Category: NaNoWriMo

Have knitting, will travel … in space … with aliens!

I’m very excited to report that my unpublished sci-fi novel ‘Grey Nomad’ was shortlisted in the 2020 Adaptable competition that was run by Queensland Writers’ Centre in conjunction with the Gold Coast Film Festival.  I talked briefly about the development of my idea back on 25 February 2019 as the first of many drafts emerged NaNoWriMo.

THE STORY: Surviving an alien abduction will call upon all Joyce’s experience as a long-standing member of the Country Women’s Association.

Here’s a taster — https://www.facebook.com/qldwriters/videos/290383195277942/

The 2020 Adaptable competition had 240 submissions and they shortlisted 26 of us for the opportunity to pitch our work to film/tv producers face-to-face during the Festival’s Industry Market Day. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic they have had to cancel the Film Festival, so they are going to proceed with us doing our pitches online. To prepare us, the Queensland Writers’ Centre have provided us with a free 2-hr workshop on writing a synopsis, and three 1:1 online consultations about developing our pitch before the big day: 16 April. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

This is where I come clean. Last month, I posted a minor rant about my growing irritation with quirky protagonists who achieve the astonishing feat of being both older and yet still having the potential of a character arc. My thoughts were, I confess, prompted by my own world-building for a sci-fi-lite novella I was developing through November. (I was participating in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month for the second time.)

Here’s the synopsis of my work-in-progress.

Grey Nomad

Alien spaceships from the planet Liser have landed in every major country on Earth. Joyce convinces her staid husband to divert from their annual caravan holiday itinerary to brave the queues of tourists to see the spaceship in Canberra. Unexpectedly, the Liseran spaceship does an emergency take-off to evade imminent attack by spaceships of their long-standing enemy, the Thulians. Joyce and JT, an avid trekkie, are the only tourists left on board with the human security team in a spaceship filled with angry aliens hurtling toward a space war.

Surviving an alien war won’t just demand that Joyce master telepathy, it will also call upon all her experience from her years with the Country Women’s Association.

My own journey in writing this piece is proving to be a lot of fun and, so far, Joyce is neither quirky nor quaint—but she does have dodgy knees.