gillyp, posts by tag: entanglement - LiveJournal

Entanglement is finished, finally, one and for all, this is it, oh yes indeedy! I just finished backing it up in all it's many parts and...

Alright, I know I already said this a dozen times. I thought it was finished last September, but then I printed it out and realised it was pure, hand-crafted pants - which is to say, it needed a fair bit of tightening up, lots of things you really only see when you print it out for some reason -
But it really is Done now and  I shall not be looking at it again until forced at gunpoint and/or if the thing ever gets within sniffing distance of an agent when he/she will make me do this All Over Again.

But it's over for the time being. Can has life nao, plz?

My Year in retrospect, by gillyp, aged.

( Fandom and FicCollapse )( WritingCollapse )


( ReadingCollapse )( ReadingCollapse )
In general: Life has been a bit rough at times. We’re still doing one week home, one week at Dad’s which is stressful and tiring. Dad is exactly as he was, some days up, some days down (some days very down indeed), it’s become routine really, a bit bothersome. I have to keep reminding myself that in many respects, I have a life that’s pretty good, that many might envy. OK, a bit (very! Oh so very...)  uneventful and dull, but far from arduous and relatively free of pain. I do keep reminding myself of that (but if the Gods are listening, a little more excitement – of the nicer sort - really wouldn’t go amiss in 2010)

So to round off 2009, I’m going to do that first-post, last-post LJ meme and say, have a marvellous 2010 everyone, I think we all deserve a break. Much love to you all, thank you so much, every one of you, for the laughs and the love and for keeping me sane.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

( My Year on LJCollapse )

5 hours editing the novel - you know, the one I thought I'd finished which I printed out and started checking and... oh dear.

Anyway, the tree is up! We are about to embark on the lights. Please pray for us.

And tis the BIRTHDAY of the most-estimable LUICAT! May your year be as gorgeous, as delightful and delicious as your good self, kitten. XXX

Only I don't, not very much these days. Alas, the life of the gilly is a rather dreary and uneventful place of late and it seems a waste of everyone's time to be posting nonsense about nothing. I haven't even twittered in an age.

I still live, is, I suppose, the message of this pointless post, that and my old friend prevarication...

I'm still (yeah) waiting for news on the novel from th'Agent. I sent him a terribly gently worded prod a few weeks ago to which he responded that he still hadn't had time to finish it. It's getting on for 10 weeks since I sent him the full ms and I've run out of patience so I'm sending it off to some more agencies, which means I now have to produce a proper submission including the dread 'one page synopsis'.

Boiling a 548 page novel down to a single page is something of a bugger. I currently have it at 19 pages - hence this post. Anything (anything!!!) rather than go back to the ceremonial brain-boiling that is that bloody (bloody!) synopsis.

But such is life.

I'm working on a second novel at the moment, should anyone give a monkeys, a sequel to the last. I've prevaricated nicely on that one, too (see the shiny icon!) - and there's fic, too. fluterbev and I have been communing, work is ongoing, we're working to finish Decimated by Christmas but life may well get in the way of our well-crafted plans so I can promise nothing.

Urm. I think that's it, really. It's awfully dark and dreary outside. My coffee's going cold. I should get back to work. I hope life is being a perfect poppet for you all. ::making the kissy face:: XXX

I don't seem to do that very often these days but, good people, I honestly have nothing to say!

Re Entanglement: I'm still waiting on the first agent, I'm told that nothing happens during Frankfurt so I'm giving him another week before I'll proffer up a gentle email prod. I am firmly of the opinion that waiting on decisions entirely out of your control is, to paraphrase the immortal Baldrick, a horrid thing.

While I wait, I've started work on a new story - I had 2 going for ages but finally settled on the Entanglement sequel (sorry mrs_tilford !) because the voices told me I had to various blogs seem to be firmly of the opinion that being able to offer sequels greatly ups your chances of publishing and who am I to argue with various blogs?

Anyway, that's all up and running and a very dark tale it's shaping up to be. Very dark indeed (cue the obligatory evil laugh). I actually did some solid, concerted work on that today - progress has been seen to be made. I am not displeased.

Fannish life - is non existent, really. There's nothing new and the old has lost its shine and that part of my life languishes in dusty, cobwebbed neglect. LJ likewise seems quiet as an old, forgotten grave. I don't know if everyone's lost their mojo too, or if you're all lurking in New Fannish Lands in the parts of LJ where I never tread but it's been dead as a rusty shovel round here lately. I've had to turn to Twiter for kicks, people, that can't be right.

I shall throw out some spangled, golden kisses and chocolate-coated delights anyway, for old time's sake. Use them wisely, I shall be testing you on them later. XXX

wot I found on the electric interwebs.

6 writers who accidentally crapped out masterpieces.

Why oh why does SF never get the Booker?

Well, they tell me it's Saturday. I suppose they could be lying but then, why would they bother, you know? But then the Met office said it would be sunny and they lie! for it is darkly grey and ominous and suspiciously warm.

A sleepless night after a tiring week has left me a well-knackered bunny. I had planned to use this day wisely and well in printing out the 3rd draft of Entanglement and doing that all-important 4th edit but I'm mildly scared I'll find that it's wall to wall shit now it's been sent to an agent and then worry. Why do that to myself, I cannot help but ask? Also the continuous interruptions - water meter man, post men, couriers, an itinerant hedge cutter - have done nothing to help my resolve to stare at the wall work on the book.

So, all of the above plus the aforementioned tiredness and my natural inklination to idleness leads me to endlessly peruse Twitter, t'internet and my current crop of reading, some self-chosen, some chosen for me (and for which I shall have to write reviews alas). For the bookly minded, these be:

Breath, Tim Winton. Surprisingly readable and really good.
Makers, Cory Doctorow. Frighteningly long.
Day After Night, Anita Diamant. A review copy and not my cup of tea at all ('Extraordinary true story', internment, Polish Zionist, Holocaust! run away, run away!!!) but I shall do my duty and hope (but not expect) to be pleasantly surprised.
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield. Been wanting to read this for ages but work keeps getting in the way.
Vineland, Pynchon. Ditto.
The Men Who Stare at Goats, Tom Ronson

Tea now, I think. I'm currently working my happy way through a box of Twining's Lemon Grove which I hadn't had before and is surprisingly delicious. It tastes of lemon Opal Fruits which can only be a Very good thing. New Californication on the box tonight, also a repeat of the Robbie Coltraine, John Sessions Boswell thingum.

In short, life is currently pleasing me in a sound and goodly way, I hope she is doing the same for you, too, my esteemed and doxilicious flist. Here, have a sprinkling of pink sugar-dusted, sparkly cherry-vanilla kisses. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Whatever Mark's using in the bath, it smells bloody awful.

ETA: Too good not to share (Caution, contains Dan Brown).

46 chapters, 136,303 words, 95% complete.  Only 2 chapters, 8,000 words to finish . Dear god, whatever will I do when it's done? Suggestions on a postcard...

In other news, m'sister just took delivery of a Radio Times from 1st May 1969. So many ads for slimming-aids (and 50/50 featuring men as the dieters which is interesting) and just utterly fascinating. I cannot tear myself away!

About to embark on the rewrites of chapter 41 (of 48). Currently the 3rd draft stands at 116,460 words, 78% complete. Lots of repetitive stuff has been excised and a lot of rewriting - the whole thing has taken way, way longer and been much harder work than I anticipated but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now (said tunnels playing Large Roles in the plot and that so ha ha, well done me)

I'm sort of simultaneously doing a 4th draft in that I'm printing it out as I work and always see loads more editing once it's on the printed page so...

Yeah. Slow. Very (she said tiredly), but coming on. The end is in sight and all that.

Kay, one more chapter then dinner must be cooked and dishes bathed in Fairy Liquid (so that my hands might be soft as my face tho why they'd want to be is a mystery that might never be explained) before that most estimable thesp. Dame Joanna of Lumley pulls her documentary panties on and turns her most serious face to the camera to tell us all sorts of stuff about cats. That cannot be missed, no siree.

Alrightee. Tea, methinks, then ON! (huzah!) with Chapter 41, 'The Sandburg Theory'. :o) Yeah, really. I just couldn't resist.

to Just a Minute on R4? Oh dear god, the silly voices, such sublime silliness! ::wipes eyes::

I'm otherwise en-mired in chapter 39 of the novel but taking a wee break with a cuppa should anyone want to know. The cat just came in. It's looking like rain.

The cat just forced himself inside a small box full of home-made wines, all I can see are cork-tops and a head. This is going to end well...

Alan Turing finally pardoned.


And now I really feel like watching Breaking the Code again. Alas I must work on my novel instead.

They have a new home now courtesy of the adorable tehomet all blessings be upon her.

The site is HERE.  These are the same files I had on the Temple website. The episodes are all digital recordings from UK SciFi so they're pretty good quality and as far as I can tell, they're all uncut. Media Tour, Trash and etc. all there too, so please do go and check it out.

Yes, I am still alive, I'm still on a push to finish the novel and consequently keeping my head mostly in the 'down' position. I may emerge eventually, I may yet write fic again, but for the time being, I'm trying to avoid the munificent distractions of internetly pleasures till this baby be birthed.

I hope you're all keeping well and that Americans had a pleasant long weekend. Please take this smooch as a token of my esteem till we chance to meet again. Mmmmmmmm XXXXXXX!!XXXXXX!!!! nice! *g*

Of Stephen Fry writing about writing.

And now I must go and be about some of the same. I have set myself the target of 15,000 words a day (These are rewrites, I need to add! Not actual writing, for which 15,000 words a day would be an insane target!) to complete this bloody thing in a week.

I am turning teh internets off. I am sitting down at my laptop with my serious intent face on. I may be gone some time.

The Whig sees it as a Nest of Tories, when 'tis a Nest of FOPS! Thus quoth @DrSamuelJohnson on Twitter. Never a truer word, sir.

A brief perusal of Dr Johnson's esteemed followers brought me to a veritable virtual coffee shoppe of most esteemed gentlemen and ladies in the forms of @RealBoswell (And now to th' NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, where I aim to gaze Fondly at picktures of MYSELF), @TophamBeauclerk (Can any tell me who is the - so-call'd - Prime MInister of this land? The rogue goes a-missing it seems, whenever factional Battle looms), @LaurenceSterne (Mr Cameron,Tory, is angered that AL MCGRADY, the adopted Scot, has retired to foreign climes. Does he want the 'Med' for English OAPs alone?), @JonathanSwift79 (This is both a bankless and thankless holiday. Stella and I arrive at 'Starbucks' expecting whaling equipment, but get an AMERICAN muffin!), @MrAlexanderPope (O RUBICON! what Treachery is this? / Thou sayest, 'Water-Melon'; meanest, 'Piss') which is, frankly, just confusing. @RTristramShandy (He may walk but I enchant (so sir recant!)), @HesterThrale (Planning a trip to Brighton to catch the last rays of the dimming season and escape this frightful London summer), @AaronBurrJr (Just finished my book: "10 things I loathe about the articles of Confederation & that whoreson Hamilton". My place in history is assured.), @TobiasSmollett (feels trepanned by the Internet.) and @TrumpHogarth (The Poor do have but two Delights: FORNICATION and GIN, & of the two, Gin be the more desir'd for it lasts a longer time & is CHEAPER).

This has been the cause of most goodly giggles and yes, I hath friended them ALL.

I'm just taking a short break from the Dreade Submission (cup of green cherry sencha and a banana, should you be curious). I've finished the letter, the infamous Query the writing of which always gives me such a case of the vapours. I've been going over my first three chapters, which a good and trusted friend assured me were Good but which I now see are far from. The things in their entirety are, indeed, naught but a pile of skiddy pants and need must be re-written with a most severe pen. I've cut a good 20% of it, shunted a few pars about. Just 5 pages left to sort out now and I can send it winging through the ether to Mr Ian Drury of Sheil land in Doughty Street, then set about prepping stuff for the next agent in the queue.

It's all a bit of a bastard, I can tell you.

OK then, tea consumed, sustenance taken, loins girded, best be back about it I suppose.

I've been fighting all weekend with synopses of varying lengths (every agent wants something different). I just sent out my 'elevator pitch' (their description, not mine) to Zeno who were accepting submissions but now, are not - my email sent back by return. ::sigh::

I'm just working on my spiel to Ian Drury at Sheil Land - first in line because he accepts email subs (and most do not). He only wants a one paragraph synopsis (of a 150,000 word novel. Piece of piss. O:!!!), two chapters and ' a short summary of why someone would pay their own cash money to read your book'.

I hate this part. Hate it like a massive serving of hate with hate sauce and a side order of loathing.

Cup of tea, I think, then back to the grind. Gotta have this baby out by teatime.

and a nice cup of Lapsang.

Gosh, I'm tired, and bored, and fed up but mostly tired. I've stripped the beds, cleaned the bedrooms, finally got Dad to change his shirt (long involved story, not for the faint-hearted either), done the laundry, moved, fed, watered and pinched out the rampantly crinoidal tomatoes. Should be writing the novel but needed fortification first.

I won't say it's not going well, it's just going slowly. Very. There is much work to be done - far, far more than I'd thought. A week in and I'm just working on chapter 8. Is it really only a week since I started this last draft? It feels so very much longer.

Hey ho, back into the fray. Oh, look at that, it's raining. There's a thing...

151,390 words, mercifully shorter than I was anticipating.

Starting the third draft tomorrow, as soon as I know I have the first three chapters up to speed, I'll need to start the grind with the agencies. Hey ho the nonny, it has to be done, alas.

But, hey - second draft, finished! That's good, isn't it? :o)

I've still not finished the 2nd draft, a major disappointment as I was rather hoping to have had the submission ready and have it out to agents this weekend (she laughed in a hollow fashion). It's taking way longer than I'd thought because I keep running into wee holes that need filling so it's been at most, a chapter a day. Only two to go now though but nothing will be done over the weekend as I'm heading in an easterly direction for alibongo 's Abigail's Party. An evening of kaftans and platforms, Miner's blue eyeshadow and Blue Nun, Twiglets, Cinzano and bits of cheese and pineapple stuck in a grapefruit, Marc and David and Bootsy Collins. Some Demis Roussos might creep in there too, but no olives (because they'e horrible, aren't they? Nobody likes olives, Lawrence.)

It is going to be awesome. It has to be, how could it not?

And now it's time for cocoa and bed. Sleep tight, shipmates.

Staring at the lappy in dazed confusion, one coffee already consumed, more in the offing I suspect. I'm not sleeping well I never really do when we're at Dad's, too much going on till the wee small hours, too much happening in my head. I tried Horlicks last night but all it did was make me need to get up and pee at 2.30am.

::scratches head::

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Entanglement. I'm 4 chapters from the end of my second draft and on a push to finish by the end of the weekend. Then it's on! with the third draft. In between drafts I'll be attempting to make myself work out a submission for literary agents, the bit I hate most.

Look at that, sun is shining! Oh, and potatoes need to be got from their pot too, also laundry, clean the kitchen and a work out. Oh yeah, it's all thrills, spills and dizzy excitements all the time round here.

OK. Enough with the yapping.

No coffee till eleven. Woken (again) at some ungodly hour. I'd advise everyone to keep well back.

I seem to be craving toast.

And I've been reading The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas in a state of some fear and trepidation. You know when Amazon tell you, if you liked that, you'll love this! Well, this one came up and I read the blurb and omg! It sounded horribly similar to the novel I'm writing, so I ordered a copy and - there are similar themes, to be sure. There's this 'other world' that runs on quantum physics but in every other respect, it's nothing like mine at all. Mine has more plot, an entirely different story, an entirely different premise and construction and characters and - gosh, I hope mine isn't half so depressing. TEOMY is a brilliant book of massive imagination and a real page-turner but it does seem to be trying to suck your life out with a straw. And it means I'll have to be extra careful wth my query letter now, or run the risk of being binned with them thinking Entanglement's the same as this book.

::sigh::

There's always something, as my mum would say.

OK. What's the time now? Only an hour to the test. After the test there will be coffee and breakfast. I can do this.

and still tired. What's that all about then?  Sun's out but the clouds look decidedly dodgy. I have toast and coffee.

Urm...

That's pretty much it. Why am I telling the world this shattering news? I have no idea. This sort of thing is best saved for Twitter really. OK. Time to make the bed, shower and press on with the doings of the day. Three more chapters maybe? Or maybe not. I'm starting to fray a little at the edges. I might just (omg!) have a bit of a day off.

It's gone so dark out there again!  What the merry heck is going on with this weather? Yesterday I saw *2* waterspouts in the clouds, just from where I'm sitting on me sofa. That's not normal, shurely? The Met keeps on about jet streams, I still say we should sacrifice something. I have rather a glut of routers, would an immolated router appease the rain gods, think you? 

OK. Carping on with the deum, I hope you are too, or something. Whatever.

is going great guns. I'm averaging 3 chapters a day (re-writes! I hasten to add!), just put #38 to bed, ten more to go. No more glaring errors have become apparent in this newer bit (yet ) and I reckon, so long as no more plot holes of the size you saw trams sticking out of during the war (this has happened before!) appear, and I can keep up this killer pace I can have the second draft finished by the end of the week. Then I start on the third and final draft.

I'm already perusing the agencies, thinking about the submission and I feel quite good about this story. I'm reading it and getting that odd creeping feeling in my digestive organs that says, this isn't actually half bad. See my delusions, see them scream...

Anyway, it's shaping up to be around 146,000 words when it's done which is, I reckon, getting on for 500 paperback pages which is quite a mighty tome as tomes go.

Whatever am I going to do with myself when it's done? ;o)

But hey, whatever because it's the WEEKEND! my babies! Let us laugh at the clouds, don bobbly purple bri-nylon Y-fronts and DANCE in the rain for the life, she is short and the rain, never ending so we might as well get used to it. ::waggles Yoda finger. nods sagely:: As for the fic, my writing partner has buggered off north of the border which means I can do what I like to those poor, poor boys for a full seven days! Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

Although I'm still a few chapters from the end of my second draft, it's coming along steadily and without complications so I thought I'd take a little time over a cup of delightful Viennese coffee (Polish, Lidl, highly recc'd, yum) to research the agencies, see who might be right for this book and have a first crack at writing my submission and a synopsis of the plot.

It's not going well.

The plot is complicated and unusual  to say the very least. Every attempt to précis it so far has been a disaster.  I mean, looking at the latest attempt I see such gems as:

...has opened a crack in reality that’s been utilised by the Vicar of St Swithuns to part the living from their souls and unleashed bizarre and unusual terrors on Angel’s sleepy hometown.

and.

All Angel wants is to re-make a life with his wife from another life, now reincarnated as former DCI Matt Kershaw, who thinks Angel has murdered his sister.

Oh dear,  it sounds like the ravings of a mental. I see I must give this more thought. I think I'll go back to just re-writing the chapters for a bit. Much simpler, much less likely to up the BP I think.

Hey ho the nonny O, tis Thursday! and the weekend be nigh. I see Friday approaching off the starboard bow. Up with the moonrakers and cut a steady course to olives and freedom me hearties!

It's a while since I did one of these. Don't worry, just a quickie.

Decimated. The fic I'm writing with the adorably sexy, massively talented fluterbev is now almost 13,000 words long, a constant joy to write and read and continuing to fill me with the most evil glee.

Entanglement. The second draft well underway now. I'm calling the process an 'edit', though it seems to be constantly growing rather than diminishing. It's acquired 3 new chapters already and it's not even half way through yet. 19 of 50(?) chapters put to bed, 69,275 words.

And that's it. See, that wasn't too painful was it? Top Gear tonight! My loins are freshly girded, my happy trousers clean and ironed, early cocoa and school in the morning...



I'm so sorry, I fear I have gone mad.

No embed. Here be linky.

It's FRIDAY! It is, isn't it? I'm still working on me book at the moment, just stopped for a reviving double-latte + chocolate (yes, I did need that much caffeine). Book's coming on, I'd like to finish chapter 17 before I crack open the cheese and olives and walnut bread and cock my snook at the rain.

As you were. We shall, no doubt, speak later.

Oooh. A blackbird just suddenly started singing. Has the rain stopped then? (answer, no)

Don't worry, this is not one of those long, angsty RL-SUKZ! type entries, just something of an apology I suppose, a rather low-key (and somewhat dull) FRIDAY! post if you will.

( Cut in the interest of the disinterestedCollapse )

I'm remiss in the extreme in my contributions to picspamyou_2009  and worst of all, my long absences from LJ mean I've missed talking to you lovely people. I've missed a fair few birthdays too for which I'm very sorry, most especially that darling delight of a human Earthling  the4ts . I hope your day was perfection, sugarbutton. I'm sorry I took my eye off the ball and missed you completely. Please have some very belated kisses in the flavour of your choosing. XXXXXXX