Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 183

Farewell to February

Well, the manuscript has gone, winging its way towards the offices of HarperCollins by carrier pigeon. (they're speedy these days!) Two books down, one to go. (and, not entirely coincidentally, I have figured out titles for the first few Nancy Napoleon novels, which is almost as good as having the books themselves written) March can officially begin, one day early!

I should be jubilant, but I'm too busy being sad about the result of the last Arsenal game – we beat Stoke 3-1, but it was...

Goals, and Gallifrey

I've been inhaling old episodes of Radio Free Skaro (Torchwood and children? That'll never work. And why haven't we seen the 456 on the promos? Have they not CGIed it yet?) in between current episodes of Radio Free Skaro, while drilling away on my manuscript formatting. Scrivener, it turns out, has all kinds of lovely features to allow you to compile a document for final submission, but it's taken a while to iron all the bugs out, and even now that it exists in a single doc (120,000 words...

Edited!

It's done! That is, it's not completely done – there are various tasks to be done, such as the arranging of scenes into chapters, the collation of the non-Scrivener doc (clings to Scrivener) and a final read through, all of which will happen over the weekend. But the scene by scene edit of The Creature Court Book Two: Cabaret of Monsters, the part that requires the absolute full on part of my brain, is done, finally.

I'm happy with the book. I've addressed all the things that I thought...

Nine scenes to go

Nine scenes to go.

Nine scenes to edit, one document to collate, eleventy zillion chapter headings to create, one novel to proof, four days to go.

I can totally do this.

Also, so far, staving off stomach bug. Wobbly, but not beaten.

I'm up to the last few scenes, the ones I was most worried about, the ones that have been quite deliberately left until last. And I'm finding that leaving them until last was the best possible decision, as it is allowing me to seed earlier a pretty major revelation ...

Scarlett & Swoosie

You might think from reading this blog that I have been doing nothing lately but interviewing Australian specfic and watching family members but – no! It's not true! I have also been READING.

In particular, over the last fortnight, I read two YA novels which made me feel happy about the existence of the universe.

First, Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson, the feel-goodier sequel to feel-good family-lives-in-New-York-art-deco-hotel novel Suite Scarlettt. Fans of the first book will be pleased ...

Meanwhile, back on the ranch

As the Snapshot 2010 interviews have been gathering steam, I've been working ferociously away at that other little side project of mine – the novel that's due in to the publisher's next week! Seven days to go and the family have all been struck down by some kind of lightning-swift stomach bug. I remain the only healthy one, which is in itself a terrible burden, but I also have a nasty taste in the back of my mouth…

All I can hope is that the insane numbers of antibiotics I am taking for...

Snapshot Etc.

Well, that was an exciting week! The Snapshot is officially over, and you can read an epilogue post over at the blog of Kathryn, our fearless leader this year. It was as ever, frantic and a touch on the crazy side. We battled with a shockingly unreliable gmail address that seemed to randomly eat a good percentage of emails we received, and did our best to cover as many of the active members of the spec fic community as possible.

I was excited to see so many interesting tales and...

Snapshot 2010: Tessa Kum

By day, Tessa Kum is a monkey with a keyboard. By night, she is also a monkey with a keyboard. She is a graduate of the Clarion South Writers Workshop, editorial assistant for Weird Tales, and assistant editor for the Best American Fantasy series. She has recently been published in Last Drink Bird Head and Halo: Evolutions, with forthcoming fiction in Baggage, and her mosaic short story collection 7wishes is currently free to read online. She lives in Melbourne, and would like an...

Snaphot 2010: Jennifer Fallon

Jennifer Fallon is the author of the Tide Lords series, the Second Sons trilogy and the Hythrun Chronicles, as well as writing tie-ins for Stargate and Zorro and has created a superhero for the Chick in Capes Anthology. She also has short stories coming out this year in Baggage and Jack Dann's Legends of Australian Fantasy.

Jennifer has just moved from Central Australia to New Zealand where she plans to run writer's workshops (as soon as her furniture arrives).

1. You've had a big upheaval...

Snapshot 2010: Penni Russon

Penni Russon is the author of the Undine trilogy – Undine, Breathe and Drift. More recently, she has written several mainstream YA novels for the Allen & Unwin Girlfriend series, including The Indigo Girls, Little Bird and (with Kate Constable) Dear Swoosie.

1. Dear Swoosie, which you co-wrote with Kate Constable, has just been released. How did the two of you manage the co-writing experience? Would you do it again?

We planned the novel before we started writing. We came up with India's...