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)

Good Grief I write Poetry, no less!

 

Precious Things

How do you say goodbye to something you never thought would leave

How do you stop the grief you hoped you’d never feel again

How do you rebuild your life when everything seems to end

I don’t have the answers, but wish that I did

I don’t know the way to cope with what’s done

I don’t want my world to not have her in it

But I have to

But it’s hard

But it hurts like nothing has hurt before

Precious things can so easily be lost

(Written February 2008 after my Daughter moved out.)

Merry Month of May

It should be a Merry Month, given the news that my eldest is currently celebrating her Engagement Party right about now (just after 6pm on Saturday night, 17th May)….only one or two problems with that – I’m not there to toast the happy couple.

Why not? I hear you yell….well, shout anyway.

Because my eldest is 16, her future husband is 32, they’ve known each other for a little over five months, and been living together for just over two months.  Is this a relationship likely to prosper? I don’t think so. Is it a relationship I support or encourage? again…I don’t think so.  Am I cutting off my nose to spite my face? Probably….but I can’t help that.

The only bright spark in my complicated life is that this hasn’t apparently harmed my relationship with her. Don’t ask me how it hasn’t, but it hasn’t. Is this because she knows that it’s a fantasy? Unlikely….is it because she understands why I can’t condone or support this travesty of a relationship? again….unlikely….Does she love me more than him?  When she’s with me….yes….when she’s with him….no.

Who knows how it will all end….my daughter is celebrating her engagement tonight…..and I’m not with her. Right choice?  I don’t know…but it was the only choice I could make in good conscience.

I may not be able to stop her doing and behaving the way she is, but I have another daughter looking to me to give her moral guidance, and that is what decides my course.

I hope time proves it the right decision.

As for writing – I did manage to finish my latest Primeval, add another chapter to my poor PP languishing since last year, and started another Primeval. I’m also a judge for a RWNZ current comp.  But I’m not interested in reading anything mainstream, or writing anything that isn’t classed as fluff/fandom……I think I’m depressed.

or maybe there’s just not room for everything in my life at the moment.

I hope that changes……….soon.

Okay…….skipped a few months there…..

Yup….it’s April and the year is already four months in….did anyone notice?? Probably not.

Going on hiatus is a strange situation to be in. It’s Limbo….but I’ve still been writing…not on anything mainstream, but all in my Primeval fandom. I’ve even written poetry about my angst (practically unheard of in my writing career to date) and I even managed a couple of short stories, which I’ll confess is unusual for me as I don’t DO short stories, they always turn into epics.

In fact, with what’s been going on in my day-to-day life, I’ve chosen to absent myself from all things mainstream, including reading, and devote my spare time to losing myself in my fandom. I’ve become a regular poster on a forum, actively researching articles and snippets, while submerging myself in the characters, episodes – basically being a total fangirl.

Interestingly, this is an area that is completely unknown to the mainstream writers I know. Writing, to me, whether it’s for the genre of fanfiction, or catergory romance is all much the same. They both get an author stretching the boundaries of their imagination, they both involve intensive plotting and creative processes, they both require a good standard of literacy, competence in grammar and adequate punctuation. The bonus with fanfiction is the immediacy of the feedback from the people reading your creative efforts.

Of course, the point of writing something original and mainstream is to win the ultimate prize and become published – have your book showcased at a major(or minor) bookstore and actually get paid at the end of the day. Fanfiction will see you published, sometimes in several places all over the net, it will get you read by people from all around the world, but fanfiction will not give you an income of any size, shape or quantity.

It will give you an outlet for your frustration with whatever you’re dealing with in real life, it will act as a sop to your aspirations for your favourite characters/tv series/film, and it will give you an immediacy of reaction with none of the waiting for months to find out if your three chapters and a synopsis have been rejected for the umpteenth time.

It fills a need….and at this time in my life, with what is going on with my two girls, I have that need.

I should be writing my sequel……I should be chasing up my manuscript…….I should be concentrating on becoming a better writing and taking part in endless workshops and critique groups…I should be doing a great many things to improve myself as a writer.

I guess I’ll stay on hiatus a little longer, because “should” doesn’t make time disappear, doesn’t soften the hard edges of reality….and I need that right now.

I might even post some of my poetry, because I suprised even myself when I wrote it, never thinking I could. Maybe I should write more.

Time to end this rambling monologue….my fandom is beckoning and I have another chapter to complete before the day is out.

 

A Quote to Kick off the New Year

Hearing is one of the body’s five senses. But listening is an art. (Frank Tyger)

We all talk far too much sometimes. I have had to face an impossibly hard situation over the last few days. My eldest daughter has decided to launch herself into independance by making, what I consider, a gross misjudgement.  Based on very little more than a desire to escape what she knows, she has aligned herself with quite possibly the most unsuitable person imaginable to effect this escape. He’s sixteen years her senior, rides a Harley, is a truck driver and recently had a near death experience. He’s had brushes with the law, multiple piercings, tats by the arm load, a mohawk and wears a nazi shaped bike helmet. He looks like someone you really woudn’t want to meet in a narrow alley, as he would fill it just before he flattens you.  In all, an unpreposessing character and one you’d never want your precious daughter to know – ever.

One the other side of the coin, he is kind, generous, tidy, know how to cook and respectful, loves horses and has a lovable bulldog called Tyson. He knows who Sooty is and likes Star Wars, but doesn’t read books - traits you don’t expect from someone looking as he does and living the life he does. He says he’s clean of drugs/alcohol/gangs and violence, and only has one ‘vice’ – smoking. And he loves my daughter, or so he says.

My daughter says he makes her feel safe and well cared for, and she likes him. He hasn’t pressured her and she says this is the life she wants.  She’s past the age of consent, but not necessarily anywhere near the age of discretion, in my opinion, but not in hers.

I’ve have wept and railed and tried to come up with ways and means of undoing what’s been done. I have beat myself up and heaped guilt upon myself until I thought my heart would burst. Before she left three days ago I talked and talked about every possible aspect of the situation -my point of view, the very real likelihood of the down side of her decision, of my objections, of societies objections, of the position she’ll be in, in her own social network – all to no avail.

She feels happy and safe and this is what she wants.

All the talking and arguments in the world are not going to change how she feels right now, and more would quite possibly just push her away even further than she is already.

So, I’ve stopped talking and started to listen. Maybe that crack is the sound of my heart bleeding its pain into my chest, it certainly feels like it. And maybe this will ultimately turn out to be the worst possible decision she’s ever made in her young life – but she wants to make it, and at the end of the day she has to live with that decision.

I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.  I wish I could say I want it to fail, then she’d come home and we could be as we were a week ago, but I’m not so naive to think it will ever be the same. She’s chosen possibly the hardest route to becoming a grown up, but it has been her choice, and as painful as it is for me, I have to honour that choice. If I don’t, then all my fine words in the past were nothing more than the mealy canting of a hypocrite wanting to control and never let go.

They say, if you love something you must set it free – only then will it come back to you. I prayer fervently that it is true. My most precious possession is testing her wings, and all I can do is stand below, looking up, and be there to catch her if she falters. I’m done talking now.

I just wish I could stop crying.

(and I still haven’t heard back about my manuscript)