Cat Hellisen's Blog, page 25

Next Big Thing Memery

I’ve been double-tagged by Nerine Dorman and Joan de la Haye, and I was going to be a slacker and pass, but then Tammy February said, “No, do it,” and I am a sucker to peer pressure so here you go.

What is your working title of your book?

New Hob Book. I know right? It’s genius. See, it’s a new book in the Hobverse. GEDDIT? Amazing. *rewards self with giant knickerbocker glory*

 

 Sometimes I have great titles, but mostly I scavenge for a title at the end. Okay, so sometimes should read never and mostly should read always. Except for that one time where I wrote a book called The Whine of Tiny Violins Dogs Me Through My Morose Existence of Moroseness. That was pretty epic.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

From other things? I dunno. I never have one single idea that feeds into a story. I collect and filter data obsessively, instinctively. I am the sea cucumber of writers.

Wait, this possibly makes my books the equivalent of sea cucumber shit. Do sea cucumbers shit? I must know.

Okay, back from my friend google. Not only do sea cucumbers make number twos, but their poo helps save the world. You heard it here first.

What genre does your book fall under?

Secondary world fantasy. Basically, stuff that happens in an imaginary world that is not this one. People who have read my work probably spot bits and pieces of Cape Town and Joburg and Knysna and Kleinmond woven in to the scenery.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

 

Um…ones that look like people would be nice. Acting skills would also be good. I dunno. I can’t even remember the last movie I watched. Oh wait, yes I can, or at least, my partner can. I asked him. He said Emmanuelle. God that was dreadful. I swear he only made me watch it in revenge for forcing him to watch Withnail and I with me. (In case there is any misunderstanding, Withnail is genius. Some people can’t see the genius but psshh whatever.)

 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

I haven’t thought of one yet. It’s about a midwife who takes the magic out of babies’ heads. Then he* agrees to FORM A MAGICAL BABBY with someone in exchange for busting his sister out of prison. And some stuff happens. Shhhhh. I don’t know, I’m not done yet.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Who knows? The book is set in the same universe as When the Sea is Rising Red and there are things that happen in the story that feed into the later events of Felicita’s time with the Whelk Streeters. The industry is a fickle beast so I’m not running predictions on anything.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Ha! You’re so cute. I’m like . . . not even half way through the first draft.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

 

Um? I mean, I know who I’d like to be compared to, but let us not get ahead of ourselves. People who like fantasy books that are more about people than magic, internal struggles over external, character-driven over plot-driven – those readers might like my work.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My Muses and Me. See them skip about. See me cry and gnash my teeth. See my coffee taste like salty pain.

 

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I have no idea. See. I’m great at this. Oh okay, if you liked Lilya and her wild magic from When the Sea is Rising Red, then this story will probably be for you. Also if you like people struggling to fit into the roles their family history has decided for them, sexual identity/attraction confusion, sister love-hate, red-headed boys, and awkward, desperate decisions that backfire horribly, then yeah I’d say you might go for this one. This time there are less tea shops and drugs, and more wetlands and card-sharps.

So If you’re interested in playing, I’ll tag five other writers. They’re cool people, so whether or not they do this, you should go read their stuff because basically. Yes.

 

Ryan Gebhart likes bears. I mean, really likes bears. He’s like John Irving for kids. With less rape and incest. Okay, not like John Irving at all. It’s not Paddington, is what I’m saying.

Catherine Knutsson wrote an amazing, beautiful book about shamanism and a new world – Shadows Cast By Stars. One of my favourite reads of this year.

Not the queen of Carthage, luckily for her, Elissa Janine Hoole writes some of the best contemporary YA I’ve read. She’s insightful and lyrical and honest in her writing. Go read Kiss the Morning Star for roadtrippin’ with bears and yes.

Love Sucks author Sage Collins is secretly a mad scientist who plans to take over the world, until then, she writes books about people who may or may not be superheroes.

And sticking with out superhero theme, Grace is possibly an actual superhero trying to save the world (from Sage? who knows?) She also has some of the coolest fan art I’ve ever seen and I’m not at all jealous, oh no.

*Yes.

 

The Best Kind of Madness

November’s always been a bit of a crazy month to host NaNoWriMo. For a lot of people, there are exams happening, end of year slump has well and truly set in, and quite a few family and religious holidays are looming. This year, some of you got to add hurricanes and election fever and cancer to your mental load.

And you’re writing anyway.  All this month, masses of people are finding the time to squeeze out words, to get down a hundred, a thousand, and (in some impressive cases) tens of thousands of words a day. These people are plotting out stories, or winging it, or getting into word wars or adopting plot bunnies, and cheering each other on.

You guys, you’re pretty much awesome.

There will be people who are whining about how you’re “not real writers” (whatever the definition of real is here…I’ve yet to work it out) or are shaking their fingers at you and saying you’re wasting time, that any book written in thirty days is shit, warning you not to query your novel on the 1st of December (okay, they’re right about that one, just…don’t. Also the 2nd. 3rd is fine. )

 

But you know what – none of that matters. “Real writers” are people who write. “Real writers” are people who learn by doing instead of talking. “Real writers” find out what method works best for them by sitting down at a blank screen and working at it until things start feeling right. They learn by fixing what they’ve done when they’re done.

“Real writers” finish their first draft, and discover that ALL FIRST DRAFTS ARE SHIT (if you’re the exception who proves the rule, shut up because I hate you) and they get stuck into making that book not terrible anymore.

Anyone can do that.

And writing your novel in thirty days along with a huge crowd of like-minded friends has got to be if nothing else, the most fun way to get that first draft down.

So, basically, I am waving my pom poms and cheering you all on.

Trying to find Mr Burger part 2

Today we tried this mushroom burger recipe:

 

As you can see, it looks nice, and it certainly tasted very meatily mushroomy, but I’m afraid what with the amount of mushrooms needed (pricey), the sticky fiddliness of making the patties, (ew, I do not like sticky food on my hands), and the Vegetarian Spawn reaction (Complete refusal to even try), that this one will be a special occasion grown-up food.

 

Play Dough Recipe

What it says on the tin.

The Elder Sprog was given a lovely little art set for her birthday, and included were three little containers of play dough. Naturally the Younger Sprog wanted them, so today we set out to make her a set of her own. This is my favourite recipe I’ve found because it makes a lovely, soft, malleable dough.

 

You’ll need:

1 cup white flour

1/4 cup salt

2 Tbsp cream of tartar

1 cup water

1 Tbsp oil

Food colouring in whatever shades. (we originally planned to do pink, blue, and green, but Younger Spawn voted purple at the last minute. I’m afraid my colour-mixing skills were not so hot, so we ended up with a very dark purple.)

And now…

Combine all the dry stuff together, mix it well, then add your water and oil. If you’re just doing one colour, you can add that in now, otherwise divide it up and tint away.

 

 

You will now have a rather sloppy batter. FEAR NOT!

You’re going to cook it. Over a medium heat, and keep stirring. Soon you’ll notice the mess thickening, and when it turns into a clumpy ball in the middle of the pot, you’re done with the stovey part.

 

 

Turn your (rather hot!) play dough out onto a floured surface, and knead until it’s smooth. This takes like all of 30 seconds.

 

Bam.

You have play dough.

 

Wrapped in blankets, wrapped in blankets.

(You had to sing that to the tune of trapped in cabinets…)

 

I’m feeling ick, which is zero fun. You know those cartoons that show women coping with everything in the world while they’re sick, while men lie in bed and whine? And people talk about man-flu and that sort of thing? Well, it’s rubbish. Because I can out-whine any man when I’m sick. Look, look at me now. I am currently whining about whining about being sick. Also, I am wrapped in a blanket.

 

Despite my general tendency to collapse in a pathetic heap at the slightest indication of being unwell, I did manage to make some new words today, so that was cool. So, a snippet then, for those who like that sort of thing:

 

….Sarah unlocked the first of the manacles, and the chains fell dead and heavy into the rotted straw and bone chips. “Come on, and the other. Don’t you trust me?”

“Trust you?” He laugh-roared. “I could bite your head off if I wanted,” he said.

“But you won’t.” Sarah inserted the key and twisted. The manacle had to be forced open it was so rusted.

The beast stretched out his paws, shaking off the last of the chains. “How can you be sure?”

“Because.” Sarah got up from her knees and waited for the beast to squeeze through the tiny door. “You’re still a human,” she said, as he wriggled first one shoulder through, and then the other. “You talk, you think, you reason. You’re just beast-shaped, is all.”

“So trusting,” said the beast, when he had finally slithered free. Out of the cage, he seemed bigger, fiercer; his mane rippling and lamp-eyes flashing.

Sarah noticed that the tips of his horns were wicked-sharp, and his old yellow teeth were longer than she’d remembered. “Maybe.” She turned her back on the beast, and flung open the shack door. “And maybe that’s a good thing, you know?”

And now I’m off to go drown my wangst in X-Files marathons. Because I can.

Carnivores vs Herbivores

The Littlest Spawn has recently discovered that meat is made from actual animals, so she’s gone mostly vegetarian (bacon and haddock are apparently exempt).  This isn’t a huge problem; our family has been vegetarian before and I have no weird issues where I force kids to eat meat if they don’t want to. But I do like meat myself. So, yes, for some meals I can tweak and keep her food separate except I really don’t feel like catering for everyone’s various little foodie vibes. My time. It be precious to me, if no-one else.

Cue me aiming to gradually turn most of our dinners vegetarian (or easy tweaks).

Which brings us to….The Search for The Perfect Veggie Burger Recipe.

 

(yes, I could buy Fry’s but they are crazy expensive and…eh.)

 

Last night’s recipe tasted good, but sadly crumbled apart in the pan. To me, this does not a burger make. So I figured that from here on I’d document my hunt for the perfect recipe. You’ve been warned, etc.

To marry the untold blisses

I feel a little like a fourteen-year-old at the moment, counting down the days for Sundark and Riverlight to get to me (hush now, I know at least two people on my flist understand, or if not, will give me pats on the head and tell me everything’s gonna be all right).

As much as I adore the growls and yelps and woops and disco-violin and sizzleclick electronica on the early Wolf albums, I’m really excited to hear how these versions are going to sound (from the few tracks I’ve stumbled on – Vulture sounds homfgamazeballs so yeah).

 

Basically, they are going to sound like this, so Patrick’s voice is going to be centre stage (which only seems to happen when he’s playing live to an audience of four and the wind is blowing from the ssw and he remembers the words…:P) and nggghhh yes. All the yes.

SO ASCITE I CAN’T EVEN

the thing the things contain

I love seeing the opposite contained within, like a kernel.

like the screaming horror in the faces of carousel horses.

Or beautiful despair.

 

New WtSiRR drabble

This one was for This Dead Town, and since I finally posted it, it can go up.

 

It’s Felicita’s wedding night so…SPOILERS HO! etc.

 

As wedding nights go, Felicita had rather expected more. Of course it was a marriage of convenience. Of course they’d drawn up an agreement. Of course she had understood exactly what they were doing.

“Of course nothing,” Felicita said to the neatly-made bed. “You idiot. What did you want him to do? Pretend that this was real?”

She sat on the edge of the bed, and listened to the noises of an empty suite.

In another set of rooms, Jannik wrote poems to burn. Anything to keep him warm, and to pretend that this farce had been a good idea.

 

Okay, so now that I’ve been stabbed with butter knives repeatedly for being that mean, let it be said that the scene I *think* she actually wanted does exist, and if I ever sell that book, then it will be there, in all its weird powerplays.

 

(the drabbles were written as gifts, and the rest can be found here: drabble prompts)

pig lilies

Spring is finally looking a little more spring-like.

The spawn and I took advantage of the good weather to mission down to the library, where I found a book of Margaret Atwood short stories so I was all YAY!

On the way back we passed by an empty lot. It’s been for sale for ages so it’s pretty much over-run with weeds. But, seeing as it’s spring, those weeds include the ubiquitous vark lelies. They made a little trumpet trail of ivory through the green, and I can’t help but feel if I was still innocent, that path would have led me somewhere amazing.