Music | Ludovico Einaudi

Thanks to a recommendation by Mark Newton I have been listening to Divenire by Ludovico Einaudi - a collection of piano pieces that are so fantastic and sweeping that I've had it on repeat since I downloaded it from iTunes on Saturday.
Einaudi is an amazing composer and pianist (I already had the album Echoes, bought because I initially wanted a couple of tracks and ended up loving the whole thing) and his music is incredibly moody; not in the sense of being dark and angst-ridden, rather, in the sense that it can inspire moods as all the best music can. It can uplift you, make you contemplative or imagine you're on the prow of a huge sailing ship ploughing through the waves. Wait, maybe that's just me?

It also makes me wish I'd never stopped playing the piano, or that I knew how to dance, but I did and I don't so I shall have to do what I always do with music: use it to relax, to recharge the mental batteries and to provide an avenue to daydream down, to fuel the scenes in my head by giving them their own music as they play out.

What do you use music for? Daydreaming? Blocking out the world? Background as you write/ paint/ read?

Revisions | Slice 'n' dice

Yesterday was fairly successful on the revision front as I managed to get through 21 pages on various breaks throughout the day - I didn't get home until late so I didn't do any more then. The last few pages (about 4, I think) I'll do today and then there'll be a final read-through before sending off. Then it's: tweaking Earth and sending it back out; a non-fiction article; and then--finally--back to the UF and the dreaded read through of the 235 (MS format) pages I've written so far.

However, while lying in bed trying to get to sleep last night, I realised something about my main character which would (a) excise two characters and a fair amount of words and (b) increase tension a bit more as there really won't be anyone to rely on. I decided not to depend on my brain to remember what I'd thought so I dutifully lurched out of bed, navigating round the cat and two of the dogs, who just drop wherever their energy runs out, and wrote myself a note. I love notes. And lists. Lists of lists. Lovely. ::hugs lists::

Ahem. Anyway. I'm on holiday in a week so I've booked in the UF kick off for then. I want the first, full, draft completed before the hell of induction etc. starts in mid-September, as for the first 4 weeks or so I'll be zombie librarian instead of incredibly alert and well-rested librarian.

Hmm. I need a zombie librarian avatar.

It's that Friday feeling

We're halfway through the day and the weekend is almost here! Chum #1 is working 'til 22:00hrs on the literature festival so I shall have the duty of picking up the dogges from the grandparents (it is a duty rather than a joy because they do not like my car. Henry only has two doors, whereas the Chum's car has four which means the collies have their own door onto the back seat. (They also have their own electric window button which Mama Bear uses whenever she gets too hot.) When I walk Baby Bear out and he see's it's my car he tries to run back into the house. ::sniff:: I could take it personally.)

Anyway, I have another four-and-a-bit hours before the end of the work day and then it's dogges! washing up! dogges! & cat! (the feeding of)revisions! dogges! (the walking of), and then it will be sleep - hopefully early because I'll be up at 06:30 to take the dogs out for another walk before heading off to alt.fiction for the day.

Lunchtime tomorrow should be interesting as the Quad is near the Big (TV) Screen and, according to East Midlands Today, there's going to be a demonstration there to protest the fact that the council won't be paying for the public to watch the World Cup on it. Police, cordons etc. Let's just hope that they're either not too rowdy or that the Quad has got good soundproofing. The last time I went to alt.fiction I attended a panel by jemck, Sarah Ash, desperance and someone else?) and they had to compete with the Ladyboys of Bangkok singing in a tent outside! With any luck it'll be quieter this year.

Anyone else going to alt.fiction tomorrow? I still haven't decided which panels I'm going to so that will have to be added to the jobs list - something to discuss with Chum#1 when she gets home.

Alt.Fiction 2010

The one day spec fic convention known as Alt.Fiction is back in Derby (Derbyshire, UK) on the 12th of June

The day is made up of a number of different types of sessions, including author talks, Q&A sessions, discussion panels and workshops. There will also be a number of publishers in attendance, including Angry Robot Books, Gollancz, Solaris, Abaddon and BBC Books, while genre agents John Berlyne and John Jarrold will also be sharing their considerable experience.

Authors attending include: Chaz Brenchley, Juliet McKenna, Mark Charan Newton, Graham Joyce, and Sarah Pinborough among others. I went the last time it was held and it was (a) very interesting (in an almost anthropological kind of way) and (b) good fun. So if you fancy a day at the Quad in Derby come along (although tickets are, apparently, selling fast.)

Sunny Sundays are good for washing Bear...

The sun shone magnificently yesterday and as it was far too hot to take the beasts out in the middle of the day we decided to do the next best thing - bath them! Two out of the three were scrubbed, disgustingly brown water was sluiced off and we even managed to get a bit of a brush through the wool of Bear's trousers so it was a productive afternoon. He's still going to need a set of professional clippers to get the underfur out quickly - he really doesn't like being groomed overmuch - but at least he's now clean and shiny. Dog no.3 will be done next weekend, weather willing. I just need to buy more shampoo.

For your delectation, a picture of shiny Bear at play...

tap, tap...is this thing on?

I have been released from the oars at last! (Well, okay, maybe one ankle is still attached but hey, progress!) The day jobbery has dialled back enough that I should be going from exhaustion to merely tired any day now.

Hello, I've missed you, and I probably won't be reading the last two months of entries that I've missed. Sorry.

We interrupt this hiatus...

Countdown to Pcon 7

17 days before I hop on a plane at the crack of dawn and make my way over to Dublin (after carefully measuring the suitcase to ensure it conforms to cabin storage dimensions.) This does not bode well for the return journey of course; after all, what will I do with the books I buy when I'm there? I shall have to ensure that I keep 30 euros spare for emergency hold stowage, just in case.

Convention details are here, along with lists of guests/ attendees etc. It'll be the first time I've (a) been to this one and (b) been to one that lasts longer than a day, so I'm really looking forward to it - although I am now regretting that I didn't book in for Odyssey 2010 as well. No time/ money now, especially as I'm going to a reader's retreat in Normandy in April with chum #1 who reviews for newbooks magazine. We won't be going by plane for that trip, though.

Anyone convention-going soon?

[metrics] Cthulhu

I had hoped to have finished the Cthulu short I've been working on but I didn't like the direction it was going in - it was too meandery and waffly so I'm rewriting, aiming for 3K. So far (she says cautiously) it's going okay.



Once that's done, it's revision time for the three first-draft shorts I have waiting. First lines meme to follow in a bit.

100 stories for Haiti - deadline extended

Via John Scalzi's Whatever blog:

Author Greg McQueen has put out a call for short stories (not exceeding 1000 words) to go into a charity anthology : all proceeds to go to the Red Cross to help out in Haiti.

100 Stories for Haiti
We want short story submissions to help raise money for disaster-stricken Haiti. Out of the submissions, 100 pieces of fiction will be chosen to appear in an e-book, the proceeds of which will go to the Red Cross.
If you want to send a short story, please follow these guidelines:

• Do not exceed 1,000 words.
• No stories containing graphic violence, death or destruction.
• Send all stories in the body text of an email to 100storiesforhaiti@gmail.com. Stories sent as attachments will not be opened.

Go to Greg's blog here; the 100 Stories for Haiti website; and remember that the deadline has been extended to this Wednesday the 27th by Midnight (wherever you are on the planet) so brush off a story if you have one or dash one off if you're a speed demon.

Melting at last!

Well, it's been absolutely ages since I last posted. The new year went well but I spent most of the first week working from home because I couldn't get the car out of our street. It was great for dog walking, not so much for driving; but, the snow (and more importantly the ice) is now melting. When I parked the car at work this morning it was raining and foggy so I imagine the news will start saying things like "The Big [British] Melt as opposed to Freeze.

Yesterday was slightly traumatic; first I had to have a new car windscreen because there was a large crack across the middle of mine. Then I had to take Baby Bear and Mama Bear to the vets; the former for his boosters and the latter for her free six monthly check (it's not really 'free' - I pay a monthly amount so I don't have to pay when I turn up.) Baby Bear was fine; he didn't cry for the needle and the vet thought he looked very fit and healthy. Mama Bear has put on 5 kilos and is on rations, but because she's overweight we're going to have to alter her exercise regimen to avoid damaging her joints. No long walks, instead she'll have a number of shorter (no longer than 30 minutes) each day. The vet said it'll be the rationing rather than the exercise that will drop the weight off her, so I'll have to get the parentals who dog-sit to make sure she can't eat the other dogs' food and I'll have to remember to hide the cat biscuits when I go out/ go to bed. She will not be happy, but it's all in a good cause.

Here are some pictures from a walk at the weekend:

















This weekend I'm aiming to get my Lovecraftian-style short finished - I did about 1K yesterday - and then I'll be free to re-read the YA UF novel so far and crack on with that again.


If you have to go out and about and it's still snowy/ icy take care!

Clear and cold the year is old, my ramblings bimble on

First things first: Felicitations of the Season to all and sundry!

Christmas was good; I had Christmas Eve off work so I boiled and baked my ham (with cloves and maple syrup) which worked fantastically well once again so Chum #1 was happy, as was I. Christmas Day I made my cranberry sauce with ruby port which went down well, and as that was the only cooking I had to do all day I was pleased too. We went to Chum #1's parents' house for dinner, along with my mother and another friend - we didn't eat too much, it was all just right, and we played an excellent game of Trivial Pursuit (the new one with a twist - abbots, no less). Then we went to my mother's for Boxing Day and ate and drank with the pseudo-nephews and nieces and their parents.

Yesterday, we rested by going to see Sherlock Holmes which I thought was good, silly fun. The relationship between Holmes and Watson was reminiscent of that portrayed by Roxburgh and Hart in the more recent Hound of the Baskervilles, and Watson came across as being smart which was a relief. I can't stand the depictions of Watson as a bumbling idiot. >.<

Christmas presents: a fantastic telescope that the chum and I will have to put together (the horror of instructions that start with an item's individual pieces set out on a big sheet on the floor o_O ); lots of non-fiction books on Georgian history/ society; Doctor Who Season 4 and other lovely things (including socks!)

Tor.com are having a 'December belongs to Cthulhu' fest and although December is almost over I had a Lovecraftian moment while dog walking in the woods so a story will shortly be committed to paper in honour of the Old Ones. Cthulu ftagn!

It's strange to think that 2009 is almost over. Britain is still in recession and looks as though it may be for some time to come (not to mention being horrifically in debt as a nation) but I hope that 2010 will be better; higher household bills notwithstanding. The family's healthy; we all have roofs over our heads, and we're all in work so we have no complaints on that score. We are content with bursts of happiness.

So here's to the impending 2010 - may we all be, if not perpetually happy, then at least content with bursts of happiness and rich in friends and loved ones.

The sun is shining in my eyes...

It's almost Christmas Eve and there is snow on the ground! It was a bit dodgy trying to leave my street this morning as we are not blessed with gritters (being unworthy dwellers of a dead-end road) but once the ice of two and a half streets was navigated it was plain sailing.

Although I don't enjoy driving in snow (driving back from Newcastle on Sunday was exciting for all the wrong reasons), I do love snow itself. Chum #1 and I took the dogs out for a walk before bed, as is our wont, and we decided to extend it because the snow was fantastic, the collies were hyper, and it was just a brilliant, cold, and shiny night. I hope that the snow stays until the 24th at least - I've taken the day off work and it would be nice to get a long walk in -- through snow -- before the madness begins! (I have a ham to bake, among other things - oh, God, the WRAPPING!!!)

I have bought a number of books in advance of the holiday, so at some point I will have to structure some kind of reading list otherwise I'll dither and end up re-reading books while I try to decide which new ones I want to read. I also need to get back on the wagon with the unnamed one as that ground to a halt with illness and work being busy. (I am trying to resist my brain's idea of getting back into the flow by writing a short on a mad galvanist that I had a brain-tickle for. Although, amazingly, I did manage to get some articles from the 1800s about galvanism that will help the research. But still, resist.)

I need to clear the workspace downstairs again so that there's room to work, and I also need to update everything on the laptop as that hasn't been done since the 29th of October, just before I went on holiday. Jobs, jobs, jobs. ::sigh::

I've got editing planned for this week; I'm at work on Monday, and then it's writing for the rest of the week and into January. Cobbling together bits from pbackwriter and Jeff Vandermeer's Booklife I've fleshed out a business plan for 2010 as well as looked at breaking things into weekly tasks, and creating a five year plan. I have to say that I found the mission statement idea (from Booklife) *really* difficult to do. Interesting, but difficult, and it still needs work.

So, what about you? Do you do a business plan every year? Do you break things down into small tasks to make them more manageable and trackable? Do you have a different method for organising your life, or do you just go with the flow? Inquiring minds want to know.

Phoenix Con 7

Phoenix Con 7 here I come!

Chum #1 has booked us and her mother on the convention, which is taking place in Dublin from the 5th - 7th March 2010. It will be great to meet some people face-to-face that I've only spoken to online. All I need to do now is sort out accomodation and flights and that'll be job done. Fantastic.

1st of December

Mood: Cheerful, but full of cold
On the iPod: The Death of Bardolph: Henry V - Simon Rattle
Temp: 18.9 deg C

December is here, the start of winter, and to get it off to a good start we had the first hard frost of the season this morning which meant that I froze my hands scraping the car windows.
It was dark when I set off to work but as the sun rose and turned the sky pink, the frosty ground looked gorgeous. I wish I'd stopped at the side of the road and taken a picture of it; it was glorious.
What wasn't glorious was the black ice that I'd forgotten would be on the rat-run to the motorway. Hairpin bends on a steep hill past farmers' fields where there's runoff onto the road. Luckily, because I usually forget not to go on that road in winter at least once a year, I've become accustomed to steering off ice. Also, there was no-one coming the other way which was a bonus. Unless it rains I'll be going the long way until March.

With it being December the first I have the joy of a carol service at work today (as in, I will be singing in it) which will be nice. Rehearsal at lunchtime and then the service at 17:00hrs GMT. Hopefully we'll be singing all the jolly carols rather than weepy ones. Normally I miss the service because it's always on a Tuesday and I work 'til 21:00hrs then, but this year I swapped, so we shall see how it goes.

NaNo Update: did I win? No. Did I progress? Yes, absolutely. I've added two characters I hadn't planned on in the initial outline and I think I've managed to push them into the shadows a bit for this story. They're there, but they won't elbow their way to the front as they were starting to for a minute. Hakon and Snorri will just have to wait for a different story to take their spot in the limelight.


Current word count: 71,871
Chapter: Midway through chapter 19

Procrastination Station

Just over a week ago I finished part one of the current WiP, full of glee at getting a good 53K words and eager to start on part two. But I found that, having finished a distinct part without making an immediate effort to start the next section, it was difficult to set hands to keyboard again. First I had to re-read my outline and make sure that it fit with the changes I'd made to the outline of part one as I wrote it. Then I had to make a few more notes about things to include, stuff I needed to know. After that I had to add more worldbuilding to my guidebook for future reference. And so a week went by without any new words being written on the actual book itself.

Now, I know that this was all procrastination station.

(a) I've done part one. Yay! [Euphoria]
(b) What if it sucks? [Gloom]
(c) I need to start part two! [Confidence]
(d) What if it sucks? [Gloom]
(e) Oh, crap. I know where part one should have started (and it's not where I did start it). [Gloom]
(f) Maybe I should just tweak... [Gloomy indecision]

Yesterday, I finally broke the deadlock and tapped out 339 words. Not a lot, but a damn sight more than zero, and today I tapped out some more.

On a personal level, I think one of the causes of the inadvertent hiatus was the fact that when I got to the end of part one I just stopped. What I should have done was write something, anything, even just one sentence of part two - just to get the ball rolling so that I wasn't staring at the Chapter 15 heading and a blank page.

How do you deal with coming to the end of one section and picking up another? Do you stop dead at the end of a chapter and start a new one with ease? Do you tease out a few lines of the new section so that when you come back to it you've got a thread to hang the rest on, or do you face down the blank page with ease and bash out the 1812 Overture on your keyboard without a backward glance at your notes?

Have you ever stopped at Procrastination Station? Enquiring minds want to know.

[metrics|weather] Part 1 (of 3) is done!

It clocks in at 176 pages/ 53,951 words and it is done. Now all I have to do is write parts 2 and 3 (and do them in less words than part 1 which went massively over aimed for / predicted word count.) So, I have joy joy feelings today!
Part 2 will start tomorrow and we'll see how much I deviate from the outline for that section. (Quite a lot I would imagine, if part 1 was anything to go by.)

Also, the sun is shining. Not in an aggressive, summery fashion but in a take-the-chill-off-the-autumn-day kind of way. Good dog walking weather (or cat, if your feline is so inclined.) Unfortunately, I am at work - a tea break does not an afternoon off make, alas. But still, we soldier on, fueled by mini cheddars and a kit-kat. I think everyone must have been released from lectures at the same time as there were queues for everything except the vending machines. Good job I'm only having soup for tea.

You never know who you're going to meet at work...

It's not often that you queue for coffee - in the student cafe at work - and meet one of your favourite authors; but that's what happened to me this morning when one of my colleagues introduced me to their friend - visiting from New Zealand - and it turned out to be Nalini Singh!
We had a nice chat over drinks (mocha and hot chocolate respectively) and, agreed that Anne Bishop is a fantastic author that we both like, along with Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey.

I did have a moment of (internal) fan-girl squeeage, and as it was internal I hopefully didn't come across as too much of a dork.

Anyway, I thought I'd share that as it's totally brightened up my day. You just never know who you're going to meet at work!

The autumn rains are here

Autumn sort of sauntered in during the last week of September; now we're in to October it's decided that, yes, it's really here to stay so it had better get on with knocking all the leaves of the trees, and raining to complement the chill air. Hats were worn for dog walking last night.

At the weekend we took the dogs out for a long walk and the beaters were abroad sending pheasants into the line of sight of men with guns. The collies weren't bothered by the gun fire, which was good, and Bear only barked when he heard the spaniels barking on the other side of the hedge so that was good. We did nearly get hit by low flying (fleeing) pheasant (or they could have been partridges - not sure about that) but they managed to clear our heads and make a break for the woods.

As it is autumn, and we had inspiration from the huntin' and shootin' set, we had pheasant for dinner last night and it was fantastic. Chum #1 made it. Saute leeks in a bit of butter and line an oven dish with them; rest your breast of pheasant on top; sprinkle on pine nuts (it's supposed to be chestnuts but we couldn't get any fresh and the tinned were £2 which was a bit much); add a knob of butter and wack it in the oven. For the gravy, you drain off the juices from the bird and add some chicken stock and port, thicken with cornflour and you have the most gorgeous tasting sauce ever. Of course, we'll need to test the recipe again--just to make sure it works a second time, you understand!

Autumn. The season of soups (roasted pumpkin & butternut squash), stews (cawl), and pies (beef and stilton crumble). Nom nom nom.Tonight we will be having the glory that is the baked potato, covered with some of the Italian bean stew we made in bulk the other week and froze. Tastiness will be mine!

In other news: I've figured out how Tilly makes a vampire's shielding spell permanent and have written the sequence out longhand so that will need to be added to the draft. That should be done today and then I can do the changeover of notes so that I carry the outline for Part 2 around with me. 52k and rising.

October has arrived, the nights are chill and early dark with felines prowling in the woods

It will soon be time to hunt for pumpkin and butternut squash to make my roasted autumn soup with, adding in my Tuscan herb mix for a last hint of summer. It will also soon be time to dust off the slow cooker so that I can set stews/ curries/ soups cooking while I'm at work. There are few things better than coming home to a house that's full of the smell of glorious food; especially as the house will probably be cool. We managed to avoid lighting the first fire until November last year - whether or not we'll manage it this year I don't know as we've already started using the hot water bottles (last night was pretty chilly.)

Took the dogs for a walk before bed, as per usual, but this time the cat decided she wanted to come to! So, at a much slower pace than normal we tramped onto the reserve, into and through the wood (this was scary - her tail was fluffed like a bottle brush the whole time), then down the trail and into a small copse before heading back out onto the main trail and back up to the house. Everyone was extremely pleased with themselves and all of the four-leggers went straight to bed because being a border collie/ cat is pretty exhausting really. :-)

I am lergified. Unlike last year I managed to fight off the germs in the first week of students being back, but I succumbed this week to the aching head and lethargy (my bed, she calls to me) but, the show must go on and all that. My writing productivity has declined day by day this week in an almost embarrasing fashion, but I am on chapter 13/ 48K and I will--at the very least--finish section one this weekend.

Anyway, how's your week been? Good, bad, indifferent?