is it m-o-n-g-o-u-a?

 journal  2 Responses »
Apr 292010
 

While I was busy being jabbed by the GP1 the other day, I received a phone call from the Embassy of Mongolia. Cue wonder, and mild worry that something was awry with my visa application.

When I returned the call, I was greeted with a simple, blank "Hello…?"

Not entirely sure I hadn't misdialled, I gave my name and said I was returning a call, about my visa application. This was greeted with silence. And then a quick and hurried conversation in the background beginning with the phrase "A woman! She says is about visas!" and ending with my being transferred.

Rinse and repeat the greeting followed by silence. This time there's also a bit more silence, and then the comment, "Riiiiiiiiiiiight…. Um… Oh! This is about Susan, yes?"

I had already given my name three times by this point, but what's one more? Thankfully fourth time's the charm, and we established that the visa application fees changed six weeks ago, but of course websites are never updated swiftly so I'd short-changed them. Once we'd established that, and I'd promised to put in a note to explain who the extra $35 was for, all was well. I've since posted off the promised money order, with the promised note.2

What's the bet it gets applied to Susan's application?

  1. only one more to go and I'll have the whole rabies set! The pre-exposure set, at least. [↩]
  2. Incidentally, that's the second time I've made out a postal money order to the Embassy of Mongolia. Each time, the postal worker in question had Asian ancestry AND HAD NO IDEA HOW TO SPELL MONGOLIA. What the…? [↩]

writing is such a chaotic sport

 journal, writing life  Comments Off
Apr 262010
 

Justine Musk (who always has amazingly clever things to say on the topic of wordsmithery) talks about outlining, and why outlines change:

This is what took me way too long (and three published novels) to figure out about plot:

Plot is a process.

…the outline informs the novel but the growing novel also informs the outline.

…What this process requires, however, is a tolerance for ambiguity. For what I described in an earlier blog post as “the muck and murk of writing”: the sense that you’re slogging through a dark swamp with no exit in sight.

We like to have a plan in place, we like to move through an orderly and predictable checklist, but creativity doesn’t sequence so easily. The process works off itself. You show up, you see what you already have, you descend into the muck and the murk, and let the process take you further along.

And she's just absolutely NAILED why outlines have never worked for me. I've been treating it as an either/or approach: writing with an inviolate plan, or without one.

Now, I know writers who outline, and they've always told me they never stick slavishly to said outline, that it evolves even as the story does — which I admit to never quite grasping, probably because my brain runs to extremes.

I'm thoroughly accustomed to a "tolerance for ambiguity" when writing without an outline: wading into a story knowing nothing more than a character's name, sometimes not even that, doesn't distress me in the least. I need to interact with the story and the characters in order for it to evolve, and progress, and grow into a narrative.

I know how to do that when there's no outline in place — but whenever I have attempted an outline, I've then expected it to be my checklist. I've expected it to do away with all that muck and murk of the process. How foolish was I?1

One day I will learn that just because my head and thought patterns lend themselves to BLACK! or WHITE!, no grey or middle paths allowed, that not everything in the world — actually nothing in the world — follows suit.

  1. Doubtless there are writers whose outlines do work that way. I presume those writers have tested and discarded ideas and dug deeply during the outlining process itself, and done an awful lot of thinking and evolving of the narrative prior to writing. I think I can safely say I will never be one of those writers. [↩]

why yes. i do anthropomorphise everything.

 journal  4 Responses »
Apr 212010
 

Yesterday, I jaunted along to the GP, who stabbed a few viscous, neon pink mL of rabies into my arm, told me I may possibly be the only person in the known world to have laughter-induced asthma,1 and then told me to hold still, this burning a section of my face malarky would only sting a little bit.

Yup, it's happened again. Sometime in the past two years I went and left the house and gambolled about outside, and now I've only gone and caught cancer. Again.

Luckily, this time, I actually am exaggerating. A bit. Last time was a melanotic freckle, and it involved plastic surgery (on account of said freckle being very close to my eye — otherwise it would have just been normal surgery) which, because said plastic surgeon knew his stuff, did not scar particularly.

This time2 it's only pre-cancerous, so no need, apparently, to bother a surgeon. No, by far the best option is to whip out the liquid nitrogen3 and burn, burn, burn the witch nasty lesion. Which is lucky because it was located on the bridge of my nose — the skin there is very thin and not very stretchy, so any excision there would be unpleasant and probably would scar. So yay for asking the doctor about it before it turned cancerous.4

  1. I am so not kidding. How is that even possible? I know not. [↩]
  2. The GP did tell me a name for it — but it was long and convoluted and designed to exclude laypeople, so at the time I was concentrating rather more on the outcome such a name dictated [↩]
  3. So named because nitrogen, my friends, is not meant to be liquid on any average day. Even on any average ice-age day, nitrogen is meant to be a happy-go-lucky gas molecule, floating and drifting around the ionosphere. And you know what happens when you catch and corral a herd of nitrogen molecules and chill them until they must band together and form a liquid? They turn ANGRY, that's what happens. [↩]
  4. I would say asking the doctor early, but it took me about 6-12 months to notice something was awry with this one. Still, that's an improvement. Last time took about 3-4 years before anyone caught on to the freckle's nefarious plans. [↩]

bye, little book

 journal, shadow bound, shadow queen  2 Responses »
Apr 192010
 

This afternoon, I lugged to the post office a ream of paper otherwise known as the proofs of Shadow Bound, and sent them on their merry way to Allen & Unwin. The proofs are dead, long live the proofs!

It's actually kinda sad, in a way, because this is the last I'll see of this book. It's now officially all grown up (or as grown up as it will ever be under my care) and now I'm shoving it out the door to face the big bad world. Here's hoping I taught her how to swing a punch and speak politely (not necessarily in that order) well enough to survive out there.

One of my last tasks was to come up with a glossary of all the characters. SQ and SB aren't that character-packed, but they are quite political books, and the shifting relationships between the characters inform a lot of the plot. So a glossary for the back of SB seemed a good idea, a handy index for readers who haven't (re-)devoured SQ immediately prior to getting their hands on SB.

Only every time I tried to construct the glossary, each and every entry turned out to be rife with spoilers. I kid you not. At one point, this was my glossary (spoilers redacted):

Matilde: Protagonist. Daughter of Luitger (deceased) and Laleh (deceased), grand-daughter of Beata. Much-put-upon.
Beata: Matilde's paternal grandmother; also has the memories of Matilde's maternal grandmother (Shadi) in her head. By SB she SLIGHT SPOILER.
Dieter: Husband of Matilde because SPOILER. Smug.
Helena: Daughter of Beata, sister of Luitger, and thus Matilde's aunt. She SPOILER.
Renatas: Son of Helena (deceased), and thus Matilde's cousin. Right annoying prat. He SPOILER.
Sidonius: Ilthean general and SPOILER.
Amalia: Dieter's younger sister. Passionate and SPOILER.
Roshi: Matilde's Skythe cousin on her mother's side. In SQ she SPOILER, and SPOILER, and SPOILER; in SB she SPOILER.

Isn't that the most helpful glossary ever?

I settled for a family tree instead. It seemed less fraught.

 Posted by at 6:14 pm  Tagged with:

pretty sure the stuff in my kitchen sink has achieved sentience

 journal, shadow bound, writing life  6 Responses »
Apr 152010
 

Deb vs Proofs, so far:

  • One (1) paper cut gash, to Deb's right index finger
     
  • Several (5+) stubs to Deb's big right toe, because she keeps catching it on the chair or the corner of the desk when turning to check something on one of the stacks of paper on the floor
     
  • Three (3) separate instances of Deb being caught muttering to herself on public transport, causing irreparable damage to her facade of being (relatively) sane
     
  • One (1) moment of soul-crushing despair, on discovering a seemingly unsolvable plot snarl
     
  • Seven (7) nights of sleep deprivation, due to racing thoughts and the fact that proofs are, bet you didn't realise this, some kind of Lovecraftian horror what eats your brain
     
  • ZERO (0) instances of seagull-singing!
     
  • 473 pages full of little fixes: VANQUISHED

Huzzah! I think, technically speaking, the proofs are still ahead, given all the casualties they've inflicted on me. But I have slashed their innards with green ink, so at least I went down fighting.

There are still the big fixes to go, and when I mean big I mean like last night's effort — which involved 3 hours to fix a grand total of 5 pages. Oof. Word and page counts make fine and dandy targets, but they do not accurately reflect the thinking time that went into them. But I have all weekend to tackle said big fixes, which feels like glorious, copious quantities of time, so I'm quietly hopeful that I can do it without feeling too pressed by the deadline.

Now, did I miss anything interesting while I was buried in all those stacks of paper?

 Posted by at 7:46 pm  Tagged with:

nothing like happy to turn a monday around

 asides, the wages of salt  4 Responses »
Apr 122010
 

People, check it out: "The Wages of Salt" received an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow's "Best Horror of the Year, Volume 2" !

It's quite a list,1 and my little story that could is in some spectacular company.

Yea verily, tonight I am not a little bit chipper :)

  1. such a list, in fact, that I missed my name entirely on the first pass. It wasn't until Ben Payne posted the Australian-only summary that I found out. [↩]
 Posted by at 8:29 pm  Tagged with:

seagull singing status: not yet

 journal, shadow bound, writing life  Comments Off
Apr 112010
 

So far, the proofs have taught me three things (or at least, three things which come immediately to mind).

First, a "brace" is a pair of something. Did you all know this? I did not. I was in fact under the impression that it denoted decidedly more than two. Dear proof-reader, thank you for questioning.

Second, enjoy those easy pages which have no mark-up, because sooner or later you're going to hit a page with one tiny little question that makes you realise you have previously farked up the plot in a rather horrifying way, and fixing it elegantly (which you must do, it being proofs stage and nobody therefore wanting to add too much more bulk to the book) takes a good four hours. To produce a paragraph. Oy vey. (I fixed it. But now I am not ahead on my target. Boo.)

Third, I do NOT, resolutely NOT, need a smaller desk. In fact, I may well need a much, much larger desk.

I have this pine monstrosity I've been thinking of getting rid of, it being too high for a short person such as myself, and I admit I've been toying with the thought of going all minimalist. A just-barely-enough work surface, which I would naturally keep sparse and clean. But the proofs have reminded me that such a wish is utter, utter folly.

Any desk I own will need to have a work surface large enough to contain the laptop, lamp and scanner (its normal accessories), plus room for the stack of pages I'm working on, the stack of pages I'm yet to go through, the stack of pages I've been through but may need to go back to or at least refer to, a notepad for "thinking out loud" or experimenting with the words I want before committing them to the page in question, and somewhere to put the scads of reference material such as maps, lists of names, issues to fix, &c. That's a whole lot of stacks of paper, and my pine desk is, despite being to my mind too large, not up to the task. I currently have drawers pulled open on either side of me acting as ad-hoc surfaces for supporting the reference material.

On the plus side, this means I don't have to find money for a new teeny desk any time soon. (And a new larger desk is not going to happen. If I have to I'll resort to the floor.)

I'm planning on putting that money I just "saved" towards the purchase of a new camera, so I can taunt you with pictures of Mongolia.

and they're all (well, mostly all) cousins

 shadow bound, writing life  7 Responses »
Apr 072010
 

The proofs for Shadow Bound landed today. The fourteen-day forecast is therefore for sudden squalls of insanity, the occasional seagull impersonation, an inability to discuss any topic that does not immediately relate to (for example) the placement of commas, and a general air of abstraction and sleeplessness.

Although, the proof reader has won my undying love for the following comment in her cover letter:

This was a thoroughly absorbing read. Lots of urst (please cast Viggo Mortensen or Hugh Jackman as Dieter), tension and complexities.

Heh. Heheh. I think it was only a couple of months ago I finally figured out what URST stood for,1 and now apparently I've written a book with sufficient URST to make at least one person think of Viggo.

I can live with that.

This evening, along with getting started on the proofs, I also wrote up the dedication and acknowledgements. My next task, concurrent with the edits, is to whip up some kind of character/house/tribe glossary — which I think is no bad idea, given that no less than 40-odd character and house names are mentioned in the first 60 pages. And this is a novel with actually not that many characters!

It's all starting to take shape people. Book!

  1. I'm slow on the uptake. But I know there's at least one person who also doesn't know what it means, so just for you, Mum: UnResolved Sexual Tension. [↩]

dear story: you (still) suck

 journal, the wages of honey, writing life  Comments Off
Apr 042010
 

I don’t know whether it’s just approaching-the-end or it’s-not-working, but I hate the short story.

I hate all my stories when I’m approaching the end of the draft, so it could be completely normal and nothing to be concerned about. On the other hand, the approaching-the-end hate is particularly difficult to tell apart from the it’s-not-working hate, which happens when something deep and structural just isn’t pulling together.

In fact, to make matters worse, the it’s-not-working hate is indistinguishable not only from the approaching-the-end hate, but also from the don’t-know-the-start hate and the farking-middles! hate. Canny readers will note that covers all the bases there: start, middle, end. Which means I find it impossible to tell whether a story is working or not while I’m wrestling with these other modes of writing, and I just have to push on.

I hate pushing on.

Dear story, why couldn’t you be one of those stories that just flowed? I like them better. Nolove, Your Author.

Dear Author, I was one of those stories that just flowed, remember? All SORTS of crap ended up on the page, including the TARDIS at one point. Which is precisely why you’re having so much trouble now. It’s not my fault your first draft consisted solely of “Plot? I have no need of plot while I can throw shiny at the page!” Nolove, Your Story. Who Deserves Better Than To Be Defamed In Such A Manner.

she has a face!

 announcements, journal, shadow bound  6 Responses »
Apr 012010
 

Yesterday I suffered from sponge-brain caused by a criminal lack of sleep which, I don't mind telling you, is entirely Tripod's fault, for scheduling their show so late.1 (Although when I pointed this out to them, what did they go and do but thank me for making the effort to turn up! Who thanks people for being a teasing jerk? The boys from Tripod, obviously. Sorry, Mum — their mums obviously did a better job at instilling polite behaviour.)

(Also, said show was fantastic. I realise the comedy festival has only just started, and it's a big call to make so early on, but this is my favourite show so far and may well turn out to be my favourite show of the festival. A lot of this has to do with Tripod, who are, of course, we all recognise this, brilliant. It also has to do with their special guest star, Elana Stone, whose voice in the first dragon song utterly slayed the entire audience. I do love me a strong female vocalist.)

And today Reliably Absent Yarra Trams sabotaged my attempt at a social life.

But it doesn't matter! Why, you ask? Because Allen & Unwin have released their July 2010 catalogue!

Er, yeah, that's great, Deb, I hear you say. But what does this, yanno, mean?

Well, for all of you oh so patiently waiting for Shadow Bound to become a real grown-up book, this means you are now in possession of a firm publication date2 AND, as a bonus, a first glimpse of the cover art.

Is it not pretty? And shiny?

Yes, okay, I know it's not particularly large, but I don't have a large version to hand to show you, on account of the large version not being actually finalised yet. Once I do, you can bet I'll be slapping it up on the blog for you all to ogle and admire.

  1. Oh, okay, Meandering Yarra Trams probably has some share of culpability as well. [↩]
  2. Note: due to the vagaries of the industry, a publication date of July 2010 means the book should start appearing in stores sometime in June 2010. [↩]