Helen Lowe's Blog, page 206
October 14, 2013
Tuesday Poem: “breath” by Sarah Broom, 1972 – 2013
I am trying to breathe
like the slow, low purr of a drowsy cat
like the languid sway of an empty swing
like the shiver of a thistle in the wind
like someone about to stop breathing entirely
I look for that place
where breath becomes so light it vanishes,
pulls away like a small plane turning steeply
and heading up, straight up,
fishbone thin in a thin blue sky
then gone
.
© Sarah Broom, 1972 – 2013
Published in Gleam, Auckland University Press, 2013
Reproduced here with permission.
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About The Poem:Sar...
October 13, 2013
What Makes for “The New’ in Epic Fantasy?
Since The Gathering Of The Lost was shortlisted for the Gavid Gemmell Legend Award, the whole award process has got me thinking about a number of topics that keep coming up in fora and Q&A. Last week I asked one of the most fundamental questions, i.e. What Makes Fantasy Epic?
In the subsequent discussion we talked about some of the enduring and consistent elements of the (sub)genre, so of course that immediately sparked another question: “What makes an epic fantasy seem new and/or fresh for re...
October 12, 2013
Comment Of The Week: From “NightTrippin”
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“NightTrippin’s” comment appeared on the blog post ‘What I’m Doing: A “Daughter of Blood” Update.’
As always, it’s great to have readers drop by and let you know they enjoy what you do.:)
October 11, 2013
Quote Time: This One’s From Sir Edmund Hillary, 1919 – 2008
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Why Sir Edmund Hillary — well mainly, because he’s awesome.
Secondly, because I quoted his famous “Well, we knocked the bastard off” in Thursday’s Gnarly post.
Thirdly, because I saw this along the way and thought it was too good not to post.
Make of it what you will. 
October 10, 2013
A Geography of Haarth: Ijir
The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick
The A Geography of Haarth post series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. This week we continue with “I.”
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Ijir: the main river of the lands known as the River
.
“A sinuous vein of gold marked the River, the mighty Ijir with its two great tributaries and multitude of prosperous city states, all built on the back of the river trade. Each city was picked out in a minute precision of tur...
October 9, 2013
Gnarly — But “Knocked Off”, Another Piece Of Wall 3
Today I am happy, because yesterday I finally “knocked off”* a particularly gnarly section of Daughter Of Blood (The Wall Of Night, Book Three – but y’all know the drill!)
To give you an idea of why I call it gnarly, here’s the stats for this section:
Version 1: 22,000 words
Version 2: 35,000 words
Version 3: 28,000 words
Version 4: 24,000 words — & done!
Obviously there’s a bit of overlap between versions, but still — I bet you’d be glad, too, to get to those final 24,000 words & be able to say ‘d...
October 8, 2013
Stop Motion October: Rebecca Fisher Discusses “The Nightmare Before Christmas”
by Rebecca Fisher
Introduction:
There’s something innately spooky about the idea of dolls moving on their own, and as such, creepy stories are often best suited for the tiny manikins of stop-motion animation. Whilst traditional 2-D animation has been almost totally replaced with 3-D computer animation when it comes to big-screen films, there’s still a popular niche market for the intricacies of stop-motion. Created from real objects on real sets under real lighting, the technique relies on figu...
October 7, 2013
Tuesday Poem: “Bedroom on the Pavement” by Lorna Staveley Anker
Lyttelton
.
Since they widened the road,
the house every night
takes a deep breath,
holds it and swells its walls
suitably enlarged
…………..under lamplight
as it edges onto the pavement.
Warns the stray dog not to dawdle
against its bright bedroom wall,
tells after-dark strollers
to cross the road
and settles into its alter ego,
preens a little, shakes out
its cream-painted skirting.
They say, in the town,
a strange lady-writer
once lived alone in its
…………..shadowy sadness.
As the twin chimn...
October 6, 2013
What Makes Fantasy Epic?
This isn’t going to be a big post, but with The Gathering Of The Lost making the shortlist for the Gavid Gemmell Legend Award, I’ve been thinking a bit about what makes epic fantasy “epic.”
One suggestion made a few years back was that to qualify as “epic”, a fantasy had to be about large scale war — and certainly a lot of epic fantasies are. My own view is that large scale war is not a prerequisite for epic, but that to qualify a story does have to in some way encompass the grand sweep — very...
October 5, 2013
Comment Of The Week: From Elizabeth Welsh
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Elizabeth Welsh is a fellow Tuesday Poet and wrote these very kind words when asking me if she could feature North as this week’s Tuesday Poem on her Small Marks blog.
