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Aaaaand we’re back!

03 Sep

Ok, ok, sorry, it’s been like forever!! But pesky thesis showed up again and then other things started to distract me too and then WHAM it’s September and I’m thinking WOAH where did August go?

But yeah, I is back*!

And back with two lovely new blog awards!

Aw, isn’t that ace? The ever so lovely Tessa Quin gave them to me! :D The reason why? “Snarky, funny, fabulous – a girl who lives “somewhere, not far from nowhere”" Thanks Tess! :D

The Rules for The Versatile Blogger Award:

  1. Thank and link back to the person that gave you the award.
  2. Share seven things about yourself.
  3. Pass the award to fifteen bloggers that you think deserve it.
  4. Lastly, contact all of the bloggers that you’ve picked for the award.

One Lovely Blog Award Rules:

  1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
  2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
  3. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Seeing as both awards tell me to list 15 blogs, I’m going to choose the blogs I recently discovered. To list 30 blogs sounds a bit like overkill and this sounds like a great way to pay it forward.

Here are the seven things about myself:

  1. Although I love dogs, I’m very much a cat person. I grew up with cats and I currently have two cats of my own – Candy and Biscuit
  2. I’m addicted to iced lattes. (And ice cream in general.)
  3. When I grew up, I wanted to be a knight. I still do.
  4. I always wanted to write a musical, but during bootcamp this week I decided to rework is as a paranormal romance YA instead.**
  5. My very best theater experience was seeing the RSC production of Hamlet with David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Claudius. A close second was a production of Ibsen’s A Doll House with Christopher Eccleston and Gillian Anderson.
  6. I am, quite obviously, a geek and a Whovian.
  7. I tend to switch between American and British spelling depending on where on the interwebs I am. Apparently I haven’t quite figured out my blog’s native language yet ;)

15 blogs!

Project Fraeya – Ok, I cheated, it’s not a ‘recent’ discovery as such, but it is my bestest writing buddy’s amazing blog. And it deserves awards!

Kidsbookjunky – A sparkly and fun blog from one of the members of The Voice***! :D

Caitlin Darrell – Obviously I like people who like Ys! But I also love her blog and the latest Mockingjay excitement!

Cheryl Angst – I just love love loved her story idea on WriteOnCon and equally love her blog!

Christy H – The newest member of Voice! I’m looking forward to discovering her blog!

Operation Awesome – Because their pitch contest was awesome. ‘Nuff said!

Writes By Moonlight – Definitely a blog I’m only just discovering, but it’s proving very addictive so far!

Miriam Forster – Another WriteOnCon discovery (yeah, there’s a theme to this!) Loved the story idea, am loving the blog!

Creative Blossoms – I don’t usually read a lot of romance, but I pretty much love Karla’s teasers!

We do write – Such an amazing idea! Everyone should read this blog and bookmark it!

Ink slingers – First of all, the blog looks pretty. Second of all, I love crit group blogs!

Writing. For real. – Pretty, funny, insightful!

Diamond, yup like the stone – Because Mental Health Monday is SO informative!

Pub Writes – Mostly brilliant :D

Kit Forbes – Voice member with a sparkly new website!

* Pesky thesis stopped me from finishing Ys like I wanted and pretty much from being on the interwebs as a whole, but I’m making up for lost time now!

** More on this later

*** Yay!

 
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Posted in would you like some tea?

 

#writingYsolde

18 Aug

My bestest writing buddy is coming over at the end of next week (*squee!*) and I promised I’d have the first draft of Ysolde finished. Now that I have sorted out the technical difficulties (and other minor things like finished thesis) I have little over a week left to actually write.

And I only have some 50k left to write…

*cough*

All right, it’s not *that* bad, but it will be a challenge. Fortunately, I like challenges. So for the next week and a half follow me on Twitter and watch me #writingYsolde!

I promise after that I’ll be back with my regular schedule, Teaser Tuesdays, and perhaps also a giveaway…

For now, I leave you with:

Ice cream pie!

 
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Posted in on life

 

Teaser Tuesday

10 Aug

WriteOnCon started! And it’s amazing! :D

And in lieu of that I wanted to post the first page and a half of Loving Adeline, which I put up for critique on the forums, as a teaser here too. It’s the UF-turned-Contemporary. LA is quite different from anything I ever wrote, but at the same time a story close to my heart.

I could say more, but maybe not yet. For now I will stick to – enjoy! And Write On!

~

Whoever wrote the world is my playground obviously lives in a different universe. The world I live in is a chaos at the best of times, incomprehensible at the worst of times. These are the worst of times.

I push myself against a locker and try to fold the walls around me. It feels as if I stepped into hell, if hell is a constant myriad of impressions. I am only eight steps from the door, but I can’t see it. I know Ms. Newark hovers around me, because I can feel the warmth of her skin, but I can’t see her.

Everything around me is a blur. Faces, colors, sounds. Only the eyes are clear and they’re all staring at me. Only the eyes, and cool metal pressed against my back. I slowly move my hands so my palms are flat against the smooth steel surface. It calms me a little.

Looking up was my first mistake. Life is easier when you’re staring at the floor. When you don’t have to meet the eyes burning holes in your soul.

Deciding to do this may have been my second. I’m not sure yet.

I can feel Ms. Newark drawing closer, but I’m not prepared for the lightning bolt when she touches my shoulder. I jump. Out of her reach, away from her hands. Eight steps to the door feels like an obstacle course, trying to dodge the people walking towards me, trying to keep them from touching me. I have nowhere to go, but I need to get out.

The heavy doors are my way to freedom, but once outside I don’t know where to go.

There are students walking towards me and I jump aside. One hand around the iron rail, the sun on my face. September morning sun.

I guess lying down in the grass would be possible, but I don’t like the feel of it. The grass is too tickly, the feel of the endless heavens above me oppressing. So I sit down on the steps instead, leaning against the rail.

Stone and cold iron are strong, unbreakable.

I pull up my knees and wait for Ms. Newark to find me. It won’t be long, I know. She’s used to me by now. She should be.

It seems forever before she appears beside me, her long linen red skirt is the first thing I see.

“Jaime?”

But it’s not forever. It 22 seconds. I know, because I always do. Just like I know that I managed 34.17 seconds inside.

Not bad, for a first day at school.

~

 
6 Comments

Posted in teaser tuesday

 

Comfort reads

06 Aug

And it’s Friday again! I have to admit, the last days are a bit of a blur. I’ve not done much except work, study, sleep, work, study, sleep. And absorb caffeine and munch food.

And read. I’m discovering epic fantasy is a perfect way to relax when you’re brain is stuck in 16th century manuscripts. I used to devour fantasy as a kid, all kinds of fantasy but especially the high, epic kind. You know, the Chosen One saving the world from Evil Overlord with Magic Artefact ™. The Diana Wynne Jones Tough Guide to Fantasyland kind. And with all those books on my shelves just calling to me it was the perfect escape.

So for the last week or so in the few spare moments I had I emerged myself in the worlds of Pug, Arutha, Jimmy the Hand, Seregil, Alec, Harry Potter (Cause hey, prophecy, magic, and evil overlord? Totally there!) But mostly in the worlds of Belgarion, Silk, Sparhawk, Danae, Belgarath, Polgara, Elena, Althalus.

Yes. I admit, I am an Eddings fan.

When I was 13 or so I devoured all books by David and Leigh Eddings. From Pawn of Prophecy to The Seeress of Kell, and from The Diamond Throne to The Hidden City. I loved The Belgariad, The Mallorean, The Elenium and The Tamuli. Sure, most of the characters in those four series were the same. Sure, the stories were predictable. And sure, when I read The Redemption of Althalus a few years later, nothing had changed. I loved those books. I still do.

I think of books like that as comfort food reading. I don’t want all my books to be brilliant, original, amazing, moving, surprising. Sometimes I want my books to just be fun. Nothing more, nothing less. And for me these books are precisely that. They are an easy way to forget about deadlines, narrative theory, general stress.

Like chocolate.

Or ice cream.

So tell me, what are your comfort reads? Genre or any books in particular? I’d love to know and maybe add a few more books to my list! :D

~

Just to add, in writing news, LOVING ADELINE, ‘the WIP formerly classified as UF’ did demand an outline this week so my time wasn’t wholly writing-less. But it isn’t UF anymore.

In a week when I read only high fantasy, this WIP transformed into Contemporary YA.

Go figure… (But it might become the source for some other teasers later this month, so stay tuned, too ;-) )

 
4 Comments

Posted in on life, on writing

 

04 Aug

Last weekend in the wake of other discussions in the blogosphere my bestest writing buddy and I talked about gender roles in literature, current and classic. A hugely interesting topic to talk about, but I won’t go into that now. Just this. At some point during that conversation I wrote:

And yes, classic lit is in many ways stereotypical. But I think it would be unfair to judge it by our current standards. All we can do and all we should do is write the best books we can. And hope they will become classic lit in another hundred years to show that what we believe now is different from what others believed before us. To show that *this* is our culture. A culture in which – even if we haven’t reached it yet – we aim for equality.

I think today we’re one step closer to equality.

No H8! ♥

 
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Posted in on life

 

Teaser Tuesday

03 Aug

First things first! Congrats to my bestest writing buddy for finishing her WIP! I cannot wait to read it and find out what happens, but I’m sure it will be great! :D

Onto teasers! I found myself in a difficult position. I *could* post more of Ysolde, but based on the material I have now most of it would be spoilerish in one way or another. Or it wouldn’t make any sense because it would be Woah Big Event Coming Out Of Nowhere stuff. Or I end up with half fragments. You know, like this:

~

I stay at the convent precisely four weeks. During that time I am not allowed to speak, and it feels like a just punishment for my silence. We have no news of the war or of life at the castle. Or perhaps they do, but I never know. I do have ample time to think of what I could have done differently, and at night alone in my cell, I weep for Tristan.

On the eve of the first new moon after my coming to the convent, someone I breaks into my room. And I can’t help but think it makes a nice change from monotone days.

~

Or almost bare dialogue, like this:

~

“Will you tell me about Ireland?”

“I…”

“La— Ysolde. Please.”

One nod. I lean against the wall and close my eyes and remember. “There’s something magical about summer in Ireland. The hills are a deep, glowing green, and the lakes are misty in the sun. When my mother didn’t have any chores for me, and my father didn’t see me sneak out, I used to follow the forest path up to my secret hiding place. If you leave the path halfway up the hill, there’s a small clearing. From there you can see both lakes, and the hills behind it. I loved just sitting there.”

~

See what I mean? And of course, you may say, haven’t you any other WIPs to tease from? And of course, I may say, I have. But I wanted to tease Ysolde! *bats eyelashes*

Truth is, I’m insanely busy right now and of course my brain picked this time of all times to rethink several of my WIPs, including Ysolde. Although not major revisions it’s enough to keep me occupied, because I need to have it sorted out before I can continue writing. So I’d rather keeping from teasing too much right now! :)

But for those of you wondering what happened after last week’s tease — my very first teaser Tuesday is taken from the events immediately after last week’s scene.

And I promise to make amends after my deadline. For now – have a cupcake!

 
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Posted in teaser tuesday

 

Saturday Six

31 Jul

So yeah, I’ve been horribly absent from life and the interwebs. I have more final deadlines coming up — or final final deadlines by now — which means for the next two weeks every spare minute will go to revising my thesis. Le sigh. But! Hopefully after that I will have All The Time In The World to do as I like. And, you know, work. (You know, I actually like work! Sue me!) After the next two weeks I’ll have time to read, write, delete, write, read, revise, write more. (And think of intelligent blog posts :P )

And because I like themes and nice orderly things, I part bookish, part Yay!Spare!Time! Saturday Six. Firstly a trilogy of things I plan on doing after deadline. (Plus think of intelligent blog posts.)

1) WRITE! A few weeks after my deadlines I have another deadline – I promised my bestest writing buddy I would finish Ysolde before she comes over. That way she’ll have something to critique and rip to shreds while I read and crit her WIP. Fair deal, right? Also, I want to finish it! It is such a fun story to write and to research. And I love Tristan ;-)

2) WRITE! Wait, did I mention that already? Well what with my bestest writing buddy coming here we plan to embark upon writing boot camp.  This may or may not include vicious critiques, chronic comma confusion, cocktails at the Hard Rock, veggie burgers at the same Hard Rock, flirting with waiters, 1k1hr, youtube vids, Doctor Who overload, cheesy films, and tea.

Oh. And books. Possibly. Book buying may or may not occur. *g*

Q: Any experience on writing boot camps? Things we should definitely not forget? Like cupcakes or laptops?

3) WRITE! Is this getting annoying yet? Because it’s getting a little crowded in my head. Too many MCs and story ideas that I desperately need to outline. My sci-fi MG. My UF YA. 342 other ideas. I’m very much looking forward to writing all of them, not to mention the fantasy YAs I already outlined. I happen to love that particular world :D

And three books I cannot wait to read.

1) Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay

Do I really need to explain this? I’ve been counting the days to the 24th since reading Catching Fire. I’ve not been this excited for a last book in a series since Harry Potter 7 and Lynn Flewelling’s The Oracle’s Queen. I cannot wait for this conclusion to a spectacular series. I loved Hunger Games, I liked and sometimes really liked Catching Fire and hope to go back to love for Mockingjay. Team Katniss ftw!

2) Erin Bow – Plain Kate

In a market town by a looping river there lived an orphan girl called Plain Kate ….

Kate’s is a colorful world of brokenhearted magicians, wandering gypsy clans, carved charms and stolen shadows. It’s a dark world of ghosts, fog and questions. It’s a dangerous world of witch burnings, persecution and plague. Her story is a coming-of-age story, a story about family and belonging, trust and betrayal, bravery and sacrifice, death and what lies beyond. Also, there’s a talking cat in it.

A talking cat! Now how on earth could I say no to talking cats?! I’ve been excited about this book ever since the BEA buzz and I can’t wait to read it. Dark, Russian-type fantasy sounds amazing and the sneak preview on Erin Bow’s website reads like a fairy tale. Love the first chapter. That’s always a plus! ;-)

3)  Emma Donoghue – Room

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough…not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

It’s another one of the books I’ve been excited about since BEA. Everything I heard about this book is amazing. It sounds beautiful and absolutely heartbreaking. The fact that it has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize helps too!

Other BEA Buzz books I can’t wait to read: The DUFF by Kody Keplinger, Matched by Allie Condie, Firelight by Sophie Jordan, and Juliet by Anne Fortier.

For those of you who have ARCs – please appreciate how jealous I am and give them to me ;-)

 
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Posted in on time travel, saturday six

 

Teaser Tuesday

27 Jul

xkcd

I love xkcd <3

~

Today’s teaser! It’s still from Ysolde, a while after the events of last week’s teaser. A little before the events of my first teaser and my blog chain post. Thank you all so much for the kind comments so far. I’ll hope you’ll enjoy this snippet too! :)

~

I lie with my head in Tristan’s lap. He runs his fingers through my hair. Every now and then he will point out a constellation to me, helping me see how the stars formed gods. We don’t talk much that night – everything has already been said. It will not be long before Tristan leaves to lead the troops into war, and then I will be alone with Marke. He frightens me no longer. I know him to be a kind and just lord. But tonight, and not for the first time, I wonder what I would have done had not Tristan begged me to stay. Even after all that time I do not love Marke as I love Tristan.

A door slams shut.

Tristan and I both jump to our feet, two rabbits poised to flight. The sound came from my room. If someone is there, they are blocking the only way out. Then I hear footsteps behind me and I spin around.

Marke.

Tristan has already dropped to his knees, his face buried in his hands. Marke advances on him, his sword drawn. There is a murderous look in his eyes. I stand forgotten, nailed to the floor.

“Give me one reason why I should not kill you here and now.” Marke’s voice is ice. The look he gives Tristan is the look he would give a stranger, and I can see Tristan shiver. I can feel my blood run cold. Trist offers no response or defense. He just lies there on his knees in front of his cousin.

“I need you to command my armies and you run off with my wife. My wife, Trist!” Marke’s voice is unsteady, and I can’t tell whether it is shock or hatred, but then he reaches down and pulls Tristan up by his hair. His sword against Tristan’s throat. He draws blood, but Tristan holds his eyes averted. He whispers something to Marke.

Marke draws himself up and kicks Tristan backwards. “Not in front of the lady, is it? The lady has no rights to speak of!”

His words are venom, and I cringe. I can’t meet Marke’s eye or the cindering anger. I want to speak, but to this day I don’t know if my voice would have obeyed me. I am trembling, expecting Marke to strike out to me. Behind Marke, I see Tristan scramble to his knees again. There is an unbearable sadness in his eyes, but he mouths something at me. Don’t tell him. He has made me swear not ever to tell Marke about our bargain.

Marke follows my gaze and rounds on Tristan, who bows his head again. I look at him in horror. If Marke suspects us of betraying him, he can kill us both. Then I remember Tristan’s words. If he ever found out, it would kill him. So he would rather give his own life, give my life, than Marke’s?

Tristan shifts a little. He has his hands folded behind his back.“My lord king, I beg you believe me. I am the only one responsible for this. The lady had nothing to do with it, I asked her come here.”

I feel sick. Surely he doesn’t mean that? Marke’s hands no longer tremble, he goes dangerously still.

“Is this true?” Marke once again turns to me. I open my mouth and close it, torn between my love for Tristan and the oath I have given him. Never tell. Behind Marke, Tristan looks up.

“Forgive me, Lady, I never meant to put you in this position.” Each word he speaks, breaks my heart.

Closing my eyes, I nod. Gods forgive me, but I nod. “Yes, my lord. It’s true.”

 
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Posted in teaser tuesday

 

Spectacular Saturday Six

24 Jul

Or rather a Spectacular Saturday 2 x 3, but that doesn’t have quite the right ring to it! And my six points are all related, so I thought it’d be all right :) The topic of today’s post – *drumroll* – is time travel. Between – finally – reading A Wrinkle in Time earlier this week, some random fangirling over Doctor Who, and the premier of A Very Potter Sequel I’ve been surrounded by time travel.

1) Tesser

Once you realize a straight line isn’t the shortest way between two points tessering is an easy way of travelling through space and time. It involves using the fifth dimension – squared cubes and tesseracts – to fold the fabric of the universe very efficiently. Once you figure it out you can do it all by yourself. As long as you don’t bump into IT. Or land on Camazotz. The downside is maths. Thinking about different dimensions too long will effectively give you headaches. The upside is you don’t need props to travel and tessering can still get you everywhere. (And, I guess, maths. Because even with the headaches, thinking about dimensions is actually kinda fun!) Also places like Ixchel, with Aunt Beast and wonderful food. Because priorities are important.

2) TARDIS

Time And Relative Dimension In Space. A blue police box that’s bigger on the inside, made by Time Lords and stolen by the Doctor (a long long time ago in a galaxy far away). Although the type 40 is not always very accurate, the TARDIS can travel anytime anywhere. From Ancient Rome to New Earth to Gallifrey. The downside is, you’ll look dorky zooming around space in a box, you need a Time Lord to fly it, and the TARDIS has a tendency to not be close whenever you’re in mortal danger. The upside – apart from the obvious – the TARDIS is able to translate anything that is written down since the beginning of Time. And it can bring you to The Library.

3) Time-Turner

Do I really need to describe time-turners? No? Didn’t think so. Incredibly useful for when you want to take more classes than a normal person would, less useful if you want to travel in space too. Or if you want to go to the future. But it does allow for some pretty awesome stuff, like this:

Now my question would be: if you could go back in time and read a book, any book, as if you never read it before, which book would you choose? And why? (And with a geek’s curiosity – how?)

My top three of books to read anew would be:

1) Deerskin by Robin McKinley. I loved this book. Love, love, LOVED it. And it broke my heart. Lissar is an amazing MC and the writing is so beautiful, and  I felt sick after reading it simply because it was so good. So personal. And yet so horrible. Based on that one read it is one of my all-time favourite books, but I haven’t picked it up since. Not just because it was such an emotional read, but because I fear it will never have this much of an impact again. Going back in time for a new first read would surely cure that!

2) All of Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books. Or doesn’t that count as one book? In that case I would have to say Alanna – The First Adventure. Girl knights! Before I read Song of the Lioness I read books about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, I read about Lancelot and Gawain and Percival, I read medieval legends. And growing up I wanted so badly to become a knight, but there were only boy books about knights and I didn’t know if it were possible. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered the Tortall series. I remember picking up the first book and starting to read it. I remember picking up the second. The third. The fourth. The next series. I devoured them all in the space of days, laughed, cried, and decided I still wanted to be a knight. I still reread the books on a regular basis, but that first time was a relevation.

3) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Cliché as that might sound. It isn’t even about the book itself – although I heart the Battle of Hogwarts – but about everything around it. Standing in line in the middle of the night waiting for the doors of a bookshop to open. Standing in line surrounded by Death Eaters. Subsequently walking through Dublin with earplugs for fear of spoilers and my nose stuck in *the* book. (How we managed to find our way back blindly still amazes me.) Meeting a drunken guy claiming to be James Joyce’s grandson on the way. Reading until I fell asleep above the book. Waking up. Reading more. Walking around Dublin like zombies the following day talking about nothing but the book. So special, so unique.

And I would travel by TARDIS, of course. *is Whovian*

I’d love to hear your thoughts! :D

 
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Posted in on time travel, saturday six

 

In which Maggie Stiefvater is awesome

22 Jul

This. Is. Heart. Many congrats to Maggie for Linger’s debut at #1 of the NYT Bestseller List. Read her blog about it here.
My copy hasn’t arrived yet, but I can’t wait to read it! This only makes it more exciting :)

Anyway, today has been a very random day, so as bonus – two signs my workday was too long:

  • I send emails to my bestest writing buddy with texts like these:

IAMJEALOUSIISWANTTOBUYMOARBOOKSPLZ
ALSOFLUFFYWHITEWINGS

  • I sing along to RENT — out loud — in an overly posh British accent

I am so glad my co-workers weren’t there. I would like to say I wouldn’t have done it then, but… I’m not really good at not singing along to showtunes *jazz hands* *sparkle*

But then I got home and saved a kitteh and everything was all right again.

I will not be at home tomorrow, so no Friday Five. Instead a Special Saturday Six on time travel on, well, Saturday obviously.

Extra bonus – courtesy of Tessa Gratton – Blood is not funny.

Randomness exits, pursued by a bear.

 
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Posted in on life, on time travel, on writing

 
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