Words and word play

If you wish to request special words/wordplay in the (usually) weekly posts on Princess Charming, please feel free to do so by replying to a post, or sending me an email. For instnace, someone has requested the word 'erstwhile'. I will try my best to slot it in.

C.

The new look Barbie - oops, I mean 'Constantia'.

It's been a fun day of wardrobe malfunctions as Ken Doll had difficulty getting into his dress. Yep, I thought I'd take cross-dressing to the next level by switching clothes on Barbie and Ken. Unfortunately, Ken was a bit fatter than expected so I had to do some snipping...of the clothes.

This is all part of the new look Princess Charming, which will be featuring Barbie, Ken, and some My Little Ponies. Maybe Dumbledore as well, I haven't quite decided.

Stay in tune!

C.

Excuse us while we change

Princess Charming is getting a makeover. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out exactly how that's going to happen so the blog's going to look a little odd for the next couple of weeks. Apologies in advance!

To preach or not to preach

So, I'm bored and I have nothing better to do (except 4 assignments which are due in the next 2 weeks). I start reading other writers' blogs, because writers' blogs are usually about writing so I feel less guilty for reading up on what could potentially be research for an exegesis down the track. I've been reading Tom Cho's blog lately. I've even commented on his blog about 'show and tell' and 'didacticism'. (Did I spell that right? You grammar police people find out for me, ok?) Tom Cho says you can break the writing rules. He wants to 'tell not show' and be didactic.

I'm not entirely convinced. Today, I workshopped a piece that was stuffed with didactic dialogue. The writer thought he was very clever by making grandiose statements out of fish and chips and God. *SIGH* All he did was exclude his audience. The writer was not Tom Cho. :)

Spring cleaning

Apologies to all those who have feeds to princess-charming.com. I am doing a bit of spring cleaning on the website.

For those who prefer to read in decent-sized chapters as opposed to 300-word blogs, there is now an abridged version of Princess Charming that can be accessed in the left-hand column of the website.

Happy reading,

C.

The other Princess Charming

Edsel Grasscutter and Mord the Dragon have been with Constantia from Draft One. Prince Lucien, on the other hand, is a very recent addition.

It was 2007. I had been messing around with Princess Charming for a couple of years already. Something was missing. I knew exactly what was missing, a male protagonist, and the characters I had created over the years (Benedicci, Lachlan, Dudley de Bruite, Ivan Stanislevich) were failing me or - rather - they were failing Constantia and I was ready to trash the novel in that bin called 'juvenilia'. It was then when I saw Patrick Wolf, a British solo artist who had been hailed as the next David Bowie.

Wolf was indulgent, eccentric, and unprofessional. He threw a tantrum mid-song, saying something very much like 'Fuck, I can't do this shit' and stormed off, leaving his bewildered instrumentalists waiting on stage. It was then, whilst the crowd fidgeted and rustled around me, I decided that Wolf would make a great gender-confused prince i.e. the other Princess Charming.

Short

Whoops. It's been over a month since I've posted up on 'Work in Progress'. Latest news so far is that my work has been published in Short: a collection of interesting short stories and other stuff from some surprising and intelligent people. All procedes from Short's sales will go to Big Brothers Big Sisters, so please do purchase a copy from Black Dog Books (www.bdb.com.au) and support a good cause.