road trip wednesday

6 August, 2014

What’s Up, August?

Yikes, it feels like weeks ago that I was panicking about it being 2014. Now it’s August. This whole year has basically been one long stretch of me panicking about how quickly time is flying past, and I’m still feeling that panic.

But I’m here. Back home in my cosy little website after some time away. So let’s slow it down and get back into the swing of things, shall we?

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 last few weeks have been a bit chaotic, but remarkably, my reading habits have remained steady throughout.

My favourite read lately has been THE FALCONER by Elizabeth May, a fast-paced crossover historical fantasy novel. It’s the story of Kam, a debutante who keeps ditching dances and tea appointments so she can hunt down faeries across steampunk Victorian-era Scotland.

If that description doesn’t sell you on this story, I’m not sure what else I can do. STEAMPUNK SCOTLAND. FANTASTICALLY-RESEARCHED CELTIC MYTHOLOGY. SPOT-ON SCOTTISH ACCENTS.

I looooveeee it. I love the UK cover, too. It’s so fiery and beautiful.

falconer

Now, onto The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, which so far has been giving me similar feelings of Celtic pride. It captures the island life perfectly.

What I’m Writing

I’m still in the end stretch of my WIP, which got waylaid a bit during the last few weeks when Iv was unable to get any writing done. Still close to the finish line.

I’m actually in that odd stage of intense writing where things like exercise and sleep fall by the wayside. That’s great in some ways, but it has obvious knock-on effzzZZZzzzzzz

What Inspires Me

I’m just going to use this space to post cute dog photos today. Here we go, have Mac (my labrador) and Gizmo (my parents’ Lhaso Apso) after a very brief falling out.

gizmoandmac2

Also, a bonus picture of the port town of Ullapool.

ullapool

What Else I’ve Been Up To

I’ve been involved in some fun little Twitter projects where I hear my own accent recorded, and the accents of those I know. That’s been very cool.

accents

My running’s been on pause lately due to injury, but I’ve been doing long stretches of walking instead which challenges me in different ways.

river river2

All in all, I’m just kinda chillin’. Taking things slow. I’m looking forward to catching up on what everyone’s been up to!

11 December, 2013

Ho-Ho-Hohdear, It’s December

IT’S DECEMBER! IT’S WEDNESDAY! And it’s time for an update on all things me-related.

What I’m Reading

I’m in the middle of an Open Uni course aimed at allowing music-lovers to clearly describe the different styles and shapes of music out there, as well as understanding the underlying techniques. So I’m reading a ton about musical form and structure. My trick is to imagine celebrities reading the words. Sometimes Johnny Lee Miller or Benedict Cumberbatch. When I’m reading about software testing it’s GlaDOS from Portal. (She loves to test.)

On the book front, I am (unsurprisingly) five books behind my yearly goal. However, by the end of the year I’ll have read at least two full novels for beta reading (three if you count my own, haha).I’m also catching up on beta reading, slowly, but surely. If I have a manuscript of yours to beta, rest assured I’m getting to it, but life’s been crazy and it’s hard to catch up. Next year I’ll cut down on beta reading requests.

What I’m Writing

I’m on a writing break for all of December, but I’m… twitchy. This recharge break means ideas are popping up out of nowhere, trying to lure me back to my stories.

But for now, reading takes priority.

What Inspires Me

Taking a break from writing is, oddly, extremely inspiring. It’s a great way to get the ideas going again. I’d forgotten how necessary brain-rest is.

Also, I’ve been really enjoying Sleepy Hollow. It has a lot of things I love about my other 2013 fav show Elementary (sarcasm, murders, male and female leads working closely together without romance, super adorable characters, brilliant female characters, varied ethnicities, interesting cops) with a whole lashing of fun supernatural elements. Also Ichabod Crane is REALLY good-looking.

It’s not a perfect show but I love it to pieces.

Also, this gallery of work by Korean artist JeeYoung Lee is amazing. She transform her tiny studio into some really surreal, beautiful designs.

Black birds, 2009 — ©‎JeeYoung Lee/OPIOM Gallery

What Else I’ve Been Up To

We’ve had some crazy weather here lately.

The photograph on the left is our nearest city, Inverness, where the river banks overflowed during the rain, now and gale force winds that hit us last week.

When I’ve not been surviving the crazy weather, I’ve been wrapping Christmas presents and trying to make sure everyone’s accounted for. Christmas is… stressful. It’s been years since I was in an unstable financial situation, but Christmas knocked my bank balance to the lowest it’s been in years. It brought back a lot of panic and worries, old ingrained stresses from the time when we were literally in poverty.

I sorted it all out eventually (and asked for help, eventually), but yeah. Turns out being broke and nearly homeless has long-lasting effects on your ability to enjoy the holiday season.

When not stressing, I’ve been listening to some fun music as part of my music course.

Queen — We Will Rock You
(Good example of: a very clear ‘pulse’ or beat running through a song.)

The Darkness — I Believe In A Thing Called Love
(Good example of: the 4/4 time signature, the most common time signature in rock, country, blues and pop music.)

Linkin Park — What I’ve Done
(Good example of: 4/4 common time. This style of music makes the pattern particularly easy to pick out.)

6 February, 2013

Best Book of January!

Today, for their Road Trip Wednesday question for bloggers, YA Highway asked: What’s the best book you’ve read this January?

Oooh, tough one when you look at everything I read last month…

I’m going to discount all the comics, which narrows it down to Pandemonium, Seraphina, and Teeth. Seraphina and Teeth are my clear favourites, but if I had to pick one… it’d be Seraphina.

It’s just such a fun, refreshing YA fantasy, (whereas Teeth was a very dark read and quite ruthless with the emotions). My review should be up tomorrow!

15 November, 2012

Writing Motivation!

Today, for their Road Trip Wednesday question for bloggers, YA Highway asked: Tons of writers are in the midst of NaNoWriMo, trying to stay inspired as we reach the dreaded middle. Share your most inspiring and/or motivational video, book, or quote on writing!

Which is rather convenient, given a new page appeared on my site last week designed to help out aspiring writers with motivational videos, useful reading material, and my own posts on things like what motivates me. So needless to say, I’ll be gleefully diving through everyone’s responses for useful things to add to my list.

Generally, for motivation, I find I just need the kick to remind me to get back to work — Chuck Wendig’s “25 Things” lists are great for this.

And for true, instant motivation, nothing beats suddenly figuring out a plot problem or being hit by a great idea for a story.

My favourite motivational book is “On Writing” by Stephen King. I haven’t read “Bird By Bird” but I’m tempted to buy it — any thoughts, blog friends?

22 August, 2012

The Love List!

Today, for their Road Trip Wednesday question for bloggers, YA Highway asked: Inspired by Stephanie Perkins’ post on Natalie Whipple’s blog, what is your novel’s “Love List”?

Stephanie calls a ‘Love List’ a list of those ideas that sparked the fires of my mind. The Love List for ‘Rebel Against Heaven’ is not quite a happy and light as Stephanie’s, which is probably to be expected when it’s not a light or fluffy novel. But it’s fun to remember all the things that stirred my passion for the story:

Showing an extremely damaged, hurt and angry character fight to redeem himself. This is definitely one of the core concepts: a ticking timebomb of a guy who’s about to self-destruct and bring everyone else down with them.
Nice suits
English accents. Early draft Tyler was extremely posh, stilted middle class. Now he’s still middle class, but coarser and angrier.
Angst. Lots of angst. Buckets of the stuff.
Revenge
Justice
Japanese Anime
Christian mythology and the non-canon works that expanded the world (Dante’s Inferno, Paradise Lost and the Book of Enoch)
Flying (and the theoretical science behind it)
The ‘Murmuration’ video
Booze!
Complex romantic relationships and friendships, something different from the tired love triangle set-up.
Lots and lots of My Chemical Romance songs. (I REGRET NOTHING.)

And here’s the love list for the work-in-progress I like to refer to as ‘ giant robots and the girls who fix them’. It’s bound to get longer (and, knowing me, darker) as the story evolves:

A very different kind of monster
Badass ladies doing male-dominated jobs
RAF Kinloss
Computers and the IT industry
GIANT ROBOTS
Scotland, the sea, and the Western Isles
Scottish accents and Gaelic
Creepy manipulative, controlling YA love interests getting the punch in the face they deserve.
That self-assessing, self-dissecting part of being a teenager where you’re trying to figure out what defines you and how the rest of the world will see you.

Looking forward to seeing all the other love lists being posted today. :)

25 July, 2012

The Reincarnation Question!

Today, for their Road Trip Wednesday question for bloggers, YA Highway asked: If you could be reincarnated as any fictional character, which would it be?

Reincarnated, eh?

What about regenerated instead?

I’ve been waiting a long time for the BBC to bring in a female timelord, and I guess I’m stepping up to the theoretical plate now. Because if I could be anyone, anyone at all, you can bet I want to be the alien who can travel through time and space.

Now I can’t wait to see what everyone else picks, especially if I’m going to be joined in the TARDIS by a few other timelords-to-be!