...really hate questions that begin 'What's your favourite..'?

GAH!!

Four months of snatched hours, temporal wizardly and plate-juggling - and I'm done.

Something that followed Orbital 2008 as a random on-line whim is now 116k of completed manuscript - one last rub-down with the belt-sander and cue One Giant Reality Check... of one form or another.

Even if it does get accepted, then I face the bizarre realisation that something that's been in my head twenty years doesn't belong to me any more - it belongs to editors, to agents, to marketeers, to critics... and to the public.

The shift from 'writing for myself' to 'writing for potential publication' has been a hurdle in itself - accompanied by a sudden snake-like rear of my professional industry awareness: like a hydra, I found myself with two heads. It was no longer something to haphazardly amuse myself and my Twitter friends, something I was writing  to show my son (when he's old enough to care!), overnight, it became self-aware. It demanded structure, and marketability; it needed to be critically analysed in every word and sentence. The chance in perspective, the onslaught of self-doubt, were inevitable, but I guess we all go through them.

And the more we face that cold page, the more we realise we can. And that we enjoy it. And that we can't leave it alone. And that it plays on, the interweaving of characters and plot-lines and insights and tableaux, whether we want it to or not.

And that we have...
To keep...
Typing...

(I swear my family are going to kill me).

This moment should be celebratory, but my writer friends have tormented me with enough horror stories about What Comes Next... no starry-eyed illusions for me!

I'm chuffed to have finished - but find myself oddly bereft. I'm twiddling, looking for things to occupy my brain and time - and finding the plot for the second one is already laying itself out, unrolling like a length of multi-coloured ribbon.

The belt-sander is ready and waiting for the weekend.

And so, as they say, it begins...

Yes, it's that time again - this time an interview with Sarah Miskelly aka Lunabee, the lovely lady genius who designed this...




I have to have it. This is not a choice, you  understand.

Anyway, as ever, Sarah's interview about how it feels to be a girl in a man's world is now up on Forces of Geek!

This morning, my long-time twitter friend @Akelaa sent me the link to this: -



When my son watched it, it made him cry.

Throughout today, he must have watched this trailer ten times. He's fallen hopelssly in love with strange dog-griffin thing and now nothing will do but he has a beastie of his own.

I think I want one too!

I have too many heads.

There's the work-forbidden-planet-office head, the shiny-smile-PR head, the 'danacea' social media head, the Mum-home head and the so-nearly-there-now writer's head...

...and they're ALL full time.

Crappity - I guess that would be why I'm so tir--

I have seriously fucked up.

Was commenting to maeve_the_red  in the pub yesterday that I've made a right royal cock up of my timelines - I'm 95,000 words in, 25,000 to go (and everything detailed down to the closing scene), about to cross my two major timelines... and I realise they don't fit. Like square peg in a round hole don't fit.

Once I'd stopped swearing and cursing myself for utter and extreme stupidity (and made a mental note to insert Phase Critical Path between Phase Starchart and Phase Chapter Outlines) I've made a start on sorting it today.

But...

I have a choice - one between poetry and logic. The poet feels I should take a subplot out onto a for-the-moment loose limb where it's cadence and imagery really work and it leaves a necessary gun on a mantel...  my logic circuits tell me to fuck the poetry, make the narrative functional even though the read won't be as interesting - or the characters as strong.

What do people feel - 'cos I'm stumped!

A shameless plug for a Mighty Mugg...

This week, over at Forces of Geek, I'm offering four Mighty Muggs as prizes for the smartest comments.

Head on over and win Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumbebee or Soundwave at the Vinyl Hotspot column!

Here's an odd thing - why does committing oneself to writing a shedload of fiction every week make blogging that much easier? I'm already over this week's wordcount, plus I've written posts for Forces of Geek, the new SFFE, SF Signal's forthcoming Mind Meld and (finally) for my own main blog.

The last of these is about the amazing Mister Rothfuss - better late than never, I guess - and the rest of them will come to light in due time.

My MacBook is SMOKIN'!!

...and I can not lie!

What’s this? SF/F has ethics? Aside from wondering where they came from – and how they snuck in without anyone seeing – one looks around suspiciously to point an accusing finger.

In fact, SFFEthics is a new blog on the launch-pad, piloted (perhaps ironically) by an author infamous for his hardcore sex and violence. Proving you should never judge a man by his prose, Andy Remic has gathered together a gaggle of authors who want to celebrate the best about the genre. Why we love it, why we’re compelled to read and write it, why we want to celebrate everything that’s good about sf, fantasy and horror.

I’m faintly alarmed to find Andy enthusing, “If we can get all the associated writers together at a convention and suitably drunk on a cocktail of cheap Scandinavian meths, Stella and absinthe, we can also expect a movie! Watch this space!”


I don’t know which worries me more, the fact that such a thing could quite possibly happen at a Convention near you… or the fact that (yes, you guessed it) my name is a part of that above-mentioned gaggle.

(What was the collective noun for authors, again?)

Seriously, though, I’m flattered to be asked; to be a part of something with a mission statement that’s hand-in-gauntlet with everything I keep ranting about – that change is good, that forward is the way to go and that some parts of this industry need to seriously shake the dust!

Check out SFFEthics for the full mission statement and the list of the authors involved.

I guess this means I’m an Ethics Girl?

The Galactic Centre of the Milky Way rises over a Texan star party...



...footage by William Castleman.

Now I have them too... yes, they're DreamWidth invites.

If anyone would like one, please shout!

Been to the gym
Taken my son out for lunch and to the park
Chased him round the garden with the (now ubiquitous) water-pistols
Then thrown him in the bath
Done all the housework- yes all of it
And most of the laundry
Moved at least one major project on a Serious Jump
Written 2,000 words
And confirmed the forthcoming signing at FP with Sam Raimi on Sunday (squeeeeeee!!)

And it's not yet 7:00pm

Eat your heart out, Wonder Woman. You are so my bitch!

My son is a wuss.

He loves swords, guns and robots - but has a four-year-old freak-out if he gets water in his face, mud on his shoes or (help us, Gods) snow in his hair.

Yesterday, Captain Chaos bought home four tiny little Super-Soaker water pistols. Figuring they were about Isaac-sized, we all chased each other round and round the garage and pretended we were playing Laser Quest (ah, those were the days!)

Today, he comes home with two sodding great FHGs, back-pack fed and turbo-powered.



And we've all chased each other round and round the garage all over again - in the cold and the rain and the wet. It's been hilarious!

Best way to cure a wuss-Cub of a nervousness of water? Teach him how much fun it can be!

It's been Carpentry Chaos at home this week - with the Capt. taking on the horrendous task of building eight touring wardrobes, from scratch, before the wagon comes to get them next Tuesday evening. This has meant a lot of cash coughed up front for tools and materials (and Steve the Monkey), and has meant that I wind up with the job I'm really not very good at: -

Yep, that would be SAHM. Against the loud and ceaseless backdrop of nailguns, routers and extreme stress coming from the garage, I've been going equally - if slightly more quietly - crazy. I've done no work, my wordcount has been royally butt-fucked and by last Thursday night I was about ready to pick up that nailgun myself.

As chance would have it, though, the Bristol Comic Con came to my rescue - a Friday of lumping boxes and setting up stalls - routine familiar; location all new. I've been far too used to the Con being in the old engine shed at Bristol Temple Meads... what is this 'carpet' of which you speak?

Was a fun little Con, tightly-packed a tad too sweaty (how did the rubber Green Lantern manage it?) Sweat and claustrophobia, though, could be eased by walking across to the second hotel where the boys from GeekSyndicate had blagged prime space in the bar. Guests included Kev O'Neill, Davids Lloyd and Gibbons (always chuffed when they greet me like a friend), Gary Erskine (met for the first time in the flesh after leaving multiple sarky comments on my FaceBook page), Paul Cornell (this time tormented with Tribbles), Tony Lee (the Man, The Myth, the Legend) and Liam Sharp (who still hasn't signed the book he threw at me at EasterCon).

Glad to put faces to many email contacts and to see the Bristol store's 'old guard' coming together for an FP reunion - talking about how they miss the industry and how it feels to be back, even if temporarily. Guess once you're bitten, you never lose the mark!

After much beer and weary-footed trading, I dragged myself home last night to discover that Captain Chaos was STILL in the garage, the router was STILL screaming and there is sawdust in everything. Oh and I mean everything!

If I get through the next three days without picking up that nailgun and going on a demented death-rampage, I'm buying champagne.

And drinking it somewhere quiet while I get some BLOODY WORK DONE!!!

My fiance Bones vanished without trace seventeen years ago today.

I was at a re-enactment of the Battle of Camlann in Tintagel - only Bones could climb round the end of Rocky Valley in a monk's habit and a pair of army surplus boots, drinking horn in hand and dog-end between his lips... and simply never come back. He had his pouch of baccy, he had his Thor's Hammer round his neck... Lisanne later said he'd taken his Grave Goods with him.

He was twenty-eight years old and had cheated the big bloke with the scythe more times that I could relate - bike accidents and cyanide poisoning and outrageous alcohol abuse (and that's not even getting into the wacky stuff). I like to think that he found a friendly mermaid and a cave full of pirate brandy.

There are too many tales to tell - of his intelligence, his gentleness, his insight, his outrageous humour and his dysfunctionality... he was one of life's characters, mourned and missed by all. 

Days like this, I wonder who he would have been at forty-five.

Rather freakily, this photo was taken about twenty minutes before he disappeared: -





Wassail.

Wherever he is, I hope he's happy.

Taking a leaf out of hutch0 's book this morning...



...for a bit of LOLcat humour!!

There is just WAY too much cool stuff about this morning.

Try sex, drugs, guns and zombies on an old skool ZX speccie for the best Friday timewaster EVER - thank you, Mister Remic!

An interview with Dril One on Forces of Geek with some of the best art toy customs I've seen (gimme!!)



And, after a wonderfully successful signing with China Mieville at the London Megastore last night, a bit of experimental AudioBoo-ing!



Footage of said signing will be coming soon.

At my thirtieth birthday party, I drank a shield boss full of red wine (still attached to the shield) and a mate of mine asked me what I'd learned. Quite apart from 'not doing that again', I'd learned that I was on top of my world - utterly in control.

Which, shortly afterwards, turned out to be utter bollocks - as the revelation hit me that the world was a Very Big Place.

At forty, if the same mate asked me the same question, my answer would be: -

That there's still everything to learn.
That real friends are the most important things in the world.
That your child grows up far too fast.
That 'Carpe Diem' is more true than ever.
That the 'Shield Boss Challenge' is still a fucking stupid thing to do.

Everything is in flux, no future is set in stone - and that's as it should be. The bad times always pass; you never know when you will meet someone astonishing. Take nothing and no-one for granted, appreciate joy, love while you can...  and never take anything handed to you in a West Croydon pub.

Forty is just a number - and not all that scary really.

Bring it on!!