On the first day of NaNo...

...my email brought to me.....

One big fat rejection letter.

I think I broke the land-speed record from query to rejection on that one. Oh well, at least it was a nice letter.

It's not exactly the most positive way to start of a month-long writing fiesta, but I'm proud to say I didn't let it get in the way. Today's word count was a quite respectable 2,542. Not enormous, for sure, but more than the daily requirement and a nice start. If I can do that every day for the next 29 days, I'll be doing okay.

November is going to be a big month.

I'm in the middle of Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen, otherwise known as GISHWHES (the I did it last year, too). I have an absolutely wonderful team gals from around the globe, none of whom I've met face to face. We were randomly assigned together last year, and it was a random piece of wonderful in my life. We've kept in touch through social media and this year we have more or less the same team again, with a few lovely extras we've roped in to boost our team numbers to the required 15 (it was 10 last year).

GISHWHES asks you to do all kinds of things with the aim of breaking out of normalcy for a little while. It's a brilliant concept. I love the opportunity to do creative and silly things just for the hell of it. The prize is pretty awesome -- a trip to Scotland to stay in a haunted castle. I'd love to win just to meet the rest of my team.

So far for GISHWHES I've scoured charity shops for Barbie and Ken dolls, done a quick Philosophy 101 on Kant's deontological ethics, and defiled a Tickle-Me-Elmo doll (trust me, you do not want to know. I'm so ashamed). That's barely scratched the surface.

I'm heading to Singapore for work shortly, and I'm having a girls' weekend away in Queensland later this month. Plus I've got to present at a conference and attend another one.

Somewhere in there, I have to write 50,000 words. I've told myself I'm participating this year to have that extra bit of motivation that NaNo brings. Not necessarily to write 50k. If I get there, great. If I don't, I'm not going to be too hard on myself, because I'll know that I will have achieved more than I would have if I hadn't taken part.

So, I'd best get offline and do some writing. Oh, but I have to roast a Barbie and Ken doll in a compromising position surrounded by root vegetables first. Wish me luck. ;)

SuperNATURAL vs SuperROMANCE

Misha Collins, me, and Jim Beaver. Misha is clearly reading the sex scene. Jim isn't sure what to make of it, and I'm going "Oh shit!" and totally forgetting to do all the things you're supposed to do when you get your photo taken, like point your chin up and pull the hair out from behind your ears. Damn, my hair was actually pretty good that day too. Oh well. 

How was your weekend? I can pretty much bet it was nowhere near as weird and fascinating as mine -- as the photo above can attest.

Yesterday I attended a Supernatural fan convention. I am honestly quite surprised I stated that so boldly. After all, being a fan is something you're supposed to be slightly ashamed of, isn't it? Or is that being a genre writer? (Ooh, cutting literary commentary so early in the piece!)

My rational mind came up with many reasons to attend. Not only was it a chance to do a photo that could be fun publicity for my books, it would be good research. After all, my current WIP's hero is a horror comic book author who goes to a convention as a guest star. My non-rational mind knew that while that was all true and made a convincing cover story, it was not at all the real reason I wanted to attend.

When I turned up at the quite posh venue (the Park Hyatt, if you don't mind) I had no idea what to expect -- I really did wonder if it was going to be filled with people who only emerged from darkened caverns somewhere for such things like this (an initial fear Misha Collins himself shared, apparently).

But actually everyone was pretty normal. If primarily female. But then when the stars of this show look like these guys, that wasn't such a surprise.

What happens at a fan convention? Well, a lot of sitting around for a start. Everyone wants photos taken with the stars, and that takes time. (BTW, each photo costs a certain amount, as do autographs -- the more notable the star, the higher the price. Much of the day's conversation is spent discussing how to allocate "budget" and lamenting the state of credit cards...)

So while that's happening there's not much to do. The organisers did a good job of running trivia competitions (which totally demonstrated that I am not even in the league of a "Real Fan" -- Sam's LSAT score?? Seriously someone knew that??) and showing episodes of the show on the big screen. There were also things to look at, like the merchandise available (still don't know why there were Disney plushies and Game of Thrones T-shirts on sale). And the very cool Impala:

Don't think Sam and Dean have been anywhere near this one, but it's still a cool car.
And see what I mean about the hair? Damn. If Misha and Jim were available for a re-take, I'd so be there.

I'm not much one for the merchandise, so that didn't interest me. And watching the episodes on the screen? Well, I have a big screen and the DVDs at home. So, so far, I wasn't that impressed. Also, seating is allocated according to when you purchase your ticket -- which I guess is fair. I bought my ticket about two weeks ago (some people bought them over a year ago!) and I was in the BACK ROW. The VERY back row. But hey, I still had a reasonably decent view, and considering I sat in that chair for almost 12 hours, it was pretty good to be able to stand up and move around whenever I wanted without disturbing other people.

The system for photos and autographs was that they called people out to line up row by row. So yep, you've got it -- that meant a long, long wait for me. (I filled it out by texting my friends until they got bored of me and my phone battery began to run dangerously low. And by a stroke of luck, I shoved my Kindle in my bag at the last minute as I left the house. In a funny twist, there wasn't any 3G reception in the ballroom and I was too lazy to walk upstairs for the few moments it would take to download a new book to read, so I just went into my "Classics" folder, where I've downloaded a few of those freebie masterpieces Amazon has on offer from time to time. I had a few Dickens books and Don Quixote and the like, but I picked "Alice in Wonderland." Seriously, it wasn't until Alice was running the Caucus Race with the Dodo that I realised what my subconscious had done to me. Good one, subconscious. #win)

What it also meant was more time to get nervous. I was pretty annoyed with myself for that, to be honest. Nervous? I do public speaking for a living for goodness' sake! The thing that most people rank as being more scared of than death is what pays my mortgage! And I was getting all short-of-breath and shaky about standing next to a couple of guys from TV. Gah.

In retrospect, I should have had more than one photo done, so that I would have known what to expect. It's hard to explain, but it's kind of like being in a car crash -- your brain is trying to process "what's happening?" and "it's over?" at the same time. Because it takes like THREE SECONDS. I mumbled something about "would you mind posing with my books" and "you can read them and look interested or horrified or whatever" (I actually have no idea what exact words I used) and then I'm looking at the camera and then I'm walking away with my books in my hand again. Actually, I don't even remember the looking at the camera bit, but there's photographic evidence that I did, so I must have.

My standby self-talk when I get nervous or am facing something I don't want to do is, "In x minutes/hours/days this will be over and you'll be back home/asleep/drinking chardonnay". I told myself the same thing ("In five minutes you'll be back sitting on that stupid chair") as I waited in line watching other people do cool poses and joke around. And then I was back sitting on the stupid chair. Seriously, it was THAT QUICK.

Then the afternoon sessions began and I finally got to understand what this convention stuff is all about.

Just because people are actors, doesn't mean they are entertaining. I've known some actors over my lifetime, and they wouldn't necessarily be top of my list for dinner party invites. Luckily, the people we got to see yesterday were both actors AND entertaining.

Richard Speight Jr and Corin Nemec were an awesome double act -- jumping through the audience, telling funny personal anecdotes and surprisingly admitting to never watching the show they're actually there to promote. (As a former publicist, I did squirm a little at that.)

The only vaguely decent shot I managed to take with my own camera (Corin on the left, Richard on the right). Not sure if it's relevant, but it amused me that it was shot number 666 on my camera's bizarre file-naming system. Neither of these guys played Lucifer, unfortunately. That would have been pretty awesome.

Traci Dinwiddie was incredibly cool and the girl has biceps that I could see from the back row! She had some interesting things to say about the female dynamic in Supernatural which is only of interest to other fans with a feminist bent like me, so I'll shut up about it for now.

Jim Beaver's posts on Facebook are something I actively look forward to. He posts interesting, thoughtful articles about movies, politics and all sorts of things. Strangely, he wasn't quite what I expected, even though I couldn't tell you what I expected. He posted on Facebook this morning that he was exhausted and perhaps that's why he wasn't as sparky as I thought he would be.

Then there was Misha Collins. Last year I did the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen. (I blogged about GISHWHES here.)

[Edited to add: Misha was the instigator/organiser of the hunt. In case you were wondering about that strange-seeming non sequitur.]

I loved GISHWHES and I met some wonderful women assigned to my team and we all still keep in touch. What I loved most about it was pushing myself to do things I ordinarily wouldn't do at all, and realising (or, perhaps, remembering) in the process that most people in the world are nice -- it's not something our mainstream media would like us to believe. But that week, I asked a lot of strangers to do weird things for me, and no one said no, and overall I found it a pretty life-affirming thing.

I was thrilled that during his session Misha talked a little about the hunt and how much he'd enjoyed it too. He was awesome on stage -- funny, engaging, silly and effortlessly confident. He's just one of those people that you can sit back, relax and know he's going to sail the whole room through everything with wit and charm (even the occasional stupid questions and star-struck fans).

See the tiny man on the stage? He's actually life-size in person.

I wasn't sure about getting autographs. By the time Misha had finished talking and the day was done, it was after 6pm. I got there at 8.30, so it had already been a long day. But one of my new friends that I'd just made that that day (one of the benefits of the sitting around is that there's plenty of time to do that) had been involved with Misha in the organising side of GISHWHES. She convinced me to get an autograph, because she thought I should tell him how much I loved it. Besides which, I had a feeling those ridiculous nerves were more behind my decision not to bother than than any concerns about being tired on Monday! GISHWHES was all about pushing my boundaries and I did that, so I figured maybe I should just suck it up and do something else that scared me a little.

So okay, I decided I would. Cue: a whole heap more waiting around. (This time I beat the nerves by discovering a fellow a-ha fan and reminiscing merrily about Morten, Pal and Mags. Would you believe it?? In the some-hundred women in the room I meet an a-ha fan. She'd been to their first-ever live gig in Perth. I'd been to their last-ever gig at Wembley. It was awesome.)

It was after 7pm by the time I stood in front of Misha, gushing about GISHWHES. (I'm quite proud of that alliteration.) He was utterly charming, friendly and warm. And he gave me a wink. I filed away all the resulting feelings in my body into the file in my brain marked "romance author inspirations: heroine swoons".

And then I said goodbye to all my new friends and I went home. And instead of going to sleep, I wrote this blog post in my head until even my brain got sick of it and made me unconscious.

So that's it. If anyone is still reading (which would be quite a miracle, what with all the parenthesis and random comments that totally disrupt the narrative flow of this story, not to mention the overly-lengthy photo captions) then all I can say is that if you ever get a chance to go to something like this about something you love, do it. Just, do it.

Oh, and before you ask -- "In His Eyes" isn't available, I don't even have author copies yet. I made one up for the photo, so the book Jim is holding is actually Cassie's Grand Plan with the In His Eyes cover glued around it! I had some fantasy that I was going to be able to explain that to them, and talk a little about my books and have them ask politely disinterested questions about my writing. Ha!

I'll know better for next time... ;)

Friday Favorites -- Getting set for the new year

I'm not usually one for making a long list of new year's resolutions. What I've found is that it's better to just come up with one simple idea and use it as a kind of "theme" for the year.

In 2012, my theme for the year is: Have more fun.

Source

That's not to say that I didn't have any fun in 2011. It was a year that certainly came with its highlights (a big birthday party to start the year, a holiday in New Orleans, multiple trips to Hong Kong for work -- not to mention getting two books sold!). But it was also a year filled with a lot of very hard work.

Somewhere along the way, buried under lots of work and responsibilities, I feel like I lost a bit of my sense of fun. I think I noticed it most when I was part of the scavenger hunt back in Nov/Dec, because although I wouldn't want to spend my life doing exceptionally silly things like that, I really noticed how much fun I was having just playing around.

So, for 2012. More fun. More silliness. More spontaneity. More making an effort to get my bum off the couch even when I'm tired. Less worrying. Less work intruding into all hours of the day and night (and weekends). Less introspection, more insurrection!

My crazy week

So the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen (GISHWHES) is over now. (Cue: awwwww.) Although it was far more time-consuming than I predicted (and the deadline just happened to coincide with my deadline for book two -- eek!) it was a huge amount of fun. The purpose -- to create 'art', to break out of the dreariness of everyday life, to collaborate internationally -- was fully achieved, as least as far as I and my team were concerned.

Here's some of the crazy things I did in the past week:

• broke the law in Singapore by chewing a whole pack of chewing gum while having my photo taken with skyline in the background (publishing that isn't going to prevent me from being admitted to the country again, is it? Hmmm.)
• tied a pink feather boa to Puffing Billy
• tried (futilely) to add up a bill on an antique comptometer (in pounds, shillings and pence)
• posed in front of a Dutch bakery eating something yummy (to show the after-effects of a 'Dutch oven')
• convinced my friends to exploit their children on my behalf, including having someone bake Frikadella from scratch, another stage a sibling fight over maple syrup, and yet another let her six-year-old pretty ballerina read "Guns and Ammo" magazine
• improvised a ship in a bottle in front of Captain Cook's Cottage -- much to the amusement of a busload of Japanese tourists
• wrote an email to Oprah asking her to video herself reading aloud from one of my books (FYI -- she didn't reply)
• learned about a yet-to-be-completed bridge in Brazil, even though we weren't able to secure the required photo
• had a friend photograph herself trying out karate moves on Bruce Lee's statue in Hong Kong.

Me and the results of a Dutch oven -- the nice kind.

It's been quite a learning experience! I've not only expanded my vocabulary, I've expanded my knowledge of the world (in slightly bizarre ways, but it still counts). And I've learned that I have a wonderful international network of friends and colleagues who, just like me, are prepared to do something silly, or fun, or ridiculous, just for the hell of it. (I also expanded that network by nine lovely ladies -- the other members of my GISHWHES team.)

Personally, even though the competition is over, my aim is to continue to inject an occasional bit of GISHWHES eccentricity in my life whenever the spirit moves me.

Friday Favourites - Randomly nice people

This week I have been participating in GISHWHES -- aka the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen. The project was the brainchild of Misha Collins, an actor, tweeter and slightly insane guy who doesn't like Australia for hilarious reasons. It aims to raise some money to help out in Haiti as well as basically just provide a bit of fun for the participants involved.

The rules of the game are that you are not allowed to post any of your submitted images on blogs, so unfortunately I can't show you some of the awesome things I and my international and amazing team have been able to do (including the nerve-wracking excitement of breaking the law in Singapore!).

Going out and asking complete strangers to do weird and occasionally inconvenient things is something outside my comfort zone. But I have been absolutely astonished by the genuinely nice people who have, mostly, just gone , "Oh, okay. Sure, I'll help."

Asking nicely, smiling, explaining why -- this all goes to assist in getting people on side, but so far (touch wood) I'm yet to come across someone who has been rude or unhelpful. Restores one's faith in humanity, if such a thing was needed!

Today I met John Wolff, a man from Upwey (outer suburb of Melbourne) who runs a calculator museum of sorts. John was kind enough to lend me a comptometer, which, I learned, is basically a sophisticated calculator from the early 20th Century -- a precursor to adding machines and computers in the days before we had such things. Comptometers were used in offices right up until the 1970s.

A comptometer from the 1930s

John surrounded by part of his collection

We (my brother and I -- Chris was along for the ride to provide essential logistical assistance like carrying the heavy comptometer around!) took John's precious almost-computer to a local restaurant where we attempted -- as per the instructions -- to calculate the tip required for our meal of sandwiches and tea. This was made challenging by the fact that the comptometer operated in pounds, shillings and pence, and more generally by the fact that that waiters in Australia generally don't expect to be tipped.

After visiting John (and returning the precious piece of calculating equipment) we headed to Puffing Billy to photograph a pink feather boa hanging out the window of the engine carriage. Once again, we encountered helpful -- if highly bemused -- people, who willingly allowed the dignity of the grand old Billy to be compromised for the sake of a photo.

I've also had some lovely friends helping me out, in far-flung places such as Hong Kong, Canada and Brazil. And some a little closer to home, who have willingly exploited their children on my behalf.

Working with my randomly selected team (two Aussies, one Puerto Rican, the rest American) has also been a great experience. I have been astounded by their creativity, efficiency and helpfulness. Just to get a bit business-like for a moment, if anyone ever needed an exercise to prove the effectiveness of social media in creating and enhancing innovation, collaboration and connectedness, then this would be a brilliant case study!

If we don't win the challenge (and, oh, I would like to -- first prize is a trip to Rome!!) then at least I've had some fun, donated some money to charity, met some new people, and done a whole heap of things I thought I'd never find myself doing. There's something pretty magical about that.