Helen Lowe's Blog, page 146

When Characters We Love Die

UK/AUS/NZ

I wrote this post for the BookSworn authors’ site in 2013, but I still consider it very relevant to contemporary Fantasy and Science Fiction.

For this reason, I am re-posting it today for those of you who may not have caught up with it awa’ aways back in 2013.

—

When Characters We Love Die

“Recently, a reader who had completed reading The Gathering Of The Lost, the second novel in my The Wall Of Night series, wrote to me that:

“…my only gripe is you write great characters I love and...

Big Worlds On Small Screens: Rebecca Fisher Discusses “The 100″

~ by Rebecca Fisher
.

Introduction:

It’s funny watching trends come and go in the YA market. First the Harry Potter franchise resulted in a surplus of kids with magical powers, while Twilight wrought a seemingly endless supply of broody vampire romance fiction. We’re currently the in the midst of a dystopian influx, with books such as The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner and Divergent paving the way for shows like The 100, the latest to jump on this particular bandwagon.

But hey, if something i...

The Tuesday Poem: “Neutrinos” by Janis Freegard

Neutrinos

Millions of elementary particles race though the glass rooster’s

transparent body, from the sun, from the sun. Tau neutrinos,

electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos. Products of nuclear reactions,

products of beta decay. Fragments of space inside him,

connecting him to the wide, hot stars that seem distant and high

because he must look up to see them, but which, really,

are all around him, all the time. To the brick-brown hen,

he says: hen, we are the children of stars, we are made

from...

Filing Dispatches From The Copyedit Front

The copyedit rocks on.

Yes, the copyedit is still rolling on, so time for another dispatch.

I am currently about 40% through the total manuscript, and although I could have gotten further, I decided 40% was a good time to press pause, look back over progress to date, and make sure all my corrections for continuity and consistency were actually consistent.

So far, it’s looking OK overall, despite a few gnarly spots here and there, which is good news.

As you probably gathered from last Thursday...

A Writing Quote For Sunday, from Isabel Allende

“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.”

~ Isabel Allende

—

Very true — at least in my experience.

Share

Just Arrived: “This City” by Jennifer Compton

The Kathleen Grattan Award is New Zealand’s richest poetry prize — and my fellow Tuesday poet, expatriate New Zealand poet, Jennifer Compton, won the Award in 2010.

Her Award-winning collection, This City, was published by Otago University Press in 2011 and I am delighted to have recently purchased a copy.

I won’t be able to really sit down and spend time with it until I’ve finished the DAUGHTER copyedit, but I am very much looking forward to having that time.

In the meantime, here’s what the...

Reading When The Chips Are Down

USA

The copyedit chips that is, in this particular case.

But, in fact, the same principle applies when any big writing push is going down. Whenever I snatch a few moments r’n’r, there’s a good chance that I may want to spend it with a book.

But not a new book, that may demand and insist I keep reading to find out what happens.

In my few precious moments away from a project like a copyedit, I want a book where I know what happens so can just enjoy the company of old friends, reacquaint myself...

I-i-i-t’s Copyedit Time: Rocking On.

The copyedit rocks on.

So on Monday, I had a little tongue-in-cheek fun about it being copyedit time.

Now for my first update, which is to say that as of last night I was 213 pages in and so far it’s actually going fairly smoothly.

With such a big book, coming on top of two preceding big books, of course there are always gnarly moments. You know, the sort where you go: “Hang on, how did we style that in The Heir Of Night and The Gathering Of The Lost?” Italics, italics with quotes, capitals,...

A National Flash Fiction Heroine: Congratulating Frankie McMillan

Frankie MacMillan

Yesterday, I featured Frankie McMillan’s poem My father, the oceanographer, which showcases Frankie’s unique “voice” as a poet and prose writer.

Frankie deployed her talent and voice again in this year’s National Flash Fiction competition — and when the results were announced on Monday evening (National Flash Fiction Day) was found to have:

won the competition with her flash fiction story, The House on Riselaw Street

and also

achieved 3rd place for her story, A Field Guid...

The Tuesday Poem: Refeaturing Frankie McMillan — “My Father, The Oceanographer”

My father, the oceanographer
.

knew the language of whales
yet tripped over the sound
of his own name

They say the cure for death
is drowning and for a lisp
a bucket of salt water

—-

In white gumboots he entered
the stomach of a whale
sat brooding under the great arched bones
of a church

invoking the mantra of LFA sonar
whale fall
and echolation

stripped to his underwear,
so great was the heat, and
blubber he said

now there was a word to make you weep
.

(c) Frankie McMillan

First published in...