it never rains but it pours

 journal, the wages of salt  Comments Off
Mar 212009
 

The signing sheets for Postscripts #18 have come and gone on their merry way and I can say this with certainty: I have no signature. Truly, every single one of those sheets is unique.

I am currently sitting in my car, which is at the moment a very expensive sculpture, on account of the battery going to sleep sometime in the past two weeks and now declining to emerge from its coma. Given that I need the car today in order to find a place to live, my previous plans having exploded in rather spectacular and last-minute fashion, I am, needless to say, a little peeved with life right about now. For values of a little roughly approximate to I think the world can just go ahead and burn, what do I care any more?

So, my apologies, but sporadic and unfocussed (and haphazardly abandoned) is going to be a feature of this site until life JUST SETTLES DOWN, DAMMIT.

In the meantime, have a snippet of awesome to entertain you: Predator X (link courtesy of splinister)

PS: Comments are not turned off, but please be aware that I may be a little distracted and unable to get around to answering any of them for a bit.

adventures in relocation, part the whatever

 journal, the wages of salt  3 Responses »
Mar 172009
 

I cannot tell you how much I love today's xkcd.

Today, I ventured onto Melbourne's public transport system all by myself, and successfully navigated my way to ambush Tess in her natural habitat. Inconveniently, I forgot to actually determine precisely where her natural habitat was in relation to the closest train station, but luckily she rescued me, and fed me chicken, so all is right with the world.

She also handed over the box containing my signing sheets for Postscripts #18. I'd been wondering where they got to, but now the mystery is solved: they came to me via NZ. Given they came from the UK, this either means they went the very long way around, or overshot me and had to backtrack. Disturbingly, someone else's customs declaration has been stuck over the original customs declaration, and the new declaration states underwear. You know, I know the box doesn't contain underwear, and yet…I still don't wanna open it…

i'm just no good at blurbs

 journal, shadow bound, the wages of salt, writing life  4 Responses »
Feb 042009
 

Today, I am full of requests for blurbs and biographies.

Note to self: when you write a story, write a blurb then and there. You'll need it later.

Pledged has been read through (and hopefully all those embarrassing typos caught and corrected) and emailed to my agent and editor, which means it's off my desk for the immediate future. There was a lot of wonky formatting this time around, courtesy of the switch to mac (Word on the mac seems determined to ignore my underlining, bastard program). Of course, I forgot to send along a blurb, so had to spend this morning on that.

Also, news from PS Publishing that Issue #18 is ready for design, which means I need to provide a blurb and bio for them. It looks like they'll be publishing a signed edition as well, which should prove interesting, as the signing sheets are set to arrive…right in the middle of my interstate move. Oh yeah, that'll be fun.

this is the part where i start making no sense during a conversation

 journal, talatu, writing life  6 Responses »
Jan 162009
 

A productive day on the short story today; I finally, after days of false starts, feel like I'm getting somewhere. (Did I mention I think outlining in advance is much more efficient? I did, didn't I? Although, to be fair to my poor beleaguered brain, this story is not entirely without (my kind of) outline. I know the characters, and their motivations, and I know the arc of the story. It just wasn't flowing.)

I've hit the end of the first third, and this is the dangerous time. This is the time when the world-building starts to reinforce itself and remind me I need to actually include it in the story, not just in my head. The characters start doing things which remind me I haven't foreshadowed that particular motivation yet, oops. The plot starts to hang on a few threads I'd meant to set up, honestly, I knew I meant to, I just got sidetracked.

Do you see the danger? This is the point in the story when I want to go back and start revising. And I am not allowed to, on pain of never finishing a story death.

This is the point where I start racing, wanting to get to the end so I can revise, and simultaneously I start toying with the idea of just tweaking this paragraph, just this section, just this whole manuscript so far. Because I hate the idea of the start of the story being broken, and not matching the ending, and what if I do forget the changes I need to incorporate, even though I've just taken the time to write myself a copious note in the margin?1 I've even toyed with the idea of letting myself write two drafts of this story simultaneously, writing the first draft and then, as a reward once I'd hit the day's quota, opening a fresh copy and revising as I go.2

Also, I am really, really tempted to name this story after the lyrics in a Cyndi Lauper song. That would be wrong, wouldn't it? It could also be expensive, which would definitely make it wrong.3

  1. This is not entirely an irrational fear. I've written myself some very strange notes in the margin in my time. I swear I thought they all made sense at the time, but that does not always mean they make sense on the second pass. At least short stories generally have less time between passes, so there's more chance I'll remember. [↩]
  2. Writers really is nuts. Who would think that's a reward? [↩]
  3. But I still wanna. [↩]

nose to the grindstone

 journal, shadow bound, talatu, writing life  2 Responses »
Jan 032009
 

Pledged is duly rechapterised, and I'm celebrating by … starting another project straight away.

Yeah, it's not particularly smart, there's this little thing called downtime which I hear is really effective in guarding against burnout… but this project (untitled, like all my new projects, which makes blogging about them tricksome at best) is a short story, and contracted, so I kinda hafta start it now. If I want to, you know, eat. No biggie.

I also have one (contracted) novel outline, one short story collection critique, and one (uncontracted) (for now) novel outline that needs doing sooner rather than later. It's a good thing I don't have a dayjob at the moment. When I quit the baby mines, everyone was saying things like, "Oh, wow! Two months off work. Think of all the sleeping in you'll be able to do!" I always smiled and nodded, but in my head I was replying, "Actually, I was thinking if I got up early every day, I'd be able to squeeze in even more writing!"

It's a sickness. Really.

Here, to distract you, have some links:

lose some, win some

 journal, the wages of salt, writing life  6 Responses »
Nov 212008
 

In the lose-some department, news from my agent is that one of the UK publishing houses considering Shadow Queen has decided to pass. C'est la vie.

In the win-some department, Google Alerts is a dangerous wonderful thing. Today it informed me that Issue #18 of PostScripts Magazine will be released in Spring 20091, and will contain my story, "The Wages of Salt". Okay, so this isn't new news, since this is a sale I made long enough ago that I've long since been paid and spent said payment, but it still counts, because I'd forgotten about this story and am excited to see it slated for a firm publication date.

In the er…oops department, I really shouldn't have had that bourbon and coke. Now I'm sleepy.

  1. I'm presuming this is Northern Hemisphere Spring, so April-ish next year [↩]

I'll tell you all of the things that you'll never forget

 away come away, cherry crow children, journal, writing life  Comments Off
May 072008
 

Children. They are, in point of fact, germ manufacturing and distribution facilities.

Spawn and Brutus were up on the weekend and, lo and behold, I am lurgified. This circumstance would be more acceptable if it had occurred on a working day, instead of my days off.

On the other hand, my germ-addled mind did produce a short story idea today, which may yield words for the day and therefore as far as I'm concerned is more lovable than the novel.

If you can believe it, Spawn, at not yet 2 years old, knows how to use an iPod. This nearly broke my brain.

somewhat belated

 journal, teratogen  4 Responses »
Jan 142008
 

I'm not entirely sure how it is I forgot to update you all on this one, but I suspect everything I ate (and, er, drank) over the holidays pickled my brain to such an extent that it is only now recovering cognitive function.

Anyway, while I was determinedly avoiding the internets, Cemetery Dance decided they wished to purchase my abortion and butterflies story, "Teratogen".

Naturally I cackled and indulged in a chair dance accepted.

 Posted by at 11:16 am  Tagged with:

on cashing foreign cheques…

 journal, pre-crash, the wages of salt, writing life  2 Responses »
May 022007
 

So my cheque for PostScripts arrived in the mail yesterday. (Woot for publications which pay on acceptance!) It was such a cute cheque, with Superman1 on it, I was quite reluctant to hand it over to the bank.

My reluctance only intensified when I stood there for nigh on half an hour while the bank teller keyed in all the information she needed to. Granted, foreign cheques are always going to have the information in unfamiliar corners. And there's the whole American date format, which threw her for a while. The writing on the cheque was too small for her to make out. The always-fun moment where she accidently wiped everything and had to re-enter the data. And the especially fun moment where she wanted to know if perhaps the American cheque had been drawn in Australian dollars, since it didn't say anywhere that it was specifically American dollars…?2

And then she needed to know what city and state the cheque was from. I pointed out that "Cranston, Rhode Island" was probably what she was looking for there, but she was dubious. "Isn't Rhode Island a city?" she asks. "Which would make Cranston a suburb. And I need to know what state Rhode Island is in."

See, this is where watching movies and retaining trivia comes to your rescue. "I'm pretty sure Rhode Island is a state," I say. "After all, in Miss Congeniality, the contestants are all from states — Minnesota and Dakota and California, right? And one of them is from Rhode Island."

Not the most structurally-sound way to make a point, no. But it's all about the lowest common denominator, people. It was something she'd believe3, and it was going to be aeons quicker than asking her to google it.

You do what you gotta.

  1. Seriously! Superman! What kind of bank issues cheques with Superman on them? None of the banks I know have fun cheques. [↩]
  2. I gave her my best are-you-kidding-me? look. It seemed to work. [↩]
  3. As opposed to the alternative: "I'm pretty sure Rhode Island is a state, not a city. Although I don't have a map or supporting evidence on me… [↩]

postscripts

 journal, pre-crash, the wages of salt, writing life  19 Responses »
Apr 252007
 

Well, I've slept on it, and hours and hours have passed, and no further email has appeared in my inbox telling me it was all a wicked joke…

So I guess I've just sold a story to POSTSCRIPTS.

8O
Needless to say, I am thrilled (if a little stunned). But heck, I was pretty stunned when my query earned a "send the story along" response1. So when the second email appeared in my inbox, I avoided it. They'd only had the story for a day, after all. Bound to be a rejection. Plenty of time to catalogue what kind of rejection in a moment.

Except this time? Apparently not. :D

The story in question is, yes, the one I've been wrangling recently, "The Wages of Salt". No idea when it will see actual print, since I understand POSTSCRIPTS is bought up a fair way into the future at the moment.

An enormous shout-out (of the I owe you a beer or beverage of your choice kind) to my Rimfire crew: Nike, Rju, Ben, Andy, Kaaron, Matt, and Rosaleen, who gave me such constructive feedback on this story I had to rewrite it from the ground up. Which means they won't recognise it any more, but they helped make it what it is.

  1. I hate querying. I have always maintained I can't write queries. I guess maybe I can't maintain that any more? [↩]
 Posted by at 8:32 am  Tagged with:
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