Why is the chocolate always GONE?!!

It's 1.27 am and the house is quiet. Even my hyper Irish hound is out cold. The cats are snoring ever so softly. No Harleys are thundering past my window, making the glass rattle in its frame. All is at peace. Except my stomach. My stomach craves CHOCOLATE.

Why does it always do that when I haven't got any?!! Why does the craving always hit hardest when I'm up late trying to thrash out a few more NaNoWriMo words?

Gingerly, I investigate the contents of the fridge, looking for something, anything, to assuage the craving.  But all I find is mouldy cheese, tired bacon leftovers (I was going to use them in a casserole that never happened) and a shriveled lemon, half wrapped in cling film that's seen better days. This is not good.

Peanut butter on toast, I decide, my heart lifting. I can do that. But I managed to get suckered into buying the 'all-natural, organic, old-fashioned grandma's recipe' version, and the two-inch layer of oil on the top makes my stomach lurch. "You have to stir it," said the lady in the shop when I bought it. "Right," I answered, not wanting to look the stupid Brit. "I knew that."

But actually, all I know (at what is now 1.33 am) is that I should have gone for the biggest bag of Peanut M & M's I could find instead.  Or a Milky Way Midnight. Then I would have been able to write. Because clearly I can't write without chocolate. So the fact that I haven't reached my 3K goal for the day doesn't matter, right? I'm excused. Yes, that's right. So I might as well go to bed. "After all... tomorrow is another day."

Lia Keyes,
Master Procrastinator and admitted chocoholic
www.liakeyes.com

Editor's note:
Do you know where the quote Lia used comes from? The first person to leave a comment with the right answer wins a prize!

THE SHIFTER: an interview with Janice Hardy

I got a chance to interview debut YA fantasy author Janice Hardy for The Enchanted Inkpot blog this week, and I was so thrilled with her thoughts on the writing process and the genesis of THE SHIFTER that I thought I'd link to it here, for those of you who wouldn't have visited the Inkpot otherwise. Here's the introduction:

"One of the most original books I've read in a while is THE SHIFTER, by debut novelist Janice Hardy, so I was delighted when Janice granted The Enchanted Inkpot an interview.

THE SHIFTER is the first book in THE HEALING WARS series and tells the story of 15-yr-old Nya, an orphan who has the power to shift pain from one person to another. Her homeland, Geveg, has been invaded by the Baseer, and in this oppressed world the ability to shift human pain into a substance called pynvium is worth money. Big money. The League charges to remove the pain, pain merchants buy pain to enchant weapons, and anyone able to 'shift' pain is subject to death, pain, and maybe even experiments. So Nya suppresses her power to shift, but then her sister Tali and other League apprentices disappear. Forced to use her power to find and free her sister, strong-willed Nya is faced with the complex moral dilemma of deciding who will live, or die."

Want to know more? Then hop along to The Enchanted Inkpot for the Q & A with Janice.

SCRIBBLERATI IS BORN

I've often wished I could have one place to chat with all my writer friends instead of having to trawl around Twitter, Facebook and MySpace to keep up with the different factions. Then there's also the danger of boring family and friends to death with writer talk.

On top of that, National Novel Writing Month is a worldwide phenomenon that is growing so fast that each year the servers crash or the site slows down too much to be an effective social network for participants.

So I set up a Ning network for writer friends, and somewhere along the way it became this big, fancy-looking thing that's growing and growing. I decided to give it a domain address and needed a name that would set it apart. All the obvious literary ones were taken: Writers' Network, Writers' Garret, Literati...

In the spirit of National Novel Writing Month, I wanted it to have a carefree, unpretentious, fun energy - to not take itself too seriously. So while IM-ing this conundrum with a friend on Facebook one evening the word Scribblerati came to me.

"Too silly?" I asked my friend.

"AWESOME!!" quoth she.

So Scribblerati it is, and all ready I can see how much fun this is going to be. Soon there'll be a store for Scribblerati merchandise, including T-shirts and hoodies, Scribblejuice mugs and Scribblebook notebooks. I'm also planning to invite guests to live Q & A sessions in the chat room.

It would be easy to get distracted from finishing my novel, but on only its second day of life Scribblerati began to take on a life of its own, thanks to the support of writer friends Ellen Hopkins and Andrew Smith, who were among the first to join. Who knows how big it will grow? But for now I'm enjoying the illusion that it's my secret writers' clubhouse.

http://www.scribblerati.com

DON'T PULL YOUR PUNCHES

By pulling our punches as writers for fear of upsetting a censorious minority we are crippling one of teenagers' most powerful conduits to growth. Don't do it. Ignore the naysayers. Laugh at those who don't recognize the words you've chosen. Be prepared to fight for the right word in the right place at the right time. Inform through context and clarity of expression. Tell a story so powerful, that tells the truth and packs such an emotional punch, that editors have to publish it in spite of its intellectual rigor.

These are the books that last.

Which of the books you've read celebrate the power of story to stretch our intellectual capacities without causing you to throw the book against the wall in frustration?

Which books have made you glad you gave up hours of your life to read them?

Which ones managed to entertain you whilst also leaving you feeling smarter for having read them?

I'll start the ball rolling by declaring Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS to be one such read. What's your favorite?

CRAZY COOL PITCH UPDATE

I just got an e-mail update from Laura saying the edited pitch I've posted here is "excellent - very nicely compressed and made more urgent." So there you have it, straight from the agent's mouth. Oh, and the other cool thing she said was that she has editors interested now "so all we need is the ms"...

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Not very literary, I know, but it's the only word that fits the way I feel!

The thing that really got me going was the "s" on the end of "editors". I doubt she'll tell me which editors are interested, and even if she did I wouldn't be able to post it here, but watch this space! I have a feeling everything's going to turn out just fine. And heaven knows, in this economy, with the publishing industry hurting like it is, we can use all the hope there is.

Oh, and the polar bear in Parliament Square? Proves that stranger things have happened than a penniless English divorcee publishing a book. ;)

If you like the sound of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, they've just created a Facebook fan page, so scurry over and add yourself to their fans for updates on opportunities to get to know them better!

http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/group.php?gid=70613652083&ref=mf

procrastination

(Click on the images for a larger view)

Some of us will do anything to avoid writing. Like staying up all night playing with Powerpoint to make desktop wallpapers of our novels in the hope that it'll also kick start the writing.

Well, it worked. I'm writing with a clarity I didn't have before. So maybe I can justify my madness. Here, for those who are curious, are the images I created. I've already used one to change the cover of the excerpt of A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS on my website at www.liakeyes.com, and the other one is my new Twitter background image. There's a strong steampunk influence which surprised and rather delighted me, and it's influencing the atmosphere of the writing, too.

Although Tempus travels through several centuries, from the Renaissance to the Information Age, it doesn't seem inappropriate for the book to have a steampunk flavour. One of the most famous minds of the Italian Renaissance was Leonardo da Vinci, and his sketchbooks have a distinctly steampunk air - low-tech flying machines being a case in point. Imagination, unfettered by the era in which it flowers, can have a universality that is timeless, beautiful, and perpetually relevant.

I love the anachronistic nature of steampunk, which imagines a world in which the Information Age collides with late Victorian industrialism. In A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS I've hypothesized that great ideas never die and the Infinite University, as a place where the souls and minds of different eras collaborate, exchange ideas, and incorporate shared concepts, would be a fun place to visit! It's surrounded by a city of craftsmen and service industries that evolved to supply the university's needs. Still looking for a name for it - any suggestions?

astonishing animated film

While I'm on my steampunk-fest I thought I'd share this amazing video, "THE MYSTERIOUS EXPLORATIONS OF JASPER MORELLO." I think it speaks for itself.