duology, first published by Allen & Unwin
Having your website wiped out is, once you get over the daunting prospect of reinstalling and redesigning everything, almost liberating. (Why, yes, I am being gaggingly positive, aren't I? Don't worry, it won't last long.) It's not so good for getting words done, however. I was going to be virtuous and worry about the website […]
Personally, I find queries to be nasty, brutish creatures. I will cook and clean in preference to writing a query. (Those who know my propensity for all things domestic are noisily choking to death right about now.) Theoretically, I must be capable of writing them. I pitched a story to Postscripts on a query, which […]
a word you never expected your aunt to know: frottage. i had a haircut three whole days ago now. i still hate it. sign of a truly bad haircut. this one's gonna take a few months to undo. is leonard cohen's "hallelujah" the most covered song ever in the history of mankind? i have twenty-seven […]
Astute observers will notice I disappeared for a day or two there. Sorry 'bout that. Sick. Better now (at last!), or at least better enough to function. This of course leaves me decades behind in writing, and facing a rather grim day in terms of getting back into the flow of the novel. I find […]
Is it the ever-growing stack of work I have to do which has produced my funk? Or has the funk created the looming pile of tasks? I am not sure which started first, but I know I don't particularly like it. My energy levels can return from wherever it was they ran and hid anytime […]
The novel is (hopefully: has been) well and truly stuck. I've tried all the usual tricks, such as sneaking up on the plot by exercising, and writing other stories, watching tv so dull and boring I'd honestly rather watch the carpet in front of the tv than what's on the screen, watching stories I love […]
Today I purchased (or ordered, and paid a deposit for) a new bed and a new mattress. (Which, given that purchasing mattresses involves lying down in public and is therefore on the whole an awkward and slightly ridiculous affair, is quite an achievement. The salesman in the mattress store did not share my sense of […]
In all the excitement over agents and snakes, it occurs to me I never did let you all out of your misery. That's right: the bed has arrived, frame and mattress and linen1. Lookit! Yes, there are actual, honest to god, flowers on the new linen. Any day now they're going to issue me with […]
Yesterday I was cursing myself and calling myself all kinds of stupid for not writing down the ending. Today I found the slips of paper on which I'd written down the ending. I'd only gone and slipped them inside my on-the-go notebook, so I could work on the novel at any convenient time, hadn't I. […]
It turns out that packing up all your belongings and, in the following days, unpacking them all right back where they came from, does not make for blogging (or bloggable) days. It does not make for particularly good writing days, either. I am a creature of habit and routine, and when my routine is askew […]