Storybook Perfect

Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

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Random Title Generator Fun

August 15, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Thanks to Chuck Wendig’s Flash fiction challenge this week I’ve discovered a very fun little toy for writers, the random title generator. The challenge only told us to write one story from the five the machine will generate. I did that. But there were some other good titles even in just that roll, so I rolled a few more times, and now I’m sharing those random titles (the good and the ‘ummm what?’ alike) for your amusement.

 

Bloodstained Doctor – I can’t think of anything not fanfiction, I’m hardwired that way I think…

Stars of the Phantom – oooh, this would make a cool little novella or something as a sequel to my novel ‘Written By The Stars’

Worm’s Comet – that’s the one I did, click the link to read it 😀

The Sun of the Living Waters – I’ve got an idea tingling, but it’s not strong as of yet

Reckless’s Hieroglyph – yes that’s an apostrophe, not a typo

In the Mistletoe of the Secret Jewels – yeah, what?

The Casket of the Iron Cosmic Pain – sounds too emo for me

Above a Pirate With a Rules – yay for grammar ;p

Accusing Child Under Red Doom – ok then

Strange War On Copper Cindarella – sounds kinda mythpunky, I might be able to do something with that

Beyond the Trail – why hello, I can definitely do something with this.

Guardian’s Devil – hmmmmm

Accidental Graveyard With Midnight Moonlight – I could do something with this, but I need to figure out how the weird phrasing in the title can work nicely into the story

Come Apocalypse – I do love me an apocalypse.

Link Shadow – more fan fiction, I won’t go there ;p

 

The-Guided-Fate-Paradox-logoAlso, I just learned about a new JRPG and it has the most amazing I’m-totally-jealous-I-didn’t-come-up-with-that-first title.

“The Guided Fate Paradox”.

Worse still it releases November (in America, no word on Aussie release date as of yet). No pretty game, don’t shatter my NaNoWriMo!

I’m currently working on my third attempt at a story for my group’s anthology (I keep blowing out the word count) and it’s tentatively title “The Eighteenth Soldier”.

A Quick Word On Determination

August 12, 2013 / / 3 Comments

You have a dream right? Most people do. Mine is pretty obvious I think. So I ask you, what are you doing to make your dream come true?

keep-calm-and-pull-your-socks-upYou know that friend who dreams of winning the lotto, but never buys a ticket? If you aren’t doing something to get yourself closer to your dream, then same thing (though you’re more likely to be hit by lightning than win lotto, fact!) Do something about your dream. Make steps toward it, even if it’s only baby steps (like writing 100 words a day).

Today I’ve been sick (won’t go into details, don’t want to gross you out), but I still managed to edit some work and send off a submission. That’s what determination does.

I’m not saying you always gotta work through the pain and illness, just that one excuse becomes another and another and before you know it you haven’t taken any steps toward your dream in a week, a month, a year… You’ve got to have determination to work through the excuses that aren’t really valid.

I have friends who put even my efforts today to shame.

I wasted enough of my younger years just dreaming, never really working. Don’t let yourself fall in the same trap.

Don’t just “follow your dream”, overtake it.

Worm’s Comet – Super Flash Fiction

August 11, 2013 / / 0 Comments

A little flash fiction inspired to life by Chuck Wendig’s weekly flash fiction challenge (I swear I’m going to go back and do a few old ones since I seem to be raring to go today).

You use a random title generator which is friggin’ gold for inspiration (though some of the results make you cock an eyebrow).

Anyway, the first of my random titles and some seriously flash flash fiction at only 101 words,

image shamelessly stolen from Game of Thrones

image shamelessly stolen from Game of Thrones

Worm’s Comet

Fingers clawed through the dirt. Stones ripped nails from fingers, blood soaking into the soil. Grit ground in teeth, grating as the taste of loam filled his mouth.

His head broke through the surface at last. He spat out the dirt and sucked in the fresh air. Free at last.

Overhead a crimson comet lit the early evening sky, streaking southerly.

He looked at the sky, stars winking to life. He admired the crimson glow. That blood-red comet, that harbinger of doom, that was his comet. It warned the world that he was here now, Worm was coming for them all.

The New Who

August 7, 2013 / / 2 Comments

true whovianThere’s a lot of talk about the new Doctor Who – but isn’t there always?

I’m open to the new actor playing the Doctor. He looks pretty cool, and I can’t wait to see how his personality will be different. This isn’t to say there’s no apprehension at all, but I’m definitely looking forward to meeting the latest regeneration, even though my heart is totally broken that Smith is leaving. I just know I’m going to ugly cry when I watch it. I’m talking serious ugly cry, snot, puffy red eyes, no dry skin on my face anywhere but my forehead – ugly cry. I did for Tennant, I’m know I will for Smith, hell, I’ll probably do it for Capaldi when it’s his turn.

50thNeil Gaiman has some interesting and promising things to say about Capaldi, as well as what could be done about the ‘regeneration limit’. You can find the post here, it’s not too long and well worth the read (and not just because I fan-girl all over Gaiman(though I can’t deny that comes into play)).

I remember last time, when they announced Tennant was leaving and Smith would be the new Who. At the time I had a personal blog(just diary and random thoughts, nothing cohesive, and like most blogs of it’s ilk died within a few months), and I’m pulling a few quotes from some posts I did regarding that subject, as the words still have truth to them.

Looking Forward to Falling In Love

January 4, 2010

I’m a little worried about they way everyone is behaving towards the new Doctor.

I’ll freely admit, I’m worried I won’t love this new Doctor as utterly as Tennant’s Doctor, but the way everyone is talking it seems most people have already decided they don’t like Matt Smith, which I can’t quite figure out, since he’s only been on screen as the Doctor for about a minute so far, so how have people already made up their minds about him?

I think it might be like the response of a petulant child when they have to face change. They loved the old toy and rather than actually trying the new one they instantly decide it couldn’t possibly be as good as its predecessor so don’t even give it a chance.

It upsets me a little to think that this poor guy has to face lower ratings simply because no one wants to even try and see if the new series will be good. For all we know Matt Smith might be truly amazing. In fact, I’m quite looking forward to him after watching him worry he might have regenerated into a girl because his hair is long.

I remember watching Eccleston regenerate into Tennant and wondering who this skinny, metro-looking guy was, but as I came to know him a little better I fell in love with him. I’m very much looking forward to falling in love with Smith’s Doctor too.

Wow, I hope my husband doesn’t read this blog and get worried ;p

I still feel the same now, with this new actor. The picture up the top sums it all up for me.

a new doctorAnd to wrap up, another old post from my personal blog (no, I’ll never link to it, it was shameful and full of pointless rambling (same here you say? Then leave ;p )), about ‘Nostalgia for the future’ a very wibbly wobbly timey wimey concept that relates back to the Doctor’s regeneration.

 

2 January 2010

I did like getting a little glimpse at the new Doctor, but I’m still full of apprehension about the new Doctor. I loved – no love, still present tense – David Tennant’s Doctor so much I’m not sure I’ll be able to love the new Doctor as deeply. I’m sure he won’t be horrid, no casting agent would be silly enough to select someone who could not act well, and we’ve already established how I feel about the writers!

So we’ll be safe, I’ll like him, but will I love him? The anticipation is almost titillating!
I’ll admit freely for you all, I have only watched the newer Doctors, Eccleston and Tennant. When I was a child I saw an episode of an earlier Doctor, and the Daleks scared my eight year old self so bad I used to rush to the TV and switch it off the second I heard the opening music, an aversion which stuck with me for years until my lovely husband sat down one day almost two decades later and asked me: “Have you ever seen the Doctor?”.

Together we’ve been hunting down dvd’s of the older episodes so I can watch them and hopefully love the older Doctors also. I’m looking forward to stumbling across the episode that terrified me as a child.

Nostalgia for the future. How unique. How the Doctor.

So, Mr Capaldi, I’m looking forward to falling in love with you too <3

An Amazing Photo

August 7, 2013 / / 3 Comments

Not much of a post today, but I really wanted to share this utterly insane photo with you.

It’s a picture of Tokyo as viewed from Tokyo Tower, it is zoomable and has the full 360degree view.

I am trying so hard not to waste time looking for futons airing over balcony railings and trying to read the names on the posts in the Buddhist cemetery. Now I pass the time-wasting on to you ;p

July Goals Round-Up

August 4, 2013 / / 0 Comments
I barely escaped the time consuming grasp of this game

I barely escaped the time consuming grasp of this game

My July round-up won’t be looking too shabby. You want to know how I know? Well if I stopped playing Animal Crossing 3DS because there was no time around all this work (and didn’t feel dreadfully tempted to jump back in) then it must have been uber busy! (Oh man, my town is going to be so full of weeds)

This month I created two new short stories (‘Glass Bones’ and ‘Nightfall’ the second of which I’ve polished and am awaiting critique group feedback on (I should get that today)) and also wrote a little over 3,000 new words in Keys, Clocks, Quests finally getting the book to the big twist/game changer (it might seem like an average high fantasy quest to this point and then BAM! I love it, in case my enthusiasm wasn’t a hint). Also, after long talks with my fabulous husband decided to begin early works on a YA trilogy. It’s in the early days of hammering out a decent plot from the loose ideas I sketched a while back, but I figure if it’s interesting to TJ it must be pretty good(the benefits of having a blunt husband). I’ve also kept up strong with submissions and added another finally good enough story to my submittable list.

In learning I critiqued a lot this month in preparation for both my critique group and the MJ Hyland fiction master class (which technically I attended in August so I won’t discuss here) and I attended the ‘Getting Published’ workshop run by Annette Barlow from Allen & Unwin’s Faber Academy(you can learn a little more about that by reading my previous post on Byron Bay Writers’ Festival workshops). If you want to know what all that critiquing taught me you can check my post here.

So it was a good month, but since I’m now past the halfway mark of the year, I’m looking at the actual goals I set myself last year and I’m frowning. I have barely touched #4, only briefly dabbled with #1, every time I try #2 I throw my hands up in the air in frustration (something is wrong but I can’t seem to pinpoint it, the very definition of frustration), work on #3 has come in dribs and drabs since I seem to be blessed with a killer new idea every few thousand words I write – and the idea usually is for a different story – and #6 I really shouldn’t be struggling so much with, but I keep thinking what’s the point of a newsletter when I have so little to report right now?

I need to buckle down on some of those other goals before the time slips right through my fingers. Hopefully, next month I’ll have some good news on a few of them.

I hope your month was just as full of productivity.

Byron Bay Writers’ Festival Workshops

August 1, 2013 / / 4 Comments

I’m totally AFK at the moment.

I’m down in Bryon Bay for several of the writers festival workshops and made the dreadful mistake of leaving my laptop at home. Oh folly! The only reason I’m able to write this post is because I downloaded the WordPress app for my phone. So you are currently reading my first post written from my phone (let’s see how many words autocorrect will mutilate!).

Yesterday I attended a ‘Getting Published’ workshop with Annette Barlow. The workshop is geared toward enabling writers to better understand what it is publishers want from you.

I enjoyed hearing a publisher’s viewpoint of everything. The class is one of the classes offered (or a splinter from the classes offered) by Faber Academy, Allen and Unwin’s writer academy (I’ll provide links when I’m not on my phone).

Today I attended a fiction master class with MJ Hyland. Her critiquing techniques were really interesting and thought provoking, but I was definitely the odd duck since I was the only genre writer in a room full of literary fiction and YA writers. I loved the interrogating she did to help people get to the core of their plots. I’ll try to write about that in more detail later (perhaps when I’m not on my phone).

All this is a very long winded way of saying I’ll be posting my goals round up post late ;p

Writers’ Group Or Critique Group?

July 28, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Yesterday I attended the first Writers’ Group Convention in South bank with several members of my critique group.

I'm looking for a little less this...

I’m looking for a little less this…

I love my group, as anyone who’s read any of my posts about them knows, but I also wish I could meet more than once a month. Some months (like this one) are very productive and I create a lot of new stuff and I want feedback, but I hate to ask some people for help because I know they already have a lot on their plate. So I’ve been looking for another group.

I was hoping there might even be one in my local area, but no one at the Redlitzer Writers’ Day last weekend knew of any.

At the Convention yesterday the representatives of many different groups stood up and spoke about how their groups worked. I learned that a lot of these groups met to do workshops together and create new fiction. There wasn’t a lot of critiquing and what critiquing there was seemed to be on the piece you had just written then and there.

and a little more of this.

and a little more of this.

Now I’m not saying those aren’t good groups, just not precisely what I’m looking for considering where I am in my journey as a writer. I have no problem with creativity, heck sometimes I just want to tell my muse “Here’s $8, go to the cinema and leave me alone so I can finish off this idea you just gave me” (I know, not something to really complain about, but evidence nonetheless that I don’t need an inspirational group). What I need is to learn how to fine tune this multitude of ideas. How to hone my stories into something that sells. For that I need a group very much like my current one.

I’m considering starting one in my local area, but don’t know how much time I want to sink into the endeavour – after all, that’s precious writing time I’d end up sacrificing.

The Writers’ Group Convention was short and sweet, with plenty of opportunities to mingle with others and try to learn their groups dynamics and if you are looking at finding a writers’ group yourself I’d recommend keeping an eye out for the next convention, or browsing their website.

Lessons Learned From Critiquing

July 24, 2013 / / 2 Comments

Critiquing can be tough. My writers’ group is full of amazing authors packed with talent and more and more pieces come in where all I can really spot wrong is the odd typo and maybe an awkward phrase. I was starting to worry that I didn’t have any critiquing skills, and that if I lacked them, how could I ever successfully self-edit?

logo-booksI’m going to the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival next week (stay with me here, I’m not just running off on a tangent, I swear) but only for workshops during the week. One of those workshops is a fiction writing master class with MJ Hyland. In preparation for that participants send in the first 1,500 words of a short story or novel and everyone else attending critiques it. Critiquing the pieces I’ve been sent so far has taught me something.

Like with my writers’ group some people are really great and there’s not much to say, but some other works are unfocused (the person has a great story, but the plot jumps all over(yes, in the first 1,500 words!)), others have great characters but no story. There are problems – and I can spot them! So I don’t suck at critiquing, it’s just that my writers’ group is too full of talented people(you know who you are ;p ).

So, with these newer, younger writers I’m critiquing now I have choices to make. I can’t go and throw every error they’ve made at them, I might hurt the fragile artistic spirit all of us creative types have. So I have to pick out one or two of the most important things to mention and pass on my knowledge.

I also have to be careful, I don’t want to seem like a know-it-all, after all, I’ll be there to learn too. If I honestly thought I did know it all I wouldn’t be going to a workshop now would I? So I’m walking a thin line between providing as much help as I can without damaging fragile hearts or seeming like a Hermione.

Some of these pieces have a lovely story at their core, just their craft needs polishing and it reminds me that I’m the same. I’ve got a long way to go before I’m where I dream of being, so I have to keep working, keep polishing, and keep critiquing and being critiqued.

These are the things I have learned from critiquing these last few days.

Redlitzer Writers’ Day

July 22, 2013 / / 2 Comments

Yesterday I enjoyed what I think is the best part of the prizes for being a Redlitzer winner – The Redlitzer Writers’ Day.

The morning started with a solid lesson on writing, dealing with structure, voice, POV and great beginnings taught by Angela Slatter. Some was familiar, some was new and some made a lot more sense when explained that way.

The afternoon saw the shortlisted stories(including mine) being critiqued by Louise Cusack, Rowena Cory Daniells, Marriane de Pierres and Angela Slatter. The feedback was amazing. You know feedback is good when you love your story even more with the new changes!

With great advice and some compliments that will keep me smiling for a good few months the day wrapped up with a Q&A panel which I’m going to share some great quotes from with you.

“Do what is says on the can.” (In reference to being a writer, a great rewording of ‘writers write’)

And

“Every author needs a wife” which sucks if you’re a woman ;p

There was plenty more, but I didn’t manage to scribble them all down. I’m fairly certain I’ll expand on those with some more posts shortly.

I want to give a huge thank you to the Redland Libraries (especially Jo-Anne, the co-ordinator) for hosting the day and creating the event, and say thank you to both Angela Slatter and Marriane de Pierres for their coaching. You were both wonderful and so helpful and I look forward to talking again soon.

The Redlitzer 2013 Anthology will be released in October 2013, I’ll keep you updated when more details become available.

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