Not Another Noughties Review Post

No really, it isn't. The past decade has been - on balance - a bit of a shit, so I'm not going to dissect the whole thing year by year. Undeniable highlights of 2000-2008 include getting married, having not one but two great kids and getting my stories published for the first time. Aside from that ... well, let's move on, shall we?

While I'm not going to inflict ten years of analysis on you, however, I'm happy to examine 2009 in isolation. I took a big kicking from the global financial crisis, what with freelancers being the first against the wall when the money runs out, but if I ignore the money side of things I've actually achieved a reasonable amount in terms of my writing this year. Maybe that's because of the proper paying work drying up ... hmmm.

Anyway as 2009 wraps I've had just the one story published (Rights of Passage in the Grants Pass anthology), but have nailed four more stories for release in the next twelve months, with one more still waiting for a yay or nay and another on the boil for a project that should be given the go-ahead in early January. Meanwhile my story Just Us made the cut for next year's Best-Of anthology Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror Volume 4, and let's not forget I finished the first draft of my NaNoWriMo novel. It's rough as guts, but with rewrites, who knows ...

That doesn't sound like a whole hell of a lot, but there's been another side to the work that's crept in this year: editing. One or two proof-reading favours for the bods at Morrigan Books grew into my being asked to co-edit next year's Scenes From The Second Storey with Amanda Pillar. We've been on the case since August, coralling stories and working closely with the writers to get them ready for publication, and we're now within a whisker of a complete manuscript to farm out to readers. Add to that my decision to join the Australian Horror Writers Association critique group and I've spent a lot of time in the last twelve months pulling stories apart, seeing how they work and putting them back together again. Not only good fun (and hugely satisfying if it leads to better stories), but also very instructive when it comes to my own writing ... (Must. Avoid. Adverbs.)

Unfortunately I've not a great deal to report from the last couple of weeks. Like a car, I stop working if I overheat and that inevitably means sporadic writing at best during December and January. Instead I've caught up on my reading (six months' backlog of 2000AD, The Amazing Spider-man and the Fables comics, along with a decent-sized pile of books) and reacquainted myself with the concept of the siesta.

I've been idly tinkering with the idea of resolutions ... last year's (get fit, blog more often) were partial successes. I got fit in the summer, piled it on in the winter, and as for posting on here ... well it's been sporadic, hasn't it?

So for 2010, something achievable, perhaps ... how about 12 short stories or equivalent by the end of the year? Sound do-able?

Just have to wait and see ...

Little Black Book

Took a couple of days off after NaNoWriMo, at which point my back seized up - unused to not sitting at a keyboard, see? But it wasn't long before I was back into it, and over the last week I've been ripping through projects like a good 'un.

With the kids chucking out of school in about a week, it's been all about shoring up for the month and a half where my work rate will slow to almost nothing. I've binge-viewed movies, finishing all but one of the films I have to review between now and the second week of January. I've rewritten and submitted a short story for an anthology with an imminent deadline. I've proofed a book of short stories and critiqued a number of tales for friends and colleagues. And I've edited a sizeable wodge of the outstanding pieces for Scenes From the Second Storey. But the best thing to happen in the last week has been for my Little Black Book to prove itself.

Like a lot of writers I have a notebook, in which I scribble random ideas, details of interesting things I've read or seen in the news. You know ... raw material. And last week the book finally came good. Asked by a publisher to pitch a short story in double-quick time, and with not a single idea to work with, I dusted off the notes and started reading.

Straight away, there they were - two words I'd written down well over eighteen months ago that fit the brief perfectly. Within 12 hours I'd researched and written a loose synopsis that was tentatively accepted 12 hours after that. Fastest story I've ever plotted. And reason enough to keep scribbling in that notebook ...

Crossing the Line

So there you have it. Three days to go and I have passed the 50,000 word mark, officially completing NaNoWriMo 2009. I even managed to squeeze an extra 600 words out before the plot collapsed, gasping, under the strain.

As far as the story itself goes ... well, it's workable. Yes, there are dodgy bits (like the character who fulfils a function for the first half of the book, then mysteriously disappears ...) and there'll be a fair old rewrite required, but you never know. At least it's proven the story has the legs to sustain a longer-than-usual length. By the time it's tidied up, I can even see it cracking 70,000 words.

The big thing I've picked up is that my writing speed is now far faster than before, and ultimately that should make me more productive. But whether I can make the jump from microscopically fiddling with plots before writing anything to just plunging in without a safety net ... the jury's out on that one.

Wordhammer: 40K

I've got a job on next week that will essentially pay for everyone's Christmas presents, so wanting a clear run at that I've been beating away at the NaNo word count over the weekend. And today, with much celebration (well, I stopped for a coffee) I cracked the 40,000 mark:



That puts me two and a half days in front, with a shade under 10,000 words to go. Doesn't sound like a lot, but I'm starting to wonder if the story still has enough plot left to get it over the line. Quite apart from anything else, having a couple of days off to do proper, paying work will give me a chance to nail down the ending in my head ...

31,999

Hit a personal milestone today as my NaNo novel overtook the word count for my novella in the Bernice Summerfield book Old Friends. When it reached one word shy of 32,000 it officially became the longest single story I've ever written.

Now, if I can get it published one day ...

Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror: Volume Four

The good people at Brimstone Press have just announced the line-up for their forthcoming best-of-the-year anthology Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror Volume Four ... which just happens to include a story by yours truly. The full roster of stories is:

The Last Great House of Isla Tortuga by Peter M. Ball
The Claws of Native Ghosts by Lee Battersby
Pale Dark Soldier by Deborah Biancotti
Heere Be Monsters by John Birmingham
Teeth by Stephen Dedman
Her Collection of Intimacy by Paul Haines
A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead by Richard Harland
Moments of Dying by Robert Hood
Just Us by Pete Kempshall
Painlessness by Kirstyn McDermott
Smoking, Waiting For the Dawn by Jason Nahrung
The Casting Out by Miranda Siemienowicz

Obviously that's a pretty impressive list of names from the Australian spec fic scene, so I'm pretty excited and flattered to be included. (And on a side note, I'm also pleased to say that four of the eleven other writers on the list - Stephen Dedman, Paul Haines, Robert Hood and Kirstyn McDermott - will be featuring in Scenes From the Second Storey next year. Hurrah!)

ADFH Volume Four book will also include a comprehensive summary of the dark fiction scene Down Under over the past year. It's not out for a couple of months yet, but you can get along to the Brimstone website right now and order a copy ahead of time.

Great Minds ...?

I imagine everyone who's done any writing for any length of time will have experienced this ...

I've had a short story on my mind for well over a year - I had intended to pitch it for Voices, but it fell foul of the fact that all stories for that particular book had to be confined to a single hotel room. This idea needed the characters to spend some time outside of it, so the story was shelved and forgotten.

A couple of months ago I find it again, dust it off and decide to write the thing. It's a bit limp in places, but generally holds together reasonably well, so I shoot it off to my trusty beta-readers. It divides opinion. Some think it's in need of major surgery, others that a minor tweak will do it. And with the readers' votes exactly even, I decided to set it aside again, come at it with a fresh outlook and see what happens.

Fast forward to a conversation with a friend last week. He's talking about a Famous Writer he likes, one I myself am not that keen on, regardless of his stature in the industry. Suddenly my friend is telling me all about this story Famous Writer wrote ... and I sit there, slack-jawed, as I listen to him recount what could, but for some minor changes, be the very story I wrote some weeks earlier. Had I pressed on with my tale and submitted it to anyone ... well the word 'plagiarism' springs to mind.

Of course, this kind of thing does happen - as someone once said, there are no original stories. But to find that mine bore such close resemblance to something written many moons ago by Famous Writer ... I don't know whether to be irritated at the wasted effort or pleased that I'm obviously thinking along the same lines as a successful scribe.

Actually, the fact that I don't much like Famous Writer swings it for me ...

Anyway, NaNoWriMo continues apace.



Fourteen days into the 30 and I'm a shade over the minimum word count. The plot's creaky and the characterisation's wobbling like a trampolining jellyfish but that's rather the point, isn't it - to weed out these problems along the way?

Tomorrow then it's foot to the floor for 25,000 words.

The halfway mark ...

One Step Ahead

So I eventually decided that I'd give that big project a go. Yes, I've got plenty of other claims on my attention at the moment, but for various reasons this is something I thought I'd take a shot at.

Over the last week I've been stealthily working at a story for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short). For those unfamiliar with the scheme, the rules are that you start writing any time after midnight on November 1 and you finish before the stroke of midnight on November 30/December 1. In that 30-day period, you write a book of no fewer than 50,000 words.

And that's it.

There are no prizes for this. The point of the exercise is to put a rocket up the bum of people who sit around wanting to write a book but never quite finding the time. By the end of the month, the ideal situation is that you've broken the back of your chosen project, that you have a sizeable manuscript that may not be JK Rowling but that gives you the raw material you need to turn into (hopefully) a viable novel.

My big concern with this - beyond "Do I have the time?" - was the way I write stories in general. I plan. I plot and I fiddle with a tale until I know exactly where it's going and how it's going to get there. Then I start to write. That's not to say I don't deviate from my route map as I go, but I have to have the route map to begin with.

For this project, however, I started with a vague idea for a villain and a single idea for a scene: just enough to get me going. At the end of each day, when I've made my word count, I've been thinking up enough plot to fill the next day's writing. And, somewhat surprisingly, I'm rather enjoying it. Of course, there's the very real possibility I'll get to the middle of the month (or earlier) and find the whole thing is absolute pants, an irredeemable mess that's wasted countless hours of my time. But so far being just one day ahead of the story is working for me.

(I have to admit that I thought of an ending the other night. I'm keeping it tucked away somewhere safe ...)

So here's a little widgety thing that the project organisers provide for procrastinating bloggers like myself.



I'll pop in and update it every couple of days, so you can see how I'm travelling and if I'm falling behind at all. Feel free to drop me a line and have a go if it looks like I'm slacking off.

Apart from that, let's see how it goes ...

More Grants Goodness

Yes, I'm quiet again. I'm struggling to decide whether or not to attempt a reasonably large project ... I think I've already decided that I will, but I've got to clear the decks for it first and my decks, they are cluttered.

Meantime, here's another review of Grants Pass, courtesy of Ann Wilkes at sfreader.com. It's another good one, too. Yay!

Encounter Group

School holidays are over, which means I'm back to busy, editing for the Second Storey collection and proofing for another upcoming anthology (not my project, just helping out ...).

Toughest gig of the week, however, was coming up with an Afterword and Biography for my story in Close Encounters of the Urban Kind. I've mentioned before my tendency to get horribly blocked with this kind of thing. I can understand why people like the Afterwords - they're like mini director's commentaries for each story - but I do struggle to find something interesting to say ... If I 'um' and 'ah' over the Biography, however, I could simply recycle it from an old book, so I've only myself to blame, right?

Meanwhile the full table of contents for the anthology is now up at Apex Books' website. I say "full", but there are still two winners to be selected for the book from the writers competition. I know someone who's entered, so fingers crossed for him ...

As it stands, the line-up is:

Alma Alexander - I Am Sorry for Talking So Rarely to Strangers
Erik Scott de Bie - Racing Lights
Richard Lee Byers - End of Life
Nate Crowder - Frames of Reference
Ivan Ewert - Waterheads
Robert Farnsworth - A Late Night Snack
Pete Kempshall - Dead Letter Drop
Carole Johnstone - The Invitation
Rosemary Jones - Two Out, Wendigo
Martin Livings - Lollo
Eric Lowther - It Came from the Backseat
Ramsey Lundock - Tea Cups & Saucers
Shannon Page - The Hippie Monster of Eel River
Joshua Palmatier - Mastihooba
Jennifer Pelland - Headlights
Rick Silva - Roadkill
Jeff Soesbe - Green Tears on Black Velvet
Eddy Webb - Gloomy Sunday

A few Grants Pass alumni on there you'll notice ... but judging solely from the information here, I really want to read Two Out, Wendigo. With a title like that, it's got to be worth a look.

The Secret's Out

All right, so I alluded to a nice piece of news in my last post, and I've now been given the all-clear to talk about it ... My short story Just Us (from the Morrigan Books collection Voices) has been selected for inclusion in Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror Volume Four! Hurrah!

ADFH is an annual compilation of the year's best creepy writing from Down Under, so it's obviously very flattering to be included amongst the authors. You can take a gander at some of the writers who made it into previous volumes at the Brimstone Press website.

My thanks then to Angela Challis for choosing the story - as soon as I hear about the full line-up and ordering details I'll post them here.

"A Gorgeous Collection"

Got a surprising but altogether tingly piece of news about something I've written today ... but since I don't think I'm allowed to actually say what it is yet, I'll distract you with something else.

Copies of Grants Pass should be available in the UK and Australia soon (I think - but don't forget you can always order one directly from here). The book's already freely available Stateside, however, so I assume the US is where this latest review of the book comes from.

It's a long and reasonably detailed analysis (although not so much as to be loaded with spoilers), the bottom line being that it gives the book a lovely big thumbs up. Better yet, it names my story as one of several stand-outs in a book that by all accounts appears to be packed with them.

Go see what the reviewer has to say, and then make the only sane decision you can ... buy a copy.

Here endeth the pimpage.

Drop's In

I've just had word back that Dead Letter Drop - one of the stories I was racing to finish a couple of months ago - has been accepted into Apex Publishing's upcoming anthology Close Encounters of the Urban Kind.

The book's due out in the first quarter of 2010, and features stories that fuse classic urban legends with tales of alien encouters. A full table of contents is still to come, but I'll be posting it and order details as soon as they're released.

Elf Visitors

The emails have been zipping back and forth over the last week, resulting in some pleasing progress with All-Australian Scenes From The Second Storey. Amanda and I have been editing our respective socks off and we now have six of the thirteen stories wrapped up, with a couple more teetering on the brink of completion. Hurrah!

One of the things we've been asking our writers to do (on top of the usual author's biography) is to pen a short paragraph about how their stories took shape. What inspired them in the particular songs they were given? Did their ideas leap fully formed into their heads after a single listen, or did they have to percolate over several weeks? And while I was reading through a couple of these afterwords, the penny suddenly dropped: I'll have to write one of my own for the story I have in the Scenes International Edition.

Now I'm not very good at things like remembering where I get my ideas from. One thing I'm certain of, it wasn't from the song lyrics (the tune I was allocated, as you may recall, was an instrumental). So I've sat and I've thought about it, and so far I've come up entirely blank. If I could find the notebook I was using at the time, that might help, but I really can't recall very much about writing the story itself ...

So I've decided I'm going for "I left an iPod, a pen and some pieces of paper on the desk when I went to bed, and when I woke up some elves had done it all for me". It's worked for other people.

Meanwhile, the Australian Horror Writers' Association Critique Group (of which I am a member) is fast approaching its first birthday and Horrorscope has reported briefly on its successes so far. As an experiment, the group appears to have worked very well indeed, so much so that plans are afoot to form a second writers' cabal to run alongside this one. Check out the article for details on how to apply if you're a member of the AHWA and you want like-minded people to pull your stories to pieces (and then put them back together better than they were to begin with). Because we don't all have elves to do our heavy lifting ...

'The Famous Man Looked at the Red Cup'

I was fortunate enough to see an interview with writer Dan Brown on TV this morning and as a result any tiny flame of desire I had to read his new book has now been utterly extinguished.

Phew.

Coincidentally, the UK's Telegraph newspaper has gone so far as to publish a Top 20 list of excruciating sentences from Brown's works. You'll be crying with laughter by the end of the countdown. That or it's your eyes bleeding.

It's nice to know that I and dozens of my friends are better writers than Dan Brown. If only we had his profile and his sales ...

(Thanks to the fabulous Martin Livings for flagging the article - love your work!)

Making Changes

Morrigan Books has now officially announced the thing that's been chewing up my time recently: I'm co-editing the anthology Scenes From the Second Storey with the company's in-house editor Amanda Pillar.

(Got to say the use of the word "countless" in the announcement is rather generous. Think they're mixing me up with Ian Mond!)

Some of you may recall that I'm writing a story for a collection of the same name - fear not, I haven't been commissioning myself. There will be two versions of the book, one featuring international authors (the one I'm writing for) and one comprised entirely of Australian contributors (the one I'm editing). There'll be an offical announcement of the writers in the Australian edition in due course following some recent, unavoidable changes to the line-up, but it's safe to say there are some highly accomplished scribes involved ...

So now the job's out in the open I'd better get back to it - rewrites and corrections don't email themselves!

Green Across The Board

I'm not being very good at keeping up to date with this, am I?

In my defence it's been another mad month. With my wife falling prey to pneumonia I've had my hands full keeping things together in the household, something not made any easier by both kids also falling ill and leaving me literally the last man standing.

That aside, I've somehow managed to get some writing done too. After July's abysmal fumbling of many and varied projects, I set my sights a little lower for August, aiming to finish and submit just two short stories on deadline. And I'm happy to say I managed both - they're away being pulled apart and mulled over by editors right now, and I should find out in the next couple of weeks if either, both or none of them have been commissioned.

(This is also a good time for a quick shout out to the Australian Horror Writers Association Critique Group, whose members were kind enough to act as beta readers on both stories. Indeed when I shot them across one story in particular - mildly panicked at the swiftly approaching deadline - they dropped everything to get me five pithy and detailed crits in under twelve hours, allowing me plenty of time for rewrites. Thanks, chaps!)

Things are also looking good on that other project that shall remain nameless (although not for much longer, I hope!). After some last-minute scrabbling to replace a couple of authors with scheduling difficulties, my co-editor and I are now in possession of all thirteen stories for the anthology. Of those, we've gone through around half which are now back with their writers. All being well the remainder will be cleared in a week or so. There are some great yarns in there, by some writers I'm very pleased to be able to work with ... as ever, more news when I'm allowed to reveal it!

And finally Grants Pass has now been released in the US and should be available in the UK and Australia in the next few weeks. Already the Horror Writers Association in the States have requested a copy as a possible nominee in the next Stoker Awards, and what press I've read concerning the book seems overwhelmingly positive. Hurrah!

Meanwhile editor Jennifer Brozek and a handful of the book's writers have been interviewed for Seattle Geekly - you can get the podcast here.

That's it for now then. Next project: more timely updates to this blog ...

Friday Fright Project

I'm still mired in edits and first drafts, so not a lot of time for bloggery. In the meantime, here's a grotesque little story to keep you entertained.

Take away their PlayStations and they make their own entertainment ...

Putting It Out Of My Misery

July 31 is deadline day for four projects I've had my eye on, and I've been scribbling away for some time now to get as many done as possible.

A couple of weeks ago it became obvious that I'd not have time to write stories for all four. Two of them had ideas ready to go, so those were the two I decided to stick with, ditching the others. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices, right?

Of the two remaining, one was partially formed, the other pretty much written in my head - that's the one I started with, reasoning that I'd be done with it sooner and then able to concentrate on the other.

Except that the longer I worked on the story, the worse it got. The plot seemed to hold water, but after finishing a 7000 word first draft it was just ... wrong.

So I pulled it apart, put it back together and started writing again. And if anything it ended up even worse.

I put it aside and puttered around with the second story for a day or two, but my mind was stuck in a rut. Why didn't Story One work? Maybe if I did this to it ...

More tinkering under the hood, another draft and the story had gone from a reasonably straightforward yarn with a risque comedy bent to a deadly serious tale of infidelity, murder and vengeance, stuffed to the brim with sub-plots and reverses.

And in its own way it made sense. It's just that it wasn't the story I wanted to write, and I'm pretty damn sure it's not the story the editors are looking for either. So with one day to go and two stories to write I have 8000 unuseable words of one and 2500 incomplete words of the other.

Which is how I've come to this moment of clarity.

Maybe the story can't be fixed. Maybe the problem is so ingrained and deeply rooted that juggling characters and tweaking the plot is just polishing a turd?

So I'm taking it out behind the shed and shooting it. If I know it's dead I might be able to concentrate on Story Two, which appears to have none of the problems plus the added bonus of having a tentative approval based on the synopsis I ran past the editor.

Now all I have to do is get an extension on that deadline ...

Just the Job

It's been a strange old month, both filled with work and plagued by the loss of it ...

The global financial crisis appears to have been just the excuse many companies were looking for to get rid of workers. Anyone with the word 'freelance' in their job description (ie has no contractual obligations owed to them) has been fair game. Four weeks ago, it cost me yet another long-term writing gig, meaning that in the last year I've lost about 80 per cent of my annual income. And with Perth hardly a hot bed of publishing, the chances of my clawing it back are slim. Naturally, the latest cut conicided with my wife finishing her work at university for the term - eight weeks in which she doesn't get paid either.

Needing to bridge that two month gap, we turned to the government, only to receive a letter from Centrelink (that's the Aussie DSS, for you northerners) informing us that our income is too high to qualify for any financial assistance. I'm framing the letter, which declares a family of four can survive on a total of $300 a week (about 120 quid), because I'm still upbeat enough to find it funny.

Anyway, despite all that I've still been flat out working - the problem being that the work's either low or non-paying, at least at this stage. I'm a couple of short stories to the good but because they're on spec, no income yet. Meanwhile I've also been getting stuck into a couple of as yet unannounced editorial projects ... but again it's too early in the game for them to warrant any cash, unfortunately.

The good news is that I've identified a gap in the job market - if the employment section of the paper's to be believed, there's a shortage of people in Perth who can make decent coffee. So I'll be signing up for a barista course as soon as possible.

After all, what good's a writer without caffeine?

More from Horrorscope

There's another early review of Grants Pass up at Horrorscope, again very positive about the collection.

http://ozhorrorscope.blogspot.com/2009/06/another-book-review-of-grants-pass.html

Don't know about you, but with all the attention it's getting I really want a copy now.

Pointers Mean Prizes

Just a quickie ... There's a competition now open to promote pre-orders for Grants Pass, and entering is simplicity itself.

All you have to do is post details of the GP pre-order link on your own blog or LJ account and link your post to the original contest entry (http://jennifer-brozek.livejournal.com/50584.html)

The magic address you'll need to big-up is http://www.morriganbooks.com/?page_id=172 and if you want to paste on the trailer or any of the early reviews (you'll find them all at the LJ address above), so much the better.

The randomly selected winner will receive a Grants Pass prize pack, including a letter from the book's catalyst, Kayley Allard, and memorabilia from the actual Grants Pass.

Can't say fairer than that!

Grants Pass Trailer Online

I've been Internet-challenged for the last couple of days. With my wireless connection turning up its toes, it's been a question of hunching down in a cold corridor with a laptop plugged into the wall if I've wanted to go online ... not greatly appealing.

After 48 hours of being given the run-around by tech-support, my wife bumped into the modem while carrying a basket of washing. The aerial fell off. Turns out it was loose, which is why the wireless wasn't connecting. Tighten it up and everything's back to normal. What a colossal waste of two days.

Anyway, while I've been faffing around with that, the chaps at Morrigan have continued to busily promote Grants Pass. Here's the newly released trailer for the anthology:



If they keep this up you should be foaming at the mouth for a copy by the time August rolls around.

Initial Pass

It's a couple of months until Grants Pass comes out, but already there's a review of the anthology online. Horrorscope has the distinction of being the first cab off the rank, and I'm pleased to say that the reviewer loved it. Go and have a look!

Info Dumping

As you might have guessed, I've been a bit busy.

Unfortunately not all of the things that have drained away my time over the last month have been particularly exciting. Topping the "Bleeding from the Eyeballs" charts is my tax return, involving the usual agonising trawl through receipts and bills that would undoubtedly be easier if I actually organised them as I went along instead of relying on my haphazard piling system ... harumph.

But let's stick with the interesting stuff. As I might have mentioned, I'm now a member of a story critiquing consortium for the Australian Horror Writers Association, offering my (sometimes shonky) advice to fellow writers in return for their feedback on mine. It beats working in a vacuum, which is an ever-present peril for writers, and has had the additional benefit of imposing deadlines on my unsolicited work. Knowing I can only submit to the group once a fortnight has spurred me to have something ready for the start of each submission period, and that's done wonders for my productivity. Hooray!

(I say that, but of course this last fortnight has been so filled with Other Concerns I missed my own deadline ... )

A belated thanks is also due to AHWA member Amanda Spedding, who provided me with exactly the information I needed about decomposition in human corpses within moments of my mentioning it. It's a worry that she had it to hand like that, but in recognition of her help I've not alerted the authorities ...

Meanwhile I've been chipping away at a couple of pitches for publishers, one that's involved hitting the books for research and another that's involved ... well, sitting about and waiting for the right idea to bubble to the surface. Reckon I've cracked both now, so it's all about finding the time to sit down and actually write the things.

The promotional machine has now ground into action for August's release of the Grants Pass anthology. Morrigan Books' electronic arm, Three Crow Press, has released a couple of teaser tales to give you all a taste of what to expect from the post-apocalyptic anthology. Just click on the links to read Snake Oil by David Priebe and Warlord of Rhode Island by Rick Silva.

(Incidentally, Amanda Pillar has been nominated for a Ditmar Award for her work as co-editor on Grants and Voices - congrats to her, and don't forget to sling her a vote if you're one of the few people eligible to do so!)

And lastly Big Finish's Short Trips range is now on sale pending the wrapping up and deletion of the series. You can now grab my stories in The History of Christmas and Transmissions for around AU$19 - cracking value for hardback books when you consider what a paperback costs these days. Again, click on the links and then spend freely.

Trips Over

The writing's been on the wall for some time, but now the official word's come down that Big Finish will no longer be publishing their Doctor Who: Short Trips range.

This is obviously a great shame, and not just because it closes off another avenue of submissions for me (although that's all the more disappointing since the company's Bernice Summerfield range has also reduced its print output. Bah). For with Short Trips gone any number of new writers will be losing a valuable opportunity to blood themselves. Recent anthologies have given a host of fresh talents their big breaks, notably How The Doctor Changed My Life, a book peopled entirely by previously unpublished writers. What's more, positive reviews for the last three or four volumes suggested that the series was undergoing something of a renaissance.

But ultimately it's out of BF's hands - their licence to publish the books is expiring, it's the end of the line. Simple as that.

If there's a bright side, it's that all the books in the range will be on sale at vastly reduced prices, starting May 1. It's a chance to pick up some great stories on the cheap and you'd be a fool to miss out. Plus, of course, it'll be your last chance to catch my tales in The History of Christmas and Transmissions, if you've not done so already. I'll certainly be grabbing another HoC after a postal stuff-up a couple of years back meant I only received one contributor copy - got to rectify that before they go out of print forever!

Itis

That's what I've been suffering from for the last few days - when you get tonsilitis and you don't have any tonsils, you've got to call it something, I suppose. Anyway, it smuggled itself in under the guise of the flu, and has only just been seen off by some very strong anti-biotics. Fun times.

For all that, there've been a few things bubbling under, workwise. The unnamed project I mentioned a month or two back has moved on slightly in that I now have a co-conspirator to talk to. The job's something I've never done before, so it's nice to have someone along who knows the ropes. I imagine an announcement will be forthcoming. Soon. Maybe.

I've also been asked to work on a couple of other things, one of which is a short story for a collection with a very left-field theme. Well, I've not seen a brief like it before. Should be interesting.

And I've given a polish to an olde storie for resubmission to a well-regarded Australian publication. I've just shot it off to some wise heads for a critique, so we'll see how that goes.

Good Friday (Crap Saturday, Worse Sunday)

Ah, conventions. So much fun at the time ... But like aeroplanes, where you're stuck in a confined space while everyone's breath is recycled around you, you never know what you'll come away with.

In my case, flu.

Started to spiral into illness on Saturday, and Sunday was a complete write-off. Today I'm achy but functioning - the burning throat's a bonus.

Anyway, Swancon. That was quite enjoyable actually. Turned up nice and early to watch my fellow Voices scribes Shane Jiraiya Cummings and Martin Livings taking part in a panel on horror writing, then settled down for some lunch, beers and a chat. Almost everyone there'd been at this writing lark for longer than I have, and gave me some very good advice about available markets to pitch to now that I've got a bit of time on my hands. I'll be looking into all that once I'm not-sick.

The signing itself was, at least, more of a success than Spinal Tap's ill-fated public appearance. The organisers contrived to sit the four Voices authors on different tables, and even after a reshuffle we only managed to get three of us grouped together - Martin, Sonia Marcon and myself.



But for all that we sold a couple of books, had a laugh and no one threw fruit at us. So I'd call that a win.

Next up - a rewrite and polish on a story I was talked into resubmitting for an upcoming anthology ... even though it's been knocked back twice. Third time's the charm, right?

Swancon Signing - Tomorrow!

Yup, it's rolled around already. I'll be at Swancon tomorrow signing copies of Voices (and indeed any of my Big Finish books should either of my readers think to turn up with copies of those as well).

Kick off at 3pm and I'm sure we'll be doing drinking or something afterwards ... hurrah!

Signs and Co-signs

It's been announced on Facebook, so it must be official ... I'll be at Swancon on Friday 10th April between 3pm and 4pm to sign copies of the horror anthology Voices.

It won't just be me manning the desk - I'll be joined by three of my co-authors, Shane Jiraiya Cummings, Sonia Marcon and Martin Livings, so if you're in Perth and you fancy a natter there'll be plenty of us to talk to.

I'm sure I'll be allowed to sign other things too, so if you know someone who's got one of my Doctor Who or Bernice Summerfield stories they want scribbled on, feel free to point them in the right direction. I'll be happy, so long as things don't end up like this:



Heh.

Out for a Duck

Didn't even make it onto the short list for the Tin Ducks. Ho hum.

Thanks all the same to those of you who nominated me - I appreciate the effort!

There and Back Again

It's a ten-hour round trip from here to Albany on WA's south coast - hundreds of miles of road populated by maniac drivers who think the speed limit doesn't apply, spiced up by the possibility that a suicidal kangaroo could leap out in front of the car at any moment.

Not a lot of fun then.

It's less amusing still when you have to do the trip in one day, with a funeral at the other end. Yet somehow I contrived to make it even more disastrous.

08:30 - drop the kids at school, having instructed a friend to pick them up at 3pm (we'd still be hours away when school finished).

08:31 - run back to the car, causing the entire sole on one of my shoes to fall off. These are the only shoes I have suitable for a funeral.

08:36 - home. Pick up industial strength glue. Return to car and try to fix the shoe on route.

08:37 - glue so strong the lid won't come off.

08:38 - change into inappropriate boots. It's that or nothing.

09:50 - car hits a bump in the road. At the exact instant I'm drinking a cup of coffee ... Coffee decants down the front of my white shirt. White shirt no longer white. No available options regarding change of shirt.

12:15 - hit road works. Funeral starts in 45 minutes ...

13:00 - funeral starts. We're still in the car ...

13:47 - arrive at cemetery. Funeral finished 15 minutes ago.

14:00-16:00 - the wake. Somehow managed to get through that without stuffing anything up, despite looking and smelling like I'd jumped in the bins behind Starbucks.

16:00 - leave for Perth. At this time of day there are very few cars on the road. It's just a question of setting the cruise control and pointing the car in the right direction.

20:25 - arrive Perth, wondering how the return trip can be so damn fast. Collect one of my children. The other decides she's quite happy staying where she is, thanks. Somehow I can't blame her ...

21:00 - shoulders seize up from three hours behind the wheel. Ouchies.

Hardly the most fitting way to see off one of my wife's relatives, but the concensus seems to be that at least we made the effort. No matter that it was more 'UK sitcom' than 'dignified tribute' ...

Wheels Off

Always the way, isn't it?

I had a grand plan, see? Spend a week clearing the decks of Paying Work so as to free up the following week completely. Then I'd be clear to dedicate a whole five working days to something unsolicited I've been aching to finish for some time now.

Naturally it all went horribly wrong. Raring to go at the start of the second week, I immediately lost three days to my daughter falling ill, then not even a day later one of my wife's relatives passed on suddenly. And that's the week gone, right there.

Nothing to be done about any of that, of course, but it means that until everything blows over there's not much to report here I'm afraid. I do have some writing news to pass on, but it's not set in stone yet so it'll have to wait. Only thing I can say is that it's scary ...

I'll just finish for now with something that had me rolling my eyes in exasperation/ despair/ amusement. I'd popped down to the doctor's to pay for my son's speech therapy (he has a bit of a lisp that we're working on) and was greeted by a smiling receptionist.

"I've come to pay a bill for the Stuttering Clinic," I said.

A look of puzzlement crosses the face of Smiling Receptionist.

"Is that part of the eye treatment centre?"

*Sigh*.

Lessons

Some things I've learned in the last week:

I Really, Really Need An Overseer
... but until I get one I'm going to have to crack my own whip. Setting myself a deadline to work to made all the difference - by last Friday I had a servicable synopsis for something I've been sitting on like an old hen for almost exactly a year. There's quite a bit of work to do on it still, but I'm off the mark at least.

Nit-Picking - Once Learned, Never Forgotten
The proofs came back for my story in the upcoming Grants Pass, and after a couple of reads-through I shot them back to Amanda with my notes. A couple of days later she emailed me to let me know that the changes had all been made ... and that I managed to find more things to fiddle with than the proof-readers had. Unfortunately that says more about me than it does about them.

I Really Want To Watch This Is Spinal Tap Again
The film came up in conversation about something that might or might not happen soon, and I realised how long it's been since I saw it. Must find the time.

When I Grow Up I Want To Be An Acrobat
I got a late birthday treat in the shape of a trip to the circus - not the run-of-the-mill lion tamers and elephants variety, but the more sophisticated Cirque Du Soleil. I've got to say that it's not something I'd have chosen to go to on my own initiative, but having seen it I was impressed. The contortionists, trapeze artists and various leap-aroundy people (stop me if I'm getting too technical) all pushed the limits of what you can do with your body, but my absolute favourite was the gravity-defying trampolinists. I want that job. As it stands the act I'm probably most qualified for, like most writers, is jumping through hoops ...

Not All Editors Are As Good As Mine
A friend of mine out east interviewed me for something recently, sending a sheet of questions onto which I had to type up my responses before emailing it back. It took about an hour all up, by the time I'd thought about the questions. A couple of days later, she sent me draft of the article. My contribution had been scythed down to a single sentence ... a sentence I hadn't actually written. Seems my pal's editor wanted less interview, more facts and figures, necessitating a large amount of reworking. The time to tell your writer these things, I would think, is before actually they start work on the story ... sheesh.

Cakes, Snakes and Good Nintentions

I don't know about you, but I've long since stopped being excited about birthdays. After my 21st, they soon lost their lustre - even my 30th came and went relatively unheralded. (In fairness, I was a very new parent at the time and had far more important things to worry about!)

This year's been a bit different, however, largely thanks to the uncontainable enthusiasm of my daughter.

Her Countdown to Dad's Birthday started about two weeks ago, when first the penny dropped that I'd be getting a bit older. From that point it was all about 'how many sleeps' to the big day, liberally garnished with secretive whisperings and sneakings about. Soon her little brother was in on the act and then my wife ... then a couple of days before the big day came the moment when my girl snuggled up against me and asked if I was excited about my birthday.

And I found myself saying 'Yes'.

It was impossible to stay cynical in the face of such exuberance, and come the day itself she did a great job - breakfast in bed while I tore into the presents, for example. She even made me a cake:



You can work out my age from the candle arrangement ... The jelly snakes were a 'surprise' - last week she'd told me she'd be making the cake itself, but that I'd have to have 'just icing. We don't have any lollies. No lollies at all. Sorry.' Fast forward 20 years and she'll have her own party planning company ... because she'll make a godawful secret agent.

Meanwhile work's become a casualty of the open deadline. Everything I have a time limit on has now been completed, leaving hours of free time to work on unsolicited projects I've had back-burning so long the bottom of the pan's melted. Unfortunately I've been ... well, lacking in discipline, shall we say? It's not helped that I'm getting very good at Wii Sports Golf, nor that my son's got a new Star Wars video game that he needs lots of help with. Where do the hours go?

So from next week, and in the absence of an editor to do it for me, I'm setting myself strict project deadlines. Come next Friday, I want to see results!

Right then, I'm off to build my boy a virtual lightsabre. Good Dad.

Quack Deal

A couple of people have drawn my attention to the upcoming Swancon sci-fi convention here in Perth this coming April, not only as something I might like to pop along to but also for something called the Tin Ducks.

The Tin Ducks are the awards handed out each year by the West Australian Science Fiction Foundation for achivement by WA writers and artists, and it seems that I have a couple of stories that are eligible for nomination.

The obvious candidate I suppose is Link, my story in the Doctor Who collection Short Trips: Transmissions. But it's a bit of a surprise to find that Just Us, from the horror anthology Voices, is also a possibility.

Now I'd have thought that particular story wouldn't qualify (not being sci-fi and all) but WA dark fiction stalwart Shane Jiraiya Cummings would beg to differ. He has listed it as one of a handful of short stories worth a nom, and I'd be mad to argue with the vice president of the Australian Horror Writers Association, wouldn't I?

There's stiff competition for these gongs in the shape of several multiple-award-winning scribes, so my chances of getting anywhere are slim. But if you've read either or both of those stories and you liked what you read, do please pop along to the Tin Ducks nomination page and fling a vote their way.

It can't hurt, can it?

I Worry Sometimes ...

My daughter's just walked up to me, all smiles, and asked, "You know how some things are so cute you just want to bite their heads off?"

Just so you know not to bring any puppies, kittens or small children round to our house.

The Nail

I had a chat with editor Amanda Pillar last week, during which she asked me how closely I plot something before I write it. My one-word answer ("meticulously") came back to bite me in the arse not a day later when the story I was working on fell to bits around my ears.

There's a lot to be said for the thrill of writing something that you've taken great care in mapping out, only to find it veering off in its own new and exciting direction. I've worked on a couple of yarns in which characters and story have taken on lives of their own and the resulting draft has been very different from - and very much better than - the synopsis. I suppose it was inevitable that sooner or later that the reverse should happen.

I'd finished my first draft and was returning to polish it before sending it off, when I noticed a problem. It was a small enough job to fix it, except that in doing so I created another, larger fault. And in fixing that, the issue became bigger and nastier still. It was like one of those sit-com moments where someone attempts a simple, well-intentioned job like hanging a picture only to end up covered in plaster dust and standing in a pile of bricks.

I'm pleased to say that my initial reaction (run screaming for the hills, scattering bits of ripped manuscript in my wake) lasted only a day or so. Everything's fine now, the story's away with the readers , and I'm only a week off where I should be.

Something different next - research for a pitch I've been asked to make and also asked not to talk about.

So shhh.

Why We Have Editors

(Apologies in advance for taking the long way round here - it's Sunday and I'm waffling. If you're pressed for time, skip to the end ...)

Back in the 90s, when I spent some time working in the comics industry, I met no end of people who were ... confused by what it was I actually did. It was a common enough problem that dogged not just myself but many of those who worked at the company on the editorial side. Here's a sample situation:

You'd be at a party, and in response to the 'So, what do you do?' question you'd say that you edited comics. Sometimes there'd be polite interest in this answer, sometimes you'd be able to see the attention draining away from the questioner's face right before your eyes. But altogether too many times there'd be someone who'd respond with the deathless line, 'Oh, you write the words in the little bubbles then?'

Too often people just don't get what editors do. Another misconception I see a lot is that it's all about picking up on spelling mistakes and knowing the difference between "its" and "it's". Obviously it's a plus if you can do that, but all the editors I've ever worked with have been required to do so much more.

For the purposes of this post, let's focus on names.

I was once pulled up by an editor for unwittingly giving a character almost exactly the same name as one of my co-authors. While I failed to pick up on it, his point was that the name would be jarring for the reader. They'd see it on the cover and again in my story, and it would break the spell. He was right, of course, and the name was duly altered.

In TV and film, as I understand it (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), the duty of care goes much further. A script editor is required to check all personal and corporate names in a script, to ensure that they don't exist in the real world. It's a necessary task to avoid thorny issues like the evil organisation in the next Bond film being called Woolworths, or people like I.M. Davros of Bletchley writing in to complain that your show has denigrated their character.

But a really good editor will also be on the ball enough to prevent the unintentional use of words or names that may have very different connotations in other countries. Who can forget, for example, the episode of Mork and Mindy that featured a character by the name of Arnold Wanker?

Which brings me to the thing that got me thinking about all this in the first place (stay with me).

My son's just got hold of a copy of Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary. It's a cracking book, stuffed with all kinds of facts and figures to enhance his genetic predisposition towards the geeky. Every teeny tiny detail is covered, including many from beyond the six movies themselves. The section I particularly enjoyed, however, was about the Jedi High Council as seen in The Phantom Menace. Did you know that in amongst the Yodas and the Mace Windus, there was this guy, too:




So that's how I ended up struggling to explain to the lad why the page was so funny - all the time avoiding the actual word so he doesn't head to school tomorrow and and spend all day shouting it in the playground.

And that's at least part of the reason why we have editors. They don't get nearly enough recognition for the jobs they do.

Lots To Write, Not Too White

Oh, I'm loving this 'all day me day' business. Tapped out 1000 words of a short story before midday, then got to grips with a synopsis after lunch for a bit of variety. In fact, I'd be genuinely happy if only I had some snow.

(You can't see, but I'm pouting like a small child. Hot. Want snow. Now).

While I'm busy pushing out my bottom lip, you can always zip across to Dark Wolf's Fantasy Reviews for one of the first assessments of the Voices collection. But beware, if you haven't read the book yet - the article is stuffed with all-singing, all-dancing, neon-lit spoilers.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

All Write Now

Today's the day ... school's back in. And with both my kids in full-time education for the first time ever, I have six clear hours to write, each and every day, Monday to Friday.

Woo-hoo!

I've not actually written anything since the school holidays started in the last week of December (barring rewrites for an already commissioned piece that simply couldn't wait). It was a conscious decision, one that's let me rattle ideas around in my head without the pressure of having to get anything down on paper. It's a technique that's becoming known as Graham Linehan's Poo and it's worked brilliantly. Come 9am this morning I was good and ready for a story dump.

First off the blocks has been a short piece for entry into a competition. I'll spare you the details. One reason is that I've used it more as a warm-up for the rest of the week than anything else (my chances of winning are on a par with the proverbial infernal moggy). Another is that - barring vague details - I've got out of the habit of talking about what I'm writing.

Fellow writer and top mate Mondy has also picked up his writing again this week, and talks about how enthusing over his work to members of the public inevitably kills that enthusiasm - your man-in-the-street simply doesn't care. And Mondy's absolutely right. The number of glazed responses I've had over the years when I've mentioned a story, I might as well have been talking to doughnuts.

There are exceptions, of course. I rattle on here about projects simply because you choose to be here and must therefore have some interest. (Right? Right?) But even then the details tend to stay under wraps until the job's done and the publishers announce the story. I'll rarely, if ever, bang on about plot details ... because then it'd be doughnut time.

So if anything comes of the competition I'll spill the beans. If not, well it was an interesting exercise. Tomorrow, on to something that's actually been commissioned.

The Wonder Year

Thanks to something I've been reading and the music I've been listening to lately, I got to thinking about a small hypothetical. If you could go back to live in any one year from your lifetime, which one would you choose?

It was an easy pick for me - 1996.

I was in London at a time when the whole 'Cool Britannia' thing was exploding. It was the place to live. Britpop was huge, the country was getting behind its football team for Euro 96 (arguably England's last decent tournament performance) and - at least from where I was standing - the city was a vibrant, optimistic place to be. On a personal level I was doing a job that I was not only pretty good at but also enjoyed immensely, I was still young enough for most of my pay to be going on entertainment rather than 'responsible' expenditure and I'd just met the woman I'd eventually marry.

Certainly time will have given it a rosier hue, but even taking that into account it takes some beating for a single 12 month period.

So yes, 1996 for me please. How about you?

Judge For Yourselves

As you may have noticed, I've not got my finger on the pulse of popular culture just at the moment. So while it may be old news to most of you, I was very excited to find out yesterday that a new Judge Dredd movie is on the cards.

Considering the Batman franchise was rescuable even after Joel Schumacher turned it into a campsite, there's no reason why a second attempt at Dredd can't rectify all the mistakes made in the Stallone version from the 90s. So yes, as far as I'm concerned, bring it on. I'll certainly be buying a ticket.

New Story Comes to Pass

The good folks over at Morrigan Books have just announced their latest anthology, a collection of near-future stories called Grants Pass.

"The world has ended.
It was an act of bio-terrorism gone horribly wrong. A drug resistant version of the Black Death, an airborne mutation of the Ebola virus and the 'Super Flu' were let loose on the world. Barely anyone survived.
A year before the collapse, Grants Pass, Oregon, USA, was labelled as a place of meeting and sanctuary in a whimsical online, 'what if' post. Now, it has become one of the last known refuges, and the hope of mankind.
Would you go to Grants Pass based on the words of someone you’ve never met?"

Obviously the reason I'm bringing this to your attention is that I have a story in there. It's called Rights of Passage, it's set on the south coast of England and is either a love story or a thriller, depending on which way you look at it.

The book's due for release in July and I'll post order details here as soon as they become available. In the meantime, you can always pop along to the Morrigan site to see who's involved.

Shelf-ish Opinions

There are two responses I tend to get from people when they find out I write. Most of them assume that, as jobs go, it's far more glamorous and better paid than it actually is. The second response, meanwhile, is usually a double query: 'What have you written?' and 'Is it in the shops?'.

That latter question has become something of a bane to me. To date the stories I've had published are mostly for Big Finish in the UK and Morrigan Books. While BF tend to be reasonably well represented in UK bookshops, your chances of finding, say, my last Short Trips story in a bookshop over this way are slim to non-existent. And with Morrigan still a growing company (and therefore still working on their distribution) the best way to get any of the stories I've written is to order them online.

Now I like to trawl bookshops for my purchases where possible, but if online's the way to go I have no problems with that. For most people who ask me, however, this seems to be something of a problem: I can see their eyes glaze over as soon as I mention buying from websites. For them, bookshops convey legitimacy: if it's not on the shelf in a shop, it doesn't exist.

Which is why I'm dead chuffed that Morrigan have completed the next step in their distribution plans and sold Voices into Perth's Fantastic Planet bookshop. I'll be able to direct people to a real-life shop, into which they will be able to wander and physically touch the book. Yes, it's real: pick it up, read the back. Riffle the pages. Sniff it.

Then buy it. It's really rather good, you know.