Tuesday 9 December 2014

Has my head stopped spinning yet?

Whoo-ee, it's been a busy few months. I think I've been to... technically three cons since the last update, making five this year, and then, of course, there was NaNoWriMo (during the course of which I wrote 40k on one novel, then ditched it and wrote 50k of Dryden 2.0 in the last 8 days instead, clocking in a couple of 10k+ days, and a grand total of over 90k for the month, which is the most I've ever done in that sort of time frame. Check that awesome graph!).

And then I got a job at Waterstone's. Just a Christmas temp, for now, but of course it's extremely busy already and I am rather enjoying myself getting to be excited about books all day long. I really should stop clapping and cheering when customers who go off on an epic quest to find one specific book return to me at the till waving it triumphantly in the air, though.

In any case, that's what I've been up to and why the blog has vanished a little! I was all set to do a Fantasycon write up (probably still should; I have lots of notes and had a lot of fun) but was in the process of writing a short story (more like novella, and the most wonderful writing experience I've had in years) over the con anyway, and from then on life sort of hasn't stopped.

But! NaNo is over now, and I shall try to do some catch up here (and on my emails, which have been a bit neglected in all the hectic rush; sorry about that, patient people).

Oh, and Hanith is now out and about in very exclusive printed form; the British Fantasy Society journal finally landed at the very end of November, and I am at the moment rather pleased with how he turned out. I only have the one copy myself, so it's being passed around friends who want to see, but it's reassuring and encouraging to have him in print now.

Onwards!

Friday 22 August 2014

... and Con-trast

Last Monday, on leaving NineWorlds properly, I headed into London and met up with friends from York. Or, more specifically, three friends from York, one of whom was travelling from Northampton, and one friend from Huntingdon, who was travelling with the other two from York, and... yes, it started off a little complicated and went from there.

In any case, we Assembled in our flat for the week, and on Tuesday we headed out and painted the town red. Or something like that. There were entertaining (hahaha, yes) incidents with the exceedingly height-phobic member of the group (which ruled out further trips on the DLR, though a little late for that first one) and lots of fluttering about getting briefly separated by ooh shiny, but we all congregated together for the Fantasy In The Court event at Goldsboro Books. Whoo-ee, that was a crowd and a half for a little bookshop. I don't think I've ever seen the authors-per-square-metre count quite so high. We were all a little overwhelmed by that, and still tired from journeying (or previous con) and traversing London all day, so we gathered up the signatures to go with the books we'd acquired, I grabbed Liz de Jager a glass of water on my last squirm through the crowd since she looked so despairing when the bookshop staff didn't see her try to catch them, and we called it a night.

We spent a lot of Wednesday in Forbidden Planet... I bought posters wilfully and without care of consequence, along with, surprise surprise, another book, and cried off with one friend to go rest at the flat in anticipation of WorldCon starting the next day. That being said, three of us did sidle over on the DLR to the ExCel centre to hit registration while it was quiet, and ran into a long time friend there too. She lives about thirty miles from us, normally, so of course we only see her when we all go to DragonCon in Atlanta, or WorldCon in London, or... Yeah. We did a quick trip together on the Emirates cable cars nearby just for fun, then split again to get some sleep and recharge for it all kicking off on Thursday.

So. WorldCon.

Con attendance: 10,700, I heard someone say in passing...

Pre-con book count: 29

Six things to do at 3pm. On this page, anyway.

On Wednesday, I checked out the online web app for the schedule of WorldCon, and went through the 1171 listed track events, readings, and signings. I managed to narrow it down to 165, and went from there to the paper programme to narrow it further. Then, of course, it came down on the day and the time to, "What do I really feel like right now?" and "Can I even get into this tiny crowded room?" and "Should I maybe eat something today?" to decide what I actually attended. Now this, this was much more like DragonCon. Highlighting 7 events at the same time and knowing there's a strong possibility you won't make it to any of them because something else will distract you entirely. Looking at the list of vendors in the big dealers' hall and trying to keep the sheer avarice from gleaming so bright in your eyes your roommates won't be able to sleep. Planning which cosplay to wear on each day based around what appropriate panels you'll be trying to get into...

And then of course, life happens, and even the tentative plans go out of the window. Thursday morning, we split and headed into the ExCel separately, so our height-phobic wouldn't have to face the DLR, and then found that he and his partner couldn't get into the ExCel on foot by any obvious means... aside from crossing the lofty DLR footbridge. He could, of course, ask the information desk and the ExCel staff about accessible ground routes. As soon as he was inside. Some circular arguments there. In any case, he summoned help in the form of recently arrived online friends, who were darling and responded immediately, and I mocked him up a blindfold and he, to his eternal credit, made it across the bridge.

I think I went to the dealers' hall after that, to drift and admire and catch my breath. I did make it to swing dancing lessons, and enjoyed swirling about in my steampunk dress (which is astonishingly hot to wear, for having so little fabric in it), and got to two whole panels - pseudonyms, with Robin Hobb and others; and a gloriously genre-spun I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue that included Mornington Crescent with the addition of fictional stations, and some excellently done One Song To The Tune Of Another, and even a surprise appearance of Hamish and Dougal in Sound Charades (which truly, thoroughly confused those in the room and indeed on the panel who hadn't actually heard the show before). And then we fled again, too tired to stay for the swing dancing event and show off what we'd learned.

I have vague recollections of making it to the "Exceptional Girl Warrior" panel at 10am on Friday, and the notes to prove it, but that one's mostly got lost in the haze of double-con, I think. I remember the "Kill the Parents" panel moderated by Todd McCaffrey, not least because I bumped into two of my gang in there and hugs with Todd were exchanged. I also managed the "Writing SF/F in non-Western Modes" panel, and Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch's signings again (having not wanted to bombard them with a stack each at NineWorlds, though in retrospect that would have worked out quite well, it being such a little con), and even got to a little play. (It was called Mastermind, written by Michael Patrick Sullivan, and superbly acted by Rhys Lawton and an understudy for the female part, who was brilliant but not listed on the playbill as it was such a last minute change, and I didn't think to write down her name and am now cursing myself because she was excellent for being thrown in with little to no warning to the point where she still had the script in her hand. Somehow she worked around that so well I forgot she was line-checking most of the time.)

At six o'clock half our group reconvened for the panel we'd been waiting for all day: Welcome... to Night Vale.

Group cosplay always has more impact than single, but the reaction was still immensely pleasing. We were ushered to seats at the front, deference was paid to us throughout the panel ("Well, you have to be careful of those hooded figures - present company excepted..."), and quite a lot of photos were taken afterwards, both in the room and, better still, with a wonderful Cecil (who I'd snapped at NineWorlds) out in the corridor. I delight in a cosplay that makes people laugh and point and smile and compliment and photograph and appreciate the thought, and this one ticked all those boxes. A grand idea from my friend Legira. And the panel itself was pretty good, too, though wryly amusing as one panelist kept desperately trying to find ways to make NightVale make sense...

It did mean I missed the "Liveship Trading: Fantasy Economics" panel, though, so if anybody wants to fire me over their notes from that one I'd be rather grateful.

I should have gone to the Philharmonic Orchestra set; that sounded wonderful from the tweets I was seeing, but instead we rested up a bit and checked out the library in the Fan Village (comprised of tents promoting other cons and bids for as-yet-undecided locations for future Worldcons, gaming tents, chill-out tents, food van, and craft activity tent, all indoors and surrounding a big open green space for kids to wear themselves out playing on, and for tai-chi in the mornings, medieval knights duelling, and Quidditch or other wide games at certain times). We hit up the "You Write Pretty" panel, which was a fun examination of what makes a sentence memorable and appealing to different people, queued for a little while for the Ceilidh, then decided it was running too late and staying upright was starting to make everything ache so called it quits.

Saturday I was Quicksilver again, with Jim Croce on the hidden speaker once more, and running very late to get in to the ExCel. I missed the first two panels I wanted (at 11 and 12 respectively), missed Stephen Baxter's signing, missed breakfast, missed lunch, but managed to squeeze into a panel rather wonderfully called, "Your 'realistic' fantasy is a washed out colourless emptiness compared to the Rabelaisian reality. - Discuss." It was crowded and hot in there - so crowded that part way through one of the ExCel staff came in to herd out anyone standing against the walls or sitting on the floor, even though they were well out of the way and keeping the aisles and exits clear. This was also the start of the frequent mantra I heard all weekend, of how the Loncon staff were excellent, and the ExCel staff were... not, on the whole. He didn't bother to lower his voice as he ordered people out, repeatedly and unnecessarily, talking over the panelists, louder than their microphones, winding up everyone he was booting out and everyone he was leaving in. It was a shame, because the panel was interesting, and I would have liked to hear all of it, even if it looked like I was nodding off because pneumatic drills had kept me awake the night before and the room was warm and soporific. My notes would imply I was very much awake for all of it.

It's also a shame because looking back through the con booklet (more reliable than my dazed memory), that looks like the only panel I made it to at all on Saturday. Again, if anybody has notes for "Travel in Fantasy" or "Full-spectrum Fantasy" or "Meet the New King, Same as the Old King", I'd appreciate that. I was hugely tired on Saturday, and also thoroughly, pleasantly distracted by heading along to Todd's signing with my friends and having him suddenly introduce me to Anne McCaffrey's agent, eagerly pushing me forward and explaining how I write and should be talking to the People To Know, while of course I was going, "Ah. Yes. I would currently be dressed as a character from X-Men, wearing a silver wig and the kitschest jacket known to mankind. Now is definitely the best time to make a first impression on a renowned and experienced professional agent."

Oh well. She was lovely about it, effortlessly graceful and gracious, and didn't seem to mind chatting to us for an hour or so while Todd signed. I hope I will meet her again, when Dryden is edited and I am wholly prepared to start pursuing agents and publishers properly, and so will probably not be in full-on costume. She was also at a little Del Rey event later that evening, which was promoting new and upcoming releases, and followed up our conversation by presenting us with postcards for one of the books she'd mentioned, which was very nice.

At that little event, I chatted to quite a few other people, and notably ran into a freshly-published author with whom I shared a brief squee-flail over X-Men in general, the concept of her novel (One Night In Sixes, it's called, and it appears to be out now in ebook, and I shall have to get hold of it to see if the awesome of the concept carries through - if it does, expect me to get evangelical about it, as usual) and the concept of mine, which was kind of her.

Saturday's efforts to completely exhaust me continued with the 80s Night Dance when we wandered off from the Del Rey party - a rather different affair to the 80s Cheesefest from NineWorlds, where requests were gladly taken and even the Scissor Sisters got played since it fitted the bouncy, cheery musical theme and the mood of the dancefloor. At this one, rather, the playlist was genuinely limited to 1980-1989. And yes, I danced my heart out to Safety Dance, The Final Countdown, Thriller (oh help, people started following me and I immediately forgot the next moves), and Karma Chameleon, but requests for YMCA and the Time Warp never came through. Not from the right era, you see. And requests for Bon Jovi, or Queen, or Bowie, or Abba, or something more danceable than the strange electropunk that took over shortly before 1am were met with blank stares or outright hostility ("There's no way I'm ever playing Abba"), which somewhat soured the mood. We joked that the DJ was playing little-known and not terrible danceable stuff in an effort to clear everyone out and pack up early. Trouble being, when I went up to her with the next attempts at requests, that was actually exactly what she told me she was doing, since apparently she was a last minute booking and wasn't being paid for it. So we left.

The disco, moderately busy. Yup.
The trip back to the flat took far too long, too, since we'd missed the last DLR in the hope of there still being something to dance to (sorry, guys), and the next due night bus didn't bother showing. That did give us time to make sure anyone leaving the ExCel found the right bus shelter, since the one nearest the exit had the night bus listed but wasn't an actual stop, as the people there before us had found out to their cost, but still. It wasn't quite how the night was supposed to end, and I still feel guilty for persuading tired friends to stay late in the misguided belief we would have fun.

I made it into the "We Can Rebuild You" panel the next day, which was a really interesting look at how disability is represented in fiction, although marred by the common problem of the audience questions actually being long comments instead. The "insight into editing for writers" panel later in the day was brilliant, though, and turned into a detailed, professional discussion of how to approach writing on multiple levels, and how to approach publishing short and long term too.

I also managed to be at the HarperVoyager stall in the dealers' hall at the perfect time, and got my fangirl hands on a proof, paperback copy of Robin Hobb's latest, Fool's Assassin. That quite literally made my day and nearly made me cry - I don't tend to buy hardbacks, so I was wondering how I was going to get my hands on a copy to read ASAP. And it improved when, with my friends' help, I managed to get it signed by the lady herself later on. That made Sunday pretty awesome. I caught Stephen Baxter too, having missed his signing previously, which meant I successfully got every one of the twelve books I'd taken down from York signed by their respective authors.

By Monday, the last day of Loncon, I was pretty much exhausted, so I saved my energy to make it to the last panel I really wanted: "Robin Hobb: When Assassins Didn't Need to be Hooded". I ran into a friend from NineWorlds who I'd kept seeing at all the creative writing panels, which made that panel even better.It was also delightful to listen to Patrick Rothfuss, Kate Elliott, and Kari Sperring gush and fan-flail over Robin Hobb. It's interesting, to me at least, to see who other authors enjoy reading, and look at how that influences their writing and reflects their tastes.

Our group reconvened, slowly, agreed we were collectively exhausted to the point of zombification, and cleared off to pack, eat, fit in one dazed game of Ticket To Ride, and sleep.

The trip home was an adventure all in itself, what with diverted buses, appallingly rude Londoners and drivers - and amazingly lovely, kind, and caring Londoners too, other con-goers at the train station, and something like 200 books between the five of us, but I'm pretty sure when we've recovered we'll all be quite happy we went. It wasn't as obviously diverse and openly welcoming as NineWorlds, but it was still a friendly, happy con overall, and there were a lot of people working extremely hard all over to keep things running well. With a little more co-operation and understanding from the ExCel staff (some of whom were superb and engaging and got into the spirit of things, to be fair) it would have been even better.

I have a problem.
Post-con book count: 69

Time in a Bottle plays, over both cons: 319

Con pair...

Today I'm sitting down, not leaving the house, and listening to old, old music I haven't heard in ten years and to which I still know all the words. My brain needs time to recover.

Because this weekend just gone, I was at Worldcon, aka Loncon3. (It's like the superhero of conventions. It has a secret identity and everything!)

The weekend before that, I was at NineWorlds, aka London Geekfest. (Sidekick? Villain? Or the real hero?)

In between, I stayed in London (I usually live in York) and did some other geeky things with friends, including Fantasy in the Court at Goldsboro Books, since a lot of the authors visiting for either or both the above cons were attending too.

So I've been on the go non stop for very nearly two weeks, not to mention the hurried costume-creation and book-sorting and room-booking beforehand.

Con-wise, I'm not a newbie anymore - among others, I've done DragonCon in Georgia the last seven years in a row (and will be sad to miss it this year) and did a lot of the smaller Showmasters cons back when Torchwood fandom was still alive. But I missed NineWorlds last year when it started, and I've never made it to Worldcon, so the individual characters and natures of these two were both new to me. I also usually hate interrupting, imposing, or generally initiating conversation with complete strangers who obviously have a hundred better things to do than talk to me, so I was a little nervous about it all.

NineWorlds first.

Con attendance: about 1700, I've heard.

Pre-con book count: 12

My con started early. I got the Megabus down to London (really not a bad way to travel cheap, especially if you book well in advance and mid-week) on Thursday, the day before NineWorlds started, read over 400 pages of Scott Lynch's Republic of Thieves on the coach down until I was dizzy and dazed when I had to work in reality again, and trekked with my little suitcase, backpack, and tote bag of books from King's Cross over to Heathrow. Outside Heathrow, about to tentatively get on a bus I hoped would take me to the right hotel, I spotted one of the other boarding passengers was wearing a Firefly t-shirt, as she spotted my NaNoWriMo shirt... So I took a deep breath, engaged Con Mode, and spoke to her. Turned out she'd been to NineWorlds the year before and knew the way, which bus stop to use, and how it all worked. We chatted, she led me in to registration, and I was and am endlessly grateful for the reassurance just when I needed it.

And thus NineWorlds started being awesome from the very beginning.

Registration was easy at that point - it being late in the evening (roadworks had delayed my bus/train combo journey so I was an hour later than expected) there was nobody queuing, but friendly faces waiting to welcome us anyway. And surprise goody bags were dished out with our con badges. I'm accustomed to the con booklet, the options of free samplers and advertising posters, and a nice lanyard, but I didn't expect to receive two full, gorgeous books just for turning up.

I think this is an accurate representation, but it's been two weeks now and I'm still dazed.
Other stuff in the bag included 5 "Awesome Cosplay!" tokens (an idea taken from Eastercon, they said), to be handed out to worthy cosplayers, with the note that if you acquired 15 or more you could claim a prize on the Sunday. This lifted my excitable cosplayer's heart in an instant, and had me going, "That's an awesome idea, why doesn't every con do that?"

Next to registration was a "Naming Desk", with a big pot of Sharpies of varying colours, where you wrote whatever name you wanted to wear for the weekend onto your badge, and could pick up extra helpful bits. There were pronoun badges - I seem to recall I saw "he/him", "she/her", "they/their", "zhe/hir" and a blank one to write any unrepresented preference on. I did the "why doesn't every con do that?" again at this point. And there were also "communication clips" - different colours to indicate different preferences. Blue meant "For whatever reason, I find initiating conversation difficult but am more than happy for you to talk to me" (though it wasn't quite phrased like that on some of the reminder posters dotted about the corridors, which I saw get altered during the con to draw closer to this definition). There was also yellow, for "If I already know you, you're welcome to talk to me", and red for "I don't want to/am not ready to talk to anyone right now".

I grabbed a blue and ran off to see what the late night welcome panels were like. And the blue clip came in handy almost immediately: I hadn't had a chance to cut my long silver wig into shape for Quicksilver cosplay yet, and when I slunk into the room, everyone was busily constructing things and chatting merrily among their friends, and I was overcome with that urge not to interrupt people busy with things much more important than my little problem. One of the women in charge of the get-together spotted me and my blue clip though, and came over to ask if she could help. And just like that, she got everything sorted, my wig was hacked down to a better length, and I got to be calm again.

I was BUSY.
On Friday, while dressed as a Vulcan, I made it to panels about editing, swordfight choreography for writers, mythology and fairytales, and "How To Write A Sex Scene" (heavens). Generally speaking, though, despite the pages of notes I took down, the panels themselves weren't Friday's highlights. Instead, I engaged Sociable!Lea as hard as possible and found myself talking to all sorts of people at all sorts of times (like the couple I ended up working with for the Sex Scene panel, and Andy the sweetheart in fabulous World of Warcraft armour), and even bumped into an old friend from the aforementioned Torchwood fandom, much to our mutual surprise and delight.

By the time the evening entertainment rolled around I had a lot of people to wave at and ask after specifics by sight, and a handful I could (and did) stop and talk to and lose an hour without noticing. I prowled the little dealers' hall (I'm used to DragonCon, so although it was varied and delightful and included at least three book stalls aside from the huge, magnificent, drool-worthy Forbidden Planet table all along the back wall, it still seemed small to me) extensively, chatted to vendors and attendees alike, complimented cosplay everywhere, bought books, got books signed (Jen Williams drew, or offered to draw, an adorable dragon in every copy of The Copper Promise brought to her, and Kate Griffin was sweet and seemed excited when I showed up with the very first book she had published some ten years ago, under a wholly different name), rocked out to a Queen tribute band, and danced my feet off at the 80s All-Cheese Disco. When I was leaving my accommodation the next morning, my host asked how Friday had been, and I found myself saying, with some surprise, that it was the best single day I'd had at a convention in years.

Saturday had a lot to live up to.

Panels included: writing Steampunk, creating fantasy languages (WOW, that one was intense! It was like the distilled version of a month long linguistics course, delivered at speed, with a side order of extra geek for the moments it touched on Klingon, Elvish, Circular Gallifreyan and others), and a "Beat Writer's Block" panel which was more like "Spark New Ideas" rather than "Finish Your Damn Story". I also got lots more books signed, including a couple for friends, hit up the dealers' hall some more (by which point I'd already got a reputation for book addiction at the Fox Spirit table), and found time to eat and read a little more of Republic of Thieves too.

All while dressed in full Quicksilver (with fixed wig, and the lovely lady who'd cut it did run in to me and see it in play, to her glee), belting "Time in a Bottle" from a hidden speaker (if you've seen Days of Future Past you'll understand why) and being stopped near constantly for photos and to be handed cosplay tokens. Even Elizabeth Bear gave me a cosplay token while I was getting her to sign books for me. So that was fun.


The evening entertainment for Saturday also included the Whedon singalong (I sat out for Once More With Feeling because I still haven't seen that episode yet). A couple of cosplayers who knew each other and were involved in the Whedon track were dressed as Doctor Horrible and Captain Hammer, so certain songs of that were acted out beautifully, too, right down to full on freezing in place for an entire song. That was well worth seeing.

And then there was the Queer Cabaret, which started off with poetry and music and comedy skits and built up to the most wonderful, lovely thing I feel privileged to have seen. I mean, really. It was just gorgeous. And the standing ovation was so well deserved.

Sunday morning, I dressed in hot pants and a safari shirt and a brown fedora, packed brown leather high heeled ankle boots into my day bag, and set off on the hour or so walk from accommodation to con. Ten minutes in, the heavens well and truly opened, and by the time I reached a point at which I could surrender and get a bus, I was soaked through, and my desperate attempts to shield my canvas bag with arms, hat, whatever (contents: card games! paperback book! notebook! business cards! paper programme!) were no longer stopping the torrent. By getting the bus, I did manage to guide two day-pass NineWorlders to the con, but it was too late for me. I had to stop by the loos to literally wring my clothes out a few times, switched shoes after drying my feet at the hand driers, and schlepped (coincidentally, also the noise I was making) over to the first panel I wanted - a repeat of a hugely popular one from the day before, a "Writing the Other" workshop with Stephanie Saulter.

So I sat there with all my stuff spread across table/floor/chairs to try and dry it out, and tried not to shiver too much while taking all my notes (notebook was shielded from the worst by the book, blessedly enclosed in plastic bag with remarkable foresight by my absent-minded self packing up that morning). I think I worried Stephanie a little. But it was still worth it! Discussion was interesting and insightful, and hopefully will be very useful for everything I'm continuing to write/edit at the moment/in the future. She was so good (and so nice) I went and bought her first book from the dealers' hall later on.

From there, though, I squelched down towards the steampunk room for a cool panel on "Female Characters in Steampunk", and ran into a couple of the friends I'd made, consistently running into one in writing panels, and generally talking to the other for hours non stop. They, lovely, lovely people, looked me up and down and went, "Our hotel room is a few doors down and there is a hairdryer. Come with us." Good move. I cannot recommend hairdryers highly enough for such moments. Although do try not to point them at any bag that contains chocolate or boiled sweets. I ended up dry and even passably warm before I dashed into steampunk, which is probably the reason I didn't end up exhausted and chilled and in danger of illness. That one, too, was worth it, since I then went off and bought Gail Carriger's book on the strength of her panel presence as well, especially since she was signing shortly after that, with Stephanie Saulter. I managed to fit in a quick trip to the info desk to turn in my stack of cosplay tokens for my prize, too, and immediately affixed the "Outstanding Cosplay!" badge to my shirt.

(Not pictured: the little bag of chocolate buttons also part of the prize, which were immediately devoured.)
I hit up one last writing panel on "How to Invent the Wheel", which was a very good discussion of how to consider the introduction of any technology (future, past, hypothetical) into your worldbuilding and properly deal with the consequences and the range of reactions. Fun stuff. And then I went and played some games for a little bit, to wind down before everything packed up and finished. I managed to squeeze in dinner when I ran into the lovely couple from the Sex Scene panel, and we decompressed a bit chatting together in the restaurant. Then, of course, I found a Cards Against Humanity game going on upstairs, shouldered my way in, and spent the next four or five hours there. Fortunately the wonderful hairdryer-lending people wandered in too, so I was able to give dry, grateful hugs before we parted ways.

One of the CAH players, who I'd run into a couple of times at various points throughout the weekend, persuaded me to stay another half an hour/hour or so when I declared time and got up, by offering me a lift back to my accommodation. Sunday, you see, exemplified NineWorlds, for me. It was full of wonderful, kind people, who were happy to help if they possibly could. It was a relaxed, happy crowd, occasionally vexed by hotel staff, full of praise for con staff, and excited, pleased, and welcoming for everyone else.

NineWorlds is possibly the single most friendly, inclusive con I've ever been to. More than inclusive, actually, but positive. Not queer or autistic or disabled or female or minority inclusive, queer/autistic/disabled/female/minority positive. It was a celebration of everyone who usually gets left out of things, a paean to difference, and uniqueness, and how simple it really can be to make things accessible and enjoyable for everyone. The gender neutral toilets on the third floor ("Toilets with urinals"/"Toilets with sanitary bins") and the variety of available pronoun badges instantly signified that this was a safe space for anyone not covered by binary gender. I saw panelists introduced with their name and preferred pronouns, attack ships on fire off the... wait, this has turned into something else. Better stop before it heads into all those cons, lost... like tears...

Anyway. Yes. NineWorlds. NineWorlds delighted me. It reminded me what my first few cons were like. All hope and joy and geeky excitement, with very little negativity around. I only hope it can maintain it as it continues and grows.

I could hardly bear to take off my lanyard. And I kept that Outstanding Cosplay badge on for another week.

Post-con book count: 26

Wednesday 28 May 2014

A Pleasant Surprise

Hi there, been a while. A pretty busy while, as it happens. Done lots of proofreading for friends, a lot more running around and helping/cleaning/tidying for friends (and me), and not nearly enough writing. In fact, after some discussion with a couple of folks, I'm halfway through a blogpost about writer's block.

But that'll have to wait another day or two.

Back in February, my very first post on this blog included a short list of stuff I needed to get done. I actually managed all of them. And Hanith, that very first short story I submitted to the British Fantasy Society journal, has now been accepted for publication.

It'll be a while before it makes it into the wild, but I've had a little contact with the folks who run the journal, and they all seem lovely, so I can't imagine it'll go wrong at this point.

So there we go. Step one, achieved. Step two, get another one (or Dryden) out there.

All cool, yeah, nothing to see here. Totally composed and professional, that's me.


Thursday 17 April 2014

Food for thought

Today I made it to see my lovely aunt, as I mentioned I'd be trying to while down here. We had a great time, talking for probably far too long about a surprisingly wide range of things. She's a bit of a gourmet chef (this is an understatement) so given my tentative inching into that Actual Cooking stuff we ended up talking food for quite a while, and she persuaded me to try some new cheeses and crackers. I seem to be surrounded by people who know what they're doing with food and are eager to take me up on my promise to "try anything once". I don't regret it yet...

Among the food discussion, a couple of books came up - Elizabeth David's works, which sound half cookery book, half food history and exploration of why and how regional dishes came about, due to sources of food and so on. I (as you see) whipped out my ever-present notebook and took down the name, because one area where I am very aware I am lacking in worldbuilding is food. I'm really bad at including meals at all when writing, because I don't know enough about what's available in what sort of climate, at what level of technology and civilisation. And I do rather need to include at least fleeting mention of meals when I write so many important Round The Campfire scenes. But I get lost in clickbait when I try to do vague internet research around that, and end up briefly extremely informed about the spice trails through the Middle East and not very informed at all about pre-potato British cuisine. Or pre-British potato-based cuisine, for a little continental diversity.

Anyway, I have a name and a few titles and hopefully that sort of focused attack will help. In the meantime I'll have to reread Ray Mears and make do for the moment.

Ah, the troublesome life of a writer. Nothing escapes scrutiny, to add depth to the next book.

The best kind of nitpicking

I am dangerous to things I love. The more I love a film, TV show, or book, the closer I'll be looking for flaws. There's lots of reasons for that; it means I can defend it better when someone (if we could all just take one concerted look at my brother at this point, that'd be great) inevitably tells me it's rubbish because this... It also means I get to pry open its narrative ribcage and have a poke around at the little problems inside. In the good old days this meant an awful lot of fanfiction to fix the plotholes and the dodgy characterisation and the glossed-over developments. These days it tends to mean I prod one tiny little aspect that doesn't quite sit right (this female character is irritating because with her background she should clearly have reacted in this way... this scene is great on the action but they should have escaped using this clever method... this male character has completely changed his attitude for plot's sake and obviously this must have happened offscreen to make that work...) and unspool a whole new idea from it. Switch up the setting and the surrounding plot and boom, future project.

That's how Hanith started life in entirety, after all. And it's where a lot of bits and pieces in most everything else came from. I tinker. I try to fix things.

This does mean watching films/TV with me has become, occasionally, a little tiring, I'm sure. If talking is permitted (never with my brother, usually not if I'm watching something for the first time, definitely not if I'm watching something for the first time and am desperately interested in it - this is partly why I try very hard to see everything I want in the cinema, so there's no chatter and missed dialogue if it's all new) then I have a tendency to point out these little flaws and discuss with whoever's watching with me. (Oh dear heavens, the ecosystems in My Little Pony, the briefings in the waiting room of Quantum Leap, the skeevy morality and ethics and potentials of the technology in Dollhouse...) And I have definitely got worse at that after hanging around with far too many people (you know who you are) who do the same, profess not to mind, or actively encourage it.

In totally unrelated news (honest, really... No, I didn't think you were going to fall for that) my friend down here in Cambridge and I watched X-Men: First Class this evening. Oh, my love for X-Men knows no bounds. It's just such a beautiful setup, to enable so much fun and such variety among your characters. I'm sure it had quite some influence on the fantasy world I created with twenty magics. (Really, precisely. I can probably still reel off the list. At some point I will go back to that and rewrite the plot and characters with the benefit of a dozen more years' writing and some nice clear hindsight.) I've always liked that kind of smorgasbord of power. A huge ensemble with different abilities, and the real fun kicks off when you team up unexpected combinations. It's just glorious, and I will forever, eternally, be distraught that I didn't come up with it first.

I do love Marvel for that. The films are doing a grand job of taking lots of different characters with defined skills, and smashing them together in fits of glee and beautifully CGI-ed explorations of how they can bounce off each other. Sometimes literally.

You go, Black Widow, illustrate my point.

That's definitely one thing I try to stick to in my writing - people have different abilities, and they work together in different ways. I am long, long past the days of the single overpowered has-every-skill-and-every-power-available characters. Power down and partner up, my dears. Even Dryden, ridiculously powerful as he is, needs other people to do what they're good at.

Anyway, yes. That's the thread I pulled most happily from X-Men. Power team-ups are just plain fun and there should always be more of them.

So, next time you see me apparently tearing something to pieces over a small flaw, bear in mind it probably means I love said thing to pieces, and am trying to dissect its problem so I can fix it forever. Or at the very least pull out its still beating heart and transplant it into something new and wonderful, to live on in a glorious, beautiful new form, with stitches around the forehead and bolts in the neck and that pure, perfect core hidden safely away inside.

Because I love it. So I will preserve it and pass it on.

Friday 11 April 2014

Assume the Perpendicular

We'll walk the grounds, of Capability Brown...

Anyway, enough Divine Comedy. The friends I'm helping in Cambridge and I went out today, to Wimpole Estate - which I am just this minute discovering apparently has geocaching spots, gosh darnit. Oh well. There was a kids' Easter Egg Trail, which was amusing and got us to meander around the gardens well enough, before rewarding us with a chocolate egg (since my friend was generous enough to buy the official trail guides, which resulted in prizes). And we went up to the farm area and saw all the cute fluffy little baby things, which they both delighted in, and a couple of absolutely flippin' huge Shire Horses, which I sighed over. Pure research, honest. It's not just that I want a giant horse. Really. Promise.

And of course, as happens everywhere I go (I am not kidding; I have managed this in multiple supermarkets), I found some secondhand books for sale. So naturally I rescued a Ben Aaronovitch and a Harry Turtledove from the tables by the exit.

Wheelchairs, however, do not go entirely happily with pine-needle-and-bark-shaving paths, especially when on a slight but persistent incline. My back is a little twitchy and I am rather tired, so I haven't got anything written or read today and it's definitely past my bedtime while I'm writing this.

Daisy sent me an invite to a game called Storium, though, which looks interesting and still has over three weeks left on the Kickstarter - looks like it's going to be a subscription service, to a certain degree, but so far from my little poke around to get set up and join Daisy, it also looks very tempting... Sort of an odd combination of play-by-post forum roleplays like I used to do constantly, and touches of co-operative board games with cards to play and scenarios to overcome. Plus I noticed a lot of familiar names (I'm spying on far too many authors via Twitter) on the list of people they've got doing some worldbuilding for them. So that's pretty darn cool.

I even got the washing up done.

Wednesday 9 April 2014

My brain is tired

In amongst all the cleaning, tidying, washing up, etc etc today, I managed to read the first 100 pages of Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, nominee for the Clarke Award in May. I've been seeing a lot about this one here and there, since Orbit decided to pair it with Rachel Aaron/Bach's Paradox trilogy for promotional stuff at one point. Lots of the "If you like that, try this" approach, I seem to recall. And then of course it was nominated for the Clarke Award, and it's an oddball, so it's caught a lot of attention. So I'm going in with that kind of bias, and a handful of non-spoilery reviews.

So far, there's a lot of squabbling going on in my head, between writer-me, reader-me, and LGBT/feminist-conscious-me. Between my many mes, I'm pretty sure I'm arguing both sides and the middle. I foresee another far-too-in-depth-and-yet-no-plot-spoilers sort of half review, half analysis in the future. Sorry about that. But I've got another 286 pages to go, yet. That might all change.

Four of the five other nominees arrived at the library back in York, too, today, which is a little frustrating as they'll only keep them reserved in my name for so long, and I am, naturally, in Cambridge until just after the deadline. I was hoping they'd turn up before I came down here, so I wouldn't lose two weeks of reading/reviewing, but oh well. I'm sure I'll work something out.

Anyway. People other than me tried the mini carrot cakes today and declared them tasty, so I'm quite pleased there. If I can work out cooking time, perhaps I can do a full scale one and distribute the icing more evenly that way, because whoa, these things are loaded with the stuff as it stands now. Not that I'm complaining, you understand.

I also ate spinach today for what I'm pretty sure is the first time ever, and it evidently hasn't poisoned me, so that's a plus too.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Weary traveller

I managed to get almost everything done that I'd had in mind today, and since that included the two-and-a-half hour drive down to Cambridge to help out a friend, that seems good enough. And I'm sort of in the process of arranging a brief visit with my aunt, since it's been far too long since I last saw her.

Not a lot of writing, though - the drive was tiring and time on both ends was mostly occupied with cleaning and tidying and packing. I did listen to the first half of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds in the car though, and now clearly need to go back and slip a couple of references to that into Dryden. Very easily done.

Otherwise, sort of stalled and tired and in that stare-at-the-page-and-hope-words-happen sort of state. It's always annoying when that happens, but it's worse when I know what needs to happen next, it's just that fingers and brain can't even seem to form the concept of words, never mind find the right ones to put down. So I'm going to sleep, and try again tomorrow when I have more brainpower and time.

Monday 7 April 2014

Make my cake and eat it

I finally got round to making those mini carrot cakes I've been meaning to do for a couple of weeks now, today. And oh my, they turned out tasty. They're a bit slapdash and flung together with hope rather than technique, but the cream cheese icing I added (from a different recipe) worked out all right. They taste, in fact, like cafe cake. But minus those pesky chewy walnut bits people keep insisting on ruining good carrot cakes with. And the process of making them has revealed exactly why it is that carrot cake is often my favourite cake, surpassing even chocolate at times. There's cinnamon and dried fruit in the cake mix, and vanilla and cream cheese in the icing. It's like they came up with the perfect cake just for me.

I should probably segue into some deep thoughts about the perfect ingredients in storytelling and how there are some stories I'm always going to like if they have these key four elements in them, but it's late and I am tired after two rounds of washing up and a slight tidying spree to boot, and I have a long journey ahead of me tomorrow.

Really, I should try and figure out some way of writing in the car. It sort of feels like the hours on the road are wasted. As hard as I try to cling to the conversations and plot points I come up with on the way, my brain is always so focused on driving that everything else just slips away by the time I arrive. At best I remember the one key plot twist that made me laugh for twenty miles. I suppose it does filter things down to the really important, memorable bits, though. Better than nothing.

Sunday 6 April 2014

Back by popular demand

You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few days. Interestingly, I've had complaints about that. I was expecting complaints about the excessive chatter, not the lack of it. Oh well.

So, quick refresh: the daily posts were part of an intent to focus on the happy, good things in each day and try to stay positive. You can draw your own conclusions from the lack of posts, I suppose.

Despite that, there were actually quite a few good things over the last few days. I helped a friend plan a complicated cosplay on Wednesday, and received art (and random little presents too, which was so sweet) from my friend Cally. She drew me a dragon for the new pen name, and named her, naturally, Leaf Pendragon. Ah, the puns. I should've thought of that one. Leaf's now the background of my Twitter page. I'm still playing with settings to work out if I can get her onto the background of the blog too, and keep everything legible. She's a pretty thing, though, you have to admit.

I also got some more feedback on Dryden version whatever it is at this point, and more again on Thursday. I was getting very lost in attempts to rewrite, second (and third, and fourth) guessing myself at every turn, certain of some problems and hating other bits but not sure if that was just me or if they actually needed work. Hearing back from my readers settles that - even if I disagree with the odd comment, it still solidifies what I have to do to make progress. It clarifies matters, and reassures me that there's something worth saving in the draft.

There was also the NaNoWriMo group chat on Thursday night, which meant I got a little writing done. Hanith again, poor lad.

On Friday I made it into town to pick up the latest Loki: Agent of Asgard comic, because Loki. It did make me laugh like a drain, too.

Saturday included a trip to the cinema to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier for the second time... So I really can't complain about that. I even managed to do almost all the dishes and cook again, afterwards.

Today was monthly NaNo in-person meetup, too, so I spent the afternoon hanging out with half a dozen other writers, generally geeking out, chatting, and keeping up to date with everybody's plans and current writing status. It's nice, though this particular meet did leave me more exhausted than usual. I think I'm still not quite entirely recovered from the troubles of Tuesday through Thursday. Remember I mentioned how the food and the happy overlap a lot? This does mean that lack of happy equals lack of food, especially if I'm feeling guilty. That in turn slows me down for a while, which does mean a much lesser chance of sparking off further guilt-inducing incidents, but also means it's difficult to get back up to doing a full day of normal stuff without ending up utterly shattered at the end of it.

Oh well. The delays in getting round to actually writing Dryden 2: The Second One have meant that the plot is getting longer, more in depth, and crueller with every passing day. Shame it all makes sense and follows on from the chaos of the first book. My poor characters. They did so little to deserve this.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Honour's Knight (spoiler free)

(Yes, that is the American cover, but so was the copy I read, so shush.)

Book: Honour's Knight (Book 2 of the Paradox trilogy)
Author: Rachel Bach (Rachel Aaron in disguise! Also, @Rachel_Aaron on Twitter)

Okay, this is BOOK TWO. Are we clear on that? I've tried not to include spoilers for either book one or two, and though that's quite tricky I think we're all clear. I've checked through a couple of times. This is a long post though, so if you're short on time or interest you can scroll to the bottom. I've highlighted in bold the point at which I stop babbling excitedly and summarise basic book thoughts. Otherwise, here we go.

In the interests of not spoiling book one for any of my fellow spoilerphobes, the summary for Honour's Knight shall be merely the tag-lines, not the blurb:

Devi Morris has a lot of problems. And not the the fun easy-to-shoot kind either.

Like the sound of that? Here's a little more depth:

Deviana Morris is a kickass mercenary in the far-flung gloriously space-opera future, with enough burning ambition to set the whole universe on fire and a keen awareness that life as a mercenary means she probably doesn't have much time to fulfill those ambitions. So she'll take any chance she can to get herself boosted up the career ladder into the prestigious (and dangerous) job she's really after - joining the Devastators, the most elite fighting unit in all of the colony worlds.

So a year's contract on the Glorious Fool - a ship so dangerous it's said to be cursed - seems like the perfect way to get noticed.

The Fool's crew are all oddballs; aliens and psychics and mysterious men with deep dark secrets. Devi tries to be a dutiful security guard and not dig into what doesn't concern her, far more interested in her honour and ambition than with other people's secrets, but it's another matter when those secrets start putting the lives of everyone on the ship at risk. Then things really get rolling and it's more than just the ship at risk.

While all this is going on, Devi still manages to find time to fall in love. But even that isn't simple or safe.


So. That's how it all starts.

Book One, Fortune's Pawn, crackled through some rip-roaring action sequences and steadily ramped up through small scale character development to uncovering big mysteries and taking on huge conspiracies with very little chance to stop for breath. And then it ended on a cliffhanger.

Honour's Knight opens with a prologue which is frankly horrifying, and then steps straight back in where we left off in Fortune's Pawn.

There's a helpful recap of what happened in the climax of book one, which essentially adds up to "spot the bullet holes". Reading through it elicited a lot of, "Oh, yeah, that got shot too, didn't it?" but worked very well to orientate me again, since it had been a couple of months since I read the first. Throughout the book there are a few neat recaps like this one, which is very useful, because there's a lot going on. Fortunately for us, Rachel Bach can handle the doling out of information very well, so we're never truly at sea even in flurries of double crosses, backstabbings, ulterior motives, and huge, epic, universe-sized long-term goals.

The stakes are raised again and again - every time you think things can't get more overwhelming, they do, and with a whole book left to go I have the feeling it's not even maxed out yet. This isn't done arbitrarily, though, but in keeping with everything we know, and everything we find out with Devi. The background and the worldbuilding (although worldbuilding seems too small a word for the whole universe and multiple alien species and cultures) are consistent throughout, and gain depth as we go along. All this information gets filtered through Devi's first-person narration, and while she is very intelligent she's also not a scientist, so things are translated through her understanding, without jargon or too much dwelling on intricacies for an action adventure. Generally we get everything we need to know delivered to us in a quick, clear way, so we can move on to the plot and the fight scenes.

If you do get lost, there are still those regular, crisp updates on the current situation. Devi, after all, is a soldier, so it makes perfect sense for her to be evaluating her position and considering her options and counting up her advantages whenever the ground shifts under her feet yet again. A helpful writing tactic and a nice bit of characterisation, solidly defining Devi as capable and resourceful, all in one.

And the ground shifts under Devi a lot in this one. Everybody around her (not excluding Devi, either) has their own motivation and plans, which means alliances shift and unlikely teams crop up as everybody tries to get what they want and different people's methods and aims temporarily align. This certainly keeps you on your toes when reading - as soon as you start thinking you know who are "the good guys" or "the bad guys" everything switches up again, someone else's backstory and primary motivations are revealed, and you'll find yourself on their side too.

All the major characters, then - and it's an expanding cast - are more complex than they first appear, and they all stay true to their driving forces. None of them conveniently forget what they're after to hurry the plot along. Most everyone gets pushed to their limits in this book, and it's their deepest beliefs and varying moralities that come into play, usually in completely unexpected ways.

For anyone who's read Rachel Bach's previous series (The Legend of Eli Monpress, written as Rachel Aaron - and delightful they are too) this moral murk is quite different to Eli's much clearer-cut villains. In those there was a definitive Great Evil to be fought, and some pretty clear, uncompromising definitions of what was right and wrong, usually from the dutiful Miranda. There were still characters and situations set up to explore the limits of what could be done "for the greater good", but they were resolved quite clearly one way or another.

Here, though, allies and organisations are clashing over pretty much every single issue that comes up, and even Devi with her high concepts of honour and duty has trouble arguing for moral absolutes. And there are consequences when everyone takes too long fighting over what to do next, and often worse consequences when they don't, and simply take the course of action that seems best at first, but naturally has hidden problems and unpredictable results. There's a pretty impressive body count as a result, even for books focusing on a mercenary in a high tech weaponised suit of armour dealing with forces so powerful the Death Star starts to look tame in comparison.

This also means virtually nobody comes out of this squeaky clean. Even the people trying to do the right thing don't always know what the right thing is, and most of those who think they do are happy to overlook a little collateral damage to get their way. Sometimes a lot of collateral damage. It makes for interesting reading, and it's intriguing to consider all the current options open to the characters and try to work out where things are going for book three. My money, actually, is on an entirely different option to everything that's been considered or put forward already. Something that will make readers and characters alike slap their foreheads and wonder how they managed to miss that idea when everything we needed to come up with it was laid out in all the laws of the setting and the characters' own ideals and moral codes.

That does seem to be a recurring feature of Rachel Aaron/Bach's writing, after all. There's always one more twist that she manages to keep very well masked in the build up. I was delighted with that in her Eli books, and it's come up already by the end of Honour's Knight, so I have high hopes. I like surprises.

A couple of asides, from personal interest:

One of the aspects of sci-fi and fantasy I'm particularly interested in at the moment is the portrayal of gender and LGBT+ elements. In the universe Rachel Bach has created in these books, humanity has colonised so many worlds that separate human cultures have a lot of differing technology as well as values, and there's a certain amount of culture clash and xenophobia among "Terrans" and "Paradoxians" and their various colony worlds.

And then there are multiple alien species: lizard-like xith'cal (purported to enslave and eat humans), an avian, peaceful species called aeons, and the lelgis, who generally keep to themselves and don't interact with humanity. These are introduced and explored through Devi, bringing up her preconceptions and contrasting those with other viewpoints and clearer facts about each species.

I found it intriguing that in exploring both xith'cal and aeons, gender came up as an issue. Both species are presented with a defined gender binary (clear cut male/female) and resulting roles and customs within the (fairly homogenous, it would seem) flock/hive cultures, but this fact is brought up by encountering members of each race who are gender nonconforming. This comes along with some issues about individuality and personal choices and freedom to be yourself, which ties in with... well, with everything.

Focusing on Devi herself for that, she is a soldier, trained and honour-bound to follow orders, not to think too much for herself, who now has to figure out where she stands and take the lead. She's also a tough-as-nails fighter, boiling with anger and aggression and a habit of shooting her problems. She sleeps with whoever she wants, and drinks and works out for fun. These stereotypically male character traits bring up gender nonconformity for her too - although most of the human civilisations seem to be fairly equal, there are clearly still prejudices and assumptions all over the place, cropping up in her interactions with anyone off the ship, especially if she's not wearing her armour, and even insidiously slipping into her own thoughts. When she makes an assumption about the gender of aeons she encounters based on their appearance and behaviour, a whole background of cultural norms has to lie behind that. This far-future still has issues of sexism and gender bias. Which is a little sad.

(As a small note, I was slightly sad that there isn't more outright gender equality or diversity visible among the human colonies, considering it comes up so clearly as a problem in the alien cultures. But we can't have everything, and I will gladly and gleefully settle (oh, the hardship) for a capable, rounded, intelligent, powerful female lead for now.)

Anyway, yes. The individuality idea. Devi's clearly had to fight (and fight, and fight, and fight) to carve out her own niche, to be more than just a cog in a machine. At the start of book one, we find she's willing to take a lot of risks to be who she wants to be - she's already quit, abruptly, a job everybody else thinks she should stick with, because she can't see how staying there any longer will let her be the person she should. Personal choice is raised again and again within the plot, and reinforced in so many of the characters' backgrounds that it does seem to be a running theme. The clustering and hive-mind examples cropping up are extremely plot-relevant, too, so I won't say too much more, though there's a lot of nice mirroring going on, where a major large scaled plot point is similar to a small issue raised and dealt with already. I can see a few ways this could pan out in book three, so I'm looking forward to seeing if I'm right there.

Okay, that got quite long and involved. Here's your TL;DR:

Basically, I really enjoyed this. It develops everything from the first book, without lagging or slowing the pace at all. In fact it speeds up. One problem is solved and another three are piled on. There's potential peril, mild peril, extreme peril, then oh-dear-heavens-everybody's-going-to-die-in-the-next-thirty-seconds-and-the-universe-is-doomed peril too, just when you thought you'd got extreme enough.

There are sci-fi in-jokes and references slipped sneakily in without in any way harming the plot or characters. The characters themselves are so well defined that sometimes they have a line that's just so perfect for them it's a delight to read - and wonderful to realise that we've been led to know these people well enough to spot that.

I am (clearly, she says, looking back up at the length of this rambling post) thoroughly invested in this universe and these characters, truly intrigued by the plot and eager to see where it's going, and very much looking forward to the finale in Heaven's Queen later this month.

There are still plenty of problems for Devi to shoot.

Monday 31 March 2014

I babble, because I care

Today I got quite a bit of necessary stuff done, including feeding my car and myself, and foraging successfully for food in the wilds of the supermarket.

I finally started watching season two of Dollhouse, which I never did quite get round to before. At the moment I'm consumed with horror... at the different hairstyles...

And I almost finished the Honour's Knight review, though it's now over 1200 words and I should probably run it past someone else who's read the books to make sure it's not inadvertently spoilery. But I am having far too much fun doing odd sci-fi lit-crit writing analysis on it. I should probably tone that down a little too.

I can't help it; when I find an author doing something well, I want to pluck it out and show it to everyone and go, "Look! See! This is how you do exposition! Just like this!" And then I get so wrapped up in that I forget what my original point was.

This is why a lot of the time I don't mind that whole "reading as a writer" thing. Sure, half the time it means I go, "Oho, blatant foreshadowing, therefore this is about to happen", but sometimes it means I stop halfway through a book and just blink at the page, going, "Wait... you just... you set that up, and it fits in perfectly, and you haven't compromised anything else to get to it. That is a piece of art right there."

Basically, I get to see when writers are trying really hard and putting in the thought and the effort, and I really appreciate it. And I want everyone to. I want people to go flocking back to the author and go, "This bit! This bit must have taken ages to get right. We are grateful for your time and for the fact that you worked hard so that this particular little bit would be a joy to read. We know you did more than just phone it in. We see how much you cared. Thank you."

Maybe I won't cut too much from the review/art essay after all.

Sunday 30 March 2014

Surprisingly relaxed

Today I did such things as sort out recycling, some housework, the washing up, tidying, and various other bits and pieces. I wrote stuff (poor Hanith and Irin) and maintained the calorie counting thing and entertained the cats.

I also spent most of the day, really, reading Honour's Knight by Rachel Bach, taking my sweet, sweet time over it, and finished it.

Then I spent most of the rest of the day working out the key points I want to cover in the review post. So that should be tomorrow. Unless I get completely sidetracked by... oh, I don't know, making mini carrot cakes or something. Hm, sounds like a plan.

Aside from the small amount of plotting for Dryden's sequel (with a side order of mad cackling for the new horrors Sarah helped me come up with for those long-suffering characters) that's pretty much today. Read a book, relaxed, got little things done. Feels like achievements. No complaints here. (EDIT: Also, laughed like a drain at the first couple of episodes of Helix; the musical choices are superb.)

I did have an invite to go round to friends', but didn't go, for once. Part laziness, part book, part today was Mother's Day here in the UK and I sort of wanted to stay indoors and avoid all mention of that this year. Normally at this point I'd be starting to get anxious and worried that I'd offended people and would never ever ever get asked to hang out again and oh dear gods I should have gone what was I thinking... but today, actually, I seem to be not doing that. These are, after all, the same friends who forgave me so readily when I was an hour and a half late getting to theirs last week, and I have no reason not to believe them when they said it's fine. It's kind of relaxing to not be worrying about that for a change.

There, feels like another achievement. Not too shabby.

Saturday 29 March 2014

Incidentally, I drink like a camel.

I did a lot of tidying and cleaning today, which has helped since the cats are determined to shed everywhere at the moment. Particularly in my face, whilst purring. This is adorable, but did actually get past the antihistamines and start to cause breathing issues earlier, so the sweeping up and binning of large amounts of cat fur is not entirely altruistic or just for appearances...

Other than that I was split between writing more Hanith (hurrah, Hanith and his healthy, healthy relationship. It makes such a nice change from Dryden) and reading Honour's Knight by Rachel Bach.

Basically, I want to go to bed now so that it's tomorrow and I'll have the time and energy to write a proper squeeful review of it. In summary: FUN. (Also packs emotional punch. But still. FUN.)

Oh, and I've been trying to drink more, in an effort to eat less, stay better hydrated, be a little healthier etc etc etc. I really don't know how people manage to drink the supposed recommended 8-cups-a-day allowance, never mind folks who go for the weird calculations where it ends up saying 12 cups or more as a daily dose. I'm only just keeping up with my self-imposed lower limit of about 6 cups. And I feel sloshy. I'm used to getting by on two or three...

Anyway. Progress is maintained. Not bad.

(Also, my friend Sarah is absolutely amazing at reading my stuff and pointing out the very simple, very twisted, very perfect thing that I should clearly have written in and somehow managed to miss. It's amazing. Every single time, she reads through, and comes back with, "Ooh, and then this?" and I am left sitting here going, "How did I not think of that? Yes ma'am, writing it this instant!" She just did it again to Tick Tock, and now clearly I have lots of revisions and a possible sequel or epilogue to do when it gets rejected and I want to submit it somewhere new.)

Friday 28 March 2014

40 days: halfway. Score!

Another writing day, though interrupted by pestering cats who decided that I had much better things to be doing, like stroking them for an hour or so. They are incredibly cute, though, and it's still such a nice change to be able to touch them and not stop breathing in response (all hail antihistamines) that I can't resist.

Did a couple of little bits around the house again, including clearing as much space for Dance Central as I'm able to without getting into stuff that I really don't want to be putting in the wrong place. And Daisy has talked me into calorie counting as well to try and get back into our good clothes (and cosplay, over here). So far so good, helped by the portions of homemade meals I still had left. I am rather competitive, which is keeping me from devouring (at least all in one go) the wonderful stash of chocolate I've still got from the Christmas sales...

I swear I wasn't this food obsessed before I started a) cooking, or b) writing these blog posts. But it's actually a very good thing, honestly. One of my clearest warning signs of dipping back into the self-hatred and the dark spirals is when I have no interest in food and stop eating. Which in turn, due to lack of energy and the side effects of hunger, spirals me down further. So focusing on happy and focusing on food actually overlap much more on the Venn diagram than you might expect.

Anyway. Other stuff.

Claire tidied up her next Lavendar short story, we discussed one of the finer points on Twitter for a bit, I fired it at a couple of lovely, obliging friends who were able to give it a quick read and answer a single question for her. (They both enjoyed it, too. I do have awesome friends.)

So yes, you should probably go read the story: here.

(And the first one is here if you didn't get to that before. Tut tut!)

Thursday 27 March 2014

Prose in motion

Quiet day after all the Marvel excitement, today. Read all the comics I borrowed, so I can give them back next time. Managed a couple of little bits and pieces around the house, including starting on clearing some space for Dance Central to happen. Soon...
A couple of things are in motion, and indeed in the post, winging their ways to me to remind me that people are amazing sometimes, and exceptionally kind and generous. More on those when they arrive.

Otherwise I generally fell into writing and got stuck all day. The current Hanith short story has more than doubled in length today, and thoroughly distracted me from everyone else. Poor Dryden isn't getting a look in at all at the moment.

What happened there is that I drew up a week plan and assigned one short story idea to each day. When I immediately went, "Damn, I'm looking forward to Friday," that clarified which short story I should obviously be writing next, so out went the plan and in came Hanith. I've even managed to hit the point where I can actually write, where I stop hunting for precisely the right word and put in info-dump filler for now. It's a point where I know what information my characters need to convey but phrasing it in a pretty way is going to take far too long, so they just get on with it and say it.

Ie, first draft. Though it's surprising how much of that kind of blunt, straight-to-the-point dialogue ends up staying, actually. Often it just works, and you don't need the prettification you think you do. People are blunt sometimes, especially when they're tired or stressed or angry or in pain, which characters in the middle of a medieval fantasy adventure usually are...

Wednesday 26 March 2014

Enthusiasm is infectious

I actually got in after midnight so am sneakily backdating this one because otherwise the list of my posts will skip a day and wind me up for eternity (perfectionist? Me? Never...) but let's stick with "today" terminology anyway:

I helped a few friends out today, with some driving, a ridiculous amount of overdone feedback for poor Claire's latest short story (from whom I fully expect absolute reams and essays of red text on whatever I send her next which will be really helpful and is definitely not at all an ulterior motive at play), and some more driving - in which I transported Enthusiastic Geeky Friend to the cinema and in return she provided tickets.

To see Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Be still my little Marvel fangirl heart.

There was much geeking, and lending of Hawkguy comics, and trailers for Amazing Spiderman 2, and Guardians of the Galaxy (oh, so very pretty on the big screen), and an X-Men Days of Future Past trailer I had not already seen (I adore X-Men. It rivals Loki for getting my instant attention. So this made me flap about in joy while she flapped about for Guardians of the Galaxy, and everyone was happy).

And, you know, Winter Soldier.

We asked, but they wouldn't let her have the giant Black Widow wall hanging. And they wouldn't let me have the huge reversible cardboard stand of Professor X and Magneto. Boo. But oh well, saves us trying to find space to display them properly.

So generally a rather Marvelous evening, aha. (I'm sorry, that was terrible and entirely predictable and I feel very little shame for it.) And I got home gone midnight, since we, as usual, spent at least half an hour geeking out wildly and discussing at top speed everything Marvel related while I was parked in front of her house.

Basically, at this point in Marvel phase 3, I am left wondering why there's such a focus on origin stories (though I do love a good origin story) in other franchises, and say, constant rebooting of some superheroes so as to go over and over the origins until they become boring, when they could be moving on to the really fun stuff like Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 3, Winter Soldier...

Yes, it's fun. I was pleased. I will say no more.

Tuesday 25 March 2014

Geekery is the song of my people

I really do have awesome friends. I've been a little bit too sedentary and apt to eat for the sake of it recently, and it's starting to have an impact. So I figured I'd try to get back to something that actually helped and was fun; dancing. Sadly the specific sci-fi conventions I used to go to and dance till I dropped three nights in row have now stopped running, so I need a more local alternative.

By the power of friendship (which is magic, don't you know) I've now acquired a spare... well, everything, required to get Dance Central on the XBox 360 running in the living room. Circumstances have led to my lovely friends having even a spare console sitting quietly gathering dust, so I don't feel like I'm inconveniencing anyone or imposing too much (aside from the enforced trip to a storage unit today, wherein I pretty much appeared, grabbed one of them, and kidnapped him for the afternoon. Next time, remind me, I will simply arrive on the doorstep and intone, "Come with me if you want to live").

Hopefully, therefore, there'll be a bit more activity shortly, as soon as we've (me and Daisy, who's both kind enough to let me stay at hers, and also keen to get the dancing going) cleared space for the Kinect to work. I did enjoy the Kinect games a lot when I lived with said briefly-kidnapped-friend and we had space. I used to be quite good at them... We'll soon see if I've lost my touch completely.

Before I dashed round to their place to steal all their tech and run away laughing, I also made it back in to the charity bookshop where I worked up until last September. One of my friends who's still there had essentially summoned me via the arcane email ritual of "We've had a ton of Dragonlance donated, help", so I appeared to perform the solemn rites of "Here, they go in this order and you should put these ones out on the shelf first; they're the rarest, and oh, I'm just going to borrow this one for the moment and let you have it back later..."

So I've acquired another book to read. But it's all about Raistlin, and he's cut from the same cloth as Loki, Dryden, all the wicked, dangerous characters I like so much. So that pleases me a great deal.

Not that I have a type in fiction, or anything like that, oh no.

Also there was much flailing and geeking out, which always happens every time I see that friend. Her enthusiasm for everything is wonderful, if occasionally a little like being flattened under a landslide of excitement. It doesn't leave you room to be annoyed or upset by anything, because the only way to survive such wild delight is to go with it. It pushes you into the frame of mind where you want to give back the same level of glee, so suddenly you're focusing on all the. best. possible. things, and the happy spiral twists into the most excitable snake eating its own tail you've ever seen, and everything is a reminder of something else wonderful that must be shared right now until your face starts to hurt from grinning and you remember the parking's about to run out on the car and have to leave... on the third attempt, because each time there's just one more thing either of you absolutely must mention before you go.

It is exhausting, when I'm so out of practice at sustained excitement, but very, very entertaining. And has a tendency to gear me up to go and achieve something, hence the unexpected and most useful trip round to the others', with the bonus of lots of hugs and chat with my lovely people.

Anyway, when I got back in I settled down and beta-read a friend's 8000 word fic and returned it, as I promised I would. I seem to recall, actually, promising I'd do it yesterday, but yesterday ended up being weird and almost-migraine and I got practically nothing done, so we're all counting today as a success and not too late.

I've even got another short story from the writing group to read and critique tomorrow, so that'll be fun.

When I type it all out like that, it seems like a very productive day. Which is, after all, the point of these blog posts.

Now I'm going to go and write more Hanith, because Hanith is fun.

Monday 24 March 2014

Prep work

Today was slow to experience and quick to pass by. The little I got done was mostly invisible work; plots and plans and concepts coming together, deciding on a few important worldbuilding points for one novel and spotting a couple of flaws in another, realising the thing I want to write most at the moment is, helpfully, next in sequence for Hanith's short stories, getting scenes straight in my head.

It was hard work to get anything done aside from that. I got lost in plots for too long and ate and drank far too late as a result, so have had a headache most of the day, which in turn has prevented me from doing much else. I did manage to send my friend in the US (see yesterday) current completed short stories, though, and dealt with a necessary and very unpleasant family matter.

Oh, and there was the X-Men trailer, which warmed the cockles of my geeky heart. I am a shameless Marvel fangirl and rather looking forward to this.

Sunday 23 March 2014

As the tiger sang: That's what friends are for...

Today I was an hour and a half late meeting up with friends... Because the lovely people I'm living with happen to be epic, amazing board game geeks, and yesterday they acquired the latest expansion set for the game Sentinels of the Multiverse - which is a hilarious riff on classic comic book superheroes and villains, and a thoroughly enjoyable co-operative game too. So we started playing a game at 1pm, I needed to leave at 2pm at latest... I started to feel like maybe the game was taking a little too long shortly before we beat the scenario and wrapped it up, went off and checked the time... 3.20pm. Whoops! Fortunately my friends are lovely and understanding and most of them have played Sentinels before and know how absorbing it can be.

In any case, we made it out and about and tried a different restaurant to usual. Pulled pork all round, and much gossiping and silliness and relaxing in good company, so happy days.

I also managed to finally pull myself together and talk to one of my best friends in the world, who is insanely busy and lives in the US so has completely different time zones to me and we never get to meet up face to face. I miss her a lot, all the time, but I'm notoriously bad at keeping in touch and she, as I say, is ridiculously busy, so it's been a little while since last emails etc. I'm pleased I managed to get a little contact going again, and must try to email more often. My only resolution this year was to be better at keeping in touch (with a lot of people), and I've already let it slide too much.

I've been chatting to a couple of other friends on Skype as well, including my lone friend back in my hometown, who, similarly to my US friend, I don't talk to enough. Those two in particular always brighten my day. They somehow manage to settle some unstable part of me, even on the other side of a computer. I do get more anxious if I haven't talked to them in too long.

So generally today has been a day of my people, which is good and calming and helpful and fun. Tomorrow will be reading and writing again, and possibly even that weird cooking thing too...

Saturday 22 March 2014

To-do lists

Kitchen clean? Check.

Borrowed DVD watched? Check.

Gospel of Loki review done and posted? Check and check.

Not a bad day all round, there. And Joanne Harris remains utterly lovely on Twitter. I think all the authors I've met have been nice, all generally kind and appreciative of fans and readers, but at the moment Rachel Aaron and Joanne Harris are the most prominently sweet online (that I have seen). I appreciate the time they take to respond to people, and the effort they put into being helpful and generous and polite as much as is humanly possible.

If I ever do make it into the realms of having fans of my own, I will try to do the same.

Oh, and today is two weeks of Happy Things blog. The second week was a lot harder; a lot of things happened that made happy very, very hard indeed and which I'm still getting over, but aside from maybe one day I still haven't had any that were a total loss yet.

The Gospel of Loki (Spoiler free)


Book: The Gospel of Loki
Author: Joanne M. Harris (@joannechocolat on Twitter)

Let's start by admitting I do love a well-done villain. Take a look at any popcorn movie or blockbuster (especially the SF/F ones) and you should see why pretty quickly. The bad guys get the best outfits, the best music, the best snappy comebacks. I could do a whole post just analysing that (and probably will at some point, remind me).

My point is, I'm already very much inclined to enjoy an entertaining devil, whichever side they're on and whether they're guilt-ridden or utterly unrepentant.

I also love mythology. All of it. I have more volumes than I can count of myths from all over the world, and as a child I loved the Old Testament half of my Illustrated Children's Bible (fire and brimstone and stuff turning to snakes all over the shop! Awesome!). I loved the Tricksters in myth most, though. Coyote, Anansi, Crow, pretty much all of the Greek or Egyptian pantheons at some point or other, let's face it (tricky lot), and, of course, Loki. They were the ones who got the stories going, who triggered events and thought their way out, rather than those who fell victim to a villain and fought their way out.

Much to my delight, Joanne Harris takes this particular trait and amplifies it in The Gospel of Loki. She's added backstory and layers to a string of episodic myths, starting with the Norse creation myth and the rise of the gods, and formed a coherent arc from them. There are forces in the background pushing everything and everyone towards Ragnarok, the apocalypse described in the original sagas. But in the foreground, pretty much every individual episode is driven by Loki trying to get what he wants, whatever that currently is (excitement, revenge, power, acclaim, more revenge, more power), from the moment he sets foot in the world. The whole thing is narrated from Loki's point of view, though, in close first person, so while it's delightful to read a character with so much agency they drive the whole book on their own, we should probably add a pinch of salt when Loki takes the credit for every key event.

That being said, Loki makes for a wonderful narrator. We know he's biased from before the word go, since Harris includes a helpful cast list as part prologue, part teaser, and this is written in Loki's voice too, listing half the traditional Norse Gods as "Not a fan" of him, among less flattering descriptions. This sets the tone for the rest of the book. Everything gets filtered through Loki's sarcasm and utter disregard for the other gods. He's keenly aware of everybody's faults and eager to point them out, focusing on the petty side of the pantheon and casting most of the gods as little more than playground bullies with too much power. He admits his own flaws as well, albeit only to the reader, with a fleeting vulnerability precisely calculated to make us just that little bit more sympathetic to his view.

The comparisons with the current Marvel films version of Loki (praise be to Tom Hiddleston) are inevitable, but let's not forget that both of these modern, savvy, witty, anarchic, charming, frustrated, vengeful versions come from the same source material, so it's not surprising they're similar. Neither suffers from comparison to the other, though Harris's Loki is probably more immediately sympathetic to more people, since we spend 400 pages inside his head and know exactly why he does what he does.

Where Harris really impressed me, though, was in her worldbuilding. She combines classic Norse legends with additions of her own devising so well that aside from the stories I clearly remember and was pleased to spot, I couldn't differentiate everything with any certainty. I'm sure she's tricked me into thinking a couple of details in the book are from the original mythology when they're actually hers. I think this is a large part of what makes The Gospel of Loki so worthwhile - it's not just a retelling of myths you can find in a lot of other places. It's a story of its own, with enough new material (quite aside from the Loki spin on everything) to be fresh and fun even for people who know the original tales. If the overarching plot is too familiar for comfort to those versed in the myths, then the details (pet names for terrifying goddesses and demons, supposed etymologies of common words, catchy soundbites of sage advice from the Trickster himself) are enough to keep your attention.

I was also astonished at her treatment of the powers and magics of the gods and other races. In the myths, magic obeys whatever rules are necessary for the current story, and there is no particular clarity or continuity in most cases. Here, though, Harris has managed to clarify and codify the multitude of powers being flung around, and even conveys all of this to the reader without it becoming confusing or resorting to huge info-dumps to get the rules straight. As a reader, I found this a relaxing change from some of the heavier, determinedly intricate magic systems I've come across. As a writer, I'm determined to read this at least twice more and work out exactly how she did it. I particularly enjoyed the fun she clearly had with Loki's Aspects, which were handled so well as to make it look effortless.

What this boils down to is a vastly entertaining fantasy that thoroughly enjoys pointing out the ridiculous parts of mythology and manages to make you root for the Trickster all the way, however much you occasionally want to shake some sense into him. It definitely ticks the Charming Rogue box, which is always a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

It even has a pretty cover. What more could you ask for?