ECLECTIC PROJECTS BLOG
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Cast a Deadly Spell

Quickflix has a copy of Cast a Deadly Spell available as part of its movie streaming package. This is worth the $9.99 I give them every month right now. It may even be enough to tempt me back, from time to time, once Netflix debuts and (hopefully) offers a slightly better range of streamable media that works better with the Chromecast. Why has this got me excited? Back in 1991, HBO released a made-for-TV movie titled Cast a Deadly Spell featuring Greg Ward as down on his luck PI Harry Lovecraft in an alternate era 1948 were magic is commonplace. It hits all the film-noir tropes right down the line, with Julianne Moore as the torch-song singer that Lovecraft loves and Clancy Brown (AKA The Highlander’s Kurggan) as a corrupt nightclub owner who used to be Lovecraft’s partner. If you’re the target market for this film, you’re already salivating from that short description. It hits all the right notes for a cult classic – Lovecraft references, film noir, Highlander – and if you’re anything like me you’re probably going to spend a few fruitless weeks trying to track it down. Since it was made-for-TV, it never got DVD release, which means you spend your time haunting the back alleys of the internet trying to purchase a copy from some pretty shady characters. Occasionally, if you’re lucky, you’ll find someone whose love of the film outstrips their understanding of copyright and find the full film on youtube. And now Quickflix will stream it for me,

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12/01/2015 No Comments
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Creating Art Absolutely Involves Privilege

It’s been interesting to follow the Stacey Jay Kickstarter controversy around the internet this week, ’cause it’s one of those moments where we’re reminded that the public perception of how the arts should be valued is a) batshit crazy and b) still based on theories of creative genius that requires no work. If you haven’t followed the internet storm and don’t intend to follow the links, the short version goes like this: 1) a YA author turns to kickstarter to fund the production of the second book in her series, as self-publishing requires far fewer readers to be successful than going through a big publishing house; 2) said kickstarter is poorly executed in all sorts of ways, but it’s biggest sin is suggesting that a sizable percentage of the funds would be spent on the author’s living expenses while writing; 3) internet explodes, as only the internet can. Said author apologizes, closes down her kickstarter, and withdraws from the internet for her own mental health. We’re now in the fall-out stage, where writers and bloggers from all over the internet start picking through the ruins of what happened ad debating the value of art. My favourite response, thus far, comes from YA author Marni Bates’ and includes the following point: 3. Art shouldn’t be a privilege. If we are paying Stacey to write then she is receiving a special privilege. Answer: Creating art absolutely involves privilege. Virginia Woolf nailed it when she said, “A woman must have money and a room of

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09/01/2015 No Comments
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Some Words of Advice for a Young Writer

TheTruthGirl recently dropped by the comments and asked the following question: Writing is my dream, and all that I have ever wanted to do. The idea of a day job is odious, but a necessary evil. I guess, what I’m trying to say is, would you have any writing advice for someone in my position? At which point, regular readers are probably chuckling a little, ’cause this is one of those topics I can rabbit on about for a while. Turns out, I’ve waxed lyrical about all manner of writing advice in the last couple of years – a lot of it conveniently located under the craft/process and the business/writing life categories here on the blog – and I actually a post about things I wish I’d known as a young writer after I did a talk at a high-school last year. I’m also gearing up to spend a whole year writing blog posts about writing and publishing over at the Australian Writers Marketplace blog through 2015 (and if you’ve missed me talking about writing, you should probably start heading over there more often). That said, I threw together a few things that are useful to know when you’re a young writer, and it quickly grew too long for the comments system on the blog, so it became a blog post unto itself. One: Start Writing and Submitting Your Work Now If you’re writing SF/Fantasy, head to Ralan.com to find markets. Submit to the best place (highest paying/most read) first, then work your way

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07/01/2015 2 Comments
News & Upcoming Events

Two Announcements and Some Miscellany

ANNOUNCEMENT ONE: FROST I’m a few days behind on this one, but I have a new book out in the world and it is a sexy, sexy beast. I mean, take a look. It’s book two of the Flotsam trilogy, which kicked off with the release of Exile a few moths back, and will end with the release of Crusade next year. It contains demons, occult hit men, and a bloodthirsty Valkryie. It brings Ragnarok to the Gold Coast and engages in a moderate amount of property damage. It’s available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and direct from the fine folks at Apocalypse Ink. ANNOUNCEMENT TWO: GENRECON Meanwhile, over at the day job, we got to announce this badboy: We’re officially strapping in for a third GenreCon and I am fuckin’ psyched. We’re currently doing my favourite bit – finalizing the guest list so I can start deploying names when I come back to work in January – but even with half our guest list populated, I’m pretty damned eager to program this bad-boy. Registration opens in February, 2015. Rest assured I’ll post some reminders here in the lead-up. MISCELLANY I’ve now hit the point where I’ve written every day for one hundred consecutive days. Admittedly, it isn’t always a lot of writing – the last couple of days I’ve only clocked up a couple of hundred words each due to a regrettable-and-now-done-with distraction caused by Master of Orion II– but after a year where I specifically set out to establish a daily writing habit, I seem

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09/12/2014 2 Comments
News & Upcoming Events

A New Story! Cheap Novellas! Crazy Writing Plans! EXCLAMATION MARKS!

ZOMBIE STORIES I had a new story out at the start of November. The folks behind the mobile/tablet game Dead End Alley commissioned a bunch of Australian horror writers to put together a micro-fiction based on the prompt: A blind alley, a swarm of hungry zombies, a chainsaw, and you. What could possibly go wrong? Naturally, when asked to write a story about an apocalyptic zombie uprising, I went and wrote a love story. Originally I’d intended to dedicate it to my friends Al and Nic, who did actually have a zombie survival kit in their house when I first met them, but it ended up being a downbeat for that kind of thing. In any case, you can my contribution over on facebook, along with zombie stories from Alan Baxter, Deborah Biancotti, and the delightfully creepy Kaaron Warren. CHEAP NOVELLAS & E-BOOKS Exile, the first novella in the Flotsam series, has been added to the Under an Enchanted Skyline boxed set, featuring eight e-books of magic, adventure and mayhem for under $1. Over seven hundred pages of epic reading, featuring: Exile by PETER M. BALL–Keith Murphy kills things from the Gloom. On his latest job, he swallows a bullet with his victim’s soul trapped inside. The thing’s followers want the soul back… Demonspell by EPPIE award-winning novelist PHOEBE MATTHEWS–“My trip toward death began the morning the realtor bugged me.” Elaine’s immortal relatives need constant attention, even when she’s struggling with a band of demons. John Golden: Freelance Debugger by DJANGO WEXLER–John Golden is

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20/11/2014 No Comments
Works in Progress

The Sustainable 600K: A Writing Dare Courtesy of Alan Baxter

Last week my friend Alan Baxter posted his annual link to a post about why he thinks NaNoWriMo is a stupid idea for writers, and ‘cause I was fresh off a teaching gig and looking for distraction, I accidentally clicked through and read said post for the fourth year in a row. I’m not quite the anti-NaNo grump that Alan is, although I do kind of dread this time of year as a natural by-product of working at a centre that exists to help new writers. NaNo usually results in a slight uptick in calls, activities, and other new-writer craziness that carries us through to the end of the December (I’ve also seen how useful it is when it comes to helping aspiring writers carve time out of their schedule, especially when they’re still at that early stage where no-one takes their writing ambition seriously, which is the same theory behind the weekly Writing Races we run via AWM). So, by and large, I skimmed over the arguments and went straight to the comments where the interesting stuff happened. And what caught my eye this year, however, was a complaint Al made in the comments: 50k words in a short time is not unreasonable, but in 30 days it’s unrealistic to be sustainable. Once, sure, but on a regular basis? It’s unsustainable and unnecessary.  When he first made this argument, back in 2011, I probably would have nodded and gone along agreeing with him. Even last year, when I was

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31/10/2014 7 Comments
Journal

What I Am Doing These Days

ONE I’m reading Courtney Milan’s Unraveled at the moment, picked up courtesy of this review over on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and thus far it’s proving to be every big as glorious as the review promised it would be. Highly recommended if you’re the kind of person whose into Historical romance. TWO I’m at the tail end of writing Crusade, the third off the Flotsam novellas I’m doing for Apocalypse Ink.My current estimate is that I’m about 85% of the way done, and I’ll officially be writing The END on the current draft sometime this week. This means I’m taking a serious look at what gets done next, since I’ll officially be done with all my contracted work for the year and I’ve got about two weeks of leave coming up in November where I plan on locking myself away in my house and writing. THREE I’m fighting off the tail end of a cold that’s been with me since Thursday afternoon, and generally caused me to sleep 20 hours out of every 24 over the weekend. I barely remember Saturday existing. I only know I woke up at some point because I apparently wrote 100 words on my work in progress so I could tick the calendar marking my consecutive writing days (current total: 50 days). FOUR I’m eating left-over shredded pork pizza.  

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20/10/2014 No Comments
News & Upcoming Events

Gone Fishin’

  SO HERE’S THE THING I’m still getting the hang of this writing, blogging, and working thing. And I still haven’t quite gotten to the point where it’s sustainable when I’m writing, blogging, working, and recovering from illness. I’m still getting knocked around by the throat infection, feeling exhausted, doing that thing where I fall asleep at the keyboard from time to time. It’s frustrating as hell. Which is why, this week, I’m instituting rule zero: writing comes first. I’m going to let the blog fall silent for seven days while I do some focused work on getting my current novella draft up and running. I am, officially, gone fishing writing until next Monday. See you all then.

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18/08/2014 No Comments
Big Thoughts

Embrace Complexity

So…shit, I dunno. The world just makes no sense to me these days. I’m still recovering from the throat infection, which isn’t helping much; I sleep more than I mean to and struggle to maintain my energy levels. This means I fret a bit about the work I’m not doing, and spend far more time than I should on the internet. Which means I’m there when people start responding to the deaths of Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall. Which means I’m watching a major publisher and a major bookseller engage in a public relations war using writers and books as their kickball. Which means I’m watching what happens in Ferguson, Missouri, and what’s happening in the Middle East, and I find that there’s so many things happening locally that terrify me. Which means I’m online when my government starts engaging in yet more stupidity, claiming poor people don’t drive cars, and blithely continues to destroy the few elements of Australian culture I actually respect. Or when one of the state governments floats a bill offering compulsory voting to businesses. I’m slightly terrified by the realisation that if I’d turned twenty under Australia’s current government, I wouldn’t be a writer sixteen years later. Hell, I’m not entirely sure I’d still be alive. The world scares me far more than it used to. Mostly, I think, because we the internet feeds me far more information than I used to have and couples it with a wide exposure to our culture’s desire to easy answers. There are

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14/08/2014 2 Comments
Works in Progress

Re-Visiting Flotsam’s Photographic History

When I first pitched the Flotsam series to Edge of Propinquity, long before it was ever transmuted into a novella trilogy, part of the appeal of doing twelve stories about the Gold Coast was getting the chance to work with my sister. You see, Edge of Propinquity accompanied all shot-stories with photographs, and at the time my sister was developing her chops as a semi-professional photographer, so I figured getting to work together to document bits of the Gold Coast would be kinda fun. In the end, it probably ended up being more stress than fun, and a lot of that’s on my head as the guy who was late getting the stories together. This occasionally meant I’d simply work from images Sally already had in inventory, or we’d put together a more general image rather than putting together something specifically reflective of the story. Occasionally, we’d get really lucky: there was a family holiday at the start of the year where a storm rolled in that looked like the end of the world in progress, which was pretty much a no-brainer when it came to an image we wanted to use. I’ve been going through the photographs for the Flotsam series this week, revisiting them as I start putting together the plan for Crusade (aka Flotsam Novella 3). There’s a couple of instances where my sister has made some moderately weird requests work, like “can you photograph an octopus tentacle” and “can you make me feel like I’m trapped in a

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13/08/2014 No Comments
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

Six Things Writers Can Learn from Highlander (1986)

Highlander is a terrible movie. I wanted to get that out of the way early, because it’s the films sequel that famously earns the franchise the vast majority of its grief. People remember the second Highlander film as this massively disappointing experience, an incoherent mess compared to its predecessor, and truthfully it is all those things, but to lay all the blame on the various sequels of the film is a little unfair. You see, the first Highlander is godawful as well. Actually painful to watch, when you force yourself to sit down and pay attention to everything, rather than just tuning in for the bits you remember fondly. This truly surprised me when we re-watched the film as part of the Trashy Tuesday movie series. Like most gents of a geeky persuasion, both my flatmate and I had seen the film when we were teenagers and remembered it being all kinds of awesome. There were sword fights. There was Queen. There were mother-fucking katanas of doom. We were actually looking forward to it, when it came up on the Trashy Tuesday list, ’cause we’d watched all kind of rubbish in the lead-up and needed a break. Then the film started and…oh god. Oh, dear fucking god. MAKE THE FUCKING STUPID STOP. And yet, I couldn’t quite look away. There are some things Highlander does pretty well, some things it does pretty poorly, and there’s an interesting tension running through a film that you once loved and now find yourself hating. Which

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12/08/2014 1 Comment
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Why I’m Taking My Process Back to Basics This Week

I’m going back to basics this week, focusing on my routine and getting back into the habit of getting shit done. This means being in bed by ten o’clock each night. It means getting by 6:15 every morning, making sure I’m at the keyboard and working before 7:00. It means easing back my words-per-day goal to something easily achievable, probably about 750 words, then scaling things up as the week progresses. It means taking a few minutes to back-up my work and settle my thoughts before leaving the house, rather than going to work with a head full of story. It means making my damn bed every morning. ROUTINES MATTER There are writers who can work without routines. I’ve known a couple of them. I’ve pretended to be one myself, from time to time, but I’ve discovered that only works when I’ve been working a dayjob one or two days a week. For me, not having a routine is a luxury that’s only possible when I’ve got an abundance of free time, allowing me to put stuff off and put stuff off, and yet still have enough hours to panic-write at the end. We talk a lot of bullshit about routine and habits, particularly when it comes to writing. There is the pop-psychology concept that it takes just 21 days to burn in a habit, which sounds easy and inspiring but actually short-changes the average process by a period of months. We talk shit about the 10,000 hours of practice needed

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11/08/2014 No Comments

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