Re-Pitch For My Fantasy Novel

I dont know why I'm playing around with pitches. I suppose because I'm avoiding having to do any work!

[Title]: Children of the Ether, Book 1

The Kingdom is in turmoil. King Enyard has ensured that his people will subsist the Breaking through a pact made with the mysterious Ethereans, but the dragon wars are weakening the Kingdom’s defences and many are turning their favour towards his charismatic brother.

Ellusia has grown up as the bane of her people. She was the first to survive since the Breaking, and is struggling to keep secret the consequences of the pact her father made. When her brother is killed she must decide between loyalty to her father and her people before the Kingdom tears her and itself apart and falls from the sky.

Re-Pitch

I think I can do better...

Elena Kinsella is on the brink of having the perfect life. Moving away from her controlling Nan, and on the verge of love she becomes the victim of a serial killer, but quickly discovers that there is more to death than it seems...

With the help of a few kindred spirits Elena sets out to discover who her murderer is; and when her best friend becomes the next target she must find a way to stop him before her time runs out.

Hmm.. not sure. I'll keep tweaking it, I think.

Fleeting Life

This is my pitch for my novel Fleeting Life:

Elena Kinsella is on the brink of having the perfect life. She has just moved out from under her Nan’s controlling power, into her own flat, and has spied a future love interest in one of her customers at work. Unfortunately, she becomes the victim of the local serial killer, and quickly discovers that there is more to death when she realises that no one can see or hear her unless she wills it.

Forced to watch the world carry on without her, with the help of a few kindred spirits, Elena sets out to discover who her murderer is before her time runs out. While watching and waiting she falls for James, the handsome customer she met on the eve of her death, and when her best friend becomes the next potential victim Elena must find a way to save her friend, and James, before its too late.

The first draft was finished last November... I'm trying to work up the energy to get back to it.

Comic Relief

Dear IT Support:

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in the overall performance, particularly in the Flower and Jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 un-installed many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as: Football 5.0, Rugby 4.3 and Cricket 3.0.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs; it simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, to no avail What can I do?

Signed, Desperate

-----------------

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.

Try entering the command: C:/I-THOUGHT-YOU-LOVED-ME to download Tears 6.2, which should automatically install Guilt 3.0. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1.

WARNING: Beer 6.1 is a very nasty program that will create Snoring Loudly.

CAUTION: Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law. This is not a supported application and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. I personally would recommend Hot Food 3.0 and Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck, IT Support ------------------

Meltdown

I've got one hell of a weekend coming up.

Gotta finish packing and make trips to the dump on Saturday morning. Also got to take almost everything we own to Big Yellow Storage (which means writing out an inventory as well), by sundown on Sunday.

Then on Monday or Tuesday (will find out which day it'll be on Saturday) I've got to be present while some dudes and a big truck come and take away all our furniture that we dont want (two sofas, tv cabinet, two sideboards, coffee table, kitchen table, tumble dryer, and mouldy bed), for a price! Then I've got to dump the rest of our bits and pieces at Big Yellow before going to work.

Tuesday I've managed to organise a cleaner to do the carpets without me having to be present! Then Tues night we gather all our luxuries etc and go to the little holiday cottage I was able to book, and hopefully still be able to go to the pub for silly Tuesday (our weekly chill-out night at the pub!).

Wednesday I've got to meet the inventory clerk at the old house and try to convince her that we haven't ruined the house, and then I give her the keys! Done!!!

Then its just wait wait wait wait wait wait and wait some more until we exchange and complete on our new house. Hopefully we'll exchange today or on Monday which would be fucken great. It better all happen before December 20th, anyway, coz we're off to Oz for two weeks and we'd like to have a home to come back to!

Moving house is a fucking nightmare. Especially so if your tenancy on your stupid rented house expires before you can move into the new place. They all assured me we'd be in the new place before November. I'm pleased that I never fucking believed them because they are all WRONG!

Nanowrimo? Fuck it. I quit this year. No time to even think about scratching my arse let alone writing a novel. I'll aim to have it done by my birthday in April.

Dead Computer With A Silver Lining

Computer crashed yesterday.

Lost everything on it since May.

Including my nano book. BUT - I haven't yet deleted it from Jerry so all is not lost!
Photos, however, are a different story. We had uploaded most of them to Facebook, but a majority of them are gone.. including our anniversary trip to Dublin.

*sigh*

I hate computers.

On the upside we did manage to get two tickets to see Led Zeppelin! This, however, could possibly have been a hoax because as soon as we bought the tickets the computer crashed. But it seemed legit. It was all through ticketmaster etc. Ah well. We shall see!

I haven't written a thing since last week. I'm woefully behind. I feel like the retarded kid in school who is encouraged to run the marathon but ends up looking like the mutant Toxic Avenger gallumphing slowly down the track with all horrified eyes of the audience glued on me like dried fish guts.

No news on the fucking house move either. Two queries still outstanding. One is imminent, the other depends on how fast Sevenoaks District fucking Council get off their fat arses are send the required documentation.

I hate waiting on other people.

I need lots of JD when this is all done. Bucket loads!!!

Stressed With a Capital 'S'

House moving sux.

Our rent agreement is due to expire next Wednesday.. ie 9 days! and we have yet to exchange and complete on our new house due to useless fucking solicitors not picking up their fucking phones and calling each other even though they know its urgent. Why they cant sort out queries over the phone, by email or fax, I have no idea... but I must say they are definitely not worth the bullshit price they charge when they cant get simple queries answered.
The estate agent, vendor, and I all feel like we're match-makers, each of us trying to coax the other into phoning directly rather than writing fucking time-wasting letters.

So, its likely we'll be homeless in 9 days. We've got to spend out on getting all of our furniture taken to the dump, as its not really saleable, and I dont want to be bothered with trying to sell the shit anyway. We've decided that we're going to leave the freezer at the property, because it costs to dispose of fridges and freezers. When we throw the bed away we wont have anything else to sleep on... but anything is better than the mould infested piece of shit we've got at the moment.

So, I'm not really a happy bunny at the moment. I should be spending my time immersed in my Nano book, but this morning on the train I just could not face it (I also had to run for the fucking train again this morning due to some pretty fucked up traffic).

I've no idea what my word count is. I haven't uploaded my words from Jerry for days, but either way I'm pretty sure I'm still under 20k.

I've cancelled the piano lesson tonight, coz I'm just not in the mood. I've been giving myself headaches from clenching my jaw all day every day. I've been on the phone to the estate agent daily (three times today so far) trying to chase up where this house move stands, and I've got so much stuff thats urgent at work as well, so I'm feeling a little stretched thin.

I also had the hangover of hangovers yesterday. Which still seems to be lingering, even now.

I sooo need a holiday.

Nanowrimo aka Disaster-wrimo

I'm sooo behind!

I should be over the 20k mark by now, but I'm still floundering at around 13k. (Haven't updated my word count thingy yet)

I'm not too disappointed about it though. November is bloody stressful, but I am writing every day. I manage to clock out about 1000 words every morning on the train, so I'm slowly and steadily moving along - which is great!

But... 1000 words a day only equals 30k at the end of November, so I'll be 20k short. I'm not going to beat myself up about it, because unlike last year I'm paying more attention to the quality of the work. I've also had to slow down a bit because I dont have it as completely planned out like last year's Fleeting Life was. Writing a fantasy novel is a lot more tricky than I thought. So many things to think about. And I've only decided on three of the characters' names. So I've got many characters called Boy 1 Boy 2, Old Servant, Younger Servant, Queen, Captain, etc. Naming them will have to come later.

After some helpful comments I'm going to add 'No Plot, No Problem' to my Christmas Wish List. I'm also going to re-read Robin Hobb's farseer trilogy once November is over. The reason for this is because its written in the first person, and I've never seen that before in a fantasy novel... and I'm trying it. I must be crazy, but its too late to turn back now.

So, anyway. I may not win Nano this year, but I'm still steadily pumping out words, and I'm happy with that. As long as I'm happy, all is good!

Doctor Who!

We interrupt this Nanowrimo with a special report on Doctor Who!
I went along to the signing on Oxford Street, HMV store, on Monday the 5th. I used my last day of holiday that I have left until April. I didnt get there in time to be one of the lucky 300 people that got a wristband in order to get their DVDs signed, but I went along anyway to see if I could get a sneak peak at him! I managed to take loads of blurry photos, and made friends with a fellow Aussie and David Tennant fan, which was nice.
After the signing I waited like a real crazy geek in the alley way to watch him exit the side door. I managed to get a lovely glimpse of him as he rushed out and into his car - and he looked straight at me!! I could have died right on the spot! Haha!
I'm such a dork! Although I like to consider myself a stealth geek. Not geeky looking, but if you analysed me a little and discovered all my secret obsessions then you'll see I'm as geeky as hell!
One of the signees was this squat greasy-haired woman who had a beard! Yes, a beard! It was horrible!! I pity poor David and Freema who had to sit through the signing with such repulsive creatures coming up and slobbering all over them! I'm glad I kept my cool and didn't shout out or act insane. I was merely casually loiting in the HMV store, and then casually loitering in the alley way. At least, thats what I tell myself!

I saw Alice Cooper that day too! I had a cup of tea in Starbucks in Borders Bookshop and he was there signing copies of his new book. There were less people there than at the Doctor Who signing so I was able to get closer and get a better pic.

Ouch!

I crashed and burned with my pitch on the Bookends blog.

The response was:

Uff da! Too long. My first concern is that your first paragraph makes absolutely no sense to me. You’re dropping in a lot of information that I probably don’t need to know at all at this point and that only confuses me. In fact, the second doesn’t help much either. What’s the real conflict here? When does the story really get going? Does it start moving at the Breaking of the World or the pact with the Ethereans? Is it about Ellusia or about her father? I think you need to clarify exactly who the protagonist is and what the conflict is. It seems to me your pitch is more along the lines of, “Ellusia Carver has led a protected and spoiled life as princess in her father’s Kingdom high above the clouds, but when civil unrest hits and her brother is killed, Ellusia is forced to leave her protected world to battle the beasts so many tried so hard to keep her away from.” Or something that would be of course much better then that. I think you get the point though.

Ah well. Back to the drawing board.

Nanowrimo... Here We Go!

I am so not ready.

I am so not prepared.

I am so going to fail miserably!

I've got a rough outline and about a quarter of the chapters all planned out, but I'm just not mentally prepared for this. I barely have any time to fit it in what with moving house this month, and going to the gym, and being lazy... but I suppose like last year's Nanowrimo I will most likely do all my writing while on the train in the morning on the way to work.

I'm going to try to be more methodical in my approach to it this year and try to write a constant amount of words each day as a base minimum so that any extra words are a bonus (but cannot be classed as granting a day off).

We shall see how it goes at the end of November.

Its currently half way through the first day and I haven't written a word. The hubby has a lot of Facebooking to do tonight (his profile magically disappeared last night... It wasn't me!) so hopefully I'll be able to get my days worth of words down while he's doing that. Thank God I've got Jerry to type on, coz hubby will be using the computer.