Tag Archive: clash


New WIPs and Writing Update

Filed under: A-Z Challenge, My Writing, NaNoWriMo 2010, Other Writings, Silk Over Razor Blades — Leave a comment
February 25, 2012

I haven’t actually talked about my writing for ages! Or it feels that way. Humph; as interesting as my life may (not) be, this blog is about me as a writer. Besides, I can’t give you too much of an insight into my life- otherwise the enigma is lost! :p

Well with February nearly over I must say I haven’t written as much as I’d hoped I would by this stage. Granted the blog has been chugging along smoothly, but there are several projects that I didn’t quite manage to get myself sorted out for.

Sirens Call Publications
There were two anthologies that I was hoping to get something written for. I did actually start something for both, but for some reason I couldn’t get passed hated what I’d written. It just felt really bad; clichéd and overdone, so I put both shorts to one side. Maybe they’re something I’ll go back to another time.

Crowded Quarantine
There was a werewolf anthology here that I nearly hit the roof about. I was so thrilled that when I put the other two pieces aside, I started on this straight away, using the back story to one of my RPG characters on The Ice Wolf Tavern, to get started. Problem was, I enjoyed writing it far too much. In fact I’m still writing it. I’ve sailed well passed the 10k guidelines and its turning into much more of a novella than a short, though it is still about the how the chap came to be a werewolf. Its still a very rough draft, so I won’t put an excerpt up here yet, but I will say that its going very well. I should be able to finish by mid-March if I continue at my current rate.

Alt Fiction
You may recall last year how much fun I had at this event, and that I vowed I would do it again when the time came. Well so long as my luck holds out and the twins don’t plan an early appearance, I’ll not only be reading to this event (for the whole weekend this time!!!) but I’ll be reading some of my work during the Open Mic section. Can’t wait for that! Still trying to decide what piece would best fit the scene and what I want to showcase. As soon as I know that I’ll be able to start practising my reading of it. I’ve only got 5 minutes after all (or is it three?).

A-Z Flash Fiction Challenge
Still going strong you’ll be pleased to hear. I’ve just tackled ‘S’ which means I’m very near the end now. When I’ve made it all through the alphabet I’ll start looking into getting those up here. One is here already – you can find it here – but I think it will be quite a treat to see the rest of these go up; since I’m quite chuffed with my range. I think you’ll be surprised too; some of it is quite unlike anything else I’ve showcased here before. ^_^

SORB and CoTAK
I can’t give you an update on my writing without talking about these, can I? Okay, well SORB is still on hold for the moment; its been my baby for so long that I know that I need even more distance from it before I can give it the edit it deserves. So that is actually rather far down on my list for the time being.
CoTAK’s contract has been sent off, as I mentioned at the beginning of the year and I’m just waiting to hear back from Popcorn Press about the next steps. I remain thoroughly excited, but, as I say, these things take time. We’ll see how we go on that score. ^_^

So even though the blog, for a short while, has been rather a lot of reviews and ‘Real Life Chatter’ don’t think for a moment that I’ve forgotten what its all about. I’m still going and still as stubborn as ever. To cap it, I’m heading back to the Phoenix Writers today as well. I haven’t managed to get back there this year yet, so I’m incredibly excited about it. It will be wonderful to see everyone again. XD

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The Most Amazing Good News…

Filed under: My Writing, NaNoWriMo 2010 — 2 Comments
July 1, 2011

Well, I’ve given myself a full day and a half to recover. I’ve deliberately kept away from the blog, except for the 80 Post Challenge, hoping I would be able to calm down and tell you this calmly, sensibly, professionally and coherently. We’ll see if I manage.

I came home on Wednesday. Work was its usual self, though I was irritated as hell because my back tyre is flat (again! – I only patched it the day before!) and I had to walk it back. So I was running out of time to relax before my driving lesson, I looked like a twat walking the bike with the helmet on my head that I couldn’t hold in my hand because I had another bag and so on and so on and so on.

So I get home. There’s a brown, Amazon style package on the floor and I have to kinda scoot my bike around it so I can pick it up. I’m already spitting bile about my bike, and my partner is watching me come in with the packet (I’m fairly certain he knew what it was already by the way… now that I think about it, but he wanted the reaction out of me, which is sweet). He takes the bike from me, testing the wheel and I think then we decide that I really am getting a new inner tube at the weekend.

Anyway… that’s not what this story is about. This story is about me turning over the packet and seeing ‘CreateSpace’ on the top right corner. And from that guessing immediately what it is. Everything in me stopped. I had to wait, I had to try to remember how to breathe because, even through the shock at getting the packet early I was aware that breathing is still a healthy and necessary thing to do!

So I sit down with the packet in my lap and close my hands over it. And I can’t open it. I can’t. I just sit there staring at it like a freaky weirdo, occasionally turning it over and feeling out the cellotape on the back which seals it. The tock is clicking away, counting down the minutes until my driving lesson starts and even the arrival of a cup of tea (just the way I like it; splash of milk, no sugar, bag left in) doesn’t seem to help me move. I’m just staring at it, wanting desperately to look, but, for some reason, far too scared. It was bizarre.

Finally I manage to lift a corner of the cellotape back and, once I’ve done that, I can keep going, slowly lifting it away to free the flaps of the cardboard and lift them up. It was like moving through treacle. But I finally got the flaps open and even though I can now feel the shape of the damn thing underneath the last two bends of cardboard I can’t get them open. Its like… I don’t want to look at it. What if its rubbish? What if something has printed wrong? What if, on looking on it, I find a glaring typo in my name or something stupid like that?!

When I do finally manage to lift the flap of the cover letter the first thing I can see is the barcode. Some how realising that I can see the barcode makes it even more real. Its a real product now. Then, when my driving lesson really should be starting, I finally lift the cover letter away and reveal the back cover.

Its just as I saw it on the internet. Exactly as it came out when I went through the CreateSpace website. Then, I turn it over and there… Clash Of The Animal Kings, by Ileandra Young.

He’s flapping around me taking pictures at this point, after watching me the whole time, but I don’t think I really even noticed it until afterwards. I just sat there, staring at it in my lap. My fingers kept brushing over the cover, picking out the edges, tracing the text, turning it over. I couldn’t even open the book for another three minutes. I just kept looking at my name on the cover and on the spine. Then I peeled back the front cover and it came back with that faint reluctance you always find with a brand new book, releasing that smell of clean, freshly pressed paper.

I tried not to cry, honestly. I really really did, but very soon I couldn’t even see the book because my eyes were so misty and then I had to move it so I didn’t get salty tear drops all over the cover. There are pictures of me crying holding onto this book for the first time. -_- I guess its a moment to remember isn’t it? :p

Massive tear tracks on my cheeks, blurry vision, but I get the book open, start looking through the pages, and something inside me swells up to the point that I can feel it pressing against the inside of my chest. My gaze skims down the pages, reading the words I wrote so long ago and picking out the familiar lines, phrases and characters that have been my life for the past eight months. Then I flick back to the front and I see the copyright symbol next to my name near the ISBN. And then I know its true, I know that I’ve really done it. My book is in print.

:D

Now, before you all rush off to buy the thing, this is just a proof copy. I still need to check it to be sure that it really is absolutely perfect before I let it go. But there we are… we’re almost there. As soon as I’m ready to release the book properly I’ll let you know and then, I guess, I’d better get on with creating the shop like I said I would to enable folk to buy it and other purdy things.

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Holiday! ^_^

Filed under: My Writing, NaNoWriMo 2010, Real Life Chatter — Leave a comment
June 9, 2011

Today is the day. Well… tomorrow is the day, but today is the day I leave here and head down to my mum’s place so we can all leave together at stupid o’clock in the morning. Did I not tell you? I’m going on holiday! A glorious week of sun, (black) sand and sea as my mum, my sister jet off to Tenerife.

I’m not as excited as I should be. Or else I’ve gotten much better at hiding it. I can’t decide which it is. I think, maybe, that it will start to kick in when I make a move towards London as it normally does. Its always when I’m actually moving that I start the bounciness.

I’m far more excited about being able to tell them all about Clash. I’ve made a specific point of not telling them over the phone. I want to be face to face with my family when I share the news about how things are going. I want to see their faces when they finally realise that I’m not kidding. I want to see their expressions change when they realise the one thing I’ve been talking about consistently since thirteen years old has actually happened. Not as I expected, but it has happened. And that is key. I’m going to explain to them how NaNo works and what I did in November (again, because I’ve already told them once before) and then I’m going to tell them about the editing process. And then, best of all, I’m going to show them my book cover. I would put it here, but I want to wait. I think when I’ve managed to get my copy and see it properly I’ll start organising the shop I was talking about.

Do you remember a short while ago I talked about a shop? A shop through which I’d sell personalised short stories. Anything from 1,000 words right up to 10,000. If you want more we’d have to negotiate that. But when I write stories as gifts, it seems to go down really well. So why not offer the service? Personalised short stories? I put it about on my Facebook when I first came up with the idea and it seemed to be received really well. So I figure I’ll do that and get it all writing up and some Terms of Service (TOS) as well so people know what they can and can’t get. When all that is finalised I’ll open up the shop and include the ability to buy Clash of the Animal Kings as well.

Its bizarre, CreateSpace really expect me to make money so they keep reminding me to fill in those tax forms. I haven’t done it yet, but I’m going to as soon as I have a moment spare. At this rate, it may well be after the holiday now. So that will be nice. And, if I do that, I’ll have to think more seriously about what I can and can’t do and how to pay for things. Writing a story or an article or a blog post is fun. I love doing that, so I don’t care about being paid for that. But the my time is incredibly valuable and, with most creative arts like this, time is what you pay for.

Anyway, that’s all stuff to come, I’m supposed to be talking about my holiday.

Not that there’s much to say just yet. I’ll fly out on Friday at something like 6.10am and be back the following Friday. I will still post while I’m away (finger’s crossed there will be time) but those posts will only be the 80 Post Challenge. I’ll save other posts for when I’m back and I have a bit more time to spend. And there will be a gallery too. I may well have it as a gallery within a post, rather than a gallery like the one at the top of this page, but I’m well known for taking foolish amounts of photos when I’m on holiday. I did it when I went to Spain (also with my mum and sister) and I did it when I went to Italy and Paris (both with the same awesome friend). I think my record on my last holiday (which was Spain I believe) was a good 800 photos. That will be a hard target to reach and then exceed, but I plan to try. I have a very old digital camera with me (something like 3 megapixels) but it does the job and I have three memory cards to take with me as well. That should be plenty to start me off and, if I really have too; I can email some of the photos to myself to save me space like I did in Spain.

colourful toy train, clipart from OpenClipArtOoo. Yep, there we go, starting to get excited now. I can feel it! Well I have about 90 minutes before I should be trotting off to the train station so I’m going to do my bits and bobs.

I may be able to keep my Twitter feed up to date while I’m away, but I doubt it. If I can I’ll use it to keep you all clued up into what I’m up to, so don’t forget to keep an eye on that for updates of what I’m doing.

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Clash Of The Animal Kings: Nearly There!

Filed under: My Writing, NaNoWriMo 2010 — Leave a comment
June 2, 2011

I’ve done it. Its over. Its done. Can you believe it?! Somewhere around 10.30pm last night I finished the final touches on my edit of Clash. Its done!

You know that little lip wobble thing you do when you’re just so happy that you’re afraid you’ll cry? That’s what I did and I had to trawl some of my favourite websites to calm down. It didn’t work – in calming me down I mean – but it did distract me long enough to stop me turning on the music too loudly. Then I caved in and did play a song… just one which, cheesy as it may be, helped describe what I felt.

Eeeeyup. Turned it up – not too loud – and just sat there singing as loudly as I could. Then I remembered that it was fairly late and that I’d better now, so I chilled a smidgy bit. But not for long. Then I went straight to CreateSpace to arrange for my proof copy of the novel. That, after all, is the reason I pushed so very hard after NaNoWriMo to get the edit done by this month. That is why I utterly dropped SORB (though it does strike me that I could have left Clash and put SORB through CreateSpace instead, though I have plans for bigger and better things with SORB; NaNos can happily be done POD). That is why I’ve barely seen my partner for two months and that is why my computer chair has a beautiful groove in it which fits perfectly with my arse. I’ve barely left the damn chair!

But I’ve done it. I’m there.

Then I got to go through CreateSpace and start putting it all together. I had to convert my .doc file into a .pdf on their strict margin templates. I had to go through it page by page to retain all of my formatting and yet ensure that the book is readable and pretty. I had to ignore those annoying red lines (the template was .doc) telling me that the file was full of spelling mistakes (the dictionary for that template was American -_-) and just focus on what I knew had to change. Hardest of all though, was that I had to trust my checking.

I’ve been going through the novel almost constantly since January now. I can’t afford to read it through again. But deep inside there is the tiniest fear that there is something I’ve missed or skipped or not made as clear as I could have. I’ve had proof readers and checkers go through it, but only one provided me with feedback and notations that I feel have made me do a good job of those scenes that I have no real life experience to draw on. Yeah… but I had to trust what I’d done already. So that meant no re-reading, just applying the 91k plus words to the template.

It came out at 250 pages all told. Well… the physical book will be 250 pages, the pages containing text number 243. I had no idea I’d written that much! But it does give me something of an idea towards how big something like SORB or Gaea might be. Gaea at its first edit was 250k words. o.O That will be a HUGE book!

But I did all that. I applied it to the template after picking out the size. I decided on a blurb for the outer cover and some ‘about the author’ text for the inside. I must admit, I just modified what was here for that. Kyonë did such a good job that I’ve used her words to describe myself with only slight modification. She doesn’t mind; I’ve already asked her. I think she’s pleased actually. And then… I got to make my cover.

!!!

I got to see the cover of my book. Laid out flat as if you had the book open with the spine facing up I got to see how the cover would look. That’s when I started crying again. I couldn’t help it. By that point it was probably 12.40am (I haven’t had much sleep), I was tired, I was buzzing but seeing my name on the spine and the title that I picked so long ago… I couldn’t stop the tears. I was just so unbelievably thrilled. I had already been upstairs to ask my partner if it was a good idea to start while I was so emotional, but I don’t think I explained properly what I was feeling and why it was making me ask. I have to get better at that. Anyway, I was supposed to stop and take myself to bed at midnight, but by that point I couldn’t stop.

So I made the template for my cover as well as all the blurb information and submitted all the files for review. They’re reviewing it now. Soon I’ll be able to know if the files are suitable for printing and then I’ll have the book. They’ll send it to me and I’ll be able to hold my novel in my hands. XD I don’t know how I’m going to get through work today. I’m too excited!

I have no idea how I’m going to get through work today. o.O

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Writing, Writing Everywhere!

Filed under: My Writing, Other Writings — Leave a comment
May 14, 2011

Yes, there seems to be a lot of it right now.

ribbon tied around finger, clip art, memory aideI posted yesterday’s blog and then got asked when I was going to continue with the blog about my driving lessons. Oops! I was supposed to be doing an entry per lesson and it just kinda, sorta dropped off as I got distracted by other things. Not ideal.

Oh and then I thought about The Ice Wolf Tavern and realised that I haven’t done any writing there for a long time either. Most definitely not good since its RP which is where it all started in the first place. Its a shame to let something like that slip. Especially since so many of my favourite characters were created there. Characters like Michael Garran, Diavian Hatara, Taithin Shatar and Keladora deserve to be free. Hell, that’s where Trya Fenwyn came from before I nicked her for LARPing with, so I need to get back into that.

THEN I spent a portion of this evening (the last three or so hours I believe) working on finishing up The First Time. A short piece (currently 5,099 words) about the meeting of two bodies who discover that they love each other dearly. But they happen to be women. Call it erotica if you like; I’ve been hinting about it for long enough that I figured I’d better just get on and finish it. I started the piece in September 2009 for goodness sake! I’m asking people if they want to do a read through of it for me, offer opinions and the like before I put it on the site in the Excerpts section. I’m quite pleased with it, though I’m worried that the tone and feel of the piece might have slipped slightly from where it began. I’ll have to see what people think when they read it. When I’m satisfied that I’ve done enough work on it, with feedback, it will go up here too; in full.

clipart, memory lane, widing road and hills>Yes… writing, writing everywhere! I’ve been reading through some of my old work too; not SORB or Clash, or anything I’ve talked about in blogs in much detail, but things that are really old. I’ve been using it as research to show me how much my writing style and choice of genre has changed over the years. I always tend to do it around the time of my birthday. o.O Go figure. Anyway that has brought back a lot of memories of stories that never quite made it off the ground and things that I really want to try again. Crickey and I want to write something for Shortfuse, though I have no idea what their next theme is yet. I have to try to stay open and free to that when I do know they type of thing they want, I can dive right on in.

As you can see… busy, busy, busy!
But don’t get me wrong… I LOVE IT!

Though tomorrow I will be taking something of a break to go to Birmingham so I can see a dear friend of mine for lunch. I’m very looking forward to that.

Oh yes, and I haven’t forgotten about the gallery either. I’ve got permission from all but one of the fabulous photographers who have snapped me over the years to use their images and, from it, its quite likely that there will be affiliate links going up to. I can’t pay these kind people – I’m not making any money from this site :( – but the least I can do is link back to them through here to show off more of their work. If that’s what they’d like.

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