February 17, 2012, Author Sue, Leave a comment

What people say.

Categories: asides, Real life
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Yesterday there was a wedding, watched unknown by the happy couple by a number of people in a building opposite. This was someone’s special day, obviously done on a shoe string at the local register’s office. What really annoyed me was the comments made by these watchers. They made snide and very cruel quips about everything from the bride’s choice of shoes to the fact that there was a disabled sticker in the car the couple drove away in.

It’s one thing to say, “I don’t like the dress, it’s not my sort of thing.” But to make personal remarks about the lives of people you don’t know based on what you are seeing, just to impress your co-workers with your wit and to keep on and on about it for the next two hours, is well, lacking in thought to say the least. Ok, you might say, isn’t that what a stand up comic does and isn’t anyone in the audience fair game? Yes. But a stand up usually uses themselves as the butt of the joke and you know if you go to see a comic, you are fair game. And more to the point a comic has the ability to make us laugh at the absurdities of life. The remarks I overheard told me more about the people saying them than the couple getting married. It also re-enforced something I really should take to heart, especially with all the crap I am dealing with at present. What other people think of you and what you do is not, when it all boils down, that important. You can’t live your life to please other people.

January 31, 2012, Author Sue, Leave a comment

Everything up in the air.

Categories: asides, Events and Conventions, Real life, Writing
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In my last post I mentioned that my mum had had a fall. Little did I realise how this event would turn my world upside down.  I have no brothers or sisters, so as the saying goes, ” the buck stops here”. Mum has been moved from hospital to hospital and then to care home for what is called re-enablement treatment. The idea is to get her back into her flat with care support. To be honest she does not need that much, but convincing mum that she does not and that once her arm is healed her health would not be any different than it was before the fall, is another matter.

I have found out what it is like  over the last couple of months to be between a cash strapped NHS and an unyielding parent who has taken to her bed. I knew from the outset that I could not personally provide the care she needs. Yes, I can do the shopping, washing and general stuff, but beyond that I knew it would take a toll on my own health.  The stress and the running about and trying to deal with at times my mum’s impossible demands from her hospital/care bed finally hit home this week.  I had an acute inflammatory episode with my legs, which triggered what was believed at the time might be a heart attack, (thankfully it was the affect of the virus that triggered my episode), which put me in hospital for a couple of days. I came out with a good dose of the noro-virus. Whether I caught it in hospital or before is mute; the result has been I have been confined to the bed for most of the week since I came out. The  doctor has signed me off for a few days, but the horror is that I am facing explaining why I haven’t been to visit to mum. I know in my heart if I tell the truth she will take to her bed even more, saying its all her fault and how horrible it has been for her. If I lie,  I will be berated as an unfeeling daughter. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

There is also the matter of my writing. The strain has hit this hard. I am struggling to put more than a couple of words down on the page. I am trying, but the frustration of not getting this first draft done is driving me mad. I need to get at least 90% of it done by Eastercon.

Speaking of which I got a great deal with the train tickets. Kath and I, will be traveling first class to London it was only a couple of pounds each to up grade so why the hell not, as this is seriously looking like it will be my only Con this year.

So far this year I have had two wedding invitations! Rather nice.

We are moving floors at work, as for the job itself, well, I still currently have one, but for how long who knows.

 

 

November 30, 2011, Author Sue, 1 Comment

I can see for miles.

Categories: asides, Real life, Writing
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Well, that’s how it feels working on the 3rd floor of the new Staffordshire Place Building One. Yes, we have moved offices and are in out nice shiny open plan office. I am sitting with my back to a floor to ceiling narrow window lol, so a nice view of the drop if I push my chair back.  The office is not bad, it is the .6 of a mile walk to and fro from the car park that is killing my legs. If we had moved during the summer I think I would not have had the problems, but even in this mild weather my legs get chilled so they ache all morning and I am hobbling round. Most of the afternoon I can move far more easily, then comes the walk back and my legs are then suffering into the evening. Still the walk is doing my weight good.

My mum took a tumble last week so that has cut down my writing time. She is a lot better so back full steam this weekend. Also I have a week off before Christmas, partly to put the finishing touches to the holiday (not that I do much now-a-days.) but mainly to get a chunk of writing done. I will also do a chunk in the days between Christmas and New year. Things seem on track to get this first draft done. All my jiggling and re-writing seems to have been a good thing. I know where each of my POV characters are going and more importantly where they have been. It is turning into a strange beast this Stoneman Green. Demon-skinned is also going well. Also the ideas pot is filling up. I just need to finish work then I could spend all day on this machine writing.

P.S. WordPress thinks Staffordshire is spelt wrong. ;)

November 6, 2011, Author Sue, Comments Off

Short story accepted.

Categories: Writing
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Had a short story accepted by an anthology. It is a “for the love of” so no payment and the story I submitted was written a good five years ago. Ok I recently edited it, but it is another one gone out of the short story store.

I will put the name of the anthology and a link when it is published.

I still have another short story out there with a big name. No news yet, but am not expecting much. This one has been bounced from pillar to post for a couple of years. Sad thing is that is was accepted by a Liam Sharp’s short lived magazine, but the magazine folded just before my story was due to be printed.

I am going to spend an hour looking through the rest of the short stories I have lurking on the hard drive and see if any can be sent out.

November 4, 2011, Author Sue, Comments Off

Stoneman Update #4, a bit about Demon-Skinned, thoughts about writing and real life..

Categories: asides, Real life, Writing
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The main story of Stoneman Green is going well. I am not sure of the re-write of chapters 4 and 5, but I have the original still so I can flip it back if I want to and change any sections I write in the future in the villain’s POV back to the villain’s henchman.

I need to get my head round working on this today and hopefully get the midnight scene at the church done and dusted. I have planned it down to the smallest detail in my head. Let’s see how it goes down on the screen.  I really want to get all the scenes up to the 5th of November (in the story lol) done this weekend. Strange, I am writing in “real time.” I then have a murder, wedding, old fashioned school Christmas, events at midnight on the shortest day, Christmas day for the characters, new year in London, the beginning of the bad winter of 1947, a failed attempted murder, the falling in of part of the church roof, due to the weight of snow, another murder, and finally the events that lead to the climax. How’s that for a run-on sentence!

Anyway the plot is in my head I just need to pull it out!

Demon-Skinned  is chugging along nicely. The nice thing about Demon-Skinned is that I am making it up as I go along. I am playing in my own created world, not the real world. So it’s my sandbox and I can throw the sand where I like in first draft!  It makes for light relief after working on Stoneman Green, which is rooted in a certain time, place and event.

I am also toying with an old manuscript, re editing it into two and slimming each down to about at 100,000 words. (The original story was nearly 300,000) It is a typical epic fantasy with multi POVs. Ok, the norm at present is three POV and something a lot darker and edgy. Still I can play with it can’t I. Also Sal’s wizard a very old effort is being run through the idea pot, as is a follow up to Hand of Glory set a year after. I want to mix the events of Hardy’s wedding, with spooky goings on around an Egyptian exhibit visiting the town and vanishing cats!

Now a bit of a rant. I am getting a bit tired of reading stuff on forums concerning what you should and should not do in your story. My main bug is cliches. There is nothing at all wrong with using cliches as long as you use them in your own way in your own story. Just look around at the best sellers, current top watched TV programs and films. Cliches abound in all of them. General audiences like their familiar and comfortable. They enjoy a different take on a familiar story. It is just that people set themselves as judges of taste and if you dare to say anything else, as I have in the past, you are jumped on and told you know nothing of the craft of writing, publishing, or what makes a story interesting. Well I do know quite a bit and I am getting sick and tired of folks telling me otherwise. If I had followed this so called advice and not followed my ideas and dreams as I saw them I would not have ended up signed by an agent.  I am really feeling I need to get back in my cave and only poke my nose out when I need too.

Real life, well currently most bugs are small ones that my mind blows up to the size of a house and worries about. The one bug that is the size of a house (i.e. the prospect of not having a job very soon or having to apply for my own job against others, younger, with qualifications I don’t have and better health) I am trying hard to ignore. The fact is, if I get offered a good redundancy package (which is very doubtful) I might honestly consider taking it. I need at least a year’s wage in my pocket to make the offer acceptable to me. One year of writing my arse off and getting a couple of solid manuscripts written and to my agent is a dream that is so close that it at times makes me feel sick. The problem is I might have to cling on and endure the shit of the re-shuffle and all it entails and I am not looking forward to that at all.

Oh as it’s November and winter is on its way, a nice winter picture. It was taken just a few yards from my in-law’s home.

 

 

October 22, 2011, Author Sue, Comments Off

My posts on facebook today.

Categories: asides, Real life
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Had a really crap day yesterday. I had one of those headaches that just would not go away. Not had one of those for a long time. Did nothing much,save order a new freezer online.

Today I am having to rush around like a blue-rear-end-fly to get everything done plus empty the old freezer and take the remaining contents to mum’s to put in her chest freezer. Still, hope to get some writing done later today, and tomorrow while waiting
for the new freezer to be delivered. (Sad old fool I am, I feel that is the highlight of my week, which in all honesty has been a very off( replace off with word beginning with S) one.

#

I really give up! Opened the washer and the door fell off the top hinge! Water all over the floor from the defrosting freezer. Broke a soup bowl. I think I will take myself off to the pictures this afternoon and see Contagion and depress myself even further.

#

Pete’s mended the washer and we have cleaned up the water, BUT Pete decided to mow the lawn. He did not see the pile of cat poo before he mowed over it, so the mower stinks to high heaven! Not allowing it back in the garage until it is washed. Reason:
garage door leads into kitchen and utility room and even with the mower sitting outside the garge door the stink is horrible. I will not have my house smelling of ripe cat poo! I am seriously thinking of not going to the pictures now. I don’t trust my luck driving to Uttoxeter.

October 21, 2011, Author Sue, Comments Off

Rant

Categories: asides, Writing
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Watched Downton Abbey on catch up again, and wondering why I did. It is not that the acting is not good, it is. It’s the cliches that are stretched to breaking point, as well as certain “facts,” as regards WWI. I remember during the early days of submitting HOG, an agent who had requested sample chapters could not accept that the characters would end up in the same town and readers would not believe this. (Now being members of a PALs batt, which were drawn from the same town/city, even Regiments like the South/North Staffs were again drawn from the same area, it was quite logical for them to return home i.e. the same town. It was the losses in WWI that brought in the policy of placing men in different Regiments than their local one to stop the situation of a town or area suffering a loss of men folk in the way they did during WWI) Yet people in their millions are quite happy to believe a Lord/Lady can pick up the telephone and get 1. Information that was tied up in red tape until a few years ago i.e men shot for cowardice. 2. Get men transferred from hospital. 3. Have information from the front, that even the Generals commanding the troops at the time could not get hold of.
I tried so hard to write a story that respected the horror that men went through during the war. Has Downton Abbey, yes in many ways, but it could have gone a lot deeper and used the frustration, pain of those on the home front not knowing what was really happening on the western front and some not ever knowing what happened to their loved ones .
October 13, 2011, Author Sue, Comments Off

Stoneman Green update #3

Categories: Writing
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Been working on Stoneman Green all week. Progress has been good. Going back over what has been written so far have been very fruitful. The plot and character development is strong, but one thing has been bothering me, it was the choice of one of my POV characters. I am re-writing his scenes from another’s POV. It will put the villan centre stage from an early point, but I feel I need to do this to… stop the story chasing its tail. It will also give me the chance to get the dark deeds up close and personal for the reader, sooner. So, in the process today of re-working over 6,000 words, but I feel it will be worth it and actually will add a lot to my word count and strengthen certain plot points.
October 12, 2011, Author Sue, Comments Off

Stoneman Green update.#2

Categories: Writing
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I have the week off, so I am attempting to hammer out as many words of the first draft as I can.

I began by reading through, what is already written. Big mistake! I started editing! Still, I cleared up a pile of crap in the first five chapters and refreshed my mind with the plot so far. So today I am aiming to get at least 3,000 words done. I intend to spend most of the afternoon with my bum glued to the chair. It was also nice to spend a good hour typing away in my dressing gown. Before I went to work I spent most of the morning in my red dressing gown working away on my then current WIP. That was Oracle. Also most of Hand of Glory was written when I was onloy working afternoons, so again I sat for long periods in my red dressing gown writing. So, is that what I need to do, put on my red dressing gown when writing! ;)

October 2, 2011, Author Sue, Comments Off

Stoneman Green update.#1

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Starting from now, I am going to do a weekly update with regards to my WIP Stoneman Green.

OK;

2,000 words plus added to Stoneman Green this weekend. Finally hammering out the first draft. Now I need to make an effort to write each evening. The biggest problem is getting in the mindset. The story is set in 1947, so I need to watch how my characters talk and not have the working class characters speaking like John Mills in “This Happy Breed.” I must also stop thinking of my hero as Richard Todd in “The Dambusters”. The only thing my hero has in common with Wing Commander Guy Gibson is that he was a Lancaster Bomber pilot. After that he is a bit like Michael Redgrave in “The Captive Heart,” until he starts channelling Buffy! Though he is stomping small nasty demons not vamps. I think my head hurts!

 

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