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 [↩]

it's good to be king a slow loris

 journal  Comments Off
Apr 252009
 

Today, I give you links that appeared back to back in my feed reader.

  1. May It Please The Court (link courtesy Leigh Dragoon)
  2. A rendition of "Stand By Me" by an international ensemble cast of street musicians:

    (link courtesy Ellen Datlow)

    (This video was so awesome I immediately looked up their other songs released through the Song Around The World project, and then promptly pre-ordered the CD from amazon.)

  3. And, finally, a slow loris being tickled:

    (link courtesy Ellen Datlow)

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.

and this isn't even high-density living

 journal  4 Responses »
Jan 302009
 

Lately, all my mornings start the same way: I lay in bed, listening to the sound of my neighbour throwing up. First time it happened was a weekend, and I wondered (not without some satisfaction) whether it was him, suffering the after-effects of too much alcohol. But it's been going on for over a month now, so I'm pretty sure it's her, suffering the after-effects of impregnation.

It is possible to know too much about your neighbours.

To entertain you, I will direct you towards The Grammar Blog. I can't quite remember where I came across this blog, but I'm always up for a bit of syntactical geekery (hey, it's part of the job description, 'kay?), and at the moment there's a post featuring eggcorns.1

Fair warning, there's an embedded mp3 in the blog post, but rest assured, it's two DJ's talking, so nobody is going to assume you've visited an unsafe site. They are going to know you've tuned into (gasp) grammar radio, though.

  1. Must admit, I'd never heard of an eggcorn, and would probably have called any eggcorns I heard a malapropism. [↩]

we are people people

 journal  Comments Off
Jan 232009
 

The past couple of days have been full of necessary, but non-writing, errands. No fun, no fair. I did do a couple of interviews, which I'll be sure to link to if and when they appear online.

In far more fun news, I very belatedly bring to your attention the new People People song, now with animated video:

Evan, one of the members of The People People, was a classmate of mine at Clarion South. It's a great tune, and if you want to hear more of their work you can check out their myspace page. I particularly recommend "Banish Me", which has been a favourite since I first heard it.

i bet i'll give up before it's written

 journal, writing life  3 Responses »
Jan 142009
 

In a move that surprises absolutely no one but me, I have come to a decision: outlines are not my style.

Seriously, now, stop laughing.

I would love to be one of those writers who outlines; it seems ever so much more efficient and streamlined a process than my own, which is to know a high point or two, to muddle through a draft of the manuscript which could more correctly be called a befuddlement of contradictory notes to myself, and then tear my hair out on revising said befuddlement into something approaching a story. Outlining would be much, much quicker, and less damaging on my hair.

It is with some irony, therefore, that Diana Peterfreund chose the very day I made this decision to post a tutorial on writing fiction synopses.

Here I am, trying to come to terms with my utter inability to plan a story in advance, doing my best to resign myself to the lengthy process that does work for me, and she goes and makes writing a synopsis sound easy. Attractive. Fun!

No fair. (And, er, yes, I will be trying out her advice by writing a not-a-synopsis of the next novel before I write said next novel. Because have I mentioned I'd love to be one of those writers who can outline?)

also, movie tickets cost too much

 journal, writing life  4 Responses »
Jan 072009
 

There's a new Doctor in town, LiveJournal is facing some kind of apocalypse, a hesitant missionary knocked on my door last night to tell me about God but actually excused himself for interrupting my dinner and departed without my needing to shoo him away (and I wasn't even wearing my scary face!), I've been spending far too much of my time tracking down freeware for Mac OS X as part of the switch, and my part of Australia seems to be melting.

I think that about sums it up.

Oh, yes, and I've been reading through Tessa's 7 Wishes stories. Have you read them? I don't know that anyone who reads my blog doesn't already read Tess's, but on the off-chance you missed these wondrous little tales, do yourself a favour. Bookmark that table of contents, and hie thee hence when you're feeling in the need of some whimsy. It's like reading T.S. Eliot, if Eliot were the kind of writer who found the wonder in the world instead of the despair.

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:

watch out, clarion's about

 journal, writing life  6 Responses »
Nov 262008
 

The Voyager Online blog is running a feature on Clarion South at the moment. For those who don't know about Clarion, it's known as boot-camp for speculative fiction writers1. There's East2 and West in the United States, and South in Australia.

Ahead of the January 09 class, Voyager Online has interviewed past tutors and students, and, being a 2005 graduate, I'm one of them. They'll be posting the answers over the next week or so. It's quite an active and interesting blog, so I'd recommend keeping an eye on its entire feed — but if you only want to read the Clarion South posts, you can keep an eye on either the Clarion South Workshop category, or the Clarion South tag. If for some reason you only want to know about my answers3, keep an eye on the Deborah Kalin tag. (Bless those hyper-organised Voyager Online people!)

  1. and boy, they're not kidding [↩]
  2. originally at Michigan State University, now moved to University of California at San Diego [↩]
  3. hi, mum! [↩]

my predictive library refuses to remember deb

 journal, writing life  5 Responses »
Nov 012008
 

The Alien Onion reports on a new trend wherein "book" evolves into meaning "cool", which I am linking both because I find the evolution of the english language a fascinating process, and because my publishers really do rock.

Lately, my brain appears to be fixating on txtspeak and lolspeak. For example, the dinner discussion last night centred for some time around whether we could discern a kiwi accent in the sender's choice of spelling, or whether we were making it up.1 I've spent a good part of the last week training Spawn in lolspeak.2 Also, I appear to have degenerated entirely in my own standards. A lolspeak habit, I has one.

I wonder if my brain is working on a story about language that I don't know about yet.

  1. I think we were making it up. I was more interested in the way the language was evolving so that this sort of unfixed and flexible spelling was not only accepted, but becoming the norm. [↩]
  2. What? She's young, and adaptable, so it won't scar her (too much), and I think it would be hilarious if she greeted her father with a tilted head and the phrase 'O RLY?' [↩]
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