February and All’s Well

Well, the start of the year has come and gone and we now are into the hottest month of the year, for here.

We’ve also had possibly the wettest start to the new year, which combined with the heat has resulted in an abundant growth of weeds and grass.  As I am said weed and grass manager for our garden, it is my task to keep them in check.

Easier said than done, some days, but I do my best.

It usually means doing said weeding and mowing either early in the day or late in the day, leaving the middle of the day to recover and hopefully, now my youngest has started school again, a chance to get back in to writing.

I’m still working on my medieval and just finished re-reading same and editing it with fresh eyes.  It needed that and I’m glad I did.  I’m no perfectionist by any measure, but even I can see the benefits of leaving a story for a period of time and coming back to it for tweaking, here and there.

I’ve been doing a ton of reading over the past two months, largely because my youngest has tended to hog the computer, and because she also hogs my time during the day, leaving little left for indulging my writing.  Nighttime is little better, and by the time she is shoo’d off to bed I’m not inspired to do anything more than research – which is good, but not as satisfying as writing.

So now I have no excuses and I’m looking forward to getting my teeth into the adventure anew and maybe finishing it before too many more months go past.

I’m quite proud that I managed to finish not only my outstanding (by a couple of years)PP story, plus the severely delayed (by seven years) LOTG story before the end of last year.  They had been nagging at me to be finished and I did it.

Let’s hope the rest of the year is as positive as the beginning.

Writing drought ended

The image here is the logo for the 1968 series that has broken my writers block.  Not many people would claim that a 40 years old kids series could, or should inspire anyone to write, but I’m odd that way.  LOTG was, back in  2002, my only inspiration for writing, and for creating my first website dedicated to the series.  From that jumping off point, I went on to write stories for other series, named Follyfoot, Peter Pan and much later, Primeval.  All of which gave me the confidence to write an original novel in 2006.

So before you dismiss this series as so much rubbish, as some are fond of doing,  think of it instead as a springboard for a writing career that has brought a great deal of pleasure to myself as a writer, and the readers  (going by the site stats) that are still entertained.

I have suffered many months now without being able to write, and I was at a loss to find an ounce of inspiration from any quarter.  With a need to update my LOTG website and repair links after a botched server changeover, I had to re-read a lot of my own fiction to recode it for html, plus give them a good editing, given all I’ve learned in the intervening years.

I found out that, even back then, I was a pretty decent author, borne out by the feedback I still get for some my stories posted on ff.net.  Yes, it would be lovely to be published, but I’m not sure that would make me any happier than I am right now, noodling along and writing my romantic adventure yarns.

Writing is a wonderful form of escapism, and such a creative process when you don’t have to worry about whether it’s fit to be published, or up to someone elses standard for publication, or contains the right balance of “show” or “tell” or is infused with enough “emotional impact” to satisfy someone else.

I write what I want to read, and apparently others quite like that style as well.

I look upon this as a road to recovery after months of despair and depression.   Not bad going for a rubbishy ( but not in my opinion) series almost as old as I am.
Land of the Giants Fanfiction Archive

Something That Picqued My Interest

Do watch this right to the end…….a very cleverly thought out video clip about Publishing and the End of Books.

You Tube Clip – The Future of Publishing

A Year in Perspective

Good Grief……I can’t possibly be December already?

Oh dear……where did that year go.  Mostly in the business of moving house, always a guaranteed way of eating up your time and efforts.  Certainly since July I haven’t laid finger to keyboard to add any words to any of my outstanding writing projects.  My fans have been persistent, wanting me to write the final chapter of a story I left hanging two years ago – I suppose it’s a measure of the quality of the story that they still want me to finish it even after all this time.

The other project was the Medieval story, a personal love of mine, but like all things went on hiatus come July.  I hope to pick it up again over the holiday season, along with the rest of my outstanding projects.

A bonus, if you look at this way, is having to re-read the stories from the start before sinking back into their worlds – not exactly a hardship, and maybe it will precipitate a round of editing to hone my skills. There’s nothing like an absence to allow you to view your own writing in a new light and hopefully improve it.

Something else that went the way of all writing since July has been attending RWNZ meetings. Distance has proved a bit of a hurdle – a three hour drive from Whangarei to Auckland making the process rather disagreeable, the alternative a two day trip with a layover at my sisters. She has also been busy the past few months, so sharing the trip has been obviated by other commitments and fallen by the wayside.  Maybe something will present a solutions, but for the immediate future I think my RWNZ connections will have to remain purely via Email, rather than in person.

Best Wishes and

to everyone……….see you in 2010.

I’ve gone Medieval

Gotta love the 13th Century

I will have to forgo the pleasure of attending the RWNZ conference this year on financial grounds. It was a nice dream, but I’ll just have to make do with what I can find up here in regards writing groups. I still have an idea to start my own, to support writers of romantic fiction, and I might have the opportunity to go on the local community tv channel being interviewed about writing, but it’s early days yet. First we need to get this darn house situation sorted, then I’ll return to it.

In the meantime, I’ve been expanding my horizons and attempting to write a story set in the 13th Century – The Middle Ages.  It’s proving a challenge, and quite interesting to research, to keep it as historically accurate as possible.   Thank goodness for the internet – a library at your fingertips.  I just have to watch my broadband usage as I’ve nearly blown the budget for May already and still a week to go *eek*.   But all that aside, it has been fascinating to dig out examples of manuscript written at the time and find dissertations about the language of the time.  All to just get a feel for how people talked, their probable colloquialisms, their life in those days, what they wore, ate, did……fascinating.  Already up to 25,000 words and only on chapter four!!!  another epic in the making.

On a lighter note, I made contact with a local writers group and I’m off to my second meeting on Friday.  They are predominantly a much older selection of authors, but of a wider range of genre than previously encountered, which will help broaden my view of writing in general, which is a good thing.

I have to say I think the following quote fits rather neatly right now:-

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying
down.
- Mary Pickford

I often feel that I have come close to failing miserably at most things in life, and then I pick myself up and start again.  When I read the quote above I thought yes, it is okay to fall down…….as long as you don’t let whatever made you trip, keep you pinned.  It particularly hit home in regards my eldest daughter who I had to leave behind in Wellington.  That was a fall that almost did leave me unable to rise again, but time and distance have been kind and I can still find my feet, wounded but still standing.

Good grief……I almost sound profound.

Pain will do that for you.  Writing make the dealing with it easier.

I wonder if life was really any different in the 13th Century ?  ( I wouldn’t have done well in that time – no proper plumbing *squick*)

Romance Writers Conference 2009

what makes the world a better place

I am hoping to attend, for the first time, the Romance Writers of New Zealand Annual Conference (details below) over a weekend in August. It will be a nice birthday treat for me, and fun to see all my friends I left in Wellington, and the new one’s I hope to make in Whangarei, together. It will mean a bit of driving, back and forth from Rosemary’s, but it’s years since I attended a conference (of any genre) and I’m really looking forward to it. There’s always such a buzz at a conference………

News:

Romance Writers of New Zealand’s 16th Annual Conference is being held at the Waipuna Hotel and Conference Centre in Auckland from August 21st-23rd, 2009. (my old stomping ground)
NYT best-selling author Mary Jo Putney will be presenting several workshops.

Melissa Jeglinski, agent with The Knight Agency, will be taking pitches from delegates.
For more information visit the RWNZ site

How to go from something to nothing

Did ever an author suffer so…………..

I had such big plans going into the new year.  After ending 2008 on a high with news about my manuscript, you’d think I had nothing more to worry about except working on my sequel and finishing up a couple of outstanding fanfic stories.

Just goes to show, you never know when the next banana skin is going to make you fall on you arse.

That banana skin was in the form of my ex husband of eleven years.  The day before I was due to drive myself, my mother and my youngest daughter up to a new life in the far North of New Zealand, my ex slaps a court order on me preventing the removal of my youngest from our current abode…..Wellington.

We had already packed everything not nailed down in preparation for the movers coming on the thursday, booked accomodation for the two day drive up to Whangarei, organised and paid for a house to live in, had enrollment finalised for my youngest to start school on the following monday……everything was in hand.

then BANG!….*%*$#@&*%^(unprintable swear words) he ups and nails us to the floor  48 hours before we a due to leave(and all within the letter of the law, would you believe!)…….to compound the felony, there is no hope of getting a court hearing anytime soon. Which leaves me and my youngest in a cleft stick. The house is being sold, we have a paid rental waiting for us up North, and my ex says “there’s no hurry!”

Aaaaagh.  We had no choice. My mother now resides in the rental up North. We are existing on a bare minimum of goods and chattels in Wellington, and hoping that this can be settled out of court (read – by giving in to his demands, thereby being granted ‘his’ permission to move house) to get our lives back on track again.

Needless to say, any ability to set pen to paper has been blown completely out of the water. I can’t even exchange reading for writing because all my books are packed!!  I feel like I’m cast adrift with nothing to put my back up against, and I don’t like it….not one bit.

My youngest had to go back to her old school in the short term – explaining why to everyone who expected her to be gone a week ago – and I can’t get my head in the game at all.

I’ve always had a problem with this over the past few years, whenever something horrible happens concerning the court case it has totally wrecked my ability to focus and write, creating long hiatus on many of my past stories, much to the frustration of my fans.  Sorry guys.

Now I have to wait by the email for a reply to my ‘white flag’  of capitulation(under duress) and hope my ex gets over his gloating and doesn’t drag this out any longer than he has too.  Wishful thinking on my part, but I have to have hope.

So….all packed up and no place to go.  I really should write a story around all these drama’s.  Only problem I see – that no one would believe me!

What a Way To End the Year

Just when you thought you’d given up all hope, you get an email a year after you send a manuscript to a publisher to say that they still want to publish it, they haven’t rejected it, and liked what they read!!

Does it get any better than that?  I may have to wait for the end of 2009 to have the final punchline on this story, but for now, knowing they still want the option to publish is enough to re-invigorate me and get me cracking on that languishing sequel I promised myself I’d do.  After the year I’ve had, I contacted them in November, thinking the trail cold, dead and buried, but no – they are still interested and I might still be a published author before I die.   Can’t ask for more than that really, and what a way to end the year!  Roll on 2009, I’m quite looking forward to you now.

To all of you, may you have a peaceful and happy Holiday Season and be looking forward to a hope filled New Year.

Wassail

Angsty Poetry – is there another kind?

Hearts are not tough enough

Right now, mine feels more fragile than most.

Something precious has been broken….and may never be repaired.

Something that was once considered strong has been weakened to the point of collapse.

Something, once considered unchangeable…has been changed out of all recognition.

Something inside has torn away….it bleeds, never to heal.

It’s gone, it’s changed, it’s never going to be the same…..are we ever prepared?

No. There are some things you cannot prepare for.

I mourn its loss.

Tears are a poor substitute.

I have cried enough.

(written in Januray 2008 in response to my Daughter and her decisions)

What do you write when everything changes – Poetry, what else?

Such fragile threads

So fragile you wonder how they take the punishment

So tough you think they will never break

Such fragile threads are love and life made of

Such simple threads that bend and twist under pressure

An unforgiving pressure that’s seems ready to snap every connection

To make it easy to look away, walk away, leave behind

Each broken thread making it easier to say good bye.

Such fragile threads, so wilfully damaged

So easily destroyed.

Severed. Gone.

(Written February 2008 to ameliorate some of the agony of my mind and heart)