Rain: the finishing.
So, I put off writing for like, three days, because I was scared to finish writing Rain.
Let’s examine that sentence for a moment. I was keen to finish Rain so that she’d leave me alone and I could do other stuff, remember? I knew that I *could* finish Rain, I didn’t have a block about what had to happen or any fear that the flow wouldn’t be there for me to hop into….but I was scared.
I guess when it came down to the crunch I just didn’t want it to be over! I had a conversation with Lee about it over brunch, although I had to explain that I didn’t want him to ‘fix’ things, I just wanted to talk about the emotions. He had to accept that it was completely irrational, but there it was. I think this conversation helped me a lot.
I listened to a thematically linked song from Spring Awakening Those you’ve known, which is about ghosts comforting the living. I turned off the internet and I sat and wrote. I wrote a very sad scene, and some reconcilatory ones and what I hope is an empowering and exciting ending that leads easily to a sequel.
So yay, hooray, woop woop and huzzah. I have written another novel!
Christmas tree, Frank Kitts Park
Last night after a wicked awesome roller derby, I went to Frank Kitts Park to check out the Telecom Christmas tree. I’d seen it during the day and wondered about it. To put it simply, it’s amazing and you have to check it out.
It’s all strings of lights with a big atom thingy on top. The lights cycle through various colours and there are cushions set up underneath it so you can lie back and experience the tree from within. There are also phone booths set up connected to the tree where you can call Santa and leave a message with your Christmas wish. When someone does that, the tree gets extra colourful and the atom on top gets awesome.
Sitting underneath it, I felt a little bit like my ship had gone into hyperspace. It was awesomely pretty and I highly recommend it.
Things I Love Thursday
Tough list today, I didn’t sleep right last night and have had a bit of a grumpy day. Which is, of course, the best possible time and way to write a TiLT list.
- Toasted sandwiches. Salami, mushroom and cheese on molenberg, left in the press until the outside is a medium brown for optimum crunch. Nom.
- Christmas is coming, and you might notice that my blog is a bit more festive….It’s snowing! Yay for wordpress. Anyway, I started my Christmas baking and made a tray and a half of gingerbread. It was really, really yummy and I ate almost all of it. Nom. I have plans and crafts and stuff, I’m quite excited really.
- Going to Craft 2.0 I got Lee to come, and we picked up a couple of Christmas present, and it was nice. I like meeting the crafters, I like seeing the pretties, and I like to see if there’s stuff there I could make myself.
- Matt’s worked his lulu-esque magic and over on his blog you can download a pdf of The Event for free. It’s all prettied up and has photos in it, some of them by me!
- Tim Jones interviewed Sally! Check it out, awesome.
Honourable Mentions: Free beer! Making things, writing, my PJ shorts, new TV, stuff that gets delivered to me at work, my darling friends, fun stuff to do on the weekend, pepper spray and the movie of the The Time Traveller’s Wife.
(ETA, I just realised I never explained this video. I am totally obsessed with Spring Awakening since Sophie gave me the soundtrack. I am really into this song ‘Don’t do sadness’. The events around the song are pretty sad, but I love love love the song and Lee has had to listen to me singing it all week. The counterpart ‘Blue wind’ is also quite lovely. Now, to find a production of Spring Awakening who will cast me as Moritz…..)
Please share your own TiLT list below.
Wednesday Writing update
Big week, writing Rain wise. I’ve topped 64k words, worked my characters through the climactic battle with the evil fairground owner, various demons and an unscheduled trip to another dimension and come out the other side to deal with the aftermath. And I don’t use the word ‘work’ up there lightly, these scenes have been complex and confusing. I kind of dread the rewrite where I get to check if it makes any sense at all.
On the other hand, the flow has been there once I’ve got over my initial fears and made myself write, so there’s that.
Plus, I definitely have the end of the book in sight now, and that’s a refreshing feeling. I quite want a.) a break from writing and b.) the chance to write other stuff. Once Rain is first drafted then I can have a mental holiday.
Oh, and I’m finally up to date with tagging all my old blog entries, so if you want to read the writing process for any of my novels, just click the link in the tag cloud to the right: Kiki, wtwtch or Rain, respectively. Fun times.
Writing linky for this week:
Ask a Literary Agent tackles a question about word counts. Basically don’t make it harder on yourself by writing a book which is shorter or longer than industry standard. (There’s lots of good looking stuff on that blog, but I’ve only skimmed the first page.)
The dompost has a writing competition, the theme is ‘my best lesson,’ to tie in with with the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. It closes Sunday, but it’s only 500 words. Must figure out what my best lesson is…
I’m a little too frightened to read Confessions of a mid-list author, but you might want to.
OMG how I love this quote from J.D. Salinger. So so much.
Rewatching Annie
So many things I never noticed about this movie when I was a kid…
It’s set in the depression. “It’s an awful time to be out of work Miss Hannigan,” is what Grace Farrell says to Miss Hannigan to convince her to let Annie come to Mr Warbucks’s mansion.
Miss Hannigan is a drunken slut. No seriously, she bathes in gin, she always has a bottle in her hand and she comes on to every male character that isn’t her brother. She’s completely insane actually, as evidenced in the song Little Girls in which she reveals that she is so sick of her job that she actually fears the kids she looks after.
Annie is a feisty and amazing female lead. She beats up street urchins to save a stray dog, she takes every opportunity possible to better her life, talks back to bullies, intelligently convinces Mr Warbucks to keep her even though everyone else is terrified of him and is basically amazing.
Shockingly, Richard Gilmore from Gilmore Girls plays FDR. It’s really hard to recognise him in the make-up and so much thinner.
It’s such a lovely movie, about love and hope and optimism and of course, catchy songs!
Checklist, where my writing is at
Novel number 1 – Kiki
(a children’s book about magic and another world.)
Malingering. I am determined to give the first three chapters another rewrite and then try submitting those to a publisher or two. If they say no I’ll chalk it up to first novel syndrome and backburn it for good. Feeling distanced from this project, almost disgusted with it.
Novel number 2 – What’s the Worst That Could Happen?
(Superhero chick-lit)
In the query letter stage. I’m trying it on American lit agents…Feeling hopeful, have confidence in the manuscript, although if I get one more rejection I will rewrite the first chapter, want to make it more awesome.
Novel number 3 – Amy/book club/not sure of the title
(Kid’s book with huge series potential.)
First draft written up longhand, waiting to be typed up and redrafted. I will do this once Rain is finished to get some mental distance. I have sufficient distance from this project now that I don’t really feel anything for it. Best time to redraft it!
Novel number 4 - Rain
(Young adult supernatural romance)
Currently demanding all my writing attention and writing itself. Rain is pushy, I get panicky if I don’t write ‘enough’ (which is two thousand words in a day now) and I’m looking forward to getting it finished. I want to write some other stuff! I’m also ridiculously pleased at how easy this first draft has been. I feel like one of those wanky Romantic poets describing themselves as a harp that the wind of inspiration blows through. I just sit down and write and I don’t have to think about it. Perfection.
Short Stories: Infection
Accepted for publication by Enamel magazine! All sorts of win.
Pestilence
I need to make a decision or two about this story and rewrite with those decisions made. Once that’s done, I’ll be able to start on the submission cycle with it again. I have a couple of likely possibilities lined up. Must find The Point of this story and make it punchy.
Famine
Needs another edit I think. I might stretch the time line out a bit, make things a little more dangerous for my protagonist, make sure the story has the impact I mean it to. Once that’s done I can start shopping it around.
To do:
Moar short stories!
– I wanna try another erotic story for Filament, there’s a few online magazines that are looking for spec fic, I should try some children’s short stories so I can shop those around.
Type up the Amy/book club book
A Great Face for Radio 2
In some ways I feel like I shouldn’t review this show, since it’s almost totally sold out, so if you want to see it after reading this, it will be hard for you to get to. On the other hand, it’s a rainy Saturday morning and what else are you gonna do?
My darling friend Regan also known as Sok, was a back up singer in Great Face for Radio 2. Of course, the title back up singer isn’t really indicative of what she did. She was epic, singing up a storm with two others, one other or in a chorus of 7 or 8.
The show is set in a radio station, with two presenters who hate each other various guest stars, the sound mixer, and the station staff including tea ladies. It was very silly, lots of skits full of puns and innuendo broken up with epic medleys of songs of the sixties performed with a live band. It was loud and visually stunning. The costumes were all perfection, stylised and bright and pretty.
I really liked Regan’s children’s show host bits, so cute, and also so mean! The news reader guys were awesome too, little stories leading to a terrible pun each time. They lost us on the Bermuda triangle one. Like, we were with them, laughing away for pun after pun, and then on the Bermuda triangle one there was silence…then the audience started booing! People were like ‘no, too far. We were willing to listen, but that was one step too far.’ Then the booing turned into clapping, so they knew we still loved them, or because it was so awesome that we booed a specific joke…I dunno. It was amazing anyway.
The music is infectious, so familiar, so fun and so boppy. I especially loved ‘Unchain my heart’, ‘Calendar girl’, ‘Hit the Road Jack’ and the slightly weird stalker song ‘Silhouettes’. The guy that took the lead for ‘In the Country’ should totally do a John Denver tribute show, he looks right and his voice is just perfect. I really wanted him to sing ‘Annie’s Song’, but it wasn’t the right show for that!
Overall, a rollicking good time which I’m sure I would have enjoyed even if my Regan wasn’t in it, but she was, so it was awesome. Giffy and I couldn’t resist calling out her name a couple of times. Of course, that might have been all the sugary treats we’d eaten. Hard to say.
(Image from the facebook page for the show: http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=310289925413 )
Things I Love Thursday
- Getting Infection published! It’s really nice to look forward to seeing, and I’m chuffed that it found a happy home eventually. Plus, now I can add that publishing credit to my query letters!
- Lunch with Steve in the sun. Sunshine, salad, Steve, kid across the lagoon practising parkour. All good.
- My Lee, who took me out for dinner and improv comedy last night and it was awesome.
Honourable Mentions: Friends new and old, Geek soaps, Spring Awakening soundtrack, wordcount increasing, opportunities, thinking about awesome things that could happen in the future, sleeping in, sunshine, Christmas coming and burger fuel burgers.
You’ve probably already seen this, as it’s been doing the rounds, but it’s awesome, so check it out: Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody:
And you? What are you thankful for this beautifully sunny Wellington day?
Wednesday Writing
So, short entry today because I have a driving need to bask in the sunshine which is coming into my lounge.
First, a huge celebration because my little spooky story Infection has been accepted for publication. It will be in Wellington lit mag Enamel when it next comes out – March 2010. Awesome awesome awesome. I was *that close* to giving up on it and just sticking it up here on my blog. Now I don’t have to!
In other news I churned out two thousand words of the work in progress today, moving them through the start of the climactic battle and shuffling some stuff up. Good times. Good times. This (and the other writing sessions I’ve had through the week) bring my word count up to 58,018, so yay!
Woops, forgot a couple of linkys….
Matt’s short story ‘Murray the Sex Machine’ is up here. Go read it and comment. I haven’t commented, but I have read it, and it’s awesome.
The final part of The Event is up and the site has had a redesign to look more swanky. Go check it out…
Point of Fashion: One Fine Day
Current Obsession: Wheeee good things happen.
