A Lack Of Sleep or Looking on the Bright Side.

I remember what I wrote for my author’s bio two years ago. It mentioned that my life was a huge juggling act and I could survive on little sleep. Wow, how the times have changed. I’m slowly creeping up to being 30, it hardly seems true, I don’t feel like 28, I don’t feel any age really.
The biggest change is the fact I need sleep. I need about eight hours to be able to function like a human being.
Example of my shitty mood. If somebody pisses me off today I’m going to pull off their face and use it like a drum.
I think I was mostly inspired by the ‘zombie’ events happening in the US when I wrote that. The thing is I’m the nicest person usually. I don’t get into fights, I respect others and I’m polite. If I have too little sleep? Well it’s a completely different ballgame. I’m like Linda Blair off of the exocist without the swearing and the 360 degrees head spin. Well, maybe the head spin.

I’ve been busy, busy to the point where I’m not sleeping very well. I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge and then stamped on a few times. So it’s a mixture of just trying to do freelance work, my actual writing and looking after the monster. The monster is now 2 and I’m pretty sure we’ve entered the terrible twos.

His favourite word? No mommy.

The second? Fix it mommy.

The old favourite? What you doing mummy?

I love my son, I think he’s awesome and I wouldn’t change him for all the tea in china. I just wish he had a mute button or he still had afternoon naps. That would be heavenly.

The next thing impairing my sleeping pattern? Well, that would be my back. I’ve found out that it’s a small rupture on one of the discs in my back. It mucks up my sleeping pattern, I can’t randomingly dance whenever I want, it’s had a knock on effect on everything and I really like to dance.

I just have to look on the bright side. The project I’m currently working on is finishing soon. Then I won’t take a project like it again, it’s just too much work for so little reward. Then the steampunk is due the week after, I can’t tell you how happy I am with it. I think that it’s some of my best work. Then I’m off to the pain clinic, because my back isn’t as serious as first thought, though it still hurts like a bitch I don’t have to have surgery on it, which is a bonus.

So I’m going to look on the bright side, because if I don’t. I’d be rocking in the corner and that wouldn’t be helping anyone.

Enjoying the Random

It’s nearly midnight and I’ve been weirder than usual. Saturday was not a good day, it was one of those days I would have gladly erased out of the timeline completely. Which might have been why I decided to do something random. I wanted to end Saturday on a high note. So at about 11.15 I made some cakes.

Tomorrow they’ll become Mister Men and Disney Princess cakes for a friend’s little girls party.  I like making cakes. I don’t like eating them very much but I sure do like to make them.

Does that make me strange? I’m okay with that.

Meet Rachel Valentine

Before writing ‘A Difficult Decision’ I’d never tried my hand at writing supernatural YA. I generally write Urban Fantasy, so in my mind there really wasn’t much of a leap.
Rachel Valentine is a troubled girl, sent off to St Mary’s School for Wayward Souls because she accidently blew up the science lab. Her brother is missing, presumed dead by her parents. Her father is an govenment agent. It’s not a life he wants for his daughter but she’s still manages to pick up some skills a long the way.
She can’t connect with her parents, she doesn’t understand them and they sure as hell don’t seem to understand her. It’s why she acts out and why when she see her brother in the background of a news report in London, she does the only thing she can. She goes to find him. Well, at first she tells her parents but they don’t believe her. She’s sixteen, she’s got the skills of a secret agent and she’s sure that there’s nothing she can’t handle.
She’s about to find out that there’s some things that she can’t handle.

The Avengers

There’s probably been a lot of chatter about this movie on the bloggers sphere and tonight it’s my turn. I should be writing, I’ve got three deadlines looming and I can’t say that I’m not a little freaked out by it all.
I’ve been trying to take the pressure off and I’ve been succeeding, I write because I love it and I can’t picture doing anything else with my life. Anyway back to the point.
This movie ticked all the boxes for me, it had sexy men in it and it satified my inner fan girl. I couldn’t drag my eyes from the screen, there’s was one, really brief moment when the whole team stood together and all I could think of was Joss Wheldon has done an amazing job. I used to read a lot of comic books and never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’ll see Thor and the Hulk fighting. It was like he was able to successfully morph a comic onto the big screen and we know how easy it is for Marvel to fuck it up.
The breakout characters for me was the Hulk and Black Widow. The Hulk kicked arse and Mark Ruffalo (probably not how you spell his last name) was perfect as him, the transition scenes between Banner and the Hulk were seamless and organic, you could believe that this green beast stood with his follow Avengers. The Black Widow was interesting, manipulative and stood on her own two feet in a group of kick arse men.
It’s obvious that this is a film made for the fans by a fan. I can’t wait to see the sequel. Now back to work, those deadlines aren’t going to meet themselves.

Uncompleted Projects

I have more than my fair share of stuff that hasn’t been completed. In all honesty it drives me insane, I don’t like uncompleted work. It feels lazy. So I have a few days every month, if I’m twiddling my thumbs and thinking about what to do next, that I end up looking at them.

There’s two YA stories, one is science fiction, another is urban fantasy, really the list could go on and on. I’m thinking about hiring a proofreader to have a look at them. I can’t bring myself to delete them.

What’s next?

In a little over two weeks I’ll be submitting ‘Wings’ which is my contribution to Echelon Press Steampunk Anthology ‘A Clockwork Fairytale’. I’ll then be working on edits for that.

I have a story in mind, it will be my next big project, a trilogy. I’ve been playing with this idea a lot over the last few weeks and it’ll be novel length, so I’m hopeful that I’ll see it in print.

I’ve been dipping my toe into a lot of different genres lately but I’ve decided that, besides the Molly series, which is Urban Fantasy. I’m going to be sticking with Young Adult for awhile.

Discussions with my Dad

I love my dad, it goes without saying. I can talk to him about pretty much anything because we’re on the same wave length. We’re both creative, though in different ways. I write, at the moment he does wooden sculptures, unique spinning tops, and paints. Well my stepmum paints, dad can’t find the time. He’s unemployed, but still can’t find the time to do everything he wants. I no longer have a day job and I never seemed to have enough time either. So you see, me and my dad have a lot in common.

I don’t see him very often, not as much as I like, but he picked me and the monster up this morning and we spent the day with him.

Today we got onto the subject of eBooks and paperbacks. Dad doesn’t read very often, he likes audio books and reading magazines about wood turning. My stepmum loves to read, but even if dad’s got an iPad and an majority of books are available as eBooks. She still prefers paperback. There’s something about the weight of a book in your hand, the smell of paper. It’s a quality that an ereader lacks. It’s like I mentioned in my last post. Filling up your bookshelf, a real one, not a virtual one, is an intensely satisfying experience for me.

Dad, on the other hand, talked about how buying normal magazines just take up space. Where do you put them when you’ve finished reading them? It makes sense, downloading them and saving some trees in the process. Which raises another interesting question. How many would we save if we just download magazines and stopped cutting down trees to make them?