The Girdle of Melian

writing-related photos! These are all from the last couple of years... I bribe myself with food and coffee often, in order to get edits done. Drafting doesn't take effort, but editing certainly does! Hoping to virtually inspire myself -- and you who are reading this! -- before the next round of ROW80, and this year's NaNoWriMo. What they call Cafe Gourmand -- mini desserts and coffee! Whipped cream... There are mountains in the distance... This was just the entree! Scribbling with my favourite pen Swiss breakfast Starbucks breakfast The Auberge d'William Tell All the manuscripts! What motivates you to complete a task?

andom! Random photos; a random, sprawling post. For one thing, school has started in earnest, and things have gotten busier! I hadn't even realised we'd reached the end of the third round of A Round of Words in 80 Days . I had three main writing goals : Keep going on edits for The Handful of Time . I'm only on chapter 3! Otherwise, I could work some more on edits for my short story, Blackbird's Song And finally get around to submitting Druid's Moon for an editorial review by Barbara Rogan I didn't do any of this, except for the bits of The Handful of Time that got revised while I was working on the monthly exercises for at thelitforum . On the other hand, I drafted any number of scenes for this year's NaNoWriMo story, The Antipodean Time , during the Ask Me Anything exercise in August! All I really need is to figure out the timeline of the story itself, and then I'll be ready. And this month's exercise, all about action scenes, h...

ew books! Four new and new-to-me books I've read this week: Lock In by John Scalzi "Fifteen years from now, a new virus sweeps the globe. 95% of those afflicted experience nothing worse than fever and headaches. 4% suffer acute meningitis, creating the largest medical crisis in history. And 1% find themselves 'locked in' - fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. 1% doesn't seem like a lot. But in the US that's 1.7 million people 'locked in' ... including the President's wife and daughter. Spurred by grief and the sheer magnitude of the suffering, America undertakes a massive scientific initiative. Nothing can fully restore the locked in. But then two new technologies emerge. One is a virtual-reality environment, 'The Agora', where the locked-in can interact with other humans, whether locked-in ornot. The other is the discovery that a few rare individuals have brains that are receptive to being contr...

ack from Vacation! I had some ambitious ROW80 goals this time around: Keep going on edits for The Handful of Time . I'm only on chapter 3! Otherwise, I could work some more on edits for my short story, Blackbird's Song . And finally get around to submitting Druid's Moon for an editorial review by Barbara Rogan. I say ambitious, because I was busy drafting new scenes each day as part of the monthly exercise on thelitforum , in between work  and school and vacation and moving house -- we moved last week, and still have roughly 40 of 90 boxes to unpack. Luckily, this month's exercise is on writing action scenes, and that's exactly the help I need to keep going on edits for The Handful of Time . Today is Insecure Writer's Support Group Day! This month's question: If you could pick one place in the world to sit and write your next story, where would it be and why? Ooh, what a lovely thing to dream about. A Mediterranean beach, with a ch...