The Girdle of Melian

ot my Amanda Palmer Kickstarter Deluxe Edition the other day! (Most of this post is about distractions from writing...) Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra: Theatre is Evil I've been listening to the album nonstop. Meanwhile, Amanda and Neil Gaiman will be on an upcoming episode of Amoeba Records' What's In My Bag? This is awesome! So far I've watched Noel Gallagher , Tim Burgess , Elijah Wood (that episode ended with an old Turkish song, though they didn't say why), and Johnny Marr . I miss buying records. Which dovetails to: blogfest coming up on 15 October! The Nineties Blogfest  (love the Jarvis cutout!): "Choose one thing from each year from 1990 to 1999, be it a film, a TV show, a radio show, a particular episode of a TV or radio show, a piece of theatre, a book, a comic, a song, an album, a gig, a piece of artwork, something online or something else entirely, and then tell us what you love about it." Speaking of vide...

ust learned of a neat collection of interviews, over on the CBC website, featuring authors such as Rose Tremain , Stephen Fry , Seamus Heaney , Ray Bradbury , Maeve Binchy , Julian Barnes , Orhan Pamuk , and others. And take a look at this fun episode of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson , featuring Stephen King, Dave Barry and the Rock Bottom Remainders: Speaking of discoveries, I've heard of a new app! I can't get this one yet, as I don't have an iPhone, but if you can and do please tell me what it's like. It's called The Victoriantor , it's supposed to teach you how to declaim in Victorian English , and it was developed by an English professor at the local university (not the one I attended but the other one) here in Montreal. "Here's how it works: a poem appears on the screen of your iPhone ... You read the poem aloud ... Then a steampunk robot takes you through a series of gestures that produce voice effects on the poem you just rea...

eclare your intent! Round 4 of A Round of Words in 80 Days begins on 1 October; you have until then to think about your goals. Hmm, an entire week between now and then. I'd like to use it to type up as much of Fred and Lyne's story as I can (I've cracked 10,000 words typed up!), and think of a darn title! No, seriously, it's getting a bit silly calling a completed novel 'Fred and Lyne's story'. I've tried a few of the random title generators (remember the infancy of the internet when there was hardly anything on there? Now we've got anything and everything at our fingertips!) and, while most were simply silly ('Crossword in the Money') or funny ('Happy Sunday'), I did uncover a few options, along with a few that I thought of based on the words used by these generators: Flight of the Shadow The Grim Path The Cavern's Door Beauty's Path Charmstone Under a Ragged Moon Druid's Moon Albion's Rose The Secre...

nd of A Round of Words in 80 Days ! At the start of this round, I vowed to enter all the edits for Rome, Rhymes and Risk . I have to say, I failed spectacularly on that front. I was too busy finishing the first draft of Fred and Lyne's story (the contemporary paranormal) and beginning to type it up, along with much sweating over my query for Out of the Water . Some goals accomplished, some left hanging. Can't wait for the next round! I won a book over at Kathy's ! And I've just finished reading Karen Jones Gowen's Lighting Candles in the Snow . I'll be reviewing that and Kathleen Koen's Before Versailles soon. (Feeling guilty that I read this before I've read a single Dumas book!) Has anyone kept bees or collected honey before? I'd really like to experience it just once. Particularly on this day, at Casa Gaiman . Speaking of Neil Gaiman (don't I always?), I've just discovered that there's a Twitter account that works on a similar ...

s many of you are, I'm participating in the Gearing Up To Get An Agent blogfest . I didn't get in among the first 200 to submit their pitch, so I'm sharing mine here. Maybe you can help... Here's what I had for Rosa's story, Out of the Water : After she becomes separated from her family as they flee their Spanish homeland - and the Inquisition - the last thing eighteen-year-old Rosa expects to find is love. Her one hope of reaching Constantinople and finding her family lies with a stranger, Baha, a Muslim artist from the Ottoman Empire. Rosa's drive to find her loved ones is matched by a deepening desire for the man at her side. Yet despite all his help in reuniting them, her family rejects this man of a different faith, forcing her to choose between them. When janissaries arrest her father and brother, Rosa and Baha risk everything on a daring rescue. Together they will prove that their love is stronger than their differences... if the Sultan's Gr...

ound of Words in 80 Days is approaching the end... ...of this round. I've revamped my query four Out of the Water and sent out a few more letters. I've begun typing the draft for Fred and Lyne's story. But once again I feel as though I'm pushing through sand dunes - never moving quick enough to feel as though I've accomplished anything. Meanwhile, it's celebration time: Justine Dell has released Recaptured Dreams ! Ten years, the Atlantic Ocean, and several rungs in society have kept Xavier Cain from having Sophia Montel. Now twenty-seven, he's spent his entire adult life building a fashion empire that could finally prove his worth to her family. When fate reunites him with Sophia at London's premiere fashion show, one problem lodges in Xavier's path: Sophia doesn't remember him. The only obstacle that has kept Sophia from Xavier is a horrific car crash that erased her memory at seventeen. She's spent the last ten years fighting...

earing up to Get an Agent is on! I'm quite late in my meet 'n' greet post, but here I am: Where do you write? Anywhere I can carry my notebook and pen! Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see? Well, I don't really have a writing space. But I type on the computer. And I tend to have a cat draped on it... Favourite time to write? If I can, all day. Otherwise, I love getting morning pages written as it makes me feel as though I've accomplished something before the day has even started. Drink of choice while writing? Lattes! When writing, do you listen to music or do you need complete silence? I love listening to music. I make lots of YouTube playlists for when my CDs or LPs aren't available. What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it? Another dream - I've been very lucky with my dreams this past year. Fred and Lyne's story all started wit...

oing to try something a little different today... With two weeks left to go in A Round of Words in 80 Days , I'm going to share a snip. This is from the still (sigh) untitled Fred and Lyne story, a Beauty and the Beast tale turned upside down. A one thousand year old curse enslaves a Man, but what happens when Beauty refuses to help the Beast? "'The Curse of the Octopus,'" Lyne read out loud. "Octopus? Are you certain of that?" Professor Ronald peered over her shoulder. She passed him the vellum sheet, which she'd already slipped into a plastic covering. Still the edges crackled under her hands. She couldn't wait to carbon date the ink and paper. The Professor's brows rose as he read, lips moving. He tilted the sheet towards the light coming from the entrance to the cave. "There seems to be a mark here," he muttered, and stepped across to the trestle table. Lyne hurried after him, boots clomping on the uneven stone...

've thought about doing this a couple of times, and now I'm finally getting around to it: Funniest, Most Ridiculous Blog Spam Comments : who are these people? pencils! I think the pencils one is my favourite. These don't even have links - what are these spammers trying to accomplish? At least they're positive in tone! Which leads me to... Insecure Writers' Support Group Day ! I don't feel insecure, necessarily, but I generally feel as though I'm lagging behind. No agent in sight yet, editing for second novel not progressing... But that's not keeping up the positive tone. I've got to think of what I have done (ROW80!): Another rewrite of the query for Out of the Water under my belt, and 6000 words typed up of Fred and Lyne's story (I'm also working on a title!). I'm thinking of giving that query one more chance in the online world, this time at the Gearing Up To Get An Agent Blogfest , hosted by Deana Barnhart ! I...