Over recent years an increasing number of organisations I belong to have switched to e-newsletters and e-zines to feature their work and communicate with members, as opposed to the previous paper product that arrived through my regular mailbox.

And the sad truth is that as a result of this I never read them anymore.

Like everyone else, I am bombarded with e-communications every day and focus on the ones that are important in the now. This is rarely an e-newsletter or zine’s role and so they increasingly slip down the email list.

When I received paper publications I seldom read them immediately either, although the whole process of physically going to a mailbox (rather than having material coming in while online doing other things) used to at least encourage a cursory riffling through of materials received. The newsletters and magazines/journals, in particular, I would put aside to read through while having a coffee or over lunch.

But of course with the e-versions I leave the pc and the desk to have that break and focus on reading other things…

In addition, many of the e-newsletters and zines require me to to do more than just read. First of all I have to click on a line of code, or go to a website and remember yet another special member login (of which we all now, by default, have a ker-zillion)—or worse, login to a forum and then access the special link to download what would once have been as simple as opening an envelope and starting reading at my leisure.

With additional complexity also comes additional reluctance to read the correspondence more than once—not like sticking in a marker or dog-earing a page (I know: quelle horreur!) to identify where you can pick up reading on the next coffee break.

So increasingly, I just don’t bother accessing or reading at all.

I used to think this was just Luddite me, until I received one of these many e-zines recently (one where you have to click on a line of code inside the email to access) which came with the following cover note:

“I really think you should read it, even if you’re one of the 100 or so who don’t normally bother…”

Hmm, thought I, so it’s not just me then…

And, of course, the logical next step from there, where connection with the organisation (via  communication) becomes increasingly hit and miss, if not completely missing in e-action, is to question why one continues to be a member at all…

Autumn fire

On Friday I posted about Seasons and Festivals in the Southern Realms Of Haarth.

Hawthorn berries

Because it’s autumn right now down here in the Southern Hemisphere, today I thought I’d share a few pics of autumn glory from the shores of Lake Hayes — a little jewel of a lake in the heart of the Central Otago-Wakatipu-Glenorchy/Paradise area where so many Lord of the Rings scenes were shot.

With hawthorn berries like those to the right on display there’d almost have to be fairy folk about, wouldn’t you say?

Willow gold & port wine colours

But maybe willow-gold and port-wine bronze, dipping beside blue water is more your style…

Or crimson catching the sun sparkle of the water, with the white of the mountains behind (below)…

For the price of a walk around the lake on a sunny autumn day, you may take your pick.

“In the bright”

Last Saturday, I did a “Just Arrived” post for Anna Smaill’s The Chimes — and this Saturday I’m reading the book.

As mentioned last week, I’ve heard a lot of buzz about this novel, particularly around the premise, and I have to say that the opening sections do not disappoint in that respect.

The “big idea” — for want of a better term — is that of a future version of our world (or at least the UK part of it) where a significant proportion of everyday communication is via music and singing, rather than speech. The day itself is governed by musical markers, from Onestory (in the morning) to Vespers in the evening.

The Chimes story is also a future dystopia in which people can’t keep their memories for more than a day, and I have already deduced that there may be a link between that and the all-pervasive presence of music — but the how and why have yet to be explained.

I’m also looking forward to discovering how the music is played/replayed to cover an area at least the size of London and the surrounding counties, given that there appears to be no major technology left — i.e. is this a SF novel (by means of  a scientifically plausible technology) or a fantasy (ie it’s happening via magic)?

And yes, I did say “London and the surrounding counties”, so this is another speculative “world” based around London to add to those mentioned in another recent post:

Something About London and the Realms Fantastical

I do not say that like it is a bad thing, however… 😉 I think it’s “brill.” (To quote Mori from Jo Walton’s Among Others.)

On Wednesday, I mentioned how I’m always having to keep my eye on background elements to the Wall of Night story, such as timelines and “the relativity of in-book happenings such as festivals.”

Seasons is another one of course. For example, if Kalan leaves Caer Argent at Midsummer in The Gathering Of the Lost, what time of year will it be when he reaches the Wall of Night? And how will that marry up with Malian’s timeline, since when we leave her at the end of the book, it’s already Summer’s End?

The festivals frequently operate as season markers anyway in the Southern Realms, so I thought I’d run share the way they work with you again today:

• The First of Spring—this takes place approximately eight weeks after the winter solstice, but ahead of the equinox, and celebrates the beginning of spring
• Spring Night—spring equinox. In Ij, this is celebrated as the Festival of Masks.
• Summer’s Eve—held approximately half way between the spring equinox and summer solstice, on the first new moon of summer
• Midsummer—the summer solstice, usually celebrated by a three day festival
• Summer’s End—celebrated approximately eight weeks after the summer solstice; also a harvest festival
• Autumn’s Eve—the autumn equinox
• Autumn’s Night—major festival marking the end of harvest and advent of winter, held on the last old moon of autumn; also a feast of the dead. May be called Winter’s Eve in some communities.
• Midwinter—the winter solstice

As implied above, in The Gathering of the Lost, the arc of the story is marked by the passage of these seasonal celebrations, from spring through to summer’s end.

Yesterday I talked about sketching maps of “what’s happening” in a geographic sense with the story and constantly checking and rechecking timelines.

Constantly checking and rechecking is a bit of a theme, however, because one of the hazards of a big manuscript and a large cast of characters is that you run the risk of repeating yourself. AKA the moment when you think, “Haven’t I read this before?”

Examples of this can include having your fight scenes unfold and/or resolve in a certain way, or an adept using the same magical jiggery-pokery to resolve an issue. Partly this is driven by practical constraints. For example, given a certain range (era) of armor and weapons, there will be limitations on the possible/plausible means of injury and death, putting one together with the other. Similarly, the limitations built into a magic system may also push the protagonist in certain directions, problem resolution-wise.

As the author, however, my job is to check over those scenes and details to try and ensure that both I and my characters aren’t doing the same thing multiple times—unless, of course, the story I’m telling turns out to be a version of groundhog day, in which case it’s game on for repetition.

I’ve just completed a final read-through of the Daughter of Blood manuscript before it heads into production (I hope this will prove to be the case, at any rate) and as I went along I realised that there are a few things I’m constantly doing as a writer.

One is drawing sketch maps, roughing out where my characters are and where they’re going and how those places relate to each other in the context of the larger Haarth map. Mostly these sketch maps look like a spider crawled through an inkwell and than ran back and forward over the page, ie they are not for public consumption. 😉

The other thing I always have on the go in terms of notebook and back-of-an-envelope jottings is timelines, checking and rechecking details like Kalan and Malian’s ages, the time that’s passed between events in the different books, and the relativity of in-book happenings such as festivals.

And if in doubt—I always check again!

Break of Day In The Trenches

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet’s poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver — what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe —
Just a little white with the dust.

—
To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here.

If you enjoyed the first instalment of Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World on SF Signal, the second instalment has now posted.

This time the heroine under the spotlight is a more recent favourite, Patricia Briggs’ wonderful Mercy Thompson.

“So as I said, not a big paranormal urban fantasy reader. But then I read a post by Patricia Briggs, titled Mercy and her Friends In My Back Yard—and I definitely wanted to know more about the coyote shapeshifter, Mercy Thompson. From page one of the first novel (Moon Called), I was a Mercy Thompson fan, and remain an enthusiast for her continuing adventures … “

To find out the whys and wherefores, head on over and check the post out for yourself:

Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World: Mercy Thompson

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, either about my post or arguing the cause of another (urban) fantasy heroine. 😉

In case you missed it, I and some pals on the Supernatural Underground are having some giveaway fun this month—we’re playing a game of “Never Have I Ever.”

In the game, each Supernatural Underground author contributes a statement starting “Never Have I Ever.” We hope that our blog followers will then have a little fun guessing whether the ensuing statement is True — or False.

The giveaway comprises an e-book from each of the six contributing authors—so if you haven’t done so already rock on over, check out the fun & enter the:

“Never Have I Ever” Giveaway

Just to get you started, here’s my contribution:

“Never have I ever ridden across Mongolia and hunted from horseback using a golden eagle.”

True, d’ya reckon, or False? 😉

The TBR table, discussed here, is still moderately high; nonetheless, I am very excited that Anna Smaill’s The Chimes (Sceptre, 2015) has arrived.

Not least because Anna Smaill is a fellow New Zealand author—but most importantly because the story sounds fascinating.

Here’s what the back cover has to tell us:

“A boy stands on the roadside on his way to London, alone in the rain.

No memories, beyond what he can hold in his hands at any given moment. No directions, as written words have long since been forbidden. No parents—just a melody that tugs at him, a thread to follow. A song that says if he can just get to the capital, he may find some answers about what happened to them.

There’s already been a lot of buzz about this book so I’m looking forward to delving further and finding out what it’s all about.