FANTASY?

I know, surely there must be some mistake? The only shape-shifting in the new wip happens when I cut and paste the sections around. Clarissa, Summer, Glynis and I have been busy. This is the hook for FIRESTONES - fantasy rather than paranormal.

“Stop!”

            The glow from the torches set in iron sconces high on the rough surface of the walls was still visible at the entrance to the narrow tunnel. Smoky flames flickered from the oiled moss in the wooden brand Vine carried, they made her eyes sting. Peering around, she could not focus on the figure that cast a darker shadow. Going back no longer seemed to be an option. Had she really longed to gain admittance to ranks of the Mages? Her fellow tyros already believed her beyond incompetent, did they also believe she was a coward? She had agreed to feed the tethered krokatris protecting the lower Halls of Elune, before the sun rose. Despite the dull, brown robes swamping her slender frame, Vine shivered. In the darkness, the heavy chains clanked as the krokatris strained against their restraints. With the smoky brand held higher, Vine ran. Drafts of air freed flames to lick along the walls behind her. 

Bruising fingers gripped Vine’s shoulder, spun her around. Her glass circles, mage-forged to correct her weak sight, flew into the darkness. She could make out only the details of the tanned, smooth jaw descending towards her. She didn’t need training in Magestry to know the intention of the beast who felled her. Vine struggled to free herself, writhing beneath the relentless bulk. A hand moved swiftly over the tunic covering her chest, her neck, and the mouth she pressed firmly closed.

His hot breath, rasping over the sensitive skin of her throat, smelled of oats and honey. His powerful limbs splayed over hers. When the chest lifted, Vine tightened hopeful fingers around the haft of the extinguished torch. A better opportunity would not present itself, this near she could focus on her target. Vine swung the brand with all the force she could manage.

Are you hooked? 

TUUUNE Mayday Parade - Three cheers for five years

I love Mayday Parade: their magic turned the Minnow's low slung tracky bottoms, sleeveless hoodies and bling into tee-shirt, converse and leather, almost overnight. 


A novel in miniature, I love tale this lyric tells.
And I will always remember you as you are right now to me
And I will always remember now
Sleep alone tonight with no one here just by your side
How does he feel, how does he kiss
How does he taste while he's on your lips
I can't forget you
I know you want me to want you
I want to
But I can't forgive you
So when this is over don't blow your composure baby
I can't forgive you
I know you want me to want you I want to 


The track came on the radio today and I realised why I missed the Minnow. Now who is going to sing the harmony for me?

WHAT SHOULD THE WELL-READ ART STUDENT BE READING?

I posted a parcel to the student of Fine Art in Manchester.

She needed the sheet - her Ode to Tracey Emin - from the loft, and a sheet to further her Eminology, if we happened to have one going spare. She also wanted a sheet to appreciate the intrinsic nature of form and function in perfect harmony, without the need to wash and tumble dry with focussed concentration.

We're not talking New Orleans to Barrow, Alaska so, how can it cost £4 to post three sheets, and a book half way up a, relatively, small country? 

With no TV and a small allowance,  Minnow has read more novels in the month she has been away, than during the two years GCSE English and two years of A level Literature combined. 

She knows I am a push over, when it comes to shopping for 'essentials' but when she said 'I need a book to read' she set her parents against each other. Neither of us are content to find a book to send, it has to be the right book - the best book.

So far, we have sent:

1   Troubles - JG Farrell

 

2   Morrissey's Manchester - Phill Gatenby

3   A Temporary Life - David Storey    (perfect on content and music reference levels)

One and three are mine. He-who-must-not is considering what he is going to counter with. Now, obviously, I don't want him getting ahead with the most appropriate reading material, so what do you think I should send my Art student next? 

LATE - BUT THERE ARE 5 THINGS I'VE LEARNED WHILE WRITING

Fretting over the dark space and the distance I kept between me and the computer, I’ve been frowning at my wip, actively refusing to work on it. 

I think I always knew what the problem was and it was not the shorter days, colder nights, or the boiler that doesn’t. When Clarissa asked if I wanted to read her thoughts on my current wip on her Blog or in an email, I panicked. I’ve been known to canvas the opinions of strangers in the street (well, library), so the strength of the feeling was unexpected.  I had begun to fear that focussed should be spelled selfish; dedicated reeked of fanaticism and that patient was just another word for foolish. Writing was an anti-social activity, not a great adventure.

So, the odds against finding an agent and getting published were long, I knew that rejection was part of the process, but that was the problem: I thought it would be one part of the process. Could rejection be the sum total of everything  I’d learned about writing, while writing? No.

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED:

• written is not the same as completed
• query and submission are multi-layered misery
• being happy about others success is an oily and impure emotion
• the competition starts with yourself in every doubt and misplaced comma
• success is a struggle not a right

Done wallowing. Time to find backbone. I have notebooks full of ideas and they deserve someone who is determined and keen – brave enough to write them. Right now, I need to go and get some sleep tomorrow will be a long day of writing.

250 words  Elle's Blogfest is about the hook. The 250 words the average reader gives you to tempt them into the world you have woven. The blog has about that many words from several works. For a book I'm not writing I know now every twist in this convoluted line.

THE LINE

Chapter 1

“We can go tomorrow. If you are up early enough. On the train at ten o’clock.”

The boy who lay on the polished boards, moved the dinosaurs one at a time, from a circle into a straight line. This was not a quick task. He ran his finger from the claw, across the breast, up the neck. At the mouth he deviated from the line he marked, he raised his finger and placed it back on the plastic toy above the nose, the he continued. The trail was finished only when his hand ran down the empty floor board. Then he picked up the next model in his collection and moved it into its place in the line. The sensation pleased him, right and true. Unique, each time as his finger skimmed the surface of the toys. The rough surface, worn smooth in places amazed, amused him. How unexpected. The shapes: smooth, rough, gnarled: the light and shade loomed large. His head, in line with the top edge of each dinosaur maximised the difference between the here and the space beyond. The shapes form accentuated by the discordant jumble beyond. The here and the jagged edged toys filled his being. Provided warmth and companionship enabled him to maintain his stability, his place in the space that was not self. He: chest to hard board; stomach to chill-breeze blown line; knee to knot and digging nail: he was MARTIN. Mar and tin and floor. To him, the slow accumulation of possessions was peace, and an extraordinary joy. 

KEEPING AN EYE OUT FOR THE MINNOW - AND OPENING OUR EYES TOO

Yesterday the Greater Manchester Police Twittered their day away. 

No, really, in a spirit of transparent police work they decided to tweet every call and every incident. For a 24 hour period starting at 5 am on 14.10.10 they had a clerical officer Tweet the details of everything they dealt with. 

Every alleged misdemeanour made its way into the public domain via Twitter. The Police wanted every one to be able to see the pressure of work they experience on an average day – above and beyond the statistics they are obliged to provide for the government. It was freedom of information taken to extremes. 

During the day there were 3,205 incidents. Officers arrested 341 people and 126 are still in custody. It made epic reading.  The Greater Manchester Police Twitter followers were at 3,000 before the experiment began but rose to over 30,000 on the three official accounts today.

These are all real calls logged by the GMP:

Call 1962 2 men fighting following collision in Oldham. Investigation showed they were just fighting and there was no collision

Call 674 confused man reporting his tv not working

Call 1794 Report of youths playing football and kicking a ball in a garden, Stockport

Call 1605 report of faulty phone in Sale

Call 1169 report of someone putting rubbish in caller’s bin in Rochdale

Call 1621 Advice on where caller’s 16-year-old daughter can stay while the caller is on holiday.

Some of the spoof sites excelled themselves too –

Call 384 report of man holding baby over bridge – police immediately attended and it was man carrying dog that doesn’t like bridges  * oh no this was a real call

Maybe the call I heard about: Girl threatening to jump off a bridge, refusing to speak to anyone except Justin Bieber - was real too.

An emergency seems to be more of a spectrum than a dire circumstance.

Then there was the number of accidental 999 calls from mobiles or kids playing with phones - unbelievable, as is the number of silent calls. One Tweet reported the 22nd 999 call from the same mobile number.

It was mind numbing - how the service is stretched by so many unnecessary calls. Everyone knows their major task is keeping my daughter safe ;)

VAMPIRE DIARIES - GLASVEGAS Geraldine? :O

I love Glasvegas:  a case of total adoration.
I have a photo of us together- of course, I was in the front row of their set at the Reading Festival last year, and they were on stage, but we are all in the picture, so that counts; right?


I was watching Vampire Diaries, like-you-do: big build-up at the carnival, all hell about to let loose, and I'm-like-OMG-it's-GLASVEGAS! Sod the plot - I hit rewind and the Glasvegas did that thing:  the accent, the lyrics, the sound - their harmonics are hard-wired to somewhere more elemental than hearing - sensory overload.


When it comes to Glasvegas, I fight off the descent into walls-covered-in-posters, wristband on the noticeboard, lyrics in the notebook thing (not very hard, because two of those three I have)


" I took your love for granted
Thought it was the freedom that I wanted
Now here in your absence, I was wrong"    Glasvegas: "Please come back home"


The short track called S.A.D. LIGHT - played loud - ? - : ) - makes me unreasonably happy - the perfect autumn-dims-days-to-early-twilight's lost love's lament. 


Listening to the CD? Skip track one until you get to love them - Daddy's Gone, Geraldine, Lonesome Swan, S.A.D. Light, Cheating heart - I'd start there and work onto others later. Then there is the downloadable Christmas with Glasvegas  -- A Snowflake fell (And it felt like a kiss)  EP -- a hard-edged reality check. 


Did I mention I love GLASVEGAS? 

THERE'S NO NEED TO RING, WHEN YOU'VE GOT THE KEY

I can't say 100% that I came in through the front door, but entering via the window is not my normal MO. However,  I can recall once, probably a year ago, when I got 2/3 of the way through the window before one of the kidlets shifted themselves to let us in (if they will go to bed and leave a window open, they deserve to be woken by hysterical parents who have been drinking liquids stronger than the milk of human kindness.) There probably must have been some milk-type substances involved because I delivered the happy version of the "What did you think you were doing, going to bed leaving a LARGE downstairs window open" lecture. So, I probably entered the house via the door. 


This means there is a 50% probability the keys to my house are in here somewhere, and a 50% possibility that we are all going to be on the receiving end of unpleasantness by the someone who, with malice aforethought, pinched the keys from the door. (Making my house messy would be unkind, when I've been making time to keep it both hoovered and dusted recently.)


I have looked everywhere - no prepositional preposition was left unturned I hunted about  above across  against  along  alongside  amid  amidst  among  amongst  around aside  atop -- and the rest of the alphabet's worth -- I'd love to say I found the blasted things. Instead, it will a long night when every movement of the floorboards, every tap at the window (scrap that - got the keys already), every squeaking of the springs, will set my heart  racing.... or I could settle for the locking the bolts and putting on the chain, but what would be the fun in that?


PANIC IS... not being able to find the keys.