coming back!

Coming back to blogging, coming back to writing!

Hi! It's been a strange period for me - first, putting up the guide to fantasy and spec fic writing at www.writingtips.com.au, then putting up all the WORLDSHAKER pages on my author site at www.richardharland.net. Great response to both the writing tips and the new novel, yay!

Then, this last week started out with two all-day workshops for the Sydney Writers Festival. I feel it's a coup just to get genre fiction in there - fantasy hasn't had much of a run in the past. Both workshops were sold out, and the feedback was very positive. That led on to a whole week of festival-related social events: the premiers Literary Awards on Monday (I was one of the judges); interview and dinner on Tuesday, festival 'opening' party on Wednesday. etc etc until finally, the Allen & Unwin drinks night yesterday. I'm all wined out …

And in the mornings, I found myself with time left over - no promotional activities to worry about - and started final planning on LIBERATOR (sequel to WORLDSHAKER). It felt like coming home - back to what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing, actually writing fiction! Today, the planning slipped almost accidentally into writing the first draft of the first draft of the first chapter - as though it had just been waiting to rush out onto the page. It felt so good to be actually writing again!

Cheers
Richard