is that a stick in your balustrading…?

 journal  6 Responses »
Nov 292007
 

Came home today to find the biggest stick insect in the world1 hanging out by the rabbit's cage.

stickinsect1.jpg

At first I told myself, no, it's a stick. Really, it's just a stick.

A stick with six perfectly aligned legs, complete with teeny feet clinging to the balustrade. A stick with antennae.

stickinsect2.jpg

You know what's ridiculous? I couldn't actually get up the gumption to stick my hand too close to this fellow, when two weeks ago I had my face only inches away from one of the deadliest land snakes… Granted, the snake was a baby, and allegedly dead at the time, but still… No one ever died from a stick insect. I'm just saying.

  1. Those who live in equatorial regions will probably consider this fellow tiny, or at most average. But any insect longer than my forearm officially qualifies as "biggest in the world", just so you know. [↩]

it leads you here, despite your destination…

 journal, novels, shadow bound, writing life  Comments Off
Nov 272007
 

Thank you, everyone, for your congratulations and your good wishes.

It's been a long month, trying to keep the cat in the bag, and it's an immense relief to be able to speak about it. My daily writing has even picked up — I passed the 1,000 word mark with ease this evening, something which hasn't happened in I really don't want to count how many days weeks.

I'm entering the final slog of the manuscript now; I can tell because I have very little mind for anything else, and, at the same time, very little idea how it will all play out. I know the epilogue (if it remains as an epilogue; anyway, I know the final words), I'm just not entirely sure how to get there. Guess I'll find out. Sooner would be nicer than later, so let's hope today's writing mood continues apace.1

I'm not looking forward to revising this one, because this first draft is a complete and utter mess. There's scenes out of order, I'm nearly four hundred pages in and I still haven't chapterised (actually, in a lot of cases I haven't even scenerised2), not to mention entire subplots missing and characters absent as if they live in a void except when I need them.3 Still, it's entirely possible it won't be as bad as I imagine.4 I have been known to imagine non existent horrors before.

I really should start referring to these novels by at least a working title, shouldn't I?

Writing: Golem Novel the Second (one day it will have a real, grown-up, proper title, I promise)
Reading: Jane Eyre

  1. This whole selling a novel I haven't finished yet is a bit tricky. I think I'm going to have to come up with some new and fantastic writers lies in order to get the draft finished, because all of a sudden "It's okay to write crap! It's a first draft! No one will see it!" isn't quite cutting it. [↩]
  2. hush, yes, that is a word. I say so. [↩]
  3. Another sign I'm near to that elusive ending: I'm thinking about the next project. [↩]
  4. Did you spot it? That, right there, is a lie. It helps me keep writing, so it's allowed to stay. [↩]

ground control to major tom…

 journal, novels, shadow bound, shadow queen  2 Responses »
Nov 212007
 

It turns out that packing up all your belongings and, in the following days, unpacking them all right back where they came from, does not make for blogging (or bloggable) days. It does not make for particularly good writing days, either. I am a creature of habit and routine, and when my routine is askew the writing is harder. Actually, pretty much everything sailed out the window, up to and including eating; the writing probably survived the best of all.

On the bright side, the walls are repainted and shiny clean now, although it is entirely possible the paint fumes are messing with my head, for I am ludicrously tempted to never title another story, ever again. I shall set a minimalist trend. Story #1, followed by Story #2, and so on. Establishing chronology will be ridiculously easy.

Or! I could title them all "Choose Your Own Title". That would work, wouldn't it? It could be a sort of post-modern deconstruction of the storywriting/reading process.

(No, I don't buy it either. I told you the paint fumes were messing with my head.)

he coulda died

 journal  3 Responses »
Nov 162007
 

Meet Max: couch-goitre:

couchgoitre.jpg

The other day we had builders around, to (finally) start in on repairing the damage from the June 8 not-a-cyclone. Max did not cope well with the strange men trafficking in bangs and clatters. He had to find a secure place to hide — hence, under the couch throw.

This is how he used to hide from the girl-cat, back when she was still sufficiently bigger than him that she could kill him, and seemed hellbent on trying.

Unfortunately, I broke the spell of the couch-throw by lifting it up to take a photo:

couchgoitre2.jpg

(What? There is no other news. Not today. Move along, nothing to see here.)

name that book! (please?)

 journal, novels, shadow bound, shadow queen, writing life  3 Responses »
Nov 132007
 

Yesterday I was cursing myself and calling myself all kinds of stupid for not writing down the ending.

Today I found the slips of paper on which I'd written down the ending. I'd only gone and slipped them inside my on-the-go notebook, so I could work on the novel at any convenient time, hadn't I.

Note to self: organisation is your friend. Truly. Not just a great and satisfying way to procrastinate.

Also today I wrote the very, very last words of the current novel. For those of you who've read the novel preceding: it's Dieter, being cheeky. Now all I have to do is write the words to get me to the end.

I am also trying — so far unsuccessfully — to come up with a title for both the current novel, and the preceding novel. Oh, and a title for the two as a set, since they're a single story in two volumes.

As is my usual luck with titles, I got nothing. Oh well, back to brainstorming.

bad writer. no biscuit.

 journal, novels, shadow bound, writing life  5 Responses »
Nov 112007
 

In all the excitement over agents and snakes, it occurs to me I never did let you all out of your misery.

That's right: the bed has arrived, frame and mattress and linen1. Lookit!

birthdaybed.jpg

Yes, there are actual, honest to god, flowers on the new linen. Any day now they're going to issue me with a "you're a real girl at last!" card. More importantly, however, Max approves mightily of the new linen, since it sets his colouring off much better than the black linen did.

In actual, you know, writing news, I have been slovenly and distracted. It is so seductively easy to get all the other errands done first, to "make time" for the writing at the end of the day. Problem is, there's always one more errand that needs doing, and making time quickly morphs into scrabbling for time. Bad writer. No biscuit.

Also, that inkling of an ending I had?

Guess who forgot to write it down. Guess who thought It's in the vault. I'll remember. I remember everything?

Oh, yes. Yes, that's right. So it's back to dashing my head against the keyboard, hoping something more useful than my childhood home's phone number falls out.

In the meantime, the inimitable Tess, part-time couch-gator, part-time mechwarrior, has suggested an ending. In fact, she's suggested two.

The A-Team barge in, kick butt, and take names.

Her second suggestion:

WOOKIES

I must say, I like the second better. I'll see what I can do.

  1. It did not, actually, arrive all at once. Oh no. There were intervals, including an entire night with a frame but no mattress. In fact, since the photo, the proper bedside cabinet has also arrived, so it looks slightly different again. [↩]

doomed, i tell you

 journal  2 Responses »
Nov 072007
 

Today the girl-cat brought home a gift:

snake.jpg

I'm not sure precisely what kind of snake it is, although it is teeny tiny, so I suspect it's a baby something. Which is kind of worrying, because that means there's a mother, presumably a rather larger mother, somewhere nearby. The colour makes me suspect it's a baby brown, but the faint white ridge across the back of its neck seems out of place for it to be a brown. Provided the ridge is natural colouring, and not some scar or wound inflicted by the cat, of course. I don't think it is.

snakeinscale.jpg

See how tiny it is? And of course it's dead, so nothing to worry about…

…Except when I went out to check the mail, a couple of hours later, baby snake was missing. I did not clean up baby snake's corpse. No one else in the house cleaned up baby snake's corpse.

Baby snake was only playing dead, and has escaped to grow, and grow, and grow…

Which means my cousin, who took the photo below, is feeling rather grateful that Baby Snake did not launch at her face during the photo shoot.

snake2.jpg

ETA: I just looked up the common brown snake on Wikipedia1, and found:

Juveniles have a black head, with a lighter band behind

Yup. Baby Snake just may be a baby brown. Which means there's a community of 1.5m snakes around here somewhere — and, given they birth a clutch of 10 – 40 eggs, there's at least 9 other baby browns out there somewhere. Good stuff. We're definitely into the "shoes must be worn while outside" season.

  1. that font of all accurate knowledge, doncha know [↩]

w00t!

 journal, writing life  16 Responses »
Nov 062007
 

So, a little ways back1, I very cryptically said:

There would have been more, but a phone call derailed me on that front. Incidentally, the phone call was also good news, so on the whole I couldn't get angry about losing my writing time, just this once.

Since there is actually ink on the contract now, and she's stuck with me committed, I can reveal the good news without fear of jinxing myself.

Said good news being: I have an agent. An agent from Curtis Brown Australia, no less.

:mrgreen:

Suddenly I feel all grown up.

Excuse me, won't you, while I celebrate by drinking excessive amounts of bourbon writing some more.

  1. for you people. For me, it's been an eternity, during which I've gnawed my spleen away to next to nothing [↩]
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