Triple Chocolate Marshmallow Ice-cream

A scoop of triple chocolate marshmallow ice-cream.

Many people have asked me where they can find the triple chocolate marshmallow ice-cream mentioned in Hero. It’s one of Fink’s favourite deserts and lots of fun to make, just try not to make too much of a mess in the kitchen. Ingredients 2 litres chocolate ice-cream 1/2 cup white chocolate chips 1/2 cup dark … Read more

Win a signed copy of Hero!

Hero was officially released at OzComicCon, in Sydney last week and I had a blast meeting people, signing books and watching all of the brilliant costumes that wandered past our booth. To celebrate the release, I’m giving away a signed copy of Hero. To enter the giveaway, just click the ‘Enter Giveaway’ button below! Goodreads Book Giveaway Hero by Belinda Crawford Giveaway ends … Read more

Second draft progress. Whoo!

Second draft in progress
I love my outdoor workspace (except when it’s 30 degrees outside).

For the past month, between work,  karate and finally reading Divergent (excellent book, by the way), I’ve been working on the second draft of Hero. And although I haven’t made as much progress as I would have liked, and I’m busting to get to the second part of the my revision process (editing the prose – why does ‘prose’ always sound so snobbish?), the novel is coming along nicely.

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Revising Hero and the Pantser's Beat Sheet

A screenshot of the 7-point plot system
The revision of Hero, using the 7-point plot system

Just after Christmas, I finished the first draft of Hero and since the New Year I’ve been hard at work on the second draft. Dan Wells’s 7-point plot system (aka the Pantser’s Beat Sheet) has been incredibly helpful during the revision process – particularly the layering process (explained in part 5 of Dan Wells’s lecture, available on YouTube) – and it too has undergone a revision.

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Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish goals for 2013

For this round of Top Ten Tuesday, I’m breaking my list up into two sections. The first section is for this year’s writing-related goals and the second are my reading-related goals. Writing goals I completed the first draft of my first book, Hero, just after Christmas, so I think it’s only fair if I have … Read more

Meet Fink

Meet Fink. He’s the size of a horse, has a tail, six legs and is Hero’s best, if not only, friend. Weighing in at six-hundred and twenty-two kilos with twenty-six claws and a mouth full of pointy teeth, most people find Fink intimidating, but underneath all that fur beats the heart of a teddy bear. … Read more

Alanna of Trebond – a childhood hero

Alanna, the Lioness
Alanna, the Lioness

I first devoured the Song of the Lioness series when I was ten; to say that it was my favourite set of books ever is to understate the case. Alanna, the series protagonist, was my childhood hero, and not just because she had a magic sword and a talking cat. Alanna was my hero because she was doing something forbidden and getting away with it.

It wasn’t an especially bad thing that she was doing, like selling drugs or stealing, she was just doing what the boys did – playing with swords, riding horses, going to war – and if that meant she had to lie about her gender, well, that only added to the tension.

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Wildlife of the weird and wonderful kind

Mogwai from the Gremlins films
Spawns monsters when wet.

On Jørn, Hero’s world, people live in vast floating cities, far out of reach of an airborne toxin known as Pollen. Pollen is only toxic to humans, leaving much of the planet unexplored and its surface teeming with all sorts of weird and wonderful wildlife.

For Hero, being a xenozoologist and going down to the surface to see and study that wildlife seems like the culmination of a dream, even if she does have to be bundled up in an envrio-suit to do it.

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