Showing posts with label Goals 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goals 2012. Show all posts

Saturday, 26 January 2013

Travel Series: U.S.A. part 3 - Washington


It's been a while since I posted part 2 of my U.S.A. travel story from 1998. In fact, the last post was back in May 2012! But here I am to continue the story.

Last time, we had reached Philadelphia, and you can read about that here. We checked out the steps Sylvester Stallone ran up - or was it down? - then headed off to find ourselves a truck stop for the night. The next morning we headed for Washington D.C., passing through Arlington, VA. You'll be intrigued to know that we stopped at a laundromat at 10:57 pm (these are the sorts of details I recorded, while skipping out on the more massive general details. Go me).


On our first day in D.C., we visited the Museum of Natural History, and I nearly got us hit by a bus while driving. Woo!

I really loved Washington, and would love to go back!
We met a guy called Ed Segal who was a photographer like Dad. Well, okay, not like Dad. Ed used tripods to capture well-arranged images. Dad was more into finding natural tripods, i.e. resting his camera on stone, or a bench, or against a tree.

Ed kindly offered us a parking spot at his home (since parking was a bit of a nightmare in D.C., according to him). So we parked at his place and went off to explore more of D.C. We visited the Jefferson, Lincoln and Washington memorials. I glimpsed numerous groups of school kids on outings around the city. I went to the post office and spent a fortune sending stuff back home.


Washington D.C. - distant blossom trees.
Ed and his wife Louise invited us to stay the night at his place - yes, I was forever surprised at the kindnesses of strangers. They took us out to dinner for Mexican food. The next morning, we were set to depart. Ed roused us early (basically before the sun was up, which was horribly early to seventeen-year-old me) to head down to the water and check out the cherry blossoms. Ed took a photo of the cherry blossoms. Dad took a photo of the cherry blossoms.  I wasn't sure if I had too, but one particular photo told me I did - not that you can tell at this resolution! ;)

After the cherry blossoms, it was time to move on. We bid Ed and Louise farewell and got back on the road, beginning our trek back across the U.S.A.

"Back on the road again..."

Tune in next time for more travel adventures. ;)

Friday, 28 December 2012

GOALS (a 2012 summary) and a Blog of the Year

With the end of the year so close, it's time for me to reflect on what I achieved/did not achieve in 2012. After 2011's goal blitz, I was feeling pumped this year, but I didn't quite live up to 2011's high standards. Don't get me wrong, though - I'm perfectly fine with it! I just didn't get a perfect score this year. ;) Anyway, let's break it down, referring to my 2012 Goals page and also my 52 weeks of tasks page:

Failures:

  • NaNoEdMo - I was travelling for a bit of this month, but still, I failed!
  • Writing one book review each month - I missed November
  • Attending one yoga/body balance class per week
  • Doing a beach walks on Saturdays/Sundays - failed this particularly as the year came to an end.

Successes:

  • Read 43+ books in 2012 - my goal was at least 43
  • Read The Catrina Chronicles stories up to date (though as of now I am behind again)
  • Wrote and recorded 52 songs for 2012's Chrysalis Experiment
  • Finished both 2011's NaNo novels, DANNA and VICTORIOUS
  • Hit 50k in BuNoWriMo 2012 with IVY NIGHT - though the draft is not finished
  • Won NaNoWriMo 2012, rewriting DAPHNE
  • Posted one Globetrotter post per month
  • Did a preliminary read-through/edit of FIRE (had no recollection of this till coming to write this post. ha)
  • Sorted the equivalent of 100 photos a week
  • Wrote the equivalent of 1k of new material each week, not counting BuNo and NaNo projects (worked on DANNA and SUNDOWN II for this)
  • Reviewed all 52 Chrysalis stories, except 2 that were DANNA excerpts

"Somewhere in between"s:
  • I did read 9 eBooks from my writer friends, but not always the books I had on the original list. I kept swapping really long books for short novella-length stories (with no e-reader, it's not easy reading eBooks!)
  • Complete edit of DAPHNE - I do count this as an achievement, but it was actually more of a total rewrite, and I didn't do what I originally wanted and put more of Daphne's mother's history into the plot
  • As of this post, I will have written the equivalent of at least one post a week this year. But I'm pretty sure I went more than 7 days between posts at least once this year.

Extra achievements:
  • Finished my rewrite of SUNDOWN, which was not on my goals list anywhere, but which I made use of in the 1k of new material per week goal on my "52 tasks" chart.


Aaaand that's a wrap, folks! But what about next year? Yeah, I've got plans, and I'll talk about 2013 goals in a few days... :)




In other news, the lovely Deniz Bevan received the Blog of the Year Award, and chose to pass it onto me and Laurel Garver. I feel very honoured to have received this award, so thank you Deniz! The official rules of this award are:


  1. Select the blog(s) you think deserve the Blog of the Year 2012 Award
  2. Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there's no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and present them with their award
  3. Please include a link back to this page Blog of the Year 2012 Award and include these rules in your post (please don't alter the rules or the badges!)
  4. Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the rules with them
  5. You can now also join our Facebook group – click like on this page Blog of the Year 2012 Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience
  6. As a winner of the award please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar... and start collecting stars...


The people I'm going to pass this onto are:
  • Hart Johnson at Confessions of a Watery Tart, whose posts are often entertaining but also tackle the tough issues many people are too scared to mention.
  • Jordan McCollum, who doesn't tend to get a huge amount of comments on her blog but who still gives a whole lot to the writer blogger community with her very helpful posts.
  • Michael Atkinson at Hypothetically Writing, whose little snippets of fiction shared throughout the year have brought delight to many. Michael's creative wit is, in my opinion, unparalleled, and he also makes a great bloggy friend!

Monday, 24 December 2012

Book reviews - a ZAGOR re-read

I forgot to post a review last month, and I was going to cheat and post two this month, but I've decided to accept defeat in my "one book review a month" goal. This year I've learned that failure sometimes happens, and yet the world doesn't end! (Ha. See? The world didn't end.) Anyway, without further ado I bring you December's book(s) review!

I've just re-read THE ZAGOR CHRONICLES, a series of four little books I first encountered as a young teen and became utterly obsessed with. They were my first longer foray into the world of fantasy after having read THE HOBBIT as a kid, and they really did become my entire world for a while.

Each book is pretty short (i.e. Scholastic-style easily digestible stories for pre-teens/teens), so I finished my re-read pretty quickly. But there was so much to take in, so it was a rather riveting read! Back in high school, you see, I knew this series inside and out, but by the age of 32 apparently I'd forgotten basically everything except the main characters' names. My young teenaged self would have been mortified!

Some things I forgot?

  • There are zombies!
  • Anvar had his own magical skillz
  • There was another bad dude who wasn't Zagor
  • The heroes visited a different world (how the heck did I forget this?!)
  • Stubble was really annoying sometimes
  • Shebbeneth took a good long while to appear!

And one thing I didn't forget:

  • I still love to pretend the series ended differently.

All in all, re-reading these books was a little like settling into a comfy old pair of PJ pants and a nice worn out t-shirt. (Not that I have any PJ pants left from high school days...) Despite the times I cringed at the writing style, I was generally able to let go of those moments and just enjoy the story. And I still think it's a great story!


Right, now that that's out of the way, I'll say I'm 98% certain I won't be posting tomorrow (Christmas), but I will definitely be posting before the end of the year, to report on my progress with 2012's goals. For now I'll say MERRY EVERYTHING to you, my blogging friends, and I hope you have a great holiday!

Monday, 17 December 2012

Travelling for Christmas (vs staying at home)

One of my favourite Christmases ever was the one we spent in Canada. My brother lives there with his new extended family, and in 2009 my mum and I went to spend Christmas with them all. Before I get into why this was so exciting for me, let me paint a picture for you of the Australian version of Christmas.

The Australian Christmas...

Cottesloe Beach, 2011.
We have had "cold" Christmases before - one year it didn't get much above 20 degrees Celsius, and we were all at the beach under bright blue skies, shivering. Most of the time, though, we're roasting alive and dying for winter's return (well, maybe that's just me... I do know some freaks 'round here who love a 40+ Celsius day ;)). I love our Christmas traditions - going to the beach in the morning, having bagels with cream cheese/smoked salmon and fruit skewers, and sipping champagne & orange. But there is something magical about the idea of a white Christmas, and in 2009 I was mega excited about experiencing one.


Bumps in the road to snowville...


Me in a bauble at Changi Airport, Singapore.

We were getting into the Christmas spirit even as early as the airport in our hometown. The plain took us to Singapore first, where the airport was magnificent decorated with a Christmas theme (I love Changi Airport). From there we went to L.A., where we have family and friends. I was very disappointed that on one L.A. day it was actually warm enough that I had to take my jumper off! I wasn't all that surprised, because L.A. is very like my hometown in numerous ways, including weather. Still, you know what I wanted?

I wanted snow!

Spokane airport's shiny dude.
Getting colder...and colder...

Arriving at Spokane airport, we got our first taste of the Northern type of Christmas cheer. But it wasn't until we headed north towards the Canadian border that we got our first hints of a proper white Christmas. I had seen snow before on various occasions, and had even lived in a place where it snowed during winter (Blue Mountains, NSW). But this was to be something different - a white Christmas!

L-R: mum, me and my brother.

We spent a great Christmas in Calgary, followed by a visit to Banff and then back to my brother's town. We also stayed with them for New Year's, when we had an "e party" (we had to dress up as something starting with E. I dressed as an emo:

Emo me - my hair was made out of a rubbish bag.

All in all, it was a great few weeks, and I hope to repeat the trip many times in future!! For the next few years though, while I try my best to limit my travelling, I will just have to make the most of the beach at Christmas. ;)

Saturday, 1 December 2012

A pinch and a punch [with NaNo verdict]

Do you think anyone's ever actually PUNCHED someone 'cause it's the first of the month?

I just watched a ten-minute video on beginner's algebra, and now my brain is sore. WHY, you ask? Well, I enrolled in this free Coursera course on Astronomy (LOVE), and though it's only an introductory course, it still requires that we have high school level algebra skills. Yikes! I don't even have toddler algebra skills! But I'm going to give it a try anyway, 'cause I don't want to fail without at least trying. Wish me luck! ;)

Tomorrow is the start of my blogfest, and I will posting on that day! But for today I want to mention how I did in NaNo for 2012. My final word count, achieved on Day 29 (I did no writing at all on Day 30, except to change the capitalisation of one word), was 110,301. I'm pretty content with that, though I know there's a fair bit of waffling crap I need to take out and replace with other crap that matters. I am not even going to touch this thing for a good while. For now, I've achieved my NaNo goal and also my DAPHNE rewriting goal, so I'm satisfied. And now it's time to move onto all the other 2012 goals I have yet to achieve this year! I have a month, so the clock's tickin'!

Happy December, everyone!!


Remember, there's still a bit of time to sign up for my blogfest, if you want! And thank you to everyone who's advertised it on their blog or elsewhere! I really appreciate it! :)

Monday, 26 November 2012

NaNo '12 winner - now to finish the story!


I passed the 50k mark in NaNo back on day 15, and currently I'm at 88,329 words. I made a wild stab and guessed I might have 20k more to go in the story, but quite honestly I don't really know where I'll finish up at. What I'm pretty sure I do know is that my story will, as usual, be bloated and in need of some slash 'n burn. But at least I don't think it'll get anywhere near my most bloated efforts of the past, which have been known to hit in the region of 150k. Yikes!

Ideally I'd like this story to be 85-95k at most, but to be honest I don't even know what the "recommended" wordcounts are for NA novels. Anybody got any thoughts on that? I know that people have always told me, "It should be as long as it needs to be", but honestly, a 200k YA romance is probably going to raise a few eyebrows for the wrong reasons...right? ;)

Anyway, my new goal is to finish the story itself by November's end. This way I will achieve one of my other 2012 goals, which is to rewrite my DAPHNE novel completely. Overall I can say I'm pretty happy with how I've gone, though there have been moments during November when I've been rather appalled at the absolute crap I've been writing. It's okay, though - that stuff will be fixed in revisions!

How have you gone during November with whatever you've been working on?


P.S. I read my first Jolene Perry novel
(that link is to my review which contains spoilers, beware!)
over the weekend,
and now I want more. MOOOOORE! :)

P.P.S. "Baby Faces Blogfest" sign-ups below (for info on this blogfest, check here).


Sunday, 11 November 2012

NaNoWriMo home stretch

I'm on the home stretch with NaNo, but I'm really slowing down. I think parts of this weekend had some responsibility for that. I did pretty well on Friday night, but much of Saturday was a write-off. I had a busy day, true, but it wasn't just that - it was also the first signs of real procrastination creeping in. Today, Sunday, is my day at home where I don't have to go out or do anything. And of course I'm using that day to avoid writing.

It's 1:53 pm and I've written about 1500 words. I've also watched a few episodes of Supernatural (s7), and now I'm going to watch 27 Dresses, mostly because I was reminded of it last night when I saw Elton John open the Perth Arena (which venue I call "Smurf Arena" because it's almost entirely BLUE in colour!), and he played "Bennie and the Jets". In other news, I am loving food today (nothing new - I love food every day). I have different snacky foods to eat and they are hard to resist, especially when I'm watching DVDs on my beautiful new TV (I haven't had a TV in years, and I finally bought one a few weekends back). In short, I guess you could say I'm now in near-full procrastination mode. With a word count of 40,410, maybe I'm feeling that I can afford to slow down.

I don't want to, though. I want to hit that 50k mark as soon as possible. I want to get through this stage of writing complete crap, and I want to do it at more than a snail's pace. Speaking of snails, I've watched them on my driveway before and thought, These guys are actually moving faster than you'd expect! Let's put it this way - snails move faster than grass grows, so if you want to use a cliché that implies slowness, the grass growth thing is probably more effective. Then again, sometimes after a heavy rain it does seem to me that grass in my backyard grows to knee-height overnight!

Yes, that's an illustration of procrastination in action. Going to watch that movie. ;)

Friday, 2 November 2012

NaNoWriMo post-day #1 report

My NaNo profile.
Day #1 of NaNoWriMo is over and my word count is around about 3,897. This is a sort of average amount for me. In the past I've won NaNo within the first 9 days, or else I've won it on the very last day. I can see ending this one somewhere in the middle, but I won't project too far forward 'cause I don't feel the need to put any sort of extra pressure on myself. Ironically I don't feel the pressure that a lot of other people probably feel with NaNo, perhaps 'cause I know I can do it.

But how am I going with my story so far? Well, I'm enjoying the rewrite. The writing seems to flow pretty effortlessly. There are already moments of mildly excessive waffling, but naturally those will be chipped away at in revisions at a later date. I'm more excited about where my story will end up than where it is at present, but I've enjoyed the introductory parts. I'm just starting to put Daphne's life into its tailspin, but she's only getting her first taste of it so far. Poor lady. I really do feel sorry for my tortured characters.

How are you going with NaNo,
if you're doing it?
And if you aren't,
what are you doing instead? :)

Wednesday, 31 October 2012

The Year I Turned 18 - Cally Jackson's blogfest

Firstly, HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!! Now down to business!


"The Big Smoke"
by Cally Jackson
Between October 29th and November 2nd Cally Jackson is hosting the "The Year I turned 18" blogfest. There's a $20 Amazon gift card as a prize, so you may want to sneak in an entry of your own! There is also a coupon for all entries to download Cally Jackson's new adult novel THE BIG SMOKE for the bargain price of $0.99. Totally cool! Click on the link up there for more info on the requirements of participation!

1998: the year of travel and couch potato-ing.
This is such a fun idea for a blogfest, and I'm excited to share with you what I did during the year I turned 18. That year was 1998, and I was fresh outta high school. Most of my classmates were either getting jobs or starting their first year of university. But while I had my acceptance letters from various universities, and had chosen one to call home, I'd also decided to defer my studies for all of 1998. For me, 1998 was to be the year of the post-high school comedown, a chance to gather some reserves in preparation for "real life", and...a chance to travel!

My Dad and I had been planning an 8-stop trip around the world for a while. For Dad, it was a driving-themed journey - as a driving instructor and what I'd venture to call a "road scientist", he wanted to prove that age didn't matter, and that 17-year-olds could drive around the world just like adults. His plan was to have me drive in New York City, on the German autobahn, around the Arc d'Triomphe and through London's Hyde Park Corner, etc.. My plan, meanwhile, was just to see a whole heap of the world in one go and have a serious adventure.

17-year-old me in Switzerland, 1998.
We left home on February 2nd, 1998, and drove across Australia. Next we moved onto the North Island of New Zealand. From Auckland we flew to Los Angeles, and from there crisscrossed the U.S.A. and had all sorts of adventures (see parts 1 & 2 of this commentary). Flying back out of Los Angeles we headed for England, then onto France, Luxbembourg (I think), Germany, Switzerland, and Italy (with some repeats).

The journey was meant to last a total of 6 or so months, and for Dad it did, but after a "slight" emotional breakdown in Europe I decided to cut my journey short. I do partly regret this, but then, I really was homesick and bone-weary, and I felt much happier knowing I was heading back home. I missed my Mummy. :)

Dad and I in Paris, 1998.
In hindsight I can say that this was the most amazing journey I've ever been on. Sure, I did a 15-stop world trip on my own a few years later, which was truly incredible, but this 1998 trip was a special journey - I travelled with my Dad, saw some truly phenomenal sights, and drove all over the world at just 17.

I did actually turn 18 during this year, in case you're wondering, but by that point I was at home again and participating with great success in the Couch Potato Olympics. I knew after all that as of 1999 I'd be studying again, so this was my last chance to really vegetate. For me, 1998 was an awesome year.

Me in Switzerland, 1998 (yes, I've always been a face puller).

Sunday, 14 October 2012

Tagged: the 'Be Inspired' meme

My NaNo profile.
Recently I got tagged by Chris over at the Kelworth Files with this "Be Inspired" meme thingy. Thanks, Chris, for thinking of me! Basically how it works is that I answer some questions about "my novel", and then tag 5 lucky bloggers. ;) Since I have many, many novels, I guess I should just close my eyes and throw a dart at a list of them, right? Actually, that's an idea... Seriously, I think I'll talk about the novel I'm going to work on during November this year.

1. What is the name of your book?
The original title was MEET DAPHNE STUART, back in the day, but that was back then. Now it's called simply DAPHNE. Naturally that's just a result of my "can't think of a title so I'll just name it after the MC's first name" habit. Someday, the book will have an actual proper title.

2. Where did the idea for your book come from?
I started this story back in 1999, during my first year of university. I had hardly any friends and hardly any life, so I started writing about a girl whose friends/boyfriend were her life. Somehow, though, this poor girl got lumped with a horrible family. I'm rewriting DAPHNE during November, and the rewrite, though still giving her plenty of crap to deal with, will at least give her some happiness in the end. Largely unlike the original draft.

3. In what genre would you classify your book?
Back then, there was no such thing as "New Adult" fiction, at least not that I'd ever heard of. This story is New Adult, but as for genre? Probably just general fiction. New Adult contemporary fits, too, I guess.

4. If you had to pick actors to play your characters in a movie rendition, who would you choose?
I used to cut out pictures from magazines to fit my characters, but they were never actors, so...yeah, got no clue. ;) There's also the fact that there will be new characters and possibly a lack of some old ones after my NaNo rewrite.

5. Give us a one-sentence synopsis of your book.
As Daphne's life descends steadily into chaos, she clings to one goal: getting through her first year of university.

6. Is your book already published?
Far from it!

7. How long did it take you to write your book?
It took me...*blush*...10 years. But this time around, as I rewrite, it will take me heaps less time than that. I'm a different animal these days. ;)

8. What other books within your genre would you compare it to? Or, readers of which books would enjoy yours?
To be honest, I don't know. I think I've taken inspiration from many different places, for e.g. in my plans for my rewrite I have a character partly inspired by Michael from Roswell (LOVE that show and that character). I also recently read TULLY for the first time, and the main character Tully has a crappy childhood and a frustrating adult life. But unlike Tully, Daphne's got many siblings to worry about, so again, their lives are different. Plus, my story will only focus on a year in a life, not decades.

9. Which authors inspired you to write this book?
Honestly, I can't remember what was inspiring me back in 1999. That was when I still read mostly fantasy, so...yeah. This story is different. Maybe there is a proper answer to this, but if so, I can't conjure it. ;)

10. Tell us anything that might pique our interest in your book.
Don't worry, it won't be totally miserable? hehe. And there will be a hot bad boy in it! Plus some nice lurve.

11. Tag five people!
I think I may be past the era of tagging specific people. From here on in I may have to do the cop-out thing other people do and just say "if you want it, take it!" Better that than inflicting it on people who just aren't interested, I figure.

Thursday, 11 October 2012

Review : IF I LET YOU GO (Kyra Lennon)

I was one of the lucky folks who won an ARC of Kyra Lennon’s debut novella, IF I LET YOU GO. I finished reading it about a week ago, and loved it!

In my book (pun intended) this story had everything a girl could want: romance, humour and a steamy love scene. I loved the way the ‘accident’ between Madison and Dominic happened, and the immediate awkwardness of the aftermath. Kyra writes awkwardness really well, but she also does a mean job of writing steaminess. ;) I enjoyed her use of British slang throughout the novel. I also really appreciated that none of the characters were perfect, in fact far from it!

This is definitely a story with a happily ever after ending, but more one that I think of has “happily ever after for now at least”. Personally, I’m a big fan of those kinds of endings, which are far less cheesy than the other kind. I guess you could say I’m not really into the whole “every single little end was tied up and they got married and she was preggers by the last line” endings. I like a more realistic (yet still romantic) ending.

All in all, I thought this was a good great read! Kyra’s writing style is highly entertaining, and I really love her characters. I’ll leave you with some of my personal favourite quotes from this novella, which yes, I have already added to GoodReads:

Erica had asked me a million times. Madison, are you sure you’re just the child minder? He pays you a lot of money for doing hardly anything. Pushing aside the blatant insinuation that I was his weekend whore, I’d always told her the absolute truth. He’d never so much as looked at me inappropriately, let alone anything more.

I focused, rather embarrassingly, on his chest which was rising and falling slowly.
I left teeth marks!

His jaw was set, telling me I should back off. Unfortunately, being a gobby cow meant I couldn’t.

Monday, 8 October 2012

NaNoWriMo 2012 - gulp, I've committed

My NaNo profile.
As usual, I've signed up for NaNoWriMo in November. Not quite as usual, I'm feeling a bit nervous about this year's challenge. I'm going to rewrite a novel I refer to simply as DAPHNE, or at least that's what I tell myself...and everyone else on the NaNoWriMo website. But I'm not all that familiar with doing rewrites. It's not my usual "thing".

This year, I did complete a rewrite and was very happy with the result. I am also currently working on a partial rewrite of that rewrite. So I know I can do it. I'm just nervous that I will start on this year's NaNo and lose my way.

Despite my decent track record with NaNoWriMo, I have been known to fail in the past. Twice. There was a third year when I didn't even participate at all, knowing that if I tried, I would fail miserably. But other than that, I've succeeded with NaNo every year since 2002. It's a tradition I fully intend to keep up, if I can help it.

Why am I nervous? Well, the first time I wrote DAPHNE, it took me 10 years!! I started it back in 1999, during my first year of university, and only finished it at the start of 2009, after a whole lot of years had passed and my life had changed drastically. I was a different person by the time I finally got it done.

Luckily, I do have a good, meaty general plan for my character Daphne. I'm just not sure how successful I'm going to be at writing out her revamped story. But I'll sure be giving it a good shot!

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this November?

Sunday, 30 September 2012

A Bucket List item - ANTARCTICA


While chatting to my Dad a couple of weeks ago for his birthday (happy birthday Daddo!), he mentioned that he had seen an advert in the newspaper for sightseeing trips to Antarctica starting at $1199 or so. We are both tight-arses so would only go for the lowest price, and in particular I would only go for that because I am not supposed to be doing any big travel for five years (as I plan to buy a house).

"Coronation 14"
Anyway, he told me he'd look into it and get back to me...but suffice it to say that for me, this is a total bucket list item and I would definitely break my own "no travel" rule to tick it off my list. I have always daydreamed about visiting the Arctic or Antarctic (or both) regions, and this seems like the perfect opportunity.

"Iceberg wash"
You can read more about the sightseeing flights at this website, and learn some intriguing facts about Antarctica. For instance, apparently the coldest temperature ever recorded in the world was recorded on Antarctica, when temps dropped to nearly -89.2 °C. Yikes! Antarctica is also sometimes referred to as a "polar desert". And I found this interesting - a few countries claim to "own" bits of Antarctica, and yet a few other countries reserve the right to claim some for themselves, while also denying any other nation's pre-existing "claim". Funny stuff.

The images of Antarctica used in this post are free-to-use (under certain conditions) images available from CoolAntarctica.com, a site that has a whole heap of beautiful images that can be perused.

Thursday, 13 September 2012

Book Review: CATRINA IN SPACE

I first met Princess Catrina back when she was called Princess Caitlin, and appeared in a Chrysalis Experiment story in 2011. Little did I know where Caitl-rina's journey would take her - across 53 episodes of the Catrina Chronicles and one complete Catrina novel, the one I'm talking about here! I haven't read all the episodes yet, but I'm up to episode #48 and slowly but surely getting all caught up!

It took me a while to get around to reading CATRINA IN SPACE, but now that I have, I can say I was not disappointed. There are so many things to love about this story - the kick-arse heroine Catrina herself, the space hamsters and occasional mentions of the hamster rock band Gerballica (classic!). Undeniable heroics with a towel, and the fact that there's a woodmouse with a Southern accent called Becky-Jane. As always, the evilness of Susan and how it was eclipsed by the evilness of Murphy. The almost teaming up of Catrina and Susan (I thought the universe really was going to break at that point). And the Pen of Creation? Genius. I also appreciated that the author had ultimate control (even if he can't necessarily control his characters' sassy backtalk. haha). I guess it reassures me as a writer myself that my characters do NOT have the final say...or at least I like to think so.

I also confess that I love that I got an acknowledgement as a loyal Catriniac in the back of the book. Thanks Michael, but the pleasure really has been all mine. ;)

What I really want to do now is go through the novel again and add some of my favourite quotes (of which there are way too many to count) to GoodReads, so that you guys can get a taste of Michael Atkinson's genius comedy.



Buy Catrina in Space from Amazon.com.

Monday, 3 September 2012

WIPs, goals, music and the weather

I had a dream in recent times that stuck with me after waking, and I just knew I had to write it up as a story. I've written a little bit, and yet I don't really know how to proceed. This is one of those situations where I think some sitting and some stewing on the idea for a while may be in order. I've already shared my dream with my CPs who are awesome at giving me direction for my plotlines. So right now I'm just sort of feeling my way through the story (as it unfolds in my head, not yet on "paper"). I will say that it's a love story but there's a lot more to it than that. It requires world-building. And it could be steampunk-ish, but I'm pretty sure it's set in the future. Maybe an alternate reality? Anyway, as you can see I'm not sure where I'm going with it. But I love being inspired, and I love my cool dreams.

In other news, I finished my rewrite of SUNDOWN, and I'm quite happy with how it went. I'm not quite satisfied with the ending, but that's yet another project I'm letting sit for a while. My CPs have already given me plenty of inspiration for revisions/partial rewriting, so I'll be making use of those ideas when I get around to revising. For now, I'm happier with where the story went this time. My MC, I believe, is more likeable (including by me, her writer) because she's stronger and more independent (I always intended her to be that way, but somehow she turned out whiny and passive. Passive! No MC of mine should ever be passive, unless s/he's planned that way. ;)

What I'm focusing on mostly right now is my music project, the collaboration involving me putting vocals on a guy's songs for him, and in return him making my simple acoustic numbers into proper songs with drums, bass and all that (which I also then put vocals over). Then I need to get back into my actual goals that I set myself this year, because I have fallen behind with many of them. Shouldn't be long before I can get stuck back in!

It is now springtime over here in Aus, and I wave a sad goodbye to winter for another year. I love spring, don't get me wrong, but I cower in dread of what follows after it. ;)

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

Rachel Hawkins's HEX HALL series

Last year I read my first Rachel Hawkins book, #1 in the Hex Hall series, and I loved it. I also wrote a tiny little review over at GoodReads that went a little bit like this:


Okay, so I read this one pretty quickly! It was an easy read, for sure. I LOVE the character of Sophie - she cracked me up on numerous occasions. I love her voice - witty and sarcastic. I also love that she said 'shitty'. I really liked Hawkins's writing too - it was clever and funny and well paced. I look forward to reading the next book, which I have yet to order. This is definitely a book I'd recommend for anyone who likes fun, easy-to-read and pretty light-hearted YA.



It took me until well over a year later to get around to reading book #2, and I loved this one just as much. Here is my review of #2 (hey, that rhymes), slightly abridged and amended:


I finally got my hands on DEMONGLASS and finished it the other day. I wasn't disappointed with this read - Hawkins's writing is as funny as ever, and the plotline moves along at a nice pace (plus it's cool). The ending is one great big cliffhanger. And...I don't have much else to say about this story, except that I really, really hope Sophie ends up with Cal, 'cause he is TEH HOTNESS and for some reason I just can't dig that Archer guy. Sophie needs a good bitch slap back into the reality that is Team Cal, I think. ;)

Have any of you read the Hex Hall books? What did you think? I personally found myself laughing - a lot - and turning pages pretty quickly. Maybe it's not literary, and maybe it has a love triangle (which I generally am not a huge fan of), but you know what? I don't remember seeing one single typo in either of these books, and the writing is fun and entertaining, and the characters are witty and cute (and sometimes evil). But now for my final question -


are you Team Archer or Team Cal?

p.s. I gotta get book #3!

Monday, 23 July 2012

A little review - OSCAR & LUCINDA


Oscar and Lucinda the movie. On my "to watch" list.
Back in April of this year, I shared an A-Z list of books from my TBR shelf. One of the books mentioned was OSCAR AND LUCINDA by Australian author Peter Carey, a Booker prize-winning work of historical fiction. It's set in England but mostly in Austraila in the mid-nineteenth century. I know it's also been made into a movie, but having not seen that I had no idea what to expect from the novel.

It took me a while to finish the novel. It's the kind of work you have to pay close attention to when you're distracted by the fact that you're on holiday in a tropical paradise. Despite that, I totally loved this book. It got off to a bit of a slow start, but soon enough I was well and truly hooked - intrigued by the quirky characters, sympathetic to their experiences and frustrated/exhilarated for them. The book had me laughing out loud even at not so happy moments, just because of the language, the silly little similes, metaphors and alliterations (which were still clever of course), and all that.

I found it interesting how one single character was viewed by others around him/her in different ways. Opinions tended to vary greatly. Then there was the way in which each character saw him or herself - different again. The story was told like a family memoir but can also be seen as an historical account. And I can't believe how it ended! I wasn't expecting that, nor hoping for it. That ending just goes to show, though, that in the blink of an eye (well, okay, a bit more slowly than that) a person can make one tiny little decision that changes everything, forever.

Friday, 13 July 2012

Permission to fail

In 2011, I set myself some rather hefty goals. I achieved every single one of them. It was a hard push towards the end of the year to get everything done, but I did it! And it felt good. This year, I decided that if I could do all that stuff in 2011, I could sure do a similar amount in 2012. But this year I've found that, all too often, life has got in the way.

I'm still achieving some things, I suppose, but I'm behind in most of my goals, and it's going to take quite some effort to catch up. I know I can do it, but I've also realised this year that if I fail at some things, it's not the end of the world. I suppose I've given myself permission to fail, here and there. I have failed, here and there - like with NaNoEdMo, dismail failure there. I don't really want to take that too far, though...'cause who wants to feel okay with becoming a slacker?

Perhaps instead of working on my goals,
I'll just stare at this photo for a while...
Ahhh, Australian winter!
So far in 2012, I've accomplished the following:


  • Preliminary read through/edit of FIRE
  • Write 50k for BuNoWriMo 2012
  • Finish off NaNo 2011 novel #1 (DANNA)

But I still have to do the following:

  • Finish off NaNo 2011 novel #2 (VICTORIOUS)
  • Win NaNo 2012
  • Rewrite DAPHNE from scratch (I am thinking I'll probably use November to do this one)
  • Revise all Chrysalis stories (I'm only up to #11...yikes!)

Amongst other miscellaneous things (photo sorting, blog posting, song writing, etc.).

But what am I doing instead? Working on my rewrite of SUNDOWN. It's fun, it's exhilarating, I love it. I guess I should give myself permission to do what I love, instead of what I said at the end of 2011 I would do. Right? But I'm one of those weirdos who really wants to do what she said she'd do, even if it's a little bit akin to watching grass grow.

How's this year shaping up for you so far?

Monday, 9 July 2012

I'm back! (Bali 2012 re-cap)

Yep, here I am, ready to share my thoughts on Bali, and how my expectations compared with the reality. I must say I think I had a very polite introduction to the Bali experience. Firstly, it wasn't the busiest tourist season (thankfully). Secondly, the villa we stayed in was paradise. I could have stayed there for all 7 days, never moving from my deck chair or from the depths of the aquamarine pool. But of course I wasn't in Bali just to hang out "at home".

"Our" pool from the living area.
I looked forward to...
In my previous blog post, I mentioned things I was looking forward to in Bali (massages, beautiful food, not swimming in the ocean, fishbowl cocktails, and the wedding). I did have beautiful food but not all of it was Balinese (my favourite was Thai, unsurprisingly), and lots of massages. I did not have one single fishbowl cocktail. Very disappointing. I did have other cocktails, though. I did swim in the ocean, on one day at least. The rest of the time, I swam in that beautiful pool. And yes, I did make it to the wedding!

The entrance to our villa.
Weather...
Apparently a ginger flower?
This time of year in Bali isn't too hot, comparatively. For people hailing from colder climes, it might cause heat stroke. But for me it was tolerable. Most of the time. I was sometimes being grumpy due to slight overheating. I looked forward to getting home to the Aussie winter, even as I wallowed in the pool and guzzled cocktails.

Being a tourist...

The Thai laksa thingy that
heated things up even more.
Mum and I went to Waterbom Park one day. It was the most touristy part of our trip, I'd say. We only stayed for half a day. It was silly fun. Later that day, I visited Balangan Beach, not far from Jimbaran Bay, and watched the guys surf (boooring! The non-surfing company was fun though). I also went for a swim in the lagoon there. It was really shallow but surprisingly refreshing (not tepid as I had expected).

Culture...?
A musical instrument
I wanted to bring home.
The day after the wedding, we drove out to Ubud, where I was hoping to see more of the Balinese landscape off the beaten track. Alas, I didn't see much at all beyond more busy streets and teeming markets. We passed the monkey forest, but with a two-month-old baby in tow, hanging out with cheeky Balinese monkeys wasn't on the cards. We spent most of our time in the Ubud market. I bought some cool stuff. On the way back to our villa, we saw some rice paddies, but they weren't those giant ones I'd hoped to glimpse.

Frangipani walkway
at the wedding.
The wedding...
We were not the only spectators at the ceremony (a crowd of locals gathered to watch from the sidelines, and other tourists also looked on with interest). It was a fairly small gathering but for my brother it brought most of his old gang (scattered to the nine winds nowadays) back together again in their old stomping ground. I also saw people I hadn't seen since I was a little kid.

The ugly bits...
In conclusion, the main bad parts of the trip were: 1) seeing stray, mangy, slat-ribbed dogs and cats that nobody is taking care of, that would be better off being shot, 2) knowing that the majority of people in Bali work super hard for very little reward, and 3) two of our party getting Bali belly the night of the wedding, and having a pretty nasty time of it.

Monday, 25 June 2012

What I have read so far this year...








...And what I'm currently reading:


Yep, I'm still "reading" the Grimm fairytales. I don't even know where the book is, actually... Remember I decided I wanted to review each story as I went along, which meant I would have to go back and review stories I'd already read? Yeah, didn't happen. Isn't happening. But I will do it someday, I swear!!

But in general, looking at what I've read this year, I see that my reading range has really expanded since the olden days when I only read fantasy. This year I've read fiction and non-fiction, young adult and adult, historical and contemporary, dystopian, romance, murder mystery/crime, horror, short stories and long.

What has your reading list looked like this year?