Raven on My Shoulder...

Wow, been a while again.  I'm terrible at keeping up with this.  Apologies.  Anyway, this little post is a major update...

Only 20,000 words away from finishing Simple Twists of Fate.  Woohoo!!!  And to top that off, I've got 3 and a half stories sitting in front of me right now, lurking in notepads, waiting to be typed up. (3 and a half because I didn't get a chance to finish the 4th one in work today.)  Pretty pleased with these ones and they fit in with the rest of the collection well.

On the whole, the book is shaping up brilliantly.  Really really pleased with it.  However, during the week there I removed an erotica piece called "Salt Skin", which just didn't really feel right with the other stories.  Anyway, it's a mermaid tail and I've already got 3 mermaid pieces in the book and I don't want it to drown it with siren stories (har har sea humour).  Although, Brianna Stoddard is running an erotica book over at Static Movement so I may send it swimming her way and see if she bites (okay, I'm through with the puns now I promise).

Have noticed that quite a few of my newer pieces have been in the same vein as my story "Moth Touch", which was published in Creepy Things: An Anthology of the Creepy-Crawly, Spooky & Silly, published by Static Movement.  By that I mean mini character portraits capturing one scene, a la the prologues in The Canterbury Tales (which I was obsessed with when I was about 17).  Pretty happy with this as it keeps in tone with my "Simple Twist of Fate" theme.

This collection will also include my brand new novella, "Swampblood", which I originally wrote as a short story for a different collection.  However, even when I finished the original short story, I new there was much more to this tale and decided straight away that it would be much better suited as a novella.  It tells the tale of the sheriff of the small Louisiana town of Swampblood and his search for his girlfriend, a newcomer to the town.  So excited about this piece.  It's one of my favourites!

Once I type up these stories tonight, I'm spending the next week doing read-throughs, edits and rewrites.  This will ensure that everything is perfect.  Hopefully should have the whole book completed within the next few weeks.  Fingers crossed.

And now for something completely different...  Little plug here for a fellow blogger.  I urge you all to go check out A Cinephile's Journey, which is a freaking awesome blog.  My most cinematically literate and sharply dressed mate Paul Costello has started an epic project.  He is watching every film he owns in alphabetical order and reviewing it.  So far, he's 15 films down and not even out of the As.  This makes my film collection look pitiful.  I think it will even overshadow my film-obsessed partner-in-crime K Bargie's vast DVD horde.  Paul has already covered some awesome films, including Ace Ventura and The Adventures of Prescilla, Queen of the Desert, which is one of my faves.  Prescilla is sheer Aussie genius and Paul's review of it is spot on.  So, fair bunnies, I implore you, join one man on his journey through his DVD shelf ( or shelves more like if his room is anything like K Bargie's).

That seems to be us all caught up now!  I better beat it and finish typing up these stories and get closer to that goal of completing Simple Twists of Fate.  Not long now...

Farewell, bloody bunnies...

Lotsaluv, Em