Thank you, everyone, for your congratulations and your good wishes. It's been a long month, trying to keep the cat in the bag, and it's an immense relief to be able to speak about it. My daily writing has even picked up — I passed the 1,000 word mark with ease this evening, something which […]
Another storm, another blackout. I swear, I must live connected to the worst exchange of the worst substation in town. For srs. Other places have trees and possums and yet manage to go entire years without blackouts. Me? If I don't lose power once a month, I may start to believe the whole of Australia […]
After yet another storm last night which knocked the clocks out halfway through the night, there was a very real danger (of which, being asleep, I was blissfully unaware) that I would not in fact stumble out of bed in time to get to work. Thanks to my neighbour's distinctly glorious (and singularly extensive) bout […]
As of Sunday night, the abysmal draft is done, or at least abandoned. From here on in, it's revision all the way, and an attempt to construct a viable beta draft. Finishing the abysmal draft always leaves me malcontent and cranky, so I spent most of Monday stamping around and scowling. My head is full […]
…to be absent from the blog. Sorry about that. I've had my head buried in fixing the plot, and that always leaves me silent. I have finished the read-through and, as I suspected, I left out half the story. (Okay, maybe not half, as such. I do like to exaggerate.) Inserting the missing half while […]
Bitch Ask, and ye shall receive. The clouds haven't cleared, but it's stopped raining. Briefly, anyway. The cicadas are taking advantage of the break to shriek at each other throughout the valley, and the bloodsuckers are having a field day. I am most definitely not stepping foot out of doors without shoes, because all this […]
When your advance cheque arrives, you do not cash it immediately — in case your publisher contacts you with the news that it's all been a dreadful mistake, and the cheque's been cancelled. After some small eternity, you muster the courage to deposit the cheque — but you open a separate account and dare not […]
Notes I left myself from the first draft: Note to self: when Character A has a voice permanently encamped in the back of their head, it is not necessary to say "Character B said in the back of my head" every. single. time. Quit it already. Eep! I thought I was 20,000 words from the […]
The words, they are slow today. This is partly due to hitting a part of the manuscript which needs persnickety changes, and mostly to do with my attitude, which can best be described as restless. Or, more precisely:
Somewhere along the way, I forgot how to count. This is largely a problem because revising 4,000 words a day between now and Feb 14 will not, no matter what my spreadsheet tells me, result in an extra 60,000 words revised by Feb 14. Looks like the novel won't be finished in a week, as […]