Hiatus

I'm performing major surgery on my WIPs visceral cavity right now. That is the cavity that I have concerning visceral responses and character depth. The good news is the WIP is reading better, I like using all my highlighters (thanks to Margie Lawson) and I'm coming up with neat ways to say things.
I therefore won't be blogging on this little blog for a week. Give me a week and I will be back. But there are entrails spilling out of my story and threatening to go septic, it's time to bring in the big guns Pink Highlighter Central!
Be back soon

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

Yesterday I celebrated my son's 5th birthday. Even though the rain meant we didn't get to go to the waterpark, we still had a good time. He's at that age where fart jokes rock! So here's one just for him... Love ya baby.
Time is flying by, the older I get, the faster it goes. I wonder if Einstein ever encountered that? The older you are the faster you go? Hmm, that could have some seriously cool implications for geriatric superpowers.
The edit is going well, I think. Have been pushing visceral reactions into my characters scenes left, right and centre. I also bought Margie Lawson's "Edit" package, which my wonderful friend and ring in CP Diane assures me will help big time. Righto, anything that helps will be welcomed with open arms right now.
About to go and print out my entire mss and then go line by line through it. I do most of my editing on the computer, but I've been promised that having a hard copy is better to catch the little things.
What about you, how do you edit? Do you only use your computer? Or are you a paper and pen type writer?

Pricey Edwardian Fashion

I found out yesterday that some hats the ladies wore back in the day would cost the equivalent of over $4000 today. Holy spegolli's Batman, all that for a hat? You betcha. Most cost at least two weeks wages worth and many women had to pay off their hats before they received them. So to lose one's hat was a veritable disaster in those days. Needless to say they were held onto their heads with rather large hat pins.
The chambermaids would also collect a lady's hair from her brushes and wad it up into a sort of nest then use this to plump up her hairdo. Goodness me, did men know what was going on in those huge coifs?
The joys of researching, I have come across more wonders of the Edwardian age, I'll save them for another post though.
Just a short one, must dash back to the editing.

Early Riser

It's 5.30am and I'm hiding out the front office while my family sleeps. I'm still waiting to hear back from my beta readers on two WIPs, so I'm thinking I should start fleshing out the next one. I have a few storylines/plots I've been toying with, but nothing takes my fancy right now.
I wonder how other writers come up with idea after idea. I had one for a paranormal involving a ghostly heroine, but isn't paranormal almost dead at the moment? (no pun intended) I asked a few other writers if this were the case and they mentioned that if you write a stunning novel agents aren't going to knock it back because it's a paranormal. So it's not the genre that really matters it's the depth of plot/characters you write that's important.
Oh well, why didn't someone tell me that already? LOL.
I'm blogging over at RWA Australia about query letters and I've interviewed Richard Harland over at WeLoveYA.

Steampunk Serenade

Tor.com is having a steampunk month and is offering a range of short stories, comics and articles on my favourite subject. There's a whole plethora of links to other blogs/websites dedicated to Steampunk.
"Steampunk is what happens when Goths discover brown." Jess Nevins

There have also been Steampunk weddings and wedding cakes featured around the blogs.

Just a quick one, I'm in the middle of cleaning up the house.

2 Years

It's been 2 whole years since Mum passed away. The time has dragged yet flown. It's amazing how it seems like just this morning and yet it's not.
Miss her every day. So to celebrate my kidlets and I had a picnic on the lounge room floor. We ate Violet Crumbles (crunchies), Marshmellows, Snakes Alive, and drank Creaming Soda... all of Mum's favourite junk foods. The kids loved the balloons the most. Mum always had extra balloons at her house to keep the grandkids busy. She was soo right, it's the best invention ever.
I cherish her memory and her love of good stories. Hopefully she's up there right now getting dancing lessons from Patrick Swayze and has a big goofy grin on her face.
Editing is good, I have gone through and deleted nearly every "nod", "grin", "were" and "really" in the mss. I had over 664 "were" s in my manuscript... 663 too many.

These Hips Don't Lie

I gave a hooping demonstration today and all up hooped for 4 hours.
Note to self: hooping for that long can cause muscles you have forgotten to remind you they're there in ways you'd rather they didn't. Had to have a nap afterwards (age is creeping up on me).
In other news, I've searched and destroyed most of the were's/was/somehow/sometime/someway/really's in the latest edit. I shall remain close lipped about how many really's there really were (sheesh).
My WeLoveYA blog has shot to No.30 on Johnathon Crossfield's Top 50 Aussie Writer blogs. Woohoo, happy dance *owch I just threw hip out*...