Heather Clitheroe's Blog, page 2

Since moving into the new place, I’ve been finding myself...

Since moving into the new place, I’ve been finding myself settling into new routines, new rhythms. Cooking for one, dishes for one, housework for one. One and a half, actually, since I’ve acquired a cat.

It’s nice to have him wandering around, saying ‘hrrRRRm?’ and taking toilet paper off the roll. I’m quite enjoying his company.

It’s been such a season of changes and good things. My story, ‘Wild Things,’ was included on a list of best short stories of the year on io9, which was really exciting. I’m slowly returning to a regular practice of writing, getting myself back into that mindset with the move done. I’m hoping that the cat feels he is a writer’s cat.

It’s been a long, long while since I posted — and a lot o...

It’s been a long, long while since I posted — and a lot of things have happened. I got a promotion at work. I got my own apartment. I started taking courses for a certificate for work. Things like that. Nothing huge, per se, but enough that it’s been hard to keep up with everything and some things were safely put the side.

Yesterday I ran my first 5K race.

And I actually ran most of it, though there was a lot of winded walking. Finished it in forty-four minutes and fifteen seconds, raised money for the Alberta Cancer Foundation, and had a great day. And came home to sit on the couch for most of the afternoon and evening, but hey, that’s okay. It was incredible to just do it, to get out there and try it. And I got a shiny medal, too.

My writing has taken a pause over the last few months. It hasn’t been the same fast, frequent pages of last year. With the turn of the new month, and things settling down into the new routine, I’m pledging myself to get back to that, to write my stories and see where they go. I’m trying.

New fiction!

My latest story, ‘Wild Things Got to Go Free,’ is available at Beneath Ceaseless Skies!

My cousin Ren was waiting for Mama in the kitchen, pacing. When he looked at me, I saw the flickering light in his eyes. He was going away, too. It looked like nobody would get to say goodbye to him properly, either. I hated the soldiers so much it hurt.

When the back door closed, Aisha went silently upstairs. Da picked me up, carried me to the rocking chair. He still hadn’t taken his boots off. There was mud all over the floor. “You can’t hold her to it, Leah,” he said. “She can’t come back for you.”

“She’s going to try. She told me so.”

“That doesn’t mean she can.”

I did not want to hear that. I pretended I hadn’t, as we sat and rocked together, staring at the empty fireplace. I was her special girl. Mama would come back for me.

Appearing on SofaCon.

I’ll be appearing on SofaCon 2015 on Sunday, March 15 at 5pm GMT (11am, mountain time) on the Women Destroy Science Fiction panel! I love the idea of an online convention…all the fun panels, but without the sore feet!

The Genius Loci Kickstarter is live!

The Genius Loci Kickstarter is finally up! The anthology will feature work by Seanan McGuire, Ken Liu, Wendy N. Wagner…and me, among others! The campaign was marked as a staff favourite on the first day, and it’s almost at the funded stage!

We’ve been having an incredibly mild winter in Calgary —...

We’ve been having an incredibly mild winter in Calgary — to the point where I was able to get my bike out and go for a ride this Sunday. And Monday. And Tuesday. And would have yesterday, if I’d been home. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the forty-below temperatures to come in with it, but so far…so lovely.

Meanwhile? I’m reading my way through a sci-fi novel I picked up in the States: Clean by Alex Hughes. It’s got a gritty feel to it — a police procedural, but with telepathy. I’m only a little way in, but I like the voice and the worldbuilding is interesting. I’ve got Barchester Towers on the go in the evenings, before bed. I’ve discovered a liking for Anthony Trollope. And I’m still lovingly making my way through Among the Selkirk Glaciers by William Spotswood Green. I picked it up in Banff a couple of years ago, and it’s such a delightful book that I’m having a very slow, deliberate read of it. Spotswood Green strikes me as somebody who would have been really fun to know.

Back from the desert.

I took a trip down to the American southwest recently — the first time I’ve headed somewhere warm during the winter. Talk about a change of pace. The smells, the weather, the sky — it was incredible.

I’m slowly and painstakingly trying to rewrite the book. It’s been a much slower process than I thought. No small amount of hubris in thinking I’d be done with revisions and sending it out, I suppose. But the longer the writing sits since that made dash to the ending in October, the more time there is to think about intentional choices in narrative, where the plot should go, what I want to do with the characters. It strikes me as being a good thing.

It’s been an interesting process. Blog writing dropped off. I’ve been reading less. Thinking more. And it doesn’t strike me as being a bad thing — not after a summer of writing as if it were a sprint. Last year was my most productive for publishing, but I have a feeling 2015 is going to be a slower, more methodical approach to my work. New season, I suppose, and it feels like it could be a very good thing.

The new year is rolling on — and on, and on. It’s been ve...

The new year is rolling on — and on, and on. It’s been very busy at work. All good things, but I’ve been kept hopping! I’ve started a certificate program in adult and community education for work, as well. Back to the books for me.

At work, we’ve started skating at lunch every other week. The ice is in at the Olympic Oval until the end of March, I think, and then we’ll switch over to walking.

Meanwhile? The city is enjoying a long and glorious chinook: warm and windy days. It’s been so lovely, though I can’t help but think that when the chinook blows out and the cold weather comes roaring back in we’ll suffer all the more for it. It’s been pleasant enough to feel like a false spring, and the real thing is months and months away!

Life is good. The writing has been going slowly lately, but it’s coming back on board. I have a story coming out in Beneath Ceaseless Skies later this spring, and I’m working on edits for the Genius Loci story. Novel revisions…well, those are slower, though I think the last few months have been a period of mulling and thinking, letting it settle as I try to work out what I want to do with the characters. I’ve got a vacation week coming up; the book is coming with me!

Things learned while skiing.

Happy holidays to you, and your family! Mine was spent quite happily; a really lovely Christmas eve perogy night at one household, turkey dinner at mine the next day. And then off to the mountains to learn to ski! We had beautiful weather for it, and I managed to get down a run at Sunshine Village after a day of lessons, and then worked on more lessons at Lake Louise.

Funny thing, the skiing. There comes a point when you have to stop trying to think about what you’re doing — you know that you need to put weight on this foot, turn your toes, try to keep the skis flat…all kinds of little thoughts and mental reminders. And it works for a little while — you can keep yourself going with this internal narrative of ‘do this, do that, okay now…’ And then you find yourself overthinking it. Scaring yourself about what you’re doing, second-guessing the effort. That’s when you start to fall. A lot.

There comes that point when you have to let go of that internal narrative and trust your body, trust the physics and the gravity, believe that the skis will turn themselves as you come around, and let your muscles work out what you need to do. Give over to what’s happening.

Huh. Funny little life lesson there, in between the wobbling around on the beginner’s slope and riding the chairlift. Trust and faith — and the moment when you have to let go of that sense of needing to be in control and thinking through everything: that’s when the three come together to begin to work on something new.

The work on the novel revisions are going slowly. As expe...

The work on the novel revisions are going slowly. As expected, I suppose — it sure took a while to write the first draft, not quite as long to write the second, and these revisions would represent a third draft. It’s harder than I thought it would be. Short stories are easier to fix: the plot holes stand out, and flipping back and forth through what you’ve written is a heck of a lot easier.

But it’s also pretty nifty — exciting, too — to work on something so long. I have a feeling the revisions will keep rolling for some time, but with luck, the third draft will be done before the end of the winter. Though in Calgary, that’s not necessarily saying much!