Tempting excerpts

I don't know how much time I'll have to write this post....both babes are fast asleep (phew - how on earth did I manage that one!!) and I've already been fritting away my time by looking at Outlander fans on Youtube. People are so dedicated to these books that they've already started making up mini movies, with characters and music and everything. Incredible. (If you're interested in seeing Jamie and Claire in the imagined flesh of lucifmello or Hadishadis you can check out their trailers here). Very tempting and tantalising indeed. But then again, I'm not sure if I want to see Jamie and Claire actualised - like most fans their physical appearances are firmly embedded in my own imagination.

I've also been reading up on Diana's own blog, catching up with what she's been doing. Those of you who know me, know I'm a huge fan and it was her books that inspired me to finally put one down and pick up a pen (or rather a keyboard, I hate writing with pen and paper anymore - it's just way too slow!!)

So, after reading some of her latest blogs I've been inspired to start writing again. Actually, that's not true, I started writing again before I read her blogs. I spent some of this morning (while my son was off playing with his grandmother) doing a description of Canberra for For Tomorrow We May Die. I've been compelled to go back to that one, and although the Second World War one is still developing in my mind I've accepted the fact that I can multitask (it's amazing what having kids can do for your organisational skills!) and actually work on more than one piece at a time. So as the characters slowly develop for that story (it's not really about the war, it's just set in that time period in Sydney - like Tomorrow it will be a crime/mystery), not to mention my plot development for the new Orpheus, I've gone back to Tomorrow to continue working on that story.

Currently I'm reading Disturbed Earth by Reggie Nadelson, which is set in post 9/11 New York. I've been really inspired by Nadelson's use of description in describing the city and decided that this is what Tomorrow is sorely lacking. Character development - check. Plot development - check. Cliffhangers - check. Setting??? Bom bom (for those of you who know the sound on Wheel of Fortune when the contestant guesses the wrong letter, that is what I was attempting to write there!)

So, what does all this mean? Basically, it means I"ve been sitting here at my laptop trying to describe a city that really I don't know much about (I've only ever lived in the 'burbs) and which in truth I don't find particularly interesting or inspiring. But, this city, ie Canberra, does grow on you, in much the same way that the tulips grow at Floriade every year. It's a pretty place, not particularly exciting but nice and liveable nonetheless. And I believe (with only a small trace of modesty, cough) that it would be much harder to write an interesting and captivating description of Canberra than say New York city, where the city is alive and exciting 24 hours a day. Here is a small (and copyrighted) snippet of what I've written about Canberra, ACT. I hope you enjoy it and look forward to hearing your feedback.

Although some people referred to Canberra as 'a big country town,' having come from a small country town, Senga knew that this was not the case. Here you could be totally anonymous. Despite being rather small for a city, it was astoundingly hard to meet people and make friends. Even Senga who had attended uni in Canberra, that social construct where late adolescents and young adults had every chance of meeting others, socialising, and forming all manner of relationships, could count her friends on one hand. A very small hand at that. Perhaps even one missing a couple of fingers.
But again, this said more about the girl than the city. Despite coming across as a cold, closed-off place to newcomers, once you had embroiled yourself in the society and culture of the place (if that was your intent) it took a surprisingly short amount of time before you knew everyone and their best friends. You knew the business of people who you had never met, could trace their relationships, work and social faux pas without ever having laid an eye on them. Canberra was a strange place like that. One day you could know no one, and the next bam! everyone knows you. Then just as quickly you could slip back into oblivion again. A transient city, that's what everyone called it. People came and went, the population changed, but the city never did.

Kirsty x