Playing around with character art
As part of re-releasing The Rephaim series in Australia and New Zealand, I’ve been playing around with character art to keep my promos interesting.
I don’t use AI for any form of written content generation, but I’ll confess I’m mildly addicted to the image generation function (which can be hit and miss – and some of the misses are hilarious). And even then, I’m only using it for social media. (I’ll blog separately on my thoughts on generative AI.)
What do you think of these? Any requests for scenes/moments/quotes out of any of the books?
Reflecting on a decade since The Rephaim series
This year, it’s 10 years since Burn, the fourth book in The Rephaim series, came out in Australia and New Zealand.
These books changed my life. Not in a throw-in-my-day-job kind of way, but in the way it enriched my life as an author. After many years of writing novels and amassing a daunting rejection pile, I was finally in print and connected to an audience. That meant writers’ festivals, school visits, meeting other authors and – best of all – interacting with readers.
It was awesome.
From 2012 to 2017, I had a blast – the four books of The Rephaim series came out, were on-sold to the US and UK and I followed it up with a stand-alone near-future thriller, The Undercurrent. It was my most critically successful novel , and I found new readers, but the fans who loved The Rephaim mostly didn’t embrace it (perhaps because Rafa wasn’t in it?).
That was seven years ago and I haven’t had a book published since. I haven’t stopped writing: a contemporary thriller a few years ago and, most recently, the first two books of a new fantasy trilogy. Granted, the thriller was not my best work. I wrote it in the final year of my mum’s life and it was a more of a distraction than a passion project. But the fantasy series is the one I was working on before The Rephaim, and I’m deeply invested. It’s in a very different shape to what it was a decade ago and I think it’s some of my best work.
The Rephaim books have always been close to my heart. I started writing Shadows to entertain myself after a near-miss publishing deal and – as naff as this sounds – I still enjoy reading the series. So, when the books were close to being out of print in Australia, my agent and I reached out to Text Publishing to see if I could get the local rights back. Text Publishing, to whom I’ll always be grateful for taking a chance on me, agreed to the request.
That happened in February this year and I’ve been on a very steep learning curve ever since as I’ve embarked on re-releasing them myself. I’ll blog more on that in coming weeks.
In the meantime, the new 10th anniversary editions of each of The Rephaim books are now available on Amazon Kindle. The new edition print versions (via Amazon and bricks-and-mortar stores in Australia/New Zealand) are not far away and ebooks on other platforms will follow later in the year. All other versions internationally are still available through the usual channels.
What’s particularly special about these new local editions is that the new covers feature original artwork by my talented brother-in-law (and watercolourist) Tony Weston and designs by my talented bestie (and graphic designer) Heather Scott.
I’m hoping the books can have a new lease on life and reach new audiences. Being back in this space has reminded how much I love my creative life – with all its ups, downs, frustrations and triumphs. I’m in the infancy of managing every aspect of publishing a book series myself, of course, and I’m leaning on the wisdom of many who have gone before me – not the least being Ellie Marney and Kirsty Eagar.
Meanwhile…
Meanwhile, the new fantasy trilogy is taking shape, I finally have thoughts on how to step back into the world of The Rephaim, and the TV option in Canada for Shadows is still live.
I’m cautiously optimistic about the future.
But whatever happens, I’ll keep writing.
There’s a better way to stay up to date
As you’ll see by the dates of posts below, I haven’t been great at regularly blogging.
If you’ve found this page, you’re possibly interested in keeping up to date with my writing projects, new releases, musings on life and creativity etc.
I’ve started a newsletter – which, to be honest, hasn’t been much more regular than my blogging. But that’s because I’ve been busy with a few book-related projects (and the day job, life etc.), but I finally have things to talk about, so the frequency will pick up. And by ‘frequency’, I mean every few weeks/once a month. Definitely no spamming!
If so, feel free to click on the button below, which will take you to a sign-on form.
Thanks. 🙂
Shadows is in the catalogue!
Very exciting moment for me today… Shadows is listed in the Text Publishing catalogue for January-June 2012!
You can check it out here: http://textpublishing.com.au/ (And see what other great titles Text is publishing in the first half of next year.) I’m under YA.
(The cover concept is pretty much what the final artwork will be, with a few minor tweakings. Once its finalised, I’ll be plastering it all over this site 🙂 ..)
Official publicity won’t start for few months yet, but I just had to share… Speaking of which, I also did my first blog interview last week with a friend of mine in the UK who’s set up a new book blog as part of her journalism studies. Again, it’s a tad early for publicity, but it was a great experience – and Courtney asked great questions!
You can check it out here (it’s a very good blog and worth visiting regularly): Lost in Fiction
An update on Shadows
A quick update on where I’m at with Shadows (because, yes, this blog is meant to be me posting about my own writing and not just other people’s.).
It’s funny. I can write about other author’s work quite easily, but as soon as I start thinking about posting about my own, I struggle. Part of that issue is my morbid fear of sounding like a tool…
Anyway, some really great stuff has been happening that I want to share, so I’ll get over myself.
I had a quick trip to Melbourne a week ago and had the chance to meet the team at Text. It was everything I’d hoped it would be – and more. Had a brilliant editorial meeting with my editor, who knows Shadows inside and out (it’s always exciting when someone knows your characters as well as you do). We really clicked, and I’m so grateful for the constructive feedback she’s given me.
I met everyone who was in the office, and then had lunch with my editor, along with the senior editor who first loved Shadows (and to whom I’ll be forever grateful) and the lovely publicist who will be spreading the news about Shadows when publicity starts next year. (We’re still on track for a June release.)
When I met up with my sister-in-law afterwards she said I looked like a kid on Christmas morning. (And yes, I know the hard stuff is ahead. And yes, I know I’ll be a wreck when the book goes out for review, and the week it goes on sale. So I’m going to enjoy these exhilarating moments when they come along…)
So now I’m back home, putting aside my first draft of Haze (Book 2 – about three-quarters down now), to work on revisions for Shadows. Structurally, we’re all good, so I’ve got the luxury of time to go back over the prose and make it as tight as it can be. I tend to write quite quickly, which means I don’t often linger over words or phrases. Having the chance to do that now is a real gift. It’s those small touches – bringing in more visual imagery when setting scene, chopping out extraneous words etc. It might only a word here or there, but it makes all the difference to the polish.
In other news, the concept for my cover is almost sorted (thanks to the very talented WH Chong), following a collaborative process involving myself, my editor and my agent. I’m loving the concept and can’t wait to see the final design.
OK. That’s it from me for now.
