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a devastating weapon also taken up running i m trying to get my fitness up to help with the fencing and just so i can be a bit more healthy on the days i m not fighting in some form or other it s been five days a week in some cases i try and get a twenty minute run in so far my enthusiasm for this has not waned and listening to music helps a lot lifey stuff i ve got one child in school and the other in nursery every morning now so it s opened up a bit of free time oh yes writing time of course ideally that would be the case and a lot of the time it is but no time to get a job when i left work five years ago i was working in an office and whilst i had lovely colleagues i can t say i ve missed being there at all in the time since perceptions altered priorities shifted i am now a gardener and really enjoying the fresh air the smiley passers by china mieville on my ipod and dirt under my fingernails i m no rachel de thame but i can dig and i can pull up weeds and i can cut grass life is good geeky stuff i had a brilliant time with several buddies from fencing school at the scifi weekender in wales we packed swords and managed to get in a bit of practice each day as well as enjoying all the cosplay panels signings swag and merriment just as i was packing to head out however i got a tweet from paul cornell asking if i would mind being timer scorer for the just a minute game that he was hosting it has become a tradition at these events last year s panel included joe abercrombie sarah pinborough and china miéville my mind squirmed it backed away in terror you can t do this it screamed it s too scary so i said yes i thought to hell with it and agreed i was a bag of nerves leading up to the show especially seeing the vast room that held the audience the stage etc but i just told myself it would only be keeping score i probably wouldn t even be visible then i was led out alone into the glare centre stage to faces you know people it was terrifying emma newman paul cornell gareth powell stacia kane and chris brookmyre who were the actual authors that everyone had come to see had every right to be nervous but they were funny and brilliant and before long i was just enjoying the spectacle along with the crowd at the very end paul was kind enough to ask me if i had any work out at the moment and i proudly flew the fox spirit flag for a couple of seconds after that i relaxed met up with loads of tweeps drank ate too many sweets and boogied with giant robots zombies and superheroes definitely going again next year writey stuff hang on fran isn t this meant to be a blog about you know writing sips wine looks around hmm oh yes that well i haven t slacked on that account two stories with the fabulous fox spirit books are coming out very very soon piracy a fox pockets anthology edited by adele wearing who never seems to tire in which i have a short tale about bloodthirsty buckaneers on the high seas tales of eve an anthology edited by the wonderful anne mhairi simpson who is also a damn fine author the brief is a reverse pygmalion where women create their ideal man my short story is about the power of wishes and the magnificent octopus david and i are still chiseling buffing rearranging and sanding its edges things take time but we re getting there and i m enjoying the process talk to me what s new in your life i want to know posted in uncategorized 1 comment tags events fencing life writing this time last year dec 31 posted by fran it s quarter to ten i ve had a few glasses of white wine i said i would do another blog post before the year was out so here it is let s visit my former self in 2011 pondering what she would aim for in 2012 complete editing on the novel and submit to agents this turned into a rewrite and i have one scene left to go if i push it i might squeeze it in before the chimes of midnight the submitting will have to wait though submit and become published in an anthology i made the grade a very proud moment when my first short story got published in tales of the nun and dragon watch this space for another coming out soon from fox spirit publishing enter rapier 2012 swordfish and fightcamp tournaments i did all three 5 competitions in all and i had tremendous fun goal for 2013 will be to move a bit higher up the rankings that s going to involve a lot of focus and training as well as dealing with my mental attitude to fights i think i just don t get worked up enough achieve laureando status i passed in my fencing school this is the intermediate level of competence there s only one more to go after that and it s spadaccino swords wo man that ll be a way off from 2013 i think get fitter this went on the back burner after a bout of illness and i found it very hard to get back to my former level of fitness i really need to develop some good habits and will try to be a lot more active in 2013 i ve taken up the million steps challenge not man brave enough to take on the million words with a few other writer buddies so that s something i ve still got my fencing which is something i actively enjoy perhaps some sword based fitness training is in order write every single day this too was less than daily i ve spent a lot of time editing which i guess doesn t count but i will start another good habit always have a short story in the pot perhaps just to keep me scribbling read more books especially non fiction yes and no i read around eighteen books this year that s a lot for me i read slowly and always have more than one on the go ten at the last count most of them were sff but i did manage to get some non fiction and other genres in as well it s really hard when there s so many great books out there though especially ones in a series grrm abercrombie aaronovitch cooper lyle in 2013 i will try and alternate help other people to achieve their goals whether it s writing swordfighting or anything else that i can assist with this i can definitely polish my halo over in april i was introduced to the founders of esfinges a group for women in hema and have kind of become the non official gopher for europe i ve been doing my utmost to get women talking about swordplay and to get them involved and interested in this growing martial art so far it s been very successful and we have over two hundred and fifty members world wide writing wise i ve been critting for friends and giving advice where i can this is a difficult one as i m sure a lot of authors suffer feelings of inadequacy to some degree especially un newly published ones and we don t want to feel that we re giving advice that we re not qualified to distribute so i just try and give as honest an opinion as i can and hope it helps in 2013 i will be trying to get some events organised for esfinges and meet people face to face that want to take up hema it should be exciting writing wise i will just continue to be as available as i can help friends out as i have been helped countless times put our regular content looks awkward studies shoes well not exactly regular but as i said this time last year i don t want to put in irrelevant waffle i do only post when it is worth doing so given that a lot of the time i am editing and drafting that i have little advice to give as i ve not been in this game long enough and i m finding out for myself i think that s forgiveable for 2013 i should have more writing related news to post about as well as all the usual swordfighting shenanigans a happy new year to you all i hope it brings you what you need and deserve most posted in uncategorized leave a comment my top reads of 2012 dec 29 posted by fran inspired by the recently agented jennifer williams aka senny dreadful i thought i would dust off the blog and post about the top five books that lit my fire this year i have the obligatory year in review post coming up too so yes you could say my posts are like buses trinity rising by elspeth cooper this is the last book i listened to on audible it s book two of a fantasy secondary world quadrilogy called the wild hunt the basic premise of the world in which the tales are set is that there is a hidden world beyond a veil a barrier between them and that this veil is under threat should it break bad things will happen i read book one songs of the earth on my kindle and i found it to be a solid well written fantasy tale but i just didn t get enormously excited about the plot or the characters amazingly for a mid series novel where we normally just get a load of filling before the big showdown at the end trinity rising instead got me enormously excited about everything we follow some great characters from all sides of the good evil divide the writing is as elegant as in the first book but the themes are a lot darker and grown up there is the elf healer tanith from the first book along with gair from book one sulking over his lost love both of them are thrown into different environments so we get to see different sides of them we also meet savin the antagonist who was vaguely distant in book one and see what an evil and twisted git he really is interestingly the plot is non linear and doesn t follow immediately on from the last page of songs we see particular events again from other points of view which certainly makes them much more interesting the best bit for me was a new character teia apologies for the spelling i didn t see it written similar to gair in that she has hidden talents for magic a chosen one but far more interesting to me for the cultural setting and the situation in which she finds herself pregnant and ostracised from her tribe she is a young tribeswoman of the plainsfolk a kind of sami viking mongol people being oppressed on every side at one point even her family are forced to reject her really enjoyed this was left in tears at one point definitely looking forward to the rest of the series prince of thorns by mark lawrence i d heard lots of good things about this and lots of bad but bad in a good way such as the protagonist is a horrible bastard who does terrible things that sounded perfect to me and i was not disappointed it s the first in a series called the broken empire all told in the first person by the titular prince jorg we meet him in a very unprincely situation with a gang of cutthroat mercenaries who he at only fifteen years of age manages to bring to heel as together they sack a small town we soon learn that it s all part of a greater plan and in flashback we discover why jorg is who he is what he has suffered and lost and what he plans to do become king and eventually emperor a typical ambition realised and told in a very original way every character is fleshed out every setting is distinct but the best thing has to be the snappy dialogue and jorg himself i look forward to following his exploits red country by joe abercombie as everyone probably knows joe abercombie likes to take fantasy and dress it up in unusual ways red country is no different and it views fantasy through the filter of a western not a genre that has seen a lot of popularity in recent years but abercombie makes it work with huge success no high noons shootouts or sheriffs this is still the first law setting and is about exploring unchartered territory tracking loved ones across pitiless lands and settling old scores and knives you can never have too many of those several familiar faces rear their heads but most are new wittily and sharply drawn as always without ever falling into caricature the protagonist is a feisty young woman called shy south who sets off with her stepfather to retrieve her kidnapped younger brother and sister do things work out okay in the end that s up to the reader to decide i suppose but things are never what they seem in these stories which is why i love them throne of the crescent moon by saladin ahmed i had been looking forward to this for a while as it takes us out of the quasi medieval europe of typical fantasy and takes us to quasi medieval arabia like me saladin is an unabashed d d geek and i was keen to see the monsters and settings that would be brought to life from arabian folklore it did not disappoint the ghuls were truly terrifying the magic internally logical and yet still magical and best of all the protagonist was an overweight old man not your standard fare in fact three of the main characters are well past their physical peak and the youngsters are often the sullen voice of reason but it all works splendidly so another one to follow up in 2013 the name of the wind by patrick rothfuss i have to say after this monster of a tome book two in the kingkiller chronicle the wise man s fear had a lot to live up to and it fell short of the mark for me that doesn t stop me admiring this vast debut of rothfuss it is another twist on fantasy delivery fantasy as an autobiography the protagonist kvothe is a bard and magic user depicted in layer upon layer upon layer of story so that we can t see where the truth ends and the legend begins we start in the present through the eyes of chronicler the man who is transcribing the story then we enter the tale itself as kvothe tells it to him in reminiscence parts are missed embellished switched back to interrupted other characters step in with their version of events we follow him from a blissful childhood discover everything about all the people around him to the streets where he scratched out an existence as a beggar and eventually to the university where his prodigious talents earned him great fame and also countless troubles his search goes on and on pulling the narrative as he hunts some strange creatures that destroyed his loved ones but this is essentially a device to keep up momentum it s a vast world with hundreds of little side alleys to explore rothfuss is a master storyteller and i hope that book three returns to this form posted in uncategorized leave a comment tags fiction review so many fishies perspectives on swordfish from a newcomer nov 9 posted by fran this weekend we travelled to gothenburg sweden for a huge hema event called swordfish i meant to write a review but as delia hamwood has done such an excellent one i will steal hers check it out so many fishies perspectives on swordfish from a newcomer via so many fishies perspectives on swordfish from a newcomer posted in fencing leave a comment tags fencing older posts esfinges women in historical european martial arts the first international women s hema network for all the women who practice historical fencing and all of those who want to start http esfinges1 wix com e books asian monsters tales of the nun and dragon piracy search for recent posts may a busy fencing hall and more viking gold book review asian monsters by margret helgadottir ed asian monsters why i hate tournaments the pen is fightier fantasycon 2014 current work in progress 123708 120000 86 85 follow blog via email enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email email address 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