we now return you to your scheduled programming

Right. Hi there. This is me, marginally returned from the brink of lunacy. At least, the incidence of seagull songs seems to be decreasing, steadily if not swiftly. 1

I have mailed the manuscript to my agent and my beta readers, and threatened them with Nasty Things if they so much as think of returning it too soon, and I have spent the past couple of days desperately avoiding the computer. I say desperately, because it was like crash withdrawal. What do people who don't write do with all that time?

In the interim, my cousin is beleaguered by a tricksome assignment. She wants my help but, given that my brain is broken, I thought she might get better help from the rest of you.

So, here's the assignment question:

think of a speculative technological object or device that you might propose to enhance or restrict the capacity of the human body. It may be serious, experimental or fantastic. It can be, but does not have to be, possible within the realms of current technology. It may extend, combine or depart from current technology devices (but should not to simply augment a ubiquitous technology such as a mobile phone or mp3 player). The representations that you will produce will all relate to this object or device.

Have at it. My suggestions were a jetpack, an amoeba bed which removes the need to eat (and therefore cook, clean up after cooking, plan the next meal, and shop for food)2, and I forget the third one, but there was a third one, and by golly it was brilliant. Oh! No, I remember. It was a dockable brain. A computer in my head.

Have at it, people. The more fantastic the better. What have you always wanted in the future?

  1. Y'all think I'm joking about the seagull singing, but honest to god I'm not. I even got so trashed by the whole novel-writing-revising process that I started my godawful yawping at the dayjob last week. Way to act professional. At least I had the sense not to … 'perform' in front of the patients. [↩]
  2. Plus, you could still overeat and indulge by taking a nap — seriously, what is NOT TO LOVE about that? [↩]

7 March 2008 @ 17:50 | 1 Comment

the next day mr earbrass is conscious but very little more

Beta draft done.

Brain broken.

Send (alcoholic) aid.

Chaman (Maná — Sueños Liquidos)

4 March 2008 @ 19:55 | 3 Comments

it's not my fault!

State of the Beta Draft: the dog Stephen Moffat ate my homework.

So, okay, the beta draft is STILL not done. I have swapped panicked moaning for cheerful lunacy and singing like a seagull. It's so much more fun for all involved.

There's an astonishing array of seagull moods available: there's panicked seagull, introspective seagull, pensive seagull, yawping seagull… The list is endless. And the best part of it all is that seagulls are not particularly tuneful birds, so there's very little pressure to perform so far as trivial issues like tone and pitch are concerned. The more jagged and jarring the better!

I tried to finish the beta draft last night, honest I did, but I couldn't. It's all that Moffat bloke's fault.1 There I was, humming (un)tunefully in the manner of a lovesick seagull, when the TV starts up with Jekyll.

Interesting, I'd thought on seeing the ads, but potentially sleep-depriving.2 Then my friend tells me it's written by Moffat, who wrote that amazing weeping angels episode of the third season of Doctor Who, not to mention the gas-masked child episode of the first season of Doctor Who and the girl in the fireplace episode of the second season. Moffat story! I think. No matter how scary it might be, I must watch. I will, I think (by now I'm a virtuous seagull, you see), work on the revisions at the same time.

I tried. I couldn't. The show was too good, and I had to pay attention — and honestly, I'd be done now if that Moffat bloke couldn't write.

  1. Okay, some of it might be the novel's fault. If the thing would just stop growing, I might not have needed to spend 11 hours each on Saturday and Sunday wrestling with it without actually finishing. [↩]
  2. I am, you see, particularly easy to terrorise. [↩]

Blackbird (Emily Barker — Photos. Fires. Fables.)

3 March 2008 @ 17:44 |

state of the beta draft

STILL NOT DONE.

ARGH.

Harappa (E.S. Posthumus — Unearthed)

2 March 2008 @ 17:05 | 5 Comments

two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl

State of the Beta Draft: still not done. (Orcs Words slaughtered: Thousands of the buggers. Literally. But they're growing back again!)

State of the Author: ugh. Did I write any of this novel the first time around? I ask only for information.

Here, have a dragon instead. I can't remember his actual name any more, but I'm pretty sure it had 'sailed' and 'water' in it, and for some reason I want to add Portuguese.

saileddragon.jpg

Now there's a jaw which hasn't seen any need to evolve in the last few millennia. And those are some funky-shaped digits. Apologies for the green tinge to the photo: I had to tilt the camera to avoid glare from the cage wall.

Wish You Were Here (Rodrigo y Gabriela — Live)

2 March 2008 @ 9:26 | 11 Comments

you're going where…?

The deathmarch continues unabated. I have now abandoned all pretence of understanding the rules of grammar or syntax, the meaning of any given word in the english language, and indeed appropriate times to laugh or talk. Apparently you shouldn't indulge either impulse while you're alone. Who knew? Pshaw, I say. Friends and family are beginning to suspect I've written a terribly funny novel. Little do they know it's the laugh of a desperate and mad woman, bemused by the weight of her own words.

To add spice to the mixture, I've been trying to book my flights for the trip away. I've stopped telling people I'm going to Bhutan, and started telling them I'm going to the Himalayas, since even travel agents are looking at me blankly and saying "Where? Where's that?"

Visited the GP to check out what vaccinations I'll need. Health and travel websites list a whole range of fun preventable diseases, such as polio and rabies and malaria and japanese encephalitis. The GP spent most of the consultation telling me I didn't really need to bother with the vaccinations.

Malaria? Oh, there's not really any need for malaria meds. They're such a hassle, you see, and the Himalayas are quite high up. If you head down into any of the valleys … well, maybe just stay up high, won't you?

Polio? Oh, you've probably already had a polio vaccination. No need to bother with another of those.

Rabies? H'm. I understand there is a bit of a street dog problem in Bhutan, and of course it's not just dogs you need to worry about, it's any mammal. So probably no need to worry about a rabies vaccination before you go. Just… if you do get bitten, by anything, do make sure you get the post-exposure rabies vaccination as soon as you get home, won't you? Because it's quite fatal, after all.

Me, boggling: You mean, as opposed to moderately fatal?

Oh, yes, he says, and if you develop a strange fever about six months after returning home, and you can't figure out what it is, do try and remember it might be malaria, and get treatment — because that's moderately fatal.

All I Need (Mat Kearney — Nothing Left To Lose)

28 February 2008 @ 17:26 | 3 Comments

irrational = me

Blogging may get sparse in the next week or so, as the revision deathmarch loometh. I just want to be done with this draft, so I can inflict it on my tortured faithful beta readers and just ignore it, for a little while. My head, she is running dry. I have lost all ability to evaluate a sentence for purty or even for comprehensibility.

In the meantime (because the best way to procrastinate is external stress, don't you know?), I've been thinking about a holiday to Bhutan.

Initially I thought about putting the trip off until October, for a variety of reasons, but recently I began questioning the wisdom of that. If not now, when? The trip is not going to get any cheaper for waiting. Last night I almost signed up, money on the counter. Then I realised that I would have to travel via Bangkok and, for reasons that are lost in the shadows of time and may never have had any foundation anyway, I am terrified of Bangkok. Honestly, it's completely irrational and I don't know why, but there it is.

So: tell me your (wondrous) stories of Bangkok.1

  1. Nasty stories need not apply, except if you really desperately want to warn me away from the city you can say "don't go, 4 srs" — but any further details will only rob me of sleep and equanimity, and we none of us want that because I am quite badly sleep-deprived already today. [↩]

Crazy (Cordrazine — Triple J Hottest 100 #5)

23 February 2008 @ 13:02 | 3 Comments

write first

Note to self:

Write first. Make the time.

You know this already.

Cry Cry Cry (Joaquin Phoenix — Walk The Line OST)

22 February 2008 @ 17:41 | 2 Comments

precision. it's important.

It can be difficult to find a blog post topic when drowning in revisions. For example, the highlight of my recent days (so far as writing goes) is discovering that my character apparently, allegedly, according to what I wrote in the first draft, recovered his posie.

:?

I'm guessing I meant poise, because soldier-types aren't particularly known for their love of posies. And because if I really did mean posie, I don't want to know what that might show about my thought processes.

Yes, as you can see, my life has been all the fun ever of late.

So in lieu of the horror show that is my brain on revisions, lookee: spiders. under the sea!

20 February 2008 @ 11:15 | 6 Comments

still i push my barrow all the day

I'm supposed to be writing. Right this very moment, me and the words, we should be in the groove.

We are not.

My head will not shut up today, and I'm finding focus a little hard to come by. There are changes afoot at the dayjob, and unrest there and among friends and family, and have I mentioned I haven't finished this novel yet? Gah, I say. Life is filling my head with the wrong things for writing.

I tried self-medicating with bourbon, but that just made me sleepy and supremely unconcerned. Not so helpful.

Eli The Barrow Boy (The Decemberists — Picaresque)

16 February 2008 @ 15:06 | 3 Comments
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