lara morgan

I'm a bit behind but I am finally trying to put some words down about the fabulous time I had at Worldcon. It was, of course, wonderful, informative,hilarious and totally exhausting but worth every minute and cent spent to go. Met so many lovely people, some of them in residence here on LJ, others just random walking wonderful humans.

Highlights: Meeting people I've only talked to online in the flesh - nothing beats it really. Having long conversations about Buffy where everyone is so keen and no one rolls their eyes and suggests talking about something as mundane as politics or the state of the world. Who cares really! Being at Worldcon was like being in a beautiful sci fi bubble where it was normal to pass a storm trooper on the way to a panel and fancy hats and tight bodices were everyday wear. Best Panel: so hard to choose, but I think The Series question panel I did with Ian Irvine, David (DM) Cornish and Kate Forsyth was the most fun - everyone had so many great things to say about how they worked and we were all quite different from chaotic and mildly planned (me and David) to tightly planned and totally organised (Ian and Kate). I also enjoyed watching the Vampire Zombie Smackdown panel which was complete with sprited audience participation. Best party: every one! But perhaps the London Bid 2014 was one of the most popular - or maybe it was all the free booze.

Lowlights: it's over. But for those who couldn't make it this year - you will have to save those pennies and head to the USA next year where it will be in Reno, Nevada.

Next on the wish list : World Fantasy Con in San Diego in 2011. going to have to save my pennies for that one! Anyone else going?

I've found, through trial and terror, that by the time I'm on the last few chapters of a first draft a weird thing happens. At some point I start to hate everyone and everything in the book. Even the main character. Does this happen to other authors? I don't know. I also enter a kind of suspended state where I seem to be intent on self sabotage and write less than a three fingered monkey.

Why does this happen? I wish I knew. But it does. In the hours when I am not working - ie the middle of the night, often around 3.30am - I find myself weaving elaborate fantasies that tomorrow (in a few hours) everything will be different. I will magically love my characters and world again and be unable to wait to finish it. I will gallop to the end of the book like a mouse spotting aged gouda. My fingers will fly over the keyboard, I will write prose that although not magical is at least choherant and I will, at last, finish it.

Of course this is three in the morning and everyone knows our brains are not fully engaged at this hour. We are mutant versions of ourselves with delusions standing - mostly of the paranoid kind. So when the next morning comes I am once again at my desk staring at the computer screen with a mixture of despair, frustration and self disgust that would keep many a therapist in pens and self help books. Instead of writing I phone a friend, clean the cupboard no one uses, do the dishes, spend hours on Twitter, or even perhaps blog. Like this. And all the while I can feel the unfinished book breathing behind me like a toddler with a head cold.

I hate that toddler. And yet when I am not at my desk that toddler is all I think about. I even dream about it, seeing the final scenes like polished shots of film in my head. I can only hope that one day soon - hopefully tomorrow - I will actually get it done.

The above is a sentence I find myself saying too often to well meaning relatives and friends after they've asked the dreaded question, (with encouraging smile engaged) So, how is your book doing then? It is at that moment, right after those words have left their mouths like a speech bubble in a comic, just hanging there, that I feel at my most violent and despairing and what I really want to do is scream at them - please for the love of God, unless my name is Stephenie Meyer DO NOT ask me that!

Ok, so maybe some may think that's an over reaction but I wonder how many other authors feel the same? I know I should be happy I even have a publishing contract, I know there are hundreds of writers out there who would kill to have my problems, but that doesn't make any difference. Still, after you've hurdled that elusive getting the contract deal, had a book or two published and are working on another, you can find plenty of other things to torture yourself with. A writer's ability to stomp on their own self worth it seems can be unlimited.

So what is wrong with people asking that question? After all it's just because they care. But it also serves as a reminder that outside the lovely cave of actual writing and imagining that I do in the course of creating a story, there exists the 'real' world where that loved story ends up and that world consists of spread sheets, distributors, bottom lines and numbers.

I have always hated numbers. They are so.....immovable. You can't argue with them. They are the blinkered old uncles at your Sunday family party who are not interested in anyone else's truth but their own. Numbers can be important when it comes to adding up how you stack up against all the other authors out there. And in this world it can be too easy to be lured into the idea that a bigger number is always better. From numbers of books sold to the number of friends on Facebook or the zeroes in your bank account, having a number bigger than the person next to you is translated as success. And it can be a mouse wheel that is difficult to get off when everyone else is on it with you - scampering past panting and wheezing everyone trying to clamber around the same merry go round that goes nowhere.

So what do we do? Well, I'm going to try not to buy into it. I'm going to try to be grateful for all those lovely people out there who have added to my number pile, but not be obsessed about the actual size of it. And I'm going to remember why I do this. Why I write. It's because I love it. Because it brings me peace and because, even on my worse days, I am having a bad day doing what I love - and there's a certain serenity in that.

 Ok, now firstly you should know that I am a little bit of a geek so things written here may be slightly skewed to the sci fi corner of the spectrum, but you know what do I care? This is my blog and I'll blog on if I want to.

So this is not about writing so much per se, but I had a good writing day and was indulging in a bit of the old web surfing and got to thinking about what I'd like to do to get rid of some of the stuff out there that is perhaps as entertaining and valuable as serving hamsters stuffed with caterpillars to a vegetarian. Really it's not wanted.

So if I had absolute power and could corrupt things to my way of thinking absoulutely here are my 5 edicts:

1. Joss Whedon would have to do another season of Firefly. I know, some might say it's been too long, that Alan Tudyk couldn't be in it, that Morena would need hair extensions or that the Captain's pants might have to be loosened, but I say - Don't Care. It will be done. And in it we shall find out about Book gorram it! And Wash could come back as a ghost or something. It's ok, Joss will figure something out. You know he's god don't you?

2. Reality tv competition cooking shows would be banned. Yes, that's it. BANNED. Enough of the engineered drama of a soupy risotto, stop the dramatic orchestral drumming to the unveilng of another soggy chicken pie. And don't get me started on those chefs. Just because you can make a killer souffle does not give you the right to turn into a narcissistic sociopath. 

3. No more vampire love stories or vampire schools stories can be published for two years. Really, I think there's enough already. How about a zombie love triangle? Or Love in the time of Leprosy. No? You know Edward and Jacob aren't real don't you??

4. Anyone using a mobile phone at the cinema or theatre would be magically ejected - painfully - by the demon of eviction. No exceptions. And maybe it could even happen to people who have inappropriately loud conversations on public transport as well. 

5. News programs would actually have to contain news. It's ok, we could still have all that info-tainment masquerading as news, but it can't call itself news anymore. Headlining with a story about Tiger Woods or some other celebrity's love squabbles is not news. It just isn't. 

 

With a presentation coming up in a few weeks at a festival the brain pan has been addled, or rather scrambled, by too many ideas on what to say to a tent of teenagers. Should I talk about one book or all of them? Should I show them exciting plot development graphs? Should I talk about my favourite rejection phrases?

Anyone with previous experience of such should feel free to comment and dispense advice at will here.
I think there are probably a few golden rules of what should and shouldn't go in it:

1. Do not provide a year by year breakdown of your personal growth. No one is interested in the year you discovered Bon Jovi. In fact teenagers probably think Bon Jovi is a kind of face wash. Besides then they know how old you are.

2. Don't use Power Point and then recite each point on your power point presentation as if they can't read it. This goes for every speech giver.

3. Resist the urge to assume you are as funny as Judith Lucy or Seinfeld. You are not and this could lead to embarrassing pauses of no laughter while the audience looks non plussed.

4. Do mention your book but not every five seconds. This could result in missiles being thrown in your direction.

5. Tell an embarrassing story about yourself - such as 'when I was a teenager I used stick buns on the side of my head so I could look like Princess Leia'. This should make you seem approachable - hopefully. 

Of course I hope to follow these rules but anyone who as any others to add please feel free to put them out there. Or share your stories of success or failure with teen audiences. 


 

Well I have spent half of today...ok more than half.... working on a love scene between two main characters in my first YA book.
I did not intend to spend this amount of time but you know what it's like when you have to GET IT RIGHT.
Firstly, anyone who says writing love scenes is easy is either one of those tedious know it alls who has never actually written anything, or an alien.
Or a cylon.
To get it right I read. Alot. I read how to books. Thanks Carmel Bird - who has a great chapter on writing about sex in her book, Not Now Jack I'm Writing a Novel. Also thanks Strunk and White for reminding me how to hate adjectives. I also read Bird by Bird, a thesaurus and Ursula Le guin. then I moved on to the novels.
It is actually very hard to get work done when you start doing that and probably the reason i took so long to actually get to the writing, but I finally did and  have discovered that I spent three hours on a scene which only takes about 200 words of the whole book but it should be worth it. Or I damn well hope so.
Firstly of course I had to take out any cliches. You know the one that involve dizzy girls, heaving and any kind of mention of any body part thrusting anywhere. This book is just not that kind of book. Besides, graphic sex is probably not appropriate for the teen market and it was only a kiss. Yep, one kiss for 200 words.
Also I've tried not to make it sound like a set of instructions: he put his hand here, hers was there they went in at a right angle. etc. None of that. Keep it to a minimum I say and include some tactile information instead.
Also though, give up enough that the reader has some satisfaction. Nothing annoys me more than having characters, who I've been waiting to get smoochy with it for half the book, just 'kiss' and that's it. There has to be some kind of emotional resonance even if its one of the characters being turned off by it all, it's better than a fade out to black. 

Some books that deal so well with love: The Angel's Game, Carlos Ruiz Zafon; The Time Travelers Wife, Audrey Niffenegger; Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte; Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Eva Luna, Isabel Allende; Shiver, Nicki Gemell  

ok so there's nothing remotely Zen about me. I drink (wine and coffee and even sometimes *gasp* diet coke), I got to bed late, I watch TV, I pretend I do yoga but only actually do it about once a month....ok maybe every six weeks, and I enjoy reading novels so pulpy they could bulk out juice, BUT I also juggle books.
Not the throw them in the air and catch them kind of juggling but the writing two books at once and editing another kind of juggling.
This, I am discovering is perhaps not the best plan in the universe. It leads to non- Zen type behaviour - hence the drinking and minus yoga points.

To juggle books it is essential you have deadlines breathing at you noisily from the corner like overweight dragons on meth and a slightly crazed stare - like you've been up all night watching the Twilight Zone and are now seeing gremlins on plane wings. It is also essential that you procrastinate. As we all know, procrastination is the writer's friend.
Yes, I said friend.
Without procrastination how would we get that dreaded gurgling feeling of blind panic bubbling up from our colon in the middle of the night?  How would we know were were supposed to be doing something - anything - if we did not feel that pit of doom approaching? It motivates us, terrifies us and makes us pick up the keyboard/pen/caffeine drip and actually get to work.
then again there is always the other approach. the Zen approach which involves herbal tea, organisational calendars and yoga.
But where's the fun in that?
See, here I have just procrastinated for some ten minutes and already I feel motivated to switch screens and get my Word count on.
Just as soon as I've checked Twitter just one more time.....

I saw a terrible magazine style (ie crass and snipy) tv show this morning about the take over of size zero, or even god help us, double zero on the model and celebrity scene and wanted to write something funny, wry and witty about this appalling descent into madness that our society continues to spiral into, but I cannot. I am just plain dismayed by it. The shrinking of the female of the species is happening apparently with our consent and even encouragement and I just can't help feeling this terrible anger, nay fury about it all. 
Why are we doing this? How do we stop it? Can we?
I tried to believe that maybe it is just a trend - as we saw in the 60s and 70s with the skinny models. Twiggy eventually made way for Cindy Crawford and her Amazonian curves and now perhaps, like fashion, we are going backward again and may eventually turn back to the 'healthier', 'curvy' physique. But I can't help but suspect that may not be the case.

There's been plenty said and written about this over the last few years. The rise of pre-teen girls thinking they're fat, the increase of anorexia which seems to rise at the same rate as our obsessive consumerism. And we have seen plenty of talk shows decrying the fact of our obsession with thinness as well as plenty of books, but it's not getting better. It seems to just get worse and perhaps there are even many young women out there who revel in the damage they are doing to themselves because of the short term rewards society is telling them they get.
Look at  how Lily Allen has put it as 'I'm a weapon of mass consumption, it's not my fault it's how I'm programmed to function.' and 'everything's fine as long as I'm getting thinner.'
Yes, her song is backlash against our bizarre thin and celebrity obsessed culture, but is anyone actually getting it?  Or are we really just on a downslide to the end of life as we know it?
Today's soap box, over and out.
 

today was supposed to be a 'get down to work day'. Now quite how it panned out. I have a 100,000 word book to edit and I have accomplished....let me see.....none of it. Yep a big fat zero of the work register today. But I did get deliveries! Yes first it was a new cylinder of gas. Very exciting. Then junk mail. Oh the joy. Then a mother in law and sister in law. OK not technically deliveries but I claim the admendment of artistic licence. Then, and this one was a good one, a new cabinet to store all my china and glass which are currently in boxes. Lots of them.
But never fear, I am convinces tomorrow will be a work day. ...... Does posting on LJ count??

well finally I am getting back on track with the blogging and actually using the live journal again after a pitiful start last year. But why the weird title you ask?? It's not weird it is entirely appropriate if you saw my wardrobe (currently with a mouse resident but enough said about that...although I am assembling a Dalek to terminate it...and possibly also an actual terminator with a very large gun.... Or a python) Anyway... I was recently wed...yes I know have another name to add to my collection, but it will be a secret one known only to customs and purveyors of produce requiring a credit card. And as a wedding present a good friend who is as obsessed, or perhaps more, by all things Whedon created ( if you don't know that name you should stop reading now as I don't think we have anything in common and can never be the type of friends who buy each other cupcakes) and she purchased for us a pair of t-shirts. One for my taller half emblazoned with the moniker Captain Tightpants, and one for me with Property of Captain Tightpants. We shall wear them to parties and there shall be much rejoicing and pointing of fingers. Although I have to say, when it comes to the pants, really I'm the one wearing them. (*looks around in case spouse is reading this*) And I believe my pants are tighter, but everyone knows it's never really the captain who runs the ship. It's always the pilot doing the steering after all.
And on the writing front. Book 2 in my Twins of Saranthium series is out in March. Out out!! It's called Betrayal so get thee to a bookstore and shift all copies to the front of the shop then stand there reading it and exclaiming loudly how it is the next Twilight but with sex. And no vampires. But you can always read Stephenie for that.
Ok enough rambling, back to work.