Another Day, Anothet Novel

I've started another novel.

I finished the Brightest Light. It is currently working it's way towards the top of the Baen slush pile. It's their type of novel (unlike Songs of other Worlds or whatever it was at the time). I think it has a shot.

The Subtle Chains is in hiatus.

And it's all Terry Pratchett's fault. He has organised some sort of competition for novels. The prize is a $20000pound advance, or something like that, but unfortunately the story has to be set entirely on earth. And it has to be submitted by the end of this year. So I am not about 5k words into a new novel about witches and goblins and fairies. I was thinking of making it YA but there's talk of suicide and the doing of sex in the first few scenes so I'm not really sure. I could probably change it, and I will leave that option open, but at the moment I'm just going to write what comes.

It's going pretty well, so far. I did start it about a month ago but that didn't work out. It started in the fairy realm with a goblin as the main character, now it starts on earth from a human POV. Much better this time around.

We are still living in the shed, thought at the moment we are staying down at my parent's house because they're away for 5 weeks visiting Deborah in NT. It's great having a house. We want a house. We have had Nanango on the market but have taken it off while we wait for the messy tenants to move out. We really need to sell so we can buy...

Bayli and Noah are doing great. NAd that's all. I should be writing. A goblin and 2 sprites have just come appeared in our realm because of an accidental spell cast by a novice witch.

How Things Change: The Next

Kel and I moved to Nanango in February of 2008. I found work. Kel did Family Day Care. Bayli (our daughter) said her first words and took her first steps. Then we moved to my parent's garage in Woodford for reasons partially relating to the fact that she is pregnant again. If you want to know more, check out the 'Robinsons' blog.

In writing news Singing Other Worlds (previously known by several other names-- the science fiction one with the trolls) has been trimmed by 60,000 words (it doesn't hove trolls any more) after comments supplied by a publisher. Subtle Chains has been postponed while I write The Brighest Light, a fantasy crystal-punk novel (it's a brand new genre that is about to take off) and then possible while I complete The Shadow of the Dragon a fantasy with cast iron blimps. Yes, the title is fairly cliched but I like it none the less for its double meaning.

I'm part way through reading The Tide Lords series by Jennifer Fallon. It has similarities to Winds of the Forelands in that it's bugging me but I'm still reading it. This one is easy enough to follow' its just the quality of the writing. It feels more like something by a first time writer than someone with ten or so books like Jennifer. One of my favourite "rules" of writing is the old, enter late, leave early. ie, start the scene at the last possible moment (taking things like flow and clarity into account) before the scene's point is made (there can obviously be more than one point to a scene) and get out as soon as possibe afterwards.

An example of this not happening. (paraphrased because I returned the first and second book to my mother in law).

Declan, a a low born major character is talking to a Prison Captain (PC), a minor character (who isn't seen after the first few chapters). PC is being a smart arse and says, "Would you like me to tell any of you friends you are in town. Do you have any friends?" or something to that effect. Declan replies, "Arkady Desean is my friend. Do you know who she is?" And he promptly leaves. PC is shocked. He thinks, Of course I know who she is. Everyone knows who she is. She is the Duchess. And he spends another page thinking about the Duchess and how she rose up from the slums.

Nothing wrong with that in itself, except after PC does all the thinking there's a new chapter from the Duchess's POV, in which we are given all the relevant information again. The previous chapter could have ended with Declan leaving the room.

There are a lot of little things like that. There's a lack of subtlety. The characters are intelligent one moment and as dense as an elvish forest the next. Where was the editor?

Anyway, Bayli wants to dance...

Reading

At the moment I'm reading the third book in the Winds of the Forelands series by David B Coe. I'm not sure what I think of it. It is bugging the hell out of me in a lot of ways. It's all so confusing for one thing. There are too many characters that are very similar to other characters and too many places that are similar to other places. I'm having trouble keeping everything straight in my head.

But apparently is isn't bugging me enough to get me to stop-- I am up to book three, after all.

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that I met David at Conjure in 2006. He was a nice guy and had lots of interesting stuff to say.


Haven't written anything extra today-- get to it soon.

The New Novel

Last post I said I would be starting a new novel soon. I did start it. And yesterday I started the same novel again.

I did have about 8k words but wasn't all that happy with most of them. They weren't terrible or anything, I suppose, just not the ones I wanted. So, as I said, I started again.

The novel is to be called The Subtle Chains. Amd it is to be the first book of a three book series called Warriors of Myth and Legend. Subtle chains will be a fairly standard quest fantasy with a small group sent to complete a few tasks by their god. After that it gets a bit more complicated. Doesn't it always. And, of course, when i say fairly standard I obviously mean compared to my previous stuff. For those of you who haven't read my previous stuff (there are billions of you out there) I do fantasy/si-fi cross over stuff.

So anyway, I have about 800 words at the moment and I think they are pretty good. And I think they are in a pretty good order as well.

Shall see, I guess.

More soon.

Not Long Now

What's this I see? A blog? No, surly not...


Well, I am going to be starting to write a new novel soon, so I thought I would blog a bit about that when it happens. This is just a preparatory post, to get myself going again.

To let you all catch up-- Kel and I are now married. We are back from our honey moon. She is pregnant. And in less than a month we will be moving to Nanango. So, yes, you'r eright, nothing much has happened since last time.

The blog you are now reading will mainly be about writing stuff from now on. If you want to read about the wedding etc, go to the Robinsons, which, if I can get it worked out, will be a link at the side.

And speaking of writing, I finished another novel. It is out getting read by a couple of people from Vision at the moment. So, ok, finished is a relative word. I'll tell you how finished it is when people get back to me.

That's all.

How Things Change v.3

I'm getting married.

Kel and I went to Sydney for a weekend in November last year. We went to a show at the Opera House. We took in the sights. We got engaged. For those who are interested in that sort of thing, I asked in the Botanical Gardens. If I could do it over again I would probably do things a bit differently. But I asked and Kel said yes, so that's the main thing.

So, the wedding is in August. It will be 17 months since we met.

And I may have previously said we met when I went to the city to take some photos, but we actually met on the internet. It seems to have worked :)

Also, We have bought a house in Nanango, which is a small town (population 4500) about two and a half hours north west of Brisbane. We will be moving there in January. Has four bedrooms and a huge yard and we wouldn't have been able to afford anything like it in Brisbane.


We were looking at some acreages just outside of town as well. One was on the side of a mountain with absolutely no lawn at all. The other had five acres of lawn. Both of them were nice, but the houses were smaller and they were more expensive.


Last weekend we went to a cousins wedding in Melbourne. Was nice, but could have done without the expense at this stage. The house, our upcoming honeymoon to Europe, a new engine for the car... It's all getting a bit expensive.

So, that's all. Have to go do some work to pay for everything. Well, not really.

My Name is Earl...

I'm now sharing a two bedroom unit with someone, so obviously we have lots of extra crap. The other day we decided to sell some of it at a second hand store. So Kel and I are in Cash Converters, with a stereo, two pairs of roller blades and a wheelie clothes hanger thing on the counter.

A cross eyed guy at the counter looked them over. "I can give you $40," he said, looking over my left shoulder.

"Ummm..." I replied.

There was a weird looking gay guy (ok, he didn't tell me he was gay, but he had christmas sticky tape around a couple of fingers) fiddling in the background. His rendition of 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' made me nervous. (sorry, had to say that).

"How about $50?" I ventured, unconsciously shifting to my left.

The cross eyed guy tapped away at the computer for a second while the gay guy fiddled some more. "$45 is the best I can do."

Another customer walked inand started organising something with the gay guy. Might have been something to do with a golden fiddle, but I'm not sure.

Kel and I accepted the offer and cross eyed guy started on the computer again. And we stood there waiting while he's tapping away.

And while we wait, the other customer has a look at the stereo and says, "How much are they offering you for that?"

"$45 for the lot," I told him.

"Does the stereo work?"

"Yes. Crossed-eyed guy just tested it." And it did work. The fact that it had seven watt speakers and a four button remote control didn't come up.

"I'll give you $40 for the stereo."

"Ummm..." I hesitated because I could understand that the cash converters guys might be offended by this conversation.

"$40 for the stereo," the guy says again.

"Ummm..."

"You'll have to make up your mind before I enter it into the system," Cross eyed guy says.

"What elese have you got?" The customer goes around to have a look at the rest of the stuff. "I'll give you eighty dollars for the lot." Now there's a guy who knows how to bargain. Forget all the prices between $45 and $80 that we would have accepted. I mean, jeeze, why not offer 60?

"We are the ones with the business licence," Gay guy says. "You'll have to have this conversation outside."

"Ummm, sure." So we apoplogise to cross eyed guy.

"No worries. No skin off my nose," he says to someone standing behind my left shoulder.

Out in the carpark, Kell can't stop laughing as we wait for the customer to finish his business inside. And when the man finally emerges, a kid poked his head out the window of a beat up old car and says, "Dad, I got money." And he brandished a dirty, jangling old sock.

And that set me off as well. Not because the kid had money, but because he was an Aboriginal, black as could be, and the customer looked to be white. He may have had some Aboriginal in him, but it wasn't obvious. And I couldn't help thinking of Earl from 'My Name is Earl' who didn't realise the two black kids weren't his... And the whole situation just seemed like something Earl would get himself into. Number 243, pissed of the gay guy at Cash Converters by stealing his business.

So, there's Kel and I, trying not to laugh as we sell stuff out of the boot of my car behind Cash Converters.

"What's that?" the customer asks, pointing to the cloths rack thingy. "A stand for the stereo?"

We explain.

"Oh, right. Got anything else to sell?"

I had a football in my boot that I thought of giving him for $25, but well... Maybe I hould have sold him CDs for $30 each...

Kel still can't stop laughing whenever she thinks about it.

(I just read back ove that and the tense is all over the place. I just couldn't be bothered fixing it.)