{"id":6751,"date":"2011-07-13T06:30:15","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T18:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=6751"},"modified":"2011-07-15T21:47:01","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T09:47:01","slug":"guest-author-nicole-murphy-posts-on-the-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/07\/13\/guest-author-nicole-murphy-posts-on-the-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Author Nicole Murphy Posts on “The Challenge”—Plus Giveaway!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just confirming that the competition for a copy of Rogue Gadda<\/em> closed at 5.00 pm today and Nicole will be letting you all know who the lucky winner is very soon. Thank you to everyone who commented and stay posted for the result. \ud83d\ude42 <\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/span><\/p>\n

Last Saturday<\/a> I guest posted as part of\u00a0 fellow Supernatural Underground<\/a> author Nicole Murphy’s<\/strong> guest series on Dreams and Fulfilment<\/strong>—a fabulous series by the way, which I do recommend that you check out, here<\/a> with today’s guest author, the amazing Kerrelyn Sparks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Dreams and Fulfilment Guest Series<\/strong> celebrates completion of Nicole’s “Dreams of Asarlai”<\/strong> trilogy with the release of the third and final novel, Rogue Gadda<\/strong><\/em>. Today I am delighted to have Nicole here as my guest to talk about the challenge of completing a series—and beginning something new.<\/p>\n

And Nicole also has a copy of Rogue Gadda<\/strong><\/em> to give away to one lucky commenter—so read on and do take the challenge.:)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Guest Post: The Challenge<\/strong> by Nicole Murphy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

And so, my third book in my trilogy is published.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A momentous occasion, not least of which for my sense of myself as author. After all, I\u2019ve published three books now. Three books that have been well received by readers. I know I can write a good story, keep them hooked for page after page.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve made it. I\u2019m awesome.<\/p>\n

At this point, it seems to me that I\u2019ve got two choices. One is to believe that what I\u2019ve just said is the end. The other is to believe that it\u2019s just the beginning.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s the end, then I\u2019ll just keep churning out the same books. I write well enough now to get away with the voice I have. Different characters, alter the plots a little\u2026 Yeah, that will work.<\/p>\n

But if I believe it\u2019s the beginning, then I can\u2019t stop with what I\u2019ve already accomplished. Yes, it\u2019s good. Yes, I\u2019m good.<\/p>\n

But I can be BETTER.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When I started writing, I had the dream of having a book, with my name on it. Having people love what I\u2019d written. Well, I\u2019ve done that. Three times.<\/p>\n

So now, I have a new dream \u2013 to become a better writer. To ensure that each book I write is better than the one before.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing that by challenging myself. Making myself deal with characters, or plots, or ideas that are different from what I\u2019ve done before.<\/p>\n

For example, in Dream of Asarlai I\u2019ve got one main antagonist, with a very clear goal. We even see her point of view from time to time, so the reader absolutely knows what Asarlai is up to.<\/p>\n

But in the new trilogy, my antagonist is a group of people. Their goals are clear, but their actions are less so. And we don\u2019t ever directly see their point of view, so I have to work hard to ensure the reader understands it, even if the point of view characters don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

See? Challenge.<\/p>\n

Some of the challenges I\u2019m setting myself may not seem that far removed from what I\u2019ve done. Another example \u2013 I\u2019ve just finished writing my first contemporary romance. My trilogy is full of romance, so it might seem that it\u2019s not that hard to write another genre of romance.<\/p>\n

But it is. It\u2019s a much slower paced book, and doesn\u2019t have all the fun stuff like monsters, magic, explosions and so on. It\u2019s a simpler style, and it\u2019s also much more focussed on the internals of the characters. In every scene, I found myself wondering if I\u2019m attacking it the right way, making the right choices, not going deep enough or too deep. Thinking a great deal about what makes story and character work.<\/p>\n

More of a challenge than I ever anticipated.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the joy that is short stories. The great thing about shorts is that you can experiment wildly and because they don\u2019t take a lot of time to write, it\u2019s not too much of a problem if they fail spectacularly. And of course, succeed or fail, you learn from them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad that people have loved the Dream of Asarlai books. I\u2019m proud of them. But I hope that in future years, people will be saying \u201cYeah, they were good, but these new ones are GREAT!\u201d.<\/p>\n

Giveaway question<\/strong><\/span> \u2013 enter the draw to win a copy of Rogue Gadda by telling me what challenges you think you should set yourself.<\/h2>\n

Plus:<\/em><\/h2>\n

Rogue Gadda<\/em> Cookie:<\/strong><\/p>\n

As she got on the bus, Asarlai felt her soul shrink. Star, but she hated to commute with humans. She hated the stupidity in their gaze, that they looked at her and didn\u2019t realise what she could do to them. She hated the smug comfort they had in a world that wasn\u2019t what they thought it was. She hated the sheer, overwhelming numbers of them \u2013 they threatened to overtake everything.<\/em><\/p>\n

That she had to do this was an abomination to her, and just made it all the more clear that she must succeed in her task, to save other gadda from this trauma.<\/em><\/p>\n

…<\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Nicole Murphy; photo by Cat Sparks<\/p><\/div>About Nicole Murphy:<\/h2>\n

Nicole Murphy has been a primary school teacher, bookstore owner, journalist and checkout chick. She grew up reading Tolkien, Lewis and Le Guin; spent her twenties discovering Quick, Lindsay and Deveraux, and lives her love of science fiction and fantasy through her involvement with the Conflux science fiction conventions. Her urban fantasy trilogy Dream of Asarlai <\/strong>is published in Australia\/NZ by HarperVoyager. She lives with her husband in Queanbeyan, NSW. Visit her website http:\/\/nicolermurphy.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

To read another guest post by Nicole on \u201cLoving Humanity \u2013 Why Speculative Fiction Rocks!\u201d<\/em>, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

—
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

And don’t forget:<\/strong> <\/em>Go in the draw to win a copy of Rogue Gadda<\/strong><\/em> by commenting here to tell Nicole what challenges you think you should set yourself. The competition will close at 5 pm on Friday 15 July, NZ time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just confirming that the competition for a copy of Rogue Gadda closed at 5.00 pm today and Nicole will be letting you all know who the lucky winner is very soon. Thank you to everyone who commented and stay posted for the result. \ud83d\ude42 — Last Saturday I guest posted as part of\u00a0 fellow Supernatural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,26,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friends","category-guest-blog-posts","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6751"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6806,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6751\/revisions\/6806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}