Dec 05

Not dead, just busy

That’d be me. What is it about this time of year? It’s like a giant time-sucking black hole has opened up above my house and it’s vacuuming up the rest of the year while I’m sitting here, typing away furiously and otherwise shaking my fist at it.

Whew. Don’t worry, I have coffee and I’m not afraid to drink it.

So, it’s been a busy few weeks. Working on novel revisions. That’s the big time-vacuuming activity at the moment. Husband and I also drove down to Albury. That’s a decent drive, which we managed to make even longer by A) finding lots of nice places to stop along the way, including an organic licorice factory! and B) choosing a very wet weekend to do it. This was all so we could see an exhibition of Goya’s Los Caprichos. And it was worth it, SO very worth it. We both came away feeling inspired (two new story ideas went on the whiteboard when I got home) and we probably scared the normals in the hotel swimming pool that afternoon as we swam and rambled loudly about the artworks and the possibility of a sci-fi horror story based on one of them. As we do.

The day-job has also been packed. It’s catalogue time and that means I get to chase publishers for info and designers for cover images, and then put them all together in an interesting and exciting way. Christmas parties are being planned, and a whole heap of get-togethers that I’ve just had to say no to. Considering I’m already an anti-social crazy cat lady type person, this isn’t too different. But still, I do like to see real people sometimes!

Birthdays are happening left right and centre. At least I’ve done most of my Christmas shopping (at the Oxfam online store!)

Whew, again. Well, I suppose that’s it. I’d better get back to it.

Oh, one last thing, check out day two of the Angry Robot advent calendar!

Nov 21

A full (and at times crazy) weekend

I’ve done a lot of sleeping this afternoon, and I don’t feel guilty. Not in the least. Because this weekend has been full, and at times crazy.

It all started Friday morning, with a strange squeaking noise in my car. While the noise had been there, in the background, for a few days it had suddenly grown loud. So like a good girl, I called my mechanic. You see, I had a Freecon to attend in Bankstown that afternoon. At the best of times that’s a significant drive (from Coogee, on a Friday afternoon, in peak hour, on Sydney roads) let alone with the ‘squeal-rattle-clunk’ every time I accelerated or changed gears. Not only that, I was due to give a reading that afternoon, at the Freecon. The first time I’ve ever been on the other side of a panel, and I was already nervous.

So, I rang the mechanic, described the problem. He said, after a pause, ‘can you bring it over right now?’ Like a good girl, I did. After some frowning, revving the engine, and consultation with his minions, mechanic determined that something was going very wrong inside the engine itself. He couldn’t let me drive it, and while he would do his best to fix it by the afternoon he couldn’t guarantee it. I spent the rest of a hectic work day contemplating a long ride in public transport (and wondering how I’d get home late that night, without shelling out even more money — and that would be a LOT of money — on a taxi). But the wonderful bloke came through, and even delivered my car (newly fixed and back to its normal, safe-to-drive self!) just in time to make it to the Freecon.

None of this had helped my newbie-nerves though. I was lucky enough to have the support of my fellow writers: Thoraiya Dyer, Matthew Chrulew and Jonathan Walker, and got through it without making too much of an idiot of myself. I hope. The stress gifted me an aggravated sciatic nerve, and I think I complained a little too much about my back that night. But, seriously, by that stage it was very sore! I returned to Freecon for Saturday morning too, where I caught up with some wonderful friends, and hopefully made a few new ones. The Freecon is a small event, different to any of the other cons I’ve been to, but full of the same passion for sff. We heard Nicole Murphy, Alan Baxter, Pamela Freeman and Richard Harland read from their work (and boy, was I glad I’d already done mine — no one should have to stand up and read after Richard! Ever!). Unfortunately I couldn’t stick around all day, but I certainly enjoyed the time I spent there.

Today has involved a lovely lunch in the sunshine for my mother in law’s birthday, cat torture (well, I’d call it grooming, but from the sound of it, they consider it torture) and naps. Lots of naps.

Tomorrow, revisions begin in earnest (with a break for a much-needed massage).

Nov 10

How do you know when to listen to yourself?

Say you’re writing a short story, or a book, and that little internal editor voice starts nattering away. How do know when to listen to it, and when to throw stuff at it until it shuts up?

Ever had that “I already knew this” feeling, when looking through your beta-reader’s notes? Like, if you’d just listened to that nattering little voice when it started to speak up in the first place, you could have saved your readers a lot of time and yourself a lot of revision angst?

I’m getting that feeling a lot lately. Yep, now that you mention it, I knew ‘story A’ needed more conflict and yet I did nothing about it. Just like I knew the main character in ‘story B’ was far too passive and needed to, you know, DO something. But did I fix it? Nope. Why? Maybe because I just wasn’t listening to that internal voice…

But this damned internal editor is a tricky little bastard. Half the time it mutters away just to chip at your self-confidence, and doesn’t offer anything actually helpful.

So I’m putting this question out into the internet, people: how do you tell the difference? When should you listen, and when should you start throwing things. Any helpful hints would be much appreciated.

This post was brought to you by a brain full of too many stories and not enough sleep.

Oct 25

Kinda like Alien just without the chest-burstyness

So, I’m incubating a novel. This wasn’t an unplanned novel incubation, so the symptoms aren’t all that surprising. I knew the story I wanted to write next. I have worldbuilding ideas scribbled in a notebook and I met the main character and her dog a few months ago. But only recently, like in the past week or so, have I really noticed it start to grow

Tidying up, listening to music, and I start writing scenes in my head. I’m worldbuilding on post-it notes at work, so they end up “Call *author’s name* about … wait how do the ghosts kill people??” Only half listening to most conversations, the other part of my brain is working out how plot point A gets to plot point B.

Most telling, this time, has been the effect it’s having on my short stories. I only realised this yesterday. Suddenly I’m writing a lot about people who ‘create’ things. Artists, mostly, though in many different colours — from a craftsman making windchimes to a very strange woman with an obsession with dead things. And I realised this is all building to Mattie, my main character, who is an artist, in a way, and an engineer, in another. But very good at what she does, skilled and intelligent, even if she does things other people might find twisted and terrible and wrong. But whose to say they’re right, they don’t know what’s really going on…

See! It’s even taking over this blog post!

I might even have a title *whispers*

Oct 21

Fun with words

My writing buddy and Toughest Critiquer Ever (TM), Rabia Gale, and I were having a serious discussion about serious topics the other day. We talked about the difference in the legal drinking age in Aus and the US, and the impacts of problem drinking. This led to a dissection of the social pressures behind things like binge-drinking, and the role alcohol plays in our culture. When we started ranting about the way groups use excess alcohol consumption as a bonding ritual, and ‘hazing’-type rituals in particular, the topic quickly became, “what would a hazing ritual look like at a magic school?”

While we couldn’t keep up that serious discussion for more than, oh about 15mins (aren’t you glad) we did decide that it would be fun to write a ‘magic school hazing ritual’ each, and see what we came up with.

So, in the interest of turning all serious discussions into stories involving magic, mine is below. Rabia’s can be found here. We hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

Jason had the kind of grin that could put a shark to shame. Too wide, too many teeth and right below two tiny, dark eyes. “It’s all about… getting to know you. The real you.”

Jade couldn’t quite bring herself to believe him. Something about those teeth? Or maybe it was Kate getting too cozy with a unicorn in the corner behind him, and the way his mate Dave had magicked popcorn out of thin air and was stuffing his face while he watched.

“Your friend seems to be enjoying herself. I’m sure you will too.”

She looked down at the light cradled between her palms. It was strangely heavy, for something built of waves instead if particles… or was it both? Jade was never particularly good at physics, or anything real-worldly for that matter. It was just a whole new set of rules to live by, except they were a lot easier to break.

“Maybe it’s not such a good idea,” she said. Should she intervene with Kate? She didn’t really know the girl well, but it seemed like the right thing to do. “Maybe you won’t like the real me?” And maybe she wouldn’t like it either, the next morning.

“Hey, it’s up to you, hon.” Jason leaned back and lifted his hands, palms facing her. Tiny flickers of light were lodged in his lifeline — a sure sign of addiction. “Scholarship girl, too good for these games, am I right?”

Jade swallowed hard. Everyone else in the room was bright and high, but the newbies seemed to be taking it the hardest. Like Kate. Death chased one guy round a couch while seniors with glowing palms took bets on who would win. Another girl had sprouted butterfly wings and was batting her head against a lamp.

Despite the entertainment a lot of those seniors, used to doing aether, it seemed, were watching Jade. Smirking. And she knew it was stupid, knew damned well what was going on, but she couldn’t stop her face burning. This was just what she needed. Five years surrounded by idiots who didn’t like her because she was a smart arse scholarship bitch too up herself to try a single hit.

She weighed the aether again, lifted its light up and down in front of her face like she knew what she was looking and feeling for. An act, a silly and transparent act.

“It’s pure, right?” she asked, voice cracking. “I don’t see any flaws.” Stupid stupid stupid.

“Only the best for you, hon.” Jason leaned forward again, stretching that terrible grin across his face.

Come on, don’t you want to belong?

But the scholarship…

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Jade glanced at Kate. She was half naked now, and Jason’s mate had swapped popcorn for a camera phone. The ‘corn wouldn’t show up on YouTube but Kate might. All depended on the strength of the hit she’d taken and just what her aeura was doing. It might obscure her on camera, but Jade really should intervene–

“You going to join us, or what?” Jason snapped, all those rows of teeth clicking together.

Stop worrying, and just go with the light, like the rest of them. It was only one night.

Jade nodded, rolled the aether to her left palm and dipped the thumb and forefinger of her right hand into its light. So warm and powerful, it must have come from something great. A dragon’s aeura, maybe. Jade had always wanted to see a dragon.

She pulled out a thin sliver of light like pale hair, like sunlight caught in smoke.

Jason rolled his eyes, “Better than nothing, I guess,” and took back the aether. He tore a chunk off and squished it between his palms, then sat back, closed his eyes, and let his grin stretch, and stretch, wider and wider.

Another deep breath, and Jade did the same with her small and carefully selected hit. It tickled into her lifeline, spreading up into her aeura, suffusing her whole body. She lifted am arm, turned it, stared at her skin. “I’m glowing,” she whispered.

Jason cracked open an eye. “Only a tiny bit, hon. That’s what happens when you take such a small–“ Both eyes opened, widened. “Wait. You are glowing.”

She was, her aeura as bright at the very ball of dragon-or-whatever aether. Jason had probably expected another unicorn show from her. But Jade was here on a scholarship. She’d spent all her high school years back in the real world, the world ruled by those laws of physics and chemistry — those laws she could so easily break — and populated by real-world boys. She hadn’t been a virgin for a long time.

So what would her aeura — powerful enough to earn her a free ticket to this Other world, this magic world — do with a hit of pure aether?

Her glowing body stretched, arms widening, skin hardening. She could feel fire, deep inside her lungs. Jason’s mate had turned his camera on her, and someone was helping Kate to her feet and shooing away her ‘corn, while all around her kids were screaming and running. She grinned, her mouth much bigger than Jason’s shark grin.

“It was dragon, wasn’t it,” she said. But her voice came out in a growl.

Well, they wanted a show. They’d get it. And Jade had better be one of them now. No more smirks, no more shark-smiles and creepy popcorn eating.

Or else.