Maths for fourth grade geniuses

Poor Baby Duck was struggling with his maths homework this morning, so I had to lend a hand. I’m no maths whiz, but I can still nail fourth grade maths. Go, me. I get frustrated, though, when he says, like this morning, that they haven’t actually covered the concepts at school that they’re expected to do for homework.

It reminded us both of that great joke:

Maths question in class: What’s one plus one?

Maths question in the test: What’s one plus eight?

Maths homework question: If Johnny has two apples and he eats one, calculate the mass of the sun.

Elsewhere, on the glorious internet ...

(I’ll just sneak one of these in here while Baby Duck isn’t watching.)

Australian marsupials for the win! The male antechinus kills himself with marathon mating sessions. “His fur falls off. He bleeds internally. His immune system fails to fight off incoming infections, and he becomes riddled with gangrene … He’s a complete mess, but he’s still after sex.” Hey, I think I married one of these.

Despite being scared of heights, the tree dwellings of Lothlorien caught my imagination as a child more than any other location in The Lord of the Rings. Here's an architect’s idea for making similar dwellings.

Tom Simon discusses economics in fantasy, or the lack thereof. Something to think about for fantasy writers.

Elle Casey talks about how she writes so fast (18 novels in 15 months -- makes NaNoWriMo look like a doddle!).

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is very interesting on the difference between "storytelling" and "writing", and how good storytelling trumps beautiful writing every time. “If you finish a story or a novel, and everyone tells you how lovely the writing is, then you’ve probably screwed up. If they demand the next book, you’re doing a very good job indeed.”

Like father, like son

 

Me: My darling boy, have you been getting fashion advice from your father again?

Baby Duck (suspiciously): No.

Me: That is a very nice shirt, and those are very nice shorts, but you can’t wear them together. They don’t go with each other at all.

Baby Duck (laughing): Mum! I don’t care – I’m a boy!

Follow the spark

Once upon a time, a writer wrote a book full of twists and surprises, about dragons and werewolves, mothers and lost children, loves and betrayals. The first draft was completed in the rush of blood called NaNoWriMo, and for once the writer was so pleased with her story that she stuck with it and started the laborious process of revising and beautifying.

The plan was to finish this process loooong before Nano rolled around again the following November, which would leave her plenty of time to plan the next novel, which would be a continuation of this exciting story.

Can you guess what happened next? Or rather, didn’t happen?

Yes, that’s right, I didn’t finish the revision. I still have seven scenes to go. As November loomed closer I began pushing myself to plan the next novel while still madly revising – not an impossible task, certainly, but every time I tried I ran up against the same problem. I knew, in very large terms, what needed to happen, but everything I loved about the first book was missing. The twists and mysteries were what made the first book exciting for me, but they’d all been revealed, and the second book would be a much more straightforward “kill the baddies, win the battle” affair.

And I couldn’t think of any way to make it interesting enough that I wanted to write it.

I’m sure, ultimately, I will be able to, but with mere days left in October I knew I couldn’t come up with anything in time. It looked like I’d have to sit Nano out this year.

Then, on the 30^th of October (why do I do this to myself?), I thought: Self, don’t be such a piker. Why don’t you just write something else?

Oh, sure. Last year I was so organised. You should have seen me! I had characters, plot twists – scenes planned out on index cards. Me, the ultimate pantster, and I even had an outline! I was so proud of myself. No more flailing around in the dark! And Nano had gone so smoothly as a result.

And now here I was, getting ready to buy a ticket on the express to Flailsville again. What was I thinking?? I didn’t even have an idea. What could I possibly find to write about in one day?

Well, said the little voice, you always said you wanted to write a version of the fairy tale Toads and Diamonds. Even as a kid, though I’d loved it, it seemed to end too soon. But what happened next? Maybe I should write it and find out.

A little spark of excitement flared. Okay, get out a pen and piece of paper, and write down half a dozen different ways you could approach it. Change the sisters to brothers? Set it in an unusual location? Tell the story from the “bad” sister’s point of view?

Soon I had a bunch of ideas and a whole lot more excitement going on, and that’s what decided me. Write the book I felt I should write, or the one I now really wanted to write?

Easy decision. Writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. If you’re not bursting with excitement at the beginning, the chances of making it to the end aren’t good. When you have two (or more) ideas to choose between, go with the one that sparks for you. 

So that’s how I came to be 13,361 words in to Attack of the Fairy Tales, a novel I had no inkling of a week ago. I’m living in downtown Flailsville again – crazy place, but a lot of fun sometimes.

So there’s my writing tip for the week: follow that spark!

Baby Duck's art show

Every year Baby Duck’s school puts on an art show. It’s very low-key – no champagne opening  night or sales! Just a couple of afternoons after school when you can wander around the school hall and see what the kids have been up to. Each class has a display, but every year until now they’ve been pretty similar. Oh look, kindergarten’s been doing self-portraits. Year 4’s obviously been learning about collage. Display board after display board full of individual drawings/paintings, of little interest unless it’s your child’s work.

I don’t know what happened this year but wow! Somebody lit a bomb under the art show. So much imagination on display! Lots of 3D artworks, lots of different artistic influences, from giant African masks to modern sculpture. It was a real pleasure to walk around and see something new and interesting at every turn.

Baby Duck’s class presented a giant underwater scene.

I heard lots of complaints about the endless balls of crepe paper they put into making this but one proud little duckling couldn’t wait to show it off.

Of course he had to point out which fish he did himself.

Why am I not surprised that his fish is back to front? Always likes to stand out from the crowd, that child.

The brown paper turtle was clever.

And I loved the coral:

One of the year 6 classes made a gorgeous spray-painted tree and hung it with wire-and-bead birds. So pretty and creative:

One of the kindy classes had made monsters out of tissue boxes, where the opening for the tissues was the mouth, rimmed with suitably ferocious teeth. I didn’t take a photo, but they were adorable!

Year 1 also had a bird theme. Not as delicate as Year 6’s, but very cute:

 

And then there were these feathered beauties:

 

It was a great effort. The teachers and kids should be proud of themselves. I know Baby Duck is!

What's on the wall?

Baby Duck says there are too many linktastic posts on my blog lately, and not enough about important things like him. He has kindly given me many helpful suggestions on what I might write about, from his grand scheme to earn Lego by watering the lawns to his marvellous artworks in the school art show.

Since he is one of my main readers, I guess I’ll have to pull my socks up – but not today. More on the art show anon, but today I’m going to show you the evolution of a quilting “artwork”, in the hopes that this will fire my enthusiasm to finish this one off. It’s been hanging on my design wall for about six months now, and though I still like it, I’m getting sick of looking at it! Time for a change.

This started life as a jelly roll, which is a fancy name for a set of forty 2½ inch strips rolled up into a pretty bundle like this:

I spent about three hours in December last year engaged in what is known as a jelly roll race, where you sew the forty strips end to end into one ginormous long strip, and then go through more sewing stages where the strip gets progressively shorter but wider, till you end up with a random-looking quilt top like this:

 

(Sorry if that explanation made no sense. If you’re interested you can see a video with a much more lucid explanation here.)

I decided to use this as the background for a garden of giant flowers. This was the first iteration:

 

Not quite enough flowers, I thought. My garden looked a little lost and spread out. Back to hacking printed flowers and black circles out of fabric, and a little rearrangement:

 

That looked better, so then I put all the stems in:

 

Mind you, none of this is sewn down yet, only glue-basted on (which is a technique I haven’t tried before: so far, so good. Nothing’s fallen off the wall yet!). The plan is to put the three layers of the quilt together and then attach everything as I quilt – save the step of sewing the quilt top first, then quilting later. Genius lazy plan, I hope. We’ll see if it works.

Then I started adding borders, and of course that was where I stopped – because the creative fun was all over. Adding borders and finishing things off is boring, at least for this attention span-challenged quilter.

But now it’s nearly December again (as Christmas-obsessed Baby Duck delights in pointing out) and way past time to get this down off the wall and into the finished pile. It’s so cheerful and fun. Hopefully soon I can show it to you in all its finished glory!

Happiness is ...

Happiness is seeing the first signs of spring.

Of course, I should have posted this about a month ago. The blossoms have all gone now, and spring has well and truly sprung. In fact, it’s having an identity crisis and masquerading as summer, with a forecast high today of 38 (that’s just over 100˚ for all you Fahrenheiters). Ouch. That’s a sweltering summer day.

Nevertheless, we were talking about spring, weren’t we? I love it when the first flowers of spring start to appear.

When I was a kid I had a little ritual. Despite being completely uninterested in gardens any other time of the year, at the beginning of spring I always wandered around the yard looking for new flowers. It was a joy to find those freesias poking through, and to smell their beautiful scent. Some years Mum had jonquils too, or snowdrops, and I would carefully admire and sniff each one (even the ones that had no scent – wouldn’t want them to feel left out!).

 

Not being a gardener, the only pretty flowers in my garden these days are the ones that appear by themselves on trees and shrubs.

But I still like to walk around and admire them all.

Tell me I’m not the only one! Do you have any odd rituals to mark the turning of the seasons?

Elsewhere, on the glorious internet ...

From the “I could have told them that” files: Google discovers putting M&Ms in ceramic containers and healthier snacks in clear glass ones encourages employees to go for the healthy food rather than the confectionary. Well, derrr.

This is the same reasoning that leads me to ask the Carnivore to store his chocolate in the downstairs fridge. I know it’s there, but because it’s not staring me in the face when I go to the fridge, I don’t raid it.

On the writing front, a couple of interesting links about characters:

Ever noticed how "strong female characters" are just women who can fight like men? They aren’t allowed to be “strong” in any other way, nor can they have any other attributes. Male characters, of course, can have multiple facets to their personalities.

"I don't think it's my job to make likeable … characters. I think it's my job to make compelling characters" says author Deborah Levy. Good characters have to have complexity. Instead of one-dimensional caricatures (like “strong female characters”), they show “the nuance and ambiguity behind seemingly simple behaviour”. Just like real people.

In the world of fitness, a new university study has shown that interval training can accomplish as much in seven minutes as a long workout in the gym. This is very timely for me, since I’ve just completed my second week of just such a program, the 12 Second Sequence by Jorge Cruise. So far I don’t have muscles on my muscles, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

And finally, for a lovely rainbow of luminous colour, check out Faith’s lighthouse quilt top. She’s going to be doing a quilt-along of this pattern soon. I’m tempted …

Happiness is ...

Happiness is walking through your childhood fantasy world.

I was ten years old the first time I read The Lord of the Rings. It caught my imagination as no other book had done before, and few since. I wrote stories set in the world of Middle Earth, using my favourite characters. I forced my uninitiated (and probably bored) friends to play endless games of make-believe where we dressed up as Elvish princesses in my mother’s old dancing petticoats and lamé dresses. I committed many of the poems to memory, and reread obsessively, adoringly.

It’s safe to say that The Lord of the Rings is The Book that started my lifelong love of fantasy, and when the movies came out and – oh miracle of miracles! – they didn’t suck, I fell in love all over again with Aragorn and Sam and the elves and the Riders of Rohan, with the glories of faded Gondor and the sweet green fields of the Shire.

So you can imagine my excitement when I got to walk those green fields and see the Shire FOR REALZ on our New Zealand trip. (Actually, you probably can’t. I was so ridiculously thrilled to be there I didn’t stop grinning like a loon the whole time. Is it shallow to admit it was the highlight of my trip? No offence, New Zealand, you’re beautiful and all, but you can’t compete with the love I bear the Shire. Even though you kind of are the Shire. I know. Don’t try to use logic on me.)

It was a picture-perfect day for a trip to Middle Earth, too. Bright sunshine, beautiful blue sky, absolutely glorious.

Oh, those hobbit holes! They were divine! They had the sweetest little cottage gardens:

Such attention to detail! Each one had unique features: bellpulls, woodpiles, letterboxes, tools left lying around. Some front doors were weathered-looking with faded or peeling paint. Others obviously belonged to houseproud hobbits and were painted bright yellow, red or blue.

Bag End, of course, had a handsome dark green door and stood high on its hill overlooking the rest of Hobbiton. It was very large by hobbit standards – no wonder the Sackville-Bagginses coveted it! – and had thirteen windows, whereas the most any other hobbit hole had was four.

The oak tree on top of it was the only fake tree on site, and boasted over 250,000 fake leaves imported from Taiwan and individually hand-wired on.

 

The tour was very informative, with lots of inside info about the making of the films. Highly recommended if you’re ever in New Zealand!

Now, if only they’d build a real Lothlorien, my childhood dreams would be fulfilled!

If you could pick any fantasy world to visit in real life, what would it be?

Reproachful software and other motivational writing tips

My new version of Word has this cute little feature. When I open an existing document a message pops up asking if I want to start again from where I stopped last time. It’s quite handy, but if it’s been a while since I’ve worked on the book, that little message can seem more reproachful than helpful.

Welcome back. Pick up where you left off: Thursday? Thursday! But it’s Monday now! Aargh!

 

Yes, folks, guilt has been motivating Catholics everywhere for over 2,000 years, and it can work for you too. It’s a powerful force. (Though Protestants should not despair, as there’s always the Protestant Work Ethic to fall back on if you can’t manage Catholic Guilt.)

But of course guilt is interdenominational and, ridiculous as it seems, this perky little message from my software does make me try harder not to leave it so long between writing sessions. Pick up where you left off: 2 hours ago? gives me the warm fuzzies and certainly ensures speedier progress.

My constant battle to triumph over the perky “pick-up” feature led me to wonder what other weird things could be motivating. We procrastinators writers are always looking for tips on how to actually, you know … write.

To-do lists are another thing that work for me. What’s so weird about that? you ask. To-do lists are mainstream. Everybody’s doing them.

Very true. Most people have at least tried them, and for the right personality the satisfaction of ticking those suckers off can be highly motivating. What’s weird about them, for me, is that even when the to-do list isn’t writing-related, the sense of achievement I get from ticking off mundane chores makes me feel all accomplished and cheerleady. You wouldn’t think paying bills or organising an in-tray would put anyone in a real yes-you-can-do-it frame of mind, but that’s how it appears to work. Buoyed up by little successes, tackling the revision seems a challenge to be enjoyed rather than something fearsome.

Two key factors with to-do lists:

1)      Keep the items small and do-able. Finish the book is too big a chunk to bite off; it’s more likely to lead to drowning your sorrows than making any progress. Write 5,000 words this week or Revise three scenes is better, and will keep you happily busy at your desk instead of throwing yourself off the nearest cliff in despair at the enormity of the task ahead.

2)      Tackle the thing you’re dreading most first. It’s tempting to leave something difficult or uncomfortable to deal with till last, but then it just hangs over your head, blighting everything else and causing unnecessary stress. Bite the bullet and get it over with, then enjoy the feeling of sweet relief at having it out of the way. Usually, once you do it, it turns out not to be that big a deal anyway, and you wonder why you were so worried about it.

And don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get everything ticked off in the allotted timeframe. You may not have accomplished everything you’d hoped to, but usually just setting those targets means that you’ll accomplish more than you would have without them.

So what about you? Do you have any tips on getting things done?

Elsewhere, on the glorious internet ...

For a beautiful burst of colour, check out Matt's Japanese flower blanket. So gorgeous! I’m making a scarf with this pattern, but so far  my scarf is only six flowers long, so it could be a long while before I get to wear it. In the meantime, I’ll just have to admire his.

David Alistair Hayden posts on how to win followers and influence readers on Wattpad.

Elizabeth Bear on how to move past that stage where your writing is getting "rave rejections", ie I loved this but …

Seth Godin muses on the end of bookstores: Basically, people have too many other amusements to bother with reading, especially when so many have suffered under well-meaning but dull education programs that make reading a chore. “More than once, friends have said, ‘you should be really pleased, I even finished your new book.’ My guess is that no one says that to Laurence Fishburne about his new movie.”

Had to laugh at that, and it’s a valid point, but I don’t believe you can therefore assume reading is dead – only that there might be many more readers if education didn’t insist on foisting “worthy” books on kids. But judging by the kind of books my girls are assigned (eg Uglies by Scott Westerfeld), things have changed a lot even since I was at school, and the future of reading seems pretty healthy.

Three steps forward, two steps back

That’s how revision feels. I’m making progress, I’m making progress … no, wait. Damn.

I’ve been writing and writing and writing, but I’ve also been deleting, deleting, deleting, so the novel’s wordcount has hardly shifted. It’s gone up by about 2,500 words, whereas I could swear I’ve written 10,000 new ones.

It means I’ve had to redefine what progress looks like. My little progress bar over on the side is measuring scenes revised rather than wordcount, so I can see I actually am moving forward, despite how it feels. But I’m so used to wordcount as a measure of progress that the feeling of running on the spot is very hard to shake.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch had an interesting article about how the markers of success in the new world of self-publishing have shifted, but really, “shifting the goalposts” is a pretty universal problem.

Like when you leave fulltime work for fulltime mothering instead. You no longer measure your worth in successful campaigns, reports written, satisfied clients, or whatever business-related units you’re used to. Nobody gives you a promotion or a pay rise when your baby starts solids, or begins sleeping through the night. You have to find new ways of defining a good day or a bad day.

Or when you leave school. Or retire. Or change careers, or relationships. Take up a new sport or hobby. Even find new friends. Situations are always changing, and we have to adjust. No use complaining “but I’ve always done it this way”.

And yet, we are creatures of habit. How many times have I checked my wordcount after adding a whole new section, and felt disappointed that it’s hardly gone up because of all the other words I’ve ripped out? I can tell myself wordcount doesn’t matter till I’m blue in the face; my inner child is too busy throwing tantrums in the corner to listen.

In short: editing painful, progress slow. Guess I’ll just have to send my inner child to the naughty corner and get on with it.

Wish me luck!

Poncho power!

I know I’m the queen of the unfinished project, but sometimes I actually do finish things, but forget to tell you about them.

Case in point: This time last year I made Drama Duck a poncho. No particular reason, just that I’d seen one on the internet and it looked like fun. And ponchos did seem to be making a comeback, so … In a lightning-fast three weeks, I whipped one up, and she wore it with joy.

But of course, I have two daughters, don’t I – and making something for one and not the other instantly qualifies you for World’s Worst Mother. Sadly for Demon Duck, I have the attention span of a gnat, and once I’ve made something once I want to move on and try something different, not make the same thing all over again.

I did try. I bought the wool of her choice, but there was no more lightning-fast left in the tank. Back at my usual speed-of-molasses I got it probably three-quarters done before spring arrived and it was too hot for ponchos any more.

This year, feeling a little guilty, I got it out again. It only took a couple of hours to finish it off. Fortunately for me she hadn’t moved on from the whole poncho idea in the intervening year. She even requested a matching beanie, as you can see in the photo. (And I wonder if you can guess what her favourite colour is?)

The beanie was fun, and so quick! I can feel a rush of beanie-making coming on …

Happiness is ...

Happiness is a steaming hot bowl of scrumptious soup on a cold night.

Add a loaf of fresh crusty bread and you have a match made in heaven!

I’ve been making this soup a lot lately. Lots of vegies, beans and pearl barley, so it’s healthy as well as delicious. Great to come home to after standing around in the cold at netball training!

Easy to make, too:

3 carrots, 2 zucchini, 1 onion, half bunch celery, some green beans, all chopped small
10 cups vegie stock and/or water (I use a mix)
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 can mixed beans
1½ cups pearl barley
1 tub tomato paste
Herbs (I use basil, oregano, salt, Tuscan seasoning)

Saute the vegies in a big pot for 3-5 minutes, then throw in everything else, bring it to the boil and simmer (with lid on) for an hour.

YUM.

Elsewhere, on the glorious internet ...

Have you noticed my little revision progress bar on the right? I’ve actually been working, albeit slowly, which probably explains why there are fewer links this week. Not so much time spent surfing!

Kristine Katherine Rusch talks about the problem of self-discipline, when you are writing with no external deadlines. I could really relate – she said she could spend her entire life reading, and would rather do that than anything else. “No amount of ‘forcing’ myself got me to change my habits. I had to figure out where the problem started, and nip it in the bud.”  

Michael Hicks has good advice on using Twitter effectively for authors (though it’s time-consuming) 

Hugh Howey recounts his amazing two-year ride from unknown self-publisher to bestsellerdom: 

In non-writing news, would you like a flat stomach? Of course you would! Who doesn't? “If you want a flat stomach, the best advice – in conjunction with a sensible diet and regular exercise (of course) – is to get a good night’s sleep.” And then de-stress your life, according to Michelle Bridges.  

And something that the smallest member of our household finds intensely interesting: Who will play the new Doctor Who? The BBC is announcing it tonight (or some time tomorrow, I guess, from an Aussie perspective, seeing as how we’re living in the future compared to just about everyone else).  

Cheeky beggars!

On holidays recently, the Carnivore was cooking bacon for breakfast on the balcony when a whole host of interested parties turned up to supervise the process and loudly demand a share. Who could blame them? Nothing beats the smell of bacon cooking!

Naturally the Carnivore refused to part with any of his breakfast – this man takes meat seriously. That didn’t stop the raucous squawking. There must have been thirty of them. Believe me, thirty rainbow lorikeets make a lot of noise.

 

Pretty little beggars, aren’t they? We shooed them away repeatedly, but they kept coming back, at least till the bacon was gone. Clearly this was a regular gig for them.

 

Some people do encourage them, feeding them bread and other things that are bad for them. We were good and hardened our hearts, except for one member of our party, who offered a single piece of bread to see if he could get one of them to feed from his hand.

 

No problem! If he’d had a bigger hand, there would have been even more willing to oblige. They were fighting for landing space.

And the views from that balcony?

 Spectacular!

 Lucky rainbow lorikeets, that get to live there all the time!

And now I shall put on my English nerd hat: While writing this post it occurred to me how strange it is that “beggar” is spelled with an “ar”. The verb is to beg, and the person (or, in this case, bird) who does it is a beggar. But every other word constructed like this that I can think of ends in “er”: rider, runner, walker, keeper, scorer, chaser, drinker, shooter, killer, knitter, builder, etc, etc.

Damn, but the English language is a squirrelly beast. Can anyone think of any other words that use the “ar” construction?

Elsewhere, on the glorious internet: Netball Barbie!!

OMG! Barbie’s a netball star! You’re all going to think I’m obsessed with dolls after ranting about Disney’s Princess Merida doll in my last linktastic round-up, but it’s not true, honest.

However, I freely admit to being obsessed with netball! One of these dolls may already have made its way into my house … what can I say? She comes with a netball! And a drink bottle! And a sports bag – and even A TROPHY!! How awesome is that? Plus she’s a Goal Attack. Shooters rule!

It’s nice to see a doll that encourages little girls (and the odd big one) to focus on their love of a great sport, instead of continually pushing the beautiful helpless princess ideal.
 

Still in the land of toys, an interesting review of Minecraft, a computer game that is Baby Duck’s latest obsession. Him and umpteen billion other small boys around the world! We have a rule in our house that “the M word” is not to be mentioned at the dinner table, otherwise the Minecraft chatter would be non-stop.  Despite that, it’s a good game, just like playing with Lego onscreen, with the odd monster thrown in to make things exciting. You build during the day and defend yourself at night – “it makes clear the ancient ties between creativity and survival”.
 

Teeth-grinding stuff on “the lack of books for boys” in the YA section: It’s ironic that people complaining about this can’t see “that YA is so female-centric because coming-of-age stories for young men have already been staples in the ‘real books’ section for decades. Because being a young straight white man is universal, see, while being a girl is something that’s impossible to care about unless you’re both a girl and stupid.”

Hey, maybe all these boys who aren’t reading are too busy playing Minecraft.
 

On to writing advice:
 

An interesting take on the old "show, don't tell" maxim: “Think of your book as a movie. Telling is anything you write that the camera does not see.”

Fantasy writer David Farland is wise on "being prolific". There’s no magic to it. Work hard, focus, find little bits of time between other things and use them. Don’t fritter your life on Facebook or watching television.

Which brings me to indie publishing, which is a field where the successful writers seem to know all about being productive. The question is not “write a series or stand-alones?” with them, it’s "one series or more?". Writing fast is no longer the problem it was when a writer had to wait on a big publisher’s schedule. Now it seems to be the key to success.

It’s an exciting time to be an author. As Kristine Kathryn Rusch explains, “indie writers, indie books, indie publishers now have the same access to bookstores that traditional publishers do. The playing field has just leveled.”

Which means that a lot of authors are leaving traditional publishing, or at least combining it with indie publishing. An interesting story from Elisabeth Naughton explains how traditional publishing wasn’t as great as it seemed from the outside, and how self-publishing came to the rescue. “I even hit the USA Today bestsellers list! But what no one saw was the hard reality: I wasn’t making any money. I was working my ass off for a couple thousand dollars, which I was then spending on promotional materials, conference travel and expenses to write MORE books. In fact, I was spending more money than I was making.”

Did you guess I’ve been spending a lot of writing time reading about indie publishing instead? Bad Marina. No biscuit.

One last link, from Lindsay Buroker: on establishing a fan base before you have a book out. 

Colour vomit

So, last month I finished my crochet ripple blanket. I’m so happy with it. It’s a glorious riot of random and beautiful colour combinations. I think the randomness is a feature; others in the household disagree.

I proudly displayed it to my beloved (also known, not coincidentally, as He Who Sits on His Taste Buds). His remarks were barely luke warm.

“You don’t like it, do you?”

“Too many colours,” he said. “It looks like you just vomited colour all over it.”

Fortunately, knowing his taste in clothes, his opinion did nothing to dent my happy feelings of achievement. A finished blanket! Warm and cuddly and beautiful! (Did I mention I actually managed to finish a whole big blanket-sized project? Go, me!)

Even better, I loved the whole process, from the picking out of wool:

and the first joyful colour combinations:

to seeing it grow:

 

And trying out new arrangements of colours:

  Adding in a new colour was my favourite part. It was hard to picture, just from holding a ball of wool against the blanket, exactly how that colour would look when it was stitched on. It was always exciting to see the new combination taking shape.

It was such a relaxing project. Whenever I needed to do something completely mindless, I could pick it up and do another row or two, and though I sometimes went months without touching it, it continued to grow steadily, till at last I decided it was long enough.

I loved how it looked with its ripply ends:

and I wasn’t sure whether I should add a border or not. In the end I decided to give it a go, as part of the learning experience. If I didn’t like it I could always undo it.

 First I added red up the long straight sides, so it had a border of red all around (I started and finished my regular ripple rows with red). This looked so good I almost stopped there.

But I’d chosen some other colours, so I added a gold border which straightened out the ripply ends. This also looked so good I almost stopped there! In fact, every time I added a new colour to the border it got better and better. Hello, my name is Marina and I’m addicted to colour.

Here it is after the third round:

Finally I had five colours on my border and decided that was enough (colours are a little weird here -- I've been waiting ages for a nice sunny day to photograph it but sadly the weather hasn't been cooperating!):

Ta-dah! I love it. Can’t wait to start another one! Just got to get that vomit ready …

The long and the short of titles

Over on Magical Words, Will McIntosh raises an interesting point about story titles: that you have a lot more leeway in naming short stories than novels, because a short story is usually part of a collection (either magazine or anthology) that people are reading, and most will try each story regardless of whether the title grabs them.

With a novel, however, the title is one of the holy marketing trinity that makes a browser pick up a book in a bookstore, or click on it on a website (the other two are the cover and familiarity with the author’s name). A good title is a selling tool that hints at what the reader can expect to find in the novel while making it sound enticing. A lot to expect from a handful of words, no?

Some writers don’t worry too much about finding the perfect title, knowing that their editor will probably want to change it anyway to suit what the marketing gurus think will sell. Many publishing contracts specifically say that while the author may be consulted on the title, final say lies with the publisher.

Other writers obsess over their titles, feeling that their knowledge of the book makes them the best person to find a title that perfectly encapsulates it – and who wants to get stuck with an awful title? Better at least to have some suggestions ready when the publisher starts to talk titles.

But what makes a good title?

Till last November I always thought I had a knack for titles. The “perfect” title usually leapt into my brain along with the story, usually something drawn from the writing itself. Easy peasy. (I say “perfect” since very few of my stories have been exposed to the rigours of the outside world, so they could be atrocious titles in reality, but at least I haven’t had to strain my brain too much to think of them.)

Then I started last year’s Nano novel. Step one: open new file. Check. Step two: name and save new file. Er …

*crickets*

Despite being unusually prepared story-wise, nothing leapt to mind. Oh well. “Nano novel.doc”. Brilliant, I know.

Never mind, something will occur to me as I write the story.

Nope.

I’ll think of a title when I finish writing it, then.

Nuh-uh.

I’ve now been working on the revision for two months, and it’s still called “Dragon novel”. It’s like having a six-month-old baby called “Hey You”, because nothing better’s occurred to you yet. Very frustrating.

So. Back to the elements of a good title, courtesy of another post on Magical Words:

You want something punchy, and short enough to fit on the spine of a book and still be legible (a very practical consideration that I hadn’t considered!). It should raise a question in the reader’s mind, so avoid common words – uncommon words, or unusual combinations of words are intriguing, like A Game of Thrones, or Fahrenheit 451. And make sure you don’t have to read the story for the title to make sense.

All of which are good tips, though sadly not helping with “Dragon novel”. There are a couple of huge secrets at the heart of this novel, and every title I’ve thought of is too spoilery. I guess I’ll just have to keep plugging away at the revision and hope that something brilliant comes to me eventually.

In the meantime, have you come across any intriguing titles lately?

Elsewhere, on the glorious internet ...

A fascinating article on a concept called “survivorship bias”, exploring the misconception that to be successful you need to study others who’ve been successful. In fact, the truth is that “when failure becomes invisible, the difference between failure and success may also become invisible”: Survivorship bias

Author Kameron Hurley takes the idea into the world of writing and marketing books: Survivorship bias and writing better books with bonus marketing chat : “The more we focus on ‘success’ the more we focus on the one-offs, the quirks, the outliers. It’s focusing on failures and middle-of-the road pieces that teaches me how to improve.”

Still on the topic of writing, a helpful post on the NaNoWriMo blog on turning those cardboard characters into living, breathing people: Occupy Steve: how to flesh out your characters

Disney “pretties up” their new Princess Merida doll. Sigh. What’s the world coming to when even a Disney-created princess, all tiny waist and huge eyes, isn’t considered appropriately princessy? Merida, from the movie Brave, had messy hair and freckles to go with her independent I-don’t-need-a-prince-I’ll-do-it-myself attitude. At last! An imperfect princess who didn’t wait to be rescued for real little girls to admire.

“The freckles had been erased and the fabulous tangled hair was pageant coiffed. She looked like a titian-hued Cinderella. Even the dress is blue. Fierce, awesome Merida had joined all the other Stepfords on the shelf.” Where have the brave girls gone?  

On to something more cheerful: Full of colour and quilting delights, Kathy Doughty’s always-inspiring blog here features, among outrageous chooks and beautiful medallion quilts, a shot of me contemplating a wall full of pink and orange triangles as I ponder the layout of a new quilt: The creative bug

And for pretty crochet goodness, Lucy from Attic 24 has some lovely mandala flowers. I’ll have to give these a go!

New Zealand through a quilter's eyes (Part 2)

New Zealand is a beautiful country, and I took scads of touristy photos of all the gorgeous places we visited, but as I mentioned in my previous post on New Zealand through a quilter’s eyes, I also took some that appealed to the quilter in me and left my family scratching their heads.

At the Waitangi Treaty Grounds we saw a 35m waka or war canoe, built in 1940 for the centenary of the signing of the treaty between the British and the Maori. Its name was almost as long – Ngatokimatawhaorua. Old skills had to be relearned to construct the canoe in the traditional way, including intricate carving like this:

Such gorgeous texture and pattern.
 

More texture caught my eye in Waipoua Forest. The mighty kauri trees had such interesting bark, almost like dinosaur skin. 

You can’t see the effect so well on this one, but I loved the contrast of the fluffy, almost velvety green moss against the red whorls of the trunk.

More colour delight at Huka Falls:

 

Can you believe that fabulous clean blue-green water??

For a different shade of blue, here’s a shot across Lake Taupo, the biggest freshwater lake in Australasia, formed in the crater of an old volcano, which must have been truly enormous.

 You can see the peaks of active volcanoes in the background. When Taupo itself last erupted, about 2000 years ago, it buried the country for miles around in 200 metres of ash. The red light of it in the sky was seen as far away as Rome and China. I sure wouldn’t like to be around if it ever went up again!

In the town of Taupo itself I embarrassed my children enormously by taking photos of the garbage bins. I have to admit, even I felt a little peculiar about it, but look – they were so gorgeous! – how could I resist?

 
In Hamilton, there was lots to admire in the very pretty Hamilton Gardens.

Gorgeous repeating patterns:

 

and an absolute riot of colour:

How eye-popping is that colour combination? Wouldn’t it look sensational in a quilt?

Then there was this café at the glow worm cave at Waitomo. It made me think of quilting too, with the diamonds formed by the lovely arching lines of the overhead shelter very reminiscent of a quilting pattern.

 

Really, there’s quilting inspiration everywhere. If only there were enough time to make all the quilts I can imagine!