About cat_hellisen

I write.

Why is it always feeling despite?

cat_hellisen March 19, 2012
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Like, miserable despite the good things, or happy despite the bad.

 

The last few weeks have been dreadful emotionally. I’ve been a wreck, contemplating giving up writing FOREVER SHE SAID, and Running Away To Join The Sideshow, and Walking Out And You Can Live In This Filth Without Me etc. This despite having family and friends who treat me way better than I deserve (yeah, I don’t get it either), having my book finally come out, and just generally going to parties and having a good time.

 

Now thanks to house troubles and car troubles we are so broke that I am scared to think about it, we have to move in a month (and I LOATHE moving), my dog looks like the photo alongside an article on animal abuse (flea allergy, poor Luminous Hound – I am trying everything), and we’re going to Afrikaburn with the spawn (and broke, ha, at least we have a few year’s burn experience) and then coming straight back to pack up a house….and I should be crying non-stop and generally wanting to stick my head in the oven, but instead I’m kinda okay?

 

I’m looking at all these shitty things and thinking, you know, I can do this, I’m not going to have a nervous breakdown, we’ll fix things, we’ll find a way to make do, tighten the belts and carry on carrying on. And I will work on this project because it’s the only way I’ll get better.

 

So, thanks, brain, for holding it together when I need you most.

 

Appreciated.

 

I’ll spot you a beer some time.

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playing favourites

cat_hellisen March 12, 2012
[6] comments

The Slave and I are on the desperate hunt for a new place to stay, and it looks like we might have to move the weekend of AfrikaBurn so that’s shaping up to be a fun disaster.

 

But also the heat is killing me – I am officially over summer. Even blog-posts feel like work.

 

So Instead of thinking what to write I drew this picture that hopefully explains many things about How Cat Thinks.

Also, Why Cat Does Not Have A Career As An Artist.

 

 

 

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A Thinking Song, a Drinking Song

cat_hellisen March 5, 2012
[4] comments

Lots of thinky stuff happening, past and present and future, and where to go from here.

 

This morning I dreamed I was at the bottom of an ocean filled with pin-point lights in the darkness, and slowly I began to turn gold and jellied, and become a fish egg as big as a human and the sea turned gold around me and I was thinking what kind of an amazing fish could I become if I just hatch?

 

So there’s that.

 

My next plan is to turn into a fish and swim around through this never-ending sea.

 

In the meantime I have fish-like things to think about.

 

Mostly about Lud and N&V, which really are both about oceans and change and human imagination, just told through different lenses.

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RUN FREE LITTLE BOOK

cat_hellisen February 28, 2012
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It’s release day for my little novel.

 

Whee. Off it goes.

 

Bye-bye, book. Don’t talk to strangers.

 

Wait. On second thoughts…DO talk to strangers. Lots of them. The stranger the better. Make friends and enemies and fall in love and travel around and don’t forget to write,

Cat.

 

(And if you want to buy my book it’s here and here and here and definitely at a B&N somewhere in NYC (I know this because there has Been A Sighting) and possibly also at bunch of other book stores.)

 

And now I’m going to go do laundry.

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Friday Magenpie: Shadow and Bone

cat_hellisen February 25, 2012
[1] comment

Okay, first, it’s Saturday by me, but probably Friday by you, so we’ll let this slide…

 

Second: I WANT TO READ THIS BOOK.  *ahem* Also, I am filled with so much cover-lust that I can’t even. Basically, I need this on my shelves.

 

Alina Starkov doesn’t expect much from life. Orphaned by the Border Wars, all she’s ever been able to rely on is her best friend and fellow refugee, Mal. And lately not even that seems certain. Drafted into the army of their war-torn homeland, they’ve been sent on a dangerous mission into the Fold, a swath of darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh.

When their convoy is attacked, all seems lost until Alina reveals a dormant power that not even she knew existed. She is torn from everything she knows and whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling. He believes that she is the answer the people have been waiting for: the Sun Summoner. Only her power can destroy the Fold.

Overwhelmed by luxury, envied as the Darkling’s favorite, Alina struggles to keep her wits about her without Mal by her side. But nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her mastery of her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha—and the secrets of her heart.

 

Okay, I am SO ready for this book to come out. If you’re in the US, you can enter to win a copy over at The Story Siren.

 

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Mother, Crone, Maiden is up

cat_hellisen February 22, 2012
[4] comments

 

My companion piece-slash-prequel to When the Sea is Rising Red is up at Tor.com.

How fantastic is that art? When I saw it I just about died of glee. I want to snuggle it and hold it and love it and squeeze it.

 

Artist Goni Montes talks a bit about the process over here. I am so glad they went with that final one – it gives me the shivers.

 

So anyway….I has a happy.

 

 

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Shiny Things; A Round Up

cat_hellisen February 17, 2012
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Thanks to South African YA writer, SA Partridge, I now know this tumblr exists:

I REALLY LOVE AFRICA

And with good reason, darling:

 

Afro-Lisa in Camps Bay

 

Also, you pretty much want to see Seven Nation Army being performed on lab equipment.

 

And this crazy maths video dug up via antisocial sexy hermit person Rae Mariz. If she has a google-alert set for her name, I shall soon find out.

 

i need to test if this really works but that involves me doing stuff…soo yeah.

 

A reader love affair: Books Love You – where people talk about the books that changed them. I adore this. Mwah. Look, I am covering it with butterfly kisses and geranium petals.

 

And last one. Vandalising advertising with poetry. Beautiful.

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The Friday Magenpie: Hollow Pike

cat_hellisen February 17, 2012
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I’ve been seeing some shiny covers bouncing around. And because I am easily hooked by things like pretties I’m going to give some cover-love.

 

 

It’s about witches? It’s set in England? I dunno.

 

I like that cover though. *fondles*

 

So. Hollow Pike, ladies and gentlemen. There’s a girl with birds in her hair. I’m pretty much sold.

 

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paper computers and tiiiiiiiiny chameleons

cat_hellisen February 15, 2012
[4] comments

Yep, I focus on the cool things today. It’s a bit of link-soup:

 

First, laptops made of paper. Yes please.

 

And the world’s smallest chameleons found in Madagascar. Yay, Madagascar, we knew you were good for more than just the setting for a dumb movie!

 

 

Also, a cool post about writing dirty books for teenagers, by Mike Mullin, author of Ashfall.

 

I also read this tor.com post with interest, about bad books you love. Well, this one was specifically about a Heinlein book, but anyway. It got me thinking – firstly about what makes a book fail? The thing most people were going on about there in the comments was plot, and how it fell apart, or had none.

 

Aaaand…I don’t know if this is a valid criticism. I’ve read and loved books that are probably considered plotless. My thing is character – It’s what I remember and hang on to – these amazing people who are not real, but almost. They’re real in my head, and that’s the most important thing for me as a reader – a character I can believe in. Believe in. I don’t even have to like them very much. *cough*bateman*cough

 

I noticed a couple of commentators talking about how characters are just games pieces for plot, and that’s all they should be, and I shuddered. That would be my worst reader experience ever – it’s the kind of book that makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it. I’m pretty sure said commentators are not my ideal reader and would hurl my book across the room with force.

 

We write the books we love to read (probably, unless you’re gifted with the ability to churn out books you can’t stand in a genre you hate, and still not gas yourself). And sometimes the books we love are considered bad. (I’ve talked about this before with my love of The Tombs of Atuan. )

 

What’s interesting to me is what those worst books are – the ones we hate, but still slip into our writing? While I won’t say TToA is the worst* book I love, I know it’s definitely influenced me.

 

What about you?

 

*Only because I refuse to believe it’s a bad book. Hah.

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Daily tea time: a reasoning

cat_hellisen February 9, 2012
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If you follow me on twitter, you’ve probably been spammed with pictures of food. Sorry. :P

 

The #dailyteatime came about mainly because I needed a highlight to my day. I stay home and write, and homeschool my spawn, and deal with the Sisyphean task of laundry and housework. Together that’s a recipe for melt-down. I needed one up moment in between the drudgery, and I also wanted to give the spawn a cool little break in the middle of their work.

 

And so I started doing little picnics at tea time, basically just tarting up the juice and sandwich and apple a bit. Slowly they became a little more elaborate, and would buy slightly more expensive fruits and make them last over several tea times. I realised if you give tiny bits of a lot of things, you can combine them in all sorts of interesting ways.

 

Then I started taking pics as a kind of spur to keep them creative. They are hardly amazing foodporn of the highest order, but considering my budget, I’m pretty happy with them.

 

Part of the fun is also finding new dishes to serve things in. Today, for example, I found this wooden bowl in the second hand store for R5.

I gave it a scrub, oiled it up, washed it again, and then introduced it to the wonderful world of picnicking.

 

Here’s today’s tea time. Custard yoghurt with bananas, home-made bread with mozzarella and tomato, pear, mango, pineapple juice.

 

 

 

 

 

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