Monday 24 February 2014

Names will never hurt me

I'm not fond of my real name. Most of the time I forget I have it; I'll happily hold conversations with random strangers without ever introducing myself, and when they ask for my name I'll flounder for a minute and try to remember what it is. When "Your name on a ---" tawdry gifts are involved I tend to look at L before I look at G. I answer to my internet username more readily than the name my mother gave me. Someone using my full real name in conversation tends to throw me for a loop. (Or just make me cringe.)

So it's not really that surprising I'm going for a pseudonym, right? I mean, I don't want to get stuck signing a name I don't like, or grimacing if I see my work connected to it. It would seem counterproductive. I don't want to be downplaying any actual publication success I get just because it has my name unfortunately attached to it. "Yeah, that one's mine, just don't show me the name on the cover, okay?"

Lea Fletcher, on the other hand, I have been toying with using for six or seven years. I like it. I like the diminutive "Leaf" available, I like the connection to archery, I like that nobody's currently publishing under that name (someone who shares my real name has apparently published a couple of economics textbooks), I like the fewer letters, I like that it's closely linked to what I've been going by online for a decade - Lea and Lali works for me. I'll quite happily answer to it, and proudly point it out on the shelves or in magazines if I get the chance.

It doesn't seem to cause any complications when it comes to publishing, either. Copyright is simple enough, payment likewise, and I don't mind if my real name's in the small print. That's much less off-putting.

I expect a lot of people I know will tell me I shouldn't bother and should just use my real name anyway, not least since it would allow for old acquaintances from real life to see my work and buy for nostalgia value or to see if I turned out to be any good after all... But hey, if I'd got married it would be a different name and that effect wouldn't apply anyway. And I have every intention of spreading the word via Facebook and email and popping back to my old school to give my English teachers a copy if I ever do get out there. I'll make sure they know, if that happens. I don't need to use the old full name for that.

So when I submit Hanith to the British Fantasy Society this week, it'll be as Lea Fletcher. Because I have identity issues.

And I don't want my grandfather to find all my LGBT sword and sorcery and have a heart attack.

Sunday 23 February 2014

Time's a-wasting

Anyone who knows me in person will be able to tell you I do not eat well. Left to my own devices I have a tendency to eat the same thing for lunch every day, and alternate between a couple of easy meals for dinner. As in, four days of one thing, until the mince base is used up, then four days of another, likewise. Or maybe nothing, because the supermarket is all of five minutes' walk away and nothing really appeals.

So yesterday I used a recipe from my friend's mother, and chopped onions and garlic and aubergines, and prepared two different components and added spices and flavouring and made actual proper food, which may even be good (or better, at least) for me. My body counts itself lucky if it gets five a week, never mind five a day, so this is an improvement.

It took a couple of hours to prepare and cook, what with me having to double check the recipe constantly, and discovering how to chop onions and so on. And it was very tasty.

And I spent the whole time thinking "I wish I were writing". Even the time I spent eating the darn thing, I was thinking of the line I need to put into current draft of Dryden (almost finished, huzzah) to fix a potential plothole.

It's sort of nice, to be so consumed by it again, when six months ago I threw the whole lot in and swore never again. But I should probably be able to think about other stuff, like paying work or this silly proofreading exam...

This happens a lot. I feel like I'm wasting time almost all the time. And that puts unnecessary extra pressure on me, which doesn't help when I do sit down to write.

So I should probably go do that proofreading thing, since there's a time limit on that and I can feel it hovering in the back of my mind...

Friday 14 February 2014

Immortality (after a fashion)

So this is a thing that happens when I write: the nearer I get to the end of any project, the slower I go. It's an exponential and irritating decrease. I go from an easy 5000 a day at the start to a clawed and desperate 200 words if I'm lucky, in between bouts of staring at an unchanging screen. There's not even enough distraction on the internet to justify the levels of avoidance I get to. And don't get me started on the sudden upsurge of urgent real life errands that absolutely must be done right now.

It's probably something to do with the terror of finishing anything and the implications of the huge looming consequences. If I finish a short story or a novel I don't have any excuse not to submit it somewhere.

Submitting stuff is scary. I don't deal well with rejection. I have enough people who view my writing as a cute, endearing little hobby already; while it'd be nice to prove them wrong, the pity and knowing exchanges when I try and fail will be far worse than the current condescension. The odds of acceptance versus rejection are not in my favour. Much safer just to always have something almost finished, really.

Why yes, I am about five sentences shy of a completed short story and writing a quick blog post instead, why do you ask?

And yes, I am writing that short story instead of editing Dryden as I should be...

There's always a way to make my projects live forever.

Sigh.

Monday 10 February 2014

Never enough hours in the day

About a year ago Dryden informed me I'd be writing a novel about him. He just turned up one day, nameless and superior and amused by his current situation, in media res, and left me to work out the rest for myself. I wrote a few of the scenes that laid out his character best, but 2013 was a fairly tumultuous year for me, and I simply didn't have the time or concentration to actually write the full thing for quite some months.

Then November came along. I've been a fan of National Novel Writing Month for years, and actually managed to make the 50-thousand-words-in-30-days requirement to win in both 2011 and 2012, though both those projects were abandoned promptly on the 1st December, eternally unfinished. For 2013, I decided I'd up the ante, and aim for 75 thousand words in 30 days. 75k, I hoped, would be enough to actually get through Dryden's plot, from beginning to end, to put down one last full stop and declare the thing finished.

Finished is a magic word. One I haven't had much opportunity to use. I get distracted by other things, lose confidence in whatever it is I'm writing, and generally sigh and give up and go back to writing all the random little bits and pieces that never go anywhere, or try to get a proper job again.

I finished (cue gasps!) Dryden's first draft at 74k on the 30th of November, wrote another 1k to make it past both my targets for the month, and put it aside to start editing soon (and went off to start buying Christmas presents).

Things have been a bit busy since then. I've not just had Christmas and New Year, but been up and down the country fairly non-stop (it feels like it, at least). And there's a lot coming up too:

If I get Dryden edited in time and think it would help, there's this at the end of February. (Though it costs to enter, and that's an inhibiting factor for me right now.) (EDIT: Yeah, that didn't happen. Dryden isn't ready and I had too much on to get it there.)

I must, absolutely must, find the time to do my final proofreading/copy-editing exam and send it back to the sfep approved group who did my training course last March, within the one year deadline from said course date. (Though this requires my brain to be functioning at full capacity.) (EDIT: Did it, managed it, with a day or two to spare. Now I never have to think of it again.)

If I find time to write that steampunk short story I've had in my head for a long time now, there's this anthology (or two) which it fits nicely, to which I need to submit ideally by March 15th. (EDIT: Yup, managed that, just waiting to hear now.)

If I find time to finish up that other LGBT fantasy short story, there's also this rather nice edition of the BFS journal which I need to get to before May 5th. (EDIT: Of course, I went and worked on that one first, and finished a first draft of the thing just shy of the 5k upper limit at about half past midnight on what's now the 15th Feb. Oh well. It's all progress, I suppose. And I think it's quite cute. EDIT AGAIN: And it's submitted now, late on the 25th Feb, so we'll see what happens.)

Oh, and I'm currently ill, for the first time in about 18 months. Yay!

So here we go. Busy, busy, and a blog to boot. Wish me luck.