butcherbird – J.C. Hart

2018, butcherbird, july, New Zealand, Te Papa Tupu

Office in a Bag

July 26, 2018 J.C

Sometimes, you just have to upgrade. I feel like I’ve been doing that a lot lately – I got some new clothes for the first time in ages. I got a haircut for the first time in almost year. A drink bottle that was mine and not a tomato passata jar I’d washed out.

And I got a new computer.

Now, I loved Mal, but it was just time. She’s slowed right down to the point where I spend more time being frustrated than working painlessly. There were other niggles in the household; a constant tech battle over who had access to what and where. I decided that I deserved to have a computer that could not only run the full gamut of author processes, but also run the games I like to play. And it would be mine. All mine. No sharing.

Enter Indi. Yes, partly because of her delicious colour, but also because it makes me think of ‘independent’ and I am, and also, India Jones, and who doesn’t want to be reminded of adventuring, action and excitement? I’m bringing that to my writing in my own way.

Indi is a little bigger than Mal was, which meant upgrading my bag as well. I needed something that could fit all the things I needed. Something that calls to my geeky side, but that’s also not too in your face. With Te Papa Tupu I’ve got a lot more travel lined up than ever before, so it needed to be sturdy as well. I got the Horizon: Zero Dawn messenger bag, and I love it.

20180721_115023 So here is my office in a bag! This is my ‘work for hours at a time while out’ set up and it’s all the same stuff I use at home, which makes for a nice easy transition. I’ve got a space-saving set up too, but we’ll leave that for another time. I think having the backing of Te Papa Tupu has given me that little boost that says it’s okay to spend money on things that will help push my career forward. A little validation can go a long way in this business.

Mostly, I just wanted to gush about how freaking much I love my new computer 😉

Shiny!

July, already?

July 18, 2018July 18, 2018 J.C

Hello!!

Well overdue for an update, I know. So, let’s get into it.

IMG_20180715_171857_596 — Back to my weekly sessions at the library – yay!

Back in April I submitted Butcherbird to Te Papa Tupu – which is an incubator for Māori writers. And at the end of May, I found out that I’d been accepted into the programme! I was blown away. I’d managed to convince myself that there was no way I would get in, so it was a total surprise when I got the call. There were tears of joy. (I have a great many feelings about this which are hard to put into words, but I will be doing my best soon.)

What this means is that I’m going to be working on Butcherbird for the rest of this year with the help of my lovely, intelligent, funny and amazing mentor, Whiti Hereaka. She’s given me oodles of notes, highlighted all my problematic spots, and given me a tonne of wonderful resources to help me make the story as amazing as I can. I’m over the moon to have been paired with her and can tell already that this process is going to level up my writing in a big way.

What else does that mean? I won’t have anything to release this year, probably. And that’s okay. I mean, it grates at me, but I’ve been feeling like I needed to skill up and this is the perfect opportunity to do that. I have faith that every book I put out from here forward is going to benefit from this experience, so I’m investing my all into it.

There are still other projects on the go… My partner in crime, Meryl Stenhouse, has been busy moving houses, but we’re hoping to make some progress with our shared world books really soon. Juniper keeps knocking on the door in my brain. She wants to come out and play again and I want that too! She’s so much fun to hang out with.

And of course, there is that sequel to Sun Touched that people keep asking me about… It is going to happen. I’ve got some required reading to get through, but then I’m dragging a copy of Sun Touched from my bookshelf and I am going to mark that sucker up, full of things I need to correct and notes for the next book – and then once I’ve got those all written down somewhere else, I’m going to give that copy away to one of the loyal fans who have been asking about the sequel basically since the first book dropped 😉

The last few months have been all over the place, but I feel like we’re finally getting settled in and starting to get some good rhythms in place. Having moved cities with kids twice, I now know that it can literally take months to get back to that place, even if the move is one everyone is happy about.

Let’s not do that again for a while huh?

butcherbird, January, new zealand author, Uncategorized, writing

On first readers

January 29, 2018 J.C

Today I sent Butcherbird to my first reader, which is both exciting and terrifying.

stencil.instagram-post

What’s a first reader? Well, some people call them an alpha reader, but either way, they are the first person to read your work. Often, the only person or people to read the first draft in all it’s rough and raw glory. We writers are sensitive souls, so it’s not always good for our writer health to be sharing such formative versions of our work*.

Which means that it’s very important to choose your first reader carefully. Some people opt for a supportive partner (mine does not read fiction, so that’s out), but I’ve found a good one in my lovely friend and fellow author Leigh K Hunt. She laughs at all my jokes, can see past the mess to the gold underneath, to my intention and goals, and gives me excellent pointers for honing it into something beautiful. Butcherbird is a little different from the Kotahi Bay books (no romance for starters!), so I’m going to be hanging out to find out what she says about it – being the first book in a new series the nerves are higher than normal. But…

It’s time.

Time to get some feedback. Time to make a plan for the rest of the series. Time to start thinking about covers and sharing things with you as it gets edited. I’m so excited about this book, folks. I hope you’re going to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’ve already got the outline for book two, though I think I’m going to wait till after we’ve moved before I dive in. Don’t need to have another big life change happening while I write each of the subsequent books 😉 I’m hoping to knock out a smaller, fun project in that time, so watch this space.

This is going to be a good year. I just know it.

* Some writers are different, of course, and never feel any doubt, but I can’t see me ever being one of those. Others write amazing first copy and while they swear it makes them sweat when they let you read their stuff you can’t help but be sure they are kicking back with a beer waiting for the inevitable praise because their first drafts are just that damn good. Yes, I’m looking at you, Richard Parry.