Gearing up for Nano 2014

Here we go ... NaNoWriMo is almost here, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month. Only a week to go! 
If you are not familiar, Nano is that yearly event where you are tasked with writing 50,000 words in 30 days. I've done it two years running and won both times -- but not without making a splendid mess, naturally. 
(Whispers) "it's OK first drafts are almost always terrible". 
I'm planing to continue with my Liberty (A Fragile empire) rewrite which is sitting at 50,130 words, I'm pretty certain I have another 50,000 words in it.
Here's what I have been working on... Yes the excerpt is rather first drafty and stuff, but heck, I had a tonne of fun writing it. Yes, Nano's a blast! Check it out, maybe even try it! http://nanowrimo.org/dashboard

So, the excerpt below is from the first half, which I wrote during Camp NaNoWriMo. I'm looking forward to tackling the second half from November 1st, and hopefully by 30th November I'll be writing those wonderful words -- THE END. Then I'll have yet another first draft to clean up ... uh yeah, well...

Anyway, that aside, here's the excerpt from The fragile Empire.

 (Excerpt chapter 4) 

Ash cleared his throat, “Um, I could come back.”

“You’ve seen me practically naked now, no backsies from that, you might as well stay.”

Stay, that word definitely had a pervy undertone to it, Fleura. Are you hitting on him now?

She heard him chuckle. It was a deep sexy sound, like a purr from a motherfucking big cat. She turned clutching the front of her towel and looked at him speculatively. He looked nice, clean cut, his blond hair tufting up in long messy spikes of fun, thrown this way and that to give him a designer bed head, She gulped. His tee was classic black, with some retro design and white tube pants with grey trim. They made his legs look long, his hips narrow and his chest, just right, not broad but neither slim. Lean and trim, perfect. Her mind flew ahead of her, wrapping itself around him and throwing him into bed.

“So, get dressed, there’s something I wanted to show you,” he said breaking the spell with a genuine smile and a light conversational tone. All undertones of tension fizzled.

Fleura snapped back to friend zone reality with a cold hard thump. Her hand clutched the towel around her a little tighter. She turned and gathered some clothes — any clothes! The word idiot revolved around inside her head in garish neon red as she slid back into the bathroom cubby, frustration burning beneath her skin. Damn it.

Less than 5 minutes. Body fully covered, Face lightly painted, hair blown dry, she stalked back out into her room, feeling less than peppy. She had dressed in tights and a Mondrianesque tunic — tight geometric fun. She stepped into her one pair of pretty boots. As the faux swede adjusted, shrinking around her feet and legs, she looked up at him, expectant.

He turned toward the door with a smile and she followed. He took her straight to the sliptube. She looked at it dubiously as he silently gestured for her to enter, a small annoyingly secretive smile on his lips. 

“Where are we going?” She asked. 

“Wait and see,” came the cryptic reply.

 In most circumstances she would begin to lose patience with this sort of behavior, but he was too damn intriguing to let go now. Intelligent, rebellious, chivalrous, charming — her internal perfecto meter spazzed glowingly. He took out a small cold colored metallic card and slipped it into a slot beneath the floor buttons. The doors hissed shut and then suddenly Mr Perfection blurred before her. It felt as if her stomach had dropped into the soles of her too-expensive boots. She grabbed at the closest thing, him, and hung pathetically off his arm until she gained some still-wobbly equilibrium.

He patted her hand reassuringly. She gave him a sheepish smile and disentangled herself, explaining “I wasn’t quite ready for that.”

He replied with that small chuckle, and a smile that reached his blue, oh-so-blue eyes.

She looked past him and out the transparent door. The dark blur suddenly disappeared and her gaze plummeted into a sea of stars. Her breath shuddered, as her brain — caught in a spiral of awe-panic — tried to work out whether inhaling or exhaling was more appropriate in the circumstance.

Consortium: Where Creative Minds Meet

Science Fiction Consortium is an anthology of short stories from nine authors, including the creator of the Science Fiction Microstory Contest, Jot Russell.

The Destroyer Of Syn is my personal contribution to this anthology.
Here's a wee blurb to whet your appetite.

On a planet ruled by synthetics, a relic from the past is unearthed.

Something inside Syn is broken, she knows it. She's not like the others. She's an obsessive builder. During one of her trips to the colony's scrapyard, she finds something that has been long buried. This discovery awakens something inside her, changing the way she sees herself forever. But such reprogramming is not without risks, it could very well lead her to destruction.

Consortium is available on Smashwords here: Link

Hack and Slash- Gardening, not Editing.

September is almost at it's end...and I have been rather unproductive writing-wise. Made a start on a few things, edited some others, rewrote some, squinted, sighed and looked out the window. Spring has arrived, the sun was up and the jungle that is my garden waved back at me with its wild untamed tenticular...everything.
So I started a gardening blitz because ....

and every writer needs a break once in a while.


First thing to happen was the creation of a new fenced area for (all) my chickens. I have a lot of chickens and even though I love the cute wee things, I was quickly tiring of them leaving poopy presents on my doorstep. Sooooo, now they have their side of the yard and we have ours. They are very cute but their shit isn't, also my lawn was dying a slow hen-pecked death. They are very effective lawn mowers if you don't mind exchanging grass for...a hard poop-baked desert.

One of my Chinese Silkies- fluff for brains- seriously, they are the blonds of the poultry world.

My Georgie Girl- not sure if she can actually see under all those feathers- but she's oh so cute!

Job number two involved destroying an old garden shed. The only thing holding it up was an ancient ivy tree. The hardest part in the process was removing that cursed ivy. I ended up taking an axe to it, chop, chop, hack, miss...sometime later TIMBER! And the hybrid wall/ivy tree didn't fall on me! Yes, I was very proud of myself.

my triumphant, 'I-just-kicked-this-shed's-ass' pose. Wore my flashest gumboots for the occasion ;)

Actually that shed-pocalypse kicked my butt a little too, I ended up hobbling around for the next week. Not sure how I did it but I must have somehow strained something in my hip during that frenzy of wanton destruction.

Next thing to go was the two Douglas Firs at the back of our property. Our awesome, fantastic, amazing neighbors got hold of a cherry picker for the weekend, so they popped on over and asked us if we wanted the problematic trees gone. Problematic meaning they had a nasty habit of shedding branches during storms, narrowly missing fences, the neighbor's house, the chookhouse and even me (one evening when I was out putting the animals away, crash, Eek!). So naturally we were all happy to see the last of them- the trees... not the animals.

 

Our neighbors are especially pleased since they can now see the sun- oh blessed sunshine.

 

 Then there's the clean up. You know what? Woodchippers are great. Instead of a disheartening mountain of branches, I now have a manageable pile of mulch. 

Now the next thing is to put in is a vege garden. I will somehow figure out a way to bunny-proof it. Alaska is fond of eating anything I put in, or near the ground ( the two remaining stalks of the blackcurrant are a sad testimony to this fact.)

Here's the flemish giant fatty in question. She's cute yes, but she's bigger than a cat and has a greedy garden destroying glint in her eye.

After my September gardening binge I almost feel ready to sit down again and get back into that rewrite. That magical idea portal that seems to inhabit roughly the same space as my cruddy old shower has opened up and poured forth wonderful ideas. I may have just solved a troubling plot/continuity problem in The Rising. Can't wait to get back into it and see if this new direction works.
Or maybe I will just procrastinate and do more gardening... and also the house needs painting this summer...