Amy Laurens's Blog, page 110

Announcing: Tales from the SFR Brigade

Look! I’m in another anthology! Considering how little writing I’m doing these days, I find this quite exciting :o) Tales from the SFR Brigade will be a free anthology of stories by members of the SFR Brigade, SFR being Science Fiction Romance. There are even a couple of big name authors involved, most notably Linnea Sinclair, who is a star in the genre *goofy grin*. And on a more personal note, two of the authors are friends of mine – Pippa Jay, and my twinny one, Liana Brooks. Hurrah for be...

Querying! Help?? *Cookies*

So, just for the heck of it, I’m practising queries. Actually, also because I’ve dug out Sanctuary again and am plodding onwards with edits. I’m nearly done with Draft 2, and I’m rather hopefully that it will only need up to a Draft 4 before it’s DONE-done. Hopefully. :S Anyway, in the spirit of procrastination that always attacks me at this ridiculously busy time of term, a query. Feel free to shred; I have t-rex-tough skin when it comes to this ;)

Moving halfway across Australia to Nowra, ca...

Oh yes.

Yup. Pretty much.

:D

Via @lianabrooks.

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Giveaway Winners

Thanks everyone who entered :o) It was fun to be able to give away so many books! I'll announce the winners in a second (or you can scroll down now...), but I just wanted to note a few housekeeping things.

1) This blog will be tidied up with a shiny front page and what not, and will be linked to from my website as the 'for writers' section.
2) The Declutter Manifesto blog will be linked to from the website as my blog.
3) Any announcements about give aways, new releases, and book-related stuff will be blogged directly to the website on the front page.
4) I think - think - that when I come back to writing, I will do so without the intent to seek traditional publication, but with the intent of self-publishing strictly as a hobby. That way I still have the fun of sharing with an audience, but without the pressure - and I'll not be doing it to try to run it as a business with all the associated promoting and schedules. Just. For fun. Like, only one step above, you know, publishing everything I write on the blog :P :D

So. That's me. Now the winners. The random generator has spoken and has even managed to choose four different winners for the four different books, which is happy :D Without further ado...

Krispy will receive the ebook Create-a-Plot Clinic
Andrea will receive the ebook The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs
Michelle will receive the preorder of The Raven Boys
and
Mirja will receive Paranormalcy!

I'll be in contact with you all to confirm details. Yay!

Farewell Giveaway!

Okay. So. First of all, just because I am closing this blog, it does not mean I shall be non-existent on the interwebs. I still have twitter, facebook, and the website (which needs updating - schedule that on the to-do list :P), and as hinted at the previous post, a new blog. If you want, you can come hang out with me at http://decluttermanifesto.wordpress.com.

Two things about that: One, I chose wordpress just so I didn't have to keep logging out of my email (gmail) all the time if I wanted to have it not connected to the profile I use on here, which I do, just because. And two, please don't be freaked out by the title. "Declutter" doesn't mean it's a cleaning blog. If that was the case, there'd be like one post on it EVER, outlining my tempestuous relationship with cleaning and leavning it at that :P No. It's about decluttering my HEAD as much as anything else, and it's a completely ecclectic bunch of stuff - basically whatever I'm reading/thinking about on the day. Rah.

Okay, next up, books. I have three books to give away: NYT BS Kiersten White's Paranormalcy; Holly Lisle's Create-a-Plot Clinic; and a pre-order of also-bestselling Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys, because OHMYGOSHYOUGUYS, this book is awesome.

To enter, leave a comment with your email address and which book you'd like to win (you can choose more than one). Or, if you don't like leaving your email in public places, form is below (feedreaders may need to click through). Entries close on August 25, so you have a week. Good luck! And thanks again, you guys. It's been great.


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Making the Beginning WORK

(Note: this post was composed about a month ago and lost in the deep dark depths of my harddrive.)

The beginning of anything is often the hardest: you have to overcome the intertia of not doing whatever it is you're about to start, and often you can be plagued by doubt or fear. What if I do it wrong? Can I actually do this? What will people think?

I've been writing for long enough now that beginning a new draft doesn't scare me so much any more. Where I used to prefer editing to drafting (my perfectionism was happy that it finally got a chance to make things RIGHT!), I now enjoy the freedom that drafting involves; it doesn't MATTER if I get it wrong, as long as I'm having fun :o)

That doesn't mean that beginnings are perfectly easy, though - they're just difficult in a different sense. As the Twitter peeps among you might have seen, I'm editing Sanctuary right now. Sanctuary is a YA fantasy, and I drafted a tentative blurb/query for it yesterday:

Moving halfway across Australia to Nowra, capital of nowhere, is the worst thing to ever happen to Edge. Three months on, she has no friends, the world’s most horrible bedroom, and no one to celebrate her fourteenth birthday with. Maybe that’s why she starts hallucinating that the butterfly is talking to her – though her dog seems to think the fairy is real enough. Sure, finding out she’s a Traveller, able to cross between worlds to Sanctuary, home of the fairies, is a definite bonus. Making a new friend and realising that Sanctuary might be everything she misses from home is pretty great, too. But then the shadows appear, ominous and blacker than black. Edge is determined to find out where they’re coming from – until she’s dragged from Sanctuary into the land of death and almost killed by them. Now Edge must decide if her new home is something worth fighting for – or if, you know, running away to the circus might be the saner option.

But I'm editing! How does this relate to beginnings? Because it's in edits that beginnings are now brain-pretzeling difficult. The internet is full of really good advice about how to begin your story: begin in the middle of the action, show your character's voice, avoid excessive backstory, avoid shock-for-the-sake-of-shock lines, show your conflict, and so forth. However, while this advice is all great an necessary, it's not what I'm struggling with (though, granted, there is currently ALL THE BACKSTORY eating up my first page, which is not so good >.<). What I'm struggling with is something that not a lot of people seem to talk about: the themes.

See, the first draft of Sanctuary ended REALLY WELL. I'm completely in love with the last handful of lines, and they never fail to generate that 'Awww!' feeling, which is what I want. But in order for them to work, they have to be set up in the beginning.

The beginning has an epic amount of work to do: it has to hook the reader, establish the action, set the scene, introduce the plot conflict - and it also has to introduce the thematic conflict. It has to give a taste of what's going to matter in the story, what the MC's main drive is, what they're fighting for. And that, right now, is what I'm struggling with.

Quitting and Proud

It's time. It's been coming for at least the last 9 months, but the time is finally here: I'm done. I'm quitting writing. Please understand, this is not said with the slightest trace of bitterness, regret, despair, or anger. A few days ago it might have been, but not now. Now it's said with a sense of freedom, liberation - and excitement.

I'm growing up, you see. Learning that I'm the one in charge of my own life, and if I don't take charge now, I'll wake up forty-five with schoolkids, stuck in a rut I didn't create for myself. I refuse to be a part of that future, and claiming my future means claiming my now. And my now of the last year or so involves far too much angst, over everything - evidenced by the fact that I saw the ear/now/throat surgeon yesterday, and while there are definitely operable structural issues (HOORAH, I WILL BE ABLE TO BREATHE), a large part of the problem is that I grind my teeth - and I grind my teeth because of stress.

It's been a slow and gradual process, a culmination of many, many conversations and blog posts and things read and seen and observed. It's knowing I spend far too much of my evenings on the computer; it's knowing that I'm spending the majority of my time dealing with urgent and not important; it's knowing that I can't physically, mentally or emotionally cope with everything I've set up as 'have to do'.

It's being inspired by declutter blogs, finding the blogs of wonderful women who speak to the issues of my heart, who care about the things I care about, who struggle with the things I struggle with. It's recognising the I want to spend more time being happy and less time being worried; it's erasing 'should' and 'have to' from my vocabulary.

It's learning to be kind to myself, to love myself, to recite love letters to my body every night as I towel off from my shower, to make time to relax, time to sit, time to breathe, time to be. It's finding silence, finding the moment, finding me.

It's finally, finally, finally, being set free from everyone else expectations, real, imagined, whatever. It's learning to see how I measure up to my own expectations, my real, personal, own ones, not the ones that life has forced onto me. It's laughing more, smiling more, running more, even though I get sweaty and bright red and the ungainly bits of me bounce. After all, sweat is the skin's best cleanser, right?

Most of all, it's learning about what makes me me. I'm quitting writing because I need silence, this kind of silence, and at the moment my world is full of words from first-breath to last-breath, and I can't hear who I am through the noise.

It's not a break, because that implies a specific intent to return. But it's not necessarily forever-quitting. I love stories, I live stories, I breathe stories. I may be back. But if I am, it will be because I've remembered how to love writing - and not because I need yet another way to measure my worth in terms of thing done, quantity acheive, how quickly I can master something.

I was scared to quit for so long, because my house is littered with 'Amy projects', things started and incomplete after the first fervour of passion has died away. But it has finally occurred to me that all things in life are not equal. I've never quit things to do with my work, my family, my God. So if I start hobbies and drop them much like college boys change their underwear, SO REALLY WHAT? All it means is that I'm creative, doncha know? O:) :D

So. I'm still going to be blogging, but it won't be here, because I won't be blogging about writing and there's bound to be a whole truckload of TMI. If you're interested in following me to my new home, there's contact tab just up there ^ on the blog. Shoot me something - email, tweet, FB, whatevs - and let me know, and I'll give you the address.

Otherwise, thank you. Thank you for sticking it out with me this long, for watching me mature and grow in my writing - and my life. Thank you, because even though I don't know most of you, it's amazing to know that there are people out there reading what I'm writing, that I'm not talking to a void. So thank you.

I have a few books that I collected to give away on here, so I'll do that before the end of the week. There is also one or two more posts already scheduled, so I'll let those post too. But other than that, this is it: the end of an era. I'm going to wave goodbye, close the door, and leave you all to party. Last one out switch off the lights, m'kay?

~Amy.

The Declutter Mission: A Manifesto

So, decluttering. I mentioned this in the busyness post last week. It's something that's been on my mind a lot for I guess the last year, since about halfway through being pregnant. See, I like having things neat and tidy and everything in it's place, but I'm very bad at actually doing this. A large part of the problem is that we simply own too much stuff. So Declutter Mission Part One: Get rid of some stuff. Part Two: Find homes for rest of stuff.

Semi-relatedly, I had the opportunity to go the Sydney Opera House with Mum last month to hear Michael Pollan talk. I had already devoured The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defence of Food, both of which I adore, and I was keen to hear what he had to say. He didn't present a lot of new information, given I'd read his two most prominent books, but it was excellent to have a reminder about his basic principles: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. And also to hear some of his thoughts on sustainability. He is pretty much responsible for making me interested in eating sustainably. So, Declutter Mission Part Three: Eat more sustainably. And Part Four: Eat real food.

Related to that is the idea of consumption. The commerce class way back in year 10 was the first time my eyes were really opened to the problems of consumption and distribution, and I was shocked to discover statistics about India and its ability to grow sufficient food for itself (at that time, it could easily grow enough food as a country to support itself, but the wealth was concentrated in the minority and most food exported. I imagine this is largely the situation still today). Other things throughout the years have prompted me to continue considering the issue of consumption, and you've heard about it from me before (see here re clothing, for instance). So, Declutter Mission Part Five: Consume less <--> waste less. Part Six: Consume responsibly - know where my consumables are coming from and the true cost of their manufacture.

Finally, time. Oh, time: how I both love and loathe thee. We never have enough time, but on the other hand, we all have the same amount of time, and it's not like we can magically generate more. We can, however, maximise our time (not forgetting to remember that 'wasted time' is a very real necessity, and can be maximised by scheduling it deliberately). I talk about this a lot. Personally, I spend way too much time procrastinating for fear of not getting things done. Yes, I know how utterly absurd that is. I am an absurd person; what can I say? O:) But anyway, that brings me to Declutter Mission Part Seven: Spend time intentionally. And that includes some scheduled*, intentional frittering ;)

*Which is not to imply I'm going to schedule every minute of my day; that's just asking for Teh Guiltz. I am, however, going to strive to be intentional about what I am doing at every moment, to be in the moment, and to not get distracted so much *stares pointedly at the 11 firefox tabs, twitter, two rounds of beta-ing and my work email all currently open*

So. That's my Declutter Manifesto. And if you're thinking it sounds remarkably similar to The Year of Less rules (which you probably aren't, because you probably didn't know it existed), well, what can I say: a good idea is a good idea. :o)

Addendum to Busyness: Having Kids

My husband hates reading, loathes writing and has been known to sneeze at the sight of books. In spite of this, or, I secretly suspect, because of this, he occasionally comes out with some absolute gems. His metaphors are frequently mixed but often ingenius, and his observations insightful. One that struck me at the time and has subsequently stuck with me was something he said when the Small Person was about six weeks old - and it meshes nicely with the Busyness article from the other day.

I can't remember the phrasing, but the gist was this: everyone complains that kids make you busy, and to some extent that's true. But mostly, if you treat it right, kids are the world's best excuse for slowing down. Everything takes ten times longer, which can be stressful if you're trying to do as much as you did before. But if you treat parenthood as the opportunity to weed out everything that doesn't matter and just focus on what does, life becomes slower, and so, so much more meaningful.

One day, I'll make him read this. For now, suffice to say that I'm glad I married him. <3

Busyness: The Ultimate Curse

Oh look, it's been nearly two weeks since I posted... Actually, I wrote a great long post last week about teaching and curriculum and wotnot, and then blogger ATE IT and because I'd just been essentially free writing, I couldn't remember what I'd said. It was tragic.

Anyway, have been doing lots of internet reading outside my usual hangouts, lately, and this article on busyness seemed ridiculously appropriate, given my excuse for not posting was going to be, "I've been busy" O:) Definitely go read it for yourself, but the best quotes are extracted below.

It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”

[We] feel anxious and guilty when [we] aren’t either working or doing something to promote [our] work.

It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.

[But] if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary. (That's a challenging one)

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets.


Conclusion? Life is too short to be busy.

Over the next month, I'm going to post here (sporadically, as always) about my goal for the rest of the year: decluttering, both my home, my head, and my calendar. Please feel very welcome to join me :o)