Help... it's nearly Christmas!!!

© Maria Brzostowska - FOTOLIA

Alas, this is not a piccie of all the lovely pressies I have packed and ready to send to people for Christmas... because basically, I haven't packed any pressies for Christmas yet. I haven't even bought most of them! I don't know what's happened in the last few months, the days have flown and flown by and I don't really know what I've done with them... apart from write a bit. For ages it was 'oh there's months yet...' and suddenly now, it's just over a couple of weeks to Christmas and I'm in a flat spin. In past years, I've always loved to peruse the many charity catalogues that arrive, and choose gifts from them. Sort of to salve my conscience for being such a thoroughly self centered bitch queen all the time. At least that way I was doing a bit of good at the festive season... but this year I've left it far too late, and will now have to call on the services of dear old Amazon and the delectable Hotel Chocolat, both of whom will wrap and deliver the pressie direct to the recipient. It's a lazy way to do things... and I know other people will have spent many hours wrapping their gifts and investing personal time in their preparation... which is part of the gift itself... but I think it's the only way I'm going to be able to cope at this late stage.

But I promise to do better next year! Next year, I will think ahead, plan ahead, and choose gifts ahead from all my favourite charities. In fact, I will make sorting out Christmas ahead of time one of my NY resolutions!!!

CEotFK

This is most unusual... Note position of Kuffer's tail.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

for so many reasons...

• yesterday was more or less a bust, writingwise...
• think a bit cockup has been made in respect of something I posted yesterday, resulting in the loss of a chunk of money
• the crappy weather and stress factors are making every bit of my body ache... again...
• Christmas is looming and I've done next to nothing towards it...
• Yahoo went weird yesterday, resulting in lost posts...
• all my other email addresses seem to be f-ed up too, resulting in me never knowing whether important emails have got to their destinations...

On the writing-bust-wise front... Have started some editing on IllMet and really, the first chapter is a pile of horse dollop! It's bad. Just bad. Dead and wooden as can be. And I know why. I 'translated' it from an old bit of first person writing I did, like, years ago and as the original bit was poor, the new version is poor too. Think I may have to print this bit off, read it, then rip it out of the MS completely and rewrite the whole first scene. I'm starting to have doubts about the whole opus, actually... The usual story... I have this horrible fear that my writing isn't 'intelligent' enough... isn't 'special' enough... Both those barbs have been aimed at me in the past... The first right at the beginning of my career when some pretentious git in an erotica mail order catalogue deemed that my first ever book wasn't 'intelligent' writing.... Well, up yours buster! The mail order business soon disappeared and I'm still here! The second was when my long suffering agent was trying to place my one and only attempt at a women's mainstream novel, and an editor somewhere said that my writing was good, but the book 'just wasn't special enough'... well, I think she was right, to be honest. In fact I know she was right. It was pretty much a 'nothing' idea... Mainstream is way beyond my scope... You need big ideas, and a fair degree of confidence, to launch into that arena, and I don't have either... There are some writing things I'm quite good at, when I'm 'in the zone', but generally I'm only too aware of my limitations.

I sometimes wonder if I should actually ignore my limitations though... approach my writing as if I sincerely believe that I'm a freaking genius and nothing I do can possibly be wrong... and just get carried along on the wave of my own self belief [importance]? What do you think? Is it worth a shot? LOL

Today I'm at...

LUST BITES - the spiffing new blog for Black Lace authors and other Virgin Publishing reprobates!

oh, it's not happening today!

Jeepers, I can't get off the blocks today with any kind of constructive, writing type activity. It's nearly 11.30am and I've done jack shit as my beloved American buddies would say. Well, not exactly nothing... really... I've actually:

• sent the partial of TechnoGothic to my lovely, lovely critique partner
• trawled Amazon for a few possible Christmas pressies
• thrown out a few mags and catalogues, although not, alas, anything from the Everest of assorted crud beside my bed
• sent a few emails
• replied to a few emails

Today, I ought to be getting on with an editing pass of IllMet... but me being me, I'm scared to look at it in case it's just pooh. I think reading all that sparkling debate on women's erotica yesterday has made me feel a bit thick again [still]... I'm not a great one for analysis of what I write, how I write, or why I write. Except, the latter, slightly... I write because I can, a bit, and because I like to please people and share my some of my fanciful ideas with them [and also the fact that I occasionally do manage to actually have an idea!] and because it's nice to earn a little bit of money for doing something that's not for The Man. I mostly write stuff that comes purely from my instincts and that sort of 'feels good'. It's as simple as that. No technique, no subtexts, no allusions, no commentary, no challenging or testing or dazzling the reader with stylistic pyrotechnics... just something to entertain. A bit of magic, if I can manage it, although not usually of the actual supernatural kind. Lurrve... Mischief... I don't know...

Ack, I'm starting to fuzz up my brain! This always happens when I try to get serious for a minute... Think I need to dash over to Cute Overload or Catster and look at pictures of appealing puddycats and/or baby wabbits. :)

ps. here's a fun thing if you're trying to avoid work!

--
Telly: nothing yet
Chocolate: Tesco Dark with Espresso
Mood: disorganised
Writing: nowt, yet
Reading: Amazon book descriptions
RSI: not bad

100th post!

This is my 100th post on this blog! Soon racked 'em, didn't I?

Bit of a mixed day today. I've finished a pass of TechnoGothic, and I'm in a quandary as to whether I do another... it might benefit from another edit, but then again, I might have reached critical mass and any further tinkering may result in the text losing all it's life and become wooden and overworked...

So instead, I did some tidying up on the synopsis of IllMet... Ack, I hate synopses! But this one needed work. It was filled with such gems as 'Lois and Robin bonk' and 'Lois goes for a walk and sees a funny looking hare'... Need to buff the thing up a bit and fill it with a smattering of more editor-enticing phraseology!

Speaking of editors, I've spent a lot of the afternoon here. Some excellent discourse, although it all got a bit too intellectual towards the end for this entertainer... found myself glazing over and reaching for The Sun when folk started bandying the Marquis de Sade and Susan Sontag about. LOL!

--
Telly: The Ballerina and the Blues
Chocolate: Tesco Dark with Espresso
Mood: okay
Writing: synopsis - Ill Met By Moonlight
Reading: Radio Times
RSI: not bad

Entertaining Mr Stone

Another splendiferous review for EMS - this time at Romance Divas! [nb. it's a pdf]

I love it how people really seem to 'get' Clever Bobby... :)

--
Telly: The Ballerina and the Blues
Chocolate: Tesco various
Mood: okay, but a bit unfocused
Writing: nothing yet
Reading: nothing yet
RSI: so so

quite busy today

Have been quite busy today, working hard on TechnoGothic, refining and improving and generally breathing the breath of Portia Da Costa into the rough and rather weak first rough draft. Sometimes stuff comes out right, straight out of the gate... other times, it's total pooh, and really needs strong-arming into some kind of shape. Refining usually means cutting out a load of superfluous wordage crud, and phraseology that distances the reader from the book and from the characters... and making the writing more direct, and immediate, so that the reader is 'in' the character more. This is usually easier in first person, and slightly harder in third. TechnoGothic is third person, so I can do big, big chunks in Alexander's POV... I know some people have ventured into dual first person, but after a lot of deliberation I find that's not for me, because most times when I read it, I find it confusing, so God alone knows what would happen if I tried to write it! It would turn into the biggest jumble of the century and be v. embarrassing. I'm not a literary or experimental writer... I just like to stay in the comfort zone of entertainment, and write a nice luvvyduv style romance story, with *lots* of heart and an equal amount of rumpy pumpy shagnasticality... :)

So, we're in third person, so yours truly has to work double hard to ensure that the writing seems almost as intimate as if it was in first! I think I'm getting it, and I like my hero and heroine much better after I've worked them over... In the first draft they were both far to sorry for themselves and full of self disgust over various issues, and now they accept their lots much better. In fact Robyn is quite a cheerful soul in the new version, and very philosophical... Alexander is still a bit of grouch, but he's an interesting grouch... and he's got to be a bit of one because he's Beast to her Beauty... only without the fur, the snout and the tail!

I think this could be a fun book to write if some lovely editor will give it a chance... it's got lots going for it and it's full of contrasts. Full of darks and lights, happiness and poignancy, weak and strong, chubby and thin... All of human life is there... well, some of it...

--
Telly: afternoon movies
Chocolate: Maya Gold
Mood: quite positive
Writing: editing TechnoGothic
Reading: ComputerActive
RSI: reasonable

Happy Google Day, Vincent D'Onofrio

Had to be a part of this, didn't I? Love this pic because it says such naughty, naughty things to me!

I am bad....

No work done today... Instead I've been foofling about with all sort of things, including signing my cats up at Catster, which is a sort of MySpace for cats, thankfully without all the music and glitter!

--
Telly: Blue Planet, The Green Berets
Chocolate: Tesco Swiss Milk
Mood: Lazy
Writing: thought about TechnoGothic a bit
Reading: been online mostly
RSI: not too bad

testing testing...

Test post of Alice...
--
Telly: Battle of Britain - fab!!!
Chocolate: Ritter Tesco Swiss Milk
Mood: Goodish
Writing: editing TechnoGothic
Reading: TechnoGothic...
RSI: not too bad

Blogger! Blankety blanking blank!!!

Blogger is behaving like a total *rse at the moment! Hope to post properly later.




--
Telly: Beauty and the Beast
Chocolate: Ritter Marzipan
Mood: Pissed off with Blogger!
Writing: editing TechnoGothic
Reading: nothing really
RSI: slightly better