Helena, Oonagh, Nigel & Michelle
Sheree, Patricia, Marie & Heidi
Sunday was spent in a full day workshop with aspiring romance writers as part of Townsville's inaugral Festival of Writing.
Such fun to come out of my writing cave and to meet new people and to talk with them about my favourite subject.
All these wonderful people pictured above worked so hard!!! They created exciting characters and planned powerful conflicts and added an extra jolt of emotional punch to their ideas. And they thought about ways to create enticing, exciting openings for their romantic novels.
I showed them a scene from one of my favourite romantic movies “An Affair to Remember” – the scene when Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant first meet. In this scene, the sexual attraction combined with the playboy hero’s smooth pick up lines and the heroine’s intelligent, composed wariness is a fantastic example of the tug of attraction and the pull of conflict that we all try for in our novels.
Finally, I converted a few more unsuspecting souls to the allure of collage.
In other news... I can stop sweating about my recent submission. My editor tells me that she likes it, but will have some revision suggestions. Today (while I await her welcome wisdom) I’m going to prepare for my part in the Yungaburra Folk Festival next month.
Barb signing books (an author's favourite guilty pleasure) at the end of a big day.
2 comments:
I love An Affair to Remember..one fo my favourite films, they were all so arch and knowing, so sophisticated, yet somehow unworldly compared to today.
It must be great to have a group of people who WANT to learn!! I can see scissors and glue in their future. It is good news about your book, but I do empathise with you!! Whenever I make or do something I am always concerned that it won't be 'right'...99% of the time it is, but somehow 1% of wrongness or negativity can cancel out 99% of positivity!!
I saw "An Affair to Remember" when I was only about 7 years old. My aunt took me to see it, the same aunt who later bought me "Seven Little Australians" and all the "Anne" books and I hold her wholly responsible for my love of romantic fiction today.
She's now in her eighties and blind and cannot read my books (alas) but the wonderful "Hear-A-Book" Society in Tasmania have put several of the books onto tape, so she and others like her can at least listen to them.
Strange as it sounds, 2paw, I'm actually quite pleased to be getting revisions for this book. It's to be part of a trilogy with the wonderful Liz Fielding and Jackie Braun and I want it to be as good as it possibly can be, so I welcome any opportunity to improve it. Sometimes, by the time you get to the end of the book, you can't see the wood for the trees and it's great to get an editor's perspective.
Post a Comment