The Blog of a Modest Star

I'm amazing.

I thought you all deserved to know that. Not only have I just crept over the 46,000 word mark in my NaNoWriMo project (gets down onto her knees and begs the Plot God to give her enough ideas to make it through to 50,000) but during this merry month of novel writing I also managed to find the time to write a flash story.

A break for applause.

Anyhow, said story 'The Marionette Manipulator & the Headless Bride' (ooh, maybe if I make the chapter titles really long in Theatre I can get to the end today) has been accepted by 52 Stitches.

I've got to stop applauding myself, my hands hurt.

Dead Earth

I haven’t read a book in a single day in years. Until Dead Earth: The Green Dawn that is.

Okay, I’m kind of cheating because Dead Earth: The Green Dawn by Mark Justice and David T. Wilbanks (published by PS Publishing) is a novella, but it’s a novella I couldn’t put down. There are zombies, a small town, apocalyptic dreams, the military, and a collection of unforgettable characters – everything an apocalyptic novel thrives on. And as its central character Jubal Slate, a young deputy who I defy anyone to dislike. There is not a dull moment in its ninety-four pages, and that includes the introduction.

I have only one complaint – I wanted more from this universe, and in my impatient fashion I want it now.*

*According to Gary Braunbeck’s introduction, more Dead Earth novels are planned.

The Coffin Factory

I believe everything in a book has a purpose even if you don't understand what that purpose is at the beginning. I just discovered why my theatre is located next door to a coffin factory - cool!

Current Word Count:

Theatre of Curious Acts - NaNoWriMo
39,140 / 50,000 (78.28%)

When Dead Folk Turn Up

I’ve scraped my words over the 30,000 mark with commas dangling from the rafters, with questions left unpunctuated, passive sentences lying like doorstops, and adjectives sneaking in at every available opportunity, and now a couple of zombies just bit the leading actress in Part Three: (The man with) One Yellow Shoe.

This isn’t a zombie book. I mean it’s kind of heading towards the apocalypse so in all fairness a few dead folk may or may not rise at the end, but they certainly should not be making an appearance at the 30,000 word mark; and they should not be running around the set of The Breakfast Club interacting with the actors. Poor Harvey Cadell has enough to deal with; it’s not good for a heart that’s a little bit yellow. But it’s okay, I’ve let him sit down a second to have a cup of coffee in the Whistle Stop Cafe.

The One Where Cate Posts a Photo

You know I figured it was about time I posted a photograph of myself – I mean not everyone in the album can be bad – and that’s how I found these gems. Gee how could I have forgotten all these momentous events.

I was Warhol’s inspiration

Victoria Beckham and others learned how to pout by studying photographs of me.

Thanks TKT and Photofunia for allowing the world to see the true me.

Oh, and the photo’s were I was offended because the program claimed they didn’t recognize any faces on the photographs. Darn cheek. Maybe it’s because they featured a moody teenager. What is up with that cardigan. :)

This one is for my Bro...

It's like good news central here. My brother heard this morning that he had won tickets to see the Sterephonics in London and to meet them at a party later. I don't have the full details as he has gone racing off to London as the party is today. Here is my favourite Stereophonics song.



For him it's the equivalent of my getting a phone call from Tim Burton saying he wants to make The Poisoned Apple into an animated musical, and the same day Jack Bauer bursts into the reception at work and saves me from a paper cut.

My good news - I won £10 on the Lottery. YAY! Cate sits down and realises her news isn't quite as cool. Better news, Gustavo Bondoni has blogged about the cover of the Return to Luna anthology. Once again congratulations to all those who made it into the antho, I am forever jealous.

The Ultimate Flat-Pack

Issue one of Stymie Magazine, edited by Erik Smetana and containing my story The Flat-Packed Golfer is now available to read online for free, and you can flip the pages over like a real magazine – how cool is that?

In other news – I just crossed the 20,000 word mark on Theatre of Curious Acts with these words:

The dragons skittered about their ankles leaving scorch marks on their uniforms and setting Harvey’s shoelaces alight. The man jumped down into the sludge to put himself out. The dragons rolled onto their backs and released a sound akin to laughter.

Dragons

A coincidental and fitting day to post the next extract from my NaNoWriMo novel as it is Remembrance Sunday and almost 90 years since the end of World War One.

Part Two: PAPER DRAGONS

(i)

The Show

1918

Silence.

Ever since the guns had ceased their tirade across the western front, Daniel Cole had sought solace in silence. He would wake in the early hours, the night ink blank, the stars concealed behind the weight of clouds that refused to release the ghosts from the earth, and he would sit on the worn chair in the corner of his bedroom, look out at the emptied world, and remember all the lost men.

Their ghosts brushed past him when he entered the bakers where Eddie Tarpey dusted loaves and dreamed of Mabel Normand; when he rode his bicycle past Newsham School where Norman Bulmer instructed children in physical education; and down by the lake where the twins spent their summers fishing. In this very room, where prior to 1914 Walter James Cole had wept, snored and dreamed of glory in the bed next to his.

Sometimes, in the silence of three a.m., he heard his dead brother snore. Sometimes he remembered Walter had been as young as the century. Fifteen when an enemy shell found his heart. When its shrapnel crossed the channel, embedded in the walls of their old terrace, and stole their parents.

Sometimes the silence broke him.

His uniform hung on a wire hanger over the back of the door. It formed ghost of its own in the dark, and one month since quiet had fallen over blood red fields its shoulders slumped, its legs baggy over emaciated thighs, its collar bent beneath the weight of a bowed head. He had that morning decided he would never put it on again. He wondered if Swan, George, Ken and Harvey would wear theirs when they met the following day at the White Horse Inn.

Swan Ecklund would, of that Daniel had no doubt.

The curtains dragged along the yellowing wire as he pulled them open and looked out at what he considered a ghost town. The cobbled streets glistened with rain. Gas lamps washed the streets with pools of light. He lifted the sash window. The gas lamp located outside his terraced house hissed, in his darkest hours Daniel imagined that hiss was for him alone.

Shrapnel from a First Draft

We are almost a week into NaNoWriMo and I have just completed the first draft of the first novella ‘Shrapnel From a Broken Smile’ (more novelette at the moment) in my Theatre of Curious Acts and I am so, so reluctant to let that bunch of characters go. Some may reappear in other stories, some may not, who knows how the plan will go – but for now we’ll meet at least two of them again before the final act.

Some authors, such as Katey Taylor, comprise whole soundtracks to go with their stories and characters. Here’s my one and only song inspiration for this novella/novelette/thank god it’s longer than a short story.

Okay, off to get to know the folks inhabiting ‘Paper Dragons’ the second novella.

A Bit Like Ink Blots

Some people post pictures of fabulous firework displays, while others find that their bonfire night photographs are more odd than spectacular – let me present ‘Cate’s Digital Camera’s View of the Night Skies of November 5th’:

This piece is entitled: Two Horses Running Through the Surf

Here we Have: The Old Man with the Wild Hair & His Walking Stick

 

Follow the Irradiated Road

 

Check out those Sixes: The Devil’s Mark

Fat Woman Drunk at Mardi Gras

The Beard of St. Nicholas

Souls Going into the Light