Where have I been?

It's been a while since I lasted posted on here. The reason? I've actually been working very hard, mostly elsewhere. I roughly calculate that in the last six days I will have worked a grand total of over 75 hours, working not less than 12 hours in any one day.

Consequently I felt yesterday when I finally finished this mammoth task, rather tired. I just haven't had any time to do any writing, although I have been mulling over a few ideas. Tomorrow sees the first day of NaNoWriMo, so I'll be trying to keep to the daily target of something like 1,666 words. As long as I don't go off on some huge mammoth work-based bender again, then I'll be alright.

I'd like to think I had something more meaningful to say, but I've been asleep for nearly 14 hours (I was surviving on no more than 4½ hours a night for six days), and I still feel a little tired. Still, I just think of the money.

When we were Young

Actually, the title of this post reflects the title of a short story I've just edited, rather than anything more meaningful. I'm taking a quick break from writing 'The long summer of war' and having a look at some of the material I wrote a while ago and put to one side because I wasn't fully happy with it. One bit is the original opening to 'The Atlantic Connection' and the other is actually the remnants of a cut section from the first draft of 'Syndicate Dawn'.

A part of me worries a little about recycling material that wasn't good enough to make it into previous books. I'm looking critically at these two pieces, and whilst I'm happy with the edit I've done on the first (it was cut because it just didn't fit with the direction or feel of the book), I'm not so sure on the second so that may get dropped by the wayside. It was written in 1999 originally, so it needs rather a heavy edit to come up to standard, in my opinion.

I'm nearly done on 'The long summer of war' and only have one little scene left to pull together towards the end. I've even got ahead of myself and written the very end page! But, I'm starting to get bored with it. It isn't sci-fi or fantasy, and marked quite a departure for me. I'm not sure how well the piece has worked, but it is certainly different. One thing is for certain that I won't be trying regular boring run of the mill fiction again any time soon. It was nice to have a change, but we'll just leave it at that. My 'day' job workload is impeding on my time a lot at the moment though, so it looks like it might be next week at the earliest before I get this wretched novella done. I've had to resort to listening to my Clannad LP collection to try and inspire me to the right setting. There's only so many times you can listen to them before you start accenting vówels and typíng wíth á lílt. It's a bit weird. I'll just be happy when I move back onto good steady sci-fi - you know just where you are with a huge robot from outer space ripping aliens limb from limb and pimping his futuristic spaceship ride.

I want to clear the decks of current projects in order to get ready for this NaNoWriMo next month that my silly PR person signed me onto ("It'll be good for your profile...." My arse, more like). I'll have to think about what story I'm going to try and throw 50,000 words at in thirty days. At least by the end of it my internal monologue might have lost this infernal Irish accent it appears to have picked up listening to Clannad albums.

On writing to a deadline and other strange creatures.

I've been prodded to update the blog as it was pointed out to me by some-one that it has been ten days since I did last. Time just flies by, though I have been very busy with me time. The weekend, for example, I really don't know where that went. I did two favours last minute on Saturday which meant that I worked twice; starting at 1:00am and 9:00pm and by the time I got to bed on Sunday I couldn't tell people what year it was, let alone what day. Working like that makes the mind increasingly confused.

I've been signed up by the person who deals with my PR these days to the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the month of November. I must say that left to my own devices, I'd not have done, but they said it's good for raising my profile. Apparently. I like to write stuff at my own leisure, but this will be a new experience for me. I will be expected in order to 'win' (this is a nominal term and everyone who reaches the target 'wins') I have to write 50,000 words or more between the beginning and the end of the month. None of it can be previous worked on material.

But I've been signed up, so here I am along with a few other authors and a lotof people who just write for fun. There must, actually, be several hundred thousand people who do this. If truth be known, I feel a little daunted by the idea. I don't like such tight deadlines, and one month from start to finish is actually a really tight deadline for a book. It can be done, and a lot of people do manage, but I now feel obliged to succeed to avoid looking like a failure as a writer.

So I've been thinking about ideas to write about. Now ideas can often be the hardest part of writing. What are good ideas and what are bad ones? Well, you certainly know which are which firstly when writing something then secondly when reading it. I've had a rummage around and come up with two immediate possibilities. The first is to explore the second book of the trilogy that the more eagle-eyed will recognise as starting with 'Orb of Arawaan'. Yes, I know there is currently only one book and a trilogy is conspicuous by its abscence, but there is meant to be three books I can assure you. I just got distracted after the first one by other projects and forgot to come back.

The other idea is completely new. I had a dream a long time ago and came up with the plot in it for a story involving children cast adrift on a desert island after the cruise liner they were on sinks mysteriously. They are rescued by what appears to be a mad professor in a time travelling hot air balloon (it was a dream, so humour me - the idea will get ironed out in the writing process). They have a series of adventures (I'm not going to give too much away here) which culminates in the children working out the truth about the professor that he is in fact one of the children who he rescued.

I would treat the exercise as creating a rough first draft which ultimately I could then revisit later on. The sequel to 'Orb of Arawaan' one would certainly ultimately need to be around the 140,000 word mark to fit with the length of book one. Either way, it might be a fun month to hammer out rough ideas. I may even elect to do a third story of whatever suggests itself, or expand on the idea of a short story I've written to take the story further - 'Bringing home the stars', for example, has a sequel that slumbers on my computer that is intended to expand it into a novella and beyond called: 'The Stars came home'. There's actually a lot of things I could do.

Apart from that, my life is rather mundane. Perhaps that isn't the best thing for a writer of cutting edge sci-fi and fantasy to admit, but it is the truth. The mould problem is no more, thanks to hard work, fungicide and a dehumidifier. The council also unblocked the drain outside at the front, which seems to help. Incidentally if you are struggling with mould I can heartily recomend the following page on t'internet that was invaluable for me when I declared war on the unwelcome green visitor.

Finally, I've been thinking about getting a newer car again. I've been reading up on energy storing technology which whilst in its infancy, looks extremely promising. I calculate that it will take at least four years for the technology to become used in easily available cars, then affordable on the secondhand market (never buy a new car - let some-one else pay the depreciation and run it in). So the Swedish tank will have to soldier on at least until then. I'm sure it will as my last Volvo managed admirably.

Fingers typing in a blur.

I'm actually amazed at how much progress I'm now making on 'The long summer of war'. I've written around seven thousand words in two days so far, and I really feel like I've got a very good handle where it is all going. I'm guesstimating that the finished thing will be around 15,000-20,000 words long; firmly in novella territory.

Along with 'Bringing home the stars' it will form the backbone of the new anthology. I've also taken a look at some of the other material I'll be working on next. It has no title, but it was cut from 'Syndicate Dawn' because I felt it strayed from the direction I wanted the book to take and slowed the pace down. It will be heavily rewritten and edited, but it might be interesting for some; it contains a charector written out of 'Syndicate Dawn', though I don't know yet whetehr he will find himself written out of this in the edit too. I also found a cut bit from 'The Atlantic Connection and whilst I'm as yet undecided, that might get edited and finished and make it in too.

This year has been exceptional in terms of my writing productivity. I only hope I can keep the pace up: despite effectively a few months largely off because of other commitments, I'm back on form and looking at completing a second book this year on top of two revised other books and a whole bunch of short stories (okay, small cheat in that some of the short stories are also part of the anthology! But shhhh!)

I've also been contributing a lot of ideas for the collaborative webcomic I've been working with Zoë on called 'All over the house'. We don't have a syndication deal, but it may yet get a website yet and we'll work on building it up in the same way that webcomics such as penny arcade built themselves up. Eagle eyed readers may also have noticed that the other webcomic that I occasionally help script has been conspicuous by its lack of updates recently. However, Zoë's other commitments have eased with the passing of her exams, so hopefully new strips will start appearing regularly again sooner rather than later (hint, hint!).

On writing and the environment.

'The long summer of war' continues very well. I haven't had a lot of time, but I've been trying to get a lot further into this story and get a good idea of the routemap for the plot. I have to admit that already I'm getting worried that I've spent too long on this one, though part of that is because of having to take a lot of time out to battle a mould infestation in the house and to work some rather strange hours for the day job.

Sometimes things click, and I write in a fury that doesn't stop until I'm done. I remember writing on 'Orb of Arawaan' and putting down some 145,000 words within little more than a month because it all just flowed. On the other hand, some things dragged on - 'Daytrippers' became like this for its second half; I was glad to get it finished in the end. I'm not sure though that 'The long summer of war' fits into this category though. When I am writing, the words seem to be coming. It's just the frequent interuptions that are stringing it out. I'll just have to see where it is going. Hopefully I'll be able to start work sooner rather than later on the next short story - that's just a major edit job rather than writing from scratch.

I was struck today by how much we recycle here. Things have come a long way in the last five years, and I suppose society as a whole should be making the effort. We now buy things here with a view to how easilly the packaging can be recycled. Consequently our black bin is rarely more than a quarter full on bin day, and we empty the kitchen bin when it starts to smell rather than when it is full.

We got a wheelie bin exclusively for card and paper some time back. It is surprising just how much paper and card waste gets produced. We actually fill this bin, and all of it goes for recycling instead of landfill. Beside it is the box for plastic, metal and glass and we regularly fill that right up too.

I do believe strongly that it has never been so easy to recycle and take some degree of stand on excess and unrecyclable packaging. I agree wholeheartedly with councils who fine people who stubbornly refuse to recycle even when the means to has never been so easy. At the end of the day, it is ignorance and laziness that provide the barrier rather than anything else.

Elsewhere in the home we take great pains to switch off electronics at the plug when not in use. How I abhor badly designed electronics that try and sit and waste so much power to be on 'standby'. The sooner that is outlawed in new electrical goods, the better. We also have all energy saving bulbs, and only ever have on what we need, and never any more. We disposed of an inefficient freezer because of the energy it wasted as well as the fact it encouraged us to stock up on unhealthy junk food because it became easy to store the stuff.

Finally, we conserve water by sharing our baths. That is, we share the water as the bath is too small for two people in it at once! There are also other measures we take and it makes our gas and electricity bills a lot lower than they might otherwise be. If only everyone else was as commited to energy reduction and recycling as we were then this country would not have the resource and generating capacity problem that it currently does.

Retro sci-fi as Santa climbs the walls.

I think we've sorted the mould now. It was a horror though. We found it lurking in pretty much every room, though lots of hard cleaning work with fungicide and a newly acquired dehumidifier seems to be turning the tide.

It means I can return to 'The long Summer of war which has been taking a back role with only a small amount written on it. Perhaps today I'll do a big chunk? Still, there's no rush as the deadline for delivery of the anthology it is part of is provisionally set at next January. Plenty of time.

I sent out a manuscript via email to an agent who came recomended through two mutual friends the other day. As is often said throughout the media: it isn't what you know but who you know. Or at least, who you know who knows some-one else of importance. It was a pleasent surprise and quite refreshing to get a response within no more than a quarter of an hour from him thanking me for the six chapters and saying if he hadn't responded within two weeks to give him a prod via email. It is nice to deal with accessible and friendly professional people. I just hope that the manuscript doesn't disappoint him; fingers crossed.

I've been trying to get into an old book by Arthur C. Clarke again. Whilst waiting at the GP's surgery, it sometimes pays to have a good book to hand. At any rate, a book is better than a twelve hand copy of a three year old edition of Hello! magazine. I've got a large collection of sci-fi, and I felt I should get to work reading a few more of the ones that I bought to make up many of Waterstones' three for two offers. This one is called 'A fall of moondust' and I have to say was very disappointing at first. Books from the sixties are very much like films of the era: very slow-paced, waffley and take a while to get going. Arthur C. Clarke might be regarded as an exceptional writer, but this book from the early sixties falls into many of the sci-fi literary traps of the time. I'm halfway through it now, and it is picking up a lot though. However, I suspect if Mr. Clarke had been submitting it to publishers in this day and age, it would be flatly turned down by every single one for its slow start. How times and tastes change. He does however keep up with his knack for predicting the technology of the future, and this book predicts the computer (actually 'electronic' as described in the book, but we'll give him the benefit) spelling and grammer checker - quite a novel idea I suspect in 1961.

Summer still appears to be here. We're actually drying clothes in the back garden at the moment, which is something that most of July, August and September didn't allow. There is a little nip in the air and you can tell Christmas is nearly here, if you believe the stuff on sale in the shops. I would say I was wondering when the first council house would get its Christmas decorations up (not wishing to play to stereotypes, but doing so anyway) but I'm too late. If you want to see them, they're on the corner of St Peter's Way and Turton Street. I think though they take the record only by virtue of having not been taken down since last year. Santa looks a little weather worn now.

Imagine being born in the year zero.

I love boys. Yes, I know I'm a lesbian, but let me quantify: I love the attention. I don't actually think I look anything special. Yes, I know I'm tall and relatively thin and Zoë assures me that I'm blonde (I would have thought it was mousey-brown myself) but I never think much of the reflection that stares from the mirror back at me. It is a worrying thing of growing old that I look in a mirror and see my Mother looking back. Still, no-one else seems to notice.

Take tonight. We had our meal in the fancy restaurant, and at the end when I went over to pay, two blokes who had apparently been eyeing me up plucked up the courage to ask Zoë if she would let me know they were interested in asking me out for a date. Awwww! Bless! She had to tell them though that I was lesbian, and that she was my partner. Still, it made me glow inside when I found out. You see, I always appreciate attention, and it is nice to know that others find me attractive. It gives the old ego a massage.

At the end of the meal, as the restaurant owner knows me so well (I used to almost live in the place when I worked as a journalist and even did a live broadcast to Sky TV and News 24 from the bar - long story), we got brought a wonderful lemon alcoholic drink that was very refreshing. So nice in fact, we went and tracked down a bottle afterwards in a shop and bought it. It tastes like alcoholic lemon sorbet, and it is so nice.

Over the meal I had an idea for a sci-fi story. I'll make a note and add it to the ideas pile. It's about a time machine with a twist, but I'll get the idea hammered out a little more first. However, it will explain why the crucifiction wasn't like Woodstock - I mean, if time travel were possible, it would be, wouldn't it?

Prodding the world in a bemused sort of way.

People amuse me, especially those who think they are in a position of power but really aren't. It's quite fun demolishing these people. Get them flustered and they just end up making a baffoon of themselves. From traffic wardens to low level civil servants, the country is full of people trying to pull the big "I Am" and failing. Still, I love the smell of burning ego in the morning.

Three stories just got accepted today! That came as a pleasent surprise to find that in my inbox. Remember the trucking story and the one based on my time at commercial radio? Well, they just got accepted along with my second attempt at sub 500 word flash fiction. There might also be an option to serialise a longer story over several months' worth of one magazine. It makes this year a very good year so far.

The mould problem seems sorted. Remember children: never dry clothes indoors as they make your house go green. Actually, I think the weather has much to do with it, as when I mentioned the mould problem with friends at least three other people mentioned they were finding similar this year. It must be a humidity thing.

Hasn't the weather been a change around? Summer has arrived late to the party as always. I went with my work today up to Penrith in Cumbria. I even had the air conditioning on (is that the sound of environmentalists sharpening their swords?). Yesterday was pretty nice too. It gave me a few ideas for the new book as the countryside up around that area is gorgeous.

As I write this, an ice cream van has just pulled up outside taunting my diet with its bell. I would normally say: "September?! How ludicrous!" but then, the weather is actually more like Summer than Summer was. Will the real Summer please step forward and reveal themselves?

And finally: Zoë finished her law exam today, and I got a lovely relieved phone call from her. Hopefully she will not be so much of a stress bunny now. In celebration I'm taking her out for a lovely meal.

A mouldy interlude.

As it always happens: I settle down to write, and something comes along to distract me. Today's distraction was mould. More importantly: mould in my wardrobe, on my curtains and along the skirting board.

To coin a phrase: This Is Not Good.

The curtains went straight into the wash and I started playing hunt the mould. I dealt with the stuff on the skirting board. Then out came my underwear drawers, everything hanging in the wardrobe as well as plastic crates of other clothes in storage. The strange thing was that the mould seemed very picky. For example, I have about seven Gossard Ultrabra basques that live on a hanger together. I pretty much never wear them, but they are too gorgeous to get rid of. They are the same material and everything, yet only one basque was riddled with mould, but even the ones that had been touching it were free. I found some of my old Goth clothing mouldy, but other bits not. It seemed to be a very picky breed of mould.

I took the opportunity to throw some infected clothes that I hadn't worn in ages, and washed others that smelt a little fusty for good measure. But the basque, another basque from a box under the wardrobe, several trusty Wonderbras and my one of my two huge black velvet skirts were just too good to let go of.

None were particularly machine washable, so I had to improvise. Boiling water in the bath was a start, then I hand washed the skirt. The bras and the basques then gotr put in pillow cases and carefully placed in a wash cycle with the spin speed turned right down. Time will tell if it all worked, but needless to say I'm a tad worried at the mould.

We have had a mould issue for a few weeks. It's a very picky mould, and it mostly likes to coat wooden furniture. However, until today there was never any on walls, and so far stuff like LPs and books seem to be safe, even when the shelves they are on became infested.

This is the first time it has decided on attacking clothes. We'll have to keep more of an eye on things, and we're running the central heating for the first time since March just to heat the house through and be sure. Still, it is very annoying.

And now, back to the real job I was supposed to be doing today of writing...

Time waits for no-one - unless at Paddington waiting for the 12:15 where it'll have to wait with the rest of us.

I've been so busy this week, and with one thing and another I'm afraid I've been neglecting 'The long Summer of War'. However, all is not lost and I've found the time to sit down and do some work on it today. I don't want to give too much away, not least because even I am not so sure of where the plot is going in its entirety. But the love interest is coming along and the more I write the more that gets suggested to me by the progression of the words on the page.

It is typical though that I am already thinking in the back of my mind the next project. I have a habit of doing this all the time, and it can be very annoying. It distracts from the job in hand and, especially towards the end, it becomes a powerful attraction to want to do something new instead. But usually I manage to fight through that feeling.

The next piece though is more of an edit job. For this anthology I've decided it might be interesting to add in at least one piece of work that was cut from one of my already published books. They go through a couple of drafts, and sometimes something that doesn't quite work gets dropped. I never delete these, but instead move them to another file that gets saved on my computer for posterity. Usually they just languish. However, occasionally the odd piece gets used in another book in the series, though I cannot think to hand of an example of this such is the scattiness of my mind this morning.

There is a large piece cut from 'Syndicate Dawn' that I am planning to edit up and put into the anthology. Some people may find it quite interesting, not least because it contains charectors who were cut in the final edit of that book (long story - the final edit dropped around 30,000 words of text and I removed a weak charector from the plot entirely because he did sweet Fanny Adams). It is pretty rough at the moment and I'm not prepared to show off warts-and-all a piece I wrote in 1998/9 without some cleaning up!

I think there is also floating about somewhere the short story that 'Orb of Arawaan' grew from. I'll have to think about whether that goes into the anthology or not, as I don't think it changed much at all before the book was written around it a few months afterwards. If it is too similar then as it is only around 1,500 words I might just not bother with it. I am tempted though to use the piece that 'Countdown to Extinction' came from which was written way back in 2001/2 for a magazine.

Time though is once again my enemy. Where does it all go? Little time gnomes keep coming and stealing it away from me when I'm too preoccupied at a keyboard to notice.

All work and no chocolate coated jellybeans.

Work at the moment is very strange. I feel less secure, but at the same time am working more hours than ever before. Money is tight, but only because of spending commitments on things like a wedding that seems very good at soaking up cash.

Note to self: Don't get married again. Well, I'll try not to. All this means that whilst working on the bread and butter I'm struggling to find time for the books. Still, I've had the same struggles in the past, but I've met the deadlines in the end.

There should be another book reading at some point soon, given the tremendous success of the last one in September. By popular public demand I'll be reading another. Actually, this time it really is a book rather than a short story. I've been looking at serialising 'Daytrippers' over around four readings (you can't expect people to sit and listen for more than 90 minutes at a time, hence the need for four parts).

The recording we made at the last reading should be getting edited and I'm told may be available as an audio CD to buy. I'm also thinking of approaching one of the radio stations where I've worked at in the past to see whether they might be interested in broadcasting it if we can nibble it down to under an hour in length (It's about sixty-seven minutes). That might mean sitting down and rerecording a little. Or perhaps speaking a little faster?

And finally. It isn't often I get motivated to respond to an editor or agent who displays such crass arrogance and scant regard for professionalism. Actually, scrub that, I've never bothered before, so congratulations, because this one's the first. Quite an achievement given the ten, no, eleven years I've been doing this. The man does not return the submission despite it having a fully paid up SAE, then just sends patronising abuse when I politely ask for it back because a less time-wasting publication responded favourably to me over it within a more reasonable length of time.

I think it is safe to say that there is a reason that the magazine in question isn't widely available. Indeed, I had a job tracking it down in the first place when I was looking for a magazine taking longer stories than the ones I normally write for. Still, I'm sure the credit crunch will weed the wannabes from the big boys.

A thought occurs: given Americans call jam 'jelly', and jelly 'jello' does that mean that in America jellybeans are called 'jellobeans'? I must check next time I'm over there. No there's a wonderful excuse for a jolly abroad; I'll go and see if I can sell that idea to some-one.

Still sucking the air in and out.

I still exist! Working hard on the 'day' job as well as a new novella, I'm just keeping my head down. There should also be a few short stories to be appearing on the portfolio section of the website over the next few weeks.

Time is a rare commodity these days for me, and I never seem to have enough. Bring back my spare time thief!