Semi-secret project update

1908 / 90000

Is 90,000 words ambitious? I can do the words, but we will see if the story sustains it. It’s just a ballpark figure.

(Meter from Curious-Device, for future reference).

 

Writing Update: Leaves

I have been writing. At least 100 words every day. I’ve even managed to start my mother doing the same (!). Until recently my WIP has been a recalcitrant story which has been boring me (I can’t even liven things up with explosions, which means it’s really bad).

But now I have started a story I am (just a little bit) excited about. I know, for a change, how it begins and how it ends, and the tone and the teller. The heroine is trying hard not to be a villain, the hero is inclined to be a sociopath, and I am playing very fast and loose with history and myth, but I think I will be able to drag all three into line (well, maybe not the hero: I think he was a sociopath). It’s also been reason to acquire Gerald of Wales’ History of the Kings of England, Fraser’s abridgment of The Golden Bough, Child’s Ballads, and Woodham-Smith’s The Great Hunger (actually, that last has nothing to do with the story, but I was caught up in the moment – Kate, this is all your fault) and to retrieve a biography I’ve been meaning to read since glancing at the (very awesome) introduction. The story is episodic but less episodic than some of its inspirations and hopefully less romantic as well. It is not set in Queensland (sorry Aimee – I will get to that one!), but it’s not exactly in England either, and its still fun (at the moment). I even have a working title, and may not have to blow anything up at all.

Maybe.

 

What the - how the -?*

Next time I have a short story nominated for the Aurealis Awards will Somebody. Please. Tell. Me.

And my name is right next to Catherine Jinks, who is the first (and possibly only) author I ever wrote a fan letter to.**

Congratulations to Anna Tambour who won the category, and whose story I will now hunt down because all the ones I have read have touched me very deeply and occasionally left scars.

…

Okay, it was a  very short story, and I was one among many nominees but still. Obviously I do not google myself enough.

——————————————————-

*Well, realistically, this is me, so it probably isn’t that surprising I didn’t know.

**Second person. Catherine Jinks even replied. A lady in waiting answered the other one.

 

All the Wild Wonders: Neil Gaiman’s Keynote Address

Where Shaun Tan’s address had pictures behind and through it, Neil Gaiman had poems.

He spoke about crossover books, risks, journeys, the good things about bad books and the power of imagination.

My notes:

 

Writing in Progress

Appearances to the contrary, my life has not in fact been wholly consumed by drawing. I am still turning up for work, going to the theatre, rewatching Ladyhawke* and even writing.

I have not written about writing very much because it takes longer to finish a piece and there aren’t as many cool, useful and arguably necessary accessories, but I am still writing at least one hundred words every day. Sometimes they are only fragmentary scenes and conversations, glimpses of characters, playing with ideas. It is all practice - treading water at least if not actually going anywhere - and is self-regulating because eventually I get frustrated and want to produce something coherent and complete.

The main works in progress are currently (working titles): “The Magedan” - a sword and sorcery short story the real hero of which is the Rule of Law; “Chattering Jack” - a little old-school dark piece; and “Angie Nettles” - a rural fantasy/fairytale retelling.

The story I mentioned here has been further edited (thanks to Aimee’s very helpful critique) and after encouragement from my writing group has been sent out into the world again. It is an urban fantasy and people seem to have liked it but I am still alternating between toleration and loathing - at least the alternations are only daily now instead of every five minutes.

I am also considering overhauling two other stories - stretching “Fierce Bad Rabbit” into a proper story (which is problematic because currently it is wierd/dark/horror but if I lengthen it may become a murder mystery and change genres) and turning “Stars Over Pilgrim’s Ford” (a parable/excuse for a sword fight) completely inside out and into a prequel for “The Magedan”.

—-

If I post more about writing, I might talk about: The Problem with Positivity; Nuclear Testing Grounds; Longhand; Switching sides; and Jean Luis Borges and the Cultural Cringe. But those are only possibilities, not promises.

*No, it’s not a wonderful movie. It falls between To the Ends of Time and Lord of the Rings - subtract the difference and you get left with some odd facial expressions and corny lines, which Ladyhawke has plenty of. But the composition of the scenes is gorgeous - watched wide-screen format they are set up like the most beautiful fantasy paintings, or marvellous patterns of light and shadow. I was kind of awestruck, actually.

 

In Which (10) Terrible Fates Await

The worst:

• I had a horrible moment on Saturday night in which I actually found cultural-studies-speak useful for explaining something. Took me a while to get over.

Some less confronting but still disconcerting moments of the week

• A friend telling me, “I am in ur bed, nibbling ur toes”. Seriously, what the? Is there anyway I can *not* misinterpret that?
• Considering costuming choices for next year’s Supanova. Aimee may go as Rose and/or Howl as both require the same hair. I can’t remember who I am going as.
• A line-up of people telling me my story was wonderful. I’d find it easier to accept if someone would criticise it.
• My carefully honed ability to become ill when confronted with pet scatology letting me down at the moment of truth.
• Realising my answers to Woman’s World’s questions ran over 5000 words (though, to be fair, they asked an awful lot of questions). So, yeah, there’s a lot of context surrounding that article.
• Finding scrawled in my notebook the question “Was Men in Black a reworking of Horton Hears a Who?” Discuss.

Not so terrible but still somewhat disturbing:

• Kidnapping, Cannibalism and Singing Telegrams: Darkhorse Presents presents an 8 page Wondermark comic. Always odd.
• ‘Mama’s little darlin’ loves‘…: A short story from Martin Livings which has changed the way I think about presents (from his series of Tuesday short stories).

And not disturbing at all (in a negative way - in a positive way it has ruffled my equilibrium delightfully) but relevant because the title of this post is from one of his books:

• A new Shaun Tan book is coming out! Tales from Outer Suburbia! If the scattered pictures I have seen are from it, it promises to be beautiful in a way only a book in which a waterbuffalo giving directions captures perfectly a certain suburban serenity can be. And I was right - I did see his name in the Horton credits. He was involved “at an early stage” so I won’t hold the movie against him.

 

Titling Peeves - in reaction to an email

Disclaimer

I don’t generally read category romance. Not because I write it off as a genre. Like all genres, it has its problems, most of which dovetail with my reasons not to pick up a book. I do at times read non-category books which are packaged as romance (and historicals and ‘novels’ etc), especially Ibbotson and Austen and Heyer. I did spend a miserable week at boarding school laid out with a bad back (or was it after I had my wisdom teeth out) reading through the house mistress’s stash of Mills & Boons because I couldn’t concentrate on a story which took more than 50,000 words (the misery was due to lack of concentration, not what I was concetrating on). A few of the books were astonishingly well written. And the circles I swim in overlap with romance readers and writers from time to time, whose opinions I respect.

So, with that in mind, I read an email today and reacted as follows:

 

Rodrigo! Rodrigo! Save me!

I make a point of reading everyday, and sometimes on weekends when I don’t want to read a book I associate with bus travel and coffee in McDonalds, I pick up odd volumes at home - Labyrinth manga, histories of King John and bound volumes of Windsor Magazine. As a result of which I am left cold by internal inconsistencies, fascinated and frustrated by introductions to books that keep sinking down in the pile of Books to Read and calling friends and saying “Oh. My. Word!”

Oh. My. Word.
This last is because the story I read this weekend was just the sort of story that Anne Shirley and Katy Carr and The Story Girl and Jo March and their friends-and-relations read and wrote and swooned over and learned through the trials of life not to write anymore. Exactly.

 

Introducing Characters - Bellwether

Gillian has started a series of posts on on how books introduce characters - beginning with Sheri S. Tepper’s The Fresco. I have not read this book, and am still recovering from Beauty, but I now want to read this solely because of Gillian’s post on how it introduces a character without actually having anyone on stage.

Posts and discussions like this make me want to read books from new angles, so instead of doing my January Movie Reviews or the summary of Travel Journal Practices as promised or introducing you to Yorick the Impoverished, or wailing about how devastated I am at the rejection of a story (well, more a sort of “I told you so” mood of fidgety discontent because I agree with the editor, but want to submit to something else now), I am thinking about Connie Willis’ Bellwether, which I reread last month and reviewed briefly in this post.

More below the cut:

 

Two Milestones

I submitted a story to an anthology! I am regretting it now, and trying not to think about just how horrible it really was but am happy that it was written and edited and submitted (four minutes before the deadline!). The first draft was longhand, the second was typed: 6000+ words in three hours! My wrist is still sore.

My picture Bearer of Bad News (and I apologise for the angsty title, but am going with Aimee’s suggestion that “Bad News” is the bird’s name) was accepted to Epilogue today! It’s juried (the old pictures in my gallery were accepted just before they tightened the requirements a few years ago and I will cull them if I can get a few more in this year to buoy my ego) and a great site for FSFH art and I am very excited at the moment.