As a child (I am now an elderly 21) I loved geckos. At After School Care we would collect gecko eggs to take them home and put them in cotton wool lined egg cups, waiting for them to hatch.

At home I kept my school bag outside, hanging from a rack on the wall beside the front door. One night I went out there to get something from it. The wall (as was usual) was covered in geckos, that was cool – geckos and I were tight, we had a mutual respect for each other…right? Well Karen, apparently NOT. Because these little $*%@# decided to drop their tails – leaving me faced with a swarm of fleshy coloured beady eyed blobs, with their bloody stumps all up in my business. PLUS!! Their discarded tails were twitching all over the ground at my feet like evil zombie worms who wanted to crawl into my ears and devour my brain. I was unable to move, I wanted to vomit and vomit and vomit and vomit and then die. Since that day I haven’t been able to look at a gecko without feeling nauseous.

So. I wanted to congratulate you on writing the most terrifyingly traumatic scene of anything ever. Well done. I think I got as far as CRUNCHING GECKO IN MOUTH before I started researching frontal lobe lobotomies in the Sunshine Coast QLD area. Unfortunately nobody seems to be advertising their services, so I guess I’ll be performing one on myself.

[Section snipped for spoilers]

Thanks for writing a great book, it was a nice change to read a fantasy novel set in the southern hemisphere. I look forward to reading your future works.

Yours in an ever-present state of gecko terror,
Sasha.

Dear Sasha,

I have a confession to make. I wrote that scene with one purpose, and one purpose only – to terrify you. Not general “you, the reader”. Specifically “you, Sasha”. Having heard of you through channels too complicated and baroque to go into, I immediately realised that we would be foes eternally and it was forthwith my only ambition to write a book about my homeland, include a scene with geckoes and the crunching thereof, and, by hideous and foul means, induce you to read it, thus softening you up for further psychological assaults.

I am delighted that my mission has succeeded, and I look forward to further terrifying you through nefarious means that MAY OR MAY NOT include my future books.

Yours in enmity,
Karen.

(PS, glad you liked the book, especially the Southern Hemisphereyness of it! I laughed so hard at this email. Is there any chance that I could excerpt a section of it on my blog?)

I really like that story, but it was looking a little sad on the page. What it needed, I thought, was colour. Life. ARTWORK.

So I commissioned an illustration from K. Smirnov, and it is fantastic; exactly as I had imagined Caroline to look:

I particularly love the strength of her forearms and the quirk in her lips – this looks like a girl who cooks a LOT, and has developed muscle to do it, and is not particularly inclined to put up with interference in her life, which is Caroline exactly.

You can click on the picture to see it full-size, or here to see it with the story.

On Saturday, I helped take apart a second-hand bookstore. I am very sad to see it go, but I am very happy to be paid for my efforts in second-hand books. Many many many of them.

On Saturday night, I roasted a chicken with couscous.

On Sunday, I chopped up a bunch of the roast chicken and made pot pies. Then I made a lemon-raspberry tart, including the pastry, from scratch. (Rubbing the butter into the flour really hurts my hands, and I always forget how much.) Then, what the hey, I had a bunch of egg whites left over, who’s for coconut macaroons?

This morning, it was time to make my standard editing fuel, which is a big pot of chili con carne. Of course I can’t type while I’m eating chili, so I had to break out the Gilmore Girls DVDs.

After years of berating myself for laziness, I have decided that this is actually pretty much how just how I get things done. If I have stuff due, then I need to allow for procrastination time as part of the working process. That way, everything gets done and I’m way less stressed about it.

And boy, do I eat well.

In conclusion! My upstairs housemate left for a European Grand Tour. That picture in the thumbnail is what I have done to the coffee table since.

This bit is about the Ngaio Marsh Theatre, which is an important setting in the book, and one of my most favourite places in the whole world.

But much as I love romance, I think I love families EVEN MORE.

SIX:

Mopani: What happens now?

Grace: We’ll have to wait and see…

Mopani: Are you and Kupe an item now?

Grace: “An item”?

Kupe: Ae, Mopani.

Mopani: What about Dad?

Grace: I still love your dad a lot, punnet. Maybe we can all stay friends.

Mopani: I doubt it. You should hear the way Dad and Irene talk about each other.

Kupe: But that doesn’t mean you can’t stay friends with everyone, eh?

Mopani: Oh, great. Now I have three families.

– Hicksville.

FIVE:

“Mama, don’t you see,” I tell her, pausing on the photograph of her graduation from Cambridge. “You were always treasured You were always Yu.”

- Syrah, Girl Overboard.

FOUR:

“I only wanted to serve Barrayar, as my father before me. When I couldn’t serve Barrayar, I wanted – I wanted to serve something. To-” he raised his eyes to his father’s, driven to a painful honesty, “to make my life an offering fit to lay at his feet.” He shrugged. “Screwed up again.”

“Clay, boy.” Count Vorkosigan’s voice was hoarse but clear. “Only clay. Not fit to receive so golden a sacrifice.”

– Miles and Aral Vorkosigan, The Warrior’s Apprentice

THREE:

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t like him, but I never meant to make you feel bad. I didn’t think you were paying attention.”

“Not paying attention?” she asked. “How could I not pay attention?”

“Because you think I’m an idiot,” he said, as if this was completely self-evident. “Seriously. I had no idea you cared at all about what I was saying.”

Lola was shaking her head, unable to comprehend what she was hearing.

“Spencer,” she said. “You’re my older brother.”

– Suite Scarlett

TWO:

“Sleep well, don’t stir, don’t let bad dreams trouble you,” Alan said, and stooped over the bed to kiss Nick’s forehead. “I’ll see you again in the morning, til then don’t forget that I love you.”

It was the thing Alan said every night, and Nick had never understood it. He understood sleep and morning, but he had never been able to guess what love meant.

When Alan was gone, Nick looked at his hot water bottle. He would have to get used to it because Alan thought it was his favourite and that meant having it a lot, like his favourite pyjamas.

It occurred to Nick that if people were put in drawers like pyjamas and you could pick them out, that would be an excellent arrangement. He would never pick out Mum, with all her screaming and her very quiet silences. He would always pick Alan. Alan would be his favourite.

– “Nick’s First Word“.

ONE:

“This is my family. It’s little, and it’s broken… but still good. Yeah, still good.”

–Stitch, Lilo & Stitch

(It occurs to me that my romantic love choices mostly come from adult fiction, and my familial love ones mostly come from younger fiction. I am often nervous about forever-love in YA – and in fact, both YA books I quote from in the het love section acknowledge that theirs might not be forever love. I know that many people in real life do happily stay with their high school sweethearts, but its popularity as a fictional trope makes me uneasy.)

What are your favourite family love scenes?

SIX:

BENEDICK: I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?

BEATRICE: As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.

– Much Ado About Nothing

FIVE:

I was nicely tucked up for the night
Of eternity, and, like a restless dream
Of a fool’s paradise, you, with a rainbow where
Your face is and an ignius fatuus
Worn like a rose in your girdle, come pursued
By fire, and presto! the bedclothes are on the floor
And I, the tomfool, love you.

– Thomas, The Lady’s Not For Burning

FOUR:

“I’d carry you upstairs,” Sorry said, “but you’re so bloody heavy.”

“That’s not what a hero would say,” Laura grumbled, “but it’s all right. I’d rather walk.”

– The Changeover

THREE:

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

– Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

TWO:

“Janet, for God’s sake come to bed.”

“In a minute,” said Janet. “I’m writing you a poem.”

– Thomas and Janet, Tam Lin

ONE:

“Placetne, magistra?”

“Placet.”

– Peter and Harriet, Gaudy Night

It appears I tend towards the ironical. What are your favourites?

It is “Not Given Lightly”, by the mighty Chris Knox!

I am a bit sad writing this, because Chris Knox had a stroke last year that affected his speech and language centres. He now has much trouble with the words he put together so sweetly.

BUT. He is awesome, and also awesome is the way that the music community rallied to get support for him and his family. His mates and fans played benefit concerts and put together a cover album of his songs. It reminded me of the way fandom and writers do the same when people in their communities are in need. Should you wish to support Chris, you can check out Stroke here.

And should you just want to get some great music, you are also advised to check out Stroke. We are talking people like Boh Runga (Stellar*) and Jordan Luck (The Exponents) and the Finn Family and the Mint Chicks, all of whom I have spoken here in the course of this series on chapter headings. Also, there are international artists like The Mountain Goats and Yo La Tengo. Yeeeees, interested, aren’t we?

So here is Chris singing “Not Given Lightly”, which is my, and many other people’s favourite (a phenomenon he wrote about here). This is a fabulous live performance that encapsulates a lot of the joy and exuberance of his work, by, paradoxically, showing what happens when everything goes wrong. If you don’t have a lot of time, try watching from 1:40:

Karen, you say, that was LOVELY. Do we also get a final cookie to go with our final song?

Internets, I can do you one better than that.

Would you like to read the first two chapters of Guardian of the Dead?

Oh, you would? Then why don’t you toddle on over to Allen and Unwin, click on “Read an Extract” (under “More About This Book”) and download yourself the PDF!

And a round-up of the other chapter heading songs, just in case you missed some:

Why Does Love Do This To Me?
Suddenly Strange
Violent
Home, Land and Sea
Sitting Inside My Head
Unity (WARNING: Big spoiler in cookie)
Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!
Pink Frost
Together Alone and Won’t Give In
Maybe Tomorrow

And so we have come to an end! It is two sleeps until Guardian of the Dead officially releases. My heartbeat resembles that of a hummingbird.

But there is no better song for the epilogue than this:

If you think I am going to give you a cookie from the epilogue, you don’t know me at all. Instead, let us have some Iris, because Iris is a delight.

Iris walked straight up to Mark until she was close enough to touch him, her head reaching neatly to just under his collarbone. They looked like something out of a fairy tale; his flaming hair set against her glossy lengths of black. He put his hand on her shoulder and she shook her head hard, then gasped up at him.

“How-”

“Shhh.” His eyes searched the mists. I clung to my tree trunk. “Ellie?”

“What did you do?” Iris demanded, and kicked him in the shin.

Mark jumped back, yelping out a curse, and Iris yelped too, grabbing at her stockinged foot. She overbalanced hard into the rim of a fountain with a thump that echoed dully, and then lurched upright again, landing a wild punch on his shoulder. He evaded the next one, but he was no longer looking for me.

“What are you going to do?” Iris demanded, limping towards him again. She swung her handbag at him and he danced out of her clumsy, if enthusiastic, reach. “Are you going to bewitch her?”

“I can’t! I just want to explain. Ellie, please! It’s safe, I promise!”

“I’m right here,” I called, and waded through the fog.

He favoured me with a tight smile. “Good. We were just about to start pulling hair.”

I’d back Iris in that fight, Mark, you adorable streak of twiggy uselessness.

This is “Pink Frost”, a lovely little ditty about a man who has accidentally murdered his girlfriend and is now really distressed about the way she’s not moving. I feel awful sorry for him!

No one murders their girlfriend in Chapter Eleven, but it’s the bloodiest chapter by far until [SPOILER]. And meanie that I am, I’m not going to tell you who dies, and instead proffer this:

Then we were standing in the middle of a creek that came up to my knees, long river grasses winding about my calves. Iris moaned, a low, wavering noise that cut off into abrupt sobs. Bare-limbed European trees stood on the banks, with the odd patch of green indicating a cabbage tree or pine. I peered through them and made out a familiar squat, large structure, lit up by harsh white lights – the student association building. We were in the part of the creek that the pub looked over, but it seemed that no one had been out on the cold terrace at the time we appeared. At any rate, there weren’t any cries of alarm.

Mark staggered and fell against me, dragging Iris with him. I stood, somehow, against their double weight, and shoved back until we were all righted again, and splashing towards the bank. We collapsed in a tangle of cold wet limbs and bruises.

The Mint Chicks! They headed overseas, and are now based in Portland, which is a Big Deal in NZ music. Like, I am pretty sure American musicians are all, “Oh, I’m number one in Finland? That’s cool, I guess.” But NZ musicians playing original material generally need international sales and tours to be financially solvent. I think the pressure is good for the music, but probably bad for the musicians.

Anyway, this is “Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!”, which has the most punctuation of any song title I’ve ever heard. I am very sad I can’t show you the music video, because it is awesome – a sort of suburban Red Riding Hood runs through the dark streets with a big German Shepherd, looking for love! Love is a dude in a paddock singing this song. But you can at least hear the song itself.

This titles Chapter Seven, which is so full of spoilers that the cookie below is pretty much the only non-spoiler laden bit in the whole thing.

When I arrived at Classics for third period, having spent all twenty minutes of morning break* struggling with the computer lab printers, a note taped to the door informed us that Professor Gribaldi was on leave; we were to have a study period instead.

I’d passed most of my classmates in the corridor, but one of them — Hannah something — was scowling at the notice, her own essay crumpling slightly in her hand. “I was up until four on this,” she said. It wasn’t exactly to me, I thought, just a necessary burst of frustration into the corridor. The skin under her eyes was dark and tight.

“I turned down coffee with a hot guy,” I offered.

“Oh, that sucks! And after all her crap about dedication and sacrifice. I bet students in Virginia never take sick days.”

“Are you kidding? Students in Virginia attend classes when they have the plague.”

She grinned. “I heard that one senior in Virginia died in the first term, and his decomposing corpse still attended all the classes.”

“And got top grades,” I said, nodding.

“And got into Yale, Harvard, and NYU.”

“Unlike slack Mansfielders, who have no Advanced Placement and no Ivy Leagues to aim for and no work ethic whatsoever.”

She laughed and shook her essay. “Four a.m.! I’m going to hand this in at the office. Want me to take yours?”

* Robyn informed me that American teenagers didn’t usually get a morning break – just lunch. “But when did you EAT?” I asked, horrified. I was hungry throughout the entirety of high school. I cannot imagine going without my precious precious break, during which I routinely ate a giant afghan biscuit and drank a can of Coke.