Competition!

I'm being an enabler, but I thought this would be fun -- so, here's a link to a literary novel competition. I'm thinking nought will come of it for me, but it's always worth a go? If you do enter, I wish you the best of luck! If you don't...please send any spare luck amd goodwill you have my way, it'd be much appreciated. ^_~

Acceptance

I've been meaning to blog about this for a couple of days, but life this New Year so far...well. It's taken some odd turns, that's for sure. My brother, whom I house-sit with, did something rather stupid on New Year's Eve that means I'm likely going to be house-sitting on my own in the near future, which stresses me out incredibly. And then work yesterday...was diabolical, and because of the situation that caused it? It's likely to continue that way for some weeks yet. So, even though I had intended to start the year afresh and relaxed, it ain't happening.

Still, one good thing has happened -- I got a rejection from the Crossed Genres submission, but my work with Mitzi on the Red Velvet and Absinthe submission? Has resulted in an acceptance! In theory, I will therefore publish my first short story this Northern hemisphere autumn. <3 It's...really quite surreal. I haven't quite processed it, I don't think, so...it's all very strange indeed. I also find it hilarious that my first acceptance is in the erotica field, of all things, but that's a long story. I blame it all on fandom, anyway. But...yes. I am laughing away, though, because I had an email from her asking for a professional bio for inclusion with the story. I...have roughly NO IDEA what to write. Being that I have no credits or credentials to speak of. <g> I'm tempted to just write "n00b" and be done with it, though that probably implies I know either 733t or hax0r culture, which is...totally not true. But yes, I find it ironic that the one-fifty word bio daunts me more than the six thousand word story I worked on to earn the opportunity to write the bio in the first place. Ha ha ha.

Still, even though I am not writing a lot at the moment, I am planning out my next submission monkeys. There's a Filament competition I've got a story already outlined for; it's a strange little take on a Scandinavian myth. And even though it's nothing to do with vampires, I at least partly blame Alexander Skarsgård's portrayal of Eric on True Blood for that. Although with that said, I had been thinking of a Nocturne Bite story involving either vardøgr or etiäinen, so...the näckrosor thing possibly isn't so strange. I'm also tempted to rewrite that myth in a darkly erotic way for another competition a friend flagged up, but we'll see. I'm also contemplating another Nocturne Bite submission...not really sure what I'm going for there, but it seems to be the fey and witches. Or something like that. I blame Gargoyles for that. Damn Puck.

So, yes, despite work driving me utterly up the wall I am hoping to work on some short stories for submission this month. It's likely a better idea than novelling, as novels involve a lot more concentration and continuous thought. The short stories...are far easier to pick up and put down as time permits. So, we'll see. Travis also asked if I'd try something for either Future Earth Magazine or the other e-zine, and I want to do something for Crossed Genres for February (mystery; I think I could rework Lies In The Land for that), so...plenty to keep me occupied -- and fulfilling resolutions!

But still. Finally, I got something accepted somewhere. It's a good start to the year for writing, if nothing else. <3

2011: Year Of The Writer

Given that it's the first, I thought I had better do an entry and perhaps make some resolutions and whatnot. This is basically because this year I need to do something with my writing. I tend to say that near the beginning of every year and never accomplish anything of note, but this year...I want it to be different. So, with that in mind, I am going to make this a short little entry and go back to revising the story I got the feedback on. It's almost done, I am just dragging my heels out of my usual terror of feedback and submission. But...it's a learning experience, isn't it? And I managed to pull myself together last night and submit the short story Blank Canvas to Crossed Genres despite all my misgivings, so...yes. Time to do something constructive.

Basically, this year, I hope to do several things:

1. Revise Neverboy and have a manuscript that could be read by an agent and/or publisher.
2. Begin to write Forevergirl.
3. Finish the first draft of Hibernaculum.
4. Finish the first draft of The Juniper Bones.
5. Write a good chunk of either People In Looking-Glass Houses or Newton's Cradle for NaNoWriMo.
6. Join the kid's writers group.
7. Submit at least five other short stories.
8. Enter the Katherine Mansfield short story competition.
9. Talk to an agent.
10. Keep on going to Southern Scribes, Chapter I and chat more on the CompuServe literary forums.

So, that's ten things to do. Let's see me do them. ^__^

Something Borrowed

They always tell you to write what you know, don't they? I was just thinking about that yesterday and today, as I seem to have got a bee in my bonnet about baking. I'm a lousy cook in general, but I can handle baking to a certain point. Of course I shouldn't really be baking right at the moment as I am on a restricted diet and cannot eat anything that I bake...meaning anyone who tries these things is going in a bit blind, the poor sods. But what does this have to do with writing? Well...

One of my characters rather unexpectedly ended up being something of a foodie. I don't really go into any detail because I don't know anything about cuisine aside from the fact it goes in my belly, but I was thinking as I attempted to make leavened bread yesterday "Hey, this is something Aleks would do!" Because he totally would. To the best of my knowledge, Aleksandr would be rather a dab hand at most things of that nature. It's a bit of an odd thing for him to be good at, actually, as when I first created him (when I was thirteen, would you believe), it certainly never crossed my mind that he would end up as a bit of an amateur chef. I doubt it crossed his mind, either! But as his character and the story evolved, Aleksandr went from being the very sheltered -- and very unwanted -- son of a Duke to the constant companion of a wandering hierophant of broken faith, and...well. Araben, for all he's a very smart man, is not a very practical one. Which isn't to say he'd let Aleksandr starve, exactly, but....well. By hobby Aleksandr was a horticulturalist and a botanist, and it seemed natural enough for him to learn how to cook and to bake as they lived their nomadic existence, and...well, apparently he decided he liked it.

I just found it interesting because this evening I decided to make scones. I've never made scones in my life -- or at least, never alone. My mother or grandmothers would always have been supervising me. For some reason I had it in my head that it was very difficult to make scones. Quite why this stopped me I don't know, considering I once made pavlova just to prove I could (pavlova's not actually hard to make, it's just extremely finicky and is at least half luck; I had more issues with the bloody tiramisu I made earlier this year, come to think of it). But I made scones, and they appear to be fine (as I said, I can't eat them, and my brother is yet to risk one). But the story I was working on the other night that has since flitted off into the competition ether? Involved Aleksandr rather randomly making scones for Jeramie. I imagine they weren't like mine, being that Jeramie isn't really the kind of person to have cinnamon and dates lying around the pantry -- frankly it's probably a miracle he even had flour and baking powder -- but...yeah.

So, they say write what you know, but I rather suspect in my case I write what I wish I knew. I'm the same about music and dance and art and higher mathematics; I can do all of these things to some degree, but not enough to make me happy. It frustrates me, in that I can aesthetically appreciate the inherent beauty of all of these things, and yet...I can't quite reach them myself. It's like I'm watching from the outside of the ballroom; I can get all the way up to the window in my best dress and press my nose against the glass, but...I'm still on the outside. Somehow, in my writing, I get to push through that glass. It's only as a shadow, and my presence there is as ephermeral as a mayfly, but...my words get me in. Because I can make the words dance for me in a way I cannot with these other disciplines. So...yes. Writing is a part of me, but it lets me borrow from other things that are not. And for that, I will be forever glad.

Something Like Hysteria

So, I've had a bit of a strange experience this morning. I woke up this morning to be rather surprised by an unexpected email. You see, I hadn't really expected to be doing any writing today; I was up a bit later than intended last night working on a short story. The other day I remembered a call for submissions I had seen for an e-zine by the name of Crossed Genres, and this month's theme? Tragedy. Being that most things I write are tragic, I did clock it and thought I should look into it further. Of course I then forgot about it, but the other day I found it in my tabs and...well. Even though I rather suspect the vast majority of my works are not tragedy so much as emo teenage angst-fests, I came up with three options: Raw Canvas Remaining, Edit The Sad Parts, and Of An Orrery.

Raw Canvas Remaining is the one that won out, in the end, though I did decide to rename it as Blank Canvas. The really interesting thing about this story, though, is that I originally wrote it in 2004 or 2005. And it's...well, it's not terrible. Not exactly. But my god I wrote very badly, didn't I? Ha. Of course it wasn't quite as bad as going back to some of the original manuscripts involving this character written in 1999/2000, which I also did in the early hours of this morning. Good Lord, that was a terrifying experience. I mean, when I was younger, I wrote...all right. Better than most kids my age, I suppose, but...yeah. Too much Anne Rice and V.C. Andrews influence, not to mention I was also rather a fan of Christopher Pike and Stephen King. Er. So, basically flowery prose with distinct hints of bloodlust and horror? ...oh, god.

So, anyway, this short story: the original story was really intended as a character study so I could get into the miserable head and life of Inciseth della Morraine. To that end, I decided to rework the story to give it a real purpose and ending (involving a palette knife, no less; thank you again, Mr. King!). Now, this character comes from a novel called Newton's Cradle, which is something I have been trying to construct properly for years. I started writing it when I was seventeen, which was the age of the kids in the story, and I'm now twenty-eight and still haven't worked out where I am going wrong. Thing is, though, that the longer of the two stories I submitted to The Long and the Short of It is Jeramie's story...ten years later. And I am starting to really think that that? Is how the actual novel should be. Because even when I was myself seventeen I wondered what it would be like, years after the fact. Saving the world, I mean. So many shows for younger audiences are all about kids and teenagers saving the world...but what happens when you grow up, having done something like that?

Not that it really applies to Seth, as such; he takes a dive out a window of the conservatory atop Radeen Dam before he ever gets to grow up. Poor soul. But the interesting thing, for me, is that in giving the story a definite ending -- a sense of purpose arising from the tragedy of his life, I mean -- meant that I figured I was making it an AU sort of thing. But the more I consider it...no. Maybe I can work this into the story. It would certainly make it richer, and would also make Seth a far more interesting character.

So, apparently one of the novel projects for 2011 will be yet another attempt at Newton's Cradle. Hmm.

Still, what does all this have to do with the email of this morning? Well, after my burn out last night -- at one a.m. I was about three hundred words out from the first reworked draft of Blank Canvas, but I just couldn't bring myself to do one more word on it -- I figured today would be a no-writing day. I'd basically planned to watch the rest of the first season of True Blood and then begin my baking experiments (I've never made leavened bread before in my entire life; quite why I thought now that I'd be able to do so, we may never know). However, I had two emails that caught my eye, both from Mitzi. The first I figured would just be an acknowledgement of her receipt of Tea For Two; the second I was not so keen to read. I figured it would be the inevitable rejection. It just...seemed too soon, you know? I'd have liked a few days to live the dream of having something in the submission ether! So, I dragged my heels as I ate my yoghurt, then opened her up.

I've read your story - I really like it, the writing is lovely, and you can really feel the atmosphere.



...whoa. I did a little happy dance there, I can tell you. First time I've had some real positive feedback on a submission. I still figured we were seguing into a rejection, but instead? She asked if I would consider tweaking some things and having a "minor redraft," in order to make it more suitable for what she needs it for (being that it was light on the erotic side). So...I accepted the challenge. It's not any sort of promise on her part, of course; she just wants to see if I can make it more suitable for the anthology she is editing. But...my god, it's something. Mostly not an outright rejection, but it's something. So, happy dance now aside, I have to go back to work tomorrow, so today, inbetween watching my bread rise with fretful ignorance, I shall be rewriting Tea For Two and talking more with Seth about the potential murderous uses of palette knives.

...yes, so far, it's a good day indeed. ^__^

Submission: The Last Frontier

It's been a while since my last blog entry, whoops. Of course I can blame Christmas, and to be honest though I had intended to spend today writing my Boxing Day Sale Orgy and then just in general feeling really exhausted after yesterday...meant that not very much was accomplished today. And the next couple of days won't be any better, as tomorrow I intend to mainline True Blood's first season, and on Tuesday I am going to amuse myself with Baking Experiments. On Wednesday I'll be back at work! But never mind; even though the food I ate yesterday has left me quite ill today (I slept very badly last night), I have got something done.

So, the scary thing for me at the moment is actually submitting things. The local competition closed entries on Christmas Eve, so I submitted the two pieces on the 23rd to be safe. I won't hear about it for ages and I fully expect to hear nothing for either, but...I actually submitted comething. \o/ That's...a pretty big deal, for me. Then, on Christmas Day, I got a couple emails from people who'd been reading Tea For Two for me, so the writing I've done today involved reworking that. I've since formatted and spell-checked it in American English, so...it's basically ready to be submitted. I think I'll do it tomorrow. Just...bite the bullet and go for it. Again, I don't expect anything from it, but submitting anything is a terrifying experience for me. The rejection's really the least of it, but...yes.

Otherwise, I have been trying to finish the prologue of the forevergirl since Christmas Eve, being that it was a sort of pseudo-Christmas thing, being set during the Sarinian mid-winter festival. I failed at finishing it until about half an hour ago. Now it is done! ...rough as hell, of course, but it exists and that's always something. I really need to go back to editing The Neverboy now, but...yeah. My wordcount, writing-wise, has been right down the last couple of weeks. But then...Christmas, yeah? I am thinking I will do some more proper writing over New Year, but even before then I have a couple of stories I dug out today with the intention of re-jigging slightly so I can do two or three more submissions before the end of the year. One is a very curious story I wrote years ago, and I don't know that it will work at all, being that it's essentially about sexual abuse. Not that it's graphic, or anything, because the character in question dissociates himself from the entire experience, but...yeah. It made me cry when I wrote it. Which was about six years ago, now. A quick re-read shows it up for being quite rough and amateur in places, but I'd like to tidy it up a little. There's also a funny little Aidan Jannock story, and Aidan...showed up during NaNo, so I think it would be worth a re-work, too. The third is a prequel of sorts to The Neverboy, and is about Leyen's marriage to Eleni, so...we'll see, I guess. I was going to mess about with them tonight, but I seriously got about five hours sleep last night so I think a shower and an early night is in order.

I had also contemplated colouring with my Copics today, as when I was writing the bulk of this prologue the other day I got quite distracted by Eleni's chosen headdress. She wears varying forms of what is essentially a lace mantilla, which is by society's standards desperately old-fashioned. But she's fiercely proud of her Fynastran heritage and forces her daughter to do the same, even though Tara doesn't much care to be used in that way. I started looking up pictures of mantillas for visual stimulation, and then I ended up drawing a quick sketch of Tara and then Eleni in their veils. I considered colouring them today, but...I've barely managed to keep up with the writing as it is, ha. Maybe over New Year, then? Hee. But yes, this coming year...I need to keep making the effort to finish, and to submit. And if I can tame The Neverboy into a proper novel, then...it's time to start bothering agents. That's scary.

But for now...I need to write. Here's a little of what I was working on, anyway. It's...different to how I usually write, in that it's supposed to be a bit more succinct, but even then...I still do go on and on. ^_~

*****

Sighing, she shook her head, the fine lace of her veil falling across one cheek. She pushed it impatiently back. “I don’t want to go anyway. I’ll just stay here. Tell Mama I’ll be fine.”

In the silence that followed, for a moment Tara dared to believe that he’d actually listened to her. Then she turned and saw his dark eyes staring at her, incredulous.

“I can’t leave you here by yourself!” he said, and she sighed, impatient.

“Why not? I’m almost eleven. I’ll be fine.” Drawing the long veil back over her shoulders so he couldn’t see her face, she scowled fiercely. “I can look after myself.”

“Mama would kill me!” No, she wouldn’t, Tara thought sourly, but he didn’t stop. “And it would be rude; Lady Waleran’s expecting us, and we’re already so late!”

“You don’t care about being rude anymore than I do, no matter what Mama thinks,” Tara replied, and she looked down at the fine weave of her lace mantilla. She hated wearing them, they were so old-fashioned and made her look like a little china doll. But her mother insisted, and before he left, her father always made her promise to mind your mother, won’t you, Tara? “Besides, it’s not like she’s really royalty anymore anyway. Why do we have to keep pretending like she is? It’s just blood, and old blood at that. The kings and queens have been gone for hundreds of years. Why should we pretend like it still matters?”

“Do I have to drag you?”

“You couldn’t do it.” But Tara was certain she’d lost anyway. There was no real reason to stay here in the artisan’s alley of the marketplace, but still she sighed. The bustle and the crush of the marketplace was infinitely preferable over the thought of the dreary high-ceiled parlour that awaited them at Lady Waleran’s townhouse. Though it would be decorated for the mid-winter festival, with great boughs of berries and fragrant leaves, the whole house scented with delicious spices and herbs, and scattered with lamps made of jewels and gold, it didn’t really appeal. Tara had always preferred the Sun-Bear’s Awakening festival, at the end of winter. No gifts would be given nor received then, of course, but it signalled the turn of the seasons. Tara couldn’t wait. She was sick of winter. When it ended, her father would be home, if only for a little while.

Take me with you, Papa, she thought as she let her brother wind an arm definitely though hers, locking them together. I know I’m just a girl, but in the South, the girls are warrior-born. They do what they want. If you let me, I could, too.

Without another word Calden began to expertly weave through the crowds, unerring and fleetfooted. She let herself be pulled in his wake, her mantilla fluttering behind her like the delicate feathers of a baby bird. There were so many people, and she looked around in half-curiosity as her brother pulled her along. The scents of holiday food were strong in the air, sharing space with the vague panic of last minute shopping. The festival’s greatest height would occur the next day, though today there were still shows already on the raised stages and platforms about the plazas. Her feet picked up the rhythm of one song, lost it as Calden pulled her along, and away.

They wouldn’t see any of those shows tomorrow, either in the morning, the afternoon, or during the great shadow-raising of the evening. Their family always kept to the house, for they would have a steady stream of guests and tenants all day. Much as she liked the people here, Tara hated Winter’s Heart at Tiarenna, whether or father was there or not. Her mother always dressed her like a doll in silver and white. Hidden beneath her veil, she always felt that while her mother looked a queen, she only looked like death. As far as she was concerned she never needed to be there. She was just the daughter of the Lord and Lady of Tiarenna: too young to be part of adult conversations, and too young to be courted. She was just a doll, pretty and useless, and suddenly she had never been so very tired of it all.

*****

A Strange Form of Sequelitis

Wow, it's half-past four in the afternoon on Saturday, and I haven't managed to do any writing all weekend. I spent Friday night watching television, which is quite unusual for me...not least because I was watching Gordon Ramsay making delicious Christmas food, and rather wanted to try doing so myself. I am not a cook by any stretch of the imagination, let me assure you! But between having to go into work this morning and then spending a good chunk of the early afternoon shopping and then digging through a goodie bag that arrived in the post from my favourite store in the UK, well...writing has fallen by the wayside so far. I think it's time to get back into it!

Still, one interesting little problem I've encountered this week is to do with sequels. I realised I've never written one before. Funny, that, considering all my novels reference one another and have cross-over characters and generally are the history of another world entwined with our own. But a direct sequel...has never been written. Perhaps because I never finish anything first. Ha. But yes, last week I discovered the sequel to The Neverboy is called The forevergirl and is something to do with Tara Larmenret. As I said in my last entry, considering the fact she's dead and has been the whole time I've known her, well...this will be tricky. But Christmas is coming, and the prologue of this novel is asking me to write it. Because, like the short story I wrote last week, it deals with the winter holiday equivalent, and...yeah. Dammit.

Still, watching this novel birth itself is quite charming, in its own little frustrating fashion. Like I said I have no idea how the novel could even work, let alone what's going to happen in it. But the prologue is already there and the first few scenes are coming alive, and it's all in my head. Scarcely a word is on the page. But then, if I discovered anything thanks to the terrible compulsory English paper I did this year as part of my distance studies for Japanese, it is that I write things in my head long before I put them on paper. (This being very hard for my essay tutor to understand.) So...yes. I think I might keep tabs on these developments as they come to hand, it will be an interesting little study in how I actually develop a story.

In other news, I should be revising Tea for Two because Lori gave me some fantastic advice and I need to work that in, and I also need to revise entr'acte and Sin of Seven again so I can enter them in the competition by next Friday. I don't expect anything from either, but...Tea For Two, maybe? Oh, well, it's all practise in the end. And right now, I need to go tidy my room and have an apple while reading. I need my energy before I get writing, after all! ^_~