A cold morning here in locked down Brisbane. The heater is definitely on and the cat has taken up residence in a conveninent patch of sunlight. The writing brain is protesting the return to work like a reluctant starter mower on the last dregs of fuel; it’s a “40% of optimal” day here, first thing […]
If you’ve been following me for any length of time longer than a week, you don’t need me to tell you who Angela Slatter is and why she’s awesome. She’s a friend, write-club buddy, and force of nature. For everyone else, here’s what you need to know: Angela Slatter is one of the smartest writers […]
We’re two or three days away from the launch of Crusade, the third book in the Flotsam novella series. The following appeared on the Apocalypse Ink blog a few days back, along with the launch date and blurb: Damn, I like that cover. I’d be talking about this being the end of Flotsam and my […]
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 […]
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 […]
Somewhere along the line, I got out of the habit of posting about peeps releasing cool stuff into the world. I’m not sure why, ’cause I got some pretty awesome peeps and they’re doing some very cool stuff, but my blogging habits are arbitrary these days despite my best intentions. With that in mind, lets […]
Late start today. For reasons. Actually, no, I owe you a better explanation than that. So here’s the thing: I’m going to the Gold Coast tomorrow night for an awards ceremony. It’s a work thing, and I’m going as the work representative, and it wasn’t something I’d planned for. This is bugging me. Not in […]
Really? A week in already? It doesn’t feel like I’ve been at this for a week. Two chapters down. Chapter three about two-thirds done now. By rough word count I’m about a quarter of the way through the book at the point I’m writing this (after session 7.1 below); but narrative points, I’m a little behind. Experience […]
Today’s Monday, which is my regularly scheduled write-club day with the inimitable Angela Slatter. I’ve talked about this plenty of times on the blog before (as has Angela over at her virtual home), but for those who are new around these parts: Write Club is a once-a-week meet-up with Angela where we basically catch-up, drink […]
I was given a particularly silly hat for Christmas, and the first thing my mother said was oh god, it’ll be up on his blog by tomorrow morning. My mother is a wise woman, but she failed to take into account the delays inevitably caused by moving house and cleaning and the other minutia of the last […]
I met Laura Goodin several years ago at a writers workshop. She was forthrightly American in many ways, despite being expatriated to Australia for several years now, and we frequently found ourselves coming from stories at very different angles. Despite her handicap as a non-native Australian, she wrote one of the finest SF cricket stories […]
It’s a cool winter evening and I’ve turned off most of the lights in the flat, shuffling around the study by dim glow of the desk lamp, swaying in a slightly dreamy manner to Bauhaus songs while I poke bits of Flotsam with a stick. In theory I should be writing right now, but I […]
