Author Archives: Autumn

Back Into The Swing

Today I felt like I was racing to get nowhere. I hate those kind of days.

I spent the last three hours working, yes, honest to goodness working. I updated that proposal and sent it off (according to my notes I last submitted it in August of 2004 — yikes), and tried to write two more.

And wow, did it ever hurt. I’m so out of practice. Even looking at my old ones, I floundered for ideas and wrote in a stilted, rusty, hollow-sounding fashion instead of the exciting and dynamic style required. A proposal is part outline, part marketing selling tool, and the marketing bit has totally flown away from me over the past two years. My brain hurt (no, really, I needed to take Tylenol), and I wasn’t looking forward to orchestra.

Imagine my surprise when I was called at six to be told that orchestra was cancelled, as our rehearsal venue is unavailable and no one told us ahead of time. This is bad, because we only have a few rehearsals left before July 1, but also a relief, because as a result of struggling with proposals I’m nowhere near the headspace orchestra requires. So because I didn’t get a chance to go out and pick up a few things this afternoon (the proposals took twice as long as I’d expected them to — ah, optimism), I’m heading out now instead.

Swan Sister Update

Total word count, Swan Sister: 10,971
Total words today: 2,196

I started writing around 8:25, and finished at 9:25. This word yield would have been halved if HRH hadn’t been here to get Liam when he woke up earlier than expected from his nap. Mind you, it wouldn’t have been a problem if HRH hadn’t been here, because it was his voice that woke Liam up. However! As an apology he gave me an extra half-hour to write, and thus the aftermath of the death has been dealt with, and we have had the second proposal, and things are moving right along. I think there’s only another eight pages or so to wrap up this section before I shift into part two with a new protagonist, new setting, and new problems.

Wish List

I’m open to gifts any time. Really. Just-because gifts can be even more special than birthday gifts, or Yule gifts, or name-day gifts. There aren’t enough holidays to use as excuses to gift people, in my humble opinion.

Most of my wish list goes out of date pretty quickly as things are added and dropped, so I’ll direct you to the up-to-date wish list under A. Murphy-Hiscock on Amazon.ca. Please use it primarily as a shopping reference; support independent shops as much as you can. They’ll be happy to special order something for you if they don’t carry it regularly. To avoid redoing hard code (i.e. in the interest of keeping my sanity), I have decided to only list this little bit of non-book/music/film related material here below.

I’m not picky; secondhand in decent shape is fine. Gift certificates to Indigo, HMV (any book shop or music shop is fine) and so forth are all equally welcome. Gift certificates to Cellos@go.com to help buy things like cello strings and accessories are great too. My local luthier is Wilder & Davis.

Other:

A high-quality set of kitchen pots and pans such as Paderno or Lagostina
A stand mixer (such as this Kitchenaid model, but any brand would do)

And in case you think I’m materialistic, and measure love by presents… you’re wrong. I just love getting mail, and opening packages. And reading books. So sue me.

Birthday-Associated Fun

1) Liam has a swingset, as of this past Sunday. He helped his grandpa and HRH put it together. Pictures to follow when I get around to it.

2) Liam has a sandbox, as of yesterday. Naturally, he is very interested in eating the sand, much more so than playing with his sand toys.

3) Liam has a seventh tooth, as of this morning. Finally, one of the four that have been lurking and being general pains over the past six weeks has made an appearance, and it’s about time. He also got his first pair of sandals today.

ETA: Okay, I got around to the pictures.

Liam supervises the final touches on the swingset:

Liam’s first time in the sandbox:

Swan Sister Update

Today was the first day in the new writing schedule, and look:

Total word count, Swan Sister: 8,771
Total words today: 853

I started to write at 8:20. Liam woke up at 9:00, effectively ending the session. But before I stopped I’d managed to successfully kill off the title character, as set forth in my outline. So that’s the proposal done, and the death done. I can check two major things off my list, and the story can continue to advance. I’m really settling into the style more comfortably too, which is a relief after having it dissolve through the typed words like mist whenever I thought I’d hit it.

Mind you, today’s success may have had something to do with how long I was awake before I sat down to write. I woke up at 5:30 AM, thanks to a wretched cold that has ambushed me and taken my sinuses and my throat hostage. So I was very awake, and had been for some time, and had had time to think about how to handle the scene (plus draw a map to clear up what was where, which had to be done as well). We’ll see if it all still works when I sleep in till sevenish like I usually do.

But establishing a writing schedule again is a Good Thing, not just for my creative sanity but because it looks like I’m dusting off and rewriting the old spellcrafting through the seasons proposal that was “nice but not now” when I originally did it a couple of years back, as well as drawing up an idea for a series (not all by me, of course, but I’d like to do one title for it). It’s so very nice to be asked, “What do you feel like writing?”

Telephony

So.

I had a business meeting by phone scheduled for this morning. A meeting that I’ve been waiting for for some time now.

The phone rings. I pick it up. “Hi, it’s –”

And the phones cuts out.

I am not ashamed to say I threw the phone, I was so mad at it. (I threw it at something soft, and took the time to turn so that I aimed properly, but I threw it.)

I’m on my way out to buy (a) a replacement battery for the damn thing, and (b) a real phone with a cord that actually works to serve as backup.

It’s six years old. It’s done its time, both on the cradle and off. And it’s been sending us feeble “I don’t feel well” signals lately. But dying as soon as it’s taken off the cradle? Swan song.

UPDATE, 12:40 PM: New battery now charging. The salesman was surprised our battery lasted six years; he said they have a life of approximately three years. But the cord phone I bought? Only has a USB plug. Has to be exchanged for a Real Phone so I can actually use the damn thing as a backup phone on the main phone line, because of course there aren’t USB to phone jack adaptors that don’t cost more than the ruddy phone did. So it’s back out to the shops after Liam’s nap, so that we actually have a phone we can use before tomorrow.

::headdesk::

The Book Geek In Me Is Incoherent With Coolness

My Wicca book had an initial print run of, oh, let’s say, X in September 2005.

This May, they had to do a second print run of 1/2 X.

What does this mean? My books sells muchly. So much so that a second print run was called for nine months later.

The spellcraft book had a slightly larger initial run, so I don’t think it has reprinted yet. As for the green witch book, it’s a more specialised topic, so the print run for it is the smallest so far. I know you’re curious (or you ought to be in order to have the proper context to appreciate all this), so here’s a little fact: the average print run for a book in the New Age market is around 5,000. All three of mine were higher than that. The first was almost double it, in fact.

I was rather astonished, myself.

And I am such an industry geek.