Tales of the Mouse and Minotaur

I'm very happy that my story 'The Labours of Stropheus' has been published in Tales of the Mouse and Minotaur (Volume 3 of the Bushy Takes anthology series) from Fox Spirit Books, edited by Adele Wearing.

It's no secret that I like both rodents and Ancient Greek mythology, so this theme is very much in my wheelhouse. I originally wrote this story a few years ago (there have been some delays, which happens in publishing sometimes). I mostly remember that the story I wrote ended up stranger than what I'd initially intended, luckily Fox Spirit never shy away from the strange. Mouse & Minotaur features a broad range of stories from talented writers..

Fox Spirit is an award-winning and dedicated small press based in the UK, with writers, editors and contributors from all over the world. They produce an impressive array of novels, anthologies, collections and non-fiction. They also have imprints for children's fiction and martial arts books.

FantasyCon 2015

This time last week I was in the middle of FantasyCon 2015 in Nottingham, the annual convention of the British Fantasy Society. It was a really marvellous time. I'm only posting this late because of my own failings (been feeling a bit odd and tired this last week).

This year's con really had a great atmosphere and for once I really felt like I hit the right mix of socialising and going to panels and events. Dave and I got to see and talk to a lot of friends we only usually see at conventions, and there was a lovely, unexpected appearance from some friends who live locally. I also got to talk to people I've not met or chatted to before. There were a few people I could have spoken to more, but I certainly did some nodding and smiling to people in corridors. I'm not going to list names, because that would probably make for dull reading plus I would almost certainly forget someone and would feel very bad about that. If we did end up having a natter at FantasyCon then believe me I enjoyed it and it all contributed to a great weekend.

This is our haul of (mostly) free books

The programme was a fairly traditional mixture of panels, reading, launches and signings. There were various good panel discussions, including one on using history in fantasy and another about podcasting and audio books. I enjoyed seeing Juliet E. McKenna interview Brandon Sanderson as they are both authors whose work I enjoy. I attended a couple of useful workshops and fun readings (mostly featuring Emma and Peter Newman now that I think of it). Plus the book launch of Heide Goody and Iain Grant's Hellzapoppin' which featured a monk robe and audience participation in the reading. I also moderated a panel for the first time, it was about screen and script writing and the panellists were all very knowledgeable and had a lot to say, which made things easy for me.

Finally much congrats should go to the con organisers and the redcloaks, these volunteers all made sure everything ran smoothly and did a brilliant job.  I'm aware there were a few venue issues in the background, but as an attendee you couldn't tell. Also thanks to Al, who is a great giver of pep talks. We left before the BFS awards ceremony, which was a slight shame as I was a juror for two of the categories and it does feel nice to be involved.


My post on FantasyCon in 2014 can be found here.

Return of the Blog

Hi everybody!

I'd always intended to have a bit of a blogging break after the Agents of Shield postathon. Even allowing for the buffer I managed to build up for parts of that period, a longish post every 2 days is quite a lot of words and time. I didn't actually intend for the break to be as long as it has been. It was good to stop for a bit, and I've been working on other things in that time, but I know it probably looks like I'd abandoned ship. I haven't, it was just extended shore leave.

So what's happening with me?

I recently had a birthday and am now officially Nearly Thirty. This may mean that I'm supposed to make lists of goals and ambitions and such. I'm not going to do that. I can forsee some life changes in the next year or so, and I don't feel that I need to add to that with a list, which I expect would feel artificial.

There are things about myself that I want to work on, but these are the same things I've wanted to work on for some years now. This suggests that I'm kind of slow to change, or perhaps that I'm wary? There is personal stuff that has changed for the better in the last year, but it's not something I want to talk about on the internet. I will say that I've realised that you can change bad patterns you've developed, that the picture you have of yourself when you're young is not set in stone, but sometimes you need help with that.

I'm not always very good at sharing stuff about myself. I'd like to think I can be quite an open person, but that's not something I am consistent about and I'm sure I come across as aloof too. It can take me a while to feel comfortable, but not always, and I don't know which way I'm going to react. I think it's a confidence thing, I tend to assume I'm not particularly interesting and/or that I am somehow burdensome to others. I sometimes also feel like I don't know how to be friend to others and so I hold back or purposefully position myself on the fringe of things, because at least it's familiar there. I suspect this is thinking I should try to change as I'm sure it's holding me back.

Writing-wise I continue to alternate between feeling I have progressed in what I know, and being mad at myself for not doing more. The latter is helpful as long as it encourages me, but unfortunately it can also be really discouraging (at which point the feeling becomes counter-productive). Looking back I suspect I've gotten better at dealing with this too, though it doesn't always feel that way. I have also joined a fantasy writing group that a friend set up earlier this year. It's been interesting and has already proved helpful, so that's a good thing.

What I have definitely learned is that writing a second draft that's a different shape and tone to your first draft feels a lot like writing a first draft again, which doesn't feel like progress. Though alongside this I'm trying to redevelop the research skills I haven't used since I was student. I recently found out that my current job gives me access to a ridiculous number of academic journals, so that'll help. I'm not a heavy worldbuilder, but as I want the setting of my story to be somewhere unlike where I live (and I now have a main character who's a doctor) I do need to at least look up practical details. Hopefully this second draft will have more depth than the first.

Normal service will resume shortly. I will continue to do the TNG posts, as I feel like that's a thing I have committed to. I'll also try to get back into talking about books again, I'm not really sure why I stopped. In the spirit of what I've said above I may even talk about myself a bit more, though already the prospect feels somewhat self-indulgent.

Thank you for reading all the way down here (unless you've cheekily scrolled down, as that is kind of cheating, but I shan't hold it against you).

Worldbuilding

Some months ago I was happy to say that I had (for the first time) finished the first draft of novel. Though in some ways that achievement felt a bit unreal as I know there's loads of work still to do. I've been letting the story percolate in my brain while I wrote other stuff (mostly TNG blog posts as you've seen, but also some short stories). I know it needs loads of work, and so far I've been able to identify big things.

The biggest thing I need to do next is worldbuilding. It's a secondary world fantasy story, and so that means I'm creating the whole thing. I already have a feel for the setting, I had to in order to write the story, but I skimmed a lot of detail that I know have to fill in (at least in my head, if not in the story itself). At Fantasycon I went to a great worldbuilding session by Tom Pollock and Kate Elliott, who both had some great things to say and gave me a lot to think about. I like the idea that worldbuilding is not about piling on details, but thinking about what is different to your setting, what assumptions you bring with you and why, and how your own assumptions and those of your reader can be challenged. I also liked that they mentioned worldbuilding being about what you don't show as much as what you do. 

I don't want to do a traditional pseudo-Western Europe setting, which is used a lot in fantasy (which is not to say it isn't done very well in some cases). As someone who has lived her entire life in Western Europe (apart from a couple of holidays) I know that I am going to have to step outside my comfort zone and do my research. I'm a bit out of practice with research, having last done it seriously 7 years ago when I was studying. Luckily I now work at a university, so I have easy access to vast amounts of research material. I'm hoping that researching is like riding a bike (something else I haven't done in years).

I'm looking forward to the process, as well as feeling a little daunted by it. I want to create a world that feels like it makes sense, as that is something that so often jolts me out of stories. I know that while I'm trying to create something different from what I'm used to my own ideas and assumptions are going to influence whatever I write. I will try to be aware of that and keep questioning myself.

Editing

I have been writing a short story for a month.
I am out of practice with short stories.

One of the things I like about short stories is the shortness (both as a writer and a reader). As a writer it's great because there's a manageable number of words. The issue isn't just coming up with the words and writing them down (though of course that's a big part of it). The issue is that you have to really look at the words you've written down and make them good. This is editing and I'm out of practice with that too.

It's only been fairly recently that I've felt like I got better at editing. My Guardian's Guardian is the first story where I felt as though I was deliberately shaping and improving not just the words, sentences, paragraphs, but the whole story.

I am aware of various of my writing flaws; many of them involving grammar, sentence structure and overruse of certain words. It's only recently that I've become aware that editing isn't just about leaping through your story, putting right what you once did wrong. It's about shaping the whole thing.

I feel this is a useful realisation, as I'm going to start editing a novel in the foreseeable future. I've never done that before, it's a daunting prospect. Especially as I'm coming to realise that the draft I was so happy to finish back in July was really more a loosely connected group of scenes, with characters that need fleshing out and a setting that's rather sparse. Still I'm encouraged that I've identified these problems, that's the first step towards fixing them.

For now I have nearly finished editing this story. The part of my brain that does this is feeling fairly knackered, but I think I'm almost done. It's good to be at this point.

FantasyCon 2014

FantasyCon 2014 happened in York on 5th - 7th September. This con report is a little delayed because I've only just gotten home from York. The convention coincided with my 5th wedding anniversary, so my husband and I decided to stay a while afterwards for a mini-holiday.

It felt really nice to be back at FantasyCon, it was the first one since 2012. Every time I've been I've met people and had good conversations and come away feeling positive. This time there were so many people I knew, from cons and the internet. It was great to catch up with friends and meet new people. After the intensity of Loncon3 FantasyCon felt relaxed and friendly, as I'd expected.

This year I was also on my very first panel. This was less relaxing, but still a very good experience. The other panelists were interesting people and we had a good discussion that was well-received, which is comforting when doing a panel about politics. I said some stuff I'd thought of in advance and some stuff in response to the discussion. I don't think I talked too much, but neither did I sit quietly. It's slightly hazy in my recollection, but I'm told I was amusing and you couldn't tell it was my first time. Even though I was nervy at first I relaxed into it. I'm really glad I did it and that my first panel was a positive experience.

The convention had many interesting panels and events. There weren't things so many that you felt overwhelmed, but of course it's not a big con. The programme didn't just feature the normal basics but featured at a variety of subjects. This is likely to have been helped by the online survey the con had months ago asking for topic suggestions from attendees. It was nice to see them being proactive about involving attendees.

Highlights of the programme were:

• Fox Spirit Book Launch - for Breed by K. T. Davies
• But Does It Make Sense? - panel about economics in Fantasy 
• Tea and Jeopardy - a live recording of the Hugo-nominated podcast
• Just A Minute - hosted by Paul Cornell, featuring Gillian Redfearn, Kate Elliott, Stephen Gallagher and Frances Hardinge
• Worldbuilding Worshop - with Kate Elliott and Tom Pollock 

FantasyCon is always good for books (2 years ago we broke a suitcase). There were many free books available at and after registration through the convention. There were various book launches and plenty to buy in the dealer's room. I also got some free review copies of various books (which will keep me occupied reading and writing for a while).

The convention itself had a supportive environment and seemed to run very smoothly. This is largely down the the efforts of the con volunteers, called redcloaks. They gave up their time and worked hard to make it a success. The redcloaks were headed up by my friends Alasdair Stuart and Marguerite Kenner, who did an excellent job. They are an alarmingly organised couple with Marguerite clearly queen of her domain and Al being a friendly but determined blur for much of the time.

I'm looking forward to returning to FantasyCon next year.

The End of the Garden

I'm very happy that my story 'The End of the Garden' has been published in The Girl at the End of the World, Volume 1 from Fox Spirit Books, edited by Adele Wearing.

The anthology theme is apocalypse stories with female protagonists. 'The End of the Garden' is about things disappearing and a girl losing her childhood.

Unlike my previous publications from Fox Spirit this anthology is not part of the Fox Pocket range. It's a full sized paperback and this is the longest story I've had published.

Volume 1 deals with apocalyptic stories, whereas Volume 2 has post-apocalyptic stories. Both anthologies are available as paperbacks and ebooks. There are also two sets of beautifully designed covers. The stories display an incredible range of situations, characters, genres and tone.

Both volumes were released in July, but it was around the time I was changing job so I was being bad at blogging.

Fox Spirit Books have been nominated for the Best Small Press award at the British Fantasy Awards, so best of luck to them. The Awards will be announced on Sunday at FantasyCon in York, which I shall be attending.

First Draft

On Friday I finally completed a first draft of a long form story. A little over 60,000 words covering a beginning, middle and end. I've been working on this particular draft since September, though I have had some breaks for other things in that time.

Completing a first draft is something I've tried to do for years. I've tried with other stories, and though I've written more words in the past they haven't added up to a full story before.

I know that the draft I've written is full of bad writing and some scenes aren't complete. I have no intention of letting anyone see it, but it's a starting place and I can build from it. I've already had some ideas about what to add and what to improve. I expect the next draft will be longer. However I'm going to wait a while, get some distance from the story before I try rewriting. I'll spend the time working on projects, perhaps getting back into short stories.

Guardian Story

I'm proud and excited to say that I have a story in Guardians, a Fox Pocket anthology from Fox Spirit books.

My Guardian's Guardian is about a man returning to his old home, visiting his former guardian and comparing past glories with present decay.

Fox Pockets are small, pocket-sized books featuring short stories that can be read quickly, on a lunch break or a short commute. They're designed to show the range of tales, authors and talent that Fox Spirit work with. Guardians features an excellent range of fantasy, horror, science fiction and crime stories, each with its own take on the theme. The guardians come in many forms including angels, gargoyles, parents, police and dreams.

Guardians is the 3rd Fox Pocket anthology. The previous two are Piracy (which I also have a story in) and Shapeshifters.

Fox Spirit have loads of great books, and a range of really good blog posts too. You should totally visit their website.

New Year

It's that time of year to do a bit of planning and looking forward, as well as a little looking back.

This year I want to get more organised and rather than coming up with vague resolutions I'd like to have actual plans and goals in place for myself. I realise that I'm the kind of person who needs a structure in order to be effective, so I'm coming up with that at the moment. I'm hoping to be a bit more organised with blogging too, I enjoyed doing the Sandman reread earlier, but I think I could have planned it better. January might be a bit quiet in these parts while I get a few things sorted out.

Of course other people's plans aren't particularly interesting and a lot of what I've come up with so far is written in shorthand that only I'm meant to understand, so I won't be posting a list here. Instead I'm going to start positive and mention some good things that will be happening this year.

Girl at the End of the World
Fox Spirit Books are publishing a pair of anthologies early this year featuring female characters in apocalyptic short stories. My story 'The End of the Garden' will appear in the first volume, it's definitely not your usual end of the world story, it's narrated by a hedgehog for one thing. Both books will feature an impressive range of stories and I'm really interested to see what the talented folks on those lists have come up with.

Fox Pockets: Guardians
You may remember me mentioning Fox Pockets (the small but perfectly formed mini-anthologies from Fox Spirit Books) back in June when my flash fiction story was published in the first volume: Piracy. Since then the second volume, Shapeshifters, has been released, and very fine it is too. My story 'My Guardian's Guardian' is due to be published in the Guardians Fox Pocket later this year.


Loncon3
In August this year I shall be attending my first Worldcon, since its going to be happening in the country I live in. I didn't do many conventions in 2013, deciding to spend a bit of money on a holiday to Greece instead. I've heard mixed reports about recent Worldcons, but as they are run by different people in different locations and (this year) in a different country I'm going into Loncon3 expecting it to be its own event. A lot of friends are going, so if nothing else it'll be a good opportunity to catch up with people and hopefully make some new friends too.


Looking back at the resolutions I made last year.
The most successful resolution was get a new job, which I achieved in April and has been going pretty well since then.
Have more fun and be more creative are, in retrospect, well-intentioned and tricky to judge. I did have fun and was creative in 2013, but at this point I'm not sure if it was more than 2012. I think overall I felt better in 2013 than 2012, so I'm calling that a vague win.
Blog about TV more is a resolution that happened in an unexpected way. I unintentionally stopped blogging about books for about 6 months. This means that the percentage of TV posts compared to book posts went up, but not in the way I wanted.
I'm honestly not sure if I did get better at punctuation, sentence structure and grammar. I might have done but I don't feel that I put much effort into it so I cannot say that I achieved that resolution.

Fox Pocket links

I've managed to round up a collection of links about publishers Fox Spirit, their Fox Pocket anthologies and Piracy, the first book in the line.

Neil Williamson talks about how wonderfully designed the Fox Pockets are, including some thoughts on covers.

Tony Lane interviews Adele, the fearless leader of Fox Spirit in a 2-part interview.
Part 1: Adele answers questions about the origins of Fox Spirit, the Fox Pockets line, art and the zompoc.
Part 2: Adele talks about the Fox Spirit editorial team, what stories she likes and desert island books.
Tony also reviews Piracy in a later blog post.

The lovely Alistair Stuart blogs about Fox Pockets over at SFX (I may have been a little excited that I was mentioned by name).

Adele is interviewed at the Bolthole where she talks about stories and gives advice for writers.

Jenny Barber talks about mermaids from her story Past Lives.

Here's the rather fun Fox Spirit gallery for Piracy. I'm dressed as a pirate (pirate being my go-to costume) and my husband painted the undead pirate miniatures.

Here's the list of stories and authors in Piracy:

Becalmed – Den Patrick
The Trouble With Daydreams – Catherine Hill
Black Ethel’s Beast – Kit Marlowe
No Quarter – Rahne Sinclair
Leave the Pistol Behind – Chloe Yates
Past Lives – Jenny Barber
Nora – Margrét Helgadóttir
Plunder – Francesca Terminiello
Insurgent – Christian D’Amico
Geronimo – T.F.Grant
Pieces of 2^3 – Rob Haines
The Real Deal – Ruth Booth
True to The Song – Asher Wismer
Silvermelt – Emma Teichmann
Skyway – K.C.Shaw
X Marks the Spot – S.J.Caunt

Piracy is currently available in print from Lulu and is available as an ebook from Wizard's Tower and on Kindle.

Finally, here's a post I wrote for the Fox Spirit site about How the Fox Pockets were Named.

Piracy

I'm excited to announce that Piracy the first of the Fox Pocket* books from Fox Spirit Books is available from Lulu.
My story 'The Trouble with Daydreams' is the second one in the anthology.

The following is from the press release:

Small but perfectly formed collections of stories by a den full of talented writers, put together by Fox Spirit books for your enjoyment.
The stories are flash fiction, giving the reader bite sized introductions to Fox Spirit and the writers we love to work with. All designed to fit perfectly into the pocket so you can take a little fox with you everywhere you go.

There are ten books to the collection being published during 2013 and 2014 and titled:
Piracy, Missing Monarchs, Shapeshifters, Guardians, Under the Waves, In an Unknown  Country, Things in the Dark, The Evil Genius Guide, Reflections, Piercing the Veil

Stories in Fox Pockets will wander unfettered between genres, mixing horror, fantasy, science fiction and crime. The subjects are deliberately loose to invite a wide range of interpretations. This pocket series showcases some of the wealth of new talent coming through in genre fiction.

The books will be available as a paperback through Lulu for 24 months after the release date of each volume. Ebook releases will take place a month after the paperback and will be available for longer, but not forever.

Fox Spirit will be offering a subscription to the paperbacks as part of a giveaway through the newsletter this summer so please subscribe on our home page to make sure you don’t miss out.

More about all our titles at www.foxspirit.co.uk



* I'm a bit proud to say that I inadvertently came up with the name Fox Pockets. It was a bit of a joke between me and Adele Wearing, the fearsome leader and main force behind Fox Spirit.

Pirate story

I'm pleased to announce that my flash story 'The Trouble with Daydreams' is going to be published in an anthology by Fox Spirit.

This is super exciting as the folks at Fox Spirit are wonderful and its the first time my fiction will be published with ink and paper. 

The Piracy anthology is the first of the Fox Pocket books.
These short books are themed anthologies of flash fiction. They're designed to be a quick, cheap introduction to Fox Spirit authors and stories. They'll be released regularly throughout 2013 and 2014.

A Month of Letters

A few weeks ago I discovered the Month of Letters challenge, which was started by author Mary Robinette Kowal. The idea is to send 24 letters (one each postal day) during the month of February.

I decided this sounded like an excellent idea. As a kid I had a few pen pals over the years (this was before email really took off) so I understand the basics of letter writing, even though I'm probably a bit out of practice.
There are plenty of people I call friends who I don't have much contact with any more, which is a shame. There are also people I've met over the last few years, mostly online or at conventions, who I'd like to become more friendly with. In both cases sending a good old-fashioned letter seems like a nice idea. It's also a good chance for me to do a bit of work on my handwriting, which is not brilliant.

A benefit of letters over emails is that you can also send physical things, though 3D printers may change that in the future. Since I've decided (again) that I'd like to do more sewing I've made some simple things to send with my correspondence. I'm actually a day behind already, but that was due to lack of sewing supplies.

As I'm using this to strengthen existing relationships I've got a few people in mind to send letters to (though I don't yet have all their addresses). If I start to run out of recipients I may do what others are doing and open the letter writing up to folk on the internet (or on twitter @LetterMonth), as a way of making new friends.

I'm actually quite excited about this at the moment, and looking forward to getting letters written.

The Next Big Thing

I have been tagged in the Next Big Thing blog meme by the lovely Charlotte Strong. It's been doing the rounds for a while now and it's been interesting to read other people's responses (some of which I've linked to at the bottom of this post).
I hadn't really considered it getting to me. I feel quite touched but also a little daunted as this suggests other people are taking me seriously. Maybe that means I should start taking myself seriously?

I should clarify that in my case 'next' is probably misleading as I've not yet finished a novel length story. I've had a few on the go at various times over the last several years. For the purposes of this meme I'm going to talk about the story I've done the most work on.
So, watch me dodge questions like a politician faced with a microphone.

What is the working title of your next book?
Away with the Fairies
This is very much a working title. I'm not good at titles and have enough trouble coming up with them for completed short stories.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I first dreamt about Auresimma in 2004 (I remember because I was doing exams at the time). There were 2 posh people looking at a painting of her and gossiping about her having an affair. I quickly had the idea of a murder mystery in a big country house, but with magic and fairies. I like the haughty, squabbling fairy royals in A Midsummer Night's Dream and had read a few books with these kind of fairies in (I've subsequently read more).

What genre does your book fall under?
Fantasy. 
I'm not sure if it'd count as historical since it's set in the 1950s and people can still remember that.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Hmm... don't usually picture characters in terms of actors, but I've done a little thinking and online research.

Katie McGrath (from Merlin) suits Auresimma's colouration. Though I've not watched Merlin in a few years, so I can't speak to her acting abilities.

James Wilby could be Lord Michael, in fact now that I think about it he's perfect (though it took a bit of googling for me to remember his real name). He definitely has the right look and has done period, aristocratic and fatherly roles.

Lady Clara (Lord Michael's wife) could be played by Imelda Staunton.

There are quite a few other characters I could try and cast; I'd need some aristocratic-looking fellas in their 20s and a young mixed-race woman. However I think that trying to do any more would mean me trawling through pictures of actors on Google Image for hours.
I'm not sure about the Fairy characters, it's probably best if I don't picture them as humans. They'd have to be played by tall, slim folk who could look a bit unearthly.


What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A house party attended by Elven royalty and English aristocracy is interrupted by murder, the guests are spirited away to a magical land as the family are drawn into a conspiracy that spans two very different worlds.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I'd prefer representation & traditional publishing as I have more understanding of that model and those are the books I usually read more of. Of course times they are a-changing and I guess I'll see.
I mean this is quite a while in the future as I have to finish the thing first. Which leads us nicely to...

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
It's a good question, I wish I knew.
Since the initial idea I've written 3 partial first drafts, in between writing other stories and a few major life events. Each time I've realised that I need a major change; like losing a crowd of pointless secondary characters, or changing the starting point, or (most recently) changing the ethnicity of a character meaning I need to do a lot more research.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Another good question that I feel unequipped to answer.
I suppose the story could be compared to any book where the mundane -or even repressive- in human society is brought into contact with the chaos and wonder of magic.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I've already mentioned A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I think Stardust by Neil Gaiman was an early influence with the fairy stuff.
The BBC4 documentary Consenting Adults, about the Wolfenden Committee and attitudes to homosexuality in the 1950s, was also something of an inspiration, especially when approaching the character of Farrington.

What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?
There's murder and magic, fairies and intrigue, hidden identities and family secrets.
There's also posh English people and the 1950s, both of which seem to be popular at the moment.

Now I'm supposed to tag 5 people to carry on the meme. However I'm not going to tag anyone as I'm pretty certain everyone I would normally tag has done (or been offered/tagged in) this meme already. So here are links to posts that have already been written. It's better this way because you get 11 and they're available right now.

Adrian Faulkner - whose talk of rewrites I found very reassuring
Andrew Reid
Anne Lyle
Colin F. Barnes 
Charlotte Strong - who tagged me in her post
Emma Jane Davies - who was tagged alongside me
Fran Terminiello
Jennifer Williams
Karen Davies
Mhairi Simpson
Ren Warom

End of NaNo

I have a confession to make, I am stressed.
I didn't realise just how stressed I'd gotten until just over a week ago, when I had some time off work and fell apart a little bit. There are a lot changes happening at my workplace, I don't want to go into details, but things are getting to me.

Not wanting to overload myself I decided to take NaNoWriMo fairly casually and just see what happened. In many ways November was not the best month to do this as there were a few preexisting plans, some of them involving travel or hosting family members, which ate into writing time.

I managed 21,456 words which is just over a third, not bad considering I didn't give it the necessary time and energy.

I'm not sure if I'll do NaNo again. I think if I do I'll have to decide earlier and do more planning.

I did NaNo to get myself writing again and I think that has helped, so that's been positive.

Nano - Progress Report

It's nearly two weeks into November and so far I'm behind on word count.

I have been bad and entirely missed some days. Some of this was due to family visiting, some of it was me being a bit useless. On all but one of the days that I wrote I was above target, and some of those even made up for a couple of the missed days.
I'm told word count is meant to be the name of the game, but it's not entirely about that for me. It's about reminding myself that actually I do have time to write, and I do have the ability to write plenty. It's about getting out of a stupid slump that I don't have any proper explanation for.

Storywise things are mixed.
The main Nano project is a story featuring characters I initially came up with about 10 years ago, and who were there at a time in my life when I wasn't very happy with myself. Not that the original idea was angsty, it was something I used to escape angst and reality.
Maybe that's why I've come back to it now, I'm mostly fine with myself but not happy with my professional life, which takes up a large chunk of my time. In this version the characters are older (older than me) and their earlier adventures will be told as flashbacks. These bits are clear to me, I already wrote them once, and I'm seeing this as a chance to write only the good bits of the older story.
It's the current story, featuring the older versions of the characters that's giving me issues. I thought I knew what the plot was, but it turns out I only had the start of one (this is the second time I've done this recently and I'm concerned that I've somehow forgotten how plots are meant to work). The characters are strong in my mind, though I think they need to grow up a bit. The world is familiar and good enough for a first draft, somewhere I have loads of notes I made about it in my late-teens. However there are lots of conversations and not much doing, so I need to throw some problems at the situation and get people moving.
At least I've realised that's the problem, which is an important first step.

As for yesterday, well yesterday I my have cheated a bit by writing something else and counting the words. I have a short story with a deadline and I need to get that done, regardless of whether I'm doing Nano. As this is intended for the eyes of others in the not-too-distant future it actually needs to be good. I've been writing it more slowly, looking up relevant things online, making sure it fits together and makes sense. It's still a first draft, but it's one I feel fairly happy with. I only need to figure out one story element and then it'll be whole in my mind, if not yet on the page.

I've got some time off work coming up and I intend to use that to get back on track. Though even if I don't 'win' I still think it's good for me to have done this, to get back into a pattern of regularly putting words together for something besides this blog.

NaNoWriMo

I will be doing the NaNoWriMo challenge this year, for the first time. 
I've known about it for years and have friends who do it, but I've never actually attempted it before. 

There are various things in my life that feel out of my control at the moment (many of them to do with work and my future plans in that area) and I think this feeling has leaked into other parts of my life, leading to doubt and a stupid malaise. I've decided that I need to remind myself what I'm capable of, I need to give myself a kick and I'm hoping this will be it.
I'm a bit excited at the moment, though I'm not sure how long that will last come November.

My husband is being wonderfully supportive by doing his own November challenge alongside me.

I don't plan to disappear entirely next month, but I won't be posting as much of the usual stuff. I'll try to keep track of my progress here, but don't intend to go on about Nano and nothing else.

I hope you will wish me luck, or at least not damn me to failure (you're nice folks, I'm sure you wouldn't).

Gloom Lord's Captive

I'm very happy to announce that I've had another story published online.

 Gloom Lord's Captive was published by The WiFiles this week.
Marsha is kidnapped by an amateur supervillain. How will she escape?

I wanted to write a story about a woman who's in one of those traditional female-character situations and manages to sort it out for herself.

Why I Loved 2011

2011 has been a good year over all. Some nice highs and very few bad lows.
Here are a few of my highlights:

• Attending Conventions - Me and my husband went to Easter Con and Fantasy Con, and in between those I went to Alt.Fiction. I had fun, met interesting people and got to spend time in a world that I would like to be more involved with. My goal when going to conventions in future is to try and push myself forward a bit more and meet/chat to more people.

• First Publication - My short story Lupa di Roma was published in Title Goes Here Magazine, Web Edition 1.10 - October 2011. This made me very happy and proud. I have had another short story acceptance, there will be more about that later.

• Twitter - After recommendations from a few different sources I decided to take the plunge and start using Twitter. I've had some great conversations and met (in a virtual sense at least) a lot of lovely people on Twitter. I can be found on Twitter as @ctjhill.

• Apocalypse Girls - A few months ago I was invited to join The Girls' Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse. It's a fun blogging project about anything and everything to do with the apocalypse. Some great, creative women are contributing and I heartily recommend you check it out. We're also on Twitter as @ApocalypseGirls.

I'm hoping I can build on these successes this year. Plus I'm planning a few changes in my offline life, so I hope those go well.