Cate Gardner's Blog, page 35

Life of a Writer of Weird: Little Shop of Dentists

Booking a dentist appointment today was too easy. One) they gave me an appointment for next week (and I didn't even mention my toothache) and two) they gave me one for the magic time of three o'clock which means I don't have to ask to leave work early or hang around until the appointment time. The dentist is so going to greet me with a chainsaw. Maybe I should take my dentist eating plant...

...or my stalker.

On the way home from work I gained a familiar. I stopped to pull an umbrella out of my bag and a black cat crept up beside me. It tried to walk in front of me but I started walking at the same time. So that I didn't trip, I stepped back and told it to go ahead and cross my path. It did, but maybe a cat can't curse (or shower you with good luck) unless it walks in front of you without permission. Which it then did for almost the rest of my journey.

Other Monday news included a desire to add a Glokenspeil to my WIP, an appropriate 'beak' for 'break' typo as my story has a bird theme, a contributor's copy (While the Morning Stars Sing) and payment for an upcoming story, and several sneezes.

It's me, I'm...

I've slept walked through most of this week, or rather through the parts where I should have been writing and to keep myself awake today (because I'm fed up of snoozing) I've been singing along to You Tube and my newly painted walls and ceiling haven't cracked yet. Although I might have. Anyhow, that led me to this video....







...and to remembering that although Wuthering Heights wasn't the first book I fell in love with (Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree was probably my first) it was the first book where I fell in love with sentences and words and characters and the first where I bookmarked passages over and over because they were so beautiful... Okay, maybe not the first character I fell in love with because I was rather partial to MoonFace.

"...heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out, into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."

It also thrilled my teen-heart that the heroine (is Catherine Earnshaw a heroine?) was a Cathy. Perhaps I would have fallen in love with Mr Rochester instead if I was a Jane.

Snippets

My surreal little tale 

Beware: You Could Lose Time Here

Depending on your view the following broadcast is either Link Heaven or Link Hell...

First, Nowhere Hall received three new reviews this week...

"Full of the kind of familiar yet insidious imagery that gives you weird dreams days after you've read the book, 'Nowhere Hall' made sure that there was no doubt that I'd finish it off and I'll be sure to look for Cate Gardner's name on the shelves in the future." Graeme Flory over at Graeme's Fantasy Book Review.

"Nowhere Hall is full of great noirish atmosphere and  powerful  and bizarre images worthy of David Lynch." Paul D Brazill over at You Would Say That, Wouldn't You?

"Nowhere Hall is an exemplar, a masterclass in writing noir fiction. In particular of a story that creeps up on you using a psychological skewer." Geoff Nelder, and you can read the review at the Spectral Press website.

Secondly, here are some awesome blog posts I stumbled upon this week...

Jay Lake talks about Drafting Speed, and the perils thereof and how the only writer you can compare yourself to is you (excellent quote).

DeAnna Knippling talks about inspiration and your butt here. Not my butt, or her butt, your butt. And the awesome (my favourite non-speculative fiction writer) Harlan Coben writes on the same subject over at The Wall Street Journal. (Second link courtesy of Robert Swartwood).

Gef Fox has an excellent post on buying books at a book store.

And finally, don't forget to check out Jonathan Pinnock's guest post on this here blog...

Guest Blog - Jonathan Pinnock

Some Answers to 20 Imaginary Questions About "Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens"

1. Basically a sequel to "Pride and Prejudice" with added aliens.
2. Why not?
3. No. Not zombies. Aliens. We do not mention the zombie book. I had the idea long before the zombie book came out. Although I'm sure it's a very nice book. It is, however, a bit of a sensitive area, as I'm sure you'll understand.
4. I said no.
5. Oh, you like zombies? In that case, loads.
6. The usual stuff: tentacles, probes, ghosts. And Colin the pigeon.
7. Lord Byron. He's filthy.
8. "The truth is out there, though it is not yet universally acknowledged."
9. Pemberley, Whitechapel, Rosings, Bath and Glastonbury.
10. Ek – ek – ek – ek – kk'Ekk!
11. Mars. Although the chances of anything coming from there…
12. Sous-pellisse and Wellington's Fancy. But don't ask for "a Prussian", as you'll probably get slapped.
13. Look, will you stop going on about zombies?
14. I serialized it for a year online and then it was picked up by Proxima Books just before the end.
15. I was very excited, I can tell you.
16. All the usual online places, and if you're lucky enough to live in the UK, at all branches of WHSmith, where it's on promotion and currently at number 54 in their chart.
17. If there's demand, definitely. I deliberately left a bit of a cliffhanger at the end.
18. Only if I can get David Bamber back to play Mr Collins. Or if he's unavailable, his hair.
19. www.mrsdarcyvsthealiens.com. And there's a Wickhampedia at www.mrsdarcyvsthealiens.com/wiki which tells you everything you need to know, as well as a whole load you really didn't. Oh, oh, and a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/realmrsdarcy.
20. Well, thank you for having me. It's been fun.

***

You'll find Jonathan Pinnock's blog at www.jonathanpinnock.com and you'll find Mrs Darcy at Amazon and other reputable bookstores (including bricks and mortar stores in the UK).

Where I Work? (Allegedly)

Here there be photos of my new office. You may note the torture chamber chair. I took these photos before I'd finished constructing my awesome new chair. Actually, I say my 'new office' but it's my old office repainted and refloored and with some new furniture.. Now I should write. Or dust things. Or just marvel at how clean the room is and swivel in my awesome new chair. Did I say it's awesome. I may reveal it to you someday. 

To Read

When I picked a book off my 'to read' pile, I was surprised to find I'd owned said book since 2004!!! So wrong. Thus, I've decided to put all the books currently on my shelf into a 'to read' order, bearing in mind that I've done this before and ignored it.

Of course, I put my most recent purchase (Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens) at the head of the queue because I'm tricky like that. Hopefully it won't take seven years to read any books I currently own, there are only forty-five in the pile at the moment and that's not many at all.

I'm trying not to buy any more at the moment (with the exception of Katey's Scripped, oh and Kate's 'Evil Outfitters, Ltd' when it's published, oh and Anthony Rapino's Soundtrack...). I expect to fail.

Oh, and look out for Jon Pinnock who will be appearing here on the 8th. That is, this Thursday. And pictures of my new office are also forthcoming.

The Haunted Wardrobe (Allegedly)

To celebrate the release of his novel The Bleeding Room Barry Napier is running a true ghost stories contest. More details can be found here and here is my entry.

What follows is a true account. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent.

Once upon a time, a man and a woman moved into a poky flat in the Kensington area of Liverpool with their baby daughter. One of the rooms was boarded up. The man decided to remove said boards, after all the room was in their flat. Inside the room the walls were covered in Jewish prayers and there was a metal box attached to the wall. The man removed both the prayers and the box and from then on claimed that something (or someone) kept throwing things at him. The woman thought he was drunk. He possibly was.

Not long after, they moved out of the flat in which they'd once watched man walk on the surface of the moon and they took with them one item of furniture - a wardrobe. (They may actually have taken more items of furniture, but the writer is unaware of this and quite frankly it makes the story less dramatic).

The wardrobe and part of the family (the man left) lived happily in their new 'little house' with its leaky roof, outside loo, dodgy electrics and draughty windows. The writer loved growing up in that house and wasn't bothered by anything spooky at all. The rest of her family, which had expanded to include a grandmother and a brother, claimed that things flew off a shelf or some such nonsense once and the brother said that he hated the wardrobe, although he didn't seem to have a problem hiding in it. Just saying.

Time passed, and the family moved to a grown-up house with a bathroom and garden and thought they were oh so fancy (okay maybe not, but it was better than treading around snails to get to an outside loo and hey, the upstairs electrics worked and the window didn't try to decapitate you - win). The wardrobe came with them. Things began to happen.

The wardrobe was in the woman's (the mother's) bedroom and she'd wake to find her bed violently (yes, I did just use an adjective) shaking. Violently. The mother also used to tell her children to stop sneaking in behind her when she was in the kitchen and hitting her in the back when in fact said children were watching Family Ties or Robin of Sherwood or some such thing on the telly. She must have thought her children had super powers. Maybe they do. The brother then saw his grandmother walking along the hallway. She was decapitated. This bothered the grandmother as she was still alive and her head was firmly on her shoulders. The brother wasn't drunk. He was twelve and fond of drawing monsters.

The family left that house and moved two houses down the street (obviously not descended from Gypsies). They kindly left behind the wardrobe because they had a new one and the family moving into their house needed one.

The family who moved into their house weren't happy. Someone kept turning on the lights (a sceptic yelled, 'dodgy electrics' and the sceptic may have been me) and doors slammed ('the house is probably draughty', the sceptic yelled). The new family were unnerved. The writer doesn't know what else happened, she was too busy partying and thinking she was Madonna, but she did witness the murder of the wardrobe.

The new family took the wardrobe into the garden where they attacked it with an axe. They were never troubled by ghosts again. Unfortunately, the brother was not so fortunate. He's, allegedly, had a few more ghostly experiences and does not appreciate when someone says 'is there anybody there' in his new home. He can get quite angry. The writer promises she won't say it again…

September 22nd

Coming soon to an inbox near you... Here's the line up for this month's Daily Science Fiction stories and the dates they'll be delivered to your email (assuming you're a subscriber), and they'll be available to read online a week after email distribution. I'm especially looking forward  to Amanda C Davis and Ken Liu's stories.

1 September: "Dragons" by Mahon Wakefield
2 September: "Now Until" by Jonathan Fredrick Parks
5 September: "Everlasting" by Fran Wilde
6 September: "Losing One's Appetite" by Sarina Dorie
7 September: "Modification or Mutation: 8 Ways a Parent Can Be Sure" by Marissa Kristine Lingen
8 September: "Test Drive" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
9 September: "Requiem Duet, Concerto for Flute and Voodoo" by Eugie Foster
12 September: "HETERO3" by Robert Reed
13 September: "Beauty, Deconstructed" by Adam Colston
14 September: "Spiral" by Sarah Stasik
15 September: "In Vivo" by SJ Driscoll
16 September: "The Ritual of Names in Prague in the Last Days of the New Empire" by Bernie Mojzes
19 September: "In Memoriam" by Amanda C. Davis
20 September: "This Always Happens Here" by Richard Larson
21 September: "Ten Speeds at the End of the World" by Guinevere Robin Rowell
22 September: "Exit Stage Life" by Cate Gardner
23 September: "Volition" by Alec Austin
26 September: "The Last Seed" by Ken Liu
27 September: "Regret Incorporated" by Andy and RJ Astruc
28 September: "Totemkill" by Sean Vivier
29 September: "Her Majesty's Guardian" by Donald S. Crankshaw
30 September: "Wonder" by Matthue Roth

Theatre of Curious Acts

Theatre of Curious Acts (forthcoming later this year from Hadley Rille Books) now has a cover by the incredibly talented Simone Held...


Nineteen-year-old Daniel Cole returns home from the Great War wanting the world to end. His brother and parents are in their graves. Nothing is the same. 

During a performance at the Theatre of Curious Acts, Daniel and his friends, fellow soldiers, are lured into a surreal otherworld. Travelling through this strange land they happen upon the four horsewomen of the apocalypse, dragons, the steam trains of the Anabiosis Station with their ghostly passengers, ancient warriors and a pirate ship waiting to ferry them to the end of the world. Already broken by man's war, these boys are now the world's only hope in the greatest battle of all.