What's the haps in your world? Lots has been going on here.
WINTER
Firstly, winter has arrived. Booooo hiiiiiss. But when visiting my parents, my mother introduced me to the awesome that is a heated blanket. A rug that you throw over yourself that is HEATED, people. You plug it in. I currently have it draped over my knees, because I stole it from my mum. That's what your kids are supposed to do, right? Commandeer your cool stuff?
EUROVISION
I have been listening to the GOOD songs from Eurovision. And some of them were really good this year! One I particularly liked that didn't go through to the final, was Woki mit deim popo by Austrian rappers Trackshittaz.
I was scratching my head as to why they didn't go through. I mean, it's catchy! Then yesterday I decided to google what the lyrics are when translated from French to English.
Well the pole dancers on stage with them made a lot of sense and I kinda understand why French-speaking voters wouldn't have voted for them, as songs about love are much more universal than songs about shaking your booty in the club. Ah well. I can go back to pretending I don't know what it's actually about.
GAME OF THRONES
For those of you who have seen it (and care) was that the best ever season finale or what? The VERY END, I'm talking. I literally giggled with evil delight. Can't believe we have to wait soooo looooong now for next season.
WRITING
I have an Edwina Ray short story just about ready for sale. A Sarah Billington short nearly ready, and I have written the first and half of the second book in the Saturday Night collection. The timeline for this thing is INTENSE.
AND then there's this:
I've started writing the sequel! It's lots of fun so far. A little bit insane but I think that's what you expect from Poppy and her friends. And her family. And her dog.
COVER DESIGN
And I've been working on some cover designs for myself, and clients. If you find yourself in need of book cover art, keep this in mind, okay? I have been so busy with editing that I haven't actively been looking for design clients, but it's something I love doing and I want to do more of it!
EDITING
I have a new business client I'll be regularly editing for which is exciting, and I've been working with some really great writers and editing their work to help make them the best books they can be when they hit the market. I love having a hand in that, and hearing of fan feedback. I have a couple of manuscripts lined up for the next few months that I'm raring to get started with. One thing at a time! Or maximum three, really.
STUDYING...well...
And I have an exam on Tuesday. One exam and one unit to go and I will have finished my degree! I'm looking forward to it. I REALLY REALLY AM.
I have been lucky enough to work with some wonderful writers lately, and help them shape and polish their manuscripts, business and sales copy. I'm really excited to see the finished products! It's so rewarding when all of the hours of heavy-duty analysis and thought that I put into a writer's work (I simply can't do a half-arsed job on editing. I edit HARD because as a writer myself, I'm passionate for writers to succeed and achieve their dreams because it's so important to ME) ends up with a testimonial like this:
"Just went through the editorial letter and, before I start the revision process AGAIN, I wanted to pause to say wow, wow, wow. Hot damn, woman! You are GOOOOOOD and worth every penny. I LOVE love love your ideas. I didn't see even one suggestion that I didn't want to use. I would never publish a book without putting it through you first. Cuz I ain't stupid :-)" Veronica Blade, Author of A Bite's Tale, Blind Date, From Fame to Shame and others.
Gotta tell ya, it makes a girl feel good. :)
THE KISS OFF BLOG TOUR
Lots of reviewers and bloggers are getting ready to read, or are reading my May 15 release The Kiss Off as we speak! I'm REALLY looking forward to the blog tour and am so thankful to Missy's Reads & Reviews for hosting it. Make sure you comment throughout it in order to win the complete Sarah Billington ebook prize pack! And if you're on Goodreads, add it to your TBR!
SHORT STORIES
I am working on some new eBooks!
COMING SOON/SOME TIME THIS YEAR FROM SARAH BILLINGTON
(These are NOT even remotely official blurbs)
The Summer Camp awkward URST book
Jenna made fast friends with Toby at camp and sorta kinda is completely crushing on him. But then her friend Leila enlists Jenna (and her campers) to get her crush to notice her. Her crush, who is Toby. So Jenna is forced to help Leila win over the boy she likes.
Saturday Night Series - 10 interconnected stories
One epic party. 10 BUCKETLOADS of drama.
Want to know why there was food all over the kitchen in ANDIE's story? Read LOCKY's. Want to know what that thump and commotion was outside in MING's story? Read KENDALL's. Want to know who made BREE cry while everyone plays "I Never" in the bedroom in CAITIE's story? Read BREE's. Want to know WHY he made her cry? Read ZACH's.
Reading one is fun, but the goss is juicier if you read them all.
Includes fun cameos from characters from The Kiss Off!
COMING SOON/SOME TIME THIS YEAR FROM EDWINA RAY
Plague book
An unknown, lethal virus runs through a small isolated village and the elders put the villagers into quarantine so as not to infect outsiders and create a pandemic. But, as no one from the outside even knows the village is in trouble, the quarantine means assured death. A desperate brother and sister are determined to get out and find help. But at what cost?
Traitor story
In a time of uprising, the day of Eve's attempted escape across the border, there is a traitor is loose in the city of Hafrenstein. A traitor whose botched attempt at blowing up parliament has brought about martial law, the military and tanks in the street, tanks that are blowing up any building that traitor Wyatt Monroe is suspected of hiding in. When Wyatt appears on Eve's fire escape, she and her children are forced to run with Wyatt and hope they make it out alive*.
(That description is most DEFINITELY a work in progress)
NEW WEBSITE
SarahBillington.weebly.com! Tres excitement. It's a work in progress, and will be moved to www.SarahBillington.com in about a month, and SOON you'll be able to purchase ebooks direct from the website - you CAN read the first chapter and pre-order The Kiss Off there RIGHT NOW!
MAILING LIST
Sign up now (or whenever) and the adorable postman monkey will send you news of new books! And that's all. Maybe news of sales if you'd like that too. Sign up here or on my fancy new website! (did I mention I have a website?)
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
I was so lucky to be invited to a special International Women's Day dinner for 20 inspirational women who are achieving great things in their lives (how honoured am I? VERY VERY HONOURED). With that sort of condition on the guest list, you can imagine the amazingly brilliant types of ladies I was mingling with.
Fascinating people, business owners, charity workers, international charity volunteers and two of them (actually I think there were more) founded their own international charity organisations and subsequently education institutions in Nepal, Cambodia and South Africa. These women are in their twenties. It makes me wonder what I'm doing with my life...
Oh! And my favourite part is that a girl (woman now) I went to high school was there, and she has literally run away to join the circus! I LOVE IT! I'm going to go visit.
BOOK SALES
I took part in the Smashwords week-long sale, offering Life Was Cool the full-length middle grade novel for 99c and the short story The Death & Life of Rocky the Crab for FREE!
This weekend just gone past, for St. Paddy's day, as intimated from my last post, I took part in a big eBook sale with 26 other authors which was very exciting and a lot of fun. I'm so glad I could take part. I'm raising the price back to $3.99 on the 19th so GET IT NOW IF YOU WANTS IT.
UNI's BACK!
And my class this semester is a Literary Theory one. I'm not a fan of theory, I DO find it interesting and it makes me think about literature in different ways, but I don't like it BECAUSE I HAVE THE WORST MEMORY FOR THIS STUFF EVER.
So it's going to be a challenging semester, that's for sure. Though something kinda rad is that we're going to study Pontypool...a freaking ZOMBIE movie in this class.
HUNGER GAMES ANTICIPATION
I have been waiting impatiently for this movie to be released and it's coming out on Thursday! Actually, it sorta feels like The Hunger Games went from pre-production to cinema release a lot faster than most movies. Doesn't it?
I have plans to see it with my friend who lives out in the sticks at the moment, on March 31...but I don't know if I can wait that long. She'll never know if I see it with her for the SECOND TIME, right? I also love that I have successfully created a die-hard HG fan out of one of my university tutors! Tee hee.
That was a lot...are you still reading? Well how awesome are YOU?
I don't have generalised writers block anymore. YAY! I have a very specific writers block on the zombie book but I think that's because I need to know SPECIFIC details for the next third of the book and do not know them yet. Research can be hard.
But in order to combat The Block, I started writing something else.
Something unplanned.
Something I have no expectations for.
It could be a short story, it could be a novel. It's just going to be whatever it turns out to be. That freedom is kind of liberating, actually. I've been purely writing novels for the last couple of years so this is certainly making for a fun change.
And getting to know the characters as I write them is bringing back the fun and joy.
So I have combated The Block by playing. And it's awesome. And not coming out too badly, I must say! This is a big statement for me - do you remember my last blog post in which I announced the supreme suckage of everything I wrote lately?
Here are some hints of what the story is turning out to be like.
A very, very white Christmas
Watching movies in bed
So. Much. Snow.
Scary stary emo boy
Chilling by yourself cos there's no one else around
Empty college dorm
Potential Satanism
Frolicking in the snow
and....
Aww.
So there you have it. An empty dorm. A satanist. Christmas time. A blizzard. But it's a comedy.
I dunno. We'll see. I'm gonna go with it and see what happens.
I handed in my last essay for the year today (WOOHOO!) so I have one more class next week and then it's all over until next March. Or April. One of those, I can never remember. We visited the biggest printer in Australia today and it was really cool seeing how the end product is made.
If any of you lovely readers are interested in my editing or manuscript appraisal services, I have some vacancies coming up so by all means contact me and find out if I'm the right editor for you!
Today I'm talking about Seat-of-the-Pantsing when writing.
I'm not talking about this:
Another form of "Pantsing"
I got an idea for a new story last night as I went off to sleep. And I'm rather excited about it. It's about a wall separating a town. It's been there as long as the MC can remember and there are armed guards in front of it who will kill you on sight if you approach it. This'll be a SHORT story, not a novel, and I wanted to write it today. BOOM. Done.
So I started writing it aaaaannnnndddd it's really not that simple.
If it's going to be a GOOD story, I need to know some stuff upfront.
Is the emphasis on what's on the other side/who's on the other side?
Is it on the danger of approaching the wall?
Is it about who put up the wall, and tearing it down?
Is it about why there is a wall in the first place?
Is something good/bad happening on the other side?
Is her side imprisoned, or are they being protected from what's over the wall?
Is it perhaps, the Berlin Wall? Is this a historic piece? An alternate historic piece?
Without knowing any of this stuff, really, what can I write?
My awesome friend Amie Kaufman had a write-in at her house last week, and since I've been out of writer mode lately and more in work and study mode, I knew it was going to be difficult.
So we didn't ACTUALLY write anything new, but we discussed our books and plotting problems and writers blockages. The last couple of years I haven't really been one to believe in writers block, but after realising that yeah - I've been stuck in the same scene for at least a month, I now concede that sometimes writers block DOES exist.
Anyway, we were talking about my zombie book, and the TYPE of zombie I choose to make them will influence the events in the book.
Type of Zombie, you ask? Well you can't just say "zombie" and everyone knows what you're talking about.
TYPES OF ZOMBIES
1. SLOW ZOMBIES
Slow zombies shuffle and moan and aren't really that big a threat unless they're up close, don't you think?
Slow zombies can be found in the traditional George Romero Dawn of the Dead movies (or so I hear because I am appallingly uninitiated in 70s zombie chic), as well as Shaun of the Dead, The Walking Dead and Carrie Ryan's Forest of Hands & Teeth books.
28 Days Later Zombies
2. FAST ZOMBIES
Fast Zombies are super-scary because they'll be on you, ripping out and chowing down on your intestines in an instant.
28 Days Later and the newer Dead movies (Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead etc) are full of fast zombies that chase you down until they get you. Charlie Higson's The Enemy also has fast zombies, and in Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands & Teeth there are fast zombies called Breakers.
Shaun and co. attempting to blend in with
mindless zombies
3. MINDLESS ZOMBIES
There's nothing going on in this type of zombie's head, except that they want to kill and eat you.
Shaun of the Dead, The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, Zombieland. They're empty-headed eating machines.
4. INTELLIGENT ZOMBIES
In my short story eBook I, Zombie, my zombie is alert and thinking and functioning, he's planning things. In The Enemy, some of the zombies use weapons and hunt the kids down in packs. In the Dylan Dog movie and graphic novels (I assume), zombies are just like humans but a bit decayed with bits falling off. Maybe intelligent is the wrong word to use here...
Positively DEAD Zombies
5. DEAD ZOMBIES
Dead people brought back to undeadly life. The Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Forest of Hands & Teeth all have dead people walking around hungry for braaaaaaaiiiiinnsss.
6. ALIVE ZOMBIES
Humans that are ALIVE but have some sort of disease that makes them rabid for human flesh and the desire to kill.
In 28 Days Later the zombies are alive, but infected with the incurable Rage Virus, Quarantine some sort of biological weapon has been released with zombieriffic consequences and I THINK The Enemy (are the grown ups dead or just sick? I can't remember.) is swarming with sick adults intent on killing and eating the children as well.
CONCLUSION
Deciding on which category(s) of zombie you wish to write about will have a big impact on the way your story unfolds. If they're mindless - they're unlikely to set traps for your characters, if they're slow, they'll be easier to avoid if you have good cardio fitness going on, but your characters may underestimate them.
Underestimated Slow Zombies
I have been making decisions in regard to MY zombies and its really helping to shape my book. I love writing!
With the opening of the 2011 Emerging Writers Festival imminent, this year's Director still had time to discuss her Top 7 Tips to becoming a success in the Publishing Biz.
Tips 1-4 are below.
#1 Forget about a career path
In creative industries, your career path will not necessarily be linear, heading up the promotion totem pole. Creative industries most often promote based on your skill level. The best writer may have been writing for a year, but if they are the best, they will be the one to get the book deal. The cover designer that produces evocative covers that fit the book are the ones that will be commissioned again. Lisa hasn't had a linear carer path by any means. She is a freelance vegan food writer, started her own small press, is currently Director of the Emerging Writers Festival and is a Publishing Lecturer at NMIT Fairfield.
#2 Embrace DIY - Independent Publishing
Lisa claims that she has learnt way more by teaching herself to be a publisher than she would have by working ten years in a big publishing house. At big publishing houses, you work in a department, either editorial, marketing, sales etc, and though you learn that role well, you won't learn other areas of the industry. By starting her own small press, Vignette, Lisa had to learn every facet of publishing, be it proof reading, pitching titles to booksellers, invoicing or taxes. Lisa has produced two "Mooks" (Magazine/Books) The Sex Mook and the Death Mook through Vignette Press.
(Vignette Press will soon open submissions to the Geek Mook, check out deets here)
Whether you want to start a music festival, make a film, self publish a book – go out and do it. You will learn SO much by giving it a go.
#3 No opportunity is too small
You never know where the people you meet and things you do will lead you in the future.
Five years ago no one would have thought that Lisa would be heading a writers festival
Related to #3, Lisa also suggests you:
#3a Show up to things
This is a big one, people. One I'm not fantastic at yet, but it's not because I underestimate how important it is. Lisa says you should go to book launches, programs and submit things to journals and competitions. You might meet a like-minded stranger at a festival and make a best friend or even a business partner out of them. You might submit some work to a journal and it is rejected by the committee, but when the committee member who loved your story moves on to another position, they will very well remember you and your talent.
Personally, I attended two SCBWI Conferences in 2009 and made some of the best writing friends I could have there.
#4 Put your writing out there
Lisa says keep writing. That's so important. But don’t keep it to yourself – put it out there.
Lisa is a big advocate of blogging and says that if you’re interesting or a good writer, people will read you.
Blogging helped her to learn to write succinctly, in her own voice and regularly.
But there are other things you can do other than blogging. If you’re a poet, go to spoken word events. A political commentator or comedian? Twitter is a great place to test out your skills.
That's it for today! What are your thoughts?
On Thursday, find PART TWO, with Lisa's Tips #5-7.
#5 Anyone can be successful
#6 You will fail and make enormous mistakes. And that's okay.
#7 Do what you care about.
Lisa Dempster is a jack of all trades in the publishing industry. She is a vegan food writer, has worked on a contract basis for publishing companies, bought out a small press and created her very own, Vignette Press, and is currently the Director of a two week festival for writers here in Melbourne, The Emerging Writers Festival (which starts this week) as well as being a Bachelor of Writing & Publishing Lecturer at NMIT, Fairfield. Phew!
I am one of those people who always wants to block out big chunks of time for writing.
For me, if I do this, I have learnt I have to block out a whole day. There's a bit of a ritual involved in settling in to write when you have a block of time.
First you check your email, and Twitter, and then you might cruise on over to some of those interesting sounding blog posts people have ReTweeted. And then you might hit FaceBook and your Google Reader (mine is permanantly at 1000+ unread blogs so I TRY not to go there TOO often because since you're all so awesome it's a massive, MASSIVE time suck) anyhoo I do all this with the intention of taking two seconds and then I'll get to writing.
But if I haven't left a whole day and have some afternoon activities scheduled I might miss the actual *cough* writing part of my writing session.
Is anyone else like this? I know some of you are. Okay, fine, PRETEND you don't know what I'm talking about. Whatever. Don't think I'm not onto you.
So anyway, even with that stupid stupid habit with the time blocking etc, I still get me some writing done. How is that, you ask?
Stop blocking time, y'all!
Pretend this is me:
Don't I look pretty?
I am often getting to work ten minutes early and instead of going in and starting my shift early I figure - hell, they don't know I'm here (okay so they MIGHT now if they read this blog. Hi guys!) so I park up the street and write.
And I get a whole lot done, too. Because I only have TEN MINUTES! There's no time for screwing around and checking Twitter and your awesome blogs. I gots me some writing to do!
Similarly, today I took the train in and out of the city. (I went to the Comedy Festival and it was OMG AMAZEBALLS but that's a different story) The ride was maybe fifteen minutes each way but with netbook on knee I got up to a really exciting, pivotal moment in my book. To not have been writing on that trip? Time wasted. That's all I'm saying. I'm NOT saying however, that sometimes eavesdropping to get some juicy dialogue or fun stories isn't necessary, or staring out the window just for a bit of peace or orientation of where you're going can be wonderful, but for a girl wanting to get her words down? Quick and easy and painless. Maybe not painless for my characters, one of whom just got bit by a zombie on my train ride home.
I know parent authors who take their netbooks to their kid's swimming lessons and though physically there in case something goes wrong, they're mentally with their characters. Maybe torturing them. Maybe killing someone (In front of children, I KNOW).
My netbook is one of the best purchases ever. Not only because just after I bought my netbook, my LAPTOP died which meant I would have had NO computer and I may have died, but because it's so light and compact I just slip it into my handbag and take it everywhere.
The moral to my story is you do NOT need to find big chunks of time to write in. For me, the more time I have to write, the less actual writing I do.
Does this happen to you?
What are your experiences? Do you like writing out IN THE WORLD?
I was looking through stock photos today at iStock and I found a lot of story-laden stuff. I've never REALLY looked through stock photos cos I figured they'd be like model shots and I don't have any use for that.
But check out some of the stuff I found. Really atmospheric and with lots of personality. Reckon you could write something on one of these? I know I could. And have! Sorry they're so little. Didn't realise when I saved them.
So...as you may recall I was pretty psyched for John Marsden to come and do his thang at Uni this week.
And then I had a job interview on the SAME DAY at THE SAME TIME. Can you believe that? I missed John Marsden! (But I got the job!)
But I have been informed that the writing and publishing students, even those not interested in YA literature geeked out and fan-girled at the mere presence of John Marsden. I thought I was the only one who was going to do that. But everyone grew up with his books when they were younger, and of course who in Australia DIDN'T see Tomorrow When the War Began last year?
Anyway, I may have missed it, but here are two recaps of the event for those who want to know.
For those who don't click through, John Marsden is not only a much-loved Australian author and educator, he ran camps for writers and teens who wanted to explore writing, and he even started his own school.
I love the below from Musings of Rationality, it just emphasizes the awesome of John and his crystal clear teaching style. Check it: John on how to write a vivid sentence.
"He enlightened us to what pertains to being a good writer opposed to a great writer. He spoke with wisdom and enthusiasm about the power of language; he workshopped a sentence for us.
This was a five minutes exercise where he explained to us the power of language & how it can transform something bland into something tantalising easily. He wrote the following sentence:
We went to the beach. We had lunch. We went home.
From this sentence we were to identify the nouns.
We went to the beach. We had lunch. We went home.
Then with these nouns we were to substitute them with other more interesting nouns that befitted the sentence. This was the result:
We went to Bondi beach. We had a couple of burgers. We went Sam’s place.
Yes, the last sentence is not grammatically correct, however, we still had to identify the verbs within the sentence.
We went to Bondi beach. We had a couple of burgers. We went Sam’s place.
We did the same to the verbs as was done with the nouns.
We rode to Bondi beach. We grabbed a couple of burgers. We caught a bus to Sam’s place.
That is the completed sentence. A lot better than the initial product is it not? This exercise was used to demonstrate that an exuberant use of adverbs, adjectives are not always needed to create an eloquent piece."
Yup. It's that easy.
That's all I have for now. John Marsden, everybody.
