Meet My Desk: Lucy

Tuesdays are still “Meet My Desk” days, even if I very almost forgot until around 2pm and had to wait for the sun to come out so I could take a photo.  The sunlight is very important for photos, mostly because my camera loves to make everything very faintly blurred unless the sun is out.  It’ll want a blood sacrifice next, mark my words.

This time round we’re meeting my Kindle, Lucy.

I can’t remember off the top of my head how old she is, but she’s definitely younger than Sixteen.  This amuses me for many reasons, along with her name--both her name and Sixteen’s are a massive in-joke for me that takes an explanation that always makes me sound like an idiot.

In short, they’re both named after characters from the Assassin’s Creed series, and Lucy is so named because she connects to Sixteen and he can share memories (or at least eBooks) with her.  I also happen to like the pairing of Sixteen and Lucy (which puts me in the minority in the fandom I suspect)...  And I did say it made me sound like an idiot, didn’t I?

Lucy is a quiet, steady presence in my life, and she’s responsible for two things: my introduction to indie/self-publishing and ebooks, and the existence of Lydia (who you’ll meet at some point).  Right now I can’t quite work out which one is more expensive.  She’s my trusted carrier of entertainment (and the occasional spot of heartbreak) in her exquisite coat of Tesco Kindle cover with comfortingly fuzzy lining.  I talk about buying her a shiny, more book-ish cover sometimes, but honestly I think purple suits her.

She travels to Nottingham with me too, usually so I can make ridiculous and enthusiastic noises about whatever I’m reading to my friends (who by now probably want to beat me to death with her) and on our most recent trip we made a horrific discovery together:-

New Kindles, at least in Waterstones, are black, not grey.

This has a strange, slimming effect on the overall design that wasn’t lost on me (or Lucy).  I held her up to the display model, end to end and side to side, and although I know they’re both the same size the black one remained resolutely smaller-looking.

I spent five minutes clutching her to my chest and muttering “it’s okay, you’re not fat” while my friends made sympathetic noises and did their best to reassure her.  (Remember what I said about my fellow writers being odd?)  I think she feels better now--and I really do think that the grey is a much nicer colour, personally--but I won’t be letting her anywhere near this post in case she remembers and becomes depressed.

I agonised for months before I bought her and spent ages wondering if her existence would impact my buying of traditional books (unfortunately for my bookcases, no) or if I’d simply never use her (she’s always by my side), but in the end I wouldn’t be without her.

Next time: I still have no idea who I’ll be writing about. Sorry.

Friday Status Update and Music Musings

I'm now three days behind.  This isn't entirely a surprise to me--what really is a surprise is that it's only three days.  I'm currently rocking a grand total of 35,191 words spread over 16 chapters, so I'm probably doing a little better than I thought I would, even if I am still disappointed in myself for those three days.

Hopefully by the end of today it'll resume being two days.

When I write, I tend to have specific 'soundtracks'--collections of songs that remind me of certain stories.  Radial has one, Unravel has one (which in fact proved awkward when trying to narrow it down to average CD length for a challenge).  Even stories I've not mentioned here such as Arkadian and Chime have them: they both share The Killers' Day & Age between them, along with tracks by Muse and Fair To Midland.

This Alternate Universe doesn't have one.  A lot of the ones I associate with Alex and Milos are too contemporary to move across, and after I removed those I found I had very little left on the playlist.  So I added in music from Sonata Arctica (somewhat a mistake: I associate a few of those with another story too), Orgy and Our Lady Peace in the hope some of those would stick.

Nope.

I'm enjoying the music, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing that's firing off random ideas.  Sixteen is having the occasional Mood over which songs he does and doesn't want to play--there's a few that if I didn't see them on the playlist I'd think I'd forgotten to put in--and I can't find anything in my folders that is giving me the right 'feeling' for a fantasy story about an arse of a knight and his long-suffering slave (although it's odd how much does work for an arse of a government agent and his long-suffering genetically-modified subordinate).

So... if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be incredibly happy to hear them!  And if not... well, I'll be over here staring mournfully at Sixteen's screen and wondering why I can no longer string together a coherent sentence.  And with this post, I think I've proved that...!

Meet My Desk: Sixteen

In an effort to try to blog to a regular(ish) schedule, I decided the other day that Tuesdays are going to be “Meet My Desk” days.  Mostly because a bunch of things on my desk have had names and/or personalities assigned to them (you can’t not name technology) and partially because no one objected when I mentioned it on Twitter.

Really, Twitter people, you only have yourself to blame.

I tidied my desk the other day, I even have evidence of this! (Yes, this is tidy.)  There’s no ‘before’ shot because it was just buried under a vast stack of magazines, sketchbooks and assorted crap, but it’s all better now.  (Note: the paperwork in the background isn’t mine.  Mine’s all over a desk upstairs.)

Today, we’re meeting my trusty two-year-old laptop, Sixteen.

Well, I say trusty.  Sulky might be more accurate (sorry Sixteen).  It has been suggested that naming him after a paranoid, possibly insane character from a video game was a bad idea but aside from him having a strange personality and responding well to being stroked (this has been externally verified, sadly by my writing group who are easily as odd as me) he’s been pretty well behaved.

He has his own taste in music that doesn’t always match mine and he’s been known to insist on playing certain songs far more than is reasonable.  He went through a big Florence + The Machine obsession a few months ago and he’s quite keen on BT too.  Since my playlist is always set to random, he’s very talented at picking the right song for whatever I’m writing and has been known to guilt-trip me by bunching together songs that remind me of one certain character or another so I end up writing.

People have complained in the past that the cycling of his fan makes it sound like he’s breathing.  It is apparently, and I quote, “creepy”.

I have been known to talk to him, and there are people out there who are fairly sure that you can get a sensible answer from him by asking questions and seeing what song comes on next.  I’m not so sure, myself.  Also, it should be said I talk to everything, not just him.  I’m one of those irritating people who just mutters to themselves...

Mood swings aside, he’s been surprisingly reliable since I got him, he’s put up with being dragged everywhere (although he weighs enough that he’s stopped coming to Nottingham with me) and so far--touch wood--he’s behaved far more reasonably than my old laptop ever did.  I’ve become very fond of him!

It may have something to do with the fact that between work and hobbies I spend most of my day in front of him, of course...

Next time: another random personified thing! No, I haven't decided which yet. Consider it a surprise.

Status Update, And My Ever-Growing "To-Read" Pile

I am one of those irritating bloggers who write entire posts in their head and forget every single part of it when it comes to sitting down in front of a keyboard.  Although I’ll admit that I’m only irritating myself when it comes to that.

I’m almost on target with my Ridiculous Writing Challenge, although I’m not quite sure how it’s happened.  It’s taken a lot of pointed musical hints from my laptop, who is possessed but can be helpful when he wants to be, but as of the 12th April I’ve written a grand(ish) total of 19,329 words and I’m a day behind for reasons I won’t go into.

Even considering I’m one day off target and that I’ve yet to write anything today, I wish I’d had an output like this during National Novel Writing Month.

The only thing is, when someone slow like me decides to do a stupid challenge like this, everything else tends to go by the wayside and as a result, I turned my back for a few minutes and my to read pile has stacked up like crazy.

Okay, yes, I’ll admit I may have had a hand in it since I am the one who bought it all, but it’s not my fault!  I can’t be expected to walk into a bookstore and walk away empty-handed, can I?  (And yes, that is the sequel to The Left Hand Of God at the bottom of the stack, because I do want to know what happens, but this book doesn’t smell as nice as the first one did by a long shot--I tested this on my friends in the store and they agree--so to the bottom of the pile it goes.)

Also, special mention to Bioshock: Infinite propping up Lydia Nexus there, because that’s what I’ll be playing the minute this challenge is up.  Or possibly before, depending on how long I can hold out...

Well, I’m ten chapters into this AU challenge now, I had to rewrite one half-written chapter to change the POV and the plot is still coming to me as I write (both useful--at least it’s turning up, albeit slowly--and incredibly irritating--I’d like to know what’s happening more than two days in advance) but as planning seems to involve me staring blankly at empty sheets of paper lately, I’ll have to stick to jotting notes and seeing what comes up when I do, although maybe knowing what towns are called beforehand would be a place to start.  As always, if you’re curious (or bloody-minded), the link’s at the top of the page.  I even managed to write a little smut--unfortunately for Milos--and there’s more to come (uh, no pun, even mildly, intended...).

Wish me luck!  Because believe me, I’ll need it...

Alternate Universe Month, now also known as Pax's Stupidity Month

Over at my favourite writing community, Runaway Tales, it’s Alternate Universe month.  Considering my ‘main canon’, the world I predominantly write in, is contemporary sci-fantasy (the nice--and much shorter--way of saying my main character, Milos, is a genetically modified elf who’s been forced to work for the government), this promptly gave me a headache.

I mean, when you’re already writing about elves, what do you do?  I thought about sci-fi, but most of my previous worlds are in that genre and I didn’t really want to rehash it for a sixth time (also, oddly, I’ve never been all that big on Elves In Space and I didn’t want to give Alex, Milos’s human superior--or so he’d refer to himself--an excuse to be a bigger dick than normal).  I even considered the comedy-drama of an anime/manga style gakuen, or school, setting, something I did for two of my sci-fi characters a couple of years ago, but although the idea of Milos and Alex in school uniforms was appealing I just didn’t feel inclined to go that way again.  I considered steampunk, but I’ve got another idea percolating on that (it takes a while for my brain to get its act together) and this would have just stepped on its toes.

Which somehow only left me with high fantasy, and another headache.

I’ve not written high fantasy in years and when I did, the worlds were devoid of elves or magic, although they did have a liberal helping of nosy gods and reanimated priestesses.  I’ve never been one for castles, although I love exploring them in real life, and my favourite eras of history aren’t ones involving chivalry (or the lack thereof) and knights.

I’ve got no idea, in fact, what possessed me.  But here we are: I’ve written two stories already and I’ve challenged myself to write and post something every day for April.

I think I’ll regret this decision.  I think I’m already regretting it, as I’m staring at my third ‘chapter’ and failing to get words to fall into coherent lines and wondering just when Alex sprouted a family his real-world incarnation most definitely doesn’t have.  I don’t even have the excuse of doing Camp NaNo.  I’ve just randomly decided to be stupid and set myself challenges I don’t think I can keep.

But even if I crash and burn in five days time--or even tomorrow--I’ll have written more in these three days than I did in the whole of the last month.

So maybe even random bursts of stupidity serve their purpose...

We’ll see if I’m still saying that next week!

(If you’re curious, it’s the tab at the top handily labelled as Unravel AU - Index and it should be updated every day. Should. But I’d be more than happy to take suggestions on a new name.  The entire damn thing needs a new name to be fair, but mostly because I can’t stop seeing the ‘Alternate Universe’ abbreviation as ‘Australia’...)