Baggage launch details! And more!

Sharyn Lilley, of Eneit Press, has posted the details to the Baggage launch in Melbourne on September 2:

The most incredible and exciting news about the launch is that Borders South Wharf are hosting it!

The other piece of good fortune is that, though we had to set a date and time quite awhile ago, and we did ask for an early time hoping to avoid any real programming conflicts with Aussiecon 4, we got an email today confirming that our launch starts an hour before the opening ceremony. Phew. So people can come to Borders, at 20 Convention Centre Place (there will be cake - and authors, and lots of copies of Baggage, and cake, and Gillian the proud editor, and did I mention there will be cake? Then stroll back over to the Convention Center for the opening ceremony.

So don't forget: Borders South Wharf, 20 Convention Center Place; Thursday 2nd September; 1 - 3 pm. I'd love to see you there, even if it's just to pop in and say hi.

I'd love to see you there, too!

In other news, you may have noticed in the comments to a recent post that Aidan Doyle offered a link of fabulous libraries. However, in case you missed it, it's just too good to risk your not seeing it, so I'm posting the link here as well: http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=78. Here's one now:



And finally, if you're writing adventure (and why wouldn't you be?), and it involves pirates (and why wouldn't it?), you might find it extremely instructive to find out strategies and tactics for dealing with real-life pirates (like, the kind who will actually kill you for real, right now, in the Gulf of Aden). I am in no way whatsoever trying to trivialize the tragedy, distress, and loss these real pirates cause (any more than the writers of detective fiction are trying to trivialize real crime, or military-fiction writers war). But if you want to make your writing rich with practical, workable detail (and, as you know, adventure fiction REQUIRES it), you could do worse than read this booklet, put out by the Maritime Security Center (Horn of Africa). (Originally found on boingboing.) Of course, you'd have to adapt the advice for whatever technologies are available in your world, but every problem this booklet is trying to answer is a problem you will have to think about for your hapless crew. Or for your pirates. Arrr.

Fame stalks me....

I'm interviewed over at Angela Slatter's place. Once you're done reading about me, me, me, you can read the rest of her blog entries, and I am confident you will not be disappointed.

I feel intimidated.

My friend, Clarion buddy, and fabulously talented writer Peter M. Ball has posted — for all to see, mind you — his writing goals for the year ahead. Before you go read them, bear in mind that Peter seems to honestly believe he is not producing in accordance with his potential. However, I must point out (to my shame) that because his list of goals includes progress so far on various projects, I can see that even the stuff he's worried about being so slack about, even just the words so far on these projects, just for one year, completely outstrip my entire life's output.

I could come up with dozens of excuses for why this is so, and murmur comforting words to myself about how every writer's life path is different and it's rash and self-defeating to compare myself to others. I could repeat the message the amazing Richard Harland gave in a talk the other night: calm down, quit accusing yourself of laziness, spending the energy doing that only slows you down more, trust yourself and your writing process. I could do all that.

And then I could look once more at Peter's writing goals for the year. Will it motivate me? Or will it shame me into immobility?

In other news, it seems libraries are hip, happening, new, now, the next big thing. (Where has everyone else been? Some of us have known this forever.)

Libraries

I grew up in libraries. My first jobs were in libraries. I know, understand, and love libraries. My mom is a seriously cool and intimidatingly competent librarian, and she knows, understands, and loves them even more than I do.

Many are trying to claim that there is no place for libraries in the Age of the Internet. Fie, I cry. Those who truly know, understand, and love libraries have always known that books are not libraries' raison d'être. Have never been their raison d'être. The decline of the wood-pulp book in no way affects libraries' raison d'être.

LIBRARIES EXIST TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND.

Period.

And that's never going to be obsolete.

Even the Old Spice guy*, to the degree he can, agrees that libraries are important. (Although he does commit the sadly-too-frequent error of focusing on the books. What can you expect? He can't even find his shirt.)



*I truly hope this guy gets tons of lucrative gigs out of the Old Spice campaign. He's brilliant.

MY KID IS SUCH A GENIUS!!!!!!!!!

Margaret has begun a series of some of the most poignant, fantastic cartoons I've seen in a long, long time. Here's one:



Here's another:



Here are more.

I think she should post more and more, and maybe produce a line of t-shirts and stationery items. Don't you think?

Writin' Rations™ — quick dessert!

This is so easy and so fabulous, you will have no idea how you possibly lived without this recipe at your fingertips.

Strawberry Sauce

Two boxes of strawberries (the boxes that hold a generous double-handful of strawberries)
A half cup of sugar
A pinch of salt
A teaspoon (or so) of vanilla extract/essence

Slice the strawberries (removing the leafy bits from the top, of course) and put them in a bowl.

Put everything else in the bowl as well and give it a good stir.

About every 15 minutes to a half hour (or whenever you think of it), give it another good stir. Before too long it will develop a miraculous strawberry syrup, ALL BY ITSELF!!!!

After about two hours of this, or maybe even only one hour (if it looks syrupy enough), stick it in the fridge for use in that evening's dessert, or leave it out to use right now.

IT IS THAT SIMPLE!

Angle-food cake is absolutely the best thing in the known universe as a vehicle for this sauce, but as that's a royal pain to make, I don't include it as Writin' Rations™. You can buy an unfrosted cake for not much money at the supermarket, and it will be quite passable enough.

You can also use plain American-style biscuits* (made with a touch more sugar than usual) as the base; this is known amongst my people as strawberry shortcake, and I won't hear a word said against it.

Needless to say, this sauce is also stunning on ice cream.

Regardless of the base you choose, feel free to invite whipped cream to the party. And accompany the dessert with a nice cup of tea (the writer's beverage from of old), or even a lovely wine (also the writer's beverage from of old, particularly when the writer is feeling more than usually in need of fortification).

*Recipe will be included in my forthcoming e-book, Writin' Rations. Watch this blog for publication details. Although I need to tell you that I'm juggling tons of projects right now (not that that's a bad thing, mind you), and I'm not sure exactly when I'll be editing, laying out, producing, and offering for sale said e-book. Don't worry, though: you'll know as soon as I do!

Another Baggage blog-tour stop!

Gillian Polack interviews me at her blog. Read as I talk about foreignness, pitching in, and fitting in.

The blog tour is to promote the forthcoming anthology Baggage, which will be launched at Worldcon from Eneit Press. Details as they emerge; watch this space!

Another Outlandish Voices podcast is up!

If Korf can’t manage his own powers, someone will just have to do it for him….

Outlandish Voices is proud to present another in its occasional series of stories by young Wollongong-area writers. Today’s author, Smith’s Hill High School student Jayne Hoschke, gives us an ominous tale about power: who can control it, who should control it — and what might happen if it’s out of control entirely. Listen at the Outlandish Voices podcast page (apparently you can subscribe from here, too).

By the way, this post marks one year of Outlandish Voices bringing you science fiction, fantasy, and horror from the writers of the Illawarra! In celebration, why not go and join the Outlandish Voices Facebook page?

Something for the struggling writer to ponder

And aren't all writers struggling on some level? Anyway: if you spend five or six hours staring at the computer screen feeling frustrated, demoralized, and humiliated, you are spending a lot of time teaching yourself — mind, body, and soul — how to be very good at doing SFA* while feeling frustrated, demoralized, and humiliated.

Turn
the
computer
off
and
go
do
something
else.

Ask me how I know this.

*SFA=sweet f**k-all, in case you're not familiar with the abbreviation.

My story "Turcotte's Battle" is out now.

My homage to Iron Chef, which I have titled "Turcotte's Battle," is available now in issue #19 of Wet Ink. It's an Aussie literary mag (so if you're in Oz, check your local newsagent or independent bookstore); I'm told it's also available from some US and UK newsstands and bookstores. If you can't find it and would like to read not only my story but a bunch more worthwhile stuff, you can always go to their web site (as per link in the first sentence here) and order it online.

I am very, very happy to have a story in this magazine: first, they get about 600 submissions a month, so it's very affirming to have made the cut. Second, it's a literary magazine, most of which don't bother with genre* fiction at all, and it's heartening that at least one has the sense of adventure to assert that genre can also mean quality. Third, it's always nice to offer a story you love (and I do love this one, I must say) to a new audience.

*genre=fantasy, science fiction, horror, westerns, romance, techno-thriller, adventure, etc. etc.

Brainstormer

One of my Clarion buddies had a very piratical wooden trunk in which he kept a huge number of cards. On each card was written a word or phrase he found evocative in some way. When he was stuck (as many writers do become from time to time), he would reach into the trunk, rummage around for a second, and withdraw three cards. He said he wouldn't always, or even often, choose to write using those specific words, but he did find the whole operation useful for unsticking his Writer Brain.

Another Clarion buddy, Jason, tells us of a web-based equivalent (about which he originally heard from Aidan, who was on the Clarion after ours). It's called "The Brainstormer," and you can find it here. You can also find a few other ideas Aidan has about lateral thinking and writers here.

I confess I'm not a big fan of the phrase "lateral thinking," nor of the overused-past-the-point-of-fatuousness "thinking outside the box." I much prefer what I consider a more accurate description of what is going on: "intuition." Or perhaps it's a variant of what Kelly Link calls "dream logic": at a deep-enough level, events, artifacts, and insights can form connections that seem to make no sense and yet are intensely satisfying and truthful.

And with that, I return to work on a short story that so far lacks these connections. But I trust my Writer Brain, my intuition, whatever it is in me, or around me, that calls me toward the story again and again.

A nice email

I've been notified that my story "The Bicycle Rebellion" has received a "Highly Commended" in the AussieCon 4 short-story competition. My net buddy and fellow Clarion South alum (albeit in a different year) Aidan Doyle won second, which is cool!