I originally said this as a comment over on augustuscaesar journal, but I decided it was entertaining enough to cross post.

For those of you curious, the following occurred at 7am while I was trying to check my emails. It highlights the daily hazards I encounter:

*black smoke is billowing from vacuum*

Tag: "Ah! Stop it! The vacuum is on fire!"

Mum: "It's fine."

Tag: "It's burning!"

Mum: "I think that's your computer."

TAG: "It's not the computer! You're getting burning plastic smoke in my face! Take it outside!"

*ten minutes late she comes back holding a charred vacuum filter*

Mum: "Turns out is WAS burning!"

*Tag is weeping softly in the corner*

Yesterday I had a really nice conversation with someone about gardening and growing vegetables. It was one of those in depth talks that makes you feel really good and I woke up this morning keen to email the person again and talk about gardening some more.

Then I realised the whole conversation was a dream and the person didn’t actually exist.

I feel really bad about this. Not sad, but guilty like I’ve been really rude. How do you say sorry for something like that?

“Hey, I really enjoyed our talk the other day, by the way I’m so sorry I woke up and you ceased to be real.”

In an unrelated note, a barn owl attacked me in the middle of a mall in broad daylight on Saturday. That kind of thing does NOT happen to other people. The Tag Effect is in full swing.  I’ve always been a little weirded out by owls too.

Okay, so time for an update.

Firstly, my move went well and I am settling in to life in Cairns. It’s beautiful here, much moreso than I remember. A few doors down from me there is a creek with baby salt water crocodiles in it. I’m two streets from the beach and our yard is often inhabited by red clawed mud crabs and massive pink geckos are everywhere. I’ve set up a vegie garden now there are no brush tail possums and I’m growing herbs, vegetables and fruits.

Secondly, I have not been able to get on LJ until recently and even when I could get on LJ, I wasn’t getting any alerts when people replied or commented. I have fixed both of these problems and am back on LJ with force. Some of you will have noticed over the past couple of days, as I’ve been commenting on entries again.

Thirdly, I’d like to update you all on my current writing projects and where they stand:

‘I, Aratika’ my 90, 000 word fantasy novel is still signed with my agent, Wendy Barnard, and is under consideration at two publishing houses.

‘Lifesphere INC’ my 40, 000 word YA novel is still signed with my agent, Wendy Barnard, and is still being edited.

I finished my horror novel, which I hope to sell under a pen name, and it is being considered by two New York based literary agents.

Last month I started two new novels, which I am writing simultaneously at the moment, as I can’t decide which one to focus on. One is a steampunk political fantasy thingie with romance and royalty and guns and monkeys—the working title is ‘Boneshire’, however I’ve been thinking ‘All That Glitters’ is actually more fitting. Titles are really not a big concern for me in the first draft stage, though, to be honest.

The second is... ummm. Unmarketable? Is that a genre? Grin. Actually it’s not that bad. Apart from the fact it’s written in first person present tense, so maybe it IS that bad... The setting and characters are to die for though, so who knows. It’s currently called Babylon, but that will change as Babylon is much to overused for my taste. It’s dystopian, violent and darkly apathetic. The main character is uneducated and directionless, but none the less, determined to break the mould. It’s Kazuaki Kiriya’s Casshern meets China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station.

If I had any sense, I wouldn’t write this one, but this one is for me. It’s fun, it’s beautifully perverse. I’m okay if when I finish it, I can’t do anything with it. If nothing else, maybe writing it will stop me having dreams about the setting, because while it’s fun to visit, I can tell you right now you don’t want to live there.

I’m back and leaping in with both feet with some sad news, which deviates into a writing lecture.

A few days ago I got a phone call from a friend from Melbourne who was just calling to catch up and see how my move had gone. We used to be in a drama troupe together, and at the time the group was very tight knit.

So it was during this phone call I learnt that I’d lost another friend to suicide.

The young man was extremely talented. He and his brother attended the troupe together and though I hadn’t spoken to either of them in a while, I expected to see them any day—having landed a part in some TV show or movie. I couldn’t imagine either of them falling short of that goal.

I was sad, upon hearing that news and paused to remember all the hilarious moments we shared together in rehearsals and performances. To be honest it slipped from my mind then, though I have been unusually tired ever since. However since getting my computer up and running again I have been trying to catch up on the TV I’ve missed.

Episode 20, season 5 of House deals with suicide. I was fine throughout the episode, until the last thirty seconds. The last shot of Dr Taub in the hallway broke me completely as some part of me accepted that he was dead. Not the character, but the young man I knew who was on his way to being a brilliant actor.

When you suffer some kind of trauma—particularly a death—it can be hard to feel. Sometimes you don’t hurt at all, at first. Sometimes you keep it bottled for years and suddenly there is a trigger, you find that hurt and it all comes out again. It took me two years to mourn for a simular lost friend; I didn’t even know the pain was there until I found a funny note he’d written me.

I think this is a function of fiction and entertainment media that is often overlooked. We live vicariously through characters to make our own lives more interesting, but we can also mourn through them. We can experience loss vicariously to dull the sting of reality.

When you choose to write about death or suffering; suicide, rape, divorce or illness, you should write with the understanding that others will be facing their own demons when they read it. They’ve experience the things you may only be writing about and you should be careful about how you choose to manipulate that.

I’m not saying every painful scene should be a hallmark moment, but you shouldn’t handle things carelessly. If you want to hurt, horrify, disgust or succour your readers, do it intentionally. And do it with some restraint.

My cheeks are still wet. He was only eighteen.

Heads up, everyone.

I'm moving house--finally. We’re actually now headed to Cairns instead of Coffs Habour. Only about 300kms of difference there. :P

 The removalists arrive on Wednesday and I'll be spending all tomorrow (Tuesday) saying goodbye to family. We start driving Thursday, arrive Saturday and the internet will be connected some time in the week after that. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

So the computer is being packed tonight and I won't be back online for ten days at the soonest--longer if Telstra screws me.

When I arrive I’ll invite ya’ll to email me and get my new address, if you need it. If you need my mobile number before then, well... you’re in trouble. I’m deeply sorry to everyone in Melbourne that I didn’t find the time to see ANY of you before I left.

I am made of fail.

Try not to kill each other/yourselves before I get back.

Hey all, just a quick update to link you to a neat website sinewandbones (Who gets no link because it keeps destroying my page) linked me to:

Authonomy.com

It’s a website run by HarperCollin’s UK, for people to post their novels for other people to read. If you like a novel you can put it on your bookshelf, but your bookshelf only holds five books, so you have to be picky. At the end of the month the twenty books that are on the most people’s shelves are read by editors at HarperCollin’s UK.

I have a profile there, but my books aren’t on it. However if you set up a profile, link me and I’ll check out your work. I suggest not uploading your whole book on the site, by the way. However you need to upload a minimum of 10, 000 words.

The big con of this site is that ultimately you’re going to have to give a lot of reviews if you would like other people to read your work. However if you have the time to invest in the site, then it’s a little better than just submitting to the slush pile at the same publisher.

A friend of mine from college also wrote this article on rape in fiction. It’s geared toward people writing horror and fiction, be they novels or scripts. I’m inclined to agree with much of what she says—however obviously there are exceptions to the rule, such as Silence of the Lambs. It’s an interesting article, as long as you’re not sensitive to swearing.

Victoria is burning.

I assume most of you know this already, as the news and stats are being passed around quite vigorously. Over 750 homes destroyed, 3700+ homeless and with the death toll expected to pass 230. As I write this the confirmed death toll is 173, however for the last few days this has been increasing just about every time I turn on the radio or update ninemsn.

I’m safe. My house is safe. I’m a long way from the (serious) fires, though there have been small fires as close as a few hundred meters from my place. There is so much fuel on the hill I live on. We’re a cigarette butt away from being the next casualties—if not this year, next year. On Saturday I stayed up watching the lightning strike a few kilometers from the house and waited to see flames.

ABC radio has been doing constant coverage. The news is bad, but the radio is worse. There is so much horror. I’m not even on the ground there and the things I’ve heard have left me in shock and mourning. There are friends I can not contact from towns that now don’t exist. There are people I know who have lost homes.

There have been stories about a father who put his kids in the car, ran back into the house and came out to find the car on fire and his children burning alive. A man who tried to stay and defend his house but decided to leave when he saw cows burning alive in the paddock beside his house. A man in a wheelchair was unable to flee his house in Bendigo. A woman was fighting spot fires in her yard and turned around to find her house on fire—her two children died inside. Burnt and blind livestock is everywhere. Thousands and thousands of hectares of wildlife is dead and burnt out.

I am so gutted by this, I can’t even imagine what it must be like for the people involved.

My mother and I had already been having talks about moving. The southern half of Australia is going to keep getting hotter due to global warming. Its possible bushfires like this could happen again—as soon as next year. So on Saturday we started packing. We sat down, decided where we were going and started searching for places to rent there. I expect to be out of Victoria by the end of April—however between packing and moving, you won’t see much of me online at all.

On a writing related note, the novel I have been obsessed with an in love with for the past month centers around bushfires. I think about it now and wonder if or when I will be able to face that topic again. I’m on another temporary writing hiatus, at least until the idea of writing about fires doesn’t make me physically nauseous.

Time for an update I think, before I scare anyone else.

Health wise I am slowly recovering. My skin has mostly grown back, I can walk again, my GGT is dropping (slowly)—so overall I’m past the danger zone. I’m still very weak and tired and a few minutes in the sun is enough to make me blister like an egg in a fry-pan, however bar some minor scarring I have no permanent damage.

However I saw the soft tissue specialist yesterday and he is expected the TMJ to be a problem for a further twelve months, which is a long time to be virtually crippled/unable to eat etc. You win some, you lose some.

Writing-wise, as some of you may have picked up, I’ve been working on a horror story based on a dream I had. It’s been amazing. Every time I sit down to work on it I write 2000 words plus. This is epic for me, as I am typically a slow writer. I haven’t been able to write everyday—if I had it would be finished by now—as I still have so many appointments with doctors. However I think I had forgotten writing could be like this. Maybe it’s never been like this for me. I used to average 1500 words, so this is a clear step up.

Writing, at its best, really is heaven.

Now, just for fun, here are some things I am in love with as of this minute in no particular order:

1. The novel I am working on. My ego is now too big to fit through doors. This manuscript is made of awesome.

2. The United States of Tara. I was dubious as hell before watching this one, however Toni Collette works MAGIC. And she’s Australian too. I’m praying this series does well because I’ve seen one episode and I’m already keen for series two. Also: Diablo Cody for the win, people.

3. Death Race. I love me some sci fi, baby! A very straightforward plot, good pacing and remarkably likeable characters make this movie a worthwhile way to spend a few hours. If you watch it and hate it, I don’t care. I make no apologies. I think it’s awesome.

4. Keira Knightley. Yeah, I rediscovered Keira Knightley again and am obsessively collecting images of her. I’ve just realized she’s a few months younger than me, which somehow makes her more awesome.

5. http://www.wajasdev.com/. Probably the most addictive website/game I have ever come across. If you like breeding or animal sims, you will spend the rest of your life here and probably starve to death in front of the computer.

If anyone else has an account and wajas that I don’t know about, let me know! And if you join and decide to stay, let me know so I can stick you on my f-list there and give you free stuff.

Anyone else have a love list? Anyone else sharing mine? How is everyone’s writing going? I have so much to catch up on!

A huge thanks to everyone who has sent concerned emails and made concerned phone calls and livejournal posts. When you’re sick it means a lot to know that people are missing you and worried about you.

There’s an update under the cut, it has photos. You have been warned.

I’m hoping to spend the 12^th (my 24^th Birthday) at Werribee Zoo taking photos of hippos. Kind of... alone. But it’s better than being home alone. And I’m hoping to have a get together on the 17^th in the CBD with some friends—just lunch and general mocking of my appearance.

Hopefully I’ll get to contact everyone about the 17^th today. Hopefully a few people can actually come. :/
 

I apologize this post took so long. I AM home and out of hospital, it’s just particularly bad news any my condition has continued to worsen.

So, in summary I have an often fatal disease, my parrot is dead and I can’t have a birthday.

I’m not going to be commenting on LJ either. As much as I love you all--which I do, very very much—my hands have 70% blister coverage and typing this was like repeatedly dipping my hands in hot oil. I’m still going to try and read everything and if you want feedback to something specific, maybe you can link to it here and I’ll try and reply when I’m better. I’ll also slowly work through replying to comments.

*HUGS ALL*

Sigh.

I’m on my way to emergency now. You just... don’t even want to know.

I’ll edit this post when I get back, unless I end up in there for more than 24 hours, then I’ll post a new one.

I don’t think I can be friends with anyone who has children anymore.

Guess what I’ll be doing tonight?

Nothing!

I have hand, foot and mouth disease. I kid you not. Hand, foot and mouth disease. And I’m 24 in 12 days.

My doctor had never even seen hand, foot and mouth, let alone on a 24 year old. He called in just about everyone else in the building to consult. (For the record, they mostly just laughed at me.)

This probably beats TMJ on the stupid illness front.

To make it more exciting, I’ve got the rarer, more dangerous strain Enterovirus 71. Which, to quote wiki: “also has the potential to cause severe neurological disease.”

There is no treatment for this.

On the up side, over the past four days I’ve written 9000 words. That’s officially more than I wrote in all of October and November combined. It’s probably the severe neurological disease kicking in, eh?

WRITERS AND EDITORS!

I need your opinions urgently.

I’ve mentioned to a few people that three days ago I started writing a new novel. I’m at six thousand words already because I love it far more than person in their right mind loves anything.

However I am having a continued problem that needs to be addressed NOW and not at ten thousand words.

I have been trying to write the book in third person, because I generally find people prefer third person and find first person rather annoying. However I have not written a SINGLE SENTANCE of this novel without realizing I’ve written it in first person and being forced to go back and change it. I thought I’d have settled into third by now, but I’m still doing it.

Clearly the novel knows what it wants. It wants to be first person.

Do I trust the novel and make life easy or do I use common sense and stick with third person?

Fat Man at the end of the World is an anthology for those of us who know beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. The focus is on overweight heroes saving the day, getting the girl and watching all those stick thin people blow away in a strong breeze.

It’s been put together by my good friend   luciusmalfoy    and if it makes a few bucks she might do it next year and make an annual thing out of it. It’s only a dollar and it would make a great gift.

http://www.lulu.com/content/5287986

Okay, so both of those stories were more ‘horrifying’ than funny, but they made ME laugh.

For health reasons I’ve decided to take the rest of the year off from serious writing.

My agent announced she was on break until the 5^th of January today, so it’s probably a good time for me to do the same without feeling guilty.

I’m sure I’ll still be writing, but it won’t be anything of a publishable caliber. For example  kagechikara will be getting a fic for Christmas and I plan on making it quite long.

Hopefully this will give me time to recharge my creative battery. I hope to do a lot of reading, art, cooking and maybe play with some other creative projects, like the Diannis Legacy and Comix!.

I’ve always found writing breaks to be very therapeutic. The last one I had was in 2005 and lasted for two weeks. It’s kept me going all this time, but I think I’m due another one. Then, hopefully, I’ll be able to start the new year with some bumper writing days (and maybe some good news?) and life will be back on track.

I will still be around on LJ. I might even have time to post some new tutorials.

So, how about the rest of you? Resting or writing this silly season?

Well, if anyone is wondering why publishing houses take so long to do anything, I give you this gem: Back when I was submitting to publishers I sent a proposal to Baen as well as Tor. Baen responded within two weeks saying they weren’t interested.

That was close to eighteen months ago now and I just received a second rejection. That means someone read it, rejected it and it somehow ended up back on the reading pile for another eighteen months.

This after getting rejected by the same agency THREE times.

I guess the ‘recycle bin’ and ‘slush pile’ are right next to one and other. Grin.

Or maybe it’s just me. I have two theories about that: One is that people read it, aren’t interested, but pass it on to someone else who might like it. The other is that I’m REALLY fun to reject and doing so gives people an overwhelming sense of euphoria.

Which explains my dating life, now I think about it.

(On an unrelated note, twelve month old kitten plus Christmas tree with breakable decorations equals HOURS OF FUN!)

And today, a long Tag!rant about horror:

Before I start though, I just thought all the Melbourne nanoers would like to know this year’s Melbourne theme of ‘Penguin’ is firmly imbedded in my novel. It’s probably a little tragic that Penguin, as a name, fits so well into the world I have created. He has white dread locks and bullies children.

(To all the people who don’t get the ‘in my pants’ reference, I apologize. There is no horror in my pants. The post has nothing to do with anything, at all, in my pants.)

For the past week I haven’t had a chance to read my friend’s list or reply to my emails.

I’m really sorry about this. I know some people are going through some really big things, from health crisis’s and people in Brisbane and California who are now in disaster zones or have been evacuated. I feel like I’m letting a lot of you down, even though you’re probably very preoccupied with things more important than who is commenting on your live journal.

I’m also sorry to all the nanoers I haven’t been encouraging who probably AREN’T preoccupied with things more important than who is commenting on your journal.

I haven’t been around because I’m still sick, it’s still my TMJ and it’s still getting worse. I’m losing the battle when it comes to talking and eating—I haven’t been able to smile or yawn all week. I’m fed up now. Not that I wasn’t before, but I didn't realise it was possible for it to get this bad then.

I went to see a doctor yesterday and asked for a referral to a maxillofacial surgeon. I’m still hoping it won’t come to actual surgery.

However, honestly, between looking like a puffer fish, being in constant pain and not being able to talk or eat, I’m just about ready to try anything. (Oh, also? It affects your sinus and ears—I go through tissues and cotton bud faster than a hospital.)

On a side note, TMJ is the stupidest illness ever. I can’t believe I have spent so much time, money and seen SO MANY specialists because my jaw clicks. Only I could get sick with something as daft as this. It doesn't deserve pity, it deserves mocking.

I’m going to try and catch up on things here on LJ, but the sad truth is I probably won’t. I love you all very much all the same.

I can’t believe it’s the 11^th and I haven’t managed a post yet. I was trying to post twice a week, then once a week... I am suspicious I’ll get boring if I post too often. Grin.

I’m up to 12k in nano, which is well behind where I should be. Still, it’s 12k of a 40k novel, so I’m still pretty pleased with my progress. My progress bar (I  make them by hand, on paper and stick them on my printer) looks healthy. Even if my word count doesn’t against the rest of the Melbourne nanowrimo crowd.

In other news, my agent started querying for Lifesphere Inc on Monday. This means I’m hanging off my inbox obsessively already—even though she said she’d phone with news.

‘I, Aratika’ apparently fell off the face of the planet. Still no word from TOR. Though it’s a slow business and I’m surviving on the advice ‘rejections come quickly, offers come slow’. If you hear anything that contradicts this, lie to me about it. I’d like very much to write the next two books and if it doesn’t sell I might not get a chance to.

Also, over the past few days my brain keeps spitting out these very awesome and completely inappropriate ideas for novels. They’re mind-blowing good, can not be incorporated into Lifesphere in any way, shape or form and fall into awkward genres—I can’t decide if they’d go under horror or urban fantasy.

I just write down anything important in bullet point form so I won’t forget it and force myself to ignore it. This seems to trigger another brain-flail, forcing it to spit out a new, great idea. I assume this is because normally I let these ideas out properly and write 5k on them so they settle down and I can forget about them.

Maybe this is the shine of nostalgia glossing over the hard bits, but I’m sure I was more focused when I was writing ‘I, Aratika’. Of course, I wrote most of it word warring with Kage, so maybe that’s where I’m going wrong?

Does anyone have a prescription for ‘novel writing focus medication’ I can borrow?

Last night I won the most ludicrous debate of my life. It was a shining victory in a long line of debates—a true and epic example of my negotiation skills and unyielding stubbornness.

And it was all done from the floor in a fetal position, whimpering and convulsing in pain.

I’d started to feel a little ill and as my mother has been a nurse for over a quarter of a century now, I called her in for an opinion. However before she could offer a diagnosis, I decided I had to go and lie down. I promptly collapsed on the floor and refused to move.

After a few tentative prods of my midsection resulted in squeals of agony, my mother said I had to get dressed and go to the emergency department. I refused on the grounds I couldn’t get to the car. For the record, I think it is the most flawed debate of my life. “Can’t go to hospital now, too sick to move.”

However as I really was completely unable to move, I spent the night on the floor of my study with a pillow and a sleeping bag.

One of the best magicks a writer has is the ability to convince anyone of anything. No matter how freaking ridiculous it is. I think this is especially important in genres like fantasy, sci fi and horror, where you have to convince readers to believe in dragons, aliens and Robert Englund. (Some of you get the joke and some of you are saying: ‘who?’)

Also, something I have been waiting for since I finished the first draft of meka has finally happened! I got a ‘brain memo’ for the second half of the plot for book two! You have no idea how stoked I am, as my agent asked me for a synopsis for book one AND two to go to the publisher. I’ve been sitting here wondering how I’m going to do that when I have NO idea what happens. Now it’s all written down in bullet points!

This is the definition of relief.

Though, on the other hand, this always happens and I always find out what the plot is just in time. I don’t know why I always worry it won’t happen.

The muse is there, he’s just busy painting his nails...

Also, nano tomorrow! Yay! I WILL have a first draft by the end of the month...