So Unexpected has lived up to its name yet again. Much to my amazement, it won a SFR Galaxy Award last week (my fourth now since the awards began), for one of the best and most interesting aliens. Of course I love my two MCs, but it's always great to learn someone else did too, and enough that they chose it as one of their standout SFR titles of the year. It's restored my faith that maybe my particular brand of SFR has an audience, albeit a small one. You can see judge Jo Jones' other selections HERE, and check out the rest of the winners and info on the awards themselves HERE.
Huge congrats also to fellow crew mate Greta on her first SFR Galaxy Award (and long overdue!), and my thanks to the judges for their time and consideration, and to the creators and organizers for their efforts. May the awards long continue!
Status Update
Brace yourselves but...I have actually finished the edits on Reunion! A shock, right? At least, I've done the sections my editor highlighted. I still need to do another full read through to be sure I'm happy (ha!), but the supposedly difficult bit is done.
Chook Update
We are about to embark on the Great Chicken Run Build this week! It's going to mean disruption for my girls, and rather cramped accommodation for them for a while, but hopefully by the end they'll appreciate it all. I know my back will be grateful at not having to crawl around to clean and restock their current run.
Kala and Phasma now seem fully settled though ranking bottom of the pile. Phasma is still very antisocial, while Kala is quite happy to get up close and investigate. Hopefully next week I'll have plenty of pics of them enjoying their new luxury run!
For over a year now I've been struggling with edits on a couple of novellas. I'm not sure why. By this stage - after seven years involved in publishing and 17 titles released - you'd think it would be easy.
But just lately, I've been trying to do the last few fixes on Reunion - a novella set directly after Keir and before Keir's Fall that I'd planned to release 18 months ago. Normally I have a rule of music for writing, silence for editing, but my addiction to music has meant I'm rarely unplugged from my mp3, and especially recently after going to see The Rasmus again live and playing them nonstop afterwards.
So instead I tried opting for some other kind of noise that would hopefully be less distracting, and perhaps even help me in my struggle. I went hunting for some background sounds, and since my story takes place near the sea and during a storm, that's what I looked for. Youtube turned out to have a plentiful selection of such things, mostly promoted as white noise to aid sleep. I have to admit the softer ocean sounds did tempt me more toward a nap, but after some experimentation I found what I needed.
Now that I'm making progress, I thought I'd share a snippet from Reunion along with the soundtrack I used as background to help me imagine the scene a little more clearly. When Quin falls ill on Lian-seh, Keir has to make a gateway back to their island of Kasha-Asor, but something goes horribly wrong...
He leaped through
the opening, and the wind slammed into him and knocked him sideways into the
waiting lap of the sea. Keir staggered, knee deep in the oncoming tide, then
retreated back up the beach as the leading waves chased him. Cold spray
drenched him in an instant. The gale sought to thrust him back into the water
and slapped tendrils of his hair into his eyes, blinding him. No recognizable
features met his gaze. The ocean had invaded the woodland, bending the trees
almost flat while those behind thrashed in the tempest. The storm-ravaged
landscape might have been a completely different planet for all he knew.
Nothing familiar caught his eye.
He gulped air as
if drowning again, shaking as the icy water and cold wind whipped his skin.
Where in all the hells have I sent myself?
The beating rain
tore all the warmth from him as he turned, desperate to find a familiar
landmark. Behind him, the jagged, broken spur of rock he and Quin had climbed
to see S’rano’s distant island stood above the worst of the chaos, its
water-drenched black surface gleaming.
Keir wrapped his
arms around himself, shivering.
But that is not where I directed the gateway...
Panic gripped him,
stole his breath. He had focused on their hut, been sure of his target, however
new to this talent he might have been. What power had sent him that astray?
The storm answered
him with a blinding flash as lightning tore across the skies, matched by the
earsplitting crash of thunder. The force of it drove him to his knees on the
wet sand, and the sea took its chance to lash at him, almost pulling his legs
out from under him. Gasping, soaked, Keir scrabbled for the safety of the
nearby trees, but the ocean would not give him up so easily. It snatched at his
ankles and ripped the sand from beneath his feet. Keir fell, clawing uselessly for
a hold as another wave surged around him. As the ground shifted and washed away
beneath him, sand and water filled his mouth. He choked, flailing for purchase,
but the waves caught him, dragged him out, flipped him over. Hard rock smacked
into his side then scraped his skin, tearing it as the sea threw him against
the ridge of stone. For an instant, he surfaced, gasped a breath, before the
water sucked him back under.
Blood pounded in
his head, drowning out the crash of the sea and storm. His lungs burned.
No. Not again.
He fought to find
the surface, to get air, but the water pitched him until he could not tell up
from down. Debris and dirt filled his vision, blinding him. Rock and sand grazed
his fingertips before that slim, painful hope of a handhold was wrenched away.
He writhed in the ocean’s grip, defenseless as it spun him, held him under even
when the bright blaze of lightning revealed the surface above him. The storm-driven
sea played with him, as if delighting in his helplessness. He tore at it, legs kicking,
fighting to escape. A cold numbness weighed him down and weakened his every
effort to be free.
Then the water lifted
him, as if tired of the game, and his head broke the surface. He gulped air, throat burning as
he coughed up water. The stormy sea still raged around him, water whipping his
face, driven by the winds. He thrashed his arms, trying to turn himself.
Already, Kasha-Asor had become a dark blur so far away he had no chance of
swimming back. The sea had taken him from the island in the space of a few
heartbeats, the heaving waves still carrying him farther away. Soon, he would
be beyond the safety of the curved bay itself. Once past that, he would also be past
hope.
It's the final week before my monsters finish school for the next seven weeks. Well, technically eldest is already done as she's spending this week doing work experience with me, 12yo has gone on a four day adventure holiday with the school, and youngest actually finishes tomorrow. Eep! Where did this year go?!
So I'm going to finish with a few updates. I'll try to post the chicks' progress here at Spacefreighters, but I'll also have posts going live every Wednesday at my cosplay blog HERE and some reviews at Critique de Book. The easiest way to catch them all is to follow my Twitter feed @pippajaygreen
Talking of cosplay, I was reminded at the weekend of an event which gave me my major boost to do most costumes - Star Wars Celebration Europe. It's been a whole year since I went, having made my 12yo his Hux outfit and meeting up with fellow fangirl and Brigader Patty Hammond, without whom I probably wouldn't have gone.
I can't believe it's been a year. You can revisit some of my posts HERE, Rogue One focus HERE, and more random photos HERE. In the meantime, we'll be attending Nor-Con in October, although it's looking like I won't have a new cosplay for it as time is running out and I've yet to complete 12yo's.
Status Update
I'll get the bad news out the way first - Keir's Shadow will definitely not be releasing this year. Instead I will focus on releasing Reunion and Unexpected, and possibly Revived, so at least something will come out this year.
Chook Update
On Thursday last week, just as Mot and Splash turned one week old, I discovered a lump on Lavender and had to take her/him to the vets (or as hubs put it, take it for a 'chick up'). >.< Fortunately it just turned out to be a cyst and no further treatment is necessary other than keeping an eye on it. Meanwhile the chicks continue to grow and their feathers are coming out more and more each day. As of last week, I can tell that Mot, Lemon and Cuckoo will definitely be frizzles - their feathers curve outwards to make them look adorably scruffy.
From front to back: Lemon, Mille, Splash, Cuckoo, Lavender and
Mot with Mama Effie.
What's over there?! Left to right: Lemon, Mille and Mot investigate.
Worshipping at the drinker. Left to right:
Cuckoo, Lavender, Mille, Lemon and Splash
Almost two weeks into July, and the summer break for my monsters is fast approaching, with the usual increase in and around school events. My eldest began her first week of work experience yesterday, which means me playing taxi to her place of work, as well as attending various school meetings, arranging a couple of sleepovers for youngest, and packing for 12yo's adventure holiday next week.
Somehow around that I have to work and get things set up to run for the seven weeks I'm 'away' from social media. Generally I set up some snippets to cover my absence, but I don't think I'm going to do that this year. For one, I don't think yet more reruns of my current books are going to be particularly interesting to those who already know them. The second is I just don't think I'm going to get time! Thanks to Hootsuite now demanding payment for more than ten scheduled posts (apparently it varies from user to user, but I got just ten) I'm already having to use both Facebook page scheduling and Tweetdeck to automatically run posts. I need to rename my Tumblr cosplay blog and finish scheduling posts for it and set up an RSS feed from that to its own specific Twitter account (@TheIGSeamstress). I've already got three new book reviews scheduled to go from Critique de Book, and all the current ones will rerun over the holiday to keep my FB page active. That's going to be quite enough work! And of course there's the chicks...
So today's post is really going to be a bunch of updates, and lots of chick pics. Admit it, you're only here for the last. :P
Status Updates
I'm still working through the first round of edits for Unexpected but am completely confident of having those completed by the July 14th deadline. It's been a bit of light relief working on something that doesn't need quite such intensive work after essentially having to rewrite Keir's Shadow over the last few weeks.
Talking of which, Keir's Shadow came back from analysis (very) late last night. There's good news and bad news. The good is it doesn't suck as bad as I feared. The bad is my editor wants the book that needs to come before Keir's Shadow but after Keir's Fall. I guess I kind of knew that was coming, having felt there was something deeply unfinished about Shadow and having started to write that 'missing' story last year. My subconscious clearly knew. The problem is that story has barely begun and at my current rate I can't see it being written this year, let alone ready for publication. Y'all weren't holding your breath on getting Keir's Shadow this year...were you? >.< I suppose at least now I have a viable project for NaNoWriMo...
The other bit of good news is I'll probably now be able to reuse a discarded book title - the original name for Keir's Fall no less - which makes me a little bit happy. I hate giving up on a good title.
In the meantime, I guess I have even more incentive to finish edits on Reunion and possibly Revived so that I put something out this year. However, there are things going on behind the scenes that could have major effects on further publications, so I'm just going to keep going and see what happens. I'm sorry I can't be more specific.
Chook Update
My girls have been enjoying the sun and the garden, although they're fascinated by what's going on in the other coop with Effie, much to Effie's irritation. Both Kyru and Pitch keep going to investigate, which makes Effie growl a lot. Yes, chooks can growl (and purr). I just haven't been able to video it.
Scoop sunbathing
Pitch playing at being a lap chicken.
She refused to believe I didn't have food.
Chook invasion!
And now the pictures you really want - the chicks! They're four and five days old, and already growing in their wing feathers. They all ventured out of the nest box for the first time yesterday - the day before only three of them were feeling that brave - and are foraging for themselves, though Effie is being a perfect mum by calling them to her when she finds food and breaking up anything too big for them. They've also mastered their feet and balance a bit better, and can certainly move at a pace now!
Front: Cuckoo, with Lemon behind, then left to right at the back
are Lavender, Mot, and Splash.
The gang's all here! Left to right: Mille, Lemon, Splash, Lavender, Cuckoo and Mot.
Left to right: Lavender, Mot, Splash, and Mille
Lemon was the first chick out, but Effie's intense dust bathing set her running!
Peekaboo!
And I found an unexpected visitor in our hallway this morning!
We encountered this chap on the way to one of the numerous school meetings.
Meet a British hedgehog, if you aren't familiar with it.
It's weird to think that by this time next week, the chicks should have lost most of their fluff in favour of their adult feathers, though they won't be fully grown for another six weeks on top of that. I will try to keep you posted on their progress over the holidays because they will change that fast.
There are more chick pics posted on Twitter @pippajaygreen if you would like instant updates.
Since Laurie posted her five films to inspire writers last week, I thought I'd share five of mine and the inspirational quotes or themes they gave me. They also tend to be my go-to comfort watches, films I go back to again and again when I just want to cuddle up under a blanket and forget about the real world (this isn't all of them, just my cosiest).
Galaxy Quest: "Never give up, never surrender!" Also our motto here at Spacefeighters Lounge. This is a rather blatant Star Trek spoof, where a cancelled scifi show has been taken as fact by a group of aliens, who then kidnap the 'commander' of the series to help save them from the villain with both hilarious but also emotional consequences. I still haven't forgiven them for bumping off Quellek. Also features the fabulous but sadly departed Alan Rickman as the classic actor saddled with the part of alien sidekick and a tagline he loathes.
A Knight's Tale: "One man can change his stars." In medieval England (one of my favourite time periods) you can only enter the honoured game of jousting by being of noble blood. But common-born William Thatcher breaks all the rules to become the knight he's always wished to be. He also inspired a lot of Keir's personality in terms of honour, integrity, a certain air of innocence, and sheer bloody-minded stubbornness in aiming for the stars no matter how impossible, including winning the lady of his dreams and the respect of the Black Prince Edward. This is a story all about chasing your dreams, which is what becoming an author is all about too.
Warm Bodies: Love conquers all. Really. Even a dead guy can fall in love and be redeemed by it. While it can be a little cheesy in places and if you aren't into blood and gore I'm afraid the zombie sections are pretty standard brain-eating bloodbaths a la Hollywood, but if you can tolerate those this is probably the sweetest love story I've ever seen. R is an unusual kind of zombie, and it's different to see the world from a zombie point of view. His sole purpose is to keep the girl of his dreams safe (although maybe a bit stalkerish in tone at first), and that purpose leads him back to the land of the living despite having to face the very real danger of being shot by the Living as a zombie. Very loosely based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, even including the balcony scene but with the proper HEA.
Megamind:"...there's a yin for every yang. If there's bad, good will rise up against it..." Personally I always felt sorry for Megamind and thought Metroman was actually a bit of a jerk and part of the reason Megamind was pushed into the role of villain. This film always reminds me that the villain is the good guy in their own version of reality and that even the villain can become the hero. A play on the story of Superman.
How To Train Your Dragon: Never be afraid to experiment. Hiccup is basically the runt of his Viking village, bad enough if you weren't also the son of the chief to boot, with a giant size reputation to live up to. Small, clumsy and full of clever ideas that he can't quite pull off, everyone sees him as a joke and a liability. But when Hiccup finally achieves a lifetime ambition in shooting down not just a dragon but a Nightfury - the rarest and greatest of dragons - he learns nothing is as it seems. This is a story about loyalty, friendship, and the willingness to be open-minded.
Mini Review: Transformers-The Last Knight: a disjointed, illogical and dissonant collection of overly loud explosions, rubbish car chases, a ridiculous and insulting Monty Python style miss-mash of Arthurian legend, and a monstrosity that's about 2 hours 28 minutes too long. It wins only in taking my award as worst film I've ever seen and being the first I've seriously considered walking out of before the end. If only I'd said that to hubs because he was literally hoping I would for most of the film. Even if you're a fan of the franchise, skip this. I enjoyed the first three as leave-your-brain-at-home actions films while ignoring the sexism of including a pretty girl just as eye-candy, endured the fourth as an 'oh, well, maybe the next one will be better like Pirates of the Caribbean' but this one was infuriating and ridiculous, as though Bay spent all his time and attention on a few fight scenes, then abandoned the actors and special effects department to ad lib on entirely separate scripts. I heartily wish it was the last, but unfortunately there will be others. I won't be paying out to see them though. Rating: minus several million stars and not worth the brain cells I sacrificed watching it. Beyond dire. AVOID! Status Update
I'm currently at 48% on Keir's Shadow and at 95K. I have until the end of this week to get it to my editor for assessment. I want to know the plot issues before I even think about edits and cover artwork, being as I'm pretty much rewriting the whole original 75K that I had in order to fix believability issues. Reunion is done for this round of edits except for one overriding issue with Keir throughout that I have to fix. Unexpected is still with my other editor and Revived remains untouched. Chook Update
Project Egg (day 14): yesterday I candled (shone a light through the eggs in a darkened room) the six eggs for the second time to check if we had chicks or not. To my surprise and delight, all six have a viable chick! This is all first time stuff for me - I candled them at seven days and got three definite and three I wasn't sure on since despite lots of research I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for, but this time there were no doubts whatsoever. They are due to hatch in one week from today - the 4th of July - but may be slightly earlier or even take until the 8th. So, not only did they survive being through the post, but myself and adopting mum Effie have clearly taken good care of the eggs, even if my part only extends to taking Effie off them a couple of times a day so that she eats, drinks and poops while the eggs get a few minutes ventilation. We are go for hatching chicks!
In the meantime, my girls have been enjoying a brighter garden after our neighbour had all the trees his side of the fence hacked down. Unfortunately this has led to my girls going to bed later and wanting out earlier as the coop has had more sunlight.
There are now big empty spaces down the side of our garden!
At least Fizzgig is enjoying bathing in the extra sunlight
And as for the pigeon babies - they're getting bigger every day, and looking a little less scary. Maybe.
This week I've been spending a lot of time on a special project out in my garden (more details later) instead of doing important stuff like editing or, in my husband's opinion, putting the laundry away (I'm a terrible housewife!). And during the week, a local pigeon kept spooking my chooks in the garden by repeatedly crashing into a nearby tree. It was particularly annoying because it was the same tree over and over again. This particular pigeon didn't seem to get the idea that this tree was just too difficult to land in.
But as I happened to glance up at yet another collision while I was hanging out the washing, I realized something. There wasn't just one pigeon. There were two. And the second was sitting on the ramshackle collection of twigs that passes for a pigeon nest (they're terrible nest builders). The pigeon's repeated crashing into the same tree suddenly made a lot more sense.
And because I'm the kind of girl who will happily climb up trees to check out a nest, I went up there. The sitting parent flew away at my arrival, revealing two tiny chicks (or squabs, as baby pigeons are called) lying very still on their precarious twig platform. Aww! (BTW, the parent bird came back). Photos are taken later when said parent became more tolerant of our intrustions.
One chick using parent as a backrest. The other is underneath.
17th June
Is it me, or does it look like a dodo?!
Both chicks looking maybe a smidge cuter? 19th June
My youngest is an absolute wildlife fanatic, so when we collected him from school I told him about the nest and pointed it out. Quick as a flash he shinned up the ladder. Fortunately his smaller size apparently made him less of a threat because the parent bird stayed put. Despite that, he was still able to see one of the chicks, which impressed him no end.
But when he came back down, he looked awkward. I asked him what was up. He gave me a quick glance before staring at his feet again.
"Pigeon chicks are really ugly," he ventured uncertainly.
I laughed. "Yup, they really are."
This seemed to relieve him. I found it cute that he felt bad about saying they were ugly, but got up the courage to say it anyway. They really aren't the cutest of chicks, though I've no doubt their parents think them beautiful...
Right now, Keir's Shadow is a chick of indeterminant species, adult feathers slowly and painfully emerging but as yet no swan, that's for sure. I just hope it isn't a pigeon.
Status Update
Despite my best efforts, I'm still struggling to get past 36% on Keir's Shadow, though I have made progress. I'm having to write new or rewrite old sections to fix the improbably plot lines and expand what is staying. So far it's now up to 93K (having started out at 75K and scenes being deleted). I expect it to grow past 100K despite more needing cutting. The half-hearted secondary romance also needs working into shape. So, it is moving ahead, just very, very slowly. Reunion is still untouched after coming back from my editor, while Unexpected is still with my editor.
Although the 99 cents promo officially finished yesterday, you may still be able to pick up some of the books listed HERE. My book Tethered will remain at 99 cents until the end of June regardless.
Chook Update
There's excitement in the chook department! I've wanted some more chooks for a while, and youngest has been fascinated by the idea of hatching chicks since they incubated some duck eggs at school. Because we don't have a cockerel (too noisy, and you only need a cockerel for chicks, not to get eggs), I've had to buy hatching eggs.
Six Pekin eggs, helpfully labelled up with the colour of the hen that laid them.
We have splash (mostly white with dark markings), mottled (dark feathers with white splodges, like Pitch), millefleur (brown with white and black speckles), cuckoo (dark with small white markings), lemon (pale gold) and lavender (grey with a hint of mauve).
Of course, coming through the post isn't an ideal way for them to travel so there's no guarantee any of the six will hatch. One benefit of Pekin bantams is they make good brooders regardless of who the eggs came from. The downside of this is they go through periods of being broody - a bit like a phantom pregnancy. They'll sit in the nest, even if it's completely empty, not eating or drinking, and also not laying. This generally means that throughout the spring/summer, one of our girls is in this state. Fizzgig was kind of half and half, while Effie was completely broody (to the point she will scream at you even opening the nest box and will peck savagely at anything coming near her. So I moved them off to a separate coop to become mums for real (if the eggs hatch), only for Fizzgig to abandon hers, so Effie is going solo. But the separate coop means she won't get disturbed by the other hens and I can give them suitable chick food and supplements. If all goes well, the eggs are due to hatch around the 4th of July, or possibly as late as the 8th). Fingers crossed!
As Sharon admired the picture of Shanklin's cliffs last week (and because my brain is too fried for a post topic just now), I thought I'd share some more photos from our holiday. The first few are a bit moody as we had rain the first two days on and off, but it did make for some great atmospheric shots.
Bembridge Pier
Shanklin Beach
Chair lift down to Alum Bay. An unnerving experience.
We took the 15 minute speed boat tour out into the bay,
to the Isle of Wight's most famous feature - The Needles
Alum Bay, famous for its coloured sands. You are NOT allowed to take any from the beach.
My boys amused themselves with trying to build as many and as big rock towers as they could.
Distance shot of the Needles
St Catherine's Oratory, a medieval lighthouse and one hell of a climb!
A 360 degree view from the Oratory. It was worth the climb!
We also made another visit to Walton - not for shark teeth this time, but some sand to make my chooks a luxury sand dust bath! We found a disappointing two teeth, both broken, but we did find this:
This is how I always imagined fossils looked if you said the word. Might be bone fragments, might just be wood, but it was an unusual find for us. Just waiting on identification. We also took the monsters strawberry picking, turning some into jam and others into chocolate coated treats we later ate with icecream.
Status Update
I'm still trying to catch up after a week's holiday. Reunion is back with me for edits, Unexpected is with the editor, Revived is still unfinished, and Keir's Shadow is still at 33% on revisions and I've already fallen four days behind on the target I set myself. Eeeeeeep!
Cosplay has also been on hold due to other things, but I completed the White Rabbit waistcoat to finish off eldest's costume for Alice in Wonderland (happening just a week from now!).
Chook Update
The blustery weather has made my chooks rather skittish so they haven't been out in the garden very much recently. Here are Kyru and Pitch looking rather fed up about it (you might just be able to see the others skulking in the background and doing their best to stay out of the wind).
