Helen Lowe's Blog, page 153

About That Road Trip, Then…

Entry to Dunedin’s Chinese Scholar’s Garden

So yesterday I told you that, “I’ve just been on a busman’s holiday, masquerading as a road trip…”

“Waddya mean, a busman’s holiday?” you may well ask. “And why a road trip, anywayz?”

Well, as I hope yesterday’s post proved, road trips are traditional for those with aspirations to live a life littéraire.

Also, I had promised myself one when this last round of editorial tweaks was done, so as soon as they were done I was awa’, awa’… But—and here’s wh...

Road Trips in Literature

I’ve just been on a busman’s holiday, masquerading as a road trip…

Possibly two of the most famous literary expositions of the road trip are Jack Kerouac’s On The Road (1957) which the New York Times described (contemporarily) as:

“…the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as ‘beat,’ and whose principal avatar he is.”

The second that immediately springs to mind, for me, is the Japanese poet, Matsuo...

Big Worlds On Small Screens: Rebecca Responds To Winning The Sir Julius Vogel Award 2015 for Best Fan Writing

Sir Julius Vogel Award

On April 5, Rebecca won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Fan Writing, for a body of work that includes her Big Worlds On Small Screens column here, regular posts on her own blog and SFF reviews on Fantasy Literature.com.

So I decided to postpone Rebecca’s review of Sound of My Voice in favour of the opportunity to respond to her award win — and here she is!

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Rebecca Fisher On Her Sir Julius Vogel Award Win For Best Fan Writing

When Helen asked for my permission to...

The Tuesday Poem: I Am Guest Editor On the Hub, Featuring Robynanne Milford

Today I am the guest editor on The Tuesday Poem Hub, featuring The quiet life at Glenfinnan: 1877, Runs 458/ 468 by fellow Christchurch poet, Robynanne Milford.
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“By the East Matukituki in a shieling picket fenced with currants
gooseberries, oats and ducks, Mrs MacPherson, her heirlings, and
Forty walls of deadfall water incessant cascade drowning
lip-sound. Inside and out avalanching ice, thousand-foot roars
into cauldron scoured, reverberates unseen Duncan’s gone on
government work rumble...

The Sad Truth About E-Magazines & E-Newsletters

Over recent years an increasing number of organisations I belong to have switched to e-newsletters and e-zines to feature their work and communicate with members, as opposed to the previous paper product that arrived through my regular mailbox.

And the sad truth is that as a result of this I never read them anymore.

Like everyone else, I am bombarded with e-communications every day and focus on the ones that are important in the now. This is rarely an e-newsletter or zine’s role and so they i...

Autumn Glory From ‘Inside Middle Earth’

Autumn fire

On Friday I posted about Seasons and Festivals in the Southern Realms Of Haarth.

Hawthorn berries

Because it’s autumn right now down here in the Southern Hemisphere, today I thought I’d share a few pics of autumn glory from the shores of Lake Hayes — a little jewel of a lake in the heart of the Central Otago-Wakatipu-Glenorchy/Paradise area where so many Lord of the Rings scenes were shot.

With hawthorn berries like those to the right on display there’d almost have to be fairy fol...

Currently Reading: “The Chimes” by Anna Smaill

Last Saturday, I did a “Just Arrived” post for Anna Smaill’s The Chimes — and this Saturday I’m reading the book.

As mentioned last week, I’ve heard a lot of buzz about this novel, particularly around the premise, and I have to say that the opening sections do not disappoint in that respect.

The “big idea” — for want of a better term — is that of a future version of our world (or at least the UK part of it) where a significant proportion of everyday communication is via music and singing, rat...

Seasons and Festivals In the Southern Realms Of Haarth

On Wednesday, I mentioned how I’m always having to keep my eye on background elements to the Wall of Night story, such as timelines and “the relativity of in-book happenings such as festivals.”

Seasons is another one of course. For example, if Kalan leaves Caer Argent at Midsummer in The Gathering Of the Lost, what time of year will it be when he reaches the Wall of Night? And how will that marry up with Malian’s timeline, since when we leave her at the end of the book, it’s already Summer...

The Hazards Of Writing Big Books — Or More Stuff Wot I Do As A Writer

Yesterday I talked about sketching maps of “what’s happening” in a geographic sense with the story and constantly checking and rechecking timelines.

Constantly checking and rechecking is a bit of a theme, however, because one of the hazards of a big manuscript and a large cast of characters is that you run the risk of repeating yourself. AKA the moment when you think, “Haven’t I read this before?”

Examples of this can include having your fight scenes unfold and/or resolve in a certain way, or...

Stuff Wot I Do As A Writer

I’ve just completed a final read-through of the Daughter of Blood manuscript before it heads into production (I hope this will prove to be the case, at any rate) and as I went along I realised that there are a few things I’m constantly doing as a writer.

One is drawing sketch maps, roughing out where my characters are and where they’re going and how those places relate to each other in the context of the larger Haarth map. Mostly these sketch maps look like a spider crawled through an inkwell...