news from the trenches

 journal, shadow bound, writing life  4 Responses »
Dec 282009
 

First, the administrivia: I have been a most efficient and dedicated authorly creature and mailed out the giveaway books. They went out in the afternoon post of Monday 21 December (my time). So, winners, eyes on your mail boxes, and please to be ooh'ing and aah'ing over the pretty when it arrives, 'kay? 'kay.

I would like to say that my Christmas has been quiet and contemplative, but as I steal a moment to write this I quite literally cannot hear anything over the bawling and hollering of the two year old and three year old. They're not a patch on the twenty-four year old cousin egging them on, however. I can say my Christmas has been raucously festive, at least ;)

It's also involved edits. Lots of. I'm now about halfway through the first pass of edits on Pledged Book 2, whatever it ends up being called. But as I go through, I stick a post-it note against any fix that requires too much thinking or might result in a ripple of changes back and/or forward through the novel. So the pages I've 'done' usually end up with a minimum 3 post-it notes apiece, and need to be gone back to. They're starting to look like much harder work than the pages I haven't touched yet. Oy vey.

Somewhere along the line I realised I've started talking to the edits. Well, actually, that usually happens from the get-go — but I seem to have progressed to talking aloud to the edits. Can't remember at what point I started talking aloud to the edits of Shadow Queen, so hard to say whether my insanity is progressing faster or not. Probably faster. Accelerated by the Christmas lights, no doubt.

I had more to say, but the squalling has reached epic proportions and if I don't at least make an effort to intervene, I might end up caught in the crossfire. See you all in the new year!

time for a new plan

 journal, writing life  4 Responses »
Apr 302009
 

Today, I admitted defeat. I've been getting up at 5 a.m. to get an hour's writing in before the dayjob takes over. It's been working okay (when I'm disciplined enough not to check my email, that is), but it's been chilly enough that I've been working from bed to keep warm. This morning, however,1 it was too cold to even THINK about sitting up at 5 a.m. For that matter, it was actually too cold to move. I tested the air with a single ear, but quickly tucked my head back under the blankets when I instantly lost all sensation in said exposed ear. Consequently, there was no writing this morning.

So, time for a new plan.

Buggered if I know what it will be, though.

In the meantime, my crazy-talented brother (one of my crazy-talented brothers, to be more precise) has written a game for the iphone: it's called AAA Gun Club.

My mother tells me she's been using it to tease amuse the cats: they look for the spent cartridges which they can hear falling to the floor. Hours of fun for the whole family! (Don't let my irreverance fool you. When I googled last night it was ranking among the top downloads of iTunes UK store. I'm just not entirely sure what to tell you because I don't have an iPhone. But I'm not bitter about that, not in the least, oh no, why do you ask?)

  1. coldest night in April in 52 years, I'm told — I haven't googled to check [↩]

geography. perhaps it should be part of the syllabus again?

 journal  4 Responses »
Apr 132009
 

To properly celebrate the move south, I spent Easter…back home. One of the perks of this arrangement was spending some time with Spawn, who can't quite tell my two younger brothers apart. "This are Ben," she told me as I pointed out one younger brother (not Ben, in actual fact). I pointed out the real Ben and she hesitated, perhaps sensing a trap, but soldiered bravely on: "This are… More Ben!"

The other perk of this arrangement was the availability of internet. Ah, bandwidth, how I've missed you! Enjoying the benefits of connectivity, I was stumbling videos and came across this gem: CNNNN's Next Country To Invade.

Around about the 0:48 mark people start putting pins into the map to demonstrate where the US should invade next.

Iran Korea Australia is screwed.

i swear to you, there are no big words in this book

 journal, shadow queen, writing life  10 Responses »
Jan 172009
 

Today I come bearing gifts: an excerpt of Shadow Queen!

Thanks to Allen & Unwin, if you want to try before you buy, without all the inconvenience of trudging into a brick and mortar store, now you can read the first chapter online, or download it for reading later. (Those of you who download will get the extra special glimpse of the book's layout and font-design, since the PDF is a true representation of the finished book.)

As a bonus fun-fact, consider when reading that this first chapter is in fact one-fifth of what in my head I still call the first chapter. Yes, when I say the chapters in the original manuscript were LONG, I'm not exaggerating.

For those of you who've already read the book, I give you instead the feedback from friends and family who have actually finished reading it:

P, on starting the book: "I think she went a little too hard too early on the big words — I don't think she'll be able to keep it up."

P, on finishing the book: "Er, I take that back. She did keep it up."

N: "Oh my God, I'm going to need a dictionary to read this thing!"1

B:2 "Tricksy. Very tricksy."

S: "Is this the sort of stuff you were thinking about while you were at work? Because the majority of what I think about is what to cook for dinner, and there you were all this time, pondering the ways to kill people? I think I'm a little bit scared now."

And, the overwhelming response from pretty much everyone: "What the…? Cliffhanger! I have to wait HOW LONG for the next part? AGH!"

So, people, consider yourselves warned.

  1. Honestly, I thought I took all the really hard and obscure big words out. Honestly! But, er, apparently not. [↩]
  2. Somewhat paraphrased [↩]

this is the bit where the brain starts to splinter

 shadow bound  2 Responses »
Dec 292008
 

I keep losing days. Today is Monday, apparently, but I'm pretty sure yesterday was Saturday. This means I'm either going insane, becoming ever more inattentive, Sunday was totally and utterly exactly the same as Saturday and thus they blurred into the one day in my memory… or Sunday just vanished out the calendar.

I'm betting on the last one. For sure.

My inattentiveness and the sameness of my days would have nothing to do with the deathmarch status of the revisions, nosiree, why do you ask?

In other truly momentous news, yesterday (er, Saturday?), Spawn greeted Brutus with the phrase "Hey, Brutus!"1

Wiktory! My work here is done.

  1. For those who are curious, yes, I do actually call them Spawn and Brutus in person as well as on the blog, although expediency sometimes forces me to revert to their real christened names instead. Not often, though. [↩]

phrases heard in my house over christmas

 asides, journal  1 Response »
Dec 282008
 

"Has Apple bought the bloody Greek pantheon now?" (Me)

"I'm only hanging out with you so your girlfriend thinks you're a child person. You owe me." (From an 8yo)

"Meow likes ball!" (No prizes for guessing that one was Spawn. She used to call the cats by their name, but would always get them mixed up. She now refers to the cats individually and collectively as Meow. Much simpler.)

"I did warn you that you might find an Apple frustrating."

we're living with the lost and found

 journal, shadow queen  2 Responses »
Sep 072008
 

Today featured a walk to the local park, where we did not find koalas, but we did find roosters. Very well-fed glossy roosters who declined to spend any time eating our bread. We also found the playground infested with other people's children, which was mostly okay except for the little girl who kept telling us to "Go away!" Luckily, Brutus, despite being half her age, was larger than her and had stronger pushing power and sorted her out quickly enough.

So, because I clearly have too much time on my hands it made such a good distraction, lolchildren.

This was the steepest kid's slippery dip I have ever seen. It was nearly vertical.

I wish I was joking about this, but we really did spend most of the visit to the park taking tanbark out of Brutus' mouth. Apparently it is tasty.

In writing news, I have only 30 pages left of proofs…before I get to go through and work on the pages I've tagged as requiring multiple-page fixes.

my family. i get my insanity from somewhere, after all.

 journal  4 Responses »
Aug 272008
 

Some years ago, my brother (who does 3D imaging and computer modelling, among other things) was applying for a job, and needed some samples of his work on the web for potential employers to view, so I set up a subdomain off my website for him to use.

Yesterday, in cleaning out my hard drive, I found the subdomain and wondered if he was still using it, so flung him a quick email to check.

His answer?

i would like to expand the subdomain in a hostile takeover bid.

The subdomain has become the superdomain. Owner of all domains.

if you could just go ahead and clear all your hard drive of anything not relating to me that would be good.

i would also like the space quest series of games installed.

For those of you keeping score at home, yes, this is the same brother who wrote the ransom note from the ants.

dreams of ice and wings

 journal, shadow queen  1 Response »
Jul 032008
 

The copyedit is dead done, long live the copyedit!

At this point I'm honestly not sure I could tell the difference between my novel, and 300 pages of the letter k. Luckily I have an editor who can tell the difference, and is not rendered loopy by the editing process the way I am.

Today…today I get the day off.

Only… I'm not quite sure what to do with all this time. And I have a few stories and novels that still need work, you see… I suspect I shall have to use episodes of Doctor Who to enforce a rest, but you know, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

In other news, today is also my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary.

60 years!

This seems to me an incredible achievement, given I have a habit of running out of patience and tolerance with people much sooner than 60 years, and a temper which sees people run out of patience and tolerance with me much sooner than 60 years.

So here's to you, Cyberpop and not-so-cyber Nan.

i've created a monster

 journal  4 Responses »
Mar 222008
 

Again with the shopping today, this time for headphones. Unlike my normal wont, today, I did not shop alone: Spawn came with me.

The first sales attendant gave me a strange look when I told him I was looking for noise cancelling headphones, and eyed the seven (identical) pairs of earbuds I was currently holding.

Salesman: …uh, they're not quite what you're looking for. Also, did you really need seven pairs?
Me: Oh, no. But it's an awful lot easier to say thank you and accept them, you see. (To Spawn, who is handing me an eighth pair in her quest to clean out the bottom shelf): Thank you!

I couldn't be bothered with a pram, so I let her walk on her own. Oohboy but that's a slow way to shop. Tricky to concentrate, too. Her parents will not thank me, next time they attempt to shop, when she insists on Down, please, please, down…

Also, turns out people do look at you oddly when you call out to the child, "Spawn! This way, Spawn!"

shopping.jpg

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