It's There.

Yup, it's true. After much too-ing and fro-ing, much soul searching, editing, revising, formatting, Touch of Evil is finally available as an ebook thru Smashwords. Imagine that moment, just imagine it. I've lived with some of these tales for over ten years. They've seen changes in character, direction, setting, you name it. But thanks to the faith and support of others, my friends and fellow Nitewriters, I've fought that inner demon that keeps telling me it's not right, it's not good enough. I've defeated that negative side.

That last moment, as i sat there waiting for the manuscript to pass through Smashword's 'meatgrinder' twice as formatting problems made me go thru for a second and third time then just waiting. 10%. 25%. Real slow at 50%. 80%. 99%. Then a long wait. Faith starts to evaporate about then, because time just dilates. The Eagles said 'The hours go by like minutes' in the song "Wasted time' but that time there, sitting, waiting for Mr 100% to tick over seemed like a second short of forever

Then it ticked over. Submitted, confirmed, accepted. By my own hand, with the help of someone I've never met, my ebook is now for sale on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, and a half dozen other sites.

I suppose if this were the Academy Awards, I'd be thanking God and a few important people. I'd like to thank my friends the Nitewriters, in particular Toni, Rosalie and Robyn for their writerly input, but all the others for their support. Writing can be the most singular pursuit a person can take on. Only you can write your book, but the right people can help you by suggesting, reading, encouraging. No writer is truly alone if one has friends and peers like I do.

So, I offer you my work. A large part of my life and sanity has gone into it. It's three dollars. If you read it and like it, please let me know. If you don;t like it, break it to me gently, coz i bruise easily. but still let me know.

With thanks to all.

Baz

The Streak

"* cue ray stevens and his song of the same name "

No, I am NOT about to strip to my bare nakeds and run about outside, at a cricket match or even a ping pong tourney. If nothing else, it's too Bloody cold. No. This is another type of streak. (Have written about this before, but I have a habit of harping on things ...)

Inspiration. It comes and it goes. Where and when, nobody knows. Maybe I'm a lucky one, because I can walk down the road on any given morning and have three good story ideas before I get home. In all probability tho, by the time I sit down I've also probably forgotten all of them, or the thread of them. It's a little annoying.

I remember once, a fair while ago, I used to walk six k's along the highway to work. On the way I wrote the perfect story, one I'd had in my head for ages but could never get it just right.

You know what I mean? It's there, it makes sense, but it's not
        quite
                 right.

It's called " The Cruise", and it's about youth in the country towns, the car culture that grows in small country areas because it's the only real route to freedom, and how some people build these cars, these wonderful, perfect pieces of automobilia and having spent their lives, their savings building what is - in their minds - the perfect escape machine, never going anywhere, except maybe around the block, or down the street, with a dozen others just like them on a Friday or Saturday night.

The story is beautiful. It has angst, pathos, feeling, heartbreak, you name it. And in that six k walk I had IT!! Did I write it down?
No.
Did I record it, at least?
No.

No. I still have the story, mostly complete, but what I have has no edge. It's not perfect. It's flawed. It isn't the story I told myself on that walk to while away the time before work, a story that just held me, and I was telling it to myself.

Back to inspiration.

I never feel at a loss for inspiration. Walking in a field one morning gave me a line. "The last of the summer spiders." All because where I was, the ground was covered in these tiny cone shaped webs strung between tall stalks of winter grass. Hundreds of webs. There was a story there, too, but all I have left is the line.

Ideas bounce through the hollow of my brain like dust motes, blown by a gale. I have tended to wait and see what takes root, what says a week. if it finds a home in one of the cob-webby corners of my brain, if it maybe grows a little, and if, only if it still grabs me after a week, it gets page space. sometimes it grows from there, sometimes it stagnates and just sits there, becalmed in a sea of ideas and thoughts and no wind of creativity to propel it further.

Sometimes it just gets forgotten.

Oh yeah, the streak.

In the past three/four weeks, I have written down maybe tw hundred bits and pieces that will maybe becoe stories. At the moment they are just germs, seeds waiting to burst forth and grow the roots I need in my mind to pay them some attention and nurture them  little more to fullfilledness (is that a word? should be!). I have had a creative streak that is second to none in the past three years. I can create anything I want anywhere. It is that good at the moment.

But have I done anything? Have I tended the garden of creativity and brought forth a bounty of stories to amaze and astound? Have I?

Short answer:    No.

I start, I stop, I move on to the next.

And I don't know why.

Away we go - Part III

Yeah okay. I know this is the first here, but hopefully the first of many. If all goes well, I will be documenting the continuing growth of my life as a writer. The word hopefully here is significant. But on with the news ...

Last week, before my sojourn to the concrete wilds of Sydney I created my first book. Not had it published or saw it turn up somewhere on a website. From scratch, and using ,materials found in my own home (some of which i bought from ebay - love ebay) I created a galley copy of my new collection (ten years in the making is new, ain't it?) of short stories A TOUCH OF EVIL. I now have a crude, but functional physical book. You can turn pages, look at words, actually read them and all sorts of good booky type stuff. And I am chuffed. Yes, you read it. Chuffed.

Making this thing was a trial, having never attempted that much formatting in one sitting, which turned out to be several sittings, and despite the fact that I still haven't actually gone through the whole thing, I have found errors (hey, there was bound to be some) that on screen I would never have even thought of. Most important is pagination, the layout of where the pages go. I know some wags out there will be hooting with derision. Page one follows page two and so on, they will snicker. My response - awww duhhhhhhhh!!!

No, as I have seen, and on inspection confirmed, there is a method in this madness of laying out a book. The first page of every story needs to on be the right hand page. Therefore, by that logic, page 1 is now right hand rather than left hand. Easy to fix, but on screen who gives a rats, right? Having that one line too many for a neat page ending - a little more tricky to fix, but had me do another edit and I lost some bits I missed in earlier edits, making the story that little bit better.

It also helped me redesign my corporate log for my publishing arm, which - thanks to LULU - will allow me to be the master of my own domain as far as printing and distribution, anyway. And I now look at publishing and think Shit! How do the big boys do it so easily.

But enough. This is my first post here and I hope you enjoy it. Please respond if you have pertinent comments, advice or discussions to add. If you spam me you are toast.

Thanks for reading. More to follow.

Baz.