Catherine-Haines.com » Resources

Thought You Might Like This

Catherine — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:19:27 +0000

So, sometime in March I went to a few things for Writers and Readers week, which was a part of the New Zealand International Arts Festival. As well as the solo Neil Gaiman talk (which heaps of people attended), I went to Once Upon A Time, which was a talk about children’s/YA lit with Neil Gaiman and Margo Lanagan.

Fastfoward to today, and me checking my feed reader. In the latest links and plugs post by Bibliophile Stalker, I saw that there was a podcast recording of that talk put up by Radio New Zealand.

I was quite chuffed by that, and immediately went off to check out the rest of the podcast. As well as the Gaiman/Lanagan talk, there was also one about writing for YA, which I downloaded but have yet to listen to.

I love finding (and sharing) random things like this.

Wiki for Worldbuilding? Apparently So!

Catherine — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:38:27 +0000

So. I have a new idea for a novel. Yes. Another novel. It’s a YA steampunk fantasy with a male protagonist. But I am not going to work on it just yet, well, not actually start typing out chapters and the like. I have enough on my plate with Bones and the editing of Blood Bound that I do not want another major project right now, especially one that requires as much research and world-building as this one does.

But this is one idea that I do not want to lose while I am working on other novels. I wanted to keep snippets, notes, ideas, maps and all sorts in one place, but knowing my track record with notebooks (hint: it’s bad) I was more than a little worried about still having those notes when the time came to actually write Lionheart. And then I found an interesting blog entry on using wiki software for worldbuilding. So now, instead of several notebooks with pieces of paper sliding out of it, I now have a private wiki hidden somewhere to keep all my notes and additions for Lionheart, and can easily edit it when I think of something new.

In the meantime, though, my focus is on Bones and Blood Bound, and doing research for Lionheart by reading books/watching movies with a steampunk theme. Suggestions would be wonderful.

Five Great LJ Pre-Made Layout Sites

Catherine — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:41:18 +0000

I shouldn’t have to explain to you what LiveJournal is, but just in case you have been living under an internet rock: LiveJournal is a large blogging community (and also the name of the software that powers it). Even if people blog elsewhere many have an LJ for the community aspect. I use a plugin to crosspost the entries made here to my LJ, and also have a link in this site’s sidebar.

Although in recent years LJ has been producing more and more better-looking standard themes that hasn’t stopped some (very talented… and not so talented) users creating and sharing CSS modifications for these standard themes. Here are five that I consider to make great themes, with three example images each – if you are interested in the layout shown in the examples, simply click on the image to be taken directly to the code and instructions.

The Fulcrum

http://community.livejournal.com/thefulcrum/

Minty Apple

http://community.livejournal.com/mintyapple/

Appleleaf

http://community.livejournal.com/appleleaf/

NoveltyBox

http://community.livejournal.com/noveltybox/

Thrash Metal

http://community.livejournal.com/thrashmetal/