Celebrate the Small Things 20-12-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the holidays!

I've had my last day at work now and I'm not going back until 13 January.  That's three whole weeks off!  I'm still working at the gym over some of that time, but my regular day job is over for 2024.

I haven't done anything for Christmas yet, so this weekend is all about getting ready for that.  I have presents to make...

I'm going away for about 10 days of that, to the beach house in the South Island, but the rest of the time I'm here and plan to do lots of cleaning and gardening and to go and see a lot of movies.  I'm not going to write except maybe the odd short story here or there.  I've been trying to do that more.

A Stranger to Kindness is with my critique group and I'm trying to leave it entirely alone until February or so now.  It's hard, especially since Harley's voice is still very much in my head.  But I know from past experience, he'll quiet down soon.  

So for now I'll be focusing on short stuff while I wait for edits to come in for Standing Too Close.  And I might send out a handful more queries for Guide Us, even though that's starting to feel a little like a fruitless exercise.  Such a shame.  I really like that book.  It just doesn't seem to be interesting to anyone else.

This week's story on Medium is a little supernatural romance.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: Ride or Die

 

I kind of loved this book.  The main character is just the kind of impulsive, badass, troublemaker I aspired to be when I was a teen.  Luckily for me, I had far fewer resources available to me, so my troublemaking tended to be on a limited scale.

Loli in this book doesn't have that limitation.  Her family are wealthy enough (and clearly give her way too much money) that she can throw elaborate parties at the drop of a hat.  Which is where this book begins.  With Loli throwing an elaborate party just because she needs to retrieve a necklace that has gotten into the wrong girl's hands.  While on her mission, she meets a mysterious stranger is a coat closet and is pulled into  an elaborate game that will challenge even her sense of danger.

She and X are soon on a mission to outdo each other with their increasingly challenging and perilous tasks for each other.  And of course, because she has a group of loyal friends around her, those who are closest to Loli also get pulled into the game.  Including Loli's long-suffering partner in crime, best friend Ryan.

But as the games become increasingly dangerous, Loli and Ryan's relationship becomes strained in a way it has never been before.  In testing how far she might actually go to win, Loli might lose the most important thing in her world.

This was a fun, thrilling ride of a book.  Loli is a fantastic character and so very, very teenaged.  She has very little thought of consequences to any of her actions and as such, is thoughtless with people's feelings.  I ached for poor Ryan whose devotion to her was crystal clear, even while she seemed completely oblivious to it.  And by the climax, I wanted to scream at the stupid child to wake up and stop putting herself into situations that were endangering herself and everyone around her.

So I'd recommend this one to anyone who likes a fast-paced thrill with larger-than-life characters.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

This adrenaline-packed joyride of a debut is an ode to Gen Z and teens who love chaos—perfect for fans of Grace D. Li, Ebony Ladelle, and Baby Driver.

Best friends Loli Crawford and Ryan Pope have earned their nickname, the “Bonnie and Clyde of Woolridge High.” From illegal snack swapping in kindergarten to reckless car surfing in high school, they have been causing trouble in their uptight California town forever. Everyone knows that the mischief starts with Loli. When it comes to chasing thrills, drama, and adventure, no one is on her level.

At least until Loli throws the wildest party Woolridge High has ever seen just to steal a necklace and meets X, a strange, unidentified boy in a coat closet, who challenges her to a game she can’t refuse—one that promises to put her love of danger to the ultimate test.

Loli and X begin an anonymous correspondence, exchanging increasingly risky missions. Loli’s fun has always been free and easy, but things spin out of control as she attempts to one-up X’s every move. As Loli risks losing everything—including her oldest friend—she’ll face the most dangerous thing of all: falling for someone she shouldn’t.

Weekly Goals 16-12-24

Since I finished my draft on Friday, writing isn't my goal this week.  For the first time in I don't know how long.  Instead, my goal is to actually do something to get ready for Christmas.  I have done absolutely nothing so far and I should get on it.  I only have just over a week.

It's my last week at work, so I have a few last things to wrap up and a couple of things I need to do to make the start of the year better.

And then it's all about holidays...

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 13-12-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

I finished my book!  

Well, okay... I finished the first draft of my book.  There's going to be a lot of editing and polishing and refining in my future, but for now, it's done.  I think there are places where things don't quite work, but there will be time to fix those things in the future.  

This has been a journey, I tell you!   But I love these characters so much and they deserve to have their story told right.

So for now, I'm going to get all my chapters ready for my critique group and leave it with them for a few weeks while I let the story rest and refresh over the holidays.  Then I'll dive back in early next year with fresher eyes and fix all the terrible things I find about it.

This week's story on Medium is a silly little piece about a sentient hot dog...  If you're looking for something fun.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: How to Pack for the End of the World

I picked this one up because of the title.  It's pretty compelling, right?  The book though.... okay, but not amazing.

Amina gets accepted to an exclusive boarding school as a scholarship student.  At home, she's been obsessing about the violence and discord in the world, to the point where she has horrific nightmares almost every night and her parents think getting her away from home and the site of their temple's arson will help.

They probably weren't expecting Amina to gravitate immediately to a group of kids with many of the same obsessions, yet that's what happens.  Within this odd group of environmentalists, preppers and general odd-bods, Amina finds some real friends and learns some valuable survival skills along the way.

But being prepared for the apocalypse doesn't prepare her for the usual high school drama, from crushes to friendship blow ups and more.  And as things start getting trickier to navigate, Amina must decide if preparing for the future is really worth it if it makes the present so difficult to live in.

There were parts of this book I very much enjoyed, but I feel like the way things were going to play out was telegraphed way too early.  I knew from the very first incident of discord who was behind it, so it was no surprise when I reached the end of the book and discovered I was right.

The characters were interesting for the most part, but weren't that layered - each of them seemed to be there because they were a specific "type" rather than being fully rounded humans with a wide range of interests and experiences.

But as a quick and entertaining enough read, this ticks the right boxes, so I'd recommend it.  especially if you're someone who catastrophizes about the end of the world!

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, what would you do?

This is the question that haunts Amina as she watches new and horrible stories of discord and crisis flash across the news every day.

But when she starts at prestigious Gardner Academy, Amina finds a group of like-minded peers to join forces with—fast friends who dedicate their year to learning survival skills from each other, before it’s too late.

Still, as their prepper knowledge multiplies, so do their regular high school problems, from relationship drama to family issues to friend blow-ups. Juggling the two parts of their lives forces Amina to ask another vital question: Is it worth living in the hypothetical future if it’s at the expense of your actual present?

Weekly Goals 9-12-24

 I did a lot of writing over the weekend and have almost finished all the changes I wanted to make to the ending.  Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out the hole that will get us there.  I know what needs to happen, I just can't figure out how, using my story's logic, it would happen.  I keep hoping it will come to me.

So this week, my goal is to keep going.  I'm so close to finishing!  I almost feel like maybe my brain isn't figuring out the problem I'm having because I love these characters so much, I'm going to be grief-stricken when I have to leave them behind and do something else.

I have a busy week ahead, so I think I'm going to need to take a day off work to write to make any progress at all - the weekend is already looking pretty packed.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 6-12-24

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

I think, or maybe just hope, I've figured out a way to plug the hole in A Stranger to Kindness.  We shall see.  I will get some writing time over the weekend to figure it out, just probably not as much as I'd like.  But If I can't figure it out 100%, I have some other changes I want to make in other places, so I can work on those while my brain works in the background on filling that gap.  

I'm still fairly confident I can finish the draft before the holidays, but not quite as confident as I was a few weeks back when everything was going so well.

I kind of love this week's story I published on Medium.  It's a little nasty, but kind of fun.  Check it out here.  Publishing these little flash fiction pieces has really ignited my joy in writing them again.  I've been using a daily prompt and just going with whatever spills out from that prompt.  Some days it's better than others, but I feel like it's a good way to exercise my writing muscles outside a large project.

What are you celebrating this week?

 

Insecure Writers Support group - December

 It's the first Wednesday in December, so it's time for the Insecure Writers' Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for the December 4 posting of the IWSG are Ronel, Deniz, Pat Garcia, Olga Godim, and Cathrina Constantine!

This month's question is very much something that is on my mind at the moment:

Do you write cliffhangers at the end of your stories? Are they a turn-off to you as a writer and/or a reader?

My critique group have been talking a lot about this very thing, not so much at the end of stories, but at the end of chapters. Leaving a cliff hanger or at least an intriguing moment at the end of the chapter encourages the reader to keep going, to turn the page and get immersed in the next chapter. Done well, you can sometimes get readers to stay up half the night to finish your book.

The way I write doesn't really lend itself to doing this except occasionally by accident. Because I write out of order and don't usually create chapters out of my text until the book's pretty much finished (or I'm putting up chapters for my critique group and need to divide it into relatively equal chunks for them to read), but it's definitely something I aim to do with the finished product.

In terms of short fiction, I prefer to end my stories with a twist that leaves the reader surprised or to end with something for them to think about. I love a story that leaves the reader with questions about either what happened in the story, or what might happen next. That's where discussion comes from... Like when you go to a film and everyone you went with has a slightly different idea what it was about and you have a lively dinner conversation about it.

When it comes to novels, I hate a cliffhanger ending. It usually means a book is part of a series and I can't stand reading a series unless the whole thing has been written. Far too often I get within a few pages of the end of a book and realise there's far too much to wrap up for the number of pages left, and get the hideous feeling that I'm reading the first part of a series. I loathe that. I don't want to wait a year or two to read the rest of the story. By then I will have forgotten the detail of the first one and I may not even care. Or the first book won't sell well and the next books in the series never get published.

So, while I'm not entirely pro-cliffhanger, they do have their place.

What are your feelings about cliffhangers?

Weekly Goals 2-12-24

 I have had a frustrating writing weekend.  In fact, a frustrating last few weeks of writing.  I have such a small amount left to write to get the draft finished, yet I can't seem to get anything to work.  I just don't know what needs to happen in that section to get from  A to B.

I think I've written 10K that I'll end up throwing out.

But we'll see.  I think I may have figured something out.  I'll try again when I write next.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 29-11-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...What am I celebrating this week?

I guess the big thing I'm celebrating this week is that I have signed a publishing contract for a new book.  Standing Too Close will be published in 2025.  I can't quite believe that I am going to have published six novels in the near future.  It wasn't so long ago (okay, almost 11 years) that I felt like I was never going to get even one published.  Yet, here we are...

Although, if I look at it from another perspective, maybe it isn't actually such a great achievement given I think the book I'm working on now is my 19th or 20th...  But this is a celebrate post, so I'm going to celebrate it anyway.

I'm hoping to make some good progress on A Stranger to Kindness this weekend.  I really need to finish it before edits come in for the old book.  Blue and Harley have very different voices and in the past, I've lost my way with a current writing project when I went back to edit another one midstream.  Several of the unfinished books on my hard drive are casualties of this.

I'm having a lot of fun with publishing my short fiction (mainly 100 words or less) stories on Medium.  I don't have a ton of readers yet, but I figure that will come with regular posting.  At least, I hope so.

I have a pot luck dinner with my girlfriends on Saturday night.  This is a group of women I met when my oldest son was six months old and now all our kids are over 20!  And we're still friends!  Our kids, not so much...

The other thing I'm celebrating this week is that I'm going to see the Wicked movie on Sunday.  Looking forward to it too!

What are you celebrating this week?

 

This is one of those books I wanted to like more than I did.  I've enjoyed Mitchard's other books, and the premise of this one sounded promising.  Unfortunately the characters kind of annoyed me.

True Dickinson is a successful business owner and single mother.  Since her husband died many years ago, she's worked hard to create a life for herself, her son and her widowed mother.  She has surrounded herself with friends and co-workers who have become like a family for her.  Yet there is still something missing in her life.

When she meets Hank, the handsome, quirky, passionate younger man who owns the restaurant she and her friends pick to celebrate her 43rd birthday, sparks fly.  But True can't believe a man 10 years younger than her would be interested, and rebuffs his advances several times before finally agreeing to go out with him.

Sparks fly and before she knows it, True is deeply in love with Hank.  So much so, they marry in a rush, not even telling True's son, Guy, before they do so.

Despite the warnings and misgivings of those around them, Hank and True are determined to make their marriage work and to give Guy the father he's never had.  But between True's long-held defenses and insecurities, and Hank's hot-headedness, their path to happiness will not be a smooth one.

I found both the romantic leads in this book annoying in different ways.  True is described as being a successful business owner with a loyal staff who are more friends than employees.  Yet she is so insecure about everything, it's difficult to understand how she ever managed to get the business off the ground.  Let alone deal with all the challenges and personalities a business of this type would involve.

And Hank is both immature and pig headed.  The fact he won't see how wrong his actions toward True are when he chooses an ex-girlfriend over her at a point where she needs his support made me hope they never got back together.

I wanted this book to be much more fun than it is.  I mean, what older woman doesn't occasionally daydream about being with a much younger guy who finds her attractive?  True never seemed to recognise that Hank genuinely does find her attractive and actively seems to seek out the negatives and look for problems.  She treats him like he's an immature teenager at times, and is so suspicious of him, it's not really a surprise that he does wind up failing her.  She expects it and he lives up to her expectations.

So I don't highly recommend this one.  It isn't a bad read and I certainly enjoyed parts of it.  I just didn't find it has engaging (or as hot) as I wanted to.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

It is True Dickinson's birthday and her best friends have gathered on this snowy night to celebrate. True has never felt more alone. Though her small business is thriving and her young son is happy, the death of her husband eight years ago has left an empty space in her life that friends and family cannot fill. Are youth and beauty slipping away while True is busily taking care of everyone else? An accident the night of her birthday will answer that question and give True the opportunity to let love back into her life -- that is, if she can overcome her own fears and if these two spirits can find a way to tame each other's wild hearts. A story of transformation and an unforgettable tale of the perils and pleasures of modern love, Twelve Times Blessed is a powerful, moving novel of the heart from one of our most gifted and best-loved storytellers.

Weekly Goals 25-11-24

 I did a lot of writing over the weekend, but I still feel like I might be going in the wrong direction with those scenes.  And I feel like there is a lot I still need to write in order to get them to meet up with the stuff I've already written toward the end.  But, because I'm stupid and a sucker for punishment, I'll keep going and see where I end up.  Hopefully this is just my stupid brain telling me I'm hopeless and the stuff  I'm writing isn't as bad as I think...

I'm feeling a certain degree of urgency to finish this draft because I just signed a publishing contract for Standing Too Close and know I will have edits to work through on that coming up.  I need to finish A Stranger to Kindness before that so I can turn my brain to a different character voice while I edit.  Blue, the narrator of Standing Too Close is very different to Harley!

So my goals this week are mainly around trying to make some good progress on the book.  I'm planning to take Friday off to write, so that will hopefully be a good way to really dig in.

What are your goals this week?

  

Celebrate the Small Things 22-11-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend! 

I have a few things to do over the weekend, but I'm hoping to get a decent amount of writing time in too.  I'm also planning to take next Friday off work so I have a full day to write.  I think once I've done that, and had the weekend after, I'll be pretty close to being done with the draft, if not finished.

It's been a long journey with this book.  I had the first inkling of the characters and their story when I was finishing up the final draft of Standing Too Close.  It took a while for the details to really come together, but I think I started writing sometime in 2020.  I got a few chapters in and then lost confidence for some reason.  I think because of the main character being mute.  Writing a character who doesn't talk is challenging, especially for a writer like me who tells so much of the story through dialogue.

So I stopped working on it.  I wrote Guide Us during NaNo that year (or maybe it was 2021, I can't remember) and didn't exactly forget about Harley and Wolfe, but left them where they were.  I wrote the first draft of Guide Us in about 8 days, so it needed a lot of work to get it ready to be seen by anyone.  So it wasn't until earlier this year I managed to get back to A Stranger to Kindness and realized I was ready to write this book now.

So I have.  Almost, anyway.  Not all of it has come out exactly the way I wanted it to, but there is room to write more and to polish things, change them, rewrite them.  And I will do all that.  I just need to finish the book first.

Oh, and I have started publishing some of my flash fiction and short stories over on Medium.  I figure they should have a life outside my hard drive, even if most of them are little prompt-driven exercises I write during my lunchbreaks at work  - I give myself 30 minutes to write a story in 1,000 words or less using prompts from a writing website I use. 

It challenges me to write outside my usual lane sometimes, and other times it give me a chance to explore characters from my books in a new context.  I don't often use much of what I write in these stories as part of the book, but it's a way to really bed into a character voice or to look at a scene or situation through a different character's eyes.  

Check out the stories I've posted here.  I'll put a new one up every Friday.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Loved: White Oleander

This has been one of my favourite books ever since I first read it many years ago.  It's one of those books I lend to people all the time and never seem to get back.  So when I found a copy at the second-hand book stand recently, I decided to buy it to replace the three or four other copies I've owned and lost.  And then of course I had to re-read it to remind myself why it's one of my favourite books.

On a basic level the book is about a tense relationship between a mother and a daughter across a number of years.  Toward the beginning of the book, when the daughter, Astrid, is around twelve, her mother falls in love with a man who rejects her.  Enraged, she murders him.

Astrid then finds herself in the foster system, moving from placement to placement, bending herself to fit into each new family.  But she never fully escapes from her mother whose voice remains embedded in her soul and whose letters find her everywhere she goes.  

The book follows Astrid as she navigates her way through these different homes, each providing her with a different example of womanhood that she carries with her into young adulthood.

i think what I love the most about this book is the beauty of the writing.  I can only dream of being able to write such gorgeous prose.  But unlike a lot of beautifully written books, there's a compelling story with strongly realised characters that leap from the page.  Too often beautifully written books get so lost in the language, they forget to be great stories at the same time.

So I recommend this book wholeheartedly.  I would also recommend the author's duology about the Russian Revolution (I can't remember the titles off the top of my head, just the way I tore through both volumes in less than a week while on vacation one year).

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes--each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned--becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

Weekly Goals 18-11-24

 I had quite a good writing weekend, but I feel like maybe the scenes I've been working on the last couple of weeks aren't right.  I'm not quite sure what I was trying to do with them, but now that I'm two chapters into this section, I'm wondering if it's the right thing for this part of the book.  I'll keep going though, even if I feel like I may end up rewriting this part later.  Or cutting it entirely and changing what happens completely.

But the goal this week is to keep writing.  I'm very close to finishing this now, even if I do think I'll be doing a bunch of editing.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 15-11-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!  Writing time!

I have been useless about taking the Fridays off I said I was going to.  I just keep ending up having stuff on on Fridays...  Maybe in two weeks I'll manage it.

On the plus side, I have nothing much planned over the weekend, so I intend to spend a good amount of time writing. I'm hoping I can finish up the section I'm working on and figure out a way to join it up to the ending part I already wrote.  Then I can polish up that ending, making it a little longer and more grueling for poor Harley to get there, write the epilogue (which I'm no longer entirely sure I need, but I'm going to write anyway because I feel like I need to check back in on this kid).

Then the first draft will be done.  I know there are places I need to go back to and clarify things, and there are a couple of chapters that are kind of sketchy and jump around a lot that might need some fleshing out, but it should be done before Christmas.  Which is my goal so I can leave it for a month or so while I enjoy my summer vacation, then come back with fresh eyes at the end of January.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Loved: The Getaway List

 

I've enjoyed all of Emma Lord's books, so it was a no-brainer to pick this one up when I was at the library.  And it did not disappoint!

The book follows eighteen-year-old Riley who escapes her hometown and her overprotective mother for a summer in New York with her childhood bestie who  moved there before high school when his mother's moviemaking career took off.  In the intervening years, Riley and Tom have remained in contact and have planned numerous adventures together, most of which have been cancelled by Riley's mom.  Which has led to them crating The Getaway List - a list of all the things they've wanted to do over the years.  And this summer in New York, Riley and Tom resolve to actually do them all.

Riley is determined to try and find the adventurous person she used to be again.  And she's certain Tom is the key.  He was always the outgoing one, the one who drew people together.  

Things grow more complicated when Riley arrives at Tom's apartment and discovers that not only has he grown up, but he's grown hot too.  They fall easily into their old pattern of friendship, but things aren't quite the same.  Tom isn't quite the same and Riley's feelings for Tom seem to have shifted from just being friends to wanting something more.

As they embark on completing the Getaway List, Tom and Riley meet new friends who they bring along on their journey, ticking off all the things they've wanted to do, and discovering a few more they never expected.

This was a sweet, fun read.  Riley is a delightfully chaotic character whose spirit has been squashed for several years and watching her grow into herself as an adult, rediscovering all the things she loved about her childhood, was a treat. And who couldn't fall in love with Tom?  He's funny and sweet and a little sad and you get the sense that he actually lost more of his spark than Riley did when the pair of them were separated.  This is a pair that are just made to be together and it takes far too long for either of them to actually come to that conclusion themselves.

Add in the delightfully madcap group of friends they make as they make the city their own, and this book is a terrific read.  I enjoyed it very much.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb: 

The day of her high school graduation, Riley realizes two things: One, that she has spent the last four years trying so hard to be a Good Kid for her mom that she has no idea who she really is anymore, and two, she has no idea what she wants because of it. The solution? Pack her bags and move to New York for the summer, where her childhood best friend Tom and co-creator of The Getaway List ― a list of all the adventures they’ve wanted to do together since he moved away ― will hopefully help her get in touch with her old adventurous self, and pave the road to a new future.

Riley isn’t sure what to expect from Tom, who has been distant since his famous mom’s scriptwriting career pulled him away. But when Riley arrives in the city, their reconnection is as effortless as it was when they were young―except with one, unexpected complication that will pull Riley’s feelings in a direction she didn’t know they could take. As she, Tom, and their newfound friends work their way through the delightfully chaotic items on The Getaway List, Riley learns that sometimes the biggest adventure is not one you take, but one you feel in your heart.

Inescapably romantic and brimming with Emma Lord’s signature cheer, The Getaway List is an uplifting and romantic read that will settle into your heart and never leave.

Weekly goals: 11-11-24

I actually got a little more writing time over the weekend than I expected to get, which was good. I still have a bunch of stuff left to write, but I'm getting closer to finishing. I even wrote the first draft of my query. Let me know what you think...

Dear Agent,

After a childhood spent bouncing between 13 foster homes, 15-year-old Harley’s just spent nine months in juvie and is on his last chance when he’s placed with a brother he never knew existed. Wolfe, who has managed to build a successful life despite his own turbulent past in the foster system, offers Harley a chance at stability—something Harley never thought he’d get. But as Harley steps into Wolfe’s home, he’s a nervous, broken shell of a boy, too afraid to unpack his bags, convinced he won’t be there long enough to make it worthwhile.

As Harley struggles to find his place in this new world, he fights the overwhelming fear that if Wolfe learns the truth about his past—about who he really is—it will destroy any hope of a secure future. Then, in a new school, he meets Meg, a tough yet kind drummer in a punk band, who sees through his walls and offers him a rare sense of belonging. But when Meg warns him about the bad crowd that’s already starting to pull him in, Harley ignores her advice, hoping these friendships will finally give him the connection he’s always craved.

When his choices lead to violence, Harley’s relationship with Wolfe is pushed to the breaking point. Now, Harley must face the consequences of his actions and summon the courage to speak up for himself, even if it means revealing the long-held secrets he’s sure will ruin everything.

A Stranger to Kindness is an X-word contemporary YA novel that explores trauma, family, and identity through the eyes of a boy struggling to find his place in a world that has never given him a home. It will appeal to fans of Andrew Smith and Laurie Halse Anderson.

After moving to a new country every two or three years throughout my childhood, I now live (and write) in New Zealand. My short stories have appeared in Halfway Down the Stairs, Residential Aliens, The Barrier Review, A Fly in Amber, Everyday Fiction and numerous anthologies including recent Voyage YA anthology Just Above Water. I have published five YA novels with a small press and am a contributor to writing blog Operation Awesome, offering weekly advice to writers as agony aunt, O’Abby.

Per your guidelines, you will find the first X chapters and a synopsis below.

Thank you for considering my work. I look forward to the possibility of working together.

Warm regards,

Kate

Would you want to read this book?

My goal this week is to keep going, keep writing. I figure I have about three chapters to write in the middle to connect things up to where I skipped forward. Then I need to re-work the ending to make things a little tougher for my characters and write the epilogue. And I think that's all there is left to do.

I'm sure there will be more that will come up as I edit and as my crib group keep reading, but I'm getting there...

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 8-11-24

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!  It's the first full work week I've had in a couple of weeks, so I feel like I need the weekend!  Although I do I have a bit of gym work I have to do over the weekend.  Every three months or so they release new material across all the fitness programmes and as an instructor, I need to go to a team training on Sunday to go through the material for the classes I'll be teaching from the 19th.  It's going to be hard because I'll be doing a 50 minute class and a 30 minute class back to back.  Not something I do normally!

My critique group continue to like  A Stranger to Kindness which makes me feel so much more confident to keep writing.  I do love this book and these characters.  Even the shitty ones...

I suspect I won't get a whole lot of writing done over the weekend, but I am planning to take the next couple of Fridays off to really dig in and get this book finished.  I feel like I need to make things worse  at the end of the book - what I've already written is good, but the situation gets tied up too quickly.  I think Harley and Wolfe need to suffer a bit longer.  

But on the plus side, I think I've come up with a good plot point for the middle of the book where I was stuck for a while.  So I'm hoping to get to that part of the book over the weekend if I get any time to write.  Why are weekends so damn short?

What are you celebrating this week?

IWSG - November

It's the first Wednesday of the month, so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group.

The awesome co-hosts for the  November 6 posting of the IWSG are Diedre Knight, Lisa Buie Collard,  Kim Lajevardi, and JQ Rose!

This month's question is a goodie!

What creative activity do you engage in when you're not writing?

I have a bunch of things I do when I'm not writing. I'm a creative person and writing isn't my only creative pursuit, although it is probably the one I consider my main creative outlet.

I enjoy cooking and find that very creative when I have a decent amount of time to put into it. Day-to-day cooking for the family isn't really creative - it's more of a grind, especially when one of more family embers is likely to turn their nose up at whatever is put in front of them. But experimenting with flavours and textures and throwing different combinations of ingredients together to see what works and what doesn't can be very creative.

I like making bread too, and again, playing with the flavours and hte shapes and the textures. Cakes can also be fun and creative, especially if you ice them and take your time with the decorations. I love a cake that is both beautiful and delicious.

I also paint. A few years back I discovered pouring as a painting technique and have had a lot of fun playing with different techinques to get designs I like. I'm still not that great with the blow-dryer - I see people in videos making beautiful painting using the blow dryer, but I have never been that successful with this one. I think I may not thin my paints enough to get them to move smoothly. Something to work on over the summer, maybe!

I do other crafty things too sometimes. Usually around Christmas when I try to always make presents rather than buying things. I also often make my own wrapping paper to wrap the gifts.

I also love clothes, especially second-hand or vintage clothes. Some people would call my dress sense eccentric, but I prefer to call it creative...

I'm fascinated to hear what other people do to keep themselves creatively charged when they're not writing, so let me know in the comments.

Weekly goals 4-11-24

 I had a pretty good writing weekend and filled in a bunch of scenes that I'd left unfinished or places I felt needed a little more filling out.  There is still a way to go, but I'm still feeling positive about it.  The book's at just over 55K now, so I have plenty of space for the extra stuff I need to write in the middle as well as the ending and epilogue that I still need to write.

I've made another 10 chapters available for my critique group, so I will be interested to get their thoughts on things as they progress.

So my goal this week is to just keep going.  I need to think of some cruel prank for some of the characters to play and I'm a little stumped on that one, but I'm sure I'll think of something, even if it is just a temporary solution until I come up with something better.

I'm teaching my first full spin class on my own tomorrow morning and have a permanent place on the roster now.  Tuesday mornings are mine for the foreseeable future.  I need to spend a little time this week making sure I really know the new release before we debut it in a couple of weeks.  Then I need to make sure I learn another class to teach once the new release period is over.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 1-11-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's been quite a week.  My younger son finished high school and interviewed to go to drama school next year to study stage management and my older son moved out.  So big changes around here!  I suddenly have a spare room I can turn into an office so I have an actual writing space.  But have I moved my stuff in there?  No, of course not.  I'm far too used to working here, in the kitchen.  I will try it out over the weekend though. 

I'm very close to hitting the end of my book, so I hope to get through that over the weekend.  Then I can go and fill in all the places I've left gaps so I could jump forward and write the stuff I knew needed to happen.  I'm confident I can get this finished by the end of November.  Then I'll take a break for a few weeks and come back to it with fresh eyes in the New Year.

It feels good to be in this place.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: On the Bright Side

 

When I write at the library, I tend to sit in the YA section in the hopes all those published words will have an effect on my own writing (yeah, it's cheap magic) and last week I happened to be sitting by the new release rack and saw this book with a Deaf protagonist.  Given my book has a mute protagonist, it felt like I needed to read this.

It was a cute book and I enjoyed it.  It was refreshing to read something with a real understanding of disability and how some people with disabilities don't really see them that way.

Ellie is Deaf and has been at a special boarding school for the Deaf for several years.  When the school closes down, she's forced to go home to her hearing family and to try and figure out how to fit in there and at a mainstream school. Her first day is kind of a disaster and to try and help her find her way, she's assigned a guide.

Jackson is one of the school's soccer stars, but has been ostracized since he fumbled a pass when his legs went numb and lost the team an important game.  He is eager to help Ellie, but somehow manages to say all the wrong things all the time.  And then just as things are beginning to improve between them, he's blindsided by a life-changing medical diagnosis.

I really liked the relationship between this pair, especially when it was so fraught with miscommunication.  I also liked Ellie's attitude toward her disability and how she never sees it as an impairment.  It really highlighted how important having a community of like-minded people around you is - Ellie only really thrives once she finds a group of other Deaf people to hang out with.  It also underlines the fact sign language is in fact a language in the same way French or Russian is.

Jackson also discovers the importance of community when he joins a support group for people who share his diagnosis and can speak to their own experiences and ways to overcome challenges brought on by having this condition.

But despite each having their own group, Ellie and Jackson's relationship is the centre of this book and the way they come together and fall in love is super cute.  It would be easy to say their relationship is inevitable because they are two people with differences and would naturally gravitate toward each other, but this is not the case here.

I especially enjoyed reading about the struggles Ellie has with her parents who seem unable to understand that Ellie has a world of her own and doesn't necessarily want to conform to the hearing world the way they want her to.

So I'd recommend this one.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

A hopeful novel about love, disability, and the inevitability of change by the author of Give Me a Sign.

Ellie’s Deaf boarding school just shut down, forcing her to leave the place she considered home and return to her hearing family. Back in a mainstream school, Ellie quickly becomes the subject of hateful rumors. That’s when her guidance counselor pairs her with Jackson, a student who’s supposed to help her adjust. Can the boy who tries to say the right things, and gets it all wrong, be the lifeline Ellie needs?

Jackson has been avoiding his teammates ever since some numbness in his legs cost them an important soccer match. With his senior year off to a lonely start, he’s intrigued when he’s asked to help the new girl, initially thinking it will be a commendable move on his part. Little does he know Ellie will soon be the person he wants most by his side when the strange symptoms he’s experiencing amount to a life-changing diagnosis.

Exploring what it means to build community, Anna Sortino pens a story about the fear of the unknown and the beauty of the unexpected, all wrapped up in a poignant romance that will break your heart and put it back together again.

Weekly Goals 28-10-24

 I've had a pretty good writing weekend and still have a day to go since today is a holiday and I plan to spend the afternoon writing.  I think I might hit the ending today,  if I'm lucky.  Probably not the epilogue - I'm still thinking about that - but the actual ending of the story.

I have a lot of stuff to fill in further back though.  And things keep occurring to me that I need to add to earlier chapters.  But I'm feeling on track to meet my goal of finishing this before the end of the year.

So my goal this week is to keep up the momentum and keep working on it.  I also want to send out a few more queries for Guide Us.  It's starting to feel 100% fruitless, but you have to keep trying, right?

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 25-10-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!  And it's a long weekend!

And I've made it an extra-long weekend by taking Friday off too so I have a day dedicated to writing.  After working all those nights and all of last weekend, I have a bit of time off owing to me.

I had an okay writing day on Friday.  I was hoping for it to be better, but the scenes I'm working on are a little tricky and I'm not sure I got the events in the right order.  I'm going to go back through and see if my instinct is right and that I need to move a few things around.

On the plus side, my critique group are still enjoying the story.  I'm going to need to go back soon and fill in some bits I skipped over because my crib group are almost those chapters.

I had a few rejections this week - from agents and publishers for Guide Us and a couple of pieces of short fiction I'd sent out also got turned down.  'Tis the season, it appears....  I will send out a new batch of queries for Guide Us this week.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: 2000ft Above Worry Level

 

I picked this one up at the library the other day because it was on a display of local authors and I recognised the author's name as being someone who used to work for me at a cinema many, many moons ago.

And as soon as I read the first page I recognised the guy who came in to his job interview shaking and sweating and barely able to stutter out his name.  You wouldn't have thought that would have given me a great first impression, but I saw something in Eamonn that I don't think he could see in himself at the time and I wanted to encourage that.  So I hired him.

Since then, he's gone on to be a comedian and now an author.

Structured as a novel of sorts, the book is more a series of loosely related vignettes or short stories, some taking place in the present, and some harking back to the protagonist's childhood - one of my favourite chapters was about a childhood camping trip to a town dealing with a plague of wasps.

The main character is depressed, a little lost in the world, perpetually broke and probably a real worry to his long-suffering flatmates.  Some of the stories about what he's going through are incredibly tragic, yet also incredibly funny.  I guess those situations that you find embarassing at the time can be hilarious in retrospect, even if they are still tinged with a hint of shame.

I think what makes the protagonist here so endearing is that he is genuinely trying to be a better human.  He's just not great at it, and he manages to somehow undermine every step he takes in the right direction.  Some of this is circumstance, some of it is poor mental health and some of it is just the stupid stuff we do as we grow up, the stuff we (hopefully) learn from.

I'd definitely recommend this one.  It's tragic and funny and will make you squirm in places, but it's also undeniably human.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Everything is sad and funny and nothing is anything else

2000ft Above Worry Level begins on the sad part of the internet and ends at the top of a cliff face. This episodic novel is piloted by a young, anhedonic, gentle, slightly disassociated man. He has no money. He has a supportive but disintegrating family. He is trying hard to be better. He is painting a never-ending fence.

Eamonn Marra’s debut novel occupies the precarious spaces in which many twenty-somethings find themselves, forced as they are to live in the present moment as late capitalism presses in from all sides. Mortifying subjects – loserdom, depression, unemployment, cam sex – are surveyed with dignity and stoicism. Beneath Marra’s precise, unemotive language and his character’s steadfast grip on the surface of things, something is stirring.

Weekly Goals 21-10-24

 The Jazz Festival is finished for another year.  I think it went really well. Last night's performance by esperanza spalding was one of the best shows I've seen yet.  What an amazing performer!

So this week is about wrapping things up from the Festival and trying to get back some me time.  I've worked a ton of extra hours over the Festival and throughout the year, so I'm going to try and take an extra day off most weeks for the next month to finish A Stranger to Kindness.  It needs work and there are a lot of holes I need to fill in, even if I do make it to the end in the next couple of weeks.

It's a long weekend this weekend so I'm going to take Friday off too, to make it a 4-day weekend.  Which gives me plenty of time to put into my book, especially if I make Friday my specific all-day writing day which I plan to.

I taught my first half spin class last week and this week I'm doing the other half - the start.  I still have things to work on,  but I think I did okay.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 18-10-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

But not really.  I'm working all weekend on the Jazz Festival.  I'll get my weekend on the other side.

The Festival has been going well.  Almost all our shows are sold out or close to it and audiences have been loving it.  I got to see Marcus Miller on Wednesday night, and it was amazing!  What a fantastic player he is.  And so funny and warm too.

I've been getting some good feedback from my critique group on A Stranger to Kindness which makes me happy.  So far they're getting everything out of each chapter that I was hoping they would.  Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to get any writing time this weekend, but next weekend is a 4 day weekend for me and it's going to be all about writing.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Brotherless Night

 

My book club chose this book because it was shortlisted for the Women's Prize.  It's one of those books I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own, but I'm really glad to have read.  I know very little about the civil war in Sri Lanka, and while I've heard of the Tamil Tigers, I wasn't aware of exactly what they did, or their role in this conflict.

The book follows Sashi, a teenager whose dream is to be a doctor.  She's from a large, loving family who value education and encourage the dreams of their children.  Just as she's preparing for the exams that will decide her future, civil war breaks out and Sashi's life changes overnight.

One by one her beloved brothers disappear from her life - killed or joined up with the Tigers to fight for their people's freedom.  Her childhood friend K is also swept up in the madness and violence, rising through the Tiger ranks rapidly.

When K asks for Sashi's help, she can't refuse and soon finds herself working punishing hours in a field hospital helping an organisation she is becoming increasingly disillusioned with. So when her favourite professor invites her to take part in a women's movement, Sashi jumps at the chance even though she knows it will change everything for her.

 This is a powerful book about people who are traditionally without power - women.  Yet here, the women are the ones who demand and ultimately succeed in creating change.  But there are prices to pay and Sashi's journey vividly evokes both the bravery and the sacrifice required to force positive change.

I learned a lot about Sri Lanka and its history through reading this book which is a good thing. The politics and history of that part of the world are not things I knew a lot about - my history class studied South Africa the year the other history class studied India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - so I came to the subject matter without much prior knowledge.  I used to run films for the local Tamil society, but those were rarely political; they were usually just the same as Bollywood films, just in the Tamil language.

So I recommend this one.  it's powerful and speaks volumes to how different the world would look if women ran everything...

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

In this searing novel, a courageous young woman tries to protect her dream of becoming a doctor as civil war devastates Sri Lanka.

Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence. Desperate to act, Sashi accepts K's invitation to work as a medic at the field hospital for the militant Tamil Tigers, who, following years of state discrimination and violence, are fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority. But after the Tigers murder one of her teachers and Indian peacekeepers arrive only to commit further atrocities, Sashi begins to question where she stands. When one of her medical school professors, a Tamil feminist and dissident, invites her to join a secret project documenting human rights violations, she embarks on a dangerous path that will change her forever.

Set during the early years of Sri Lanka's three-decade civil war, Brotherless Night is a heartrending portrait of one woman's moral journey and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home.

Weekly Goals 14-10-24

It's Jazz Festival week so it's going to be a busy one with very little time available for me to do anything much outside of work.  Especially since I start teaching at the gym this week.  Contract is signed and everything!

Which is kind of a shame because I had an awesome writing day yesterday and managed to write 2.5 chapters.  I haven't re-read what I wrote, so I'm hoping it's okay...   Getting into the really meaty part of the book now, so it's been fun to write.  I'm very much looking forward to writing the ending. I have a wonderfully emotional scene to write toward the end which it the kind of stuff I love to write.

I also think I may need an epilogue in this one too - Standing Too Close has one and it's the only time I've ever written an epilogue, but this book feels like it needs one too.

But next week will be the week to focus on that stuff.  It's a long weekend and I'm going to take an extra day so I have 4 days to myself.

So that's my week...  What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 11-10-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

Well, kind of.  I am going to be working for a few hours on Sunday as we head into Jazz Festival week.  I'm not going to get much in the way of writing time this week, but I'm hoping for a couple of hours on Sunday.  I'm right in this book at the moment and I don't want to fall out of it while I'm so there.

I'm having my team from my old job over tomorrow evening, which should be fun.  It's been a while since I saw them all, so it'll be good to catch up.  I need to clean the house and do some cooking before they arrive too.  I have a delicious dish planned....

I've had some great feedback on the new book from my critique group.  They are getting out of each chapter so far exactly what I was hoping them to, so I'm feeling good about that.  I just hope it continues.  I'm not so sure that some of the stuff I've written 100% works, so I'll be looking forward to that feedback.

I've had a few more rejections for Guide Us this week.  I'm really baffled by the lack of response this one's been getting.  I haven't had a single request!  I kind of got it a little bit with Standing Too Close because the query did hint at a plot point some people might find too challenging for YA, but there's nothing like that in Guide Us.  I wonder if it's the whole religious thing.  Maybe the current climate isn't open to people questioning the church.  It's frustrating, because I know it's a good book.

On the plus side, if I manage to get it right, I think the new one is going to be even better...

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: Harlem Shuffle

 

I'm late to the whole Colson Whitehead thing, I know....  I picked this up at the library because I've heard so much about this author and it seemed wrong that I hadn't read anything from him yet.  Maybe I picked the wrong book to start with, but I really am not sure what all the fuss is about.

There's nothing really wrong with this book, but I didn't love it.  It took me almost three weeks to read which is VERY unlike me.  I just wasn't into it so much that I was compelled to get back to it any time I had a spare moment.

Set in 1960s Harlem, it's about Ray Carney, a guy who is kind of a crook.  Only kind of though.  Outwardly he's a respectable business owner trying to do right by his family and get ahead.  His cousin Freddie is a career criminal and has a bad habit of getting Ray involved.  And Ray can't say no to Freddie.

The book follows Ray across many years as he tries to balance these two sides of his life, keep his family ignorant of his more shady dealings and keep himself form getting himself killed.

The book has a colourful cast of characters as you'd expect from a story about the criminal underworld.  It also paints a vivid picture of Harlem at the time, the power players and racial tensions that seethe beneath the surface of the seemingly thriving community.

Yes somehow this book didn't quite work for me.  It wasn't gripping enough to satisfy as a crime novel, yet wasn't quite a character study or an examination of the society at the time.  It was all three and it didn't quite work as any of these things entirely.

It's a hard one for me to talk about because I didn't dislike it.  But I didn't really like it either.  I think I was actually a little bored by it, if I'm being honest.  There were some wonderful lines, but overall, I didn't find the writing to be that extraordinary.  I think I'll need to try another one of Whitehead's books - I hear The Nickle Boys is good - before I cement my opinion.

So I'm not sure if I should recommend this one or not...  Make your own mind up!

But don't take my word for it...  Here's the blurb.

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…” To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home.

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either.

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the “Waldorf of Harlem”—and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes.

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?

Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

But mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

Weekly Goals 7-10-24

I had another pretty good writing weekend and managed to get through a couple of pivotal scenes.  Hoping they're as good as I think they are when I go back over them...  They're tricky ones to write because I want the reader to glean some idea what's going on, but the POV character is blind drunk at the time and doesn't know what's happening. 

I swear this book is the most challenging I've ever written....  I have really made it hard for myself!  But if it works out the way I want it to, I think it's going to be pretty powerful.  My critique group have read the first six chapters and are enjoying it so far.  And they love the characters which makes me so happy.  I love them too!

Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to get any time to write over the next couple of weeks because the Jazz Festival is almost upon us and I'm working the next two weekends.  But the week after is a long weekend and I might take a day or so on either side to write.

So this week I need to get all my ducks in a row so I'm organised for the Festival week ahead.

What are your goals for the week?

Celebrate the Small Things 3-10-24

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I had a busy week at work this week, so I'm looking forward to having a bit of a break this weekend.  I don't have anything planned, so hoping to get some reading and some writing done.  I'm kind of itching to get back to Harley and the shenanigans he's getting up to.  Things are going to go downhill fast for him from here....

I haven't got much else to report this week.  Things will start getting busy from next weekend with the Jazz Festival, so I'm not anticipating having a lot of free time until after 20 October now.  But after that, I'm hoping to be able to take a few days off to write and finish this book.

What are you celebrating this week?

IWSG - October

 

It's the first Wednesday of the month, so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for the October 2 posting of the IWSG are Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre!

This month's question has me scratching my head...

Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What's your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

I don't really read ghost stories.  I mean, I know I have in the past, but other than A Christmas Carol, I can't remember any that have really chilled me.  Maybe The Woman in Black? I remember being quite creeped out by that when I read it many, many years ago.

Most of the ghost stories I've read aren't really chilling in the sense of being scary - the ghosts tend to be in the story more as a literary device than to scare.  I mean, you could call The Lovely Bones a ghost story in that the narrator is dead, but it's not the first thing I think of when someone wants me to recommend a ghost story.  Nor is Beloved, which could also be considered a ghost story.

I guess The Shining is a ghost story although I tend to think about it more as a story about a child with supernatural gifts.  But at its heart, it is a ghost story.  The hotel is definitely haunted and that's what makes the people trapped in it go mad.  

I read The Shining when I was about twelve and probably way too young to read it, but back then, there wasn't much in the way of YA books available, so once I'd read my way through the children's section of the library, I started trawling through the adult section.  And horror was what I gravitated to at that age.  I read a lot of horror for a few years there consuming all of Stephen King's books and a whole lot by an author called John Saul and books by Graeme Masterton, George R R Martin (before he wrote the Game of Thrones books), Peter Straub, Dean Koontz and others.

Yet amongst all those books, I don't remember there being many ghost stories.  But it was almost 40 years ago, so I may have forgotten... And even if they were ghost stories, I don't really remember ever being truly scared by them.  Maybe by Christine...  I know my friends and I watched the film of that one for my 13th birthday and then terrified ourselves by going outside and watching cars go by, certain they'd leave the road and come to slaughter us.

Kids!

What's your favourite ghost story?  I could use some recommendations for the spooky season.

Weekly Goals 30-9-24

 I got some writing done over the weekend.  I skipped forward a bit and wrote a scene toward the climax off the book.  From here I kind of know what needs to happen and how, so it shouldn't be hard to keep going.  There is still stuff that needs fixing further back, but I'll do that later, when I go back to try and fill in all the places I've left things to move on because I wasn't sure how to make the transition.

I'm just over 43K now, which is starting to feel like a book.  And probably around about where I should be at this point in the story.  I think I have another 25-30K to write until the end.  So once I've filled in the gaps and tidied up some stuff, I should be around the 80K mark which s pretty standard for one of my books.

So my goal for this week is to keep going, keep moving forward.  I really think it's realistic to finish this before the end of the year now, so that's my ultimate goal.  Once the Jazz Festival is over, I'll have some more time off up my sleeve, so I'll probably try to take a couple of days a week in November to write - kind of like NaNo, but without actually doing NaNo.

Why are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 27-9-24

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

And I have absolutely nothing (except the usual chores etc) planned.

My son's band had a gig on Wednesday which I went to.  They were really good (not that I'm at all biased) and there was a really good crowd which was amazing for them.

I did another practice teaching session and it went well.  I have a few technical things to work on, but I'm feeling fairly confident I can do it.  I actually think it will be easier in front of a class than just for the trainer.

I haven't had a chance to get any more writing done during the week, but I plan to do some more over the weekend.  I think I'll skip forward or write a new scene further back that I think I need to write because I'm kind of wallowing in the scene I've been working on.  Maybe that will help unstick me!

I also want to try and do some reading.  I've been reading the same book for close to 3 weeks now, which is very unlike me!  I usually read 3 books a week!  I've been on kind of a reading slump recently - nothing has really excited me for quite a while.  If you've read anything that's blown you away recently, please share...  I need something amazing to break my streak of pretty blah books.

What are you celebrating this week?