Friday, April 27, 2007

It's been a busy and exciting month!

I received word from one of my publishers regarding The Hollowing this week - they're contracting it! This is the same publisher who contracts Gilded Folly, and it's very exciting news!

I finished In Flames about a month ago. It's the sequel to In Trysts, and is under consideration now. Two weeks ago I finished Of Dragons. No idea where to send it - maybe Triskelion? It's a Fantasy Romance, of around 55,000 words. Any ideas?

I'm working on my 28th novel, Glass Works. I hope to be finished in 2 weeks or so. BloodWorks and Relic are under consideration, too, so cross your fingers.

I went on a great field trip yesterday to a dormant volcano, to map kumara pits. Very interesting! The day before I was at Auckland Museum for a different field trip, to look at Pacific Island artefacts. In case you didn't know, I'm an archaeology postgrad student.

I'll leave you with an excerpt. This one's from Grave Images:

In some ways he was afraid to move—frozen for fear of rousing the dead—of making them walk. Then Nick looked at the lanky strips of shrubbery in his hand. Lives. These were weighted in human lives.
And if they catch me with them, they’ll know what they are. But if I drop ’em, I’ll never find them again.
Jarron had said, “Keep ’em fresh.”
Nick forced himself to move, while the moon was still out. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck here if the moon went behind a cloud again.
The place wasn’t as old as he’d first thought, nor as forgotten. A few bouquets of artificial flowers decorated the odd grave, and on one spot, some long-dead flowers were a crispy memorial to someone’s memories.
Nick grimaced—hoping he wasn’t stirring up someone’s ire—as he gingerly stuck a finger in a tin “vase”, finding it half-full of rain water. “It’ll do,” he muttered.
Before he could think any more about it—or anyone could argue with him—he plucked the dead flowers from their resting place. Then he replaced them with the greenery in his hand. “Should keep ’em fresh,” he whispered nervously.
The wind had been gusting all night, but it hadn’t been so noticeable in the dense shrubbery. Now, suddenly, it hit against him, carrying with it a spattering of dirt—rustling the flowers in his hand. Nick stumbled backwards, then began to run once more, jumping over tombstones and graves, in his eagerness to be out of this place.
He missed on the angel—snagging himself on one wing, and ploughing headfirst into a concrete marker.
He didn’t know later whether much time had elapsed, but he knew the moon had suddenly acquired a wavery outline. Nick’s head was pounding as he pushed himself up off the crushed bouquet. “No wa-ay!” he said, fighting against a sudden need to lie back down. He looked at the gravestone and shivered in repulsion. “Not ready yet.”
Nick stumbled on, until he passed the last cross, the last gravestone. When he was free of the graveyard—out in the open pasture—he stood uncertainly, trying to figure out which way he should go.
It didn’t take much figuring. In the not-too-far distance, two helicopters were hovering, their lights flickering over a derelict building. “Uh-oh,” he whispered. “Jarron has company.”
He patted his pockets for Gill’s cellphone, but for the second time that night, they were empty. Like the other one, it could have tipped out in the bush. He had a feeling, though, that he’d lost it when he’d taken that header into the gravemarker.
“Go back and get it,” he told himself. Nick looked back at the cemetery, just as the moon came out, and highlighted the face of the angel. He could have sworn it was looking—right at him.
“Shit!” Nick said, taking a backwards step. “Not a chance.”
The only thing that could make him feel better now was distance—between himself and the crawly feeling at the base of his spine. Besides, it sure as hell—sure as heck, he corrected himself, remembering where he was—looked like Jarron needed help. Nick began to run once more.

*

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