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Sep 19, 2011 by

Motivation Monday

These are getting more and more sporadic, and I really have no excuse any more. Well, I have a kind of excuse, but I’m not sure he’d be happy being used as such ^_^

Anyway, have some links! A bit of a science theme at the moment, since I’ve been indulging my inner geek.

Close up of dinosaur feathers trapped in amber. You can see how the feathers evolved. I was watching Inside Nature’s Giants the other week, in which they dissected a cassowary. Did you know cassowaries have claws at the end of their wings*? Proof in both directions that dinosaurs and birds are related.

My new favourite toy. The scale of the universe. Zoom in and out to compare existence on the macro and micro scales. This has had me spouting geeky quark puns on twitter all week. (I swear up and down I find the flavours of quarks strangely charming, from the top to the bottom of my heart)

I’ll let this video speak for itself:

(go to Youtube for more info and more videos)

If you like sciency stuff, I usually try and contain my geekery to my tumblr, http://itsaspaceromance.tumblr.com. Just, you know, if you wanted to follow it 🙂

*of which it’s really hard to find a photo. It’s a wing with a claw on the end, internet! How are you not all over this?

In Monday Motivation
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Sep 7, 2011 by

and I’m back :)

The Unthanks on the Garden Stage

I’m even a little bit tanned! The weather was surprisingly nice for a festival. I drank cider, dozed in the sun, had a massage, borrowed a book from the ‘library’, saw Robin Ince at midnight, and even listened to some music.

I had this idea where I’d maybe review some of it, but I’m just not good at talking about music so you mainly get a bunch of links to people I saw and enjoyed 🙂 It turns out I have three primary reactions to music: “I jigged around a bit”, “It nearly made me cry”, and “well that made me think”.

Most deadly disco ball ever (in the words of Allo Darlin)

Emmy the Great – jigged around

The Secret Sisters – jigged around

Tinariwen – jigged around, made me think (Sarahan protest songs)

Beirut – jigged around

Laura Marling –  jigged around

Joanna Newsom – made me think (storytelling with a harp, held 3000 people in rapt attention on a cold dark night)

Midlake – jigged around

The Unthanks – nearly made me cry (jigged around)

Allo Darlin – jigged around (nearly made me cry)

White Denim – jigged around

Beth Jeans Houghton – jigged around (“it looks like cum and smells like flowers, I use shampoo in the shower”)

tUnE-YarDs – made me think (though in a slightly different way to some of the others!)

Caitlin Rose – jigged around

My absolute favourites were Allo Darlin, The Unthanks, and Beth Jeans Houghton. I’m buying Midlake for my sister, Tinariwen for mum and the Unthanks for my stepdad. I’ve got signed CDs from the Secret Sisters, Emmy the Great and Allo Darlin (and an Allo Darlin t-shirt!)

I also took photos of a peahen and her chicks underneath the stage at one point, while Phosphorescent were performing.

peahen and chicks under stage

See? I have a better photo, but it’s on my camera (rather than my phone) but that’s a level of post-holiday organisation I have yet to attain.

Guardian review here.

In Holidays and Courses
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Sep 1, 2011 by

Time for a sunblock and brolly holly

I have survived summer at work (6 and 7 day weeks, 7am starts, 6pm finishes, and several thousand people to be nice to a day!) and am treating myself to a holiday 🙂 I’m off to The End of the Road Festival to enjoy some music, comedy, storytelling and cider. And hopefully some sunshine, but I’m not that optimistic!

(if you’re going, I’ll be the one wearing ruby slippers and a green cape!)

In Holidays and Courses
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Aug 3, 2011 by

Celebrating one year of being a published author

So, what’s it been like?

I submitted Tease to Loose Id July 2009. It came out August 2010. In between? Edits. So. Many. Edits.

Loose Id took a chance of Tease when it was still half baked, asking me to rewrite and resubmit. I did, and I got the congratulations email in April, and the ball started really rolling them. It went through three rounds of edits with Sandra (lovely, lovely editor!), then two rounds of line edits, then a post proof review, then a proofed review.

On July 29th Tease went back to Loose Id for the final time, and on August 3rd it was released. Not a bad turn around! Tease had been bumped up the schedule, making the last few reviews a speedy thing. The cover was up, the review copies were sent out, I realised I’d stuffed up the whole tax thing… And then it was for sale.

Reviews were interesting. They’re all predominantly positive, which is a relief! I only let myself be lured into commenting once (other than to say thank you, obviously!) when I realised that somewhere in the edits some details had been lost, and what readers were getting wasn’t what I’d intended. I’ve made my peace with that now, but if there’s ever a second edition I’ll go back and tweak it a little.

I had no idea what to expect in terms of sales. From anecdotal evidence, UK rooted books don’t always do as well as US based ones, so I wasn’t expecting to be a run-away success from the get go. What was interesting was watching the sales peek every time a new market opened up (Sony, Amazon, ARe, etc) and the impact reviews had on it.

Sales are tailing off now, and I know that’s mostly my fault. Real life has been kicking my arse, and I’ve not been promoting it as much as I was at the beginning. They say the best promotion you can do is to write another book, so I’ve been working on that too 🙂

(I haven’t done the maths, if you’re wondering, but off the top of my head I’d say I’ve sold 300-400 copies. I have to do the maths soon, what with taxes and all, so I’l let you know the exact count then!)

Tease was one of those stories that’s been lurking around the back of my mind for years. A young artist, living alone, doesn’t realise how lonely he’s become until on one of his daily rambles along the coast he comes across a beautiful stranger. The stranger can’t talk, but that’s for the best: the artist isn’t great with words and they’ve always gotten between him and romance before. They romp in the sea, picnic on the sand, and fall asleep as the sun sets.

It’s not quite how Tease came out (there’s not exactly a lot of tension in that version!) but the core themes are still there. Loneliness. Communication. Trust. And the Cornish seaside, of course. I was back there less than a month ago, and I’ll upload some pictures to facebook so you guys can see why it will always be my favourite summer spot.

I’m really glad Tease was the first book I had published. I’m really glad it’s still selling, a year on, and I’m really glad you guys have been around for the journey. I hope you enter the competition* and I just want you to know how much I appreciate you all.

*I bought the charm bracelet back when I was still submitting Tease to various publishers. That shows you how proud I was off this book. I’ve actually got two, but I’m keeping one 🙂 Also, even if no one enters, I’m still paying to adopt that pup. It’d be mean not to!

In Writing
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