{"id":11440,"date":"2012-02-01T06:30:05","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T17:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=11440"},"modified":"2012-01-31T22:31:05","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T09:31:05","slug":"breathless-aka-playing-catch-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/02\/01\/breathless-aka-playing-catch-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Breathless: aka Playing Catch Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things have been feeling just a little hectic lately—I had a final proof to complete for my UK publishers (Orbit<\/a>) for the forthcoming April release of The Gathering of the Lost<\/em> (in the US<\/a> and UK\/Aus\/NZ<\/a>, but this was UK), I am way<\/em> beyond on my reading, and I have also just commenced my Creative Writing residency at the University of Canterbury.\u00a0 As I found out to my surprise (I don’t know much about these things, you see) this means that rather than being a “guest” I am actually officially\u00a0 “staff” for the period of the residency, which is kind of cool. So the last few days have been filled up wth all the business of becoming an official staff member as well as the practicalities of sorting out my office. I’ve been doing a little office personalizing, too–so there’s already an “HEIR” cover flat on my office door and one of the large Thornspell<\/em> banners on the wall, because I thought that would be, you know, inspirational!<\/p>\n

And of course, given the ongoing threat of earthquakes, having something that lightweight to hang on the wall is just plain good sense. I “may” take in my original artwork for the Wall of Night world map, as well—the artist, Peter Fitzpatrick, has very kindly gifted it to me and of course it is amazing, but I do really like its current locale in my home office as well …<\/p>\n

Anyway, with luck may even have some photos for you tomorrow. (And if not tomorrow—soon!)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Speaking of Thornspell<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, one thing I’d like to draw to your attention is “The Great NZ Book Race”<\/strong>, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Are New Zealanders really only separated by 2 degrees?
\n<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Students from Katikati College (Bay of Plenty)\u00a0 and Papanui College (Christchurch) will be supporting their local writers by reading, reviewing, and then passing on books , from person to person, until they reach the other school by the end of Term Three (see BOOKS ON THE RUN for complete list.) <\/span>Their aim is to get their book read and reviewed by the most New Zealanders.<\/span>“<\/em><\/p>\n

Find out more by clicking the above link—but Thornspell<\/em><\/strong> is one of the books featured and you can see its feature page here<\/a>. This is a really great NZ Book Month<\/a> project and one I am honored to have been invited to join and am proud to support.<\/p>\n

I will bring you more updates as we get closer to March, when the race begins.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Another thing I’ve dived into ‘full on’ for the new year has been guest blog posts, with Making Epic Fantasy New<\/em><\/a> for SF Signal<\/strong>, The Evolution of Character<\/em><\/a> and Myth, Legend and History<\/em><\/a>, both for Orbit<\/strong>,\u00a0 adding my wee mite on Mary Victoria’s<\/a> excellent “Place as Person”<\/strong> series, here<\/a>—and most recently contributing to Nicole Murphy’s<\/a> interview series\u00a0 on writers’ “Habits and Processes.”<\/strong><\/a> The inside gen on my (nefarious!) habits was here<\/a> on Monday and the “Processes” follow here<\/a> some time today.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, I’ve been trying to fit in some writing too, somewhere amongst all that lot … \ud83d\ude41<\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
—<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

My favourite post I’ve read this month (and I’ve read a few!) was handsdown Gillian Polack’s “Place as Person” guest post, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things have been feeling just a little hectic lately—I had a final proof to complete for my UK publishers (Orbit) for the forthcoming April release of The Gathering of the Lost (in the US and UK\/Aus\/NZ, but this was UK), I am way beyond on my reading, and I have also just commenced my Creative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-what-im-doing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11440"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11451,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11440\/revisions\/11451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}