update
Home Again
Jun 03, 2011
Well, I’m back in the U.S. again. Tada! I’m staying with my parents while I sort out work/apartment/etc. It’s definitely an adjustment, learning to work with people around all the time, as in Australia I had perfect quiet and stillness all day while my housemates were at work.
Transitions
May 23, 2011
Almost exactly one year ago, I got on a plane to fly to Australia. I had about 20,000 words of a new book, a lot of emotional baggage, and a metric ton of doubts. Not much to go on, really, but I knew I had to get moving on my dream of being a writer or I’d be waiting for something to happen to me forever.
Writing Updates, Revision Improvements, House-Cleaning
Nov 16, 2010
With all my book/vacation posting I haven’t been talking much about writing. So I’ll pause today to do that, and be back on the books I’m reading soon.
When I left for vacation I resolved not to do anything writing-y while I was gone, with the exception of catching up on blog reading when I had the internet access to do it. That lasted a good five or six days, at which point I received the result of a contest a while back in the form of some really fantastic feedback from an agent on the first three chapters of the manuscript. The strangest thing was that it wasn’t anything I hadn’t realized about my own manuscript–some of you may recall my the-beginning-sucks-but-I-don’t-know-how-to-fix-it angst–but the way she explained it suddenly just made everything click. Within 24 hours I had a new idea for the opening of my book, one I was finally excited about.
Halloween, NaNo, and sundry stuff.
Oct 26, 2010
I keep getting people asking if I’m planning to do NaNo. I’ve never done it in the past, just because something weird in my brain rebels against the idea of the impetus to write coming from outside myself. I totally love NaNo time, and get behind all my friends who do it, cheer them on, am happy when they get really into it–but I’ve never felt the desire to join in the fun for some reason. Anyway, this year I’ve come REALLY close to doing it, just because my housemate Amie is doing it, as well as the few writerfriends I’ve met in the Melbourne area, and a bunch of my friends back in the U.S. too. It even comes at a convenient time–I’ll be querying by then, and working on my next novel. But it JUST hit me why I can’t do it: I’m traveling and having family coming to visit starting November 1st and not leaving until November 20-something. Duh. (Yes, I only just made this connection now, okay, I’m dumb). So, to answer everyone: Alas, no, I’m not doing NaNo this year.
Updates! I’m still tweaking THE IRON WOOD, mostly because I appear to be incapable of letting it go. I’m waiting to hear back on a critique, while going over some line edits and suggestions from some friends who’ve been awesome enough to read it for me. I’m hoping to be ready to send it out in a couple of weeks though.
Update and Contest!
Sep 11, 2010
Hey guys! It’s been all quiet from me lately, and I apologize for that. Life got hectic for a while, what with WorldCon, followed by the world’s biggest wind storm blowing our garden wall down, and all of us having to run around and fix it and figure out what to do with the dog, etc. And then, since we’ve got company coming Monday, I’ve been frantically Cleaning All The Things. I am more or less back now, but with that friend from the U.S. coming to visit on Monday, I’ll very likely be incommunicado at that point too.
Just wanted to wave my hand around and say I’m not dead! Yay! I wanted to do a blog post following WorldCon about my experiences with it, because I know so many people who would’ve loved to come, but the energy levels just aren’t allowing that right now. I still plan on it–if nothing else, I have to explain how I managed to end the con sitting at a bar with John Scalzi, Carrie Vaughn, Delia Sherman, and Ellen Kushner–but it might take me a little while to organize my thoughts.