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Recently on Twitter I mentioned having read the first chapter of A Very Bad Book. As usual people asked that I name it. As usual I did not.
I don't name books I hate, or authors I think are talentless, ((Unless they're dead. YOU SUCK HENRY MILLER! Every single thing you ever wrote was the crappiest, most self-indulgent, most misogynist filth ever written. Moby Dick is the most boring pile of poo ever published! Though I am fond of Melville's short stories. If only he had stuck to that length.)) for lots of reasons. The main one I give is that as an author it's hard to do so without looking jealous if your target is more successful than you are, ...
Posted by Justine at 6:40, July 3rd, 2012 under Excuses, Ranting, Reading, Words & Language, Writing life |
To my friends, acquaintances & family: you do not have to read my books! Truly. My being a writer is not meant to oppress you in any way! Read what you want or don't want. Forget I write books at all! Be free!
Okay, scratch that, family, you do have to! But everyone else is in the clear.
Reading an entire book is a big time commitment. And the older you get the more painfully aware you become that you are not going to be able to read all the books you want to before you die. It's a very long time since I finished a book I wasn't enjoying. If it's not grabbing me within a page or two then we ...
Posted by Justine at 12:40, May 10th, 2012 under Excuses, Frippery, Ranting, Whingeing, Writing life |
I've been promising a post about writing Liar using
Scrivener for two years now. It wasn't a fake promise. I've been working on the post. But given
my hassles with RSI and othe injuries it's been slow going.
A friend asked about it recently and I realised that I haven't touched the post in a year. The odds of my finishing it are low. When I spend my scant few hours at the keyboard I focus on my novels, not blog posts. So here is my unfinished and pretty rough account of writing Liar using Scrivener:
In the acknowledgements of Liar I wrote the following: "Without
Scrivener this book would most likely not exist." Ever since people ...
Posted by Justine at 3:37, August 25th, 2011 under Excuses, Liar, RSI, Writing process |
This is
my annual post where I sum up what happened in my professional life in that year and look ahead to what's going to happen in 2011. I do this so I can have a handy record that I can get to in seconds. (Hence the "last day of the year" tag.)
For reasons I'll explain in more detail below (but are mostly I was not online much) 2010 was ridiculously productive for me. I now have more than 100,000 words of my 1930s novel. Most of it written this year. And I declare those words to be good. ((I'm sure when I re-read them I'll be less thrilled but right now I think they're fabulous. I'll ...
Posted by Justine at 13:06, December 31st, 2010 under 1930s NYC novel, Admin, Cricket, Excuses, Last Day of the Year, Liar, Publishing business, RSI, Writing life, Zombies v Unicorns |
As some of you may have noticed I've not been around much online. Sorry! Thank you so much for all the concerned supportive emails. They are much appreciated. (You made me all teary.)
Here's where things stand with me:
The good news: The
original injury that caused me to cut back on blogging is completely healed. Yay!
The bad news: The RSI in my hands and forearms got worse.
I took four weeks off from the computer entirely. I have reorganised my computer setup. I've been doing a vast amount of physical therapy. I'm improving. Slowly and frustratingly but surely.
However, my time at keyboard
remains limited and my top priority is my novel. All else---blogging, tweeting, emailing---is on hiatus until ...
Posted by Justine at 11:44, June 7th, 2010 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, RSI, Reading, Sport, Whingeing |
You're unlikely to get anything sensible out of me for awhile. This will be brief. First, thanks for all
the responses yesterday. That was truly fascinating.
Second, we recently finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist and Read or Die and LOVED them both with a fiery burning passion. Thanks everyone who recommended them. What should we watch next? And why do you recommend it?
Third, without googling how many have you heard of Joel Chandler Harris? And what do you know about him? And where are you from? (I suspect how old you are is pertinent also.)
Thank you!
If you're in NYC you can see me and Scott reading this Saturday:
Justine Larbalestier,
Bennett Madison,
Scott Westerfeld, &
Cecily von Ziegesar
Reading and ...
Posted by Justine at 15:21, April 7th, 2010 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, New York City/USA, Viewing |
(Or answering email or responding to IM requests or to comments or been on Twitter or read many blogs.)
Like almost every writer I know, I have a number of chronic---though not particularly bad ((I know people who have been crippled by RSIs and now can only write with voice recognition software.))---injuries, that were caused by (or flare up when) I spend a lot of time at my computer.
Sitting at a computer for long hours is not good for your body. Which is why so many writers, receptionists, data processors, computer programmers etc etc ((There are bazillions of jobs that involve long hours sitting in front of a computer.)) have repetitive strain injuries, headaches, chronic back and neck problems, ...
Posted by Justine at 21:15, February 28th, 2010 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, RSI, Whingeing, Writing life |
Due to boring circumstances beyond my control, I will not be online much in February. Fortunately I’ve been able to line up a number of stellar guests to fill in for me. Most are writers, but I also thought it would be fun to get some publishing types to explain what it is they do, teach you some more about the industry, and answer your questions, as well as one or two bloggers.
*********
Sarah Cross is the author of Dull Boy, a YA superhero novel. She
blogs intermittently, posts random videos on
tumblr, and is hiding in a unicorn-and-zombie-proof bunker until this whole mess is over.
Sarah says:
You may be wondering where Justine is.
And I am sorry to tell ...
Posted by Justine at 19:59, February 12th, 2010 under Excuses, Frippery, Guest post, Toilets, Unicorns, Viewing, Zombies, Zombies v Unicorns |
I have fallen in love with yet another city. Istanbul is glorious. We have met with our lovely agent here, Asli Ermiş, who took us to meet our publishers, Omer Yenici at
Epsilon (who will be publishing Leviathan) and Ilgin Toydemir at
Artemis (who will be publishing Liar and already publish Midnighters). They in turn took us out for fabulous lunches.
In Istanbul we have eaten.
A lot.
First course at
Borsa restaurant.
A baklava shop, which sells many sweet and wondrous things. Yes, we bought and we ate.
The Egyptian spice market....
Posted by Justine at 5:54, December 11th, 2009 under Excuses, Food, Praising, Publishing business, Travelling |
Enough of youse lot are wondering what's up with me not blogging every day that I am driven to offer an explanation for my blog silence of late. A brief explanation: travel, busy, knackered, bad sport karma.
I have many posts brewing or brewed. More on race, writing and publishing (here's a
few links to
others. I'm especially loving the Writers Against Racism series on
Amy Bowllan's SLJ blog like
this one with Ari of
Reading in Color.); a complaint about Being Human (Why does the woman have to be a timid ghost? Wouldn't it have been much more interesting if she was the werewolf or the vampire? Um, okay no need to write ...
Posted by Justine at 15:21, September 2nd, 2009 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar |
Posted by Justine at 4:48, December 22nd, 2008 under 1930s NYC novel, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Praising, Research |
Posted by Justine at 14:35, December 6th, 2008 under Admin, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Food, Frippery, New York City/USA, Sydney/Australia |
Posted by Justine at 15:46, November 9th, 2008 under 1930s NYC novel, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Fans & readers, Liar, Whingeing, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 1:00, November 4th, 2008 under Excuses, Liar, New York City/USA, State of the World, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, November 2nd, 2008 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Frippery |
Posted by Justine at 14:09, October 29th, 2008 under Admin, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Fans & readers |
I stopped studying maths in Year 7. Before that I'd made a bit of an effort but in my first year of high school (in New South Wales high school starts in Year 7) I downed tools. I was bored, annoyed, and couldn't see the point so I quit. Technically I kept going to maths class---it was compulsory until the end of Year 10---but I failed each year and was never made to repeat. I didn't learn anything new after Year 6.
At the time I thought it was excellent that I could get away with it. In class I read novels under the desk. I never studied and finished my maths exams quicker than anyone else cause I guessed all ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 9th, 2008 under Basketball, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Magic or Madness trilogy, New York City/USA, Praising, Science, Sport, State of the World, Sydney/Australia |
Lately, I've been receiving a slew of lovely fan letters mostly about HTDYF but also about the trilogy. More than I've ever received before. Thank you so much.
I'm really sorry I haven't replied yet. Right now there are more than three thousand emails in my inbox. And lots and lots and lots of other more pressing matters---you know, the kind that pay bills---have to be dealt with before I can get to the non-urgent email. Please forgive me.
Obviously I'm not very good at managing my time, but I'm working on it. I will get to your letters I just don't know when. Please bear with me.
In the meantime, I remain committed to blogging every day. So if all else fails ...
Posted by Justine at 0:39, September 5th, 2008 under Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic or Madness trilogy |
Steam + eucaplytus oil
It may not cure anything but, damn, it eases the symptoms.
You?
Posted by Justine at 9:28, September 1st, 2008 under Excuses, Praising |
Posted by Justine at 14:00, June 19th, 2008 under Admin, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Liar, Writing goals & milestones |
Posted by Justine at 18:44, June 17th, 2008 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Publishing business |
Rome was unbelievably wonderful especially the food. A friend of mine spent four months in Italy and gained around three kilos---I think I managed that in one week. Excellent!
I am at work on a post about the fabulous food we ate and a number of others---including another writing one ((See? I do listen to you. You ask that I blog it and blog it I will.))---but work on my next novel has got in the way of finishing them. Stupid novel! Not to mention the erraticness of our internet access. But, soon, my pretties, soon!
In the meantime I'm exhausted but happy: there's cricket on the tellie. All's right with the world. And even though England's doing kind of okay I ...
Posted by Justine at 19:11, March 24th, 2008 under Cricket, Excuses, Sport, Travelling |
Posted by Justine at 11:44, February 25th, 2008 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 10:59, January 8th, 2008 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Frippery, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 10:35, December 20th, 2007 under Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing goals & milestones |
Because Eric Luper had the temerity
to suggest that quokkas are not the cutest animals on the planet I have devised a new poll. It goes up exactly a day after the last one which I successfully managed not to break---so you were all wrong. Yay, me!
I like having polls but I definitely need less buggy WordPress compatible software.
The "How To Rewrite" post will go up as soon as I, um, finish, the book what I have to rewrite . . . And the manga/manhwa/graphic novels one not long after that. Promise!
Update: Eric Luper jinxed me into breaking the poll! Oh noes. Oh well, at least the quokkas were ahead. But I had planned to leave it ...
Posted by Justine at 17:32, December 11th, 2007 under Admin, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Sydney/Australia |
I appear to have forgotten some vital password and so cannot access my email. I can read but I cannot send. Do not ask how this is so it just is. There'll be no email out of me till next week. Not that I've been that great at responding anyways . . .
Posted by Justine at 0:21, August 31st, 2007 under Excuses |
In my previous life I was an academic. Not a very successful or prolific one. I spent four and a half years researching and writing my PhD thesis, while on a scholarship and doing paid-by-the-hour teaching (what's known in the US as being a TA) as well as IT support. After that I was awarded a three-year post-doctoral fellowship that my university extended for nine months. In that time I wrote and published one book,
The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, and edited a collection of stories and essays,
Daughters of Earth as well as writing a bunch of essays and papers (and on the sly I wrote
short stories and a ...
Posted by Justine at 11:10, August 27th, 2007 under Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, Daughters of Earth, Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic or Madness trilogy |
I am in crunch time. I am in crunchy crunch time. The busyness I have been complaining about has rebounded on itself and leapt to a whole new level of busy. In a word: Aaaarggghh!!!!
I'm going to keep blogging. I made a little bet with myself to see if I could blog every day of July and so far so good. I hate to lose bets with myself. Especially fun ones. Also blogging kind of clears my head. Dunno why but when I'm deep in writing, blogging really helps me to unwind---that and a glass of wine.
However, I'll no longer be replying to comments as much as I have been (which I know has been down on what it used ...
Posted by Justine at 11:44, July 28th, 2007 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 1:02, June 30th, 2007 under Excuses, Whingeing |
Yes, my site has been down on and off since Friday. Ditto my email. Yes, it has driven me insane.
My apologies to anyone who's been sending me urgent emails. I now have close to a thousand unread emails waiting for me.
Brave new world of faster and better technology, eh?
Bah, humbug.
Posted by Justine at 22:59, June 18th, 2007 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Ranting, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 17:12, June 10th, 2007 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Whingeing, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life |
Because that's how much it's costing me to be online.
I may need to do hotel-hatred management classes fairly soon.
In short:
Adelaide still gorgeous, still full of churches.
The wedding was awesome. I'm a sucker for weddings at the best of times. But this was more excellent than most. The bride's speech rocked.
Despite the insane hotel gouging not allowing me to function in the 21st century, I'm more relaxed and happy than I've been in ages. Amazing how wonderful not working (and possibly not going online) and getting to hang out with my friends without feeling guilty is. More please!
Melbourne next. Where there will be much work and fun at Reading Matters. I'd link but that would lose me my second and third ...
Posted by Justine at 18:13, May 20th, 2007 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Cons & Other Gatherings, Excuses, Frippery, Praising, Sydney/Australia, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 12:44, April 14th, 2007 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Excuses, Praising, Ranting, Scott's books, Travelling, Unicorns, Young Adult literature, Zombies |
Posted by Justine at 10:07, February 13th, 2007 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Cricket, Excuses, Praising, Sport |
Posted by Justine at 18:04, January 25th, 2007 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Cons & Other Gatherings, Cricket, Excuses, Fashion, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 9:01, January 8th, 2007 under Cricket, Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Viewing, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life |
There's a bunch of kids playing loudly next door and one of them just yelled out, "I am the ruler of the universe!" I'm thinking that's not a bad resolution, but a tricky one to follow through on. The kid next door did not succeed, because now all the kids are yelling that they are the ruler of the universe. Scott included.
I like the idea of resolutions. I like the idea of trying to better or test yourself in some small concrete way. And I especially like the idea of lots of folks all over the place all resolving to do stuff at the same time. But like most everyone else I'm usually crap at sticking to them.
I was ...
Posted by Justine at 13:40, December 30th, 2006 under Excuses, Food, Frippery |
Posted by Justine at 9:47, December 26th, 2006 under Cricket, Excuses, Sport |
It's just come to my attention that something screwy has been happening with my mail for the last six weeks or so. If any of you have written to me in that time and I have not responded odds are I never got it or you never received my reply. If it's important or interesting or cool please resend.
At our new abode we do not have wireless intramanet access. This is a very good thing as I'm already getting more writing done than I do when I have the inertnetsy at my beck and call. (Or am I at its beck and call? Hmmm.)
However, it also means that I'm not getting through my mail (that which I've actually received) as ...
Posted by Justine at 15:00, December 7th, 2006 under Excuses |
Due to lots of very boring reasons, this year I read fewer books than I ever have before. Horrifying but true. I was even worse than I usually am at critiquing friends' manuscripts, for which I am truly and abjectly sorry. I regret, too, all the books people sent me that I didn't read. I suck. And, yes, I was also a horrible, horrible, horrible correspondent this year. I really hope next year will be better.
So here are some of the books I did read this year and highly recommend (you'll notice I don't give away much in the way of plot---that's because I hate knowing too much about books before I read them. I like surprises, me, and ...
Posted by Justine at 18:09, November 28th, 2006 under Excuses, Praising, Reading |
Posted by Justine at 23:59, September 21st, 2006 under Excuses, Liar, State of the World, Words & Language, Writing life, Young Adult literature |
I'm a big believer in community. I'm convinced that it's very very very difficult to produce good art without some kind of a community behind you. I can date the turnaround in my own writing to my first showing it to other writers. Their critiques hurt like hell, but my writing got better in ways it never would have otherwise.
The communities of writers and other publishing folks I'm involved with share a wealth of information with each other. We tell each other about which editors we enjoy working with and why, which houses have the best publicity/sales/marketing departments. Who got paid what by which house. When third person is a better fit than first. What the differences are between writing ...
Posted by Justine at 15:24, September 3rd, 2006 under Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Cons & Other Gatherings, Excuses, State of the World, Writing life |
Wow, thanks so much for all the fascinating responses to my last post. The reason I haven't commented (or responded to anyone's email) for the last five days was because I was in Kyoto with my family celebrating my mother's birthday (more on that anon). My mum didn't know me and my sister would be there so I could hardly blog about it before hand . . .
No time for a proper post so in the meantime can any of you help out
Rachel Manija Brown? She's looking for
good non-fiction books about particular cities. She explains what she's after
here. Clearly, she needs to be told about ace books on Sydney!
Posted by Justine at 10:03, August 3rd, 2006 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Travelling |
You are correct that I have not been blogging much or responding to comments like I usually do or even responding to email a whole lot.
The reason is that I'm on a deadline (yes, the same one, yes, it was moved again, yes I really have to meet this one) and am working my arse off. (Oh, how I miss my arse!)
In the meantime I think you lot should entertain me. Here are some questions:
Does anyone have any recs for best brunch place in NYC?
Who's going to be the first Australian to win the Tour de France (no, it doesn't have to be this year)?
What's the best book you've read lately?
I just read
Out by Natuso Kirino. Loved it. ...
Posted by Justine at 11:18, July 16th, 2006 under Basketball, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Fashion, Food, Frippery, Magic or Madness trilogy, New York City/USA, Praising, Reading, Sport, Tour de France |
The combination of jetlag and a cold meant that I did not get as much out of this year's WisCon as I normally do. But
everybody else seemed to be having an
amazing time. There were a great many people there that I didn't even get a chance to say hello to like Suzy McKee Charnas, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Jay Lake, Kelly Link, Sharyn November, Nisi Shawl, Helen Pilinovsky and I hardly had a conversation of any length the whole weekend long.
But I did finally get to meet
Cherie Priest and she was just as fabulous as expected. More, even. (Thank you Liz Gorinsky for arranging it---lovely to see you, too!). As well as the ...
Posted by Justine at 18:35, May 30th, 2006 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Daughters of Earth, Excuses, New York City/USA, Travelling, Whingeing |
Sorry for the silence. My excuses are many and covered in mucus and jetlag. Which led to my inadvertantly consigning a number of thoughtful posts to spam purgatory. My apologies. Please comment again. I hope to be non-mucus laden and competent any day now and am much less likely to nuke future comments.
While I lay sweating, coughing, swelling and dripping mucus, the wonderful
Deborah Biancotti was making additons to my website to accommodate the imminent (and in San Francisco, at least, actual) arrival of my second novel,
Magic Lessons the sequel to Magic or Madness. Feast your eyes
here and
here. You can even read the
first two chapters. She's also created a new section ...
Posted by Justine at 18:33, March 10th, 2006 under Admin, Cons & Other Gatherings, Daughters of Earth, Excuses, Magic or Madness trilogy, New York City/USA, Praising, Scott's books, Whingeing |
How's about that for a post title to put everyone off?
I've been hearing some complaints about writers who are too self promotery, who go on panels at cons waving their book around, saying,"Look at me! Look at me! I'm a published writer! Buy my book!" There are also complaints about certain writers' blogs which only talk about their books and their latest publishing news with links that only lead to places that sell their books. As well as whinges about the folks who relentlessly campaign for awards.
Accusations of being too self promotery make me a bit jittery. Promoting your books is part of a writer's job. If no one knows the book exists how is it going to sell? A ...
Posted by Justine at 1:53, March 1st, 2006 under Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Feminism, Magic or Madness trilogy, Publishing business, Ranting, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 8:26, January 17th, 2006 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Magic or Madness trilogy, Publishing business, Writing life |
A friend just asked if I'm ever going to write another
musing again. She wonders if this blog has destroyed them for all time.
Tis true that I didn't write a single one in September or October, but then I hardly wrote an email in that time either. But just as I will write emails again, so too will I muse again. I've even got a bunch of half-written ones: about podcasts, the artist who's back to being known as prince again, about city hatred, being Australian, travelling, and about the nightmare of writing a mathematically gifted character (Reason in the Magic or Madness books when I am so not and how it gets harder with each book---not doing that ...
Posted by Justine at 10:55, November 3rd, 2005 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Excuses, Magic or Madness trilogy, State of the World |
