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Yonder: Writing, Edible Clone Troopers, and Nicholas Brendon wet

Found lots to like on the internet this week, despite a demanding writing/social life/Sims schedule and an allergic reaction to something currently mysterious that wiped out most of yesterday. Bleurgh. Probably not a reaction to Kindles, chocolate, laptops or Twitter, though, so I’ll soldier on.

I read this post by Trent Jamieson, that kinda made me tingle –

Devour the world…Write what you don’t know…Dream that you can write the best stories and that, even when people tell you you can’t, you do, because you dreamt them.

Read it in full here.

Kristin Cashore wrote honestly, and helpfully, about writers block here, which basically says that writing is hard and when the going is tough it doesn’t mean you’re blocked, it mean’s you’re working. Which is good to hear cos it means she’s got the right sensibility to finish Bitterblue – Graceling gave me shivers.

I’ve finished the punk cookies I mentioned last time (and made a second batch), now I want me some Star Wars food. Click the image to read the Instructable.

And finally, I’m aware that I will alienate some readers here, but others of you are going to LOVE me for this – a photo of a wet-shirted Nicholas Brendon. Yes. Ahem. I was always Angel’s girl, but I might go back and re-watch with new, invigorating intentions. Click the image for more wet photos (no, not a phrase I thought I’d ever type). (Psst, if you like this you might also like this)

He's wet but he looks happy, right?

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Quick Quick Slow

By Rhian Bowley on in music, words, writing

I’ve not yet finished the draft I thought I’d be done with last month, but I have had some great ‘ping!’s about what this middle section needs. Insights that help change it from ‘and then, after The Beginning, they decide to go Slay The Baddies, uncovering (and solving) a Mystery in the process, which leads nicely to The End‘ to something with more substance – less of a service-station stop en route to the end, more of a village in its own right.

I wonder if I’d have got those pings if I’d hurtled through the draft at the pace I’d intended? Yes, I probably would. Going slower got my brain composting some stuff and working on some neat revelations, but had I gone faster and – crucially – worked every day, I’d have been so submerged in the story that the same revelations would have come and probably been signposted more clearly. No justification for slackening the pace, sadly, but good to know that both speeds still get me the same story.

My reading’s going much more swiftly, what a surprise, eh? I loved A Long Long Sleep, by Anna Sheehan, despite a slow start, and stayed up late to finish it. Review for the BFS to come. I was angry and disappointed by The Magician King; Fillory sounded like my kind of place til I realised that all Grossman’s strong female characters meet terrible ends (or are, like Janet, left on P.27 and never seen again). Audra at Unabridged Chick puts it well –

‘I don’t mind darker themes and I don’t mind a harder edge to my fantasy — but I want it doled out in equal part. Sparing all the male magicians while making the women all victims is frustrating, and whatever pay out comes at the end never feels enough to make the violence okay. It’s disappointing and frustrating and frankly, feels cheap.

Her review is here and my review for the British Fantasy Society is linked to here.

Talking of the BFS – it’s FantasyCon this month! It’s the first one I’m attending, and I’m very excited. Thank you to Lou Morgan for writing a newbie A-Z – check it out on her blog here.

Right, must get back to The Sims – oops, no, I mean work. Honest, guv.

Things I’m doing this week:

Watching: Lost Girl, Season 1 on Syfy (great so far!)

Reading: Roil, by Trent Jamieson (also great so far)

Eating: punk rock vegan cookies. If they’re vegan I can eat as many as I want, right?

Listening to: Pot Kettle Black, Tilly and The Wall

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How to Turn Captain America On

By Rhian Bowley on in yonder

Found this fantastic switch plate via Tickled Fancy’s tumblr – follow this link and click the photo to see Captain America in, ahem, action.

The Etsy shop, Intergalacticdesign, is full of great switch plates – check it out here – and then visit Tickled Fancy for more very cool finds (and some perfect Mad Men art). She’s on twitter too, so I think a follow is in order – @whirringblender

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Welcome

By Rhian Bowley on in words

Due to some late night messing around on WordPress without supervision, I got ~~water on it~~ locked out of my old blog for a few weeks. Don’t mix droopy eyelids with WordPress, kids. So I finally had some impetus to move to this domain, which I had parked for when I felt clever and special enough to use my own name. Um. Well. I feel more dishevelled and out-of-sorts than either of those things, but fake it til you make it, as Socrates said.

Of course, minutes after I’d got this place set up I regained access to my old site – but I’m comfy now. And I did something to the css that I don’t understand but am very proud of. So I’m staying here. Welcome!

I’ve moved my old posts and comments over already, and I’ve added in links to my reviews that live elsewhere. There will be more of those soon – I’ll soon be reviewing at Slacker Heroes three times a month, which I’m very chuffed about, cos that’s where all the cool kids hang out. And me.

What with Slacker Heroes, my latest parcel from the British Fantasy Society, and my ongoing Amazon addiction (my Kindle is a hungry beast) I have lots of reading to do this month. Read read read. Write write write. I failed CampNano last month – did you? – but it did what I wanted it to do, which was remind me that I can write fast and write fast I did. Am. Looks like I will have a finished version* of this story by the end of next week and then I can start prettying it up. Read read read. Write write write.

(*I hate the word draft today. ‘Version’ will do nicely instead, plus it reminds me of The Lemonheads)

I’ve already encountered the first book so bad I won’t review it (it’s another writer’s baby, so I would feel like such a bitch if I publicly slandered it, even though it was v dire), and thankfully discovered Lev Grossman whose awesomeness totally made up for the bad book. I was sent The Magician King, but decided to pick up The Magicians and read that first to get the context. Boy am I glad I did – Lev and I clearly read the same books growing up, and he has built a world where all the cool bits of, say, Narnia or Tom’s Midnight Garden are real and even grown-ups can get there . I’d hate to be too old to visit magical lands.

Reviews of both ‘The Magicians’ and ‘The Magician King’ coming soon, as well as a post that was already brewing on which books I (and Lev Grossman, maybe?) loved when I was younger and haunt me now I’m creating a world of my own. Mine’s more graffiti’d railway bridges than grandfather clocks, but I feel those echoes when I write, nonetheless.

Thanks for coming over to say hi to me in my new place. Leave the welcome gifts on the table – yes, I’ll take that beer, thanks, how kind – and feel free to look around. Ignore that New Smell, it’ll wear off soon.

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