Looking at 2011

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Probably a dangerous thing to do, given the uncertainties of life.

Still, here’s what is sort of mapped out at this stage:

January to end May:  working on the tourism project, which will probably mean one more trip to Danum, and one or two trips to Fraser’s Hill and to Royal Belum State Park to give training courses.

January to end of December: working on new book, for which I have not yet signed a contract. Tentatively called The Masks of Yedron. Book 1 in the two book: “Hidden Kingdom”.

February: possible trip by younger daughter to Malaysia.

April: Husband’s 70th birthday. Elder daughter planning trip with her family, and – joined by my sister – we will head to Angkor Wat, where none of us have yet been.

April: Trip to Perth, Australia for Aussicon, where I am an invited guest.

August: Publication of Stormlord’s Exile world release.

And that’s it.

2010 in a personal retrospect

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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The year has ended badly, with the flu, and there were some troubles along the way…but mostly it was a good year.

JANUARY
Trip to Queensland for the Aurelius awards. Didn’t win, but it was a great trip. Love meeting up with my editor and fellow writers. Followed the awards with a fabulous birding trip north of Brisbane with Malaysian friends.

FEBRUARY
 The Tainted came out in French (“Corrompue“)
Sold the rights to the Mirage Makers to Germany.
Shadow of Tyr went to reprint in UK.

MARCH
The Last Stormlord was released in UK on the 4th and went to reprint on the 11th. It was selected as Book of the Month by the book chain, Waterstones, in UK.
The Last Stormlord released in the USA.
Stormlord Rising released in Australia.

APRIL
Went to UK  to visit younger daughter in Cardiff – and was noramlyed by a volcano, which meant staying an extra 10 days. Visited publishers in London.

JUNE
Sold French rights to The Last Stormlord.

JULY
Stormlord Rising released in USA.

AUGUST
Working in the field – Fraser’s Hill.

SEPTEMBER
Worldcon in Melbourne, Australia!
Followed by wonderful trip to Tasmania with sister and friends.

OCTOBER
German translation of The Aware released. “Die Wissende“.
Working in the field – Borneo Rainforest Lodge, Danum Valley. Saw my first pygmy elephants in the wild!
Also went to Royal Belum State Park in Perak – and saw spectacular overflights of Plain-pouched Hornbills.

NOVEMBER
Stormlord Rising released in UK.
Back in the field again, with another trip to Danum Valley, Borneo.

DECEMBER
Handed in the copy edit of Stormlord’s Exile.
Went to Glasgow for Xmas.
Came home with the flu.
Two reprints waiting for me – The Aware has gone to its 9th reprint in Australia! – and the 4th reprint For The Last Stormlord US edition.

Christmas: Glasgow 2010

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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BEFORE CHRISTMAS DINNER
That wooden box-like thing in the corner? It’s a priest confessional.
And that second box-like thing projecting into the room? Another priest confessional
I had been in the room half an hour before I realised it contained a grand piano.
Below: AFTER CHRISTMAS DINNER

It wasn’t Heathrow…

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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We are safely in Glasgow. Flight on time. Minus 7 degrees C when we landed, though, which is a bit of a shock to the system to Malaysian creatures! And it looks a lot like a winter wonderland…trees all white.

Glasgow airport
On the road home
Husband looks out our bedroom window
View out the loungeroom window…

Trilogies – how do you like them?

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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When I was at Worldcon, on one of the panels, I asked two questions of the audience.

The first was this: do you like cliff hangers at the end of a book of a trilogy, enticing you to buy the next?

It was a fairly full lecture theatre, and the audience was split right down the middle – half of them loved them, half of them hated them.  (Since then I’ve seen one blogger write a whole blog post on how awful The Last Stormlord was because it didn’t “finish” part of the story.)

And the second question: Do you like trilogies that come out one book every month? Would you happily buy them this way?

Most people said yes. (The problem is more that authors can’t write a book a month…*grin*)

So what do you think?

And on quite another matter: I am now at the airport, waiting for a flight to Glasgow. Any bets on whether there will be too much snow for the plane to land?  The Noramlys are travelling! So far this year we’ve had two volcanoes… what will noramly us this time, I wonder?

Some stats for writers seeking an agent

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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These sobering figures from Pub Rants, the blog of an agent, Kristen Nelson, from Denver, U.S. – the stats are for 2010.

9 new clients taken on in 2010 (for two agents)

36,000 number of queries read and responded to (around 120/day)

98 full manuscripts requested and read

839 number of sample pages requested and read 

 Think about this. Of 36,000 hopeful writers, exactly 9 had their dreams answered. That is 0.025%. Or one in every 4000. And they still haven’t been accepted for publication…

Some years back, when I was hunting for an agent and/or publisher myself, I remember reading the statistic for one large publishing house, and it was rather similar. They took on 1 in about every 4,000-5,000 mss they received.

When I consider stats like this, I feel blessed that I am one of the lucky ones. Sure, I worked hard, but so do a lot of people.  Sometimes I take a deep breath, and think of the little girl who decided around the age of eight that she was going to be “an authoress”, and wonder just how I got here. And I still have reason to be grateful: you guys who are reading my books (and not stealing them from free torrent sites) are keeping my career alive.  Thank you.

You can read Kristen’s whole blog post here.