Which of course has made me raise the bar of expectations as to how many words I can put on the plate when I am officially writing a novel – the old 1000 words 5 times a week is starting to look somewhat shabby. Still… no use thinking about that now, I have months and months before I can be actively writing new words every day again. Though the collaborative novel I am writing with the magnificent Kate will continue on and off over the next month or two I guess… at least I get whole days when I am not actively supposed to be working on it!

So I wrote 40,000 words of weird Shakespeare necromancy novel, to the point where I think I know the plot and the shape of the series, which is exciting, even if the chances are I won’t get to finish it any time soon (at least, if the Nancy series takes off, this one will have to wait, which will be GOOD NEWS).

The holidays are racing fast towards us, and I realised today why it is I try to arrange things so I have hardly any writing work to do in December – school only has a few weeks to go and it’s all assemblies and haircuts and homework and Christmas preparation and extra social engagements and general domesticity taking over, and I totally have to let it do so otherwise my head will explode.

Mind you, my ‘summer holiday’ is also going to consist of critiquing a bunch of manuscripts for ROR, a sekrit editing project, an extra mini-sekrit writing project (just for fun), and you know, I did half think I should be writing some short stories pretty soon. Plus super mighty Tiptree reading. So… there’s that.

Also I have to be prepared for the fact that at some point the part of my brain that I like to call the Gingerbread Zone is about to go ‘ping’ at any moment, and whip me into a frenzy of baking, decorating and menu preparation. Because it does that. One has to allow for these things. If you’re going to occasionally go into berzerker mode where pre-soaking dried fruit in brandy or melting icecream in order to refreeze it in interesting shapes makes ALL THE SENSE IN THE WORLD then you’ve got to plan your schedule around those times when the ginger-nutmeg haze comes down and there are sudden gaps in your memory…

Yep, that’s right, it’s beginning to look a lot like (NO, DON’T SAY IT, NOT ALLOWED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE COMING SEASON UNTIL IT’S DECEMBER)

Oh, wait.

December is tomoooooorrrrrow!

The thing I forgot to add to our running sheet for Galactic Suburbia was the surprise sale of Angus and Robertson in Australia – bookshops, coming back!

The important discussion of how trolling online (which can be far more vicious, threatening and fearmaking than many people believe) affects female bloggers has not only gone viral, it’s gone mainstream, with open discussion on the topic happening in newspaper columns as well as independently. About damn time.

The Nanowrimo thing continues apace, and some of my favourite recent supportive posts on the topic have been by Jim C Hines (see how defly he ducks and weaves to avoid being one of those professional writers who starts out trying to explain politely why Nano isn’t for them and ends up sounding all judgy and patronising about it) and Auntie MJ who is joyful and bouncy as ever.

This take on the recent Steampunky Goodness Three Musketeers movie by Karen Healey is my favourite movie review since Sarah Rees Brennan wrote about Troy. It spoils everything to bits but is so worth it.

Birthday Rage is a webcomic letter by a man who has just reached his 86th birthday, looking back at the history he has experienced, and how the world has changed in his lifetime. It’s awkwardly rendered but incredibly powerful.

An interview with Joss Whedon about Much Ado, and other issues to do with feminism and his portrayal of teenage girls.

Meanwhile, as I cower beneath my growing stack of Nanowrimo words and my teetering stack of Must Read Now books, I have of course taken up a new hobby. Those of you out there who are doing the Tumblr thing, I have succumbed! You can find me over there, sharing favourite pics, fannish goodness, vids and so on, at Tabitha Darling’s Bedroom Floor.

It’s surprisingly fun and easy, though Twitter (and you know, my comfy reliable blog) will I think remain my first internet loves. But oh, Tumblr is soooo pretty…

16316 / 50000 words. 33% done!

So I think I can blog about my current WIP again because I’ve started liking it, which after a week of near-torture is something of a relief!

My main problem at the moment is that I am writing a story set in the Verona of Romeo & Juliet (well, not entirely THAT Verona what with the tropical islands and the necromancy) and the only way to add magic and logic and possibly the occasional steam-powered robot (oops) to Shakespeare is to make sure that the canon itself works hard in the story. And there are only three canon facts about my heroine Rosaline, apart from the whole thing about Romeo being in love with her before Juliet: 1) her complexion was pale 2) she was determinedly chaste and 3) her sister’s name is Livia.

All of these things have given me a massive headache, at one time or another. But if I chuck them out, why bother calling my heroine Rosaline at all? So I’ve had to address them in my story, and in the building of the character. The only problem is that now her sister wants to be a point of view character and she’s a stitch away from becoming joint protagonist, and I can’t, I simply can’t have a protagonist called Livia. Quite apart from the fact that I’ve written three different fictional Livillas in the last two years (OK two of them were historical figures but still) I still live in hope that some day I will write the Great Livia Drusilla novel of all time, and how can I possibly do that if I already have another fictional Livia inside my head?

So I have to screw with canon. Which bugs the hell out of me. Because, you know. I want to be true to the play. Apart from all the liberties I already planned to take.

So she’s going to have to be Olivia, or Livian, or Liliane. Or something.

Damn you, canon!

3750 / 50000 words. 8% done!

I was just looking back over old posts, and wow I did a LOT of blogging last time I did Nanowrimo, in the grand old days of 2009. Not sure I’ll be keeping that up this year. I’m already juggling two different books!

Writing something new is scaryfun, though.

Some Nano links:

Scott Westerfeld linked to a series of posts he and Justince Larbalestier did a few years back, one for each day of Nanowrimo. Some wonderful, clever tips there, with such enticing titles as “Emergency Unstucking Techniques,” “Stealing from Chandler” and “Square Brackets”.

Ah, square brackets, what would we do without you?

Natalie Zutter at Tor.com looks at some of the Nano books that have actually got published – I commented there, but it got eaten. I had to stop and check what my previous Nano novels were, to see if I’d had any published – and I haven’t yet, I will in February! Yes, the first 50,000 words of Reign of Beasts was written in the 2010 Nano! I had completely forgotten that.

Meanwhile, Maureen Johnson is embracing the title of Nanowrimo Agony Aunt. Her blog is always fun to read but gets particularly manic at this time of year. If you have any questions about Nanowrimo, or life and the universe in general, I recommend you head over there and see what Aunty MJ has to say.

EPISODE 45

In which Alex and Tansy wax lyrical about Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing (despite knowing next to nothing about it), welcome the new Apex overlord Lynne Thomas, celebrate the twin dawns of All Hallows Read and Nanowrimo, and embark upon an epic marathon of Culture Consumed.

News

Joss Whedon makes Much Ado About Nothing in secret
at first we knew next to nothing
then we knew something
and every new bit of something brings squeeage!

Harry Potter DVDs to disappear from the shelves after Christmas (and Tansy’s still not over the whole Disney revelation)

Lynne Thomas’ first issue of Apex comes out next week featuring an article by Tansy on The Australian Dark Weird.
As the new editor, Lynne talks about what she wants from authors at Outer Alliance

The lack of (paid) women reviewers (in the lit scene) continues to dismay and fascinate us in equal measure.

All Hallows Read is upon us
And if you’re going to gift a scary book to someone, why not make it Australian?

Nanowrimo is imminent!

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Tansy: Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Alex: Life on Mars S2
Tansy: Bumped by Megan McCafferty
Alex: Obernewtyn, The Farseekers, and Ashling, by Isobelle Carmody
Tansy: Debris by Jo Anderton
Alex: God’s War, Kameron Hurley
Tansy: Marvel’s Ultimate Universe: Ultimate Spiderman, Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates
Alex: Shadow Unit
Tansy: Big Finish and Mary Shelley: Mary’s Story (for 99p) & The Silver Turk.

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

But this one is newwwwwww and even though I first got the spark about it a year or more ago (possibly two? I think Iz was badgering me to write it for Nano last year) I have not let myself write any of it down.

What I love about new new new new new book is that it’s a challenge in so many interesting ways – it contains stuff I’ve never done before, and a few aspects of it terrify me. But in many ways I think it will make a better follow up to Creature Court than Nancy Napoleon – it’s not the same kind of book in any real sense, but it has a few tonal aspects in common. It can certainly be described as dark fantasy rather than urban fantasy, and I can see it being marketed in the same sort of way.

BUT OMG SO DIFFERENT, HOORAY!

The other nice thing, once I have wrapped my head around the idea that I’m starting a new novel in just over a week, is that I feel like I can start blogging about writing again. There’s something about the middle and second half of a novel where it’s hard to think of anything to talk about – without massively spoilering everyone for a book that isn’t even contracted yet. I mean, do you want to know that Nancy is decapitated in the second last chapter?* No, you do not.

*This doesn’t happen. Unless workshopping it takes the book in a radically different direction…

So I imagine I’ll be talking a lot about writing. This happens when I nano.

Plus, did I mention?

NEW BOOK NEW BOOK NEW BOOK.

If you are Nanoing this year, you can find my profile at tansyrr.

N.K. Jemisin wrote a very cool post about women’s roles in fantasy and the problematic nature of judging the strength and value of female characters by masculine standards – the conversation in the comments is interesting, as so many people jump in to talk about domestic skills and values in fantasy, and why giving a woman a sword isn’t the only way to make her a “strong” character.

Also, I’m on the fence about Google+ and expect to continue so until too many friends of mine are in there for me to ignore it any longer (was I not right about Google Buzz? Thankyew and goodnight) but this post by Mary Robinette Kowal about constructing writing dates & writer gatherings in Google+ makes me think I’m going to have to get my arse in there before this year’s Nanowrimo.

Meanwhile, over at Twelfth Planet Press, Alisa has revealed the gorgeous cover of the new Twelve Planets collection by Lucy Sussex, and info to tantalise you about this book from one of Australia’s veteran science fiction & fantasy writers. Alisa also revealed the titles this week of the next season of TPs, by Deborah Biancotti, Narrelle Harris and Kaaron Warren… and what titles they are!

But you know, when it comes down to it, the most awesome thing about this week was Noni Hazlehurst reading modern classic picture book, Go The Fuck to Sleep. Text Publishing hit on a genius method of publicising the fact that they are the Australian publishers of this instant classic for exhausted parents everywhere. Noni is a goddess as well as a national icon, and her performance of the book, including traditional Play School commentary & asides to the viewer, and a deeply authentic ‘going downhill rapidly’ emotional journey, is note-perfect.

The glee on Twitter as Noni’s reading was announced (you can keep your Samuel L Jackson, Americans!), the outrage as YouTube canned the video for offensive conduct (you know where you can go, YouTube…) and the joy as the video was re-released on other platforms… honestly, this is the most patriotic joy I think most Aussies have felt in years.

Go the Fuck to Sleep – read by Noni Hazlehurst from sswam on Vimeo.

It does make me sad how many people are willing to criticise Nanowrimo without actually having taken part – when it comes down to it, apart from the poor agents who quite UNDERSTANDABLY get twitchy at the thought of all those half baked 50K mss being emailed to them on December 1st, no one is getting hurt here. It’s a fun group event – some people turn it into professional development, others are in it with a hobbyist mentality, and some are just plain typing with no other purpose in sight.

When I teach creative writing, like the Write Your Fantasy Novel course I taught last Saturday, I always try to emphasise the importance of figuring out what writing advice/work methods work for you. Figuring out how you can most effectively write the best book you can is the most useful thing you can do as a writer – and sometimes the easiest way to do it is just Try Everything and see what sticks to the ceiling. Nanowrimo is a great way to test out all kind of writing advice and techniques – and to figure out if you’re the kind of writer who can work under that kind of frantic deadline, or not.

Believe me, if you want to write professionally, you need to know how well you handle deadlines.

Mary Robinette Kowal has posted a lovely encouraging piece about how well Nano worked for her, and how she used it to write her recent debut novel Shades of Milk and Honey (which is absolutely one of the best novels I read this year – Jane Austen/Georgette Heyer with magic!). She also emphasises the importance of Nano as a learning experience for writers.

That actually makes two published Nano novels that I have read this year, as I also really enjoyed Time Off For Good Behaviour by Lani Diane Rich, which I read because I love the Will Write For Wine podcast so much. Very inspiring!

Like Clarion, Nanowrimo is not for everyone. But it’s a great time, and writers who are able to tap into the collective energy of the project are lucky. It’s like writing under the influence of caffeinated rocket fuel!

I was really sad this year to have to make the grown up decision not to do Nano – that it just didn’t fit into my schedule of contracted novels and other professional obligations. But then I sucked it up because omg, what a good problem to have! I am blitzing my way through my List of Getting Stuff Done, though, and pleased with my progress (currently 14/35) though I can’t help noticing that I’m leaving most of the writing related tasks until last…

Hopefully next year the stars will align and I’ll be able to play the Nano game with a whole new novel. An awesome, exciting novel! In the meantime, I am rather enjoying the freedom of not being part of the word circus. It’s almost like having a holiday…

I adore Nano. I love everything about it. I love the frantic pace of writing, the PRESSURE, the word wars, the playlists, the self-imposed deadline to end all self-imposed deadlines, the creativity, the pressure. I love making writing dates with my friends, those who write all year round (and I never get a chance to see otherwise) and those who only clock in with the writing thing at this time of year. I love carting my big fluffy monster laptop bag around to cafe after cafe and living room after living room and playing Lily Allen through my headphones on an endless loop because damn it that woman makes me write faster.

Last year, I wrote with a three month old baby on my lap. It was challenging, to say the least, but it was also an amazing step in proving to myself that I could juggle new motherhood and writing.

This year, the buzz is starting, and we’ve managed to lure new flies into the web (HEY MILLIE) which is super exciting. But… I won’t be old schooling it this year. It was a big admission for me to make to myself, that the full NaNoWriMo was not on the cards for me this time around. I’m looking at finishing the most intense book project I’ve ever worked on this Sunday, and even I am not crazy enough to launch into a 50K marathon the day after. A mad riot of new bookery is tempting, but it could burn me out for months. I’ve been swamped in deadlines all year, and this is finally a chance for me to breathe and catch up on other things. Including, um, some rather major copy edits for Book Two, which my editor was nice enough to postpone a few weeks to let me get the much-interrupted Book Three finally done.

On the other hand, it’s FREAKING NANO and there’s no way I want to be left out. Plus, I don’t want to miss the chance to harness the magical November vibe and get some serious work done before summer holidays hit me and I’m back to full time mummying. So…

I’m making a list and checking it twice. Instead of one big 50K project, I’m going to put several smaller projects together, covering different areas in my life that have been crying out for some serious attention. Call it the Month of Manic Multitaking Mama – MoMaMuMa! Heh okay, maybe we won’t give it a special name. But here’s my November plan:

TANSY’S NOVEMBER LIST [35]

PROFESSIONAL COMMITMENTS
Final prep & notes arrangement for writing workshop [1]
Teaching novel writing workshop, 6 November [1]
Copy edits, The Shattered City due 22 November [3]

WRITING ETC.
Proposal for Fury to send to agent – 3 chapters, synopsis, cover letter [5]
one short story [1]
4 chapters of Blueberry edited [4]

READING
5 books from my “archived to read” shelf [5]
10 children’s books for Aurealis Awards [10]

QUILTING/CRAFT
2 bookmarks [2]
squares for my Creature Court quilt [2]
finishing rocket quilt top [1]

Okay it looks like a lot, but apart from the professional commitments this is all stuff I have been desperately wanting to work on… pretty much all year. So I’m very excited about November!

Jeff VanderMeer has cued up a discussion on women, writing, guilt, and domestic responsibility, both at the Booklife blog and on his own (the really good comments so far are on his own blog). Rachel Swirsky also comments on the issue at her own blog.

I’ve commented over on Jeff’s blog about my experience as the stay-at-home-parent-who-writes, and I know how lucky I am to have a partner who sees my writing as an investment in our future rather than something which takes away from time I should be spending on, you know, vacuuming. I’m sure he would prefer I spent a touch more time vacuuming, since we bought the robot vacuum cleaner and all, but he has always been remarkably non-judgemental about the whole thing, and shared the chores.

There are so many potential issues/problems/complications tangled up in the concepts of Guilt and Motherhood, Guilt and Writing Time, Balancing Paid Work and Writing, Balancing Unpaid Work and Writing, that I think it’s impossible for any person to sum it up in an all-encompassing way. I always find it interesting to read other people’s stories about how they handle that difficult balance, though, and how they deal with their own expectations, and the expectations of others, which often have a lot to do with gender.

Your story is obviously going to be different, not just depending on whether you are male or female, but whether you are partnered, who works outside the house, who doesn’t, how much housework you do, whether or not you have kids, how old the kids are and what their needs are, and just how clean you (or your partner) feel the house has to be anyway. It changes as circumstances change.

Natania, one of the commenters over at Jeff’s blog, refers to “good selfishness” which is one of the best concepts that a woman and particularly a mother can embrace. Having something which is yours, which you prioritise as a regular thing that keeps you fulfilled and sane in between the franticwork and drudgery and fairy dust of being a parent, makes you a better person and parent. It doesn’t have to be writing. But if you don’t have something, you can disappear into the job of being a “housewife” – like all forms of self-employment, art included, domesticity can take all the time & resources you put into it, and then some.

I spend huge amounts of mental energy justifying time to myself. Allowing myself to feel okay about the things I do, and not beating myself up about taking that time away from other things. It is easier to balance these thoughts right now because a) I am being paid for my writing, thus it is a job and can reasonably be prioritised and b) I am caring for a five month old baby which means I am able to tell myself that anything I manage to contribute to the household beyond that is a bonus, not a necessity. Other years have been much harder for me to justify the amount of time/energy I put into the writing life above and beyond my family’s needs.

There are a whole lot of gender issues tangled up in this. I have an awesome, supportive partner who is an eager participant in the hands on part of parenting, and who contributes substantially to the domestic job despite also being the partner who works a 9-5:35 job outside the home. He’s taken enough parental leave to know that just because he’s been at work and I’ve been at home does not mean I have automatically had an easier day than he has, and that in some ways getting out of the house and into the workplace is more of a break from family responsibility than I get for – well, at least another year. He does a lot to compensate for the fact that there are some parental duties he can’t share (breastfeeding) and others where I’m going to be the one on the front line (our daughter has been known to wake me up to do something for her even if he is up and about – not for any negative reason, just because I am her default).

Rachel comments on Jeff’s blog about how many people think they have equal share of the chores, but in fact both genders are bad at estimating this. I have no idea where we fall, to be honest, but I know that I am happy with the current balance.

Being a postgrad student trained me for being a parent, and a writer, and a business manager. My whole life has been about self-employment – I rarely work outside the home, and I’ve been setting my own deadlines since I was 16. It does fit in better with parenthood – there are a lot of issues that working (outside the home) mothers have that I don’t, and I feel profoundly lucky in that. But when I take a day off, I have a much longer list of things I should feel guilty about not doing…

The idea that your time does not belong to you, that other people are entitled to it, is a thoroughly dangerous one, and yet even the most feminist women discover upon becoming parents that this dangerous idea is now ruling their life. It is true for men who become parents too, I think, but I do believe that the ones for whom this is equally true are pretty rare cases. It is, however, becoming more true for men, especially the younger generations, as societal expectations slowly change.

Doing Nanowrimo this year this year was really interesting – our group was almost entirely women, some of whom are partnered, some who are stay at home parents, some who are single, some who work fulltime jobs. All of us were in constant states of negotiation, with ourselves and other people. Early on, we considered the possibility of getting away for a weekend retreat at the end, but it just didn’t come together. Every hour of writing time was bartered, or borrowed from somewhere. At the end, we celebrated with our partners and children, because all of them had contributed to the effort, even if by not putting (too many) obstacles in our path.

All any of us can do is our best (which is not the best we can possibly do in a pretendy imaginary world, but the best we can manage today).

(Note: my baby slept the whole time I wrote this post, and my older daughter was watching tv – supervised by her Dad. I only had to intervene once when she was hassling him overtly, and perform two food-related tasks for her. This feels ridiculously decadent. Also, I totally should be writing right now.)