This is a blog tour.
A what?
It’s a kind of blog chain letter, in this case, for authors. But it’s a lot more fun than a chain letter because you get to talk about yourself and then you get to plug your friends, which is a great thing to do.
This particular blog tour is about writing. I was invited to do it by the lovely Sandie Docker, who I met recently at a writing course and we shared a moment around being at the querying coal face. These moments are so important when querying because otherwise you feel like you’re a lonely crazy soul slogging up the mountain, when in fact there are lots of other crazy people slogging up the rejection mountain towards Success. You can read her post here.
So, here are my answers to this blog chain letter:
What am I working on at the moment?
I’ve just finished writing and editing to within an inch of its life an adult science fiction novel titled Biohunter. It tells the story of an arse-kicking, sassy, tough, and not always entirely likeable woman called Niobe, who is my homage to fantastic female characters like River Song (Doctor Who), Buffy, and Zoe Washburne (Firefly). Yep, there’s my nerd credentials people. Read ‘em and laugh.
Orphaned at a young age, Niobe joined the Guild of Biohunters to help other victims of the constant, brutal biological warfare over resources. Biohunters are neutral players but when Niobe is framed as the source of deadly new weapons wreaking havoc across the north-east, she faces the fight of her life to prove her innocence, avoid execution, and protect the people she has come to love as family from a rising and ruthless new power.
I’ve also started work on an adult urban fantasy based on the Greek mythology tale of the kidnap of Persephone, but set in modern times. I’m having a whole lot of fun playing with that one.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I like to think that I’m writing a female character who’s a little unconventional in that she’s flawed, impulsive, quite self-centered, defensive and hates playing by the rules. And of course, she’s strong, she’s sexy and she’s got sass in bucketloads. Basically, she gets to say and do all the things I wish I could say and do!
There have been some great articles written recently about the fact that the ‘strong woman’ character is getting a little tired, so I like that Niobe has some rough edges and isn’t some kind of heroine.
It’s also different in that I’m portraying a post-climate-change, resource-starved world that isn’t apocalyptic. In fact it’s strangely utopian, apart from the fact that people are using hideous bioweapons to fight over what resources are available.
Why do I write what I do?
Because I love science, science fiction and fantasy. They are my favourite genres to read so naturally that’s what I want to write. Also, being a science journalist, I come across heaps of interesting stuff in my day job that I can then incorporate into my fiction writing.
How does my writing process work?
I’m still relatively new to this game so my fiction writing is fairly chaotic. Biohunter was a seat-of-the-pants effort until about 30,000 words in, when i realised I had no idea what happened next. Then I had to go back, plot the whole thing out, and then I had a roadmap to follow to the end (with some adjustments).
With the new book, I have a very rough outline and have been trying to map it out in detail, but I’ve come to realise that there’s only so far into a story I can plot out without actually starting to write and getting to know the characters, setting and story. So I think it will be a case of plot a few chapters, then write those chapter, then plot a few more chapters, then write those chapters. Repeat until book is written.
Up next week:
I’m very excited to have the talented and lovely Eleanor Limprecht up next week on this blog tour. If you haven’t heard her name yet, you will soon. She released her debut novel What Was Left last year to huge acclaim and it has been shortlisted for the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal award.
Visit her blog at www.eleanorlimprecht.com next week to find out how she does what she does.
Bianca Nogrady 