So, sometime in March I went to a few things for Writers and Readers week, which was a part of the New Zealand International Arts Festival. As well as the solo Neil Gaiman talk (which heaps of people attended), I went to Once Upon A Time, which was a talk about children’s/YA lit with Neil Gaiman and Margo Lanagan.

Fastfoward to today, and me ( Read more... )

So. I have a new idea for a novel. Yes. Another novel. It’s a YA steampunk fantasy with a male protagonist. But I am not going to work on it just yet, well, not actually start typing out chapters and the like. I have enough on my plate with Bones and the editing of Blood Bound that I do not want another major project right now, especially one that ( Read more... )

I shouldn’t have to explain to you what LiveJournal is, but just in case you have been living under an internet rock: LiveJournal is a large blogging community (and also the name of the software that powers it). Even if people blog elsewhere many have an LJ for the community aspect. I use a plugin to crosspost the entries made here to my LJ, and ( Read more... )

Research is, in the opinions of myself and most writers I have come across, an important part of writing. Like when writing papers for school you can’t just bullshit your way across to the other side, as people will pick up on the errors and call you on it. If that weren’t the case, I’d be writing a serious historical novel where Julius Caesar is a ( Read more... )

I use a number of tools when I write, and not just the basic word processor that is pretty much standard. Some for typing, and a whole lot for research. Here’s a few I use, and explanations how/why.

OpenOffice - OpenOffice is a free office suite that includes a word processor, a spreadsheet application and more.

The two programs I use are Writer ( Read more... )