Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

A belated Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone in the blogosphere. I am slowly emerging from the annual orgy of too much work, too much food, and too much cooking. Plus all the lovely bits, like lots of family and lovely pressies. I do love buying for the people I love  - or I would if they gave me any idea what they wanted somewhat earlier than the weekend before Christmas. Thankfully the shops now run lots of last minute pressie sales  - to wet your appetite for the boxing day post Christmas sales, I guess.
     This year I basically cooked two Christmas dinners - one on the Sunday before, for the son and daughter-in-law who were going to her family for the big day, and a second for the extended family on the big day. so I am very definitely over cooking for the rest of the summer. But both were lovely days. We either had all the family here, or talked to them by Skype on the day, including my son overseas (a loooooong way away), and my sisters overseas. Yay for Skype. Not quite the same as being there, but watching my sister talking to me while trying to control a 5 yr old  grandson was just like having her here.
     Christmas - it might bring out the bah humbug in me during the December silly season before hand, but the actual days - wow. There is no night more magical than Christmas Eve, a night when everything is possible and the great mystery enwraps you in its joy. My favourite night of the year. May all the joys and wonders of this season go out to all of you, wherever you may be.

Saved by the Cat

If  you haven't yet come across this gem of a book, then beg, borrow or steal a copy of "Save the Cat" by Blake Snyder. Although written for screenwriters, the advice in it is totally applicable to any kind of genre fiction, and saved me tonight. Up till now, I have been the kind of writer described as a 'pantser" ie I write by the seat of my pants, making it up as I go along.
But that method is not working for my current book. I'm stuck, wallowing in pages of bland, go nowhere words, that would drive a reader to insensibility if they were kind enough to keep reading them.
So I am having to do some pre-planning, to kick life into the plot and find out where I am going. And for that, my fallback guardian is Blake Snyder's 'Cat', filled with simple lists and how-to check sheets. It might look like 'write-by-numbers' hokey, but it actually works. And his suggestions are so simple and easy to follow that even a pantser like me can come up with a simple, 1 page plot map, with all the required story peaks and troughs filled in.
Will I follow it? Who knows. Will it get me writing freely again - already has, and that's what really counts. I'm off on my journey again, out of the swamp, and here's to the adventure to come.

Moving and a kindle

Two big events have coincided in my life. We have moved house - yuck - and I now have a kindle. I ordered one of the new kindle paperwhites while we were in the States, and it has now arrived. This is my first excursion into e-books, and I'm still getting used to it. Biggest plus - the books are so much cheaper and accessible. Many titles are hard to find here in NZ, but now I just have to go onto Amazon, and seconds later they appear on my kindle. Second plus  - it's so portable and versatile. The light works great, so I can read in bed at night, and it's fits in my bag easily when I go out.
    I still like reading a Proper Book better, though. But I can't afford to read all the proper books I want to, given the cost of paperbacks here, or postage and currency conversion costs  if you order through Amazon. And now I can read all the stories of friends who are published on e-book only. So many treasures awaiting!
    As for the moving house, we've now managed to find most of the stuff we really really need. There are still boxes everywhere, but the new house has an honest-to-goodness office, so that is a big plus. But for the rest of it, for me moving house rates for down there with going to the dentist and public speaking. My arms are aching from packing things, carrying things and unpacking things. Why we accumulate so much stuff as we go through life is beyond me. One day, I might just learn how to throw stuff away - on second thoughts, nah, ain't gonna happen.

Music to write by

I have a new favourite album - or rather, two albums - by my latest find: the band Mumford and Sons.
It is a truism that life is a continuous cycle. Stay around long enough, and everything comes around again. I grew up in the years of folk. The Seekers got me through my senior college exams. The voices and words of  Joan Baez, Celtic, British and American folk, Woody and Arlo Guthrie, Crosby, Stills, Nash and John Denver spun my teenage dreams . And now we have the folk tradition, but reinvented for today. Grittier, louder, more rocking. And I love it. Yay for Mumford and Sons. I now have both their albums on my play list, Babel and Sigh No More.   Plug into YouTube and search them out. They are also great performers. They reject that stupid tradition of musicians standing on stage looking like they are having their teeth pulled. Watch this live show and tell me you wouldn't have been jumping in the audience too! 
It's also introduced me to the new phenomenon of folk rock. Lots of fun, words that  mean something and that you can sing to, but with that driving edge of rock. Irresistable. Look out for the bands Fun and Dawes, and of course in a related vein, Florence and the Machines.
My son is horrified. What am I doing listening to his generations' music. They are good and I enjoy them, that's what. And they say things I want to hear. There is a future still.

US trip

I'm back home in NZ after travelling to Canada and the US. The highlight - a visit to NASA's Kennedy Space Centre. And as our guide there said, this is a place of hope. To see what man is capable of, is truly inspiring.
My husband reckons my eyes were whirling the entire time we were there - and he was probably right. I have a photo with a genuine astronaut - Bruce Melnick, one of the shuttle astronauts. I saw the Apollo 11 capsule, spaceships plural - rockets and all, inside an actual launch control centre room, one of the shuttle launching pads. So much, and we only had a day to spend there, so had to miss out on a lot more. It's an amazing place, perched on the edge of the Atlantic, surrounded by a wildlife refuge ( we saw a bald eagle and alligators during the tour) and yet on this flat island, linked to the land by a huge bridge, you have the pinnacle of human engineering on earth. And yes, men are going back into space from there, our guide assured me.
There were other wonders, - the beautiful heart of Washington DC, the colours of fall in rural Virginia and Tennessee, the crisp clean air of Vancouver ( a lovely city), listening to upcoming country singers in Nashville bars, and both Americans and Canadians are wonderfully polite and hospitable people. But NASA was it, for me.

US excursion

We are travelling in the US at the moment. It's my first visit, and a fascinating time to make it. Just weeks before a presidential election. I now understand why the US has relatively low voter turn outs. I wouldn't bother voting either after months of the election ads and endless media waffle about just how the candidates held their mouth when they said something.
On the other hand, there is the US print media. The New York Times is a Paper that employs real Journalists. And yes, those capitals are intentional. It's commentary on the presidential debate was a joy to read. It discussed policy, what the candidates actually said, why they said it, what the context was. And  USA Today dissected the candidates more extravagant claims with a properly contextualised review of the real facts behind the claims. Including looking at more than what has happened in the last 5 minutes. America will not go down while such discussions flourish.
On a lighter note - paperbacks here are so cheap compared to NZ. I am going to incur some definite overweight charges on the way home - either that, or I may be forced to buy one of the fancy new kindles available here - and then I could download all the stuff that's off licence in NZ too. The wonders of travel!

Romance and strong women

I'm currently taking a paper at uni on Victorian literature, and specifically at the moment, Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines.  The preposition put forward is that the adventure stories that came out around the end of the nineteenth century, such as Haggard's, Buchan's The Thirty-nine Steps, Dracula,  and Sherlock Holmes  and the very masculine-dominant view they portray of the world played a part in the empire building and self-belief of the men at the time. Which helped the men of Britain to expand and hold their enormous empire.
So following on from that, my theory is that if these books gave the men of the time the belief to go out and literally conquer the world, then maybe the thriving romance genre is having a similar affect on women. That one of the reasons romances are as popular today as ever,  is that they help us to believe in ourselves, and to do the things we must in our ordinary lives. It's generally thought that romance is just escapist fiction, a way of getting away from reality. But modern romances aren't about weak women escaping. Read paranormal and suspense romances. Those women kick butt  - often literally. They come up against enormous trouble and strife, and they make it through. They don't just survive; they win.
So maybe in these hard times, that is why romances are still thriving. Because they give us, the women who read them, the courage and strength to believe we can kick butt too.  That we can win through.

Clendon Reader's choice Award

I didn't win the RWNZ Clendon award that I finalled in, but I did co-win the Reader's Choice award, which was so cool. I now have a lovely trophy, a certificate and a whole basket of books. Very exciting, and I'm in good company - Nalini Singh is a past winner of the Clendon Reader's Choice award, so here's hoping I can have even a smidgeon of her publishing success.
The RWNZ conference has been exciting, and compelling this year. A great Friday workshop with Randy Ingermanson - my head is still fuzzy with all that has been packed in to it. All my pitches to agents and editors have so far resulted in requests to send in material - yay. The workshops have been very useful. But best of all is spending time with my fellow romance writers. A great bunch of (mostly) women - strong, opinionated, fascinating, diverse and fun. And tonight at dinner I also got to sit next to Birgit  Davis-Todd, senior editor for Harlequin/Mills and Boon in Toronto - a warm and lovely lady.

Countdown to RWNZ conference 2012

One week to go before this year's RWNZ conference. Can't wait. There is the Friday workshop by Randy Ingermanson, the 'snowflake guy'; I have two pitches, one with a NZ editor and one with a US agent. And I have to admit to looking forward to swanning around with a Clendon finalist rosette on. For one weekend, I get to be a sort of VIP.  Small things, I know, but it's a memory I can bring out every time I read another rejection. Boo sucks to you, I can say to the next grotty rejection letter, in those days of feeling miserable after you get one, and before you pick yourself up, and say - onwards and upwards. Or something like that.
Plus there are all the other great workshops, including ones on rejections, ones on blogging, on new technology, a panel talking about their path to publication, and Randy Ingermanson's weekend workshops.
And I get to spend an entire weekend talking writing. So exciting.

clendon award 2012

I got very exciting news this weekend. I have finalled in the RWNZ 2012 Clendon Award for a completed romance manuscript.
This is really big here in NZ and I still can't quite believe it's true.
The manuscript was for A Heart Divided, one of my NZ historical romances, set in the time of the gold rush. The theme statement is:
Newly arrived on the Otago goldfields of 1862, Nessa Ward is caught between two men: the younger brother who needs her and the man who loves her.
It's about the adventures of a young Englishwoman who comes to the goldfields with her younger brother, hoping like all miners to make his fortune. They need money to pay for her brother to return to England to gain the qualifications he needs to become a scholar of antiquities like their recently deceased father. But the goldfields hold many surprises for both of them. Including the entry into their lives of  Mr John Reid, a local runholder who comes to their aid.

Progress -sort of on schedule

I made a writing plan at the start of the year, and like most such plans it has only been partially followed. But I am now only a couple of months behind where I planned to be, so I guess that's not too bad.
I am doing a couple of extramural lit papers this year, so that is slowing the actual writing somewhat.
The short script was entered into the Page Screenwriting contest - unsuccessfully. But it did make me finish it, and two days after I pushed the submit button, I figured out the crucial scene that hadn't been working. So that is a success.
My historical romance was completed in time for the RWNZ Clendon contest. 
I have finished and submitted my longish short story. Currently waiting, and trying not to be too hopeful.
The other longer story I had was also slightly rejigged and sent off a while ago. That's sitting in the back room of memory, as I make myself ignore it's possible success or otherwise.
So that only leaves the scifi novel that I've had in mind for the last year. And I can't keep procrastinating on that much longer. I have bits and pieces of it: two possible beginnings, a synopsis, and bits of the early middle section down in writing. The problem with it is that I haven't quite figured out the scientific basis of the world building. So most of it is happening in my head at the moment. Maybe I should just start writing and see if that helps.

Spiderman - another film review

OK, so this is not so much a review as a response, to the new Spidey. Great, great, great. Great.
Why - because it's fun. And isn't that what a marvel comic film is supposed to be?
This is better than the first Spidey. Spidey hasn't an ounce of wimp in this film. Not a jock, just a very gutsy young man - who still makes mistakes, with pretty awful consequences. But he tries so very hard to put them right.   Plus he has a sense of humour, and does exactly what any teenager who is suddenly given super powers would do - he goes out and positively revels in them.
As I said.
Fun.

Snow White and the Huntsman

I finally got to see this film, and yes its good but not as good as hoped. Note  spoiler alerts. Charlise Theron looks magnificent as the evil queen, the Huntsman is great, and Kirsten Stewart is OK as Snow White - though you have to be kidding trying to claim she is more beautiful than Charlise Theron's Queen.
The dwarves are fun, the  setting and special effects very good and the fighting OK.
Problems - Charlise Theron does not have the voice of an evil Queen. Shouting does not make up for lack of evil menace, or real depth and clarity of voice. And the film needs at least half an hour, or preferably an hour shaved off it. Also, having a second love interest in Snow White's childhood friend, the aristocratic William, is unnecessary and needlessly tangles the plot line.  If you call a film "Snow White and the Huntsman", then the natural expectation of a viewer is that this will be the central relationship. It's not, or rather, it is, sort of. And he sort of might, maybe, possibly gets the girl. But the real relationship is between the Queen and Snow White, who unfortunately I just didn't care enough about.
But I might just go have another look at it. And the theme song is still one of the best I've ever heard in a film. 'Breath of Life' by Florence and the Machine. Watch the clip on YouTube. It's a must.

Snow White and the Huntsman

I was browsing YouTube music clips last night and came across a brilliant new track from Florence and the Machine, then realised it was the theme song for the upcoming movie "Snow White and the Huntsman" so I clicked on the trailer and it looks AWESOME!!!. A real must see. Now the down side - it's not due for release until the Northern summer, so guess that means July/August here. But if you like dark fantasy and Charlise Theron as the evilest Evil Queen imaginable - all icy menace - then check out the trailer.
One warning thought - next morning my PC was stuck in a start up loop. I turned it off, left it to cogitate for a few hours, then started up again and it was all OK again. Innocent as a lamb, this PC acts when it recovers itself.
Not saying that the trailer has been hacked - but the only new sites I had been looking at were country songs, and Hackers and Country music don't exactly go together.

Cure for the Slow Patch Blues

The best cure for a slow down or writer's blues? Submit.
Submit, submit, submit.
So I have just pushed send and another query letter is  off into the ethernet. Fingers crossed, toes crossed, everything crossed and lots more admonishments to come about being patient. I am getting very experienced at trying to be patient - but not so good in the practice of it.
Please, this time? Just one little word - yes - and all my dreams can come true.

Slow Down

The wise adage is that to be a writer you must write, every day. and that is very true. But sometimes life intrudes and you have a slow patch. Like me, right now. Life is intruding and my writing is losing. I seem to manage a few hours of editing a week at most, and that is not good for the writing soul.
But am I beating myself up about it. No. Because that'e even worse for the writing soul. We do this crazy activity because we love it. And because without periods of losing ourselves in our own work, something is just not right with our world.
But a slow patch is just that, a patch out of the whole long course of our life. The writing will be back. And thinking is part of writing.  I have a whole novel to work out in my head before I get anywhere near paper. So maybe a part of me is still writing after all. A nice thought.

Pen names

I am currently tossing up whether or not to use a pen name. On the one hand, it would be good to have a separate writing identity for social networking, publicity and such. On the other hand, I want to see my name on my work. I want my kids to see their surname on my stories, and be able to be proud of that.  The solution I'm considering at the moment is to use  "Mary Jones" on the historical romance stories and any contemporary stories, and to add in my birth name for the SF works - which is my first love and the area I am most strongly working in now.
So I would write SF under the name "Mary Brock Jones". There is also plenty of precedent for such names in the SF community - eg Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Vonda E McIntyre, Ian M. Banks to name a bare few. SF writers seem to revel in having a trilogy of names. So will see how it goes.
To start with, I have entered an SF short film script in a competition under Mary Brock Jones as a Pen name. Here's hoping it is a lucky choice.
As for my year's plan, my RWNZ Clendon entry is finished and nearly printed out ready for posting off.
So I'm still on track - sort of. One tick down, two more big ones to go for the year. So one pat on the back.

Plans and good intentions

This year, I have a plan. That's quite an accomplishment for me, and follows on from my pre-New Year resolution. And so far, I am sort of keeping to it. Fingers crossed, anyway.
Part 1 of plan - finish the Gorge Creek book by end of March. Sort of on track. Half edited, half to go.

Slightly amended by discovering the Page International competition, which included a category for short scripts that seemed to suit the short film I wrote for the Massey screenwriting paper I completed last year. It was a good reason to make me pull it out again, review the lecturer's comments, add the scenes I'd thought of since, and make myself meet a deadline. So that is done. Except that two days after submitting my entry, I finally figured out how to work the crucial scene near the end to get the effect I wanted. You can enter more than once, but you have to pay and I'm not sure enough of the credibility of this competition to pay twice. But my required outcome was achieved. I now have a script that does what I wanted it to.

Part 2 - pull together my long, short story (~10,000 words) "Off to the Works" and find somewhere to submit it to. I currently have two versions, so have to marry them together.

Part 3 - climate change novel. That keeps gestating in the back of my brain. Lots of research needed first, but I should be able to get on to it by May. Current plan anyway, though the Massey paper I'm doing at present might push that date out a bit.

Part 4 - continuous with all the above. Submit, submit, submit. Get published.

All good intentions, all fully malleable. But there is something very self-gratifying about feeling organised. A halo rubbing, smug kind of personal point scoring. Who knows, I may even stick to the plan. Or not. I have also learnt not to beat myself up about such things.

Writing groups

I have been thinking about the writing groups I belong to. Do they help? Why do I need them? What do they need from me?
The two groups I am most actively involved with are the Auckland branches of RWNZ and SpecFic NZ.
RWNZ is a well established organisation of romance writers, and one which has been the lucky recipient of much wondeful work by vigorous volunteers for over 20 years now. From small beginnings, it is now probably the most effective organisation promoting writing as a profession in NZ. Confined to romance writing, its ranks include a significant percentage of (primarily) women who work full or part time as  authors. They actually earn a living by writing fiction! Their conferences are professionally run, and filled with technical and commercial workshops aimed squarely at helping members to write and then sell their work. I have learned so much from them, though often feel inadequate compared to those who have actually sold. Who have had the magic Call. And even though my own work is now starting to move away from pure romance, I fully intend to keep attending their meetings and conferences. So much of what I have learned through them applies to any commercial fiction. By which I mean fiction that sells. For ultimately the final judge of your work is - will someone pay cold hard cash to read what you have to say? That is the rigor that drives the art, and without which the art is so much less.
My other organisation is SpecFic NZ  - for writers of scifi, fantasy, horror etc. And along with another Auckland writer, I have recently taken on the role of organiser of local face to face meetings. I'm still not too sure how to do that. Not being a naturally sociable person, how to entice and make meetings attractive and meaningful for the other Specfic writers in this, the most diverse of NZ cities? But is it important? My only answer so far is, yes, it is to me. This is a strange, isolated passion we writers of genre fiction share. Making up stories in the privacy of our heads and rooms, then thrusting them out to the glare of public scrutiny. Very scary, very marvellous. And very much needing support and reinforcement from others similarly afflicted. Specfic is a new organisation,barely a couple of years old. Yet already it has a vibrant and active web page  and over 100 members. Who knew there were so many of us? Plus it has become my major source of hints, news and other helpful info concerning spec fic writing, either through the web page, blogs of members or the chat at meetings.
Are these groups important? Yes. Do they help my writing. Depends - on the day, my mood, and how much I am prepared to put into them. Am I going to keep up my involvment. You bet.

More goodies - Carnelians by Catherine Asaro

This is turning out to be a weekend of rare pleasures. I managed to get my hands on a copy of Catherine Asaro's latest book in her Skolian series - "Carnelians". Beg, borrow, buy or steal a copy. It's great. I read it through in just a day and night, and will go back and re-read it. The only drawback of it is that it leaves you wanting so much more, right now.
      Don't  worry, the story does have a proper conclusion. But it's so enjoyable spending time with these characters and you invest so much in them emotionally, that you really need to know what happens next in their lives.
    Guess I'll just have to wait the year or so until she brings out another one - and if she doesn't , that will just be too cruel!  this series has not finished, Ms Asaro - please.

Falling skies

I have finally managed to see the first episode of the new SF series "Falling Skies", which I recorded when it first screened. It's very good, but the best part of it is the opening minutes. For a master class in how to set up a SF/fantasy world in just a few screen shots - watch the first minutes of Ep 1 of "Falling Skies" . Using a child's pictures, the voice over of a teacher, and a few outside action shots of other characters, the entire scenario of this dystopian earth soon after conquest by aliens is set out, with the resultant deaths of most humans and the desperate battle to survive of those left behind.  All this through a traumatised child's pictures and a brief action sequence of resistance fighters. So not only do you get the scenario set out, you are grabbed by the emotional heart of the story right from the beginning.  And that's before they even start rolling the opening credits. Absolutely brilliant.