Blogging

On Leukaemia and shaving my head.

by Veronica on February 10, 2013

in Blogging,Cancer

When I was in hospital with Evelyn a few months back, I spent some time in the parents room, hastily drinking a too weak cup of tea while she slept the deep sleep of a baby traumatised by needles and seizures. I met a lot of parents in that room, all of us with that same look on our faces, part hope, part despair.

I remember one mother, her almost four year old son had just been diagnosed with Leukaemia. She’d had to move down to Hobart from Burnie, leaving the rest of her family behind, so that her son could have the treatment he needed to survive.

It’s for families like hers that I am shaving my head. The Leukaemia Foundation helped her find housing and are supporting her through her family’s journey.

When I was in Primary school, one of my best friends was diagnosed with Leukaemia, which she went on to beat. Blood cancers impact on so very many Australian families and the Leukaemia Foundation does their best to support them.

In another month, I won’t have very much hair left. It’s a small price to pay to help raise money for families who need the help that your donations will provide.

I urge you, please donate. Even if you can only afford $2 – that $2 might buy a mother a cup of coffee when she needs it most. It will provide help, support and counselling. It will provide financial assistance. It will be useful.

If you can’t afford anything (and trust me, we’ve all been there) then you can support the Leukaemia Foundation by sharing my page, by promoting this, or by signing up to shave your own head, or colour your hair.

See? My hair is long and shaving it is scary! Make it worth my while and donate. DONATE. Please.

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Photo by Amy, who did a great job.

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Handing over the reins for a bit

by Veronica on December 10, 2012

in Guest Posts

Today I have a guest post from the ever-amazing Caitlyn Nicholas. I can’t remember how I stumbled onto her blog a few years ago (gosh, time flies) but my envy of her warm weather and her blooming garden hooked me and her writing and personality kept me returning.

I do suspect that she is superwoman though, because she has published not one, but two books in the last few weeks. I know. I KNOW.

I am honoured to have her on my blog today to talk about herself and promote her two new books.

———

Hey Lovely Veronica!

Thanks for having me on your blog. I am a huge fan of yours and I’m really excited about being here today.

Through November I watched with interest as you progressed through Nanowrimo. Huge congrats by the way for making it through to the end! It’s not easy. I know. It’s how I wrote my first book.

I’m a terrible pregnant person. I get very morning sick, in fact I could give Kate Middleton a run for her money (though neither of us would be up to much running!!) When I was pregnant with my second child I needed something to take my mind off hurling every six seconds, and so started to write a ‘Mills and Boon.’ It was the best decision I ever made. I loved having something to focus on that wasn’t about babies or how I’d get to the shops and back without puking. When I got to about 10,000 words we arrived at November and a chance post on the Romance Australia loop alerted me to the existence of Nanowrimo.

I dived in. Finished the book, submitted it to Mills and Boon (who rejected it in world record time!) edited it, subbed it to a competition (it came 4th) rewrote it, and then submitted it to Samhain Publishing. My Miss Nearly 7 was born two weeks later and I received my first book contract a couple of weeks after that!

I just don’t think I’d have finished the manuscript (named Running Scared) without nano. If you’re curious about that story it’s still available via all your usual e-sellers in print and e-versions.

I’ve had a few more books published since then, and, in the last couple of months have had two new releases.

The first, a rip roaring romantic suspense called Drive Me To Distraction came out in November.

Sometimes life or death decisions are easy. Alex Radford has a choice – borrow the money to treat her mother’s rare and aggressive cancer from sleazy moneylender Hamish MacCameron. Or do nothing and watch her die.

MacCameron has an agenda. He wants Alex in his bed, and he wants her to help him exact revenge on his sworn enemy, Robert Dryden. He is only too happy to lend her what she needs, but the strings attached form a tangled web from which Alex has little hope of escape.

It’s not all bad. Since she was a girl Alex has had one dream: to become a Formula 1 driver and show the boys how to drive a race car. MacCameron’s money gives her a shot at fame, and in a move that scandalizes the F1 racing fraternity she becomes the new driver for Rob Dryden’s struggling F1 team, Prometheus.

Alex tries to keep her distance from Rob, knowing that one day she will need to betray one of the few people who ever had faith in her. But things begin to unravel when Hamish MacCameron is murdered and she and Rob are the top suspects on the list …

Amazon | iBookstore | Kobo | Goodreads

And the second, a romantic suspense novella called The Danger Game, came out in mid – December.

Flick likes computers. She’s good with them, and they do what she tells them, mostly. People, however, are more of a challenge.

But when a terrifyingly dangerous program is stolen, and her mentor killed, Flick finds herself on the run. The police are convinced she’s committed murder, and a sinister weapons developer will stop at nothing to force her to work for him.

In Ben’s line of work being suspicious keeps you alive. So when Flick turns to him, he quickly realises that she’s up to her neck in trouble and hasn’t fully grasped the danger she is in.

First he has to keep her safe, and then, together, they have to figure out how to save the world from an epic meltdown.

 

Amazon | Amazon UK | Kobo | iBookstore | Goodreads

I hope that your story, and the stories of all nano participants make their way out into the publishing world. There has never been a better time to be a writer. The opportunities are huge and chances of getting a publishing contract are never better. I’m always happy to lend help and advice where I can. Stop by my blog and leave me a comment if there’s something I might be able to help with…

Huge thanks for having me.

Caitlyn can be found online at Caitlyn Nicholas

and

Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Goodreads:

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Christmas Shopping

by Veronica on December 3, 2012

in Sponsored Posts

This post is sponsored. Ebay gave me $200 to spend at Ebay on Christmas presents and I said I’d tell you about what I bought. I agreed to this because I loathe shopping in-store for things during the Christmas madness.

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I get twitchy taking Evie to shopping centres. Because of all her medical issues, we haven’t been able to vaccinate her yet and on the bad days, all I can imagine is her contracting whooping cough or something ridiculously awful and landing us back in hospital. Plus, not easily being able to get to the shops without Isaac in tow made it even harder.

So I went online and shopped from the comfort of my living room.

Look, I like Ebay. I’ve had good experiences with them, and I’m pretty loyal. I like that I can buy just about anything there that I can’t pick up elsewhere because of the International shipping. Case in point, Evie’s much loved dummies – the gumdrop kind, the only kind that she would actually take, can only be bought through Ebay if you’re an International customer.

I finished up the last of my Christmas shopping last night, through a few stores, but Ebay was nice and easy.

Among other things, I bought Evie these:

And for Amy, I got this:

Isaac missed out on the Christmas round of Ebay (I had him covered already), but his birthday is in January, so I’ll probably be back soon for him.

The images should all be links, in case you’re also interested. I did buy other things, but they’re secrets still.

It was an easy way to do everything, especially with small children in tow.

Now my only problem is that I need to get to the postman each morning before Isaac does!

If you buy now, then everything should be delivered well before Christmas. I think the press release said that the biggest day for online shopping is actually December 9, so you’ll even be beating the rush.

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I appear to have broken my filter

by Veronica on November 17, 2012

in Blogging

I spotted the Fake Mamamia hashtag on twitter this morning and wasn’t going to get involved. That is, until I saw a real MM article about some lady who got an all expenses paid trip to Tasmania – a place she thought that she hated, and bagged out plenty. But apparently in this day and age, an all expenses paid trip wins, even if you think you’ll hate the location.

She went on to be ASTOUNDED and AMAZED that she actually (wait for it) ENJOYED HERSELF.

Shock. Horror.

I was offended and said so on twitter.

Then I looked at the #FakeMamamia hashtags and I couldn’t help it anymore, I joined in, because come on, that site SO had it coming. Click baiting headlines, setting women up against each other, hating on people for making different choices, you could argue that Mamamia is all that’s wrong with women’s media at the moment.

It was HILARIOUS. I haven’t had that much fun on twitter in a very long time.

 

 

 

 

 

There were hundreds of fake headlines. It was fantastic.

As I tweeted though, enjoying every single minute of mocking that I did, I realised something: I’ve broken my filter.

I’ve spent the last 17 days writing fiction for NaNoWriMo. I’ve removed the ads from here. I’ve turned down all the sponsored posts I’ve been offered. I (mostly) stopped checking my traffic. I stopped caring.

And I haven’t regretted a single moment of it. I wasn’t tweeting this morning worrying about what people thought of me. I wasn’t crippled by angst over the unfollows I got (and trust me, I checked, I got plenty of those), or about whether I was annoying anyone.

I was having fun, saying exactly what I wanted to say. I didn’t even freak out when my tweet ended up on the SMH [who, incidentally, completely missed the satire of the whole thing, and seemed to think that one single tweet had "caused" it, rather than a buildup over god knows how long] and then syndicated through a bunch of other news sites. Eh, it could have been worse.

Fiction writing has broken my filter*. And it’s awesome.

*I should clarify that when I say my filter, I mean the filter of “oh noes, what will people THINK OF ME” filter. Not that handy one that stops me oversharing about my vagina, or telling hilariously embarassing tales about my 6yo. Also, when I talk amout MM, obviously I am grmbling about the site in general, not about the woman who runs it. No personal attacks occured during my hilarity. Calm down.

 


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Finality.

by Veronica on November 4, 2012

in Blogging,Headfuck

Nathan had surgery on Friday to fix a hydrocele. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mind me talking about his testicles on my blog, but in case you’re worried, I did ask first.

While he was in there, he had a vasectomy. It was a joint decision but…

I wasn’t prepared for how sad this would make me feel.

It’s a good thing; logically I know it’s a good thing. We have three beautiful children and this is our mental, physical and financial limit. Three children and we are so so lucky.

And yet, the emotional side of my brain is still sad. No more tiny babies for me.

Frankly, I would be happy to never be pregnant again. I found pregnancy utterly miserable, but never having a newborn again?

Sad.

In any case, it was the right decision, and I will get over it.

It’s just so FINAL, you know?

In other news, NaNoWriMo is going quite well, and once I press publish on this, I’m locking my children outside* and planning on writing lots more words. For those naysayers (yes, I’ve seen you out there) – yes, it’s 50k hurried words. No, each word that falls out of my fingers is not perfect. I know that there are holes in my plot and timeline that need clearing up later.

But – it takes the pressure off. I’m not expecting myself to write fifty thousand perfect words this month. I don’t expect my end result to be an instantly publishable work, filled with great prose.

What I do expect is that at the end of November, I will have a first draft. Messy and mistake filled, it will be the bare bones of SOMETHING. It will need editing and rewriting – but don’t we expect that in any case?

The pressure of writing 50k words in 30 days stops my inner perfectionist in her tracks. It stops her shouting at me that I may as well give up now, that this is crap. Because I know it’s crap and I’m writing it anyway.

The beginning of something does not need to be perfect. It just needs to BE.

*I kid. Mostly. Unless they start fighting again. That said Amy is sulking because I growled at her and Isaac just tried to bash his two front teeth out. Blood. Everywhere. (He’s eating an ice cream now however.)

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