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.