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Furious Rant 

Pack Mentality 

Can you Hook A Teen???

Brenda Drake is hosting another awesome blogfest. This one has teen judges, so for all us YA writers, it's a way to see if our work actually appeals to the demographic we're aiming at.
So, here's my first 250 (again... sorry regulars. I am going to finish the first draft of the new book today, so within a couple of months, I should have something new to post in these things.)
TITLE: Chasing the Taillights
GENRE: YA contemporary

Let me know what you think, okay?

Posted by Kate Larkindale at 1:20 PM 9 comments: 

Way to Make Me Feel Old, Dudes 

Err On The Side of Caution


By Kate Larkindale

I hope you enjoyed it!
Posted by Kate Larkindale at 11:19 AM 4 comments: 

Live to work or work to live? 


The weather here has been insane. Totally off the wall crazy. Yesterday it was pouring rain when I got up, but by the time I took E to school, it was fine enough I needed sunglasses. When I got back from the gym, it poured again, only to fine up enough to walk to the supermarket about a half hour later.
Then in the afternoon, the sky got dark. Really dark. Thunder growled somewhere just over the horizon. Wind whipped through the trees outside the window. I bundled little O up and we ran for the bus stop, steel colored clouds heavy above our heads. We got on the bus just as the clouds broke and rain poured down again. On the way into town, the rain turned to hail. And this wasn't just little hail, it was huge. It looked like snow piled up on the street.
Going down the small hill on the way to my cinema, the bus almost crashed, but managed to make it by going at about 2 miles an hour. The hail piled up against buildings and floated down the gutters on rivers of rainwater. It was incredible. And fifteen minutes later, you guessed it: sun.
This whacky weather comes after a winter of weirdness. We had a very mild winter this year, apart from the super-cold snap where we got snow (for the first time in 30+ years). When you add these odd climactic happenings to the earthquakes, floods, forest fires and other natural disasters around the globe, I have to question whether the world is coming to an end. Or if nature is fighting back against us for poisoning her.
Posted by Kate Larkindale at 11:47 AM 3 comments: 

The screen door swings open and crashes into the wall behind.

“Well, I thought Kim could come and stay…”

“You say that like it’s a good thing..”

Posted by Kate Larkindale at 10:56 PM No comments: 

Failure and Success

I'm not going to meet my deadline for finishing the first draft of The Boyfriend Plague. There. I said it. I promised I'd be done by September 15th, but as it is now September 10th and I'm still a good 15-20K from the end, I have to say it's not going to happen.
Why, you ask?
Well, that's the exciting part. When I got home from my Wednesday writing session at the library, a whole bunch of rather cryptic messages popped up on my Twitter feed, congratulating me. For what? I asked myself (and my friend Juliana).
Then I found out that I'd won 2nd prize in a contest on Gabriela Lessa's blog and the prize was to submit my full MS to an editor at Sourcebooks. How exciting is that?
So rather than working on Boyfriend in the past few days, I have been madly re-reading Taillights to make sure it's okay before sending it out. I haven't read the whole book through since the last time I polished it for a full request back in June, so it's like reading it for the first time all over again. And I'm actually quite happy with it. I've made a few little tweaks and changes here and there, but overall, I still really love this book. I have another 12 chapters to work through, then I'm sending it off.
Fingers crossed the editor loves it too....
Posted by Kate Larkindale at 12:02 PM 4 comments: 

Shameless plug... 

When Life Gets In The Way

I'm frustrated. I'n less than 20K away from the end of my draft, but I can't seem to find enough time to sit down and write it. My deadline is September 15th, and it is creeping up on me way too fast. I have plans to write every day, but somehow life keeps getting in the way.
For example. I was just getting ready to sit down a the laptop on Thursday night when my youngest son came out of his room barking like a seal and barely able to breathe. Luckily we knew it was croup since he gets it a lot, but it was a very bad bout and we had to take him to the Emergency Room. And if you've ever been there, you know how long you have to wait around.... So, no writing time for Kate.
Then, when we got back from the ER, my older son started vomiting, so I was washing sheets and duvets at 2am. I ended up having to take the day off work to stay home with them both, and luckily there was a short period of time when they were both asleep so I wrote then. But it wasn't long enough.
Then on Saturday I had to go into work early to catch up on all the work I hadn't got done on Friday. And Sunday is my day to do stuff with the kids, so we went out to the coast. I wrote in the evening, but again, there wasn't enough time to do as much as I wanted to.
And the rest of this week doesn't look promising either. I have a late night burlesque show opening at work on Thursday, which means I'll be working late nights twice this week. And both my parents' birthdays are this weekend.
I'm going to scrape and steal whatever time I have, but I'm not entirely confident I'm going to meet that September 15th deadline.
How do you fight back when life gets in the way?
Posted by Kate Larkindale at 11:25 AM 4 comments: There have been some amazing entries, and I want to thank everyone who has taken part, either as a writer or just a reader. So, now comes the fun part! In the comments, tell me whose beginning, middle and end you liked the most! The ones who get the most votes will win prizes. We all love prizes, don't we? I have copies of an extremely limited edition of short stories to give away (only 50 were ever printed), plus one lucky writer will get a query and first chapter critique from yours truly. Sound worth playing for? So get voting!

Posted by Kate Larkindale at 12:42 AM 8 comments: