Happy New Year!

Well, it was nice that the year went out on a high (see below).

As I sit here eating assorted rice crackers and drinking sump oil port, it's hard to credit that at the beginning of 2008 I was finishing off my previous novel (Time and Tyde) and wondering if I could be bothered to waste my time sending it out to publishers. Then I heard about the Orbit/QWC manuscript development retreat and thought, What the hell? I'll give it a go.

Since then I've had four stories accepted for publication, been shortlisted in one short story competition and was the winner in another. I've also finished and polished up a whole new novel (TimeSplash! - many thanks to Terry Hornby, Rod Rivers and Wifie for help with the polishing) and have it out with three agents already.

It may not sound like much, but after a lifetime of failing to get anywhere with my fiction, I'm suddenly having some real success. I blame it to a large extent on Orbit and the Queensland Writers Centre. That retreat last May really opened my eyes and got me focused on what I needed to do. Specifically, Marianne de Pierres, Kate Eltham and Bernadette Foley, put together a package of concentrated enlightenment that changed my whole approach to getting published - with incredibly good results.

I should also mention the other writers who were at the retreat with me. We refer to ourselves collectively as the Orbiteers. These guys have been a constant source of support and encouragement. It is so good to be teamed with such a group of talented writers - who just happen to be terrific human beings too. The whole experience of that retreat and the subsequent months (which also included joining the Vision Writers Group - another amazing collection of talent and wit) has changed the equation for me. I am no longer the lonely, isolated outsider I used to be. I have made inroads, I'm networking, I actually have friends who are also writers. The publishing world doesn't seem so cold and hostile as it did at the beginning of the year. I have found islands of warmth and fuzziness in that great ocean. I even have hope again that I might succeed as a writer!

Of course that might just be the sump oil port talking (or the rice crackers - hard to tell). Being an anal, scientific type, I did my accounts for the year, to see just what my success amounted to. On the one hand, I got paid for a couple of things. On the other I forked out money for retreats, conferences, memberships, books, etc.. The balance was a loss of nearly $600 for the year. Not as bad as it could be but definitely a reminder (as if one were needed!) that I still have a very long way to go.

Well, come on 2009! I've got a lot to do and I'm counting on you for support.

Happy New Year everybody!

The Earth Ship Docks at Absent Willow Review

My head is reeling! Not a week since I got my acceptance from CSfG for the Masques anthology (see below) I have had another story accepted - this time by The Absent Willow Review, a relatively new online SF/F/H magazine from the American publisher Absent Willow Books. And I am so pleased to say that the story they took was a personal favourite of mine The Earth Ship. I wrote the story some years ago and have always loved it. I gave it a big makeover recently (and cut a thousand words out of it!) and that seems to have paid off.

Anyone interested in reading it won't have long to wait, it will be in the 16th January issue of the mag. and I will post a link on this blog.

The Orbit/QWC retreat (see way down the bottom somewhere) may not have done much for getting my novel Time and Tyde published, but my goodness it seems to have worked wonders for my short stories! My thanks again to Marianne de Pierres for kicking me in the butt and to my fellow Orbiteers for their more gentle encouragements.

Dead America - News of the Dead

Check this out! Writer Luke Keioskie has started up a new website based around the 'world' of his unpublished zombie novel Dead America. The site features news items from Dead America's alternate reality, along with fake adverts offering services, like cosmetic surgery, to zombies.

Apart from being way cool in and of itself, as a marketing vehicle to get a buzz going around his novel, this a fantastic idea. Everyone who has come across Dead America agrees this is a great premise for a novel, and I know for a fact that Luke is a skilled and original writer. Surely it can't be long before a publisher catches on too.

Not another bloody website? Oh, hang on...

...it's one of ours.

Thanks to Luke Keioskie (yeah, I can't pronounce it either) for taking the trouble to gather views and opinions, take polls, and exercise his mighty intellect on our behalf by creating the brand new Orbiteers' website. Don't bother to look because there isn't much there yet but put the link in your favourites and come back in a while - unless you're wondering who the Orbiteers are, in which case, you should sneak a peek. Ah, what the hell? Go and have a look anyway, you know you want to.