Auckland SpecFic meet up - August

The Auckland SpecFicNZ August get together will be this Sunday, 18th August, at –

The Columbus Cafe, Westfield Shopping Centre, Albany.

from 1pm onwards

The cafe overlooks the lake – or more precisely, proto-lake ( it’s still very new) on the eastern side of the mall. Take the exit doors between the cinemas and foodcourt, and go to the bottom of the steps. It’s just to the left of there.

Transport:

Car:  If coming from the south, take the Greville Rd off ramp. From the west, either cross the bridge, or go via the Upper Harbour Highway to Albany.
Bus: from town, either take the Northern express to Albany station and walk from there ( takes about 20 mins) or catch bus 895 (midtown to Waiwera) which stops 400 metres from the shopping centre.

I Iook forward to seeing as many as possible this Sunday. As usual,  I will have the SpecFicNZ logo on the table. Non-members are very welcome to attend.

Selkie's

I found a fascinating blog post by Christchurch writer, Joel le Blanc here about Selkie's - those mythical sea/human creatures of the Scottish coast. For some reason, the Selkie has always fascinated me - and I'm not alone. There seems to be something about these  creatures that draws writers and film makers repeatedly. There is a pathos to the selkie tale, of lost freedom for the (usually) woman who tries to live as a human, but inevitably returns to the freedom of the sea.

Films using the Selkie myth include the hauntingly entrancing  The Secret of Roan Inish  and Colin Farrell's Ondine -   both set in Ireland, although the Selkie myth belongs more to Scotland and the Orkneys. In books, the selkie is found in both SciFi and fantasy: Ann McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's Petaybee  series, A.E. van Vogt's The Silkie, some of Juliet Marillier's novels, Beside the Ocean of Time by George MacKay Brown and Seaward  by Susan Cooper.

But why is that we are drawn to this myth; what is it about tales of tragedy and pathos that call to us, and this one in particular?

My own theory is that it is the intensity and drama of the story, layered with emotion and yearnings, plus the longing for freedom in all of us that free-swimming Selkie represents. Or maybe for specfic readers in particular, it is the sense of otherness, of being part of a world unimaginable to their neighbours that appeals.

What ever it is that draw us, the Selkie legend is unique and enduring.

Regeneration :New Zealand Speculative Fiction II - interview

Ann Caro, editor of  the short story anthology "Regeneration" New Zealand Speculative Fiction II" interviews me on her blog about my story "Hunting Ythan" and my writing in general including my two historical romances. 

Read it at this link:  http://bit.ly/16L7VTq .

World Building - the kaleidoscope view

Recently I saw a facebook post from a New Zealand Spec fiction writer commenting on the presence of the NZ landscape in many NZ Spec fic writers' work, and I had to agree with it, from my own experience. But I would also have to add that the landscape is not necessarily taken holus bolus into my own writing - though I cannot say if this is true for other writers.

In my case, I usually know which particular landscape has suggested the setting for a particular story, but that doesn't mean that my final setting ends up being exactly like that. More that some feature of that part of the country has set off an idea for my world's landscape - and that feature may only be how that land makes me feel.

An example is for my first, as yet unpublished novel "Hathe", the opening sections of which are set in a high plateau wilderness of the planet Hathe - and that setting comes straight from the North Island central plateau country. I spent my teenage years in Taupo and have driven the Desert Road many times. There is a special feel to that part of the country - untameable, open, big enough to hold all your dreams, and never quite safe.

But this is where the kaleidoscope bit comes in. Just as light enters one end of a kaleiodoscope, is refracted, bent, split into it's various components, and comes out the other end in an unending array of beautiful, colourful patterns, so do the images and feelings that suggest a given setting in a story. The high plateau country of Hathe is not the Desert Road. It's sort of like it, the vegetation of my is principally grasses with some shrubs, but it's bigger, colder, wilder, more grassy - it's Hathian, not kiwi, in other words. This setting was suggested by the Desert Road, but it was also based on a dream I had one morning, and on many other things that came along while I was writing.

That is true of all my world building. I know where it starts, but that doesn't mean it ends up where I expected it to. Worlds, like characters, take on a life of their own, and become their own places.

How else can they become real?

My Science Fiction Blog

I am revitalising this blog, and reclaiming it for my science fiction works. From now on, this blog will refer to only science fiction or other speculative fiction works. This is my latest attempt to bring some order to  my social media sites, and hopefully will stop the confusion that results from the marked difference in genre's that I write. There is a logic to it, but I understand that often it's only who can see it.

For my NZ historical romances, please go to my other website for Mary Brock Jones

For the SF works, I'm so please to announce the publication of the  Regeneration: New Zealand Speculative Fiction II anthology, which includes my story "Hunting Ythan". This is an anthology made up entirely of NZ based writers, so I was very thrilled to be included in it.

To buy - use the link on the side panel. Available as paper back and ebook.

website - marybrockjones.com

I have my very own website - go to http://marybrockjones.com/ for a look see.
There are still a few things to organise on it, and once they are done and I learn how to run it, I will migrate my blog over there. It was created by my very clever son who, luckily for me,  has a web site management  business:  Your Turn, 
      I have decided to use Mary Brock Jones as my pen name for all my writing, both SF and historical romance. Mainly because it is more likely to bring up me on a google search than if I use Mary Jones - not the most unusual name in the world, after all. It sounds pretty good too.

Publishing

I now have an Editor and a date for delivery of the final manuscript for my NZ Historical with Escape Publishing. So that sounds very official. It's all both very scary and very exciting. They are only a new imprint of Harlequin Australia, but I've read some of the titles they have put out so far, and they really are good. Try "Unforgettable" by Elise K Ackers. Thoroughly enjoyable, and a bit different. Both main characters work on a building site, a very different setting for a romance. But it was completely credible, the author obviously knows her stuff, and the story was great.
      I am also in the process of setting up a new website, and once completed will shift my blog over there. Full details to follow.

A Yes from Harlequin Escape

This year, I've had the greatest Christmas present ever for a writer - the wonderful Kate Cuthbert of Harlequin Escape Publishing has said "Yes" to my submission. It's for the book that co-won the People's Choice Award  in the Romance Writers of New Zealand's Clendon Award 2012, an historical romance set in the days of the Otago gold rush.
All very exciting, and so great after the years of trying. Getting a short story "Yes" is pretty amazing, but getting one for a whole book, now that's something else.
Publishing date unknown yet, and I have to admit to being a bit scared about what happens next. It's all a bit of an unknown process, even though I've had many others tell me of their experiences. But doing it yourself, mmmm. And a big shout out of thanks to all who have helped me on this amazing journey: the other writers of RWNZ and SpecFic NZ, my family for their endless tolerance, and to Massey University's creative writing papers' lecturers and tutors. Their paper on script writing in particular, taught by Stuart Hoar, was great for someone writing genre fiction. 
So here's to 2013, the year of Mary Brock Jones, author.

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.