Snow, snow, glorious snow!

Christmas in Australia is hot. Santa doesn't wear the big suit, he and the elves wear this:

This year however, I am in England. In 2 days I'm heading to the Scottish Highlands for Christmas, and Christmas here is very very different to the really really hot Aussie one.

For instance, this is what is outside my window right now:

Okay so that was actually 2 days ago, there's a bit more now. But you get my point? Christmas is a very different experience here! I've never experienced the snow before so this is really really exciting. The world is so pretty when everything's white.

Though I have experienced a couple of downsides to this whole snow thing. Well, the one-two centimetres of snow that we've got going on here. For instance, it makes buses run late. Very late. And under the thin layer of snow? There's a layer of ICE. And under the ice? Still cement. So yeah, my knees met the ice-cement, they're on intimate terms considering they were making out yesterday.

But it's been interesting, seeing a half-frozen over fountain, stepping on frozen puddles and feeling them crack, seeing frozen tyre marks in mud, having little bits of cold white stuff settle on your shoulders and your hair, but it's not big enough to be caught in your hand. There's not enough snow here for angels or snow men but we'll see.

I'm looking forward to Scotland, maybe there won't be so much in Edinburgh, but in the Highlands over Christmas - my first white Christmas! - there's sure to be heaps and heaps of snow. Where the ice is way down underneath lots of fluffy snow that I'm not going to fall over on.

A cold Christmas is a really weird experience, I have to say. It's supposed to be hot. We're not supposed to be wearing thermals, jumpers, coats, scarves, gloves and hats. We're supposed to be wearing singlets and thongs. (To you Americans reading this let me clarify - singlets = tank tops, thongs = flip flops. I felt that needed clarifying. Especially the thongs part)

So yeah. SNOW!

Love,

Me.

The Beauty of an Agent and OMG how am I getting these books home?

Ha. It's been a bit longer since I last wrote than I realised. Sorry about that.

November was a pretty full on month!

Two hospital visits, 2 essays, a weekend in Wales and a friend from Australia visiting (Yay!) and another round of edits on my manuscript as well as starting edits on another and all of a sudden November was gone. Done and dusted.

And now it's December. And Christmas is most definitely here, in England. It is Christmas EVERYWHERE.

But that's not what I was wanting to discuss today.

I realised since my agent Jill Corcoran and I both (electronically) signed on the dotted line over 6 months ago, I haven't actually talked about how that's going. What it's like going from no representation, to representation.

Well let me tell ya, it's great. I most definitely recommend going the agent route, over submitting straight to a publisher.

Firstly, I love Jill because she's always on my side. She says I'm a talented writer and she love love love's my book which is OH so helpful in those moments that you doubt yourself. She's in the publishing industry. She is swamped with query letters and manuscripts and she reads a lot of childrens and YA books. She has middle grade age and teenage children. She knows the market, what's selling and what is popular with the kids. And she loves me as a writer.

That encouragement from someone other than your parents who love you anyway is worth every penny. Not that there are pennies involved as yet.

Secondly, she has a gazillion contacts! When trying to submit to publishers without an agent, so many doors are closed to you because they just don't accept unsolicited manuscripts. Well let me tell ya, those doors are WIDE open to me now.

Jill is an extremely hands on agent as well, and as much as editing and editing my book and editing it some more can make me want to tear my hair out - I know every suggestion she makes has been thought about, and I agree with the majority of them. Each round of edits we go through is making what I already thought was a good, solid book, into an even BETTER book.

She looks at the big things and the little things.

For instance, we were recently exchanging emails about boys and giggling.

JILL: "Boys don't giggle, they laugh. You should use the word laugh"

ME: "True, boys don't usually giggle. But these are 13 year old boys looking up porn on the computers at school. In this instance, they are probably giggling." (That's totally not a spoiler)

By doing all of this we are making sure editors are seeing the best possible book. Which they will have changes for, but still -we're making it the best WE think it can be. An editor will have more ideas on how to make it better AGAIN!

And something else I love about her is that she is super fast at replying to emails. Getting back to me about questions, regardless of how little and stupid they are. Though I try to limit myself on those ones.

So yeah, it's great having Jill on my team. I don't have to worry about submitting, perfecting my query letter any more. I just have to worry about the writing. And the rewriting. And the rewriting some more.

And reading!

I've been a crazy lady and bought lots of books while traveling. And now that the end is nigh (okay so it's still 2 months away, but I know it's going

to go fast) I am starting to worry about just how heavy paper in the form of books can be. Becaus

e I have some pretty stringent weight limits for my luggage.

Eep. But what have I been buying while away?

I love love love Paper Towns and Wimpy Kid. I haven't read 13 Reasons Why or the Graveyard Book as yet though. Why? Because I've been getting into some TV shows and the like that I totally wasn't aware of in Australia.

I mean, I knew about Degrassi: The Next Generation, but I wasn't into it. I am now. I'm kinda hooked. They really don't shy away from the tough subjects on that show. For instance, in the very first episode, a 12 year old character decides to meet a boy she met on the internet, and she meets him at a hotel, but it's not a boy, it's a 30-something pedophile. Tough subjects.

And onto something lighter, I'm a big Jane Austen fan. Well, I'm a big Jane Austen MOVIE fan. I tried to read Pride & Prejudice as part of my high school coursework and never actually finished it. And I haven't tried her other ones yet. But I love the movies they've been making of her books.

Lost in Austen is a GREAT take on the whole thing. Where a modern girl swaps places with Elizabeth Bennett in Pride & Prejudice (her family think Liz is staying at Amanda's house in Hammersmith, and Amanda is staying with the Bennetts) and just by her mere presence, everything "goes tits up". People marry the wrong people, run away with the wrong people, are better/worse than they seem in the book... I was giggling like a school girl watching this mini-series. So. Much. Fun.

But back to books: What did I buy today? Cos I was walking past Borders in Leeds and it was having a big CLOSING DOWN SALE. Argh! What am I supposed to do, NOT buy books in a closing down sale?

Today I bought:

Wow, blogger doesn't seem to want me to put up any more pictures.

I also bought Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, Hooked by Les Edgerton and The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler. The last two are writing craft books, and I have to say, I love reading these and have a bunch at home, but none with me whilst out in THE WORLD. I always take away at least ONE thing from reading a book on writing, and it helps me become a better writer. It's like homework. But homework I enjoy.

Speaking of which, I have 900 more words to write on my essay before I get to start the one about Harry Potter. Yay! 900 ESSAY words are so much harder than 900 fictitious words. Sigh.

Okay, I think that's a long enough post for now. What show/movie/book are you hooked on at the moment? Have you heard/read any writing advice that just stuck with you forever more? I wanna hear all about it!

Ciao for now,

Sairz

Harry Potter and the ADHD girl

Ah, I finished an essay today. BOOM. Feels good. Yes! Just have to hand it in tomorrow. Before I finished that one, I had to start aNOTHER one for my Education class which I'm doing about ADHD/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I'm really quite interested in this topic, as I've seen some kids with it in its different forms while on placement in primary schools at home in Australia (alas, no placement involved while over here in England) and I gotta tell ya, I've been making some interesting observations the more I study ADHD.

My observation? I totally have it. There's 2 types of ADHD, there's the "OMG I'm sitting here but I want to be over there so I'm just going to go over there regardless that you told me to sit here and sit STILL here cos quite frankly, that's a bit of a joke, see my fingers tapping the table like that? I'm totally not doing that. My fingers are oh look at that, there's a bird out the window I'm going to climb out the window to look at the bird and okay ow that branch was actually really scratchy when I hit it and fell down and probably I shouldn't have done that and the teacher wants me back inside but I've done it now. Oops" type of ADHD, which is called Hyperactive-impulsive, where the person who has it, is quite hyperactive, and impulsive (among other things).

And then there's the 'inattentive' type of ADHD, which is basically where you have trouble with instructions and your mind wanders and your working memory is effected, so you can't remember what you did yesterday but boy it was SO funny that time 15 years ago when you were running down the hill to get a bucket of water and had so much momentum that you kept running straight into the lake and fell smack on your face in the water. (Actual story. This is who I am.)

I get in trouble with my family a lot for forgetting stuff, and my sister tells me I have made up half of my childhood memories because she doesn't remember them, even though half the time they are about her.

Also with ADHD, your grades are generally effected because of the whole having trouble paying attention thing, but I've mostly done okay in the grades area my whole life. I never failed a class (though there was this one maths test in high school which if I remember correctly I failed the first one and did a make up test and never found out the score so I will NEVER KNOW if I failed that test too...oooooh....) but I came close once last year. I thought I would try Sociology because I thought I would be interested in Sociology. Turns out I'm not. At least not the way THEY were teaching it.

Anyhoo, if I AM little miss ADHD girl, it explains a lot about me. Like why my mother was compelled to buy me a fridge magnet that said "Yes I'm in my own world, but it's okay, they like me there" because it made her think of me. Nice.

Okay, and now onto Harry Potter! I have just finished my essay on demons and the Devil in Medieval literature for my English Literature class: Narratives of Witchcraft and Magic (can I hear a WOOT!), and have found out the essay topics for the second essay, which I will start about a week after I finish the one about ADHD (I'm a little burnt out, essay wise right now.)

One of the topic questions? Way cool.

"Compare and contrast J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series with at least one other 20^th- or 21^st-century fictional treatment of witchcraft and magic."

So I'm thinking my ACADEMIC ESSAY is going to be about Harry Potter and oh, Willow from Buffy, she's pretty different to Harry Potter. Or Charmed. Or Bewitched. This is going to be way more fun than my usual essays. Mind you, it's still an ESSAY.

I'm not sure about book type witches. Any other suggestions that I should be going 'oh, DUH' about?

Twice in a week? Really?

Well this year's Nanowrimo could be going better for me.

I am at 7500 words. Whilst, erm, other people are at around the 20k mark.

But I have my reasons! And fairly good ones, I swear!

Firstly I sent my computer away to have the dust and gunk cleaned out, which would take a half hour, and 5 days later after they locked in the shop over the weekend and then LOST IT on Monday, I got the computer back. And it wasn't fixed.

So yeah, I lost 5 days.

Also, I've been to the emergency room twice in the past week. If I was at home in Australia, the first time would have been to a doctor's office, but considering that costs me money here (I think) I went to the emergency room when I thought I maybe might just have deep vein thrombosis by the week long muscle cramps and turning-to-rockness of my left leg.

And then at 3am 2 nights ago I was taken by ambulance to the A&E because I had been vomiting for SEVEN HOURS for no reason. To me, nausea is the worst kind of sickness. I absolutely hate hate hate it. Turns out I have gastro, a fever and a touch of dehydration and every muscle in my body has been sore so needless to say I've been sleeping a lot and ignoring the world and oh yeah, forgot to eat for 2 days until I realised that might just be aNOTHER cause of nausea should I let it go on too long.

So yeah. NaNo's not going so well this year, there have been a few more trials than last year. It doesn't mean the book won't EVER be finished. It just probably might not be finished by the end of November.

Stopping vomiting (check) remembering to eat and finishing essays with, you know, actual immediate deadlines is of more imminent importance to me right now. Or is that weird?

Sairz

HalloWriMo

The time is nigh.

Today marks the beginning of two big things.

1) It's Halloween. In Australia we don't really do Halloween. And I'm not a huge fan of wearing costumes so that suits me just fine. But here in England. Oh, they do Halloween. And COSTUMES? You can't even go on a pub crawl without dressing like a super hero - or a man-baby as I've mentioned once before.

So tonight is Halloween with all the clubs having big parties, kids will be out trick or treating, and I wanna join in. I wanna do SOMETHING. So I am. I'm joining in with LSTV and hitting one of the club parties and filming it for the Halloween show. But we need COSTUMES.

Also I have this SHORT short film idea for the Halloween episode, but I need 2 kid trick or treaters and 2 adults. And access to a house. Being a foreigner, I know none of the above around here, I just know Uni students. So maybe I'll find some willing actors out tonight.

ALSO, I've never used fireworks before! I think they're illegal in Australia, I don't know for sure but I THINK they are. Yet you can buy some doozies of fireworks here in THE SUPERMARKET. So I figure that'd be fun. To you know, be an inexperienced fireworker and light one up and set fire to the entire neighbourhood. I could totally do that. Yay!

So I'm costume hunting today. Oh the joys.

AFTER costume hunting and BEFORE Halloween festivities kick in, I have another engagement.

The Leeds National Novel Writers Month kick off party! It will be great to meet other writers in the area embarking on this mental challenge. I can't believe it starts TOMORROW. At present I'm really not in the right frame of mind to be writing 1667 words a day. I'm freaking out. I have 3 assignments due this month. Plus I'm going away to Wales for a weekend. And if I film stuff I have to EDIT stuff and boy does that take time.

So I'm thinking I probably won't reach 50,000 words in the month. But whatever word count I DO reach, will be great cos it's a start!

Speaking of editing stuff (which I was just a second ago) something ELSE I'm filming, which will ALSO be perfect for the Halloween episode (I know, it's gonna be all Sarah Sarah Sarah this week, right?) is Manchester's ZOMBIE-AID!

Zombie Aid is a Zombie march that will look like this:

I know. How awesome. So I'm going to that with some friends and will see if we can pull something together to air on Wednesday. Eeep!

That's all from me for now. Okay, step 1 - COSTUME HUNT!

Sairz

Gay Paree

Bonjour dear friends!

It is I, I have just returned from a whirlwind weekend (minus actual whirlwinds) in the fair city of Paris, France, Europe, THE WORLD.

It was fast, and I honestly didn't think we'd see and do as much as we saw and did. But we did see and do a LOT.

Firstly I had to travel 5 hours down to London on Thursday to be picked up at 5:45am (ee gads!) Friday morning. I stayed in a hostel and let me tell ya, their charms have not been lost on me this trip. I was in an 8 person room on the top floor with no elevator (puff, pant, wheeze) with the door being opened and slammed, phone and in person conversations being held until after 3am. Tres fun. But you get what you pay for. I had a discount card for last night's hostel stay, and that involved trekking up to the top floor again with my backpack (puff pant wheeze) PLUS a girl in one of the other beds throwing up into the rubbish bin several times during the night.

Anyhoo, we took a coach to the ferry at Dover and then back onto the coach and arrived in Paris at 4pm. Being a trip with an odd number of people, I somehow was given a private hotel room when I didn't pay for the upgrade. SCORE! Half an hour after check in, we were back on the bus for a quick tour around in which we saw the Arc de Triomphe, Opera (where the Phantom was known to hang out) and, gosh, a whole lot of other places until we stopped outside the Eiffel Tower. That's when you know you're really in Paris. We took a one hour boat cruise down the Seine, taking photos of pretty buildings - including the Louvre which looks like it stretches down for a couple of blocks, and arrived back at the Eiffel Tower to do as we wished for the rest of the evening. Well. I was going UP the tower, wasn't I? I had previously decided I wasn't going to bother, but since I was there, hell, you only live once, right? So a group of us hung around taking photos and ooh-ing and aah-ing as it got dark and the tower was lit up with sparkly lights. And we were harrassed by Gypsies. You'd say "No I don't want any keyrings thank you" to one and then be joined by another, asking you the same question. At one point, we were standing in a group, waiting for people to order their crepes before going up, and we were literally surrounded on all sides by 5 gypsies trying to sell us crap.

Some people bought said crap.

The queue to get UP to the tower surprisingly, wasn't that long. To get from floor to floor was a bit harder, but getting back DOWN is what took forever. It's funny, the staff there, I reckon their friends would be like "oh that's so cool! You work in the Eiffel Tower!" but some of them have the most boring job ever. Opening the elevator. Letting tourists in. Pressing a button and riding to the observation deck. Letting tourists out. Let tourists in going down the tower, let them out at the bottom and repeat. For eight hours. Yeah. Working in the Eiffel Tower. "Good times". :)

Next time I travel I'm totally investing in a good solid, dependable camera. My camera was $75 and it's a little shy in the night time. It doesn't do its best work, so my photos aren't exactly awe inspiring, which is what happened when I went up the Empire State Building as well. Anyhoo. Live and learn.

In the crowd up on the tower - there must come a point

when they stop letting people up until some come down, right? - the group got separated and after letting someone know, I headed back to the hotel on the Metro on my lonesome.

One reason I've never really traveled before is because a big fear of mine is being lost in a foreign country where I don't speak the language. I can't communicate with anyone.

Luckily, most French people I came across knew at least some English, and my wildly waving hand gestures made up for the English they didn't understand.

The next day we went to Notre Damm, alas, I didn't spot any hunchbacks in the tower. We went to Sacre Coure - another church - and were warned about the gypsies there who would put a piece of coloured string around your wrist and then charge

you 10 euros for it. And they'd hold you up so you lost your group as well. WELL. On the way up the steps (huff, puff, wheeze) I saw others in my group getting around them, they weren't being bothered. And then one Gypsy stepped right in my path, and as I tried to step around him he kept stepping in my path, trying to take my wrist, saying he had a present for me.

At the time, I was wearing my extremely comfy University of Leeds jumper (on the Eiffel Tower I'd learnt just how cold it can get during the evening in Paris, - BELIEVE me) and quite clearly, I was screaming "I'm a tourist, I'm a tourist! Me me me

!!" What an easy mark. But nooooo. I wasn't having a bar of that blue string on my wrist thank you very much. I wanted to KEEP my ten euros.

Sacre Coure was very pretty, the views of Paris wonderful and ther

e was a little shopping area and lots of people drawing portraits. It was very Parisienne. I am a big fan of art deco artwork, and snapped up some prints of old French advertisements. I was being good and only got a couple but regret it now, cos really - I can't exactly get them anywhere else! That I know of...and certainly not at THAT price! We went for a bit more of a walking tour which included the cafe that Amelie worked in, in Amelie and the Moulin Rouge which is in what is essentially the red light district of Paris. Actually, I take it back. It IS the red light district. Next to the classy burlesque of Moulin Rouge was a strip club advertising lap and table top dances. The rest of the street was like that. And I was planning on coming back here at night??

My plan for the afternoon was to go to the Catacombs

Creepy, right? But apparently in September they were vandalised and have been closed for the forseeable future. I. Could. Not. Believe. It. This was one of THE things I wanted to do in Paris. That's okay. The other one was go to a show of the Moulin Rouge.

Instead of the catacombs, I went on the optional trip to Chateau de Versaille.

Erm. Chateau my arse. It's a seriously impressive palace, let me tell ya. There's Gold everywhere, the wallpaper is made of felt, the ceilings are painted like the sistene chapel, the gardens are GORGEOUS... wow. And the town of Versailles is really pretty too! Not a wasted afternoon.

When we got back to Paris I caught the metro (had to change twice) back to the Moulin Rouge and made it EXACTLY on time. To find out it was booked out. Both shows. Come back tomorrow. I COULDN'T come back tomorrow. We were going HOME tomorrow. It was kind of tragic. The two things I wanted to do in Paris fell through. But it just means I'll have to go back some day, doesn't it. And everything else was amazing.

The following morning, yesterday, we went to the Louvre as our last stop of the trip before heading back to the ferry at Calais, and back to England.

The Louvre was really amazing. I'm not all that into art, usually, but I must be becoming cultured. :) Because I have more of an appreciation for art than I used to. How much work goes into it. Those marble statues! Oh my god! The delicate folds of lace that they have created out of MARBLE. I mean HowTF. I get quite gobsmacked at that.

I saw the Mona Lisa too! You just had to follow the people. It was pretty funny actually, that everyone came to take photos of, and with this fairly small portrait of a woman, and then you turn around and no one is paying any attention (slight exaggeration alert) to the MASSIVE painting that takes up the ENTIRE wall opposite. How is it that this one small painting has captivated the world as it has?

Anyway, that was Paris. I made some great friends on the trip as well. Two from Prince Edward Island in Canada (where Anne of Green Gables lived!) who I will totally be visiting because they say it's beautiful and I believe them because I have proof. Anne of Green Gables. And also another from upstate New York. Who woulda thunk that New York has like, FARM LAND and countryside, you know? I'll be seeing you there also! And my new Texas buds, expect to be seeing me sometime in the future! And I hope to see you all in Australia one day as well. But you know, probably not until I get back. To Australia.

Jeez Louise, yet another epic blog. Sorry 'bout that. You still reading this?

Sairz

Studying

That is all I have to say.

Love

Sairz