Sending my baby off into the world

It’s a wild, fierce day. Even as I sit here in the office, the rain is bashing at the windows and the wind screams through any doors. The stairwell is dark, which only serves to increase my desire to get back to my bed and snooze. Apparently, the radio was warning this morning to remove anything from your backyard that could potentially be a missile. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s summer here in New Zealand? That’s slightly unfair; we haven’t had any real rain since December. I just wish it wouldn’t rain when I have to walk to work (from my car parked some distance away).

Now I’ll get to the real subject of this post. The ‘baby’ I speak of is my novel. On Sunday I worked on it fiercely, even foregoing a swim as it was then stiflingly hot. I made sure that I’d followed up on all my notes, and in between dinner at my parents’ I reconfigured the chapters. A final spell check, and after hitting the “ignore” button a hundred times I was finished. Then I emailed it off to a friend of mine who’s currently in England for a critique – a safe enough distance away that I won’t see him cringing through all of the sentimental passages. I’m really interested to hear what he has to say though, from an academic point of view.

Yesterday I printed it out, and late last night (après making cottage pie and banana cake) I managed to start reading it. I was shocked at the errors I found leaping off the page. Editing on screen is a world away from having all the pages side by side in front of you. In the early chapters, which granted I haven’t read in detail for quite some time, there were blatant inconsistencies and word repetition. How could this be? I wondered. How embarrassing. Just as well I did decide to do a hard copy check. Last night I also texted a local friend of mine who is an historical fiction fiend. She has also promised to give it the once over and comment. The copy she gets from me will be littered with edits and crossings-out, but oh well. I’m sure she’ll get the gist. I’m not going to print it out again until it’s the final copy.

I was very nervous about getting these people to read my story. No-one, not even my husband or mother, has even read a paragraph of it before. Being my first full-length work, I’m very wary of it being rubbish. I mean, how would I know? However, these two people have been so generous in assuring me they feel privileged to do the job, I feel a bit better about the whole thing. I just hope that I can take their feedback and criticism and use it to good effect. The outcome I’m dreading is that they highlight some weakness which I have no idea how to correct. Time will tell I suppose. For now I will continue my hard copy review and await the response of my first guinea pig. I’m also voraciously researching manuscript submission tips.

Oh yeah – my final word count was 102,500. So my original estimate a few years back of 100K wasn’t too far off.

Play 'Are you a Regency Catch?'

Here's my result:


Everyone adores you! But you're the heroine's sister, not the star attraction. You're accomplished in all things, but not as accomplished as your sister. You're like Pride and Prejudice's lovable Jane Bennet.

Play here. You can also find out if you are a 'vulgarian', but I'm sure Jane Bennet would do nothing of the sort.

DVD Reviews: 3 Holiday Picks

I’d like to state straight away that my sister picked these 3 DVDs for us to watch as a family over the New Year period. If you can’t guess what happens in these films and you don’t want to know, you might not want to read these.

Pick 1: The Terminal

Tom Hanks starred in this film, and carried the whole thing. Even Catherine Zeta-Jones was just a pretty face who cried a lot. The plot centres around Hanks character, who is visiting New York from a war torn Eastern European country which ceases to exist while he is in the air. Though he speaks no English, the officers at the airport spend a lot of time telling him slowly and loudly – in English – what the problem is. American arrogance on display. They won’t let him leave the airport, and he honourably rejects the few illegal opportunities they give him to slip out. He ends up living at the terminal for 9 months, during which time he gets a job renovating the terminal, sets up house, teaches himself English, and tries to win the heart of a flaky air hostess. We finally find out that he only needs to be in New York for a day to fulfil a wish of his late father. The war in his country ceases, he fulfils his task and the movie ends. The best bets of it for me were Hanks’ convincing portrayal of the man in a completely foreign environment, trying to understand things in his terms. His heartbreaking comprehension of the violence in his country, his loneliness and frustration, as well as his good nature and patience, are well portrayed by Hanks. See this movie if you’re a Hanks fan, otherwise give it a miss.

Official site



Pick 2: Raise Your Voice

This film is a Hilary Duff vehicle, and again, only for her ardent fans. The rest of us have to sit through her squeaky voice and a predictable story line for 2 sickly hours. She’s pleasant enough, and so is the film, which will no doubt appeal to teenage girls. Duff’s character is apparently a singing genius from a small town, who just wants to go to LA for the summer to pursue her dream at a prestigious music school. While her brother supports her wish, her father is not so keen. When he brother dies in a car crash, her mother and aunt hatch a plan to get her to the school in honour of her brother. Duff does an admirable job of portraying the grief she has for her brother. Things go along as you’d expect – our heroine gets to the school and finds it was harder than she thought it would be, falls in love, plays matchmaker, gains the favour of the cool teacher and eventually performs with her new boyfriend in front of an adoring crowd. Enter Dad, who is furious she has been at the school without his knowledge, but he is won over by her performance and all ends happily. This film was a bit of a chore to sit through, but I suppose I have to concede that Duff did a pretty good job with the limited material she had. Hopefully she will be given the chance to do better films.

Official site



Pick 3: Chasing Liberty

Mandy Moore is the teen idol taking centre stage in this film. Like “A Walk to Remember”, Moore benefits in this film from sharing the screen with a strong male lead (Matthew Goode – okay, maybe I just liked him because he’s British). She’s the president’s daughter, who can never go on a date without an army of guards, and he’s one of the said guards who fools her into thinking he’s just a good guy looking out for her. She runs away in Europe, he saves her from herself, they fall in love, she gets mad when his identity is revealed, and then she just happens to get a scholarship to Oxford so she can bump into him in London for the happy ending. The script is quite banal, but the European locations help to make things interesting. The best bits for me was when Ben (Goode) was trying to hide his affections for Amy (Moore) because of his position in the Secret Service. When he finally succumbs to his feelings and confesses his love for her, much of the dramatic tension is lost. This was a pleasant movie in parts, and probably my favourite of these three. One for the ladies or Mandy Moore admirers.

Official site

Why it's not a great idea to get out of bed in a hurry

That's my kind of headline. Here's the article from the Times.

GETTING up in the morning is the first, and for many people, the most perilous moment of the day. You can sprain an ankle on the stairs, scald a hand while making tea or be floored in an ungainly tussle with your underwear. But according to researchers, grogginess after waking should be treated more seriously for how it impairs thinking and memory skills — and the implications for doctors, firefighters and other staff roused straight into action upon waking.

A study by scientists at the University of Colorado suggests that the performance of people immediately after waking is as bad as, or worse, than if they were drunk.

The research showed that short-term memory, counting skills and cognitive abilities were impaired in the groggy period, known as sleep inertia.

The performance was found to be significantly worse in people who had just woken up after eight hours’ sleep than those who had been awake for more than 24 hours.

The most severe effects were seen in participants within the first three minutes of waking and generally appeared to dissipate within the first ten minutes. However, the authors said that the impairments could be detected for up to two hours.

Kenneth Wright, an assistant professor at Colorado university, said that the study had implications for medical, safety and transport workers.

He added that it also illuminated the challenges faced by anyone who was forced to make crucial decisions after an abrupt awakening. “If a person is awakened suddenly, by a fire alarm for example, motivation alone may be insufficient to overcome the effects of sleep inertia,” he said.

Dr Wright added that cognitive deficiencies after 24 hours of sleep deprivation had previously been shown to equate to the effects of alcohol intoxication. The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the first to quantify the effects of sleep inertia. “The cognitive skills of subjects were worse upon awakening than after extended sleep deprivation. For a short period, at least, the effects of sleep inertia may be as bad as or worse than being legally drunk,” Dr Wright said.

A morning alarm they didn't need

ONE memorable image of 1997 was a groggy Cherie Blair in her nightie accepting flowers the morning after Labour had ended 18 years of Conservative rule.

At 6.07am on May 29, 2002, Andrew Gilligan said on the Today programme that the Government “probably” knew that its claim on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was wrong. It led to the Hutton inquiry, the downfall of the Director-General and the Chairman of the BBC and Mr Gilligan’s departure.

Francis Joyon, the French sailor, had set a record last year for fastest solo Atlantic crossing when he nodded off as he neared home. His £500,000 trimaran ploughed into rocks and was destroyed.

In 1992 Pandora Maxwell was angry at two suited men who woke her up at her London home. She threatened to call the police. They were the police and had come to arrest her husband, Kevin, Britain’s biggest bankrupt.

100,000 words, baby!

100,001 to be precise. This feels like a significant milestone in the progress of my novel, even though it doesn’t really have anything to do with it being finished. But in my mind, it must be getting close. I’m filling in lots of fiddly little scenes, rounding off minor characters, and putting context around conversations. Doesn’t sound like hard work, but it is. When thousands of words were pouring out of me at the beginning of this process, I never dreamed it would be so hard. Perhaps last year’s New Year’s Resolution will be fulfilled this year (i.e. finishing said novel) and I won’t feel guilty all the time for not working on it all night, every night. And just maybe, a publisher somewhere might like it, and I might finally be able to call myself an author. But for now, I just need to finish it. It feels like I could do endless revisions, but I know at some point I will have to stop. Hopefully that point comes around sooner rather than later!