positive people who were cheering me on! Thanks Louise Allan and the Lollygaggers, my mates, and all the usual suspects!

So now that the book is with beta readers, I have time for other things – like blog posts! I have a few to do. One for the Naughty Ninjas, one for Maureen Eppen’s Shelf Awareness series. I’ve been for a walk this morning down the beach – just beautiful – and tomorrow is my Mum’s birthday so we’re going out for lunch. I’ve been catching up on my reading and I have to share with you how much I’ve just loved a book called SHELTER by the amazing Rhyll Biest. Here’s my review.

When your book is out with beta readers, the waiting is such a killer, so keeping busy is the plan. Then it will be a case of acting on what they come back to me with, then submit, submit, submit.

Then I get to write a new book! And you know what the really cool thing is? I’ve discovered Water Under The Bridge, featuring Jake and Ella, is the first in what will be my Chalk Hill series… and it’s Abe’s story next