SCENES FROM A MALL..... OR FROM A WRITING DAY, TAKE YOUR PICK

The problem with being part of the internet generation: it makes the whole "You hang up, no you hang up..." part of the conversation look ludicrous!

And they were never seen again: Four children who have never watched Blood Beach wander away to play while we work.

Biffie! Pip! The view is over here, guys!

No, really, I mean it. You hang up!

NANOWRIMO DAY ONE

Day one of Nano completed, and a couple of hours down the foreshore with Lyn, her best friend Terri, and the sort of view out the cafe window that people in ludicrously large sunglasses who call themselves names like 'Pip' and 'Biffie' spend millions trying to find, and.... well, it's a start anyway. After over a year working on Corpse-Rat King, especially when I'm so close to the end, shifting gears to starting a fresh work that's so completely different is a wrench and a half, but I churned out some wordage, and, well, weeeeeeee.

November's a birthday-heavy month and the desire of my workplace to fuck me over at any available opportunity is going to present some challenges, but all things being equal (excepting, of course, odd numbers), I may have 2 completed novels by the end of the year.

Which will be nice.

And so to the word meters--

1754 / 50000

3.51%

MOVING ALONG

Fine, thanks. How are you?

Corpse-Rat King is lurching towards a conclusion. I've completed 95 000 words and have one longish section towards the end to knit togvether and the first draft will be completed. Say another 2 or 3 thousand words tops, and then I can let it stew until January before I go back and begin carving it up into tiny little pieces and painting them different colours.

Oh, and I've joined Nanowrimo again this year. The project this time round is a novelisation of my TV script Cirque, which garnered some positive comments from last year's WA Film Corporation script competition without managing to win. If you're of a mind to join the program (or already have) and want to buddy up, I'm entered under the name leebattersby, and my page is here.

Elsewhere, domesticity reigns. Mandurah in spring is a groovelicious thing: we pressed the nostalgia buttion big time the other weekend by packing the kids up and catching the ferry over to Penguin Island, prompting me to tell anyone who'd listen about how the last time I'd gone over, back in 1990 when I was still living in Rockingham, I'd walked across on the sandbar; how there were no boardwalks and we could clamber over all the rock faces that are now sealed off for the bird sanctuary; how I'd stayed at the camp buildings that stood where the penguin feeding area stands now; how we'd sat under the caves that are now sealed off beause of the falling risk.... in between my old man stories we spent a gorgeous afternoon beachcombing for shells, sharing lunch with the enormous skinks that invaded the picnic area, and embarking on the glass-bottom boat tour to Seal Island to watch seals play in the surf and a solitary dolphin bully a stingray out of its meal.

Idyllic? Bloody paradise, mate.

Lyn and the kids find the perfect spot to start building a hut, whilst I go looking for coconuts with which to start building a radio.

Hello, laaaaaaaaaaaadies.

The side of human/animal interactions that PETA doesn't tell you about-- a skink with a shoe fetish. Tragic, just tragic.

Minemineminemineminemineminemineminemine....

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTISTS AS A FOUR YEAR OLD BUTT

Question: What do you get if you give the kids the camera to amuse themselves while you’re sitting in the car waiting for their Mum to come out of the house?

Answer: This. Lots and lots of this.

RAMSEY CAMPBELL TO JUDGE THE NAMELESS COMPETITION

The AHWA and 'Nameless' competition director Stephen Studach are thrilled to announce that the ‘Nameless’ competition will be judged by multi-award winning master of dark fiction Ramsey Campbell.


In honour of Mr. Campbell’s involvement, the competition’s deadline has been extended to the 13th of March, 2010.


Read the story here. Come up with a conclusion and a title! Make your $10 donation and enter the competition here.


Competition prizes include a $500 winner’s cheque, and a prize pool of horror goodies:

• A manuscript version of the story signed by as many of the writers involved as can be tracked down.
• A copy of The Australian Writer’s Marketplace 2009/2010.
• A copy of The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 19th annual collection (edited by Datlow, Link & Grant.)
• Free 1-year membership, or 12-month renewal, to the Australian Horror Writers Association.
• Books: Signed limited editions – Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge; Wild Things by Douglas Clegg; Prodigal Blues by Gary A. Braunbeck.
• A boost to any personal horror library – Development Hell by Mick Garris; Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill; Infected by Scott Sigler; The Nature of Balance by Tim Lebbon; The Dark Descent edited by David G. Hartwell; a pre-loved copy of The Books of Blood (vols 1-3) from Marty Young’s own collection.
• A first edition of The Last Days of Kali Yuga, Paul Haines’ forthcoming collection of stories; published to impeccable standards by Brimstone Press, and slated for release in December 2009.

The six best endings will be featured at HorrorScope - The Australian Dark Fiction Weblog.


All proceeds from this competition go to award-winning author Paul Haines, to assist Paul and the Haines family, while Paul undergoes treatment for cancer.

WEEKEND YOUTUBERY

A little bit of blues legend work to get you through the weekend.

SO VERY CLOSE YET SO VERY VERY FAR.....

Outside the Bunbury art gallery there's a seating area, covered by a pergola whose roof is slanted at something like 60 degrees. I point at it as we cruise past.

ME: Check it out. Rodin's "Ski-jump"
AIDEN: (Deadly serious) Why would he need a ski jump? He's got wings.

I swear, I had to pull the car over so we didn't crash.

Merde, I have dropped mah beret!

IN NEWS ABOUT ACTUAL WRITERS

Ellen Datlow has posted the Table of Contents for her upcoming The Year's Best Horror Volume 1. I'm pleased to cop a couple of mentions in the Honourable Mentions list, and over the moon to see Lyn's name there as well amongst pals like Chris Green, Geoff Maloney and Michael Greenhut. And high fives all round for my buddies Paul Haines, Richard Harland (Told you, Richard!) and Ian McHugh for placing within the book itself-- three reasons why this is likely to be about the only spec fic book I buy next year.

Check out the full list here.

DEAR MR KING, THANK YOU FOR SUBMITTING....

If you've been watching the net over the last week or so, you may be aware of the rather large shitstorm that's sprung up around the wretched and twisted form of one Richard Ridyard, a filthy little plagiarist of the first water. if you haven't, here's a good place to start.



I've had the pleasure of reading no less than three of Mister Ridyard's efforts during my editorship of Midnight Echo #4, and rejected each one of them before knowing of the dirty trick this little weasel was perpetrating, although I had the even greater pleasure of writing to him again once the news of his plagiarism broke and giving him a second, more creatively worded, assessment of his talents (It also means that, basically, I rejected a Stephen King story at first sight. Snurk.)



Anybody so low as to rip wholsesale from other writers is a worthless little turd-- it's not like 98% are getting paid living wages for what we do. Anybody inbreddumbfuckstupid enough to steal from the likes of King deserves to have their gonads squelched to stop them breeding.



And as this little tosspot has so quickly removed himself from consideration of the normal decencies, feel free to email him here and pass on your appreciation. If you'd like to read more on how the writing sphere has taken this carefree little moppet to their hearts, Angel Zapata has come up with a pretty decent list of blog posts. You'll be amazed at how he's gotten around: here's the post.

SUNDAY MORNING YOUTUBERY

In memory of the dear, departed Kings of Rockney:

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

And we sang dirges in the dark, the day the music died....

SEND YOUR NAME TO MARS

NASA is offering to send your name to Mars on a microchip.

That way, when the aliens land, they'll know who to enslave.

MORE ARCHAEOCOOLNESS

A disabled pensioner uncovers a stash of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver three times as large as the Sutton Hoo find.

I don't know what's cooler-- that he'll cop a share of the 1M pounds plus reward, or that the British Museum maintains a 'flying squad'.....

SNIPPETAGE

BIT THE FIRST: SCIENCE, THE LAND OF 2ND-HAND COMEDY

Just when you think paleoscience is a field populated by old guys with their long, receding silver hair tied back into ponytails that weren't even fashionable when they were supposed to be, and whose language and interests are as dry and dusty as the fossilised turds they spend half their lives digging out of some godforsaken desert (Actually, I don't really think that. I've always wanted to be a paleontologist, always always always, and frankly, I'm just bitter and jealous because it never happened), comes this wonderful bit of comedic happenstance to help you realise that these guys just have to be as brilliant and cool as their jobs.

The thagomizer. Use it in conversation today.


BIT THE SECOND: WTF QUESTIONS

For no reason at all, whilst driving in the car with Connor this morning, in the midst of no conversation at all, out he pops with this question:

Daddy, do penguins do popoffs?

Where's the chapter on that, Christopher Green, you bastard?*


BIT THE THIRD: I KNEW HIM WHEN HE WAS JUST A FOLK SINGER

Anyone who's been paying attention will know that I've been pimping one Jason Fischer as the next great thing in Australian SF.

He's just won first prize in his quarter of this year's Writers Of The Future.

Prophecy ful-fucking-FILLED, baby!

Boy's gonna be a legend, mark my words.



*Christopher Green refers, of course, to the well-known Australian parenting author, not the uber-cool, long-haired, mad as a cut snake, Gene-Simmons-boots-wearing Melburnian SF author, who is a pal and almost 100% guaranteed not to be a bastard. Although he may be Mafia.

MIDNIGHT ECHOING...ING...ING...ING...

The reading period for Midnight Echo Issue 4, edited by yours truly, has officially opened, and will be open until January 31st next year. (January 31st being well known to horror buffs as Mostly Hollow's Eve, when all the witches of the world ride forth to get their hair done and have a pedicure).

Sub guidelines can be found here, but the cool bits can be summaried thus: 1c per word to 5000 words for fiction with a maximum payment of $50; we also take poetry, artwork AND serial art; and I get bored with Cthulhuain slavering tentacle monster stories :)

Midnight Echo is the magazine of the Australian Horror Writer's Association, whose annual membership fee covers subscription to the magazine, so as well as getting paid you are guaranteed to be read by the entire membership of the AHWA, which (to the best of my knowledge) is certainly over a couple of hundred and may be as high as 4 or 5 billion, if you include intestinal parasites.

And if you don't think being read by billions of intestinal parasites is cool, well........... you're probably *not* going to write what we're looking for. If, however, the idea makes you wonder where they put the water cooler, it's time to get writing :)

FRIEND FOR LIFE STATUS CONFIRMED

A massive vote of thanks to that master of all things rocking and obscure, Master Paul Haines, who responded to my whining regards my lack of Painters & Dockers material by sending over a DVD filled with no less than 2 CDs worth of Drinkin’ Jimmy and his pals, along with much in the way of Captain Sensible and other weird and wonderful stuff from the decade that taste forgot (that'd be the 80's to those of you who didn't live through Hypercolour, mumble pants, and The Human League).

Much in the way of odd and enjoyable singalong-type activities have since commenced…

MIDNIGHT ECHO GOING FORTH

If you’ve not yet done so, you really should check out Midnight Echo, the magazine of h0rror fiction put out by the Australian Horror Writer's Association, for no other reason than it’s put into print some damn fine and froody dark fiction in its two published issues so far.

As of September 1st, the submission period for issue 4 will commence, and said issue will be guest-edited by none other than your humble correspondent. Guidelines can be found here, but in general, I’ll be looking for stories under 5000 words that make me look up from the page and shiver. Keep in mind: I don’t scare easily, and stories of the creeping-tentacles-of-doom-doom-doom variety bore me shitless. If you want to know what really scares me, look in your mirror: see that thing looking back at you from behind your eyes that you’d swear doesn’t belong to you?

Send your submissions to midnightecho@australianhorror.com.

NOTHING TO REPORT

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last reported, and I wish I had something gosh-wow-amazing to talk about, but we’ve just been getting on with life these last couple of weeks: fitting in bits and bobs of writing around whatever edges we can find; working, cleaning; doing our taxes; catching up with various TV shows and fillums, including the deeply disappointing True Blood; the infinitely more interesting and enjoyable Being Human; the excellent soundtrack with an ordinary movie attached The Boat That Rocked (which, incidentally, features the superb Philip Seymour Hoffman doing the single best impersonation of my bestie, the immortal Seanie, that I’ve ever seen); the suprisingly not as shit as I secretly hoped it’d be The Day The Earth Stood Still remake; and generally just being a smoothly-running family in a seaside suburb.

Sorry 'bout that. I'm sure we'll have an interesting catastrophe soon...

DOING SOMETHING RIGHT

Connor: When I grow up, I don't want to be a spaceman.
Me: Okay. What do you want to be?
Connor: (accompanied by uber-huggle) A daddy.

You heard it here first-- I rock.

7 INCHES OF PURE DAGGINESS

No, not the title of a very unfortunate porn video Bill Gates made when he was young and needed the money, but a list of the 7" singles I dug out of my cupboard this morning. Dedicated to Ben Payne and Sean Williams, who can understand the strange love:

Endless Road- Time Bandits
Sweet & Sour- The Takeaways
Get It On- Power Station
Missing You- John Waite
Antmusic- Adam & the Ants
I Walk Away- Split Enz
Lean On Me- Red Box
Run Runaway- Slade
Don't Believe Anymore- Icehouse
Sun City- Artists Against Apartheid
Out Of Touch- Hall & Oates
One Of The Living- Tina Turner
Good Times- INXS & Jimmy Barnes
Pride- U2
99 Luftballons- Nena
And We Danced- Hooters
Prince Charming- Adam & the Ants
Nights In White Satin- Moody Blues
Stand & Deliver_ Adam & the Ants
Two Tribes- Frankie Goes to Hollywood
The Tide Is High- Blondie
Electric Avenue- Eddy Granty
Let's Dance- Chris Rea
Relax- Frankie Goes to Hollywood
One Night in Bangkok- Murray Head
We Gotta Get Out of This Place- The Angels

I'm willing to defend most of them, but can offer no excuse for this one. And maybe the Chris Rea's a bit naff in retrospect.

As for the following, I offer my enormous crush on the blond saxophonist as mitigation (and the fact that the show was pretty cool), as well as the fact that the song holds up pretty well, even if the film clip doesn't (What's with the girl doing endless flips in the background, and David Reyne's, well, everything?)

AND ON THE FLIP SIDE

And just so you don't go through your whole life under the misapprehension that I'm completely cool, I'd like to point out that I've spent the last week trying to remember the name of this song and the band who sang it (I got as far as "Scandinavian band and something about an open road") before realising this morning that I still own the 7" single I bought when it first came out....




PS: They're Dutch.
PPS: I actually still really like it.
PPPS: You can take the boy out of the 80s...

YES I'M ON A JAG, WHY DO YOU ASK?

I defy you not to bop. Dockers cover Get Smart What's not to love? (Sigh. Memories of 1990 at the Shents. maddest fucking concert I've ever been to. Sigh)

DAMN YOU, WORLD FOR YOUR LACK OF TORRENTS!

Lyn and I went on a bit of a Youtubery nostalgia trip yesterday, watching vids by the likes of Schnell Fenster, Machinations, Daddy Cool and Billy Thorpe while the kids tried their best to ignore us. Let me tells ya, batterspals, I will proclaim Friend for Life for anyone willing to burn me some Painters & Dockers and send me the CD (and, you know, I'll pay for postage).

Love ém love ém love ém.

TUCKERISED BY THE CABAL

And speaking of the magnificent Jasoni, he's developed a glimpse into the general Battfuture in a little piece he's worked up for the Daily Cabal entitled Tucker's Galleria. If you've ever wanted to know what will happen to Lyn and myself many years from now, here's your chance.

While you're there, have a browse. There's a bunch of froody fictional funnings going on, including work by another of the more talented Clarion South '07 gradutates in the boombastic Dan Braum. It's a good way to spend a couple of hours drinking from the fictional font of freeness.

MORE GIRLY VIDEO ACTION

Specifically for the magnificent Jasoni, whose deep hatred of Lily Allen enabled Lyn and I to discover her work (and become fans :) ), another waifish girly-girl I discovered yesterday thanks to the Triple J request show. For your listening pleasure, Lisa Mitchell:

VALE

It's with some sadness that I note the passing of Kris Hembury, a young Brisbane writer with whome I've shared a table of Contents in the past. Like my relationships with almost all of the SF world, I only knew Kris peripherally at a personal level via email and the numerous posts he made through the Visions mailing list, but the enthusiasm, excitement and just plain joy he possessed was always readily apparent in every message, and reading posts by his friends gives an indication of just how special he was to those who knew him. My sadness and condolences go out to his family and friends.

OH, SO IT'S CONTENT YOU'RE WANTING, IS IT?

Well you'll have to wait a short time longer: I have things to talk about, but I'm busy.

In the meantime, have the video to a cool song I heard for the first time today: