Stephanie Gunn

Not a lot of writing accomplished this week.

I did manage to start digging down into the problems that exist with The White Raven, mostly identified thanks to wonderful beta readers, and started the huge process of trying to fix them.  It’s going to take me a while, that’s for sure.

I did get a decent amount of reading in.  Well, decent for these days, but pitiful compared to how I once read.  I finished my review of Kirstyn McDermott’s Madigan Mine, which you should all read.  Moved onto another review book, and also picked up Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Power and Majesty.  Which has had the effect of making me want to also reread Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels books.

Other writing-type work accomplished: the only thing is the continuing effort to organise my books.  Which has the result at the moment of some partially organised shelves and a whole lot of books in piles on the ground.  I need more shelves.

I’ve decided that I need to start being accountable for the writing work I’ve been doing.

At the moment, I’m pretty much still working in snatches of time.  If I’m lucky, I get about an hour a day while the baby is napping or being looked after.  And if I’m not exhausted, I can usually eke out another 30-60 minutes in the evening after the baby has gone to bed.  And on any given day, both of these times may not happen.

This week, most days were lost to complete concentration fail.  I wandered back and forth between projects, just trying to figure out what I actually wanted to do.  I’d been working on outlining Never, but suddenly I found myself dying to get to work on The White Raven as well.  The latter of which needs a tremendous amount of work.

My plan, as it came together after much faffing about:

To continue to outline Never, working on getting really indepth character bios and a detailed outline of the whole thing.

To strip down The White Raven completely and figure out exactly what I want it to say, and to develop a complete outline before I rewrite.

Realistically, these two outlines may be all of the writing work that I manage this year.  And that’s okay.  I’d be happy to be able to work up a series of outlines over the next couple of years, if nothing else, and then I can write the actual books when I have more time.

I’ve also gotten seriously back into reviewing, which is making me happy.  I’m thankful for the chance to do review work, since it often makes me read authors that I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.

I’m halfway through listening to the latest episode of Galactic Suburbia, in which one of the discussions is the speculative fiction books they read during their first foray into the genre.

It’s interesting hearing them discuss the books they consciously chose as genre when they were teenagers (David Eddings being popular) and then, as they thought back, how many books they read previously that were genre.

As always when I listen to this podcast, I’ve been reflecting on my own reading history.

The first time I became truly aware that I was reading fantasy was in early high school.  I remember vividly the Magician books being dreadfully popular, to the point where there was a waiting list for each one.  As curious then as I am now, I started reading them.  And promptly fell in love with Feist and fat fantasy epics.  I moved on to the series he co-wrote with Janny Wurts, the Empire books (which remain my favourites of his, along with Faerie Tale).  I read some Eddings, but was never a huge fan of his.  Then I joined the Doubleday SF and Fantasy mail order book club and was lost.  I discovered an awful lot of good authors through that club in the days before the internet.

And thinking back further, to some of the Young Adult books I read, before they were really classified into genre.  I missed stuff like The Hobbit and the Narnia books somehow (I blame it on having parents who didn’t read sf themselves – though I read a lot of stuff like Alice in Wonderland and the Faraway Tree books, which are arguably genre).  I remember scouring the YA shelf at the local library for anything that looked interesting.  Same goes for the book sales catalogues we got at school.

The first one I remember vividly is a book called We Are Tam, which no one else reading this has probably read.  As far as I can tell, it’s well out of print.  I sold my copy of it, regrettably (I used to sell of my books all the time when I was younger so I could buy new ones, something I regret a lot now).  It was pure science fiction, with a time travel plot.  I’m pretty sure it was set in Australia, as well, though I’d have to do some googling to confirm that.

The other two books I know people will recognise: Margaret Mahy’s Aliens in the Family and The Changeover.  I vividly remember clamouring to have the television to myself while the miniseries adaption of Aliens in the Family was screened on ABC in the blessed 5:30pm timeslot.  I have copies of both of these, thankfully, and must reread them sometime soon.  I also must hunt down some of Mahy’s other work one of these days.

It’s interesting, looking back, at some part of that path that led me to where I am now, a huge sf and fantasy fan and writer.  My father reads a lot, but mostly crime and spy novels, though he has a good deal of sf in his library now, mostly thanks to me getting him addicted to space opera like Peter F. Hamilton.  Neither of my siblings are huge readers, and neither of them are huge genre fans.  It’s going to be interesting to watch my son’s reading habits as he grows up in a house full of books and with two parents who are both voracious genre readers.

It’s Ditmar nomination time again.

There have been a bunch of lists of recommendations circulating through the blogosphere, and Tehani Wessely is compiling a list of eligible works.

My few recommendations:

Novel:

Slights, Kaaron Warren

Life Through Cellophane, Gillian Polack

Shadow Queen, Deborah Kalin

(there’s a couple of others I should add to this list, including Liar and Leviathan, but I’ve omitted them for the simple reason that I haven’t read them completely yet.)

Novella/novelette

Wives, Paul Haines

The Message, Andrew J. McKiernan

Horn, Peter M. Ball

Short story

Busking, Jason Fischer

Six Suicides, Deborah Biancotti

The Emancipated Dance, Felicity Dowker

Collection

Slice of Life, Paul Haines

Book of Endings, Deborah Biancotti

Grants Pass, ed Amanda Pillar and Jennifer Brozek

Fan Writer

Chuck McKenzie, who has been the backbone of Horrorscope for the last year.

William Atheling Jr

Chuck McKenzie

And of course, the obligatory vanity section of works I have that are eligible:

Short stories:

Narthex, In Bad Dreams 2

An Unkindness of Ravens, Grants Pass.

And I’m also eligible for fan writer for my work with Horrorscope.

I figured that I’m a bit overdue for a post on the state of my works in progress.

At the moment, I’m still only snatching bits and pieces of time to write.  I’m able to actually catch up on sleep now, thanks to a baby who suddenly sleeps through most nights, though I’m still somewhat in deficit.  It’s taking a little while to get my creative mind working well, so I’m trying to ease into it.

I’m also working on a couple of other non-writing projects, primarily trying to organise my writing area/library and make it a comfortable and welcoming place.  At the moment, I’m in the middle of organising and cataloging my books.  After that, I need to sort out all the other craft stuff that’s been tossed haphazardly into the room.  I’d also like to replace the desk that’s in there to something smaller and more comfortable, and get some artwork up.

I’m working on outlining and writing up character sketches and history for Never mostly right now.  It’s a different process for me, since I’m usually pure pantser.  But not having the luxury of hours on end to meander around the page right now, outlining is something I can do in snatches and pieces.  I have to wonder how much I’ll actually stick to the outline when I come to writing a draft.  We’ll see.

I’ve also been feeling a bit of a draw to get back to working on The White Raven.  I need to spend some serious time going through my notes and feedback from beta readers, and then pull everything apart and see if I can put it back together in some fashion.  And just as I’m typing this, I’ve realised that I can read the MS on the iPad.  Might be time to invest in something like PDF annotate.

So I’ve actually started writing again.

The obstacles to my writing are this: a gorgeous, though energetic, badly-sleeping, high needs six-month-old baby boy, lack of sleep because of said baby boy, and my own inconsistent health.

I’ve always been able to manage to work in some writing time around health issues. Combine that with the sprog, and we have writing disaster.

For most of the last six months, I’ve been so sleep deprived that writing has been the furthest thing from my mind. I’ve blogged a handful of times lamenting that I haven’t been able to write, and I’ve done a few dribs and drabs of work, but nothing substantial. And most of the time, I haven’t really wanted to write. Even now, the idea of writing a whole novel is daunting in a way it never has been before.

But even without that burning desire to put words onto the page, Story has still gnawed away at me. In particular, the story of Never.  It’s gotten to the point where I need to start writing it down.  Without writing, I feel like I’ve lost a part of me, and I’m determined to get it back.

For the next handful of years, my luxury of having many hours in which to write are gone.  The sprog always comes first.  I know that there are going to be days when I can’t write, because he needs me more, or because he’s had a bad night and I’m too sleep-deprived to think straight.

I need to make use of the good days.

The sprog’s sleep has improved dramatically this week with his move into his own room.  Which means that my sleep has improved dramatically, and I no longer feel like a total zombie.  I’m also now making use of family help to watch him for a few hours so I can get some work done.  Previously I’ve used that time to catch up on housework and the like.  Now it’s going to be a priority for me to write.  I can do a lot of housework while wearing the sprog, and he’s getting happier to sit and watch me do things for a while.  Writing, though, bores him to tears, and he spend the whole time trying to get to the keyboard or eat my laptop

So, to a new style of writing.

This means that I’m outlining.  My writing sessions right now consist of me working up my character biographies, making my characters really live and breathe.  I’m spending a lot of time describing my locations, as well as doing research.  An invaluable tool has also been tumblr I can search Flickr with one hand for images which inspire me, and blog them to tumblr to keep a collection of pieces of Never.

It’s happening.  Slowly, but it’s happening.  And as I catch up on sleep more (which is a trend that I hope will continue), I should be able to carve out some writing time in the evenings after the sprog has gone to sleep.

I’m also going to be more disciplined with reading.  I used to read 50 pages of whatever I’m reading for review a day, with any other spare time given over to reading for pleasure.  Not sure if I can manage the 50 pages a day now, but I want to try to read something of my review work every day, at least.

Discipline.  It’s what’s for breakfast.

I’ve had the iPad for almost two weeks now, and I figured it was time to actually write up a post about it.

I bought the iPad primarily to use as an ebook reader. I’m a huge fan of my iPhone (despite its limitations) and have always wanted to read ebooks on it. I find the screen comfortable enough for reading, but it was the size that always put me off reading full books.

Enter the iPad. I’d thought of getting an e-ink reader like the Kobo (which was just released here recently) or the Kindle. But the iPad could be used as a reader and so much more. I was sold well before it was released.

And yes, I bought Plants vs Zombies for it. I’d already been addicted on the iPhone, and it’s extremely pretty and fun on the iPad.

Other apps of note, which I also run on my iPhone – Air Video and z-Subsonic, used for streaming video and audio respectively from my PC. Both awesome apps on the iPhone, and even more so on the iPad, Air Video especially. Also really nice was the fact that the iPad versions were free, since I’d already purchased the iPhone versions.

Onto eBooks. Right now, there’s a selection of apps – the iBookstore, Kindle, Kobo/Borders and Stanza. I’ve been a devotee of Stanza on the iPhone for a while, so much so that I hadn’t played much with the other apps.

iBooks isn’t that useful for us in Australia, since there’s actually not much available of interest in this region. But I do like the app itself – it gives you a decent amount of control over the way you read.

I do like the Kindle app, and would probably like it even more if I had a Kindle. But my app of choice right now is the Borders/Kobo app – it mostly has the same books for us that are available for Kindle, but is linked into the Borders Australia site. I love the night reading mode especially, since I’m most often using the iPad to read in bed at night. Even better, it synchronises between the iPad and iPhone versions (which, of course, the Kindle app also does). And should I ever decide to buy a Kobo eReader, it all syncs up as well.

And to make things even better, we have Dropbox, which gives me a perfect way to share documents between my computers and the iPad (I run it on the iPad, my iPhone, my MacBook and my desktop PC). Combined with GoodReader, which is awesome for pdfs, and I have another great way to read documents.

My one wish right now is to find an app that will let me open word documents and rtf files and let me track changes and add comments which will then synchronise with Word on my MacBook or PC. I thought about buying Pages, but have read that the comments get lost when you take documents from the iPad. It would be really nice to read manuscripts on the iPad and be able to annotate them. Quite possibly the app I need exists already, and I just haven’t found it. If anyone knows, clue me in?

Overall, the iPad has been an extremely worthy purchase already for me. And I imagine it’s going to get even better as more apps are released, as well as OS4.

So, my website was hacked again.

Thankfully, this time it was pretty easy to fix. Not so thankfully, in the process of trying to make things more secure, I broke the website. And then I broke it again.

Two reinstalls later, I think we’re back and running. Thank the gods for automatic backups.

test

The city sheds darkness instead of light.

In the very centre, it is said, lives only pure night. As you walk out towards the edges, the darkness lifts, light bleeding into the streets and windows like blood from a cut vein. Keep walking, past the houses and hotels and crumbling churches, to where the roads themselves fall away to dust.

It is only there, outside of Never, that true light remains. And it is only there where you are truly lost.