Friday Favorites - another milestone moment

So a delivery man leant very heavily on my door buzzer a few minutes ago. It's a very loud buzzer, so you don't really need to hold it down for longer than a second. But that's not important. The delivery is what was important.

A box. An ordinary cardboard box. A kind of heavy box. I signed, and brought into my office. The checkered logo on the side gave a hint...

I knew this was a moment I needed to capture for posterity. So I photographed the very first reveal, after the packing tape had been carefully sliced, one side of the cardboard peeled back...

And then I styled the next one, just so...

Goodness there are a lot of books in that one little box.

The mailing label says the box came from New York originally. I don't know what all the barcodes mean, but they're quite impressive.

Title: Cassie's Grand Plan

Author: Dark, Emmie

Publisher: Harlequin Books

Product line: Harlequin Superromance

And now I'm remembering that ages ago, I meant to record some of the witty things I wanted to write in the front pages of copies I'm going to give to the people who've been part of my journey. I've forgotten them all now.

Just going to sit and look at my box for a while.

Friday Favourites - new music

It's been a while since I've done a Friday Favourites post, so I figured it was time to get back into the habit. Especially given that it's Friday, I'm a little bored with my 'to do' list and writing a blog post seems far more entertaining than actually doing any work. :)

I've been listening to lots of music recently. Funny, when I'm writing, I prefer silence -- no distractions at all. So given all that hard work on revisions for the past few weeks meant lots of silence, I've been making up for lost time catching up with some new tunes (or old tunes that I missed the first time round).

I know I should probably be all concerned about the privacy implications, but I really like the function in iTunes that says 'if you like that, you might like this'. I've found some awesome music that way. I've also found some great tunes thanks to friends posting clips on Facebook and the like.

So here's a few new fav's of mine I'd like to share with you.

First up, Aussie band The Panics. They've been around a long time but this song, Majesty, is reasonably recent and I adore it. Whenever it pops up on my iTunes shuffle, it's one of those songs that makes me stop and listen (this could be the reason why I don't play music while I'm writing -- I'd purposely have to listen to stuff I didn't like!). It's a story about Australia, with lovely lyrics that evoke key historical events in beautiful poetic images. (To the young eyes across the sea, Who live and return to sanctuary, Of defiant tales in stone, In a higher prayer alone, In the brightest chains of gold, In the furthest place from home.)



Pick number two -- a band I discovered watching the TV show Chuck, which has a pretty awesome soundtrack most of the time. Seriously, I watch that show with my finger hovering over the Shazam app on my iPhone. If the music programmer from Chuck needs someone to inherit their music collection for any reason, I hereby volunteer.

Anyhoo, the band I discovered was The National. I've since bought two or three of their albums and they've been on high rotation in my house and car. I find it incredibly hard to pick just one of their songs to highlight, but I really do love this one Fake Empire and am just a little bit in love with the low, gravelly voice of the lead singer. The song is five years old or so, but new to me.



(NB: Not the official video, but a goodie nonetheless.)

Another band that I discovered watching Chuck is Frightened Rabbit. I adore their song Keep Yourself Warm, but I won't embed it here as the lyrics are, shall we say, adult in nature. Click on the song title link if you want to know more... Don't say I didn't warn you.

Last, but not least, let's give a little airplay to a brand new Aussie band, Underlights. I heard these guys on Triple J and they're an 'unearthed' band, which means they're unsigned and if you're quick you might still be able to download this song for free from the Unearthed website.



They don't seem to have a filmclip (I guess that comes with having a record company) but this is such a happy, bright song, it seems just right for a Friday.

And on that note, I hope you have a great day and get to spend sometime in your own head listening to whatever music it is that does it for you. If you've got a track you think I'd enjoy, please leave a comment and let me know -- I'm not absolutely dependent on iTunes for exposing me to new songs!!

Friday Favourites - Struggling with the WIP and the sexy cowboy

The WIP (that's "Work In Progress" for the non-writerly) is kicking my butt right now. I love this story. Seriously, I love it, I love my characters, I cry for them and for what I'm putting them through, but some days, geez, I hate it too. Does that make sense?

This isn't much of a start for something that's titled Friday Favourite is it? Oops. Meh, it's Friday, I'm blogging, and this is what's on my mind.

So I love this story and I hate it at the same time. That's got to be a good thing creatively, right? Not just something that's going to drive me slowly insane? (Please! Give me an answer! Not a rhetorical question!) Given that where I'm at right now is a place that I hate, I'd try to remind myself what it is that I love about this story.

First off, there's my hero. He's hot. Seriously--if he was real, I'd do him. My CPs agree. I have a photo that inspired him, and it's a little NSFW, sorry, but here you go. I guarantee you'll be pleased I posted it. My friends and I used to call him the sexy cowboy. For obvious reasons.

(No source, sorry. If you know, let me know and I'll credit it. I did try Googling "naked tattooed cowboy" images, and while that was immensely entertaining, it didn't produce any results as such.)

Of course, he doesn't get around naked like that in the book. (Well, not very often, anyway.) And he only has one tattoo, but he does rock the beard.

Pretty much this whole book sprung from that photo. Oh, and some red wine. (It'll make sense when you read it.)

Speaking of wine, the story is set in a fictional version of the Yarra Valley, amongst the grapevines of a vineyard. It's winter, in my story, so there aren't any lush grapes or green leaves, but it's still quite a spectacular spot. In my head, it looks a little like this:

No credit needed here, because this is my photo. I took it on a trip to Coonawarra in South Australia with a dear friend. For one of the days we were there, we hired a driver to drive our car while we tried every wine we could get our mitts on. We bought A LOT of wine on that trip. Seriously, on the drive back, our luggage was on the back seat because the back (a station wagon!) was full.

And my heroine. Oh boy. She's complicated. She's pretty, of course, but a little unique looking too, and she's got an inner wild-child streak a mile-wide. A bit like this.

(Sorry, another photo with no source attribution. I copied this one and the other one before I figured out I'd do things like blog about them and the proper thing to do would be to provide credits.)

She's carrying around the weight of the world and being in her head is almost painful. She's been through so much and I'm just making her go through more. You really should feel sorry for my characters. I torture them unbearably.

I think it's incredibly dull to read about other people's music preferences. Almost as dull as reading about their kids and pets. However this post wouldn't be complete without me mentioning my WIP's soundtrack. Every story I write has one. Sometimes the music has no relevance at all to the story -- it's just about the feeling or the vibe of the song that somehow meshes with the words I'm writing. And sometimes the music itself is incredibly embarrassing. Why, I think to myself, am I listening to that? My musical tastes are usually well outside the top 40, but then suddenly, I'm listening to some classic rock or ridiculous pop and thinking yes, yes, that's it!

Unsurprisingly, this book has been accompanied by many sad songs. But one song that I'm hoping will get me to the end is "We Belong" by Pat Benatar. Because if there's one truth about these two, it's that they Do. Belong. Together.

And on that note, it's time to get back to writing. Take it away Pat. Get us to "The End".

Enjoy your Fridays, all!

Friday Favourites - Playing dress-ups

I am a huge fan of costume parties. I just love the creative thought that goes into coming up with a fun idea, the search for the costume itself, and then all the preparation on the night getting ready. I think it makes a difference to the "vibe" at the event itself too -- everyone turns up with their 'extrovert' side on show and you instantly have a conversation starter with strangers.

Last night I went to a fantastic party held by my friends Kate and Antony. It was a combined birthday/engagement party and the theme was 'A journey on the Orient Express'. The invitations included a train ticket and a tag with the character you were required to dress up as. I was very excited to be asked to appear as Agatha Christie. Here's me with Kate, who did a gorgeous and very glam Coco Chanel:

Kate did an awesome job with the table decorations too. There was a train set running down the middle of the table which began in Paris (tiny Eiffel Tower, maps, etc) and ran through several destinations down the table to Constantinople. Each place setting was beautifully set as well:

Earlier this year, I had a costume party for my birthday. My theme was Marie Antoinette's court, and I mostly chose that idea because I was desperate to wear one of those gowns! It was a fantastic party and I was so thrilled that my friends really took it to heart and went all out with their costumes. Here's me and a photo of the room:

It was an absolutely gorgeous evening and totally managed to distract me from the nasty business of turning another year older.

Something I recently discovered is that there are some people in the world who do this dress-up thing not just for parties, but as a kind of hobby or lifestyle thing. It's called 'cosplay' and it started in Japan with manga, but it's evolved much more broadly since. The idea is to accurately represent a fictional character and people go to a lot of trouble to create amazing costumes. I really enjoyed watching this video clip that shows some of the fun people have getting wrapped up in their fandoms. Watching this clip makes me want to go hire some outrageous costume and wander around the city, just for the hell of it. :) Let me know, do you like dressing up? Or do you groan if an invitation for 'fancy dress' arrives in the mail?

Friday Favourites - Things that make you go... WTF?

Dontcha just love the internet? For me, I sometimes feel like Alice following the white rabbit down the rabbit hole. You click on a link which takes you somewhere where you click on a link which takes you somewhere else and suddenly an hour has passed and you can't quite remember the journey you took to get where you've currently found yourself...

But the one thing I love about the internet is all the fun stuff that it brings to my fingertips. Of course, there are all those interminable email tropes with "send this on to all the women you know who'd like a laugh" and crap like that, but there is genuine, wonderful funny to be had out there too.

I used another Friday Favourite to talk about The Bloggess, who is still regularly providing me with my recommended daily allowance of giggles. But there are plenty of other places I go to for laughs, smiles and just plain WTF-ness (which is sometimes just as amusing).

The web comic xkcd (apparently the name doesn't mean anything) combines high-concept maths, physics and technology with knowing winks at what it means to be part of the online world. It's also occasionally very heartfelt.

A recent comic that made me laugh was this one:

Because I think that is, quite seriously, what most of us are thinking when someone offers up the "best You Tube clip you've ever seen!!"

But in that spirit, I offer up one of my perennial favourites. I think I first found this clip (and I don't remember how) five or six years ago because I remember I was at a particularly workplace at the time (no comments on my productivity please) and shared it with the whole office.

It never fails to make me laugh because of its complete WTFness. And, it appears from the stats at You Tube, 13 million other users think the same. Enjoy your Fridays and feel free to share your favourite piece of internet WTFery with me!

Friday Favourites - Being a Daddy's Girl

Today’s Friday Favourite is all about my Dad, because it’s his birthday today – his 70th birthday. When he was a young man, Dad was quite the debonair man-about-town. Just take a look at this for proof:

According to my family legend, he snared my Mum with a fancy car and smooth talking, and the rest, as they say, is history.

We’re having a big family party this weekend, and people have travelled all kinds of distance to be here. That’s the kind of man my Dad is – he inspires people to want to be there to celebrate. For all of his life, whenever there’s been a big party, it’s never really started until Ken gets there.

Just yesterday, at Part One of the party weekend, someone asked me about my writing and they said, “So how did you get into that?”. Dad overheard and said, “It’s all thanks to me. See this bad back of mine? These broken fingers?” (Note: He doesn’t have broken fingers. But he does have a bad back.) “That’s all from the hard work I did to send her to university. Seven days a week, I worked, all so she could go to school.”

Because my Dad likes a laugh.

But also because he’s kind of right.

Thanks, Dad. And Happy Birthday.

Friday Favourites

Happy Friday everyone! Today is a particularly lovely Friday in my part of the world. This what I found on my way to the gym this morning:

So with some lovely sunshine, after what has felt like a very grey and miserable winter, it's time for uplifting, Spring-like music. Anthems. Songs about feeling good. Songs that make you feel good.

One of my favourites is Mr E's Beautiful Blues by The Eels, which despite its name -- and the band's usual sombre repertoire -- is incredibly cheerful. It never fails to make me smile.

Another favourite is You Are My Joy by The Reindeer Section -- and it has a rather sweet and uplifting video that I've only just discovered by posting it here for you. This Scottish band was formed by members of lots of other famous Scottish bands like some of my favourites - Belle and Sebastian and Teenage Fanclub. (And also some band called Snow Patrol - no idea what happened to them... ;))

But the winning song for me today, mostly because it's new to me (I was late to the party on this one) is Elbow's One Day Like This. It's definitely a day to "throw the curtains wide". And this is an awesome, live version of the song. Enjoy! And, if you feel like staying in front of your computer long enough, leave me a comment and tell me your favourite uplifting anthem.