The end of the day on the Eve of Novel ember

Here I am on the eve of the biggest challenge I have ever set myself in my choice of career. I am going to be turning Mirrors into a full novel in NaNoWriMo, adding 50,000 words by the 30th and right beside that I am going to finally turn Goldilocks and Bear into a full novel (are you hearing me cuz?) and put 50,000 words into it in the Romance writers sister challenge during November and if that wasn't enough I decided I wanted to come up with 30 ideas for picture books in PiBoIdMo. I know I know these acronyms are crazy however if I am going to be coming up with ideas I had best also come up with sketches to go with the ideas so what else did I sign myself up for, you guessed it, or if you didn't then here it is...SkaDMo, a sketch a day for a month.

DO I think all that will get my creative juices going? Yes it will.

So I have worked out a daily schedule of getting up at 6am, exercise, breakfast ad shower then blog and draw then on 50k tally followed by lunch then the other 50k and then a blog hop and some interaction with people beyond my characters and an evening meal, check emails and block some more then bed at 10 to read, lights out at 11.30 or else!
I feel ready. Come visit and see how I am going, if I don't answer the door you will know it is working.

I submitted another piece of art to an anthology today and last night I re-submitted my edited flash fiction about undelivered messages to AntipodeanSF http://www.antisf.com.au/
and I wrote a couple of book reviews.
I love this creating.

six fifteen am

And what, pray tell, am I doing up with the birds? It is a long time since I made an appearance before the much more civilized hour of seven am but here I am. It is all because of November and the challenges I have set. One of my November challenges was to get up at six, make a cup of tea and come sit here and blog. Start the day on a relaxed note before undertaking my 3600 words for the day plus a sketch or two and an idea. I am as organised as I can be, I hope. I have my exercise chart on the wall, my spreadsheet for the word counts, my cup of tea and my graph on the wall for charting my progress. Now whilst I sip my tea I will visit a few other blogs, get ideas, support other people doing the challenges and away we go then after that, some exercise.
Good morning world, November here I come!

Cirque D'Obscure

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GA9RFN0

Another Anthology out in the big wide world, this one containing just one of my little stories and a little art work.

Book Description
Publication Date: October 28, 2013
Come one! Come all! We assure you that you've never encountered a circus quite like this. Marvel in a literary wonder involving ravenous snakes, psychopathic clowns, and freaks as they captivate you like never before! This could definitely be the greatest...and most bizarre show on Earth!

Stories included:
Break In—Zoe Adams
Claudio—C.A. Clark
Circus Waltz—Alex Laybourne
Animal Memories—J.R. Roper
Final Wager—Brian Bigelow
Unleashing Knauss—Sarah Jayne Carr
Hunted—H.J. Daly
I Am Freak—Catherine Stovall
Snake Dance—Andrea L. Staum
The Gossamer Veil—Emma Michaels
Burn It Down—M. Jet
Chuckles—Faith Marlow
Hunger—Pyxi Rose
The Carnival of Erebus—Liz Lambdin
Ghosts—Melanie Skubich
House of the Dancing Shadow—Sergio Palumbo

Zombies, steampunk and picture books

How do you turn an 80s fitness icon into a zombie instructor? Easily, put him in a gas mask and throw him into the Z-apocalypse in a spangled singlet with matching slippers in graphite and fine liner. The slightest snippet of conversation seems to trigger connections in my brain and generate all kinds of convoluted snippets of story and art work.


I am still admiring my steam punk lady in her leather vest and pinstripe shirt as my wall becomes the gallery. She is hanging next to my 80's zombie dance instructor and just under my disembodied oil pastel arms.

I had the funniest experience today, I went to the physiotherapist and I was looking at my legs saying "Oh no what's wrong with my knees?" I was quite distressed until we worked out that I have lost a lot of fat off my legs and the muscle is becoming much more defined so what I was looking at was a set of knees that were healthier than they have been in years. My physiotherapist almost fell off the seat laughing and I must say I have been chuckling at myself ever since.

I am learning rather a lot about scam publishers of late. It is the scary underbelly of the publishing world and has a smoother more flattering tongue than a nigerian internet love scammer. Writer beware indeed.

I need to work out how to twit more effectively as it seems that is a very current networking tool I simply cannot get a handle on. I think I will give myself time to work this out before I head there.

Two more sleeps until the BIG November challenge. I think I am as ready as I can be. I will need support and I will ask for it but in the end the finish line can only be crossed by me. I am so excited!

eye b4 E and other useful ideas

i before e,
Except after c,
Or when sounded as "a,"
As in neighbour and weigh.






I before E, except after C
Or when sounded "A" as in neighbor, weight, weigh
Or when sounded like "eye" as in height
And "weird" is just weird






Every Average Dude Gets Better Eventually

Kids' Book Review: WIN! Roland Harvey books

Kids' Book Review: WIN! Roland Harvey books

Driving along after a lovely afternoon in which I had the delight of looking at Orchids in Portland, I was thinking about PiBoIdMo and my stories and how anything could become a story. I was thinking of water words and counting. A phrase kept running through my head so I added it to the list of things to explore. Then I began thinking about how children see the world and how it is such an amazing place. I found myself smiling in remembrance of some of the things my own children said and did when they were very small. I think this is going to be a lovely challenge and I am going to continue enjoying my meta-cognition.

26th Already?

Yesterday, I managed to work out how to embed gizmo's although the terminology still eludes me. I am so excited about planning. For anyone who knows me this is probably not something they would expect in my home. Organization is something I have kept exclusively for my workplace however now that I am making writing my work that obviously means my home is becoming my workplace. I drew up a huge chart on the windows so I could keep track of my word tally through November and I have calculated the daily numbers and I have started thinking and thinking about which plots I will pursue. I purchased a book on writing for children and I sent off four pieces of work to various publishers over the past four days.
Tomorr er oops today I am having guests in the afternoon and organizing non word parts of my life so I can have a bit of a rest for a couple of hours.
I started another steam punk today... I wonder where that will lead.
Best get some sleep or I will not be able to see the screen to type on it. :)

Already gurgling some great ideas for PiBoIdMo too

Trying to get ready

I am learning to Blog more effectively which means finding out how to format things and add things and link things. Unfortunately the instruction manuals seem to be written by computer guru super tech savvy brainiacs for other computer guru super tech savvy brainiacs and poor little old me is totally bamboozled by the process. My super brainiac tech savvy offspring are conspicuous by their absence except for the rather ascerbic comment from my youngest son who upon discovering I actually found out how to do something without breaking things, yelling or tearing my hair out said "Who are you and what have you done with my real mother?".

Biting off more...November

PiBoIdMo is a month of coming up with picture book ideas. I signed up for 30 ideas in 30 days.

Romance Writers of Australia has a sister challenge to NaNoWriMo so I signed up for a 50k target

and then of course is NaNoWriMo which is more international than national these days and I have set a 50k target there too.

However just to make sure I am really challenging my brain I thought I would sign up for the chapter book challenge too, since I have contributed eight stories and numerous line drawings to three anthologies put together by the amazing Becky Fyfe and the fabulous collection of authors and illustrators who have contributed to them.

Today has been another good writing day except I didn't write. Instead I spent the day doing all sorts of interesting things such as watch a teenage fan read my story and become distressed when the bell rang and she still had five pages left to read. I sent her a copy and she CAPS LOCKED her frustration that there was not enough story and it finished on a cliff hanger. I knew she was upset by the number of exclamation marks after her caps.

I spent a couple of delightful hours chatting with tow authors on 'Feed my Read' and will be the proud recipient of two good reads coming my way. I am also honoured to have won the competition of the second writer to name a character in his upcoming novel. How exciting. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Feed-My-Reads/363070023822001 https://twitter.com/FeedMyReads

Thank you Mica, even a phone call helps me work out my glitches hug hug

Antipodean Science Fiction

Some of my published flash fiction have been published in the ezine: Antipodean SF Issue 175 ‘The Delivery’, Issue 148 ‘Tinnitus’, Issue 156 ‘Genetics’ http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/10063/20130104-0000/www.antisf.com.au/index.html and a more recent submission which is yet to be approved or rejected. They have a website and a fb page and once a piece is published it usually has an airing on raidio and then archived at the state library of Victoria (oz). The cheery editor Ion Newcombe does a marvelous job of encouraging new writers. Thanks Ion. https://www.facebook.com/antipodeansf .................................................................................................................................. Older thingies, you know, published and stuff 2005 Deadlines, tales of all things unexpected, Ignis Fatuus Press, University of Ballarat 2002 Words Words Words Anthology of Student works. Small press publishing, University of Ballarat

The book of the Tribes.

What an exciting adventure this was. I had joined a couple of horror writers groups on FB and met some intriguing people and was encouraged to participate in The Book of The Tribes, a tribute anthology for Mr Clive Barker and his book and film Cabal/Nightbreed. The book was a fundraiser to enable Mr Russell Cherrington to travel to Australia with the remastered film 'The Cabal Cut' on the 9th of August 2013 on its world tour. Produced, Complied and EDITED by the very talented Mr Steve Dillon of OzHorrorCon.com, the book and the film viewing were a marvelous undertaking. Mr Barker and Mr Cherrington were both presented with a copy of the very limited edition first print run. I submitted a story inspired by characters in Cabal and also a picture which I had been playing with one afternoon turning Mr Barker into one of his characters. .................................................................................................................................

Editing for wonderful people

This year I have had the privileged of editing the work of a number of fabulous people. My friend Wendy Coyle http://rainbowsandrain.com.au/ has had two books published MY Very Own Alphabet Book an innovative publication in which families with kids with learning difficulties can insert pictures of family and friends to assist in learning and recognition of letters. This now also available as an app (voiced by a very Australian gentleman)and she has a terrific little book out about having ADHD from the perspective of an ordinary family called The naughty kid. My association with Wendy is for her upcoming title Billy and Max which is a delightful collection of stories about two young boys on an Australian farm and their energetic adventures. This work is based on Wendy's own children on a family farm.

........................................................................................................................... Another beta reading task I had, was for a young man named Paul Flewitt from Sheffield. UK. His first novel Poor Jeffrey was a delight to read and I am very pleased he has found a first publishing home for his talents. Paul writes, thinking person horror and I have just had the pleasure of reading another of his novellas. He can be found on facebook at his author page mystorytreeleaves https://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Storytrees-Leaves/352745188170046 his first title can be found on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Jeffrey-ebook

.............................................................................................................................. There have been a number of other lovely people for whom I have been a beta reader this year and I hope to see their books published too.

The Crock of Charms Project

A three Volume Anthology of stories linked by the tale of three children who discover a crock of charms. Each story in the anthology is based around the charm the author chose to use as their focus. ''' My story, Tools of Trade, is about three sisters who are each given an item and must follow a career path set out by their dying father's wishes. How they interpret those wishes is altogether not what he had in mind. """"" """""""""""""" http://thecrockofcharmsproject.weebly.com/ .,.,.,.,.,. .,.,.,.,.,.,

Formatting HELP Mica I need you

I can't seem to get this thing to publish in the formatting in which I type the posts. it just clumps everything together in a mess. No wonder it is so frustrating.

technorati tags: Mica

21st century

apparently I am a twit! with a twitter address at http://twitter.com/cc_lark

MY first picture book review

I am working on a picture book which is faction = fictitious portrayal of factual information, about an echidna surviving a bush fire. I was very excited to receive a no 2 rating from the people who reviewed my text. I am slowly working on the illustrations. ............................................................................................................................................ The wonderful people at http://rateyourstory.blogspot.com.au/ gave me some excellent feedback for polishing the text and flow of the story and I am very encouraged by their support. Thank You.

Jingle Bells

Holiday Stories from around the world. This anthology contains three pieces of my fiction and line art.

Tales From the Lake Anthology

I entered this competition and have just submitted my final manuscript in the final round of the competition. I am very pleased with the story which is of a futuristic world where there is only city in which all wrongdoers are sent to the Street. When a young woman has her boyfriend sent to Street wrongly accused she has to face her worst nightmares and her preconceived notions to save him and bring him home. ********************************************************************************* ***************************************************************************************** https://www.facebook.com/Talesfromthelake?fref=ts About The very first of Crystal Lake Publishing's annual Tales from the Lake horror writing competitions. Cash prizes, signed novels and a spot on the TOC. Description Horror writing competition with prize money, books signed by authors and a spot on the TOC with Graham Masterton, Taylor Grant, John Paul Allen, G.N. Braun, Charles Day, John Palisano, Blaze McRob, Bev Vincent, Elizabeth Massie, Tim Curran, Joan De La Haye and Tim Waggoner. Introduction by Rocky Wood. Edited by Joe Mynhardt. All entries will be sent anonymously to the different judges by Crystal Lake owner and operator Joe Mynhardt.

JEA Publishing Horror Anthology

A multiple volume anthology of scary stories involving fish. Available soon. I have one story about a braggart fisherman who gets his comeuppance in the worst way.

Crushing Hearts Black Butterfly Anthologies

I have a short story coming up in the Cirque d'Obscure Anthology. A tale of a small boy who is very unhappy at being a circus child and makes sure his entire eleven generation circus family, know it. I have also submitted a Steam Punk, Futuristic Western short story to 'The Cogs Of Time: A Steampunk Anthology' I am working on some art for this.

Teapot Tales Anthology

Teapot Tales contains three of my stories and several line drawings. Created in June July 2013 it was released in August. ******************************************************************************************************************************** http://chapterbookchallenge.blogspot.com.au/2013_08_01_archive.html http://www.amazon.com/Teapot-Tales-Collection-Unique-Fairy-ebook/dp/B00EGST6HU ******************************************************************************************************************************

******************************************************************************************************************************** My submissions for cover art.

SuperHERo females as super heros anthology

creating a female superhero anthology

well here I am again

Not so blogged out after all. make the best of a bad tool and try to keep it rolling along until I get a new one up and running.