No! The year is almost over! How does time fly like this? At least the weather’s warmed up.
We had a great Halloween. It didn’t really kick off, fortunately, until after the Bipadi Awards were over. But I thank my friends for holding down the fort while I was on Zoom.
As I was saying – it was a great Halloween finishing with pizza out the front in the warm weather. I remember a few years ago it was absolutely freezing at the same time. At least this was warmer.
I am still learning my keyboard. It is challenging, but I do actually like the fact it’s not a full-sized keyboard, yet it has the arrow keys and the separate keypad. I just have to get used to where the end and home keys are.
Updates
Heart of Deception
I have finished tweaking it and it’s currently sitting on my kindle waiting for me to go through it with a notebook and pen adjacent.
Gifted Universe
There should be a few books coming out in that universe – once I get some of my other books republished.
Grow Write
Yes, our writing group is still going. We are currently working on our 2027 anthology and hope to have that out later next year. We had a great time writing our last one in 2025 and I know I’ve had fun gathering stories for next year’s.
Bushland Castle Productions
Otherworldly series
Bushland Castle Productions are currently in the second series of a group of five series related to Otherworldly topics. So far, the Emergence series has been published and the Origins series is currently being written and edited.
These are all separate novellas with an interweaving element. Emergence had a reaper.
PS. My story is currently with beta readers! Can’t wait to get it back!
Otherworldly Emergence
Yes, they’re completely out there! All 12 ebooks and paperbacks are available online and the best place to buy them is at www.bushlandcastleproductions.com/book-shop. Every book is listed there.
Otherworldly Origins Series
This series builds on the Otherworldly Emergence series. Some of the stories relate to the ones in the Emergence series, but some don’t.
This series is about the first of a kind. Like, the first of a creature, the first of a power, the first of a magical element. Something that has never been seen before.
The Otherworldly series are not the only publications Bushland Castle is working on. They also have a memoir series they are currently working on. The first series of that is titled “Living in Australia in the 70s”. This is for those of us who were late teens between 1970 and 1980.
They also produce Low Content journals aimed at aiding writers in whatever style in which they write.
Bushland Castle Productions also provide an author support platform. This includes workshops, twice weekly catchups online, write-in sessions on Discord and a whole heap more assistance.
So, visit www.bushlandcastleproductions.com for further information on their products and their street team – known as the Town Criers. If you’re interested in being an ARC reader for any of the series, Town Criers are always needed.
Finally, the last thing Bushland Castle Productions have is the Finding Elara podcast. This podcast features special guests who discuss their goals and achievements and answer questions about their creative works and how they came to do what they love.
Seasons 1 – 3 are available and season 4 is in the planning stage. So, stay tuned.
Accuracy
Okay, this is a completely different topic than what you might think. You might think I’m talking about the accuracy of the writing technique or the spelling, grammar or punctuation.
I’m not. I’m talking about something that lies close to authenticity. Well, not really authenticity – although it is related.
I’m talking about the accuracy of your story in the world that you are creating. Whether it’s a historical story, a sci fi story, a dystopian or anything else. Whatever you write must be accurate to the world you are creating.
Now, most would assume I’m talking about writing in the contemporary or historical times. Because authenticity and accuracy may be important there for sure, especially if you’re like me and try to be as accurate as possible where you can.
But I’m also talking about the background information that you have surrounding your world. Your universe. Because that’s important to readers and to the authenticity of the tale you are writing.
Let’s break it down. Let’s start with the Gifted universe (only ’cause I know that so well).
In my Gifted universe there is a heavy police presence. Only because a secondary character that I’ve had for years has now become Gifted. Doesn’t matter that he’s also the liaison between the Gifted and the Government.
This is what I mean by accuracy. See, my paid work deals a lot with the judicial system of one of our states and I used to be a volunteer bush firefighter. So, I have a fairly good understanding of how officials act. Especially police.
But to make sure I did them justice and that my scenes were as accurate as I needed them to be, I contacted the media liaison of our police force. I got into a wonderful conversation with the person there, so much so that they asked for all the police scenes to check them over. Then they rang me and told me I had represented the police force accurately. To say I was chuffed and relieved is downplaying how I felt.
However, I won’t say my hospital scenes are as accurate. I would have had to contact three different hospitals and I know how incredibly understaffed they are. So, I applied a similar outlook I had with the police scenes to those hospital scenes and I’m hoping it paid off.
But that’s only one side of accuracy.
In Clans in Conflict, I had to create a background to the worlds The Stronghold was travelling through. I literally couldn’t grasp the concept of how many dimensions there could be and how to catalogue them.
Luckily, I have a friend with an engineering bent. (And that’s all I’m going to say.) We discussed the various dimensions and came up with a way to categorise each type. Once we’d done that, it was easy to come up with a numbering system for all of the dimensions in each category – and that’s when I realised that, really, the number of dimensions is limitless. Any number of them.
For Consequences, I had to research where I wanted to place my island kingdom of Albermarle. Given the links to Britain, I also had to find a title that could be used as the island name. Then I had to work out a history of the island, given where it sits in the Mediterranean.
For Marek’s journey, I have to say Google mapping became my friend. I was able to work out how long various methods of travel would take and each of the routes. In fact, just before its first publication, I completely changed the route he took in both directions. Gah!
But that series has a notable police presence. So, I researched the police force in the countries where that would be necessary, working out the ranks and everything – especially for Legacy of Risks – and made sure I used them.
For the police force on Albermarle, I used a mixture of Australian police ranking and French. That way I could play with various ranking and that.
I have another saga that I may or may not publish and although I haven’t done so much research on the authenticity of various locations and organisations for that, I have borne that part in mind and hopefully I have worked on that.
(It’s just occurred to me that a lot of my books have a strong to significant police/security presence. Darn!)
I won’t touch on history, because I don’t write history. I can’t even comprehend trying to research a historical event. Oh wait.
Having said that, on the very back, back burner, I do have a Roman Empire story. That will be very sci fi-based, though, so I don’t think it’s going to be very accurate. Hahaha
Science fiction has its own accuracy problems. Take time travel for instance. Most people think ‘Oh, I can just get into a time machine and I can go anywhere in time.’ Or, ‘I can press a button and I’ll end up in that time.’ But did you ever stop to think about time travel? I had a very interesting conversation about 30 years ago. The person I spoke with wasn’t a scientist, wasn’t a teacher and wasn’t a writer. I think he dropped out of school in year 9.
But our conversation brought up some very good points. Because time travel isn’t about just travelling through the years. It’s about travelling through space as well. Because this planet doesn’t stand still, no matter what some conspiracies might say. It revolves around our sun. It orbits our sun. It moves in space. It travels in space. And it rotates.
So, you might ask where does that fit in to time travel. Well, think about it. Unless you have a time/space vehicle, your time machine might end up in the middle of the black of space. With no planet. No atmosphere.
That’s what I mean by accuracy.
Magic’s no different. I’ve heard it say time and again by those who write with magic in their stories that magic has to have a system. And its users must follow that system. If they don’t, no-one would know what could happen. If you’re inconsistent with that magic system, your writers will know. They’ll rant and rave about it. I could mention a great number of books where there were magic systems, but there really are too many. You know the ones I’m talking about. And I’m not talking about super powers. Although those have their own rules, too.
The main thing is to be consistent with your accuracy and authenticity. Because the readers will pick up on it. You can’t say that someone’s power works one way and then another time it doesn’t. I’m lucky. When the Gifted Liaison got his powers, I had him being able to knock people out. It wasn’t until later that I realised he only blinds them temporarily – but his book isn’t out, yet, so I fixed that in a draft.
The other thing is accuracy. It all depends on how accurate you want those elements to be. And it’s either accuracy to something you’ve created or something you’ve borrowed from either our existing organisations or our rules (such as space/time continuum). Because readers will soon figure out if you haven’t been accurate in your story. They’ll say something about it – whether in a review or on social media.
I will always try to make sure my elements are accurate. That’s my promise to my readers and fellow writers.
