What doesn't kill you

Advantage, no one

Closer to a novel...

It is gratifying to read my last post in August 2010 and know that the book is much further along now than it was then. I spend several hours a day, often seven days a week immersed in the novel and it sometimes feels like I'm in a casino - there are no clocks, no windows and no way to know exactly where I am because it all looks the same. For those hours there is no life outside my book and my characters.

This morning I drank coffee and and line edited/re-wrote/read. I completed only six pages in two hours. It is like moving through treacle towards a distant shore I know is there but I can't see it through the sugar fog.

Faith carries me through. Not faith in God, or even in a higher power. This is a faith that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be and where I'm going is where I need to be. I must believe this or the treacle turns hard and I am stuck, bewildered and bewitched.

The last three nights I have dreamed of losing things or having them stolen. Last night it was my Ipod. I managed to get it back from the girl who took it. A few nights ago it was my purse and I found it again, although all my money was gone.

I have tinnitus and I've had ringing in my eyes for almost a year now. It varies in intensity. Sometimes it is quiet, other times it is exhausting in volume and duration. I wake up in the night to the high pitched ringing, fear quickly following the thought that it may never go away. That there is no end. I hate it. I hate that I have this and there is no reason for it. It hounds me like a curse, never letting up, only diminishing to return later at full strength. Lately I've had the insane thought that it might go away if I start playing the piano again.

I must write now. I must keep moving through the treacle so I don't drown and wind up dead on the bank, my lungs full of syrup and my ears deaf.

Sunday Scribblings: Half way to a novel

Actually, I'd like to believe I'm more than halfway to my novel. Maybe two thirds of the way. But not three quarters.

I've discovered that novel writing is a deceptive sort of business. I thought I was almost done a few months ago, and I was wrong. Almost. It's a funny word. You stretch it and stretch it and stretch it and then it snaps like a rubber band and you realise no, you're not almost done. You're just not done. Almost is a lie then, a word to make me feel closer to completion than I actually am. Sometimes I need those lies so I keep going.

322 pages in Word. Currently on the fourth draft. Currently rewriting the major subplot. Always more to do, more to fix in my quest to make it better, make it all it can be so I'm all I can be when I start looking for an agent and a publisher. I need to know the novel is the best I can make it. I can't get impatient and put it out before it's done. No premature birth here. The novel must be able to stand on its own, breathe on its own and it must be independent of me if someone else is to believe it.

A very small part of me thinks I should appreciate this time of almost, this time of half way. It's the journey, not the destination the old cliche screams. But enough is enough. Half way is not all the way. Almost is not done.

The end is coming and I will welcome it with open arms.

Sunday Salon: A bit late...The Dead Travel Fast and Ink Exchange

The last time I contributed to the Sunday Salon was in March, so depending on how you look at it, I am either late for posting this Sunday just past or very late for not posting since March!

The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn


I'm a huge fan of Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia Grey mystery series, so when I saw this stand alone book at my favourite local bookstore I was excited. The excitement lasted for a couple of chapters when for whatever reason - I'll get to that in a second - I stalled, stopped reading and put the book back on the shelf. When it came time for my recent overseas trip, I packed it, deciding to start from the beginning again. I did, I stalled yet again a couple more chapters in than the first time. I picked it up again last week and managed to get all the way through to the end. Despite all of that, this really isn't a bad book.

So what was with all the stalling on my part? The Dead Travel Fast purports itself to be a vampire book. In fact the very title is taken from Dracula, the most epic of all vampire novels (no matter what those crazy Twlight people might tell you). Things to know about me: I don't really like books about vampires. Werewolves, witches, magic wielders, supernatural powers = awesome. Vampires = not so much. I mean at the end of the day vampires are undead, they want to suck our blood and they're immortal. Everywhere that concept can be taken, it has been taken, at least to the level of my interest.

Raybourn writes beautifully - her attention to detail, her ability to describe a room, a view, a person is near flawless. This is something I struggle with as a writer so I admire it all the more in others. So perhaps it was Theodora, the protagonist, that I didn't really warm to. She wasn't horrible or cold or anything, she was just a bit bland and a bit filled with her own self importance as a serious "novelist". I also thought the lack of antagonist was irritating - there were some hints about the Count and some murmurs about the rest of the family but nothing really came to fruition until the last 20 pages when it turned out all was not as it seemed.

*little bit spoiler-ish*

And by that, I mean it turns out there may not be any vampires or anything of the supernatural after all, which leave certain events unexplained and unable to be reconciled with the rest of the book.

*end of possible spoiler*

This is a decent book, possibly more than decent if you're a vampire fan but, I can't say I enjoyed it as much as the Lady Julia Grey series.

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr


This is the second book in Marr's Wicked Lovely series. The first was all about Aislinn and Keenan, the Summer King and Queen and this one is about Aislinn's friend, Leslie, who manages to get caught up in the world of faery when she chooses to have a tattoo inked on her skin that ties her to the King of the Dark Court, Irial. Toss in a compelling attraction between Leslie and another faery, Niall, and you have the makings of a good, dark book.

There is a growing movement in YA fiction towards stark, gritty realism whether it be in the form of death, eating disorders or abuse. This book frames Leslie as someone who survived a gang rape sanctioned by her drug dealer brother. This isn't a key feature of the book and is never explored in detail (thank goodness) but that event informs all of Leslie's decisions and goes some way towards understanding why she makes the decisions she does.

Leslie's destruction at the hands of the Dark Court is hard to watch and while she manages to come out of it towards the end, her journey isn't a pleasant one, even as it makes for compelling reading.

There are some plot issues in this book - a major twist is casually dropped into character exposition when so much more could have been made of it; a few plots go nowhere (this is probably because this book is part of a series) and there is no real resolution for Leslie who moves into a sort of holding pattern, returning to a mortal life while the faeries who love her bide their time in the shadows.

I enjoy Marr's writing and I'll read the next two books in the series but I'll borrow them from the library rather than buy them.

Currently reading: Forbidden Fantasy by Cheryl Holt

Neglected

52 Sources of Inspiration

1. Journal writing
2. My puppies
3. Rainbow coloured beads in a glass jar
4. The smell of rain on asphalt
5. A really good night's sleep
6. A new gel pen
7. Dreams
8. Stationary stores
9. Payday
10. Time off from work
11. Photography
12. Other people's blogs
13. Art supplies
14. Painting
15. Cupcakes
16. Rainy days and warm blankets
17. Trip planning
18. New books arriving in the mail
19. My Ipod on shuffle setting
20. My favourite podcasts
21. Bright coloured summer dresses
22. Post it notes
23. Ribbons attached to USB drives
24. Ponytails
25. The smell of soil and freshly mowed grass
26. Warm pasta in my tummy
27. Bubble baths
28. L'Occitane products
29. A really good book
30. A really good guidebook to writing
31. Sedona, Arizona
32. New pyjamas from Frankie and Johnny
33. A long and laughter filled conversation with a friend over a good meal
34. Water, and lots of it
35. Swimming
36. A trip to the library
37. Taking my laptop to Dome after work and writing for an hour or two with a skinny cap
38. Reading books I wish I had written myself and learning from them
39. Hearing people talk with passion about what it is they want to do or are doing with their lives
40. Chalk an chalk boards, whiteboard markers and whiteboards, paints and canvas
41. The colours green and sky blue
42. Connections to my past - to family members gone, friends departed and the knowledge that I'm always moving forward and becoming a better person
43. Sleep ins on a Saturday morning
44. Perspective
45. Venice, Italy; Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland
46. Museums and galleries
47. Workshops and classes and the people I meet in them
48. People are watching, supporting and loving me, even if they can't be with me in this world
49. Money in the bank
50. Coffee
51. The beach - it calls to me like a siren
52. The knowledge that I'm already here

Exercise suggested from 52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity

A day like no other

I woke up early this morning, anxious and fearful.

I decided there was nothing else to do but make today a day like no other.

All of my mornings start with these two faces.

Some mornings start with pancakes.

I wrote in my journal for an hour non stop, that's it in the bottom of the photo.
Then I watched an episode on the net of 16 and Pregnant.

I went to MILKD. I never go here. I go across the street, sit at the same table in the same cafe with the same waitress. Today I went inside the trendy cafe.

I drank my skinny cap and marked assessments.
First self portrait. It's bad, but that's okay. I never take self portraits and rarely post photos of myself on my blog.


On a whim, I decided to get on the train to Fremantle.

I went to

And ate...


a yummy cheeseburger. That's my first Vonnegut on the left. I bought it in the second hand store a little bit down from Soho.

Second self portrait of the day - in the bathroom of Soho. Not much better than the first.
Then I wandered about a bit, window shopping.
Then I got on the train, where the view out the window looked like this:

Ocean, ocean, ocean.

When I got back to my stop I went here


Where the roof looks like this:

And I drank a chai latte and did more marking.

I was pretty over it at this point, so I went home and watched more episodes of 16 and Pregnant, almost blowing my monthly internet allowance 10 days shy of the next allowance and did more marking.

It truly was a day like no other.
I took risks.
Forced myself to do things I'd rather not do.
Looked at the place I live through the lens of my camera.
Got lots of assessments marked.
Found Kurt Vonnegut.

Survived another day.