Storybook Perfect

Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

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January Goals Round-Up 2014

February 5, 2014 / / 2 Comments
stare at this real hard for an hour and you'll know how I've felt these last two weeks ;p

stare at this real hard for an hour and you’ll know how I’ve felt these last two weeks ;p

I wrote 11,700 words in a new novelette(working title: Grimoire) as well as two flash pieces (Anything To Fit In at 500 words, and Motherhood at 900 words) and two new short stories (God’s Chosen at 2200 words and Gaps at 5000 words), so am making progress on goal 3(writing and submitting more short stories). 20,000 words, not a shabby start to the year.

I’ve begun the major and (oh please god) final edit of Written By The Stars. I’m being guided by Holly Lisle’s How To Revise Your Novel Class, thus also taking care of goal 4(learning) as well as goal 1(editing Written By The Stars).

All up, fairly productive, though that trailed off with the return of my vertigo (dizzy heads get foggy which makes editing a little difficult and first drafts pretty damn nutty).

Australian Spec-Fic Authors Challenge 2014 – January Round-Up

February 1, 2014 / / 0 Comments

the noviceI followed on from December’s read ‘The Magician’s Guild’, book one of the Black Magician Trilogy, with ‘The Novice’, book two of the same.

Sonea officially becomes a novice of the Magician’s Guild, but that doesn’t mean the high born magicians will accept a slum dweller into their ranks – and let’s not forget that she is one of the few who know the dark secret about the High Lord.

Sonea faces a lot more than just bullying, but I don’t want to play the spoiler harp and ruin that. While the second half of her troubles was genuinely intriguing, the bullying got a bit annoying for me after a while. The reason is very personal to me, because I can’t really understand the mentality Sonea had of not going and asking for help. I can see the motivations that drive a person to behave that way, but it’s just so opposite to my nature that it drives me insane. But enough about me ;p

Things get much more complicated with the secret about High Lord Akkarin, but I won’t divulge how(spoilers sweetie) and again, the ending stakes make me eager to read the next book.

But the one *SPOILER ALERT* I will throw out there (yes, legitimate SPOILER ALERT) I loved the relationship between Dannyl and Tayend. I thought it was very nicely treated and I think there was a certain sense of chemistry even before Tayend was revealed as gay. There were a lot of parallels placed between the real world and the book’s world and it was interesting to see these issues tackled in a fantasy setting. My only disappointment is they haven’t gotten together (yet, looking forward to book three). I must now confess I always have been, and always will be a shipper 😀 (for those not familiar with the term it means I get deeply invested in relationships (there are other meanings too, but that’s how I use it)). And the kiss between Sonea and Dorrien was so cute.

/Spoiler.

I’m looking forward to the concluding book, I’m going to try and cram it in before my February read.

Doesn’t This Sound Fun

January 26, 2014 / / 0 Comments

One of my critique group buddies shared some info from a writing magazine she’s subscribed to with me and that’s how I came across Found Fiction.

The idea is a story or poem is slipped in an envelope marked ‘read me’ and left places. Any place, a bus stop, a cafe, inside a book at a bookstore. Some one will spot it and (assuming they don’t watch too many horror movies where this sort of thing doesn’t end well) they open it and read it. Ideally they will then tweet or post about it on Facebook so Found Fiction know their fun is spreading.

Of course I love the idea. I’m already looking into how to become a distributor and certainly wouldn’t mind getting a story or two dropped in random places around the world either.

I’d love to drop a slew of Found Fiction around at writers’ festivals (like BWF and BBWF) that I go to this year, and trust me, even though my vertigo is back and I have hardly managed to walk all week (oh and my doctor says no driving >:( ) I’ll still find ways to get some fiction into new hands.

If you’d like to check them out yourself you can find Found Fiction on Facebook and Twitter.

Accountability and Productivity

January 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

five year diaryI was reading a great friend and amazing author Talitha’s blog the other day. She’d written a post on productivity tools, a lot of which I use or totally wish I did) and I thought of my biggest productivity tool: my five year diary.

I’ve brought this up before, but for those who don’t want to go back and read the post, a five year diary is a diary where the same date (eg/10th of January) takes up a whole page, but that page is broken up into five sections of five lines each. One section for each year. There’s just enough space for some quick notes like ‘bought my tickets for the Brisbane Writers’ Festival. Wrote a new 4,200 words in Keys, Clocks, Quests (total count now 75184). Tried fixing start of Nightfall based on group feedback, but everything I think of just doesn’t work.’ (actual entry from August 5, 2013).

The diary helps keep me accountable for what I did that day. If I did enough with my family or at my day job to fill the space I don’t feel guilty about doing less writing and editing, but if I can’t fill up those five measly lines, I feel bad – real bad – and I work harder to ensure I do something the next day.

I think productivity and accountability are wrapped together very tightly. It’s like setting goals (or making New Years resolutions). They fall apart if you don’t work on them and if you don’t recognise you aren’t working on them, hold yourself accountable and pick up your game then of course you’re going to fail, because you gave up.

That’s not to say incentives aren’t a handy method too. I was super excited at the NaNoWriMo camp last year to get stickers for every 5,000 words I wrote (yes, I’m over 30 and I love stickers, people who say they don’t love stickers are LYING).

Talitha has a very interesting method of shifting marbles from one jar to another each thousand words which combines incentives (a visual representation of how much you’ve achieved) and accountability (all those marbles you haven’t ‘written’ stuck in the unborn jar making you feel guilty). If you want to know more, go read her post.

Do you have a productivity tool which you find particularly helpful, even if it’s not for writing productivity?

Pretty Damn Cool

January 8, 2014 / / 0 Comments

A quick one today, just because I thought this was a very interesting read.

Scientists Say Great Novels Can Change Your Brain’s Biology

I want to write the kind of books that make your brain better 😀

Let’s Make It BIG!

January 7, 2014 / / 0 Comments
Hunting the web for a cool picture of the Australian flag, totally found this instead and had to share

Hunting the web for a cool picture of the Australian flag for this post, totally found this instead and had to share

This is a call out to all my lovely readers. I want to share The Australian Speculative Fiction Authors Challenge with as many people as possible. I want to challenge everyone!

So please, share it in your online spaces, blogs, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter whatever you have. EVERYTHING you have!

I really want to see how many people we can get enjoying the challenge.

Click to tweet: The Australian Speculative Fiction Authors #ReadingChallenge http://wp.me/P2f5ib-kV I challenge you!


Share This Challenge on Facebook

Copy and paste this link to share on other platforms: https://www.storybookperfect.com/the-aussie-spec-fic-author-challenge-2014/

Also, if there is anyone with more talent in graphic design than I who would like to spiff up the button for the challenge you’re definitely welcome to – my photoshop talents are… hmmm how to put this nicely… Non existent.

2013 Rounded Up Plus Goals For 2014

January 1, 2014 / / 2 Comments
The cover of Oomph, the first publication I received an acceptance letter from

The cover of Oomph, the first publication I received an acceptance letter from

I started 2012 expecting little then achieving lots, so when I made my goals list for 2013 I aimed high. A tiny bit too high, but that’s no matter I still achieved plenty. My 2013 achievements include:

  • Being Shortlisted in a Writing competition (2013 Redlitzer)
  • Being published for the first time (and going to the gala event to launch the anthology)
  • Being published for the second time
  • I wrote 2 novellas(14,000 and 17,000), 8 short stories (defining short as under 10,000 words as half of these stories are between 5-8,000) and 5 flash fiction pieces (four of which you can read right now by clicking the ‘Free Fiction‘ tab in the menu above. To learn more about these stories you can check them out in my ‘Current Projects‘ page.
  • Learned how hard it can be to edit a novel you wrote in two months as compared to a novel you spent years tinkering with.
  • Wrote roughly 80,000 new words in novels (split between Key,Clocks, Quests and this years NaNo novel Between Blinks). When added to my short stories written this year I have a total word count of 146,400.
  • Learned it’s not always about what you write in new words, but that there’s a lot of editing, proofing, and effort writing submissions and sending them that takes up your time as well. Now I will no longer be discouraged if I don’t have a high word count for the month as long as I can see I was still working hard.
  • Became listed on Goodreads and Amazon as an author (still get all squiggly in the tummy about that)
  • Went to a lot of writers’ festivals

Did a fair bit of learning didn’t I? ;p

2013 felt a bit like the year of the short story to me, because I wrote so many, and 2012 was all about the novels, so this year I’m thinking of trying to find a middle ground in 2014, so my goals are as follows:

Goal #1: Finish editing ‘Written By The Stars’ and start submitting it. This goal rolled over from last year because it was harder than I thought and I kept getting distracted by shiny new ideas

Goal #2: Finish first draft of Key, Clocks, Quests. and totally come up with a better name for it.

Goal #3: Keep writing and submitting short stories.

Goal #4: Keep learning.

Yes, it’s a shorter list than last year, hopefully so I can hit all the targets this year instead of just some, and you can be sure if I hit all my goals I’ll add a few new ones.

Well everyone, I hope you have a happy (and productive) new year 😀

2013 Australian Spec Fic Authors Challenge

December 26, 2013 / / 0 Comments

BurnBrightAhh, the satisfaction of a challenge conquered.

January – Beseiged, Exile and Sanctuary, the Outcast Chronicles by Rowena Cory Daniells

February – Obernewtyn, The Farseekers and Ashling, the first three books of the Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody

March – The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth

April – The Pericles Commission by Gary Corby (keen to read more, the sixth book should be out soon)

May – Lifesphere Inc Aquisition by Talitha Kalago and the Dieselpunk Epulp Showcase featuring Grant Gardiner

The Pericles CommissionJune – Burn Bright, Angel Arias and Shine Light, the Night creatures Trilogy by Marrianne dePierres

July – Death Most Definite by Trent Jamieson (seriously have to read the sequels soon!)

August – I celebrated Aurealis, the amazing Aussie spec-fic magazine (of which I’ve read almost every single issue this year)

September – Midnight and Moonshine by Angelta Slatter and Lisa L Hannett

October – 2013 Redlitzer Anthology by various authors (including me)

The Wild GirlNovember – Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

December – The Magicians’ Guild by Trudi Canavan

I probably could have done more if I hadn’t decided to tackle the challenge of A Song Of Ice And Fire as well, reading all five books as well as Dreamsongs (George RR Martin’s extensive short story collection). exile

The only thing I’m sad about is the best book by an Australian author that I’ve read this year is not actually out yet so I can’t convince you all how very badly you need to buy it, but I will say, keep an eye out for news about ‘The Hungry People’ by Talitha Kalago.

Next up, I’m going to level the challenge at you again.

Australian Spec-Fic Authors Challenge – December Round-Up

December 24, 2013 / / 0 Comments

mag guildFor December I wrapped up the year long challenge with Trudi Canavan’s The Magicians’ Guild, book one in The Black Magician trilogy.

The story primarily follows Sonea, a girl who lives in the slum in a city where the only people with magic powers are the wealthy and once year the wealthy kick out the homeless and destitute in an event they call ‘the purge’. During the purge, Sonea is so mad at the magicians assisting with the purge that she – like many other people around her – throws a rock at them. Unlike everyone elses rocks, which bounce of the magical barrier around them, hers goes through and knocks one out, showing her as magically gifted.

Now begins a chase through the slums as Sonea tries to keep away from the magicians (who she is convinced intend to kill her if not hurt her terribly), while the magicians rush to try and reach her with the intent of trying to catch her before her wild magic rages out of control killing not just her, but also untold hundreds of people around her.

I really liked the characters of Sonea and Cery and the awkward little blossoming romance there and the depth of world building is hinted at with a few almost throw away lines but for me the book didn’t have a lot of velocity. I’m sorry, I know I’m always harping on about velocity in stories, but it’s something that matters to me.

I think the velocity was missing for me because the stakes didn’t seem right. If at the start we had have been left not knowing the magicians (mostly) had good intentions toward Sonea, I think the start would have been much more thrilling. I understand that Canavan needed to lay down the moves of the antagonist early so he didn’t just pop out of nowhere, but the nice magicians were in there too and it just lessened the intensity for me.

Now don’t think the book is a write-off at all! The ending was great and also paved the path for some massive stakes for the next book and I am very interested to continue on with the trilogy (I’m lining them up for next year but I’ve been dying to catch up on the Dexter books this year and plan to fit at least one in before 2014).

Ahh, I can breath a sigh of relief, I was able to complete my own challenge. How did you guys go? Owned it, just scraped home, miles off, didn’t even try? Soon I’ll do a wrap up post and level the challenge at you all again for next year.

Have a great Christmas all (and for those who don’t celebrate, a great holiday)

Expectation

December 22, 2013 / / 0 Comments
Expecting this...

Expecting this…

Expectations can be tricky things. When something doesn’t go as expected you tend to be disappointed, for example our family went to a special Christmas event. Considering average ticket cost, location and what I’d read online I had certain expectations.

They were not met.

It put a damper on the evening. The event was still fun, but I feel like it would have been much more enjoyable if I didn’t have those expectations. But meeting expectations in a story too much can lead to a very bland plot, as the reader can predict everything that will happen.

...but get this.

…but get this.

When you’re writing you have to meet certain expectations and obliterate others.

For example if you write fantasy, you must fulfill the reader’s expectation of something fantastic (magic, princesses, dashing knights, dragons, super powers – or perhaps your own spin), but you have to not take the story in obvious directions, or if you must, make it a red herring, throw in a huge twist, stick a damn spanner in the works and run away laughing into the night

Sometimes as well we get excited about something. A friend raves about a book, so we go in expecting genius, but when we read it ourselves – well it’s good, but I’m not going to run down the street naked screaming of its brilliance. So expectations can be at fault for disappointments in a different way too.

Have you had an expectation for something then been let down, either through the hype of others or even your own hype? What about the other way around, not expecting much but then had your mind blown? I’d love to hear about it.

–

both pictures copyright Disney, top one also copyright Annie Leibovitz (from her Disney Dream series) 

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