Joleen's

Twitter vs facebook

2011-07-20T12:00:00.004+01:00

Twitter versus facebook - a poem

Tweet tweet.

One hundred and forty characters, in which to share your thoughts.
Simple.
Succinct.
See something
Tweet about it,
Suddenly
It is shared across the world.

Status update

Everything from personal to professional to
Proof of how wonderful your friends are.

Photos of babies and rants about irresponsible dog owners
Virtual coffee mornings
With the occasional poke.

I love both twitter and facebook (especially since I can access them on my phone - helps me stay in touch with the world). The way I see it though, they aren't really in competition.

Twitter is where I share my thoughts.
Facebook is where I share my life.

Facebook is for the personal, for my close friends and family. Twitter is for everyone else. My tweets are there for all the world to see. My facebook profile is hidden behind walls of privacy settings.

Twitter is also linked to my professional identity. Me as a writer, a creative writing facilitator.

Facebook is personal. It's where I share my feelings about being a mum, among other things.

When I enter twitter, I am a slightly different person to the one that wanders around facebook.

Other writers...

2011-07-18T11:00:00.000+01:00

So I haven't had much time for writing lately, so I figured I could take the opportunity to tell you about some other very talented writers...

There is the darkly talented Jo Robertson, co-author of Casting Shadows, who has released a volume of horror short stories.

Behind the Shutters is a great collection of short stories set in that most horrifying of landscapes - the seeming innocence of suburbia. The opening story, My Name is Graham Roper, is my favourite. It is the perfect example Jo's darkly humorous writing. I dare you to read this book and not laugh out loud at one page, then cower in terror at the next!

Behind the Shutters is available from Lulu and Amazon.

If fantasy is more your thing, you could always read The Kingdom of Malinas by E.J. Tett.

It is a Young Adult fantasy, but I found there was plenty in it for adult readers - particularly if you like your female characters feisty, and not damsel-in-distress types.

The Kingdom of Malinas is the first in the trilogy: the second book, The Empress Graves , is also out. The final part will be out soon, so now would be a great time to read the first two!

The Kingdom of Malinas and The Empress Graves are available from Lulu and Amazon.

Also available is Magenta Shaman by Lily Childs, available on Amazon for kindle download.

So go check these writers out, have a read of the wonderful work they have to offer!

What have I been doing?! Well...

2011-06-27T23:18:00.000+01:00

There is the horror of the dirty nappies....the shrieks and squeals of a little girl who likes to make a lot of noise. Parenting is a full time job, it appears. I don't seem to be able to find a lot of time for writing. There are ideas floating around in my head, but getting them down is another story (pun not really intended). They're also all quite vague, nothing quite story-shaped just yet. Maybe I should try a few writing challenges to get back into it...

There has been sadness as well. We had to say goodbye to Muttley a few weeks ago. He was barely mobile, and getting incontinent. It was hard seeing him like that, and hard for him to be like that. This is how I want to remember him:

Heading to the beach

At the beach

Savaging a stick...

Happy.

Goodbye, Muttley.

He was a great dog and will never be forgotten.

Publication, yay...Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine.

2011-04-21T12:37:00.000+01:00

My story, The Venetian, features in April's issue of Dark Gothic Resurrected magazine.

I miss writing...

2011-04-05T17:30:00.000+01:00

No chance for writing these days, any time I have to spare (which isn't a lot) is spent studying and writing essays, and trying to maintain some kind of cleanliness in the pigsty I call home...

In about 6 weeks I have exams and then I will have a few months off study at least, so hopefully my little darling will sometimes spare me time to write a story or two.

I also look forward to catching up on all your blogs and escapades...I have not forgotten any of you, I'm just hibernating my writing-self.

Save the words

2010-12-06T19:08:00.003Z

I don't have a lot of time for blogging what with the little one, but I do still find time to browse the net & I found this site:

Save the Words

Words that have fallen out of regular use ask you to adopt them - i.e. agree to use them regularly.

Some great words that are worth knowing just for their scrabble values. And because they sound cool. Examples include:

Quaeritate (to ask)
Odynometer (an instrument for measuring pain - nice word for a horror writer? I'm sure an evil character could find a use for one of those...)
Viliorate (to deteriorate)
Snollygoster (a shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician - appropriate for the times we live in!)

...go check out the site! I'm sure we could all improve our vocabulary!

Too happy to write horror...

2010-11-28T14:37:00.000Z

As many of you know, I was pregnant...well I had a beautiful baby girl almost 3 weeks ago.

She is perfect :-)

I will get back to writing dark fantasy, apocalyptic & horror stories again but at the moment everything is too full of loveliness and light :-)

I will also get around to commenting and reading people's blogs again - once I come to terms with this new "sleep" cycle which mostly involves not sleeping.

She's so worth it though :-) Nothing beats this feeling & even though I'm a writer I can't begin to describe it!

Random - Giant Cats, The Simpsons

2010-10-20T18:27:00.000+01:00

I have nothing new to share regards writing, or babies...my brain appears to have stopped working though, so just to make sure you don't all forget about me I thought I should do a post of some description...

So, some random things that attracted my attention recently:

Longest cat in the world.
Cat is over 48 inches (4 feet!) long.

I want one of those.

The Vatican has found time to declare that Homer Simpson is a Catholic.
Well seeing as God is fictional I suppose it's only fair the congregation is too...

Still, seems like the Vatican should really be busying themselves with a few other issues than claiming cartoon characters...

A study claims to have evidence for psi-phenomena or non-linear time

via TheMother - mothershandbook.net

Umm...yeah. Seems more like a study about attention and memory retrieval and how existing information effects how we encode new...but clearly it sounds way cooler to say it's evidence for people predicting the future. Ahem.

House of Horror Best of 2010 Featuring...me!

2010-10-13T12:24:00.001+01:00

Earlier this year, I had a story accepted for publication on House of Horror. That story was Mike Patterson, Murderer, and you can read it here.

Mike Patterson, Murderer, is a tale about a man undergoing a mid-life crisis, who kills without compunction as an alternative to what he sees as the more pathetic middle-aged antics of his peers.

The excellent news is, my story has been selected as one of the best pieces on House of Horror in 2010 and therefore features in the anthology! So if you would rather read it in a book than off the screen...

You can order a copy of House of Horror: Best of 2010 on the House of Horror bookshop.

If you do order a copy, please quote my name as I get royalties that way!

Even if you don't order a copy of this book, it's well worth taking a look at the spooky House of Horror website.There are loads of great stories, poems and book reviews to read, and plenty of other anthologies to buy, including Stitched Up! which also features one of my stories, a zombie-tale called White Christmas.

You can also follow the owner and head editor of House of Horror, S.E. Cox, on blogger - for updates on House of Horror including calls for submissions, anthology releases and more news on HoH's plans to seek novel submissions next year, as well as book reviews and interviews. S.E. Cox's blog is here: http://house-madam.blogspot.com/

Over all 2010 has been a great year so far - I've had quite a few pieces accepted for anthologies now. Can't beat seeing my name in print!

Just the Dust - A short story from Casting Shadows

2010-10-10T10:00:00.019+01:00

This story is the opening one in Casting Shadows. I am publishing it here today because today's date, ten-ten-ten (10/10/10) features in the story, so it seemed appropriate.

Would anyone like to review Casting Shadows, by the way? If so, please send an email to

joleenkuyper (at) gmail (dot) com

I don't have any hard copies at the moment but you can have the PDF, I'd love to get another review for the collection especially as it's coming up to Halloween! It's a mixture of stories and poems, mostly horror-speculative-dark fantasy genres. By Joleen Kuyper (me!), E.J. Tett and Jo Robertson. If it sounds like the kind of thing you'd be interested in, send me an email!

Just the Dust

Ashes. Nothing left, just the dust swirling in the air. Too light to touch, but choking and dark. It blocked out the light. 

Her voice was croaky, and it echoed as she called for help. There were no replies. Her mouth tasted funny. Blood mixed with the smoky taste of the dust. She swallowed. A wave of nausea came over her. 

What happened? The question came to her mind suddenly. Immediately, others followed. She couldn’t remember anything else either. Who am I? She wondered. For some reason the terror of that thought made her shudder more than the situation she found herself in. 

She tried to move her legs. They were trapped under something. Whatever it was, it was heavy. The air was still too thick for her to see. She coughed, her chest hurt. She called for help again and again until her throat hurt too. There was no answer. There was nothing; just her and whatever was pinning her down. 

Her head hurt as well. A tear rolled down her cheek. I’m going to die here, she thought. She sobbed until her head felt it would burst and a mixture of tears and blood from her cuts rolled into her mouth. She wondered if her own blood and tears dribbling into her would save her from dying of thirst. She didn’t think it would.

Her throat was too raw now to even shout and she didn’t think she had the energy to cry. Strangely, as well as desperate and terrified, she felt bored. 

Think! She told herself. I have a name, I have a life. I must have. No answers came. The air didn’t hurt her nostrils anymore but she still couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t be sure if it was dark or the air was still clogged up. 

I’m bored. What would I like to be doing? She asked herself. Something with my hands. Maybe I’m an artist? She wondered, then frowned. No. That wasn’t right. Busy hands, always moving. Something to do with a computer, she realised. I type quickly. A hundred words per minute. How can I be so certain of that and not know my own name? 

She felt like drifting off to sleep, tried to force herself to stay awake. Remember something else. Something that might help, she instructed herself firmly. There must be someone looking for me, missing me. I’ve been here hours, she thought. It must be hours. A mother or father, brother or sister, friend or lover? A child? She wondered. Am I gay or straight? How can I not know? 

She tried to think of celebrities, which images turned her on. Angelina Jolie came to her mind. Lesbian? She wondered, but soon imagined both Angelina and Brad Pitt in bed, with her. In her mind they had faces, she did not. Bi, or bi-curious, she mused, forcing away the fear at not knowing what she looked like. “How can I know who they are and not myself,” she muttered in a coarse whisper. 

She tried touching her face to figure out what her features were. All she could feel was the dust and scrapes. Her nose felt big, she realised after she poked and prodded at herself more. And her lips were narrow. She felt down. Large chest, medium waist. Her legs were still painful, though it was more a dull ache now. She thought they were long but she wasn’t sure. “Quite tall,” she muttered. She still couldn’t picture what she looked like. Her hair was dry with dust and matted with blood, and she couldn’t remember what colour it was. 

“What day is it? What year?” she asked herself aloud. Hearing her voice helped her concentrate. “What accent am I speaking in? Where am I from?” 

“Ten, ten, ten,” she said suddenly. “October tenth, two thousand and ten. That must be the date, today’s date. Or maybe a date important to me.” She could see her hands suddenly, inputting the date into a computer. Slim fingers. Today’s date, she thought. 

“Seven, seven, eighty-two,” she said after a moment. My date of birth, she thought, something told her she was right. “I’m twenty eight,” she said aloud, gravity in her voice, as if it would unlock the puzzle and set her free. Nothing happened. 

I’m getting somewhere, she thought. If I can just work out who I am and why I’m here, maybe I can get out of here. She knew that she couldn’t afford to go to sleep. Knew that could mean never waking up again. 

She tried to focus on the image of herself tapping away on the computer keys, remember what data apart from the date she was inputting. Am I at work, she wondered, was there an accident? A terrorist attack maybe? There must be someone looking for me! “Help!” she shouted, her throat raspy and sore. No response, no sound, nothing. Just dark emptiness. 

“Six-o-six,” she said aloud then. A train, a train home? What route? What line? Victoria? “I’m in London,” she said, nodding to herself. “London,” she repeated. It felt good, to know where she was. The tube. Some kind of accident, I’m buried in a tunnel. They will come to dig me out. Why don’t I have a mobile phone? She wondered. She had nothing but the clothes on her back. No gadgets, no handbag, no purse or wallet. 

Where is everyone else? If I was on the train it must have been crowded. There must have been other people. They can’t all be dead, surely? Panic gripped her as she started to fear being given up on, her breathing became fast and shallow and she felt her eyes grow watery again. Can’t cry, or I’ll get dehydrated, she told herself as she brought her breathing under control, forced herself to calm down. I have to figure out how to get the hell out of here, never mind who I am, that can come later in a nice clean hospital bed with a shrink or whatever. 

She took a few slow, deep breaths and leaned forward as far as she could until the pain was too much to bear. Holding her breath helped a little. Whatever was on her legs was metallic and very heavy. She thought they were probably broken; she had some feeling in them but couldn’t manage to move her toes. A memory came back to her of having broken her leg at school; before being taken to casualty the teacher had taken off her shoe and sock and asked her to wiggle her toe. She could hear the teacher in her mind, speaking her name, but couldn’t make out the word. 

“Never mind that,” she muttered to herself. “First things first.” She thought that maybe it was a part of the train carriage that was on her legs. It was heavy and though her legs were probably broken she couldn’t feel any wounds in them, no jagged shards poking out. She summoned up her strength and heaved, but she couldn’t get the right angle, couldn’t manage to shift it even the tiniest bit. 

Spots appeared before her eyes as she exerted herself, and when they cleared as she took slow, deep breaths again she realised the air was clearing, there was a light in the distance somewhere. “Here! Please, help! I’m trapped!” she called as loudly as she could manage, which wasn’t as loudly as she would have liked. There was no response, no movement. No sound. Just a light in the tunnel, she thought. 

She tried lifting again, then using her hands to tug at her legs but she couldn’t get anywhere. The silence disturbed her more with every minute that passed. The light down the tunnel blinked a few times, then went off. Complete darkness again. 

There weren’t any animals either, she realised. There should be rats or something, surely, in the tunnels? There was nothing. Just her. 

A wave of nausea came over her again as blood trickled down her throat from the back of her nostrils, and she gagged. Blood dribbled down her nose as well now, and she wiped it away with her sleeve. It too, was covered in dust. 

She squirmed around some more, feeling for something that might be able to help her. A wedge of metal lay behind her head and she dragged it over her, little by little, and jammed it under the other piece, then rolled onto her side to push down on it with the weight of her body. She felt the pressure on her legs give way a little and once again reached for them with her hands, pulling them out. This time, she managed. 

Which way? She wondered as she glanced around her. She wasn’t even certain anymore which direction the light had been in; the darkness was disorienting. She lay back down, her legs on top of the sheet of metal now rather than beneath it, to get her bearings. She started to crawl in the direction of the light, dragging her legs. 

She was definitely in a tunnel, she thought as she made her way along a solid wall. It suddenly gave way, prodding with her hands she realised she’d reached a flight of stairs. She hauled herself up a couple, found it excruciatingly difficult. Her legs were a dead weight behind her. 

A few at a time she made some progress. There was still no sign of anyone else, dead or alive. Just the dust. 

She reached a plateau. A floor that was smooth beneath the coating of ashes, it was easier to move along. She wasn’t really thinking about anything but moving when the word iodine popped into her head. Iodine? She wondered. What’s that about? 

It was still dark, though not as dark, but she still couldn’t see anything. The only difference was that now it was grey rather than black. A sickly kind of grey. She could just about see her hands, they were covered with sores, blood oozed out of her. 

Suddenly she stopped; she heard something. Something scuttling, moving quickly toward her. She screamed as it passed over her hand. A huge beetle, maybe a cockroach. Just one. “Calm down, Lisa,” she said aloud suddenly. “Lisa! My name! I’m Lisa!” A wave of elation hit her. “It’s all coming back,” she thought. 

“Calm down, Lisa,” she muttered again. Someone had said that to her. A man, older, her father perhaps? What had she been doing? She saw a newspaper article. Nuclear hostilities a possibility. She felt her panic on that day.  

“Scaremongering,” her father had said. “They said that all during the cold war, we’re still here.” She took the iodine tablets anyway, the ones they sent out. Bought more on the internet, dosed herself with them. 

Conspiracy theories. Ten, ten, ten. Today’s date. The end of the world. It was all over the internet. She looked at her hands again. The sores were getting worse, she thought. Even iodine couldn’t put off the inevitable forever. She’d run for the tunnels, not to catch a train. To hide from the blast. None of her friends had believed her. 

She looked around again. Knew where she was. London, St. Pancras. Except there was nothing there. Just dust. She heard another cockroach scuttling around nearby. More of them, behind her now. They were coming for her. She pulled herself further along, but they came nearer. She winced as a piece of skin peeled off the palm of her hand. Heard the roaches eating it as she moved onward.

Misty Morning - A Short Story

2010-10-07T12:33:00.001+01:00

A flash fiction. I wrote and revised this as part of Folded Word 24/7, in which participants wrote a piece a day for the month of August.

Enjoy!

Misty Morning

She climbed the tower as she did every morning. Today was different though. Usually the whole town was visible and she started her days by surveying it, and dreaming of what she would one day do. Now she couldn’t. Everything was hidden behind a shroud of mist. What little she could see was blurred and grey, and all the sounds were muffled. She felt like the only person left on earth. It left her feeling powerful and sad simultaneously as she climbed down. She could not do what she intended. 

She went into the world as normal. Participated in the usual doing of job, paying of bills, answering of questions or whatever passed for dialogue. Pretended to be normal, as she did every day. She concealed the rage within her core, as before. 

The mist did not burn off as the day progressed. The light remained the same shade of grey, only the movement of the clock indicated that time was passing at all. As evening arrived she climbed the tower once more and surveyed the valley. It was still hidden. Cloaked in mist. 

They’re safe, she thought as she took the rifle apart again. They’re safe for at least one more day. If I can’t see them, I can’t shoot. 

Darkness fell, and the mist remained.

My name is...

2010-10-05T12:59:00.000+01:00

This is a repost of a post from June. Yup, I am that lazy! It's still relevant though, hence why I'm posting it again.

Joleen. Yes, Joleen. J-O-L-E-E-N.

J for Juliet
O for Oscar
L for Lima
E for Echo
E for Echo
N for November

I am aware that Dolly Parton spelled it differently (Jolene).

This is probably the most common variation I get. Other common ones are Joeleen, Joelene, Joline, sometimes Joelle and occasionally, Gillian. (I get all sorts of variations on my surname too, but I won't go on about that here).

I've grown used to it. Most annoying is when it's spelled wrong on a cheque - especially when I've typed out an invoice with my name on it, spelled correctly. I don't hold the knowledge of how to spell all names in the universe within my brain either - but when I'm writing a letter/email/cheque etc, I do tend to do my best to check how the person I'm addressing it to spells their name. Cheques especially, as the bank has this remarkably annoying tendency not to allow people to cash them if the name on the cheque doesn't match that on the account.

What's even more hilarious than people spelling it wrong though, is when people tell me I spell it wrong. I wasn't aware of the law that made Dolly Parton's words (and their associated spellings) some kind of canon. I wasn't named after the song. My name is spelled how it's spelled. It's right, simply because it's what it says on my birth certificate.

Casting Shadows - Shameless Self Promotion!

2010-10-03T12:00:00.004+01:00

I've mentioned Casting Shadows a few times, but I've gained some followers since, so I thought I'd do a proper post about it.

Casting Shadows is a collection of short stories and poems by Joleen Kuyper (me), E.J. Tett and Jo Robertson.

The cover image is based on a photo I took, the fact it looks so good is more down to E.J. Tett than me though, as she did the design!

It was taken in a forest park near where I live.

It is a collection of short stories (some flash-fiction length, others a bit longer) and poems by Joleen Kuyper (me), E.J. Tett and Jo Robertson.

The book opens with one of my stories, Just the Dust. This is followed by a poem, Monsters, by E.J. Tett, and next a story, Roses, by Jo Robertson. The book follows this format - story->poem->story throughout, alternating between the three authors.

The stories and poems are all dark, though they vary between post-apocalyptic, straightforward horror, dark fantasy and just...dark! Hence the title, Casting Shadows. Shadows are dark!

While all I can really do is write and maybe take an occasional photograph, E.J. Tett has a few more creative talents up her sleeve - including this slideshow, which also features phrases from the equally talented Jo Robertson's spooky introduction to the book.

Casting Shadows is available to buy from:

And you can also follow Casting Shadows on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook - both good options if you'd like to buy the book, as we'll let you know when there are special offers and promotions taking place!

Casting Shadows has been reviewed twice - and they're both good reviews!

The blurb from the back of the book:

The smell of roses is sinister rather than sweet. A campfire brings monsters rather than warmth in the woods. Real danger lurks behind the superstitious fear of whistling in the theatre. These are the types of tales contained in this anthology of short stories and poetry by a trio of writers who find their inspiration in darkness: that of night, of the human soul, and of the dangerous things that exist only in the imagination... or do they? Follow the path of darkness if you dare, and be prepared to see danger that lurks under the surface of a calm lake; hear something new and frightening in the sound of a whisper; smell the mystery hidden beneath a cloak of smoke. Be frightened, be intrigued, and enjoy every minute of it as these stories and poems suck you in to the shadows of their dark world.

If you read it, I hope you enjoy it!

Open markets - Anthologies.

2010-10-01T12:30:00.003+01:00

A few anthologies that are currently accepting submissions - worth checking out!

Blood Bound Books - Steamy Screams Anthology

Erotic Horror, 750-5000 words. Payment 3/4c per word. Click the link for more info.

Pill Hill Press - Many Anthologies!

Loads of anthologies here, too many to list them all, some paying, some for the love. Various genres - Pill Hill aren't just about Horror.

Library of the Living Dead (& sister imprints) - Various Anthologies

Click the link and scroll down to see various anthologies accepting submissions. Everything from comedy horror to GLBT sci-fi. Most anthologies pay 1c/word.

If you're looking for more markets, Duotrope's Digest is my favourite writer's resource.You can adjust the search parameters easily, to search for markets in a particular genre, by payscale, anthologies only, or something like whether the market accepts electronic submissions. I also signed up to Duotrope so I can log my submissions - it helps to have an accurate indication of how long it'll take for editors to respond, so I know when to query.

Also good is Ralan - plenty of markets listed there as well.

Acceptance, yay!

2010-09-30T10:00:00.001+01:00

A story that I've tried for quite a while to find a home for (in various different incarnations and rewrites) has been accepted for publication!

The Venetian will appear in Dark Gothic Resurrected magazine next year, in April 2011. It's a story about a vampire who finds herself in a damp, grey land and wishes to return to the much nicer setting of Venice where she is from, but being a vampire, her journey isn't easy.

Don't worry, I'll be sure to remind you about it at the time as it's quite a while away!

Life is too short to...?

2010-09-28T15:00:00.001+01:00

Life is too short to do all sorts of things. I do of course occasionally have to do things that I don't like in order to earn money, or keep someone I care about happy, but I'll only do them if there's some kind of reason behind it.

I mentioned to a friend the other day that I consider life too short to do much ironing - I'll iron for a job interview, and that's about it. Otherwise I try to buy and wear clothes that don't wrinkle easily. She said that though she bought clothes that did need ironing, overall she was with me - especially as some people iron things like sheets.

Why??? Why would you iron sheets?

What else is life too short to bother doing, in your opinion?

Truth vs Creative Fiction:

2010-09-26T11:50:00.000+01:00

..All but one of the statements I made about myself last week were true.

The statements were:

Lobsters terrify me.
I have no middle name.
When I was a child I played the role of Mary in a school nativity play.
I love doing bungee jumps.
The first time I smoked a cigarette, I was 12.
When I was a teenager I was in a samba-style drumming band.
I play the same numbers in the lotto every week.

#4 is the only falsehood. I have never done a bungee jump, though I would love to do one one day, and a parachute jump as well. All the others are in fact true!

200 days

2010-09-23T20:34:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow it'll be 200 days since I gave up smoking!!!

Yay me.

There were some difficult days. Like moving house. And exam time. And various other occasions that I always associate with smoking. But I'm glad I quit....will just have to see if I manage to stay off them long term.

According to the facebook app I've added 17 days to my life as well, by not smoking for 200. Well, you know - as long as I don't get hit by a bus or whatever.

There are nearly 5000 cigarettes I haven't smoked too. That's a pretty scary amount for a little over 6 months. Funny how it's that figure rather than the life saved or money saved which tends to hit home for me.

Busy week so I haven't done any writing, got a few rejections but haven't sent pieces out again...I'll get to it. Will catch up on everyone's blogs as well, haven't been reading or commenting much this week. Hope all is well with everyone & everyone's writing :-)

Creative Blogger Award!

2010-09-19T17:01:00.000+01:00

Firstly, thank you to the darkly talented Pixie J. King who passed this award on to me!

The Creative Blogger award is a 'pass it on' sort of concept, which means that I now get to nominate others for it. Oh, and tell some lies. *ahem* I mean creative fictions.

Specifically, I must:

Thank the person who gave you the award and link to them.
Add the award to your blog.
Tell six outrageous lies about yourself and one truth. (Another variant: Tell six truths and one outrageous lie.)
Nominate five creative liars/writers and post links to them.
Let your nominees know that they have been nominated.

So #1 is done, thank you, Pixie :-)

#2 is also done.
- So now for the fun stuff!

Are these six lies and one truth, or six truthful statements with just one single lie among them? Have a guess, in the comments (and if you know for sure, don't spoil it for the others!)
:-) I may tell you next week...though I have been very forgetful, of late. Muahaha.

Lobsters terrify me.
I have no middle name.
When I was a child I played the role of Mary in a school nativity play.
I love doing bungee jumps.
The first time I smoked a cigarette, I was 12.
When I was a teenager I was in a samba-style drumming band.
I play the same numbers in the lotto every week.

So, now to nominate 5 others! This is the hard part...I don't like upsetting or insulting people! And I'm still quite new to the blogger network so I don't have that many connections yet, but some of the people I know all know each other so they've already been nominated! Conflustering. So here goes:

E. J. Tett - Em's Blog of Waffles.
Lee Hughes - Lee Hughes Writes
Lily Childs - Lily Childs' Feardom
Rev. Wayne Austin Goodchild - The Change Has Started
Craig Saunders - Petrified Tank

So now to go let these people know I've nominated them, and then I'm done :-) Overall this was definitely fun to do, and it's a great way to showcase other writers' blogs and hopefully get everyone some more hits and followers and fans! So thanks once again, Pixie, and I look forward to reading all your thoughts on which of my fantastic facts are true and which are lies!

What I'm working on...

2010-09-17T13:08:00.000+01:00

Probably the last regular Friday update for a while. Not that I'm going to go away or anything, but next week I'll have to start studying so I can get a headstart before the baby comes...and then there'll be the small matter of becoming a first-time mum. So now as Summer becomes Autumn, I'm having to accept that I might not have as much time for writing. Nappies and night feeds as well as assignments might have to take priority for a while.

Don't worry though, I'll still update the blog and share stories and poems! Just probably a little less, especially once the baby arrives.

So, what I'm working on:

I finished a draft of the little hillbilly town story, but it needs an awful lot of work yet. So I'll probably try to get some more work done on that. I think now that there might be several stories, set in several different Odd Little Local Towns rather than just the one, as there seems to be too much to fit neatly into one story. Or one town.

I also wrote a piece called Disfigured. Just a flash fiction, but I quite liked it, so I submitted it somewhere as soon as it was edited. Fingers crossed!

It's been a good week, with one story published on Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers and another accepted into a Pill Hill Press anthology.

Done some reading this week as well - read The Empress Graves by E. J. Tett, and I'm also reading Stitched Up!, the House of Horror anthology which features one of my stories, as well as some other great tales so far. Since next week I really need to start reading Hamlet and and some chapters on cognitive psychology, a YA fantasy novel and some short stories about zombies are the perfect diversion at the moment!

Now, since it is Autumn, I think I'll light the fire and try to get some writing done while listening to the rain beating against the window, and the dogs snoring. There's inspiration there, somewhere...

Acceptance, yay!

2010-09-16T15:40:00.000+01:00

Two pieces of good news on the writing front!

Firstly, today my story Looking for Adventure appears on the Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers website :-) Go have a read and let me know what you think!

And secondly, I have had a story accepted to Pill Hill Press's 2013: The Aftermath anthology. Yay!It's a post-apocalyptic story called Stepping on the Bones. Quite dark, but since it's set after the end of the world as we know it, that works quite well :-)

Always good to get good news, can't beat the confidence boost of an acceptance!

Book Review - The Empress Graves by E.J. Tett.

2010-09-15T11:14:00.000+01:00

Firstly, I do want to be open and honest here - I know the author, she's a friend of mine and a co-author of Casting Shadows. However, this is a completely honest review of the book. If I didn't like it I would have either not reviewed it, or given it a poor review. You'll just have to trust me on that!

The Empress Graves by E.J. Tett.
The Empress Graves is the second book in the Power of Malinas trilogy. (A Young Adult Fantasy Trilogy). In the first book, The Kingdom of Malinas, the lead character Sorrel (a stroppy 16 year old) fights to defend her people from the Lamya who try to enslave them.

In this follow up, Sorrel is a little older - but still prone to the same impetuousness that on occasion leads her to act first, think later.

She has grown up somewhat though, and now understands the benefit of discipline in her training as a warrior.

She will need that training in order to overcome the challenges posed to her by the evil Empress Graves.

Many other characters from the first book also return, and they too are a few years older - and in some cases, a little wiser. In particular, Sorrel's brother Leif, who is now a leader of his people, but doesn't necessarily display the same confidence around his partner Saoirse who is now heavily pregnant. Sorrel's faithful friends Gaeshi and Little Cloud reappear as well, while there are also some new faces - most memorable among them probably the fast-talking Mojag and the playful, if sometimes irritating, Chogan.

While the action scenes are exciting and the dialogue is snappy, I think the best thing about these books is the way they turn the traditional gender stereotypes in fantasy on their head. Sorrel is a girl, but don't dare try to put her in a dress. I love The Lord of the Rings, but the female characters in that are generally just window dressing (less so in Peter Jackson's film versions, admittedly). Even the Belgariad by David Eddings, another of my personal favourites, which has strong female characters, still doesn't often hand them swords.

Girls aged 12-16 or so have a good role model in Sorrel therefore. She isn't perfect - far from it, in fact. There's plenty for an average bad-tempered, independence-craving but responsibility-shirking teenager to identify with in her character. Especially in this book, where anger threatens to make her enjoy killing and embrace the darkest aspects of her own personality - what teenager hasn't stared into that abyss (well, without the killing part, at least - or I hope so anyway!)? Makes me glad I'm not that age anymore!

In general it isn't just Sorrel who is darker in this book. Other characters such as Faerwald also address fundamental questions with a greater level of depth than the first instalment of the trilogy. Me being me, I quite like that. Dark is good, as far as I'm concerned. Of course, it isn't all dark - this is fantasy, it is all about the triumph of good over evil. But the lines between the two aren't always as clear cut as we might like to believe, and The Empress Graves addresses these grey areas nicely.

Links for further info:
The Kingdom of Malinas Website
E.J. Tett's Blog

Lucky Pen (Short Story)

2010-09-14T10:04:00.002+01:00

Inspired by an idea I had when doing a Friday Flash Fiction piece for Lily Childs' Blog (which is well worth a visit, by the way).

Every Friday, Lily posts three words which readers are then invited to turn into a story of 100 words or less. You can scroll down the comments here to read my original 100 word piece (as well as pieces by other writers). I liked the idea, so I figured I could rewrite it a little longer - and without necessarily having to use the original three words.

So here is the newer draft of the story, now entitled Lucky Pen.

Comments welcome :-)

P.S. Thanks also to David Barber (whose blog is also worth a visit) for pointing out that it's much easier to maintain formatting when copying and pasting from MS Word if I use Edit HTML mode rather than Compose mode. Cheers!

Lucky Pen.

Olivia read the exam questions carefully and decided which one to answer. In her head, she composed the essence of her argument before she reached for her pen to begin writing it. 

It was her favourite pen that she selected, the one she had picked up years ago in an odd old shop in a sleepy seaside village. She always seemed to do better in exams when she used that pen, though occasionally she would get mesmerised and distracted by the ornate, unusual designs on it. 

Olivia read through her first paragraph before moving on, trying not to allow thoughts of her future to take her mind from the task at hand. This was her final exam, after all. Her last ever one. She could look forward now to the rest of her life, starting with the holiday her boyfriend was planning to take her on. 

Just before she continued writing, something in the first paragraph caught Olivia’s eye. The colour of the ink was lighter than usual. Rather than black, it seemed to be a rusty brown. The most recent words, in fact, were almost red. Olivia touched the ink. It was warmer than she would have expected, and sticky. 

As the realisation that it was not ink, but blood, came upon her, Olivia tried to drop the pen, but even when she released it from her grip, the pen did not fall to the small table. It clung on. When she looked at it, she realised it was already larger than it had been before, and it seemed to be pulsating. The designs which had captivated her before looked like veins now as they pumped her blood around the growing object. 

Olivia tried to scream, but her throat failed her. When she tried to use her left hand to pry the sinister object from her right, it too was unable to help. The grip of the pen was too strong, it stuck to her like a leech. 

Other students scribbled answers to the questions, oblivious to Olivia as the pen sucked the lifeblood out of her. Her fluid draining, she couldn’t even shed a tear for the tragic fact that her final moments were to occur in an exam. 

***

The exam was over before anyone realised what had happened. The pen lay dormant once more, shrunken back to its normal size, its veins masquerading as beautiful symbols again. While some students screamed and others fainted as the invigilators tried to keep everyone calm until the police arrived, one young woman was not as interested in Olivia’s shrunken corpse as the pen which still lay in her hand. As she filed past, Maria slipped the pen out of Olivia’s grasp and into her own pocket. It was such a beautiful thing, after all. In spite of what had happened to Olivia, in fact, Maria felt it might even be lucky, and she had one more exam to do. 

This is why I won' t get a tattoo...

2010-09-13T19:24:00.000+01:00

It's been a couple of months, so I figured it was time to change the background.

Back in the days I had myspace I used to change the profile page every few days.

I could never get a tattoo. I can't imagine one image that I'd want to commit to for the rest of my life.

I like this theme now, but in a few months, who knows? I like to have the option to change my mind.

Random

2010-09-13T14:21:00.000+01:00

There's a type of chilli called the Devil's Penis (Well, Pene de Diablo. That's what it means). It's pretty small looking, but apparently it's also extremely hot.

I'm sure there's a horror story in there somewhere.

Or possibly a joke.

Perhaps even both?

Who am I?

2010-09-11T14:02:00.002+01:00

Muahahahaha :-)

Text analysis seems to be the flavour of the month...or the season at least.

This website analyses blogs to have a guess at the blogger's gender and approximate age - and it has estimated me to be female (correct) and between the ages of 18-25 (a little younger than reality...which is perfect, really!).

Then again...scrolling down, it tells me that

The analysis is based upon 12 posts that has enough English words.

Great grammar there....maybe I shouldn't put too much faith in that website's ability.

Still, judging by the fact that by the time this post is scheduled to go out I'll be spending the day with my in-laws after a long drive and pregnancy aches and pains are making me feel like I'm a hundred....maybe I should forget about the grammar and enjoy anyone, anywhere, even a silly website, telling me I'm 18-25 :-)

What I'm working on...

2010-09-10T12:47:00.000+01:00

So, it has been a busy week. I haven't really managed to do a lot of writing. I hate when real life gets in the way of the weird worlds within my mind...

I did have several ideas at least, which I've managed to take note of. One in particular I think has a lot of potential - a story which will be provisionally titled "Night Terrors" but that'll probably change - my titles usually change several times.

I didn't do any work on the little strange village story but I did think about where I took it when I last worked on it, and realised I was overcomplicating matters. So I'll now try to shorten it again, and cut out the unnecessary bits, and see if I can get it finished.

Several rejections have piled up in my inbox as well this week,, and while I logged them to duotrope, I haven't gotten around to hunting for more potential homes for them and resubmitting, so I really should try to get on with that too.

Got stuff to do over the weekend so won't be around much for the next couple of days either, but hopefully next week I'll have a chance to catch up on people's blogs and do a few more posts myself, as well as getting some more writing done.

Thank you all for your comments :-)

Joleen.

Grammar - Use of the Apostrophe

2010-09-08T18:00:00.019+01:00

Still busy, busy, busy :-( No time for writing this week.

All the same, I do like to keep the blog rolling, so here's a little post on grammar.

I was never given a proper grammar lesson at school, though in the course of English lessons, in primary school, the teachers did point out some very important points. I was lucky enough to go to a small school, (two classes per room but probably no more than 25 pupils per room) so maybe that's why my teachers were able to address the topic...or maybe other teachers address it and people just didn't pay attention. Or care.

We all make little errors from time to time, and that's fair enough. However, I think some people genuinely don't know the difference between key words that sound/are pronounced the same, but are different in spelling/how they're written - and of course, different in meaning.

The most commons errors are:

1. Your and You're
2. Its and It's
3. There, Their and They're

All but one of these mix ups (between "There" and "Their") can be fixed if you remember one little rule:

The apostrophe (this: ' ) stands for a missing letter (or letters).

"You are" is clearly the one that gets shortened to "You're" because of the key placement of said apostrophe.("Your" then, is left as the one meaning "belonging to you".)

"It is" becomes "It's" and "They are" turns into "They're". ("Its" means "belonging to it", "There" means "that place" and "Their" means "belonging to them".)

So before you use an apostrophe, think what letter it represents. Can the word you're about to insert an apostrophe into be broken into two words (Such as "didn't" can be written as "Did not", as well as the aforementioned examples).

There are a few exceptions to this rule - of course there are; English is a complicated language.

One is the word "Won't" which is actually short for "Will not" - but for some reason, at some point in time, someone changed it. Possibly because saying "Willn't" (try saying it out loud) isn't actually any easier or faster to do than just saying "Will not".

The other is the occasion where an apostrophe denotes ownership. As in the title of this blog:
Joleen's.

The apostrophe in such a circumstance indicates that it the object referred to (in this case, the blog) belongs to me, Joleen.

So I can see where confusion arises - apostrophes denote ownership in some circumstances, whereas in others, represent missing letters when often the alternative word (your/its/their) is the one that refers to ownership or belonging. Still, while it may be a bit confusing, it isn't rocket science. It isn't so complicated that it can't be learned.

Writers - it is to your advantage to know rules of grammar, as mistakes just tend to give editors an excuse not to lift your work from the slush pile - and as all us struggling writers know, many editors do not need a lot in the way of encouragement to reject work! Also - if you're self publishing, it looks a lot better to have the correct grammar in place.

Non-writers - it is also to your advantage, because communication is important, and being understood is key to effective communication. And because grammar is not some elitist concept like quantum physics, understandable only by the minority. You should not wear your lack of grammatical knowledge like a badge of honour. There is no honour in being unwilling to learn the right way to do something. Society may currently embrace vapid celebrities who wear their ignorance proudly, but this doesn't mean we should not, as a society, aim higher than this.

For a much less preachy, much funnier description of how and when to use an apostrophe, you should really check out The Oatmeal. It's hilarious. Enjoy!

Come on ye boys in Green!

2010-09-07T19:17:00.000+01:00

Come on Ireland, who take on Andorra tonight in the first competitive match at the new Landsdowne Road Aviva Stadium!

Olé, Olé Olé Olé....

I'm stressed enough today without having to watch the football team be brought down to the level of minnows, which has happened in the past - so come on, lads, make it a night to remember for all the RIGHT reasons, please, a stick a pile of goals in the Andorran net :-)

Busy, busy, busy...

2010-09-07T09:50:00.001+01:00

Very stressful & busy time this week....changes to the course I'm doing, last minute, means I need to make some pretty important decisions. So not a lot of time for writing, or reading other people's blogs :-( Sorry!

In the meantime, have a microfiction. 99 word story, called:
Sisters.

Leslie watched the gate. “He’ll come,” she told her sister.
Marie shrugged.
“He’ll come,” Leslie repeated, keeping her gaze fixed on the gate.
No one appeared. A little drizzle started, but they paid it no attention.
“He’s probably got somewhere better to be,” Marie remarked. “He’s bound to have moved on, by now. You shouldn’t blame him.”
“He’s welcome to move on,” Leslie hissed. “I just don’t want him to forget. There,” she added as he appeared.
Marie had enough sense to stay silent as Leslie’s former husband laid flowers on her grave, and shed a tear for her.

We were three (Poem)

2010-09-05T12:55:00.000+01:00

We were three.

To start with, we were a gang of

Three. There was John, and Tom,

And of course,

Me.

We were walking along by the river

When John said to me, I have a sore knee,

So go ahead,

Without me. 

So Tom and I, we left John behind and

Ran along the river, soon giddy in our games

We hardly heard the 

Screams. 

When we found John – or what was 

Left of him, at least,

I was sick. I felt ashamed, but I 

Was bereft. 

As I was sick, Tom took charge. I’ll go

For help, he said. He had only just 

Left when I heard him 

Scream as well. 

Already dismembered when I got there,

No sign of the culprit, but I knew

That whoever had killed John and Tom

Would come after me too. 

I slept with one eye open, carried weapons

When I could. Stopped even believing

In good. I hoped to stay safe

That way. 

I am old now, and John and Tom

Are long gone. But I have never forgotten

The blood by the river that day. So I know,

Whoever it was, will come for me too. 

A little poem for you to enjoy this Sunday afternoon, especially if you're planning any riverside walks, hehe!  (Once again, post is scheduled so I may not get a chance to reply to comments until Monday, but please leave some anyway, I really appreciate them!)

Paying for Book Reviews

2010-09-04T10:45:00.003+01:00

An interesting post recently on Writer Beware Blogs - which is a great place for exposing vanity publisher scams.

The particular article which caught my eye is with regard to paying for book reviews, you can read it here.

As many of you know, I am one of three authors of a self-published anthology of dark short stories and poetry. The anthology is called Casting Shadows and is available from Lulu, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Smashwords.

We have been reviewed twice, so far - once by Holly Christine of the Pittsburgh Books Examiner, and once by Geoff Nelder on his blog, Science42Fiction. Both are pretty good reviews, which is excellent.

We got these reviews by emailing Holly Christine and Geoff Nelder - and we did not pay for them.

I would never pay for a book review.

It is certainly true that it is very difficult for self-published authors to sell their books. No arguments there. And that getting the word out by getting reviews helps. Again, no arguments. However, I don't think that paying for book reviews is the solution.

First of all, if your book really needs major errors in grammar & spelling to be pointed out, perhaps you would be better paying the large fee that reviewers charge to a professional editing service, or even just having it proofread by someone who isn't related to you and has a good grasp of the English language (or whatever language your book is written in!). Though an occasional error will still slip through - I see them in books published by major publishers as well. All people are only human, after all. An occasional error is one thing though. A book full of them is a different story, and unfortunately gives all self-published works a good tarring with the same brush of unprofessionalism.

Secondly, while many paid-for review services claim not to give only positive reviews, it's highly unlikely that such a service will get many clients and make much money if they make a habit of strongly criticising books they review. First and foremost, these "services" are businesses, and need to make money. That's their function, and the best way for them to do so is to give mostly good reviews to ensure more clients sign up for their service. However, this means that the reviews cannot be trusted - certainly not wholly. The blog post above makes the case that reviews have always been paid for, to some extent - because newspapers and magazines are supported by advertising, and publishers are among the advertisers. However, anyone who has ever read book review columns in respectable papers knows that regardless of how big a publishing company is behind a book, they are quite willing to tear a book to shreds if they feel that the book deserves such treatment. And while this may cause problems behind the scenes, for the sales staff, ultimately the publishers continue to send the reviewers their books, and also continue to pay for advertising. These reviews are clearly honest, and can therefore be trusted.

Ultimately, if people want to spend their money paying for book reviews, that's their business, I suppose. But I don't feel that paid-for reviews add anything to a publishing market which is opening up due to the availability of Print on Demand services, while many traditional publishers are more willing to publish a third "auto"biography of a Z-list celebrity (ghostwritten) detailing the mundaneness of their vapid existence than take a chance on a new author with an original idea. (Ok, this isn't true for all publishers, but the book retailers have increasing power as well, and they like celebrity faces on their bookshelves).

Ultimately, a paid for review is tainted with the suspicion that if it is good, it is only good because it was paid for. Self published authors already have to contend with the stereotype that if the book was any good, it wouldn't be self published, so paying for a review may just add to their problems rather than the opposite.

Comments and opinions welcome, I'm sure many people have views on this subject! (This post has been scheduled so I may not reply immediately, but I will reply to comments!)

What I'm working on...

2010-09-03T09:39:00.000+01:00

Friday again, and this time I'm writing the update while sitting with a load of purple hairdye on my hair, waiting for it to take. Much as I'd like to be, I'm not @purplehairedJo naturally. I have to top up the colour occasionally. And at the moment, have to be extra careful with it as it really shouldn't touch my scalp, because of the pregnancy. Hence why I can't bleach it, and I'm only doing the fringe. Still. As long as there's some purple in there, it's ok.

So, back to the update. I finished the erotic horror story! Just need to leave it a few days and then edit it a little. Will definitely be sending it in under a pen name though, so even if it gets accepted, this'll be the last you'll hear of it!

I'm also getting through the story about the little hillbilly town where something strange is going on. I'd intended for it to be a flash fiction, but it's over 1200 words now, it just sort of took off, so I'm going with it. At the editing stage it might get cut down again, but that's what the editing stage is for.

No acceptances this week, and a few rejections, but they've all been resubbed straight away. Now I've had a few acceptances my confidence has gone way up, and I can handle the rejections much better.

Not done much work on any other stories, or poems for that matter, but I did have several vague ideas last night before bed, so they've been scribbled down in my barely legible handwriting in the bedside notebook, and may one day actually become real stories.

Thanks for following and commenting :-) I really appreciate it.

Micro fiction - Almost

2010-09-02T13:27:00.000+01:00

63 word story. Written as part of the 24/7 Folded Word thingy I participated in.

Almost

The place he died was a dirty, rotten, hovel. He took this as a personal affront. That the final smell he would ever experience in his existence would be that rancid odour. The last texture he would touch, the mouldy floor his face was pressed against. It made him so angry, it almost gave him the energy and coordination needed to escape. Almost.

Got to love Ireland.

2010-09-02T10:49:00.000+01:00

Ireland is random, but predictable.

It's September. Kids back to school - therefore the weather changes from dull, cool, wet and grey to sunny and warm. You know. Summery.

You could feel sorry for the kids...but it'll stay this way until they're adults with nothing better to do during the September sunshine than lounge around in it and maybe post a blog. We all suffered through it. It's like a rite of passage.

Just as a quick aside though - you know those ads for mobile broadband where people take their laptops outside to sit in a hammock or whatever? I have wifi, so that isn't a problem for me. It's seeing the screen that I just can't manage. Is there something I can get for the laptop that would mean I can take the laptop outside and actually be able to see the screen? Cos...well, you know. There's nothing like sunny September weather to create a mood for writing horror tales...

Hope - A Short Story/ Flash Fiction

2010-08-31T13:26:00.000+01:00

Here's another of the pieces I worked on for Folded Word's 24/7. A 250 word story, called "Hope".

Hope.

I was a idealist at first. I joined the police force to catch criminals. To make the world a safer place. To give people hope that they would not be raped or robbed or killed as they walked down the street some day. 

I was naive. When I think of myself back then, I think of Pandora and her box. She too was naive. She opened that box and allowed all the evil in the world to escape. Hope was the only good thing to emerge.

For all that she assisted the escape of everything evil, at least Pandora did give hope a chance as well. I cannot even make that claim any longer. Tonight I must tell a parent that her child is dead. For months we have searched for the girl and her abductor. All that mother has had to cling to, was hope. 

Tonight I shall take that away. As I anticipate the woman’s reaction, I feel more like the evil Pandora let out, than the girl herself, or a bringer of hope. 

I try to think like a criminal in order to catch them, but all too often, like today, I fail. That failure ensures the death of innocents. It takes away any hope their loved ones have of seeing them again. And yet if I were to succeed in thinking like them – embracing evil in order to save a life – would I be the one for whom all hope would be lost? 

How to tell if you're becoming a grown up

2010-08-28T19:00:00.002+01:00

It's very easy to accidentally slip into being a grown up. Unlike 'adult' however, which is a term that is bestowed upon you depending on your age, 'grown-up' refers much more to a state of mind, and the related observable behaviours. Some people are born grown up, while others are lucky enough never to succumb to the urge to become one.

Here are some behaviours which might indicate that you're turning into a grown up *shudder*

- When you find some bubble-wrap, instead of bursting the little air filled bubbles and giggling like a lunatic, you fold it and put it aside in case you might need it to wrap something in, sometime.

- You watch the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and instead of laughing and rooting for Ferris, you wish his parents would catch him, ground him, stop giving him pocket money, supervise his activity more carefully, and allow his teachers to make him repeat his school year. Because he's a naughty boy and should be punished. (If, however, you read that last sentence and think with a wicked grin: ooh, spanking, kinky - there may yet be hope for you!).

-You watch the film Dirty Dancing and think that Baby should not only be put in a corner, she should stay there until her next birthday - she's only 17 and therefore just a child, damnit!

- You fail to giggle at any hilarious slip of the tongue or inadvertent humour in a serious situation - and not only do you fail to do so, you roll your eyes at anyone who does find it funny.

- You think the internet is strange and scary and populated by serial killers, so you refuse to use it for anything but communicating with people you know in real life - and shopping. Because saving a little money is more important than having an open mind.

- When you get an Argos catalogue, you go straight to the home appliances and furnishings section, skipping past computers, gadgets, toys and games and any other fun stuff.

- You no longer look for shapes in clouds. If you look for shapes in clouds but no longer see, remark on, or laugh at rude ones, you may be in some danger of becoming a grown up.

- You arrange your life around when the soaps are on.

- You get a voucher for Boots and spend it on vitamins and toothpaste rather than hairdye/condoms/electric blue eyeshadow

If you spot any of these signs in yourself or a friend, be afraid - be very, very afraid! Go watch a funny film, read a comic, or draw a doodle. Then go look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself for a while. it might help you - and the idea that you're doing it because I told you to will sure help me get a giggle and remain childish at heart!

What I'm working on...

2010-08-27T13:06:00.000+01:00

Friday update!

Well I managed the 24 part of the 24/7 writing challenge - writing a piece every day for the first 24 days of August. The final part involves working on editing/revising a piece every day for the final seven days of the month. So far, so good! I tend to edit the twitter fics as I go, but the flash fiction pieces and the poems do need work, so there's plenty to keep me busy there.

Also, I'm working on an erotic horror story. It's for an anthology but I don't know if I'd use my own name if it got accepted...still, cross that bridge when I come to it I suppose! Got to finish the story, edit the story and submit the story then hope it gets selected before I really need to worry about the blush factor!

Also working on a story about a strange little hillbilly town. Inspired by a village near where I live - the radio always goes funny when I drive near it, and it gave me an idea for a story. Only got a few hundred words so far though, got a lot of work to do so far on that one.

No work on any of the other pieces I'm supposed to be working on. Got a couple of rejections this week as well as the acceptance so I need to go hunt through duotrope for some more markets to send them too. One is a sadistic serial killer story, the other a flash fiction piece detailing one woman's reaction to the end of the world.

So yeah, some nice lighthearted pieces there, as always! Heehee. Got quite a bit done this week considering I've had a lot of other stuff happening, so a good week overall!

Thanks for congrats and other comments by the way, they're all very much appreciated! I really like knowing that I'm not just talking to myself on here!

Acceptance, yay!

2010-08-27T09:24:00.000+01:00

That's right folks, I seem to be on a roll at the moment.

Or, it could be the fact that I'm actually constantly and consistently sending out my pieces. Like the lotto, if you're not in, you can't win. For years I wrote and left stories sitting on my laptop, submitting them nowhere. I didn't particularly improve as a writer by doing this, and it certainly did nothing to help my confidence as one. A handful of acceptances this Summer and I'm spending a lot of time grinning like a maniac. Which is because I look crazy when I'm happy, not because I'm a maniac. Honest.

So to return to the point - I got another piece accepted. My story Cat Food, about a hungry cat that turns on the family that owns it, will appear in Fearology 2: Beware all Animals Great and Small.

I'm really looking forward to getting my own copy as it sounds like a great book. I'm a pet lover and an animal lover - but I find it's best to accept that most animals would eat you if it came to it. Cats, in particular. What's the point in self-delusion? Heehee.

Another twitter piece - Comedy Hypnotist

2010-08-26T14:42:00.000+01:00

I'm too tired and busy to come up with a proper blog post today, so have a fun little twitter fiction/poem :-) Proper update tomorrow, I promise!

Comedy Hypnotist

Comedy Hypnotist

Words strike fear in him

I do not wish

To think I am a chicken

He says

Cluck

Escapes his lips

Alongside a sob

Another twitter fiction - Small Things to be Grateful For

2010-08-24T18:07:00.000+01:00

Another twitter fiction for you today :-) This one is called Small Things to be Grateful For. Don't forget, you can read some of my longer fiction pieces by clicking the tab above :-) Same goes for poetry.

Small Things to be Grateful For

Twenty of them. Lined up in a row. I was grateful for the machine gun. Meant I didn't have to look them in the eye, do them one by one.

A twitter fiction - Beetroot

2010-08-23T18:31:00.001+01:00

I have no energy at all today. Busy week ahead and I feel like I've been hit by a bus, or possibly a train (being hit by a train would in fact be quite an impressive achievement on my part, since there aren't any in this part of the country). So blog entries may be few and far between this week, or you may get lucky if I decide to put a few short fiction pieces up! Here is one to start anyway. A dark twitterfic! :-)

Beetroot.

He added beetroot to the juicer, loving how it resembled blood. Not mere speculation. He had used that juicer to dispose of body parts.

Each house has its own insect population

2010-08-21T15:00:00.001+01:00

It's true. I have no idea why, but each house seems to be home to particular insects far more than others.

The last house I lived in - fruit flies. Yucky little things that meant I had to leave a piece of tissue over a wine glass at all times or they would start dive bombing it and drowning.

This house - moths. Thankfully not the big scary fat-bodied creepy ones, but the little ones, that eat your clothes.

The houses are only a few miles from each other, so I have no idea where this diversity in insect population comes from. The old house also had a lot of other sorts of flies, which may have been because it was beside a farm, but I don't know if that explains the fruit flies.

There also seem to be a lot of wasps in the new house. Not sure why that is either, but thankfully they're quite slow and stupid, and I've been almost enjoying swatting them with catalogues and magazines. I may not be allergic to wasp stings, but I sure don't like them.

Yay, acceptances!

2010-08-20T19:28:00.003+01:00

Yes, that's right, acceptances, plural! The 's' is not a typo! It has been a good week.

A short story I wrote, called "Special" has been selected for the forthcoming Bloodbound Books anthology, Rock is Dead: Dark Tales inspired by Music.

I also had a poem accepted by Sam's Dot Publishing for their magazine for young people, Beyond Centauri. The poem is called "Be smart, be tough, be lucky", and will feature in the October 2010 issue.

Don't forget you can pre-order Stitched Up!, the anthology from House of Horror which will feature one of my stories, White Christmas, a tale of zombies crashing the holiday season!

At present the price is just £9.99 including shipping from House of Horror bookshop - but next Tuesday the free shipping offer will be gone, so get yours now! If you order this anthology, please mention my name while ordering as I get additional royalties if you do so.

So, overall it has been a good week for writing - two acceptances, and I've been quite prolific. Here's hoping it continues, on both counts!

Cover art images ©The artists, follow the links in the relevant posts to learn more about them

What I'm working on...

2010-08-20T12:41:00.000+01:00

Friday once again and time for an update!

I've had a reasonably prolific week this time. Still no work on any of the stories I'm supposed to be working on, but I did write three short stories, two apocalypse-type ones, one of which has been sent out, the other will be after a good edit later today, and a serial-killer piece which has also been edited and submitted.

I've managed to write something every day for 24/7 - nearly at the end of the 24 part now, next week the focus turns to editing work. It has been a very good challenge though, and while some pieces will need a lot of editing and others may never see the light of day, I have come up with a few pieces that I'm quite proud of - including the microfiction that I posted yesterday, A Meeting.

So the other apocalypse piece needs to be edited, and I need to write a 24/7 piece for today - and the ideas just seem to be flowing at the moment, so I figure I should go with them and get them down, since I tend to have my fair share of dry spells! I wrote several poems last night in bed which I'll have to edit as well, and maybe send out - plenty to keep me busy over the coming week, I expect!

A Meeting ([very] Short Story)

2010-08-19T19:53:00.000+01:00

Wrote this today as my piece for day 19 (today) of Folded Word 24/7. It's just under 100 words (99 to be precise) so it's a micro-fiction. Enjoy!

A Meeting.

You look well, she tells me, with a sneer that suggests by “well” she means she’s surprised I’m not dead, or a junkie. She speaks to me in that condescending tone that threatens to bring me straight back to the school where she was principal and I was always on detention. My phone rings. I answer it and arrange a meeting. She stands in front of me, oblivious to the fact that I am a high-class whore, and I shall see her husband later to relieve him of some of their shared pension funds, as I do every week. 

Gender and Genre

2010-08-19T14:23:00.001+01:00

Many female writers, especially those who write and publish 'genre' fiction, use their initials rather than their first name.

This is because many male readers are unlikely to pick up a book by a woman, even if the cover, synopsis, etc, clearly indicate that it is not 'chick-lit'.

Fiction isn't the only place this bias occurs. When it comes to scientific journals as well, people pay more respect to articles written by people whose first name is male, or those with initials, than those with a female first name. Even though scientific studies are subject to the same rigour regardless of who submits them for peer review or publication.

I can understand that most guys don't want to read about shopping and shoes. In fact I'm very sympathetic - I don't want to read about shopping and shoes either. But it's the pastel pink colour of the cover that gives these contents away, not whether the author is a man or woman.

So why are men so reluctant to take work seriously if it's by a woman?

In case you're interested, by the way - I don't do this because I don't have a middle name, so no middle initial! That, and the fact that if I actually do well for myself as a writer, I want to make damn sure all the begrudgers and old school bullies etc know exactly who it is who has done so well for herself.

So many ways the world could end...

2010-08-18T22:49:00.001+01:00

I love speculative dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction. The Road was one of the best films I've seen in a while. Delightfully grisly and dark. I also like older ones like The Stand. My favourite books include The Handmaid's tale, Oryx and Crake & Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood; 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World and Island by Aldous Huxley.In fact there are loads of others too, but those are just the ones I can remember right now.

I find it hard to write speculative or post apocalyptic fiction though. My biggest difficulty seems to lie with the specifics of what goes wrong with the current world, and why. Not that I think everything is rosy and we're heading into a bright future - the opposite, in fact. The way I see it, there are so many scary possibilities, it's hard to pick just one.

Which way will the world end or change forever? Environmental destruction, religious dictatorship, fascist dictatorship, nuclear accidents, scientific experiments gone wrong...the list is long and slightly overwhelming.

There, isn't that a nice optimistic post before I go to bed? Haha. Sorry! Lots of opportunities for great fiction - I just hope they stay fictional. And that I manage to write some of them.

Film/Movie - differences in the "same" language.

2010-08-17T21:24:00.002+01:00

Here in Europe we call films, films. I know many of them are now shot on digital, but they're called films because they are (were) shot on film, and played on reels of it in the cinema.

In the USA they call them movies. As in, thing that something moves in. It's kind of babytalk really. First there were stills, then movies, then talkies...and for some reason, movies stuck and they still call them that. And because we watch ones that are made there, we start to call them movies as well.

Language is weird sometimes. Changes in it spread like a rash, or a virus.

As a writer, it can be fun to play around with it. Like trying to write very differently to how I normally talk. My story "White Christmas", that will be published in the forthcoming anthology, Stitched Up! for example, has a lot of 'Americanisms' in it, because it's set in the USA. It was difficult to write words like 'flashlight' instead of 'torch', but it was probably a good writing exercise. And since it got accepted, I'm going to take it that it worked!

Still - I'm just going to invite arguments here, and say that the USA way is wrong :-P

PS - if you order a copy of Stitched Up!, please mention my name, I get royalties if you do! Thank you :-)

Reality...Check

2010-08-16T12:41:00.001+01:00

I've spent so much time this summer doing what feels like nothing.

It involves a lot of reading, quite a bit of writing, loads of manuscript formatting to send stories out, dog walking, reading interesting blogs, playing mafia wars on facebook, eating, writing this blog...these sorts of things.

Today is the first day however that I can register for my course for the next year. Which will be my final year. I have three modules left to do in order to obtain a degree: A sociology research module, a cognitive psychology module, and a basic literature module just to make up the numbers.

I do love literature but it might be weird studying it. Will it make me feel completely inadequate as a writer? The module is being revised but as far as I know it'll still have Shakespeare (Hamlet - which I've never actually read before, and am kind of looking forward to, even though I know the basic premise of the story), Ibsen (A Doll's House, which I read when I was 18 or so and have long since forgotten) and Yeats (Bleugh - moany old git of a poet who never stopped bloody complaining), plus a few others.

One of the reasons I didn't study it before is that there isn't an awful lot that a Literature degree leads to - except teaching, and I think I'd rather blow my head off than be a teacher in the existing education system at least. Hence the sociology and psychology - though seeing as there are no jobs going at all these days, I could probably put down on my CV that I have a degree in advanced nuclear engineering and still be told I'm under qualified to work at a checkout.

And then of course there's the fact that assignment deadlines tend to be in mid December, mid February and early April. With a newborn baby, that will be interesting. I might not have much time to focus on doing anything but scraping a bare minimum of marks in Lit, as it's the other two modules which will count toward my final degree marks.

I really should try to get a headstart, and start reading Hamlet or something now. But I have several books from the library that I really want to read first, like H.P. Lovecraft's short stories, and a book about the science behind Star Trek. And then there are loads of other things to do as well, like write. And pick a fantasy football team. And....and....and...

So I might as well enjoy doing nothing and feeling little baby kicks and stuff while I can....as I may be very busy over the Winter!

What I'm working on...

2010-08-13T11:35:00.000+01:00

Friday again - already! The week has flown past, and I've been busy with family & friends stuff and some early onset nesting - or at least the urge to sort out the study, as has already been documented here.

Have managed to do some writing as well though. I'm still managing a piece a day for Folded Word 24/7 - though admittedly, this week has seen more twitter fiction, rather than longer pieces (and when micro fiction and flash fiction are "longer pieces" that's bad!). So I suppose there might be a lesson in that - writing every day is a good idea, sure, but if there's something specific to do every day and only a little will suffice, there's a temptation to say that I'm then done with writing for the day.

I did managed to edit the evil serial killer story, and submitted it - so fingers crossed on that one!

As well as this, I got around to resubmitting several pieces that had been rejected over the past few weeks. So not an entirely unproductive week, even if I haven't gone near the sci-fi/time travel story, or the fantasy epic. Both are still just swirling around in my muddled head, alongside umpteen other vague ideas. Who knows which I'll write first? Watch this space to see...

Follow up to the nerd/geek dilemma

2010-08-12T15:53:00.000+01:00

So I was in the library today and I saw a book about the science behind Star Trek. Obviously, I got it out.

I also got very excited about now being able to take out 10 books at a time, rather than 6.

I also really, really, really want it to clear up tonight so I can see shooting stars aka the Perseid Meteor Shower.

Maybe I'm neither nerd nor geek, just a big oversized child.

Oh well. It'll help me relate to the baby better, hopefully!

Am I a nerd or a geek?

2010-08-10T16:57:00.002+01:00

Am I a nerd or a geek?

I'm the techiest person in my family....but compared to real tech heads I don't know much. I'm definitely the one who gets called on to fix minor computer problems though, and the one my friends ask about how to download, where to download from, and why their computer is going slow or weird all of a sudden (The answer by the way, is generally: run CC cleaner, run malwarebites, defrag and restart et voila! Should be fine again now).That's roughly where my knowledge stops, but I do like to know how to do things myself so when my computer f**ks up I tend to take it apart, literally and figuratively, depending on the problem, to try to work out what's wrong and how to fix it.

I keep my own computer desktop very tidy - only 7 icons. Everything is filed away in a system that probably makes sense only to me. My house on the other hand, is frequently a mess.Once again however, there is a system. It just doesn't look like it.

I got very excited today about alphabetising my books. I mean, it was actually loads of fun. Really.

I actually like learning. As long as it's a subject I have some interest in, that is.

I prefer words to numbers. In fact, I'm not really a big fan of numbers - unless the lotto wants to throw mine up some week, but that's different.

I like science but in the following order: 1. Biology; 2. Chemistry; 3. Physics.

I'm addicted to the internet, mostly social networking sites and writing sites.

So, people of the internet - am I a nerd or a geek? What's the difference anyway?

Music to write to, or a distraction?

2010-08-09T11:46:00.000+01:00

Sometimes a tune, or several of them in a row to be more precise, playing in the background can be inspirational when writing. They can help me focus on the writing, make sure I don't hear the phone ringing or the dogs barking as long as the volume is turned up, and so on.

On other occasions though, the music - or more particularly, the lyrics - can be a massive distraction. I first discovered this curiosity about 12 years ago when I was studying for my Leaving Cert, with Nirvana, Pixies, Pearl Jam and so on blasting from the stereo. As I wrote notes, the lyrics would magically find their way into what I was writing. I could have sworn I was writing only about the life cycle of the liver fluke or the properties of ethanol, but somehow the occasional sentence bore more resemblance to the majestic poetry of Kurt Cobain than the contents of my biology or chemistry textbooks.

It was around then that I realised that I might not be the best person when it comes to multitasking. But shhh! Don't tell anyone.

Sometimes another distraction when using music while writing is just choosing the playlist. I could spend ages going through my CDs, or lining up a youtube playlist. When I've finally chosen my music, I'm in need of a break!

An alternative is to just flick the radio on - but there are several downsides to this. The main ones are:
1. Most chart music is so awful it will distract me to the point where I won't write the lyrics down instead of my own words, I will use the pen to stab myself in the eardrum.
2. There might be things like news on the radio, which tend to distract me by making me angry at politicians, corporations, and the various wide ranging types of bullshit that happens all across the world.

So often, when I write, I don't bother listening to music. Which is a pity, as I do love music. Still, it saves a lot of hassle when editing!

What I'm working on...

2010-08-06T12:24:00.002+01:00

Yup, Friday again, time for an update.

Working hard on doing a piece of some sort every day for Folded Word 24/7.

Haven't done today's yet though.

Have done very little writing this week apart from those tasks though, so everything else is still in the pipeline.

I do have various ideas, but so far they're just vague scribbles in my bedside notebook. Maybe by next week, they'll start to be something more.

Published 2 twitter fictions today on twitter. Old ones. Here they are to save you the trouble of going to my twitter feed:

Turning. Ticking. Hands on the clock move. I stay still. if I move, they will see me. If they see me, I will die. I stay still.

"Dead", she whispered. Whose death? I wondered. I stepped out of my hiding place. She didn't react. Didn't see me. Oh no. I'm dead?

Writing Every Day

2010-08-05T15:22:00.000+01:00

Writing every day is one of those things that writers are always told to do, in lists of things that writers should do if they want to be successful. Or good, for that matter, which as I'm sure you know, is frequently not the same thing at all.

I've never been particularly good at it. I get days when I write so much and so intensely that I forget to eat, that I would probably forget to breathe if it wasn't automatic. And then there are other days I can't write a thing - I could stare at the laptop or a page all day, and fail to get a single meaningful or otherwise word down.

All the same, I figured it was worth a try, at least once. So for the month of August (handy timing, as I'll be back to study in another month) I'm participating in 24/7 by Folded Word. The challenge is to write something every day. There are prompts which we can choose to use or ignore, and there are several types of writing:

-Twitter fiction (up to 140 characters)
-Micro fiction (40-100 words)
-Flash fiction (101-500 words)
-Twitter poetry (up to 140 characters)
-Prose poems (up to 100 words)
-Short poetry of any form (up to 8 lines).

So far I've written 2 micro fictions, 2 twitter fictions, and a twitter poem. As yet I haven't used any of the prompts, and my pieces have been pretty varied regarding genres. I may post some of them here at some stage, but not yet!

Now, to see if I can write anything else today...a twitfic is very short, after all!

What's in a name?

2010-08-04T13:34:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I just call my characters any old thing...but it's rare. Usually I take time, put a lot of effort into figuring out their names. Something that suits them, by the sound of it, or the meaning, or some association (even if only in my head).

There's a downside to writing loads - I've had a lot of characters over the years. Therefore, a lot of names.

Add this to all the names of characters in
1. Books I've read,
2. Films I've watched
3. TV shows I've seen

etc...

...Not to mention all those real life people I've met...

...and there are suddenly very few names in the books that don't have some sort of association. Considering I like dark stories, they aren't necessarily positive associations either. or even if they aren't exactly negative...well, they might not be exactly what I want for a child.

I don't mean any offence to any people who have the following names, by the way - they're just examples, and the associations associated (?!) are all just in my head...everyone sees these things differently, which is probably why we all have different names to start with.

Say, Beth, for a girl. I like the name - but it's technically short for Elizabeth, and I don't like that much. Plus, there's Beth in Little Women. Poor, brave, tragic Beth, in Little Women. So that's out.

And that's just one example.

Plus - a character only has to live with a name for the duration of a story. A child though - he or she will have to live with the name for their entire life.

Choosing names....so difficult!

Facebook apps

2010-08-03T18:01:00.000+01:00

Like most people, I get annoyed by a plethora of facebook apps cluttering up my newsfeed. In general, I just click the 'hide' button on them.

There is one I love though. It's called "How much money have I saved since I stopped smoking?".

You put in how many you smoked, how much they cost where you are, and what date you quit.

It tells you how much money you have saved, but also how many cigarettes you have skipped, and the increased life expectancy. I'm not sure what they base their statistics on for the latter, so it may be pure bullshit, but it's encouraging all the same.

It wasn't even the money that made me go "WOW?!" though. It was the amount of cigarettes. The idea that I've managed to go 148 days now without smoking, and saved nearly €700 is great. As is the 12 days added to my life expectancy. But it's the fact that 3700 cigarettes have gone unsmoked - that's the one that's left me flabbergasted.

A little scared at how quickly those 25 a day add up. Mostly though, really happy. And proud of myself.

It's an odd feeling, that. I'm not used to it. I think I like it though.

Yay for facebook apps. Also - this one just sits on my profile page, rather than cluttering up newsfeeds all the time. Win-win :-)

Bank Holiday Weekend

2010-08-03T15:50:00.000+01:00

So my scheduled posts posted, that's good to know!

I wasn't on much as it was a bank holiday weekend, we wanted to treat it a bit like a mini-holiday.

Worked quite well. Did very little on Saturday as the other half had a killer toothache, but on Sunday we saw some friends and went to the cinema to see Inception (which was very good - layers of reality/what's real and what isn't, nicely confusing) and then yesterday, went to the zoo in Belfast. Haven't been to a zoo in about 8 or 9 years. Quite a few of the animals were asleep, though the sea lions were lively, and the Andean bears were great as well. Plus there was this giant hamster-type thing that I'd never heard of (and forgotten the name of again) before. Might post pictures another day!

Oh, and I got an email this morning - there was a problem with the orders for the House of Horror Stitched Up Anthology, so if you have ordered one, please cancel it through paypal!

A short story/flash fiction piece - Pink Robots

2010-08-01T18:00:00.001+01:00

Pink Robots

It was white for a start, and had pink robots on it. Also, there was a valance sheet, with the same pattern, hanging over the edge of the bed; making it a place to shove things out of sight. Unfortunately they were poking out. Copies of the Beano alongside Playboys

“Thanks,” she said, taking the glass of vodka and coke he handed her when he came back in. She sat down on the bed. At least that let her take her eyes off the pattern on the duvet.

“Cheers,” he said, sitting beside her and putting his free hand on her thigh as he sipped his own drink.

>She nodded, not sure what else to say. The room had ruined the mood. Changed her perception of him; in the club he had seemed handsome. Sophisticated. She sipped her drink again as he pushed her skirt up and let his hands wander more.

“And you work in the hospital?” she asked again, trying to distract him with conversation while she worked out what to do.

“Night porter,” he nodded. “But not tonight, so that’s good!” he said with a grin that now seemed leery rather than cheekily flirtatious. His hand wandered further as he threw the rest of his drink into him and laid the glass on the floor, where it rolled under the bed, the pink robots on the valance sheet flapping for a few seconds. She thought longingly of her own bed, the satin sheets, the Chinese print bedspread. Wished she’d suggested her place rather than coming here with him.

“It’s not really what I expected, your room,” she commented as he started kissing her neck.

“Been like this for years, I don’t see the point in changing anything, it’d be too much hassle,” he replied, his voice muffled.

“Years?” she asked, shocked, then it dawned on her. “Is this your parents’ house?” she asked.

“Mmm,” he replied, undoing the buttons on her shirt. “And hard as it’ll be once I get started on you, try not to make too much noise, they don’t like it if I wake them.”

She coughed and spluttered and moved away from him, putting her glass on the nightstand and redoing her buttons. “Sorry, I can’t do this,” she muttered.

His face fell. “Well, that’s up to you,” he said, his tone despondent. “We can still lie here, if you want, just kiss and stuff. We don’t have to do anything.”

“I don’t just mean sex!” she hissed as she grabbed her coat. “I mean anything, here, with you! Look around, do you really think a woman would be turned on by a room like this?”

“Never met one before who cared,” he shrugged. “You’re awfully full of yourself – I get plenty of women back here that don’t go all frigid!”

“Frigid?” she spluttered. “You’re a loser who still lives at home with his parents, whose bedroom hasn’t changed in years!” she pulled on her coat and threw one of the Beano comics at him. “Don’t bother calling me a taxi, I’ll make my own way home!” She flounced out the door and stomped down the stairs, not caring if she woke the parents up.

“No more picking up men in clubs,” she muttered as she slammed the front door behind her, the thought of doing anything on a duvet with pink robots on it making her shudder.

An old piece, just a bit of a funny/silly one, thought I would share it here! Also, another scheduled post - so hope it appears at all!

I still dream of smoking

2010-07-31T15:00:00.009+01:00

Hmm...ok, this is a test post as much as anything, as I'm aiming to set it to post over the weekend when I won't be online. So...hopefully it does!

I still dream of smoking, like the title says.

I gave up almost 5 months ago now - soon as I found out about being pregnant.

In a way that made it easier - I didn't have a choice about giving up, the way I put it to myself. Harming myself is one thing, but I really didn't want to harm my child. So I quit.

Soon after quitting I started having mad dreams about smoking. One of the scariest and most vivid involved being shot at, and getting away from the shooters, then stopping for a cigarette - which I justified on the grounds of "well, I've been shot at - that's a bad enough thing to have happened to make it ok for me to smoke now".

Strange, the way the mind works. I dreamed of smoking last night as well, though nothing so frightening thankfully.

Your brain definitely plays tricks on you when you're fighting an addiction. I mean, I woke up from that dream months ago almost wishing I had been shot at, because somehow my justification logic for smoking in that situation seemed sound. Also, I think the grumpiness that comes with being off the fags is a trick of the brain too. Your brain wants you to fight with your friends and family, so you'll feel upset, and reach for that common crutch - a cigarette. You create a scenario that is plausibly upsetting enough to justify smoking again.

Manipulated by my own mind. A scary thought. Is my consciousness or subconscious self the one in control?

At least I've managed to stay off them so far. I like being healthier, I like knowing I'm not giving an as yet unborn baby a nicotine addiction, among a long list of other health benefits to not smoking while pregnant.

I think I'll always be an addict though - I'll always have the odd craving. I'll just have to fight them off one at a time.

What I'm working on...

2010-07-30T12:26:00.001+01:00

So, Friday rolls around again...

What have I been working on for the last week? Well, I spent some time updating this blog.

I've also been working on a sort of serial killer piece. In first person, about a character who delights in her evil. That was difficult, as I had to get inside her head, and since I was working on it yesterday as that story about the woman in France who killed her babies was breaking...well, as I say - it was difficult. Sometimes reality is even more gruesome than fiction.

Then there's an idea that came to me while walking the dogs one day this week - about an old married couple who have grown apart somewhat. I suppose that'd be classified as literary.

I also had another idea, about a woman who is trapped...I have started it, but it may be too similar to my Just the Dust story which appears in Casting Shadows. Still, I may be able to do something with it.

I've also been tweeting and mentioning on here and on facebook about Stitched Up, the House of Horror anthology which will feature one of my stories. Yup, that's me mentioning it again!

I've been writing a few funny/silly little poems as well. Not sure where to submit them to, so you never know - I may post one or two on the blog!

It's a bank holiday weekend so that means time with friends and family - not a whole lot for writing, probably. Though I do have Folded Word 24/7 coming up. I have to write a piece a day for that, starting on Sunday. Still. I never go anywhere without my notebook anyway!

Beware custom layouts

2010-07-29T13:21:00.000+01:00

I used to have a layout for my blog from some site that offered them for free.

It was great - looked pretty cool, in the colours I wanted.

One problem though - comments. People couldn't make them. They'd click the 'comment' button and absolutely nothing would happen. There are also layouts that screw up the word verification stage, so that there is no box in which to input the captcha text unless you click like mad immediately after hitting the comment button.

One person who has kindly started following my blog, and commented on it, has a blog layout that won't let me comment. I would comment on yours in return, but your layout is making it impossible. My advice is to try the new layouts from blogger as they don't screw up the coding and you can still customise them all you want - it's what I did. After all, it's fun to know you're being read!

Why do I write?

2010-07-28T15:05:00.001+01:00

Been reading Curious Pursuits by Margaret Atwood, a collection of, as she puts it, Occasional Writing - that is, writing for occasions. She's one of my all time favourite writers, has been since I read The Handmaid's Tale when I was 14 or 15. I love her way with words, though it makes me feel hopelessly inadequate as a writer myself, sometimes. Curious Pursuits gave me some hope in this regard though. Not because her way with words is anything less than usual, but because I get more of a sense of the person behind the author.

Anyway.

In Curious Pursuits she addresses at one stage, the question "Why do you write?" It is one of the hardest for a writer to answer. W. Somerset Maugham said, "We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to". It is probably the best answer to the question. Nevertheless, there are as many different answers as there are writers. I feel compelled to think about it, and try to answer it, myself.

Why do I write?

I write because if I didn't, the ideas in my head might find a less benevolent way to manifest themselves. Such as schizophrenia.

That may sound flippant, but it isn't meant like that. Trust me, I've seen mental illness up close. Creativity and madness are often described as two sides of the same coin, or divided by only a narrow line, and both analogies seem quite fitting. I write because there are stories inside my head that have to get out, somehow. There always have been. I've been making up stories since I was a small child. I had many imaginary friends, and even when I was really young, I sort of knew they were imaginary - that they didn't exist anywhere but inside my head.

By putting them down on paper (or screen), they end up existing in the heads of other people as well.

I write, therefore, to share my madness with the rest of the world.

That's a nice thought for the day, isn't it?

2010-07-27T14:46:00.001+01:00

So, Stitched Up, the anthology one of my stories will appear in, can be pre-ordered from the House of Horror bookshop. If you do order a copy, please mention my name while ordering it, it helps me!

Also, I've spent some time creating a page, Publication Credits, which features information and links on all my published stories and poems to date. Have a look! You can click the link in this post, or the tab at the top of the page.

While you're there you can also click Poems or Short Stories to read any poems or short stories which I have published here on this blog and can therefore be read for free!

Solitude and Silence

2010-07-27T12:39:00.001+01:00

I have a strange personality. At times I come out of tests as introverted, others as extroverted. There are occasions when I will ignore a ringing phone or knock at the door if at all possible, and other times when I crave company and conversation.

What is even more interesting about that is that I learned earlier this year in psychology that introversion and extroversion are actually created by brain processes. Introverts have a high level of cortical arousal, meaning they seek out silence, while extroverts have low levels of cortical arousal and therefore seek out company, noise and excitement. Is my brain moodier than the rest of me?

When writing though, I am definitely in introvert mode. Ultimately I think I swing more in that direction. I can be sociable, but it takes more effort, even when I want it, then being alone. There are so many things I can do when I'm alone. As many things as there are ideas in my head or books on my bookshelf. Writing and reading suit solitude and silence. Sometimes I like music on in the background, but frequently I'll forget to change the CD when it finishes. I'm barely even aware of it, and I tend to concentrate better on writing at least without it being on at all.

No distractions. The dogs can bark and I'll barely hear it, though at other times I'd find the noise ear-splittingly loud. The cat can go unfed, for all that she whines about it - also quite vociferously, I might add, she has a hell of a miaow for one so small.

There are always distractions, if I seek them out. I have an email notifier, and as well as the daily emails from various mailing lists, organisations, etc, as well as those from friends, and prospective editors, I have facebook and twitter set up to email me whenever someone sends me a private or direct message. When I'm trying to force myself to write (or more often, to edit something I've already written) these distractions do just that. Distract me. When I'm in a truly creative flow though, nothing can interrupt. Little flashes on the screen or noises - I hardly even notice them, and they soon go away.

When really writing, I seek silence and solitude.

Ah, validation...

2010-07-26T13:24:00.001+01:00

Yes, I know that as writers, we write because we have to write. Because there's a story inside that needs to be told.

But inside, many of us...certainly me, are insecure creatures in need of validation and ego-stroking. So validation in the form of an email that reads "yes I would like to publish your story" or some variation thereof is always particularly welcome. I write because I want to write, but that doesn't mean I don't like to be told I'm good at it, from time to time!

Yesterday evening, I received such an email. I'm going to have a story in the House of Horror's Stitched Up Anthology. It's a tale of zombie-type creatures, and it's called White Christmas. I can't wait to see more of my work in print!

So funny how one acceptance can make a ton of rejections seem suddenly insigificant. There's a psychological term for that. I can't remember what it is though, because I'm in such a good mood!

What I'm working on...

2010-07-23T11:36:00.000+01:00

Friday again....time for an update!

Last week I had a few projects on the go.

I still haven't gone near the fantasy epic.

On the other hand, I did manage to finish the time travel paradox story. Well, sort of. I'm not really happy with it, so I think I need to go and start it again. There's potential there, it'll just need more revisions than I'm used to - which I suppose is normal for a time travel paradox story. I figure it needs to be either longer too, to justify the time I spent on character development at the start, or shorter in which case I need to cut that stuff out and bring it down to the bare bones.

Plenty more rejections, which have mostly been chronicled throughout the week - well, some of them have anyway. There were more than I moaned about on here! Oh well. Logged them all on duotrope and got on with resubmitting. One more to resubmit somewhere later today. At least one of the rejections was constructive and personal - they'd clearly actually read the story but just decided it wasn't for them. That's ok. I don't mind that.

I've also signed up to participate in Folded Word 24/7 next month. Check the link for more info - basically I have to write either prose or poetry, short, micro or flash, every day in August. I figure I should participate in this sort of writing challenge while I still have time as once study starts again in September I'll be pretty busy and then in November....

I have a vague idea for an article so I should make a start on that (it'll probably just end up as a post here) and I did start another story yesterday, but I have no idea yet where it's going. I do know that it's quite dark, though that should come as no surprise!

A poem - Self.

2010-07-22T14:52:00.000+01:00

Self

Tears
Form in my eyes.

Fears
Fly around my mind.

Lost,
And yet somehow solid.

Sense
Of self endures.

Fragile,
Yet I continue.

Myself,
Cracked but not broken.

Another old one. From the days when I used to use poetry to help heal mental health.

Mirror - A short story

2010-07-20T19:29:00.001+01:00

Yes, yes. She is so pretty, because I am so pretty. She thinks it’s the other way around.

I watch her as she stands there, preening herself. Fixing her hair. My hair. Styling it the way she wants it. Yes, she has power over me. I admit that. But I have power too. I am everywhere, watching her. Every mirror, every piece of glass. Everything shiny. She only sees me when she looks at me, when she thinks she is looking at herself. But I see her all the time. There is never a time she is not reflected in something.

I exist. She exists. Her advantage is that she can move freely in a world I only every catch glimpses of. My advantage is she does not know I exist. If she was gone then I too would be gone. And yet if I was gone, she too would be no longer. We are tied to each other.

I hate her. I desire her life. And yet even if I could kill her, destroy her, make it so she did not exist…then I too would not exist. So I must find another way.

Sometimes she stares at me so deeply I wonder if she does not understand there is more to me. And then I realise she is not staring at me. She sees only herself. Perhaps that is the key. She is vulnerable in these moments. She wants to be different. Perhaps there is a way I could make her me.

Mirrors are the key. I can observe her in sunglasses and the glint off jewellery and all those things. But mirrors, when I am complete – that is when she looks deepest. She opens herself up. She believes she is alone, in those moments. I can take advantage of that opening. I can step inside her. I will. I must. I must be more than I am. I wish to do, not only to see. When she touches, I touch, but there is nothing there. All I can do is imagine what that is like for her. To be corporeal, to exist in senses and not only consciousness. I imagine it is good. I desire it.

There she is. A crisis. So she thinks. It is something mundane. Pathetic even. When I take her place, she will take mine. Then she will know crisis. To exist only in pieces, when light hits a surface. That is a crisis. To know nothing but thoughts. To be trapped in a world of another’s choosing. To not know touch or smell or taste. Crisis. Perhaps it will be even more difficult for her. As I move this way and that, as my eyes bleed water that does not exist as anything but a trick of the light, I wonder if it will be worse for her, when she is me.

She has known what it is to live a life filled with sensory stimulation. I have only ever imagined it. She will suffer the loss of it. She will know precisely what it is she is missing out on.

She will watch me touch her boyfriend. She will watch as I eat her mother’s Sunday dinner. She will suffer. Then she will know crisis.

There she is again. She rows with a friend. In a shop window my ethereal self does the same with that of her friend. I sense nothing from this other. No consciousness. Perhaps one exists. Perhaps there is one for everyone in the world. Every thing even. And yet we cannot communicate with each other as they do. Perhaps there is no other. I could be an accident, an experiment. A nothing. For all the paradox that lies therein.

Now she comes to me again. To herself. I wait for it. I wait for her eyes. There they are. Glistening with tears. She leans forward. She is presenting me with an opportunity I cannot decline. I sense her weakness. My consciousness moves toward her as if it already has a physical presence.

She resists but it comes too late. I push myself forward. There is no room in here for anyone but me. I planned it so I was prepared, she was caught unawares. She is gone. One second I am looking at her, the next I am her. Looking at what used to be me. I smile and she is unable to do anything but smile with me. The feeling of it is strange, using muscles and bones. I will get used to it. I like it.

I stare a moment longer, wondering if she can sense my triumph. I will never know. I don’t care to. The world and all its experiences are open to me. I wish to taste garlic, listen to music, smell coffee, have an orgasm. I will do all those things. They are in my future, her past.

I turn away. I know she can see me in many things, but I don’t care. She will soon be forgotten. After all, I have a life to lead. Hers to begin, but not to take forward.

She may think she can become herself again. She may think I will be vulnerable in the same way she was.

She is wrong. What would I care to stare at her for? I do not care if my hair is straight. I can touch it. To know it is there is enough. Let her rot in the mirror. She is nothing. Her life is mine. I have her body, and yet I am still me.

I wrote this about a year ago, for a competition over on the ninjavideo.net forum (now here).

Tempting fate???

2010-07-20T10:17:00.000+01:00

I don't believe in fate, or destiny, or superstition or any of it.

However, after saying yesterday that I end up close to a panic attack if anything goes wrong with my laptop, guess what happened? Yup. Cord-power adapter thingy went. New one ordered but it'll take a while to come and I spent ages yesterday evening trying to rig up a really poor quality 'universal' one. which falls out of the back of the laptop if I sneeze. Or, you know, breathe. Any movement at all really.

While on ebay trying to get the new one ordered, my email notifier went off twice too, letting me know of two more stories that were rejected. (One, the spec fiction that I only submitted about a week ago; the other a ghost story that I'm actually really proud of but has been rejected several times now.)

Stress, hormones, whatever. I was not in the right kind of shape to deal with rejection (like there's ever a good time...but there are worse times. And this was one of them). So I pretty much had a stress meltdown. I wasn't far away from curling up into a teary-eyed little ball of misery.

Oh well. After a long walk with the dogs today I'll send the stories out again.

Meanwhile, even though I'm cynical, I'm tempted to 'tempt fate'...So I hereby state that I shall definitely not win the lotto this week. Absolutely no chance at all.

Willing to be proved wrong on that one!!!

Gadgets

2010-07-19T11:41:00.000+01:00

I'm definitely a bit of a geek. I do love certain gadgets, and I would be completely lost (like, driven to a near panic attack) without my laptop and mobile phone.

That said however, I don't really get the obsession with all things i

You know. The iphone, ipod, and now ipad.

I have a mobile phone that doubles as an mp3 player, thanks. It also can access the internet if I need it to. It didn't cost a fortune and the battery lasts more than half an hour. Also, I can buy memory cards for it which are completely transferable and I can transfer music between it and my laptop no problem at all.

I can understand people wanting a tablet computer, ebook reader etc as the ipad is - but why go googah for it just because it has an 'i' in the name? There are plenty of devices out there already.

Plus, if you buy something 'hot off the shelves' you're really just a guinea pig. There will be errors and flaws and bugs and the manufacturing company is relying on you to figure out what they are and complain so the next group of people who buy one - probably cheaper too - won't have to put up with those problems.

Wanting the latest thing is just silly, whether it's fashionable clothes or gadgets, you're just a slave to what some dude somewhere is telling you that you should buy. And who wants to be told what to do?

Sigh. Rejection

2010-07-16T22:03:00.000+01:00

So the zombie erotica story was rejected. Boo.

Where the hell else am I supposed to send that? It isn't exactly a common theme...

Oh well. There is bound to be somewhere else.

Rejections always wreck my day though.

Boo.

What I'm working on...

2010-07-16T11:24:00.001+01:00

So I figured maybe I should make this a regular update, as much to kick myself up the arse as anything else really.

Last Friday I had a number of projects that I was working on/aiming to start.

I have managed to write three genre poems (the genre being horror), including a villanelle, which made me aware that there are fewer words in the English language that rhyme with "them" than I would initially have thought. The other two poems were free verse, incidentally. I do like challenging myself to write certain types of poems though, so it was well worth it. I also manage to finish rewriting/reediting the literary piece, I wrote the zombie erotica story to submit to Rigor Amortis - and I actually submitted it as well. I finished rewriting the speculative horror/post apocalyptic piece and submitted that too.

So therefore, I'm still working on the fantasy - swords and sorcery epic. I haven't actually done anything with it since last week, but it has popped into my head on occasion.

I'm also working on a sci-fi type story involving time travel and a time paradox. I've made a start on it, but I think it's the kind of story I'm really going to need to plan out in advance or it'll confuse even me.

I'd like to write some more genre poems, some free verse but I'd also like to try something else. Maybe a ballad for a fantasy poem, or a sonnet for something else. Still vague ideas at the moment.

I had an idea for a literary (well, depressing and serious) piece a few weeks ago. Made a few notes on a scrap of paper in my handbag about it but haven't done anything else with it yet. So that's another piece on the 'to-do' list.

Oh, and going through my drafts folder, I found an old zombie sort of story, half finished. It'll need some work as well as an ending but it's longer than most of the stuff in my drafts folder - many documents in there are only a couple of sentences long, just vague ideas really.

Of course there's also the constant work of writing cover letters and reformatting according to the guidelines of wherever a piece is sent. The sooner I get some more acceptance emails rather than the constant slew of rejections, the better! I also have to resubmit a story that was submitted in February - the place I sent it to hasn't updated their website since March, and I sent a query two weeks ago and got no reply, so time to give up on them I think...

Anyway, this is one of my favourite songs at the moment. Love Gorillaz, love Damon Albarn, have done since early days of Blur. Music is great for inspiration...or just dossing around to.

Edit - is there actually a youtube video below? I can't see it for some reason...

Procrastination...or what I really should be doing now instead of blogging.

2010-07-15T15:01:00.001+01:00

I should not be sitting on the couch surfing the net, reading and writing blogs.

I should be: using the internet to find car insurance. I can't understand why, now that I'm a year older than last year (and therefore supposedly more responsible), I have a further year no-claims bonus, and the news is constantly talking about the plus side of recession being the that deflation in the economy meaning a reduced cost of living, my car insurance is being quoted as more than last year for the second year in a row. Someone's having a laugh but considering I just had to have a new clutch put on the car and I also need to tax it and NCT it soon, it sure isn't me!

I also should be: Filling in my tax return form. Yeah, that's about as much fun to do as it sounds. It's about 30 pages long with about 20 questions per page. Most of them are irrelevant to me but that doesn't mean I can just skim it. Accidentally not filling out a box that is relevant to me could result in getting a massive, unjustified tax bill. Even looking at the form makes my head hurt.

Also: I should be reading ahead for next year's studies. I'll be pretty busy, especially in autumn, and I'm going to have to do a piece of sociological research. So I really need to get a bit ahead of myself now so I don't end up stressing and failing because I'm slightly busy giving birth around November. I did read a few units last week, but there's a lot still to do. And once I have the notes read, I'll need to figure out what to do research on. Plus, I should read the books I'll need for the literature module next year...except they're making changes to the literature module, so I'm not 100% sure what they are. Several are unlikely to change though, so I really have no excuse not to read those though. Like Hamlet. I don't even have to go to the library for that, I have a copy in the room next to where I'm sitting now. I'm just being lazy though - if I don't manage to read things that are stored on the computer I'm currently typing on I suppose it's unlikely I'll actually get off the couch!

I could also be tidying. The dogs shed a lot of hair at this time of year so the house is covered in a layer of dog fur. I don't realy feel like hoovering though.

Then there's the stories that have been rejected since my last mass sending-out a few weeks ago. I really should submit them somewhere else. I can't seem to focus though. To be fair, I did send out one today. So that's one achievement.

I could also be sorting out the books in the study. I can't do that properly though as I'm not supposed to move the heavy bookcases. I could take the dogs on another walk, which would be healthy for me too...but I don't feel like it. Plus, it might rain.

Of course, there's also writing. I could definitely do with doing some of that. You know, apart from this blog.

So...one blog written, one story submitted. Will that do for today? Probably.

Cars

2010-07-14T16:04:00.000+01:00

I love my car and I love having a car. I'd go insane without my own transport (I blame many years of travel sickness on buses as a child).

All the same, it's a bloody pain having to pay out a fortune for them. Just had to get a new clutch, and in a few weeks I'll need to pay tax and insurance and then a few weeks after that I'll need to put it through the NCT (national car test) to make sure it's roadworthy (or make sure the company the government hired can rip me off for another few quid, since they charge for retests, more like).

I'd cry at the idea of not having my car but I really wish they weren't so damn expensive!

A poem - Sleep

2010-07-13T13:03:00.001+01:00

Lie there,

Bare,

Almost innocent,

Energy spent,

Conclude the day,

The best way,

Sleep.

Jerk and twist,

Lost in the mist,

Of a dream,

Things that seem,

So real,

Part of the deal,

Of sleep.

Calm, still,

I will

Relinquish

The anguish,

Ending the day,

The only way:

Sleep.

Once again, an old one :-) I really should do some writing but I wanted to post something.

What I'm working on...

2010-07-09T17:50:00.000+01:00

As a writer I'm almost always working on something. What that means is open to all sorts of interpretation though.

Sometimes it means that I'm actually actively writing a story. On other occasions, I'll be mulling over ideas in the back of my head - often when I'm technically supposed to be doing other stuff, like studying, and working on assignments. Even when I haven't "done any writing" for some time therefore, it doesn't mean I haven't thought about it, haven't scribbled down some ideas on the back of a receipt in my wallet (hope I never have to take whatever it was there for back for a refund!) if I couldn't find my notebook, haven't gone to a world of nightmares and dreams in...well, my nightmares and dreams! :-)

At the moment I do have a bit of time for writing though, so I've got several projects on the go. I'm trying to write a flash piece for Rigor Amortis,simply because I think it's a hilarious idea and therefore absolutely worth a try. I mean, zombie erotica! Come on!

I'm also working on a speculative horror sort of piece. It's actually been submitted somewhere, but I haven't heard anything, and after about 5 months sent a query last week - still haven't heard anything. I the meantime I showed it to a friend, who thought I'd probably tried to stick too rigidly to the 1000 word limit, and that it might be a better story if I took the time to develop the scene and the characters a little more. So I'm working on that too.

As well as those pieces, I've got a fantasy story in the pipeline. A swords and sorcery sort of fantasy story, though with a twist in the tale, and based around strong female characters rather than damsel-in-distress types (I really hate damsel-in-distress types!).

Then there's a literary piece of about 2000 words that I really love, I think it's great (well, I would say that though, wouldn't I? :-P ) - or at least the idea is, but it's probably a bit weak in places and needs to be tidied up, maybe shortened a bit.

Last but not least, I'm hoping to try to write a few pieces of poetry - but not the usual, introspective, personal stuff. I'd like to try some narrative poetry, or just something a bit different. I have done a few poems like that in the past, but not a whole lot. It's a new approach, so I figure it'll be good for me.

So that's just a snippet of what I'm working on at the moment. As other ideas come to me they'll be noted, and I tend to try to work on whatever feels right on a particular day. Seeing as I'm also reading a ton of books, trying to come up with a research project idea for next year, and putting off doing my taxes, I'll have to make sure I continue to find the time.

Then again, sometimes, no matter what's planned, all I can do on a day is breathe and write.

Why is this news???

2010-07-08T10:22:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening I was informed in the news headlines, immediately after an item on the country's finances and one on its legislation, that a certain celebrity had been sentenced to some time in prison. I'm not even going to mention her name here as I don't want to give the issue any more damn coverage.

She's an actress and she got sent to jail for being drunk and stupid, or something along those lines. She's not even Irish (the news programme I was watching last night was Irish), she's from the USA.

This morning, among more items to do with politicians and the economy - things which affect the lives of all of us citizens in one way or another - and international news such as the spy crisis erupting between the USA and Russia - I was informed that a certain Portuguese footballer now has a child.

Why are either of these items newsworthy? A quick glance at headlines online informs me that Israel's prime minister is hinting at direct talks with the Palestinians, Cuba is to release a large number of political prisoners and a solar powered plane has spent more than 24 hours in the air. All items that are far more newsworthy than celebrities lives.

There are entertainment shows for so-called "news" items such as these. Let's leave them there. The vapid, self-centred, attention-seeking antics of celebrities is of no consequence to the world at large when any of the items mentioned above may well be.

The Irish Obsession with the Weather

2010-07-07T12:43:00.002+01:00

It's changed recently. The weather, that is. Last few weeks it was lovely and sunny and warm. Now it's colder, windy/blustery, and showery.

Obviously, this is a cause for misery. However, there are several upsides to it all the same:

It gives Irish people something to moan about. We love having something to moan about. Ask an Irish person whether they prefer to have good weather or bad and they'll usually say good. Ask them instead however, whether they prefer to talk about good weather or bad, and the answer is invariably bad. "Oh, isn't it terrible/awful/dreadful" is a phrase uttered with hideous delight by many Irish people.

Bad weather not only gives us more to moan about though. It also gives us more to talk about in general. I mean, good weather is pretty consistent. Sunny, warm but not too hot, very little wind, no rain. It is good weather for going to the beach, beer gardens and barbecues. All fine ways to spend the time, yes.

Bad weather on the other hand though, allows for complaining, for discussion of how hard everything is, what a struggle daily existence is, even for those of us who live with all mod cons (imagine what it was like when our ancestors lived in huts!). It can open up discussions on climate change, how to heat houses, mud and the general amount of dirt that wet weather generates, how good it is for the farmers and therefore the rest of us must grin and bear it since we like to eat the farmers' food, how good the weather is for ducks - which I suppose we should also put up with, since we also like to eat ducks, holidays...the list of topics opened up by the weather is endless.

Another key factor of talking about the weather though, good or bad - but particularly bad, is that we Irish can talk about it for hours. It is a safe subject. We can discuss the weather in great depth with people from all walks of life without stepping even close to sport, religion or politics, those subjects of common contention. We can be friendly and warm while keeping people at arm's length.

The complaints about the weather have contributed to the art and literature of the nation. Angela's Ashes would in no way have been so depressing were it set in the Sunny South of France. We like to shiver to remind ourselves how miserable we are as a people. Talking about the weather is as Irish as potatoes.

The weather. For all that we complain about it, it serves us well.

Twitter fiction

2010-07-05T10:50:00.003+01:00

One of my twitter stories was selected as the picfic of the week - click here to read it - it'll only take a few seconds, literally, as the story is less than 140 characters!

Always nice to get a little validation and if you're reading this because you got the link to the blog from picfic's twitter stream, welcome, thanks for stopping by and please have a read & comment!

Mental Breakdowns, rich-dude style...

2010-07-02T12:18:00.000+01:00

I'm not belittling mental illness, or breakdowns. I'm certainly not saying that they are the preserve of poor people and that the rich, by virtue of their incomes, don't get depressed.

However, there do seem to be a plethora of former rich developers & businesspeople who are citing depressing or mental stress or breakdown as among the reasons they haven't done more to pay back their debt.

I'm sure it's tragic to go from being a multi-millionaire to just an ordinary millionaire.

All the same, I bet a lot of ordinary people who are having difficulty paying the bills are also suffering from stress - but how likely is it that the banks, or anyone else for that matter, will listen to them if they use that as an excuse not to pay? I can't imagine the ESB agreeing not to cut someone off because they're in a delicate mental state.

If these guys are genuinely suffering then fine, leave them alone. But if it's just an excuse, which I suspect it is in at least some cases - it increases the stigma associated with depression and mental illness by making it continue to seem like something that is claimed by people who just don't want to deal with stuff, rather than those who genuinely can't.

More money than sense?

2010-06-30T13:57:00.000+01:00

People pay vast amounts of money for incredibly stupid things.

A prime example is the $45000 (yup, that's FORTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS) paid by someone for chest and pelvis x-rays of Marilyn Monroe.

I've been known to spend more money than I should on fancy food, or maybe even a handbag on occasion. But x-rays of a dead actress? Come on. Give the money to charity or something. Surely there must be a better use of money than for that kind of thing?

And what does a person do with these x-rays anyway? Display them as art? Hide them away to make sure they don't fade with dust and age?

I just think it's pure idiocy.

The Copenhagen Declaration on Religion in Public Life

2010-06-29T17:09:00.003+01:00

Published here.

We, at the World Atheist Conference: “Gods and Politics”, held in Copenhagen from 18 to 20 June 2010, hereby declare as follows:

We recognize the unlimited right to freedom of conscience, religion and belief, and that freedom to practice one’s religion should be limited only by the need to respect the rights of others.
We submit that public policy should be informed by evidence and reason, not by dogma.
We assert the need for a society based on democracy, human rights and the rule of law. History has shown that the most successful societies are the most secular.
We assert that the only equitable system of government in a democratic society is based on secularism: state neutrality in matters of religion or belief, favoring none and discriminating against none.
We assert that private conduct, which respects the rights of others should not be the subject of legal sanction or government concern.
We affirm the right of believers and non-believers alike to participate in public life and their right to equality of treatment in the democratic process.
We affirm the right to freedom of expression for all, subject to limitations only as prescribed in international law – laws which all governments should respect and enforce. We reject all blasphemy laws and restrictions on the right to criticize religion or nonreligious life stances.
We assert the principle of one law for all, with no special treatment for minority communities, and no jurisdiction for religious courts for the settlement of civil matters or family disputes.
We reject all discrimination in employment (other than for religious leaders) and the provision of social services on the grounds of race, religion or belief, gender, class, caste or sexual orientation.
We reject any special consideration for religion in politics and public life, and oppose charitable, tax-free status and state grants for the promotion of any religion as inimical to the interests of non-believers and those of other faiths. We oppose state funding for faith schools.
We support the right to secular education, and assert the need for education in critical thinking and the distinction between faith and reason as a guide to knowledge, and in the diversity of religious beliefs. We support the spirit of free inquiry and the teaching of science free from religious interference, and are opposed to indoctrination, religious or otherwise.

Adopted by the conference, Copenhagen, 20 June 2010.

Please circulate this as widely as you can among people and groups who advocate a secular society.

I like this. I could definitely support such a declaration. Basically, as long as religion isn't hurting anyone, let them get on with it, but the laws of society and its education system should remain free from religious indoctrination and repressive views on morality. I'm not saying to agree with everything here - I need to spend some time thinking about it. Some of the wording seems poor and way too open to interpretation of the wrong kind, like the sentence about minorities. But it seems like a good place to start, and as always with secular types, there is room for debate, there are no absolutes (unlike religion!).

Pristine - A flash fiction piece

2010-06-29T10:25:00.000+01:00

Pristine. That was his first thought when he saw the snow. He had opened the curtains without much enthusiasm, but the sight that greeted him brought an awed look to his still-sleepy eyes. He scanned the landscape, taking it all in, until something caught his eye.

Red. Blood red. There was no mistaking it. A bloody blot on the landscape. His eyes narrowed and he reached for his dressing gown, slid his feet into his slippers, without taking his eyes off it. A bright red swirl in the midst of the clean snowy scene.

He made for the door. The handle was cold, slightly stiff from the frost. He wrenched it open, curiosity driving him to investigate.

His footprints were the only ones. Nothing else had disturbed the snow, so far. No sign as he approached the red patch of anything that had created it. He began to doubt his earlier surety that it was blood. How could it be?

It was still warm and sticky when he bent down and touched it. “Blood, definitely,” he muttered aloud, disturbing the silence. His feet were already going numb with the cold, so he knew it couldn’t have been out here much longer than he had been aware of it.

There were no other footprints, he double checked, casting his gaze over the land. Not even the little twiggy ones the birds usually left. The morning was silent and still.
A scream pierced it. His heart quickened; he held his breath.

Not terror, he realised. The scream was one of rage. It carried echoes of destruction. He stayed still. Didn’t dare to move or breathe.

A snowflake landed on his nose. Melted, slid down, made his face itch. He tried to resist but couldn’t prevent the sneeze.

He gagged when he heard the scream again. Above him. He looked up, but couldn’t see; suddenly the snow was falling heavily. He couldn’t see his house. Fighting the terror and disorientation, he began to run.

The scream was closer now. He could hear something moving through the air, heavier and faster than the snow. The beauty of it that had so entranced him earlier was lost to him. It slowed him down as he ran for the house. His left slipper got caught on something, he tugged his foot free of it and ran on, ignoring the cold.

He could see the door when he felt the talons pierce his sides. It was sure of itself, he dithered in the struggle, trying to fight and also to simply wriggle free.

Pristine, he thought as he looked over the snowy scene from above while it faded to grey. He was still conscious as the creature began its descent again. Still alive as it dumped him on virgin snow, face down. It was the pain that eventually allowed him to pass out, as the hideous beast he had not seen but knew must be worse than he could imagine tore strips of warm flesh from his body. The sound of it gnawing was the last he heard.

I wrote this to submit to an anthology, but I was so busy with exams and things that I forgot about it and missed the deadline. If I was sending it off I'd probably give it another rewrite/edit, but I thought I might as well share another piece here on the blog. Enjoy!

Looks great but hold your nose...

2010-06-28T14:14:00.000+01:00

So many fancy houses built in the last decade or so. They look great. They're well finished, the gardens have been landscaped by professionals.

They have big gates that open by remote control from their cars.

Via car must be the only way the people who live in these houses enter their property though. Them, and anyone who visits them. Because for all that they look great, when walking past with my dogs the first thing to make an impression on me is the smell.

Instead of the money for the landscape gardener maybe they should have got the septic tank checked?

Good football, bad officiating

2010-06-27T21:53:00.000+01:00

I don't think there's any debate that Germany were better than England or that Argentina were a class above Mexico. However, the real talking point in both matches is not the skill of strikers or anything else related to actual football performance. In the first game, Lampard scored a goal which should have put the score to 2-2. It was clear that it was a goal, to everyone except the referee and his assistant. The second game's opening goal was scored by Carlos Tevez, who was clearly in an offside position.

It is time to have technology in football. Tennis uses it, rugby uses it. It wouldn't slow the game down any more than the protests that we saw from Mexico.

I don't advocate using it to check every single tackle/dive/foul or every offside even, but if a goal is scored or may have been scored, the technology is there to check it. There is no merit to any of FIFA's arguments against it. Football overall is what suffers when horrendous calls such as those today are made. In years gone by human error may have been a valid reason for bad decisions, but now the technology exists and can be accessed easily there is no reason not to have goal line technology at the very least, and at least entertain the possibility of video replays in certain situations.

A poem - Thunder

2010-06-25T14:08:00.001+01:00

Thunder

Clap! But not in praise;

No applause.

Simply unaware,

Except of itself.

Bang! But not like a gun;

No lethal aim -

Though potential is there,

To deal a lethal blow.

Flash! But no new knowledge;

Lightening is not a lightbulb.

No way to switch off;

Its power is its own.

Clap! But not in praise;

No applause.

Bang! But not like a gun;

No lethal aim-

Flash!

That can kill all the same.

Another old one - I haven't written any poetry for quite a while.

If we only invented certain things now

2010-06-25T12:45:00.000+01:00

I wondered before what kind of world we would live in if time measurements were only invented now . Thinking about this some more, I wondered about other things and how they would be perceived if only just dreamed up today.

On the time thing again say, would the USA permit itself to be at the end of the day? It seems to me like they would want the International Date Line placed somewhere in the Atlantic so they would be the first to experience any new date - and the Europeans would be the last.

Something else which came to my mind though is not really anything to do with time.

In today's world, if someone came up with the idea of a public library, would they be denounced as promoting illegal file-sharing? Think about what a library is.

A library is: A building which houses many books. Many of the greatest books ever written. A mixture of everything from cookbooks to novels to poetry to textbooks as well as archives of old newspapers and access to various kinds of information about the locality. All available for people to borrow and read or partake of for FREE. (The library board pays a fee to compensate the authors of the books, but ultimately they make much less than they would were each person who reads the book courtesy of the library to instead purchase a copy).

Anyone who came up with this idea now would probably be denounced as a bleeding heart commie or something.

So I, personally, am very glad at least that libraries have been around for a long time, and hope they continue to be!

A poem - This is Not a Pen

2010-06-24T18:12:00.001+01:00

This is not a pen

This is not a pen

It stabs and imparts poison

As it pierces.

This is not a pen

It tears and scrapes across

All chasms

This is not a pen

It drips with sugar and spice

Words nasty and nice

This is not a pen

To write dark upon light

Oh no

This is not a pen

But my mind liquefied

Preserved in time

I know that since this is online, technically it isn't a pen/ink so much as a cursor or a little light/darkness on a screen....anyway, the sentiment remains.

Submission Day (but not in a kinky way)

2010-06-24T12:53:00.002+01:00

I have an excel document listing all my short stories as well as where they're currently submitted to, and when. I change it whenever I get a rejection or acceptance.

The idea is to keep track. Organised. Well, to be honest, it's the only way I can avoid accidental simultaneous submissions and submitting a story a second time to someone who already rejected it. I am a scatterbrain at the best of times and now I have baby-brain as well!

I opened the document today though and realised that almost none of my stories were submitted anywhere anymore. There had been a couple of acceptances and a slew of rejections, but none of the rejected stories had been resubmitted anywhere else.

So today, I name you Submission Day. No, wait, that sounds like something kinky! Not that there's anything wrong with that of course, but it isn't quite what I was aiming for!

Basically, I am going through all the sites that seem suitable based on searches on Duotrope - various genres, but one thing I always search for is electronic submission accepted. It's easier for me and better for the environment and quicker for everyone, really.

So, fingers(and toes, and arms etc) crossed that some of the places I send to will love my work...

Civil Partnership Bill

2010-06-24T10:45:00.000+01:00

In a break from my usual lighthearted tone, I'll be writing about something serious today.

Ireland has a history of being notoriously backward when it comes to gay rights. For those of you outside Ireland (or possibly many of you inside it), when would you think the laws outlawing homosexual acts were struck down? It may shock you to learn that this did not happen until 1993.

Yep. 1993. The same laws under which Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in 1895 were still in effect in Ireland almost 100 years later. It was only thanks to the efforts of people like Senator David Norris bring a case to the European Court of Human Rights that the laws were eventually struck down.

Now, almost 20 years later, things have come on somewhat - but not enough. Ireland is introducing a civil partnership bill which will give some rights such as that of inheritance to gay people. It is NOT on a par with marriage and there is no provision for gay couples to adopt children (or for the non-biological or non-official adopting single parent to have rights to the child he or she has helped bring up in the even of the death of the partner). However, it could be construed as a step in the right direction.

The bishops - those of the moral highground of perpetrating and covering up the sexual abuse of children for decades - don't like this. Some others are also against it - mostly the right-wing catholic (or other religious) brigade who tend to be against any challenge to the status quo.

Even allowing full gay marriage would not take anything away from heterosexual marriage. I'm a woman, married to a man, and I don't feel like gay marriage would create any kind of threat to that. Marriage is when two people who love each other make a commitment to try to continue loving and supporting one another for the rest of their lives. Domestic violence is a threat to marriage. Emotional abuse is a threat to marriage. Infidelity is a threat to marriage. But other people getting married is not a threat to marriage.

If the church doesn't want to have a religious ceremony for gay couples who wish to commit to one another, fine. No one is suggesting they should. The state is a different story however. The church is subject to the laws of the state in which it operates, but the state is not and should not be subject to the laws of the churches operating in its jurisdiction under any circumstances. So butt out, bishops! Go get your own house in order and stay out of lawmaking.

Writing

2010-06-23T17:06:00.000+01:00

I'm doing some writing today - yay! Been a while.

I'm trying to write a sort of sequel to a story that appears in Casting Shadows. It's odd, having to go back to an old story and pick out details. Especially as it's for something completely different - just an anthology seeking submissions that I found on Duotrope.

It's just the first write - I'll have to edit and rewrite, and that's never as much fun, but at least the creative juices are dripping again, if not quite flowing just yet.

If we only now started to measure time

2010-06-22T12:00:00.000+01:00

If we only got around to measuring time in today's world, it would probably be measured in metric form of some sort. How long would a second last? The same as now? Or shorter, or longer? Would it change our conception of an instant? Would it be ten or a hundred seconds per hour? How many hours per day?

Would we be in a ten day working week? How many days off would be standard in that? Maybe three? Would three days weekend followed by seven days of work be better or worse than what we have now? What would the days of the week be called? Would they be boringly labelled as One, Two, etc?

Maybe there would only be ten months in the year? Would that play havoc with our notion of seasons? Maybe it shows how far removed we are from nature, if it did work like that?

However, the world can't be made to fit a system we come up with. Ever 4 years there's that extra day to add on - and no system could account for a quarter of a day. Some stuff was made up so we can organise ourselves and each other, but days and years exist, regardless of whether we pay them attention or not! And seeing as humanity seem to have a desire to measure everything and then create standardised measurements of everything, perhaps this is a good thing!

Finger on the big red button...

2010-06-21T14:14:00.001+01:00

Portugal are currently 4-0 up against North Korea (Korea DPR).

Not that KDPR were expected to win or anything, but 4-0 is pretty much a hammering. And while other teams have been trounced and there have been shock defeats and poor performances, this one might be slightly more dangers, seeing as the guy in charge of North Korea is mad.

(Now 5-0).

Yeah. Mad. Not in a good way. Not in a fun, bit of craic kind of way. No. A lose his temper, might be willing to blow up the world, kind of way. They've been developing weapons over there for a while, in secret. No one really knows exactly what's in Kim Jong Il's arsenal.

It sometimes gets called a communist country. And DPR actually stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It isn't socialist and it sure as hell isn't democratic. It is run by a madman who runs the country like it's his own personal cult.

What's the betting that regardless of how many goals the Ivory Coast put past them later in the week, the players are slightly reluctant to get on the plane home when their exit is confirmed?

It finished 7-0. It sounds selfish, but I really hope that if Mr Crazy presses the big red button, his targeting system is good so he doesn't hit Ireland if he's aiming for Portugal...

It's the longest day of the year!

2010-06-21T13:56:00.000+01:00

Summer Solstice. June 21st. Longest day of the year.

I don't believe any of the pagan stuff anymore, but it's still a wonderful day. Plus, for once in this country, it's actually sunny. That helps. For anyone who suffers from some kind of Seasonal Affective Disorder though (basically, being miserable when there isn't enough sunlight) it is one of the best days of the year.

As someone who writers horror stories, I love and appreciate nighttime. However, as someone who lives in wet old Ireland, I love a long sunny day, and it looks like today might be the sunniest as well as the longest! Yay!

Rally Weekend

2010-06-18T10:45:00.001+01:00

*really big sigh*

Rally weekend is here again.

I love to drive fast on a good road (admittedly, not many of them around here). I certainly appreciate the skill of rally drivers. I watch Top Gear. I even sometimes watch Formula 1 and rally shows.

It's the followers I can't stand.

Men dressed up as boy racers.Doing doughnuts in car parks (Wow, how cool are you, you can drive your car around in a circle. Would you like a cookie?). Getting pissed and pissing and dumping rubbish all over town.

By the way, I'm well aware that the locals are quite good at dropping rubbish too. I'm not suggesting otherwise. The sheer amounts of it on rally weekend are staggering though. I guess that's what happens when you live on fast food and beer for an entire weekend.

Anyone complaining about the noise of the vuvuzelas should try listening to the drone of souped up Corsa engines driven by people who think that drilling a hole in their exhaust makes them rally drivers for a weekend. At least there's a mute button & a graphic equaliser on the TV, folks.

I know it's great for the town's economy (probably because of all the people they have to employ to clean up the rubbish starting on Monday), but that doesn't mean I can't complain about it.

My name is

2010-06-16T19:17:00.000+01:00

Joleen. Yes, Joleen. J-O-L-E-E-N.

J for Juliet
O for Oscar
L for Lima
E for Echo
E for Echo
N for November

I am aware that Dolly Parton spelled it differently (Jolene).

This is probably the most common variation I get. Other common ones are Joeleen, Joelene, Joline, sometimes Joelle and occasionally, Gillian. (I get all sorts of variations on my surname too, but I won't go on about that here).

I've grown used to it. Most annoying is when it's spelled wrong on a cheque - especially when I've typed out an invoice with my name on it, spelled correctly. I don't hold the knowledge of how to spell all names in the universe within my brain either - but when I'm writing a letter/email/cheque etc, I do tend to do my best to check how the person I'm addressing it to spells their name. Cheques especially, as the bank has this remarkably annoying tendency not to allow people to cash them if the name on the cheque doesn't match that on the account.

What's even more hilarious than people spelling it wrong though, is when people tell me I spell it wrong. I wasn't aware of the law that made Dolly Parton's words (and their associated spellings) some kind of canon. I wasn't named after the song. My name is spelled how it's spelled. It's right, simply because it's what it says on my birth certificate.

Blogs about Blah

2010-06-15T10:37:00.003+01:00

Been flicking through the "next blog" link here on Blogger looking for something amusing (it's up at the top there, on the left, near the middle. Feel free to click it once you're finished here).

It just struck me how many blogs there are about people's children and god. Seriously. Go ahead and click it and I bet that in no more than 3 clicks, probably fewer, you'll come to a blog where people post *cute* pictures of their children or talk about how much they love god/god loves them.

To my untrained eye, all the god blogs are the same and all the brats blogs are the same. I'm actually pregnant with my first child and very excited about it. However, I don't see the need to describe the minutia of said baby's existence online for all the world to read about. As for the god ones...well, they just bore me. I'd happily ignore them, but there are so many of them.

I do wonder what people are thinking when they post naked baby photos of their kids on the internet though. I mean, I remember being a teenager and at some stage during those years I went through all my photo albums and tore out anything in which I was naked. Imagine if those pictures weren't in a book in a chest in the attic, but posted on the internet???

As for the god-blogs...surely if you believe that strongly in god, surely you can't possibly imagine he needs the internet to hear your prayers (if so anyone who lived before 1995 or so is well screwed!)? Posting how much god loves you all over the internet doesn't make it true any more than me writing Jo-K (hearts) XY all over my maths textbook at school got me a boyfriend.

Oh well. Off to do some more clicking and see if I can come up with something funny or interesting instead of pictures of babies who all look the same or religious imagery.

Quick edit - I know the internet is a great way to communicate with distant friends and family so I get that people might therefore use it to display baby pictures. BUT, it is not that difficult to make a blog private/invite only. You don't need to display the pictures to any random stranger who can find them just by clicking through blogger.

Late Night Adverts

2010-06-14T13:17:00.002+01:00

Watching TV late one night recently, one advert particularly caught my attention. Possibly because it was played every ad break. Often the only one that was played at all.

It promised viewers that real Irish girls were available to chat. For the mere sum of €100/second or something equally extortionate. I translated in my head. Real Irish girls probably means prostitutes from Moldova. Or fat housewives trying to earn a few quid extra to make sure their homes aren't repossessed. Not the hot blondes in the advert anyway. Dying to chat could mean they're desperate for their next fix of whatever drugs their pimps have them addicted to. Or possibly just that they're so 'keen' to talk to you that they will keep you on the line as long as possible. Because you're so great, obviously, that they can't bear to hang up. Not because they charge by the minute.

I'd say the only thing you can take for granted is that you will be ripped off and that the girls you talk to will not look anything like those in the ads. Who rings these things anyway? They must make money if they continue existing and continue advertising. Sad. And that's sad as in pathetic, not tragic.