I'm not Arachnophobic but...

...I do have a life long problem with spiders. So much so that I had hypnotherapy for it in my twenties. I've now reached the point where, rather than screaming like a shark's chomping me, I can at least get a glass over the latest monster and evict it from my home. I can't bring myself to kill them. It's bad luck. Well, definitely from the spider's point of view at least.

But I do not like them not at all. Especially the big house spiders. Some people might tsk at my fears. It's not as if I live somewhere like Australia where pretty much all of them are poisonous. Or the South American rainforest where the world's largest spider lives - the Goliath birdeater. Strangely tarantulas don't bother me. But one of those local eight-legged freaks skittering across my carpet while I'm watching the TV will have me jumping up the sofa and doing a good impression of Mammy Two Shoes from the Tom and Jerry cartoons on seeing Jerry the mouse.

And this time of year is the worst for it. Massive house spiders materialize everywhere indoors, hunting for a mate. Garden spiders turn the plants and pathways into web-covered Pippa traps! So walking through a spider's web one morning, then finding its creator crawling through my hair had me doing major Muppet flails and squeaking. Worse, I still felt sticky and twitchy hours later, imagining it was still crawling over my hair. Ugh!

But sharing the story on Twitter brought some gruesomely enthusiastic responses. Everyone had their own personal spider horror story that would chill anyone with even the mildest case of arachnophobia. So I thought I'd share some with you, then maybe you can tell me your own.

@MisheardFiction says "I had a MASSIVE one crawl up the inside of my jeans. When I went to scratch my knee it went CRUNCH and started wiggling! Ew."

@NerineDorman says "At least you never found a dead squashed rain spider in your underwear. I did an arachnoleptic fit for hours afterward, accompanied by manic giggles"

@DougSmith5678 says "there was spider amongst <son's name> pants the other day. Had to kill it."

@ChantalHalpin says "There was the time when my hubby thought his tarantula had died. He was decorating at the time and stripping wall paper so he put it in the bin bag. He was a bit freaked out later on in the evening when a large piece of wall paper crawled across the floor "

DianaS says "My scariest moment was walking into the bathroom in our old house some years ago, with the light behind me and reflected in the mirror was my silhouette and SITTING ON MY SHOULDER WAS A LARGE SPIDER FLEXING ITS LEGS! I screamed and did a sort of St Vitus dance"

And if those don't have you itching, I have one last snippet to share with you. Several years before I had hypnotherapy, I was applying makeup in front of the mirror when something dark fell past my face and dropped into my cleavage. Yeah, you guessed it. A spider! There are few things worse in this life to get trapped in your bra. O.o

So if this post hasn't already sent you screaming, how about sharing your spider stories with us too?

Emerging from the cave.

Oh, wow! There's a whole world out there! And light! lol.

Sorry for the long silence, folks. I received my first round of edits from my fabulous editor and wow! they were intensive. :-o They also arrived on the first day of half-term holiday in the UK, so I had a week with all three children at home - not the most conducive working environment. Also hot on the heels of a rejection - tsk, Mondays!


Being a newbie to the whole business the edits came as a huge shock, and I have to admit to being a bit intimidated by the scale of them. However, I'm always up for a challenge, and after a little wobble and lots of emails to my beleagured editor, I got going with them. I have to say I learned a heck of a lot in the process and - fingers crossed - I'll make fewer mistakes the next time around. I saw more clearly what my strengths and weaknesses are. I had to change things I never thought would ever change, but I do think the story is much stronger overall.

Of course, I've still got to hear back from my editor to see if she agrees. I think it all has to be done and in by the end of November, and since I had to ask for extra time on this round (something I really didn't want to do but became inevitable), I'm hoping any other issues will be minor by comparison. Otherwise Keir will get bumped from May until August.

In the meantime - I had a gig at the Brixton O2 watching one of my fave bands live - Within Temptation. Woo hoo! The edits meant I didn't get time to make the fab coat I had planned, but there's always next time. In two weeks I get to see the fabulous Lacuna Coil in my own home town.

Hopefully I can back to blogging a bit more regularly after the hiatus. And once Keir is 'off', it's back to the SFR short for a fellow author's anthology, and then back to submitting my scifi novella Gethyon. That should take me up until the end of the year at least.

After that? Hmmm.... A series from Keir seems less likely at the moment, but I've been playing with the idea of 'myths meeting scifi' for another story, one entirely separate from the others I've done so far. One thing I love about writing is I never know for sure what will come next ... :)

Six Sentence Sunday #26

Hello all! Welcome to another Six Sentence Sunday. This week I'm happy to be posting six from the start of my short story - The Bones of the Sea - now available as a free download from Smashwords. Small squeee! :) Any and all feedback is appreciated, and I'd love to know what any of you think of the complete story if you feel inclined to download it from here.

The place gave her the creeps. Myasi could admit that to herself now, as she made her third and final survey of the site. The morbid name gifted to the strange construction by early explorers couldn’t have seemed more apt as she sat in the flattened base and gazed up into the lurid green glow of the water. Above her head the twelve skeletal metallic legs of the structure curved up, round and then slightly inward, like a dead spider hunched in upon itself. Or a clawed hand clutching at nothing in its final fatal spasm.

She shivered and checked her wrist display.

© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved







As always, please stop by the Six Sentence Sunday blog and visit the other participants. :)

Want to join? It's simple. Just go to the blog, read the rules and sign yourself up. All you need is six sentences from a WIP live on your blog for Sunday morning. :)

The Bones of the Sea

Squuuuueeeee! I've done it! I've published my short scifi story on Smashwords.com and it's now live! You can find it here and it's available as a free download. :)

Myasi had been contracted to demolish the Bones of the Sea, but her attempt to do so reveals something more beneath the surface ...

Indecision

I don't know what to do. I've put off going back to submitting for reasons both legitimate and imagined. I've had my confidence hit rock bottom and creep back up again. And even though I said I wouldn't change it, having received a searing critique on the first 500 words of my main MS, I've attempted to rewrite it. And now the quandary.

I actually like several elements in the new version. But I think it's different in style to the rest of the book, even though it's been revised less than three months ago. So - do I insert the new section and then revise the rest of the book to 'match?' Do I stick with the original that I love, but that may be flawed? Do I accept that this may not be the book to try and launch my literary career with and submit my recently completed novella instead? Come back to my main MS later?














You see, in some ways I'm on a very tight personal schedule. I had planned to concentrate on submitting Keir to publishers up until July, as most quote their decision time as three months. Three months from July is October and the start of my next University course. If I have a request for edits or revisions to my MS from a publisher during that time, I hope to complete it before my course starts, or at least be able to justify time spent on both to my long-suffering husband. By September next year my youngest child will have started school, and if I don't have any prospects in terms of my writing then I will be busily job-hunting. No telling when I'll have time to write if I'm working and taking care of my family. I'll also need to do another literary course next October to gain my Diploma.


But things have conspired against me. My muse not only prompted me into writing a novella - Gethyon - which started off as something to publish as a free e-book (and a self-publishing test project) - but which became another potential candidate for submissions. Another quandary. On top of that, my muse then drove me to write a short story, something I'd convinced myself I couldn't do. And while I shouldn't complain about all this inspiration and having a handful of differing writing projects under my literary belt, it's delayed my plans. Add to that various illnesses, pc problems, a raking critique that left me so down I even considered quitting Facebook, Twitter and my blog, and the continuing pull between pursuing traditional publishing versus taking the indie route, and the time has been eaten away.



I need to do something, but I want to focus on one thing. How do I decide? I can't do it all. I've jumped from one editing task to another. I've even been inspired to work on the other completed drafts which really could (and should) be left to a later date. It all feels like prevarication, that I'm still putting things off instead of knuckling down and making some real progress and solid decisions.



So how do I decide? I could post the two versions of Keir and put it to vote, but I usually find it's a split decision. How would you prioritize?

Six Sentence Sunday #21

Hello, and welcome to another six. I'm taking a short break this week from Quin and Darion's first meeting in the flesh to test out another snippet from earlier in the series. Quin has arrived on her first alien world at the start of her travels. Please read, enjoy and then check out the other spectacular sixes here!

She must be insane. The only person … no, the only entity who could have helped her, she had sent away. Banished. Because she blamed him for this, for being here. For being alive. And now she was left alone to face a world she didn't know, with no skills for survival other than the luck that had so far cursed her, and with no idea what she would do.

© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved

Six Sentence Sunday #19

Hi all, and welcome to another Six Sentence Sunday! Still with Quin and Darion since a few of you seem to want to know where this is going. :)




It seemed a safe and comfortable place to be, easing the steel coils of grief that had bound her chest. She took a deep breath and slid her arms around his waist. There was a faint scent of dark spice, like flavoured coffee, and her fingertips barely met around the broad expanse of his torso. Beneath her ear, his heart beat a steady, deep rhythm; a reassuring sound. The warmth of him took the chill from her.
‘Quin?’ he murmured.

Hope you enjoyed that. Please check out the other sixers here!

© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved

Six Sentence Sunday #17

Welcome to another six sentences this Sunday! I'm continuing with Quin and Darion's first meeting in corporeal form after Darion has spent decades as an Eidar: a sentient form of energy. Read, enjoy, and then I urge you to seek out the other Sixes here!


It sounded more like something from a horror story than a romantic tale. Darion had tried to save Solar for her sake, even though it would have meant losing her love, and when that failed he had taken what would seem a logical step for two divided lovers. He had taken possession of the human, preserving what he could of Solar while also giving himself a physical form that would allow him to be with Quin. He had given up his immortality, the endless power of the Eidar – for love of her.
And yet, it was too much for her to accept. She could only see Solar standing there, speaking with Solar’s voice, even as her mind told her it was Darion’s soul that gazed from those green eyes, that it was Darion’s desire that stirred the heart within that body now.
Quin placed her hands over her face and sobbed.

© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved

Six Sentence Sunday #15

A Happy 1st Anniversary to SSS! Make sure you stop by the blog for the celebratory giveaway.
Welcome to another Six Sentence Sunday and thank you for all the comments last week! This 6 continues on from the previous excerpt as Quin gets to know her soul mate as a human being. If you want a better look at Darion, stop by next week. :-P
Read and hopefully enjoy, then check out the other participants here.


Darion stood framed in the light beyond the doorway, his hands pressed to the stone on either side as if to barricade her outside.
Quin tried to summon up her own voice, to speak, but her mouth had gone so dry she could manage little more than a croak. For an instant she felt trapped. The cold, hard ridge of the balcony’s edge pressed into her spine and Darion blocked the doorway, a huge dark outline with the light behind him; a shadowy figure without a face.
As if he sensed her fear - and surely he did, surely he could hear every thought that flickered through her mind even in his corporeal form - his hands dropped to his sides as he took a measured step forward.
Quin drew in a breath that quivered.

© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved