About Me

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Perth, Western Australia, Australia
I am based in Perth, Western Australia. You might enjoy my books - The Dagger of Dresnia, the first book of the Talismans Trilogy, is available at all good online book shops as is Book two, The Cloak of Challiver. Book three, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation. I trained in piano and singing at the NSW Conservatorium of Music. I also trained in dance (Scully-Borovansky, WAAPA) and drama (NIDA). Since 1987 I have been writing reviews of performances in all genres for a variety of publications, including Music Maker, ArtsWest, Dance Australia, The Australian and others. Now semi-retired, I still write occasionally for the ArtsHub website.

My books

The first two books of my trilogy, The Talismans, (The Dagger of Dresnia, and book two, The Cloak of Challiver) are available in e-book format from Smashwords, Amazon and other online sellers. Book three of the trilogy, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation.I also have a short story, 'La Belle Dame', in print - see Mythic Resonance below - as well as well as a few poems in various places. The best way to contact me is via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/satimaflavell

Buy The Talismans

The first two books of The Talismans trilogy were published by Satalyte Publications, which, sadly, has gone out of business. However, The Dagger of Dresnia and The Cloak of Challiver are available as ebooks on the usual book-selling websites, and book three, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation. The easiest way to contact me is via Facebook.

The Dagger of Dresnia

The Dagger of Dresnia

The Cloak of Challiver, Book two of The Talismans

The Cloak of Challiver, Book two of The Talismans
Available as an e-book on Amazon and other online booksellers.

Mythic Resonance

Mythic Resonance

Mythic Resonance is an excellent anthology that includes my short story 'La Belle Dame', together with great stories from Alan Baxter, Donna Maree Hanson, Sue Burstynski, Nike Sulway and nine more fantastic authors! Just $US3.99 from Amazon. Got a Kindle? Check out Mythic Resonance.

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Places I've lived: Manchester, UK

Places I've lived: Manchester, UK

Places I've lived: Gippsland, Australia

Places I've lived: Gippsland, Australia

Places I've lived: Geelong, Australia

Places I've lived: Geelong,  Australia

Places I've lived: Tamworth, NSW

Places I've lived: Tamworth, NSW

Places I've Lived - Sydney

Places I've Lived - Sydney
Sydney Conservatorium - my old school

Places I've lived: Auckland, NZ

Places I've lived: Auckland, NZ

Places I've Lived: Mount Gambier

Places I've Lived: Mount Gambier
Blue Lake

Places I've lived: Adelaide, SA

Places I've lived: Adelaide, SA

Places I've Lived: Perth by Day

Places I've Lived: Perth by Day
From Kings Park

Places I've lived: High View, WV

Places I've lived: High View, WV

Places I've lived: Lynton, Devon, UK

Places I've lived: Lynton, Devon, UK

Places I've lived: Braemar, Scotland

Places I've lived: Braemar, Scotland

Places I've lived: Barre, MA, USA

Places I've lived: Barre, MA, USA

Places I've Lived: Perth by Night

Places I've Lived: Perth by Night
From Kings Park

Inner Peace Blog

Inner Peace Blog
Awarded by Joanna Fay. Click on the image to visit her lovely website!

Versatile Blogger Award

Versatile Blogger Award
Awarded by Kim Falconer. Click on the pic to check out her Quantum Astrology blog!

Fabulous Blog Award

Fabulous Blog Award
Awarded by Kathryn Warner. Click on the pic to check out her Edward II blog!

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Saturday 23 June 2007

Progress on the WIP

Since being at my friend Ashlea's house I've had lots of time to write. I have the computer to myself a lot of the time and Ash has unlimited broadband - whee-ee! Kaya, the house's Elder Daughter, is just back from India and catching up with all her friends, so there are young people in and out at all hours. It's nice. It reminds me of my student days, or the time I was running a dance group in Enzed and always had dancers sleeping over in the studio and sometimes on the floor of my flat as well.

I caught up with most of my Perth friends within a fortnight of touchdown, so the social pressure is off. (Mind you, I hope to see them all at least once more before I head back to South Oz on 11 July!) I'm back into writing mode, therefore, and it feels good.

With the help of my Face-to-Face group, I actually drafted a plot outline for The Trilogy before I went to England early this year. Having struggled with the monster for nearly four years it's about time I got all those characters and their shenanigans into some kind of order. Now I've actually started writing, I find the storyline changing a bit under my fingers, but not so much that I lose sight of the plot. I thought that planning might make the actual writing tedious (what's the point in a story if you already know the ending?) but actually I'm finding it just as exciting as "flimmering" my way through. Now the excitement is in things like little details of setting and nuances of character rather than "what happens next".

The first thirteen chapters are in first draft and already it reads far better than anything else I've written. (That's not just MHO, BTW - my critters all say the same, which is encouraging.) Part of the improvement lies in a better grasp of the way readers like POV presented these days. Having grown up with Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransom and Rudyard Kipling and later graduating to writers of the sixties and seventies, I was used to the omniscient author style, in which it's fine to foreshadow events or to comment on the character's predicament. ("Little did he know that this would be their last meeting...") Intellectually, I could see that these techniques were out of favour, but I still didn't manage to get myself right out of the story and let the characters get on with it. I think I'm managing to do that much better now.

Not that the "tight third" POV is anything new. Jane Austen used it somewhat. In fact, Austen never strays very far from her character's thoughts and feelings, even if she doesn't always express them quite as intimately as a modern genre writer would. My friend and teacher Michèle Drouart assures me that Flaubert was actually the first writer to use this style. Being academically trained (she has a double major in French and English lit!) Michèle calls it "FID", which stands for Free Indirect Discourse. If you live in Perth and aspire to write, BTW, you could do worse than to enrol in Michèle’s writing classes. They are not only instructive, but great fun as well. And if you haven’t already read her autobiographical novel “Into the Wadi”, please get hold of a copy. It’s a great read.

Ok, Ok, I hear you. (Or is that my conscience speaking?) Blogging is displacement activity. I shall get back to the monster now.

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