Autumn has arrived Downunder...

The weather is cool, the rain continues and the Australian evergreens hardly show a sign of impending winter. 

Still, the temperatures have dropped overnight to a low 14 deg C. That's around 57 def F. It is time to find jumpers, coats and warm blankets.


School holidays begin today. 

So thoughts of camping and travelling are forefront in our minds. 
The scent of woodsmoke and the taste of billy tea tempt us to brave the conditions... 

At this time of year snakes, ticks and biting insects are less prevalent. :) So it is perfect for camping.



Or, if sitting in comfort at home and  reading a good book 

or two...

Or perhaps writing...








Or just dreaming of sailing away to far off lands.





What are you doing this weekend?

What would your character do in this situation?

When we get into our character's shoes, do we consider our reactions or theirs. My reaction would be utter panic. There is no way I would be this close to any deep sea creature and not be in a state of complete immobilising shock. BUT I would happily put my character into the same situation and expect him to breathe calmly and treat the situation with respect and caution.
Is that fair??
The cameraman is not afraid. This is his working environment. So, where we see danger and thrill, he sees a familiar if risky landscape.
He is aware of the danger, but knows he is not in danger if he behaves with respect and caution. Even scuba diving has its risks...
Anyhow... These endangered species seem to have been maligned in their 'man eating' reputation.. Even with so many, there are no moments of where attack is a threat. They are not vicious it seems but minding their own business. They just have lots and lots of teeth.

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.

Characters behaving badly

This may not be the place for this. If not, please let me know and I'll remove it at once. But if you like it then also, please let me know.

Wendy posted very recently about her characters not doing as she wants, which is often the characters wont. Characters are like children, and - strangely enough - exactly like the actors who will perhaps portray them at some future moment, usually when you are dead and your estate sells your back catalogue cheap coz they have no idea what REAL art is worth.

Having had a little to do with serious thespians, I find that like some characters, they are spoilt, lazy, ornery and at times idiotic. Treat them as equals. threaten the crap out of them. Bring in new characters who will work harder and cheaper and do what they're told (at least until they get known and become just like those they replace).

But on the subject of characters (and not multiple personalities), I offer this little piece I wrote a while back about characters. Please enjoy (I did say please :)  )

 THE WATCHER

You sit there, high above, looking across time and space it seems. Far below there are lives being lived, loves being lost, wars being fought, circles and cycles of life ever revolving. And up here, away from it all, above the clouds, where eagles fear to fly, you watch.

This world below you is an amazing place. Eons become seconds and moments last forever as you study them, the creatures below. They seem so much like you, almost a part of you, created in your image. Or have they created you in theirs?

You ponder this, this extension of the eternal chicken verses egg question, and for the briefest second - as a billion beings flare into brightness then die beneath you - you wonder who created who, and in that moment you hear them; calling to you, begging you, demanding, asking, questioning.

Praying.

Who are you?

Where are you?

What are you?

Are you Batman? Are you really there? Are you good? Who the hell do you think you are?

And most quiet of all: whispered, breathed.

Are you God?

That question catches you, holds you and for another moment where a sun goes nova, a new universe spins out of the debris and a new history evolves in a blink of an all seeing eye, you ask yourself just that.

Am I God?

Of course there’s no answer. How can there be? Up here in the dark, above the clouds, above where the highest mountains reach, where none but you can exist except in the mind and the imagination, who can answer?

Are you God?

You look at your hands, capable of so much. In but a moment you can create a world that is perfect, beyond beauty, and with a casual thought destroy it on a whim. You can give life to those who don’t have it, can take it from those who do. Creatures unseen on any world can be made in seconds, become extinct in the time it takes to exhale and resurface by the miracle of modern “science” as another sun flashes into existence in far off void in space. You can give truth to a liar, sight to those who are blind and love to even the most villainous with these hands. You are a creator, perhaps the Creator, but still it doesn’t answer that question.

Are you God?

You look up into the heavens, above even your own lofty heights, into the realm of the truly unknown, to that place where miracles come from, where divine inspiration flows eternal.

Is there more?

This question comes from your own heart and mind, spoken softly by your own lips. Those down below might mistake the sound for thunder in the distance, the more primitive wondering if the deity created in their own image is displeased.

Is the universe you watch and rule in fact part of a much larger creation; a multiverse, layered in dimensions beyond even your own understanding? Are you just a small part of a much larger machine, larger than even you, you who have created and sustained this reality for as long as you can remember can even conceive, or are you the sum total of All That Is?

Whispers.

Prayers.

Are you God?

Borders change. Mountains rise and fall.

Are you God?

Lives begin and end. Loves flare and die. Worlds come and go. Eternity in a hour, an hour gone in seconds.

 Are you God?

Good and Evil wrestle below in a battle eternal. You could decide the battle with a touch, the finger of God, your  power Almighty, your will be done.

 Are you God?

 In but a moment, all that you survey could cease to exist, erased at the touch of a metaphysical button. And in as much time it would take to erase, you could create another universe to take its place, the questions removed and all trace of doubt washed away.

This question for which there is no true answer.

Are you God?

There is an answer. You cannot admit it, though it would calm your heart, bring peace to your mind.

Are you God?

You know the answer.

 Are you God?

The answer is no. As god-like you might seem to those you watch over, no matter how awesome your power, no matter what you do or how you do it, you’re not god, or even a god. You’re some thing better, and more.

You’re a writer. 

Scribbles

While in the process of doing the cover for Touch, I have revisited some of my other work. My short story - Gone to Mums, published a couple of years ago in Next Stop Hollywood- 15 stories Bound for the Screen - has been returned to me as the publishing rights I sold off back then have finally ended. I am trying to get the cover done and will release as a chapbook in the next few months, also as an e-book.

Transported Legends - Halloween is progressing nicely and if my new artist friend (not Anton this time, another young lad who wishes anonymity) gets the cover drawn and coloured then we are a go for October 30th delivery date. Transported Legends - Classic Monsters has started to form together and will follow hopefully Feb/March 2012.

As well as that, editing and revision has begun on another touch of evil, 10 short stories this time. still in that wonderful "what if...." vein of speculative fiction that I so love.

So. Busy busy busy.

But wait, there's more.

Have you ever heard a song and thought to yourself " Jeez, there's a story in there."

Most good songs contain a very short story, all the best ones it's a guarantee, except for instrumentals and even then you'll find a theme.

I write from music a lot. Everything is a go, metal, rock, classic, some current Top 40, lots of '80s, some electronica. every now and then one song will stick. Sometimes that's enough of a seed to get the story growing. sometimes it takes more than one.

My new piece Flame Trees (working title that I WILL change) was born in that way. The Cold Chisel song has always plagued me with thoughts of what it would be like going home to a place I hadn't seen in 20 or more years. Marry that to the Nickleback song Photograph and the idea started to sprout. A lot of it is based on my personal experience, some from the time of Gone to Mums, but this time a lot more imagination as well. My mate Lotty, who quietly asked one day if he could be in a story has a part, a short one but it's there. Some of it (a loose first drafty type affair) has been launched on Facebook to some warm response, but those responses have been from friends, and I always worry that friends will not always be 100% honest with me on what I write. That's sometimes why I love my friends.

And back in my rotation is an old piece I've stuttered and stammered with, Return to Majick, has been tickled a bit. it's not magic in the Harry Potter sense. It's actually a little bloodthirsty and nasty but I like it and am putting some of it in place between doing this note and a few other things.

My friend Jessica in America once had as her profile thought on writers Cafe:

I write because it keeps the voices in my head quiet.

I used to just think it was funny. Now I know what she means.

Good writing to all.

PS, I ramble a bit. Did you notice?

A bit more of a reveal.

From the genius that is Anton.

Imagine the picture of the loverly Lozzie as Imogen overlayed, nice font with a title. This cover is going to ROCK people.

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.

Aussie Authors! So What's New? Come and Tell Us.

Come and have a chat with those who are as excited about your success as you are.

Here at Sneak a Peek we are keen to hear your current news about your publishing success.  Have you found a fabulous promoting venue? Do you have a new cover? Has your book been translated for publication in another country.
Or what's happening with your work in progress? Are your characters behaving outrageously? Do they give you grief?

My work in progess is the 2nd draft of a children's story I wrote years ago. It gives me goosebumps when I read it and still brings a tear to my eye. BUT it is all Tell. It reads as if I'm relating a story to a group of children at my feet. So, I'm in the process of changing this to Show, to draw the child reader into the story so they can experience life on the alien planet, first hand, with the characters I love. 

Why is it so easy to be satisfied with what is already down on paper? I know. It's because I have to think. Writing for most writers is fun, exciting, engaging; an escape. For me it is hard work. I sweat blood over every scene, especially the ones I know must be re written - and that's all of them, many times over.

Is there an easier way?

If you are an Aussie Author and published, and would like to join this group just let us know in the comments, here.

Inspired by other people's creativity

On Friday night I attended a live performance of the Sydney rock band Rockfest. They sound so good and they all have so much energy. They had the dance floor rockin'. In entertainment value they excelled. It's obvious they put a lot of effort into their rehearsals and gave 110%. The next day some of their enthusiasm for what they love (music) must have rubbed off on me because I opened an old short story that I've been meaning to edit for a long time. Now I'm getting stuck into it and really enjoying this familiar 'alien' world. I'm back doing something I love, writing.
Thank you Rockfest for great entertainment and for lifting me out of my apathy. :)