By: Cate Gardner,
on 3/31/2012
By: Cate Gardner,
on 2/17/2012
By: Cate Gardner,
on 12/15/2011
Apologies, this post is full of braggage. If braggage offends look away now...
First thing this morning, I discovered that I'd made Jim McLeod's Top Ten Discoveries of 2011 along with John Hornor Jacobs, Graeme Reynolds, Ian Rogers, Paul D Brazil, and Jasper Bark. Flabbergasted. And then, on a day that decided it would be good to me, Jim also posted 8 of his Top Fifteen Reads of the Year and Theatre of Curious Acts and Nowhere Hall (along with the other Spectral chapbooks) made the list. And I hadn't even had time yet to link to Jim's excellent review of Theatre... "This book is amazing, Cate's writing is intelligent, lyrical, emotional. evocative and totally engaging..." and you can read the rest of the review here.
And then (because it's one of those days - I should check my lottery numbers), over at The Eloquent Page, Pablo Cheescake has a year in review post and he picked Theatre as his book of the month for December. Hey, who shouted 'you only had to fight half a month's worth of books'? I'm watching you. I may faint now. Oh, and again, Spectral Press gets a mention. Dude!
And... (sorry!!!)
Theatre is now available to actually buy (not pre-order) at Barnes & Noble (hardcover) and at Amazon US (hardcover). And, it's available to preorder at Amazon UK (hardcover). You can't buy it at The Book Depository yet, but the paperback is listed there. I ❤ The Book Depository.
I also ❤ almost everyone in the known universe today. Heck, I'll even save a hug for those extraterrestrial dudes.
Pardon me while I faint.
By: Cate Gardner,
on 12/13/2011
By: Cate Gardner,
on 12/6/2011
By: Cate Gardner,
on 11/28/2011
Some news this delightful Monday (I'm trying to fool Monday into believing I like it)...
Jim McLeod interviewed me over at his Ginger Nuts of Horror Blog. The interview contains smelly socks, Lemony Snicket, chocolate and commas. You can read it here.
Last week, Gef Fox reviewed my forthcoming novella Theatre of Curious Acts. Here be a short excerpt: The first page of every Cate Gardner story is a rabbit hole, through which you find yourself falling into a wonderland of her design, and Theatre of Curious Acts offers a deeper plunge into the abyss of Cate's imagination than anything of hers I've read yet. And you can read the rest of the review here.
Go here, go there, it's like I'm trying to get rid of you.
By: Cate Gardner,
on 11/10/2011
By: Cate Gardner,
on 11/6/2011
By: Cate Gardner,
on 1/5/2011
At the beginning of December I promised myself I'd delve into the second draft of 'The Museum of Impossible Artefacts' in January and near the end of December I promised myself I wouldn't. Of course, being a contrary sort (and struggling with my WIP short which started funny and has meandered into blahville), I've printed the first twenty pages of the book, retitled it and am staring at the empty page. But at least I have a title, right?
Reason for title change no. 74: Although the museum appears in about the first 70ish pages, I realised midway through writing the first draft that the location didn't work and will be changing it to another venue this draft.
New title is 'The Ghosts of Folding Time'... for now. Not certain I like it. We'll see. At the moment its purpose is to add a spooky, ghastly feel to my dystopian time travel book. Like having a haunting tune playing in the background, I look at the title and it reminds me to slide the book into darkness. Oh no, that sounds as if I'm posing. Scrub those lines from your memory. Like now.
And talking of books, I spent a couple of hours on Sunday night chatting online to Eric Reynolds about Theatre of Curious Acts, and it looks as if the release date will be September. Oh my goodness. Who needs to exercise when you can keep doing the happy dance.
By: Cate Gardner,
on 11/2/2010
1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.
Such an unfair question to start with--I love them all. Okay, I guess I'll plump for my otherworld in 'Theatre of Curious Acts'. And as to the why--because it's chock-full of madness - dragons, fairy tale villages, inns balanced on top of pointy hills, train stations that stretch into forever, back to front theatres, and the four horsewomen of the apocalypse 'live' there.
2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?
I'm assuming this means per project, otherwise thousands upon thousands of poor, dejected things. And I have no preference whatsoever as to male or female. In fact, I think I have a nice, healthy (okay, they're rarely healthy) mix. My book 'Last Seen Drowning' (may it rest in peace) had about seven POVs - I wonder why I never sent it anywhere. Actually, thinking on the previous question, I really liked that little universe and it had a suicidal (non-sparkly) vampire. Oh crap, now I want to work on that rather than NaNoWriMo.
Note to self: Seven POVs--you don't want to go there.
3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you’re writing about fictional places)?
I steal them from spam emails, or I type in a search in twitter and pick out a first and second name, and for all emergencies I have my huge first name, surname and place name dictionary. I'm never happy with a story until I get what I feel is the right name for the character.
4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!
The first story I sold way back in 1993 (actually, I use the word sold loosely as it was 4theluv, though I did get a free contributors copy) was called Bethany's Dream and it was majorly blah! Girl has a dream that someone is trying to kill her, gets really nervous, but hey, guess what it's a surprise party. I don't think she even bothered to kill the guests.
I still have fond memories of my first novel 'Fading in the Summer Sun'. I spent years with those characters and they were nice folk (if slightly twisted).
5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?
Bollocks. I think Molly in 'The Drawing of Dolls' is about seven, but I'd have to look her up to be sure and I'm far too lazy to do that. Oldest, double crap. I'm going to say the suicidal vampire in 'Last Seen Drowning' - he's definitely mega crinkly. Oh, wait. I guess my true oldest would be Old Father Time. Old Father Time would have to be as old as time I guess.
Now onto the (supposed) daily NaNoWriMo catch up:
Daily Word Count: 2154 (go me!)
Total Word Count: 3099
Characters Playing: Amelia Darling, Cally Darling, Danny Levine (who???), Meg Cooper, The Press Gang
Time Frame: Dystopian Future - 2241 (yay, we have a year)
Things that surprised my book: Ha, so the book wants to be a YA eventhough I declared it wouldn't be, well I threw a spanner in its works and added the word Bollocks at the top of the page -- what do you mean, I can edit it out later!!!
Things that surprised me: Dead Parent (okay not that surprising) / Instead of trying to make my first pages perfect, I'm adding comment boxes with things I need to fix/reconsider - go non-obsessive me)
Googled: The Bends--Diving.
By: Cate Gardner,
on 9/22/2010
I almost posted the below rhyme today...
It's raining, it's pouring
and Cate is feeling boring
she went to bed with a story problem in her head
and hadn't solved it by morning
...and I guess I did still post it. Only that wasn't all I posted because there's more (you're safe, no more rhymes).
Still working on ideas for my mad escapade novella, which now has 7,500+ words of notes and a pretend title - The Museum of Impossible Artefacts. The story construction reminds me a little of Theatre of Curious Acts (that's my book in case anyone googles it and goes, what the?), shuffling over different time periods and well, it's just bonkers. In my head. It should be my NaNoWriMo project (with a couple of shorts thrown in for good measure, or hey, it may turn out to be a novel. On my knees, please God).
On the short story side. I completed #10bythen. Phew! In fact, I'm up to eleven submissions thanks to thoughtful rejections. Editors, seriously, you don't have to worry about me anymore, I have my ten submissions and don't need any more rejections. Good of you to assist though. Consider yourself hugged. Hard. My bowler hat/mailbox man is still stewing - I may add some bones and cobwebs later; and I've resurrected my Shock Totem comp entry (and its prequel) from earlier this year and am editing, editing, editing.
Oh, and did I say no more rhymes... Well I didn't lie. Honest.
By: Cate Gardner,
on 7/29/2010
By: Cate Gardner,
on 6/2/2010
Still working on the Theatre rewrite and yo yoing between turning it into a YA or reducing it to novella length. It changes by the hour.
I'd love it to keep it novel (YA) length, but I'm not certain the book would fit well with Grim or with the next two books I'm planning or perhaps with a large YA audience. I think it may be a small book. The first chapter starts in the trenches of WW1 but it's not a war book - well not an ordinary war book. There are teeny battles and there are soldiers but it's all rather surreal. I worry that starting in the trenches (and my MCs boot snapping a rat's neck) wouldn't appeal to teenage girls (and possibly teen boys), and anyone who is sucked in by the brief glimpse at trench warfare may be disappointed to find themselves in a surreal otherworld forty pages later.
I'm overthinking.
I need to overthink.
I'm being impatient again.
Favourite new line of the week: "Dear, I do believe you left a speck of humanity on his left butt cheek," the old woman said.
Strange Googling of the day: Is buttcheek one word or two?
By: Cate Gardner,
on 10/21/2009
This week's WIP Wednesday post is sponsored by Natalie L Sin and Katey Taylor and their posts about inspirational images.
The below image, and a collection of others available on the same web page, about a Fairytale Ukraine village inspired a new scene in my novel, Theatre of Curious Acts. Can't you just see the dragon flying above it and surely you know that three of the four horsewomen and the soldiers they have trapped are standing just behind the lens.
Theatre currently stands at 38,056 words and at 50,000 words total (yep, it's a short one), I hope to have the redraft done by next Wednesday.
By: Cate Gardner,
on 10/4/2009
I wasn't certain if I was going to blog about this - tempting fate and all that, but I figured it's all part of the process and the journey and that I should. I also figured if I maintained radio silence for a month, I'd go insane and then I'd drag you all to the lunatic asylum with me. Though maybe Jack Nicholson's there, and we'd all have a wild time.
So, here's what I like to title, 'The Reason I won't be participating in NaNoWriMo this year'.
Up until last Monday, I was working on Grim Glass Vein and scratching out some plans for my NaNo project (I had several ideas and couldn't decide which to go with - not a bad thing), I was also jotting down ideas for a story for the Cafe Doom competition and starting to wonder about ideas for flash stories for 52 Stitches when it reopens. Life was good, and then life got complicated and a little bit exciting.
Parties, who shall remain unnamed, have been reading my book Theatre of Curious Acts (publisher not agent) over the past couple of months. On Monday evening they asked if I would consider doing a substantial rewrite, and the following morning I received the rewrite details. Oh my god! I may have panicked for about thirty minutes, but once I got my head around what was needed and what wasn't I decided, I could do this. I made sure I had a full plan of what was to be removed and what I wanted to add and started the rewrite yesterday. Scratching out unnecessary characters is far more fun than I expected.
When it all falls apart - I joined PessimistsRus (they require only a bleak outlook) at the weekend as well as the SFWA - I know I'll be left with a much better book and the experience of tearing a book apart is proving invaluable. I'm even looking at Grim Glass Vein with new eyes.
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 4/3/2009
I’m experimenting. I’m writing two novels at once and so far it’s toddling along okay. I’m editing ‘The Poisoned Apple’ and have started work on my next book ‘Church of the Vacant Lot’ and it’s my first YA – I’m kind of excited about that fact. Or rather, it’s my first intentional YA. My beta reader for ‘Theatre of Curious Acts’ thought it would work well as a YA and I’m thinking they may be right. At the moment ‘Theatre’ is out on query, I’ve had a partial request and if I don’t get a full request I might think about marketing it as a YA, it would certainly help the naff word length. Of course if I did try the agent approach with ‘Theatre’, I may find myself deleted from an awful lot of inboxes – I think it may be just a touch too bizarre.
Anyway, here is a first draft excerpt from ‘Church of the Vacant Lot’.
“The angels fell on a Sunday.
The angels fell when Christina Helene Banks sat on her bedroom floor surrounded by a dozen t-shirts. In the moment before thick clouds scurried across the sky only two things concerned her – whether she should go back to college in the autumn and Gregory Cooper. She picked a blue t-shirt illustrated with, ironically, a crooked halo above a cartoon stickman. It picked out the blue of her eyes and the blue of her mascara. She stood in front of the mirror and worried that the colour would remind Gregory of the Ice Queen, the girlfriend he had ditched a fortnight before. The thought resurrected an old fear – was she moving too fast? She had let the thought hinder her advance when he had split from Weeping Brooke Kendall and then she’d had to wait six months, two days, eleven hours for winter to defrost and go bad. The blue would have to do.”
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 2/24/2009
Drum roll please...
The Theatre of Curious Acts has closed its doors a little shy of 50,000 words. I guess that makes it the novel that wanted to be a novella.
We'll call it the final draft for now, but we all know how these things go. I've left the manuscript with a little woman (my mother) who will either scratch her head and sigh or phone someone to take me away. When I described a little of what it contained she asked if I was popping pills. :) It's all powered by chocolate, ma.
It includes the four horsewomen of the apocalypse, a pirate ship, roads made out of fingernails, dead soldiers, living soldiers, a girl called Snow Black, a B movie monster, some poisoned apples (I kid you not) and the cast of The Breakfast Club. Oh yes, really looking forward to writing this synopsis.
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 1/15/2009
It's lucky my characters can swim...
George gasped as he looked into the lake's still waters.
That's nice, but where did the lake come from? One minute the cast are collected on a path and a new character has arrived, and the next, a b****y big lake has appeared right in front or beside or behind them... No wonder George gasped. No introduction. It's just there. I wouldn't mind but George was picking baby teeth* out of his boots a moment ago.
I'm so lucky no one fell in.
Oh the joys of tearing apart a NaNoWriMo draft.
*No babies were harmed in the making of this draft, their teeth fell out due to natural causes.
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 1/4/2009
Don't forget 52 Stitches begins its year long run today with I'm Keeping it Light by Mercedes M Yardley. I can't wait for it to go live. I've pressed refresh a gazillion times.
I'm relieved the holidays are over. I loved the break. I loved lounging around watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD and watching old episodes of The Outer Limits on cable, but it's also good to be back at the computer. I'm hard at work (ahem! well almost) working on the second draft of 'Theatre of Curious Acts' and I am about to move onto part two: Paper Dragons. At the moment I'm averaging about 1,400 words a day - I think that's respectable.
I hope to add about 7,000 words by week-end to Theatre and I also want to write a dark short story so that I can submit to 'Necrotic Tissue' this month. I know I said I'd only do one short story a month, but I figure as long as I'm working on the long stuff and doing a resonable amount of wordage that I can play with the shorts too. Got to keep the writer happy.
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 12/19/2008
PS Publishing are celebrating their 10th anniversary by selling Anniversary Gift Boxes of their books at a reduced price. As an early Christmas present (or rather a late one as I won't receive them until after the holidays) I ordered a collection of Ten Novellas that would have originally cost £100. I can't wait to see what books I receive.
Remember my blog post of December 1st when I was high from completing NaNoWriMo and I had such big, big plans? They're already floundering. I predicted the second draft of 'Theatre' would be at 20,150 words by now. It currently stands at 10,156 - but they are 10,156 brilliant and superbly plotted words of course. ::wink::
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 12/1/2008
One week later…
It’s so good to scrape myself away from the most unproductive week I’ve had all year. I couldn’t even concentrate to read – boo! So rather than concentrating on what I didn’t do last week, I’m trying to focus on what I intend to do this week.
First off I want to finish the short story (Porcelain Dolls) that I started over a week ago and which has been languishing in fever-ville, and then I am going to start the second draft of ‘Theatre of Curious Acts’. Inspired by the first three productive weeks of November, I’ve printed out a calendar for next year and filled it in with a whole year’s worth of plans. No wonder my body had a nervous breakdown twenty-four hours after completing it. We have:
Redraft and finish Theatre by end January 2009; work on The Poisoned Apple/Strange Bones (big plans afoot – more about that later) during February and March; April 2009 is dedicated to my long put-off novella The Eurydice Satellite; May through July will be The Moth Maker (my ‘I can’t decide if it’s YA/MG project’ that I’ve started several times this year); then August thru October we have my next MG Timmy O’Leary & The Gentlemen who Haunt. Phew!*
*chances of success 41.2%
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 11/20/2008
Anyone want an adverb? I have thousands of them in Theatre. In fact take out the adverbs and the wee book adds up to about 40,000 words.
I also have two other words that you can borrow if you want:
THE END
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 11/11/2008
Issue one of Stymie Magazine, edited by Erik Smetana and containing my story The Flat-Packed Golfer is now available to read online for free, and you can flip the pages over like a real magazine – how cool is that?
In other news – I just crossed the 20,000 word mark on Theatre of Curious Acts with these words:
The dragons skittered about their ankles leaving scorch marks on their uniforms and setting Harvey’s shoelaces alight. The man jumped down into the sludge to put himself out. The dragons rolled onto their backs and released a sound akin to laughter.
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 11/9/2008
A coincidental and fitting day to post the next extract from my NaNoWriMo novel as it is Remembrance Sunday and almost 90 years since the end of World War One.
Part Two: PAPER DRAGONS
(i)
The Show
1918
Silence.
Ever since the guns had ceased their tirade across the western front, Daniel Cole had sought solace in silence. He would wake in the early hours, the night ink blank, the stars concealed behind the weight of clouds that refused to release the ghosts from the earth, and he would sit on the worn chair in the corner of his bedroom, look out at the emptied world, and remember all the lost men.
Their ghosts brushed past him when he entered the bakers where Eddie Tarpey dusted loaves and dreamed of Mabel Normand; when he rode his bicycle past Newsham School where Norman Bulmer instructed children in physical education; and down by the lake where the twins spent their summers fishing. In this very room, where prior to 1914 Walter James Cole had wept, snored and dreamed of glory in the bed next to his.
Sometimes, in the silence of three a.m., he heard his dead brother snore. Sometimes he remembered Walter had been as young as the century. Fifteen when an enemy shell found his heart. When its shrapnel crossed the channel, embedded in the walls of their old terrace, and stole their parents.
Sometimes the silence broke him.
His uniform hung on a wire hanger over the back of the door. It formed ghost of its own in the dark, and one month since quiet had fallen over blood red fields its shoulders slumped, its legs baggy over emaciated thighs, its collar bent beneath the weight of a bowed head. He had that morning decided he would never put it on again. He wondered if Swan, George, Ken and Harvey would wear theirs when they met the following day at the White Horse Inn.
Swan Ecklund would, of that Daniel had no doubt.
The curtains dragged along the yellowing wire as he pulled them open and looked out at what he considered a ghost town. The cobbled streets glistened with rain. Gas lamps washed the streets with pools of light. He lifted the sash window. The gas lamp located outside his terraced house hissed, in his darkest hours Daniel imagined that hiss was for him alone.
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 10/29/2008
Let me introduce you to my NaNoWriMo project: THEATRE OF CURIOUS ACTS.
Oh, and by the way – I’m cheating. The ‘Theatre of Curious Acts’ is a set of intertwined stories set over a century – three novellas and two short stories – all heading toward the same conclusion. The basic premise is:
The Grim Reaper is a girl, her name is Olivia and her pale horse is a pirate ship. When Daniel Cole, a shell-shocked WW1 soldier, is transported to the surreal otherworld where she resides, he ruins her and her sisters plans for the coming apocalypse.
So we have:
Part One: Shrapnel From a Broken Smile
A ghost story. It’s 2008, the once glorious ‘Theatre of Curious Acts’ is derelict and provides the perfect playground for a boy out to impress a girl.
Part Two: Paper Dragons
In 1918 a group of WW1 Soldiers head out to the Theatre of Curious Acts for a fabled ‘Paper Dragon’ show. They are transported to a surreal otherworld where Daniel Cole and Swan Ecklund are beguiled by two sisters – Olivia and Blanche.
Part Three: (The man with) One Yellow Shoe
It is 1985 and Harvey Cadell (one of our soldiers from ‘Paper Dragons’) has returned to the theatre, which is now a cinema, to catch one last performance before he dies. And in the hope he will find a door back to that otherworld and some of his lost friends. Instead he meets The Collector of Memories and finds himself trapped in a movie.
Part Four: Monstrous Interlude
It’s 1955 and during the showing of a B-movie a monster escapes. It is up to ‘The Collector of Memories’ to put it back.
Part Five: Anticipating Pitchforks
Daniel Cole returns from the otherworld just in time for Armageddon. Oh, and he’s arrived on Olivia’s pirate ship and her sisters are following in their own transport: a zeppelin, a battleship and a train.
Everyone should buy this. Great novel!
They should. ;)