Category: linkage

Holla folks,

It’s going to be one of those annoying broundup-of-stuff-I’ve done-or-am-going-to-do posts, because I’ve been busy being AMAZING WRITER GUY  lately, in that way that you can be AMAZING WRITER GUY without doing much in the way of actual writing.

You know, like this guy.

What have I been doing?

• I was a guest on the Romance Writers of Australia email list for a few days, answering questions about ebooks because people keep asking me such things. That was great fun! The email format gave me room to explore answers in more depth, and the questions pushed me to do some reading and research so I could get things right. Romance writers are great to work with; they’re really focused on the business of writing while still loving their genre and their stories. If only my heart wasn’t a lump of coal.
• On the subject of ebooks, I had a bit of a chinwag with the guys at The Crime Factory about Kindle formatting and file conversion. They paid me with beer. I heartily endorse the alcohol-based economy that is at the heart of the small press publishing industry.
• There was the Melbourne Writers Festival! But I didn’t really attend, because writers’ festivals of this kind don’t do a lot for me. I made an exception for Twelfth Planet Press’ launch of their Twelve Planets range of anthologies, which was great. It’s a terrific series, with work by an amazing variety of Australian writers including Margo Lanagan, Deborah Biancotti, Cat Sparks, Kirstyn McDermott and many others. Plus the launch included a reading by Jason Nahrung from his novella Salvage, which I’m very keen to read. Plus plus I got to say hello to people I’d met at Continuum and then drink Sam Adams in the downstairs bar.
• I got royalty payments from both Amazon and Smashwords, plus a nice big tax refund, all of which makes me feel a bit better about writing. Well, the tax refund was because I didn’t do much writing this year, but let’s not quibble.
• I made pulled pork in the slow cooker. It was pretty boss.
• And I’m still trying to work out why someone stole our front gate.

Have I been talking about myself?

• Fuck yeah I have.
• I mentioned last week that I was on the Read@UTS site talking about crime stories with Sean Riley and Pam Newton. And now I’m mentioning it again, because it was a really fun interview.
• But not as much fun as the massive interview that I’ve been working on with Hugh Grimwade for the last few months. We’ve been trading emails and bon mots for ages, and now that we’ve finally finished he’s put the first instalment up on his blog, where we talk about when you decide you’re a writer and what the hell that means in the times you’re not writing. This was a hoot and a half, and there’s something like 5000 words in the three instalments – so if you read this blog but think that it just doesn’t have quite enough talk about me, well, get you hither to Mister Grimwade’s pad.

Read anything good?

•  I read Volumes 4 and 5 of Locke and Key and the fact that I now have to wait for Volume 6 makes me want to scream and drink bleach in frustration. Jesus fuck, this series is so amazingly good.
• I’ve just started Hari Kunzru’s Gods Without Men, and I mean that literally; I’m like four pages in. But so far they’re good pages.
• There’s a very good review of The Obituarist over at Crime Fiction Lover. I read that a few times.

What next?

• The big thing on my to-do list is this year’s Freeplay festival! I’ve attended this independent video games festival a couple of times, but this year I’ll be on a panel, talking about Sex and Death. Granted, I am not a writer or creator of video games, but I play them and have opinions about them and occasionally blog about when they say fucked-up things about gender and sexuality, so they asked me to come on the panel. I think I’m going to talk about Assassin’s Creed. Sort of.
• Tomorrow night I’m going to the launch of Jay Kristoff’s new book Stormdancer, which is shaping up as the MONSTER hit of 2012. If you like your fantasy YA, Japanese-inspired, steampunk and really fucking well written, you need to read this book. And if you’re in the Melbourne CBD tomorrow night, the launch is at Dymocks. Come along! I’ll be the second-tallest guy in the room for once.
• To fend off the tide of requests for an Obituarist sequel – it’s coming, I swear – I’ve started work on a stand-alone short story about Kendall Barber. No idea what to call it; I was toying with ‘Person of Pinterest’ but that doesn’t really work. Anyway, hoping to have that finished in the next couple of weeks, after which I’ll be giving it away COMPLETELY FREE on this blog and via Smashwords.
• Also, playtesting the upcoming Atomic Robo RPG hells yeah this is going to be awesome DINOSAUR TO THE FACE

I RETURN! LET TRUMPETS AND CORONETS BLART THEIR JOYOUS NOISE ACROSS THE INTERWEBS!

Ahem.

Miss me?

Where I’ve been

Last week N. and I went to the tiny Fijian island of Nanuya, some 4-5 hours by boat north of Nadi, to spend seven days and six nights relaxing, attending friends’ wedding and getting in a little honeymoon time of our own. We snorkelled, lay on beaches, swam, drank cocktails, drank massages and generally did nothing but enjoy ourselves – with a short aside to do a reading for Sabhdh and Peter, our getting-hitched friends.

Here I am at the wedding (with my pal Eamon) looking completely awesome in traditional Fijian shirt and sulu (skirt), a formal pinstripe model that I plan to wear to the office Christmas party, because it’s super-light and comfortable and it’ll be a million degrees that day.

It was a grand, grand time. Possibly one of the best times of my life. Especially the part where my wife and I held hands while snorkelling through a school of a million darting blue fish, suspended in cool water above an expanse of reef, in love and in paradise. That was the best part.

(Sabhdh is also the non-fiction blogger over at Boomerang Books, and you should check her column out once she gets back from her honeymoon.)

What I’ve been doing

We got back very late on Sunday night, and since then it’s been busy as H-E-double-hockeysticks, back at work and arse back on the grindstone.

But no-one wants to hear about my arse, do they? God, I hope not.

On the internet this week you can find me over at Louise Cusack’s site If You Must Write, where I give a quick and hopefully useful primer on how to independently publish your own ebooks. It’s neither the first nor last word on the subject, and it’s all very general; I could have written twice as much just on topics like sorting out US tax details or the proper use and value of a table of contents. But if you’ve been looking at indie ebooks thinking ‘could I do that?’, well, the answer is ‘yes’ and this may give you a bit of a head start.

You can also go check out this very positive review of The Obituarist over at the eNovella Review site, which says all sorts of nice things about my little book. Including that it could be good YA reading, something that I don’t quite understand and is prompting me to write that what-the-heck-is-YA-anyway post that’s been on my mind, possibly even this weekend.

Last night I saw the Afghan Whigs live, a gig I’ve been waiting nearly twenty years to see. And yeah, it was worth the wait. I saw Greg Dulli a couple of years ago when touring with/as the Twilight Singers, and that was good, but this was a stronger, punchier gig with all of the Whigs’ classic tracks, all jangly guitars and sleazy, lonely lyrics. The Hifi crowd was pumping and just the right size – and for an encore they busted out ‘Miles iz Dead’, the bonus B-side from Congregation, and that pretty much made my fucking week. Thank goodness that all us indie/grunge/subpop kids from the early 90s now have respectable jobs and can make it financially worthwhile for our fave bands to reform, tour and charge $70 a ticket at last.

Oh, and I saw Dark Knight Rises. Which was… hmm. Not as good as I’d hoped, due to very messy storytelling and pacing, massive plot holes and nowhere near enough Batman. On the other hand the acting/casting was uniformly excellent (especially Anne Hathaway), the development of themes within the movie dovetailed amazingly with those in the previous two films, and there were some gorgeously visceral setpieces. But still, something of a disappointment to me.

…and yes, of course I’m going to buy it on DVD and watch all three movies in a single night as soon as possible. Like that was ever in question.

What’s next?

Writing, of course. It’s been on the backburner for a bit as I got organised for the trip, flogged the last book around the internets and did, you know, living things. But now I have a head full of concepts and half-developed lines for Raven’s Blood and that old itch is building up – that terrible itch that crawls up my neck and reminds me that I could be writing, creating, making something; that it’s time for me to do the only thing I’m good at. Because there may never be another chance.

It’s very Shakespearean. And Batmantarian.

Plus I’ve managed to sort out the other half of my ideas for The Obituarist’s inevitable sequel, which I’m now formally committing to writing, hopefully by the end of the year. But don’t hold me to that date. Really, don’t.

I also need to write reviews for the books I read in Fiji, as per my last blog post – especially for Chuck Wendig’s Blackbirds, which completely blew me away. Just need to find the time and the spark to come up with something fitting.

Stupid spark. Why can’t I just be on fire ALL THE TIME?

…god, I wish I was back on Nanuya.

It’s the first of July! A time where we traditionally look back upon our accomplishments of the previous twelve months and wonder how much extra tax we will have to pay as a consequence!

Oh yes. Doesn’t that sound like fun.

But rather than calculate my writing earnings since mid-2011 (sob), or write another great long diatribe like I did last week, I thought I’d take this as a chance to quickly memorialise the cool things that happened in June around this here internet and see what they promise for the 12-13 year. Which will perhaps finally be the year when I make enough money from writing to quit the day job and just drink Old Fashioneds in my underwear by the pool all day.

And now that I’ve said it, you can’t unsee it.

What I’ve been doing

• I just finished laying out the pages of The Obituarist’s limited print run! And I do mean limited – I’m planning on running off maybe 25-30 of these through Blurb. And once I have them, I don’t really know what I’m going to do with them. But hey, the important thing is that they’ll exist! In any event, I should have the rest of the details sorted out this week and the books by the end of July.
• I also just had a meeting with Ben McKenzie about the audiobook version of The Obituarist, where we hashed out various points and scribbled down our to-do lists. It’s super-exciting! Especially since crime is probably the single most popular genre in audio fiction. Stay tuned for more on that as we put it together.
• I did some work on Raven’s Blood, but time spent on promoting the last book is time I can’t spend writing the next book, which is one of the frustrating things in this life. I hope to get more time for that in July and start building up a head of steam, probably by adopting the same 1000-words-a-night program that got The Obituarist finished.
• There was the EWF and Continuum at the start of the month, but I’ve already talked about those things at great length.
• We playtested the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons. I can’t say I’m a fan at this point.
• I created a fan page for myself on Facebook and began spending more time on Google+, because I have a terrible fear that I’m just not talking about myself enough.
• I read a lot of comics and not enough books.

What other people have been doing

• Jay Kristoff launched a stunning new website for himself and his soon-to-be-released novel Stormdancer, which is shaping up to be one of the biggest things to hit YA fantasy in ages. He’s a top bloke and a good writer and (believe it or not) even taller than I am, so go check it out – and check out the first three chapters of Stormdancer over at Tor.com.
• Foz Meadows has been on fire this month with a series of scorching blog posts that ask tough questions and (sigh) bring trolls out of the woodwork. Her initial post on rape culture in gaming (there’s that topic again) drew attention and a flood of comments, both positive and negative; her follow-up post about the attention and commentary is also really interesting as a look at the kind of discussion and conversation this topic creates. And on a different note, this week’s post on sex scenes in YA fiction and why they matter is also really interesting, particularly for those of us thinking of writing in that genre.
• Margaret Weis Publishing put out the Civil War supplement for their Marvel superhero RPG, and speaking as a comics nerd and roleplayer, guys, this book is pretty goddamn great. Significantly better than the Civil War comics, in fact.
• Mur Lafferty released all – yes, all – of her ebooks for free! I think the offer’s only for a limited period, so don’t delay, go download the zip file and fill your Kindle/Nook/iPad/direct neural interface post right now.
• Indie nerdcore hip-hop artist Adam Warrock is running a donation drive, and it’s worth giving him some cash so he can keep putting out free mixtapes of tracks about Firefly, old Marvel comics, popular TV shows and other cool shit. Because that shit is awesome, guys.
• After being axed by Campbell Newman and the appalling reactionary politics of the new LNP government – who, hey, are also fucking over GLBTs, women and pretty much anyone who didn’t vote for them – the Queensland Literary Awards are being revived by local readers, writers and decent human beings. But it all takes money, so that’s why you should go pitch in to their fundraising page at Pozible.
• While you’re there, you should also donate some money to Fee Plumley and The Really Big Road Trip, a project to create a mobile art space for creative digital culture and technological art. I met Fee at the EWF and was blown away by her passion and dedication to creative digital culture; help her share that passion and bring it to spaces around Australia.
• You probably already know that Chuck Wendig has a new book of writing tips and advice out, 500 Ways to Tell a Better Story, because Chuck has approximately eleventy-billion readers and you all think he’s Piss Christ. Which is fair; he is in fact Piss Christ. But on the off-chance you didn’t know about the release, well, go here and read all about it.
• And finally I just want to link to this post by comics writer Gail Simone, who – in addition to being fucking hilarious on Twitter – also presents one of the best, simplest pieces of advice to any writer, artist or creator in any field.

What you could do next

• Remember how I said I was writing a crime story to submit to Crime Factory? Well, they passed on it as not right for them, and that’s completely fair enough. I’ll look for another home for it or maybe just give it away here. But, much more importantly, they’re gearing up for another special edition collection, Horror Factory, and they’re looking for horror stories! If you’re a horror writer (local or international), why not put together a story and submit it to them by the end of August? I know I sure as hell will.
• And then I’ll write another horror story and submit it to Nightmare Magazine, which is currently open for submission and paying a very respectable 5 cents a word for pieces! It’s a good time for writing horror, so don’t let me do it alone – get those fingers bleeding onto your keyboard and write.
• If you live in Melbourne and want to see me in the flesh (eww), come along to Dungeon Crawl this Wednesday night! The monthly improvised comedy show is drifting from its D&D-flavoured roots to celebrate all things superhero – so this one-time impro hound and long-time supers fanboy is pulling the costume out of mothballs and rejoining the Fantastic Four! Or, more precisely, joining the Dungeon Crawl team as the fourth member of this month’s performance group! Come along and laugh at me, preferably for the right reasons!

And now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s a cold and rainy night, and I’m going to go join my wife under the doona and watch a kung-fu movie. Happy Carbon Tax Apocalypse Day to you all.

***insert gross sneezing noises***

Oh, hello there. Don’t mind me, I’m just plague-ridden and exhausted. You know, when I was younger (and not that much younger either) I’d use the Easter weekend as a chance to party as hard as I possibly could and hit up a string of raves, festivals, house parties and BBQs before collapsing on Monday and sleeping for 20 hours.

Now, at age 41, I’ve spent the four-day weekend writing, cleaning and sniffling. Goodbye, rock and roll.

But hey, I’m getting stuff done, which is good. The Obituarist continues apace and I’m on target to finish this draft by next weekend, at which point it goes out to the editor and for feedback from my readers. Plus I have a line on a designer to approach regarding the cover, which I’ll do during the review/editing window. All of which makes me feel super-organised and not at all like a shut-in drinking bad coffee and wearing trackpants all day.

I’ve also been out to some Comedy Festival shows; you can see my reviews of Tessa Waters, Dingo & Wolf and Daniel Burt on The Pun, along with reviews of many other shows. I also saw Damian Callinan, who was terrific, and would recommend The Peer Revue except that it’s already finished its run.

—

I don’t have much else to talk about at the moment, but rather than cut things short right there, I wanted to drop a few links to other blogs, events and postings that are worth your time and eyeballs.

• Cat Valente posted this amazing essay about reactions to Christopher Priest’s criticism of this year’s Clarke Award nominees and how different (and loathsome) those reactions might have been if a woman had written the exact same thing. It’s a fantastic post that uses a lot of genuine examples of the negative reactions women draw just from being female on the Internet, so naturally a bunch of the comments are that she’s wrong and that never happens and men have it just as hard and YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID ‘COS BITCHES AIN’T SHIT and so forth. But not that many of the comments, thankfully. Anyway, it’s a really strong piece and I think it’s worth reading and considering even if you disagree with her premise or conclusions.
• Kirstyn McDermott has written a piece in partial response to Cat Valente’s essay that is also well worth a read, where she talks about her own experiences of feminism and internet responses to women with opinions.
• And speaking of blogging about feminism and writing, Foz Meadows continues to impress with her essays, including this pair about default narrative sexism in fantasy worlds and how that then interacts with sexism within wider geek circles.
• Former Queenslander Jason Nahrung vents some spleen over the axing of the QLD Premier’s Literary Awards – not the worst thing Campbell Newman will probably do to my former home, but certainly one a lot of writers find immediately upsetting. Jason also has some good news, though, in that a group of writers, booksellers and artslovers are trying to get an alternative set of awards up and running – more info here.
• Like many others, Jay Kristoff saw The Hunger Games recently (I haven’t, but I’ve got to be different), and he has some thoughts on the rating it received and how we look at sex and violence in stories for/about teenagers. Jay also thinks a lot about steampunk – not surprising, given the nature of his soon-to-be-released novel Stormdancer – and has put down some interesting thoughts about the evolution of the subgenre over at the blog Steamed.
• Alan Baxter is also talking about The Hunger Games (jeez, I’m really falling behind here), in this case the novel and what he sees as flaws in both the story and the way some adults think about YA fiction. Alan also has a new e-novella out called The Darkest Shade of Grey, which you should all investigate and perhaps buy for the low price of $1.99.
• And another thing Alan is involved with is Thirteen O’Clock, a new collaborative blog about horror news and reviews. He and fellow editors/writers Felicity Dowker and Andrew McKiernan are doing their best to cover a lot of new and independent books and projects, from both Australia and overseas, and if you’re interested in horror fiction it’s well worth a look.
• News out this week is a set of Gallup survey stats showing that people are actually reading far more now – and reading more books at that – than they did 25 or 50 years ago. Which gives me hope.
• And in closing, Text From Dog wins the entire Internet.

Alright, that’s enough out of me for the night. Next update should hopefully just say FINISHED in eleventy-hundred-point type above a picture of a coffin.