I don't have Attention Deficit Dis...oh! Look! A bunny!

So, it turns out I'm quite easily distracted. If I'm not juggling at least 6 projects at once, I get bored. I like to jump from WIP to WIP to WIP until I get...wait for it...WIPLASH!

That joke was terrible. I apologise unreservedly.

*bows head and performs ritual of abject contrition*

Anyway, at the moment I'm working away on the sequel to Dark Space, as well as my Samoan-Australian policeman story and, with J.A. Rock, a sequel to Mark Cooper versus America, and a bunch of other things from The List. And this was quite enough to keep me busy.

Which is why I will never know why I decided to look through my filing cabinet.

My filing cabinet is a mess. The rail things that the files hang off have been busted for years, so stuff is just shoved in there. Most of it is so old it's typewritten. Or, worse, written in the back of school exercise books. My filing cabinet is basically a cross between a repository for every piece of fiction I've ever written (apart from the stuff that was justifiably destroyed), a nursery for young spiders, a gecko hatchery, and a dust bunny sanctuary.

Anyway, I opened it.

And I found the uncompleted fantasy epic that I began writing in high school. It was surprisingly obsessed with crows. 

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Also, it's everything you'd expect: cliche piled upon cliche, terrible world building, a meandering plot, and full of so many Mary Sue characters that I want to build a time machine, go back to when I was fifteen, and punch myself in the head.

Also, on the first page, instead of could have had, I wrote  could of had.

As in, of all the things I could have had, I wish it had been basic grammatical knowledge.

So, it's terrible.

But it's not too terrible. Underneath all that terribleness, there's the germ of an interesting idea. And I'm quite excited, because I think I can do something with it. I need to make some extensive changes, but I can do that.

I'll start with the prince's love interest. 

He's totally a boy now. :) 

Holidays!

Writers don't get days off. Seriously. 

But don't take this as a cry for help or a cheap ploy for sympathy, because I wouldn't have it any other way. Because everything -- EVERYTHING -- is grist for the mill. Or chaff in the wind. Or something. 

Anyway, I'm about to head off for three weeks in Victoria. Why the rest of the family has chosen winter as the season to meet up there, I have no idea. Because it's going to be cold. 

Fucking cold. 

And as someone who hasn't done cold in a long time, I'm alternating between "Oh, it won't be that bad" and "God help me, I'm going to die." 

But of everything we're doing in the next three weeks, here's what I'm looking forward to the most: 

Sovereign Hill. And no, not for the old-timey sepia photographs I'm sure I'll be forced into, but for the Gold Museum. Seriously, because I'm working on a historical at the moment that could really use a bit more research in that direction. Okay, so my story is set twenty years after the heyday of Sovereign Hill, and in Wyoming, but you can bet I'll learn something important about gold mining in any case. And if they've got a butcher's shop, even better. 

Note to self: stop giving your characters jobs you know nothing about just because "Oh, it surely can't be that complicated." 

A holiday? Hell no, this is an extensive research trip with some shopping, sightseeing and probably frostbite thrown in. 

Islands

So, I was rereading The Island last night, and I remembered these photos I took last time I was in Vanuatu. Okay, so The Island is set in Fiji, but I haven't been there since I was a kid. I remember being there for the coup (I don't recall which one) and waving to the army guy with the machine gun as we went to the airport. He waved back. 

But any inspiration I picked up on the beaches in Vanuatu applies to Fiji anyway. Beautiful islands, beautiful beaches, and the endless glittering blue of the Pacific. 

On his Fijian island, Lee collects sand dollars. So did I, in Vanuatu, but for much nicer reasons. My niece Meg was learning to count, so during the day we collected sand dollars and lined them up in the shower at night for her to count. 

Remember how Lee finds a green sand dollar? Here's one, next to an orange star fish: 

And these things were literally metres from our door. Get up in the morning, walk outside, and head straight into the lagoon. 

And the water around Vanuatu -- so blue. 

Here is the bungalow we stayed in for part of the trip. If you think the sand doesn't look as white and clean as it should on a tropical island, that's because this was on Tanna, and the sand here is black thanks to the volcano, Mount Yasur. At night you can drift off to sleep to the sound of the waves breaking on the shore and, in the distance, the rumbling volcano. You can visit the volcano as well, if it's safe, and walk to the top and watch the eruptions. Just magical. 

So our bungalow wasn't five star accommodation like Shaw's...

...but who needs that when you have this view from the hammock? 

You guys, if you ever get the chance to go to Vanuatu, take it! It is one of the most beautiful places on the planet.  

***

Bragging time: I got an awesome review on Joyfully Jay for Dark Space. You can read it here.  Awesome reviews make me do a happy dance! You can see that h... no, no linking to that. I've still got my pride. Also, this particular happy dance was done in my oldest, shabbiest pyjamas. 

History Nerd

Today I'm outing myself as a total history nerd. And why not? What is history except the biggest library of stories you could ever imagine? Want intrigue? Romance? Adventure? Want danger and death defying stunts? Want comedy or tragedy, or both? History has it all. 

Ancient history has always been my favourite. Roman history, in particular.  If ever a submissions call was written for me, it was Riptide's Warriors of Rome. And that's how He is Worthy was born. Hot guys, check. Ancient Rome, hell to the yes. 

My sister and I have an ongoing argument about this. We're both history majors. She thinks Victorian England is the best: 

Ban Barnes as Dorian Gray

To which I offer this: 

James Purefoy as Mark Antony in Rome

And here he is having a bath: 

Despite my overwhelming evidence, my sister and I have agreed to disagree. Meanwhile, she said the other day, just imagine what you could do with revolutionary France. 

Jamie Dornan in Marie Antoinette

Oh god yes. 

Born This Way

I was lucky enough to see Lady Gaga last week in Brisbane, and wow, what an awesome show! Not a concert so much as a spectacle...but you know what impressed me most? The genuine humility she shows when she talks about her own success, and the genuine love she has for her fans.

When Lady Gaga talks about bullying, she talks about forgiveness, and I think that makes her a better person than I am. I’m like the guy in the crowd who, when Gaga told the story about being dumped in the trash can, yelled out loud enough for the whole place to hear: “Fuck ‘em!”

Because it makes me angry that we’re still talking about stuff like this. It makes me angry that in every corner of the world there is always some kid – the gay kid, the weird kid, the fat kid, the uncool kid, the different kid – who goes through hell every day just for the crime of living in their own skin.

Bullying starts and ends with us.

You see it, you call it.

You set an example. 

You tell your kids it’s okay to be different.

You tell them it’s okay to be anything.

Which is why Born This Way resonates with so many people.

I'm beautiful in my way

'cause God makes no mistakes

I'm on the right track, baby

I was born this way 

Bravery

A few days ago, a family member came out. She’s an educated professional in her thirties, surrounded by liberal friends and family. She has never backed down from an opinion in her life, yet coming out was a decision she wrestled with for over a year. That’s a long time to live with fear.

"Love in a Heart"
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On paper it should have been a simple decision, but you don’t know.

It doesn’t matter how many GLBT friends we have in our lives, or GLBT causes we openly support because, until it comes down to it, you don’t know.

You don't know how people will react. 

The coming out horror stories don’t just come from the obvious places. Sometimes it’s the otherwise-liberal, otherwise-loving families that will slam the door in your face. And it must be terrifying to contemplate risking all of that for the sake of those two little words that are burning to get out: I’m gay.

To everyone, everywhere, who has been courageous enough to come out: I am so in awe of you. It’s a crazy-brave thing to do because even though the truth might set you free, it might also drag you through hell first. 

Burberry and Byron

The other day when I was researching instead of writing (please note that researching involves no actual research, it's just a word that makes me feel better about wasting hours on the internet), I fixated on the idea of modern fashion with a Regency twist. This is what I found: 

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This was from the Burberry 2010 / 2011 collection, and I've got to say, this works for me big time. The clothes are beautiful, the model is more beautiful, and there is a whole scruffy Byronic hero thing going on. 

Bad boys are great. 

Bad boys in cravats are better. 

I personally think you can't go wrong with hot guys in Regency fashion. What about you? What historical period presses your buttons?