Grace Bridges - Space Kiwi

Time Travelling Samoans and Space Views

2011-12-30T09:56:00.003+13:00

Found some more really cool things lately.

One, tonight the entire Samoan nation is going to travel in time:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10775868

Two, here's an awesome video of Comet Lovejoy.

And lastly, here's a site where you can view realtime earthlight, i.e. know where dawn and dusk are happening worldwide (and there's a page for the moon phase as well):

http://www.die.net/earth/hemisphere.html

Related to this, I recently downloaded Desktop Earth, which shows a similar lightshow, complete with reasonably recent cloud formations from weather satellites, perpetually updating itself on my home screen. I love it!

http://desktop-earth.en.softonic.com/

(Note: It says it's for Windows XP, but I'm running it no probs on 7)

Spacey Finds #1: Words, Art, and Aliens

2011-11-13T09:00:00.000+13:00

Ever heard of a "commonplace book"? It's a place to save your interesting words. Sounds like something I might start doing in the flyleaf of my portable novelist facilitator (i.e. notebook) with the intent of using such words somewhere...
http://hotword.dictionary.com/commonplace-book/

This is the world's most expensive photo. I'm sure some of mine are better.

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/11/09/gurksy-photo-of-rhine-sells-for-4-3m-becomes-worlds-most-expensive-pic/

Rather cool discussion of aliens and the Christian attitude to them. Personally, I'm with Fred.

http://www.speculativefaith.com/2011/11/09/the-alien-work-of-god-part-i/

The perfect solution for writers who forget to take a notebook to bed - write down your inspiration on write-erase pillows:

http://dornob.com/pillow-talk-post-its-write-and-erase-couch-cushion-covers/

Underground Rising

2011-11-02T15:27:00.003+13:00

I've got a story in an anthology that launches today!! Not just any anthology... it's a collection from the Underground world created by Frank Creed in his novels. He generously invited other authors to play in it, and this book is the result. My tale takes his characters Legacy and Calamity Kid and dumps them into a New Zealand adventure where they must dig up an artifact to help their cause.

Below is a transcript of a recent discussion between several contributing authors. To find out more, go to the book's page at http://thewriterscafe.com/books/underground_rising .

Greg Mitchell: As part of our festivities for the new Biblical Cyberpunk release, Underground Rising: Takes from the Underground, I held a roundtable discussion with series creator and editor Frank Creed, and three other (including myself) contributors to this groundbreaking anthology! First off, let’s just go around the room and introduce ourselves. I’m, of course, Greg Mitchell, author of “Ex-Communicator”, the first story up in the anthology.

Frank Creed: I’m Frank Creed. I wrote and co-wrote several contributions to Underground Rising: Tales from the Underground.

Steve Rice: I’m Steve Rice, proudly pseudonym-free for ages. I also wrote “Bear Feat” for the anthology.

Timothy Hicks: I’m Tim Hicks from western Kentucky. I co-wrote “The Sandman Cometh”, a prequel story from the Flashpoint timeline.

Greg: And Grace Bridges! Representing our ladies tonight.

Grace Bridges: Hello from New Zealand where it is currently tomorrow afternoon! “Underground Undersea” is my contribution.

Greg: Frank, how did the idea for the anthology come about? Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this the first Christian Fiction anthology where other authors have come in and added stories to an author’s pre-existing series?

Frank: It’s the first of which I know, but surely it’s been done before. The idea came from the Underground’s origin, back in a cyberpunk series called Shadowrun.

Greg: Yes, Shadowrun! Many a fond memory.

Frank: Many authors wrote that series of books and I wanted to see what it would be like for other Christian artists to share in the Underground setting. The Underground is like Shadowrun but without magic or fantasy races.

Greg: Street samurais and deckers all around! Was it hard assembling so many different authors with their own voices under the Underground umbrella?

Frank: Not really, the contributions really stood on their own merits. Nothing felt forced from the creative standpoint.

Greg: What’s it like to see the finished product? I know, just on my end, I felt an enormous sense of pride from the end results. …Good Godly pride, naturally :p

Frank: It’s the end of years’ worth of effort, so there’s a sense of relief! But from a qualitative perspective, these really are some great stories that I’m sure will entertain readers of Christian cyberpunk.

Greg: Here’s a question for everyone: Do you think it’s possible to jump into this anthology with little to no background knowledge of the Underground novels?

Steve: Not if you use established characters.

Grace: As a reader? Sure. As a writer, nope. Either way, it’s very immersive.

Steve: The major problem is the voice. It’s very distinctive, like noir.

Tim: Not too easy. Knowing the storyline helped work out how the story tied back to the books.

Frank: I think it is possible. There’re plenty of examples of showing the technology with a brief explanation of what it is.

Grace: I return to the Underground when I need my imagination provoked for whatever. Some of you know that Flashpoint caused me to write a novel.

[Frank adds a smile here]

Greg: Wow, I didn’t know that Grace. What’s the story behind that?

Grace: The night I read Flashpoint, it fired up my imagination so bad. I had this dream… Cyberpunky, but that was all it had in common. I had to write it down. It became Legendary Space Pilgrims.

Greg: Frank, you corrupted...er, inspired young minds! That’s got to make you feel good, sir.

Frank: It really does. There have been many events that have come from writing Flashpoint, and inspiring Grace was one of those.

Grace: Actually [my novel] Faith Awakened came out at the same time as Flashpoint, almost to the day.

Greg: Okay, so now we know Grace was familiar with Flashpoint going in--I have to admit, Frank had to give me a crash course before I wrote my story (though now I’ve read both books and am all caught up :)). How familiar were the rest of you with this series before coming on board?

Tim: I enjoyed Flashpoint and wondered about how the world got into that predicament. I asked Frank about a nickname after Flashpoint and why it wasn’t recognized by the One World Order. Frank told me that was answered in his next book. Both books made me think, “What if?” Grace’s Faith Awakened and Flashpoint. That’s where my story idea came from. I wondered about the history before the story. Kind of like Paul Harvey’s, “The Rest of The Story.”

Grace: You’ve read Faith? Oooh :)

Tim: Yes, I read an ebook version. It was a pretty neat idea.

Steve: I had read Flashpoint (and Faith Awakened, for that matter), as well as writing a few virtual reality stories (“The Story Machine” and “Virtual Messiah”). And I had discussed things with Frank. He still hasn’t gone to the cops, so that’s a good sign.

Greg: Steve, your story “Bear Feat” actually stars Calamity Kid and e-girl, the heroes from the main books--was that awkward coming into those characters that were already pretty well-defined in their voices?

Steve: Not really. I’m a mimic anyway. The fact they were well-defined simplified matters. It was integrating them with my type of story and character that was tricky.

Greg: Well I thought you did great. Two continuity questions that are bugging me. Frank, how many sisters does Tinker have?

Frank: For now, Tinker only has two sisters. We'll have to leave that one open to creativity, though!

Greg: And, Grace, when does your story take place on the Underground timeline? You’ve got Calamity Kid and Legacy, right? (For those who don’t know, Legacy is captured somewhere in Book One…)

Grace: Yes. This actually occurs way down the track in what could be Book 4.

Greg: Wow!

Grace: So it’s after a bunch of drastic stuff has gone on. I have another story set then, too.

Greg: Not in the anthology, though.

Grace: No.

Greg: Ah, you tease us then.

Grace: All in good time, eh, Frank? :P

Frank: Indeed! I’m still writing Devil’s Hit List: Book Three of the Underground. Book Four will be co-written by Grace.

Greg: Whoa, big announcement!

Grace: Old news? It’s been settled for 3 years that I know of ;)

Tim: Cool! :D When can we pre-order?

Greg: More importantly, is Big Hoss Dupree [from “Ex-Communicator”] in it... oh wait, that’s not very important at all :)

Frank: You heard it here first! Pre-orders in a couple years. I write slowly. : )

Grace: So do I, and I got some other stuff on the fire at the moment.

Tim: Quality takes longer than quantity :)

Frank: Everyone will like Hoss, by the way, Greg.

Greg: I hope so! Tim, we talked about your story “The Sandman Cometh” being a prequel to the main series--was that tough to talk Frank into?

Tim: I hoped Frank would take a chance on my story. I wondered how the equipment in Flashpoint came about. What about the Sandmen before they had all the spiffy gadgets?

Greg: I’m glad he did. It was a neat peek into the past. Frank, in the “About the Author” in the back of Book Two: War of Attrition, it talks about “The Last Newspaper”. Now that’s the same story in the anthology correct? You wrote that thing back in 1983? How long have you had all of this in your head, man?!

Frank: The original version of “The Last Newspaper” was written back in about 1982, but that story was lost through time--I no longer have a copy of it. The version of “The Last Newspaper” that appears in Underground Rising was rewritten last year to fit into the Underground setting. It was not originally an Underground story. This stuff has only been in my head for about twenty years. : )

Greg: Oh, is that all? Well, I guess it’s a start :) I have to say, I read through the anthology for the first time the other day and was really impressed with it. Even though there are all of these different authors, working in their own little corners of the globe, the stories fit together quite naturally to tell a story of the Church in persecution. It was actually really inspiring, I thought.

Frank: I’m so pleased with the end result. I guess you could say “proud”.

Greg: I’ll hit Grace with this one first, since she’s our resident small press (she’s the woman behind Splashdown Books)--Do you see Christian Fiction making a turn, getting away from the predictable and exploring more fertile imaginative ground?

Grace: I certainly hope so! I have a number of very interesting submissions in my pile right now. Especially of a sort that mashes up the genres. I love that stuff!

Greg: Steve, do you think something like the “Biblical Cyberpunk” genre will be able to spill over into the “mainstream” Christian Fiction market, or do you think it, in a sense, belongs underground? The wild untamed, and all of that?

Steve: Spills are always possible. All these clumsy people, you know. I suspect that the mainstream will only do unusual and genre-bending work to copy the secular media. So the “underground” will likely remain so unless/until there’s a breakout story that becomes a major movie.

Greg: And perhaps that’s a larger problem that many within the “Christian Fiction” market see—a tendency to follow the trends, rather than set them. But I think Underground Rising is trendsetting stuff, no doubt, and I hope people catch on to it. I see a lot of naysayers of mainstream Christian fiction--and I wonder, if the anthology did go “mainstream” in popularity, would that somehow take away from its coolness factor in the eyes of the naysayers? You know there’s always that garage band that gets a Billboard Top 100 hit and everyone accuses them of “selling out” :p

Frank: I do hope the Underground gets the chance to “sell out”! It would mean a great deal to me if our work reached that kind of exposure.

Greg: Grace, what are your thoughts? Do some things belong on the fringe--not for lack of quality, mind you, but just because some people won’t touch “mainstream”, no matter how pure-grade awesome it is?

Grace: I don’t subscribe to that at all. Yes, some things are weird, but weird is becoming ever more mainstream. The weirder the better, even. And those who won’t touch it for whatever reason--they’re missing out.

Greg: I agree. I think that anyone--whether they “get” cyberpunk or not--can be really encouraged by this book. A) It’s refreshing to see the level of talent and B) it’s talking about things people can relate to—the loss of freedom and how we fight to hold on—it just happens to be set in the future.

Tim: The Underground world makes the point that everything matters to The Boss (as God is known in the Underground books), and he is in control. That’s why I liked the series. It made me think.

Greg: Frank, fans get a special treat at the end of the anthology--You’ve got a sneak peak at Book 3! What’s in store for the next installment, Devil’s Hit List?

Frank: In War of Attrition: Book Two of the Underground, the heroes lose their HQ because the Ash Megacorp is turning it into a Rehab Ward, to produce something called “Virtual-e”, which is a virtual plague. In Devil’s Hit List, the saints battle production of virtual-e.

Greg: And how far are you into the writing process on that one, O Slow Writer?

Frank: It’s about halfway done. I hope to have a release date around August 2012.

Greg: So, what’s next for everyone? What projects are you guys working on?

Steve: I’m working on a few projects, but I’ve become increasingly skeptical of “Christian” fiction. It’s usually no such thing. That’s why I largely stopped doing reviews. But I’ll probably publish online now and then. Evolutionists excuse the lack of transitional forms by “punctuated equilibrium,” which posits occasional change at the margins of genetic society. I think that’s how Christian writing will have to work for the foreseeable future.

Grace: I’m barreling towards the end of Godspeed, the sequel to Faith Awakened. It stands at 47,000 words out of a projected 60k, and I’m deep into the tangle of virtual reality once again. All going well, it should be out late next year. I’m also very excited about the Avenir Eclectia project, where Frank and Greg are participants. There will be an anthology for that next year, too.

Frank: Good news.

Greg: Tim, what are you cooking up?

Tim: Thanks, I’m working on a supernatural story about a medieval piece of stained glass that shows a person’s true spirit. Forces don’t want things known. But the killer needs to be found.

Frank: How about you, Greg?

Greg: Lots of different stuff, but most immediately, the second book in my The Coming Evil Trilogy comes out in February. It’s entitled Enemies of the Cross and is chock full of drooling monsters. Frank, what say you? Might there be an Underground Rising 2 in the future?

Frank: Perhaps. It depends on how Underground Rising sells. If there’s a demand, there must be a sequel!

[To this, Tim gives a thumbs-up]

Greg: So, I open this up to you guys, here at the last. Anything you want to ask each other?

Frank: Greg, do you have any other Dupree stories in mind?

Greg: Ha ha, not at present. But give me about fifteen minutes and I bet I could come up with something ;) That was a pretty easy character to write! He wrote himself, practically.

Tim: What about a cross-over story between story worlds? Underground meets Faith Awakened?

Frank: Grace’s time setting is ahead of mine.

Grace: Mine is in 2079.

Frank: We would need a Tardis, no?

Grace: Well, in fact I have a very enhanced character in Godspeed... Frank, we should talk.

Frank: Oh, Grace is already on this!

Greg: Closing thoughts?

Frank: Underground Rising has taken at least three years to compile--I want to thank everyone for their patience as this has come together.

Greg: Thanks for the opportunity!

Tim: Yes, thanks Frank. It was nice meeting everyone here tonight.

Grace: Yup. Awesome!!

Steve: It was good to be around Frank and Grace again, and to meet the rest.

Greg: Thanks for participating everybody.

Frank: Cool--thanks for moderating this thing!

Greg: Well, folks, that’s all we got. We hope you were entertained, enlightened, and inspired to go out and buy this book! Go! Go now! Quick!

Thanks to everyone who hung out in the chat and thank you all for reading :)

A New Visual Venture...

2011-08-07T21:08:00.006+12:00

No sooner do I get a little bit on top of my to-do list than I am bursting with new ideas and plans. Perhaps you saw my shared post over at Chila's blog; if not, head over and check it out - Pub Talk: two publishers meet in a fictional locale to talk indie.

There are other things cooking as well... but the one I want to tell you about today is something I've always wondered about doing. It was forever in the back of my mind, yes, I should do that sometime. Well, the day has come.

I am now making some of my photographs available for the first time, beginning with a selection from France called Castles & Cafés. There are currently two ways to get hold of them:

One, buy the calendar on Lulu.com for a fresh monthly spread;

Or head over to my Imagekind gallery if you want something solid to hang on your wall. You'll see there that it has a snazzy little RSS feed which you can grab to keep informed when I add new stuff.

There will be more as time goes on, for sure. This is only part of the France collection, and then there are other travels to add in. So have a look, tell me what you think, and tell me what kind of photos you'd like to see more of!

No Grace

2011-07-22T13:03:00.002+12:00

I don't say grace at meals. I don't mind if you do, just don't ask me to. Part of it I suppose is the endless chuckling at my name when it comes up, though I have gotten used to it. But mostly I just don't see why we should make a religion out of thanking the Man Upstairs for food and not for anything else.

Imagine if it were a cultural norm to say a prayer of thanks before using cosy socks, a hot water bottle, a cup of tea, a friendly cat, thick curtains, fleecy blankets (it's the dead of winter here! can you tell?). Or for the phone line, the modem, the computer, and the cables that run under the sea all around the world to enable these connections. Or my favourite shirt, the old car that still runs well, my jobs that pay me money, good books (oh BOY, good books!!), the beach...

I know food is the first prerequisite for survival, and I don't take it for granted. But I'll say my silent thanks for these other things too, because they make life what it is.

Virtual Glue

2011-07-21T20:58:00.002+12:00

Virtual glue is a term that's come up in my conversations quite a bit lately, in connection with creating a full book manuscript out of 26 different story files and I think about ten edit files, too. To say nothing of the contributor pages which have to be filled in with author photos and bios and book blurbs and cover images and links and ISBNs. I have often felt like I'm all gummed up with virtual glue all over my hands from all the copy-pasting.

But it will be worth it. Aquasynthesis has been an awesome project to work on, and the end result is shining through the disparate parts. It's going to be great.

Meanwhile, the blog I've left up for days now is this one: http://christinakatz.com/how-to-be-the-most-productive-person-you-know/ - lots of wisdom in there. I guess I left it open in the hope that some of it would stick in my head. No, I don't leave my computer on all the time - it hibernates overnight, retaining my working windows and tabs. I hate it when I have to restart for updates or program crashes, but who doesn't hate that? Oh well. A reboot is healthy now and then, same as for people :)

2011-07-18T16:57:00.005+12:00

Lookie here what just came in the mail for Paul Baines! The perfect reason to celebrate my blog's spacey new layout for a space travel book that is going places :)

If I were...

2011-05-28T09:58:00.003+12:00

Borrowed from Kat and Robynn in turn...

If I were a month, I’d be February, because I'm a child of summer.
If I were a day of the week, I’d be Saturday, because good things happen on Saturdays.
If I were a time of day, I'd be 11 P.M. because it's late enough to be interesting, but early enough to be awake.
If I were a planet, I’d be Earth, carrying much turmoil but ultimately the spark of life. Or maybe on my off days Eclectia, a little more volcanic.
If I were a sea animal, I’d be a Shapeshifting Octopus.
If I were a direction, I’d be Up.
If I were a piece of furniture, I'd be a fold-out couch.
If I were a liquid, I’d be black tea with milk and honey.
If I were a gemstone, I’d be a Lapis Lazuli, like they used in paintings in the Renaissance, and it was more precious than gold.
If I were a tree, I’d be a Pohutukawa. But I don't just come out at Christmas, in fact rather the opposite.
If I were a tool, I’d be Pliers, and don't forget the No. 8 wire.
If I were a flower, I’d be an Iris.
If I were a kind of weather, I would be Wind, huffing freshness in your face to wake you up.
If I were a musical instrument, I’d be a synth with a thousand voices. No, that's not enough... They have tens of thousands these days, so I'd want a hundred thousand.
If I were a color, I’d be right between royal blue and royal purple.
If I were an emotion, I’d be swinging wildly and completely unpredictable.
If I were a fruit, I’d be a Feijoa, that guava-related local that tastes sort of like banana and sort of like pear.
If I were a sound, I’d be drum 'n' bass that you can feel through your feet and into your insides.
If I were an element, I’d be Silver.
If I were a car, I’d be an old-style campervan with murals on the outside.
If I were a food, I’d be an avocado, surprisingly versatile.
If I were a place, I’d be a wild beach: cliffs, sand, waves, wind, feeling alive.
If I were a material, I’d be polar fleece.
If I were a taste, I’d be Manuka Honey: Slightly sweet with a strong dark undertone, too much for some, but very good for ya!.
If I were a scent, I’d be cider: fruity, tangy, and just a little tipsy. Yes, the smell.
If I were an object, I’d be a glass and copper candle-holder: older than I look, fragile, and holding a light safe from extinction.
If I were a facial expression, I’d be enthusiasm (whatever that looks like).
If I were a song, I’d be “Open Road Ahead.” (today, anyway)
If I were a pair of shoes, I would be Jandals (flip-flops, for the rest of you).

If I were an item of clothing, I'd be a thick sleeveless fleece with loads of pockets.

If I were a computer, I'd be a battered ThinkPad with faulty memory.

If I were a book, I'd be Taliesin by Stephen Lawhead.

If I were chocolate, I'd be Rocky Road.

If I were a cloud, I'd be Cirrus, because in my mind I fly high and cover a lot of area.

On bad typing and how not to work

2011-05-27T20:33:00.002+12:00

I can't type very well today. I keep on making silly mistakes and having to fix them. This is a problem when my work efficiency depends on fast and accurate typing as the meaning flows into my eyes, through the translation matrix and out my fingers. I spend enough thought on the translating as it is, without the typing being messed up. And no, you do not want to know how many times I hit backspace in this paragraph.

It's 8.30 PM and I've had all three meals of the day, been to the beach and shopping, made ebooks, chatted a little online, worked on a story that's due this weekend, and generally enjoyed myself. Now we get down to the real work. I'd like to polish off a couple of thousand words of translation tonight if I can, knock the remaining total down to 11500 or so. Yes, tonight.

Windup...

2011-05-26T21:54:00.004+12:00

Partly against my better judgement, I have just accepted a translation job of over 13,000 words. Due June 5th. Heck, what can I say, I need the cash, and it's definitely more than doable. Don't let me push it all to the last day or two this time, or I will almost certainly be dead on the 6th.

What's the bet I'll get more done alongside it than I would have without? Ebook formatting and upload, a book launch party, critiquing, finishing a serial episode for Digital Dragon, reading 17 books, reading submissions, organising the Avenir project, preparing two anthologies, and hopefully a little exercise while revisiting Season Two of Doctor Who. All that plus the builders hammering around in my basement and a flatmate moving out on the weekend, not necessarily conducive to getting lots done.

I must be nuts.

When I See You...

2011-05-24T13:15:00.002+12:00

When I see my friends online, that little green dot, so tantalising, my finger itches to click it. We could be changing the world right now if we talked! If only I didn't have this other work to do. And the day's so beautiful. I should go out for a walk, gain some refreshment from the sea air. Again, the work stops me. And I want to talk - always, always talk - but I don't want to bother anyone, get in the way, or discover I'm in a mood that doesn't benefit you in the exchange. So I leave you alone, for now, but mark my words...the time will come.

Truth and Fiction

2011-02-09T20:27:00.003+13:00

Recently Episode 10 of my serial story Comet Born went live at Digital Dragon Magazine. In it, an airliner gets into dire straits when its nose wheel fails to deploy. I wasn't sure if that particular mechanical error was likely to occur in real life, but the news got ahead of me when that very thing happened to an Air New Zealand plane. It subsequently landed in Blenheim with no injuries reported.

So I'm glad for that bit of realism that found its way into my episode. As for the superheroes who then rescue the aircraft, that's another story!

Read Comet Born Episode 10: Rough Landing

Read the New Zealand news story

Video of the landing (amazingly smooth!)

CyberDublin: Blurb

2011-01-30T17:46:00.001+13:00

Imagine a not-too-distant future where world commerce runs from one huge hyperserver: Oodles. Wallscreens and podphones connect to the all-powerful hub’s online personal computing applications and data storage.

Not only that: Oodles has bought out television, communications, shopping, banking and social networking, as well as the entire Internet. The economy is digitised and cash has become a collector’s item, but in one corner of Ireland the old ways fight to survive.

Enter Rachel, part-time Oodles sysadmin, about to launch into her university career. Her Da, shocked at the Oodles takeover, reveals she’s adopted. Questions plague her. Who are her real parents? Why did they give her up? And why did her Da wait so long to tell her?

Rachel, determined to leave home, rents a big old house near the city. She and her friend Talitha find strangers willing to share it: Bethany, the snarky librarian biker chick; Louise, the fish-and-chips diva with a pregnant tomcat; and Zehrani, the queenly African from the high echelons of Oodles Security.

But all is not rosy in Cyberdublin. Oodles introduces holographic status graphs to display personal information to the world. Rachel, disgusted by the invasion of privacy, refuses to wear it in public despite her Da’s peculiar liking for the new social technology.

Then there are the ragged religious saboteurs, convinced they can delay the end of the world by destroying the dominance of Oodles. But somebody else is quicker. The churchgoers find themselves acting against their own would-be ally after discovering what lies behind the plot. What will Dublin—and the world—look like without the cyber?

Follow Rachel’s search for identity in the midst of global crisis, as the sabotage mystery unfolds with a twist she’d never dare imagine.

With today’s cloud-computing technology, this scenario is possible even now. Cyberdublin will appeal to the Celtic fascination within those of Irish descent and those who wish they were. Web users will find laughs aplenty, too.

Book Lowdown - CYBERDUBLIN

2011-01-20T11:44:00.000+13:00

This survey is going around amongst my writer friends at the moment and I thought it looked like fun, especially since I just got some major work finished on my next novel, CyberDublin. So here goes...and I've taken the liberty of deleting those questions I didn't like.

1. What’s your word count? 57,000

2. How long until you finish? A few more tweaks, maybe another scene or two.

3. If you have finished, how long did it take you? I wrote the first draft in one month - yes, in Ireland. It then languished for over two years until I finished it last week - finished as far as I know.

4. Do you have an outline? Yes, but I changed it SO much as I went - when it proved boring.

6. How many words do you typically write a day? During the stint in Ireland I did about 5k a day - three in the morning, and two in the evening.

7. What was your greatest word count in one day? Dunno, maybe 6k.

9. What inspired you to write? Google. Not a search, but the business entity itself. Plus my devious mind.

10. Does your novel have a theme song? Be Thou My Vision - drum and bass version by Clank. Hang on, let me grab it for you. Have a listen to this while you read the rest of the post.

11. Assign each of your major characters a theme song.

Rachel: All Shook Up (Elvis)
Talitha: Lean On Me (DC Talk version)
Conor: Not Afraid (Eminem)
Louise: A Hard Day's Night (Beatles)
Zehrani: Material Girl (Madonna)
Bethany: Signs of Life (Steven Curtis Chapman)

12. Which character is most like you? Rachel

13. Which character would you most likely be friends with? Talitha

15. Who is your favorite character in your novel? Conor, actually.

16. Have your characters ever done something completely unexpected? You bet. Conor was meant to be the bad guy, but he absolutely refused.

17. Have you based any of your novel directly on personal experiences? Mainly the settings around Dublin from time spent there.

24. What is the best line?

I threw the book aside. My task was real. Not fantasy. And here was the wannabe hero, reading of magic and monsters. Some good that would do. I sat there for the longest time, until the last sip of cold coffee trickled down my throat and the light of morning announced itself at the kitchen window.

God help us all.

28. Summarize your novel in under fifteen words.
The all-encompassing cyberworld crashes, causing chaos in its Dublin heart and in personal lives.

29. Do you love all your characters? Yes, except maybe Sweeney.

32. Describe your main character in three words. Longings, questions, determination.

35. How many romantic relationships take place in your novel? One.

36. Are there any explosions in your novel? Only the virtual kind.

45. Who has pets in your novel and what are they? Louise has a cat she thought was a tom but then turns out to be pregnant and the household ends up with four kittens.

46. Are there angels, demons, or any religious references/figures in your novel? Nothing supernatural this time, but references, yes.

51. Is there humor? It's Irish, for goodness sake! It better be funny.

52. Is there tragedy? Only in economic terms, mostly for big business.

57. Has your novel provided insight about your life? I suppose so. I certainly built in lots of intimate encounters with actual locations I experienced.

58. Your personality? Perhaps. Whenever I got bored, I switched POV, which may or may not be a good thing.

59. Has your novel inspired anyone? Not yet as far as I know. Maybe this year. But don't anyone go sabotaging the Internet, now! It's more of a light-action humour fling than a deep-and-meaningful thing.

68. How would you react if your novel was erased entirely? Not happening, because so many people have got copies of it :)

71. What advice would you give to a fellow writer? In writing this book I learned to have fun in the process. If you're forcing it out, it's probably not good writing.

72. Describe your ending in three words. Housewarming. Confession. Hope.

75. Was it worth it? Of course!

Summer Santas and Elves

2010-11-29T17:29:00.000+13:00

While you enjoy that little bit of Kiwi Christmas fun, consider that those guys ran 10km in santa suits to fundraise for the GP youth group - in other words, to fund cool camps and events and help out those kids who otherwise couldn't go bowling and that sort of thing.

So what else is new? I FINISHED A STORY!! Woohoo! This is unusual as it is not part of my Comet Born series nor even in my preferred genre. It remains to be seen whether it's any good; unfortunately, it seems to have ended up all chicky and romantic, which no doubt is why I had such a hard time writing it. Did I mention I can't stand reading romance? Ick. More on that later, if it ever sees the light of day. Still, it came in at a respectable almost 4000 words, though I pity whoever has to read 'em.

The river of paying work is still coming, so this week is mostly taken care of as well. My discipline is getting a little better - last week I mostly started work around 8pm and finished after midnight, yet didn't accomplish much during the day at all. Today I finished before 5pm, phew!

I've continued to mess around with the Reaper music software, with varying success. Last night's effort wasn't helped by the fact that I put in a melody line before changing the BPM from 120 to 150, with the result that all my lines are now in sets of three bars - like a 6/8 beat but on a 4/4 grid. Nope, doesn't work at all. I'll have to redraw that song. And drawing it is - since I haven't yet figured out how to attach my keyboard, all of it is constructed by clicking in the note pane. Takes some getting used to - sure ain't like tinkling on the piano - but it does the job.

I should really set up a page somewhere for the few songs I've completed. Some of them are okay, if you ignore the propensity for whooshing sound effects and such. Might be good for a laugh, eh?

Globetrotter's Gallivants

2010-11-24T09:02:00.002+13:00

Well, I finally did it - culled some of the best photos from my travelling years, and put them all in one place. Theoretically I'm all caught up now - except for any NZ-themed shows that might still be in the offing. Anyway, here it is - a bunch of different countries, but largely Germany, which was my home base for seven years. At the end there are links to other, shorter themed shows. Enjoy!

The soundtrack is "Stepping Stones in Time" - so appropriate for these ancient places, and also for a decade of memories - once again provided by the talented Mike Rogers, and you can find the whole album over at http://michaellrogers.virb.com/magnetica.

Bad Blogging and Good Work

2010-11-22T12:33:00.001+13:00

Yep, there it is. I'm a bad blogger. So often I don't bother writing anything down, even though I know fine well it would make a good blog. There are reasons for this, sure - one being that I believe I only have a certain amount of inspiration for a given day and if I use it on a blog, I can't use it on fiction. This has proven true on occasion, but I surely don't write fiction every day so there are some left over for blogging.

Anyway, there is plenty going on in this little ol' corner of the world. Our new flatmate has been here just over a week and is settling in well - we're glad to have him. The cat is back to her old self after a nasty tooth extraction. I have a lot of work on this week, of the paying kind - which is nice, even if it's rather too much for my liking. It's likely to be 20 hours of work in the one week which is quite unusual for me.

Worked a bit on a short story yesterday. It is progressing, if slowly. I suspect the slowness is because it is one of my first attempts at actual fantasy (as opposed to sci-fi) - though I do have a sci-fi twist in it for sure. It's just not my first choice of genre and it's proving difficult to get into the groove.

In other writing, I suppose I should be thinking about the next episode of Comet Born, as Walt reminded me yesterday. The last one isn't published yet, but I guess that shouldn't stop me. The project continues to be an adventure in non-planning, which is a little scary for my Snowflaking self. Okay, a lot scary. But so far, very fun, and you can read all the published episodes from the Comet Born index.

Summer is coming on quite nicely indeed. If it's this hot in November, what'll it be like in February? Yesterday our church held a fun run at Takapuna beach to fundraise for the youth group. Two of the guys ran the full 10 kilometres dressed in Santa suits and beards. I got some great video of that event, so look out for that when I've put it all together.

My friend C.S. Lakin has posted a wonderful blog about writer's wordcount and why it doesn't matter. It is a refreshing view in a time when many authors are just all about the numbers. Doing a small amount of good work is just as valuable. Go read that post.

So there we go. Not such a bad show after all. I have now put the "write new blog post" page link into my Morning Coffee so perhaps I won't forget for quite so long the next time around. :)

Influencing Authors and the tales behind them

2010-11-01T12:51:00.001+13:00

So I was offline for nearly two whole days, enjoying my weekend, and arrive back to find myself tagged umpteen ways to Timbuktu with this author meme thing that was already floating around last week. I've read the contributions and the reasonings and the plea for elucidation rather than just spouting off names. Okay, let's do this properly.

[Fabulous place, Timbuktu, by the way. Here's a picture - that's me on the right:]

I'm going to start at the beginning and attempt to move chronologically, giving my utterly personal reasons as we go. Hmm, I wonder if it'll be what you expect...I may even surprise myself.

1. C.S. Lewis
The Narnia books were likely the first full-length novels I read - first read aloud by parents, then by myself by the time I was six or so. These taught me the thrill of being lost inside a story and gave me the addiction to reading that I still suffer from today.

2. John White
The Tower of Geburah, at 600 pages, was my Christmas gift right before I turned seven. I read it in three days and sorely felt the lack of further items in this category. I mean, this was the eighties after all. Mr. White was in fact a non-fiction writer, and it shows when I look at his work now, but at the time I didn't care. That book taught me that a plot can go on and on and on - for hundreds and hundreds of pages - and still be cohesive and united.

3. Enid Blyton
Don't laugh. I once owned over 40 of her novels, and spent many a summer's day devouring two or three of them back to back. Though obviously dated, they were quite exciting to a child and involved a good amount of childish derring-do - e.g. camping and travelling without adults came up quite a lot. These books taught me a large variety of different plots, as well as the varying "feelings of tension" brought on by individual villains, which were never the same twice.

4. Star Trek
I'm counting all the authors as a collective, because they all wrote in the same world...a world of a hopeful future, the thrill of exploring the vastness of space, the character and team dynamics. These things have always stayed with me. And if anyone's asking, my favourite Trek movies are 4, 5, 8, 9 and 11. :) The Trek novels are also worth a mention - some very good writers there, with bold concepts of their own even while staying within the established lore.

5. Frank Peretti
I consumed This Present Darkness as soon as it came into the house one fine day in 1987. It was a real eye-opener to what could be done with fiction, blurring the line to reality, and displaying an intricately plotted storyline that still astonishes today.

6. Stephen Lawhead
I'll never forget the day Dad brought Taliesin home from a foray to the Christian bookshop. Hullo, what's this? I thought as I discovered the second chapter was not about the same people and places as the first. But I quickly fell in love with the alternating manner of telling, which made the moment of their meeting all the more significant. I ended up writing my first full-length novel in that very method many years later.
That is only the first book of the Pendragon Cycle. I grew to love the second, Merlin, even more, followed by all the others and the supposedly unrelated modern-day "Avalon".
Then came Albion and Empyrion. I dare any warm-hearted human not to be moved by the scene in The Siege of Dome where the telepathic fish come to comfort a desperate traveller.

7. Beth W.
A homeschool friend from childhood who conspired with me to co-write a story of a local urban legend being proven. I was with her on her paper run and the front page carried a story of said legend, which got us talking. We planned out the entire story and agreed each of us would write a version, to be combined later. She didn't get terribly far with hers - but I finished mine at the respectable length of 20,000 words over several months at the age of 14. So thanks, Beth, for prodding me to do it.

(Insert long, boring years of reading mostly historical fiction. Or nothing at all. Blame university, and then living in Germany)

8. Jeremy Robinson
A champion of independent publishing! His first novel The Didymus Contingency blew me away by its concept and plotting, as well as the fact that Jeremy was the publisher. He moved from self-publishing, to his own publishing company, and eventually into traditional publishing. A success story to aspire to.

9. Frank Creed
Founder of the Lost Genre Guild, which provided the support and feedback for nearly everything I have done in serious writing and publishing to date, and a high-concept novelist of fast-moving cyberpunk - the genre I now feel most at home in. All about opening doors of possibility.

10. Randy Ingermanson
Long before I ever got hold of his novels (which isn't easy these days) I discovered his writing site and Snowflake method for novel planning. Unbeknownst to me, I had been using a similar system (though not so well defined) to plot my novels already, but he came along and made it all perfectly clear. To this day, the Snowflake (well, the bits of it that I use) is my very favouritest part of novel writing.

11. Darryl Sloan
Once a Christian, Darryl has moved away from that and now constantly questions our relationship to reality. Aside from being great fodder for sci-fi ideas, the challenge to established thought is a healthy thing.

12. Chris Walley
Who else has crafted 1000+ pages of one memorable, mind-blowing story? Chris has truly expanded the horizons of science fiction.

13. The Lost Genre Guild authors
Everyone who's stepped up to encourage in hard times, to critique a novel, to assist with critiquing and reviewing - these guys are the best. I would never have gotten this far in my writing without them.

14. Authors and associates I visited on my "roadtrip" in 08
Everyone who took me in for an hour or a day or a week while I crossed the USA by myself. Each shared their own particular authorness and insights with me, and their input is still with me today. I planned to write the roadtrip novel "Godspeed" while actually travelling - but you know how travelling is. Just as well everyone is so memorable.

15. Finally - All the authors I've published!
Seriously, these guys are da bomb. In working through manuscripts together, they've taught me so much. Each story has touched me in its own way, and each writer has left their mark on my own approach. I'm somewhat in awe to be called their publisher - I only hope to be truly worthy of that name.

A Future Visit to the Past

2010-09-21T09:45:00.001+12:00

I'm scared stiff. Not a circumstance that happens very often, but this is one of them. You see, next week I'm about to take a trip into the milieu of my past life, reconnecting with a bunch of people I used to know from worship camps. It's a different camp (www.kiwisong.co.nz), but in the same spirit, and many of the same folks will be there. I don't particularly want to learn about worship - been there, done that, suffered the abuse - but my creative mind remembers all too well that my best writing is done in church, and what better way to give myself a jildy than to spend all week at a camp? In a lovely remote coastal location no less?

The thing I'm really scared about is that most if not all of these old friends are of the highly prophetic type. Yes, I know that's a good thing. A real good thing in fact. But that means there's a very good chance that God might speak to me. He and I have observed silence for so long that I know I'll be a little awkward, even if he isn't. He might see fit to give me clues about just what it is that is still broken inside of me after severe spiritual abuse as a worship leader. There might be tears and healing. Or there might not. I'm trying not to set any expectations, because I could be setting myself up for disappointment. Then again, I can't expect to show up in this state in such a spiritually charged atmosphere and have nothing happen.

I will be meeting some of the very people who once prophesied I would go to Germany. Now, for sure they're not responsible for the abuse that happened while I was there. Not even God is responsible for that, actually. Still, it'll be weird telling them what a disaster it turned out to be (Did you miss that story? Part 1 Part 2).

I guess I'm also scared that someone will tell me what I'm doing wrong, as many others have done over the years. Get over it, they said. You have to worship whether you feel like it or not. Well, folks, I'm sorry. My worship fuse is blown, and it's going to take more than "getting over it" to be able to even sing in church again. Sure, I've found other ways to express my joie de vivre, such as it is. But writing a story is much harder than writing a song, let me tell you.

Which brings me to a problem: all this terror is crippling my ability to write. I'm on a deadline; need to write at least one story today, and get it critiqued, edited and submitted by the end of the week. Yesterday all I did was rearrange my room and my office area. Didn't even tidy up first. With the result that the mess is just elsewhere now. Mountains of clothes by the bed. An overflowing in-tray of paperwork to file. Every seat (well, 4 out of 5) piled high with random stuff. A sink full of dishes, a stinky cat litterbox. No doubt all this mess is just an external sign of the chaos within. And I've never been able to write amidst a mess.

Each night I tell myself I won't turn on the computer in the morning until I've tidied up. But then I have to have it on to play music while I'm tidying - and the music does help my composure, thank the Lord for Mike, composer extraordinaire. So I end up checking my mail and everything anyway, and the room is not tidy, and I do not write.

Haven't had any human contact for 48 hours, except online; that's likely to change today, though I'd rather stay a hermit. Can you hear me tearing my hair out? I have a long list of stuff to finish this week, and zero ability to get started on it. Creative work requires a good frame of mind, and that I do not have right now.

So, I'm sorry about the gut-spilling here, but if you weren't put off by the title, it's your own problem, and I'd like to call you friend. Will God speak to me next week through old (or new) friends? I cannot say. All I know is that probably, nothing will be the same.

Video: Lagoon Fish of New Caledonia

2010-08-31T13:45:00.000+12:00

Filmed at sea and in the Nouméa Aquarium, back in July.
Music from http://michaellrogers.virb.com

Lateness, Life, and Obligations

2010-07-28T09:00:00.003+12:00

Today I got a large blue sack in the mail. Inside was a foot-long box. It contained just ten books, five each of Splashdown's new releases. The sack, in my opinion, was overkill - but certainly fun.

I have been feeling rather overwhelmed lately, and not getting near enough done as I believe myself capable of. In need of a brainstorming session, perhaps, a mind map on a very large piece of paper, or the inside of that there sack. Pursued by the suspicion that I've forgotten something very important, while on the inside crying out for peace.

The things filling up each day seem to fall into one of three categories: obligations, which have to come first; things that are late, and thus quite urgent; and then there are the other things that make up real life.

Obligations include working and taking care of my boarders - shopping and cooking mainly. I love to cook, but it takes a lot of time out of my best part of the day, since I start getting active in the late afternoon and then have to stop and make dinner. And work, yes, earning money, but thank goodness it's irregular and some of it is at will to be taken on as I wish or not.

The late things. Ouch. Mostly to do with writing and publishing. A story due here, another there. Large numbers of books to be read and reviewed, many with deadlines. Marketing my own books, following up on reviewers, all that sort of thing. A full-to-bursting Acquisitions folder for Splashdown's author talent quest. Keeping tabs on projects in the works for upcoming release. Website tweaks. Bookkeeping.

And the Life things. Things my passion calls me to pursue. Painting. Writing. Walking on the beach. Reading - that two-foot stack of novels isn't getting any smaller. Snuggling the cat. Sleeping plenty. Yep, I need that to stay sane. Plus other random spice like playing bodhran (haven't done that in weeks) or a little exercise.

So what's my solution? Keep calm, in any case. Don't panic. Don't try and do everything at once, either. If some things end up taking longer than I thought, well, okay. So be it.

Do what must be done. Do it well. Work enough to survive, but no more.

Fight for space to let passions flow free. Without them, there is no spark.

Each of the three areas - late stuff, life, and obligations - contains about an equal amount of stuff. So I figure to try doing one, then another, and another. One by one. Don't know as I'll ever get done, but it's my aim to keep 'em more or less equal.

And the publishing? That IS a passion. Just one that requires a lot more time input than any other. Patience, I tell myself. All in good time. No need to overreact and puff up the issues till they are as big as that sack around a handful of books. Cause the books are what it's all about, really...

another song for the sea

2010-07-21T12:39:00.002+12:00

sand, seaweed, soccer
gulls dozing on black volcanic rocks
A complete rainbow spans the sky
bright glow of seven colours
reflected in the wet beach gleam
small children in gumboots
and cosy hoodies
run circles around their parents
Sun reaches through the clouds to my page
the wind is bitter cold
but stellar radiation cheers this winter day.
Shortly I will leave this rich green of grass
this simple pine bench
this calm ocean murmur.
food to buy, business to do
money to make and spend
but before that comes this island of quiet
this orchestra of nature and humanity
The road rescue man,
come to jumpstart a stranded vehicle,
chatting about rural economics
The families dodging stray raindrops
The surfers looking in vain for a wave.
the islands are still brown from summer’s drought
but now the rains have come
and life will follow after.

Déjà Vu

2010-07-19T09:00:00.000+12:00

It was even the same taxi driver.

Two weeks earlier, my flatmate and I were both up insanely early - she didn't need to be, but wanted to give me a send-off for my trip. I left the cat snoozing under the warm covers. Oh-dark-thirty, a glance out the kitchen window told us the taxi was early. Gulp down the tea, heave luggage out the door. She helped me with the bags and waved enthusiastically as the taxi driver attempted to reverse out of the driveway and ended up making mud off the edge of the concrete.

Then, it was a happy occasion. And it was a wonderful trip, as you'll know if you've read my recent Friday posts.

Just one day after I got back, my flatmate got news that her mother is battling cancer. Quickly, she booked a flight to leave the country and be with her. Sooner than anyone could have imagined, we were both up insanely early again, both dragging bags out to the taxi again, where the driver inquired whether I'd had a good holiday.

He mangled the grass strip again on his way out. Anyone'd think the concrete wasn't wide enough. But as I waved my friend away and turned to go inside, shut out the cold and get back in my bed where the cat still waited, I pondered how two situations that looked so much alike could be so utterly different.

I suppose my point is that no matter what you see with your eyes, the facts of the matter can vary greatly. In part, this is what we do as writers: we observe, and add a different background to the same actions we have seen from the people around us. Or we place the scenario in an invented world. What if the house were a space station and the taxi were a shuttle? Suddenly the grip of winter seems more ominous, as if it could come close to the icy vacuum of space. Perhaps it is as close as one may come in these parts.

And so the endless cycle of greetings and partings goes on, and who knows what it will bring? I've got three spare bedrooms now...

Who are you, Nouméa?

2010-07-16T09:00:00.000+12:00

So I’m home again from my travels, with plenty to tell you about New Caledonia. It was my first time there, and as the plane neared the island, the coral reef became visible – the reef that encloses the world’s largest lagoon, so I’m told. Outside the reef, choppy winter blue seas roll up and crash onto the divider. Within, pale sand shines through to form the brightest, purest turquoise colour, dotted with giant corals.

Coming in to land, great green slopes rise up around the aircraft. You thought New Zealand was lush? Well, it is, but it’s got nothing on New Caledonia in the wet season. "Wet" being a short downpour every fourth day or so. Tall folds of mountains clothed in rich forests wrap the road to the city. Soon I am alighting at Anse Vata. But I’ve already told you about that; go look at last week’s post if you haven’t already.

At first it was hard to grasp the character of Nouméa, a place both thoroughly tropical and thoroughly European – a contradiction in terms. But the island’s natives are all citizens of France, and the bakers produce fresh bread all day long as French custom requires. Of course the brand of French spoken here has its own quirks and is a little different to standard language – much like New Zealand English differs from British or American, I imagine.

Nouméa boasts just on 100,000 inhabitants, spread out across the hills and valleys of a sizeable peninsula in the southwest of the island of New Caledonia, just 350km long in the vastness of the Pacific. Locals never lived on this promontory before the coming of the Europeans, who settled there because of the deep harbour. Later, during World War II, many thousands of soldiers passed through since Nouméa was the U.S. Army headquarters for the Pacific.

The local currency is Pacific Francs, of which you need a couple of hundred for a loaf of bread, and a couple of thousand to dine out. The cost of living is high, but you can haggle for bargains at the waterside markets where there is a building especially for fish, one for meat, and several for fruit, vegetables, baked goods, and handcrafts.

The gentle winter sunshine makes this the perfect escape in July, although it’s mostly too cold for swimming at this time of year. Wild and refined, stylish and rough, simple yet sophisticated – a unique place indeed.

I write in church (divine inspiration)

2010-07-14T09:16:00.000+12:00

I huddle in the crowd standing around me
forest-like, branches waving
amidst the voices I do not join
velvety melted chocolate and pure diamond clarity
that is what they sound like
I write all through the preaching
—what’s that you say? this is not what one should do
of course, but who am I to observe social strictures
I am damaged
but God is close here, the source of my words
the poetry that swirls through the room.
I am here to meet him
and that is what I do
unacceptable though it might seem to certain ones.
Thank goodness for the anonymity of pen and paper.
So while my mind whirls with superheros and cyborgs,
God looks through my eyes at these scribblings
And do you know what?
He’s smiling. Dancing.
Suggesting words. Injecting significance.
Assisting in the birth of stories,
congealing my mess of letters into something he wants in the world.
And so, as the words and music wash over me,
shake the chair,
fill the room,
I sense God’s favour in the bread and wine
and he says
everything’s all right.
I do not sing. I’m not ready for that yet.
but the chords of my heart are in motion

(For the background, please see Monday's post)

On Surviving Abuse, Part 2

2010-07-12T09:00:00.029+12:00

See last Monday's post for the first part.

Maybe this psychological abuse is one reason that the book I was driven to write, right after I finished the first one, was all about mind control. In Legendary Space Pilgrims, I describe a physical and invasive form of emotional manipulation and a journey to freedom. No doubt it carries reflections of my own pilgrimage in liberating my thoughts once more.

That picture was taken in the thick of it. I imagine I look a bit harrowed. Trying to talk myself into not rocking the boat, because that would just get me hurt.

A similar manipulative effect was thrust on my prayer life. As we prayed together in the group, this man would often interrupt and ask why I prayed this or that and whether I had asked God if that was the right thing to pray, because he was certain it wasn't. So I learned to spout highly spiritual prayers tailored to please the leader, but which came nowhere near my own heart. To this day I will not pray aloud in a group. In fact, I don't pray at all in the usual sense, not even in my head. Hence the companionable silence with God. I don't think he minds. He's not like that.

For years it was hard to even enter a church. Yet I insisted on doing it, because it remained the best place to meet people with similar moral standards to my own. Funnily enough, the same year I left the scene of that group, I ended up leading worship for several months with the guitar in a little church in Balbriggan, Ireland, due to sheer need - they had no one else to do it. They were very supportive and didn't notice the stiffness I felt. Anyway, back in New Zealand after that, all through last year, I would frequently run out of church services to weep profusely for reasons I couldn't pinpoint. Looking back I think it was grief for the faith I once had, the trust in the Spirit's guidance which had been so thoroughly destroyed.

Now I no longer grieve, but I have not regained what was lost. Rather, I have found a peace with the way things are. I'm thankful for all I have been given - and it is not inconsequential - and when I write, often it is as if the words come spiralling down from heaven to my screen. If that isn't living with God, I don't know what is. Woe betide any who push me and insist I'm not doing it right. That may be so, but insistence is exactly what damaged me. I am now allergic to pressure and power plays. The life and the faith I have now is vastly different to what used to be, but I would go so far as to say it's better.

There are many who would say I'm not a real Christian, because of not praying, or my irreverent use of church services to write stories, or because I am sick to the stomach with what is known as Christian evangelism. That's okay. You can think what you like. Maybe I'm not a Christian. But you know what? I don't think I care. And what's more...I don't think God cares, either.

Anse Vata, New Caledonia

2010-07-09T08:55:00.007+12:00

Itchy feet again? Yep, it's your neighbourhood globetrotter reporting in from a tiny coral island off the coast of Noumea. Looking back across the water, I see the hotel mile along Anse Vata beach, and the towering mountains beyond the city.

Please excuse me if this post is a little scatterbrained. Another time I’ll get some background information for you on Noumea proper, but for now, all I’ve seen so far is the beach and this island.

A yellow water taxi brought me here this morning for the snorkelling. Alighting from the boat into shallow water, I stepped onto a beach consisting of strangely-shaped coral pieces. This is the Ile aux Canards,though I never saw a duck here. It is small enough to walk around in five minutes, each angle offering new views of the lush and rugged mainland.

We are still firmly inside the lagoon made by the protective barrier reef that surrounds New Caledonia's Grande Terre. Off to the east, white breakers are just visible beyond the Amedee lighthouse.

Anse Vata is where the tourists stay, but there aren't too many here now in the tropical winter. At 25 degrees Celsius, that's equal to summer back home in NZ. There are a couple of decent restaurants and bakeries, but it's quite a hike to the supermarket.

Everything's pricey here, for the simple reason that it's nearly all imported. Even the butter comes from France - but boy, is it good! Tropical ambience mingles with European chic to make for a unique experience.

This island paradise is in fact still a colony of France, and all the locals are French citizens, whether of Kanak or European origin. They gather at the beach to sing and play bowls, and I've even seen them napping on the grass under the palm trees.

The aquarium at Anse Vata is well worth a visit. You get a real close look at brilliantly diverse fish and deep-sea life forms. I was particularly taken with the glowing corals in yellow and orange and blue, displayed in a pitch-dark room without artificial light.

And here at the Ile aux Canards, I've floated amidst hundreds of brightly-coloured fish just a few metres from the shore. This is a great place to be, and especially for us New Zealanders - it is only a three hour flight from home.

THE VOICE’S WORDS TO PILGRIMS

2010-07-07T09:00:00.001+12:00

As recounted in the history of the Legendary Space Pilgrims, these are the first of the Words which preserved the journeyers from the Baxter mindwiping, aided them in escaping Planet Monday, and guided them through many challenges to their destination. In the days before they left Monday, or rather Lumina as we call it here on Viva, it was these very words which Mario spoke to silence the emotion alarms and keep himself and Caitlin safe until the appointed time. Once their travel began, they also had need of the Words to keep them sane in the confinement of the spacepod and help them through various dangers on the planets they visited. They did not know what—or whom—they spoke of; they were unfamiliar with our Order of the Pathfinders and possessed no concept of the King, except in the one practical matter that they did hear his Voice and followed, which is why we determined that they were indeed the fulfillment of the Legend.
—Darcel, Chief Historian, Council of Elders, City of Spire, Planet Viva.

Listen to me—I must be first.
Do not confuse me with another,
and do not speak carelessly of me.
Be still and listen, and I will speak.
Obey what I ask
and the Pathfinders I will send you.
Treat life in a manner worthy of me.
Esteem loyalty
and do not give in to bent desires.
Respect what belongs to another.
Speak the truth at all times,
and do not wish for anything I do not give you,
for I will give everything you need.

Legendary Space Pilgrims by Grace Bridges
Now available from www.splashdownbooks.com!

On Surviving Abuse, Part 1

2010-07-05T09:00:00.009+12:00

I'm a survivor.

It's been a long time coming, this post. Even now I'm trying to avoid writing it. But I owe my friends an explanation, at least of the sort that can be given in public, as to why me and God co-exist peacefully rather than partaking of talk and action as Christians seem to like to do.

You see, the abuse I suffered increasingly over a four-year period was not physical. It was psychological, spiritual, and personal. It slammed me right at the hinge of my faith and snapped a fair few choice ligaments.

At the centre of the horror stands a man who still haunts my dreams, telling me I will never be sufficient, in that absolutely convinced voice of his that will permit no argument. It came as a surprise when he stepped in to lead a loose prayer group I had been involved with, yet he took the reins and set off at a gallop. I cannot call him a pastor, for he was never that.

He meant it well. Of that I have no doubt. It's just that he seemed perpetually unable and unwilling to consider the viewpoints of others, or that he might be wrong in his assessments of the miserable flock he had been given. Any disagreement at all, no matter how slight, was met with anger like a brick wall. No, let me rephrase that. Like the Great Wall of China, coming at you on the back of a hundred tanks. We either gave in and agreed, or remained stubborn and received a thorough verbal shredding. Me being the rather hard-headed type, I ended up getting hammered often, at times to the point of screaming.

The matters we disagreed on? I've forgotten most of them. They were probably minor. But one thing that came up again and again was the direction taken in the music. We were the kind of group who didn't like to plan out how many times to sing a song or its verses or chorus or bridge or instrumentals, or even which songs to sing. We'd just start into it and reach into the Spirit inside us for guidance on where we felt it should go next. If you're not familiar with that practice, don't weird out on me, it's called free worship and it can be a lot of fun, even making up spontaneous songs on the spot.

Well, you guessed it. We disagreed on just where the Spirit was leading us. I had to learn to quash my own sense of listening in favour of the leader's. Did I mention my position was actually the worship leader? Yeah. It got tricky. Often. Many, many times, too often to count, I would lead a song in one direction, only to be stopped short and admonished for hearing wrong - and this in front of everyone in the meeting. The meetings were never large, but it gouged my soul nonetheless. He taught that every note we played had to be guided by the Spirit - and not only that, but it had to match up to what he believed the Spirit was saying. So an incredible heavy stiffness and uncertainty came into every note of our worship. I never knew when I was going to be right or wrong, commended or berated.

All the while, I was trying to convince myself that he was right and I was wrong, as it was the only way to go on. I have not trusted myself to attempt free worship since leaving that group. Since free worship was the source of inspiration for my songwriting, guess what? I haven't written any songs since then either. Oh yeah, and I've pretty much stopped playing the guitar. While in Ireland I took up the bodhran, a nice, safe percussion instrument without the necessity for leadership - just spicing things up, which suits me fine.

More next Monday. Quicklink to part 2 here. In the meantime, I sure would appreciate some virtual hugs.

Rural Bavaria

2010-07-02T09:00:00.001+12:00

For a country with only a little more land area than my own and twenty times the population, it has always surprised me that there is so much open country in Germany—where the silence is so heavy you can feel it, and the pace of life is slow and settled. This can be explained in part by the presence of apartment blocks even in rural villages, and of course the high density of the cities.

Country folks speak different dialects to city folks; they often travel far for school and work, and the young people move out when it comes time to take up tertiary study. A transport network of occasional buses links up the tiny townships with their little supermarkets, fire departments, and primary schools.

The larger villages also offer amenities along their tiny main streets: perhaps a baker, a butcher, a hairdresser, a driving school, and most likely a restaurant or two of the type where retired farmers are likely to spend the day nursing a pint of local beer and talking politics. The food available in such establishments is simple, filling and good value—even if it can be on the heavy side with its dumplings and gravies.

Cycling from village to village is a singular experience in Bavaria, as the edge of the settlement is clearly defined: one minute you’re passing tall housing blocks, and the next you’re in amidst the farmer’s fields with nary a soul in sight.

In the summer, the dry heat wafts up from the reflecting earth, and fields of corn and hay ripple in the breeze while dark conifer forests loom beyond the warm haze. Village dwellers can be found fishing in tiny lakes and walking their dogs on farm tracks between the fields, dotted here and there with a pilgrim’s cross or tiny chapel shrine to a saint. The hills of Bavaria are gentle, providing an easy walk for hot days.

In winter, blankets of snow intensify the silence until it becomes almost a personality in its own right. Fresh-tilled soil soon freezes solid. Out the window, the forest trees and the icy fields turn the world into a black and white movie, and you could easily believe you’ve travelled back a hundred years in time.

On Parking

2010-06-30T09:00:00.001+12:00

rainy day, rainbow haze
parked at the jetty.
green waves breaking
on shelly beach and concrete walls.
clarity of the hills beyond the channel
shifts to falling water
Others park here, sitting, watching.
cars as offices, their windows fogged
Proud seagulls preen atop lampposts
outrigger canoes slice water
while slanting rain
wraps islands in mystery
Day’s end glows
and behind, in the west
blue skies beckon
then the moment is gone
dimness falls
I will need headlights to get home again
but first I will sit here a while longer
absorbing the ocean
its last reflections of sungleam
in the clearing sky
as rainstorms move out across the gulf
clouds dragging thick straight tendrils
that rush to the waves
and the seabirds wheeling above
who catch the light that remains

On Being Happy

2010-06-28T09:00:00.008+12:00

Sometimes I think I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

However, that didn't stop me from spilling cold tea all over myself just as I was formulating that sentence. The cup was fuller than I thought it was, you see.

Anyway. Sure I'm lucky. I live in New Zealand. People say we're not patriotic, but have you seen the proportion of locals wearing a touristy T-shirt? I say we just show it differently.

I get to sit here in my eagle's nest room, the main road traffic swinging around behind me, the ocean mostly visible ahead unless it's raining quite severely - it may be 5km to the beach as the crow flies, but it's near enough to catch the variations in the water's tone: icy green to deep turquoise to winter grey to bright green - and I get to work for my living at my own pace and whim, while also pursuing the author and publisher type passions.

It may be cold - the house is not insulated or heated - and often it may seem too silent, though thank goodness for my flatmates. There may be bugs and ants and stiff windows and doors and a scratchy phone line and a huge power bill in winter, but somehow none of that matters. I'm lucky to have it, yeah, and the mortgage too I guess, because not everyone can just walk in and get one.

Missing Dad is the thorn in my bliss. It's been nearly a year now. A year in heaven already. Wow. I hope he's enjoying it. My oldest friend is certain he'll be arguing theology with God. I wouldn't put it past him. Mum dreamed he'd been put in charge of a city up there. Oh yeah. That'll suit just fine.

I get to sit here. Write. Be at peace with the world. And dream of other places, real and imagined. So I'm happy. In my own way. In spite of the thorns of loss and past trauma. Nothing lasts forever, does it...

So what is it that makes you happy?

Rangitoto Island: Sleeping Volcano

2010-06-25T09:00:00.001+12:00

By far the largest—and youngest— in the Auckland volcanic region, Rangitoto sits at the gateway to the city and is visible from any position high enough. It’s a classic shield-shaped volcano where the lava pouring out built up into an island, high and steep in the centre, low and flat at the edges, and circular in shape.

It is said to have erupted around 600 years ago, which is not long in volcanic terms. Motutapu is its immediate island neighbour, separated only by a few metres of causeway, but is not volcanic—it was there a long time before.

Rangitoto is a cliché of sorts in Auckland, an oft-photographed icon, yet so few tourists or locals visit its shores. That is a day trip very much worth doing: a short ferry ride from the city deposits you at a solitary wharf, and a couple of hours walking (or a ride on the tractor wagon if you want to cheat) will get you to the top, where you will be rewarded with a fantastic 360° view of the Hauraki Gulf, its islands, and the city of Auckland, which, though huge, is distinctly reduced by viewing it from the summit of a mountain.

Due to its young nature, there is no real soil on the island—merely decomposed debris lodged in the cracks between the lava. Hence the forest too is young, and sparse in places. There are even fields of bare volcanic rock that make you think you’re on another planet. Also, there are caves in the lava on the flanks of the hill as it becomes steeper towards the top: created by air bubbles in liquid rock which then solidified, leaving these irregular open spaces.

Ships pass by in the Rangitoto Channel to Auckland’s container wharves, and on summer evenings the cruise ships leave town by the same route, all lit up like Christmas trees, and dwarfed by the 260-metre volcano.

Always there, always brooding, often with a cloud darkening its top in otherwise clear skies—it is difficult to describe what Rangitoto means to a local who’s grown up in its shadow. A marvel of nature, definitely. A sleeping threat, perhaps. A symbol of home, for sure.

In case you missed it last year, here's my video of a visit there...

Auckland in the rain

2010-06-23T09:00:00.001+12:00

This was written a few weeks back. It's been drier lately!

amphibious nature

winter has struck

water has invaded

city streets deluged

gutters are rivers

shiny leaves float

on sidewalk brick

yellows and reds

gleam of day

puddles at corners

wind-wrecked umbrellas

like broken wings

of skin-soaked creatures

awnings leak cascades

open crossroads beckon

with square waterfalls

from murky clouds

get thee home

says raspy throat

my feet obey

through urban canyons

hallelujah! a bus

no granted fact

haul me homeward

through stubborn downpour

rain gives way

to lightened sky

return to dry

sated earth sings

On Being Single

2010-06-21T21:53:00.068+12:00

There's that word again. Single. As if it was a disease or something. Just as well I don't look my age, or I'd be getting a lot more of those sympathetic glances that hurt more than they help.

I was going to say it came about through something-or-other, but that doesn't work, because I've never been anything else but single, barring a couple of long-distance relationships that didn't really come up to scratch. So it can't have "come about" at all. Although, and I'm certain of this, it has been sustained by a factor or two, such as spending seven years of my twenties in Germany, where there was a shocking dearth of nice guys who weren't already taken.

I admit, I had three proposals while I was there: from an old man, a mental patient, and an illegal immigrant. I shall be so bold as to say I don't think any of those count.

Of course one is never prevented from standing on the beach if one is alone, nor other beautiful things. I write, and beat my bodhran, and make sticky chocolate pudding, and share my bed with the cat.

But occasionally, this state of constant aloneness frustrates me. I twitch and pace and fidget and eat chocolate and go shopping when I don't really need to and let my mother talk me into expensive holidays, although that has always ended up to be a good thing so far.

It doesn't help that I work at home in both of my chosen careers and never have to leave the house except to fetch food and go to church. I spend nearly all my time in church writing stories, by the way; I find the atmosphere very inspirational, to say the least. Or is it that there are no distractions there as there always are at home?

There's always God, I suppose. He's around here somewhere. Doesn't go away, and all that. But I don't bother him much. We just enjoy a companionable silence, for the most part, and I think I have an understanding with him that it's okay.

I am well aware there are definite advantages to the singleness thing, and I enjoy them to the full. Particularly the no-kids thing. It may not last forever, and I would not want it to, but I want to make the most of this state of relative freedom to run after dreams and blog in the middle of the night and sleep at odd hours because I can. It's wonderful.

Pretty much all of my best friends are of the online type, that is, they do not live in the same country as me. If you're reading this, chances are you're one of them.

Every email, every @reply tweet, every comment on a blog or Facebook, is like a handshake or a steady look in the eyes or a high five.

So don't be a stranger. Leave me a virtual mark of your presence in my life. What do you have to say about singleness?

Basics 5: Grace's Life

2010-06-19T11:20:00.002+12:00

...the education
After rampant curiosity forced her mother to teach her to read at a preposterously young age (the first written word emerged at 18 months and it was the name of her godfather Norman) there really wasn't much point in going to school to start all over again. Thus began a childhood filled with books: reading the Narnia series alone at age five and beginning John White's epic Tower of Geburah series with a three-day 600-page marathon just shy of her seventh birthday. Trips to the library abounded, as did other trips to all manner of fascinating places where people invariably asked why she wasn't in school. Add a good dose of Stephen Lawhead novels, Star Trek in all of its forms, follow that up with a Bachelor of Arts at Auckland University and then a Graduate Diploma in Translation Studies, and you have a pretty good picture.

...the online life
Grace was introduced to the precursors of the Internet back in the days of DOS and Bulletin Board Systems, then had a crash course at university and has never looked back since. She has had about two dozen email addresses, one dozen homepages, and has built many pages for other people, as well as dozens of social media profiles, most of which now lie dormant. Her favoured time-wasters are now Twitter and Facebook, with Shoutlife a close third.

However, that is not where the bulk of the action occurs. As we have already mentioned, there is the Lost Genre Guild, and also the American Christian Fiction Writers (she still can't completely understand why she joined an organisation with "American" in the title), the Christian Fiction Review Blog, the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour, the Anomaly forum at WhereTheMapEnds, and regular contributions at the International Christian Fiction Writers blog. In other writing, she writes a sometimes-regular travel column called Kiwi Come Home at the Colorado City News, in which she describes various places she's been.

...the offline life
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, birth having allegedly been brought on by the sound effects in Space Odyssey 2001, Grace left for London, England, at the tender age of six months. For two years she followed her parents on their gallivants through Britain, France and Germany, and gained a persistent hint of a British accent while learning to speak. The return to New Zealand was followed by the addition of a brother and the abovementioned educational exploits.
During her high school and university years Grace entertained notions of musicality and was involved in the Elkanah Music School for a number of years. She formed bands and played at times in church. After university, she got a very bad case of itchy feet and ran off to Germany, where she proceeded to find a job with the police and stayed for seven years, during which time she lived in a kitchen for a while and later in an 800 year old house with wonky walls, was involved in a church movement and band, security for the Pope, car thief investigations, prayer meetings in a Turkish delicatessen, owned four pet rats, a three-legged cat and a normal one. Some of the songs she wrote at that time were recorded live and rough with the band and can be heard here, here, here, here, here and here. She managed to make a lot of enemies by following her heart and what she believed was right. After this caused the quota of friends to become too low to handle, she decided to go home the long way: five months in Ireland and two in an epic road-plane-train trip across the USA to meet a whole lot of writer friends. You can read about that trip here: http://frankcreed.com/Newsletter/0109/p6.html (right hand side) and also at the YouTube and blog sites listed above.

Grace speaks good German, passable French, try-hard Maori, and a very little Latin. After playing the guitar seriously for about 15 years, she then switched to the bodhran, because it's fun to hit things. She is owned by a cat, has three housemates who are generous with their baking, and an ancient Toyota Corona pimped up with bathroom paint. Her music of choice is ambient electronica and science fiction movie soundtracks. She goes to Glenfield Presbyterian Church, and spends most of her time there writing, for which she has the express approval and encouragement of a Respected Worship Leader, so nyah.

These days she spends most of her time in her hilltop house in Glenfield, looking at the ocean and dividing her hours between freelance translation work, to pay the bills, and entrepreneurial publishing, which at this writing has yet to earn a bean. But you never know.

Balbriggan Town

2010-06-18T09:00:00.011+12:00

The name alone conjures up memories of the sweet summer I spent there, scribbling in a room with a sea view. It proved easy enough to arrange accommodation in Ireland, even from another country, and that is how I ended up in Balbriggan.

The town is about 45 minutes north of Dublin by commuter train, though there is no longer much of a gap between the sprawling city suburbs and the satellite communities. It has always been a fishing village, but now it serves also as a home for city workers.

I believe it has a population of about 20,000—sharply growing—and there’s one hotel, several pubs and restaurants along the main street, four supermarkets, and a good number of suburbs itself. In suburban Ireland, housing is arranged in estates where each street has the same name. For example, the Clonuske estate has Clonuske Park, Clonuske Drive, Clonuske Close, Clonuske Rise, and Clonuske Green. It was certainly confusing at first!

The houses themselves are joined wall-to-wall more often than not—it is the finer homes that stand alone—and they often have brightly-coloured doors and window-frames in otherwise plain facades of brick and plaster.

Balbriggan faces the Irish Sea, looking towards Wales, as did my window. The beach is never far away in this town, and once there, you can walk for miles to the north along tiny coastal tracks that may get a bit rugged and adventurous in places. Once I encountered a herd of cows who had trampled down their fence and escaped onto the beach. They proceeded to enter a housing estate, where local boys kept them in check until the farmer was called.

The sound of the green trains is often heard, whizzing by towards Drogheda, or the blue ones that go to Belfast. And when the sun sets over the little hills at the western horizon, the colours rise up in the eastern sky, followed by the night—and I wrote on and finished a novel or two that summer, in that little room in little old Balbriggan.

Random Wednesday Poetry

2010-06-16T10:00:00.002+12:00

coming of the night

the evening shade slips across the gentle hills

the higglety-pigglety houses, the treetops

the skyscrapers

the volcanos

each place the sun rests its final kiss

is set aglow in golden tones

before the darkness creeps in

and the sea takes on its night hue

russet shining grasslands

on the islands

deepening texture of the forest

now touched by the fingers of the dusk

eastern clouds reflect the sunset glory

wisps of pink in an apricot sky

wink! the sun reflects from an apartment block window

before the shadow consumes the thirtieth floor

lights blink on across the city

the sky is still red and grey

matching the oak tree’s leaves and bark

as day surrenders to blissful rest

and inside, the lamps go on

work goes on as soft rain appears

the cat’s whiskers twitch in her tight curled sleep

and home is a wonderful place to be.

On Blogging

2010-06-14T09:00:00.036+12:00

Join me for a coffee? Or in this case, a hot chocolate that is truly a work of art, courtesy of the Tui Coffee Lounge in Paeroa, the generally accepted halfway point on a journey from Auckland to Tauranga...

New house. Been here a couple months now.

New week. Yup, that's what they call Monday.

New approach. Time for one of those on this blog. It's been neglected far too much, considering all the people that want to read it - so my stats say - and so I'm trying for a new beginning.

Once a week the post will likely be my travel article which also appears in the Colorado City News. This could be on pretty much any place I've been to and have a notion to write about, accompanied by hack photography and sometimes a video.

Other than that, there are a bunch of great ideas I've seen other bloggers (and authors) put to good use - such as the Reading List and Scribbler's Scoreboard (thanks Fred for those) in which I shall summarise writing activity, submissions of short stories, progress on my novels, etc. I guess I will do something similar for the publishing side of what I do, which will be a cross-post at the Splashdown Books blog.

And then there's that other stuff, the stuff to write "just because", the random poems (with many thanks to Chila for the prodding!), the "thinky things" (here's looking at you, Cat), and whatever else may occur to me.

Anyway, thanks for being here and coming along for the ride. I wonder where it'll take us?

Basics 4: Grace as Activist and Star

2010-06-12T11:20:00.001+12:00

...the activist
Grace is the newsgatherer for the Lost Genre Guild, a gathering place for all things to do with Christian speculative fiction. The blog is usually posted three times a week and includes member news, ezine updates, new releases, contests, free stuff, tips for writers and more. She is of the firm belief that independent publishing is the way of the future and the immediate answer to the problem of Christian speculative fiction getting its foot in the door. The Lost Genre Guild is a loose group of writers, readers, reviewers, artists and publishers who discuss all manner of relevant topics in a mailing list. If you want to join (and you really should--if you've read this far you must be just the type!) then just get in touch with Grace.

She also makes a point of reviewing all the Christian spec-fic books she can get her hands on at http://splashdownreviews.blogspot.com.

...the star
Interviews and appearances of Grace abound all over the Web. From blog visits to newspaper articles, radio and TV, it's all there. Let's take a look.

(Audio) Interview on New Zealand's Radio Rhema, November 2007 (scroll down)

(Audio) Interview with Darryl Sloan in Ireland, June 2008
(Video) Appearance on North Dakota TV, November 2008
Interview with the Writing Examiner, November 2009
Interview with the Writing Career Coach, November 2009
Interview with Jeff Gerke at WhereTheMapEnds, February 2010
Interview with T.W. Ambrose at Digital Dragon Magazine, February 2010 (PDF, see page 17)

More on that tall ship

2010-06-11T09:00:00.011+12:00

It was Captain James Cook who named many places in New Zealand on his tour of discovery, even if some names are rather obvious, as in the case of the Bay of Islands. But no one can deny it fits. A beloved travel destination for Kiwis and tourists alike, the area is located in the Far North--which means it is usually several degrees warmer than the whole country to the south.

The town of Russell was the nation's first capital, and Paihia across the bay is a similarly old settlement. Nearby Waitangi is held as the cradle of our country, where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, establishing nationhood in 1840.

The thing to do in the Bay is to get on the water and get visiting those islands. One way to do so is on the tall ship R. Tucker Thompson, a replica of a schooner from the 1700's. It's not the cheapest of the boat trips on offer, but is definitely one of the most evocative, and worth it when one considers that the money paid by day-trippers helps finance life learning journeys for young people at other times.

There's nothing quite like zipping along on the waves under sail, no sound but the water lapping against the hull and the occasional flap of the canvas. No motor breaks the calm except when making close approaches to land. And land we do: depending on the direction of the wind, the crew select a sheltered cove in one of the islands to set us down for a romp before lunch.

The islands scattered across the Bay vary greatly in size and shape. The one we landed on offers a long grassy slope leading up to a summit with grand views of the mainland, the open sea, and of course, more islands. Returning to the beach, I entered the water and snorkelled for a time, searching for a glimpse of a fish or two--but found only a school of two-inchers in silver. I swam through them and let them tickle my fingers, keeping an eye on the strong currents around the rocks.

Back on the ship, lunch was served, an elegant affair of grilled chicken with salad and fresh bread. After that, I dived off the deck into the water a number of times before we had to hoist anchor.

On this ship, participation is desired: you can raise sails, climb the mast, and steer the ship. It's great to get your hands on the ropes and feel something like a sailor of three hundred years ago. The friendly crew and delectable scenery make this outing a memory for a lifetime.

A Tall Ship in the Bay of Islands

2010-06-10T09:00:00.003+12:00

Basics 3: Grace the Publisher

2010-06-05T11:18:00.005+12:00

...the publisher
Splashdown Books is an independent publisher founded by Grace Bridges to provide a channel for the many inspirational science fiction and fantasy manuscripts she comes across as she travels the interwebs. In order to submit a manuscript, authors are asked to request a critique swap. Those having agents need not apply, because they have a large advantage already. We're out to help the little guys. Our titles so far:

The Muse by Fred Warren - Available here (ISBN 978-0986451713)
Stan Marino needs a muse. He's written himself into a corner...again. A shot of inspiration is all he needs to finish his story ...where is he going to find it? What Stan doesn't know: Inspiration has found him. And it's about to take over his life. Ripped from reality, he must lead a band of lost souls in a life-or-death battle with a merciless enemy. Stan has found his muse, but will he survive it?

Upcoming:
The Duke's Handmaid by Caprice Hokstad
Slavery...loyalty. Torture...honor. Betrayal...selflessness. All the young orphan wanted was security in a world that destroyed her family and left her despised and rejected. Can the simple farmgirl find a new family through voluntary enslavement to the duke's household? Crafted in a highly precise writing style so smooth it slips right from the page into your imagination, this fantastical storyworld examines timeless social issues that inform global justice today.

Tales of the Dim Knight by Adam and Andrea Graham
Mild-mannered janitor and superhero fanboy Dave Johnson gets all his wishes at once when an alien symbiot gives him supernatural powers. But what's he to do with them? Follow his laugh-a-minute progress as he fights crime and corruption while trying to keep his family together and avoid being sued for copyright infringement.

Alpha Redemption by P.A. Baines
When Brett loses everything in a tragic accident, he gladly accepts an invitation to take part in a prototype speed-of-light trip to Alpha Centauri, knowing that he may not survive. His only companion is the ship's on-board computer, Jay. At first he finds Jay an annoyance but, as time passes, the two become friends. With the voyage drawing to a close, Jay develops a sense of self-awareness and a belief in God. When it becomes clear that they cannot both survive the return trip, one of them must make the ultimate sacrifice.

Nor Iron Bars a Cage by Caprice Hokstad (Sequel to The Duke's Handmaid)
In a last-ditch effort to find his missing son, Duke Vahn sends his most trusted servant to pose as a runaway slave in the hostile country of Ganluc. Meanwhile, the challenge he faces at home is no less daunting. This beautiful story is full of images: leadership by serving, ungrudging chivalry, and faithful romance.

Basics 2: Grace the Author

2010-05-29T11:16:00.005+12:00

...the author
Grace began to pen her first science fiction tale at the age of eight, during a homeschooling exercise in which her father asked her to write a story based on a prompt. It was an epic space opera called "Zebra in the Future". Writing prompts are still known to have such effects today. At fourteen she wrote a novella based on a local urban legend surrounding secret tunnels in a hill called North Head in Auckland, New Zealand. Around that same time ideas formed for a virtual reality story which eventually became Faith Awakened.

That tale took the next fourteen years to form completely and be published. She was going to write the sequel immediately, but was interrupted by a vivid dream which became Legendary Space Pilgrims. After that, since she was in Ireland at the time, she proceeded to write her third novel about Dublin's future. Now at long last she has returned with a sigh of relief to Godspeed, the sequel to Faith Awakened, while working on multiple short stories in between, some of which have been published and can be found as follows:

Invasion at Wayfarer's Journal, February 2007
The whole world is terrified by lights from the sky. Emil just wishes they'd leave his city alone.

Second Site at Digital Dragon Magazine, August 2009
A psychology professor with a secret witnesses an unlikely paranormal encounter in his own office.

Zara's Quest at Digital Dragon Magazine, February 2010
A teenage space pilot seeks her brother on the planet where he vanished, risking all to find him.

Fungus Among Us at The Cross and Cosmos, March 2010 (PDF, see page 3)
An experiment in communication is underway in a spacelab. Who is the creature being observed?

and the ongoing serial Comet Born at Digital Dragon Magazine: part 1 is here.
A comet tail sweeps Earth's atmosphere, and the children born in that moment take their first breaths of its gases--with supernatural results.
(Just change the number 1 before the final dot in that link URL to get the chapters that follow. One per month from March 2010)

and in print:
The Night of the Gift in Forever Friends, 2008, available here An online version is available here.
Upcoming: Underground--Undersea in The Underground Anthology with Frank Creed et al.
Second Site is also to appear in Digital Dragon's first Best Of anthology.

Basics 1: Who Is This Grace

2010-05-22T11:16:00.001+12:00

Who is this person? In brief: Grace Bridges is a sci-fi author (Faith Awakened, 2007, and Legendary Space Pilgrims, coming soon) and owner of Splashdown Books, an independent publisher of inspirational sci-fi and fantasy at www.splashdownbooks.com. She's a Kiwi of Irish descent living in beautiful New Zealand, and a chocaholic cat-lovin' Trekkie, Jesus freak, repeat globetrotter, hack web designer, and all-round DIY gal who also takes care of the Lost Genre Guild blog.

But wait, there's more than that! Probably WAY more than you ever wanted to know, but hey, here goes... To be followed by further instalments in coming weeks.

...the books
Faith Awakened, 2007 - Go to book page - Available here (ISBN 978-0986451706)
A computer technician gets more than she bargains for when she plunges herself and her companions into virtual-reality cryogenic stasis to escape a raging virus.

Legendary Space Pilgrims, Coming Soon!
On a planet that has never seen the sun, a harvester hears a Voice from beyond. It's time to leave the oatfield. Mario and Caitlin escape the mind control of Planet Monday, following the Voice to unknown worlds where wonders and challenges await. Have you got what it takes...to be a legend?

CyberDublin, Coming...uh...After That!
Oodles rules the world. But when its global hyperweb network falls prey to sabotage, society spins towards chaos. In Dublin, the heart of the fallen cyberworld, an orphan rebel and her housemates face a reality far less virtual than they're used to.

Sequels are in progress for all three, in the same order:

Godspeed: If you could end world hunger, you'd do it, right? What if governmental experiments caused your miracle fertiliser to become a weapon of mass destruction? Meet Naomi, the Belfast biologist forced to run from her own creation.

Independence Monday: Mario, Caitlin and Irina travel on to the planet Sancta where they must prepare themselves to do battle with the evil Baxter government of Planet Monday and free the enslaved population as the Voice commands. (Currently this sentence is all that exists of this story)

Space Brain: An orbiting artificial intelligence put out of commission by the Oodles sabotage finally figures out what happened and begins to take action of its own devising. Back in Dublin, Rachel and her friends find themselves at the forefront of human resistance to the deadly brain from space. (Likewise, that's all there is right now)

Rabbit: Chasing Beth Rider, by Ellen C. Maze

2010-05-05T09:00:00.000+12:00

It was with some trepidation that I opened my first ever vampire book this weekend. But I couldn't help asking to be involved in reviewing it, due to the sheer amount of noise and success surrounding this particular book.

Beth Rider is an author with a problem when a race of bloodsuckers comes after her for the tale she told in her book. But one pursuer asks why, taking her into his protection - throwing his people into the chaos of the chase.

The major idea here is the correlation of modern vampires to Biblical beings. Following that, it reads like a parable for those who have eyes to see it: the vamps don't need to suck blood or be violent, but they do it to satiate their lust.

I particularly liked the aspect of metafiction - the story within the story. Although we never get to find out what happens in the book Beth wrote (but I hear that's coming out someday for real!), its events and their effects on the vamps are a large part of the plot.

Strangely, it is the character of Beth Rider we see the least of in terms of her internal personality. She is strong in her faith and remarkably unruffled even in the most alarming of situations. Michael Stone on the other hand, the pursuer-turned-protector, is drawn in great detail and depth in the scenes in which he appears.

The plot struck me as very unusual and imaginative. I couldn't tell you another book with a final victory anywhere near similar to this. I'm only sorry there wasn't another round of copyedits to fix the typos and comma use - but those aren't significant enough to spoil a good read.

In all - well done, Ellen Maze. I like the way your brain works. You've heard of "outside the box" - here, there is no box.

The Muse: Making Movies

2010-04-10T15:00:00.000+12:00

Despite my limited technical skills and computer gear, I've always been fascinated with the idea of making movies. So I set out once again to make a movie for a book advertisement, using only a point-and-shoot camera (albeit a slightly better one bought for the occasion) and a five-year-old editing program with a tendency to crash.

As you know from yesterday's post, I already had the main actor, Andrew. He turned out to have out of this world skills in an area he'd previously done nothing in! Great for us :) So I just needed to find a couple more people. Another housemate, Steph, stood in for Jilly the vampire author, and I was able to recruit Phil on the Internet (don't worry, we go way back!) to be the sci-fi author. He recorded his own scenes to send me by email.

The perfect finishing touch was the fairy princess, also an inhabitant of the house where I lived last year, which also happened to be very handy to a beautiful big forest.

Here's the finished trailer, followed by the credits reel:

Check out these member blogs this week for more info.

The Muse: Cover Design

2010-04-09T15:00:00.000+12:00

I used to be a great artist. Not in the sense of being great, no way, but in the sense that I loved it and used to doodle all the time - in my schoolbooks, when I was supposed to be writing essays or doing sums or whatever, I peopled the margins of my pages with fanciful images and also spent a good deal of time putting paintbrush to paper. That has carried over to graphic design and photography, and hopefully my results will continue to improve.

Anyway. Once it was settled that I was going to publish Fred's book, we began to cast about for a suitable cover idea. I wanted something striking and unique, and for that purpose a black background is always pretty good.

I messed around until I had a suitably spooky glowy text and spirally thing which I somehow got out of one of the effects in my ten year old graphics program. Yep, 10 years old and counting, and it still does everything I want it to.

Next I really wanted a picture of Stan, the main character. But who could it be? The answer turned out to be quite close to home, as I ended up photographing none other than my own brother when he came to town for a visit. My housemate at that time happens to own a wonderful fantasy sword, and things just came together after that. Over there you see one pic of many taken during that photo shoot. I was up on the veranda with the camera, and Andrew was down on the driveway so I could get that oblique angle. The black sheet was an aid to later pasting "Stan" onto my mostly black background.

All this of course in consultation with Fred. It's his book and he ought to like the cover, right? :)

Here's the final result a little larger:

Check out these member blogs this week for more info.

Inside Publishing: The Soundtrack for The Muse

2010-04-08T15:00:00.000+12:00

There's a wonderful story behind the soundtrack of this novel. I have always loved books with songs that belong to them, and it's an idea which has not been exploited to its fullest potential - I feel. Anyway, as soon as Fred was contracted to publish The Muse with Splashdown, I went on the hunt for a suitable musical accompaniment.

It didn't take much thinking to go straight to Shoutlife. I already knew Clank a.k.a. Brian from England, whose sounds I first heard on Frank Creed's book trailer - and later I commissioned a couple of tracks from him myself, but that's off topic :) So back I went to the instrumental category. Just a few clicks later I stumbled upon Eleon a.k.a. Mike from Texas and I knew we'd found our man. I proposed the idea to him and explained the purpose.

Mike was enthusiastic - always a good sign - and very promptly delivered exactly what we needed. The soundtrack for The Muse provided an inspirational backdrop for much of the work needing done on the book.

What's that you say? I can hardly hear you over the music! Oh! Of course you want to hear it! Here ya go:

You can also go to http://virb.com/eleonmusic for more of Mike's great music. I admit, I've become quite the fan!

In time things came together to create the book trailer using this very piece of music, but there'll be more on that another day. Watch this space!

Check out these member blogs this week for more info.

A Home for my Brain

2010-04-07T15:00:00.000+12:00

For many years now - as long as I remember, actually - our family has been on the lookout for a house to buy. It almost became a hobby. It does appear to be a national pastime, this moving house business. In New Zealand, the average house-owner sells up and moves on every 5 years.

We never did move, because we liked our own place too much. Then I went globetrotting and was based elsewhere for nearly eight years. More recently I've been on the hunt for a place to call my home. Reading real-estate magazines from cover to cover. Scouring the internet for interesting sales pitches. Spending weekend after weekend looking at houses for sale. Endless questions - how's the price, how's the location, how's the view, could I live here?

Well, all that is done with now. The search is over. I've found a home, and I’m moving in today. Yes, today. <<< That's it over there.

There is a sea view with the ubiquitous volcano on the skyline. In my hideaway at the top I will do my work while listening to the hum of traffic on the main road running above. It's a little on the large side. But I'm already filling it with people. And the timing is perfect: my aunt is going overseas and lending me her furniture instead of putting it in storage.

It won't all be fun. As one friend is fond of saying, 'mortgage' means 'death grip'. And that buck will stop with me if any of the rooms remain empty. That would mean more work for me to cover any deficit. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

In the meantime, there’s lots to do! But when it’s all over and done, I’m hopeful that having an inspiring place to work will assist me in getting all my various writing and publishing projects moving faster than they have been.

(cross-posted from International Christian Fiction Writers)

And just so no one forgets this is CFRB tour week for The Muse:

Check out these member blogs this week for more info.

The CFRB tours The Muse by Fred Warren

2010-04-06T15:00:00.000+12:00

I am the publisher of this book, and therefore in an interesting position as regards writing a review. I can't really, not in the usual sense of the word. I'm not unbiased. But I was once, way-back-when I first got to read it. It was supposedly just for a critique swap, and Fred had one of my novels in return.

But for some months already the idea had been simmering away to start a publishing company, and this was the story that forced the decision. Why? Because it would be nothing other than tragedy if this amazing book never saw publication due to the author being a first-timer on the novel scene. "First novels never get published," says common wisdom, "put it in a drawer and write a better one." Never mind all the difficulties of getting anywhere with the Christian Fantasy genre.

I don't think I even had a name for my gig when I first got hold of The Muse. Soon after, Splashdown Books was born and I began to crawl up the learning curve. The rest, as they say, is history.

Check out these member blogs this week for more info.

A Visit to Rotorua

2010-02-24T20:02:00.004+13:00

Rotorua's got to be one of the smelliest cities on the planet. And no, it's not due to any unwieldy rubbish dump or suchlike. The entire area sits on a thin planetary crust, allowing all sorts of sulphuric minerals and other hot things to bubble up to the surface. I made a couple of videos there last weekend - hope you enjoy these amazing landscapes!

My article last week in the Colorado City News provides a textual introduction to this rather...aromatic city. In the next couple of days I'll be doing another article on Waimangu and Tikitere which you see in these videos, so keep an eye out for that.

I hope this will be the start of a true series of globetrotting videos and slideshows set to music. Next up: Ireland!

My Interview at Where The Map Ends and My Latest Writing Gig

2010-02-06T13:15:00.002+13:00

This has been an exciting week! I was very honoured to be invited for an interview at WhereTheMapEnds.com, the brainchild of Jeff Gerke who went on to found Marcher Lord Press, a unique independent publisher of science fiction and fantasy and all things weird. Anyway, we had an awesome discussion and I think you'll enjoy the read. Exciting things are happening in the world of publishing, so come on over and have a look! Here's the address: http://wherethemapends.com/Interviews/current_interview.htm

Another cool thing I've been doing for several weeks now is a new travel column for the Colorado City News in Texas, complete with photography. Yeah, random, I know. But I've been wanting a writing outlet that's more than a blog, and this is the perfect way to start! You can read my articles at the address below, where I talk about New Zealand, and starting this week, also about some of the other wonderful places I've been able to visit.
http://www.ccitynews.net/society/travel

I still have a huge amount of work to do for the release of Caprice's books, plus my own Legendary Space Pilgrims - never mind all the reading and critiquing that's due in my (ahem) acquisitions department, the marketing for existing titles, and a goodly amount of time on my paid freelance work. Please pray for me that I can use every moment to the full and do what needs to be done, while retaining the inner and outer peace so necessary to living. And if anyone's interested in helping me out, just say the word. Who knows, maybe Splashdown might get some extra staff in the future!

So I painted my car the other day...

2010-01-27T23:24:00.003+13:00

So I painted my car the other day. There was paint left over from a bathroom project, and I'd been wanting to do this for ages. And I did.

First I drew the initial shape once on the side of the car in pencil. Then I cut out a stencil to match it, and pencilled the other 15 waves.

After that came the painting in two different colours. It was a baking hot day, but I got a bit of shade by parking it under the veranda.

The project took less time than I thought it would, but cost more energy: all the crouching left me with muscle cramps for the next three days!

I might drive an old rattletrap - 20 years and counting - but it may as well look good, eh?

New Year, Kiwi Style

2010-01-10T12:23:00.004+13:00

A group of my friends extended an open invite to join them in getting out of town over New Year’s. I jumped at the prospect, since the weather was fantastic and the city offered only humidity and an enormous fireworks display. It would be cooler down country. So we piled in and zipped off. First of all we crossed the harbour on the ancient bridge (50 years is ancient for us young folk!) then passed through the buzzing central city area to make another pickup. Then it was back to the motorway and south to the hills.

Just after we left city limits, we switched from State Highway 1 to State Highway 2 and took a more easterly direction. Rolling hills accompanied the road for some way, until we reached the flatland of the Hauraki Plain. We then passed through several small towns and stopped to eat at Paeroa, in a retro-style diner that’s retro because it never got updated, but the food is good and cheap and bounteous. Leaving Paeroa, the road changes almost immediately as it enters into the spectacular Karangahake Gorge. Gold was mined here once, and it’s here that my Irish great-great grandfather met my German great-great grandmother. But the gold ran out, leaving a ghost town and bits of machinery amidst today’s verdant bush.

We reached Waihi and pushed on to Katikati. Our goal was almost in sight: Tauranga. It’s the fifth largest city in New Zealand, but still gives an impression of countrified quiet to us Aucklanders. It sits at the south end of a long, shallow harbour fronted by the long, forested Matakana Island. Bit by bit our convoy arrived at the designated park, where someone had already cranked up the free public barbecues to receive what we would bring.

The moon rose above the Mount, full and huge and reflected in the harbour with the twinkling lights of the motel strip. A stiff west wind definitely cooled us down, so that we soon decided to go back to the house where we would spend the night. As midnight approached we set off on foot to the nearest beach, only to discover it was a tidal flat...and the tide was out. So we slopped out to the edge of the waves, and when it was determined we had one minute to go, they started a countdown from sixty and ran out into the depths. Soon they vanished in the dark, so it's just as well they were yelling out the seconds. I don't know how deep it was, but they managed to get wet anyway. The icy water kept me from going any further in, so I saw in the new year with my toes in the ocean.

Tauranga’s “pièce de résistance” is the harbour’s head volcano named Mount Maunganui. Here tourists and locals alike swarm the long beach in summer. It was here that we headed first on New Year’s day to dip into the waves. The water, however, was not any warmer than it had been at midnight - but the sun was as hot as I’ve ever felt it. So after a dip in the waves, we moved on again, snacking on cold cheese sausages left over from the barbie. They tasted so good, I can hardly describe it!

About a quarter hour along the road that would lead back to Auckland, we pulled aside for another swim: this time at a river waterhole deep in the bush in the lower Kaimai hills. Reaching the swimming hole involved climbing down steep banks, crossing the creek, and slogging through foot-wide paths between blackberry patches and mudholes and bare rock expanses, all in the space of five minutes. Barefoot, mind you.

Well! There had to be about a hundred people at least enjoying the wild location - including heaps of kids and dogs. Jumping off rocks, surfing the rapids, or just floating in the coolness. The sun continued to beat down, and the water wasn’t any colder than the sea had been.

Guess this was a pretty typical way to celebrate the new year around here. I can certainly recommend it!

Cookies: Ugly But Good

2009-12-04T09:37:00.003+13:00

Apparently this recipe comes from Italy and is known as Brutti Ma Buoni - ugly but good. And they really sounded good in the recipe, as well as being gluten free which was just what I needed today. I don't think they're that ugly - but they sure are good! Here's the recipe:

6 egg whites (mine were small, so I used 7)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups nuts (I used peanuts)
250g chocolate, melted and partly cooled

Beat egg white till stiff. Add sugar. Beat more till stiffer. Add vanilla, then nuts. Add liquid chocolate, leaving streaks. Use two dessertspoons to drop lumps onto the baking tray with one inch between (about 15 per tray is good). Bake at 170°C/330°F until puffed up and crisp. Makes about 40 cookies.

I baked them on aluminium foil without grease, and they peeled off quite satisfactorily once they were done. Basically they are a Chocolate Peanut Meringue, very light, crunchy/chewy and chocolatey. What more could anyone want?

But I don't get to keep them, as these are headed out as part of the NZ Cookie Swap! I wonder what I'll get in return... :)

A new story begins

2009-11-30T08:58:00.003+13:00

Monday morning, and the move is over, such as it is. The weather's dim, but hot and muggy - like a tropical springtime. I'm sitting on my work chair with the machine in my lap, in Mum's living room, which is packed full with my desk, travelbags and several boxes of personal belongings. The rest of my stuff is stacked on the bed in the spare room, which is why I'm sleeping on my mattress laid out right here at my feet. Now I just have to remember what it was that I was doing before life got disrupted. There's certainly a lot of work to do - the freelance translations piled up a bit over the weekend - and also for Splashdown Books. I have to send out a bunch of free books, edit the next one to come out, and chase up those elusive marketing connections as well as prospective authors. All while living here without any personal space at all, and helping to renovate this old place - a HUGE job in fact, but we'll just have to take it one room at a time.

And what about the writing? Writing, you say? Hmm. Well, it hasn't been happening much lately except for a sentence or two hurriedly tapped out on my phone here and there. But you'll be glad to hear that I've just come up with yet another idea for a novel that could become more - for a total of five storyworlds I move in. This one's a superhero jaunt, and like all my best ideas, it's grown from a thought I've wondered about for years. Enough said - it's still brewing in the back of my mind.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about adding a new aspect to my blog posts here, and I'd love your feedback. You'll agree that my blogging is more random and rare than anything else. Some folks blog several times a week without breaking a sweat - not me! Others say blogging is good practice for writing novels. Maybe so. But if I have half an hour to write, I'd much rather spend it on advancing a novel than writing a blog which will end up forgotten in the mists of cyberspace. Practice schmacktice.

Anyway, since I've got three and a half novels completed, of which one is published, I thought I might start posting chunks of them here for you to read. A couple of weeks back I posted the opening of Legendary Space Pilgrims and it seemed to go over well. Since my publisher - ahem - is not concerned with first rights or copyright issues on unpublished material, there would be no problem in posting more of the same. Or bits of Cyberdublin...or even Godspeed. You can then even assist in improving the rough-draft versions of these excerpts, if you're so inclined, or just come along for the ride.

So tell me what you think. Would you be interested in reading scenes from my unpublished novels? And do you think I should do it here or over at Splashdown Books, aiming to include work by my other authors as well? Your comments are greatly appreciated...

Legendary Space Pilgrims - the first pages

2009-11-17T14:06:00.002+13:00

Time for a taste-test of my upcoming release. I hope to have it out by the end of January, edits and private life permitting! Have a read, if you care to, and tell me if you'd pick up this book if you saw it on a bookstore shelf...

MONDAY 1

The clang of the work-bells forced its way into Mario’s consciousness. A sliver of light pushed through his eyelids, and he pried them all the way open.

Morning again. Monday morning. But on Planet Monday, every day was the same. No joke. He threw back the thick rough-woven blanket and heaved himself upright.

His limbs were slow to respond as he lurched into the plastic wet-cell that towered beside his bed. What had he been up to last night? It sure didn’t feel like he’d slept the full nineteen hours. He slid the pane across the opening and flinched at the shock of the cold water. After thirty seconds the water switched off and he stood still as the airdryers around the cell’s base kicked in. The air wasn’t much warmer than the water, but it felt good.

Stepping out of the cell into the two-by-four-foot floor space of his living quarters, he opened the long drawer built under the bed and pulled out a sky-grey tracksuit, standard issue. Some things never changed. He chased the thought across his consciousness and peered out the tiny window above the bed. Square grey buildings met his gaze. Above hung the eternal grey clouds. Nothing ever changed on Monday. Unless…

Unless he’d been mindwiped.

He groaned and let himself sink onto the brown bedcover. Looking up at the emergency transport tube access in the ceiling just above head height, he examined its round rim. No dust. That meant the tube had been used in the last few hours. Dust coated everything on Monday within just a few hours.

He blinked and shivered as he stared unseeing at the vid-wall’s moving feed of Ocean region. Last night, they’d sucked him up that tube. Wiped his emotional memory. Extreme feelings were erased from the workers—a technique no one ever remembered going through. But everyone knew it happened, since afterwards only the simplest facts remained. Had he really been emoting so badly?

Mario scratched his head, put on his boots, then the second bell sounded. He rose, seized his blade-gloves by the cuffs, and moved to the door as it swished open simultaneously with all the other doors up and down the hallway.

The two hundred inhabitants of the third floor stepped out of their quarters as one. To be precise, the third floor of Wing B, Building 17, Sector X9, Foodstuffs Region, Planet Monday. The doors swished closed again and the workers turned to march towards 17’s central hub.

Mario strode over the hallway’s threshhold to the third-floor lobby and accepted a breakfast pack from the dispenser in the doorway. He bit off the cap and squeezed the warm coffee-flavoured sludge into his gullet on his way to the mass transport tube. He joined the line in front of Wing B’s accessway and guzzled the rest of his breakfast while he waited. Smiles greeted him, but he’d lost all memory of their owners.

Monday-morning-itis. The clown who named this planet deserved to be recrewed to Sewage Region. Just because they discovered it on a Monday…since when do you have Mondays in space, anyhow?

He chucked the empty plastic foodsack in a waste unit to the left of the accessway, slipped on the bladed work-gloves, and stepped into the pod that opened before him.

The thin plastic shell closed. A jolt accompanied the sudden blackness as the pod began its journey. The familiar whoosh of the surrounding air calmed him, which was a bonus for the emo-reader implanted in his neck. If it didn’t detect strong emotions, he wouldn’t get sent to be mindwiped. But it was too late for that. Again.

The chip in his neck beeped, warning him to prepare for landing. An open accessway lit up the pod from below just before its bottom opened, dropping him out of the tube. His knees bent to take the impact. He shot out of the darkness feet-first to land at the edge of a vast field of oats.

Mario flexed his elbows and knees, noting new bruises on his wrist, shoulder and lower leg as well as the usual ankle stress from landing. As far as he knew, the transport tubes had never killed anyone, although they sure doled out a beating-up to those who used them. But he’d come off lightly today.

To his left and right, other morning-dazed freshly-podspit bladers slowly righted themselves and faced the day’s task. X9 was Monday’s oat capital. Their harvest became the breakfast porridge served by dispensers in every part of the planet.

Nineteen hours, and counting down. Days were long here, but then, so were the nights. The line of workers moved forward, cutting the oat-stalks with the blades sewn into the thumbs and index fingers of their gloves, then releasing them to be sucked into the transport tubes that filled the grey sky with their spidery network. No longer set to carry human-occupied pods, the tubes now gently removed the harvest for processing in X9’s huge barns some miles away to the east. To the west, the first of the dormitories was barely visible on the horizon. Ahead, to the north, grew oats and oats and oats, fading into the skyline where they met the cold whiteness of the clouds.

Mario paused and pulled off his gloves to raise his jacket’s hood and tighten its edge around his face. Monday had no weather to speak of—at least not like on Old Earth as he’d seen in the vid-hall movies. Only night and day. But it sure was cold, except where the sunlampsglowed from the undersides of tubes. For the crop, of course, not the workers. He shrugged and threw himself into the rhythm of the work, just as he’d done on more than two thousand other days since coming to X9.

What happened yesterday? What had he done to deserve this mindwipe? As he struggled to remember, he caught sight of dark-blond dreadlocks peeking out under the hood of the worker to his right. A sudden shock of delight rippled through his chest. His chip gave a single low beep. 10% of critical emo-level has been reached. Adrenaline pumped though him.

Ten percent wasn’t really dangerous, but it could get that way. He worked a little faster so as to get ahead of his neighbour, then cast a quick glance back. The lumpy dreadlocks framed a pale and petite face, with brown eyes that gazed steadily back into his own.

His heart began to hammer. Two beeps sounded. Twenty percent.

Talking to the Dead by Bonnie Grove

2009-11-08T00:44:00.001+13:00

I have been hearing about this book from multiple directions and gained more than a passing suspicion that it involved supernatural elements. I have to tell you right here that the title is the most supernatural thing about it, but as titles go, surely this one's got to be a strong provocation for readers of the supernatural genre.

Kate's husband Kevin is dead. But he still talks to her. She's having trouble remembering what happened in the last weeks and months of his life, but his disembodied voice comes to her when she least expects it. Kate sets about to try and find the reason and the source, but her lack of success, combined with the odd facts that keep surfacing from the past, drive her to the edge of sanity.

Almost by accident she becomes involved in a city youth centre and is intrigued by the advice of the pastor there. Yet she is thrown off by a nasty encounter with a different reverend. Gradually she realises that a part of her memory has gone missing, and begins to dig for the whole truth.

This is a deeply realistic portrait of the human response to tragedies. Kate finds no quick fixes, but she does find a way to go on. This story faces up to life's toughest questions and answers them in the end with gritty hope. So it's not strictly supernatural, though it touches on many aspects of spirituality. What it is: a stunning psychological drama that can help you face your own issues. Mine seem small in light of Kate's, and she got through it. And so can I.

Other participants in this CFRB tour:

Rae - http://c-romance.blogspot.com/ Caffeine and Romance
Renee - http://steelergirl83.blogspot.com/ Black and Gold Girl's Book Spot
Julie - http://onerainyafternoon.blogspot.com/ One Rainy Afternoon
Cathi - http://cathischatter.blogspot.com/ Cathi's Chatter
Lori - http://someofmyfavoritebooks.blogspot.com/Some of My Favorite Books
Christy - http://southernsassythings.blogspot.com/Southern Sassy Things
David – http://cmwforum.blogspot.com Christian Mystery Writers
Laura http://authorlauradavis.blogspot.com - Author Laura Davis

Books, Planes, and Airports

2009-11-07T00:15:00.002+13:00

So. Here I am, globetrotting almost done with, sitting in an airport with a couple of hours to spare. What am I going to do? Blog, of course!

Things have been exciting lately, as well as incredibly busy, culminating in the upcoming launch of the first new book from my publishing house, Splashdown Books. This new release is The Muse by Fred Warren, a story I loved from the first time I encountered it. In it you'll meet Stan and his friends, wannabe writers who suddenly find themselves facing a source of inspiration like they never imagined - but more dangerous than they can believe. You can check out the trailers, blurbs and reviews at http://www.splashdownbooks.com/themuse and the Amazon page at http://www.amazon.com/Muse-Fred-Warren/dp/0986451711

If you're able, I would love for you to take part in the online launch party for The Muse by spreading the word on your social networks and blogs. I'm going to see if we can get a chat room on November 15 to celebrate the occasion. I'll keep you posted. As to what you can do, watch this space. I'll make a standard blurb-type post that will include a brief summary and the video trailer. Even if you haven't read the book, posting general information about it would be very helpful indeed!

Let me know if you'd like an electronic review copy, too. Everyone who posts a review will get a free print copy. By the way, I have re-released my first novel Faith Awakened under Splashdown Books and removed the old version from sales. There's a new ISBN too. And I'm well into writing the sequel - Godspeed, the journeys of Naomi Wallace.

Publishing plans for the new year include Legendary Space Pilgrims - though out of the blue, this manuscript has been invited to take part in the Marcher Lord Select program, which is something like American Idol for novels. My book is pitted against 35 other stories, and if you sign up to the Anomaly forum, you can cast your votes for as many of the entrants as you like (minimum 3). The winning manuscript will be published by Marcher Lord Press in April. Now it's not like I need that, because I have Splashdown Books ready and waiting (and the cover already designed!) to publish it about the same time. So feel free to vote for the others. Really. Go over and support the awesome idea of letting readers pick what they want.

I get home on Saturday - and boy, it's about time! You can see some of my travels on my blog and youtube, and I'll try to get some more stuff up after I get home. Thanks everyone for your support when my dad died. I miss him a lot; in some ways it's a hole in my life that will never go away. But if ever there was a true believer, it was him, and there is hope beyond this life. He was my first fan; he wrote my first review on Amazon; and even at his graduation from Bible college he was giving away copies of my book.

That's it for today - a lot of things to cover, but it's been a long time since I blogged! My heart remains partly in County Dublin, and in the south of France, and in a small town in Bavaria; but I'm a Kiwi through and through, and these many weeks now I've longed to hear the wind in the manuka trees and the call of the tui bird, and to see the sun sparkling on the water, and to smell the rain on the earth. So be it. Not far to go now.

Tour de France: Dijon area

2009-09-30T02:17:00.001+13:00

We drove for about three hours to Beaune, and visited the Hotel Dieu (God's Hotel), a convent hospital for the poor, dating from the 17th century. Then we arrived in Dijon, where it was time to stay put for a while!

Tour de France: Marseilles, Avignon, Orange

2009-09-29T02:12:00.001+13:00

Pics: Île d'If, and the view from its top tower which includes Marseilles town
On Saturday we visited the Arles market and bought a few things. At noon we headed for Marseilles where we took a ferry to the Chateau d'If, famous for its role in The Count of Monte Cristo and the Man in the Iron Mask. Back in Arles we went to a different restaurant where a man with a guitar serenaded the guests. I ate lamb followed by a crème caramel.

Sunday: packed up and drove to Nimes, where we briefly viewed the amphitheatre (same as the one in Arles) and the Roman temple dating from the year 2-4 AD. Then at the Pont du Gard, a 2000 year old aqueduct standing high above a river gorge to carry water to Nimes. I climbed partway up the hill on the other side, after which my feet were screeching at me to quit playing tourist already - not from blisters, but pressure fatigue all over the soles, like walking on bruises.

Pics: The pope's palace and a pipsqueak cycle race, Avignon

On to Avignon, where we checked into a rather quaint hotel and set off to search out the famous bridge. We ate sandwiches and ice cream and rode a tourist train to the garden on top of the rock, far above the riverside road and the encircling medieval wall - completely intact around the old town area. In the evening the whole group went down the street to a restaurant where we ate soup, chicken with beans, and Ile Flottante. The hotel rooms being air conditioned, I slept very well for over nine hours.

Breakfast was a bit rushed on Monday morning, but we got away at eight and soon visited Orange, with its huge Roman theatre.

Tour de France: Carcassonne/Arles

2009-09-26T00:59:00.000+12:00

We drove through to Carcassonne just in time for yet another three course dinner, including a delicious lasagne. In the morning I set to work on the translations for Germany, which left just enough time to grab a bite and meet the bus. In the old town I encountered a small green lizard in a narrow street, and a couple of comfy cats in courtyards. We went down into the main town and took a boat trip on the canal. Then I stayed in town to seek out an internet café in the form of an Irish pub. Mum came too, but the rest of the group were keen to get back and do their washing.

That night the hostel put on a dinner of local specialties for us - a salad with jezier, which is duck guts. The main course was cassoulet - duck with beans and pork sausages - and another apple tart.

The next morning after breakfast I went for a walk and enjoyed the relative quietness of the streets, which was a surprise after seeing it so busy all the rest of the time. Then I went into the castle with eight of the girls and spent some time wandering around alone after they all raced through. From the courtyard a window showed a basement below, with a cat sleeping on a cardboard box.

For lunch we went just around the corner - well, everything's round the corner here - and ordered the gizzard salad again and lasagne followed by chocolate mousse. The remainder of the day was spent walking around and around the Cité inside and out and on the ramparts. In one of the little shops in a narrow winding street I had the unusual experience of discovering a red chair exactly like the ones I owned in Germany. Sitting on it for a moment was quite singular. That evening we ate omelettes in the square.

The morning after that we left at eight to head for Arles, where we arrived around noon. First we ate salads at the Place du Forum near Van Gogh's Le Café La Nuit, then visited the amphitheatre, the church and cloister, and the underground crypt with most of a Roman forum intact under several streets. That night we went with the ladies to a restaurant recommended by the hotelier, and ate the most artistic meal I have ever seen - three petite but filling courses of delicately designed platters. I ate ratatouille with egg followed by salmon and veges, then a creation of gingerbread and ice cream.

Salad in Arles

Arles: the Roman amphitheathre

Tour de France: Mont St Michel, Tours, Châteaux de la Loire, Rocamadour

2009-09-23T00:49:00.000+12:00

Bright and early we packed up on Sunday morning and left after another lovely breakfast put on by our hosts. We drove on tiny back roads through to Mont St Michel, which loomed up out of the mist as we approached through cornfields and hamlets.

How do you describe the experience of a place like that? Built sheer from its base on a rock in the sea, it is a functional town, even if overpopulated with tourists. Soaring halls stacked atop one another culminate in a high church with an angel on its tall spire - Michael, for whom the place is named. We ate Galette Normande (crepe with ham and potato) for lunch in a glassed restaurant overlooking the tidal flats and returned to the bus via the ramparts. A bit more time could have been spent here as there were museums and gardens to see.

Pics: Cloister garden high atop the Mont, with tidal flats and salt plains beyond; and me on the ramparts

< View from the ballroom of Château Chenonceau, which spans the river Cher

We then commenced the four hour trip to Tours, again mostly on back roads which made some of the girls feel sick, but we did see a lot of pretty little villages, each with their church in the middle. Once in Tours we took a brief walk at the riverbank before eating at a little restaurant around the corner, in the heart of the old part of town. Feta quiche, steak with stuffed baked potato, and apple and rhubarb tart. Back at the hostel everyone was complaining about the sanitary facilities and overnight the locale did prove to be quite noisy.

In the morning a very tired bunch drizzled in to breakfast and we set off afterwards for Azay le Rideau, the first of our castles for today. It is a country manor set in a lake, complete with fairytale turrets and loggias. The second castle was Chambord, which we only looked at from outside - the best view apparently. We didn't get to see very much as we only stopped for a few minutes and everyone was hungry and keen to get to the next stop where we were to eat - Clos Luce, where Maestro Leonardo lived. This proved to be one of the best visits of the day, as the house and gardens gave many insights into the character of Leonardo. All around the rooms were framed quotes from him in French, and the girls went around dechiphering them with great gusto. Prior to the visit we ate on the terrace overlooking the city and chateau of Amboise: mushroom omelettes and then I ate my first French crepe of this trip: with almonds and chocolate.

Amboise and Blois both looked like pleasant towns worth a visit on another day, but we could only pass through this time. Along the road we passed a tractor with a deep trailer full of ripe grapes, losing red grapejuice through the cracks at a rate of litres per second. The sun grew hot as we drove on to Chenonceau, the palace that spans the river Cher with its ballroom. As we prepared to leave, a hot air balloon with a huge basket took off from behind one of the buildings belonging to the castle. The drive back to Tours included a short stop at a supermarket so everyone could buy munchies for the long bus trip tomorrow. In the countryside we spied several different carloads of people enjoying a roadside picnic, complete with tablecloths and wine.

Next day from the bus we viewed hazy horizons as they became first rolling hills, then sharp inclines and valleys and cliffs. Here and there, tantalising glimpses: a thatched shed tucked into a tree-line, baby goats in a field, a stone wall covered in moss, and high viaducts over forested valleys. Interestingly, these valleys mostly have flat grass at the bottom rather than streams as I would expect.

On the approach to Rocamadour we had to take a narrow road in the side of the cliff because it seemed the only way in. Part of it was even a tunnel, hewn in rock and only just big enough for the bus to get through.

In Rocamadour we went up as far as the churches and grabbed a sandwich and ice cream, but not in that order. Peering straight up or straight down for such heights is pretty amazing, especially from the church terrace where the cliff hangs over above you and the birds are always circling.

Tour de France: Rouen and Bayeux

2009-09-20T00:29:00.002+12:00

We landed in Paris at around 7 in the morning and waited a rather long time for the baggage, normal I suppose for a huge plane like that. I photographed the terminal's interior escalators until finally everything was gathered and we were able to head for our bus. It was much bigger than we had been told, so that we could spread out as we wanted.

The drive to Rouen began with excitement as we caught glimpses of La Grande Arche while leaving Paris. In Rouen, after some initial disorientation, we wandered through typical tiny streets and huge cathedrals. We ate fresh bread with lettuce and cheese, then had to head back to the bus.

Pics: Café in Rouen; Rouen cathedral; old houses in Rouen

Two hours later a very tired group disembarked in Bayeux to view the famed medieval tapestry. Despite its great age, the vivid colours and huge length are worth a close look. Then we checked into our gorgeous little hotel on the Place du Marché and visited the establishment next door for a three course meal - the first of many culinary challenges for our new travellers. We ate paté, grilled turkey with chips, and apple tart. And early to bed in lovely timbered rooms.

On Saturday morning we awoke early from jetlag and observed the vendors setting up their stalls for market day. A visit to the bakery provided an early snack, followed by a cup of tea in the café and finally breakfast in the hotel at nine.

We spent a good deal of time in the market, buying local cheese and fruit for lunch as well as some very French clothes. Time then for a wander through old Bayeux, with its coloured shop-fronts and yet another cathedral that seemed to glow yellow in the noonday sun. We lunched in a tree-shaded park and rejoined the group for a trip to the coast.

Haunting relics litter the cliffs far above those fateful beaches - mangled concrete bunkers and huge potholes, pocked with twisted rods and rolls of rusty barbed wire. Farther along at the military cemetary, we looked on as all the Americans present froze on the spot to sing their anthem. Along the road I noticed many houses bore metal decorations, some shaped like an S. Back at the local restaurant we ate crudités salad, roast ham, potato gratin, and pear custard tart.

Pics: café in Bayeux, hotel room ceiling, dogs viewed from hotel window, at the cemetary

Review: The Familiar Stranger by Christina Berry

2009-09-11T11:00:00.002+12:00

A highway accident, a man with amnesia, a supportive wife wanting to save an ailing marriage. Ingredients for a good story in the first place. But there's far more to it than that. The "new" Craig, who remembers nothing of his prior life, is suddenly more loving than the man Denise thought she knew - and more committed to the family than she would have believed just days ago.

So what is going on here? Clues begin to appear, solid evidence that Craig had been a man with two lives before losing his memory. Denise battles to forgive him, this familiar stranger with no recall of the betrayals he orchestrated himself.

As more and more of the truth is discovered, there are more and more surprises waiting for Denise and the boys, and for young Samantha, a leukemia patient they met in the hospital. I tell you, just when you think you've figured it out - wham! Another astonishing layer is uncovered, culminating in one of fiction's most cunning plot twists to date. Nothing is as it seems, yet when all is revealed my reaction is "of course!" So a canny reader might figure it out earlier with some effort!

The tale is told in a sympathetic back-and-forth banter between His and Hers chapters. It resonates within me for a couple of reasons. First, I had the opportunity to meet the author last year, and I can say that her personality shines from every page. What a wonderful story she has constructed from disparate slices of real life. Secondly, I recently spent a lot of time visiting a critical care ward, and this book describes its atmosphere perfectly. And I suppose thirdly, because when I got to the end and discovered the truth of the matter, I realised this story has more in common with my own life than I ever imagined. But I can't say any more in that regard or I'll spoil it for you.

In brief? This is an author to watch out for in future. Get ahold of this book and let it wrap you up in its reality, clear as a knife-edge and never retreating in the face of truth.

The Sacred Cipher by Terry Brennan

2009-09-02T19:15:00.000+12:00

Zero to 100 is one way to describe the pace of this novel. It starts out harmlessly enough with the discovery of a stash of old scrolls in a New York mission. Then odd and frightening things begin to happen to those involved in reading one scroll in particular. Near misses and almost-fatal accidents point the men to the significance of the find. Much time is spent on filling in the background history - of which there is plenty - mostly by way of dialogue and questions batted back and forth. Finally our scholars, amateur and otherwise, crack the near-impossible code in the scroll and realise what they have on their hands.

An expedition is mounted to Jerusalem to attempt the daunting task of proving or disproving the scroll's hidden message. At this point the story becomes a big boys' lark as our city slickers prepare to become archaeologists. This element of wide-eyed discovery and good plain fun in the face of danger continues to be a large part of the story's appeal.

The action and adventure mounts in leaps and bounds as our intrepid and largely clueless explorers determine to reach their goal in the face of overwhelming odds. But not only that: the magnitude of the matter at hand soon looms larger than any personal struggles as astonishment and wonder take the place of grit and fear. A couple of amazing saves out of left field are required to get our boys out of the massive international unrest they've gotten themselves into the middle of.

Recommended for guys in particular, and also anyone who likes breath-snatching action and plenty of supernatural intervention at just the right moments.

two poems

2009-08-24T18:56:00.002+12:00

party animal

I walk these streets by day when I have to hug the shade to stay cool
I walk these streets in the evening when the little owls call in the valley.
I am walking to another party tonight
barely recovered from last night's insanity
someone is turning twenty, yes I feel old
I pass three other parties between Archers Road and Chivalry. Someone calls hi to me from a yard crackling with barbecued sausages and I greet them back. It's Saturday after all.
But at these parties you'll find me not amidst the noisy crowd
I'm the one outside with my boots in the soft earth and wet grass
trying to capture the moon in my camera

no stuff thanks

I don't believe in birthday cards
nor Christmas gifts and such.
Don't be perplexed, don't be dismayed
I've always thought as much.
I do not mean you disrespect,
nor do I mean you harm
The customs that I thus reject
Don't keep a friendship warm.
Who wants rooms full of well-thought things
And stacks of trinket love?
I only wish they could sprout wings
and disappear above.
The odd thing to expect from me
In spite of what I've said
Is that I might give a random gift
At other times instead.
Why wait until a special day?
Please let's not have a row.
For if I have a thought for you
The time to give is now.

I SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD

2009-08-20T14:31:00.005+12:00

...AT ALL! Har-har, you thought I was going to say by bread alone, didn't you?

For some time I had been getting bored with my food. I was like, why bother? Sure, we have to eat and nourish ourselves, but so much of the everyday fare was driving me nuts with its sameness.

Then I spoke to a member of the extended family, who shall remain unnamed, who had recently given up eating carbohydrates. Aside from a quite significant weight loss, the food she described sounded far more interesting than the norm.

So I decided to give it a go. That's right, folks - no bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, and all that stuff.

"But wait a minute," I hear you cry,"How can you ever get full without those things? You must be starving!"

Not so. Not at all. My question to you: Why do we eat bread and potatoes and rice and pasta? I propose that it's mostly just to get full.

Fact: You can get very nicely full without them.

Lunch has become the main meal of my day, consisting of a base of green salad and diverse other items, such as bacon, eggs, mushrooms, avocado, capsicum, fish, and cheeses. Not all at once of course. Just enough to provide variety and of course to get full on. And usually at least three kinds of sauce, such as balsamico on tomatoes and soft cheeses, tomato or basil pesto on hard cheeses, mayo on the greens, and the mustard that comes in the sardine can. I'll put some photos in so you can see what I mean.

There! Now you can't say those are small meals. I have never experienced hunger after finishing off a plate like that.

Eggs are magic. I eat two of them most days for lunch, unless I'm having sardines. And they are incredibly satisfying. No need for bread.

In fact, I have not once noticed a lack of carbohydrates. No sleepiness or weakness, no hunger, no craving for a spud. And don't forget who you're dealing with here: the one-time pasta queen who used to demolish at least four servings of fettucine at one sitting in the all-you-can-eat Spaghetteria chapel bar in Regensburg.

Kiwifruit are also magic. I eat two of them most days for breakfast - the yellow ones mind you, but that's a matter of taste. I eat them with yoghurt and a sprinkling of muesli to give it some crunch. Now strictly speaking, muesli is carbs. But I couldn't give it up entirely, as its lack made breakfast into a very insipid affair.

I also haven't entirely given up porridge oats. The reason for this is simple: eating like this without carbs, when you run out of food, you REALLY run out of food. No bread and jam for a hurried meal. No instant noodles or potato flakes to fill you up. So my emergency ration is now a hot cup of instant soup with a few spoonfuls of oats left to soak for a minute. I don't do that often but it's good to have something on hand for those days when the fridge is looking sadly raided. And no, I still don't go hungry.

Dinner is interesting. Because I eat such large lunches, it doesn't have to be a major thing. Minute steaks are great, as are mushrooms and eggplants and any veggie that takes my fancy. Other times I make a batch of kumara and leek soup. Now the kumara is indeed a potato - a sweet one - but its carb levels are a lot lower than the ordinary humble spud. Fine, I say, fine indeed. I love kumara! And even a small bowl of this soup is very satisfying. You can also add bacon of course. Put it away in little freezer tubs and voilà - my version of a TV dinner.

If you're into sports or you have a relevant medical condition, it is not recommended to quit carbs. Just thought I'd mention that. However, I am still well able to take my brisk half-hour walk each day with no ill effects.

I must admit that I'm fond of a piece of carrot cake now and then. Now that is true luxury. And I have supplies of chocolate on hand for when dour moods must be fought off. But I propose to you that my little piece of cake still has less carbs than all your sandwich bread.

As for the chocolate...well, there's got to be something to live for, right?

The Muse

2009-08-19T14:48:00.002+12:00

Hey! This is the day I've been waiting for...the unveiling of the trailer movie for The Muse, a fantasy by Fred Warren - a new author to be published by my imprint, Splashdown Books.

You can find out more about The Muse and Splashdown Books at www.splashdownbooks.com and keep up with the news at www.splashdownbooks.blogspot.com. We are also taking pre-press reviewers right now, so get in touch with me if you're keen to read and help us promote it!

Excess Exhilaration

2009-08-13T12:10:00.002+12:00

I want...
to write the six books in my head.
to make movies for all of them. Several for each, in fact.
to start and finish my Travel Photography project and the several books and movies emerging from that.
to walk in forests and on mountains and drive the length of the country and gallop on a horse through ocean spray.
to dance my heart out at open air concerts and sing prayers with thousands by my side.
to share my life with people who are good at both talking and listening.
to be at peace with the way I am.
to play loud music and pump exuberance into every place I go.
to learn the piano, or rather, to practice it, since Dad already taught me everything.
to put my guitars in hands that will play them better than I am able to do.
to host a tribe of contented cats who like me.
to travel the world yet again and capture it on camera so anyone can see it.
to look into space whenever possible and gaze at planets and systems and galaxies.
to know the secret treasures of my hometown and homeland, and other towns and lands.
to stand alone on a mountaintop yelling at the storm.
to cook delectable feasts for crowds and watch them enjoy.
to feed carrot cake to many visitors.
to explain the meaning of my life in other languages.
to exude all of these things day after day.

However, the things I must do are different. I must...
work for money
critique a lot of writers
organise blog tours
talk on the radio
typeset and design
liaise with distributors
use dilapidated machinery
empty the dishwasher
tidy my room
learn to drive
edit videos
deal with difficult people
accept the consequences of mistakes
be content without companions
be at ease in crowds

The two groups do overlap and it is there I must find the way to go on...

Stone of Destiny

2009-08-07T10:20:00.002+12:00

Movie Review

One of the more eccentric true stories to appear on the big screen, this is a documentary about the courage of an oppressed people. That a division on this scale existed so recently within Britain is nothing less than astounding.

So the Scottish coronation stone was carried off to London hundreds of years ago. In the 1950's, university student Ian Hamilton is a passionate supporter of the Covenanters, a political lobby group campaigning for Scotland to have its own parliament. After yet another petition is ignored, Ian casts about for a symbolic act to force London to pay attention, and arrives at the plan to uplift the Stone from Westminster Abbey and bring it home to Scotland.

The film follows him through the search for accomplices and preparation for the heist, and of course an extended period of edge-of-your-seat action on Christmas Eve. Panicked sprints through London alleys, epic foul-ups and disheartening mishaps conspire against our motley but relentless crew of Scots.

Fighting for ownership of a lump of rock results in one of the year's most preposterous storylines. In this case, truth is definitely odder than fiction. There are many delightful scenes, such as the encounter with the night watchman, the conversation with the gypsy, and the poignant final standoff in an ancient ruin.

An incredible story indeed - loaded with symbolism, patriotism and determination against astounding odds. It's about the heart of the Scots, and that heart is big and wild and brave.

Rated M, for language considered mild in Britain if nowhere else. No violence. Kid-safe if you don't mind a bit of heartfelt 1950's swearing.

Where I'm From

2009-08-03T14:40:00.002+12:00

With thanks to Cathi who showed this to me; and here is the template for you to try it yourself. A writing exercise well worth a go.

I am from concrete footpaths, from double chocolate Magnum ice cream, and winter beaches.

I am from the yellow house by the park, the long muddy driveway and Dad's homemade letterbox, the silence of soft rain.

I am from the eucalyptus and pohutukawa and mandarin trees, the passionfruit, and the jasmine that gives you a whiff as you pass below.

I am from sailing and carpentry and pioneers, from May and Doreen and their husbands both Toms, four grandparents from four nations.

I am from the stubborn sense of justice and the constant battle against personal clutter.

From snoring birds - what Tom called the crickets' evensong - and being smaller than my little brother.

I am from holy rollers and God chasers, in a score of churches whose walls have witnessed miracles.

I'm from a city sandwiched by oceans, from Irish and Scottish and English and German, long draughts of cold milk, and carrot cake with walnuts and cream cheese on top.

From the great-grandmother who left Ireland for Scotland and work, and found love; the miner in the Coromandel gold rush; the 1978 Renault.

I am from farm holidays, beach camps, church foyers, and sun-drenched verandas.

southern hemisphere winter

2009-07-29T08:34:00.001+12:00

bright wet skies
roads of shimmering silver
dripping trees turned to glittering emerald
twin tracks in concrete speak of plastic toys
that passed this way a quarter century ago at least.

strong winter sun reflects from every surface
the cold south wind turns the evergreens to thrashing thunder above the humble street
seagulls squealing, wheeling, dazzling white
against dark angry clouds
the world, aglow between the rainstorms
mandarins weigh down laden branches
they have no seasons here.
wooden windows rattle in merry gusts
breaths of smoke snatched from chimneys tell of cozy afternoons within.
mud fills the alley behind my house
I wish good health to the couple who scratched their names in wet concrete at the corner, back in the dark mists of suburban history
the cat I met on the beach reminds me of another I once knew better than myself.

Luxury

2009-07-28T10:30:00.003+12:00

Luxury is...

a smooth-polished wooden coathanger
a second hot water bottle
a comfy work chair in the sun

five days without rain
scrunchy sand on a winter beach
dry paths in the forest

sardines in mustard
ripe avocado
double camembert

a good day's work
a good night's sleep
a letter from a friend

the smell of lilies
leftover cake
strong tea

a father who loved me
a peace at his passing
a hope for the future

From My Windows

2009-07-13T19:00:00.001+12:00

from my dilapidated hilltop windows
I can see
birds and flowers
the sky and everything in it
an old airforce plane homewards to the sunset

hundreds of houses
thousands of trees
handfuls of skyscrapers
half a city.

three churches
one school
a supermarket
a factory outlet
a park
a road

a dozen islands
a mountain range
four volcanos
a lighthouse
the ocean
boats, often
sometimes the moon

How Old Am I?

2009-07-10T14:20:00.002+12:00

I've recently been confronted several times with evidence that I don't look like an adult. While it is nice to know I can impersonate a teenager anytime I want, it does make me wonder if this face I present to the world is indeed abnormally childlike. Consider the following:

- A nurse at the hospital asked me what school I go to.
- A friend of a friend told me, "You can't learn to drive until you're twenty." (In fact you can do it at 15 or 16 so I'm not sure what the story is here)
- I have problem skin and somewhat irregular teeth.
- I reached my current height at the age of 12 and have been this tall ever since.
- I sleep in a bunkbed. The top one.
- And yes, I am currently learning to drive.

For now, just ignore the fact that I'm writing my fourth novel, I hold a postgraduate degree, and have been a career woman for at least eight years!

All that aside, how old do I look?

The Light Across the River, by Stephanie Reed

2009-07-09T19:00:00.000+12:00

Following on from book one, Across The Wide River, this sequel continues the story of one family's involvement in the Underground Railroad. This time it's told by Johnny Rankin, a young man growing up with an enormous secret: his whole family regularly offers aid to escaping slaves.

Johnny finds it more than just plain difficult not to tell anyone about the amazing adventures of his father and older brothers - and later on, his own. Yet he's not short on bravery, often facing up to the town bullies and slave hunters who threaten to obliterate the illicit activities. Certainly not illicit in the eyes of God, says Johnny's father by his actions, again and again.

But it's not just Johnny's story - far from it. We also get a deep view into the lives of slaves who long to be free, and what it was like to be on the run, in danger for their lives. Eliza, herself a grandmother, escapes with her own babe in arms across the treacherously unstable spring-melted ice of the Ohio river, towards the light set up in the Rankin house on the hill. She goes on to become Johnny's friend and he becomes more involved in the rescue of the family she was forced to leave behind.

We see Johnny changing from boy to man, and Eliza from slave to free. Johnny eventually tells an author of Eliza's river crossing, later made famous in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' All of these connections are based in actual history - the Rankin family, Eliza's tale, and the author who wrote it down - all are true historical figures, brought to life here by wonderful immersive settings.

Gripping from start to end, suitable for young readers, this book plunges you into the reality that was the Underground Railroad in Ohio of the 1800's.

Check out these other member blogs this week for more info.

Across The Wide River, by Stephanie Reed

2009-07-08T19:00:00.000+12:00

This is a tale of the Underground Railroad from the viewpoint of a young white boy growing up in a family dedicated to helping their African brothers to freedom. His father is a preacher, often mocked for his public anti-slavery stance, but his opponents do not know the half of it. As Lowry becomes a man, an increasing proportion of his nights are spent in trafficking the refugees farther north from his home on the Ohio River - the very border of the abolitionist movement. He battles school bullies and greedy slave-hunters while pondering what call his career should take - not realising that the decision is already made, though not in the direction he thought. We hear only snatches of the travellers' stories as they pass through by night, quickly moved on towards their next destination. What we do see is Lowry's growing recognition of the great blessing his clandestine activities are in his life. He moves around, trying this, that and the other - but he never ceases to assist the ex-slaves who come across his path.
This is an interesting story with plenty of fascinating historical facts and tidbits from that time period. It is also very suitable for younger readers from about age 8. Lowry's faith is a matter-of-fact thing, and it gives him strength for the night rides in the name of freedom.

Check out these other member blogs this week for more info.

Tiltshift Photography

2009-06-26T14:42:00.002+12:00

Hey! Been a while... would you like a look at some of my recent photographic stuff? I've recently discovered the tiltshift effect. The collection below holds my examples of the technique. The photos themselves span a time from early 2008 to now.

And guess what! You can do the same with your photos - get yourself over to www.tiltshiftmaker.com and get playing!

Interview with author Tom Pawlik

2009-06-23T14:03:00.003+12:00

*Featured book, Vanish - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1414318936
*New release, Valley of the Shadow - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1414326793

Today I'm interviewing author Tom Pawlik, author of Vanish and Valley of the Shadow.

How and when did you get your start in writing?

TP: I've always loved writing stories. I wrote my first book "The Way Back" in 1997 and shopped it around for several years before stumbling across the Christian Writers Guild website in 2003. I saw the ad for their "Operation First Novel Contest" and entered. I was pleasantly surprised to finish second that year. My finish attracted the attention of my agent, Les Stobbe who shopped that book around for the next 2 years. In the mean time, I had been working on my second book, VANISH, which I entered in the 2006 contest. This time, I won. That was the most thrilling event of my life! A life long dream come true. Tyndale published "Vanish" last summer and the sequel, "Valley of the Shadow" was released this month. They have expressed an interest in "The Way Back" but as it was a slightly different genre, wanted me to get established a little more as an author first.

Tell me about your first encounter with the genre.

TP: Growing up, I loved Sci-fi and fantasy. And still do. I sometimes felt guilty trying to reconcile my love for those genres with my Christian faith and Biblical doctrine. I have come to realize that these genres have a place in our lives and culture. And if we are going to be salt and light, we should seek to use this medium to communicate God's presence, His love and His judgment as well.

Who are your favourite authors?

TP: C.S. Lewis, Tolkein, Gordon R. Dickson, Asimov, Bradbury, Clifford Simak just to name a few.

How do you come up with ideas for your books?

TP: I sometimes get the germ for an idea from a weird dream. I think many writers use other authors as inspiration as well.

Do you plan the plot beforehand or let the story tell itself - and what is it like to go through the writing process?

TP: I'm still a novice so, yes, I start out by writing up a basic plot outline, but this is a very tedious process. Also, I find that many great ideas actually come up during the writing phase. I wrote on my website that writing a novel is like digging a sliver out of your finger with a large, rusty scissors. A lot of meticulous, self-inflicted pain. But it's worth every excruciating minute!

Do you write yourself into your characters?

TP: Yes sometimes, different aspects of my own personality may go into various characters as a starting point. For instance, Mitch Kent got his sarcasm from me. But then from there, I like to let them develop on their own. Sometimes they surprise you.

What research was required in writing your books?

TP: Not very much. I spoke to a few friends who had expertise in a specific area. (I can't say what or I might give some plot elements away).

How has your faith influenced the contents of your books?

TP: Tremendously. I don't think of myself as writing a parable, but I do want to communicate spiritual truths through the story. The key is obviously to let those truths evolve naturally from the story rather than compose a story around a particular truth or moral.

What is your opinion on the value of speculative fiction?

TP: Very high. I love it. I'm thrilled to see it becoming an increasingly popular genre within the Christian marketplace. It's nice also, to see it growing beyond the CBA marketplace into the general marketplace as well.

Check out these other bloggers for reviews of Tom's book and more:

Brandon Barr Justin Boyer Keanan Brand Karri Compton Amy Cruson CSFF Blog Tour Stacey Dale D. G. D. Davidson Jeff Draper April Erwin Karina Fabian Alex Field Beth Goddard Todd Michael Greene Ryan Heart Christopher Hopper Joleen Howell Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Julie Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Margaret Rebecca LuElla Miller Eve Nielsen Nissa John W. Otte John Ottinger Donita K. Paul Epic Rat Steve Rice Crista Richey Hanna Sandvig Chawna Schroeder James Somers Speculative Faith Rachel Starr Thomson Robert Treskillard Steve Trower Fred Warren Phyllis Wheeler

Angel of Wrath by Bill Myers

2009-06-09T19:00:00.000+12:00

I have it on good authority from my horror-loving friends that they like it very much when their reading material scares them silly, gives them nightmares, or sends chills down their backs. So I'm guessing that horror aficionados everywhere are going to adore this book. It would certainly have given me nightmares if it wasn't quite so far-fetched. But the unbelievable has also long been a staple of the horror genre, so there you go.

An ex-agent turned Satanist helps a bunch of high school kids get involved in carrying out black masses in the mountains. What the kids don't know yet is that their "fun" calls on actual demonic powers and results in a macabre murder each time they meet. So we have a series of particularly grotesque deaths among members of a megachurch. Finally the pastor calls his ex-FBI sister Lisa for help, and she brings her ally Charlie, also an undercover specialist. Thirteen-year-old Jaz insists on going with them - she lives with Charlie since the death of her parents.

Jaz is deaf, but is also able to detect spiritual vibrations. As she investigates the strange power she experienced in a church service, the pastor's son entangles himself with the Satanist kids and both of them catch sight of a demonic monster - first only a glimpse, then a full-out attack. The evil creature, once approached, spouts Bible verses which it uses to condemn its hearers. Meanwhile, the murders continue, and Charlie is on the trail of the killer.

There are some fascinating observations on a deaf kid's approach to life. Also some (to me) dubious theological claims - the idea that a Satanist kid suddenly decides to pray to God and is then protected from the demon, well, that seemed a bit strange. But this story is trying to communicate the power and necessity of forgiveness, of living at peace with your past, and that's got to be a good thing. You will find a lot of interesting insights if you can see beyond the fiction to what is real.

Check out these other member blogs this week for more
info.

Book Review: What The Bayou Saw by Patti Lacy

2009-05-23T10:15:00.002+12:00

I loved Patti's other book, An Irishwoman's Tale, so it was with pleasant anticipation that I sat down to read her second novel. It was also an honour to meet her during my USA odyssey last year!

I made the mistake of starting to read shortly before bedtime. An hour later I realised how late it was and flipped off the light. Ten minutes after that, I decided it was utterly useless to try and sleep. This book would not let me go until I finished it at an unearthly hour!

Sally, a Southern belle teaching in Illinois, is disturbed when one of her students is attacked. The course of events pulls long-hidden facts to light and forces her to deal with the consequences of her childhood's history.

Sally and Ella's friendship sheds light on the quagmire that hindered multicultural relations back in the 60's. To say that things were difficult back then is putting it mildly. Mistakes were made, lives ruined, childhoods destroyed by acts of violence and hate. Historical events are brought into the present in vivid colour as Sally, age 53, is confronted with her past that she left sunk in the bayou all those years ago.

I am amazed at the huge range of controversial topics the story covers. Abuse, denial, consequences and healing. Racism. Katrina. Murder. The supernatural. Friendship and betrayal. Mystery. Danger. These are disturbing ideas, and this is a highly disturbing story - in a good way, that stirs up emotion and conviction and awe.

Above all, this is a tale of a personal journey. Recovery from abuse is a difficult topic at the best of times, but Patti handles it with tact and gentleness. The consequences ring true for anyone who has experienced emotional pain. That's all of us somewhere, isn't it?

So if you're ready to face some shaking-up for your soul, go read this book. You won't be the same afterwards.

Watch the book trailer here.
Patti Lacy's website

More thoughts on Tuck

2009-05-20T11:05:00.002+12:00

I've been reading the other bloggers' posts on Tuck and it's brought up a few interesting ideas I'd like to respond to. For a list of reviewers' quotes, please visit the Lost Genre Guild blog tomorrow.

Anyway...first up I just want to mention how awesome the final climax is. You have this incredible buildup to a battle scene, and by now we know what to expect from Mr. Lawhead - and we anticipate the roil of the fight, the zip of arrows, the fall of the dying. But then! Wait for it! There's this amazing twist in the end that totally turns everything on its head. That's just phenomenal.

Regarding the other reviewers, some have commented that the storyteller makes no judgement between the good Christians and the rotten ones. True. But he doesn't need to. It's obvious in the story. If you need to be told "this is bad" then I suspect you're not thinking for yourself. Perhaps it's a symptom of the TV age where folks are used to getting everything fed to them to be swallowed whole as-is.

Not so with Tuck. You have to read between the lines - and not so very far at that - to discover that Tuck is a faithful Christ-follower even though he loves to smash heads in, and that Hugo is a greedy, grasping loser even though he holds great authority in the church. It's not your status, it's what you do - your actions, that define what kind of person you are and I applaud the author in this case for showing, not telling.

Lessons learned are most often successful when we come upon them through our own thought processes. This book does that very effectively. It leaves me with plenty of ponderings, and that's good, because such a book will stay in my mind for a fair long while.

If you haven't already, please visit yesterday's post for my review of Tuck and a list of the other bloggers involved in the tour this week.

Visit My Volcano

2009-05-19T18:28:00.002+12:00

So I went to Rangitoto on the weekend. I thought I'd be meeting some friends there, but I never saw any of them. Oh well. I was free to putter around with my camera and alternately cover ground at an alarming pace as I wanted to walk around a good part of the island's perimeter and also get up to the summit and back down again before the last boat out. And all this in five hours. Reckon I walked about four of them, with brief pauses for Tiny Teddies and a tin of spaghetti.

Anyway, I'll let the video tell the story. I have a bunch of photos too, we'll have to see about getting those posted. Watch this space, as always.

You can find out more about Rangitoto Island at www.rangitoto.org and the Wikipedia article.

2009-05-19T06:04:00.000+12:00

11:51 Hey @toxaq ! Fine cookies, my friend! I want that recipe! I fear yours won't last the day around here... #nzcookie #
14:28 RT: @ITBrief: NZ out tweets US: Studies show that New Zealanders have a taste for e-commerce and social media. tinyurl.com/r7jtd9 #
17:00 So I need to go cook dinner (it's my weekly turn) but badly want to edit these two new videos. One won't take long at all, truly! Hmm. #
17:54 I went and edited the shorter video - still needs intro reel & music which will cover the whole series. In cases like this, food can wait! #
18:27 RT: @AlohaArleen: Scoop: More Tweet in New Zealand than United States ff.im/2ZCeS #

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Tuck by Stephen Lawhead

2009-05-18T13:00:00.001+12:00

In recent years, Mr. Lawhead has continued to set the standard in both fantasy and historical fiction through the first two books of the King Raven trilogy, Hood and Scarlet. Where Hood served as the introduction to this strange new-old world with so much of the familiar in it, and Scarlet as an exhilarating, dangerous dance in the midst of deadly enemies, Tuck now provides the conclusion to the story of Rhi Bran the Hud - King Raven - in a fittingly awe-inspiring manner.

As the title suggests, this is the book in which we get to hear more about that cheery, canny priest who's thrown in his lot with the greenwood outlaws. But this is not only Tuck's story. It's the tale of the entire forest family as they have now fully grown to become - their victories and losses, their skills and vulnerabilities, and the incredible determination of their king, Bran, perhaps familiar to you as Robin Hood.

Much has been made of Lawhead's controversial adaptation of this ancient story and the fictionalised claim that the famous archer came from Wales, not Sherwood. I don't wish to dwell on this, as the author's reasons and research fully back up the concept as well as providing a sound argument for how the tale eventually came to rest in Nottingham. Other than location, you'll meet many characters steeped in the legend - Little John, Will Scarlet, and Friar Tuck of course.

Tuck himself is a fascinating character, made all the more so by the intriguing glimpses of his daily life that we see here. A man of true faith, yet highly skilled at clouting knights with stout branches, not above a little pretense for the cause of right, and braver than most monks of his era. Many times we watch as he ventures alone to the camp of the enemy, bringing an offer of peace even though he well knows how soundly he is sure to be rebuffed. And in many of the multilingual situations found in a French-occupied England and Wales, it is Tuck who serves as translator and mediator.

Indeed, as befits the man, it is Tuck himself who owns the single finest scene in this book that bears his name. While telling any more would constitute a major spoiler, let me just say that his early-morning encounter in a quiet church with a troubled man entirely changes the course of history for the Welsh cause. I was utterly breathless. Incidentally, that was the only time we ever saw him in church. Tuck is a practical friar, to be sure, at his happiest praying under an open sky - or indeed thwacking French knights.

This is the third book in a trilogy, and I do recommend reading the other installments first - however, woven through the pages of Tuck is a rhyme that tells of what went before if you are in need of a quick refresher.

May I also take a moment here to recommend the book's soundtrack? Yes, in what is surely one of literature's most unusual ongoing connections, a West Coast USA songmaker and a Dublin bard have joined together to create a tapestry of sound for the backdrop of King Raven's drama.
I urge you to click here, visit ArkMusic.com and listen to samples of this ethereal music from the greenwood.
Perfect for browsing the other reviews listed below!

Tuck by Stephen Lawhead at Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595540873
Stephen R. Lawhead’s website - http://www.stephenlawhead.com

Blog Tour Participants’ Links - please visit for more reviews:
Brandon Barr Jim Black Keanan Brand Rachel Briard Valerie Comer Amy Cruson CSFF Blog Tour Stacey Dale D. G. D. Davidson Jeff Draper April Erwin Karina Fabian Alex Field Beth Goddard Todd Michael Greene Ryan Heart Timothy Hicks Christopher Hopper Joleen Howell Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Jason Joyner Kait Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Dawn King Terri Main Margaret Melissa Meeks Rebecca LuElla Miller Caleb Newell Eve Nielsen Nissa John W. Otte John Ottinger Epic Rat Steve Rice Crista Richey Hanna Sandvig Chawna Schroeder James Somers Robert Treskillard Rachel Starr Thomson Steve Trower Speculative Faith Fred Warren Phyllis Wheeler Jill Williamson

2009-05-18T06:03:00.001+12:00

14:41 Went to new local supermarket. The trolleys are as big as buses and the whole place was clogged with them! Cooking for family get-together. #

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2009-05-17T06:03:00.001+12:00

08:28 Right folks, I'm off to Rangitoto for the day - might tweet from the top of the volcano if there's phone coverage. Otherwise, seeya later! #
14:39 Hey it's not every day you get to stand atop an icon! For those not in the know, google Rangitoto Island. Woohoo! Beaut day for 4hr walk. #
18:43 Home from Rangitoto - it was phenomenal as always but I'm sooo wasted. Nothing a hot bath won't fix! and hey, it didn't rain once. #
18:49 RT: @FLWbooks: Winners of the Philip K. Dick sci-fi awards: bit.ly/Wtwh6 #
18:51 RT: @WeekinRewind: What should be in the Star Trek sequel? (And what shouldn't) tinyurl.com/oynmfr #
19:12 Hey @dragonsinger57 @charlief ! Agreed, Star Trek rocks!!! I saw it three times so far and am plotting a 4th. I'm youtubing TOS right now :) #

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2009-05-16T06:04:00.001+12:00

09:56 Really awesome video on the progression of information technology! bit.ly/aNuUC #
10:32 Didn't know what to do with myself last night so I put on a dvd of Star Trek IV. Seen it dozens of times but that one will always be legend! #
10:34 I'm crazy. I already have enough new books to read fulltime for 2 weeks, and I'm going out to pick up five more. Yay for good books! #
11:04 RT: @vesselproject: "A Christian is one whose imagination should fly above the stars.""— Francis Shaeffer #
11:05 @kenarmstrong1 yeah and I like how they turned that scenario on Scotty himself in the new movie! #
11:07 So I have to go downstairs where the printer is and do some paperwork to post later on when I go out. Darn taxes! #
13:21 @LauraJeanDavis Yep, I saw it three times so far! It's awesome! My recent tweets all point in that direction :) I want to see it at IMAX too #
13:23 @tonylavoie Sure. But when I was growing up, Khan wasn't parentally-approved so I have yet to see it properly. Don't worry, I'm on it! #
13:26 Finished my tax return, now off to mail it and pick up my order of @marcherlord books! Woohoo! Can this week get any better?? #
16:52 I went and did something definitely not on my huge to-do list. As if I needed ANOTHER blog, lol! randombookstuff.blogspot.com/ #

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2009-05-15T06:03:00.001+12:00

08:55 RT: @WeberBooks: Amazon program for new authors & self publishers could bring major exposure, sales & store shelf space bit.ly/DuUvk #
11:00 @astonwest Yes, you might be right. Typical buy-out-the-small-guy who made his success by himself. #
11:46 I think I'll go see Star Trek in the IMAX next week. Anyone in Auckland want to join me for a daytime showing? #
17:50 Great Star Trek review analysing the Hero's Journey: bit.ly/P5y1s #
18:54 RT: @BusinessTalk: Funny! "An Engineer's Guide to Cat Yodeling": bit.ly/YuiRi #
19:13 Seriously mindblown after previewing a new top-secret book. Ask @frankcreed so he won't have to kill me. Ooo I love this job! #

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2009-05-14T06:04:00.001+12:00

10:44 I just got a request from a translation company wanting someone to localise Office programs in Maori. Sadly I'm not fluent enough. Anyone? #
10:57 @vavroom French, now that I could handle myself. I referred them to the university, maybe they can find a third year language student. #
11:11 @ConnieBrz Yep, Star Trek gets better every time I see it!! Might go for a fourth time if I can get to the IMAX, just for a change. #
11:12 @JonathanGunson I also demand you go see Star Trek. See my recent tweets if you want any more ranting. I've been three times. #
11:13 @toxaq I sent them to the university because that's where I learned my Maori, such as it is. But the client is in India, not sure if dodgy. #
11:37 @toxaq Inawhea koe i haere ai ki te whare wananga? #
12:03 Isn't it cool that the new Dr McCoy is a Kiwi! Hear his real accent here: tinyurl.com/oywx6h #
12:11 Wow, these guys can fly! bit.ly/xzh5P #
12:31 @sheiladeeth You will love it I'm sure! I think this is one that will just get better with age. #
12:35 Enjoying the sunshine in Auckland today. Dug compost, planted some shrubs, and got in the very cold pool for just a few moments this morn. #
12:37 I agree! RT: @martindolan: Star Trek was lots of fun last night. - GO SEE IT! ...and yes - the curse of the 'red shirt' lives on hahaha #
13:39 RT: @TWCP: "An adrenaline infused, roller-coaster ride into a future . . . " new Flashpoint review tinyurl.com/pcpet7 #
13:51 RT: @frankcreed: My first novel, Flashpoint, hit #1 in Amazon's genre rankings!! *jumpin on da' bed* tinyurl.com/qo66zx #
14:22 RT: @raiaren: New Star Trek movie is FANTASTIC!! For Trekkies & non-Trekkies alike, it is high octane action, funny, surprising - see it! #
14:22 Wow, looking out through pouring rain at the currently sun-drenched slopes of Rangitoto. Weird! #
14:44 @toxaq Tekau nga tau. He kaka, hmm? Kia tika ra! #
15:05 @raiaren Absolutely! So glad that two sequels are as good as confirmed already! #
16:05 @LynetteSowell You're worried about Tuesday? I seem to have mislaid my Wednesday... #
16:29 RT: @philipnewmannz: Retweet this. If you disagree with Twitter's decision to hide replies to people you don't follow. #fixreplies #
16:36 #fixreplies We can always get around the problem by putting something before the @ in replies, if I understand correctly. But it's dumb. #
16:58 Hey @kalena I think if I put Hey before the @ then all my tweeps will get it regardless of whether they follow you. Can someone confirm? #
17:42 Hey @kalena Yes it will be listed under replies (isn't this?) since replies include mentions! That was a tweak they added a few months back. #
17:43 @kalena Doh. Sorry should read all my tweets before replying. #
17:47 Does anyone else find it weird when someone retweets their own tweet as retweeted by someone else? Trying to up the RT rank or what? #
17:51 @wendywings @danjite Sounds like a new type of insult: Go RT yourself. #
17:59 Hey @CustomTees ! RT: @wendywings: @gracebridges It would be a good t-shirt for Twitterers :) "Go RT yourself" #
18:01 Since reading and reviewing four books is the more urgent part of my to-do list, I'll start with that. Seeyas later, or maybe tomorrow! #

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2009-05-13T06:04:00.001+12:00

09:37 We had a flat meeting last night with the new crew, sorting out chores etc. It was pretty cool. Our new girl's gonna cook on Wednesdays. #
09:38 @elpie oh good! you like them? @toxaq have your cookies arrived? #
09:45 RT @terrimain I have a sign in my office "God put me in this life to accomplish certain things.Right now, Im so far behind, I'll never die." #
09:50 RT @frankcreed "From the moment I picked ur book up til I laid it down,I was convulsed w laughter.Someday I intend reading it."Groucho Marx #
09:51 @wendywings no it works by regular SMS! I had it in Germany. You choose which tweeps' tweets get sent to your phone as txt for free! #
12:34 RT @gnat: via @disturbyte, bit.ly/GHUbq has incredible list of Scottish insults from 1653 - lobcocks slubberdegullions.. #
12:35 RT: @Te_Ara: #Fact: Tramping is the NZ term for hiking, trekking, bush-walking, and was a common term by the 1920s tr.im/l4UI #
12:50 @asherbastion I'm a trekkie! I'm pretty sure that's why I write sci-fi today! #
13:54 @lifeledlearning you're welcome! great article! #
14:12 RT: @WeekinRewind: Culture Vulture: Finally, it's cool to be a trekkie tinyurl.com/phbulo #
14:28 RT: @findingnewo: 24 hour eclipse recorded on a satellite, put into a timelapse. Wow.: bit.ly/UDzPO #
14:30 RT: @Starwise: The IRONY (or: What NOT to Do While Participating in a Writing Workshop) tinyurl.com/r5yuq7 #
14:57 RT: @joegreenz: "Never judge a book by its movie." Eagan #
14:59 Yus! Just confirmed my date with Dad to go see Star Trek tonight for the third time (his first time) oh yeah now I know what to look out for #
15:10 @toxaq is that a problem? lol #
15:14 planned all sorts of stuff for today - just ended up writing a non-urgent blog post for next week, how weird. At least that's up to date. #
15:19 @toxaq yes, definitely! let us know what you think of it! #startrek #

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2009-05-12T06:04:00.001+12:00

09:17 Morning, all. After my abysmal weekend record, today I intend to ignore my Star Trek distraction and actually get my words written. Woohoo! #
09:39 There must be someone out there who's writing right now like I'm trying to - can we egg each other on? I know it would help! #
09:43 @kenarmstrong1 does that mean you're writing? #
10:14 @kenarmstrong1 @lindsa @yomcat want to share today's goals? so we have something to aim at? I just want to get further along in my novel. #
10:29 @lindsa 200 words? You're kidding me! I want 3000 or 5000...but then I always do, and get it occasionally #
10:54 @kenarmstrong1 Fascinating. Good onya if it floats your boat. Don't think I could do it! #
11:12 @kenarmstrong1 What do you mean, a couple hundred more? I ain't even got started... still trying to plot the scene #
11:40 @JanetUrsel Oh, goody, my best hassler is online to watch me write! #
11:44 @JanetUrsel None yet! But I'm sure we can do something about that. My stories always get stuck at the 20k mark it seems. Just gotta force it #
11:55 @JanetUrsel Yup, as ready as I'll ever be. I've been trying to brainstorm the scene but it's just not happening. I'll have to dive right in. #
12:55 Amazon is a nightmare for us downunder. 4 used books = $12.98. Shipping = $49.90. Do you know that's over a hundred bucks in our currency!! #
12:59 @lifeledlearning total is at 18700. I always get stuck around there. Still fighting it. This is the part I don't like about writing! #
13:01 @NZRob yeah that would rock. What we need is someone in the USA to send bulk shipments to a NZ admin to distribute. Gotta be doable. #
13:06 @NZRob Of course. But how hard can that be? If the US rep buys in batches there should be no freight charge except sending it here. #
13:07 I could always skip writing this scene and come back to it later. Don't feel good about that though. Each scene sets tone for what follows. #
13:11 @dragonsinger57 Call me old-fashioned but I really like to collect actual paper books! #
13:12 @NadVega that's a great point! I wil try that. #
13:20 @dragonsinger57 yeah I am hoping to fins a US friend willing to trade favours. I'd build their websites or something. #
13:21 @JanetUrsel They accepted me, lol. I reckon they should change the A to Association. It's much more inclusive. #
13:37 RT: @jusfox: SNL: STAR TREK Stars Plead With Hardcore Trekkies (vid) bit.ly/UjPS6 #
13:42 @vavroom I know, I know! I am in the most horrible phase of book writing. Trek is a welcome distraction! #
13:43 @lifeledlearning That's a problem when I don't know where the right place is. I do plot, but not in depth, so this scene prepares the next. #
13:44 Maybe I'm just stuck on the fact that I hate the dress she's wearing. If I change that, can I move on? #
13:48 I'm very annoyed that none of the Trek reviewers can spell Khan properly. Fakes, obviously, one and all. No fan would get that wrong. #
13:56 @vavroom no. #
14:07 @ChristinieD you mean you've been missing out all these years? #
14:07 @JanetUrsel Glad you agree. Wordcount? Depends when you're going to sleep. #
14:11 @Frederation A symptom of our times I suppose. They could at least try to get their research right. #
14:14 Enough stuffing around. Setting Write or Die for 200 words in 10 minutes. Place your bets! Back in 10. #
14:24 223 words in 10 minutes. But that's just the start. Let's do it again! #
14:31 @lifeledlearning I skipped about five minutes of timeline and find it's running quite well for now. Just have to fill that gap sometime. Ta! #
14:44 RT: @TeeMonster: Please retweet - and vote for your favs! www.parsecawards.com/ Speculative Fiction Podcasting Award! #
14:46 What's with all the FollowFridays going around? Hello! It's Monday! Sure I know the US is behind us but that's just too much. #
14:58 202 words in 7 minutes! Pressing on.. #
16:19 I didn't imagine my jailbreak scene being quite so comedic. This is a serious novel after all! I guess it does no harm and is easy to write. #
16:44 RT: @rlcopple: Saw Star Trek tonight, and decided to post my initial thoughts on it. blog.rlcopple.com/?p=85 #
16:57 @idahoguy Possibly. I noticed that over the weekend Star Trek was trending much higher than #startrek. #
16:59 Every time it rains like this I get my very own thunderstorm when the roof spouting spills onto the corrugated plastic sheltering my window. #
17:06 Writing by candlelight, my favourite! Going to crack today's first 1000 words in the next 10 minutes. #
22:33 Okay so I got to 1000 words today, only just, and they are awful every last one of them. But they exist and can maybe be fixed! #

Posted by LoudTwitter

2009-05-11T06:03:00.001+12:00

10:49 RT: @jcdelatorre: Star Trek kicked all levels of a$$...fantastic movie, action from start to finish....terrific movie. Go see it! #
10:54 @oharris @dubh @spacegirlnz @jcdelatorre @onejan84 Dad wants to go to Star Trek now too so it'll be my 3rd time, yay! Can't get enough! #
11:19 Loads of interesting links here: 10 Steps to becoming a Trekkie www.boston.com/lifestyle/specials/trekkie/ #
11:22 RT: @kdaly100: Wired Story | Star Trek Gallery: Then and Now tinyurl.com/pgxew9 #
12:18 Want more Star Trek links? You got it! "Of Gods And Men" fan movie with ORIGINAL Uhura, Chekov and Tuvok! startrekofgodsandmen.com #
12:20 Tweeting about Star Trek is getting me connected with a lot of new tweeple - exactly the type I love to meet! Sci-fi geeks rule the world! #
16:08 Ooo I love it when people come asking to borrow books - I can recommend all of my favourite stuff! Okay this time I handed over one I wrote. #
16:11 Come chat with me at www.tinychat.com/vjp2m! #
16:17 @vavroom great - can you handle sci-fi and fantasy with spiritual overtones? Cause that's pretty much all I've got! #
16:21 @vavroom well if it helps, I can't stand religion either. As in rules etc. But the supernatural, yeah, that's me. #
16:40 @jasonmitchener no I don't believe I know that author. Thanks for the tip, will look that up! #
17:07 @tastekid like Flashpoint by Frank Creed, Empyrion by Stephen Lawhead, Star Trek new movie, music by Ian White, @DrWicked Write or Die !! #
17:28 RT @KleinerWalter: "Doctor McCoy to the bridge." Working Daze comics.com/working_daze/ #
19:12 RT: @linuxluver: RT @twittelator when we were young, Spock and Kirk were old. Now we are old and Spock and Kirk are young! Nice! #startrek #
20:44 @macaronique Interesting goat blog: bit.ly/15rq2a #

Posted by LoudTwitter