Romance Book Contract at Last!

I've just signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press for my first completed romance novel, 'Kincaid's Call'. The concept of e-publishing is still a little strange to me but I'm just so thrilled. I write romance under a pseudonym. Please visit my romance writing website or my romance writing blog to learn more about my first full length book contract. 'Kincaid's Call' is due for release in 2010.


Copyright Lyn Rasmussen 2010: all rights reserved

What is this Art and Writing Blog About?

I've been thinking hard about what this blog's about. It started as the result of a workshop at the Romance Writers group I belong to. I hurried home, set up a blog and ignored it for the next few months.

Writing for Suite101 online magazine has been a fantastic learning experience in terms of bringing me more up to speed with search engine optimisation, keywords and other techie things that I was previously completely ignorant of. I'm not particularly technologically inclined, but these aspects of the internet have fascinated me. The new knowledge has inspired me to make this Art and Writing blog more substantial.

Working via the internet and email is something that could have been invented for my way of working. I like to work alone; I'm not by nature a team person, but the customer-service ethic has always been inherent in my business practice. I like people - I have faith that most people are intrinsically 'good'.

With millions of people online every day, so much scamming and 'get rich quick' schemes out there, and little, or no personal contact, how do you provide customer service with a blog. How do you build a business that's ethical, profitable and provides a service.

Naturally, this blog will promote my own art and writing, but I will also be featuring and promoting other artists and writers, especially in New Zealand, and the businesses and organisations that support their endeavours. This piece on Copyblogger has helped me to clarify what my blog's about.

Romance Writers and Psycho-Drama

On Saturday I made the two-hour trip to Piopio for the October meeting of our romance writers group (pic is Lake Whakamaru where I made a quick stop to take some photos). We met at a cafe called the Fat Pigeon for lunch then moved on to Jenny's home for a most enlightening afternoon. Our guest speaker was a psycho-drama specialist, Ana Namu. Ana demonstrated how we could use psycho-dramatic techniques to explore characterisation. It was a fascinating session. Actually putting oneself physically in the place of your characters, speaking aloud to them and responding likewise seemed to bring those elusive beings out of hiding. A marvellous way to challenge both writer and character to dig a little deeper and find solutions that might not be apparent when quietly thinking in front of the laptop.

The drive to Piopio along State Highway 30 was lovely. Late spring, the countryside glowingly green, old fruit trees with tangled branches growing by the roadside, spectacular views at the top of steep inclines, dips into quiet little valleys. Made me appreciate again how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful country.

Writing romance / Mixed meda art

Drove through beautiful spring countryside up to the little gold-mining town of Waihi over the weekend to meet with other romance writers. As always we enjoyed a delicious lunch and lively conversation about various aspects of writing. Writers in the group are involved in different projects, some writing catalogue and others paranormal, fantasy or single title.

Sandra expanded our knowledge of blogging and shared a particularly good strategy for creating blog topics. Although romance writing hasn't featured largely on my agenda this year I always enjoy our meetings and come away with renewed inspiration. Am now a few pages into a catalogue romance and martialing myself into a new writing routine.

I also brought home the attached mixed media artwork: 'About the Obscure', by Sandra Toornstra, a writer and mixed media artist from Waihi. I ordered the piece from Sandra a few months ago but our paths haven't crossed until now so I was delighted to be able to finally bring my new piece of art home and hang it on my wall.

Another of our members hurried home and set up her own blog. Check out writer Shirley Wine's new blog.

Another fantastic meeting of romance writers yesterday. This time we met in the Waikato in New Zealand's rural heartland. Writer Gracie O'Neil gave a great presentation about critiquing. Lots of questions were asked and I'm sure we all went away newly inspired.

Our chapter of New Zealand Romance Writers is spread out across a large area so the journey to meetings can be quite lengthy - for some, a five-six hour round trip. For me anyway, the effort is always worthwhile and I return home encouraged, rejuvenated and with another layer added to my store of writerly knowledge.

48 Hours of Furious Film-Making!

Where did April go?!

We're now shooting towards the May 8 beginning of the 48-hour Furious Film Making Competition. From 7:00pm May 8 to 7:00pm May 10 a small team led by MovieTime's Layla Robinson will be furiously making a short film. The genres have been posted and if you have a look you'll see they're endless! We won't know until 7:00pm Friday night what our genre will be so it's going to be a fast, furious and challenging weekend indeed! My involvement will mainly be with the screenplay which we have to complete Friday night - an all night session coming up.

Also fast and furious is whitewater rafting. Check out my latest Suite101 story about four whitewater rafting adventures in the Central Plateau.

Romance Writing? I haven't done very much of this at all and I need to get my act together to meet my 23 May deadline of having first chapter of my WIP completed. I thought my life would be slowing down about now, but it's definitely speeding up - hope my brain can keep up with the pace!

Busy day today. Continuing to build up articles for Suite101 - currently writing something about Tirau - the corrugated iron capital of New Zealand. The photo is of the corrugated iron poppies on the cafe where Sarah and I met for a coffee a couple of weeks back to talk about our new roles as co-convenors of the Waikato/BOP NZ Romance Writers group.

No painting done today but managed to fulfil the commitment to begin a new romance novel - just a handful of lines but it's a start! My hero and heroine have names but I can't 'see' them yet. She owns a boutique and he owns the building . . . what might happen to them over the next few months?