Belfry Blog day

It's my day to post over on the Belfry Collective Blog today.

My (weird) writer's imagination

Are you ready for this train of thought?? Follow closely and hold on tight, because we're going round some bends mighty fast....

Over on the Smart Bitches the other day, there was discussion about pennames and someone also mentioned porn star names - the name of your first pet, plus the name of the street you grew up.

Sugar Tulip. That's my name according to this formula. Yep, it has a certain ring about it - although I'm definitely no porn star... (watch out - first bend coming up) ...but maybe Sugar writes spicy...

The 'Sugar' and the sort-of rhyming with 'Mint Julep'? Southern USA, and I naturally think of New Orleans, (since we've been thinking spicy) and can't you just see a large, older woman with a definite wicked glint in her eye and a whole-hearted appreciation of life? Okay, so she's probably African-American, and I'm definitely not, so the equivalent would be....

The women in Sue Janson's art work, that I saw in a gallery in Bendigo, Victoria a few weeks back, and absolutely loved. Gorgeous colours, large older women full of joie de vivre, a sense of fun and adventure, loving life and not afraid to live it on their own terms, with plenty of humour.

(Go over to her website and take a look - the images are copyright stamped, but you'll get the idea anyway - and you can order prints and cards. The original paintings are large and I'd love to buy a couple, but that will have to wait a while... in the meantime, I think I'll buy a print. Or two.)

So there you go - in just a flash of a train of thought, Sugar Tulip comes to life ;-)

I don't think I'll actually ever write as her, but I could definitely see her as a character in a book ;-)

Catching up (again)

I know, I haven't posted for a while. But I have put some photos up on the other blog - evidence that I've actually been exercising. And I've been to the gym a few times. I'm never going to become a gym freak, but I'm trying to be serious about losing the weight I need to lose. Not manic - I'm sooo not into pain or deprivation - but by upping my exercise and reducing my intake a little, I'm hoping to make a difference over the next few months.

In other news, today I had lunch with the only two other romance writers in my town. Kelly Hunter and I have had lunch a few times before, and Michelle has just moved to town, so it was great to get together and natter about writing. I don't get to talk to real, live romance writers face-to-face very often - one of the few perils of rural living - so it's always enjoyable when I can.

Kelly's first book, Wife for a Week, a Mills and Boon Modern Extra, will be published in the UK in March. I'm not sure when it comes out in Australia, but we're going to try to talk Kelly in to a local booklaunch and celebration ;-)



It's a great cover, and you should read the excerpt on Kelly's website. It's wonderful - and I'm definitely going to buy the book when it comes out here. Not to mention be first in line for an autograph at that booklaunch we're going to have ;-)

Face of a hero (or three)

One of my challenges as a writer is that I'm a kinesthetic person, rather than a visual one. So, while I have a strong sense of my characters, I find it hard to actually get a clear visual picture. But I need an image, so that I can study it and work out how I might describe the person in visual terms if required. And to pin up on my notice board as inspiration (or perspiration, in some cases ;-) )

So, since I don't get to see a heap of TV or movies these days, I gave my batty writing group some brief word pictures and asked for suggestions of faces that might work for two of my characters in books I'll be seriously working on shortly - Cole Tanner in Shadows and Light, and Morgan 'Gil' Gillespie in Dark Legacy.

For Cole, who can pass as a local in parts of Central Asia (the '-stan' countries), Kris suggested Nicholas Lea:


Hmmm.... Yum. Yep, I could drool look at that face for a while ;-)

But he's a little young for Cole, unfortunately. And, as a friend of mine once said about someone, 'This is his first time around.' Now, I'm not really into reincarnation, but there are some people who seem to have older souls than others, and Nicholas (in this photo anyway) doesn't seem to be one of them - whereas Cole knows life on a deep level. So, Nicholas is going into the resources file - and he may well appear as a hero in another book... yes, there's a definite possibility...

Angie sent me a link to a website with thousands of photos of aspiring actors and models, and I found this guy (a model called Loukas), who isn't right for Cole either, but I'll post him anyway in case it prompts someone to think of other suggestions:



(The face shape, skin, hair is right, but the mouth seems wrong to me - a bit self-indulgent, pouty, soft. Which Cole definitely isn't in the slightest. And the eyes/expression aren't quite right, either. All in all, this guy just isn't deep enough for Cole.)

Now, for 'Gil' Gillespie, last night I rummaged through a few pics I'd saved over the years, and found this one:


Give him black hair and dark eyes, and this particular photo of Clive Owen could well be Gil - tough, hard, and walking sometimes on the edge of the law. Not to mention droolable. Oh, yes....


I didn't ask the Bats about images for another hero, Ronan. Ronan appears as a colleague and friend of Cole in Shadows and Light, and will be the hero in Shadows and Dreams. Ronan gives the impression of a less complex personality than Cole - a fun guy, less serious, taking life lightly, although in reality he is a dedicated and serious professional. He just hides it well ;-). (Of course, in his story, he will be thrown into some extremely heart-wrenching situations....)

I found this image on the model/actor site, and it kinda works. There's a depth of character there, but you can see there's a grin not far below the surface:




But for Ronan, I suspect that I'll come back to Hugh:




Oh, yes, we do men well here in Australia ;-)

This 5 minutes of bliss was brought to you by Bron's usually-Boring Blog.

Your library online

Here's a free, fun and useful tool for romance readers:

LibraryThing

You can quickly build an online catalogue of your books, tag them, rate them, share your list with others, and see what people who have the same books as you are also reading - a great way to find out about new books to read! The service draws on worldwide amazon and library databases, so cataloging books is not a laborious process - simply enter title key words and author's name, and then select the correct book from the listing that comes up.

I haven't had time to enter more than a couple of books yet - just trying out the site - but you can see my very meager listing here to see what a listing looks like.

The free service lets you catalogue up to 200 books; you can sign up for an unlimited catalogue for a small fee.

Have fun!

Everywhere but here..

It was my day to post at The Belfry Collective yesterday - so I did.

And this morning I made a walk into a photo exercise (because I hate any other sort of exercise) and the results are in my photoblog - and also up at Flickr, because I'm exploring it at the moment (as part of research for my day job - I'm supposed to know about these social software sites).

The backup fiend

Today I came across a free site for file storage that allows up to 1GB of space, and enables you to directly upload files and apply tags to them for easy finding. You can also, if you wish, share files from the site, (and there is support for developing and/or running assorted applications to automatically doing things with the files - not that I'm planning on using that, since I don't actually understand that side of it.)

The site is
http://www.openomy.com

What's a tag, you ask? Rather than using a folder structure, you can apply one or more tags (or keywords) to each file. Then, you can easily find it by looking under any one of those tags. You don't have to search through folders to find where the heck you put it ;-)

You can also upload zipped files to openomy, which means you can get a fair amount in that 1GB of space.

I'm a bit manic about back-ups, having seen too many writing friends and others lose significant amounts of work. One back-up isn't enough, because they can and do fail (especially if it's a flash-drive or CD). So, I'll be adding openomy to my back-up system.

Muse music

Like many writers, I often use background music to inspire the Muse. For me, it can't be just anything, and I've put together playlists to evoke the emotional ambience for the various characters and novels. For some, it's easy - Calli and Elliot in Falling into Darkness have a mix of haunting instrumental and folk pieces, and the raw earthiness of The Waterboys is perfect for Gil and Kris in Dark Legacy, especially Gil.

But I'm a bit stuck putting together a play list for Shadows and Light, even though we have over 350 CDs in our ecletic collection, including classical, gregorian chant, medieval, folk and world music, jazz and blues, rock, and alternative, and just about everything in between.

I've so far picked out Jane Sheldon's 'Silencium' (the theme for the British TV series 'Silent Witness'), and Dead Can Dance's 'The Writing on my Father's Hand'; the haunting, ethereal melodies and harmonies of these are right for the heroine, Sonia, for the different paths she's chosen, for the suffering she's seen and survived herself. There's strength and sorrow and grief and hope in those songs, just as there is in Sonia.

However, for the hero, I've so far hit a brick wall. The only thing that's come close so far is Morricone's 'Gabriel's Oboe' (from the film, The Mission.) Cole is a man who's given everything - even his own identity - to serve as only he can. He's isolated, alone, never able to be himself, no longer even sure who he is. 'Gabriel's Oboe' has the sense of isolation, of struggle and exile, that is right for Cole. However, it's only one piece, and I need some more!

I suspect have a few tracks in the LP collection that would be appropriate, but unfortunately I currently don't have a way to transfer vinyl to digital, nor much space left on my computer to download individual tracks. I might just have to clear up some space and do a bit of a hunt on the web, though - because I think that the love theme from Renaissance's 'Scheherazade' will work for them, and there's a beautiful track on Rick Wakeman's soundtrack for the 1976 Winter Olympics film that will probably fit, and I might be able to download both the from the web.

And then the Muse will have no excuse!

New Year

We made it back from our wanderings, and had a good time down south. The last few days the weather has been stinking hot, but we're looking forward to a cooler change today. or tomorrow. Or sometime soon....

So, the New Year has come, and 2006 is happening.

Looking back, 2005 wasn't the best year of my life, but we made it through. Around September, I realised how burnt out I really was; in the previous year or two, I'd had four family members battling life-threatening illnesses, a close friend nearly dying several times, my own major surgery and the consequent painful leg injury that resulted, major projects at work and constant swapping between part-time, full-time, and assorted other job contracts. Being overweight, with high blood-pressure, and suffering from some variety of sleep apnoea wasn't helping much either - although probably isn't surprising!

And in the middle of all of that, I was trying to write very emotional scenes, and feeling like shirt because it just wasn't working. I finally realised that my emotional energy was gone, drained, and that I needed to restore that before I could really, seriously, get back into writing again. I'm not the sort of person who falls apart easily - I'm a 'coper' - but I realised how little was actually holding everything emotionally together, and that underneath the surface coping cheerfulness, I just wanted to crawl into a hole. So, I stopped beating myself about the head for not achieving, and for the last few months I've tried to feed the soul a little more, recharge the creativity, and improve my physical health. I've never been one for drugs and therapy, so I'm doing this my way, with only a little help from blood-presure medication, which is also reducing the migraine frequency.

So, for 2006, I'm looking forward to a better, more productive, more enjoyable year. There's still illness in the family - my parents are ageing, and battling assorted conditions - but my sister and brother-in-law are both doing well at present, and my friend's health is slowly improving. Work will continue to be mad for a while, and I'm not sure yet whether the restructuring about to occur will see me promoted, demoted, or made redundant - but I'll worry about the later two if they happen, not before.

And as for writing, while I haven't been productive, word-count wise, this past year, I have made decisions about direction - what it is I want to write, and where I'm aimining it for - and now I can focus on getting there.

Christmas

In a couple of hours, the DH and I will head off on our Christmas trip. We're taking the travelling fairly easy - we'll stay overnight in Mudgee tonight - about 5 hours drive away - and then go the rest of the way to Canberra (another 5 hours) on Saturday.

Christmas will be with my family. We're staying with my sister and her family, who live on 20 acres or so to the north of Canberra. My parents will come to their place for Christmas Day - the menu includes prawns, ham, turkey, and the Christmas pudding I made - and we'll probably eat outside.

Yes, you read that right. It's summer here, so forget those images of snow and reindeer! Instead, we're looking at very hot weather for the next day or two, and hoping that the very high bushfire danger doesn't eventuate into anything nasty. Hopefully by Christmas Day it will be not stinking hot but just good summer weather, so we can enjoy eating outside.

After our three nights in Canberra, the DH and I are heading further south, for a well-deserved and long-awaited short break away together. We've booked for three nights at what we hope is a nice bed-and-breakfast place in Hepburn Springs, in Victoria. The website makes it look okay!

Then, we'll take a day or two coming home. I'm due back at work on 4th January, the DH has a few more days off.

Best wishes to everyone for a joyous, safe, Christmas, and a New Year rich in love, laughter and friendship.

Web site redesign

I had today off work because of a bad headache, and since my brain was dead, in between naps I redesigned my web pages. I've been thinking about doing it for a while, and now I have, although it needs some fine-tuning yet.

Please have a look if you have a moment, and let me know whether you like it, and whether it works on your computer. Any and all feedback gratefully received!

http://bronwynparry.com

Strange moments

Playwright Harold Pinter has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His Nobel lecture - titled Art, Truth and Politics - is available online, as both video and text. It's an interesting and powerful speech. Most reports of it have focused on the political aspect - he is highly critical of the Iraq war and US and British actions - and I agree with most (but not necessarily all) that he says. However, I don't talk a lot of politics on this blog, so we won't go into that ;-)

Pinter's comments about his writing were also interesting, and I was struck by this paragraph:

It's a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. The author's position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by the characters. The characters resist him, they are not easy to live with, they are impossible to define. You certainly can't dictate to them. To a certain extent you play a never-ending game with them, cat and mouse, blind man's buff, hide and seek. But finally you find that you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort.

The logical, rational, reasonable side of me used to point out that of course the author has control over the characters - we can make them anything we like. And we can. We can give any character any attribute, any history, any talent, strength, weakness, that we choose.

However, the author in me - the humanist in me - learned pretty darn early that while that is true, it doesn't necessarily make for good characters! Yes, we can make a character do anything we choose - but will it being in keeping with the character? Will it contribute to the character's growth? Will it build the reader's understanding of the character? Will it make this character a whole, real, believeable person?

I've mentioned in an earlier blog that I tend to start with an emotional impression of a character - sometimes arising from a scene that I've dreamed. And, while I wouldn't use Pinter's terms to describe my own process of 'discovering' the character, I do relate to his comment about the 'strange moment'. Because for me, there is a character there from that first moment - an emotion, a sense of how the character is, even before I know who they are.

From there, I use both logic and emotion to discover more: why does the person have that reaction to the situation? What sort of person would be in that situation? How did they get there? What are their choices from there, and why will they choose one path over another?

As an example, I've been thinking recently about the story arc that will cover the three books in a loosely-linked romantic suspense trilogy. In book 2, the hero has been working with two others, one of whom gets killed on page 1, throwing suspicion for his betrayal on the other - a female MI6 agent. That character was created out of a logical plot process, but straight away, without knowing anything about her, (not even that she would be the heroine of book 3 at that stage), I had a sense of a character - an intelligence agent that someone who worked closely with her wasn't sure he could trust. Someone damn good enough at her job to be assigned to an important cross-agency project, but reserved and distant, so that the hero in book 2 doesn't know what to make of her. Someone tough enough to have survived ten years in international field operations.

I wondered about her relationship with the character who got killed - and knew straight away that they had been lovers of sorts. Lines appeared in my head: 'You had a relationship with Dom?' 'No, Dom and I had a war. But one night we got pissed together and forgot all the reasons we shouldn't screw each other stupid.'

It fits for plot purposes, but it also fits the characters. She's had to be hard and tough to survive; not the sort of person to allow herself the weakness - the vulnerability - of caring easily. Just the sort of person that Dom would get under the skin of, beause he's not the kind to give up easily. (Damn shame I killed him off!)

So, while I don't feel as Pinter does that characters resist me or don't welcome me - I'm pretty clear that they're my creations, not independent entities in their own right! - I do experience that process of discovering them, of getting to know them, of using logic, imagination and subconscious processes to find out who they are. But it's not a purely logical, rational process, and I do get surprises and challenges - like the small voice that said to me, a top female MI6 agent may well have been used to assassinate dangerous targets... Oh, yes, now that would complicate a character, wouldn't it? Someone whose colleagues believe is capable of killing in cold blood... someone whose lovers had died... someone isolated from others because of who she is and what she's done...

...But finally you find that you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort.

That's the second strange moment for me - that moment when I discover something so key about the character that they become fully real, even if there may still be much to unravel.

And those are the moments when writing is really exciting and wonderful - even while I'm thinking, 'An assassin heroine? Oh, shirt, how the hell am I going to pull that off?'

Special visitor

Look over on my photoblog for our surprise visitor - a koala.

A fwap in the Belfry

Today's my day to post over in the Belfry Collective's blog.

So fwap on over and read about my purple cape.

Historical resources wiki

Today I set up a wiki - Historical Resources for Romance Writers. You can find it at:
http://historicalresources.wikispaces.com/

Wikis are web tools for collaboration and resource building etc. Wikipedia is the biggest example, but there are lots of smaller ones out there. With a wiki, any one can easily and simply add and edit pages. You don't need to know fancy html or anything like that. And it's easy to search - there's a search box on every page, you just put in what you're looking for, and it will find it if it's there.

Anyway, I'm interested in wikis from a number of points of view (including work-related ones) and I thought that a wiki in which writers contribute research they've found useful for writing historical romances would be very helpful to other writers.

So, Historical Resources for Romance Writers was born today.

I haven't publicisied it much yet, but feel free to go and visit. And add some content!

(And no, I'm not actually writing an historical romance at the moment - but I have several ideas floating around for a couple, which I may write one day ;-) )

Wild places

I haven't blogged much lately - I'm sorry about that. Life's just been a bit full. I've done a few entries on the photoblog, though, so whenever it's quiet here there may be something happening there.

I had a stomach bug today so didn't go into work - and with thunderstorms and rain off and on all day, it's been a good afternoon to curl up with a book. The book I chose today was a cloth-bound blank notebook I've had for about 17 or 18 years, in which I write interesting quotes and things that I come across. While I read the quotes I've written into the book often enough, tucked into the front are numerous pieces of folded paper in which there are longer poems or extracts, and I don't reread those so often.

So, it was nice today to touch base again with some extracts from TH (Harri) Jones' poetry, a Welsh poet who lived a few years in Australia before his untimely death, aged 44, in 1965. I came across a book of Jones' poetry in my first year or so at university - and loved it. Unfortunately, I only copied out a few lines here and there - and I think I've lost one of the pages over the years.

Jones writes often of his self-exile from Wales, and I think that what resonates with me in his poetry is the sense of place and connection to it, even over the distance of time. For me, sense of place is also important, and my memories are often tied up in where as much as who or when. Also, I visited Wales in 1983 and loved it, feeling an immediate sense of home, of belonging, although its differences from Australia are legion. But, like Australia, Wales is not a place one can ignore; the landscape, the history, the very air itself seem to hold an ancient wildness, and I can relate to Jones' yearning for the places of his childhood:

Homesick for clouded hills that never lose
The loom and shape they had when I,
My head in other clouds, trod their old paths
Too proud then to know that I too would die.

And, from another poem, in which he writes of his daughter visiting Ayer's Rock (Uluru):

Would the vision of that monolith
Stay in her mind and dominate her dreams
As in my mind and dreams these thirty years
There stays the small hill, Altlyclych,
The hill of bells, bedraggled with wet fern
And stained with sheep, and holding like a threat
The wild religion and the ancient tongue,
All the defeated centuries of Wales?

Tomorrow I'm going to the library at work, to borrow his books again, and to renew the friendship.

Tagged again

I got tagged by Kate, who thinks I haven't been posting enough lately. She's right - I haven't. But I'm in Canberra, looking after elderly parents and trying to set things up so they can cope.

Three screen names I've used: God, I'm so boring. I just use my own name.

Three things you like about yourself: mostly optimistic, reasonable human being, even temperament

Three things you don't like about yourself: lack of self-discipline, 20 extra kilos of weight, lack of eyebrows

Three parts of your heritage: love of books, love of natural environment, respect for others

Three things that scare you: fire; intelligent, power-hungry, amoral politicians; the power of large corporations in today's world.

Three of your everyday essentials: chocolate, quiet moments, a cup of tea.

Three things you are wearing right now: dressing gown, underwear, and.... um, a big smile?

Three of your favorite songs: Waterboys' A Pagan Place; June Tabor's The Old Miner (or something like that); Dead Can Dance The Writing on my Father's Hand.

Three things you want in a relationship: trust, respect, warmth.

Two truths and a lie: My grandfather fought in the Battle of Jutland; my great-great-grandfather was a convict; my grandmother had an affair with an Earl.

Three things you can't live without: chocolate; quiet moments; making up characters and stories.

Three places you want to go on vacation: Isle of Skye; Central Asia; Outback Australia.

Three things you just can't do: sing in tune; get enthusiastic about housework;

Three kids names: Don't have kids, but if I'd had them, they would probaby have been Isabel and Alistair.

Three things you want to do before you die: spend summer on the Isle of Skye; see a royalty cheque with my name on it and a large number; give up the day job to write.

Three celeb crushes: nope, never did the crush thing. But back in 1983, Scottish actor David Rintoul had really sigh-inducing thighs when I saw him on stage.

Three of your favorite musicians: Sting, Waterboys, June Tabor

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeals to you: eyes (that's two) and a genuine smile.

Three of your favorite hobbies: Weaving. That's about it - who has time for more?

Three things you really want to do badly right now: win the lottery; write; go on holiday somewhere quiet.

Three careers you're considering/you've considered: historical costume designer; teacher; academic historian.

Three ways that you are stereotypically a boy: hmmm, might have to think about that one - I don't do stereotypes well.

Three ways that you are stereotypically a girl: see above.

Three people that I would like to see post this meme: I'm on my parents computer away from all my bookmarks, so you can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Will I be surprised if they ignore this: see above.

Life and stuff

It's been a busy week, with one thing and another. Work is busy and I've worked a few late evenings; I got off my butt and went to the gym one night; we've been having very frustrating modem problems at home with consequent limited, slow, internet access, and to top it all off, on Wednesday my mother had a minor stroke.

She's 500 miles away, and at times like these I really feel that distance. She's recovering very well, but as my father is disabled and can't care for her, and she's currently not able to care for him, it makes a tricky situation. My sister's been doing a great job, but it's quite a load.

So, I'll head down to Canberra in a few days to help out for a week or so, when Mum gets out of hospital. And support them, along with my sister, in finding out information about long-term assistance and talking through the possibilities. It's a very hard time for them both.

Just when I thought I wouldn't be going away again before Christmas, I'm off again....

But in other news, I had a fantastic chat/brainstorm session with some of the Belfrights this morning, working on a background plot for a trilogy I've been outlining. Bouncing ideas off each other is great fun and generates much creativity, so I really enjoyed it. I also solved a few plot issues in the process ;-)

Simple pleasures

I'm enjoying playing with my new digital camera. I think it's meeting a need for me at the moment to be able to do something creative that has quick results. My other creative activites - writing, weaving, knitting - take so long to produce results that they're not as recharging for the soul as I need just now. However, with the camera, I can take it to work, photograph things during the day or on the way home, pop it in my pocket while walking the dogs, and then download and edit photos during the 'scrappy' time between getting home and after dinner, when I don't have much chance to do other things. So, by the time I sit down for the evening stretch of writing, working, or whatever, I've done something creative and produced something beautiful - and I feel good about it.

And talking about feeling good, today has been a day of simple pleasures and good things. A brainstorm (via IM chat) with writing friends in Canada, Australia and various parts of the US this morning; lunch with DH and a friend we haven't seen for ages whom I bumped into on the way to the cafe; teaching an informal workshop this afternoon to a fun group of fellow spinners and weavers; being inspired by some finished work brought in - a handspun/dyed/knitted rug, and a handwoven jacket; and a walk with the dogs in light rain this evening. There's some photos from the day up on my photo blog.

Now I've got a couple of hours in which to write... and I feel relaxed and ready to.

Author day thanks

Thank you to everyone who called in to our Author Day - and my humble apologies for the technical hassles during my hour! When yahoo stopped us reading messages from the website it created problems for me, as my email was coming in slowly, out of order, and/or not at all - and our modem kept dropping out (would you believe, messages were still coming into my gmail account 11 hours later??? No wonder I couldn't follow anything!!)

Huge thanks to Gerrie and Donica for stepping into the breach and helping out - I really appreciated it!

And congratulations to the winners of the sets of photographs - I'll put those into the mail (carefully protected with thick cardboard) in the next day or so, and will send them airmail.