A snippet of NaNo

Today I thought I'd post an excerpt from my aborted NaNoWriMo verse novel, Concept of Self. I'm in two minds about whether I'll ever go back to it - I think the idea might be not up to the weight of novel or novella length, but there might be a couple of OK-ish long poems lurking in there.

So, without further ado ... Here is a little bit of Erika, Minder-Kinetic, fighting a fire (literally) on her space repair station. Gemina is her station AI.

Now that the Bowery gate is stabilised, I slacken my chokehold on it and cast my sense around,

feeling out the ships nearest by the damage point.

There is the Ancient of Days; she’s a nickel and iridium mining girl, big in the belly, short in the stern.

She’s in hospital for a life support upgrade, but that scar of burn on her gate-side curve

does not bode well for a quick recovery.

No active flames there though, so I push on to the Amal; she’s a lighter, nimbler bird

designed to thread the needle through the showers and pick up knocked-loose platinum.

Her size has been an advantage, here; the fire seems to have caught only her delicate front bow

leaving a lace tattoo that is nothing but surface-deep.

Then – ahhhh, yes. The Ashling Gray.

Tough iron-mining grunt ship – built like the workhorse she is.

This ship has hauled metal from the Belt for the past 15 years, month in, month out;

this ship, and her captain, have also hauled out at least a dozen wrecked boats

saving crews from months-long slow deaths marooned in the Belt.

This ship brought me from my home in Mars Prima, here to Station 203-Beta

five years ago and change, now.

When I needed to hide and be no more, she gave me unsentimental refuge

made a space for me in her blocky alloyed guts, and showed me a sky

with room for me in it.

And now. Now the Ashling Gray is burning.

I throw down a suppressant layer and straightaway the fire fights me,

squirming in my mindgrip like a birth-slick pup.

That this is ground zero for the fire is beyond any doubt.

There is some sort of accelerant at play, and I can’t immediately tell what.

I’d give anything in the moment for another Kinetic.

Gemina, omnipresent as she is, cannot sense, outside of her sensors

and the Mind-Nots are of no use here, not until the fire is dead.

Think, Erika. This tricksy dancer is bile-green,

the colour of tree-moss and dart-frogs, jewel-bright and witchlike.

What makes a fire burn green, and resist?

(This is post #13 in NaBloPoMo. 13 down, 17 to go!)

On deciding to withdraw from NaNoWriMo

I made the decision today to officially withdraw from NaNoWriMo this year.

It wasn't necessarily an easy decision. NaNo has given me a lot of joy over the years, especially in the three years I've completed it (2010, 2011 and 2015). The community I have been part of has been wonderful. And I did - I thought - have an idea that would go the distance in verse form, as Theory of Mind did in 2015.

However, what actually happened was four days of enthusiasm, two days of fumbling about as my plot got lost after the first scene transition, and then a very very intense (but great) 2-day business trip, from which I am about to return home.

There has been neither time nor headspace to look at the novel while I have been away, and this has been a good thing. It's given me a chance to reflect on whether I think the story has enough oomph in it (no, I don't), on my work and family commitment level in November (extensive, to say the least), and my need to protect my health (last week's crash day was a good wake-up call there).

In the end, I concluded that rescuing this story was going to take much more time, sweat and angst than I am able to give it this month, and that pushing on would be simply another chore to add to my daily list, at a time when literally the last thing I need is new chores.

I feel good about recognising this early on, before the overload stress kicked too hard, and the 8000 words I have done will keep for a less frenetic time to see if they are worth salvaging, perhaps as a shorter piece or series of pieces.

Instead, my big creative goal for November and December is going to be to get my poetry collection through second edit and into first layout. I feel like that is really a better goal for me at this stage. I'm already committed to the poetry book, and I have the content there; I feel like it is both a more achievable, and more satisfying, way to direct my creative time.

Of course, I do intend to push on with daily November blogging too!

(This is post #8 in NaBloPoMo. 8 down, 22 to go!)

On writing NaNo with a group

I'm off and away on my NaNoWriMo journey - Concept of Self, my verse novel in progress, is a sequel to my 2015 NaNo novel, Theory of Mind, and so far, at 3640 words on day 2, it's tumbling along quite well.

This is the fifth time I'm attempting NaNo. I tried, and failed badly, in 2008 - my kids were just too young and I too pregnant and too tired. I tried again in 2010 and won with a middle-grade detective novel, to which I wrote a sequel the following year, 2011, and also won that year.

For various reasons, I wasn't free to give it a go in 2012-14, but I got back on the horse in 2015 and produced my favourite long-form piece I've ever written - Theory of Mind, my first verse novel. I re-read it recently and while it is an obviously unpolished piece of work, I still kind of like it. I enjoyed writing it immensely; it was one of the gifts I gave myself for coming out of a not-right-for-me work environment and being brave enough to strike out on my own in business.

I skipped NaNo last year, due to being busy with work, but I moped around all month pining for it; so, despite being even busier this year than last, here I am, doing the thing.

The most important difference, for me, this year from previous years is that I am in two Facebook groups of people I online-know (so not generic for-NaNo-only groups) to offer mutual support, cheerleading, and commiserations in the rougher moments. (Not that we've got to many yet but I am seasoned enough at this gig to know THEY ARE MOST CERTAINLY COMING).

These are all people I've spent enough time with, online or in some cases IRL, to feel really comfortable with. These are people whose own creativity enhances mine in sometimes unexpected ways.

And you know, it's really nice, to be able to post your word count to people who get what it means and validate you for it. It's really nice to high-five each other at plot breakthrough moments. It's really, REALLY nice to post daily snippets and have people say what they like about it (NaNo is not a time for critique - editing, which must certainly come, comes later).

Will it help to motivate me? Yes and no - my motivation is more intrinsic than extrinsic with writing, and I have, after all, smashed the word target three times before on my own. But will it help make this journey richer, more engaging, and just more fun? Undoubtedly. It already is.

I'm going to be stepping it up over the next four days, trying to get at least 3,000 ahead of the target before Tuesday (to account for activities on Tuesday and Wednesday that make it unlikely I'll get much or any words down on those days). I feel like my groups will have my back in helping to jolly me along to extra output, and that's a good way to feel, here at the start of what is always an exhausting but exhilarating race.

(This is post #2 in NaBloPoMo. 2 down, 28 to go!)

The year that is dying and fading from view

2015 is drawing to a close, so I felt it was time for the annual year-in-review post.

I really like doing these each year - it's not so much about other readers (although those are welcome, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be posting publicly) as it is about creating a record for my own family.

It's been a surprisingly meaningful exercise for us over time, to the point where I have saved the relevant pages and will turn them into a family photobook once I have a decade's worth. I've done one every year since 2010 - my previous

records are:
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014

So it is in this spirit that I turned my mind to thinking about 2015, the year that is soon to be leaving us.

Summing up 2015 in a single phrase is surprisingly difficult. It was a shape-shifter, with phases of good health, calm and great happiness interspersed with intervals of poor health, worry and rapid change.


No real traumas marred the year, which made a welcome change from 2014, which was a year of health crisis and overwhelming stress. It has felt like a good year for our family - a year of progress and changes, challenges and fun, anxiety and excitement.

For the sake of brevity, I've divided the year into highlights, lowlights, and changes. Some of the changes are also either a highlight or lowlight, unsurprisingly!

Highlights

1. Family holidays, birthdays, and special days
We had three small family holidays in 2015 - a week in Phillip Island in January, three days in Marysville / Lake Mountain in July, and five days in Daylesford and Bendigo in October.

None of these holidays were huge or expensive, but they all did us good, especially the October trip, from which we all returned very refreshed.

As well as our holidays, we had terrific celebrations of birthdays this year. The youngest, C, turned 6 in February and we had a superhero party at home for her, complete with Batman cake. My middle girl, E, turned 10 in May, and had a massive Harry Potter party at a local hall, with Golden Snitch cake and fully themed games, food and so on. The eldest turned 12 in August and decided on a swimming party at the local pool, with a TARDIS cake (which was ridiculously difficult to make but turned out great).

We also hosted a birthday BBQ in March for my husband, a birthday lunch in January for my MIL, and a dinner party in November for my Dad. The kids in particular attended many friends' parties and enjoyed them all.

Other special days included our family trip to Oz ComicCon in June - which was superb fun; Easter, which was great as alway;, and Halloween, for which we threw what turned out to be a massive kids' party. We hosted extended family Christmas last week, which was great, albeit exhausting.

My husband took the 10-year-old for a night at a fancy hotel (the Sofitel at Werribee Mansion) for her birthday in May, and he and I got away for a weekend on the Mornington Peninsula in November. So overall, it was a year full of special things and I have no complaints.

2. MoP and NaNoWriMo
Every January for the past four, I have participated in Month of Poetry, a challenge that involves writing a poem every day for the month. Some of the poems are specific responses to themes, styles or images set by the challenge organiser, while other days are "free writing" days.

I fulfilled the January challenge this year, and picked an organising theme of Women of the Old Testament to help shape my writing. Some of the poems were junk, of course, but a solid handful had real potential. (I've subsequently sold one for publication). MoP has become a signature theme of summer for me, and I can't imagine January without it.

In November, I attempted, and to my great satisfaction, completed, NaNoWriMo, the challenge to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in length in one month.

I have done NaNo before - in 2010 and 2011 - and completed it both times, but on those occasions, I wrote middle-grade detective novels - fun, but not as challenging as what I tried this year, which was a science fiction / future verse novel.

The final product, which I called Theory of Mind, is not terrible. It needs a thorough edit, of course, but I'm proud it, and proud of myself for having done it in what transpired to be a very busy month. I'm going to try to do NaNo every year if I can; it is good for me, partially because it stretches me.

3. New kitchen
We finally bit the bullet in 2015 and got our kitchen redone. The old, brown, formica kitchen had been in place since the house was built in 1988 - 27 years ago - and it was showing its age in every creaky, barely-functional part.

Going with antique white cabinetry, a redesign of the pantry space, new good quality appliances and a caesar stone benchtop and wall splashbacks has created a room that we all love madly and makes our daily lives, as well as special meals, so much more enjoyable and practical. I won't lie, it wasn't cheap, but I honestly feel it was worth every cent.

4. Netball, music and swimming
The two older kids played netball this year, and really enjoyed themselves (so did we, attending their Saturday games).

My youngest's weekly swimming lessons have improved her skills but also proven a time of family relaxation, as we usually all go and the big kids and their dad have a play / lap swim.

My eldest's guitar playing has really stepped up in 2015, with her now being at the stage where true "jamming" is possible. She's keen to keep learning next year.

5. Time with friends
I am blessed in my life to have some really great friends. 2015 was a year where I got to see more of them than I have been able to in the past few years, and it was truly a good thing.

Lowlights

1. Ongoing (and some new) health concerns for various members of the family
My health continued to be variable across the year, with two new diagnoses (of Hashimoto's Disease and a heart arrhythmia) and periods of extreme fatigue.

I was never as sick as in the terrible last quarter of 2014, thankfully, but there were a few hairy moments.

Two of my three girls have also had some ongoing health niggles, which we are looking into now. I don't believe they will end up being serious, but there is no doubt it is a worry from time to time.

2. Employment and school stress
I found work very stressful in the first half of 2015 (before I made the big change discussed below!) and that definitely had an impact on our family life. I do have a tendency to take work problems more to heart than I should, and the instability of my employing organisation was very hard on me.

Moreover, my youngest went through a prolonged period of school refusal that baffled and troubled us; although I think it was starting to settle down, it never got fully resolved, and it put a strain on all of us.

3. Behavioural stuff
I don't want to say too much here about this, but let's just say, the year wasn't always the easiest under this heading. We're all working on strategies and techniques to enable us to cope, and relate more positively to each other.

Changes

1. Leaving my job and returning to freelancing
One of the significant changes this year was my decision to leave my salaried job at the end of June and return to operating as a freelance contractor.

I had no idea, when I took this plunge, whether I would get much (or any) work, but I knew something had to change. I was burnt out, and stressed out, where I was.

Moving back to freelancing, working mostly from home, has been absolutely the best decision I made this year. I am happier, my life is better balanced, my family gets more of me, and I have been lucky enough to get plenty of work so financially we have not lost out.

The two years I spent at the job I left in June were not wasted years, but they were costly ones, in terms of my health and equilibrium. They did teach me this - freelancing, as long as I can sustain enough work, is the best fit for me, with my health, personality, family and circumstances.

2. Eldest daughter finishing primary school and preparing to enter high school

My first baby girl did her final year of primary school in 2015. Watching her grow into herself as one of the school "big kids" and engage in leadership and extension activities was wonderful and poignant for me.

Her graduation from the school that has nurtured her since she was 5 years old was an occasion for joy and tears together. She's raring to go with high school, and I'm excited for her to see how the next phase unfolds, but there's a touch of melancholy in it all the same, seeing your baby grow up.


So, overall, 2015 was a good year. Not a year without challenges, but a year rich in memories and good change, change that has helped us all to move through and move on. For 2016, I'm hoping for:

- a good start to high school for daughter 1
- a great Grade 6 to finish primary school for daughter 2
- at least two enjoyable and memorable family holidays
- expansion of my creative writing, especially my poetic practice
- an even better and more stable year in health terms
- a good, varied year in my freelance business, with enough work to pay the bills
- a year of deepening our family bonds and relationships with friends

If I can realise those goals, then 2016 will be a wonderful year indeed.

Victory!

November comes to an end today, with something of a bang rather than a whimper, as I submitted my novel project online exactly twelve minutes ago to achieve this:

I made it!! 50,010 words down, and I don't think they're all rubbish either, which is an effort I'm pretty proud of.

November was a challenging but really good month for me. The end-of-year busyness began to ramp up, especially from mid-month onwards. My big girls and I got to see Florence and the Machine in concert on the 11th. My partner and I managed a weekend away without the kids mid-month, which was lovely. I wrote so much, completing both NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo. I attended my final Novel in a Year class. I have been so enjoying my lovely new kitchen, which was fully completed a week ago today with the stove being installed, and doing much baking and experimenting with meals.

It was a huge month in terms of paid work, too. I finished with my first big client on 12 November, and had a whopping 5 days off before kicking into my new project for Big Client the Second on the 18th. I've been very busy since with it, and will be until 17 December, when I go onto 2 weeks vacation.

December will, I hope, be a month of blessings also. This week holds work, high school orientation, Christmas craft club, primary school end of year concert, and at the weekend, the final netball games of the year, a guitar concert and a Christmas lunch. Christmas preparations are in full swing, and the race to the end of the school year is well and truly afoot, with concerts, graduations, performances, sporting finals and parties aplenty; so it is going to be a very crowded month.

After the extreme wordiness of November, I'm going to take a break from writing for a couple of weeks. I may post some picture-posts, but I may not do that either - I am very busy with work and I am also really feeling the need for a breather from the intensity of the past month of writing all the things. I imagine I'll be back with the traditional Christmas-wishes post in due course, but I think I'll be pretty silent between now and then.

So as we all plunge headlong into the race to the end of 2015, I hope your December is bright. I'm off now to fold laundry, fill in endless school forms, and listen to music :-) I'll leave you with the last passage of Theory of Mind, my NaNoWriMo novel.

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This air is as pure as crystal, as abundant as the stars above.

This air is air; not a facsimile, not a replication.

It makes itself through living systems, not machines;

it has reached the self-sustaining tipping point that Sani and Jod always believed it could.

If we fly away, it will stay alive for a million years. More, Jod had said, his face alight.

Absent a large-scale collision catastrophe, it’s seeded for good, now.

It’s what Briony saw, when she looked at the red dust.

What it could be.

Marginally higher in nitrogen than earth, a mere soupcon lower in argon;

but supplied with just the Goldilocks amount of oxygen to inflate human lungs,

to let us fill ourselves and breathe. In. Out. In.

Nasima presses close into my side. Eight years old, and a never-ceasing source of wonder to me;

her adaptation to almost five months aboard ship, and landfall on a strange world, one of uncomplicated delight.

I remember holding her, a newborn, her wide, wise eyes locked on the star outside the window.

Star baby, star child, I’d crooned, as Phoebe slept an exhausted sleep.

You’ll go to the stars someday, my child, my lovely child.

Newborns don’t smile; everyone knows that. Their mouths might distort a little in a smile-like rictus

but it’s nothing but the passing of gas (a thing they do a lot of).

All the same, I could swear she smiled at me, my star daughter, on that still midnight.

Mam, she says, her voice serious. Mammy, why don’t you open your eyes?

It’s beautiful out here. Please, look? I can see so far …

Phoebe murmurs something to her, hand pressing into mine.

For a moment I think, this is more than I can bear, more than I can compass.

I’m almost 55 million kilometres from where I was born, and I am lost and confused,

dazzled and sotted beyond imagining.

To be here, in the open air, the open Martian air –

But this is what we came so far to see, after all.

I take my daughter’s hand, and I open my eyes.

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This is the 30th and final post in NaBloPoMo. All done for another year!!

Day 5 check-in

 It's been raining all night and is still raining, and I've slept badly, troubled by peculiar dreams (one involved adopting a crocodile who then ate all the neighbourhood cats ... my subconscious is a disturbing place sometimes). Unable to sleep, I thought I should make some use of the time before I head off to work - so here I am, checking in re my Month of All the Words.

Today is day 5 of NaNoWriMo, and I'm tracking OK as far as stats go - I'm staying just a whisker in front of the goal word count each day, and I have a little over 7,000 words down that I think are not entirely rubbish.

However, the easiest stretch, both in terms of writing (I like beginnings, less good with middles) and available time, is behind me. I haven't been working from 1-4 November, but I have two full days of work ahead of me now, followed by a busy weekend, a fully booked week with work next week, and then a weekend away. Maintaining the daily writing target is going to be a challenge for me, especially as I'm sleeping poorly and not in the pink of health. Still, no-one ever said NaNo was meant to be easy - that doesn't make it not worth trying.

The novel is evolving into a strange kind of science fiction / mystery thriller / lyrical hybrid - a hot mess of unsaleable genre-smushing, in other words - but I'm satisfied that it is following a true path at the moment, rather than a dead end. I have a clear picture in my mind of what the next two scenes need to do, and a broad idea of where the story goes from there. If I'm going to lose my way, I'd reckon it'll happen around the 20,000 word mark, but I'm hoping the momentum of the exercise will carry me safely over that dreaded slump point.

Writing in verse is liberating for me and I am very happy with my decision to tell this story in a verse novel rather than a "straight" novel. I am more at home as a poet than as a prose writer, and I think it's important to go where the energy is. This story's strangeness can be nicely counterpointed through the allusiveness that verse allows, and I think the vehicle is right.

The story is set about 75-100 years in the future, and I am amusing myself by throwing in occasional present-day cultural references that might resonate (although I'm avoiding doing too much of this). My central premise is a world with massive climate problems, but where the movement of people has become normalised and national borders are much more porous than now, and generally accepted to be so. Communication technology is seamless and advanced, but there are still no flying cars (d'oh!) Gene tech has advanced too, and gene tinkering means that most people who don't die of climate-induced disaster or by human violence can reasonably look for 120 years of life.

Certain mutations have been enhanced with genetic engineering, and there is a body of people - the Mind-to-Mind cabal - who have the ability to perform microsurgery on the minds of others using only their own mental energy and capacity. This isn't quite mind-reading or telepathy - they can't communicate in speech-like thoughts to each other, nor can they strip-mine the thoughts of most others - but it is somewhat like very targeted telekinesis. This skill is obviously very useful in several contexts, from the repair of both brain injury and mental illness to the intervention into the minds of violent threatening individuals to render them harmless.

Of course it isn't simple and it is feared and resisted by many, but that's the general gist of it.

Here's a small sample of the story so far - this is part of a scene where my protagonist, Ket, is being questioned by two law enforcement officers with very different agendas about the opening incident in the story, where she managed to disable a gunman holding up a corner store by getting inside his mind.

-----------------------

I don’t need a second invitation – I slide into her frontal lobe, soft as a kitten’s paw;

if she hadn’t lowered the shield, she’d never know I was there.

(I heal complex psychic wounds for a job. Doing no harm is my bread and butter.)

She’s laid it out neatly, in the mental equivalent of flashing neon; a trainee Minder,

one with half my range and sensitivity, couldn’t miss it.

Major Crimes is opposed to Mind-to-Mind, it says, in bold lettering. Not exactly lettering,

but the analogy is close enough.

The Commander of Major Crimes in the Apac region cabal has a score to settle.

We’re not sure what it is, but he’s looking for a wedge. He’s decided you may be it.

Tread carefully, now. Give them no reason. You are needed, free.

I glance at her sharply.

We in Security Response have need of a Minder with your abilities. I will do what I can.

It is your onus, though, to give them no purchase for their calumny.

I say, Well, Officer Obela, I went into the store around 8:45am or so. I wouldn’t want to say *precisely*, you understand – I had no reason to particularly note the time, and I didn’t do so.

He scribes carefully, his arm tucked under itself crabwise in the manner of thwarted lefties.

For what purpose did you enter the store? says Pham. I recognise the lead and seize it;

if I am to emerge unscathed from this, I will need Pham’s help.

I smile ingratiatingly. I had need of feminine hygiene products, I say brightly, judging

(by the appreciative smile ghosting on Pham’s face, correctly)

that Obela is traditional enough to be discomfited at mention of both my bleeding womb

and that I have one, at all.

Tamponas, you know, I say, twisting the knife. The little micro-tubing, for vaginal use …?

Obela nods quickly, his face flushed.

It feels a little unfair, given the rest of what I saw in his straightforward mind –

a man via transition, he himself knows what it is to bleed, a memory surgery has not erased.

I shrug off the instinct to relieve his uncertainty. I need him off-balance

I need him unsure, if I am to be sure of a free walk from this room.

This is post 5 in NaBloPoMo. 5 down, 25 to go!

All stories begin somewhere...

The first day of November has arrived in a rush, and here I am, at the start of both NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, sort-of ready and sort-of terrified.

Partly I am terrified because I am attempting something that I think will be quite difficult for NaNoWriMo - a verse novel with a science-fictiony bent. It's tentatively called Theory of Mind, and I am going to challenge myself by not shying away from confronting content. This is something I normally avoid, and I've realised part of the reason I do so is because I am still, in part, writing like a good girl for my mother to read, and in doing so, avoiding writing things out as fully as they should be written.

I don't write sexual violence, except obliquely, and this story won't contain any, but it will contain physical and psychic violence - I need it for the story I'm trying to tell. Without it, the story will be milky-vague and unformed (I think). 500 words in, there's already a gun, being wielded by a man who's killed before, and there's language not fit for my mother's eyes. But if I am going to write this, I am going to write this - not a watered-down version of it, but the story I have planned.

So here's the first excerpt. Hope you like it...

Theory of Mind

The room is hot and close, with that sticky sickly skin-film that breathes

of sullen tropical summer. Air that insinuates into pores, soaks lungs:

the sort of air that never used to be among our afflictions, here in the once-cool south.

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis, I suppose – but this air, like a moist sponge from hell,

I think this air is partly to blame. Yes, I do.

The gun in his hand looks heavier than I had supposed; his hand is steady, but I can see

(I wonder if the others can, too?) the slight frictive buzzing in the wrist, the tremble of nerves

I know shit about guns, so I can’t even say what type of weapon it is.

A handgun, I suppose – it nestles into the heel of his strong left hand, it doesn’t have to balance

on shoulder or knee, or be steadied on a frame.

The atmosphere in this close, closed room (don’t think of it, don’t) is best expressed in smell.

The least-regarded sense, poor cousin to sight and hearing, less sybaritic than taste and touch –

Here it is overwhelming. The sourness of the adrenalin-tainted breath of seven people

all in varying degrees of terror, mingling with the ever-present nostril-curling tinge of summer sweat

the aroma of the warm mangoes on the shelf and the back-note of the pine-scented floor polish

I think I even smell the gun, although, as it has yet to be discharged, I know this is probably illusory

That chalky-metal explosive sillage a function of my imagination only – or, wait –


This is post 1 in NaBloPoMo. 1 down, 29 to go!