It's Christmas time so while I was busy pumping out my manuscript 'Cardiology', I also consumed myself with a couple of really good Christmas reads to celebrate the holidays. December was a pretty busy one for me with work and writing. My story was rolling so I committed to write more every day. Then when it was done, I caught up on a whole bunch of reading. I'll admit, I'm impressed with the number of books I made it through this month!

Look at all the books I read in November! I know it was only five, but that was pretty good going for me. It has been a busy month for me as I attended GenreCon and spent a lot of time preparing to write my next book. But I've discovered that if I read while doing my daily stretches rather than playing games on my phone, I actually manage to read a lot more books!

​So here's November's book review. 

This weekend I attended GenreCon 2019 with writing buddy Deeanna West. This was the perfect conference for both of us, where I could indulge in all things romance and crime while Dee could follow her passion for magic and fantasy. We had a great time attending a writing workshop with Kate Forsyth, buying books at the Night Market, and attending all the crime and fantasy panels that we could. This was also my first conference as a presenter, where I chatted about writing competitions with a panel of other award-winning authors. We got a lot out of the weekend, as well as cute bags and a free book.

This is just a little snippet about my experience at GenreCon, thanks to the Queensland Writers Centre.

This month was a busy one for me as I settled into my new house, took my research trip to the Whitsundays, and worked on draft two of Reunited. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough hours in the day to do all of that, work, exercise, and read, so I didn't get through a lot of books. But it sure was another month full of romance as I enjoyed some of my favourite authors - Michelle Douglas, Barbara Hannay, and Clare Connolly.

Hopefully, I'll get through some more books in November, but we'll need to wait and see. At least Reunited ​is coming along well though.

When I revived an old idea, Reunited in September this year, I knew a research trip to it's setting Hamilton Island was on the cards. While it is completely possible to write about a place without actually going there, if you do get the chance, visiting your setting can make the world of difference for your manuscript. I learned this during my research trip to Essex, England, for Rivenhall Manor. So considering Hamilton Island is only a short drive from my home in Townsville, there was no excuse. I had to go!

I haven't read a lot of books this month because I spent most of my time writing the first draft of my category romance 'Reunited'. I did very well, completing the 50,000 word draft within about 5 weeks, so it's no surprise I didn't get much time to read! But the draft is done and the trip to the Whitsunday's for post-draft research is booked, so I've had a very successful month on the writing side of things. Therefore, this post is going to be a short one.

In August, I participated in the MS Readathon for the first time since I was a kid. Mostly because it's a great cause, of course, but they were giving out free t-shirts! And yes, I fit kids t-shirts. But kids must be big or something cos I got a kids size 10 and it's big on me. But never mind! Free t-shirt and a lot of incentive to read!

I'm still binge reading category romance, and I'm becoming a HUGE fan of Michelle Douglas! Just loving her books, so there were plenty of them on the list this month. But I did want to read some single titles too. I started off really well, but after attending the RWA Conference and getting stuck into a new project, I'll admit my reading did drop off a little. Oh well, I still think I read more this month than I have any other month this year!

I'm settled into my new house, everything is on the rise again, and that includes writing! Sadly, I'm not good at writing and reading at the same time. After all, there is only so much time in the day and with work plus exercise plus just other general stuff, if I want to write, reading suffers. And vise versa. 

This month I've poured myself into reworking an older but favourite manuscript into a category length romance as well as writing two short stories. However, around that, I've also managed to catch up on a lot of reading and have decided to indulge in a lot of category romance.

​So here is July's book review.

Thanks to the North Australian Arts Festival and Townsville's Festival of Stories, I spent the weekend attending four writing workshops with amazing thriller fiction writer T.M. Clark.

Having recently lost a lot of motivation, myself, and my voice, I attended these workshops with the hope to find these things again. And I'm happy to say, I'm back on track and it's full steam ahead!
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So, this piece is just a little bit about what I learned over the weekend and how I plan to take charge.

I read a lot in June, however, as I moved house and no longer have a treadmill, my reading time did get absorbed by walking out on the streets. But never mind. Health comes first.

I managed to read some great books while tucked away in my new old Queenslander home. My reading this month was quite diverse as I caught up on some of my freebie ebooks, discovered new authors, and absorbed some new releases.