The G20 arrives Down Under to my sleepy little city of Brisbane.

Hello there!

The things you do to procrastinate when you're taking part in the NaNo challenge. I've been meaning to change my blog URL to something more sensible like my name and it just couldn't wait. So now I've botched up everything until the FeedBurner redirection kicks in. 

If you are sweet enough to have me on your blogroll, please change the old URL to the new one. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I don't want to miss your visits (I know, I should have thought of that before I started messing around).




OLD blog URL: http://laussieswritingblog.blogspot.com.au
NEW URL for same blog : http://dencovey.blogspot.com

I lost my whole blogroll when I made the change. Too silly of me! So if you don't see your name on my blogroll, I am in the business of reinstating you. Give me a nudge if you wish.


G20 INVASION BEGINS – 7 DAYS TO GO

My city Brisbane is just a big country town of two million+ people. So why all the big guns are coming Down Under for their G20 meeting is beyond most of us. It's rather unsettling having images like this on the front covers of our local newspapers. We've already noticed a few changes to our laid-back lifestyle and on Monday we go into G20 lockdown. 

I live in the Red Zone, only a few hundred metres from the Exhibition Centre where the meetings are taking place. All sorts of restrictions are in place. Roads are closed. Barricades are up. Getting into the Inner City will be a pain.

Seeing the face can only be covered for religious reasons, protesters are dressing in black burqas as they demonstrate against capitalism seeing that 80% of the world's economy is represented at the G20. So they will be using their smart phones, iPads etc, all products of capitalism to record events.

Lawyers are going to be everywhere on the lookout for any unfair treatment of protesters. Not sure what good that will do as police and military have been granted special powers during the summit.

Of course egos will be through the roof. As you may/may not know our, um, rather silly Prime Minister Tony Abbot didn't want Putin here as he believes he's behind the shooting down of the MH17 Malaysian Airlines plane (I agree with Abbot on this one point and so do most Australians). 

Of course, more powerful politicians than Abbot have said Mr Putin must come and Abbot must desist in his threats to 'shirt-front' Putin, whatever that means. 

So dear, sweet little Brisbane has had to import police from all over Australia and even New Zealand for the event as there's not usually that much criminal activity taking place. Police numbers will be complemented by the Army. They will be needed as we're told that if we drive into the Inner City (which I have to do Sunday night) our car will be searched by 6 police or military and if we have any of the banned items on the 'restricted' list, we will be in big trouble. So I'd better leave the eggs and cans of food at home.

So, this week will be different for me and a lot of other citizens. I will be teaching from home as the State Library is closed as it's practically next door to the power centre. But there are some positives--lots of shows and light displays. Must get out and take some pictures, maybe for next post. The city is always lovely at night. Now it's even lovelier.

• What's on your agenda this week? Any excitement your way?
• How's NaNo going if you're in? I'm limping along.

Helen Lacey welcomes us to Crystal Point, near the Great Barrier Reef - horses, beaches and her latest book.

Hello everyone!

It's no secret that I harbor a desire to be published by Harlequin. I know what hard work it is, so I marvel at multi-published Harlequin authors, and I marvel that I rub shoulders with several here in little ole Queensland. One such is Helen Lacey, who hails from a paradise very close to the Great Barrier Reef.  I've invited her here today to tell us about her latest Harlequin romance penned from her own little paradise.



Now I know this is a long post, so flip through and read what interests you...

Hello there Denise!

Welcome to Crystal Point!

Of course, Crystal Point doesn’t really exist.....but it is the main setting for the books I am currently writing for Harlequin Special Edition. It’s a small town with around eight hundred residents that sits at the southern most point of The Great Barrier Reef. It has a beautiful beach, a fabulous walking path that runs for a several kilometres along the shoreline and is surrounded by sugar cane, sweet potato and macadamia farms. You can see dolphins and turtles in the rocky shallows and every year whales frolic and breach a hundred metres from the shore.

It’s a little piece of paradise…and lucky for me I have lived there for seven years.

Of course, it’s not really called Crystal Point. But it does sit at the southern tip of The Great Barrier Reef. At it is surrounded by farmland and has an incredible constantly changing landscape. The cane farmers are harvesting at the moment and the sweet scent lingers in the air for days after a harvest. Strawberry season is just finishing and lychee season will be upon us soon. There are produce stalls spotted along the roadside and not too far away a flower market every Friday. There’s a kiosk and small general store and a caravan park that bulges at the seams during school holiday times.

We found this little town by accident – we were visiting a friend and fell in love with the place and a few months later a sea change ensued.  Regrets? Not one. I love that I can set my books in a place that is so special to me. Since moving here I’ve been able to pursue my passion for horses once more, cultivate a vegetable patch that actually thrives and sit out on my deck in the evenings and look out at the ocean. I still get a kick out of waiting at a crossing for a cane train, or having to round up the neighbours cattle when they escape into our horse paddock.

So perhaps I should say that Crystal Point does exist, I just changed the name. And like in my current release Once Upon A Bride, there is a strong sense of community and friendship in the small town. People say hello. Neighbours know each other’s names. It’s not for everyone, but for this romance author, it’s a place where ideas flow and where you can visit anytime in the pages of my books.

Thanks for sharing your paradise with us today, Helen. Here is a link from a 2013 interview I did with Helen where she shared very touching stories of her childhood travelling around Outback Queensland and how her father imbued in her a love of books. You can read her USA Today interview here. 

About the Author:
Helen Lacey grew up reading Black Beauty, Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie. These childhood classics inspired her to write her first book when she was seven years old, a story about a girl and her horse. Her parents’ love of travel meant she saw much of the world in those early years and she feels fortunate to have had a diverse and interesting education over several continents. She continued to write with the dream of one day being published, and becoming a Harlequin Special Edition author is the realization of that dream. She loves writing about tortured heroes—both cowboys and CEOs—and heroines with gumption who finally get their men.
From Welsh parents and a large family, Helen lives on the east coast of Australia in a small seaside town at the southernmost point of the Great Barrier Reef; she lives with her wonderfully supportive husband, many horses and three spoiled dogs.

Find Helen online:
Website
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Once Upon a Bride
Helen Lacey
Happily ever after…?

When Gabe Vitali escapes to a fresh start in Crystal Point, Australia, the former physician isn’t looking for a storybook ending. For the first time he’s living in the moment. His new five-year plan does not include serious relationships. But he doesn’t anticipate his unavoidable next-door neighbor…and an undeniable attraction.
Bridal consultant Lauren Jakowski wants marriage. She’s just sworn off love and sex! To avoid getting burned again, she’s looking for safe and forever-after. But they’re not Gabe’s to give–for reasons he can’t share with anyone, least of all this pretty complication.
Gabe and Lauren don’t figure on a fairy tale. But fate has other plans….
Reviewed by RT Book Reviews  |  Read Reader Reviews
Amazon  |  Amazon UK  |  Amazon Aust  |  B&N  |  Harlequin US  |  M&B UK  |  M&B Aust 

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Does travel make our stories better? Paris, Italy, Hugh Jackman...er...Outback Queensland anyone?

Ah...ever since a family friend kept me supplied with cartons of Mills & Boon novels when I was about 13, I've been hooked--on exotic places. At 13 I wasn't so much thinking about boys, but the M&B stories certainly made me hard to please on that front, (not too many Italian Counts or French Dukes in Oz), but I was more hooked on the novels' settings.

SETTINGS! Yes! These handy little books took me to islands in Greece with sparkling white houses and brightly-painted blue doors dazzling in the sun--took me to lakes in Italy, chateaux in France bursting with vineyards, castles in England, haciendas in Spain. All of these were very exotic to a teenager who'd grown up in country Queensland. My state was only 100+ years old--we'd never build chateaux, our vineyards were well in the future, our 'haciendas' were plain old cattle properties with falling-down homesteads where women cried over lack of water to grow flowers.

So...I couldn't wait to finish my education and hit the road to places unknown...and that's a journey that never ends for me. But coupled with my love of soaking up new cultures, new lands, I find so much inspiration in exotic places that it turns up in my stories, it often is my story. I've just sent off a micro fiction hoping it will be one of 14 chosen to be printed on a cushion at the Queensland Writers Festival. It was influenced by Paris. My LETTERS story still under construction for the current RomanticFridayWriters challenge is set during the war on the Western Front near Ypres, Belgium. (Yep, been to the Flanders Fields, what a privilege!)

No! No! No! I can see you shaking your head--you don't have to travel to find exotic settings--your homegrown setting is exotic to everyone but you, and no one can write about your local area like you can, and I love reading your stories set in the places you inhabit. Look at Kittie Howard and her Louisiana stories. Roland Yeomans and his New Orleans' stories, Joy Campbell and her Jamican stories, just for starters! Love them! Now Harlequin Escape is actually asking for stories set in Outback Queensland! So my state has finally become exotic enough for readers! Nothing like dust, horses, snakes, with a few handsome, rugged stockmen and station owners thrown in, is there? (Think Hugh Jackman in Australia, the movie --okay, had to get him in somewhere. Much better than a foppish French Duke IMO).

Now, what's that picture of Paris bits and pieces doing here?

Those who travel a lot have their favourite places, and as most of you know, mine is Paris. If I see 'Paris' in a book title, or it's mentioned in the blurb, I must have it. Murder in Paris, Lunch in Paris, Rats in Paris Sewers...whatever...Browsing one of the excellent indie bookshops in West End on the weekend (Avid Reader), I see a little gift from Edward Rutherford.

Italy comes a close second to Paris--why do I devour each of Donna Leon's Commisario Brunetti books? Because Venice is the main character. Once you've been to Venice and have lost yourself in the backstreets, the canals and the bridges, reading about these in a great story is the next best thing. I've just picked up her latest, Jewels of Paradise. Looks like Brunetti doesn't feature for once. Okay, how come I can read so much? Well, I don't sleep much, sleep is over rated.

But be prepared to cop flak if you add objects to your settings that aren't actually there. Tourists to Corona, Italy, (the setting for Under the Tuscan Sun), complain vehemently when they can't find the fountain which featured in the touching La Dolce Vita scene in the movie. I've been to Corona, and nup, it's not there! But the villa, Bramasole, is.

So...where is this going? In future posts, I'm going to hopefully snaffle some authors and get them to tell us all how travel has enriched their stories or how they've played their local setting for all it's worth. Hope you'll pop by to hear what they have to say.

Meanwhile, you can also make money by selling your travel stories to magazines. Sometimes they pay money, sometimes they pay with a subscription to the mag, sometimes they gift you with travel-related gadgets or luggage. All good.


What do you think?

• Do you often/sometimes choose books just because of the setting? 
• Do you write books as a result of your travels? Or do you think of a preferred setting then travel for research?
• Do you prefer settings that no amount of travel provides -- sci-fi land, fantasyland, steampunk??