Helen Lowe's Blog, page 26

Fun With Friends: Photos #8 From Marion Drolsbach’s NZ Visit

Marion Drolsbach, translator extraordinaire

Marion Drolsbach, as those who’ve been following will know, is a book translator (English to Dutch) and we first met when she was translating The Heir of Night into Dutch.

The majority of the photos were taken at the mouth of a Canterbury braided river and by Marion herself. Today’s photo was taken by her husband, on an ocean beach called Birdlings’ Flat that separates a local lake, Waiwera (Lake Forsyth) from the southern ocean.

Every time I see that...

A Quote from Jack Kerouac

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

~ Jack Kerouac

To be honest, I’m of two minds regarding this quote.

My first reaction was “Yes, of course!”, because if we’re afraid to step outside the norm and try the new, or give too much weight to the opinions of others over our own, then we’ll probably never achieve anything beyond that norm.

On the other hand, I do find it can help, especially when contemplating Big Life Decisions and Leaps of ...

On Supernatural Underground Now: Celebrating the “Band of Sisters”

Conclusion: there aren’t that many of ’em — not in speculative fiction anyway, or so it would appear.

Nonetheless, I’ve managed to find a few to discuss and celebrate for my 1 May post on Supernatural Underground:

Celebrating the “Band of Sisters”

Aes Sedai: Wheel of Time

Also, I’d love to know your thoughts — was the 1980s a golden age for bands-of-sisters in speculative fiction, or have there been more recent examples that rocked your reading world?

By way of a rider, I feel that in order to ...

Revision Ho!

So-o, on Thursday I ‘fessed up to having typed “the end” on the “beginning-to-end” of the final The Wall Of Night manuscript.

I believe it’s the most important milestone in getting a book into readers’ hands — but as indicated Thursday, now it’s ‘game on!’ for the next round, which is basically revise-revamp-repeat.*

This is probably my favourite part of the writing process. To quote Haruki Murakami — and by extension, Raymond Carver —  (with approval):

‘ “I take time to rewrite … Rewriting i...

Real News: A WALL #4 Update

Yes, dear readers, I “do” have real news for you, which is that at 9.35 pm on Thursday 20, I typed “the end” on the WALL #4 manuscript, which means that the narrative arc for the final book, and for The Wall Of Night series are both now captured “end to end.”

If you are thinking, “I bet that was a red letter moment!” you are quite right. It was. It also feels very good to be able to share the news with you, because we have definitely been on this long and winding road together, even if—quite rig...

A Writing Quote From Phyllis Theroux

“Writing is a bit like swimming in the ocean. You have to get beyond the wave line into the depths. But the fear of not getting back to the shore; of drifting out to sea, can make the swimmer/writer panic.”

~ Phyllis Theroux, The Journal Keeper

~*~

This quote definitely resonated, the first time I read it — although I also thought, and still do, that it applies to any endeavor that takes us beyond what, until then, have been our life’s norms and safety barriers. Creative endeavours, yes, but als...

About The Characters: Meet The Minor Players In “The Wall Of Night” Series — Meet Nai

UK/AU/NZ

The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:

“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”

~ from my Legend Award Finalist’s Interview, 2013

Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood — in alph...

Gorgeous Words: Rereading “Tokaido” by Lucia St Clair Robson

Tokaido is a favourite historical novel and another best book-friend – or should that be book bestfriend? Never mind! I suspect you know what I mean.

Clearly, “Tokaido” was also published as “The Tokaido Road.”

First published in 1991 (although I read it first about ten years later) Tokaido tells the famous story of the forty-seven ronin (samurai without a lord to follow) through the lives and adventures of fictional characters whose lives intersect the famous vengeance quest.

The main charact...

Fun With Friends: Photos #6 & #7 From Marion Drolsbach

Marion Drolsbach, translator extraordinaire

I think Photo #6 might be my favourite in the series of photos taken by Marion Drolsbach when she was in Aotearoa-New Zealand last year.

Marion, as those who’ve been following will know, is a book translator (English to Dutch) and we first met when she was translating The Heir of Night into Dutch.

The photos were taken at the mouth of a Canterbury braided river, and the Telimbras, in The Wall of Night series, is also a braided river. (Hmm, wonder whe...

Catchcries & Slogans Revisited :-)

The post title was going to be “Oops! Er…” but that’s a tad oblique so I went with Catchcries and Slogans (from last Thursday’s post), Revisited.

The “oops, er…” was because a household member, upon reading the post, said: “But isn’t the catchcry for the WALL series, ‘If Night falls, all fall’?”

If Night falls, all fall…

Ha! Caught out with m’own story — because it definitely is. And it’s still very much part of the WALL #4 story, so I can’t even claim to have forgotten it because of the narrat...