The Mysterious Ticking Noise

I've been really lax about updating, but perhaps that makes some sense as I have also been lax about writing. I think I'm just overwhelmed by everything; it still doesn't really seem real to me, that I am wandering off again at the end of the week. But then, this sort of thing often doesn't seem real to me until I actually hit the ground in some foreign country. The weird thing about all this, though, is that London won't be some foreign country. Although it will never be as New Zealand to me, I still feel very much at home in the United Kingdom. I've also been in and out of LAX enough times for it to feel like a familiar face -- the same goes for Auckland and Christchurch airports, more so Christers as I lived in the city for two years. It's just Sydney and New York that will be unfamiliar territory -- at least until my sister and I hit Istanbul, anyway.

So, yes, I haven't written a heck of a lot in the last week or so. The Greywater .doc is at 96,734 words, which is annoying because if I could just apply myself to it, I could easily kick it over 100k in an evening. But between having family to stay and having to organise stuff for my last week at work, not much has been happening. Today I even wasted time by reading Harry Potter fanfic, which should say something because I'm not even a fan of the franchise as such. But to settle my niece and nephew the other day I in some desperation played them this vid, and it eventually led to watchings of the first two movies. I'd rather forgotten how much I enjoyed those first two books, actually; when I first read them all the way back in the summer of 2000/2001, they reminded me of Roald Dahl books I'd adored as a child, and so I do think of them fondly enough. It was the latter books that drove me bonkers. Also, I still have that crush on Lucius Malfoy. Er. It may go a ways towards explaining my own character Ryennkar Vassidenel, come to think of it. But then I've had a thing for white-haired pretty boys of dubious morality for quite a long time anyway. Ha.

Still. Even though I haven't been writing physically, I have been writing in my head. I've actually been thinking a lot about the origins of the cardinal gods of my fictional world, partly because of Greywater. The lead female has been bound to the city of Aran Nomese by the earth-god, and the lead male is in the army of the earth-god against the forces of the fire-lady of the South. And it's just been...interesting, because Otho's aide-de-camp Sabin had a little rant about religion, which I did not expect. Sabin, you see, is a straight man who brings to mind one Owen Burnett; I totally didn't see it coming. Ha. Otho later went to an earth-church and had a fascinating discussion with one of the priests there, and...I never really realised how much I explore my own lack of faith in my writing. Basically I'm not at all religious, but I have a deep fascination with faith and things beyond the pale. Usually I indulge in this with stories about ghosts and magic and whatnot, but the four gods and how their world reacts to them in their Dreaming...

I never really knew a lot about them as people, though. Speaking with Neme-chan about her pantheon however got me thinking about what they were before they were elevated to godhood, and in the end I commissioned a drawing of Amanita and Janerin in their original human forms from a very talented French artist. As below:

Cali did a fabulous job; Amanita was a highly-priced commodity as a courtesan, and Janerin was a sheep farmer. YES REALLY. (God, he's so obviously a secret New Zealander, I swear. Probably even has an army of bees somewhere. YES, BEES!) I'm now thinking I need to commission a companion piece of Inamoran and Chaesha, the water and air gods; Inamoran was a bastard son of a wealthy merchant and Chaesha was a wandering seer out in the wilderness. All these things explain a lot about the gods they became. And I've had bits and pieces of their origin stories going around in my head ever since, and I suspect I will have to write up some of it on the long haul flights to the US and the UK.

Aside from the above fabulousness, I also got another commission in the last week (I'm having a bit of a commission meltdown lately, mostly because I finished work on Friday and am now a Lady of Leisure with no regular source of income...). This was the awesome result:

This was another commish from the awesomely talented RaraHoWa, who has done three other commissions for me. And I stared at it for ages afterward with the biggest girlcrush on Alara. Like, massive girlcrush. Which is hilarious as I already adored the woman stupid. But I gave Rara the reference of Vivien Leigh and she came up with this and OMFG. I also adore Nan, the one on the right, but Alara...wow. Unbelievably perfect. She's a knight and a lady and a stone. Cold. FOX. So much love in this room right now. It's just slightly disappointing that Greywater only involves Nan, but I suspect I may have to drabble something with Alara and Nan and perhaps their first meeting. They're superbly mismatched as knight and magi, and that's really why they work so magnificently together. The only novel-in-progress that involves the two of them together thus far is forevergirl, but as I said, I am supposed to be focussing on Greywater, so...

I also need to use my long flights to start sketching out a short story. Mitzi has another call for submission out, and I definitely want to give this one a go. I have an idea already, and I blame Alara for it entirely. Because of my girlcrush. Ha. I also had an email from Mitzi the other day checking snailmail addresses, as the comp copies of the other anthology are ready to be shipped. Hopefully it may be in London by the time I get there. Speaking of London, I am slightly mortified to realise that on September the first, New Zealand time, I will be somewhere between New York and London. Why am I mortified? Well, that's a long story I'll explain in another entry. In the meantime, I have some terribly evil Oreo cookies to bake. I may have to post a picture to prove their evil. If you're curious about the first picture in this entry, by the by, it's a sketch I did a few months back of Tara and Eleni Larmenret. It shows you why I commission, but still. I do love visual representations of my characters so very much. And I can definitely say that staring at Sir Alara and her big...sword...makes me want to write something rather erotic indeed.

...er, that's probably more than you needed to know. But that's the danger of writing, I suppose: falling in love with the voices in your head. Excellent. I also need to do something with Amanita and Janerin, before things went to hell between them. <3 I love love stories gone bad, does it show much? ^_~

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

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. ^__^