Over on AbsoluteWrite there's a thread about the elevator pitch - or how to describe your book in 20 seconds.

So there's all sorts of things cropping up; like Romeo and Juliet, with vampires, IN SPACE. Or Huckleberry Finn, with werewolves, IN SPACE. Or Romeo and Juliet meets Huckleberry Finn, with werebats, IN KENTUCKY.

I looked at my work and realised, damn this is hard.

And I couldn't do it.

All I got for Sea Rose Red is that it's about tea and anarchy and magic. WITH VAMPIRES. IN SPACE. THERE ARE LOVE TRIANGLES. ROCKS FALL EVERYONE DIES.

Only, none of that is true.

Well, there is a kind of lop-sided triangle, and there is tea, and a vampire who is more bookkeeper than doomed poet, and squatters and magic and revolution and class divides and stuff. Er, I have no idea how to squish that into a pitch.

Anyway, It's an interesting exercise - so lets hear yours.

Originally published at Inarticulations. You can comment here or there.

I’m back from our family hols (Sodwana Bay, for those who like that kinda thing. Very pretty indeed; butterflies and monkeys on the beach in the middle of winter. Hell yeah) and trying to catch up on emails and lj posts and stuff. (And failing, I might add)

This post by Scalzi made me feel a bit better about my incredibly slow path to …well…anything really.

Why New Novelists Are Kinda Old, or, Hey, Publishing is Slow

this part especially:

1969 – 1997: Time spent learning to write well enough to write a novel (28).

1997: Wrote first complete novel (28)

1997 – 2001: Life intervenes and keeps me away from fiction (32).

2001: Wrote second novel (32)

2002: Offer made on second novel, now my debut novel (33)

2003: Contract signed for debut novel (33)

2004: Editing and early publicity for debut novel (35)

2005: Debut novel published (35)

2006: Won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (37)

So basically I have five more years before I give up.  *grins*

While on hols, I finally got some reading time in and finished Cindy Pon’s Silver Phoenix.  It’s easy to tell that Cindy likes food and painting. Seriously.  She made me hungry a whole lot, and her writing is very visual, very painterly. Most of the time I felt I was watching the story scroll past in a series of water colours, with fresh colours and clean ink lines.

Personally, I would like to see her incorporate the other senses more to help ground me in her world. Taste and smell especially. The few times that these two senses came into play I really felt myself immersed in Ai Ling’s world. As it is, I loved the mythology, and her descriptions are wonderful , and I’m glad to see that Cindy Pon doesn’t shy away from killing off characters. (Yay!).

Ai Ling makes for a sympathetic protag and she was both believable and relatable. I loved Chen Yong, and his obvious out-of-placeness and I’m keen to read the next book and see where the story takes the two of them (if indeed that’s where the focus is going to be).

Recommended.

Originally published at Inarticulations. You can comment here or there.

 

Lisa Mantchev’s debut Eyes Like Stars is a delightful whimsy hiding shadows beneath its painted artifice. Bertie is the unconventional blue-haired heroine of a play of her own creation, as she invents the story of how she arrived, a nameless orphan, on the steps of the Theatre Illuminata.
 

 

Mantchev has created a charmingly vivid world in the Theatre, peopling it not with actors, but with Players. Ophelia is always drowning, Hamlet is an emotastic little creep, Nate is a pirate from The Little Mermaid, and every night, these Players play themselves in another production. Flashbacks are short bursts of script, which I found to be original and fun, and Matchev didn’t overdo it, and the whole thing tied in nicely with the conclusion of Bertie’s play.
 

 

Human in a world full of meta-fictional characters, teenage Bertie does her best to fit into the Theatre, with her bedroom-set, her pranks, and her friendships with the various quasi-fictional characters. And being human, she’s bound to fail.
 

 

When Bertie is threatened with expulsion from the Theatre, she attempts to prove her place in this grease-paint world, and in doing so, begins a string of events that will set the Players free from the confines of the Theatre, release them into the real world, and in doing so destroy the only place that she has ever known as home.
 

 

One of the things I really enjoyed about Eyes Like Stars was Mantchev’s ability to take well-worn characters and bring them to life in their own right. Enter Peaseblossom, Moth, Cobweb and Mustardseed, who accompany Bertie everywhere she goes, commentating, helping and not-helping her with their own ribald, fairy take on things. Or Ariel, seductive, and menacing, then broken and pitiful (or is he really - this is always the fun with the start of a series).
 

 

Ariel’s desire to be free, and his manipulation of Bertie is symbolic of Bertie’s sexual awakening (hey, I’m going out on a limb here - that’s what it seemed like to me) and a slightly safer alternative lies in Nate the pirate. And here is where the book fumbled for me. I couldn’t completely buy the relationship between Bertie and Nate, and many of their scenes felt crowbarred in, forced to be a natural progression, and I just never felt what I think I was meant to feel.
 

 

On the other hand, this is a first book in series, and it may be that the awkwardness of the relationship is purposeful, as more of Bertie’s past is revealed in the successive books. The Sea Witch storyline felt rather lost in among all the stuff about the Players’ connection to the Theatre, but that may also be a flaw related to the pacing of a story stretched out over several books. At first it made no sense to me, but by the end of the book, I was willing to see how later books will unfold the Sea Witch story. Coupled with the mystery of the Theatre Manager, and what exactly he knows about Bertie, and wants from her, there’s more than enough build-up to carry the story further.
 

 

Although I found the second half stronger than the first, I will most definitely be reading the next Theatre Illuminata book to see where Bertie’s adventures outside the theatre take her.

Wooh okay, I feel really really bad because I owe so many people so much stuff (beta reads, reviews, skirts, choreos, time and energy) and I feel dead dead dead.

I have no idea why I am so shattered at the moment, but hopefully it'll pass and I'll get back to being vaguely productive and do what I'm supposed to do instead of just sitting staring blankly at the computer trying to make my brain and eyes work in conjunction. All I end up feeling is guilty, and then depressed, and it's just a vicious circle, so I need to to step back, and tackle just one thing, so I feel a little less overwhelmed and crushed.

If I owe you something, and you're wondering what the hell my problem is - please, I'll get to you, I'm just not sure when and I apologise in advance.


kisses

Originally published at Inarticulations. You can comment here or there.

It’s a bit of a link-fest today, bear with me, you will be rewarded.

The fantastic digital art of Rodney Gee. Go see this piece over at DeviantArt. Yes yes, go. I’ll wait.

Pretty neat, yeah?

Two very cool links via Queen Bee.

Wiredonkey.co.za is the on the road diary of two South Africans cycling through America. It’s pretty damn awesome, and I can fully admit my total jealousy. Via them I learned about couchsurfung.org, so yeah, there’s a mattress on the lounge floor somewhere in South Africa with your name on it. Or something.

And on to the art of one Mark Ryden. Creepy and kitsch at the same time. I give it two thumbs up. And a wicked grin.

Besides having begun a new YA UF novel (working title Firedancer, but that’s so lame I’ll have to change it soon) I also have a gazillion choreos to learn and remember, and metres and metres of material to cut, sew, and dye.

Obviously in a fit of insanity I’ve decided to go along with my crazy idea of making myself yet another circle skirt, and this time dyeing it too. Um what?  I have a concert coming up, you say?  Oh and I’m in six dances? Um….

The men in the white coats are coming, must dash.

I think I’ll go spin ma poi instead.

Originally published at Inarticulations. You can comment here or there.

Okay seriously.

I have at least 2 books to revise….

So what happens?

Inspiration strikes and leaves me running for the computer to jot down some notes and an opening.

It looks like it’s going to be a fun book (something I’ve never been all that good at. Heh) and that’s probably a good enough reason just to write.

So here you go, the first bit of Firedancer. First draft crappiness and all.

Last year, the four of us - Deets, The Eye, Oliver and me - decided to start a band. I mean, we were going to be awesome and punk and it didn’t really matter that none of us could actually play anything. Punk was all about three chords and fighting The Man.

 

 

Cero City never actually got to experience our genius (a fact, dear fallen gods and goddesses, I think Cero City is heartily grateful for), mainly because Deets got bored of not being up front and centre and just stopped pitching up to practices.

 

 

The Eye was the only one with any talent, anyway, because that guy’s voice can charm nightingales down from the frikken trees. He’s got this perfect soulful croon that cracks in all the right places. I played guitar because it didn’t matter how shit I was, I was still one up on the others, and Deets drummed because for all her ice-princess bullshit, the girl can actually keep a beat, and make it sound half-way decent. No one wanted to play bass, ’cause who gives a flying one about bass-players, so we made Oliver do it.

 

 

Out of all of us, Oliver’s the only one who still stays up practising bass, even though Rabid Squirrel Death Fest has been defunct for almost a year now.

 

 

Which kinda tells you a lot about Oliver - he’s got the crazy determination to get stuff perfect,  and I guess he’s the only one of us with the time for it, seeing as how the poor bastard has been seventeen for the last two hundred years. He’s also got issues about travelling by himself, and that’s why me and The Eye are heading to the restaurant where he’s waitering tonight.

 

 

I hate cycling in the dark. Drivers in Cero have no care for cyclists. Mostly they act like we’re targets, and I keep having to swerve onto the pavement to avoid being run over like road kill by some expensive car. People, I wear this safety crap for a reason - bright flashing vest equals cyclist; Do Not Squash. But, yeah, they don’t exactly care.

 

So anyway, there I am, weaving on and off the pavement, one eye on the road, and one eye on this maniac in a blue sedan next to me, when I see the shadow in the sky. At first, I’m thinking, wow, what the hells kind of bird is flying out at night? It’s not an owl or anything. It has this crazy long plumage that ripples behind it as it flies. It’s almost…dragon-like.

 

 

I skid to a halt, just as the bird-shadow disappears behind the dark clouds. One foot on the ground, I balance and watch the clouds. The moon dips behind a towering column of darkness, and the halogens flicker all around us.

 

 

“Lorin!” The Eye almost crashes into the back of my bike, and he swears. “Are you trying to kill me, you daft woman!”

 

 

“Did you see that?”

 

 

“See what?”

 

 

I stare at the area where it disappeared, willing it to come back. “Dunno. Was some crazy kinda bird…”

 

 

The Eye jumps off the Daisy Bell and wheels it up along side me. “I’m going to strangle you,” he says in a conversational tone. Which is entirely possible, I suppose, The Eye having control over air and wind, just like his darling daddy.

 

 

“Ha!” I jump my foot back on to the pedal and swerve out onto the road. “I’d like to see you try.” Technically, he’s more powerful than me, seeing as how without air, my fire charming is pretty useless, but I’m not totally weak. It would have been nice if I’d got any of my mother’s magic, but she said it doesn’t work like that. If you have a mortal parent, and a deity, you’re gonna either go one way or the other, and my luck is to take after my magician father. So I have some basic elemental skill, and no real power. Sucks.

Originally published at Inarticulations. You can comment here or there.

Omg I love the man with an unhealthy love.

From Galleycat:

“Novelist and musician Nick Cave wrote a sequel to Gladiator at the request of the first film’s lead, Russell Crowe. The studio turned down the draft.

According to the Guardian, fans uncovered a copy of the script, that includes Roman gods, time travel, early Christians, and ends with Crowe’s resurrected character fighting in World War II and Vietnam.”

I remember reading And The Ass Saw The Angel while rather drunk, sitting on the bed  of a Cape Town goff called Fifi. And um yeah, then I had to go read it again while sober.

Fifi is also responsible for my love of the name Jarlath.

Originally published at Inarticulations. You can comment here or there.

Cindy Pon, who spoke about her cover here, is probably getting horribly smashed on champagne now.

Actually, she’s more likely to be sleeping, but anyway.

Today sees the release of her book Silver Phoenix, a YA Asian fantasy. Looks like I have some ordering to do.

Originally published at Inarticulations. You can comment here or there.

I admit to being a shallow little thing. Making sure all my friends are gorgeous and talented - you bet. Judging books by their covers - naturally.

 

I’ve been thinking about how covers are something that authors generally have so little control over, and yet they are the very first thing a reader bases judgement on. We’ve all heard horror stories of truly dreadful covers, and I know I’ve seen covers that have made me question what unfathomable thing the author had done to the designer in a previous existence.

 

But I’m not going to talk about those kind of covers today. Instead, I’m going to focus on three covers that made the authors happy, and that hopefully are going to work as advertisements for the contents. Actually, I’m not going to talk about the covers at all, the authors are.

 

First off is Lisa Mantchev’s Eyes like Stars.

“The first file I saw was incomplete, the fairies not yet rendered, and Bertie didn’t have her necklace yet, but my first reaction was one of utter glee. Jason Chan got it so exactly right that I was floored.

 

And then I did the Happy Dance. It was dorktastic. 

I very much think Jason’s artwork (and the Feiwel & Friends’ art department’s lovely design) is representative of the book I wrote. You–the reader–will look at it and know you’re in for a theater-based fantasy with some serious silliness (blue hair!) tossed in like glitter. My hope is that lots of people WILL judge the book by its cover, buy the book, and feel like the story lived up to the art.”

 

–Lisa Mantchev

 

Cindy Pon, on her cover for the upcoming Silver Phoenix.

 

“

Seeing my book cover for the first time was probably one of the highlights of my path to publication. My editor had consulted me on models and costumes, but to finally see the cover rendered so gorgeously–with a model who looks exactly as I pictured my heroine–it pretty much floored me.”

 – Cindy Pon

 

 And Kelly Meding weighs in on her reaction to the artwork for Three Days To Dead.

 

 

“As a debut author, so much is riding on having a fabulous, attention-grabbing cover. The moment I opened that attachment and saw my cover, I wanted to send everyone involved six dozen roses and a case of champagne. Yes, my jaw dropped, and yes, I started to cry. I was looking at my book’s heroine, almost exactly as I’d imagined her in my head. I still grin like a fool when I see it, and am so very grateful for my cover’s awesomeness.”

 

– Kelly Meding

 

Originally published at Inarticulations. You can comment here or there.

Every now and again I come across someone’s work online and think hmmm better keep my eye on this one. Talent!

And then because I have the memory of a geriatric pigeon, I promptly forget.

So now I’m going to try and keep a list of those people on my blog.

Try.

I’ll be using the very reasonable tag of people I stalk, and I’ll start off today with Niki Smith, an artist working on graphic novels.

Really like her style.

I feel very good about this book right now.

It might not have an audience, being one of my typical uh..."boys saving each other with their (un)love, and the perils of magic, etc" books.

But so what?

All words are just learning.

35,035 / 50,000 (70.1%)

mean things: Rain's story in this book is just one mean thing after another. Really.

stuff I liked: "Hush now," he says, even though I'm making no sound. My body is jittering, and the only thing keeping me standing is that terrible pressure under my eyes. Another hand grips my shoulder, and despite the pain lancing through me, I lean into what little comfort it gives. I deserve this.


So I guess I will get through draft one this month, and then I can try fix the ending for hob.

Productivity is good stuff.

Originally published at Inarticulations. You can comment here or there.

Okay, it’s a 11:30 in the morning and I just poured myself a spritzer.

I’ve decided the weekend starts now.

I did actually squeeze in a crit and 750 words of hob before I turned into a lush, so I don’t feel bad.

Allow me to say - mango orange chocolate is the bomb.

Now I’m off to go enjoy my weekend of spoken word, alcohol, belly dance, baby birthdays and other stuff.

Oh and Kirsty? *squishes you with big hugs* Thanks dear - for once a package actually made it through the South African postal system without being stolen!

*yays*!

Okay, it's a 11:30 in the morning and I just poured myself a spritzer.

I've decided the weekend starts now.

I did actually squeeze in a crit and 750 words of hob before I turned into a lush, so I don't feel bad.

Allow me to say - mango orange chocolate is the bomb.

Now I'm off to go enjoy my weekend of spoken word, alcohol, belly dance, baby birthdays and other stuff.

Oh and Kirsty? *squishes you with big hugs* Thanks dear - for once a package actually made it through the South African postal system without being stolen!

*yays*!

23 000 words into hob an lam, and it occurred to me that I still didn't have a plot to speak of. Oh, I had *lots* of subplot, but the main thread drawing them all together was too fine to stand alone. I had also given up on these things called chapters. They were distracting me.

So I spent some time with my leetle friend FreeMind and hashed together something resembling a story arc. Or three.

It might not be any good, but that's not the point right now, it's just the pole to wrap all the other strands around.

The bit I liked today: First time in my life, i can think clear. String the words into a shape that pleases. Jek sees the world like this.

The bit that I typed with my eyes closed: There's five of them, and I just have enough time to count that, before Sel's magic breaks out of me and rips those fuckers apart. One of them is still balls deep in Sel when the magic pulls him back and tears off his face.

What other exciting news...hmmm?

My dead lemon tree turns out to be not so dead. Although I may have killed it now.

It's just T on the bootle.

It's the usual Boxing Day slack here. Everyone is lazing about, the sun is boiling, the wee sprogs are playing with their new Lego.

Christmas was cool - we went to the parental units and lazed about there too. It's crazy hot over here at the moment, so Christmas lunch was cold meat and salads. I made my usual watermelon and feta salad, and a pasta salad crammed with peppers and bacon and cherry tomes and cubed cheese.

I made the dessert, which was home made Christmas pudding layered with broken Oreos and a cookies and cream ice cream. Yep, I go for simple and frozen. It's South Africa, we don't like going to all that effort. :P

Amazingly, no full blown arguments were let loose yesterday. In my family, that's something of a miracle. Ah well. I guess Christmas is as good a time for any for miracles.

The most amusing thing was me not bothering to put a name on my brother's girlfriend's present, because I had cleverly wrapped it with paper that said "ho ho ho". When I explained my logic, my mother went "Oh, that's very clever!"

Um yes. Everyone laughed, and my mother tried to backpedal with "I don't mean it that way!", and my sister said no wonder we're all bitches we learnt it from my mother.

Hmm. I'm going to play Oblivion. Have a chillin day, people.

A random collection of theoretical goals

Get back into sending out Dream and Bone.

Revise Black Wings. And find it a title, that would be a good start, yes?

make people suffer Find betas for Black Wings.

Write some short stories. Why? I do not know.

Finish first draft of hob an lam.

Send the revised and improved Black Wings out to my never-ending list of agents.

Get a zillion requests for fulls Go to the moon.

Get better at this whole writing thing.

Revise hob an lam, beta it, rewrite it, kick it to death.

Send it out.

So, ultimately, I want to see my inbox full everyday. I want progress.


hob an lam stands at 16 119 and counting. That's progress of a sort.

I go back to the window. Funny how the Casabi looks clean and shiny from here, and when you get close, you smell the rot, see its dust-brown depths, the weeds on the edges. "Why couldn't I be born the eldest?" I ask myself, but Trey hears me.

"Have you ever asked a Saint?"

"I live with one, and it's bad enough-the way she looks at me-without going to find out exactly what it is she sees."

"Your mother's not the best. Go to a Guyin, their Saints-"

"And would you pay for the Invitation?" I glance back at him. The Guyin Saints are second only to the Mata, despite the fact that their line will end with the current Lord. They will not tell me visions for a golden bit. The room with its airy white walls and pale paintings in their gilded frames seems suddenly close and dark. "Not that it matters. The visions aren't truth. I won't base my life on might-bes and could-have-beens."

He looks down. It's exactly what his family does, after all.

Cat's computer is very sad.

It's been giving me issues for a few weeks, not responding, taking an hour to start or shut down programs, just being slow and uncooperative. I'm deleting stuff, reinstalling stuff, trying to work out what's gone wrong.

The slave then comes up with the brilliant idea of checking my ram.

This thing is suddenly running on 256 mb of ram

No wonder nothing bloody works.

oh where oh where has my little ram gone?

(14:20:14) Them's fighting words: okay

(14:20:24) Them's fighting words: washcloth is hanging over the sink.

(14:20:31) Them's fighting words: cat is sitting in the lounge

(14:20:36) Them's fighting words: cat smells burning

(14:20:52) Them's fighting words: cat goes to kitchen to discover that cloth has caught fire

(14:21:05) Slaveboy: how?

(14:21:32) Them's fighting words: presumably an exciting combination of dry cloth on steel sink and hot sun through glass window

(14:21:37) Them's fighting words: who needs Ayla?

(14:21:51) Slaveboy: my goodness

(14:22:03) Them's fighting words: yep

(14:22:09) Them's fighting words: needless to say, cloth is fucked

(14:22:18) Slaveboy: I thought it was burnt

(14:22:34) Them's fighting words: *quoted*


And yes, I do talk about myself in third person. Bad habit, but yeah.

I know I said I wasn't going to write until the New Year, but, I kinda suck at keeping promises. I also suck at keeping my house clean.

There's just nothing inspiring about hanging up washing.

At least I have a Slave to keep me happy and stuff.

I've been thinking about how I feel about my writing, now that it's the end of the year.

So I have less to show (this is because I consider my first three novels um...shite, and they have been trunked), but I feel better about my writing. It is improving, sometimes in great big leaps, and other times in little uncertain stumbles. I have so much to learn that sometimes the enormity of it scares me, and I'm ready to give it all up and find a nice easy career, like artist (this is a joke).

Of my many queries sent out, all were rejections. (I'm including the fifty per cent that didn't respond at all in this tally). Only one person requested a partial, then a full off that (Kristen Nelson, and yes, ultimately a rejection).

So, we know my queries need mucho work. This much is obvious.

I think my writing style is a hit or miss affair when it comes to audience. I like it, and so do some other people, but it does tend to be overly flowery. I can work harder on this, kill the more insanely florid bits, and make it tighter, better, snappier.

Plot. Hmm. can we get back to this some other aeon?

Characterization. Oooh this one's a biggie. Sometimes I have it, sometimes it limps along. Definite room for improvement here.

So...

How do you feel about your writing now, at the close of the year. Can you see the improvements, and where do you think you need to work the hardest?

Was there anything you learned this year that really stuck in your mind?