reading

1 September, 2018

SPOOKY SEASON HAS ARRIVED!

AUTUMN’S HERE! WE MADE IT! Crunchy leaves, pumpkin spice, rainy reading days and crisp cold starry nights all lie ahead.

It’s autumn. My favourite season is upon us, and you guys, I am SO ready for it.

A seasonal autumn drink called a Pumpkin Spice latte with the text 'pumpkin spice & everything nice'

This summer has felt really unfocussed and unproductive, though looking back on that I wonder how much of that was just me… having a good time and enjoying summer. Doing summery things.

I’m still actively working hard to get away from my past ‘MUST BE WRITING ALWAYS’ attitude. I achieved a lot in these last few months! It’s just very different stuff to what I used to define as productivity. I used to measure productivity in finished manuscripts and wordcount, but instead these last few months are measured in social events, new things tried, experiences had, and good habits formed. It’s quite a shift to get used to.

I had an awesome summer, full of Dungeons & Dragons and travel, and I’m looking forward to talking more about it over the next few days with my June, July and August recap posts.

Now we’re hitting peak books-and-writing season, and I’m ready to get my words in order.

With that in mind, some goals for the month ahead:

WRITING: Finish the Divide the Sky (epic fantasy with m/m romance) edit
WRITING: Write 30k.
WRITING: Blogging catch-up! Buckle up for the June, July and August recap posts as well as a one-year-overdue Helsinki photo post.
WRITING: Get to Week 5 of the Couchto80k writing course.
WRITING: Start the Witch of the Western Isles (urban fantasy with f/f romance) book rewrite

READING: Read 6 books, with a focus on finishing all the ones I’ve started but not finished because my focus was so scattered this summer. I’ll be joining in mind-reader Miss Cole’s amazingly named SEPTEMBER TBR PILE DECIMATION challenge as I tackle those six books!
It’s a bit funny looking back at when I last did this challenge in July 2015. Some of those books are still sitting on the TBR pile. …Woops.

HEALTH: Lose over 5lbs.
HEALTH: Finish Couch to 5k and start doing regular 5k lunchtime runs with the Zombies, Run! app
HEALTH: Continue increasing strength work to build up core strength/squats/quads for roller derby.

LISTEN: Listen to The Night of Cake and Puppets by Laini Taylor, the Alice Isn’t Dead Podcast, the Bright Sessions.
LEARN: Finish the Mindshift course.
ART: Create and share five illustrations.

LET’S GO GO GO! Onwards into autumn! I’ll leave you with a surreal autumnal Tumblr post that always makes me laugh.

young man
there r leaves all around
i said young man
eat a leaf off the ground

i said young man
won’t they make a cool sound
when you stuff! them! in! your! leaf hole
Tumblr users puppercat (first verse) and r5h (second verse). SOURCE.

(Please do not actually eat leaves.)

Love,
Emma

GIF of a dancing man with a pumpkin mask on

11 June, 2014

Hayfever-y Road Trip Wednesday

*SNEEZES MORE THAN ANY HUMAN BEING SHOULD SNEEZE*

sneezingsimba

What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, allowing us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what’s up. It was created by created by Jaime and Erin. Want to join the party? Go right ahead, and remember to leave a link to your What’s Up Wednesday post in the widget on Jaime´s blog.

What I’m Reading

the-snake-charm-cover (1) If you’ve been following my Twitter, where I am infinitely more interesting and witty than here, you might have seen me fangirlnig about Laura Lam‘s new novella, THE SNAKE CHARM.

Here’s my Amazon review:

Oh, man, I loved this little story. It reads a lot like a smaller scale version of “Pantomime”: a quick read (maybe 2 hours, depending on your reading speed) but with the same twists, turns, atmosphere and fight scenes.

It’s also completely standalone, and if you haven’t read Laura’s “Pantomime” I’d read this first — it adds even more depth to the circus members.

I’m now reading J.B. Rockwell’s BREAKSHIELD, and I’ll fangirl more about that this time next week. But I want you to know that it contains adorable foxes.

foxgif

What I’m Writing

Still revising. In that odd little point of space and time where ideas take shape about of absolutely nowhere, and plot issues seem to just unknot themselves in the moments when I’m doing nothing much at all.

It’s a strange and magical part of the process, though it’s all frustrating as all hell because there’s no way to predict it and no way to speed it up.

What Inspires Me

Procrastination, for all its faults, seems to be inspiring me at the moment. Brain down-time is important.

Also, this comic should strike a chord with all writers:

writingpanel1 writingpanel2

writingpanel3

writingcomic

Source is this artist. (Page autoplays music.)

What Else I’ve Been Up To

On a running break to recover from some minor ailments, and I’m on a driving lesson break while my instructor goes on holiday, so there’s not much to talk about here.

I’ve been posting little dairies of my running training so far, and you can read PART ONE and PART TWO if you’re interested in the foibles of a newbie runner.

Just writing and reading. And sneezing.

7 May, 2014

Carry On, Wayward Learner Driver

THERE’LL BE PEACE WHEN YOU ARE DOOOOONNNEEEEEE.
LAY YOUR WEARY HEAD TO REEESSSTTT.
DON’T YOU CRY NO MORE.

(I almost forgot to title this post. Aren’t you glad I remembered and just got that song stuck in your head?)

What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, allowing us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what’s up. It was created by created by Jaime and Erin. Want to join the party? Go right ahead, and remember to leave a link to your What’s Up Wednesday post in the widget on Jaime´s blog.

What I’m Reading

I’m still powering my way through the beta reading queue, and feeling lucky to know so many talented writers.

What I’m Writing

I finished my CampNaNo deadline last week with hopes of just collapsing in a pile of worn-out Emmaness, I have done a lot of collapsing in worn-out heaps, mostly due to my recent acquisition of a chest cold, but I’ve still been writing at a steady pace.

This month’s goal is a relaxed 20k, and I’m at 6k so far.

Right now I’m rewriting the ending of ALL THE BROKEN THINGS. Ending rewrites are simultaneously the hardest thing and the most rewarding thing.

I’m looking forward to getting back to work just after I hit ‘publish’ on this post!

What Inspires Me

Sleep. Sleep inspires me.

I LOVE SLEEP, you guys. And I will never get enough of it.

What Else I’ve Been Up To

Driving is still going well! I babble about it over on Twitter on the actual driving days, but in short: nobody has died. This is the most important thing. And my driving confidence is slowly but steadily rising. I can now do things that would previously seem unthinkable: driving at 60mph! Tackling roundabouts! Traffic lights! Fixing problems like the wrong gear choice without panicking and stalling!

impala

Dave and I also took Mac swimming by the beach last night, so have some gratuitous photos of our Labrador enjoying a nice evening.

macswimming macswimming2

I hope your week has been going well and continues going awesomely. I’m looking forward to hopping around everyone’s blogs today!

23 April, 2014

Eastercon Withdrawal Starts Now

This is the second CampNaNoWrimo edition of this weekly blog.

What I’m Reading

amonstercalls This has been a week of powering through beta reading, but since I can’t talk about all those awesome projects, I’ll talk about the one published book I did read: A MONSTER CALLS by Patrick Ness.

It’s THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE meets THE FAULT IN OUR STARS meets WONDER with snarky tree monsters and so many, many feelings. So many.

It’s a true gem of a book. Read it.

(I read the ebook, which was great, but I’ve heard the illustrated physical book is even better.)

What I’m Writing

I’m currently at 15,000 words written this month.

My CampNaNo goal of 35k is looking like it’s going to be tricky to meet. aNo surprise there, since it was over-optimistic back when I first set it. Still, I’ll try to hit it. I’ve got about 30 notebook pages scribbled down over Eastercon to type up, so that’ll give me a good boost forwards.

Anyway, the wordcount isn’t the most important thing. The important thing is that the work I’m doing (a rewrite of BROKEN THINGS) seems to be fitting together much better and making a lot more sense. I’m getting more and more excited about this project the closer it gets to being ready for beta readers.

I’m cautiously optimistic that this edit might actually be DONE by the end of April. That would’ve seen impossible back at the start of the month.

What Inspires Me

I was at Eastercon this weekend, a sci-fi/fantasy convention running in Glasgow over the long weekend, and it was a nice break where I could focus on reading and writing. Seeing writer-friends in the flesh as well as various new faces and industry professionals is an energizing experience, and it’s definitely spurring me on this week!

What Else I’ve Been Up To

Eastercon adventures! It was great to see Rob and Jenny Haines, Laura Lam (who has a great con recap here), Andrew Reid and his partner @Miyulinka, @CamJohnston, Lisa, Den Patrick, Juliet Mushens and many others.

The weekend was really, unseasonably sunny, which confused the heck out of me and my rucksack full of jumpers. But I survived, and also discovered the wonders of Bier Halle, everyone’s favorite Glaswegian restaurant (and post-apocalyptic hangout spot, since it’s deep underground and could withstand almost anything).

Look at this tastiness: bierhalle

Also, shout out to the lady dragging a cross through St George’s square on Saturday. You confused the living daylights out of me, but it was an interesting march.

crossglasgow

How has your Easter weekend been?

4 September, 2013

I Keep Forgetting to Put Titles on My Blog Posts

It’s September! SEPTEMBER! What is happening to time?Where has this year gone?

I haven’t caught up with you all in a few weeks, so it’s time for a big ol’ update. What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly post, created by blog friends Jaime and her sister Erin!

What I’m Reading

I went into hardcore reading mode in August, and blitzed through quite a few titles. It was nice to get some solid reading progress.

At the moment I’m reading Bird by Bird (if you’re a writer, READ THIS) and Charm and Strange (slow to start, but I’m half-way through and it’s amazing). I’ve also got The Lives of Tao back from some work colleagues who took a shine to it, and I’m looking forward to finally finding out how Wes Chu’s action-packed spy story ends!

What I’m Writing

I’ve been working on incorporating beta feedback on DIVIDE, and man, I’ve had some absolutely amazing advice from talented writers Rob Haines and Michael F Stewart. If you want to be in the second beta round, shoot me an e-mail (emma@emmamaree.com) and I will use your e-mails as motivation to revise with haste!

I’m also drafting out a few short stories and a super-secret-project for fun.

What Else I’ve Been Up To

I passed my theory test! *bounces* I’m so excited about that. Now I’m getting back to work on practical lessons.

As a reward for passing, Dave got me the excellent card games Star Fluxx and Pirate Fluxx. If you’ve never played Fluxx, it is one of the easiest card games out there to grasp: Draw one card, play one card. And from that one simple rule, things get interesting…

I also got a Chromebook as a portable writing machine. It worked well so far, especially after I got the ‘search’ key functioning as caps lock — I’m a self-taught touch typist, so I’m in the habit of quick-tapping caps lock the same way most people use shift.

(His name is Chronos, because the delivery tracker has him time travelling — I got a notice at 9pm on dispatch day to say he’d apparently been in transit since 9am. But there was a “problem”. That “problem” was them resolved, and he continued his journey that evening at 11pm.)

It’s a light weight machine with a lot of battery power, and plenty of power to handle my writing needs. However, it struggles a bit if I procrastinate and start opening a hundred tabs. This, it turns out, is for the best.

It also boots up from power off in no time at all (six seconds, maybe) and wakes up from sleep in a flash. It’s handy for a pick-up-and-go writing machine, and the constant saving to Google docs mean I can flip the screen down and fall asleep without worrying about finding a power socket or e-mailing myself a backup of the file.

(I still send myself and my Kindle back-ups regularly, though, because it’s unwise to rely entirely on the cloud.)

On a similar tech-geek tangent, have you seen the 2nd generation Kindle Paperwhite? (Old news for US readers, brand new for UK readers.) I’m kind of impressed by that pice tag, and if Kindle Matchbook hits UK shores (a program which sends you a free or reduced-price the e-book version when you buy selected physical book, similar to Angry Robot’s clonefiles initiative) I’ll probably be swayed to get one…

10 July, 2013

What’s Up Wednesday

I’ve just finished my IT job of six years, and now I’ve got a week to get my life in order before my new job starts.

It’s nice being able to get a full nights sleep, heh. I need to take more holidays.

What I’m Reading

It’s been a super busy week, so I’m still on Wes Chu’s excellent THE LIVES OF TAO. When I’m done, I’ll be moving onto BLOOD AND FEATHERS: REBELLION, the sequel to one 0f my favourite 2012 releases. It’s a good month for reading.

What I’m Writing

Editing is going pretty good — 50% done!

I hate editing, quite fiercely, so I’m glad I’ve finally got a system that works for me. These edits are being done entirely long-hand on a print out — the typing up will come afterwards, and it’ll be interesting to see how long that takes.

What Inspires Me Right Now

You lot are my main inspiration just now. Thank you for writing away, writer friends, and encouraging me to keep up the hard work. Sorry I haven’t been as active in the comments — I’ll remedy that shortly.

The Rainymood site, as always, remains my loyal companion and concentration aid.

What Else I’ve Been Up To

Two driving lessons down! I’m still at that awkward stage where I have to think about everything I’m doing, and eventually I fumble under all the different steps and do something stupid like hit the brakes instead of the accelerator. I can’t wait until that fabled moment drivers have been telling me about, when I start doing part of the work automatically.

I’m only two hours in, though. That’s something I really have to keep in mind when I start getting annoyed at myself for not picking it up faster.

Got a haircut tomorrow and another driving lesson at the weekend. With a bit of luck I’ll be able to sneak a gym trip into my schedule too.

Busy times! And now it’s back to editing I go…