nerinedorman

For those of you who don't know, some guy tried to rob me yesterday. The full, sad story is here:
nerinedorman.blogspot.com/2009/11/suffering-bout-of-impromptu-crime.html

Today I'm sitting back trying to analyse how I feel about the situation. One word: guilt.

There's a bit of Great White Guilt suggesting I should have let that poor Tanzanian go. After all, I did get my phone back from him. And he did apologise for trying to steal my phone.

I mean... WTF? Sorry I just tried to steal your fucking phone?

Sorry doesn't cut it. It just makes me angry that this man saw me as yet another victim, prey. And I'm sorry, I refuse to be a victim.

Right now I'm very twitchy. I keep looking over my shoulder. I keep seeing black men who are potentially going to try to take my stuff. Maybe this time they will have a knife, like that time in 2000 when I got stabbed. I'm living up to that incredible apartheid-era racist fears I've been trying so hard to work against. Years of conditioning, brain-washing that somehow just having a white skin was supposed to somehow make me better than the people whose land my ancestors stole.

Right now I'm just that little bit scared and I have to remind myself that there are parts of the United States, the UK and Europe where this sort of shit is a daily occurence. Where people are robbed in broad daylight in so-called "first world" countries. Just what exactly makes living in the first world better than anything else? Strip away the technology and education and we're all a bunch of raving savages.

I should be safe walking to work. Gods, a mere 600m to the office from the station. I sould be safe. There are CCTV cameras everywhere, loads of security guards... a fast response time with the cops. Yet I'm still a victim.

Why can't I just be fucking safe?

During the 1980s it was Die Swart Gevaar and Die Rooi Gevaar. Now we've got the ANCYL guys baying for land-taking and all the hundreds of fears us stupid whiteys gossip around the dinner table ensconced in our security villages with their six-foot walls topped with razor wire... armed response... panic buttons in strategic locations... Paranoia... paranoia... paranoia...

This is my land and it doesn't want me.

Excuse me. I feel like shite at the moment and I'm facing a court date some time in April where the lawyers are probably going to make out it's my fault the Tanzanian man, who was hungry, tried to steal my phone and my privileged white ass should probably thank him for the pleasure of being robbed. Again.

Fuck it. Guess I'm paying in part for my ancestors' crimes.

South Africa. I want to love you. Really, I do. But sometimes I get tired and all those old fears come creeping out again. I keep seeing my grandfather and hearing him use the "K" word. How my other family still talks... and I hate it when they use the "K" word 'cos it's dirty, a ghoul from our country's past.

I've caved in. Bought two packs of hair dye this morning. It's called something-or-other vibrant plum. Of course in my hair it just looks maroon. But Thomas likes it so I'm happy. Feels kinda weird having strange hair again. But it's time for a change and Iain (the hairdresser) also trimmed the ends, so it's looking rather spiffy if I may say so myself.

So, from this afternoon onward I'll be at what I suspect is a low-key "exotic dance" club in Montague Gardens, rehearsing of for the Darker than the Night fashion show that's happening tonight. I'm playing MC for the event. Not quite sure where I'm going to grow the set of balls to do that but I'm sure I'll manage. After a few glasses of wine I'm fairly sure I can handle most things life can throw at me.

After being described as one of "Cape Town's Gothic icons" (I'm still laughing about that one)... I suppose I have to live up to my "iconic" status. It's more a case of a) not having died yet, b) not having children, and c) still wearing black and hanging out at assorted dubious Gothic night spots.

In other words... I haven't grown up.

Then again, perhaps point b should be revised 'cos I can think of one or two Goths my age and older who have spawned and STILL strap themselves into corsets.

But anyhoo, jaknowwhatImean...

Sometimes people just get so boooooring when they get older. Seriously. I look at them and marvel at why they don't find their lives so perenially dull and unsatisfying in their haze of cruising malls, watching rugby, going to church, eating Woolworths ready-cooked meals and... dunno. What do normal people do?

I've come to the conclusion that I don't know what "normal" is anymore. My friends all have some form of weirdness... Like making indie horror movies, semi-pro belly dancing... modelling... clothes-making...

Then there's me... the somewhat grumpy author/editor who's desperately trying to switch over from newspaper editing to fiction editing. Because if I stay in newspaper publishing any longer I think I'll slit my wrists.

Seriously.

Or that's at least how it feels right now. It's as if I live to work and if I don't have something to do, to keep my hands busy, I feel as though I'm wasting an awful lot of time.

Right now I'm racing to finish a whole bunch of copy edits that were held up while I finished the edits on Khepera Rising. If any writer ever says that they want to get into fiction editing, please slap them upside the head and tell them not to be daft.

Sure, it's fun and it's also very rewarding, but it's a helluva lot of hard work, especially when I already have my hands full with a demanding day-job at the newspapers.

I'm being very systematic in my approach at the moment and it's my aim to get through a batch of edits a week. Trying to get a handle on NaNo isn't really working right now although I'm systematically writing on the train and in stolen moments when I'm without a computer. I still love the story very much and I think the first publisher I'll send it to once I'm done with edits will be my old favourite: Immanion Press.

Speaking of which, Storm Constantine has just released her Wraeththu novels as ebooks via Smashwords.com

I've already bought the first, and at $5 a pop, I'm happy to buy the others. I've been waiting for this event for a very long time now. Needless to say, I'm a very happy puppy right now, using the novel as a "reward" whenever I edit X amount of pages.

I'm terminally distracted and function best when there are numerous "tasks" on the go. At my day-job I am continously suffering distraction, so it's par for the course, I guess.

Anyhoo, last night I attended a rehearsal for the Path of Sin fashion show at which I'll be the MC. It's being hosted at what I suspect to be a strip club. Fun. Paying R20 for a cold Heineken, however, is not my idea of a good time. I'll be preparing a picnic basket to take with, which will include a bottle of vino or something, on the night of the show.

Tonight Emma-O is being screened at Kink. Thomas and Ronnie won "Best Screenplay" and "Overall Best Runner-up" at this year's Horrorfest. Well done, guys.

And tomorrow... Tomorrow she rested. Or at least tried to.

I'm not going to say much except that I'm fighting off a respiratory infection mere days before I leave for Mauritius. Have been taking loads of remedies and it seems to be working.

I'll share the Bloody Parchment link:
news.book.co.za/blog/2009/10/28/horrorfest-bloody-parchment-paints-the-town-read-videos/

So the event went well and there was good attendance. The Horrorfest organisers were very happy with how things went and we'll be doing this again next year. I'll also be running a horror flash fiction competition.

Other than that, I'm just really tired. I've got loads of stuff to do and am way behind on some of the edits I need to get done. I understand why there's such a high burn-out for editors within the publishing industry.

Yikes, I can't believe how quickly this month has flown past. I've been swamped in work and have been trying to keep head above water. I'm happy to say that I'm almost done with a first round of edits on a LPI novel that's been haunting me. Khepera Rising is in galleys now and oh, my... I'm still tweaking. Thing is, I'm making progress but I need to be done with that by November 1.

On the news front, Keith Pyeatt interviewed me the other day, and the blog is up at:
keithpyeatt.blogspot.com/2009/10/nerine-dorman-author-of-dark-fiction.html

So, do drop by and say "hoesit, my broer". Oh, and you'll get to read about my penguin-wrangling days.

More news is that I've just accepted a big editing job from a fellow South African fantasy author, whose first novel can be considered a bestseller for our country. This job will take a long, long time to complete, since the MS is a whopper. But hats off to the man. He's a good writer and I hope to share further news once things are more concrete.

And without further ado... I must go catch my tail.

On travel writing...
Sometimes I have to laugh and shake my head. On Saturday, HJ and I collaborated on our first travel story in ages, a trip out to DelVera in the Stellenbosch winelands. Situated on the R44 on the corner of the Muldersvlei Road, this agricultural village is definitely a place to consider visiting if you're tired of places like Spier etc.

The place used to be a pig farm and the owners (of Delheim fame) are slowly (and organically) turning this into a thriving destination for people who love epicurean delights such as all manner of olive produce, organic farm food... and just stuff. Of particular note was ceramicist Johan's raku pottery. We timed our visit well to coincide with a firing and it was spectacular to see carbon-blackened pots wash clean to reveal the characteristic cracked cream or white raku glazes.

But I'm not going to wax lyrical ad nauseam here. If your interest is piqued, go check out: www.delvera.co.za

I'm so going back there, especially since the famous Kokerboom Nursery (of Vanrhynsdorp fame) has opened a branch and I saw some aloe specimens with my name written on them. And I didn't even get a look at the euphorbias.

Staying with travel writing, unless Murphy has the last word, I'll be zooting off to the lovely island of Mauritius for four days. I've okayed it with the bosses and they're happy that I'll be writing for one of the national papers. This is a big (and unexpected) step forward for my travel writing, which has, sadly, been on the backburner for a while now that I've been concentrating on my fiction writing and editing.

Then... A '49 Hudson Six update...
Today Thomas went to go see the new mechanic who'll be working on our Hudson. The guy jokingly refers to the car as "the Shrek car" because, well, it's f***ing big and green. We're hoping this new chap will have the time and the passion to help us get our li'l hellraiser on the road. Plans are already afoot to convert the back seat into a fold-down double bed... Woo-hoo!

On writing...
Really. I wasn't going to do it but then a few writers from one of the crit groups I belong to started buzzing about it. Then I happened to read an old Andrew Lang fairytale which hints at Beauty and the Beast but has scope for a far more, erm, erotic treatment. Added to that, I've just finished the first draft for Ironclad Dreams, so I've a gap in the train-writing schedule.

So... **drumroll please** I'll officially be taking part in NaNoWriMo this year. The story is called The White Bear's Wife. I'll be putting together a conscious nod in Jacqueline Carey's and Neil Gaiman's directions. There. I've said it. No backing out now. Guess I'll have plenty of time during that flight to and from Mauritius...

I've also blogged about writing novels at my Tuesday Frightening Journeys slot, if you're interested. See: paranormalwriters.blogspot.com/2009/10/tired-of-talking-about-it.html

Bloody Parchment at The Lounge of Horror
On Friday, October 23, from 6.30pm at The Book Lounge, some of South Africa's finest authors of horror fiction will gather to share their own personal brand of darkness. These include established and up-and-coming authors, such as Lauren Beukes, Sarah Lotz, Sam Wilson, Werner Pretorius, Henrietta Rose-Innes, Diane Awerbuck, HJ Lombard, Carine Engelbrecht, Danielle Eriksen and myself.

I shall be reading an extract of my upcoming Lyrical Press, Inc. release, Khepera Rising.

See: www.shadowrealminc.com/bloodyparchment/bloodyparchment.htm

Okay, I'm feeling like everything is tipping out of control a bit, but I'd like to share two bits of awesomeness with you today before I try to salvage what's left of my sanity.

The first is the movie poster for Emma-O, which is now finished. Le husband is now already discussing with le director, Monsieur Belcher, the next film, and it looks like that whole crew is going to recollaborate. (Nerine already hears the sound of her bank balance evaporating rapidly in December.)

So, here's the poster. Pretty scary, huh?
dr-benway.deviantart.com/art/Emma-O-Movie-Poster-140235662

If you look right at the bottom you'll see my credit for being dialogue developer. Not that I did much but I think my husband may not have survived the filming if I hadn't ensured clean socks, underwear, sushi and Red Bull.

And, for the second bit of awesomeness, SA author Sarah Lotz graciously and very kindly donated some of her time to write a recommendation for my novel, Khepera Rising, which is due for release on December 21. She is an amazing, brilliant author of two rather gritty, sometimes poignant and very readable novels: Pompidou Posse and Exhibit A, both published by Penguin.

She had this to say:
Definitely not for the faint-hearted or easily shocked, Khepera Rising is part hard-core murder mystery, part revenge fantasy and dark Gothic horror, and effortlessly subverts preconceptions about religious intolerance, the ‘dark arts’ and Cape Town’s underground Goth culture with devastating effects. With its deliciously morally ambiguous narrator, non-stop pace, high body-count and gore-splattered pages, it’s sure to outrage some, but lovers of Noir, black humour, and no-punches-pulled horror will be hooked from the first page. It’s an accomplished, scathing and daring debut from Nerine Dorman, who clearly has a brilliant career ahead of her.

Janowellfine. That's a lovely South African colloquiallism. We love combining positives with negatives to create composite words that have no real meaning.

"Hey, Nerine, how're you feeling today?"

"Janowellfine." **followed by a deep sigh** "I think I'll just carry on sitting here under a rock."

Plainly put, I'm feeling very blegh today.

I've reached another point of weirdness in my life. For a long time I've felt that I have not been pushing myself as intellectually as I should. This has been followed by the rather nebulous realisation that I neither have the time or the material resources to follow up on full-time tertiary education. And if it does happen, I may well be in my forties.

Another realisation has struck me that I can do something about this by reading the collected works of the one man who's been ghosting along at the edges of my vision for the past 10 years saying, "Hey there, you know you want to but yet you choose to rot your brain with crappy genre fiction."

Okay, Mr Jung. I get it. That little nudge by a certain teacher of mine pointing out the work of the Philemon Foundation and the recent release of CG Jung's The Red Book, has been a little red flag, a call to action, if you will.

This has come at a time when I know I need to stretch myself, push my THINKING processes a little further. As an author, I'm in the business of deliving into dreamworlds and bringing back something to the waking world. By all rights I should take this process one step further and find things beyond standard tropes of characters meeting and falling in love then finding the wherewithal to kill the monster and sleep with their mothers. Okay, scratch the Oedipus rex complex but ja... I'm bored.

I read and review stacks of genre fiction novels and they all seem to be telling just the same bleeding story. The best works, IMO, are the ones leaving you slightly scratchy behind the eyes, the uncomfortable stories that seem to have a ring of truth to them resonating with you on a deeper level. Now I want to write stories like that.

As a genre fiction author I've been accused (by a literary agent of all people) of being "too literary" for genre fiction. Should I take that as a compliment?

Right now I'm dissatisfied because I see so many great authors who are mentally lazy. Sure, it's great to switch off your brain from time to time but if you are an author, you are published (or will be) you are in the position to create magic, to bring some small seeds of change into the world.

I blame Tolkien for this, and my mother reading me The Hobbit when I was six.

Well, this is a nice bit of news: the Emma-O movie trailer. This is why I was almost a widow during September:
www.youtube.com/watch

Third time, lucky, perhaps? The first time I encountered Frank Herbert's Dune was at the tender age of about 14 or so. Back then I managed a page or two before I gave up in disgust. About a decade later I gave it another shot. It is, I'm told, one of those legendary novels You Just Absolutely Have to Read Before You Die, right? Wrong. At age 24 I gave up after the first two chapters. Why? I was bored. The writing was dense, the characters unbelievable. Bear in mind I'd just read John Fowles's The Magus, so it wasn't because I was stoopid or incapable of reading anything of substance.

Okay, almost another decade later, I've tried again. I picked up a copy of Dune at the Donkey Sanctuary's annual booksale in McGregor for the bargain price of R10. It's the copy that must have come out shortly after the very successful David Lynch movie version of the book. Yes, the one with Sting in the skimpy blue plastic undies fame.

So the book sat on my TBR pile for a while then I finally gave a deep sigh and picked it up about a month ago. And I'm glad to say I finished it yesterday. Did I like it? Yes. But there was a lot I didn't like.

For one, Frank Herbert writes like a journalist, and although peeps like Terry Pratchett can get away with the omniscient third-person POV, Frank Herbert's shifting from one POV to the other just got my hackles up. Granted, about a third of the way into the book I was too tired to argue. I just went along with the flow but I still shudder when considering all those young, impressionable authors who'll try to follow suit and think this editor will put up with it when she encounters their paltry efforts.

I laugh when I recall my friend HJ's opinion on Herbert's writing: "It's dishwater." This is from a man who writes propaganda for a living.

I finished the book without caring for any of the characters. Granted, I found the environment interesting and the political posturing mildly entertaining... and I get that Herbert's putting forward a lot of "deep philosophical and environmental stuff" (insert trademark) but as a work of fiction, I feel Dune takes itself far to seriously.

Or maybe I'm innately corrupted by the fact that I like editing novels where I know my readers will be a) entertained, b) enjoy a bit of escapism and c) care about what happens to the characters.

Did I learn stuff? Yes. I appreciate the magnitude of Herbert's scope but if he were to have written this now, he would have found it all but impossible to find a publisher. This may have been a ground-breaking novel for its time but the style of the writing has dated, and not well.

Will I read the others? Perhaps, once the scars have healed.

Okay, okay, I can already feel the rotten vegetables aimed in my direction. I'll back down. I kind of enjoyed Dune, just not as much as I'd prefer to have the next Jacqueline Carey 900-page doorstopper land on my lap.

paranormalwriters.blogspot.com/2009/09/day-at-mcjob-theres-more-to-living-than.html

The above-mentioned link is one of my latest offerings for anyone interested in the art of writing. I won't bore you with the details here.

This weekend, despite my best intentions, I got dragged out to play move-able light- and coat-stand for one of Thomas's shoots. It was supposed to be only one shoot but the weather wasn't playing along on Saturday at the bunker, so we shot the rest of the clothing (latex fashion-wear) at DecoDance on the Sunday.

Needless to say, I wasn't coping very well on Monday after having little to no sleep for more than 48 hours. It was fun, even being entertained by the rather delightful couple whose clothing we were photographing, and not leaving the party later than 5.30am on Sunday to catch a few winks' sleep before the rest of the madness.

And now, I hear rumour that Thomas has a large (and paid) shoot coming up... And the bloody horror movie isn't even finished with its editing yet. Not to mention the piles and piles of editing on my desktop.

**shakes head**

No rest for the wicked.

I'm heartily glad I have Friday and Monday off. And I've deleted nearly all the time-wasting apps off my FB account, except for that stupid fairy garden, which doesn't really cause that much bother.

Oh... and can I mention that I've got my next novel in the outlining stages. And it's not genre fiction. More chick-lit with a gritty edge. I should be able to sell this one to the SA publishers.

I'm tired. I think I'm going to be in bed quite soon.

It's always so refreshing when a fresh eye points out gremlins in a manuscript. Without the wonders of internet and email, how the HELL did authors do this in the "old" days?

What did I learn?
I still have a bit of passive voice creeping through at times.
I sometimes muddle the order of events in a sentence which, although not wrong, can be reworded.
And, yes, I have a penchant for comma splices and too-long sentences.

Please bear in mind that Khepera Rising was completed late 2007. Since then I've written another two complete novels and I've had some absolutely brilliant feedback from writers' groups I belong to. Much has changed, especially in how I approach writing.

When I wrote KR, I'd had a list of events tacked onto the end of the MS which I referred to. This list was very organic and shifted much while I wrote.

With Camdeboo Nights I went into a little more detail because I was playing a balancing act with four viewpoint characters. But then I sort of discarded the list near the end and admit that the writing became very organic. Because this particular story will, ostensibly, wrap up in three novels, some of the characters who are primary didn't have very large roles in the actual ending. My MC was in some weird parallel magical realm meeting with some obscenely strange serpent-mentor, a very important plot development for later in the saga.

The Dead of Night happened VERY quickly. I was at loose ends after CN and had just recently sold KR, so I thought, what the hell, let's see what sort of misadventures Jamie can fall into. Things went very structured. I chatted to my buddy, HJ, and we threw around some concepts. Then I sat down and wrote a detailed synopsis with a breakdown of everything that took place. I kept lists of characters' names and traits and found that the writing went very quickly. The MS was complete within three months. I let my betas read, revised, then let it lie fallow for about four months or so. Then I revised again and sent it to my editor. A contract was offered within days.

As for Ironclad Dreams, which is a complete departure from urban fantasy into the realms of a pseudo colonial-era steampunkish milieu, I've written an exhaustive five-page epic of a synopsis that I had the folks at Extraordinary Visions and Adamastor go through. Some excellent points were brought up and worked in. Writing has become a lot easier because I know exactly where I'm going yet make allowances for any peculiar twists that make themselves known. I'm now in the last few chapters and my guesstimate is that ID will be around 80 000 to 90 000 words.

How has my approach changed?
I plan. I plot. I throw ideas around. I still hanker after writing a fantasy epic a la Jacqueline Carey but realise I've still got a while to go before I drop a 900-page epic on a publisher's doorstep without being laughed at. In order to avoid the "I don't buy that" response from readers, I make sure I've got my plot straight before I put pen to paper.

Yesterday morning at 4.30am I caved in and drove Thomas through to the set of Emma-O, the horror movie he's busy art directing for indie filmmaker extraordinaire, Ronnie Belcher. Firstly, let me say that filmmaking is is expensive. Even a short, twenty-minute production is costing the associated collaborators in the thousands of rands. (Nerine looks at her dwindling bank account and wonders if she'll ever afford that Macbook.)

I left him there then drove back through again at about 8pm when my editing-induced cabin fever grew too much. Last weekend the enforced isolation had been good for my blue funk but now I actually WANTED to see flesh-and-blood humans.

Goodness. They were at it until 11.35pm. That's more than 12 hours of filming. I can see they were having loads of fun but in retrospect I think I prefer standing in the sidelines to cheer them on. I am a creature who prefers the solitude of being hunched before a computer screen, crafting the words to fire up people's imaginations. The lines of fatigue were carved on their features.

And, perhaps, I should come out with it now that I've posted off the contract. Lyrical Press, Inc. has offered me a contract for The Dead of Night, sequel to Khepera Rising. This time the word count should allow us to handle a PoD contract, if the esales are good. The Dead is a standalone novel and can be read without having the background of Khepera. Also, I think it's far more, erm, splatterpunkish than the first. There are scenes in The Dead that still make me squeamish.

So, it's with mingled dread and desire that I look forward to the hours of editing lying in wait for me. Today I aim to complete the line edits on Khepera, and the blurb is already finalised.

KHEPERA RISING BLURB

The wickedest man in Africa has problems, and they can't all be solved by magic.

Occult bookshop owner and black arts magician James Edward Guillaume reckons he has it all, and enjoys living up his reputation as South Africa's "wickedest man", a nice house, a business that's breaking even and the pick of all the pretty Goth girls and boys in Cape Town.

Little does he know, a group of violent Christo-militants are panting at his heels, ready to destroy his carefully constructed fantasy world. To add mischief to his misery, he's unwittingly unleashed a terrifying demonic entity, and he alone holds the key to The Burning One's secret.  To bring order out of the chaos, all James has to do is conquer his personal demons, teach a rather nasty, self-righteous sod a lesson in humility and find out whether he can win back the trust of an old flame. Only, as James discovers, getting back on top is hell on earth.

Content Warnings:  M/M/F sexual content, occult, violence, gore.

And now, for a call for submissions from my publisher.

Call For Submissions: Steampunk

Lyrical Press welcomes authors to submit their brilliant blending of 19th Century steam power with science-fiction/fantasy. In a word – Steampunk. 

What’s Steampunk? You know that movie/comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? That’s Steampunk. It’s the perfect marriage of an era when steam power was in use and science-fiction/fantasy elements. It’s goggles, gears and corsets. It’s fun, adventure and excitement. 

Lyrical Press is accepting all forms of Steampunk, with a focus on romance and erotica.

If you’re manically mad about mechanical masterpieces set during the Victorian age we’d love to hear from you.

Sensuality level: All – with a focus on romance/erotica

Length: 30,000 – 80,000 words

Key Characteristic: 19th Century steam power blended with elements of science-fiction/fantasy

Deadline: None

Please follow Lyrical Press’  guidelines found here: www.lyricalpress.com/submissions when submitting. Send submissions to submissions @ lyricalpress (dot) com.
 

Lyrical Press, Inc. is a New York based small press owned by the husband and wife team of Frank and Renee Rocco. Our goal is to provide authors with a reliable and pleasant home for their books and offer readers an eclectic mix of quality titles. LPI publishes in both electronic format and Print On Demand for select titles over 70,000 words.

www.lyricalpress.com

publisher@lyricalpress.com

Just for those of you who may follow other blogs... I've a weekly slot at Frightening Journeys, a paranormal writers' blog collaboration. I've (prematurely) posted my interview with horror/paranormal author Keith Pyeatt (got too excited with all the cool buttons, whoops).

So, without further ado, here's the link:
paranormalwriters.blogspot.com/2009/09/horror-with-heart-few-minutes-with.html

To be fair, I'll start posting the link further tomorrow on the rest of my networking sites.

Other than that, it's raining, it's cold and I'm listening to Carl McCoy's gravelly, maudlin voice. Yes, I'm going through a major Fields of the Nephilim phase at the moment. Very, very Goth. So Goth I'm going to go and sit in the corner and shave my eyebrows then pencil them in with eyeliner.

Today it's finally apparent that spring is well under way here in the south peninsula. The best part is spending my day at home while the husband is off on his film shoot. I could have gone but I know I'd lose what precious little sanity I have remaining. I need a break from running around like a chickenless head.

So, I'm taking it slow today. I slept, gloriously until the sun was up, getting out of bed at the unheard-of hour of 8.30am. The sky is a delicate blue, there's a slight breeze and the sunshine is like golden butter.

I took some time out to look at my garden. The aloes out front are doing well and I've put another Aloe ferox out on the front section. The plan is to eventually have most of the front with just succulents, my three acacias and a few select fynbos. Mostly I'm really pleased at my Leucodendron argentum (silver tree), which has been growing happily since my birthday and is sporting about 30cm new growth. These chaps are notorious for dying for no apparent reason but my neighbour who is a professional landscaper, has planted one himself and reckons they should do well here, despite that they prefer east-facing slopes.

The Aloe barbarea (tree aloe) that was decapitated when we moved here about three years ago has sprouted loads of lateral branches, which I'll now have to prune away. The nice thing is I can root these cuttings and in a few years' time I'll have a veritable forest of them. At least that's the plan. The Euphorbia ingens (naboom) are looking magnificent, making loads of lateral branches.

The Dracena draco (dragon tree) is also looking great, although I'll probably be dust by the time it's as large as some of the specimens I've seen around the Cape. I love these trees. Hailing from the Canary Islands, they apparently used to be propagated by a large species of flightless (and now-extinct) pigeon, which would eat the fruit then excrete the seeds.

So, the incredible Lovecraftian alien garden is doing well and it may not look like much now but given another few years, many of the smaller succulents should be flowering. I'd like to eventually germinate from the birds 'n bees-pollinated aloes but until such time that I can spend more time at home, that may not be likely.

The baboons were hanging about again today. One of the rogue males sat on my neighbour's balcony for a while, scratching at his bollocks and peering around in his typically myopic fashion. He let out one, loud, coughing bark until the baboon monitor succeeded in sending him on his way. According to William next door, he got into his house the other day when his kids were around. Everyone got a big fright, I'm sure. William hates living like this with the baboons around but you know, it's live and let live, if you ask me.

To cap my morning thus far, I heard the fish eagle calling. I love that sound and I am thrilled that these majestic birds still live here. Granted, we do have a lot of dams and lakes but with so much development happening in the south peninsula, I'm always amazed at the way the wildlife adapts to the changes brought on by humanity.

I know I've been a bit quiet of late but it's just totally crazy at the moment. And, I must admit that I've been a touch emo this past week because of, well... personal stuff I won't air in public save to say it's been resolved.

Camdeboo Nights has finally been finished and sent off to my agent with (I hope) a decent short synopsis and a much better author bio because so much has happened in this past year. I mean, I actually have some publishing creds to attach to my query letter. 

As for the rest, I'm focusing on polishing The Dead of Night for submission to my editor now that Khepera Rising is well on its way. Gotta give the dear woman some more stress on top of her existing stress, can't I?

That being said, I'm in exactly the same boat myself. I've got more than enough copy editing to last me into next year and then some. My only regret is that I still have a demanding day-job because I'd like nothing more than to copy edit for a living. Seeing a novel take shape and working with another author to perfect their art is... It just makes me really warm and fuzzy.

So, ja... Without further ado, here's the link to a spot of guest-blogging I'm doing over at my friend Savannah's. I give a basic overview of KR's major themes and speak a little about the novel.

savannahchase.com/2009/09/10/in-southern-darkness-the-dawn-of-khepera-rising/


Wibbles
And... For assorted reasons I'm thinking of that elusive bachelors of arts degree my parents couldn't afford when I was still at school. Unisa's Bachelors of Arts: Languages and Literature, is looking ever so tempting. First things first, however, is saving up for my own Macbook. Then I can start thinking about further tertiary education.

Yay! Happiness! My Khepera Rising cover art is finally ready. Kudos to the Lyrical Press, Inc. team who've just made me one of the happiest authors ever!

Title: Exhibit A
Author: Sarah Lotz
Publisher: Penguin Books, 2009
Buy link: www.kalahari.net/books/-Exhibit-A/632/34169938.aspx

South African author Sarah Lotz made her debut in 2008 with Pompidou Posse, a touching, if sometimes harrowing semi-autobiographical account of her time spent in Paris when she and a friend lived on the streets. Exhibit A, although drawing much inspiration from true events, is a complete departure from her first novel. Before I read Exhibit A, I heard people mention that they thought it wasn’t as good as her first offering and I have to disagree. It’s different and as good as her first.

Exhibit A is Sarah’s foray into crime fiction and she does so with her typical razor wit and keen ability of observing and noting people’s quirks, warts and all. What I love about Sarah’s writing is the way she portrays people so that if you were to meet them in the flesh, you’d immediately recognise them. Her characters are very memorable, from Patrick, the red-haired advocate with his penchant for artery-clogging junk food to Exhibit A, the dog, who is a determined scrolfer.

I’m not going to spoil things by saying what scrolfing is, you’ll have to read the book to find out but you’ll definitely be adding that word to your vocabulary.

The subject matter is anything but light-hearted, following the point of view of lawyer Georgie Allen, who seems to draw the raw end in most deals. He agrees to help a friend by taking on the case of her sister, Nina, who’s been raped by police in the small, fictional South African town of Barryville. As Georgie investigates with Patrick and Exhibit A at his side, he uncovers a tangled conspiracy of lies but also works through some of his own issues.

South Africans who read this book will recognise and enjoy Sarah’s witty, and often pointed observations of the Rainbow Nation’s culture. For those of you who know next to nothing about SA culture, this will immerse you into a world you won’t see on the news channels. Read this book. It will make you laugh and it will make you shake your head. Kudos to Sarah, who’s once again hit the mark. When’s the next one due?