Things and Stuff #17

Secrets, Vespers, Vids, Villains, Pages


Thing 1: A Thing
I saw a thing. I'm absolutely not allowed to talk about it.

Having secrets is kinda fun actually.

My face when I got that one email (c) Cybill/the internet

Thing 2: Beautiful music in beautiful places
The next CEFC concerts are coming up really quite soon, like much sooner than I realised, and I need to knuckle down and practice my ppp top Es and my Old Slavonic Russian Ls (unfortunately, I think I biologically cannot do the Ls the way they're meant to be done, but maybe I can learn to fudge it...)

Gorgeous poster (c) CEFC

We're doing Rachmaninov's Vespers and some other gorgeous a capella pieces in two concerts in July - Friday the 10th in Southwark Cathedral and Saturday the 18th in St John's College Chapel, Cambridge. It's amazing music and it's going to be wonderful - potentially dodgy Russian Ls notwithstanding.

Thing 3: The Return of the Fancy Cannibal
This won't be news to anyone who follows me on any social media, but for anyone who missed it: a long time ago back in the mists of time (Things and Stuff #8 to be exact), I recommended the marvellous Cleolinda's wonderful Hannibal recaps. I stand by that rec, especially for people who don't think the show itself would be for them, but now I have a follow up rec, and it is this:

Watch Hannibal.

Restless Hugh Dancy gif and amazing comment both (c) NBC's Hannibal Tumblr account which is a work of genius all by itself

I was only reading the recaps back then, but then Cleo had to take a break from recapping and I needed to know what happened next, so I started watching.

This show is my jam, you guys. It's just come back for its third season and stuff is happening and people are dead and people are not dead and the fandom is already making plushie versions of people's horrifying visions and the queerbaiting continues to be beautiful, frustrating and hilarious in pretty much equal measure, and it's all so great I swear if you haven't given it a chance yet, you need to. (I also still recommend Cleolinda's recaps, Storify posts and entire twitter feed basically as a way to help you process all of the amazing stuff you are about to witness.)

Like this beautiful nonsense (c) NBC

I have no looming book deadline so I might be spending a chunk of this weekend making Hannibal fanvids because that is how much I mean this squee. A Lot, is how much.

Thing 4: Researching the research
I've come to the point in my current work-in-progress book where the hero needs to encounter the villain for the first time. Unfortunately, even though I have most of a plot in mind, my villain is distinctly vague. I know all sorts of things about him already - it's just his motivation and methods that are still a little fuzzy. Hmm.

So I've spent this week doing a lot of Googling around the setting and themes of the book trying to research some of the directions I could go off in looking for a really good evil motive. It's exciting, because at the moment it could be almost anything, but intimidating for the exact same reason.

Thing 5: Morning Pages
Morning pages is this exercise from The Artist's Way, which is a whole big hippy scheme of how to improve your life and creativity which you have to buy the book or videos to actually access in full - I haven't ever done that, I could, but I'm pretty sure it would be a form of procrastination for me, and I'm not sure how much of the hippy crystals stuff I would be able to stomach anyway.

But I saw morning pages recommended on a blog a couple of weeks ago and I thought I'd try it out. Basically, every morning before you do anything else (at least, before you do any work) you write three longhand pages of whatever rubbish passes through your head. As mundane or silly or angsty as you like.

Basically like this (c) Eddie Izzard

It's supposed to help you sort your thoughts out and get down all the little things that are hanging out in your head so that they're codified and not so scary when you've finished. And it does kind of work, sort of. I haven't had any huge revelations of my inner self or fantastic flights of imagination - but I have also definitely had a few better days because I've written down what I expect to have to deal with that day and how I feel about it.

So yeah, I recommend it as a thing to try. You might not like it. But you might.

Things and Stuff #16

Tabletop, new, Carmen, cafes, Spotify

Thing 1: Dungeons and Dutchmen

I started playing tabletop for the first time ever and I LOVE IT. It's not D+D - it's actually a Swedish system called Mutant which is being translated sort-of-on-the-fly by our brilliant GM. It's a WW2 supernatural horror game set in Colditz castle (not remotely the setting the system was designed for!) and we're all POWs. I'm playing a very short, very strong, rather clumsy young Dutch pilot called Peter Kappel who has a secret Jewish girlfriend back at home and a French ghost lady who seems invested in my well-being, at least enough to do things like help heal me when I critically failed an agility roll and fell off the roof of the castle, breaking half my ribs. It was awesome.

Thing 2: New secret exciting projects

I've been pretty busy writing things recently - and I can't really talk about any of them. Some of them are commissioned, written, edited... but won't be coming out any time soon. Some are out there now in the ether being read by editors who I hope will love them. Some of them are packaged/ghostwritten. Some of them are my very own brand new things.

So because I can't be more specific about any of these, here are a selection of CLUES. Check back again in like six months to a year and we can talk about what some of these mean...

Thing 3: Carmen, a three-dimensional tempty temptress

A friend gave us tickets to see Carmen at the ENO, and it was great. Carmen isn't one of the operas I know very well - going in, my general impression was that Carmen is very sexy, there's a bullfight that everyone's very excited about, and everyone dies. I was pretty much spot on, but I was also really impressed with how the central relationships were handled. 

Carmen was extremely sexy. She was brilliant. A brittle queen living under the constant gaze of men who treat her as a sex object - but still her own person, even if that person is flawed as hell. In the end, Carmen is killed by a soldier she seduced and persuaded to desert for her. And that is incredibly problematic - if the soldier's descent into jealous fury and violence is portrayed, as it normally is, as all Carmen's fault. Normally, the soldier is a naive boy who is tempted and corrupted by Carmen herself, the tempty temptress. 

L-R: two of the other wonderful things about this Carmen, and Carmen (Clare Presland as Mercedes, Rhian Lois as Frasquita, Justina Gringyte as Carmen) (C) John Snelling, Getty Images

But the ENO production I saw was incredibly even-handed and non-judgemental of her - instead of some kind of innocent, the soldier was clearly just as broken as her. The violence was there, right from the beginning. The jealousy was very firmly framed as his problem. Carmen was allowed to be her sexy, tempty, manipulative, practical self, and the production didn't make any of that seem like grounds for murder. I was really impressed.

Thing 4: The habitat of the common or garden writer

As per 2, I've been working quite hard over the last couple of months. I like writing outside my house, as an attempt to trick my brain into think that I'm Going To Work, so I've been bouncing between locations, renting tables for a couple of hours at the cost of a large latte, and I thought I would write up some reviews...  

The British Library cafe

Pros: free wifi, free entry, incredibly beautiful inspiring surroundings. Cons: expensive coffee, squeaky chairs, get there early if you need a plug because a lot of other people had the same idea.

Starbucks, Muswell Hill

Pros: it's a Starbucks. Dim and cool downstairs area for Serious Concentration, celebrity-spotting opportunities (Eastenders actors mostly). Cons: bit cramped, often full of yummy mummies and/or obnoxiously good-looking teenagers. 

Great Northern trains from Cambridge to King's Cross and back again

Pros: total isolation, no wifi, chat between customers frowned upon, nice scenery to stare at. Cons: cripplingly expensive in the long term, fierce competition for seats at rush hour and in the evening, if you don't get to a table you might be sitting on the floor, which is cold and full of bicycles

Costa Coffee, Holborn

Pros: it's a Costa - as Starbucks, no variation, no surprises. Close to the office, nice staff, not too crowded if you get there early. Cons: aggressively air-conditioned, I'm really bored of all the sandwiches, the staff know me by sight now so I have to vary my drink order so as not to feel like a weirdo. 

Tatties, Cambridge

Pros: big space, usually a table except at busy times, nice basic fry-ups and similar cafe fare. Cons: no plugs, not as cheap as it feels like it should be. 

Waterstones cafe, Cambridge

Pros: I mean it's all right I suppose. Cons: I mean there definitely isn't always a table and usually a plug, I don't at all recommend the dais level with the lovely natural light, it isn't remotely inspiring to write books in a lovely bookshop, there isn't at all a nice studious atmosphere because of the Cambridge students doing their homework there, and the food is only mostly excellent. This is definitely not my secret new favourite place in the city. 

My kitchen table

Pros: 10 seconds from my bed, completely free, always get a spot, bra optional. Cons: BYO coffee, 10 seconds from my bed, fast wifi and nothing to stop you playing Dragon Age or watching Netflix instead of working, a bit filthy, management never cleans away the empty mugs. 

Thing 5: I'm a bit obsessed with Spotify.

I promise I haven't been paid to say this, but Spotify is pretty great. There's a playlist someone made with 280 straight hours of musicals. And there's the Lauren Laverne People's Playlist, and there's the new Duke Special album (Look Out Machines, IT'S REALLY GOOD). This is not news to anybody but me, but you guys. Music is good! I like that I have so much access to it! 

Oh god it's so good. Listen to Statues and Son of the Left Hand (C) Duke Special

Things and Stuff #15

Post-Chem, music, sportsball, research, [insert fifth thing here]

Thing 1: a post-Strange-Chemistry life
Strange Chemistry closed down two weeks ago today. I've been busy - finishing one story, restarting another, rehearsing for the Proms and recording at Abbey Road, trying to persuade my cats that they want to be stroked (they don't), attending Transpose, watching Orange is the New Black and Agents of SHIELD, reading The P45 Diaries (so far I'm unconvinced but it's for Book Club). Plus, working on some very exciting stories for WP. Just... getting on with things.

Out-of-context Batman cancan gif, surprisingly apt actually (C) the internet

I have started to make some tentative Plans about what will happen to Rabble, but nothing I can elaborate on yet. Watch this space! As @maggiemassacre pointed out to me on Twitter, Amazon US changed Rabble's listing, not to delete it altogether, but to reschedule it for 2035. I can promise you right here and now, Rabble will appear in some kind of readable form before 2035...

Thing 2: this 8tracks playlist
Songs from animated movies, sung in the language from the country where the story is set. Can You Feel The Love Tonight in an African language and (I can't remember which - 8tracks hides the track list until you've listened to it, which is sort of cool but right now mostly annoying) is a highlight. Under The Sea in Danish - but still in a Caribbean accent - is surreal but also fairly awesome.

Thing 3: Sportsball!
I am unusually invested in how well the sports people sports their sports - mostly down to the office sweepstake we have going in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust. But it might all be over by the end of the day! I am rooting for Columbia to deliver an upset against Brazil this evening. Similarly, my Wimbledon sweepstake tennis player Federer is about to step onto Centre Court right now. Come on, sports people! Sports the ball! Sports it really well!

Unfortunately I won't get to see either sportsball meeting, I will be at choir attempting to get my head around some tricky Russian accidentals (c) Psych/the internet

Thing 4: I lost my keys and found my inspiration
This actually happened a month or two ago, only days after handing in the second draft of Rabble, but I suddenly remembered about it today. I was searching inside the sofa for my lost keys when I unearthed the notebook in which I started collecting my research for my next book, which I was doing when Skulk sold to Strange Chemistry and my writing focus abruptly swung back around to foxes and magic stones.

Here is an exclusive, quasi-representative glimpse of the kind of thing you can expect from this book:

Hetero interlude (c) me from Porter, James and Mayhew.

Thing 5: my cats are really cute

I mean, I'm just saying. 

Why yes, I did run out of Things (c) me

On the end of Strange Chemistry

This was originally posted on my tumblr when the news first went out.

As you will be aware, Angry Robot Books has a history of innovation and we continue to go from strength to strength. We’re constantly trying out new concepts and new ideas, and we continue to publish popular and award-winning books. Our YA imprint Strange Chemistry and our crime/mystery imprint Exhibit A have – due mainly to market saturation – unfortunately been unable to carve out their own niches with as much success.
We have therefore made the difficult decision to discontinue Strange Chemistry and Exhibit A, effective immediately, and no further titles will be published from these two imprints.

http://strangechemistrybooks.com/2014/06/20/news-about-strange-chemistry/

In other words, Strange Chemistry and Exhibit A will not be publishing any of the books they were set to publish, including Rabble, which was slated to come out in September. Angry Robot is still going, and will be supporting the books that’ve already been published so you’ll still be able to get copies of the existing Strange Chemistry titles, including Skulk.

Another publisher may come along and take on the imprint and be interested in publishing Rabble, or we may sell it to a publisher on its own. The rights have reverted to me so my options are many and varied. If the worst happens and no established publisher wants Rabble, I would probably self-publish it for those of you who’ve said you’re looking forward to finding out what happens next. But publishing generally moves like a treacle glacier - except, apparently, when chunks suddenly break off - so whatever happens, it probably won’t happen very quickly.

It’s… odd. It’s very odd. I had no idea this was coming until late last night. My deepest commiserations and sympathies go to the entire Strange Chemistry and Exhibit A teams, Amanda in particular, and all my fellow authors - especially those who are mid-series or without day jobs. It’s a really sad loss to YA in general, and a really sad statement about the market at the moment that it can’t support an imprint as generally innovative, exciting and well-loved as Strange Chemistry.

Obviously, finding out Rabble isn’t going to be published (in the time and way I thought it would be) is a kick in the teeth. It’s been a shitty week all round, actually, and that’s even taking into account the fact that CEFC had a really great concert and someone on Game of Thrones actually made a sensible decision for once.

And yet… I just handed in the second draft of Rabble last month. It was difficult going, but we made it. And so in fact, my writing brain has pretty much moved on to other things. SC had the first right of refusal on my next book, but a) they might have refused anyway and b) I haven’t written it yet. So in a way, my very immediate future hasn’t changed very much: my aim now is the same as it was yesterday, to write good new things and sell them to somebody. It’s an extremely odd and contradictory feeling.

Anyway, it’s really, genuinely been a privilege to share an imprint with all of the incredible SC writers. We are set adrift, but in the best possible company. I hope and believe that all of us will find new homes for our stories sooner or later.

Things and Stuff #14

House, Rabble, what?, kittens, herons

Thing 1: Moving, just keep moving

I moved house two days before Christmas. This was definitely better than moving two days after Christmas would have been, but quite stressful and weird all the same.

My house is awesome. It has stairs. And a fireplace. That you can put fire in. And working wifi, and doors, and a dishwasher which has changed my life pretty much beyond recognition, and a garden although not really plants yet, and a shed, and a table you can actually sit at, and nowhere near enough bookshelves. It's pretty wonderful.

Thing 2: The Rabble first draft is in!
It was hard work and there is a lot more hard work to come, but it is done and I have done it. I have been celebrating by finally tidying my living room and spending a lot more time on Twitter.

Oh, and showing off the beautiful cover. (C) Strange Chemistry 

And just doing this whenever I look at it or anyone mentions it or I remember that it exists (C) Disney

Thing 3: Wait, are we just pretending you haven't vanished from the blogosphere for like six months?

Sorry, did you say something? You'll have to speak up, I can't hear you over the sound of me pretending I didn't vanish from the blogosphere. 

Thing 4: KITTENS!

We adopted a very beautiful, very timid pair of kittens, Misty and Midnight, from the local RSPCA. They are getting bigger and less timid every day and it's a joy to watch.

Misty (top) and Midnight (bottom) being beautiful (C) me

I wrote most of Rabble sitting in their room and getting distracted by their wonderousness so if at any point the first draft suddenly says something like:

'But we have to get the Cluster stone because OMG Midnight you are the cutest look at you licking your sister,' I said, and spontaneously turned into a butterfly from sheer joy.

that will be why.

Thing 5: A siege (or 'sedge' but Rule of Cool means I'm going with 'siege') of graffiti herons
Spotted along my bus route to the station over the last couple of months. There are at least five of these, most of which I haven't got pictures of, because moving bus + photo tends to come out like this:

Yeah, no. There is a graffiti heron in this picture I promise. (C) me

But I did manage to grab a picture of this one:

Awesomeness (C) me/the graffiti artist

And my favourite:

EXTREME awesomeness (C) me/the graffiti artist

RABBLE: THE COVER REVEAL

Today is an auspicious day! I have delivered the first draft of Rabble, the sequel to Skulk, and I've also been given the go-ahead to show you something incredible...


First of all, here's the blurb:

Meg Banks is the metashifter, the only person in the world who can shapeshift into any one of the five creatures that guard London’s deepest magical secrets: fox, rat, spider, butterfly and raven. But with great power comes… well, you know the rest. To gain control of the five weard stones, the sorceress Victoria will stop at nothing, including using Meg’s own estranged mother against her.

Will Meg choose to use the stones’ power herself or keep them safely hidden? And can she work for peace, or must she destroy those who stand in her way?


And now... if you're ready...



Seriously, you might want to take a deep breath...



Maybe hold onto something...

Right? Right?

I can't get over this cover, it's so beautiful! My thanks again to the Strange Chemistry geniuses who came up with this! 

Rabble is out in September, and oh my god you can pre-order it already aaaaaaahhh.

SKULK PUBLICATION DAY!

This is it. This is the day. Today I am a published author in America anyway.

Do you live in America? Or like to shop on American websites just for the hell of it? Not pre-ordered your copy of Skulk yet? As of today you can go to any one of these places and get your own absolutely real not even kidding copy!

http://www.indiebound.org/indie-store-finder
http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781908844705
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/skulk-rosie-best/1114975131?ean=9781908844705
http://www.amazon.com/Skulk-Rosie-Best/dp/1908844701/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380621793&sr=8-1&keywords=Skulk

And if you live in the UK or really like paying for things in pounds, as of Thursday you can go here:

http://www.hive.co.uk/book/skulk/17794001/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Skulk-Rosie-Best/dp/1908844701/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1380624295&sr=8-2&keywords=Skulk
http://localbookshops.tbphost.co.uk/TBP.Web//PurchaseProduct/OrderProduct/CustomerSelectProduct/FindARetailer.aspx?d=localbookshops&s=C&r=10000020&ui=0&bc=0

So that's cool.

It's funny, it's a little bit like Christmas except that the rest of the world doesn't realise it's happening, and I got my big box of twenty identical presents last week. And it's also just like a normal Tuesday except that yesterday I was not a published author, and today I am!

I'm off to do some work, then make a start on the epic flat tidy of epic epicness, and then maybe buy a cake or something!