Farewell, Blogspot, Blogger, whatever you're called

You know I wrote something about making my own website? Well I gone and done it now. It was quite hilarious and frustrating, as I merrily broke things left right & center by forgetting to close my curly brackets and such.

Here it is: kate-murray.com

You can see I imported all my JamTart history into it (even your comments, bless!). Going forward, over there is where all the action will be. And lil JamTart, which has been so good to me, shall now languish un-updated.

You can still follow me on Blogger, by putting my blog feed into your Reading List. Or you can subscribe with another RSS reader, if you prefer...

And I shall continue to check my Blogger Reading List to see what you all are up to :)

See you on the other side!

xo

On teeth

Last week, I went to the dentist. I got an NHS checkup (totaling ~5 minutes - the dude basically counts that I still have teeth, does some xrays, then waves me merrily out the door) and a private "hygiene treatment" which is polite dental speak for scraping, poking, twanging and grinding mouth torture.

Anyway. Everybody hates the dentist so I don't need to continue on about how horrible it is. The visit is worthy of mentioning, however, because for the very first time that I can remember in my entire life, the dentist did not tell me I needed further work.

That's awesome.

I also really liked the hygienist -- despite the torture she inflicted on me -- because she talked about where I am not getting to properly with my brushing and recommended a good toothpaste and what else I could be doing to take care of my teeth and so on. All the added-value stuff you expect your dentist to do, only he doesn't because he's paid by the NHS, and that's why you pay extra money to get a private service like a hygiene treatment...

I am a firm believer in looking after your teeth. After all, you only get the two sets and the first set doesn't count! I also haaaate the dentist, just like you. So I haven't been as good about going as often as I should. I do, however, take really good care of my teeth at home every day. I even floss. Okay, not every day (the hygienist told me off for that) but on average, 4 times a week.

Better than not flossing, I reckon.

Setting goals and making rules

Happy Tuesday, bloggerbuddies! Today's been a thick and humid day in London, which was awful in the tube - cramped and sweaty and ugh - but otherwise quite lovely. We're in a wee bit of a heatwave, woop. I hope it sticks around and we get an actual summer this year.

This Friday I'm heading off to Munich for a long weekend, which I'm super excited for. I haven't been to Germany yet! And it'll be my first trip since Canary Islands at Christmas. Duuude. I'm jonesing for some travel.

Urm, what else. Lately I've been working on creating my own website - quite exciting, no? I'm muddling my amateur way through Wordpress and will be mashing up something hopefully halfway decent. When it's ready I'm gonna import the archives from this blog into it, and then continue on updating over there. So I don't know what might happen to thejamtart! I wonder if I can redirect it to my new site instead!

And I've been creeping along on In Finding, word by word. Phew. I've been pondering setting myself a goal around finishing the first draft. Because I've always wanted to finish the first draft this year - but, holy shit guys, it's JULY in two days and I'm only at 65,000 words! So maybe if I have a goal (say, finish the first draft by my birthday in October) then erm that might motivate me more? I could break it down to chunks of words per month.

However, part of me thinks that setting a goal like that may see me writing crap words just to meet the wordcount...!

I've had a new(ish) story idea stirring around in my mind for the last few weeks, to the point where I'd like to start jotting down some notes about it. But I'm committed to finishing In Finding first (Seriously! I am! Don't look like that, I am going to finish this story, for real!). So how about a writer rule: I can't type out anything about the new story until I've finished In Finding - but I can put down ideas in a notebook.

And here are a couple of interesting snippets about writing that I came across recently:

Making a monster: Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander, talks about creating a wicked woman, the debacle of film school, and becoming an overnight success after 20 years. I'm always heartened when I hear about writers taking 20 years to get published...!!

Erin Kellison, recently published author of Shadow Bound, talks about her writing path to getting published. I especially love the way it starts: "I had zero aspirations for the manuscript to be published. Zero. My goal was this: learn to write a book while having fun."

Breakfast today

A lovely Sunday morning: the big fat newspaper and a bowl of Greek yogurt, homemade granola, fresh blueberries & strawberries. Not shown: giant cup of coffee like woah.

I made my own granola / muesli yesterday (do you think there's an actual difference between those things, or is it just semantics?). This was a total experiment - I filled a bowl with stuff I found in the cupboard and then spread it on a baking tray and cooked it for a random amount of time (until I thought it was a bit too brown looking, basically). Rolled oats, All Bran, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pecans, mixed chopped nuts, desiccated coconut, a squirt of honey, and some olive oil. The pecans cooked too quickly compared to the other stuff, but it's still quite tasty and crunchy and not burnt-y tasting.

12th & 13th books of 2010

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

I briefly mentioned this book a couple of posts ago. My sister-in-law gave me it for Xmas, as she knew how much I loved The Time-Traveller's Wife. That book - TTTW - mygod, I bawled my freakin' eyes out reading it. Full on weeping so I could barely read the words. I honestly can't remember any other book that made me cry like that (admittedly I was ill & sleep-deprived at the time...)

But this book? Nope. I didn't give a crap about any of the characters. Not a thing. Was not engaged in what could happen to them. The big reveals / twists were ho-hum. The author's research showed through in great big bald chunks of info dumps about Highgate Cemetery. I loved the paranormal / speculative inclusion but - sigh - nope. Not a good book, I'm afraid.


The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

Okay, now we're talking! Wonderful humorous space opera sci fi goodness, in a handy dandy paperback that I chewed through like marshmallow. I love John Scalzi and I've only read 2 of his books so far. Yeah. I'm gonna find me some more.

This is a follow-up book to his first, Old Man's War, which I read at Christmas. Although -- it's not a full-on sequel featuring all the same characters. And okay, yes, I think the first book was the better one and again this seems to come down to me liking the characters in the first book better but this one is still on par.

It's been a while since I've been really excited about a sci fi book / author. I love sci fi, I say it all the time, but truth is I actually don't read much of it. What I want to read is character-driven stories, not idea-driven or science-driven. It's hard to tell where a book lies on that regard when I pick it up off the shelf. I'm not good at finding sci fi books I want to read.

I need to get off my ass and start reading some of the classics, I reckon. I need to educate myself more.

I bought a few magazines today...

Here's some random things. Pretty much entirely unrelated except I'm thinking about em all.

Beauty products like woah

Today I bought 3x Glamour magazines. It's the Benefit gift issue, so I got one of each!

• Bad Gal kohl eyeliner pencil - lovely and smudgy and dark
• Eye Bright eye brightner pencil - not as shimmery as I'd thought, but will be fun to experiment with
• It Stick concealer pencil - soft and easily smoothed

Gave a couple of my workmates the spare magazines. Wahay for cheapo Benefit products -- only £6 to get all 3! -- with the added bonus of a trashy magazine to while away the evening on...

Listening to these a lot

Fall Out Boy - Sugar We're Going Down



Fall Out Boy - America's Suitehearts



Like like like this band, and sadly it looks like they are on 'indefinite hiatus' right now. Above average lyrics and the lead singer's voice rocks my socks off and honestly, I don't have a lot of bouncy peppy music in my collection so this stuff is sorely needed.

(It bugs me LIKE CRAZY that I can't reduce the size of those embedded videos to fit the width of my blog! Argh! Look at them hanging over the edge like that! Argh!)

Smashing Mazine tells it like it is

10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites by Paul Boag

Work on websites? Read this post, if you haven't seen it before. It's insightful.

I disagree with the first point though! Because marketing is not "a monologue". A website is a communication channel (on a technical platform) and belongs to marketing. Although of course you need a web marketer/manager to own it.

Think of a magazine -- it's run by an editorial team (who have the technical know-how to lay out a page) -- not the printing team.

A very important vegetable!

Sunday evening and the clouds are high and pale and rolling past. It's been muggy all day and now they've broken and dropped some rain. I love days like this. Hell, any day where it's not freezing cold and pissing rain in London

The writing has been pretty difficult the last few weeks. I don't like to write about writing when it's a struggle! It was everything past the Big & Scary scene - none of it worked. So I chopped it all out, 3000 words excised and pasted into the "Poor Little Cut Words" file. And started again. Slowly. Figuring out every scene first and then, word by word, wrestling it in.

I like it better now. I'm not sure if it's right yet, but it's good enough that I feel I can carry on writing new scenes.

So now my word count still hovers around ~61,000 words. Sigh. Such a slow process, this writing thing.

I still haven't edited Piscky's Ascent, after a couple of good reviews from OWW. And I should deliver some crits to other members there too! Eek.

~ ~

Tonight I made lasagna for the first ever time. Big field mushrooms, little aubergines, red onions, layered with pasta, bechamel sauce and spinach, topped with grated mozzarella. I make a damned fine bechamel sauce, so it was the logical next step to turn it into a lasagna. It was alright, though I wished I could've made it with pumpkin.

You know, this puzzles me. I've never been able to find a decent pumpkin in the UK. It's all butternut squash, which I find tasteless, or - at Halloween - those orange things which are more suited to carving than eating.

I miss a good bit of roast buttercup pumpkin, with its dark green skin and tasty bright orange insides.


Oh! I just googled it and it's really a squash (yeah, don't ask me what the difference is, cause I dunno) and looks like it might be a Kiwi variety because check this out: there is a NZ BUTTERCUP SQUASH COUNCIL. Seriously!

They say: "Today, Buttercup Squash is the country's fourth largest horticultural export making it a very important vegetable to the New Zealand economy."

Yep, a very important vegetable.

Loving & loathing

It's the last day of May, can you believe it! And I think June's supposed to be the first month of summer, right? So, tomorrow's forecast of rain and a high of just 14 °C is clearly wrong...

In honour of a new month and a new season, I'm going to write my first "loving & loathing" post. I see a lot of these kinda posts on other blogs and feel like I just gotta get on board!

IN:

• Coffee-flavoured Bailey's. Totally delish over ice.
• Bank holidays. Can't beat a three-day weekend to chill out!
• Inglot. A Polish cosmetics brand with an awesome store in Westfield mall. They are great value and loads of fun! I will def be going back. Pity they have a crap website with MUSIC! I can't stand websites with sound.

OUT:

• Writer's block. I've been struggling to move forward with In Finding for the last few weeks. Hating every word I write. It's this one scene - I need to get it right before I can go on. Gah!
  
• Being in the UK right now. All my family are together in NZ! My brother & his wife & in-laws have flown there for a holiday and I wish I was there too.
• Folk music on TV ads. Okay I admit, this isn't a "dislike right now", it's a "dislike all the time". I'm so OVER cutesy folksy music on advertisements. I blame the bouncy ball ad for starting it all.

Greenwich on a Sunday

It's a bank holiday weekend! I looove 3-day weekends. Today I went out to Greenwich with some buddies.

The view from the place where time began:


And my loot from Greenwich markets:

• Nigerian vegetable stew and bean stew with rice.
• Chorizo.
• Fat olives stuffed with pimentos.
• Honey crusted almonds.
• Lemon herbs & sprices marinade.
• Freshly ground irish whiskey coffee (this smelled so amazing, the whole market smelled of it, I had to get some!)
• And a bottle of Bordeaux red wine I picked up on the way home

Yum!

Book cover design

Today at lunchtime, I found a few blogs about book cover design. I've known for a while that authors get no say in how their books look -- which I understand but still think sucks -- but I never knew that even publishers can get their selected designs overturned by the big time booksellers!

Thinking about that, I wonder how wickedly cool cover designs even get out there in the first plase - e.g., Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Are there marketing departments in publishing houses that just stamp their feet and refuse to back down? Are there any authors that do get a say - JK Rowling, Stephen King?

I wonder how a publisher might choose to illustrate the story I'm writing at the moment, In Finding. It's a paranormal chick-lit. So. Some kind of wistful woman on a beach and scrawly handwriting for the title? haha, my poor story. Actually, the book I've just finished reading is Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger and you know what? Kind of paranormal chick-lit-y... kind of... but no headless pink ladies on that cover. Instead its cover is dark, and the title suggests darkness too. I thought it wasn't.

Here's what I browsed through today:

• Guardian books blog: "Judge a cover by its book - the conservative tastes of over-mighty retailers have resulted in generic jackets that say nothing about their contents."
• The Book Design Review blog - favourite covers of 2009. Vote for your favourite! (Mine is Columbine).
• A list of Smashing Magazine's faves - includes some beaten up, old school style covers.

11th book of 2010

Wastelands
Sories of the apocalypse
by multiple authors

Love! I love love love apocalypse stories and this is one big ole book full of em!

There's stories from authors including Octavia E Butler, Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Bear, Stephen King and Gene Wolfe...

My favourites were:

The People of Sand and Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi. Vivid, a grey and grainy feel, terrifically sad in this brilliant way where the narrator and characters are not but you, as the reader, your heart breaks a little.

Never Despair by Jack McDevitt. Because it has Churchill and he's painted so very neatly. A quiet character study in a ruined world.

Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus by Neal Barrett, Jr. Rockingly rowdy and fun approach to the apocalypse, flavours of Tank Girl and Mad Max, as Ginny drives around with her companions selling sex, tacos & dangerous drugs. Great stuff.

Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers by John Langan. The last story in the anthology and the best by far, in this huge way, this engrossing phenomenal story way. From the construction of the words, to the characters and how they are forced to change in mere moments, from the crazy fucked up world that he's invented here - roaving savage beasts and people turning into flowers - it's all amazing. I feel like I could read this story over and over again and get more out of it every time.

If you like post-apocalyptic stories then you should check out this book!

One day I will write my own version(s). I think you can write as many shorts as you want but you only get one novel (Don't ask me where that rule came from. It just appeared!) So, as much as I desperately want to write a sprawling post-apocalypse novel, I'm going to let it simmer in my brain for a while until I have the best kind of skills to write it well, to write it the way it deserves.

9th and 10th books of 2010

Bertie, May and Mrs Fish: Country Memories of Wartime by Xandra Bingley.

A memoir book I picked up in one of the charity shops on North End Rd. I got this one because most of it is set during WW2 / post WW2, about a girl growing up in the English countryside, and I'm trying to absorb details about this time period for the story I'm writing. This book has quite a different writing style to it - full of ellipses, no quotation marks, people's dialogue running into the text. I didn't like this book, to be honest, but I finished it. Mostly because I'm doing these blogposts about what I've read so I don't feel like I can drop a half-read book now!

The Art & Craft of Storytelling by Nancy Lamb

One of the books about writing that I selected for inspiration. Sadly, this book didn't quite kick it off for me. It feels super weird to say this, but it was too basic. I knew all the stuff she was writing about. I found myself skimming pages, skipping ahead. Still, it covers a good range of information and I may use chapters for reference when I go back to edit my current story. And I found a couple of quotes I liked. First from Nancy, the writer herself. She said "honour your art" (well, actually she said "honor your art"...) in a piece about making sure you write, if you want to be a writer. And I like that. If you have the call to write, then you need to honour that. It's the perfect concept.

The other was this quote from Eddy Peters about the English language: "Not only does the English Language borrow words from other languages, it sometimes chases them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and goes through their pockets." It made me laugh.

A big fake foam shark!

This has been a strangely productive Wednesday after a couple of weeks of slackness on the writing front.

Tonight I made some minor edits to Piscky's Ascent, the short story I wrote in January. Then I renewed my membership the OWW (Online Writing Workshop for Sci-Fi) and posted the story for crits. I'm going to submit this story. Somewhere, not sure yet. Here's the thing: I've never submitted anything before. Apart from to writing competitions. But not anything for publication. And it's time to do something about that!

I'm going to get myself re-absorbed into the OWW and post some more crits of my own (only 2 more and I will attain "Veteran Reviewer" status!) I've been a member there, on and off, since 2001. Holy sardines, Batman! (I saw some of the original 1966 Batman movie tonight - I've never seen it before! - and it's just awful! I think it jumped the shark before the Fonze was even born - have you seen the foam-shark attack? It attacks Batman while he's hanging from the ladder of a helicopter. Luckily, Robin passes him a handy can of Shark-Repellent-Bat-Spray to ward off the shark, which falls off Batman's leg and then EXPLODES in the ocean. Yep.) Anyway, the workshop is brilliant and if you are an amateur writer in the sci-fi field I highly recommend it.

After the OWW sojurn, I added a few hundred words to In Finding and broke through the 60,000 word mark. A lot of the last 10 k words on that are crap but I need to write more of the story before I know how to go back and fix them. We.are.getting.there.slowly.

Sometimes the most frustrating thing about writing is just how slow it is. For me, at least. Knowing that I have to finish this first draft before I can even start editing, and that process will be lengthy enough too.

Then I played around with another short story that's been brewing since I dialled up some prompts on the story spinner. It doesn't feel as solid to me as Piscky's Ascent, but all short story experience is good experience.

Now, I'm going to publish this, brush my teeth, and settle down to read more of my latest book (Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse - a collection of short stories by some LEGENDARY writers - review will come when I finish it!)

Happy Saturday!

It's another beautiful weekend day in London. I'm super happy with the weather here lately. It's been so lush. Fingers crossed we finally get a decent summer. I personally think I deserve it after living here for almost 4 years without one... Today it's supposed to hit 21 degrees C. WOAH guys. The TWENTIES. That's big.

Duffster and I are off to a BBQ this afternoon at my friends' place. Typically for a bunch of Antipodeans, as soon as the sun comes out, we wheel out the BBQ. This is the second one of the season already! I have some steak pieces marinating on the bench, and we've been tasked with bringing cheese & crackers. We'll pick up some cider on the way and I hear there's Pimms on the cards too!

I am coming down with a cold though, boo! Why does that always happen on a Friday so you get sick on the weekend?! Hopefully I don't infect everyone else on this gawguss sunny afternoon...

Sunday it's Anzac Day - New Zealand & Australia's Poppy Day. Last year, we all went to the dawn service at the London memorials in Hyde Park. I'd love to go again this year, especially as it's on a weekend day again so you can get up early and observe then go back home and get back into bed! But because I'm not feeling so well I think I'll pass.


I'm glad I went last year though. It's a special and important day to respect. Maybe I'll make some Anzac biscuits on Sunday instead...

/photo from http://evanelam.photo-log.com

7th and 8th books for 2010

These next two books I have read this year are fiction novels that I felt drew a lot on each author's personal life and experiences.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

An Xmas gift from my sister-in-law, this is a Pulitzer-Prize winning story of a Dominican family, set in both New Jersey and Dominican Republic. My sister-in-law said I should read it with a Spanish phrasebook handy - wish I had! Colourful and easy-to-read and funny + sad, spanning stories from across the family including the title character Oscar, narrated by a friend of his sister. Oscar is this huge fat guy with a total love of sci-fi and comics and no game with the ladies. His sister is sharp-edged, kind of angry. Their mother - I felt so sorry for her, in a way that made me realise - wow, there's some great characters in this book. The author, Junot Diaz, is a Dominican whose family moved to NJ when he was a child.

Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch

This book... this book is marketed as a novel but halfway through, I felt like I was actually reading a memoir. It's very memoir-ish, full of scenes from someone's life rather than having an actual storyline. And the author is from Charleston and raised to be a 'Camellia' (women's society member), just like the main character. It was a smooth read, concocting a lovely atmosphere of Southern upbringing and lifestyle and personality, but ended with what felt like a tacked-on ending at a point where the author just ran out of scenes. It read in a very real way, and I think that's what made it feel memoir-ish. All the characters and actions are real people things, making mistakes (again and again) and have real emotions and there's no happy sparkly ending. I got this book from one of the op-shops down North End Rd, and think I'll return it there too...

A random assortment of updates

I owe this sucker an update! Should have posted during Easter. So, the weather is just luscious in London at the moment. Full of light, blooming blue skies. Promise of warmer weather still on the MetOffice website. Love love love. You all know how much I hate the darkness and cold of winter.

The Duffster & I have booked plane tickets -- many, many tickets -- for Christmas and New Years: Nelson for the former, Melbourne for the latter! It's going to be a whirlwind trip of 3 weeks but I'm already hyped up about seeing my family again (it will be 2 years since my last visit), and drinking up some southern hemisphere sun, and all the stuff I raved about last time - fish & chips, L&P, jellytip ice cream, taking the boat out for fresh fish and mussels and oysters and scallops... Plus a trip to Melbourne where I will finally meet Duffy's family!

This week for my writing night, I skimmed back through the short story I wrote in January, Piscky's Ascent. Made a few edits here and there. Now I want to write another one -- short stories are a nice way to work on something different without completely distracting myself from the novel.

I'm going to use this wicked brainstormer wheel to uncover some story prompts RIGHT NOW!


You can click "random" to generate three things, or use your mouse to turn each disc. I just got the following: miracle / rotting / cubicle. Hmm.

I wrote Piscky's Ascent using Notwelshman's prompts of "fish" and "escaping". I love how you can build a story from just a few words, a few ideas. They are the pieces of string you pick up, you pull up, and as you pull they bring more ideas with them, till you have a whole ball of string in your hands, along with other useless metaphors. Stories are everywhere.

Alice in Wonderland vs Return to Oz

I have had a busy week, with no writing so far and it's Sunday already! April should be a better month though, with Easter and another long weekend that I'm taking at the end of the month. Whole DAYS for writing. I shall be like A Real Writer(TM).

As part of that busy-ness, I saw Alice in Wonderland on Wednesday, with buddies from my old job. We went to Imax and got the full 3D experience, which was a tad overwhelming at times when there were character close-ups. I was only able to focus on, like, a single nostril or an eyelash, rather than their whole face.

Verdict: D. It's "missing something", as Julia put it, and I agree. Like a soul. Or a heart. I didn't care for any of the characters. En passant, why is it called Alice in Wonderland when in this movie it's not, it's "Underland"? So, I giggled a few times, got vertigo a couple of times. I liked guessing who all the voices were. Even though I didn't care for any of the characters, I thought the casting was absolutely brilliant. But those things don't really add up to anything that can redeem the shabby story. It's not the one you know; it's a made-up sequel where an adult Alice returns to Underland where the Red Queen has run amok with her Jabberwocky.

The story makes me think of Return to Oz. Have you seen Return to Oz? The 1985 'sequel' to the Wizard of Oz. But it ain't no musical. It's dark and crazy and terrifying and enthralling and everything Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" wanted to be.

In Return to Oz, Dorothy is sent to a mental institution because she refuses to stop talking or dreaming about this "imaginary" world. She manages to escape before she can be given electroshock therapy (yeah, you heard me right!) and finds her way back to Oz. But it's a world changed from the one she last visited: the evil Nome King has taken over in co-operation with the wicked Mombi. Mombi's minions are the Wheelers, a gang of gurgling gulping punkish creatures who have wheels instead of hands and feet. The Nome King has turned everyone to stone and Mombi has chopped off all the beautiful maidens' heads, which she keeps in a room of glass cages AND SHE WEARS THEM, changing her head at whim. There's a desert that turns everything living that touches it to sand. There's the crumbled and deserted ghost town that was once Emerald City, a destroyed Yellow Brick Road, the imprisoned Scarecrow... This movie is actually based on the books, in a way the musical wasn't, so it's not really a sequel but a whole new imagining.


I adored Return to Oz as a kid. It was absorbing and scary and awesome. And the best thing is, I watched it again about 5 years ago and it was still cool. There's movies you loved as a kid that don't stand the test of time but this one does (I'm sorry, Dark Crystal, but those weird puppet voices freak me out, I can't stand em. That one has to stay in my childhood).

I can't help but compare Burton's Alice in Wonderland with Return to Oz, as the storylines are so similar and so are the character roles, and they are both filled to the brim with quirky weirdness. But in Return to Oz, you care about the characters. You WANT Dorothy and Tik-Tok and Jack Pumpkinhead and Gump and Bellina to succeed.


Dorothy is resourceful and good-hearted, she doesn't pine & mope into the sunset like Alice or declare that she can't do something (Don't you find Alice a bit... bland?). The Wheelers are wonderfully scary and would knock over the Red Army without a backward glance. Mombi is sadistic and mean and would KICK the Red Queen's ASS. The Red Queen cares too much, she wavers on whether she wants to be loved or feared. Mombi has no such qualms.


As for the Knave of Hearts, his limp-wristed posturing is no match for the vengeful and deep voiced and threatening Nome King -- even if the Nome King has a secret achilles heel issue... I guess we'd have to compare the Mad Hatter to Jack Pumpkinhead, the latter being a bit sappy, so this might be the only case where Alice in Wonderland has the edge. But that weird talking dog Bayard is boring compared to Tik-Tok, the fierce metallic army of Oz with his twitching brass moustache and habit of winding-down at inconvenient times, and the Dormouse is cute but ineffective and not quite as entertaining as Gump, who is quite possibly the weirdest character I've ever seen in a movie, being half moose and half couch (that's right: he's furniture).

Plus, in Return to Oz, there's Bellina the talking chicken, and a tree that grows lunchboxes! I think I want to watch it again now...

Sweet spicy kisses

I've lived in the UK for almost 4 years and the country still surprises me. Like this time I had a jonesing for ginger kisses and went to the supermarket and found out that they don't have them here! Can I hear a big WTF? Yes, that's what I said. Sweet soft gingery cakes sandwiched over creamy filling? Nuh-uh, not here in the UK, they appear to be an Antipodean delicacy.

So I found a recipe and broke out my inner Stepford Wife again.



Recipe from here

biscuits:
125 gm flour (1 cup)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
115gm butter
85 gm caster sugar
1 egg
2 tsp golden syrup
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp hot water

filling:
30 gm butter
120gm icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 Tbsp boiling water
1 Tbsp preserved ginger, finely chopped
(I didn't think this looked like enough so I added more butter & icing sugar)

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Line baking trays with baking paper.

Sift together flour, baking powder and spices.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then beat in the egg, followed by the golden syrup. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients. Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water and add to the mix. Put small teaspoonfuls of the mixture on the trays and bake for about 10 minutes then remove to cooling rack.

Making the filling by beating the butter, icing sugar and vanilla together with an electric beater, then adding in the boiling water a little at a time. Continue beating until the mixture is very light and creamy. Fold in the preserved ginger. (I actually melted the butter with the ginger in it first, before adding the icing sugar, etc).

Pair up the biscuits, matching sizes, then put a teaspoonful of filling on the lower half and stick 'em together.

This recipe made me 13 ginger kiss sandwiches (26 biscuits) but they're quite substantial, I think I'll make very small teaspoonfuls next time. And I'll definitely make these again; they're YUMMY. Softish and gingery and tasty, with a creamy icing filling, just like they should be!

Sixth book of 2010

Essence and Alchemy by Mandy Aftel

This book is responsible for one my ridiculous flights of fancy, where I get so enamoured of something (usually a Big Crafty Idea) and totally immerse myself in it for about, ooh, 4 weeks, before I get enamoured of something else instead. So here we go again with perfume. I'm already totting up in my mind all the ingredients I want to buy, the equipment, the beautiful perfumes I'm going to make...

This book is bad for me.

It's a rambling journey through the world of natural perfume. Covering a brief history of it, various types of scents, where they come from, what they mix well with. Base and heart and head notes. How to make your own. Much of it is very overwritten and purpled prose and "ohmygoodness esoteric amazing wow wow blah", I found my eyes glazing over (I don't remember thinking that when I first read this book. Perhaps I have become more cynical since 2004...) BUT the good bits are still good, which is looking at specific notes and what they smell like and how they blend with each other. Less flight of fancy, more actual useful knowledge.

If I indulge myself this time, it will be to 'dabble' rather than 'completely immerse'! Despite my protestation above, there's something about the magicality of natural perfume that I love. I love reading the lists of different botanical extracts and thinking how they might smell, how they might blend with each other.

50,032 words

Woah, it's Tuesday already. I've been meaning to make a "what I did this weekend" post but it's a bit late for that now. Apart from saying: I managed to break 50,000 words on In Finding! In spite of all my procrastination. A great goal like that is easy to motivate yourself to shoot for. A big ole round chunky number of words.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever written this many solid words on a project before. I mean, I've gone past 50k on a maybe 3 other stories, but they were full of holes and "write a scene here"s and all peterey-outy. In Finding is holding it together. And I feel quite well set up for continuing to the end (this is noncommittal because I acknowledge that I might just write myself into a dead end).

I hope the motivation continues, because I really want to finish this.

Right now, I am mid-way through this awesome scene... oooh it's a good one with drama and rain and rooftops and Big Reveals. I've had it partly written since the very start and now I'm getting to fit it into the story and complete it. Leaving the last writing session at such a point makes it easy to pick up the next time I sit down with the story.

Fifth book of 2010

Finding Serenity: Anti-heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Josh Whedon's "Firefly" by a collection of writers, edited by Jane Espenson.

This is one of the books my ex-colleagues got me from my Amazon wish list (bless).

I just loved the TV series Firefly. It was well-written, with real people characters, detailed worldbuilding, delicious dialogue, brilliant humour, and story arcs that you could see going the distance.

And then it was cancelled. Boo.

This is a collection of essays and thoughts about the show, looking at various aspects such as the nature of freedom, warrior women, the crossover between genres, the different cultures, etc. It was an interesting read, but somehow not as inspirational as I had hoped! Ah well, I still loved reading about it and I will probably buy the next book, Serenity Found, which is more of the same -- but this time taking into account the Serenity movie which hadn't been released at the time of the first book.

A cookie production line

Somehow, I have had a very productive evening. Where did that come from, and can I please have more? (I suspect it has something to do with not watching any TV shows...)

I wrote ~1000 words on In Finding. This means I could hit a total of 50k words on it this weekend, if I focus and don't get distracted.

I get easily distracted.

Then I made more cookies!


Choccie cookies with after-dinner mints pressed onto the top, fresh-out-of-the-oven, to get all oozy and melty. I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com. It's pretty tasty but I don't think it'll be a favourite. I feel like this is quite an American-style cookie and quite sugary compared to most NZ biscuit recipes.

Fourth book of 2010

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood.

An easy and enjoyable read -- I'll love any dystopian / post-apocalyptic story. This is like a sequel to Oryx & Crake, and yet not a sequel. It's more a parallel story. The women's story now, instead of the men's. Also, as I read about this book somewhere, it is more looking at the dystopian world from those on the lower rungs of society, rather than the cushy world inside the Corps. Some crossover in characters, but since it was a long time since I read Oryx & Crake, I found it hard to remember who was who and what happened to them in the former book.

I've read criticism of Atwood's cutesy & satirical naming of things but I really like them! (AnooYoo Spa, CorpSeCorps etc). Critics haved complained they aren't realistic enough, because a real marketer wouldn't call a product 'Chickie Nobs'... But that never crossed my mind. To me it's the build of the overall world and it fits.

Toby is a great character - prickly and real. I like her char development through her life with the Gardeners. I liked seeing her through the eyes of Ren, the other main char. She felt the most cohesive and fleshed out person.

I have to admit, I think Oryx & Crake was a better book, and I wish I had read it again before starting this. This one has less tension -- Blanco wasn't scary or threatening enough, nor was there as much fear of the pigoons, which I remember vividly from the first book. However, I still super enjoyed it, like most of her books.

Ten rules for writing

I loved this: "10 rules for writing", which I found on the Guardian site. It's a great collection of authors and their tips (of which there are frequently less than 10, and which in total probably add up to about 112 in total) (I think of them as tips, not rules) (that'll be my first rule as a writer, no rules, only tips)(also I should probably make a rule for myself about brackets).

Some of them are brilliant, some of them you already know, some of them aren't for me, some of them are simply writers saying how they write.

Here are the ones that speak to me. They're not my favourites (the funny ones by Margaret Atwood and Colm Tóibín) but these are the ones that should post-it-noted all over my desk:

Annie Proulx

1 Proceed slowly and take care.

Rose Tremain

5 When an idea comes, spend silent time with it. Remember Keats's idea of Negative Capability and Kipling's advice to "drift, wait and obey". Along with your gathering of hard data, allow yourself also to dream your idea into being.

6 In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.

7 Respect the way characters may change once they've got 50 pages of life in them. Revisit your plan at this stage and see whether certain things have to be altered to take account of these changes.

Roddy Doyle

5 Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don't go near the online bookies – unless it's research.

Helen Dunmore

7 A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Neil Gaiman

1 Write.

2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

PD James

2 Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.

Crispy soft squidgy gingery cookies!

I probably won't make many posts like this but I had to share because of YUMMY.

The grocery delivery tonight finally brought baking ingredients to my doorstep, and as I am also now set with a shiny new El Cheapo mixer from Argos (£4.18!!), I was set to go and couldn't help BAKING tonight!

I made these:


Gingernut crinkles, a favoured recipe that I have been using since I was teensy. They are delicious crispy outside and soft inside.

Yield 36.
Preheat oven to 170 C.

125 gm butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp golden syrup
2 cups flour
3 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

Cream butter & sugar.
Add egg & golden syrup, and mix well.
Add dry ingredients and mix again.
Roll teaspoonfuls into balls - you do not need to flatten as they will spread a little & crack on baking.
Cook for 15 minutes.

Cool a little and then EAT SOME while still warm.

Third book of 2010

I churned through It by Stephen King and finally finished it over the weekend. Deargod. That was a BIG book. If you take into account that the usual paperback has ~250 words per page, then this book must be over 340,000 words.

Puts my current 46k to shame, don't it! I take comfort in the fact that if I were to write a 340k book, there is no way it would be accepted for publication unless I was a well-established author - and even then only in certain genres. Thank you, btw, straight-talking agent blogs, for learning me that.

So, the book itself - chunky yet absorbing, and unpredictable. Gruesome in parts. And so, so vivid. Won't read it again though. I've read the equally long The Stand multiple times but It doesn't have the same draw to me, doesn't have that same absorption in the tale.

This'll surprise anyone who knows me: I even want to watch It THE MOVIE after finishing this book. That's right, Kate actually wants to watch a scary movie. Kate who, when dragged to such films by the Duffster, "watches" most of them through her fingers and vows never to see another one again.

I always like to see how books are translated to screen though. And maybe knowing what is going to happen will make it easier to watch!

Plus there is always the pause button.

And for Stephen King fans out there -- can you name all 35 of his novels in 10 minutes? It doesn't include short story collections, non-fiction or books published under Bachman. I managed 8 before giving up -- it would have been 10, too, but I misspelled one of the titles and couldn't remember the precise misspelling of another (I knew it was misspelled but couldn't remember how)!

It's the end of the weekend already!

Yesterday was a lovely Saturday! A gorgeous day like that and I start to feel that spring is really on its way, right? Right?! (You can start laughing at me now. Yes it is still February.) After a delicious sleep in, Duffster & I got up and opened up the windows to get a breeze in through the flat, and went for a walk to get some essential vitamin D!

I stopped in at a few hairdressers to collect price lists. I've never had my hair cut regularly before -- for a long time I cut it myself, and coloured it myself using a few spritzes of (gasp!) SunIn. Apparently SunIn is Teh Nasty for your hair health but I never really noticed. Last year, I mustered some courage and cashola and I started getting my hair cut at hairdressers and, well, yeah. They were much better than myself, unsurprisingly...

I've decided that I'd like to grow out my hair, get some more length, and I think treating it kindly will make a difference and so: proper cuts and proper colouring. Hopefully at a hairdresser nearby to where I live. One of them today was in my price range, an Italian joint with a nice atmosphere and fresh flowers, so next month I'll check it out. Seeing as most of my life I've hardly spent a dime on proper cuts, I really loathe forking out a lot of moolah on it now.

You know what's strange -- I'm losing the curl in my hair! I was looking at photos from when I left NZ almost 4 years ago and my hair was a similar length to now -- and it was CURLY. Springy-uppy waves all over the place. And now? My hair falls down flat. It's honestly just straight with a slight wave. Is it getting older, or lifestyle? Maybe it's the harsh London water!

After the hairdresser tour yesterday, we got coffees & the paper from Cafe Nero and then headed up North End Road and the market there. I love the Nth End Rd market, even though I dislike the area (it's just so scungy). Shopping there makes me feel like part of a community. And it's CHEAP. We got fresh fruit & veges and some free range eggs. The fruit went into breakfast smoothies today, and the eggs into French toast for lunch (topped with lush Vermont maple syrup, mmm).

I wrote today -- reached 46,000 words on In Finding. And now I am going to spend the last of the weekend by cracking open a new book because I finally finished It by Stephen King!

Thinking over things

While walking to & from the tube in my new commute, I've been thinking over the current short story in progress, Piscky's Ascent (the title's growing on me). I now have an idea of the edits I want to make. Here are the questions I asked myself to get there:

So, what is this story about? aka, what do I *want* it to be about?
(My answer is the relationship between 2 people preparing to meet their deaths)

I think that is really the Big Question To Ask. Then, follow on questions from that were:

What would people do in the situation my characters are in?
Can I see my characters demonstrating those thoughts/actions?

Maybe I'll work on those edits today, since it is my writing night. (But I'm not going to start writing until I've had dinner because I just.cannot.concentrate on an empty stomach!!)

I've also been musing on In Finding, and its plotpoints (heartbeats). Funny how much stuff you need to unravel and knit together when writing a novel, no? Not only making sure all the threads get screentime but that as my character juggles those things, she is also developing as a character -- getting the tools & prompts, making choices, facing up to her challenges. All the while being consistent.

It did mean that when I sat down with the story in the weekend, I had to delete a scene I'd already written and do it again! Gah. So I'm still on the same word count. One step forward, one step back, it feels like! A while ago I told myself not to get hung up on word count, but yanno... it's hard not to. It's such a concrete measure of progress when everything else is so impalpable -- it's kind of hard to measure "story solidity & consistency" or "level of informed research" or even just "knowledge of this story"!

Flicks on Waitangi Day!

Happy Monday evening everyone. Hope you had a good weekend!

Saturday 6th was Waitangi Day - NZ's holiday! In London, it's a chance for Kiwis to get together and celebrate being a Kiwi. Lots of us go on a pub crawl round central London (roughly following the Circle Line on the tube -- when it actually used to be a circle -- and originally drinking on the tube too, before Boris outlawed it!) The pub crawl ends with a big haka in Parliament Square at 4pm. Mudfest. It's quite messy and raucous but entirely good natured. Apparently, it's the only time of year that the London authorities turn a blind eye to the huge group of people drinking in the square, where you normally need an agreement from the police for a mass gathering of people.

It's much more celebratory and upbeat than I remember Waitangi Day back home, where it's a fairly subdued national holiday that is (was?) often marred by protests. In London, everybody dresses up and shouts and yahoos through the tube network and down the street, gently shepherded by police who are generally in a good mood too and happy to get their pictures taken with Kiwis wearing their police hats. You feel a bit sorry for any normal person trying to catch the tube though! They are either HORRIFIED at such debauchery, or DELIGHTED to be caught up in the fun atmosphere!

I've done the Circle Line pub crawl once and that was enough for me. If you're a girl you basically spend the whole time queueing for toilets. So this year, a few of my buddies came over to the flat for Kiwi snacks (chips & onion dip, Squiggle Tops) and to watch some NZ films.


First of all we saw the absolute classic "Such a Stupid Way to Die" - a short educational video made in 1971 about the dangers of hypothermia when tramping (that's "hiking" for non-Kiwis) in the mountains. It's just brilliant -- dark and unsettling with jangly music, a touch of Pink Floyd, and full of thick Kiwi accents and stunning scenery -- filmed in the Nelson lakes region. I remember watching it as a kid in school. I think almost every Kiwi kid would have seen it, no matter when you went to school. This stuff might be dated but it's good value! The immortal line "Oh no, it's the wrong bloody way!" had us all in hysterics. You can watch it too at the link above, on the NZ On Screen website (which is brilliant if a bit slow).

We then watched The Frighteners, Peter Jackson's movie before he did Lord of the Rings. We had a lot of fun pointing out ex-Shortland Street actors. It's a 1996 film, and apparently the graphics were masterful for the time, with the largest number of digital effects used in a feature (the same year as Independence Day and Twister, btw, so I'm not sure if that's true??) but watching it now, it's quite ho-hum. Some good dark laughs though. It's quite astounding to think how slim Jackson's back catalogue was before he did LOTR.


If you're interested, the NZ On Screen website also has a documentary on the making of Bad Taste, Jackson's first finished film. It includes the very youthful Jackson demonstrating all the special effects and wizardry he cooked up himself in his garage - masks and guns and camera braces etc - true "Kiwi ingenuity". Fascinating. I think it shows how he must know everything that goes into making a film. He might have employees making the masks now, but he's done it himself.

Another waaaay exciting event this weekend -- the Duffster & I put up new bookcases! Our flat has no decent storage, which is soo annoying -- I hate clutter -- so we needed these for a place to put "stuff". We now have a bookcase on each side of the bricked-up fireplace, so they're usefully standing on floorspace that wasn't being used before. I have put all of our books on one, and the other will be for boxes & magazines & trinkets etc. Stuff. You know. The things you compromise on when you move in together (him: pretty floral vases and little pictures frames. me: beer steins and stubbie holders.)

When I get a Real House(TM) I would love to have built in bookcases. *dreams* And no beer steins.

A stack of books to read!

Here's my mahoosive reading list. Or my "as yet unread and might not ever be read stack", I should call it, as I don't think I'm going to finish some of these books. Most of them I'm really excited about getting into though!


Top to bottom:

The Elements of Style by Strunk & White -- part of the leaving gift from my old work (they got me a bunch of books from my Amazon wish list!). This book is widely considered a classic 'how to', gathering together writing best practice in a succinct way. I will probably flick through this and then have it on hand as a reference. One of those books you just need to have on your shelf! (nb 'White' is E.B.White -- Charlotte's Web)

Little Constructions by Anna Burns -- picked up on the cheap from a Books Etc store during the Borders closing down sale (wish I had planned this instead of stumbling across the sale in its final dying throes and thinking, 'of course! they have stock to get rid of!' and at that point, all that remained were bad biographies and travel books). I already started this book and I haven't finished it and I doubt I will try starting it again. In the first 15 pages, it introduces 8 characters who are all named J---- Doe. The writing wasn't good enough to sustain the gimmick and I lost my patience. I didn't know who was who and it was too hard to battle on with.

Exurbia by Molly McGrann -- from the same Books Etc sale. Not sure about this one, was quite a random choice. A "I have my doubts but we'll see" pick.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith -- Xmas gift from my sister-in-law. To be honest, I've tried this book before and I couldn't finish it. I know some of my friends who were in the same situation (in fact, with the same copy of the book - we had a competition to see whose bookmark would go the furthest). I know it's supposed to be amazing though, and now my SIL has gifted it to me, I am beholden to try it again. And so I will! Perhaps now I live in London, I'll like it more?

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz -- Xmas gift from my sister-in-law. She wrote "I found this book to be both so funny and touching... you may need to keep a Spanish dictionary handy! It's awesome!"

Essence and Alchemy by Mandy Aftel -- leaving gift from my old work. I read this as a library book years'n'years ago, and have wanted it for myself ever since. And now I finally do! This is a luscious book that looks first at the history and magic of perfume, and then also delves into creating your own. In another life, I would like to be a perfumer. I have a character sitting in my brain who is a perfumer. One day we'll find her story and put her down on paper.

Finding Serenity: anti-heroes, lost shepherds and space hookers in Firefly (multiple authors) -- leaving gift from my old work. I loved Joss Whedon's Firefly - best ever sci-fi TV show. It was so well written, such amazing characters. This is a set of essays about it and I'm looking forward to reading them, seeing a critical review of various aspects of the show and what made it so great.

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (multiple authors) -- leaving gift from my old work. I've had my eye on this collection of short stories for a while. One of my favourite themes - apocalypse! - written by some fantastic writers: Orson Scott Card, Stephen King, Elizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow, Octavia E. Butler!

The Art & Craft of Storytelling: a comprehensive guide to classic writing techniques by Nancy Lamb -- leaving gift from my old work. A highly rated book on Amazon. This is part of my plan to read a good book on writing every now and then, to bolster my inspiration.

Character & Viewpoint (the elements of fiction writing) by Orson Scott Card -- leaving gift from my old work. This book is rated well on Amazon and I loved his other one on writing sci-fi. Another book on writing for my inspiration.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger -- Xmas gift from my sister-in-law. She remembered how much I LOVED The Time Traveller's Wife, by the same author, what a sweetheart! Ooh I hope this is as good at The Time Traveller's Wife. That book made me weep!

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood -- soo excited about reading this one! I just love Margaret Atwood: she is one of my all time favourite writers of all time ever and ever. And Oryx & Crake is my favourite of all her books and THIS book is apparently like a sequel, set in the same post-apocalyptic world (!) so ohboy, I can't wait to delve into it. I got this hardback on sale. I usually don't buy hardbacks but I found out the paperback won't be out until, like, October. So I snapped this one up.

Nanotechnology for Dummies -- leaving gift from my old work. This was on my wish list because I have a story I want to write someday which has a lot of nanotechnology in it. It's a complex story for a few reasons - quite a few characters I'd like to be in the center stage, and there's the science too. I don't think I have the skills or knowledge to write it yet (I tried, and didn't get far!) so this book will help me get there.

A post before i start my proper writing tonight

Oh noes, I think I am getting a cold. Must be my new commute, mashed in to the tube with all the other commuters.

So far the new job has been good! Am still learning the ropes (I think I am finally figuring out what my company actually *does*). The new place is more corporate so I have said goodbye to my jeans & sneakers during the week. I quite like dressing smarter though (also a good excuse to go shopping...) My new colleagues are a friendly bunch of people. Really nice offices, but no fridges, microwaves or kettles! This makes lunch quite difficult / expensive! Anyway, I look forward to getting my teeth into the role. Gnarrrr.

Writing-wise, last weekend I did none! In fact, I had a deliciously lazy weekend, I didn't even go to the gym or for a swim. I needed to zone out for a couple of days -- meeting for coffee, a touch of shopping, painting nails, watching TV shows, reading the Sunday paper. I imagine this would be a normal weekend for non-writers. I often think about how writing is like having another job -- part-time and unpaid. Like a charity. Run by the guilt monkey.


Here's some of the interesting stuff I've read recently... I tweeted a few of these if you follow me on Twitter:

NY Times article: How radiation therapy can harm as well as do good. Quite long, but a fascinating & scary & quite sad read. Highly recommended. I would be interested to know comparable accident rates for the UK and NZ -- I hope UK & NZ are better than the USA, due to the different healthcare system models.

E-Consultancy blog: An interview with the guys who set up Hungry House. Duffman & I order a lot through this website, which gathers local restaurants together and allows you to order via the site. You can see ratings from other people on every restaurant. It's a great idea -- although another site, Just-Eat, has been doing it for longer!

John Scalzi's blog: his take on "Amazonfail" (the big hoopla when Amazon threw its toys in a childlike tantrum over a conflict with Macmillan on ebook pricing, and temporarily delisted all Macmillan books from the Amazon website). Scalzi's analysis is hilarious and spot on. Righteous author anger! He also has a few other posts about it. Go read now!