The Girdle of Melian

hat would you make if you were enrolled in a class called How to Make (Almost) Anything?

I'm not sure if you have to follow the curriculum, or are allowed to design your own projects.

I'd love to learn, oh! so many things, especially how to:

1. put together a basic computer

2. develop film

3. custom build a cabinet or any other wooden furniture

4. brew wine and beer (ok, I realise they're not about to teach this at a university...)

And so on, maybe even learning how to bind a book. The closest I've come is, for editing purposes, printing my novels two-pages-per-sheet and hole punching them to fit a five inch binder (I ought to take photos). They sort of feel like very hardcover big books.

Happy to say I'm still loving my new schedule, though, and am on track for ROW80, editing every Monday and Wednesday night. There are parts of the story that aren't so bad! They'll be even better once I move everything around; this story seems to have been drafted in a mor…

idepidepidepide... Pide!

My favourite food ever.

Just look at it:
(image taken from The Turkish Muse)
Now, imagine a bit of saladon the side, some freshly squeezed lemon... Maybe a couple of hot peppers...

Yes, these are the images and flavours that distract me from editing. I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel, though. A couple more weeks, three more chapters, and then! Then I can return to drafting, once I've made a list of all the missing scenes.

Those are my ROW80 goals for Ayten's story at any rate. Rosa is still out on queries, poor girl. Please send her some pinklights!

For those of you who are at the beta reader/critique group stage - do you need readers?Kate Kaynak is hosting a beta match!

In other distractions, I discovered a lovely poem the other day, by Scottish poet Stephen Watts:

A Very Little Light by Stephen Watts


   Uma pequenina luz - Jorge de Sena

Simply for the breath of staying alive
   I should talk to you,
simply to pass some words across a ta…

espite my love of music and bands, and being wed to a musician, I know next to nothing about the business aspects of music. I've made it my business to learn as much as I can about self-publishing, and about how books are created after they leave the writer's hands (if they're lucky/savvy enough to launch), but music?

Er, you put a song on the net, right?

However, just as I've got authors I turn to for guidance in the traditional scheme of things (hi, Barbara Rogan!) and self-published authors I follow who are paving the way (hi, Kait Nolan!), if I ever needed to know about music and how to do things right, I would turn to Amanda Palmer [NeilcoughGaiman].

Here's Amanda's post about her new Kickstarter project, which is how she's raising money for her next album and tour (and oh so much more - would you like a party at your house?). She's doing everything right - and it's taking hours and hours of work.

Which leads me to today's ROW80 update. The…

hanks so much to Trisha at WORD + STUFF for the Great Comments Award!

What the award's about: People who leave great comments on our blogs!

What I have to do: Award it to people who are great commenters on my blog. I love it when fellow bloggers drop by!

Who I'm passing the award on to: Trisha had the great idea to check the comments widget, to see who comments the most. I went ahead and installed the widget but it doesn't show anything...

So instead of fiddling with it, I'll just pass on the award to everyone that's been by this week!

While I was exploring widgets, I also added a 'most popular' posts widget and discovered that my current top three posts are:

Character questionnaire for Rosa in 1492
Severus Snape
and
Unusual Research Topics

I'm glad two of them are related to my stories!

Speaking of which... I've been keeping to my new schedule and ROW80 goals, and editing on Monday and Wednesday nights. I can't wait to finish this round and return …

ictorian fun at Blists Hill, Ironbridge, Shropshire.

But first, some ROW80. The editing is moving, but slowly. However, I have a new schedule!

I know we all say this now and then, but this time I'm really feeling excited about it - mainly because I've scheduled in more reading time, and some free time.

Not counting errands, querying, visiting with family and friends and the occasional 5 a 7, and besides the 9-5 job (I read on the commute and knit at lunch), I've come up with this:
Mondays - edit (currently working on edits for Ayten's story, Rome, Rhymes and Risk)
Tuesdays - blog/Forum
Wednesdays - edit
Thursdays - scrapbook
Fridays - read (yay!) and housekeep (sigh)
Saturdays - blog (which is great, because now when we visit with family and friends I don't have to feel guilty being away from the internet, as I did when I thought I should be editing on Saturdays)
Sundays - free day! (on the condition that I don't go online, since if I do that, I could well be e…

y first update for this round of A Round of Words in 80 Days...

My overarching goal was/is to finish editing - on paper - Rome, Rhymes and Risk.


I had all these grandiose plans of editing while on vacation that, unsurprisingly, didn't pan out. I've gotten only chapters 1 and 2 edited so far.

The main trouble - or, if you look at it from the other side of the glass, main excitement - is that the story is only about 60,000 words, and could use lots more new scenes, to flesh out the middle bits and, er, finish the ending. The final scene is a bit wobbly at the moment.

Okay, let's be blunt: the final scene doesn't even exist, and the last chapter leading up to the final scene has absolutely nothing going on.

So between now and 31 May, I'd like to finish all the edits on paper. Then, until the end of this round on 21 June, I'd like to return to my get-up-at-5-am-to-write routine. Wish me luck!


Meanwhile, here's part one of the vacation photos: our walk along Th…