Taurus!

Can haz Authonomy now! W00t!

Ahem. Hi. Sorry about that.

So, if you're an Authonomy peep and feel like having a wander over to read a thrilling tale of kick ass chicks, Minotaurs and mermaid-pirates, have finally uploaded the first five chapters of Taurus here. Crits welcome. :-D

(Am waiting for Authonomy to approve the cover art. But it's lovely. Really. And courtesy of fellow Autho member Bradley Wind.)

The pitch:
Karis was content to live a life of raiding the waters around Marigan. Until a distress call from her human sister brings her against the might of the Gethine Alliance and the secrets they’ve uncovered in the ghost city of Sagara.

Amy Morgan was only supposed to recover a sword from a maze. One pack of Minotaurs later and she finds herself caught up in a new world where mermaid-pirates hunt the seas, her friends are captured and there’s all manner of trouble waiting for her if she can find her way home.

Kassia was looking for adventure, but an expedition to Sagara gives her more adventure than she ever imagined when she finds something that the violent Gethine Alliance has spent years searching for.

But surviving the Alliance’s attentions is easy compared to what’s waiting for them back on Earth.

That link again...

Kaz's Summer Camp Week 5

Must be Tuesday again! So here's the Kaz's Summer Camp update! :-D

Weird thing? It feels like I've written a lot, but I've also been editing and deleting a lot so the technical word counts of many and various have actually dropped. Happily, they have better words in, but still...

So:

1) Wicked Sisters - done. That's so last month! :-D Therefore, new target #1 is edit Hunting Ground story and send off somewhere.

2) Emerald Eyes - 500 new words, and the plot is getting a wee bit unexpected. I have absolutely no idea how it's ending now, it's all gone from plotter to pantser.

3) Kill the Wizard - no progress.

4) Taurus - 2000 new words, plus a metric ton of edit-fiddling. I now declare it ready for Autho! Woohoo! Just got to write the pitches and upload. (Then try not to spend too much time playing on Autho when there's a million other things to do, like bang out the next few chapters.

Which does mean new target #4 is write another 40k of the all new and improved Taurus!

Though I'm about to enter another assignment deathmarch week so immediate progress might be slow...

Kaz's Summer Camp

Wahey, I'm in Summer Camp! Kinda. Virtually. Specifically, the funky writerly summer camp started up by Kaz Mahoney.

Our mission: to use the months of June, July & August to achieve writerly goals of our choice.

So, my goals: (being teeny as there's OU coursework and an impending bout of holiday cover to contend with...)

1) To finish edits on Wicked Sisters story and send off
2) Finish gorgon vs vamp short story (temp titled Emerald Eyes)
3) Write another short story (write, meaning, *write&finish*)
4) also I'd like to get enough decent wordage together to upload something to Authonomy but I forgot to add that one to the sign up post...

So, since today is the first goal update day...

1) Wicked Sisters edits finished. (Hurrah!) However, according to my many different beta-readers, it still reads more like a part of a longer work. Which is actually handy because I had this idea the other day of making it the start of an all-new B plot in the current novel-in-progress (see 4.) So, junk it as a short story and weave it into n-i-p? Possibly best. Plus, what isn't improved by the addition of mermaid-pirates? :-)

2) Emerald Eyes. Oy vey, is this one kicking my ass. It was started with the intention of submitting it to a monster mash anthology that Pill Hill Press is doing. (Blimey, but they're doing a lot of themed anthologies!) The aim: a scary story featuring at least two classic monsters. The problem: I suck at scary stories. Might work better as comic fantasy though...

3) Behave! There's two months to go yet! :-)

4) Taurus! Aka the current novel-in-progress. Aka, the Nano thing from a couple of years ago that just won't die. The original Nano version was just a little over 50k, being a fun romp with multi-world treasure hunting, insane death count and Minotaurs. Except it was a bit thin and cliche. However, latest version now has bonus extra mermaid-pirates and more action in the not-Earth worlds which is making it way more complicated but also way more lovely! I love multi-world fic!

I've got this pegged as the Authonomy one mainly because I asked a nice chap over there to do me cover art about a year ago so it would be quite nice to actually use it... :-)

As far as Authonomy & Taurus goes... I only need a 10k minimum of decent quality words (it's the decent quality bit that keeps blocking me... that, and them being consecutive words...) - so far, though, I've got just over 7k, so victory may still be mine. ;-) (Then I'll have to whip some semblance of sanity out of the rest of the plot...)

June Catch Up

Ah, so May was the zombie month for this year was it? Last year August was the no brainer where nothing useful got done.

Ne'er mind chickadees, here's June, so it's time for fun... :->

First up, a recommended read... just got done reading Elizabeth Moon's trilogy compilation thingy The Serrano Legacy - that was great fun. Especially liked the Aunt-Power! in the third one, Winning Colours. And am loving the space piracy/privateering. (Well, who doesn't love space piracy! Now all we need is some space ninjas...)

Next up, am midway through an OU short course - Archaeology: The Science of Investigation. Proving to be quite fascinating, and a bit challenging with some of the science bits. Also there's some giggle-worthy names on some of the case study sites so my inner 12 year old has plenty to snicker at... (Wetwang! Krapina!) :->

The DGLA swanky do is coming up in a couple of weeks and, thankfully, they've downgraded the compulsory Black Tie edict to optional. Which is good because posh frock and me...ain't ever happening. Think I've managed to find a suitable moderately quirky outfit... now just have to work on that whole lack of social graces thing... :-> Luckily Alchemy mates Jan & Pete are going too so I've got someone to talk to. :->

On the Alchemy front, check out the Alchemy blog for my peeps' news... Mike Chinn has sold a couple of stories, Jan's sold a story and an article, and Debs is up to five novels on Authonomy! Crikey. Busy bunch.

And li'l sis has jumped onto the web, suddenly being all twitter and myspace and facebook and bloggy. What's actually quite disconcerting is seeing her age written down in black and white. She's not that old. She can't be that old. How did she get to be that old? She's only supposed to be wee. :-O

Of course, it's all her fault that I discovered Twitter. (Oh look, there it was. Quick, plant a flag...) So if you tweet, I'm on as jenqoe.

Nano day 23

So here we are with one more week to go of the fabled Nanowrimo and my total is up to... (drumroll please...) 81,038. Cool! Was hoping I'd be well past 100k by now though... must be something a bit psychological going on as I slowed down considerably after hitting 50k. Och well. 100k by the end of the month of there will be foul punishments and torture. Oh yes indeedy.

The sci fi thingy is stalling a bit. I've got very holey B and C plots that may need to be axed completely. On the plus side, I've worked out a way to do a cross over with my space pirates that were going to appear in one of the other potential Nano projects. So, yay!

Problem being, need way more research on that and the other potential projects to be able to launch as manically into them as I did on Taurus. So I've done a few thousand words on a couple of other things to add to the multi nano mash up wordcount, including a sequel to Taurus. Which is one of the things that's going to need the research. This time all things Ancient British - so running from Celts to Romans to Vikings with anything else I can get away with.

So December is apt to be read until you go blind month. Always a good thing!

Nano stats: England Elsewhere have dipped to number 12 in the world region wordage - beaten on these shores by those bastards in London....
In the UK regional wordwar, we're at number 3! Woot! Thanks mainly to one brilliant person who's at 160k already. Not jealous. Oh no.

Authonomy
I really wasn't going to do much on Authonomy this month, cos of the Nano thing, but it's so easy to get distracted. (This possibly explains why my wordage is stalling a bit!) Also, they added some new features and someone tempted me to read their book.
Which I did. And which I totally recommend. So check out Sim by Jak Brienhead - it's a fab YA scifi/fantasy thing wherein our hero discovers the ability to move between worlds and fight off the terrrrrrible destiny he keeps getting flashes off. It's well written, totally compelling, plenty of action and generally excellent. And totally free to read. (and if you happen to want to sign up and vote for it, I'm sure Mr Brienhead would be quite chuffed!)

In other news... snow! Wheeee!

Nano day 3

It's all about the Nanowrimo this month. Or at least it would be if I could only get on the bastard site to update word counts and play in the forum. Good grief, how am I going to know how manic to get if I can't see how everyone elses word counts are going?! (Mine's around 10,500 as of last night, in case you were wondering!)

So, because my first drafts tend to be very short, I ended up with a total of seven possible novels to hit the ground running with. (What? Shut up.) And right up until last week, the first attempt of the month was going to be a funky space piratey thing. Because it has to be done... :-> Except for some reason I'm starting out with a tomb raider-y thing. Which was meant to be a fun adventure type thing, except I got to the third chapter and started killing people. Then killed some more. And some more. And it's all gone disturbingly horror-ish. And one of the main characters that was supposed to survive to go on to other adventures is now dead. Oops. And so is another of the prospective survivors. Double oops.

Well, I had this pack of raging minotaurs, you see, so people were going to die anyway. I knew this. It was only supposed to be the redshirts that bit it, though. And technically, as far as the RMs go, that worked. However, one of the main protags, the one that was supposed to be a core part of this particular story, got himself gored in a tomb trap. The other one gets it somewhere near the end, in a more unceremonious bullet to the brain from a bad guy. Bugger. That'll teach me for skipping ahead to write bits of the end chapters.

Authonomy
In other news, apparently I'm currently the number three talent spotter on Authonomy! Grief, how did that happen? This apparently means that when I vote to bookshelf something it gets more points than someone who's a lesser spotted talent spotter :-> Now how can I capitalise on my evil new power? :->

Pre Fcon Glee

Ooh, one week 'til Fcon. I'm excited. Are you excited? :->

What's even better is this year, minimal stress and total utter laziness. Ha hah! Except for a couple of hours on Saturday when I've got to be a bossy madam about setting up the banquet. Balloons is all I'll say to you. Why I suggested them I'll never know... Hopefully, if all things come off, there should be some fun stuff on the tables for those of you who're attending it.

Also, Fcon Friday is Talk Like a Pirate day. Woo hoo! I'm expecting some piratical type things from peeps during the quiz. And no ninjas. Oh no. Ninjas will be walking the plank, yargh!

The usual happy puppy Fcon report will inevitably follow as soon as the beast is slain for the year.

Wonderlands

In other news... if you haven't already checked out Wonderlands then pop along as it's rather good fun.

Authonomy

And also the Harper Collins Authonomy website is now live. Even if you're not a writer type wanting to post your work up there, it's still fun for reading other peoples work. The main gist of it is that, through a complicated ranking system that nobody quite understands, the five books that get in the top five at the end of month make their way to a bunch of HC editors for reading and commenting.
And me mate Debs made it last month! Coolness, or what?! She's still waiting to hear the verdict on her book.