Anne Lyle's Blog, page 5

Distractions

I thought I’d better write about why I haven’t been posting much here or on social media of late. Don’t panic, nothing’s amiss – I’ve just been somewhat distracted by major goings-on at my day job. I don’t normally post about personal stuff on here, but as it’s been impacting my writing and internet presence, I wanted to reassure people I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth

To be brief, our team is moving in with the other teams that make up our project, which means not just an office move but a change of contract (because the other teams are employed by a different institute). At the same time the project org chart is being rearranged a bit, hence we’ve had to apply for the new positions and wait anxiously to hear which jobs we’ve got. Fortunately there are enough of these new jobs to go round, and the pay will be better, but it’s still awfully disruptive and stressful at what is already a busy time of year. I should get a formal job offer in the New Year and move offices a few weeks later, so all the dust will have settled well before my next convention. Speaking of which…

I’ve also been trying to budget for a trip to the US next year whilst not eating into e.g. savings or vital home maintenance funds (I discovered the other day that our stair carpet is more badly worn than I feared, and will need replacing sooner rather than later). The new salary will help, but unless a new book contract happens along before the end of 2014, I’ll need to keep a sharp eye on my expenditure. So, I’ve been getting up to speed with You Need a Budget, which is really helping.

I have two weeks off for Christmas and New Year, which will be an opportunity to focus on my new writing project for the first time in weeks. I’m also working on a series of blog posts about Getting Things Done – I promised to do this two years ago and didn’t get around to it (not a good ad for the system!), so maybe this time I’ll stop procrastinating and Get It Done!

Smells Like Tudor Spirit

16th century Italian gilt pomander

Ever wanted to smell like an Elizabethan? OK, maybe not literally (eww!), but it was in the sixteenth century that perfume and scented items became popular with the wealthy. If you’ve read The Alchemist of Souls, you may recall Mal’s encounter with Jos Percy – and the loss of an expensive silver pomander!

When my friend and fellow writer Naomi Clark set up an Etsy store for her homemade fragrances and began tweeting about all the lovely essential oils she was buying, that got me wondering what scents my characters would like. Long story short, I met up with Naomi and we collaborated on two fragrances, one for Mal and one for Coby – and they’re now available to buy!

Both are unisex, as befits the gender-bending Elizabethan era, and can be worn as a perfume or used in an oil burner (they’re very Christmassy, too – “Hendricks” smells like posh mince pies, according to my husband!).

Naomi describes them much better than I could, so I’ve cribbed the descriptions from her Etsy page:

Maliverny

Imagine a dusty bar in a London touched with strange magicks and filled with wondrous, dangerous travellers from the New World. Imagine you’re a swordsman tossed into peril and political intrigue against your will…You’re starting to imagine Mal Catlyn’s world…

Maliverny is a tribute to the Elizabethan era, blending together precious woods, incenses, and spices from the far corners of the world. A base of sandalwood and frankincense is topped with warm black pepper and cinnamon. A hint of tobacco ties it all together.

Maliverny at the Common Brimstone shop

Hendricks

Imagine fleeing your homeland and living in disguise amongst men who cannot know your secrets…Imagine finding yourself thrust into a world of magical and political machinations – and the man you want most believes you’re a boy…You’re starting to imagine Coby Hendricks’ world.

A beguilingly unisex blend of herbs and fruits, Hendricks starts with clean, clear notes of juniper and coriander, spiked with exotic cassia and light touches of lemon and bergamot. Winding through it all is just a distant whiff of gunpowder.

Hendricks at the Common Brimstone shop

To celebrate the launch of my very own celebrity fragrances (!), I’m giving away two sampler sets of a 1ml vial of each fragrance for you to try out.

All you have to do to be in with a chance is to leave a comment on this post – please note that comments are moderated to reduce spam, so don’t panic if yours doesn’t appear right away.

Rules:

One comment per entrant, please – multiple commenters will be disqualified (unless you’re replying to a question on the post or similar).
For security reasons, please don’t leave contact details in your comment – there’s a space in the comment form for your email address, I’ll use that to get hold of you.
Closing date for entries is noon UK time on Tuesday 17th December. Any comments posted after that deadline will be deleted.
I will be picking two winners (using a random number generator), to receive one copy each.
I will aim to get the prizes out promptly, but given how close it is to Christmas, I can’t guarantee delivery times, particularly overseas.
If a winner does not respond by Christmas Eve (24th December) or doesn’t provide a valid email address, I reserve the right to select a replacement.

Good luck!

The Prince of Lies – Christmas giveaway

My author copies of The Prince of Lies turned up the other day, so I thought it was about time I did a giveaway!

I have three paperbacks (UK edition) to give away, open to entries anywhere in the world. All you have to do to be in with a chance is to leave a comment on this post – please note that comments are moderated to reduce spam, so don’t panic if yours doesn’t appear right away.

Rules:

One comment per entrant, please – multiple commenters will be disqualified (unless you’re replying to a question on the post or similar).
For security reasons, please don’t leave contact details in your comment – there’s a space in the comment form for your email address, I’ll use that to get hold of you.
Closing date for entries is noon UK time on Tuesday 10th December. Any comments posted after that deadline will be deleted.
I will be picking three separate winners (using a random number generator), to receive one copy each.
I will aim to get the books out promptly, but given how close it is to Christmas, I can’t guarantee delivery times.
If a winner does not respond by Christmas Eve (24th December) or doesn’t provide a valid email address, I reserve the right to select a replacement.

Good luck!

 

NaNoWriMo 2013: Week 4

This week was the week I had to finally admit to myself that I wasn’t going to make it to 50k in November. No way. No how. And that’s OK, because

a) I have some solid reasons (mainly a nasty virus that’s been dogging me since late October), but more importantly

b) I haven’t stopped writing

Sure, I’ve had a few days when I wrote nothing at all, because between sleeplessness and the day-job I was barely coherent enough to string a sentence together, but I’ve had plenty of days when I wrote at least 1000 words, and some where I wrote 3k+. It just hasn’t been enough on average to push me to that magic 50k mark, and there were too few days left in this last week and too few hours available for writing for me to have any realistic chance of catching up. Usually I take the last week of November off for this very reason, but owing to all the conventions this year I wasn’t able to do that.

Instead I consoled myself with the fact that, with the aid of some weekend catchup, I was able to make it to 35k on Sunday (instead of the target 40k). That meant that in theory I could make it to at least 40k, perhaps even 45k by Saturday. Unfortunately, once I’d admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to hit 50k, the whole point of continuing began to evaporate. Why come up with more scenes for a draft that, right now, feels like it’s not going in the right direction? So I wrote another thousand or so words before grinding to a halt mid-week and never really getting going again.

I don’t have a workable draft as such—in order to keep going in the face of Not Enough Plot Syndrome, I’ve spent a fair amount of time writing out episodes from my protagonist’s backstory that may well not end up in the finished book—but I’ve explored my characters and world in more depth than is possible in a dry outline. This exercise has shown me the flaws in my planning process and given me insights that I can take forward into the next draft. As I always say to others who worry about throwing words away, no time spent writing is ever wasted.

Amended target word count: 40,000

Final word count: 37,129

 

November Awesomeness

I had intended to post a book giveaway this week, but the book fairy only just delivered my author copies, so instead I’m going to do a blatant filler post of awesome stuff that’s happened this November

Click to embiggen!

First up is the winner of Angry Robot’s Book Cover Fun competition. Back in October I posted some alternate covers for my Night’s Masque novels that used Playmobil figures instead of human models. The competition was to do something similar with the Angry Robot cover of your choice, and the winning entries were all amazing – but best of all was this astonishing Etch-a-Sketch recreation of The Prince of Lies by Carol Riggs. Huge props to Carol for the dedication involved!

Also, I think this is my first ever piece of fan art, so it’s doubly awesome!

On November 8th I was saddened to hear about the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. I made a cash donation but wanted to do more, and luckily I came across Authors For The Philippines, an auction site with proceeds going to the British Red Cross. I donated a signed set of my complete trilogy, and my awesome, awesome fans bid on it, raising an amazing £100 (out of a total of £55k for the whole campaign). I’m just waiting on confirmation that the payment has gone through, then I’ll be sending them out to the lucky winner.

One not-so-awesome thing was that I had to postpone the podcast I was going to do in mid-November owing to a lingering cough and sore throat, but hopefully that will go ahead some time in the New Year, so watch out for announcements! In the meantime, there’s a big interview with me over on Fantasy Faction (beware spoilers for The Merchant of Dreams!), and I have a few more treats planned for you in December, including the aforementioned giveaway, which will be posted next Tuesday. Watch this space!

NaNoWriMo 2013: Week 3

So, I’m even later posting this week than I was last week, mostly because of my day-job. Turns out our team is being relocated to the institute with which we’ve collaborating for over a decade, and whilst physically that’s barely 100 yards, psychologically it’s a big deal because it means reapplying for my current position plus overseeing my team’s transfer. I’m pretty confident of staying in my job, but it requires lots of meetings & discussions and has thus been taking my focus away from my writing. So…

Right now I’m behind and struggling. I’ve gone back and filled in a couple of scenes I skipped, which helped keep the words flowing, but I’m rapidly reaching the point where I’m trying to make up new plot without any idea of what’s going on. I have this annoying feeling that a plot breakthrough could be right around the corner if only I press on, so that’s my current strategy. Keep on keeping on – because that’s the only way a book gets written.

Target word count: 36,667

Actual word count: 30,483

Prince of Lies – the official wallpaper

So far I’ve produced desktop wallpaper based on cover art for the first two volumes of Night’s Masque and they proved rather popular, so I’m completing the set with The Prince of Lies.

As with previous versions, it includes a quotation from the novel that I hope sums it up without being spoilery

I’ve created two versions, one widescreen (8:5) and one standard proportion (4:3), both in sizes large enough for all but the biggest monitors.

1600 x 1000 | 1280 x 960

Enjoy!

Full credits

Cover art © Larry Rostant at Artist Partners

Background texture & lettering by Marc Gascoigne

Angry Robot logo © Angry Robot Books

Design and novel excerpt © 2013 Anne Lyle

NaNoWriMo 2013: Week 2 and the halfway point

I’m posting this a bit later than planned, because my cold has worsened since I went back to work and I’ve not been getting much sleep. Still, a pro soldiers on even when they don’t feel like writing!

This week’s been one of ups and downs, kind of like last week: I had a great weekend and even a great Monday, clocking up nearly 7k in 3 days, but then the lack of sleep turned that lead into a deficit. On the plus side, on my low/zero writing days I had some interesting epiphanies about my characters, plot and worldbuilding, which I hope will translate into more outline when I’m feeling slightly less crap.

I took a sick day today and, thanks to an important conversation between my two lead characters that I’d been looking forward to writing since I planned out the backstory, I racked up almost 2k without really trying, bringing me close to being back on track to hit 50k by the end of the month. I won’t say “finish” because I won’t have reached the end of the book by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ll have a substantial chunk of it.

Target word count: 25,000

Actual word count: 23,985

 

A look back at WFC 2013

The World Fantasy Convention came to the UK this year for the first time in a couple of decades, and expectations were high, especially since US authors were coming over to meet fans, promote their latest books or just see a bit of the UK alongside their convention schedule. Given that I registered back in 2011 when tickets first went on sale, you can imagine I was pretty excited by the time November came around!

In the run-up to the convention, there were some unfortunately worded missives from the organisers: combative in tone (“cosplayers with weapons will be thrown out of the convention and reported to the police!”) or plain insulting, like the would-be self-deprecating humour of the panel titles that just came across as hopelessly out-of-touch with the modern genre. Hence there was concern expressed on Twitter that con-goers would be made to feel unwelcome. I’m happy to say that by and large this did not happen, and most people* had a splendid time.

And why should they not? The programme may have been sparse (and, as mentioned, somewhat poorly conceived) but the panellists themselves were top-notch: Robin Hobb, Neil Gaiman, Susan Cooper, Scott Lynch, Holly Black, Patrick Rothfuss, Ellen Kushner, Tim Powers, Joanne Harris, Joe Hill…it was practically a Who’s Who of present-day fantasy and horror. Top that off with a flying visit by Sir Terry Pratchett himself, and most of us were in nerdvana!

Wesley Chu reading from The Lives of Tao

Being a relative nobody in this stellar company, I had no panels or other official appearances, so I was able to spend the con much like any other fan, enjoying the events and hanging out with my friends. I attended readings by Ellen Kushner, Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch (the latter with a short impromptu reading by Wes Chu, as Scott was running late); Ellen read from a work-in-progress that had us all begging for more, whilst Joe read the thrilling opening to his new YA novel Half a King and Scott read from a short story in an upcoming GRRM-edited anthology Rogues - both it and the anthology sound awesome!

I also went to a couple of panels (one on the future of fantasy, titled “Elvish has left the building” and another on writing under a pseudonym), mostly to see the guests talk rather than from any pressing interest in the topic. And then of course there was Terry Pratchett’s interview, which was poignant giving his current frailty but still a privilege to attend. His assistant Rob Wilkins read from Raising Steam (with an atrocious attempt at a Yorkshire accent!), and there were hints of new Discworld TV shows/movies, including an adaptation of The Wee Free Men, but everyone was being very coy about the details, since nothing official has been announced.

In between events I had a potter around the dealers’ room, where I bought a first edition copy of The Republic of Thieves (to get signed by Scott) and a limited edition Genki Gear t-shirt bearing the above rather fine logo. Then in the art room I encountered my cover artist, Larry Rostant, and we had a long chat about my covers, during which I learned that the model from Books 1 & 3 is actually a brickie from Redditch (a small town in Worcestershire, not far from where I went to school)! Larry’s colleague Christine told me she loved my Playmobil versions of their covers, which was awesome – maybe an alternative career awaits…

Other events included the mass signing, where I nabbed a table alongside Emma Newman and few other relative newbies, and also got a few books signed by my own favourite authors. I think it was my best signing event since my first launch, no doubt helped by the fact that The Alchemist of Souls was one of the free books on offer at the registration desk**. I also signed a couple of copies of The Prince of Lies (on sale in the dealers’ room), and even a battered mass-market paperback of The Alchemist of Souls brought all the way from Canada, which really made my day!

Sashimi bibimbap, seaweed salad and dynamite sushi at Sushi Garden, Brighton

In the evenings there were trips to the excellent selection of restaurants in nearby Preston Street (battling the wind and rain all the way!), publishers’ parties with lots of free wine, and of course the hotel bar, which was far too small for such a big event and permanently heaving with slightly frazzled authors. The Gollancz party was a particular standout; not only did I get to hang out with Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear for a short time, but the evening ended with a surprise performance by Mitch Benn, who sang his song “Doctor Who Girl” (and a couple of others) to rousing applause.

The wonderful but exhausting weekend ended with the awards banquet, and as you may have guessed by my silence on the matter, I didn’t win the award for which I had been shortlisted. As it was it went to Helen Marshall, thus sparing me a future of deadly rivalry with those of my friends who had also been nominated

My only regret is that I was still nursing a cold from the previous weekend and thus slept badly and couldn’t enjoy as many late nights as I am wont to do. Nevertheless I think I spoke to nearly everyone there that I already knew (online and off), as well as meeting some new folks. I returned home utterly shattered, hence my delay in blogging about the event, but excited about working on my new project and looking forward eagerly to next year’s conventions.

I can’t finish this post without thanking the redcoats for their hard work: they were the ones who made the convention run not just smoothly but more enjoyably that most people believed possible. I won’t list names for fear of missing someone out, but you guys know who you are.

 

* Apparently there were a few incidents of harassment, but since I didn’t witness them I can’t comment

** A great idea – much more sensible than putting a random selection in each bag. I picked up a lovely hardback of Didier Graffet’s artwork but resisted the urge to take any fiction, as I’d brought several books with me for signing.

NaNoWriMo 2013: Week 1

So, it’s been 7 days (today is the 8th, but I’m writing this first thing in the morning), my first full week of NaNoWriMo, and I bet you’re all wondering how it’s going. No? Well I’m going to tell you anyway.

I got off to a surprisingly good start on Day 1, despite it being my first full day of the World Fantasy Convention. I wrote 500 or so words before breakfast, about the same afterwards, and another thousand-plus in the afternoon, for a total of 1715. Go me!

Alas the next three days did not go so well; I slept badly owing to a tickly cough that kept me awake half the night, and there were lots of events I wanted to attend (of which more next week, when I finally get round to blogging about it). I managed my ~500 words before breakfast each day, but that was about it. And that was OK, because big international conventions full of your favourite authors don’t come along every day.

I arrived home totally exhausted, having not written on the train as planned (mostly because the carriages were packed – now I remember why I travel 1st class whenever I can afford it!) and slept most of the afternoon. I was determined to catch up by the weekend, though, having taken the whole week off work for this purpose. I’m glad to say I’ve nearly caught up already, after exceeding the basic daily target three days running and had an awesome 3.6k day yesterday. I’ve been keeping myself motivated by listening to Mur Lafferty’s daily mini-podcasts, part of her I Should Be Writing show. They’re about ten minutes long, with a pep talk and a writing prompt (some of which have fitted my story pretty well, though not always on the right day!) – perfect for giving yourself a boost when you start to flag.

As for how the book is going…I’ve written three chapters and I’m following my outline pretty closely so far, though I did insert a couple of extra scenes in the first chapter. It’s taking me a while to connect with the characters, perhaps because the cold made me so sluggish, perhaps because I skipped pre-writing, perhaps just because I’d been looking forward to starting this project for so long that nothing could match up to my expectations. Still, it’s beginning to gel – I wouldn’t have written the best part of an entire chapter yesterday if I wasn’t enjoying myself!

What I’ve written so far will definitely need a lot of revising, but that’s fine. I’ve come to expect that on a new project, where I don’t know the characters very well and the plot is still a lifeless outline. Right now I’m just focusing on writing the scenes I’ve been visualising for the past several months and seeing what other cool ideas my subconscious throws into the ring as I go…

Target word count: 11,667

Actual word count: 11,365