Tuesday 17 December 2013

Goodbye 2013 ...

2013 really has sucked something awful. Sorry to be so negative, but other than getting a contract for the book, it's been very bloody average.

I have great hopes that 2014 is going to be a lot better. Not that it would be hard to beat the year that was.

Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas Break. I'll be back on board in the new year, hopefully with a better attitude.

XXX

Tuesday 10 December 2013

Boutique Accommodation ...

          Jennie’s relatives run a caravan park in a suburb called Sunshine. The girls can stay indefinitely, so long as they’re happy to pay the full going rate. The place is bloody miles from anywhere and has definitely seen better days, unfortunately a good thirty-five years before their arrival.
          Jennie’s cousin and his wife drop the girls outside the caravan that is to be their new home, then drive off leaving them to it. For all the interaction they’ve had with her, Nadene might just as well be a dummy.
          Sam looks at the peeling aluminium hulk in front of them. Any paint that remains has oxidised to a soft grey that matches the metal showing through. The rubber window surrounds are cracked and hard. They crumble at the slightest pressure, as she discovers when she pokes one experimentally. “Bloody Norah, is this for real?”
          “Maybe the inside is nicer?”
          By the time they’ve lugged their bags inside, they’ve used up most of the available floor space and are blinded by their own sweat.
          “I can’t believe how bloody hot it is in here.” Sam crawls over built-in furniture and suitcases so she can open every window in the van. When finished, she’s not sure it’s made any difference. If anything, it seems even hotter.
          Jennie pushes up on the skylight, only to have her hand smash straight through the fatigued plastic. It’s as tired as everything else in the van. The whole inside has a ‘baked’ feel to it. “There’s no way we can stay in here.”
          Sam looks at the assortment of desiccated insects in the bottom of the tiny sink. “On the bright side, at least we can be sure there aren’t any creepy crawlies in here.” 
          Jennie peeks over the safety of Sam’s shoulder. “I thought cockroaches could survive anything.”
          After peeling off their damp travel clothes and donning their thinnest outfits, they retreat to the communal kitchen hoping it will be cooler. It is, but the coolest spot is the tiled floor. They throw down a sarong to protect them from the fine film of grease and remains of many a sloppily eaten fry-up.

Wednesday 4 December 2013

The RSI that is editing …

I've been putting off attacking the edits from Jayne at Rebel. Avoiding looking at the email, avoiding looking at the manuscript with all those notes on it. Yes, I did have painting to do (walls and ceilings, nothing artistic) but I still should have looked at them sooner. I'm only talking a couple of days here, but as someone who pounces on chores like this as soon as is humanly possible, this was a big delay for me.
 
I didn't realise how addictive they'd be. I decided to have a quick look at them this morning - next thing you know it's 5pm, I'm starving and my RSI is giving me hell. I had to put my foot down at 100 pages or risk not being able to work tomorrow because of sore wrists.
 
I've been pleasantly surprised that all the changes so far are stupid little things that I should have seen myself, plus some weird shit going on with the formatting. Every time an indent has decided to disappear, that's another click of the mouse. Those clicks add up. 
 
I'm sure there's some nasty edit waiting for me somewhere though. Something that will stop me in my tracks; one of those things that leads to changes all over the show. Then it'll be a case of going back to the painting for a few hours while I nut out how to deal with said edit.
 
The painting has been very therapeutic and a good way to free up my brain, allowing me to concentrate on things like the storyline for book number two. I've already got 50,000 words in a rough first draft on this one and I basically know where it's going. I also know that a few of the common changes in the first book will also need to be incorporated into the second. Better to know up front.
 
A lot of the changes in the current manuscript are to do with style rather than typos/grammar as such. For example I was taught that anything that is going to be in italics should be underlined to denote this rather than actually put in italics. I think this is a throw-back to the good old typesetting days and has now been ditched with e-book formatting in mind. Sort of mistake you only get told about once though.
 
For now, I’m off to rummage in the freezer for peas to slap on my wrists.

Tuesday 26 November 2013

It's green!

          The bar has as much class as you can get with mock-Tudor. It’s supposed to be 'oldey-worldey' but only manages 'slightley-tackey'. The pseudo-oak bench seats are upholstered in velvet with what looks like a subtle pattern but is an accumulation of stains so numerous the original colour no longer shows.
The carpet’s the same but with more adhesive qualities. Fortunately the drinks are cheap and there’s usually a good covers band.
Despite them being at the pub early, the only table available is a beige, plastic-topped, metal monstrosity; the result of the landlord’s decision to “jazz the place up a bit”. It’s from the same school of design as the fake open fires. The matching plastic chairs have cracks vicious enough to leave your arse looking like a stripper's after a sales convention gig.
“Do I look okay?” Sam checks her dress with her hands.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Nothing. Must be my imagination.”
Jennie spins her around so she can three-sixty the outfit. “It’s fine.”
‘Then why are people staring at me? Damn, I knew I should have worn the red dress.”
“Relax you look great.”
“God, you wouldn’t believe the shit Crispy tried on today,” says Sam, after they’ve settled themselves as comfortably as they’re ever going to.
Jennie’s so transfixed by the bright green drink that’s put down on their table she doesn’t respond.
“It’s a Grasshopper,” says Tania, owner of the drink and a friend to both of them.
“Gizza sip.” Sam grabs the glass and helps herself to a large gulp.
“Well?” say both the others.
“Not bad. Why’s the glass so clean?” Sam compares it to the state of her own.
“It was fresh out of the box; I think it’s their first cocktail. Ever,” says Tania.
Standing, Sam waves at the barman, points at the glass and indicates three with her fingers. He grimaces before heading out back; grabbing a ladder on his way.
 
 

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Living like it's 1978...

It’s been a week of full-on editing for me. I’m working on getting the manuscript as polished as a shiny thing before sending it off to Rebel. Funny, but the longer I tinker with it, the less sure I am. Just getting too close to it I think.

Always a pain though when you notice a little writing tic towards the very back of the book and you think “Is this new, or have I been doing this the whole way through?” It’s then back to the beginning to go through the whole damn thing again. But I’m getting closer with each pass.

It’s odd writing in another era. I disappear into the seventies for hours at a time and am always surprised when I surface back in the present day. It does, however, give me a real appreciation for my mobile phone and email. Back then if you lost your address book, you were screwed.
Those little books were constantly guarded and updated as people moved on. With email you have one address and it follows you around the world. In the seventies if people moved around their details were constantly being rubbed out and re-pencilled it. It was a brave person who wrote addresses in biro.
It was a simpler time back then too and seemed to have had a joy about it that’s sadly lacking today. Maybe I’ll start living like it’s 1978.



 

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Chapter 1 - Sam Bennett

          Brown carpet, brown walls, brown upholstery. The colour of Sam’s working world is shit brown; not the official paint company name, but close enough. A forest of dark mahogany panelling lines one side of the open area she sits in outside her boss’ office. Large concrete columns intersperse the foliage, like trunks stripped of their bark. Unfortunately these are painted beige. Not vanilla bean, mocha, eggshell, or parchment, but boring-as-bat-shit beige.
          Vertical blinds the same colour hang passively behind her. Sam’s given up trying to rotate these to suit the sun. The pull cord invariably jams, leaving the windows looking like they’re sporting bad dentures.
          The most interesting view from her desk is of the elevator at the other end of the foyer. This services the whole floor and is her only link with the outside world other than the view from her boss’ corner office when she’s in taking dictation.
          As she counts down to the end of the week, Sam once again opens the top drawer of her dark, walnut veneer desk to gaze at a picture of Darren in his army fatigues; sent with one of his regular letters.
          God he's hot. Looking at her soon-to-be fiancé reminds Sam how important her well-paid, shit-coloured job is. Her goal of saving enough for a wedding more over-the-top than her parents are willing to pay for is getting closer every day. It’s only the thought of a five tier cake, live band and bucket-loads of frangipani that have stopped her telling her boss, Peter Crisp, to shove it.
          Crispy Critter. Thirty five going on 50 and middle management right down to the comb-over and a body that looks as though it’s been put together like custard. He’s a cheap bastard who drives a Nissan Sunny that flakes rust so badly that anything over 60kph make it look positively autumnal.




This Girl's Abroad

This Girl’s Abroad is a coming of age novel set in Melbourne, Australia, in the late 1970s, before email, mobile phones, Facebook and Twitter, and before platform shoes and flares became retro. It was also a time when The Pill had become freely available to single women who took up the challenge of a changing world with gusto but maybe not a lot of forethought.

Samantha’s life is perfect – great clothes, great job, great boyfriend – until she finds her boss wants to shag her and her boyfriend is shagging someone else. But at least the clothes are still fabulous – and even more so if you’re a dog, as Sam carves out a new career for herself in canine haute couture. Now if only she could just sort out her love life.

The book is comedy, black in places, and has a good mix of romance, sex and violence. It also covers the correct technique for defrosting a dead pug.