I’m a bit of a hermit crab during winter – I do like to stay at home and be warm and snug in my shell. For me, July has been very social. Last Saturday I went to Bogan Bingo with girlfriends, last night I went to the Bunbury Entertainment Centre with my sister for a Michael Jackson tribute show, and next Friday I have our annual work party end-of-financial year awards night in Busselton. All three events will involve fun music and dancing and reminiscing.
Photo is from the Michael Jackson History Tribute Show Facebook page.
Last night’s Michael Jackson show in particular has me feeling very nostalgic this morning. I had a chance to see Michael Jackson on the History Tour when he visited Perth in December 1996. I didn’t go. It felt like too much money or too much trouble, and so I never saw Michael Jackson live.
It struck me as funny and a bit sad last night in a tribute show that was good fun, but was always going to be a bit kitsch and cheesy – that I’d paid $79 to see a ‘fake’ Michael Jackson, yet I’d baulked in years before about paying to see the real deal.
I think the lesson in this is, if you can afford it, and if one of your favourite performers comes to a venue near you – do whatever you can to get tickets because these performers won’t be there, or won’t be at their peak forever. I’m thinking too of Prince, who toured Perth just a few months before his death earlier this year.
Hubby and I went with friends to see Bruce Springsteen in Perth in February 2014 – and it goes down as one of the best things I’ve ever done; a lifelong memory.
There, a non-writing post – but sharing what’s on my mind this Saturday morning.
Georgina Penney (author of Irrepressible You, my most giggled-over book of 2014) has a new book out this month called Unforgettable You. I’ve been lucky enough to read it already, and I loved it every bit as much as Irrepressible You. The two books are part of a series, but while Irrepressible You was released first, Unforgettable You is actually its prequel. Which order you decide to tackle Georgina Penney is your decision. Just tackle her, soon, with bells on. She’s worth it.
So in Unforgettable You, we have the heroine, Jo, who works on an oil rig off Mauritiana in the glamorous-sounding role of ‘Mud Engineer’… yes, I think that’s kind of different for a leading romance lady, too. So I set out to learn more about what makes Mud Engineers tick on a mission to discover the murky depths of the character of Jo Blaine in Unforgettable You.
I know a little bit about wine, but zero about mud-engineering… so I talked to Anja Dreyer, who has been around oil rigs most of her working life, to find out more. Anja is originally from Perth, and now lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She’s also Georgina Penney’s great mate, and the inspiration for much of Jo Blaine…
Let’s start with the easy one first, Anja. What is a Mud-Engineer? Can young girls consider it a cool job? Mud Engineers, otherwise affectionately known as Mud Doctors or mudmen, design the drilling fluid used while drilling oil wells. They adjust the chemical quantities to give the fluid exact dynamic and static properties.
Cool – definitely. Glamorous – not so much. Although it depends on your definition of the word. It’s exciting, unusual, a little bit messy and will definitely take you to some far flung places.
If you go into a job like mud-engineering, is it pretty much guaranteed you’ll end up working offshore, or in the desert somewhere. In other words, somewhere highly remote and not particularly scenic? There’s a joke in the oil patch that the most reliable way to find oil is to be in the hottest, coldest, windiest, wettest or driest place on earth because there’s guaranteed to be oil there. Sometimes you can get an assignment in a decent spot. The day they find oil in the Bahamas, I’m there!
What’s the best joke you ever heard on an oil rig? An old time Driller always writes “Fucking the dog” on the books whenever they are on down time. The Tool Pusher tells him they have a new secretary in the office and she’s real religious so don’t be writing that anymore.
The Driller starts writing “Chasing the dog” instead. This goes on for a while. One day after being down for a while he’s in a hurry and forgets. He writes “Fuckin the dog”.
A few days later the Pusher brings out the pay cheques. The Driller opens his and inside is a note from the secretary. It reads “I see you finally caught that dog.”
Have you ever had to tell a six-foot something 100-kilo something roughneck, that he’s fucked something up so severely, you don’t know how he ties his shoes in the morning? “Billy-Joe-Bob, you’re an idiot every day of the week, why can’t you just take one day off!” But seriously, sometimes it’s easier to just stare at them with an intense look of disappointment on your face. I dunno know why that works so well. Maybe I just remind them all of their mother. Apparently my new nickname around here is Mama Bear. As in ‘don’t piss off the bear’. I’ve also been affectionately known as ‘Dragon Lady’ and ‘Iron Maiden’.
How many women are there (on average) working on an offshore oil rig? And how many blokes. Any idea of the ratio? Yep. Usually there is around 100-120 people on an average offshore drilling rig. Of that, maybe 4 or 5 are women. And that’s quite high compared to when I first started in the early 2000s. Back then I was the only woman.
Do the blokes really look like Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Owen Wilson in Armageddon?
Willie Robertson
They usually look more like Willie Robertson from Duck Dynasty. But after 6 weeks offshore, even that starts to look good. That’s when you know you need to get off the rig. Like, right now.
In Unforgettable You, Jo has to share a room with one of her male colleagues? Could that really happen? Yep, there are a limited number of rooms on a rig. They will usually try to have all the girls in one room, but if there’s an odd number, or not enough rooms, then you can find yourself sharing a room with the blokes. I learnt how to sleep with ear plugs, because based on my experience, 90% of men snore. Loudly.
Is the food on an offshore oil rig generally crappy and bloke-ish? (eg lots of grease) If you were vegetarian, or gluten-intolerant, would they cook that for you or would they tell you to get a job in a bank instead? I think they would probably stare at you dumbly and ask what “gluten” is. The food is generally decent and there’s a lot of it, but it’s definitely not haute cuisine. And the quality is indirectly proportional to the amount of time since the last supply boat came by. 1st day: steaks. 2nd day: stroganoff. 3rd day: stew. 4th day: pie. 5th day: indeterminate meat in a thick curry sauce that hides all flavour.
What would the ultimate worst-day-on-the-job be for an Mud-Engineer? Like, nightmare of nightmares where everything went wrong. Hmm let’s see. Your roommate snores all night louder than any possible decibel level earplugs could block. You get woken up in the middle of the night because your night hand screwed up some simple task. The well starts drinking mud (that’s when the drilling fluid is being lost to the rocks you’re drilling through) so you have to keep building more mud to replace it. Some rig hand flips a wrong valve somewhere and you spill a bunch of mud into the ocean. That’s very, very bad and requires a shit-tonne of paperwork. And then you get told your relief isn’t coming back to the rig and you have to stay an extra week or three. Yep, that would be a pretty bad day.
What about the ultimate best day ever on the job for a Mud-Engineer? The day you go home!
Oil-rig jargon must get fairly suggestive… all that rigging, drilling, piping… can you give us some of the best (or worst) lines/jargon you hear on the job? It’s a zoo on the rig. Everything seems to be named after animals. Cat walk. Monkey board. Dog house. Pipeline pig. Donkey dick. Then of course there’s all the ‘technical’ terms related to the well. Somebody once told me an oil company discovered a field and named all the wells after senior executives’ wives. But when they drilled the wells they were all found to be dry and tight (yes, those are actual terms used to describe wells).
How do mud-riggers like to let their hair down at the end of a shift (like when they hit dry land or home)? Get drunk. Very, very drunk. Which isn’t hard when you haven’t had a drink in over a month.
Me? First I would take a really, really long shower or bath, wash my hair twice, loofah till my skin was red, wash my hair a couple more times for good measure, de-hairify. Sleep for about 16 hours. Eat some real food. Walk around naked, because I could. Sleep a bit more. Wash my hair again. You get the picture.
If you just arrived back home after your five-week work stint, and you discovered your house-sitter had kind of sub-let your house to a mate because they thought you were still away… What would you do to get back at the house-sitter? I think Jo’s reaction in the book is exactly what my reaction would have been. I would be too exhausted to even argue. When you get back from a month offshore, you are bone tired, and all you want is space, peace and quiet and to just generally be away from people. I probably would have gotten a hotel room until I felt human again (which usually took about 4-5 days) then I would have had a very serious talk with the house-sitter.
What do mud-engineers dislike (i.e. it makes their job harder)? Trainees. Actually, no, we get paid extra if we have a trainee because it means you get woken up a lot and will usually work 20+ hours a day. I would really hate it if I had to work with someone that had just been promoted from trainee (so I didn’t get the trainee pay anymore) but they were so stupid I still had to work 20+ hours a day because they couldn’t do anything on their own.
Geologists. Because everybody on the rig hates the geologist. Sorry to any geos out there, but it’s the truth.
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever accidentally overheard blokes speaking about on an oil-rig… like if you’re in the canteen and they’re talking all blokeish within earshot? I once walked in on a group discussing the finer points of donkey sex. The weird thing is they didn’t stop when they saw me. That’s when I realised I had truly become “one of the guys”.
Which celebrity would you like to see cast as a female mud-engineer in a movie? Well it depends if it’s going to be a realistic movie, or a Hollywood blockbuster.
If NASA arrived at your oil rig and said there was a meteor that was going to demolish the earth and with one week’s training, they needed you to join a hand-picked team (led by Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck) and fly up to land on the meteor and drill a hole in it to set off a nuclear bomb and thus save the world… would you put your hand up? Yes. Because I know that there’s no way blowing up that meteor would have saved the earth and I’d rather die quickly in space than slowly on Earth. (Hey, I’m an engineer, we’re known to be overly logical!)
What do you think is sexy about female oil-riggers? They are capable, take no crap from anyone, usually in pretty good shape (it’s a physical job), and they know what they want and how to get it.
How do you feel thinking that a book character has kind of been ‘moulded’ on you? I feel absolutely honoured. George always told me I lived a very interesting life, but to me, it felt normal. It still does now. Seeing it in print, I realise I have been lucky enough to see and do some amazing things, and for that I am thankful.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about mud-engineering, Anja? Not really. There’s a reason George is the writer in our friendship. She has the talent for words, not me!
Thanks heaps for being part of it! No worries, thanks for asking!
Now you tell me: having read a little bit more about Anja and her life as a Mud Engineer… can you imagine how much fun it would be to read an entire book with a main character based on her?
Unforgettable You is brilliant. It is out on May 15. I gave it 5 big schmacking gorgeous stars… you can read my review here.
Way back in the time, (I mean – it was last year wasn’t it? That’s forever ago), Cate Ellink and I met when we were both tagged by Jenn J Mcleod in The Next Big Thing. Cate, Kerrie Paterson, Allison Tait, Jenn and I, called ourselves The DIGRITS. (Dang. I got roped into this sh*t). A great friendship formed.
Cate has a wonderful blog. I’m a very regular visitor because I love the raw honesty one finds there; plus it’s a blog where I learn something. On Sundays, Cate reviews a book she’s recently read. On Wednesdays, she reviews the local wildlife. (This is where I learn things – her science background comes through and there’s great pictures and information about spiders and cockatoos and lizards and bugs and… you know, the stuff one finds in a backyard). Then there’s Phallic Fridays… I suspect Phallic Fridays get lots and lots of traffic, but few commentators… probably because it poses tricky questions about fetishes and fantasies and menages and penis size and… ahem… if it was a coffee table book, Cate’s blog would be kept under the table.
I also, right from the outset, loved Cate’s writing voice. She’s a first person writer, which is a style I love. I’ve seen snippets of Cate’s writing on her blog. Not long ago she posted her entry to the Little Gems ‘Sapphire’ competition – and I loved it.
I wish her every success in the world with The Virginity Mission and I’m so happy that she’s now just weeks away from her first full-length published book! Way to go fellow DIGRIT! (I am also SO very happy that I get to post her incredibly gorgeous cover on my blog… phew… is it getting hot in here??)
LM: Would you please share with us: The very first draft of the opening paragraph of The Virginity Mission, compared with how it looks now?
CE: I struggle with opening paragraphs. So when I write, I write whatever comes into my head. Then for the next year or so I fuss and bother trying to turn the mess I’ve written, into something readable – with a worthy opening! Finding how my story starts is never easy and takes me ages to get it right – and even then I’m not sure it is. So here’s the mess I made of The Virginity Mission…
August 2011:
Being a twenty-one year old virgin is not something to skite about. Which is why I keep it secret. No one need know about my non-existent sex-life. I have a heap of male friends, so no one suspects. At least, I hope not. This trip’s my big chance to break the curse. A holiday romance is perfect for bursting my cherry. Opportunities should be rife – a bushwalking trip, in mixed company, in the remote Daintree rainforest. If I can’t lose my virginity on this sort of trip, I have no hope at all.
What’s wrong: she sounds desperate, not really likeable. It’s all telling.
October 2011:
The first evening of the expedition a meeting’s called and we’re briefed. The Army will be giving vehicular support. There’s a murmur of appreciative female voices before we’re instructed that these men are not part of the expedition. They’re here to work not mingle. It doesn’t bother me. I’m looking to lose my virginity and any one of the sixty expedition men will do.
The rest of the briefing’s fine, the stuff I expect, until the National Parks and Wildlife Service guy gets up to give his safety talk. When someone calmly states, “If you’re three days from base camp and you get bitten by a snake, you can kiss your ass goodbye”, well, the reality of remote hits home. I’ve bushwalked for years… but I have always been within a few hours walk of civilisation. Suddenly we’re talking about being days walk from anyone. Hell. I was right to make no promises about my safety. My mother tried to make me promise I’d come home in one piece and I could only laugh and tell her I’d try. I was thinking about that piece of me I intend to leave behind – the dreaded cherry – and there’s no way I was telling my mother that! Now it seems there are scary things in the rainforest.
What’s wrong: too much irrelevant back story. She’s still desperate. Still telling.
Feb 2012:
My eyes are drawn to movement as someone jumps onto the back of the truck. I blink. Once. Twice. My stomach and pelvic floor collide. Trouble. Stunning trouble. Shoulders loom from a snug khaki singlet that ripples across his stomach as he moves. Camouflage trousers do nothing to disguise the tightly rounded butt as he bends over to grab the next backpack to stow. The military man is all lithe controlled power. He climbs over the back of the truck holding someone’s gear as if it weighs nothing. Those shoulders are massive bunches of corded strength. His arms aren’t hugely bulging but deliciously defined. A sudden desire to have those arms wrapped tightly around my naked flesh burns my brain. Dear God. I’ve lost my mind.
What’s wrong: People liked this one. It’s more showing. She’s not desperate just appreciative of the view With a little modification, it stayed.
The Published Version!
My eyes are drawn to movement. Someone jumps onto the back of the truck and I blink. Once. Twice. My stomach and pelvic floor collide.
Shoulders loom from a snug khaki singlet that ripples across his stomach as he moves. Camouflage trousers do nothing to disguise the tightly rounded butt as he bends over to grab the first backpack to stow. This military man is all lithe, controlled power. He climbs over the back of the truck holding someone’s gear as if it weighs nothing. Those shoulders are massive bunches of corded strength. His arms aren’t hugely bulging but deliciously defined. A sudden desire to have those arms wrapped tightly around my naked flesh burns my brain. Dear God, I’ve lost my mind.
LM: Love it. Love it. Love it.
LM: What is your greatest ‘lightbulb moment’ in terms of Writing Craft?
CE: I think I’ve struggled with everything about the writing craft, and the more I learn the more I struggle. I spent 20 years working in science. I think it took me probably 10 years to learn the science-writing craft—dull, dry, factual, no colour, no voice, omniscient science style. And even then others were always correcting my stuff. Sometimes it would have more red pen on it than my own words! Science taught me not to be precious about my writing.
The last 5 years, I’ve been trying to un-learn the science-writing craft. And that hasn’t been easy. Show not tell did my head in. POV kept eluding me. Deep POV was too hard to fathom. Emotion nearly crippled me.
I don’t know that any one lightbulb has been greater than another. I just kept plodding along, thinking I had it, then finding the next thing I didn’t “get”. A lightbulb happened, I plodded onwards to the next problem. I’m not sure it will ever end.
LM: What keeps you awake at night?
CE: New people in my head. New stories. Answers to the problems I’m having in the stories I’m writing or re-writing. So many things! But once I’m asleep, I’m hard to wake
LM: If you could choose three items on the list below to take for a week camping in the Australian outback, which three would you pick? (You can imagine never-ending electricity & batteries).
ipod (with all your favourite music)
kindle (crammed full of a mix of reading material. I don’t mind what as long as it’s lots and lots of different things.)
your favourite paperback
your significant other
I will take my chances on there being a gorgeous girl, or gorgeous man (whichever the case may be) to help me pitch my tent
food I don’t have to catch first
wine (you can assume it will always be cold – unless you prefer red)
Nespresso & endless supply of Pods (and George Clooney – no, that’s cheating – no George)
a torch in case the candles go out
moisturiser/cosmetics/hairbrush
change of clothes
mobile phone/internet connection for twitter & FB
Can I have something not on your list? Notepad and pencil (unlimited supply, please). I can’t live without scribbling down random ideas and thoughts, keeping notes, etc.
LM (snorting forcefully): Something NOT on the list!!! The nerve. Here’s a rebel. We’ll have to watch this one.
CE: p.s. I wonder what asking for something else means? I dread the psycho-analysis.
LM: Wondering about the consequences of asking for something else shows you never paid attention when you read Oliver Twist!
LM: My book (out now with Escape Publishing) is called His Brand Of Beautiful. Can you tell me what you would describe as ‘your brand of beautiful’ – in terms of your partner?
CE: Loyalty. Life is tough but if someone’s going to stick it out with you, and you know they are going to, then it makes things easier. My husband’s incredible loyalty to his family was something that really attracted me. He was amazing with his Nan. He’d lived with her and when she was put into hospital and then the nursing home, he visited her every day, sometimes twice a day, for years. There’s nothing like that kind of loyalty.
LM: Tell us the best thing about The Virginity Mission? Who would absolutely love it?
Oh man! I love this cover…
CE: This is such a hard question. I think the best thing about The Virginity Mission, is that someone’s publishing it and Mac and Jason have stopped talking to me now. Their story is done, someone liked it, so they’re happy and gone from my mind. And that’s a great thing – there are too many people inside my head as it is!
The people who’d love this story would be those with a sense of adventure, who like a story about growing up, and who don’t mind explicit sex scenes, but it’s a loss of virginity story, so it’s kind of sweet for an erotic story.
LM: Can you share your favourite 250 words from your book?
CE: It’s hard to have a favourite part in the story after sweating blood over it for years (I’m kind of over it)! This is the scene that started the idea for the whole story, so it’s the one that pops into my mind first, although it happens a long way into the story.
Mac (heroine) and Jason (hero) are in an outdoor spa with two others. Mac desperately wants to get Jason alone to see if he actually likes her (she’s still hopelessly confused).
Watching Jason is sheer pleasure. The top of his chest and upwards is all that’s visible but it’s keeping me occupied. Uninterrupted, huge breadth of shoulders, rounding to strong arms has my stomach turning to mush. I wish I could see more. My gaze roams freely over his face. There’s no embarrassment when he’s not looking. He has tiny lines at the corners of his lips and eyes. A small bump in the middle of his nose. A tiny scar at the point of his chin. But the most arousing thing is the dark stubble running along his jaw, across his top lip, and over his cheeks. I can almost feel the roughness beneath my fingertips as I dream of touching him. My fingers itch to reach over to him.
A foot brushes my ankle. I move my leg, thinking I’m in the way. Moments later, the foot grazes my calf. I jolt. Jason’s still asleep. I’m completely puzzled. Annie and Harry haven’t paused in their conversation and neither look like they’re moving. Whose foot is it?
The foot strokes my leg again, sending goose bumps over all my skin. Surely it isn’t for me? Is it?
My heart’s paused but ready to gallop in an instant. Every muscle is tense. I look at Jason again. His eyes are still half closed but from under heavy lids he meets my gaze. He smiles. His gaze is deep heated passion.
Oh. My. God.
LM: Oh. My. God indeed Ms Ellink. I can’t wait to read The Virginity Mission in June. I’ve pre-ordered and soon it will wing its way through to me!
If you’d like to read The Virginity Mission, you can find out more about it here.
Thank you for coming into Left Field with me Cate! And don’t forget to check Cate’s blog. Sundays. Wednesdays. Fridays. And any other day she has something to say.
Elise K Ackers new book, Ask Me To Stay, published with DestinyRomance is the first in a series of three Elise will publish with Destiny Romance this year. Elise has been on a singing, dancing, blogging tour through April that I must admit, leaves me dizzy just watching! So I am very glad she has sat down long enough to be my guest today!
The author with the best smile in the business, Elise K. Ackers
LM: Would you please share with us the opening paragraph of your current book in at least two stages?
EA: The very first version of Ask Me To Stay:
Death was damned inconvenient. Sure, Bree wasn’t exactly high-stepping it in her modern and somehow feminine casket, but her troubles were over.
Ethan’s were just beginning.
All eyes were on him, despite the occasion. He was neither the deceased nor the widow, yet his existence commanded attention. The rogue brother-in-law, home to offer his condolences after years of neglect. Dean’s kid brother. The youngest son, the youngest Foster.
Ethan thumbed his beer. He knew what they all thought of him. If he couldn’t guess, the locals were kind enough to whisper within earshot. A drinking problem. A falling-out with his brother. Off the tracks, headed for ruin.
It was all true enough.
And the polished version:
Death brought people together. It paid no mind to schedules, to relationships, to distance. And the more senseless and untimely the death, the more people seemed to fracture. Bree Foster, who had so often been described as full of life, was now anything but, and standing in the living room of the house he had grown up in, surrounded by mourners gathered for her wake, Ethan was struggling to believe that his sister-in-law was gone. Here one moment, gone the next – leaving behind a family she adored, and a brother-in-law she hardly knew.
All eyes were on him, despite the occasion. He was neither the deceased nor the widower, yet his presence commanded attention. The reprobated wanderer, home to offer his condolences after years of neglect. Dean’s kid brother. The youngest son, the youngest Foster.
Ethan thumbed his beer. He knew what they all thought of him. And if he couldn’t guess, the locals were kind enough to whisper within earshot. A drinking problem. A falling-out with his brother. Off the tracks, headed for ruin.
Some of it was true enough.
LM: 8 lines from the top of page 88 (yes, I stole this idea, sorry!)
EA:
away from the tree and stumbled the remaining distance. She needed her keys. And she needed to be away from the heartache she had inflicted on herself. Because she couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t stand there and watch Ethan leave her in his dust for a second time.
Sam wasn’t that girl – that girl who didn’t get it. She was smart and independent. She was courageous and she went after what she wanted. But Sam didn’t bounce. When she was hurt, it crippled her.
She had to leave town for a while. She’d come back when he was gone, pick up the pieces and move on. It was the only way to get through this.
LM: What is your greatest ‘lightbulb moment’ in terms of Writing Craft.
EA: I used to struggle with short sentences. It took me a fair while to realise that a short sentence had the capacity to deliver far more punch than a longer, wordier one. That was a real light bulb moment for me – I used to try to say everything at once, amongst too many commas and semi-colons. Not so much now. I’m a big fan of varying sentence lengths now.
LM: Interesting Elise. I feel like I write ‘short’ too.
LM: What keeps you awake at night?
EA: Regrets. Things I said, things I didn’t. Better ways to have said things. But, if I can quieten that voice, then there’s always the crowd of characters jabbering away, telling me their stories. They can be pretty obnoxious about being heard sometimes!
LM: If you could choose three items on the list below to take for a week camping in the Australian outback, which three would you pick? (You can assume there are magical batteries for anything requiring power).
ipod
kindle/e-reader
your favourite paperback
your significant other
I will take my chances on there being a gorgeous girl, or gorgeous man (whichever the case may be) to help me pitch my tent
food I don’t have to catch first
wine (you can assume it will always be cold – unless you prefer red)
battery powered Nespresso & endless supply of Pods (and George Clooney – no, that’s cheating – no George)
a torch in case the candles go out
moisturiser/cosmetics/hairbrush
change of clothes
mobile phone/internet connection for twitter & FB
Which suggests I’m up for a potentially romantic getaway, free from raw food, with a “get me out of here” tweet at the ready, should my castaway mate confess to loving skinny jeans, Collingwood and Vin Diesel films.
LM:Hey! That’s cheating. You did your own psychology analysis! You’re the first guest I’ve had who was ready to take their chances on a gorgeous bloke arriving out of the bush mists… This is a romance site, remember! It could happen! Go Elise I say.
LM: My book is called His Brand Of Beautiful. Can you tell me what you would describe as ‘your brand of beautiful’ – in terms of your current partner?
EA:Thoughtful, sarcastic, clever and generous. Someone who is willing to fight for who and what they want; someone passionate and spontaneous. A leader.
LM: Can you share your favourite 250 words from Ask Me To Stay and tell us why it’s your favourite part?
Kneeling beneath the shower in the tub of the upstairs bathroom, Ethan gripped the new metal bar and surrendered his entire body weight to its mercy. Rowan and Nina watched from the sink counter, their feet bumping against the cupboard doors.
No one fell. Nothing broke.
Rowan and Nina each took a turn holding it. Rowan was more thorough in his testing than his sister, who attempted to use it as a monkey bar.
‘It’s not for playing on,’ Ethan warned. His stern tone made her pause. ‘It’s only for if you need help, do you understand?’
She nodded soberly.
He crossed to the countertop and removed something palm-sized from a supermarket bag. ‘I also got you guys this.’ He held it out to them. ‘Soap on a rope. You hook it around your wrist.’ He demonstrated on a wide-eyed Rowan. ‘You can’t drop it. See?’
Rowan uncurled his fingers and the soap bounced on its rope in the air. He did it again and again before he allowed Ethan to hook the soap over the shower tap.
‘When it gets skinny just ask your dad for a new one, okay?’
The kids returned to their perch and Ethan set about neatening up the wall tiling grout.
His audience was silent and patient. When Ethan was done, Rowan handed him a piece of paper. Ethan thumbed the sticky tape against the new shower rail. Rowan’s WET sign was back at work.
He stood back and admired the job. His heart fluttered when tiny fingers hooked around his elbow.
‘I wish you’d come before.’ Nina rubbed her nose as she stared at the shower.
Rowan nodded.
This is my favourite part because of how real it feels to me, like a scene in a movie. I see the faces of those gorgeous, grieving children; I hear their feet banging against the cupboard door. Their uncle is trying to fix their fractured lives however he can, and my heart goes out to Ethan in this scene. But this section is a real turning point for the three of them. It’s an important moment, and it has replayed in my mind countless times.
The blurb:
When family tragedy brings bad boy Ethan Foster home, he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. In the small town of Hinterdown reputation is everything – and Ethan’s was ruined long ago. Nobody wants him around, particularly not Sam O’Hara, the girl he left behind.
There’s still a powerful spark between them, but Sam is afraid to risk her heart again. And Ethan is hiding a secret that will have repercussions for his whole family. Will the townspeople ever forgive him? More importantly, will those he loves the most find it in their hearts to take him back?
Lilliana Anderson self-published two books in what she’s called, The Beautiful series. A Beautiful Struggle and A Beautiful Forever.A Beautiful Forever is her current release and she’s head down, backside up, on a new novel, Alter, due out next month.
Lilliana and I clicked from the start. How can you not click when two people called Lily and Lilliana each release books with ‘beautiful’ in the title in the same launch month?
When I first ‘met’ Lilliana, A Beautiful Forever was ranking in the double digits for sales on Kindle, and it’s still sitting in the top 50 in the category ‘Coming Of Age’. Consider me uber-impressed! Did I mention she is a mum to four (yes, four) and wife?
Make that: Super-uber-impressed!
She is a fun personality who promotes author-love and ethics within self-publishing wherever she goes. Plus she is the first person I can turn to when I have a Facebook question, such as: How do you get a heart symbol? Answer < and the 3.
In short. Lilliana inspires me and it’s wonderful to have her as my guest today on my infrequent interview post: Left Field With Lily.
LM: Would you please share with us the opening paragraph of your current book or WIP, in at least two stages?
First draft:
I’m standing in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, training one of my regular clients when I look up and see her, her movement is unmistakable. The two years I spent trying to get over her just fell away and I’m taken right back to where I was, wanting her, wishing I could touch her. There’s a pain in my chest when she looks at me and I see the recognition dawn on her.
Final version
Encouraging the sweaty, grunting man in front of me to tuck his knees closer to his chest as he does mountain climbers, I distractedly scan the people and the scenery in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, as I do every time I bring a client here.
LM: What is your greatest ‘lightbulb moment’ in terms of Writing Craft.
LA: I had a big problem with show vs tell. I didn’t quite understand what it was I was doing wrong. Eventually one of my beta readers highlighted a section in the draft for this book and said – ‘Look! Right here. You’re telling me this – I want to see it’ and then it clicked. Hopefully I have the hang of it a bit better now!
LM: What keeps you awake at night?
LA: My three year old! LOL.
LM: If you could choose three items on the list below to take for a week camping in the Australian outback, which three would you pick? (You can assume there are magical batteries for anything requiring power).
ipod
kindle
your favourite paperback
your significant other
I will take my chances on there being a gorgeous girl, or gorgeous man (whichever the case may be) to help me pitch my tent
food I don’t have to catch first
wine
battery-powered Nespresso & endless supply of Pods (and George Clooney – no, that’s cheating – no George)
a torch in case the candles go out
moisturiser/cosmetics/hairbrush
change of clothes
mobile phone/internet connection for twitter & FB(definitely my mobile, because it has music, books, facebook, email, twitter – everything I’d want to stay entertained and connected)
LM: So food, wine & communication. You might be a bit ON the nose, but you’ll be IN the know… (baaad joke).
LM: My book (released in March with Escape Publishing) is called His Brand Of Beautiful. Can you tell me what you would describe as ‘your brand of beautiful’ – in terms of your current partner?
LA: He’s actually sitting right next to me – so I’d better make this good in case he looks over! One thing I find beautiful about my husband is his thoughtfulness. He works in hospitality, and every Sunday he finishes work early and stops off at my favourite coffee shop to bring me a coffee so we can sit and talk for the afternoon.
A lot of the time he produces a piece of paper for me to read. He cuts out articles from the paper that I might like and sometimes he has an idea for a future book that he writes down for me.
For my birthday, he filled a book with story ideas for me to show me how supportive he was of my work.
So that’s what I find beautiful, he doesn’t do grand gestures, because he knows I don’t want that – it’s the little thoughtful things that really matter for me and keep me smiling.
LM: Awww…. he sounds wonderful!
LM: Can you tell me the best thing about A Beautiful Forever? Who would absolutely love it?
LA: Originally I wanted to call this book A Beautiful Redemption (I came across another book with the same name so I changed it) because Elliot, who is the character that I carried over from A Beautiful Struggle, really redeems himself in this one.
We see him come into his own in this book and fight for what he really wants.
Everyone who loved Elliot in A Beautiful Struggle will love this book and so will anyone who loves a good romance about a couple who won’t let anything get in their way. I wrote this book so it could be read on its own, you don’t have to have read the first book to enjoy this one.
LM: Can you share your favourite 250 words from A Beautiful Forever and tell us why they’re your favourite part?
LA: I have a couple of parts that I’d love to share, but they’d really ruin the story line. This is the ‘safest’ of my favourite parts in Elliot and Paige’s story. They are at a bed and breakfast on their last weekend together before Elliot has to fly back to Australia.
A Beautiful Forever is written in a dual point of view – this section is in Paige’s voice.
“I just want you to know that I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you. I want you to know that I – ”
“Don’t Elliot,” I say quickly, cutting him off. “Don’t say anything to make this harder. I’m staying and you’re going. Please don’t try and change that.”
“It doesn’t have to end when I go Paige, you could come with me – or I could come back – or you could come with me and then we both come back,” he argues regardless. “Don’t end this Paige, you know how I feel about you, even if you don’t want to hear it, and I’m pretty sure you feel the same way about me. We can do this Paige; we can do this anywhere you want, any country you want. I just want you.”
Tears are threatening to spill from my eyes as I pull my robe back over my shoulders and close it tightly around me. “Elliot, you can do so much better than me. Why are you pushing this?”
“Because I love you damn it!” he yells suddenly, his outburst scaring the shit out of me as he jumps off the bed and starts to pace the room. I sit there, trying not to cry as I watch him work through his emotions. When he stops and looks at me his eyes are shining as well. “Why won’t you tell me what makes you so sad? Why don’t you trust me enough to love you no matter what you may have done?”
If you’d like to find out more about Lilliana and her books, it’s easy.
A Beautiful Forever comes with a Mature Content Warning.
After ruining the best relationship he has ever had, Elliot’s life takes a turn for the worse and he isn’t happy with who he’s become.
Deciding to spend three months in the UK on a working visa, in a bid to find himself again, he boards a plane to London. During the flight he meets Paige, a fellow Aussie with a closed heart and a lot to hide.
The closer he gets to Paige the more he’s sure that she’s hiding something. Will it be enough to send him running? Or does he love her enough to fight this time?
This is Elliot’s story after A Beautiful Struggle, it can be read on it own but Lilliana says you will have better understanding of Elliot’s character if you meet him in book one first.
Juanita Kees is about to release her second novel, Under The Hood, with Escape Publishing,
which makes Juanita an Escape Artist, just like me! It will be lovely to have His Brand Of Beautiful published with Under The Hood at Escape in the same month.
Juanita is a writer, editor and wonderful volunteer at Romance Writers’ Australia where she pulls together the informative bit of weekly news,
Cruisin’ The Blogs.
Somehow, it seems rather apt to me that a lady known for Cruisin, would come up with a title called Under The Hood. But could Juanita change her own tyre in a crisis? That’s the ten thousand dollar question! And no, I didn’t ask it!
Thank you so much Juanita for being part of: From Left Field…
The name of the game here is bravery! My blog has been about my path to publication, and while a writer can read any number of articles on writing craft, one of the most valuable things to me was reading excerpts, and well, just reading, to see how good writers put all that craft together.
So the first question I’ll ask is:
Lily M:Share with us the opening paragraph of your book as it began and how it is now.
Juanita K: Today I’m sharing from my debut release, Fly Away Peta. The funny thing: not much changed in the opening paragraph. The only change was it originally opened with the line of dialogue.
Peta tossed the cushion she’d been clutching back onto the sofa, irritated. ““No! Absolutely not! How can you even ask, Mark? My daughter is missing! This is not the right time for me to be out there pretending everything’s normal.”
Lily M: Man am I wildly jealous. I don’t know HOW many times I rewrote the first paragraph of His Brand Of Beautiful. It changed and it changed and it reverted and it changed and… need I say more! (Nightmare!)
Lily M: Share with us 8 lines from the top of page 88 (yes, I stole this idea, sorry!)
Juanita K: Peta’s heart felt as if it was being torn apart as she watched him absorb her question. Threatening tears burned at the back of her throat.
A shadow passed over Jaime’s face. What was she trying to say? That she didn’t want him around? “Peta, we need to talk. We need to sort this thing through. Now that this business with Paul is settled…” He broke off as Mark came into the room.
Mark’s expression was dark as he drew nearer the bedside. He placed an arm around Peta’s shoulder and hugged her quickly before releasing her again. “I’m afraid it’s not over yet,” he informed them.
Lily M: Mark is my favourite character in Fly Away Peta. I love how he looks after his sister.
Lily M: What is your greatest “lightbulb moment” in terms of Writing Craft?
Juanita K: Now there’s a tough one! Where should I start? Probably random POV switches that sneaked in when I wasn’t looking. I had to train my brain to spot them. I’m sure a few slipped through the cracks.
Lily M: What keeps you awake at night?
Juanita K: Ideas and scene planning in my head. I have to get up and write them down because I never remember them in the morning!
Lily M: If you could choose three items on the list below to take for a week camping in the Australian outback, which would you pick? (You can assume there are magical batteries for anything electrical).
ipod
kindle/e-reader
my favourite paperback
my significant other
food I don’t have to kill or catch
wine
battery-powered Nespresso & endless supply of Pods
a torch
moisturiser/cosmetics/hairbrush
change of clothes
mobile phone/internet connection for twitter & FB
Juanita K: I’d choose the Kindle and I’d have: Seven Nights in a Rogue’s Bed (Anna Campbell), Cottage by the Lake (Karly Blakemore-Mowle) and The Viscount’s Pleasure House (Suzi Love) loaded ready to go. And I’d pick the battery-powered Nespresso and endless supply of Pods and George Clooney to make coffee for me and look like… George Clooney.
Lily M: Coffee before alcohol. That tells me much! And what’s this about George? From what I’ve picked up along the traps, I think you’re battling Jennie Brumley for prize-winning hubby in romance circles! I’ve been meaning to ask what Gavin got you for Valentine’s day? I know Ms Brumley got a bunch of (you guessed it) Lillies!
Lily M: My book is called His Brand Of Beautiful. Can you tell me what you would describe as ‘your brand of beautiful’ – in terms of your current partner?
Juanita K: My husband can cook, clean and do laundry! I chose well.
Lily M: (I repeat: who needs George!)
Lily M: Can you tell me the best thing aboutFly Away Peta? Who would absolutely love it?
Juanita K: I like to think Fly Away Peta has a little bit of everything. It has romance, intrigue, suspense and ‘real’ issues people deal with every day. The absolute best thing is the cover! I loved it from the moment I saw it.
People who are looking for a story that might not follow all the rules of category romance, will enjoy this story, I’m sure. It might also appeal to lovers of Australian rural romance being set in the small rural West Australian town of Williams.
Lily M: Can you share your favourite 250 words from your book (or WIP?) and tell us why they’re your favourite part?
Juanita K: One of my favourite scenes from Fly Away Peta is when Jaime sees Peta for the first time in ten years:
Dear God, he’d never thought it possible she could be more beautiful than he remembered. Tightness gripped his heart painfully. He swallowed around the lump in his throat.
As he stood at the base of the stage staring up at her, she looked down at him and their eyes met and held. He heard her voice falter slightly as shock registered on her face. She tore her eyes from his and moved away across the stage. Jaime felt his heart plummet from his chest down into his stomach. He didn’t want to feel this way! He should’ve stopped feeling this way about her after all this time. His lips tightened as he took one last look at her and strode from the hall.
* * * *
Peta stared down at Jaime’s departing back, her heart pounding. For a fleeting moment she’d thought her mind was playing tricks on her. Conjured him up as she sang the song she’d written for him. Panic seized her and she heard her voice falter. Desperately she tried to regain her concentration and banish him from her thoughts. She could not get caught up in the magic he weaved again! With difficulty, she fought off the waves of dizziness. She’d known it was a mistake to come back to this town. She’d avoided the place for ten years both dreading and anticipating this moment.
As Jaime slammed through the rear door of the hall, she felt her heart shatter. Part of her wanted to leap off the stage and run after him, but she knew she wouldn’t.
Thanks so much Juanita for being part of Left Field with Lily.
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Lily Malone - Author 