Fae. Romance. Shenanigans.
I'm excited to announce that I'm part of an anthology of fantasy romance fairytale retellings releasing later this year. This is my first time writing a short piece and participating in such a group project, and I had a ball (heehee) of a time doing it. More details on my own story to come. There… Continue reading Anthology Announcement!
This is my write-up of the notes I took during a session on Productivity & Balance given by Nalini Singh at the Romance Writers of New Zealand 2021 conference in Wellington. As such, her actual words have been paraphrased and filtered through the chaos labyrinth of my own brain, so you should attribute all the… Continue reading Productivity and Balance: Conference notes
So, The King of Faerie is the last book in my Stariel Quartet. Well, only mostly, as it turns out. Whilst The King of Faerie (Stariel #4) indeed wraps up Hetta and Wyn’s story and the main series arc, I found in writing it that there was another character whose story needed a bit more… Continue reading The not-quite end of the Stariel Quartet / An announcement
In 2013, a friend dragged me along to the national NZ science fiction and fantasy convention, which that year was held in Wellington. My only knowledge of conventions up to that point came from American TV shows and movies; these had not prepared me for the NZ experience, which is much, much smaller (think around… Continue reading CoNZealand: My first Worldcon experience
It feels longer than a year. Self-publishing effectively involves starting your own small business - on top of the actual writing and, in many people’s cases, including my own - on top of the full-time day job and general detritus of life administration. Piecing together stolen moments - from lunch hours and evenings and weekends,… Continue reading One year of self-publishing: Highlights
How do you hook a reader at the start of a book? Slow beginnings are something I feel I'm a bit prone to if I'm not careful (true story: The Lord of Stariel first draft originally had a whole 'nother chapter before Chapter 1 that got cut during rewrites), so I was particularly interested in Sophie Jordan's… Continue reading Writing hooky beginnings: workshop notes
I headed off to Christchurch last weekend for my first-ever Romance Writers of New Zealand (RWNZ) conference.
A bit of preface: I wrote most of this blog post aaaaages ago but never got around to finishing it. However, this week I discovered a new FB reader group called Romantic Fantasy Shelf, which has been set up by a bunch of indie authors and is focused on secondary-world Romantic Fantasy / Fantasy Romance… Continue reading Fantasy Romance vs Romantic Fantasy: Is there a difference between these subgenres?
It's currently the heart of winter, which in Wellington means cold rain and wind. Lots of wind. The cats have become increasingly snuggly i.e. interested in sharing body warmth. I feel the cold easily. The ambient temperature of cafes has thus become even more important to me than usual. For this reason, I've shifted my… Continue reading Writing in Cafes Review: Verve Cafe
AJ Lancaster 