Saviours and saints, devils and heathens alike
January 23, 2010 at 12:47 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 8 CommentsTags: cowboys, research, wips, writing
It’s noisy in New Zealand today. I’ve got diggers in the next door neighbour’s yard, my landlord dismantling the fence at the back of my place to allow a digger in there. Diggers to the left of me, diggers to the right. I’m waiting for them all to STFU so that I can get some writing done. Theoretically I could go to the library to write, but I really can’t be arsed. Although I should, since my goal for today is 3000 words. But honestly, I doubt I’ll reach that, so I’ll be happy with 1500 after a week of nothing – yay for self-defeating low expectations.
These days I have a little folder full of bookmarks for research, and it occurred to me the other day that it would be pretty easy to guess what I’m working on at the moment just based on them. There are links to websites with info on:
Campdrafting
Tentpegging (if you look at the link you’ll see it’s a sport, not something where you take your partner away to the bush to play with sex toys 😉 )
Australian stock horses
The design of Australian stock saddles
The NSW Mounted Police
Cattle stations/cattle farming in Australia
Agriculture in Australia
Various events being held in northern NSW country towns
Horse stud farms
Australian place names of aboriginal origin
Australian geographical name derivations
I’ve also got saved on my hard drive documents on how to castrate calves and lambs, worming cattle, veterinary involvement in large animal farming in Australia. There are definitely no prizes for guessing what the story’s about, although hopefully when it’s done all these links won’t be all it’s about.
Another thing that can be said about all that is: god bless the internet! One of the tentpegging rule books even has a diagram with the layout of the field, for god’s sake. How on earth did we all find this information when it wasn’t at our fingertips?
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Meredith Shayne 
How on earth did we all find this information when it wasn’t at our fingertips?
We spent hours at the library and bought every interesting reference book that we ever saw.
Or maybe that was just me. ;>
Comment by strangemuses— January 23, 2010 #
Ha! I don’t think it was just you. Although I am very glad we don’t have to do that anymore. My wallet couldn’t handle it.
Comment by meredithshayne— January 23, 2010 #
What’s this for? Enquiring minds. 😀
Comment by irreparable— January 23, 2010 #
I started it originally to submit to the I Do Two anthology, but I realised pretty quickly that it was too much story for that word count, and since then it’s just grown and grown. Because of that it has no current home, and where it’ll go depends on how long it is – Torquere’s western line has an upper limit of 45,000 words, so if it’s under 45,000 it’ll go there. If it’s over 45,000 I’ll probably submit it to Dreamspinner’s western line, which doesn’t seem to have an upper limit. Although maybe I’ll submit it to Torquere just as a novel, not as part of a line…I don’t know. Haven’t decided yet. I’ll wait till it’s done to decide.
At the moment it’s 30,500, and there’s still a bit to go. It might reach 50,000, although it might not. Depends how wordy I decide to be and how much I cut out during edits. I might add some extra scenes in. I’m stuck at the moment, due to having skipped around writing the easy bits and now being up to filling in the hard bits. Le sigh! Serves me right though.
While I’m here – I think you should consider Samhain for your Nano2006. I think it would be a good fit there. But we can discuss that in email. 🙂
Comment by meredithshayne— January 23, 2010 #
Oh cool, so it’s what we were talking about a while back, with the drovers/stockmen? I’ve got a friend who’s working outback teaching, a lot of his kids parents are drovers if you’d like me to ask if you can email him to get a feel of how they all interact in a town setting, etc? First hand experience, type stuff.
The space opera one? Samhain’s Torquere innit? (And Dreamspinner’s new website is gorgeous but argh, I can’t find the submission page anymore!)
Comment by irreparable— January 23, 2010 #
Yep, that’s the one, the cowboy one. I think I’m alright for now, but I’ll let you know if I do need to talk to someone who lives out that way.
Yep, the space opera one. Samhain’s different to Torquere – http://www.samhainpublishing.com/. I’m sending you an email about it now. 🙂
Comment by meredithshayne— January 23, 2010 #
No problem. 🙂
Oh duh. Gah, still tired. Brain not working.
Comment by irreparable— January 23, 2010 #
No worries. 🙂 Sent you some emails.
Comment by meredithshayne— January 23, 2010 #