Apologies to my followers for the long silence, but things in my personal life have been a bit unsettled of late and there hasn’t been much time, let alone enthusiasm to do any writing.
The reason for this has mostly been to the fact that my day job as a contractor at Kimberly Clark was coming to an end, and I had been frantically devoting as much time as possible in trying to find another job. Fortunately I have now scored a permanent role at Konica-Minolta so hopefully I won’t need to worry of an end date any time soon.
With the day job secured [a necessity as book royalties cannot be relied upon to make a living – unless of course you’re a famous author such as George RR Martin, Ken Follett, or J K Rowling to name just a few], I can now revert back to picking up where I had left off with my writing projects.
I have three books currently on the go; two novellas for Louise Roberts and a novel for me:
- Passionate Harvest – Book 3 in The Sword and the Rose Series
- Dragoon Serenade – Book 2 in the Romance in War Series
- When Doves Weep – Book 1 [but is in fact the second book] in the Mark Lander Chronicles.
When I say that When Doves Weep is the second book it’s because after I wrote Out of the Darkness which is listed as Book 2 in the Mark Lander Chronicles I thought it would an idea to write a prequel to allow my readers to find out where Mark Lander, and Mark’s best friend Jim Saunders come from. The prequel also introduces the second of Mark’s closest friends, Chris Hardaker who will become a prominent character in the two subsequent proposed books in the series [Nightsafe – scheduled for 2016 and Guardian Angel – scheduled for 2017].
Having said that though, at present my creative juices appear to have dried up and I can’t seem to get into any of my works, apart from dabbling in a couple of hundred words here and there. Luckily, though, on the 21st of this month I shall be heading to Melbourne for the two-day 2015 Romance Writers of Australia Conference. I have enrolled to attend several workshops that I hope will kick-start my creativity again:
Saturday 22nd August
09.30 – 10.30 How to Plot A Page Turner
11.00 – 12.00 How Stories Work
12.00 – 13.00 Scene Diagnosis
14.00 – 15.00 Not another Sex Scene
Sunday 23rd August
11.00 – 12.00 Deep Editing
12.00 – 13.00 Media Boot camp
14.00 – 15.00 Fact into Fiction
Somewhere in between the workshops I will also be pitching my novel Out of the Darkness to three publishers [put it this way, I have submitted my pitch appointments, I just now need to receive the designated time slots]. Even though this latest novel is written in my own name rather than Louise Roberts, and even though I have placed it into the genre of Crime Fiction, this book does contain romantic elements and as such I believe it could be included in the Romance Genre as well. I hope it will be well received – I have only had one book published this year [Letter from a Stranger] so it would be a great morale booster to get the opportunity to get another published in 2015. In truth however, even if I was lucky enough to score a contract for it, because of the long drawn out editing processes the book might not be released before 2016. Anyway… fingers crossed I say, one never knows how things turn out.
Regardless of what happens to Out of the Darkness, I am hopeful that the two romance novellas I am currently writing will have been picked up by a publisher or two by the end of this year which is when I am aiming to finish them both. Although there are no guarantees in life except perhaps taxation and death I am confident that whether they are published or not I will be moving on to starting the next two novellas planned for each of the series.
I have decided that the series will have no less than 4 books each; what happens after that will depend on how successful or unsuccessful they are. For now therefore the series will consist of:
Under the name: Robert L J Borg
The Mark Lander Chronicles
When Doves Weep – Book 1 [WIP]
Out of the Darkness – Book 2 [Completed]
Nightsafe – Book 3 [In Planning Stage]
Guardian Angel – Book 4 [In Planning Stage]
Under the pen name: Louise Roberts
https://louiserobertsromance.wordpress.com/
The Sword and the Rose Series
The Sword and the Rose – Book 1 [Published by Secret Cravings publishing – 2014]
Embrace Amidst Orange Blossoms – Book 2 [Published by Secret Cravings publishing – 2014]
Passionate Harvest – Book 3 [WIP]
Lady from Seville – Book 4 [In Planning Stage]
Romance in War Series
Letter from a Stranger – Book 1 [Published by Luminosity Publishing – 2015]
Dragoon Serenade – Book 2 [WIP]
Neptune’s Landing – Book 3 [In Planning Stage]
Warm Nights in Alex – Book 4 [In Planning Stage]
****
What happens after I complete these projects is anyone’s guess. My son Brad believes I should try something new, such as fantasy or science fiction – I’ve told him to write me a premise of a story and I’ll ghost write it for him, but to date he hasn’t come up with anything. I am tempted however to use him [or his name at least] and his faithful German shepherd as a crime fighting team of the 24th century in outer space – ha ha!!
As we authors always say – “don’t mess with a writer as you will never know what they might do to you in a story”.
Meanwhile however there are books to write so I had best get on with it… it’s no point keeping the ideas locked in my mind: I have to share them.
RLB – Tomewriter
tomewriter 