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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hi, I'm Elle. I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm the mother of two young adults, the wife of an entrepreneurial gamer and the Queen of Unfinished Projects. This blog will contain poems, short stories, possibly photos and book reviews if you're lucky, and my thoughts on a variety of topics. Hope you enjoy it. |
Write about someone who truly moves/touches/inspires you. Do you know them personally, or admire them from afar? What do they do that makes them special? ~ "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  Last night I went to a Q&A and book signing by Nalini Singh. It was held at the Epsom library, and it was to celebrate the release of the twelfth book in her Guild Hunter series - Archangel's War. I was first introduced to Nalini Singh by LostGhost: Seeking & Learning  actually. I had the chance to see Nalini at the Auckland Writer's Festival in 2015. I was curious about this author who had made a very successful living writing paranormal romance...from New Zealand. It's hard for New Zealanders to break into international markets, regardless of profession. There aren't many internationally successful New Zealand actors, musicians, artists or authors. Yet Nalini had done it. Very few people in New Zealand know who she is (she's far from a household name here - no one in my office had heard of her) and yet she's wildly successfully. She's been on the New York Times bestseller list multiple times and has published more than 40 books. Her books are regularly top-featured on Goodreads and Amazon, and she's won a number of industry awards. In other words, she kinda has my dream job.  When I saw Nalini at the Auckland Writer's Festival, I hadn't read any of her books. I found her reasonably interesting, and I asked her a question about how she manages to write in an 'international voice' as opposed to a New Zealand voice. I won a copy of the first book in the Psy-Changeling series for asking that question. I ended up buying a copy too, and getting both of them autographed, and sending one to Laxmi. I have since read the first eight books in the Psy-Changeling series. It's really good, but I'm kinda stuck on book nine. I know I need to read it to move on through the series because there's an overall story arc I need to keep up with, but this one book is not wowing me. I even tried switching to audio but no such luck. So I've stalled a bit there, although I do want to continue the series. There are currently eighteen books in that series, so I'm only halfway through it. The Guild Hunter series though. Oh my god, I love it. When I was commuting to/from work by car I switched to audio books, and the narrator for this series is AMAZING. It's an international cast of characters and she does a fabulous job of the accents. I just adore Illium, and part of that is because of how this narrator voices him. She gets all his personality across as well as his English accent, and it's just brilliant. The twelfth book in the Guild Hunter series was released last night (although I'm still waiting for my audio book version to be released) and I can't wait to read it / listen to it. Nalini said to re-read the last chapter of the previous book, so that's what I'll do tonight, and hopefully I'll get the new one tomorrow. This time around I found Nalini much more interesting, and I'm sure that part of that is because I'm more familiar with her work. Some of the questions and answers I remember (although obviously not verbatim) are:  Would she ever release any of the first eight (!) books she wrote that were rejected by publishers? She said no, as she's changed and grown too much as a writer since then.I was a bit flabbergasted to realise that it was her ninth completed book that was first published. Wow. That's dedication. Very impressive. Which famous authors did she fangirl over and had she met any of them? She said she'd met Christine Feehan, Nora Roberts and Jude Devereaux, all of whom she'd fangirled over. She also mentioned that she'd met Stephanie Laurens and that Anne McCaffrey had been a big influence on her early on although she'd never met her. How many drafts did she typically do per book? 4-7. And I know from Twitter that her first draft is usually dictated to a speech-to-text program.I found her writing process quite fascinating. I loved hearing about it, and found it really inspiring. It really makes me want to give "October Novel Prep Challenge" a go again this year and then do NaNoWriMo. But... I don't have a good idea! Unlike Nalini, i don't have characters and stories clamouring for me to tell their tales! Does she prep her stories? No, she preps the overall series arc, but not the individual stories within the series. How does she come up with her characters? They just introduce themselves to her in her mind and she writes them. She doesn't consciously 'create' them. When will we get Illium and Aodhan's story? She can't say anything without giving away spoilers but read Archangel's War. Does she feel pressured by fans to deliver certain stories or books about certain characters? No. You can't please everyone, so it's better just to write the stories that are ready to be told. Where does she get the inspiration for the designs on the angel wings? From birds, butterflies and the angels' own personalities. How long does she wait between finishing one book in a series and starting to write the next book in the same series? At least 6 months. I bought four books. I bought a copy of Angel's Blood, which is the first in the Guild Hunter series, for myself. Now I have signed copies of both the first books in the two main series. I also got a copy for Kit  because I think she'll enjoy that series. Those were the last two copies they had of that book, so I got a copy of the first one in the Psy-Changeling series for Grateful Jess who said she was keen to read some of Nalini's paranormal romances. I asked Mum where she was up to in the Guild Hunter series and she said she couldn't remember but that she did enjoy them, so I bought her the new one - Archangel's War - to prompt her to catch up on the series.  I was able to get them all signed, so that's good.I left feeling quite inspired. Now if I could only come up with a bloody idea for my own story, I'd be away! |
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