"I'm just going to write because I can't help it."- Charlotte Brontë


Friday, August 31, 2012

End of the Month Report: August 2012


Submissions: 6
Rejections: 6
Acceptances: 0
Published: 0
Stories out in the wild: 7
New stories completed: 2 (Movement, finally! Good brain! Keep them coming.)
Mood: Chewing my fingernails and watching my inbox for one particular rejection/acceptance that will make or break my day when it arrives. Will I ever learn?

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Done WIP and a Little Dog


Today was a particularly gorgeous, getting- a-headstart-on-Spring kind of day, good for my usual Wednesday off for sleeping in, writing, breathing, napping and walking. With trees blossoming all around the house, and daffodils and jonquils blooming everywhere, the hood was a lovely place to hang out in today.

I finished my "funny" travelling salesman WIP this morning, although I'm not sure I'll get it sharp enough and polished enough by Friday to feel confident enough to send it off to the antho I'd really like to get into. I really prefer to let stories sit for at least a week between first and second drafts, but I don't have that luxury this time. However, I don't like sending off sub standard work either. Whether I decide to sub it or not, at least I've got another new story almost ready to go, and my momentum is steadily building. I'm already lining up my next WIP.

After writing, I headed off for my usual medicinal laps around the local botanical gardens. Along the way, I picked up this very cute, but collarless and tagless companion. He came out of nowhere, was an energetic and friendly little blighter who acted as if we'd know each other for a lifetime, and I began to get that familiar sinking feeling that yet another animal had latched onto me and become my responsibly. After he'd followed me for a while and showed no signs of ever nicking off again, I doubled back in an attempt to find his home, hoping to run across some distressed looking person searching for him. No such luck. Just when it looked like I was going to have to head for the RSPCA, his little ears suddenly perked up and, without a goodbye or a backwards glance, he zoomed off and just kept on running, definitely a dog with a mission, presumably obeying the distant call of his master's voice. At least that's what I read into his body language.

 Now I find myself a little worried. It's raining buckets outside, so I do hope he's somewhere safe and sound in a nice warm doggie basket.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Good WIP


My travelling salesman story is funny again, I think.

Ah, the thrill of a fast-approaching deadline! I could practically feel the wind in my hair as a typed like a maniac this fine Monday morning.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Vale, Neil Armstrong


So I woke up to the news that Neil Armstrong had passed away at the age of 82, and thought not another one. It seems that the members of a certain generation of space dreamers and inspirers and adventurers and doers are leaving us one by one, and one is left with an uneasy feeling that we might not be worthy of their legacy, might not be up to the task of exploring those distant and dangerous frontiers that await us. But thank goodness we were privileged to know them for a while.

Neil Alden Armstrong was a Navy pilot (he flew 78 missions over Korea), test pilot, aerospace engineer, NASA astronaut, university professor, husband, father and grandfather, and, from all accounts, a truly nice guy. And he liked horses. He was also, of course, a legend - the first human to walk on the moon. The man and the dream are hard to separate, especially for those of us who sat enthralled in front of our TV sets on that memorable July day in 1969 (we knew it had to be a seriously important event because they let us skip class and sent us home from school) to watch a shadowy image transmitted from a place far beyond Earth. After that, anything seemed possible. The sky was not the limit and humankind was headed for greatness, and we couldn't have had a better figurehead to herald in that era than Neil Armstrong. He never let us down, even as those around him let the dream drift, and he never grubbied that special moment in history with his subsequent behaviour. For his whole life, he remained that rarest of things - a genuine hero that we could safely admire and be inspired by.

His first spaceflight was the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, when he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft. His second and final spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. What a pity we didn't get the chance to witness a third spaceflight and take up his offer in 2010 to be commander on a Mars mission. His life was full and amazing enough, but still, Neil Armstrong on Mars - can you picture it? And see how, with that one remark, he once again prodded our imaginations.


Vale
Neil Alden Armstrong
August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012
 
"I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer."
-Neil Armstrong, 2000.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Aw, That's Nice.


The place where Curiosity landed a few weeks ago shall henceforth been known as Bradbury's Landing. Here's the NASA link. And here's a picture of Ray's piece of prime Martian real estate (if we ever do get there, you can bet it'll cost a pretty penny to snag a plot in this nostalgic neighbourhood):

-

How cool is that? I love the tracks leading away from the landing spot as Curiosity sets forth on its journey of exploration. Anyway, according to NASA:

This was not a difficult choice for the science team,” said Michael Meyer, NASA program scientist for Curiosity. “Many of us and millions of other readers were inspired in our lives by the stories Ray Bradbury wrote to dream of the  possibility of life on Mars.”
I love those guys and gals at NASA. If think that if I had my time over, I'd be a rocket scientist, building cute rovers and tinkering with deep space probes and hanging out at bars frequented by adventurous geeks and noble nerds who passionately believe space really is the final frontier. And a writer too, of course.

And apropos Ray, I had a Martian Chronicles moment the other day on the train platform. I was holding my closed-but-not-yet-strapped-shut-umbrella in a certain way and, suddenly flashbacking, it seemed to look a lot like a certain weapon in a certain mini series, and I felt like aiming the tip at the people on the opposite platform and making spacey shooting noises. But that would have been undignified for a lady of my age (the under tens have all the fun).

Hmm, seeing this photo, the connection seems a tad tenuous now. Maybe you had to be there, a bit bored and unenthusiastic about the day ahead, desperate for excitement and looking at it from a certain angle...

 


Friday, August 24, 2012

Rebellious WIP


Rats! My "amusing" travelling salesman story wants to be a deep and meaningful love story that includes insightful comments on marketing and capitalism.

Damn you, story, just be funny!

Witty WIP?


The galley text for the Dead Men anthology has just arrived - time for me to put on my special nitpicking reading glasses and go looking for mistakes. It's so exciting!

The editors also sent a gentle reminder that they need the promotional author interviews in by next week - time for me to stop faffing around with "clever" suggestions on the best ways to kill zombies and just send off my answers.

It's also time for me to ease back into working on some of my more serious WIPs. However, at the moment, and I'm not sure why, I'm a mite obsessed (a phrase en par with being 'a little bit pregnant') with getting into this humour anthology. It's paying professional rates and has already received over 700 submissions, so there's hardly any competition, but hey, I'm happy to indulge, for a reasonable amount of time, any mania that gets me madly editing and polishing, creating new stories and wildly subbing. My first two attempts at this antho were rejected within hours, but I've just experienced the triumph of my third submission actually making it past the first stage firewall and being considered by the antho's editorial board (I'm calling them the 'Council of Five', and I picture them seated at a high table wearing inquisitorial robes as they interrogate each trembling story brought before them ). The story that made it that far was actually the brand new story I crowed about finishing a few days back, which wasn't too bad a result for its first time out. Alas, in the end, my exceedingly humorous, Hemmingwayesque story set in a French restaurant in 2029 did not get enough 'yes' votes to make it into the final round, but I did get an invite to submit another story. So where before I was dubious about my ability to tickle the funny bones of this antho's editors, but was nonetheless driven to try, I've now caught a whiff of  'maybe I can do it', and am rallying for one last, mighty attempt before the deadline hits at the end of the month. You see, I had this hilarious idea on the train on the way to Arvo Job on Tuesday that would be perfect...

So, once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, with my piece about a futuristic travelling salesman. Ba-boom!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Show Me the Money


That inveterate stirrer China Mieville suggests that writers should be paid a salary to do their creative work.

He also goes on about the future of the novel, chastises backwards-looking, publishing gloom-mongers, brings haughty literary gatekeepers down a peg or two, and says deep and meaningful things about post-modernism and such, but I was mostly interested in the salary idea.

I quite like it.

Whether modern capitalism is up for it remains doubtful. As China rightly points out, many professions that do the most good for society are hideously undervalued by the present system, though I'm sure this injustice makes perfect sense to those individuals and their hanger-on best friends who benefit most from our modern feudal hierarchy. They'll have some incredibly rational spin-story up their money-stuffed sleeves to explain why it simply must be so.

And appropos modern capitalism and its tendency to mercilessly suck the vibrancy out of people for a buck, here's an interesting piece that I've been meaning to link to for the past week on how all political struggles today amount to a war over time.

This reluctant trading of time for money is a something that most writers with day or arvo or night jobs feel keenly, I suspect.

Now, where can I sign up for that salary package?


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Tuppence For My Thoughts


Increments. I'm clawing back minutes from  my still overwhelming desire to nap all the time and slowly, very slowly, re-establishing old habits and getting my brain back in writing shape.

I'm not writing for 1.5-2 hours each day before heading off for the Arvo Job (*sigh* those were the days), but I am sitting at the keyboard every morning and doing 30 minutes of work. Slowly, very slowly, one sentence at a time, stories are coming together. My brain is making fewer and fewer grating noises. Soon, I'll try to get up earlier and add another 30 minutes to that workout.

I'm not writing on the train yet, but I'm not snoozing all the way into Melbourne either, which is another minor triumph. I'm retraining my brain to not automatically start dozing as soon as I sit down by reading. Once again, the session lasts a magical 30 minutes, then, so far, no matter how hard I try, I do nod off. It's the same thing on the way home. The books I'm getting through are light and fun tomes that I can sneak in as an acceptable and more interesting alternative to napping, and hopefully I'll be able to extend these reading periods minute by minute, and eventually, when my brain is more limber, switch back to writing on the train. As I said, increments. My brain is like one of those pudgy, down-and-out, Rocky-like characters who slip on their old tracksuits and try to get back in shape so they can once more be contenders.

Anyway, at the moment, my light and easy read is the short story collection Partners in Crime (the cover on my copy is very boring compared with the very Jazz Age, 1929 first edition cover pictured here) one of the Tommy and Tuppence books by Agatha Christie. I read this series many decades ago, and absolutely adored it then, so I knew PiC would be just the ticket. Very light, very easy, very charming and amusing, full of words like 'foozle', expressions like 'old thing', and cases that involve discussions about haughty, titled folk and the likelihood of a hat pin being used as a possible murder weapon in a time when thoroughly modern girls with bobbed hair wear their cloche hats pulled tight down over their heads. Even thought there are corpses a plenty and much mayhem, it's all so good natured and friendly, cosy and reliable that one quickly forgets about the poor victims. Deep these books are not, but certain pertinent social observations are clever and snortingly funny.

The gaiety, the banter, young characters who have experienced the horrors of the Great War and are determined to live life to the full. The dazzling Jazz Age and its bright young children trying hard to forget the darkness and death they knew only too well was still out there waiting for them. T&T got my brain ticking along again in the nicest possible way, and sent me off on tangents about society, wars, permissiveness, and our modern obsession with crowbarring in unrelenting doses of UR ST whenever we have a fictional male-female partnership. One of the best things about the T &T books is that one simply doesn't have to put up with that kind of rot.

Friday, August 17, 2012

R.I.P. Harry Harrison


I read yesterday morning about the death of Harry Harrison, another master writer of SF lost to the ranks, but I didn't have time to pay my respects then. However, this did give me all day to contemplate the great man and just how much I owe him. So many hours of entertainment, so many adventures, so many thoughts, so much fun. My special favourites are, of course, special favourites the world over, but that doesn't make the experiences I had any less personal or any less unique, for such is the magic of books.

My very first Harry Harrison obsession was the Deathworld series (so yes, when the military crew cut guy in  'Avatar' started to spout about how dangerous the planet beyond the perimeter was, I had definite Deathworld flashbacks. Sparkling Pandora, of course, was a milksop of a world compared with Porgorstoraand.) I chewed my nails anxiously as I read of carnivorous plants and such, for Jason dinAlt was up against a real killer of a world, but fortunately his gambler's ingenuity knew no bounds.

My second great Harry Harrison love was the ever popular series that gave us James Bolivar diGriz, alias Slippery Jim, alias (sound the trumpets, please) The Stainless Steel Rat. Just saying it makes me grin. I have to confess though that once Slippery Jim married the homicidal maniac Angela, I became a bit concerned that Harry might tame Angie, stick an apron on her and have her discover the delights of baking space cookies. I needn't have worried. For me, one of the very very best things about this series is that Angela so competently combines being a wife, and later a mother, with banter and shootouts, and that The Rat has to constantly bring her down a notch or two. They were always my idea of the perfect couple. When the twins, James and Bolivar diGriz, were born, again I was a mite concerned, but as soon as Angela took to concealing weaponry in their pram, I knew that all was well. Thank you, Harry, for not domesticating Angela. And for not turning The Rat into an imperious Dad. The love was always there, but the diGriz family never went all Fifties on us, and oh, how I wished I could be a part of their rambunctious household. By the by, in this world, the SSR series helped me to convince my two brothers when they were way young that reading need not be a dreary school exercise and might actually have something going for it. Thanks to Harry, they both went on to read many other books in their own time just for fun.

The Stainless Steel Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero showed me that SF could be fun, but Harry was no slouch at deep and serious as well. Make Room! Make Room! gave me the heebie jeebies for years and was one of those influential books that shaped the way I, and many others I'm sure, think. I thank Harry for providing that brain furniture too.




R.I.P
Harry Harrison
March 12, 1925 - August 15, 2012

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

It's Raining Rejections


For the past 24 hours, it seems that every time I check my emails there's another very nice close, but no cigar from an editor whittling down the number of submissions I have out out there in the wild. It's times like these that one's writerly optimism is tested. It's times like these that one's writerly confidence is measured. It's time like these that, hopefully, one's writerly stubbornness kicks in. I'll simply have to make a cup of soothing peppermint tea this evening, sit myself down at the computer and have a dedicated submission session, just me and the wide world and my stories. The trick, as I've said before, is to quickly get those little 'uns out and about again, so one can once more fantasise about them finding loving homes. There's nothing, as many songs will attest to, cheerier than a dream.

Aaaaah - thank goodness for my midweek breather from the Arvo Job. I'm breathing in, slowly, slowly. I'm breathing out, calm, relaxed. By Tuesday night, after two days of commuting and Arvo Jobbing, I'm really running on empty. This non-rushy Wednesday of sleeping in, writing (almost finished another story), reading, multiple medicinal laps at a speedy pace around the botanical garden (I'm about to head off with my mega-brolly, for the sky is as dark and ominous as my inbox at the moment) followed by a very, very cautious weights workout, a long arvo nap snuggling with the cats (I'm already looking forward to it) and an early night will recharge my batteries and get me through the last two workdays.

Hopefully my pre-two ops stamina will soon return. And someone will purchase a story.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Writers Trail Scientists in Important Survey

Scientists rule. We, however, namely editors and writers who pride ourselves in burning the midnight oil and downing buckets of a certain brown liquid to prompt ideas and make important deadlines, are a laggardly number five according to this 'Which Profession Drinks Most Coffee' survey on caffeine consumption trends in the workplace (USA). Given that pushing yourself beyond the limit with the help of legal stimulants is considered praiseworthy and admirable in this day and age, we, namely editors and writers, have with this survey just suffered a serious drop in the hardworking cred stakes.

Alas, there's no mention of tea anywhere. Poor, uncool tea just doesn't count. It simply doesn't evoke the same image of a dishevelled, obsessed individual in dire need of a shower gulping one strong, hot beverage after another whilst solving all manner of problems which, like any good home renovation program on TV, must be unraveled by a certain cut-off time or the end of the universe will ensue. Tea reeks of enjoyment, of relaxing afternoons in the garden, leisurely reading and possibly cucumber sandwiches. I doubt anyone will ever do a survey about workplace tea drinkers, and even if they did, no-one would want the brag rights to being named the number one sippers of special leaf brews.

I suspect there's a general perception of a certain air of slackness about we Earl Grey lovers that isn't compatible with the modern world's productivity mania.

Wanted, Preferably Alive, Please.

So every now and then one looks at one's blog's statistics, and one oohs and aahs over people from exotic faraway lands dropping by (thank you), and then one checks traffic sources and stuff to see why those people ended up here and discover that they were probably seeking a learned dissertation from an expert on some esoteric subject but got me rambling on about some inanity instead, or they were looking for another Gitte Christensen (usually that Danish actress or the bigwig manager of a major company). This week someone - how exciting- put in the search words 'Gitte Kristensen criminal'.

Not me, was my first thought. But then I reconsidered. Maybe, I thought, a group of friends from my wild youth in Denmark were having a reunion party and my name came up in conversation, and then they began to wonder what had become of me, and maybe in their drunkenness they forgot that I was a true Christensen, not one of those pretenders starting with a 'k', and maybe they surmised that by moving to Australia, a shady land riddled with the descendants of convicts where TV production companies obsessed with tattooed criminals spend a substantial amount of their budgets on creating countless mini series about underworld figures, I would naturally fall in with a bad crowd (they're drunk, remember) and turn to a life of petty larceny.

That, or someone out there is looking for a Gitte who is a lot meaner and tougher and maybe bigger than me. Possibly she has tattoos - not that there's anything wrong with that.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

A Relative Triumph

After a few hours of tapping away at my trusty writing keyboard, I've finally finished a new story, my first for, hmmm, I'm not sure exactly, but it's definitely been many, many, many months, way before the first of my two operations and recuperation periods this year, since I last wrote 'The End'. My brain has just been a too lax and fuzzy, made flabby by lack of routine and addled by pain killers, to do more that stop and start and tinker. I've had ideas and been fired up, but haven't been able to sign off on anything. Hopefully, this means I'm back on track and can get stuck into a couple of half-finished pieces on my hard drive that I'd like to get off to certain anthologies next month. Did I just write next month? Someone needs to get a move on.

Anyway, this newborn tale is only a light-hearted littlie which probably won't rack up more than 2k words by the time I've polished it, but it's new and it's FINISHED and I will submit it next weekend.

Now I'm going to reward myself for that minor victory with a long walk. When I get back, I'll submit two stories and do a quick spot of absolutely necessary housework (aaaargh). I also need the fresh air to recover from this extremely kind piece about yours truly that Steve Cameron has posted over on his blog. It's left me feeling both hugely grateful and a tad like a roo dazzled by the headlights of an oncoming car. All I can say is that I'm also glad I went to that Sean Williams workshop so many years ago and met Steve. If not for his enthusiastic comments in the corridor after the mostly negative reactions (too complicated) of the other participants (back then, such things still cut me deeply), I might have doubted that that particular piece work had a future (it was part of my beloved space opera trilogy, which is still waiting for a good edit and restructuring). Also, lucky me, I got to read Steve's brick story, which then went on to become the much lauded So Sad, the Lighthouse Keeper.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Sparkle, Sparkle.

So a not so very great week ended with a bright point: yesterday morning, before I headed for the Arvo Job, I was sent a link to a post that mentions me as an undiscovered gem. Okay, you have to scroll down quite a ways to find it, and it is a brief mention, but it's there, which is better than it not being there. Whenever things felt grey and bleak today, I just muttered 'sparkle, sparkle' to cheer myself up, and would end up grinning like a fool. And believe me, there's no fool like a down and out writer looking for an ego boost.

Now I'll just have to work hard to change that adjective from 'undiscovered' to 'discovered'. And maybe 'gem' to 'whopping, great, multi-faceted, stylishly Elizabeth Taylor-type diamond'. And while we're touching on writerly adjectives,  you can pop across to Steve Cameron's musings on the subject of what we budding, beginning, cocoon-shedding, scriberly neophytes should call ourselves.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Salvation from Outer Space

So I was having a really bad Real Life Really Sucks kind of day when my brother called with the very important news hot off NASA's multiple media press that the Mars Rover Curiosity had made a perfect landing on the Red Planet.

And lo my mind did lift from my dreary office confines and petty problems and soar upwards through the ceiling and outwards to the worlds and stars beyond, and my soul expanded with joy, and I gave a little cheer. I must admit I was very worried about that whole skycrane procedure. Like everyone else, I'd watched that 7 Minutes of Terror video that's been doing the rounds. It all just looked so complicated. So risky. So full of possible catastrophes and silly mistakes. And the Rover was so big. So car-sized. So swingingly unpredictable. One bump in the wrong direction and...

Fortunately, the scientists at NASA are far braver than I, not to mention a lot lot smarter. Ah, to be high-fiving amongst learned comrades after having achieved such an inspiring success. Here's to the folks at NASA and their newest space explorer. Long may they provide us with material for our daydreams.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Book Bonding

I'm just back from an early morning cuppa, cake and chat session in town, followed by a quick trot around the artists' market. The weather was beautiful. Since storm clouds are now gathering outside my window, it turned out to be a good idea to ignore the more anal side of my character and forgo my usual Sunday morning habit of writing in my jammies for a spot of socialising. However, this schedule swap means I shall now have to play catch-up this afternoon to satisfy that nagging voice at the back of my head which only a few hours at the keyboard will silence.

I do love getting out though, and engaging in the risky business of meeting new people. A couple of weeks ago, I met up with a friend for Sunday Arvo lunch at a local restaurant, and she brought along a couple of her friends that I'd never met before. In the mood for an easy and relaxed time, I was hesitant when she first asked if they could join us, because there's no denying that strangers can turn into a nightmare of incompatibility, strained silences, false conviviality and constantly sneaking glances at the time and trying to work out when you can leave without seeming too rude. In this particular case, it was, thank goodness, the exact opposite. The talk was passionate, articulate, interesting, non-stop and of the very arty sort. Time flew and we all left together. The couple lived just a few houses down from the restaurant in one of those gorgeous old houses you get up here in the goldfields area, and they kindly gave me a look around inside. I want that house! And the artwork on the walls was stunning.

Anyway, there were bookshelves. Many bookshelves. What can one do in such a situation but scan the titles? One in particular jumped out, partly because of its recently-read-and-not-yet-filed position resting on top of other books, partly because its so BIG, and partly because it's a book I absolutely adore. It was Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life. My eyes lit up. I excitedly pointed it out. Another pair of eyes lit up. Animated words tumbled forth from one of my hosts. I countered with a long, rambling litany of the amazing historical information and admirably oddball people contained within its covers. My host had his own favourite facts and characters. We talked over each other. We launched into a lively discussion on the declining tolerance of true eccentricity, digressed into the nature of genuine courage, waxed lyrical about the horrors of living in London before town planners incorporated a sewerage system, and would probably still be standing by that bookcase right now combing through the pages of Bill's book and exclaiming if not for the shortfalls of Real Life.

It was a classic case of book bonding. For weeks and weeks after finishing it, I bored people rigid with facts and figures from At Home and tried to convince them that their lives would remain forever without context if they didn't read it, but here was someone who taken the same internal journey as I had while reading it and had found the adventure just as thrilling. I'm smiling now even as I remember and write this. Humans, no matter how good we are at denying the fact, are intrinsically isolated creatures who nonetheless long to be a part of a group or herd, and we need the emotional, intellectual and physical connection points associated with family, friends, sports, ideas, work, hobbies, the arts and whatever to form the relationships that help diffuse the boundaries of our separate existences. Books are just one of many means by which we can achieve that union, and I find it quite miraculous whenever it happens.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Horrible Homework

Having just quickly, and nervously, perused the questions for the author interview that Bards and Sages Publishing will use as part of their promotions for the Return of the Dead Men (and Women) Walking horror anthology, I am now totally relaxed. I'll blitz that interview! You see, apparently I've been working up to this triumphant moment over the past many months without realising it.

Consider the fact that whilst recently recuperating, I not only studied in depth that huge, vampire apocalypse tome The Passage by Justin Cronin , but also watched, as chronicled here in a few posts, the first two seasons of The Walking Dead. I am, if I may say so, completely up to scratch on how to take out large numbers of zombies or vampires, and have along the way developed theories as to which weapons I might prefer in certain scenarios. Also, whilst yelling at less rational characters on the screen or in print, I've batted about a few ideas of my own on what might constitute sound battle tactics when up against the shuffling or fast-moving undead. Adding to my confidence is the well-documented fact that I've read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the as yet publicly unknown information that today I saw the movie Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer, so I'm feeling particularly well-versed on the subject of zombie and vampire mash ups. Also while recuperating, I saw Zombieland, and, I seem to vaguely recall, Vampires Suck (I was unwell!! You're allowed to watch crap when you're zonked out on painkillers!!!) Also, as I passionately posted about some time ago, I did try to get through the Twilight books, so I definitely have a few opinions about those characters to impart, and, as the jewel in my crown, I'm a Buffy fan from way back.

So, despite what some judging souls might think, none of that mostly enjoyable time spent on swotting up on popular horror was wasted, for now I can call upon this vast repository of knowledge about creatures fanged and rotten to formulate kick-ass responses to tricky interview queries about the undead.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Vamp Victory

I now have the go-ahead to announce that The Snowy River Feral, my Henry Lawson-style, vampire droving yarn set in the late 1920s will appear in the Return of the Dead Men (and Women) Walking horror anthology to be published by Bards and Sages Publishing. It's not just about vampires, but all manner of undead creatures. BSP's goal is to release the book October 1st.

I'm really pleased that this particular lovechild of mine has found such a good home. First sent out 1/12-2010, it took 18 months of patiently submitting this very Aussie story over and over whilst whispering 'I believe in you, I believe in you', to sell it. Not so long compared with some stories, but eons compared with others.

So yay, much news of both a vampire story and a werewolf story will soon be coming to this blog. It's so cool :)

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

End of the Month Report: July 2012

Submissions: 9
Rejections: 8
Acceptances: 0
Published: 0
Stories out in the wild: 8
New stories completed: 0 (come on, brain, you can do it!)
Mood: Excited - there are two anthology publications coming up soon, and I'm loving the galley proofing and promotional stuff associated with them because they make me feel so writerly. Also, there are a couple of stories that are soooo close to getting that final tick of approval, I can practically feel those acceptances in me waters - there, I've probably jinxed them now :)

Racy Review

Eric J. Guignard, in another of his updating emails, has just brought to my attention that there's a lengthy review for Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations here over at Biblio Babes. The reviewer has actually gone to the bother of writing something about each story and her reaction to it in her own inimitable style. Overall, she gives the book a 8/10 rating.

And how did my futuristic, underwater, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, steampunk story Whale of a Time fare? Well, her review includes this pearl of a sentence : All I have to say is that this was weird as fuck and boatloads of fun.

That made me laugh. I'm thinking I should put it on a promotional t-shirt.