GLAD I DON'T LIVE THERE, BUT A NICE PLACE FOR A SHORT VISIT

I swore I'd never go there again. But it was a Natcon, and a large number of Eastern Staters who I hadn't seen in years were attending, and Tehani was involved in the organisation and kept hinting at us, and Lyn wanted to go, and Thursday night was a free night, and we were up for a couple of awards....

So we went to Swancon.

Originally we had planned to attend the free night on Thursday, and one paid day-- the Sunday, culminating in the award ceremony. Then we forgot to vote for the Tin Duck awards, which meant going back on the Saturday, and what the hell, seeing we were going to be there anyway we may as well pay for two days, and seeing we were going to be there for two days we may as well find a hotel to stay the night in, and soon enough, there we were, a hole the size of a couple of hundred dollars in the budget, and a whole lot more attendance at a place I was never going back to than I had originally planned.

Which turned out to be not such a bad thing, because Natcons are renowned as "writing" cons, and this one was no exception. Apart from catching up with long-lost friends like Paul Haines, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Peter Ball and Jason Nahrung, as well as again seeing the lovely Kate Eltham & Robert Hoge-- two of our favourite SF people-- we caught up with a raft of names we'd seen electronically but never added to our colection of flesh memories: welcome to the halls of my mind Alan Baxter, Kirstyn McDermott, Thorayia Dyer, and Lisa Hannett. Ignore the weeping and the cries for help. And a number of the panels were genuinely helpful on a writer-guy basis, with subjects such as "Writing for Money" and "Writer as Entertainer/Writer as Business Person". Notes were made, lessons were learned, and all that jazz.

We also managed to eat way more curry in two days than a couple should-- got to love the Swancon tradition of staging it in a part of Perth that is pretty much closed for Easter-- and joined in a public sniffling session with video clips of the late Elisabeth Sladen, and mooched around the bar being all writerly (ie: half-cut) on outlandishly expensive Guinesses. Oh, and the books: there were books, my friends, there were many books. I would like to justify it by saying it was all about replacing the termite losses, but who am I kidding? I wasn't going to need any excuse to pick up multiple Datlow-edited collections, never mind all the others. There were books.......

So would I do it again? No, I doubt it. A Natcon is one thing, and all the things that I enjoyed about this con were elements of a Natcon. A Natcon may be on the radar-- Melbourne next year looks good, and any year Brisbane wants to hold one I bet we'll find a way to get over. But Swancon is a different vibe. It was a nice place to visit for a day or two, but the sigh of relief as we came back over our own doorstep late on the Sunday night was genuine.

I like writers. I like writing. It's nice to spend time with both. But that's about it.

VALE

Sad news in the last day, with the passing of Joanna Russ. Russ was at the forefront of a new, literary breed of writers like Ursula leGuin and Samuel Delany in the 60s, who helped modernise and expand the psychology of the SF genre. Her most well-known work within the genre was undoubtedly the novel The Female Man, but for me she was never better than her Nebula-winning short When It Changed, which I first discovered in Again, Dangerous Visions, and which was one of the first signposts towards proving to me that the SF tag of "literature of ideas" could be expanded to encompass challenging, socially confronting, human ideas, rather than simply engineering notations.

Russ is often overlooked, because her output was never overly large, and unlike leGuin she did little of her work within the regular genre channels. But she was a powerful, articulate voice for the humanism of genre writing, and her finest works are still brilliant reads. She was 74.

GOODBYE, SARAH JANE

Sad news this week with the untimely death, at 63, of Elisabeth Sladen.

Sladen was, for me, a link in taste between me and my children: I had, of course, grown up with her as one of the, if not the, most iconic of Doctor Who's companions, and my littlies had come to her in a similar fashion with their own childhood fandom of the new Who series and the Sarah Jane Adventures. It's a death that has saddened us all, as a family, because it brings to an end an ongoing shared experience.

I've been trying to work out why I'm so saddened by her passing, apart from her relative youth: my own mother died at 61, and that similarity is enough to bring back hard memories of that period of my life. But I was never an actual fan of Sarah Jane Smith as a kid: I didn't like her.I found her shrill, and irritating, and was actually pleased when she left the series and her replacements came along.

But it's that word-- replacements-- that is the key. She may have made my teeth itch, but for whatever reason, I accepted her as the companion. Perhaps it was because she was the first companion I saw 'cross' Doctors-- from Pertwee to Baker, and that gave her constancy. I'd started with Liz Shaw, and endured Jo Grant, but had accepted their leaving and a new, separate entity taking their place with equanimity. But whatever it was: my growing maturity, or something in the writing and on-screen relationships, no companion after Sarah Jane came without baggage: after her, they were merely 'replacements'-- substitutes for what had been the real thing.

Funnily enough, I enjoyed her much more as an older woman, in her own show, where the charatcer could be strong and a leader in her own right, and the shrillness which was always part of her performance could be accepted as that of an older woman in fear for her young companions. Sladen was much more comfortable in that role, and had a fantastic ability to work with young actors that really shone on screen. Unlike other actors (think The Tomorrow People, or anybody who interacted with Wesley Crusher or Lucas Wolenczak), it was apparent that Sladen liked her young companions nand was at ease in their company. My kids loved the show, and it could have gone on for several more seasons, I think.

Either way, she was a big part of my childhood, and my childrens' childhoods, and for that, she will be very much missed.

(It won't embed, but you can watch the end of Hand of Fear here. It makes me all teary, now.)

AUSTRALIAN SHADOWS WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Award news during the week, as the Australian Horror Writer's Association announced the winners of this year's Australian Shadows Award.

Midnight Echo #4 came up just short in the 'Edited Publications category'-- contest judge Rocky Wood called it "an outstanding achievement", which I think is testament to the talents of the contributing authors-- and I don't think there are many who would argue with the list of winners. 

So heartiest congratulations go to:

Long Fiction winner: Under Stones by Bob Franklin (Affirm Press)
Edited Publication winner: Macabre: A Journey through Australia's Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis & Marty Young (Brimstone Press)
Short Fiction winner: She Said by Kirstyn McDermott (Scenes from the Second Storey)

NOT TO MENTION

You don't have to wait until November for this baby; Fablecroft Publishing's After The Rain is now available in dead-tree form. If you're at Swancon you can pick up a copy and hunt down authors, including Luscious and myself, for signatures.

The rest of you can pick it up here.

BOOKAGE!

Announcements a-plenty this last week, including the Table of Contents for Coeur de Lion's hyper-cool looking Anywhere But Earth anthology: even if I weren't included, I would be salivating at this line up:

Margo Lanagan Yon Horned Moon
Richard Harland An Exhibition of the Plague
Sean McMullen Spacebook
Lee Battersby At The End There Was a Man
Jason Nahrung Messiah on the Rock
Angela Ambroz Pyaar Kiya
Kim Westwood By Any Other Name
Steve De Beer Psi World
Robert Hood Desert Madonna
Cat Sparks Beautiful
Penny Love Sibo
Wendy Waring Alien Tears
Simon Petrie Hatchway
Jason Fischer Eating Gnashdal
Robert N Stephenson Rains of la Strange
Alan Baxter Unexpected Launch
Chris McMahon Memories of Mars
Mark Rossiter The Caretaker
Liz Argall Maia Blue is Going Home
Calie Voorhis Murmer
Damon Shaw Continuity
Donna Maree Hanson Beneath the Floating City
Patty Jansen Poor Man’s Travel
Tristan Davenport Oak with the Left Hand
Colum Paget Pink Ice in the Jovian Rings
Erin Stocks Lisse
William Wood Deuteronomy
Steve Cameron So Sad, the Lighthouse Keeper

Any book with Harland, Nahrung, Hood and the mighty Fischerio in it is a must-buy anyway, but it's also a delight to see something new from Patty Jansen: Patty contributed the deeply, deeply creepy Little Boy Lost to Midnight Echo #4, so I'm excited to read something new from her.

The book is due for release in late November.

IN BETTER NEWS

Some major word to my homey Mark Farrugia, who suffered under my tutelage back in the day as part of the AHWA's mentorship scheme. One of the stories we worked on, Allure of the Ancients, has found a home in Midnight Echo #5 in comic book format.

I'm still to receive my AHWA member copy of ME#5, so now I have a reason to really look forward to it.

SUDDENLY, EVERYTHING TURNED TO SHIT

Wanna see what a couple of thousand dollars of termite damage to a library looks like?

Enjoy.

ONE TASK DOWN....

Amazing what a weekend away can do, no?

For reasons best known to herself, the Luscious One has remained married to me for six years, and as a reward for her perseverence, the big kids sent us to Busselton for the weekend of our anniversary whilst they toiled like slightly emo Trojans to build us a vegetable garden in the back yard-- no mean feat, as there appears to be a solid layer of sandstone about a foot under our garden beds.

So with nothing to do but laze about for three days enjoying the sun and sand and each other's company, it was a perfect opportunity to take the laptop and get some writing done. In amongst the cafes, splashing about in the pool, cafes, walking up and down the jetty, cafes, art galleries, museums, cafes and the pool.

And done it was. The submission package for Corpse-Rat King was finalised, and sent out in time to catch Angry Robot's open submission period. And two short stories were completed: the 3000 word psychological fairy story Unseelie and 1500 words of 2nd-person POV called Ghosts of You.

With a quarter of the year gone I'm well and truly on top of my writing goals for the year-- the original aim was to send out Corpse-Rat King (done); write 6 new shorts (the above two plus the recently completed Attacking Waters makes it 5 and counting) and complete Father Muerte & The Divine (52K done so far).

Not bad at all.

Oh, and Busselton was bloody lovely :)

Feeling no pain.

Lyn, cracking up from the stress of 6 years marriage, and the horror of being in a seaside town in perfect weather with nothing to do but relax and enjoy herself. The poor thing. Still gorgeous, though :)

TO MY DARLING WIFE

I see your most recent Lyn The Luddite post, and raise you proper, decent, actually good music :)

THIS SHIT IS LIKE CRACK, I TELLS YA!!!!!

Six or so weeks ago, Connor sees an ad for Lego on the telly and immediately enters into six year old Lego lust.

He has a basket of the big blocks, but he's really outgrown them, and anyway, it'd be nice to get the kids something to stretch their imaginations. They're both arty kids, I remember Lego with a massive amount of nostalgia, and it'd be great to have some for them to play with.

We hit the shops to price some up.

We have a mutual heart attack.

We ask around, to see if anybody has some they'd like to give away cheap/free.

Our good friend Sally has a box of it in the garage. Our friend Sue Ann points us in the direction of Bricklink.

Aiden remembers that he has disposable income.

Six weeks later:

The big one in the middle is about a foot and a half long and has 1400 pieces.

And then there are the minifigs:

And that's just the sets. That's not counting the loose pieces, the blocks and plates and cones and weird wibbly bits that don't build up into something.

And it doesn't count the Atlantis set we have on layby. Or the T-6 shuttle Aiden went out yesterday and bought for himself after I took the photos.

I think I'm going to have to add a page to my website.

Crack, people. It's like fucking crack.

HOW TO BREAK YOUR MOTHER IN ONE EASY LESSON

Lunch. Sizzler. Lyn and Aiden across from each other at the table, baby Luc in Lyn's lap, laughing and giggling as Nanna does the Nanna thing. Everything's cute and lovely and full of awwwwwwww.

AIDEN: You know what I love most about babies?
LYN: What?
AIDEN: They can't pronounce the safe word.

I couldn't see straight for about ten minutes.

SCARY LITTLE DOLL FACE BOOK IS GO!!!!

The book with the creepiest little doll face cover ever is now ready to rock.

Go to Equilibrium Books to pick up your copy of Devil Dolls and Duplicates, which contains my story The Divergence Tree along with a host of other creepy and disturbing tales by some of the cream of Australian ickiness such as Chuck McKenzie, Jason Nahrung, Jay Caselberg, Kaaron Warren, Rick Kennett, Stephen Dedman and Sean Williams.

And really, don't you just want to buy two copies and give one to your nanna? I mean, can't you just see her face when she looks at this cover? can't you?

Are you my muuuummmmmy?

A SMALL MATTER TO END

It's been exactly ten years to the day since I sold my first story.

Happy anniversary, The Divergence Tree.

SO WHY THE LONG GAP ANYWAY, BATTERSBY, IF YOU HAD SO MUCH TO YAMMER ON ABOUT?

It's not often I recommend books on this site. But I'm going to recommend one now.

I picked up Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer a few weeks ago. It's a book about being a writer, rather than a book about writing: writing I can do, but there have been any number of times over the years that being a writer has felt beyond me-- too hard, too draining, I've not been emotionally capable of dealing with the demands, I've been too busy, Real Life (tm) has been too much, etc etc and so forth.

It's been a revelation. Clearly set out, quirkily individual, but steadily confronting all the issues I've encountered over the years and providing answers, and if not answers then at least strategies for finding my own, in simply digestible chunks, with exercises and anecdotal evidence to get you through.

They'll be prising it out of my cold, dead fingers.

One of the first things Vandermeer advises is this: create a mission statement. Too many writers, he argues, think tactically, not strategically. Without a view of the entire battlefield, we lurch from minor victory to minor victory with no clear purpose, and no way to string these victories together to provide something meaningful over a length of time.

I am that soldier.

So, this is what I've done, and this is why I've been so silent on the bloggerywebtitude front. Because, after a year of editing magazines, and judging competitions, and associated frippery, when it comes down to it, my aim, my mission statement, is this:

I want to be a full time professional author of novels and short stories, and to continue to advance my career as a teacher of writing.

A mission statement not only defines what it is you want to achieve: it helps define those tasks that don't fit in with your aims. It helps you learn what to turn down. If it doesn't fit the mission statement, why are you doing it?

So: this last month?

I've line edited Corpse-Rat King. I've submitted the online writing course I've been developing for the Australian Writer's Marketplace. I've finished a new short story.

Next month: Corpse-Rat King to Angry Robot before their open submission period ends. A new short story. Take up Father Muerte & The Divine and finish it.

I'm a man on a mission.

NOT TO MENTION...

You know the full stop, right? Little dot that tells the reader when to stop the sentence and take a breath. Problem is, in speech, the full stop is implied, and can often lead to misunderstandings. (“I thought you were finished speaking. Well you stopped talking. Well, I didn’t know you were just drawing breath, you stopped talking. Who are you, anyway, Robert Mitchum?” and so on). Nobody finishes a sentence by actualy saying the words ‘full stop’. That would be silly.

Thankfully, my wife is a genius, and has solved this problem by the simple act of getting herself an iPad.

Now I *know* when she’s finished a sentence, because they all finish with “on my iPad.”

Problem solved.

TOO MUCH LYN IS NEVER ENOUGH!

My darling wife has returned to Uni, for which I am eternally happy: she is far too intelligent, creative, and worthwhile to content herself with serving the family, and deserves every chance she can to achieve all the things in life she wants.

And thanks to the wonders of teknockery, you can actually be a part of her studies. That's right, fella, I'm talkin' at you! As part of the unit she's studying-- Living & Learning With Technology -- she's required to maintain a blog discussing her University experience.

Lyn The Luddite is that blog, and she's looking for followers. Go; read; comment; follow; absorb; put the free back into free education; the class back into classroom, the each bacn into teaching.... you know, all that stuff.

AND ON THE SUBJECT OF THE AHWA...

That fine and august organisation has just released the shortlist for the 2010 Australian Shadows Award, and I was deeply chuffed to find Midnight Echo #4 on the list for 'Best Edited Publication'. I've always enjoyed editing, and the cast and crew of that magazine were an absolute joy to work with: talented authors, excellent and professional backroom staff, and good administration-- the whole process was a delight. That the end result has received a chance at winning such a gong is very, very pleasing indeed.

Full details are here, but in case you're hyperlinkingly challenged, the full roll call is:

LONG FICTION

 

• Madigan Mine by Kirstyn McDermott (Picador Australia)
• The Girl With No Hands by Angela Slatter (Ticonderoga Publications)
• Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healy (Allen & Unwin)
• Under Stones by Bob Franklin (Affirm Press)
• Bleed by Peter M. Ball (Twelfth Planet Press)

 

EDITED PUBLICATION

 

• Macabre: A Journey through Australia's Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis & Marty Young (Brimstone Press)
• Scenes From The Second Storey, edited by Amanda Pillar & Pete Kempshall (Morrigan Books)
• Dark Pages 1, edited by Brenton Tomlinson (Blade Red Press)
• Scary Kisses, edited by Liz Grzyb (Ticonderoga Publications)
• Midnight Echo #4, edited by Lee Battersby (AHWA)

 

SHORT FICTION

 

• "Bread and Circuses" by Felicity Dowker (Scary Kisses)
• "Brisneyland by Night" by Angela Slatter (Sprawl)
• "She Said" by Kirstyn McDermott (Scenes from the Second Storey)
• "All The Clowns In Clowntown" by Andrew J. McKiernan (Macabre: A Journey through Australia's Darkest Fears)
• "Dream Machine" by David Conyers (Scenes from the Second Storey)

Honestly: not a dud amongst them.

Winners are announced April 15. Win, lose, or lose in some other way, I'll announce them here on the blog, so stay tuned.

 

HERE COME DA JUDGE

It's a judgey kind of period for me at the moment. Apart from pulling duty on the Aurealis Awards graphic novels panel this year, I've also agreed to join the judging panel for the Australian Horror Writers Association's Flash & Short Story competition, along with the wise, talented, and downright spunky Kaaron Warren and Stephen Dedman.

Full details are here. Entries close 31st May, so get writing. Remember: I am a crusty and jaded old bastard, so if you want creep me out, you're going to have to work really hard. Or be Lady Gaga.

I'd prefer to read the story, though.

ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?

'Ee, by gum, it's been a while. But there's a bit of news to be had, so let's be getting on with it, especially now that this blog is being archived at the National Library of Australia's PANDORA archive.

That's right: when the alien archaeologists of the far future land and want to find out just which Doctor Who character I most resemble, and just what was all the fuss about Billie Piper's nipples anyway, they won't have to search too hard to find out. I know I've been sleeping easier at night...

So, with a merry "can I borrow 5 bucks now that you've won an Oscar you talented little bugger?" to the mighty Shaun Tan, we probably aught to get on with some actual content, don'cha think?

MORE WRITING NEWS

In not-raining-but-pouring news, after 2 years of no action at all I've sold my second story since the start of the year. At The End There Was a Man, a 6300 word science fiction piece about the sole survivor of a crash coming back to his ship after an absence of many years, has found a home with Coeur de Lion Publishing's Anywhere But Earth anthology, a collection of stories set, well, the clue is in the title...


As long as it's been since I sold a short story, it's been an extremely long time indeed since I've sold a pure SF piece, so I'm pleased to once again be paddling in unfamiliar waters. The anthology is dure for release in the 2nd half of 2011.

And I'll be taking on my 2nd judging role of the last year (after the 2010 Aurealis Awards): I've agreed to judge the Australian Horror Writer's Association's annual Flash/Short Story competition this year, so I'll be looking forward to trailing my fingers through the sticky entrails of people's imaginations once more, and making them feel bad for not being quite awful enough....

Guidelines are coming soon, so what are you waiting for? Get writing. Now!

HAPPY EIGHTEENTH, AIDEN

A huge shout out to our eldest boy Aiden, who turned 18 during the week. I first met Aiden when he had just turned ten, and have seen him grow from a quiet, withdrawn and shy boy into a young man with such strong values, and such a mature and honourable attitude to life that I have long been proud to call him my son (we don't do halves or steps, and I'm glad. I want to be able to stand alongside all of my children without the artificial minimisation that comes with a blended family).

I look at him now-- a young man with a plan to follow a career in land management, his high school years behind him and a path through TAFE mapped out, with a young family of his own that he loves, about to leave the family home and begin his life as a man in his own right, and I am filled with pride, and hope for his future. And I am comfortable in the knowledge that whatever mistakes he makes from here on out, and whatever setbacks he may encounter, will come from his attempts to do the right thing, to be an honourable and humble man with the needs of those he loves uppermost in his mind.

You are already a man who makes me glad to call myself your father, Aiden. Happy birthday, son.

COZ I HAVEN'T MEMED SINCE PUSSY WAS A CAT

A silly little meme currently rolling around Facebook. Thanks to Kat Campbell for putting it in front of my bored eyes:

‎1 - Go to wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” first picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together.
5 - Post it with this text in the "caption".




My effort-- "What You Get If You Don't" by Ma-Ubin. (Photo: MG9912 by Suki)
 
 
 

A SMALL MEASURE OF FLOOD ASSISTANCE, WITH BONUS READING MATERIAL

We've been glued to broadcasts of the Queensland floods, as I know you have. It's scary, not only because of the sheer extent of the devastation and the tragic losses of life, property, and community, but because we almost instantly fell into a form of list-making-- tallying up those friends and acquaintances from the region and realising just how many people who have touched our lives are being affected by this. To all of you: Geoff and Diane; Kate and Rob; Nikki and Damon; Kim; Rowena; Trent; Marianne; Peter; Ben; Chris; Bob; Heather; Julie; Angela; Kathleen; the Clarion South guys; everyone at QWC; all the Visioners; the mob at Pulp Fiction; and everyone else in the ridiculously long list we came up with over lunch yesterday until we stopped for fear of the sheer scale of it that I've forgotten to mention here; and all your families; our hopes and prayers for your safety and welfare.

One way you can help, and get some fresh reading material by way of thank you, is to purchase a copy of the somewhat-ironically-titled-given-the-circumstances After The Rain ebook download: Fablecroft Publishing publisher/editor Tehani Wessely is in Queensland right now, being with her family, but has managed to create an electronic version of the book: 13 stories that will appear in the (larger) print book in April, including contributions from myself and Luscious, some of them in a slightly different form to the way they will appear in the print book, plus 3 essays on the floods and their impact on local communities by Queensland writers specifically commissioned for this special edition.

Tehani says of the ebook: After the Rain was commissioned in 2010 and is due for release in April 2011. However, in the face of the ongoing flood disaster in Queensland, the authors and I have pulled together this limited ebook version as a fundraiser. The authors have freely given their stories for this use. All payments will go to the Flood Appeal, and we are leaving it up to you to decide how much you want to pay for the book. We recommend at least AUD$10.00, but all donations are gratefully received.

Go here to buy it, or to query. The ebook is available until 15th February.

A GOOD START TO THE YEAR

Europe After The Rain, a short story titled after one of my favourite paintings by the German surrealist Max Ernst, and featuring golems and the aftermath of the Dresden firbombings, has been accepted by Fablecroft Publishing for their anthology After The Rain, due to be released over the Easter long weekend.

It marks my first new short story publication in almost 2 years which, frankly, boggles the crap out of me.

2010: That's That.

My little annual review of things, as per round-about-this-time-every-year:


1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before? Complete a sea change.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I had half a dozen or so goals that met with varying levels of success: Number one on the list of successes was ‘Change Jobs’, and waaaay down the bottom was ‘Lose 12 kilograms’. But that one is nothing new.

As to this year, well, it’s much along the same lines. I’ve two novels to edit and send out, and the garden and house renovations need completing before I decide I’ve been at them too long and give up. Weight remains an issue, as do my eating habits (wonder if they’re linked in any way?). But my big bucket-list item is to enter an art competition: I’ve been getting closer and closer to trying my hand at visual art for the last couple of years, and it’s time to set aside some space and see what I can come up with if I try.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My son’s girlfriend Georgie, bringing little Luc into our house. And he’s gawwwwwwwwwwjuss!

4. Did anyone close to you die? No, but not for lack of trying.

5. What countries did you visit? I tried to get into the Country for Old Men but they told me to come back next year.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? X-ray vision. Also, money.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 15th March, when I walked out of the ATO for the last time and realised how sweet air could actually smell. 22nd March, when I took up my new position as Arts & Culture Officer at the City of Rockingham and put the ATO behind me for good. November 11, when Luc decided to share my birthday with me.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Changing my job, and actually finding a position that not only fit my experiences and wants, but gave me a sense of satisfaction and self-worth into the bargain. I had given up on that particular dream, and still feel like I was pulled out of the grave just as I was ready to decide how best to lie down in it, career-wise.

9. What was your biggest failure? Not saving my step-daughter from herself.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? The family had a horrendous run of bronchitis mid-year, which landed both Connor and Erin in hospital and put Lyn, Aiden and myself in bed for a couple of weeks each.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Our air-conditioner shat itself and died the week before Christmas, so “those fans” is a contender, but I’m going to offer three things: for the first time ever I invested some serious money into buying a high quality water bottle and a high quality backpack. And we bought the entire run of Impossible Pictures’ ‘Dinosaur’ programs, including all the “Walking With…” documentaries and the Nigel Marven programs. Normally I wouldn’t count DVDs as gosh-wow-sensawunda purchases, but the effect they’ve had on Connor’s imagination can only be described as pyrotechnic, and it’s been wonderful to watch.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration? Aiden, who not only took on a responsibility that was not his to take on, and one that leaves any number of men twice his age blanching, but has done so with a sense of purpose and an integrity that would put most of us in the dark. He’s 17, and I fear for his future like any parent does with a lad of his age, and every time he hits a speed bump I flinch, but I can’t help but admire his soul.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Cassandra’s (now ex-) partner, who proved himself a thug and coward of the highest order. Not only would I not piss on this piece of crap were he on fire, I’d happily start the fire.

14. Where did most of your money go? Fighting bushfires of one stripe or another.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? New house, new job, new part of the world: life in Mandurah just continued to get better and better. 2011 promises the chance to grasp our sea change fully. Bring it on.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010? Both Dancing In the Storm by Boom Crash Opera and Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons. Not for any great philosophical reason other than that I occasionally get to garage one of the work cars while my boss is away, and I have an iPod car player, and I have a tendency to sing along to them as I drive home, playing them VERY loud indeed. Which, after years of bone-tired hour-long train rides home from the City, is a different kind of freedom indeed.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:i. happier or sadder? ii. thinner or fatter? iii. richer or poorer? Happier, fatter and poorer. I’m enjoying live a lot more than I have in the last couple of years, thanks to the new job; I’m very much the patriarch of my family and get to watch 3 sets of children experiencing different stages of life; and I’ve had some private satisfaction in my writing life as well. Not bad, as years go.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Hitting the beach with my kids, making art, rewarding my family with the lifestyle they deserve.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Fighting bushfires. Enduring abuse and criminal behaviour.

20. How did you spend Christmas? Quietly at home, balancing Lyn’s religious requirements with my need to go large on the presents and the eating. Cooked a nice breakfast and lunch and picked at leftovers for tea, and sat around complaining about the heat.

21. Who did you meet for the first time? Two new writing groups- the Rockingham Full Time/Part Time Writers Group and the Rockingham/Mandurah chapter of Nanowrimo. Several hundred employees of the City of Rockingham. Georgie and her family.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010? We’re all in love with Georgie and Luc.

23. What was your favourite TV program? Came across some funky and fun stuff this year. That Mitchell & Webb Look and The Armstrong & Miller Show are firm favourites, and have resulted in a ridiculous amount of quoting (It’s now impossible to say “Isn’t it?” in our house without a chorus of poncy British accents shouting “Isn’t it, though?” in your wake, and nobody can leave a room without hearing someone say “Kill them” as they go...). I introduced Lyn to The Fast Show, and now every announcement anyone makes is greeted with "Which was nice" or "Brilliant!". We all became firm fans of Primeval, as well as a continuing affair with QI. Also the Walking with… series which we introduced our kids to in “chronological” order (beginning with ...Monsters and ending with ...Cavemen.) and followed up with all the Nigel Marven dinosaur shows, which resulted in 6 year old connor deciding to be Nigel when he grows up and turning his bedroom into the “Connor Museum”, in which all his dinsour toys now have their own shelves, complete with name tags, and you have to pay to get in… But number one on the viewing hit parade is Being Human, a supernatural drama of such high quality that it made watching the potentially-similar True Blood impossible, as the gulf in quality showed up how cliched, soapish and dull the latter was in spades.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? Cassandra’s Ex. It's been a long time since I met a filthier scumbag.

25. What was the best book you read? Spent more time away from straight FS again this year, and am continuing to enjoy it, with continued trips into James Ellroy’s neck of the woods, and people like Jon Ronson and John Gardner making the list. Discovered Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books, and the joy of reading them completely out of order thanks to library shelves. But it was the year of Mieville, for me: read both The Iron Council and The City & The City for the first time and was (as always) blown away by the man’s language, his narrative muscle, and his plots.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? Mumford and Sons were an early one, and remain on high rotation, and Peter, Bjorn and John have become favourites in recent times. And after watching documentaries on them, I’ve gone back and got far more deeply into the Easybeats and the Small Faces than the radio-friendly singles I've heard over the years.

27. What was your favourite film of this year? A damn good mix of movies this year. Highlights for me included Men Who Stare at Goats; Up In the Air; The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus; Inception and Despicable Me, any of which might have topped the list in any other year, as well as Daybreakers; Quadrophenia; The Boston Strangler, and Zombieland.

But top spot has to go to Toy Story 3: I dreaded the announcement of this movie, feeling that Pixar had lucked out by producing one sequel that was superior to the original, and that a) there didn’t seem much else to be told within the narrative, b) movies with numbers a high as 3 in the titles tend to be bad enough to drag the memory of previous films down with them and c) the Shrek experience showed just how quickly and disastrously bad that decline in quality can be. I needn’t have worried. It’s every bit as good as its predecessors, and perhaps even better: I wasn’t the only middle-aged man crying his eyes out at the hand-holding scene (you know which one I mean). Funny, dramatic, psychologically complex, and brilliantly human, all at once.

Special golden turds flung in the direction of Shoot ‘Em Up, which would have easily been the winner of the the Golden Compass Memorial Worst Movie of the Year Award, if not for the monumental presence of Lesbian Vampire Killers, which was not only an unutterable piece of shit but doubled its excremental bragging rights by introducing us to the drooling black-hole-of-talent that is James Corden, the latest in that seemingly-eternal line of ‘comedians’ wo think that jigglingly-obese monocepahilcs with permanently wet chins trying to get into the panties of pneumatic twenty something blondes is the height of comedic brilliance: a Benny Hill for the type of people who think Jackass is entertaining. Our teenagers are *still* paying off the karmic debt they earned for insisting it was hilarious and nagging us until we watched it. In February.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 40, and spent the day in quiet contemplation of my place in the world, and what I must do to achieve full karmic balance. Then I had cake. Then I waited while Lyn, Aiden and Georgie went to the hospital to have a baby.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? A flying jet car.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? My usual aging bum look.

31. What kept you sane? Sanity napkins. Also Lyn, my kids, and art.

32. What political issue stirred you the most? Tried to steer clear of politics in favour of living a family-oriented life. Don’t suppose Forest’s inability to sign a decent defender counts?

33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. Balance is all.

34. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Lightning flash and everything is sharp and clear
I can see it all, I can see it all
And as the thunder roars, we're raising up a storm
We can shout it down, we can shout it down
Gone are the days of complacency
Gone are the nights of indifference
Here we go, here we go for one more turn
We can shake, we can shake the trees and earth
We can spin, We can spin and not fall down
Hold on tight, we can both become unwound
You and I are going out
And we're dancing in the storm

     -- Boom Crash Opera, Dancing In The Storm

ALL THINGS CHRISTMASSY

Hope it's been a good few days for you all, no matter how (or not) you celebrate (or not) the period.

It's been a mix of most excellent (in my best Bill and Ted voice) and catastrophic here at the Batthaim. We're currently neck deep in plastic dinosaurs, little egg-shaped iPod speakers, fishing rods, watercolour pencils, jewellery and reading material (I myself received a much-needed new wallet and a funky biography of Charles Manson), and the children are running around like mad things with their cousin Tanika who stayed the night after coming for a barbecue with Lyn's brother Roger and his partner Cassie last night. Christmas is always a balancing act between our desire to give each other cool things and Lyn's religious convictions (which include not acknowledging Christmas or birthdays), so we end up usually just having something that can best be described as "Present Day with Food splurge". It seems to work well enough.

Which is all balanced by our airconditioner blowing up a few day ago, our reticulation system blowing up a few days after and our garage door deciding yesterday to come off its hinges and get stuck to the point where no human agency can move it. As it's currently shielding the work car I have to get back to work on the 4th, this is just a teensy bit of a problem. Annnd also an indicator that I'll be spending 2011 as poor and under the cosh as 2010.

Be that as it may, I do have something in the gift department for you all: the Christmas edition of Terra Incognita, Keith Stevenson's fantastic SF podcast series, features not one, but two stories: my own In From The Snow, and my good friend Jason Fischer's extraordinary Undead Camels Ate Their Flesh, which features Jasoni singing the Undead Camels song.

That's right! Jasoni singing! How can you pass that up?

Go. Listen. Enjoy. And here's to a happy and profitable 2011 to you all.

NANOWRIMO

Yeah, so I posted once back on the 7th with a word count, and then went suspiciously quiet. So how did I do?

Father Muerte and the Divine, 50 886 words. 'Nuff said.

AND AT HALF TIME, THE SCORE IS: LIFE 3, BATTERSBY NIL

So this is what 40 feels like, is it?

If you'd asked me a year ago, I'm not sure what I'd have told you about how I felt at the thought of turning the halfway marker and heading for home. (I'm working on an average lifespan of 8o here. Anybody who knows better about the avergae lifespan being shorter can keep it to themselves. I bet you never get invited to parties....).

I was trapped in a job that did nothing for my soul except eat it, with little to no hope of escape. I was unhappy about the flow of my writing career-- I had become becalmed, and felt only isolation from my peers. My family life was happy, at least: I have a truly beautiful and wonderful wife, who is the central happiness around whom the family revolves, and my kids are the perfect combination of delightful and insane. But as good as it was was as good as it was going to get, and once I left the house it really wasn't that good at all. Truth be told, I was spending more and more time not leaving the house: my sick days were piling up, my lunches were long and my leaving times earlier and earlier, and once the front door shut behind me, the last thing I wanted to do was drag myself out to spend time with people I knew weren't that happy to see me and weren't heading in directions I wanted to go.

39 wasn't a particularly good place to be. The prospect of spending most of the last half of my life in the same situation wasn't even depressing. It was just... numbing.

Then it got weird.

For the first thing, I escaped my job. Out of the blue, a position in arts administration became available, and bugger me, I got it. By the skin of my teeth-- my gaffer will cheerfully admit they took a chance on me, and thankfully, cheerfully admit it's worked out-- but I was able to walk (Walk? Fucking RUN!) away from my soul-destroying job (the one I ate to find comfort from, the one that had helped me gain 20 kilograms, the one that had my wife begging me to stay home most Mondays so I wouldn't come home so miserable and depressed) and start again.

Six weeks after I started I was on a beach, helping to install a sculpture exhibition. I spent the week of my 40th birthday administering the first art exhibition I'd ever curated. I've spent the last month organising 2 art exhibitions; 3 writing talks; an online writing group; liaising with the Navy, local yacht club and three bands regarding our Australia Day celebrations; and running a Nanowrimo region. I travel a third of the time that I used to, actually speak to my colleagues, oh, and enjoy going to work. It's not too mad a claim to say that I saved my life by finding this job. Not too mad at all.

Added to which, somewhere in amongst all that, I turned a corner in my writing career. Perhaps it was the change of heart that came with the change of job, but suddenly, I forgot to give a damn what people thought of me. I forgot to get caught up in the politics of the scene. I forgot to keep in touch with people, and in doing so, went a long way towards learning who the people were that wanted to keep in touch with me. The only thing I remembered to do was take joy in the writing act itself. I wrote a novel this year, and a bunch of poems, and drew some cartoons, and none of them will see the light for a while, if ever, but the novel's good, and the cartoons were fun, and I like poetry.

And I have no idea what the rest of the world is doing. I haven't read a blog for nearly a year-- sorry to those of you who have blogs and are taking the time out of your lives to read this. I apprecaite your interest. But when it comes to reciprocating, for the first time in a long time, I'm too damn busy, and it's good. I used to read blogs to keep away from writing, and now I'd rather write. My peers interact with me when they want to, if they want to: the lovely people at the Australian Writer's Marketplace commissioned me to write an online SF course during the year, and I've had a constant trickle of communication from friends and colleagues that I've accepted on its own merits rather than going out searching for it. I'm more balanced, obviously, and happier. But I've also shucked away a lot of dead wood, a lot of former friendships that I had to realise were dead before I could comfortably offload them. Life is lighter now.

And now I'm halfway through another novel-- the Father Muerte one I mentioned at the start of November. 51 000 words, to be reasonably precise. I'll be finished it by the end of January, by which time it'll be something like 2 years since I've seen a short story in print. But I'm even writing them again: I've got some markets I want to try, and a rewrite that an editor is asking for, and strangely, the writing life is enjoyable again.

So, cliches about life starting and blah blah blah aside, being 40 looks pretty good so far. My happiness isn't perfect-- I've got an awful lot of excess weight I have to lose; I'm in pain a fair bit of the time, although I've come to live with that; and seven of us in a house on a single wage means we won't be seeing Rome any time soon.

But I am happy, and that alone is a massive change of outlook from a year ago.

There's a lot gonna happen kid. Don't forget to duck.

WHILE WE TALK ABOUT BIRTHDAYS

November is a mad-ass month for birthdays around here. In three weeks, half of our family have one, not to mention my neice Zara (Hi, Zara!), starting with myself on the 11th and culminating in Erin in the first week of December. That's 5 in all, in 24 days.

So to my sensational 6 year old, the Connorsaurus, and my beautiful 9 year old Erin Jane Butterfly, all my love. There's no end to the joy and wonder you both bring to my life.

NOVEMBER WAS A MAD OLD MONTH, MY FRIENDS

Ahhhh, the best laid plans of mice and Lee are aft to gang aglay all over the frigging place.

See, what I was going to do was post regularly about my progress through Nanowrimo, pausing only to ruminate upon the occasion of my 40th birthday, and congratulate my favourite 5 year old in the whole world on turning into my favourite 6 year old in the whole world. And indeed, those things did happen. But along the way, the world changed ever so slightly.

Well, let's be honest, the entire household has been turned upside down, inside out, and arsehole to breakfast by this:

Allo, babeeeee. No, wait, I'm the babeee!

Luc Aden Jeremy Triffitt, my first grandson, arrived in the world at near-as-dammit 11pm on the 11th of the month, having caused his Mum and Dad to finish the last mouthful of my birthday dinner and say "Well, that was nice. Can we go to the hospital now?" He was a tiny, tiny little thing on arrival-- 3090 grams and 49 centimetres long, and is a tiny little thing now: at the pool this morning, two old ducks who were cooing over him had to be persuaded that he wasn't actually only a few days old.

He's been with us three weeks now-- parents Aiden & Georgie have neither the spondoolies nor the age to live in their own space, and he is a beautiful, smiley, snuggly little bugger who has the good grace to cause everybody ructions and then fall asleep peacefully within about 90 seconds of me picking him up. Needless to day, he and me are the best of buddies :)

So, this the world, Luc. Try not to break it, and be back for tea.

CREEPY LITTLE DOLL FACE

I swear to God, is that not the creepiest book cover you've seen in all the live-long day?

It's the cover of the upcoming anthology Devil Dolls & Duplicates, edited by Anthony Ferguson and published by Eqilibrium Books. One of my early tales, The Divergence Tree, will be in it, along with a farly stellar groups of Australian scary-story people. Check out this table of Contents, then start saving your pennies, because it looks like a real cracker:

Marcus Clarke: Human Repetends
Wynne Whiteford: Automaton
Van Ikin:  And Eve Was Drawn from the Rib of Adam
Michael Wilding:  This is for You
Stephen Dedman: A Single Shadow
Jason Franks: The Third Sigil
Jay Caselberg: Porcelain
Sean Williams: The Girl Thing
Chuck McKenzie: Confessions of a Pod Person
Lee Battersby: The Divergence Tree
Rick Kennett: Excerpt from In Quinns Paddock
Lucy Sussex: La Sentinelle
Jason Nahrung: Spare Parts
Robert Hood: Regolith
Kaaron Warren: Doll Money
Andrew J McKiernan: Calliope- A Steam Romance
Tracie McBride: Last Chance to See
Martin Livings: Blessed are the Dead that the Rain Falls Upon
B Michael Radburn: The Guardian =
Daniel I Russell: Tricks, Mischief and Mayhem
Christopher Elston: Hugo- Man of a Thousand Faces
 
Told you it was good....

SEVEN DAYS IN

So, Nanowrimo is seven days old, and amidst my Municipal Liaison duties, administering the Rod Garlett exhibition Sands of Gulgulga (and here) at the Kent Street Gallery, and organising the City of Rockingham's own Nanowrimo events (3 rather cool writing/speaking events entitled "Nano Cafe", with speakers Simon Haynes, Tehani Wessely and Dave Luckett), I've managed to get me just over 12 000 words down.

12 114 to be exact, on the long-talked about but never-anything-actually-anything-done-about Father Muerte novel, Father Muerte & The Divine.

In good old fashioned Nano tradition, word count is nothing without a widget, so here be my first Nano widgety o'meter-ness:

12114 / 50000 (24.23%)

Plenty left to go, but a start is a start.

And tomorrow, they step through a rift in space and visit a civilisation of highly intelligent parallel-evolution dinosaur ghosts.

In all honesty.

ON YOUR MARKS, GET SET, NANO!

National Novel Writing Month kicks off in a few days, and I will be bellying up to the nanobar again and trying to get some words down amidst the madness of a work-heavy month. If you’re also attempting to climb the word mountain, you can find me under the username leebattersby.

For my sins, I’ve persuaded the Nanos-that-be to create a new region—Rockingham/Mandurah—and if you’re local to that region then sign on up: a certain little black duck has been named Municipal Liaison, and I’ll be organising a bunch of stuff across the month to keep us all amused.

I’ll also be working on something I’ve threatened for a while: Father Muerte And The Divine, the long-avoided-being-thunked-about Father Muerte novel. Fans of the series have permission to send kind thoughts in the direction of my computer….

SIGH. HALF OF THAT GENETIC MATERIAL COMES FROM ME…..

Connor runs into the reading room, throws himself onto his back on the floor and starts waving his arms and legs about, shouting “bubble bubble, bubble bubble”. Then he rolls over onto his face and lies very still. He does this three times, then yells “I’m pancakes!” and runs out of the room again.

I go quietly back to my book and try not to think about him choosing my nursing home….




As if that wasn't enough for the week, a couple of days later I wander into the kitchen to find Luscious  laughing her shapely ass off. The young master has recently held the view that curly-haired people know everything. Why? a) because he has curly hair, and just possibly b) because his curly-haired father has told him so :)

So, in proving some arcane point of 5-year old’s knowledge to his mother, they have this conversation:

LYN: How do you know?
CONNOR: Curly haired people know everything.
LYN: But I’m your Mum.
CONNOR:Yes.
LYN: Mum’s know everything.
CONNOR:…..Yyyyessss…..
LYN: And I have straight hair.
CONNOR: Yes.
LYN: So how do I know everything if I don’t have curly hair?
CONNOR: (Pausing just long enough to trick his Mum into thinking she has him out-logicked). I've made you some!


De-FEATED!

GOD, DO I REALLY SOUND LIKE THAT?

Head on over to the fabulous Mister Keith Stevenson’s podcast website Terra Incognita, and not only can you enjoy listening to the likes of Jason Fischer and Margo Lanagan reading their own fine work, but you can download the latest podcast—issue 24 features me, reading Father Muerte & The Flesh, the story that won the inaugural Australian Shadows award back in the day, and the third of the four Father Muerte stories to have seen print. Given what I’m working on during Nanowrimo next month (about which, more in a minute), it’ll serve as a bit of a taster.

Go. Listen. Wonder how Luscious puts up listening to that voice day after day after day…..

WORD

To my buddy Grant Stone, whose story Wood has been published in New Zealand’s premier SF market Semaphore. I worked on this story with Grant when he placed himself under my dubious care through the Australian Horror Writers Association mentorship scheme, and I’m pleased as punch to see it hit print, and also to note that it’s as creepy and icky-making as it was when he first sent it to me.

Go, read, enjoy, send him your creepy stalker love….

THANK GAWD THAT’S OVER!

What a bloody awful month and a bit that’s been! First Lyn’s sent to bed for a week with a filthy sort of chest infection. Then Connor ends up in hospital for a weekend with a weird sort of croupy thing the doctors can’t quite identify. Then Erin ends up in hospital (and just for fun, a completely different hospital) with pneumonia. Then I get a chest infection of my very own, and spend the next four weeks hacking my lungs up every time I giggle.

What a bloody laugh.

Thankfully, it’s all back to normal now, such as we is, and somewhere along the line it seems to have inspired the normally scary and frightful Martin Livings to get quite sweet in his old age, so all’s well that ends with a metric fuckload of tissues in the compost….

WEBSITE UPDATE

Over at the website, I've added a couple of new items for your edification: the biblio page is now complete, and a couple of free stories have been added to the Free Lee! page-- check out Decimated, from Shadowed Realms issue 8 as well as mu Aurealis-Award winning story Pater Familias from Shadowed Realms issue 3.

Enjoy!

BIG NEWS

So to the big news:

I have websitage!

After much cocking things up and not-being-at-all-clever about hosts and doman names and stuff like that-- really, I can't escape the essential 19th Century level of my technological abilities-- I can proudly announce the presence of leebattersby.com on the electronic landscape.

Come on down and have a look. Some of the pages are still under construction, but you'll find stuff there about me, my writing and cartooning, the sorts of random falderal that amuse me.... in short, it's a snapshot of the inside of my brain, only much easier to navigate.

And while you're web-hopping, jump on over to Lyn's new website as well, which is like a snapshot of the inside of her brain. Which means it's prettier than mine, and much more elegant.

WHAT'S IN A TITLE?

Sometimes, this writing gig ain't all just wine, yachts, and sex with supermodels, you know.

During the week I submitted the first story I've completed this year. That alone is case for both celebration and concern: there was a time, not that long ago, when I sold ten stories a year, never mind submitted my first one in September. But life is a much different thing than it was a couple of years ago, and my aims are different, too. 2010 has been a year for other things. However, it's been the first story I've ever submitted that's contained an apology.

The reason for that is the title.

I may not be good at much, my little friends, but I do delude myself that I'm quite good at finding the right title for my work. No Phil Dick, perhaps, but I at least avoid stories called "The Vampire" or "The Ghoul" or... well, you get the drift. And once a title is right, it's right. There is such a thing as a perfect title-- one that encapsulates the theme of the story, gives the reader a glimpse into the events about to unfold without giving the game away, and jumps out of the Table of Contents with such force that the reader wants to turn to your story first.

The story I wrote is set in the 1920s, in a jazz club in Harlem. It deals with the US Civil War, with the differences between white and black magic, with the way music can be used to capture emotions and re-channel them as a source of power. It talks about slavery, indvidual freedom, the germination of the Civil Rights music. It's rough, and nasty, and unpleasant things happen.

It's called Nigger Music.

It's a perfect title. There is no other title that encapsulates everything that happens within the story, that ties together the way we name things, the way white owners and their black slaves changed after the power relationship was destroyed, the roles that the three characters (white Le Mesurier, black Tobias Mancer, and the musician Robert Johnson) interact. It is the perfect title for the story.

But looking at the title bar of the email and seeing SUBMISSION: Nigger Music..... well, it's the first time I've looked at it and thought, "You know, that's going to need explaining."

THERE HAS BEEN WORK, OH YES THERE HAS.

Sigh. apologising for the lack of posts seems to be a habit these days. Let's just take it as read, shall we?

There's been a couple of reasons for my absence. Work has been mad-- we're coming up for the 2010 Nyoongar Art Awards, a major art award the City of Rockingham co-presents with the Town of Kwinana, and part of the grand prize each year is a solo exhibition for the winner. And I'm the one who puts it together, so the last couple of weeks I've been hip-deep in phone calls to art galleries to arrange transport of artwork, organising invitation designs, sourcing catering, talking to wineries about label printing.... all the fun things that go on behind the scenes before an exhibition hits the gallery space.

Then there's been the sickness. No sooner had Luscious and Aiden recovered from bouts of bronchitis than Connor decided to have a turn. By last Friday his coughing was so constant that he ended up at Rockingham hospital, then spent the weekend at Fremantle Hospital whilst Lyn and I took it in turns to stay the night and run back & forth to Mandurah to transport toys, clothes, and other sundries. Turns out our little boy doesn't do things by half-- the bronchitis triggered a series of asthma attacks, which helped bring on a bout of croup. At least, that what the paediatrician said. A week off school seems to have helped-- now he only coughs when he needs to remind someone he's sick, usually if it means getting dessert early...

So, mad as it's been, it's been Life. Still, I'm back now...

JUST BECAUSE IT'S A BRILLIANT PIC

One of these things is an Australian predator that strikes fear into the small, helpless creatures upon which it feeds.....

The other is Connor.

Go on, how many of you were expecting me to say "The other is a dingo?"

It's okay: his Mum did too :)

NOW WITH ADDED LACK OF CONTENT

Nothing to see here today, folks. The Luscious One has been in bed due to extreme sickeryness; writing continues to be sporadic and slow; and once I shuffle the houseful of not-quite-as-quiet-as-they-think-they're-being kis out of the house I'll be able to go out and deal with the front garden while TLO has a much-needed nap.

So in the absence of actual content, I give you the gift of music:

TAKE THAT, CHILDISH SENSE OF WONDER!

Driving home from the Worlds Next Door launch, Lyn spots Venus out the car window and points it out to the kids, which prompts us to have a conversation about the planet, and why it's so bright, and all of that sort of kiddie-inspiring sensawunda stuff. Shortly afterwards....

CONNOR: (gasps) Venus is following us!
ME: Oh no! Maybe it's stalking us!
LYN: Maybe it's because women are from Venus, and it can see there's two girls in the car so it's attracted to us and wants to be with us!
ERIN: Yeah, or maybe it's just that Venus goes around the sun the same way Earth does so it looks like it's moving at the same speed Earth is.

Well. Yes. Maybe it's that.

Fuck you, childhood world of magic.

CONGRATULATIONS

to Tehani Wessely and Fablecroft Publishing for a fantastically successful launch for their Worlds Next Door anthology on Thursday night.

Lyn rose from her sick bed to come with me, and the littlies dressed up-- it was brilliant to see, at the launch of an anthology for children, just how welcome children were to the launch. Trust me, it's not always the case-- with cake, balloons, colouring in at a table, and story readinsg for the kids it was a well thought-out and festive occasion, which was rewarded with high attendance and good sales. It bodes well for a fledgling company that's headed by an intelligent, savvy, and forward thinking operator-- again, not always the case, particularly in small press SF-- with good product.

We had a damn good time, and it was nice to be able to catch up with people like Simon Haynes and Alisa Krasnostein, who we've not seen in far too long.

AND THE BEST THING ABOUT VOTING IS....

... the conversation you have with the peoiple who hand out "How to Vote" pamphlets, which is the same every time, and invariably goes like this:

ME: No thanks, guys, I've already decided.

SOME DODDERING OLD OCTEGENARIAN WITH A LIBERAL PARTY OR FAMILY FIRST T-SHIRT ON: Some variation of a didmissive snort or croaky plea to reconsider and put things in the "right" order if I want to save Australia for White Jesus and get rid of all the niggers, brownhatters and young people.

ME: Seriously, do you really think I waited until 10 seconds before I line up to start thinking about this?

SDOOWALPOFFTO: Assorted sputtering while the Greens hander-outerer sniggers.

There's probably a really good reason why they have a sausage sizzle near the front door and not a gun stall...

MY NECK HURTS.....

I've been at home for two days, looking after the kids whilst Lyn and Aiden are abed with horror cases of bronchitis-- the warning on the pack of antibiotics says "Not suitable for gorillas of a delicate disposition", I swear......

I did, however, manage to get the iPod cranked up while dropping off a Tupperware order for my darling wife this evening, and stumbled across a couple of songs I haven't heard in ages, both of which reminded me of what a little rocker I am, deep down in that weaselly black ravine I call a soul.

Firstly, a band that I was never a huge fan of while growing up-- where I lived, there were two types of males: those who liked AC/DC and those who could read. So I needed a little bit of time in civilised company, where the ability to use two different forms of cutlery in the same meal didn't mark you out as some sort of mutant, before I could appreciate just how hard these boys could rock. Once I did, however, I added several choice cuts to the playlist, from which they have rarely moved.

Despite that, I rarely appreciate the appeal of Bon Scott-- smelly, drunken little bogan stoat that was way too much like those who made my after-school hours a misery as he was. I'm a Brian Johnson man, I have to say: Geordies being a much more appealing variety of lout to my untrained eye.

This song, however, has to just about rank as their most rockingy rocking moment of rock, and Scott's performance is pure cheek. Do as I did: crank it really fucking loud, and try not to crash whatever you're driving at the time....






My second offering comes straight from the Get Out of Gaol Free Card of my soul: Lyn and I have always had a joke "Get Out Of Gaol Free" celebrity-- that one famous person who, should they turn up unexpectedly one night during a rainstorm, we'd be able to say "Yes" to without consequences.

Or in my case, say "Geronimo!" to....

As most everyone who knows her knows, Lyn's is geeky bignose brilliant-comic-writer-turned-pretty-damn-average-novelist Neil Gaiman.

Mine, since the age of nine, I tells you, is the single hottest leather-clad babe to pull on a guitar and get sweaty. And to all those who cry "denial" about her sexuality, I simply put my fingers in my ears and cry lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala to you all.....

Maybe it's the era I grew up in, or the kind of girls I dated, but to me, despite all the effing and blinding that goes on around me, and despite all the, shall we say, medical ways of describing the sexual act, there's always been something really dirty about the title of this song: it's as if everything that needs to be described is common knowledge, and all that's necessary is the agreement. Maybe it's that sense of anticipation: the moment of pause, the deep breath before you dive into the hot and sweaty stuff. Maybe it's just that the 70s were slightly more innocent than today, and my inner child still lives in that twilight time before anybody asked me to touch anything.

Whatever, in a world of hip-hop, sexually explicit lyrics, and open sexuality, I still think this is the dirtiest song ever written.

Enjoy.

(PS: Do you think Lyn would complain if I took a screen capture at 58 seconds in and used it as my wallpaper?)

NIBBLETS

A quiet couple of weeks in the Batthome, as the madness of recent months settles down and we all return to some sort of routine. I’ve managed to squeak in the tiniest bit of writing, which has whet my appetites once more, there’s been some writing-related stuff abounding, so I’m still somewhere in the remotest touch with my inner writer-guy, even if I’ve fallen well out of touch with the writing world—as noted during the week by Martin Livings, when I admitted I knew nary a whit of the wedding he’s been talking about for over a year on his blog. (What can I say? Out of touch I am.)

Still, stuff does abound: I received my contributor copy of Australis Imaginarium, which contains my Australian Shadows Award-winning story The Claws of Native Ghosts. A pretty book it is, to— editor/publisher Tehani Wessely has put together a fine collection of tales spanning the last 20 years of Australian SF publishing, all themed towards a modern myth-making that makes the book a uniquely Australian reading experience, from Lucy Sussex's 1990 tale Red Ochre right through to Ian McHugh's Once a Month On a Sunday, from last year's ASIM 40. Quite often, the small press has to stand out from mass market publishing by virtue of the quality of its product, and the artwork, paper weight, and font styles are all of the highest quality. This is a lovely book, in a bunch of ways, and if you’re interested in my work, it’s a lot easier to find Claws in this volume than in its original publication, so I thoroughly recommend picking it up.

I’ve also received news of another reprint sale: one of my older pieces, The Divergence Tree, which appeared way back in the Orb 3 / 4 double issue in 2002, has been picked up for the intriguingly-named Devil Dolls & Duplicates anthology, coming out soon from Equilibrium Press. Not much news about this one as yet, other than that tantalising title, but I shall pass on news as I receive it—if the stories live up to the title this could be a thoroughly enjoyable little volume to pick up.

The Luscious One and I also headed out on Saturday morning to attend the inaugural meeting of The Rockingham Full-Time/Part-Time Writers Group, which I mentioned in my last post. It’s been a while since I’ve bothered being part of a writing group, but the continued interaction and goal-setting will, hopefully, be good for my decidedly slack efforts of late, so once we’ve found ourselves a dedicated meeting space (a bunch of tables near the coffee grinder at Dome being, perhaps, not ideal), it’ll be good to have those regular little interventions now that I am decidedly in absentia as far as the local SF scene is concerned. Please, Writing Gods, let me have product soon….

Lastly, just for kicks, I’ve collected a few free samples of my wordage that have found their way onto the internet over the last few years—check out the *Free Lee* feature on the sidebar for a smattering of interviews, stories, and poems that are out there for your amusement and otherwise.

Hey, while I’m at it, have some youtubery for fun:

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY GIVE ME A TEXTA....

So I'm drawing with the kids after dinner tonight, and, you know, we'd watched Walking With Dinosaurs with dinner, and, you know, Erin was drawing a tyrannosaurus, and Connor was drawing a stegosaurus, and, you know, I wasn't reeeaaalll sure what I was going to draw.....

Wot choo lookin'at, you ugly Paki triceratops poof?

Skinosaurus. Because I am the drawing equivalent of the bloke who comes out of the shower after yowling the house down and announces "Never been formally trained..." to his bleeding-eared family....

THE AHWA MARKET HIVE WANTS YOUR OPINION

Have a look at this message from AHWA Market Hive collator Ray Gates, then email him and give him your opinion.

As part of the July news, I put out the call to see how many members were interested in listing poetry-specific markets in the Market Hive. The response, so far, has been somewhat underwhelming...

So if you're keen to find good homes for your sonnets and odes, your ballads and verse, your limericks and haiku, you need to let me know!

Either send me a message at: markets@australianhorror.com, or duck into the member forum and leave a message under ‘Calling all Bards' in the AHWA News section.

Want it? Need it? Let me know!

Personally, I’ve said yes, but then, I’m a “Best of” included poet, I am...... :)

PREDATORS...

…is actually 2/3 of a really good monster movie, much to my surprise: genuinely creepy, and with a good build-up of suspense, not to mention a movie-stealing performance of much fun by Laurence Fishburne, and a performance from Topher Grace that suggests he’s finally ready to hold a big-screen audience. I went along with my ever-eager Teen Twosome, expecting to be there only because I was having a night out with my boys, and found myself actually having a whale of a time.

Yes, it’s a pity it runs out of ideas and resorts to big lashings of dumb to get the job done, but until it does, it’s better than all bar the original movie in the franchise. Not that that’s saying much, but, still, get it out when it hits the DVD stores and pair it with Arnie's Big Boy Gunfest first version for a fun boy’s night in.