Pinch and a punch for the 1st of the month.

Good morning!

 

Just a quick catch up from me - I can't quite believe it's February already.

 

Some of you may have heard me on Hutt Radio on Saturday morning - jolly good fun it was. Nice to be introduced as Upper Hutt's own crime thriller writer. It was my second interview on Hutt Radio, and 3rd radio interview - I did an interview on Hamilton Radio just before Christmas. (As far as we can determine there is no podcast, sorry folks!)

 

There is some news: If you live in Upper Hutt you can now check both killerbyte and terrorbyte out of the library! Pretty cool, and just in time for the release of the 3rd Conway thriller on Feb 10.

 

The first review of EXACERBYTE comes out on Feb 3rd and yes I will post the link here!

 

This month I am featured in The Big Thrill!

 

The 2011 interrogation series starts this weekend. I interrogate Eco-thriller author Karen Dionne on my blog on Saturday. (Author of Freezing Point and now, Boiling Point.) Stop by and say hello - comments are open and welcome.

(You can read the 2010 interrogations here)

 

Currently Un:Bound is running a Sunday Story segment. They're all Ellie Conway short stories.

The first is All I wanted was you

then: Every beat of my heart

Don't forget to stop by Un:Bound on Sunday with your morning coffee.  

 

I'm pretty sure I have probably forgotten something...

 

We're counting the days until the release of EXACERBYTE - and the Admins and I are gearing up for our big trip to America in April.

 

My editor is trying to set up some writer group talks inside prisons on the East Coast while we are in Virginia and DC - yeah that's right prison! (She's also talking to various cafes/bars/book stores about hosting me.) 

I'm not bothered about being in a prison. Seriously, after seeing one of the 'hotels' that popped up on our radar in DC, prison seems like a lovely secure friendly place... right Admins? - but talking to groups of people - this could go badly! :)

 

Hope the year has started well for you.

 

tomato sandwiches

That may well seem like an odd blog title... but I do love tomato sandwiches. So simple and fresh. Sliced tomato with salt and pepper sandwiched between fresh slices of buttered bread.
No need to add anything fancy. It is perfect as is.

We need to remember that simple things don't always need to be messed with we can enjoy them as they are.

Yesterday I was interviewed on the radio - which is both cool and fun. Was awesome to be heralded as 'Upper Hutt's very own Crime thriller author.'

What was even better - having my husband tell me that during the interview the kids were gathered about the radio in the dining room - like a scene from the forties. Not only that, but they were listening, they were loving the whole thing.
They can hear me anytime - but hearing me on the radio made them listen? lol

And another cool thing...

Both killerbyte and terrorbyte will be on the shelves in Upper Hutt library very soon - they are currently being processed. You'd better believe I will be visiting the library with my camera to get a shot of the books on the shelf!!

Groovy huh?

:)

Tuesday - huge potential! :)

It certainly started well.

A few things really came into their own yesterday - Admins had a great time on the Cat Connor Fan Page (a sign of things to come people, be afraid!) and a character of mine, SSA Kurt Henderson, started making his presence felt in a more persistent way. (Maybe it was me threatening to kill him off?)

I'm currently in a very disjointed nervy distracted place... pre-release. Emails flying back and forth between my editor and me with little things. Changing words here and there. Finalizing acknowledgment copy. A throw away sentence to explain something from a previous book. Fiddly stuff. Vital fiddly stuff but still it's fiddly.

This book, EXACERBYTE, is a little longer than the previous two. It's a hell of a story (How's that for tooting ones own horn? lol).

So anyway - it's almost there, it's awesome and some of it scares me, and I hope you love it as much as I do!

Now for something totally random:
There are ice bullets in the freezer. (Also little ice Berretta M9's but they're over shadowed by the ice bullets - which in case you're wondering are 7.62 x 39 mm rounds, just like what an AK 47 would fire) And as Admin One likes to say... there's a story in that.)

Tuesday so far - listening to Turn it on by Kevin Costner and Modern West, drinking coffee, listening to what Kurt wants to tell me.
It's kinda funny - when I started working on EXACERBYTE, a song kept bugging me, every time Kurt came into a scene I would hear it. To the point where I couldn't keep watching the clip on YouTube... I needed to hear it so often. BUT - it was not available here. So I asked the band (as you do) if they had any idea when or if we'd get the album. But they didn't. So continued sucking bandwidth - listening to the music that was Kurt Henderson on the Modern West website. And finished the book. :)
(Each character seems to have their own music - which is interesting for me, but maybe not you!)
Then in Dec the long awaited album was released here.

Yesterday - the album took over. I was writing an explosive scene (literally) in FLASHBYTE... and Turn It On took over.
I heard Kevin Costner's voice and I saw Kurt - and the next scene played out in front of me. It's pretty cool to write that way, weird but cool.

How much did I laugh when Kurt delivered this line to Ellie?
FLASHBYTE:

Kurt’s voice almost became lost in my hair, “You’ve been hit in the head more times than Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves and you scare the shit out of me.” He hugged me hard then pulled back. “Thank God you are just as resilient.”

I smiled. “I have to go.”

And no, I won't tell you what happens next. But it's probably NOT what you think - this is me writing remember, nothing is as it seems. :)

Have an excellent Monday (for you slow folk) and Tuesday for the rest of us - and let me know how your weekend was. xx

Where does the time go?

Seems I haven't blogged since Sunday and it's Friday already!
What happened to the week?

(Please ignore the date on the top of this blog -it lies. I have no idea why it lies but it's trying to force me to live in the past, and I'm not happy about it. Rest assured I am writing this on FRIDAY January 21 at 6:56 p.m. and not whatever bullshit date the blog is trying to say!)

So anyway... how have you been?

I've been pretty damn good. (Which is usual really - I tend to wander the line between pretty damn good and fabulous as a general rule.)

Have any of you been over to Un:Bound lately?  It's looking quite spiffy, don't you think?
Now there is a special thing (well lots of special things over at Un:Bound, but this is particularly dear to my heart), from this Sunday you can read some of my short stories over at Un:Bound.
How freaking cool is that??
I'm so excited!!
I'm sure you'll all hop over and say hi.... won't you?

Yeah you, tall guy leaning on the bar... I can see you and that chick you're hitting on. Looks like she's heard that line before. Give it up buddy - it's just embarrassing. Looks like you'll be free Sunday morning....

So come on over on and bring your mates.

It's Sunday afternoon

It is. Or it is as I write this. :)

I went to write an Ellie blog but IE flipped out. I don't use Chrome for her blogs as signing her in screws my log in's to everything. So I figured I'd set her blog up using IE. It's not such a working thing.
IE can't seem to open Blogger half the time, never remembers the password - despite being told too, the tabs don't work properly. NO spell checker. WTF? Seriously who thought that was a good idea?? It's a bad bad scene. Now I remember why I dislike IE. :)

So - Ellie's blog is now going to have to wait until I have more patience.

Meanwhile - how are y'all?

I'm quite fabulous.

This morning I designed the template invitation for the EXACERBYTE release party. Then got very annoyed with it (Low patience day) and sent it to Admin Bubbles along with a list of names. The whole invite thing is going to work better as an Admin job  task. :)

So last week was interesting. The following events took place last week.
1. Lorenza finished EXACERBYTE and sent me her input. (Am so very grateful to have such a fantastic and talented friend.)
2. Adele finished EXACERBYTE and sent me a preview to the first review. (Seems my panicking over the 3rd book was silly. Whew. Y'all will see the review a week before EB comes out.)
3. I finished making suggested changes and sent mss to my editor.
4. My editor came back from holiday - hooray!! I did miss her emails.
5. Caught up with old friends. (Not age wise, I'll have you know - time wise) And I wish we'd had longer. Next time Sues!! -
6. The girls and I went to Staglands with Eric and his family. Had an awesome time.
7. Had dinner with good friends and drank too much Dolcetto.
8. Got some writing done in the new Conway thriller. (Claribyte)
9. Did a heap of research.
10. Successfully bought swimming togs for Breezy. Proper ones - not the skanky slutty horrible things that seem to be on offer for little girls. (That's not cool people.)
11. Caught up with another old friend (see above - we're all over 21 and after that age is irrelevant) - and found out that he's out there making a difference to peoples lives. Now that is AWESOME.
12. Designed the template for invitations.
13.And now I chill and cook a HUGE dinner for my family.

How was your week??
Yes, I do want to know. :)


Love you long time xx

What comes before... music does!

It's Wednesday morning - 12/01/11 or if you're American 01/12/11 - either way it's mid January and the middle of the summer holidays.

I am lucky enough to have a good friend that allowed me to pick her brain regarding a new character in EXACERBYTE. Not only that, but she read for me and pointed out a few mistakes I'd made in relation to the new character.
We have never met. (Although these days that's less of a big deal - and I doubt meeting has any bearing on friendship these days. Distance doesn't make anyone less or more of a friend.)
We will meet, in April (all things willing!) when I'm in NYC. And I am really looking forward to it. - Of course the danger is I'll go all shy and not be able to speak! LOL

I know - I can hear the cogs whirring as y'all try to imagine me speechless. Trust me it happens, not often, but it does.

For me (yes, I have said this before) music is VITAL. I can't work without music but it can't be any old music - the radio is out!
 It has to be something that speaks to me, often a piece that is energizing and uplifting, but at the same time I need to have music that can ground me. Writing first person can sometimes be a tad traumatic and/or I can get lost in the story and have trouble extracting myself.

Hence - the chapter titles of my books are songs. They are reflective of the content of the chapter or for some reason it was the song that spoke the loudest as I was writing. (In both cases I would've listened to the song over and over while working.) The thing with the songs is - they come to me. I don't have to look for a particular song, it will have made itself known already.

Some songs remind me of particular books.

The song that says KILLERBYTE to me is: Take me Home Country Road - John Denver

TERRORBYTE is two songs, when I hear either of them I think of that book of my characters: Bounce - Bon Jovi and Real Life - Bon Jovi (couldn't find a link to the song, so it's the album link)

EXACERBYTE is Testify - Lorenza Ponce  from Soul Shifter  - in fact the entire album takes me back to the writing process and I really enjoy it.
(also: Let Me Be The One - Kevin Costner and Modern West. Go figure!)

FLASHBYTE is new and fresh and almost ready to meet my editor - The song that speaks the loudest is Thorn In My Side - Bon Jovi, it tries on occasion to overshadow - Superman 14 - Kevin Costner and Modern West.
At this stage the songs are jostling for position - but eventually they will settle. Or something else will take over as is beginning to happen now... Have you heard Turn it On by Kevin Costner and Modern West - yeah I do mean the entire album not just the previously spoken of song (Let me be the one). I've been working on some scenes toward the end of the FLASHBYTE and the songs are changing. That is the joy of writing and of music, it's fluid. This is the kind of fluid that makes a person's head spin... but sometimes that's what is needed.

As for the new book - the brand spanking new story that just emerged... Frost bite - Lorenza Ponce

You can find the play lists for both KILLERBYTE and TERRORBYTE on my website.

 The EXACERBYTE playlist. :)


(Am looking at my guitar - just looking at it makes my fingers hurt... but it's in tune, and I've played it a little bit, for the first time in years. Putting off this whole FLASHBYTE needs a song thing - I kinda have lyrics.)

Sharing the fun!

Most of Friday was spent in bed with a killer migraine so waking up Saturday with a minimal headache and very little migraine fog was awesome!

Husband has gone bush for the weekend. It looked like a fairly quiet weekend.

And then suddenly it wasn't any more!

A little after two o'clock people started arriving.
Michelle and Marek dropped over with ice-cream cupcakes for the girls. Half an hour later Tim and Dionne arrived with their kids and moments after that Rose arrived.
It was crowded in the dining room and noisy. The laughter alone was enough to probably scare the mad cat lady across the street. Then the Boy Wonder came home from playing basketball and added to the noise. :)
Michelle and Marek wandered off home eventually - the rest of us did fish and chips for dinner. (Thank you Tim!)
Then Kane arrived. (Come on, you remember Kane - aka Mac from my book trailers... yeah that's right!)




Quiet night - yeah, not so much.

Fun night - absofucnlutely!

So there was a little brain storming of titles.
Thus far - Tim and Rose are winning with Claribyte.

And during my migraine drugged stupor of Friday I did this... Cat Connor Merch

Tonight we all had a look at the products and it's become obvious that more are required. :) Such fun, as long as you don't mind a site that drives a person insane with it's slowness during the creation process. (I mind)

Honestly - who can resist those awesome badges/buttons?

I think you should grab yourself a few... don't you? They'd look great on that tote bag you carry.

:)

Revisiting some title choices.

Good morning!

I have started thinking about the titles of my Conway series books - yes, again! - and had to scour my blog for the post on titles. Turns out there are two.

So exactly what is an exabyte?

And, bits and bytes continued.

Every time a new novel idea crops up I think this question will follow.

The books in the Conway series to date are:
killerbyte
terrorbyte
exacerbyte
flashbyte
satellite (was going to be pedabyte but it doesn't work geek wise. See first post on such things above! and satellite doesn't work byte wise but it fits the story.)
ethernet (I haven't even got this far with the contemplating yet)

In case you haven't guessed the problem is - a new novel popped up - it's another Conway one.
There are diamonds in it or at least it starts with diamonds God knows where that will lead!
If I write it it will push Ethernet further out.
I say 'if' like I have a choice. It'll bug me until I do. Last night I wrote the opening few sentences and hooked myself. (Which is important - if I'm not interested in seeing where the story goes, there is no point me writing it. lol)

So what does the word diamond mean?
It means 'unbreakable'

And that opens up many words for butchering - so far all of them crappy.

I'm going to have to ponder on this some more.

Suggestions are welcome.

(I'm pretty sure that soon I am going to write a book titled snakebyte and it'll feature tequila! And psychabyte has huge potential - Dionne liked Psychobyte but I think the a works better. It rolls easier of the tongue.)

Right then back to watching some early morning cartoons with the small one - who may be getting sick -someone was coughing lat night and I don't think it was Squealer. (If Breezy is getting sick it would account for her tiredness and grumpiness of the last few days - she's usually a happy bouncy kid.)

:)

Procrastinating

Which is entirely different to writers block (which is a mythical creature).

I said I would write a Conway short for January and I shall. Just not sure that the story that has emerged is the one I want to use. Seems Ellie has definite ideas... and that NCIS agent her father trained has a few too.

I'm not inclined to use their ideas at this point though.

I say that - but I think we all know the reason for the procrastination is that it's going to be another Gerrard and Conway story - and it'll have something to do with Mac. (or will it??)

The day looks like this:
It's hot here.
We like that in a summer.
The kids are playing nicely.
We like that in children.
The doggie beastie is asleep in his bed.
We like that in a dog.
The cat is asleep on the rabbit cage.
We like that in a cat.
The rabbit is asleep in her cage.
It's the absolute best place for a rabbit to be!
The husband is playing WoW.
He's in his happy place - we like that in a husband.
The Boy Wonder is playing Xbox.
All seems fairly normal here!
There is a chicken waiting for me to make stuffing.
so I should go do that! :)

This story will write itself regardless of how much resistance I toss at it.

What we learned today...

True friends bring wine and appreciate honesty.

That was my lesson.

Jack had a few today too. He learnt to sit instead of jumping on me. (I think even he is tired of treats now - we've moved on to lots of pats and praise) His human mum wants to know how I managed the sit no jump thing - so she can keep it going when she gets home.

He learnt no couch for Jack.

And happily lay on the floor by my feet.

He learned when I say "Toilet" - it means I'm clipping on his leash and taking him out back. He headed off in front of me tonight and found his 'spot'.

Best of all when I brought him back inside he climbed into his bed and curled up while I said, "Goodnight Jack."

Feels like we're finally getting him to that place he needs to be at, so he can fulfill his doggy destiny... and he's so ready to please!