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Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

It’s time to give up “Writer, Or…” and Embrace “Writer, And…”

Last year I picked up a copy of Nick Cave: Sinner Saint: The True Confessions, Thirty Years of Essential Interviews. Partially this is ‘cause I’m a fan of Cave’s work, from the freewheeling chaos of the Birthday Party through to his more recent albums with both The Bad Seeds and Grinderman. Partially it was ’cause I was replacing my copy of The Bad Seed biography, and the book of interviews could be picked up cheap as a two-for-one deal. Of the two, Nick Cave: Sinner Saint has been the more thought provoking book. It’s interesting to compare the way the creative process is presented in the earlier interviews compared to the process of Nick Cave today. One upon a time he was the very epitome of an artist bent on self-destruction, antagonistic and drug-fueled and generally hostile to press and fans alike. The Nick Cave of today has matured into an comparatively sober elder statesmen, content to disappear into an office and work on his art day in, day out. There are still hints of the tortured soul there – part of the reason he chooses the office is so his family doesn’t see the less pleasant elements of the creative process – but there is a sense that Cave has moved away from art as self-destruction and towards art as a job. it’s but one facet of his life.You can literally see his approach to his work evolving from interview to interview. Rather than let his art consume him, It got

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23/07/2014 1 Comment
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

What Writers Ought to Know About Die Hard, Part Three

So I’ve been meaning to write the last three Die Hard posts for a couple of months now, transforming my raw notes into something readable, but my life was basically mugged by putting together the GenreCon program, then chairing panels at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival, then coping with the fact that GenreCon’s attendance kinda exploded, then actually running the con, then going to the UK, then watching my deadlines go boom, then moving then, then… Well, shit, I guess I’m out of excuses, and it’s time to finish this series off, albeit nearly three quarters of a year after it started. WHAT WRITERS OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT DIE HARD, PART THREE Since it’s been a while, it might be worth going back to taking a refresher look at the posts regarding Die Hard’s Ongoing Metaphors and my notes breaking down The First Act. In fact, even if you remember the second post, go back anyway. I adore first acts. They’re some of the busiest places in any story, driven by a ruthless efficiency ’cause they have to set everything up in a very short space of time. Today we start looking at the Second Act, whereupon we need to tackle one of the fundamental lies of the Three Act Structure – IT HAS FOUR FUCKING PARTS. The first act is all set-up, the last act is all climax and dénouement, and the middle-act is this two-step journey that is all about building up to a critical mid-point then moving away from it.

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22/07/2014 4 Comments
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

The Nine Business Mantras of A Cranky Writer

So, here’s the thing: I spend the vast majority of my daylight hours talking to aspiring writers about what they’d like to achieve and how they can get there. This is one of the things that comes with the territory when you work at a place like Queensland Writers Centre, and it’s pretty sweet gig. You get to meet up-and-coming writers as they’re getting their shit together and help them along the way; you get to meet older, established writers and glean what you can from their experience. You get to talk to the absolutely raw rookies, the people who have just decided I want to be a writer and want to know what they should do next. When I answer questions at work, I’m polite and enthusiastic and eager to give you the best answer I can. I do that ’cause that’s what work-Peter does. This post isn’t written by the guy that’s politely answers your queries if you call us at the centre. No, this post is written by the guy who actually does the hard yards of sitting down and writing stuff; the grumpy-as-shit professional who spends the other half of the day trying to earn some extra cash out of his writing. “Look,” the cranky writer snarls, “this writing shit isn’t that difficult. I can tell you everything you need to know with nine fucking rules. Just read those and go away; I’ve got a deadline looming.” If you ask me about writing outside of work,

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21/07/2014 No Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

#FollowFriday: Anna Cowan, Untamed, and The Reasons You Should Start Following Her Career

Australian romance readers don’t really need me to tell them about Anna Cowan. Her first novel, Untamed, picked up the Favourite Historical Romance award at the 2013 Australian Romance Readers Awards and earned Cowan the Favourite New Author gong as a follow-up. Untamed has also picked up a litany of reviews on the vast majority of the romance review sites I follow, where it earns descriptions like polarizing, ambitious,  and divisive, but still earns some pretty impressive critical ratings (check out the reviews from BookThingo, Dear Author, and Radish Reviews for a representative sample), Romance Readers don’t need me to tell them about Anna Cowan. This #FollowFriday is for everyone else. So, here’s my advice:  go read Untamed. Start following Anna Cowan’s blog. Be very, very excited by the whatever is coming next, ’cause on the basis of the first book and the blog, I’d put money on her second effort being something phenomenal. When you read Cowan’s blog you get a taste of the thinking behind her first novel. You get the feeling of a very savvy, ultra-aware reader of romance genre who genuinely likes genre and yet wants to take it in new directions. The actual experience of reading Untamed is rather like encountering China Mieville for the first time as a fantasy reader – all the familiar tropes are there, but they’ve been arranged in a new and slightly unfamiliar way that makes you look at them anew. But where Mieville re-arranges fantasy tropes to examine their

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18/07/2014 1 Comment
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

Why I Wrote Exile

It started with an IM from Jenn Brozek at Apocalypse Ink: Have you ever through about adapting the Flotsam series you did for The Edge of Propinquity into novella form? It’s one of those questions you answer carefully when it comes from an editor, particularly one you’ve worked with before who has launched their own small publishing company. Sure, I said, I’ve thought about it. Why do you ask? Jenn explained her reasons for asking. We went back and forth about the details. Somewhere along the line, I signed a contract. On this level, the why behind EXILE is easy: Jenn was interested in working with me, and she offered an advance. When you’re a writer, working freelance, that’s a combo you don’t turn down. But there’s more to EXILE than opportunity and income; there always is, when you set out to write something, even if you convince yourself otherwise. So for the rest of the post I figured I’d tilt my lance at the dreaded not-so-easy answer and try to unpack some of the deeper motivations behind the book. WHY I REALLY WROTE EXILE I’ve had the character of Keith Murphy kicking around my head for a long, long time. He showed up back in 2003, at least in prototype, the POV character for a story I knocked out for a RPG forum writing contest where we wrote stories based on four or five visual queues. This was a good three years before I started taking short-story writing seriously,

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17/07/2014 No Comments
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Networking Tips for Reclusive, Introverted Writer-Types

Thou shalt network, people used to tell me. Connections are how you get ahead in any business.  And me, I’d ignore them. Hell, I was all fuck that shit. Networking brought to mind visions of trading business cards and ruthlessly finding people to help you getting ahead that seemed…well, exceedingly eighties. Right up there with giant shoulder-pads and Duran-Duran. I didn’t see a place for it in the arts, and it sure as hell as wasn’t playing to my strengths as an introverted chap who dislikes meeting new people. Then I met my friend Angela Slatter, who is one of those networking dynamos who quietly sets about connecting the world together. She hooked me up with my first publisher, Twelfth Planet Press, after I told her about the weird-ass unicorn novella I’d written that I figured no-one would ever publish. She introduced me to a bunch of other writers, passed on opportunities I otherwise wouldn’t have heard about, and generally taught me the value of being a well-networked writer. “But what you do isn’t really networking,” I said once, fairly early on in our friendship. “You’re just doing favours for people you know.” “Exactly,” Angela said. “What in hell do you think networking is?” And lo, I was schooled, and the scales fell from my eyes. So, yeah, I learned my lesson on that front, and while I’m still an introverted, reclusive chap who will never be known for his ability to work a room, I’ve also become a lot better at building

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16/07/2014 8 Comments
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

Five (Well, Six, Actually) Things Writers Can Learn From Watching Wing Commander (1999)

Our work offices are located in the State Library of Queensland, which means I’ll occasionally walk past signs for upcoming library events on my way into work. Last week, one of those signs advertised the library’s classic movie screening of the German submarine classic Das Boot and I was…well, mildly interested. Unfortunately, the screening was during work hours and I missed it, so I went home and made do with the next best thing – Das Boot in space, AKA the cinematic adaptation of the Wing Commander computer games. Fans of the game hate this film. Like, passionately hate this film. My former flatmate, who reveled in the shittiest of films during our #TrashyTuesdayMovie run, chose not to sit through Wing Commander when it was scheduled. My friends who love the games claim that it fails as an adaptation on multiple levels, but I can’t really speak to that. I never actually played the games, so I was forced to take the film on its own merits (what few there are). And by those standards…well, I’m in a definite minority here, but I actually like the Wing Commander film. It’s not a great piece of cinema by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s a sense that it’s the product of an ambitious, first-time director working at the limits of his ability and budget. Writer/Director Chris Roberts was the man behind the Wing Commander games and by all accounts he hustled like hell to get this movie made. Then, once it was green-lit, he was

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15/07/2014 No Comments
News & Upcoming Events

Exile: Now Available

“They found me in the Hard Rock. Thursday night, a little after ten. A good crowd for a Thursday, all things considered. Lots of girls with inscrutable, backpacker accents clustered around the bar. Plenty more heading up the stairs, attracted by the cover band’s caterwaul. Blondes, natural and peroxide; a Gold Coast epidemic. Exposed skin, despite the cool nip in the air. Twenty-dollar cocktails named after natural disasters: Typhoons; Tsunamis; rum-soaked Hurricanes…” That’s how we first meet Keith Murphy: a hit-man who specialises in a very particular kind of target. He’s back on the Gold Coast for the first time in sixteen years, running from a cult who really want their leader back, and he’s about to negotiate with the king-shit local demon who may be holding a grudge against Murphy for things that were done in his past. It’ll all be okay, so long as they don’t find the bullet he swallowed. The one with the soul of his last victim trapped inside it… IF YOU WANT TO BUY IT Exile, the first novella in the Flotsam series, came out in ebook format a few hours ago. There’s already a couple of purchase options out there, including: Direct from the Publisher, AIP: Buy Here Amazon US: Buy Here Amazon Australia: Buy Here DriveThroughFiction: Buy Here Other sites are and sales platforms are on their way, depending on processing time. SOME NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR So this is novella one of the Flotsam series, with another two books yet to come. Book 2, Frost, should

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14/07/2014 No Comments
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

You Don’t Want to Be Published

You don’t want to be published. And, yes, I know you disagree. You’re an aspiring writer. You’ve worked hard at your craft. You’ve been getting rejection letter after rejection letter since you started sending your work out. All you want, more than anything in the world, is to get published. It’s the focus of everything you’re doing. But the truth is, you’re wrong. You don’t want to be published; you’re just using those words as a short-hand for a goal that you aren’t willing or able to articulate yet. I work in a writer’s centre four days out of every five. My job is literally answering the questions new writers ask about how to get published. I’ve done it on the phone, in seminars, in person, and via magazine articles. Now I’m doing it here, and I’m sharing the one truth I’ve learned after three years at the centre and nearly a decade of teaching creative writing classes before that. You don’t want to be published. No-one does. HERE’S HOW I KNOW Realistically speaking, getting published is easier now than it’s ever been. You want to get published? Go to wordpress.com. Fire up a new, free blog. Post your work to the internet. Boom. You’re published. Go to the pub and get a celebratory beer. Now, if you’re like most people, your first response to that scenario is is yeah, but…, and it’s the things that follow that but that really identify what you really want. Yeah, but…I’d like to make money

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14/07/2014 16 Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

#FollowFriday: Here’s Why You Should Follow the Tiny Owl Workshop

We don’t often think in terms of following publishers. Writers, yes, ’cause it’s their names on the cover and we’re trained to follow the individual rather than the company that produced their work. Writers get branded; publishers…well, with the exception of Harlequin, the Penguin classics line, and some of the work being done by Angry Robot, there are very few larger publishers that have a clear, design-led brand that gives all their books a consistent look and easy recognition. This breaks down a little once you start looking at small press, but, basically, you’ve got to be pretty nerdy to be a fan of publishers rather than the people they publish. Fortunately, I’m a nerdy kind of guy. Tiny Owl Workshop haven’t been around for very long, but they’ve put together a series of interesting projects over their short life-span and they’re one of those publishers I keep watching with real interest. NAPKIN STORIES Tiny Owl first came to my attention when they published my friend Megan as part of their Napkin Stories project – a series of micro-fiction that were printed on serviettes, then distributed to a bunch of local cafes over Valentines Day, 2013. The Napkin Stories had some great fiction and the gimmick definitely attracted attention on the local level, but I remember being somewhat dubious about it. Quirky will get you attention, after all, but from a writer’s point of view, there are always questions when you watch a small press emerging and establishing their reputation.

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11/07/2014 No Comments
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Six Things That Will Happen a Few Days Before Your Book Comes Out

So the announcement on the Apocalypse Ink blog has made it all official: I’ve got me a book dropping on July 14th. That’s July 14th on the American West Coast, though, which means it’ll be July 15th for those of us here in Australia. Blame the international time zones at work. What this means is that there’s just four or five days, depending on your location, before Exile is available for sale and the Flotsam trilogy is underway. I have that, oh, shit, new book feeling deep in my stomach where I’m all eager for things to go live and people to start reading it. And, at the same time, I’m totally not.P It’s a weird feeling, those days before a book comes out. Even weirder when it’s four years since the last time you had something out on the shelves. Still, I’ve been here before, and I recognise the familiar terrain, thus I’ve put together short list of things you should expect to be feeling a few days before your book goes live. I’m sure some other author will come along and correct me if I’ve left out a step or two,but this seems pattern seems to match my own experience and the experiences of friends as they release novellas/collections/novels. ONE: YOU GET PARANOID THAT YOU HAVEN’T MENTIONED THE BOOK ENOUGH Or that you’ve mentioned the book enough, but haven’t been clear enough about its contents. Or that you’ve been clear about its contents, but somehow managed to make

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10/07/2014 2 Comments
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

The First Rule of Write Club is Talk About Write Club; The Second Rule is Talk About The Things You Learned At Write Club

Five years ago, more or less, I was having coffee with my friend Angela Slatter and listening to her complain about the slow progress she was making on her latest draft. Shoot, I said, there’s an easy fix for that. At Clarion Kelly Link mentioned she and Holly Black get together in a coffee shop once a week, then yell at each other write until they run out of words. We could just do something similar and it’d get your work kick-started right quick. And since Angela allowed that this idea may have merit, we started meeting up once a week to talk about writing, eat ridiculous amounts of junk food, and write up a storm. Thus began Write Club, possibly the smartest idea I ever ripped off from another, far more successful writer and applied to my own life. Write Club’s evolved a bit over the years. We eat less junk-food these days. We meet up during the daylight hours, instead of the Friday evenings we once favoured. There was a short hiatus in 2011, when we both foolishly worked a full-time schedule for a couple of months. Angela now writes full-time, after starting out as a part-time writer/part-time QWC employee; I now write part-time while working for QWC, after starting out as an unemployed slacker who basically failed to get jobs and wrote things to pay the phone bills. But the core remains: once a week we meet, drink coffee, talk about writing, then bang out a terrifying number of

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09/07/2014 2 Comments

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