Archive for November, 2007

November 30, 2007

zombified

I have been a very bad blogger…partly because Fecklet has decided to get up for the day at 4.30 am every day so most of the time I am the walking dead.

Anyway we’re off for the weekend to visit with friends, leaving my husband in charge of the house (I’m pretty sure that while we’re away he does nothing but eat curry, make appalling messes with tools and scraps of wood, plays his bass loud enough to shake the walls and and gets out every CD in the house, but he always cleans up after himself, bless him).

See you next week.

November 25, 2007

comics

I’m having the most awesome time doing research for Girl from Mars, my next book, about a female comic book artist.

There are three books beside my bed. One is William Eisner’s classic Comics and Sequential Art, an examination of how comics work. The other is the fun and awesome Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud, which is an analysis of comics, drawn/written as a comic book. I got the Eisner out of the library, but I bought the McCloud, and I’m glad I did because I think it’s given me some of the central metaphors for this book. Comics work differently than plain text; they have a vocabulary and grammar of space and time and image that is unique, and gives me an insight into how my heroine’s mind works.

Beside that is Batman: Dark Victory by Joseph Loeb and Tim Sale. I am a Batman fan and when I got the idea for Girl from Mars I went to the library and got out every Batman comic they had. This is one of my favourites so far (except for the weird, weird gothic Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean, which I own and have read so much it’s falling to bits).

My internet research has been on Batman (of course), but more on 2000AD and Dan Dare, because the comic Girl from Mars, which Fil draws, is a British comic. Which gives me another theme, differences between the USA and UK, which is something that I’m interested in for obvious reasons.

November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a day when I really miss being with my family in the States. The family always gets together for dinner. My mom is a fantastic cook, though I have to admit my favourite part of the meal isn’t the turkey but the stuffing and gravy. She makes great stuffing and gravy. The turkey is mainly a vehicle for these other things, in my opinion.

My mother has three sisters, and the two who live in the state come over and bring gorgeous food. My mother and her sisters all look alike and all talk alike and all have the same sense of humour, and usually, when you’ve eaten your fill of stuffing and gravy (and other things that might happen to have made their way onto your plate), you can sit back and be entertained by them.

I’ll call my mom and dad today, hopefully while the Fecklet is awake so he can talk with them. My husband is away on tour, so we’re on our own. We’ll meet up with some other mothers and kids to play in the afternoon. A couple of my friends are coming over for dinner later, after Fecklet is in bed. They’re vegetarians so I’m skipping the turkey and concentrating on stuffing and gravy. My mother’s recipes.

I have a lot to be thankful for. My family and my friends and my husband. In the past year I’ve had a beautiful, bright, affectionate child and I’ve been able to resign my day job for a career writing the sort of stories I love. I am living the life I’ve always wanted to live.

Plus I get stuffing and gravy.

I hope you have lots to be thankful for, too.

November 21, 2007

Q&A on writing novels

Next Wednesday, the 28th of November, I’m giving a Q&A on novel writing for my local writers’ group, Reading Writers. It’s free and open to the public so if you’re in the area, please do pop in!

It’s from 7.30 pm, upstairs at RISC, London Street, Reading.

November 17, 2007

he’s got to be high

We’d been out a bit too late, and I’d given Lizi’s baby a bit too much attention, and therefore we were having a grumpy evening. Even In the Night Garden, the intravenous morphine of TV shows, didn’t really hold the Fecklet’s attention. He was tired, he was cranky, he didn’t feel like drinking milk or playing and he didn’t even fancy walking to the bathroom. He sat himself down on the bathroom floor, complained while I undressed him, and prepared himself for a good long whinge while I drew his bath.

And then…he spotted the pair of socks he’d left in the bathroom earlier, and forgotten about.

Joy. Bliss. One sock in each hand, to wave around and shout at. Even better, he was naked so he got to feel the slight breeze the socks made as they whooshed through the air. And then he discovered that when he brought socks into the bath, they got all lovely and wet and he could suck water out of them. He sucked one, and then the other, and then the first one again. Sock-flavoured bath water…nectar of the gods.

The happiness was so long-lasting that he didn’t even protest when I put on his pyjamas, and he went straight off to sleep, no doubt dreaming of socks.

In my opinion, this is proof that babies have some sort of hormones that make them feel as if they are on major drugs.

November 16, 2007

I swore I would never do this to my kid.

Gave Fecklet a haircut yesterday because his hair was getting in his eyes. It was a terrifying experience. The scissors were so sharp, his eyes were so near, his skin was so tender, his hair was so fine.

Now he has a fringe that looks suspiciously like a helmet.

November 15, 2007

goat and Hugh

The plotting worked quite well, and I now have a very rough outline of what’s going to happen.

Including the goat.

I’ve decided to use Hugh As A Tycoon for this hero.

Meanwhile, I’ve got the okay on Girl from Mars and I should start work on that sharpish. Especially with revisions to Honey Trap coming.

And I’ve got a publishing date for Honey Trap–July 2008. Just ignore everything it says on Amazon.

November 14, 2007

the pantser defeated

Okay, I am certifiably insane, but while I’m waiting to hear back from my editor about the book that needs revising and the book that needs to be written, I’m trying to write a novella. This is, of course, totally foolish since as soon as the revisions and discussion about the next book come back I’ll have more work than I can possibly deal with at once, but hey, I thought I’d use the unusual free time.

I decided to go about writing this novella basically by throwing myself into it and just writing to see what came out. No character development, only the sketchiest of set-ups…just write.

This has worked well in some ways. The heroine has taken shape, in only 1300 words, and is someone I like. Her sister has also taken shape. The hero is still a bit sketchy but I think when I get into his POV he’ll start coming to life, too.

In other ways, it has been a complete pain in the arse. For one thing I think I started in the wrong place–not so much in the story, but in the external events. I’m writing a novella and I’ve started right bang smack in a place where there are about sixty secondary characters milling around. Uh…Julie, not smart?

I also don’t know what happens beyond the next page. And while I’m not much of a planner usually, this is a little bit too seat-of-the-pants even for me.

So of course I had a panic with Anna. Today, I think I’m actually going to sit down and plot the thing. I’m going to use a three-act graph and everything. I never do this, but I’m figuring actually that this will be helpful, because odds are in the next few days I’ll have to drop this project and concentrate on things with looming deadlines. If I have a plot all roughed out, then I’ll be able to come back to it more easily (in theory, anyway).

Therefore: I am going to plot.

I haven’t craved a cigarette this badly for years.

(PS If you haven’t read the comments to the below post, where my seriously well-read and intelligent friends discuss the etymology of the phrase “hokey pokey”, you really should. I am proud to know these people.)

November 12, 2007

English or, er, English?

I’ve been in the UK for about fifteen years now, and I’d thought I’d finished discovering those mildly amusing differences in language between American English and British English. In the first few years I learned about sidewalks and pavements, trunks and boots, suspenders and braces, and of course the endlessly-hilarious pants and trousers.

Then I started being a professional writer and I learned about the differences between fit and fitted, snuck and sneaked, and the more subtle fix and make.

I thought I was comfortably bi-lingual in English.

Now I am a mother and I am learning a whole new world of differences. There’s diapers and nappies, of course, and also strollers and pushchairs, pacifiers and dummies (though I don’t use those, Fecklet sucks his thumb), crib and cot, to burp and to wind.

But there’s more than that. Did you know that the tune to “Baa baa black sheep” is slightly different in each country? Did you know that the Americans do “The Hokey Pokey” and the English do the “Hokey Cokey,” and the English leave out the reflexive pronoun in “turn yourself around”? Did you know that even “Eensy Weensy Spider” has different words and a whole new line at the end?

I am endlessly disoriented.

November 11, 2007

contest winners!

Well last night, with the help of a random number generator, I selected the winners of my contest.

First prize–which is a gorgeous beautiful signed copy of my hardback book One Night Stand, is MAUREEN EMMONS. (I am particularly excited that Maureen was chosen because she has entered every single one of my contests since way back before I had any books on the shelves.)

Second prize–which is a signed hardback bookclub edition of One Night Stand, is LILA N.

Third, fourth and fifth prizes–which are signed cover flats of MacAllister’s Baby and a much-loved book from my collection (and I’ll throw in some chocolate too, ’specially since I know Nat can use it ), are SHIRLEY WELLS, ERICA CARNES, and NATALIE ANDERSON!

Congratulations to Maureen, Lila, Shirley, Erica, and Nat…and thank you so much everyone who entered. I honestly had twice the entries I was expecting and it made me feel very loved.

November 9, 2007

time running out for my contest…

There are just over twenty-four hours until my contest closes!

I will choose the winners on Saturday night.

So far I have FIVE prizes to give out…one of them a bonus surprise.

The first person chosen out of the hat will get a signed hardcover copy of One Night Stand. This is gorgeous, gorgeous, wonderful, red and black and a thing of beauty to behold. It also has my story inside it.

The second person will get a signed BCA bookclub hardcover copy of One Night Stand! This is also gorgeous and a thing of beauty, but it is slightly smaller and glossier than the original hardbacks. It’s a bonus surprise prize because I only received these books the other day.

The third, fourth, and fifth people will receive a) a signed cover flat for my Waldenbooks besteller, MacAllister’s Baby, and b) a fantastic book from my collection. I’m having a really hard time deciding which ones to let go, but I’ve set aside a Romance by Liz Fielding, a Modern Extra by Kate Hardy, and a Little Black Dress by Rachel Gibson, all of which I’ve enjoyed and can happily pass on to others to spread the joy.

If a few more people enter, I’ll have to choose other books from my collection which will be difficult. But I will do it.

So enter! Only a few hours left!

Have you told your granny??!?!

November 8, 2007

caw caw

My agent liked my proposal, so tomorrow it goes to my editor.

One crow down, several million more to go.