Archive for » 2009 «

Dec

I am having trouble in understanding where this year has gone! But here we are at Christmas time again. And here is Rocket, acting as an unwilling Christmas model!

I wish you a wonderful Christmas – full of love and laughter, safe and peaceful. I hope whatever you are doing brings you happiness.

Please, stay safe on the roads. Our small community has been rocked by two car accident deaths, about six weeks apart – I can’t imagine what the families of those two young men must be feeling this Christmas. Don’t let that happen to your family.

I hope Father Christmas is good to you and remember: A child was born, so that we could live.

Merry Christmas and happy new year.

Love Fleur

Category: Family 2 Comments

Dec

Playing again!

Fleur

I’ve started looking at the world differently, since I’m trying to take photos with artistic flair! Not sure if it’s working, but I’ll keep trying… I tend to be a bit tenacious, once I put my mind to something!

These two photos are of our cattle yards. One is of the loading ramp, and the rusty steel one is of the crush. A crush is where we put cattle, to give them their needles or preg-test them. It holds them still.

Anyway, I’ve just picked out small pieces of each and tried to make them look interesting! Let me know what you think!

Category: Country Life 2 Comments

Dec

Water anyone?

Fleur

Yesterday was probably the worst day we’ve had this summer. We hit 44 degrees – the same as Marble Bar. Now there is something strange about that! Marble Bar is renown for being the hottest place in WA and it’s in the far north. Esperance is on the south coast and right near the sea!

We had a total fire and harvest ban, and as the strong northerly wind whipped through the trees, I couldn’t help but feel very apprehensive. That feeling stayed with me throughout the whole day – especially since thunderstorms were forecast for the evening. (Thankfully the bushfire radio stayed satisfyingly quiet.)

I had the sprinklers going most of the day (we’re lucky to have a dam, just for the garden), so our dogs and chooks would be okay, but numerous natives birds, including a couple of baby butcher birds, came to enjoy of the water and have a drink. As I cleaned the troughs out in the feedlot, the birds came swooping from everywhere to enjoy the water.

But it was this sight that made me smile: on the way to the school bus, there were about eight magpies in around the cows feet cooling their heels in the only puddle on the farm! The cows took no notice of them, as the maggies ignored these huge beasts! You can see how hot the maggies were – their beaks are open and they’ve got their wings out from their body.

To walk around, unintimidated, by the cows who could squash them with a single hoof, shows that water was a necessity on a day like yesterday!

Category: Farm animals, Weather Leave a Comment

Dec

Sun Kisses!

Fleur

As the sun sinks at the end of a warm day he kisses the clouds good night. His rays are much softer than the heat he throws in the middle of the day.

In the stillness of the evening, the cows are out for their nightly graze, the magpies singing their evening tune and the Wedge Tail Eagles hover menacingly overhead, looking for their tea.

This nightly glow, as the whole of the countryside prepares for bed, is one of my favourite times of the day.

Category: Mother Nature, Weather Leave a Comment

Dec

The Edit!

Fleur

I love getting the first clean, fresh, pages, back from Allen and Unwin – it looks like a book and is ready to read. It’s like starting again and seeing the book through fresh eyes.

This edit was particularly difficult for me. We were going flat chat with harvest and I had a deadline to have the edit finished by… deadlines and harvest just don’t work.

I spent hours sitting in the tractor, waiting for Anthony to call me over to the header and take a load of grain away from him! It was frustrating when I spent time sitting, waiting, not doing very much, when I had Blue Skies hanging over my head. Then I decided to take the manuscript with me and see if I could read through it while I was waiting! Well, that was an interesting experience!

When I’m driving the chaser bin, I often take a book – there is always time to read – it doesn’t matter if you read the same sentence twice or skip a page – it doesn’t effect your work. Editing a MS does! I don’t know how many times, after getting so caught up in what I was doing, that I didn’t see the signal (auger out from the header), to take a load of grain back to the silos. There were a few terse calls on the two-way, asking if I was intending to help that day!

By the end, there were lots of dirty finger prints all over the MS and a couple of pages that had water spilt on them, when the kids jumped in the tractor for their daily ride. But more to the point, there was lots of green marks that indicated the changes I was making… it was slowly getting done.

It was then a process of transferring everything I’d changed onto an email and sending it back to my editor. I made the deadline and we finished harvest… I’m not sure I want to try doing both of them at the same time, ever, again!

Category: Blue Skies, Harvest, The Farmer's Life, The Writer's Life 3 Comments

Dec

Full moon, an end to harvest and a finished edit!

Fleur

I must say, after a fairly intense three weeks, harvest has finally finished and I, for one, am glad! I love seeing the grain come in and finding out what we’ve produced! But three weeks of 4am starts and after dark finishes, as well as trying to edit Blue Skies, has taken its toll!

I was feeling pretty pleased when I went to sit outside in the peace and quiet to watch the moon rise, complete with a glass of wine! We had finished harvest, I had just hit the ’send’ button on an email to my editor containing all the changes for Blue Skies, so that had been put to rest and how could anyone not enjoy watching this moon rise? It was massive and the light it cast across the country side, was magical.

So now I’ve enjoyed my feeling of freedom, I’m back to waiting! Waiting for my editor to get back to me and for the unedited proof book form to arrive, waiting for the last silo of grain to be cleaned and delivered and waiting for the next pile of jobs to build up! We start today weaning our calves and preg-testing the cows, so the waiting for Blue Skies won’t seem so bad.

But at the moment, I’m just as happy to raise a glass of wine to the moon and enjoy the feeling of not being busy- for a short time!

Category: Blue Skies, Farm animals, Harvest, The Farmer's Life, The Writer's Life 4 Comments

Dec

Five Winners!

Fleur

I hope that the five copies that I’ve given away will make lovely Christmas presents for all who get them!

As you can see from the photo we resorted to the old fashioned method of ‘draw the name out of a hat’! Hayden stood on the chair and held the hat up and Rochelle drew five names out of it!

The people who won are: Regina, Mandykate, Anita, Chantelle Smith & Laura. I’ve been in contact with these ladies and will be posting their books on Monday.

Thanks to all who entered – and please do come back, I’ll be giving a way copies of Blue Skies, very soon!

Category: Books, Red Dust One Comment

Dec

Blue Skies

Fleur

Well, this is the cover for Blue Skies! As you can see it’s fairly similar to Red Dust, but there is a reason behind that. Allen and Unwin are making it easy for you guys to know that the book is by me – you might forget my name, but you should be able recognise the cover as one of my books!

Anne-Marie Ladegaard is a photographer who takes wonderful photos and it’s her photo that is on the front – the windmill, tank, hills and misty morning. It caught my editors attention and the next thing we knew, it was on the cover! How cool is that? You’ll be hearing the story behind the photo, shortly.

The competition for the five signed copies of Red Dust comes to a close on Friday, so if you haven’t entered and you want to get in quick! I’ll get all the books posted off on Monday next week, so the winners receive them in time for Christmas. Click ‘here’ to take to you to the competition.

Category: Blue Skies 6 Comments

Dec

Farmer’s Foe

Fleur

We had some drama in our neighbourhood today!

A fire started just to the back of our farm and was on a neighbouring farm - if you’re a regular visitor, you’ve probably seen me write about my friend Gill who is the world’s most amazing cook! This fire photo is what fronted her and her family today.

Having fought in a couple of fires early in our farming career, I know the intensity of the heat and smothering feeling that the smoke sends out. It’s frightening, no matter how seasoned at fighting fires you are. Having kids now, I don’t venture out to the fire front any more, but the photo of the smoke is what I could see from my side!

The flaming photo was taken by Anthony on his mobile phone and portrays the danger, much better than any of my smoke photos.

Thankfully today was cool even though the wind was a bit stronger than what we would have like to fight this fire which gave the blokes a few scary moments.

One of the best thing about living in a farming community is the way people respond to calls for help. Men jumped off headers and were at the fire within minutes and four hours later things were looking decidedly better. There will be guys that watch fire all night, in case there are flare-up’s, but as of now, listening to the bushfire radio, it sounds like all is ‘under control’.

Category: Country Life, Family, Weather One Comment

Nov

Guest: Marianne Delacourt

Fleur

We are really lucky to have Marianne Delacourt on the Guest Blog, today! She started out writing fantasy, then dabbled with some chapters about a ‘kick-arse’, feisty crime fighter, with an ability to read peoples auras! Loving the characters from the Tara Sharp series so much, she kept writing about them, as well has her speculative fiction books.

Marianne uses the social-blogging network, Facebook, to keep her characters in touch with all of their fans. Tara Sharp has her own page, as does her science fiction character Parrish Plessis, and often blogs about small mysteries and mishaps she has during the week. You’ll often find laugh-out-loud conversations between to the two! Marianne’s thoughts behind this is that:

‘It’s a long time between books. I like Tara, and I’d like to have her around in my life regularly, the way I enjoy catching up with the characters in my favourite TV series every night. I hope you’ll feel the same way.’ (excerpt taken from Marianne Delacourt’s website.)

Today, Marianne talks about writing different genre’s and how to be successful at it.

Her second Tara Sharp book is due out in September 2010 and she will be around to answer any questions you have, if you’d like to leave a comment here.

Hi Fleur fans,

I thought I’d chat to you about switching genres. I’ve been writing and publishing science fiction for five years (and 5 books!) now. Though I love working in that genre, I had a hankering to write something light and contemporary and sleuthy. Probably because my writing world was filled with such tortured characters and mind-bending ideas.

In my spare time (hah!), I started flirting with a new character. I wrote a couple of chapters and found that I was enjoying my flaky private eye and her cast of hilarious friends so much, that I couldn’t stop. It became as addictive as the SF. So I guess, switching genres for me has been like changing clothes – just something you do. I put it down to my very eclectic reading tastes. I grew up on a weird mixture of pulp novels and literary fiction, and I appreciate both equally.

The main thing, if you’re considering doing this yourself, is to make sure you read widely. I don’t believe that any writer can do a genre justice if they aren’t aware what has come before them, and what the customs and idiosyncrasies are for that readership. If you wrote a science fiction novel assuming that you were only person who’s ever written about faster-than-light travel, then you’d be laughed outta town.

On the other hand, I don’t believe a writer should be limited creatively – as long as they approach each project with the same excitement and passion.

Good luck!

Marianne Delacourt (aka de Pierres) www.tarasharp.com www.mariannedepierres.com

Parrish Plessis and Tara Sharp

Promote Your Page Too