Mind, Matter and “Machine”: a review

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Lyn

Published by Apex Publications

I’m a big fan of transhumanist fiction. Give me feathers, fur, gills, immortality, extra feel-good bits, mechanical cool and/or animal senses any time – I like ‘em all.

In other words, it wasn’t just the lovely cover that pre-disposed me to enjoy Machine, (although I was diverted by the thought of the irrepressibly enthusiastic and elastic Jim C Hines in that pose. Urban art never looked so good, eh?)

Ahem. Moving right along…

Machine is Jennifer Pelland’s debut novel, published by Apex Publications and released in January this year. Her collection of short-stories, Unwelcome Bodies, was also released by Apex, back in 2008.  I liked Machine enough to put it on my wishlist.

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Inspired, Empowered: great words, simple choice

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Lyn

One girl, chooses ...

Today, I was inspired. It’s a wonderful thing, to feel thus, and I want to celebrate it.  Marti McKenna is a writer, editor and blogger. I’ve never met the lady but today we connected in a very important way. I admire her: she took the words “Be the change you want to see” and did something with them.

Thanks to Marti’s message (read, follow, share Girl, Empowered), I also made a choice.  It is not the same one as Marti, but I put into action what I’d been thinking.

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Goodbye blues: an ode to Santa

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Lyn

Bring out the Grinch, I hear jingly Muzak

I took a deep breath – sometime around the middle of December last year – and have finally let it out. Phew!  I have an end-of-year allergy:  I just don’t do the ‘season to be jolly’ thing very well and my funk is, by now, traditional.

Despite this, I have an eight year-old child who simply adores Christmas time.  It has nothing to do with religion, a lot to do with presents  … and something more …

For Katie, Santa Claus is one amongst the plethora of supernatural beings that populates her imagination. Like fairies, she chooses to believe in Santa because believing makes him real, and because one year, he came to her, ‘specially. Continue reading →

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NaNoWriMo, a not-quite novel breakthrough

Posted on November 27, 2011 by Lyn

Participant, but not winner. Maybe next year.

November draws to a close and I must haul myself out from The Zone and take a look at what I’ve achieved. Well, I’m not a winner. That 50,000 word count was a summit I couldn’t reach.

On the other hand, a month’s worth of wordcount has left me with the barebones of a novel draft coming in at just over 30,000 words. In addition, I’ve kept up with my daughter’s education, so she’s not entirely feral. Points for that. I’ve still got a marriage and in a little while I’m going to remind Steve of just that fact. Heck, the rest can wait. Continue reading →

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Zen and the art of NaNoWriMo

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Lyn

Are we having fun yet?

Three days into November and nearly eight-thousand words done and edited. This is may be a track record for me.

Something is in the air.

If this year’s NaNoWriMo serves to identify only one key personal motivating factor – if there’s a special ingredient X to be had, in other words – I will bottle it for future use, and be thankful.

Fretting over whether or not the book will be any good is not an issue for a NaNo participant. Let the “woo woo” (to paraphrase Pat Cadigan), flow.

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Remixing the Meme: novels, promises and ghosts

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Lyn

National Novel Writing Month - 50,000 words or bust

As I prepare for next month’s NaNoWriMo, I find myself suffering from commitment jitters. I am, after all, a short-story writer and have been since, well, forever.

The truth is, I’ve been diligently avoiding the novel form not because I lacked ideas but because I had too many excuses. Well, it won’t be long before my big excuse grows up and leaves home; a thought which forced me to wrestle my fears into a recognizable shape and give them a name.

It came as no great surprise, once I had lured it from my sub-conscious, knocked it down and stared into its blood-red eye, that my personal scary-monster-under-the-bed is a common old thing known as Fear of Failure.

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Time, and the one-day writing workshop

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Lyn

J.K.Rowling's imaginative response to a very real need.

I’ve often thought that J.K. Rowling’s invention of the Time Turner, (a handy hour-by-hour time travel device),  was inspired by the obvious lack of enough hours in the day.

I could really do with one of those right now (what a shame they were all destroyed). My motives are only marginally selfish: a couple of turns – maybe a few, probably more – to sit uninterrupted at my laptop every day to tackle that seemingly impossible task … writing my *&!!* novel. Continue reading →

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To The Power Of: The Aegean Dream

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Lyn

Wish I woz there

I recall being very excited for my friends Dario and Linda,  (I met Dario in 2002 at Clarion West Writers’ Workshop and we’ve been buddies ever since), when they decided to chart a tangential course in life, leaving their professional careers in the US to pursue  an independent, sustainable life-style on the Greek island of Skopelos. I knew that they had the energy and drive to make it work, if anyone could.

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The Uncharted Muse

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Lyn

I hate losing the plot.

Even when I’ve planned/mapped/charted and sometimes even illustrated my character’s conflict-laden steps to her epiphany, she still manages to wander off-course.

Make that Muse obey

How could she DO that to me?

What invisible tides are at work in my subconscious, I wonder, as I grapple with, bludgeon cruelly, or just plain delete, word-riffs that refuse to carry my story along its predestined path?

My writing efforts lately have been less an act of creativity then an exercise in smack-down pro-wrestling.

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Indie Publishing and the One-Hand Kōan

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Lyn

Having made the decision to post my stories directly to an aggregate distributor (Smashwords), instead of the traditional magazine and publishing channels – for reasons outlined in ‘Infrequently Asked Questions‘ – I found myself doing what I’ve not done in a very, very long time: a marketing plan. Continue reading →

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