Spelling. I’ve always regarded myself as a good speller. Certainly adequate. But converting The Weird Colonial Boy from an old pre-PC manuscript to downloadable format (see prvevious rash promise) has convinced me that Gollancz did me a great service with their copyediting. It’s taking ages! Who knows what state my mss go out in? How asleep am I at the wheel?
Get a Free Read Here!
I’ve decided to post my earlier work under a Creative Commons license. First up, The Weird Colonial Boy. Will upload asap! Stay tuned for other novels and some short fiction online as soon as I get the copyright sorted with original paper publishers and get time to upload and lay it out. So come and get it!
Fictional Tension
Some might have heard that Jill Sparrow and I are writing a novel. (Don’t ask me what it’s called.) Friends often ask us, “But how could you write a novel that way?” Behind this is the assumption that there is something completely individual about the novelistic art. Well, that may be so. Or it may not. There is a long answer involving collaboration and commercial imperatives, bourgeois art and individualism, and “trash” and literature of ideas, but the short answer is, she and I have complementary strengths.
Woohoo!
Well the novel’s finished. A draft, anyhow. It took almost exactly two years to write the draft and a couple more to research it. Still haven’t thought of a good title! I’ve been thinking of Menace to Society: a political adventure. I’m sure none of my friends look at this blog, but if anyone else does, let me know what you think. You could win a chocolate frog.
a science fiction convention
Covered the Natcon for Radio National. Is it me or is it SF fandom? A bit of both. We have both changed. I have never felt so at home at a con before. In fact it has been quite the opposite; that although I might have a lot in common with the people at such an event I could never really talk to them. Well, I still have the trouble talking, but I’m not too worried about that now. Before in some sense it was like not being able to talk to myself, and so distressing. Now?
Old Friends
Got an email from my old friend Donald in Mallacoota wrote the other day. What it must be to live there! Less than 400 people in the off season. But also very limited in what is available to you. I don’t mean in entertainment: the entertainment must be the same as here; I mean we we have a band, we watch movies, we drink and we fall about. No, it’s just that if you want to change your life you can just go out and get another job – perhaps not easy, but they are here, unless you have one of those jobs that there is only a handful in the whole country.
clever stuff
Writing the latest chapter (24, the fourth Bianca one), I have been wondering if the references to research about utopian fiction must be submerged, or if people will enjoy them for what they are.
computer depending
Yes, hung from our computers. Mine had problems with its power supply, which I was told might cost more than a new laptop to repair. Fortunately, Lenny was able to fashion a new pin and solder it, saving me about $1600. Yes, and although I had avoided that sickening feeling of not having backed up my work, I was very much put out by having to use another computer. I had to use it elsewhere, nothing was where I wanted it; I suppose all this was fairly wussy, but I spend so much time on the laptop and I am a creature of habit.
pictures of george
I’ve begun a gallery for George Turner and asked Bruce Gillespie to put in comments, but he has declined, I think. Who can blame him. So little time in his life, and lots of old pictures. What to say? Anyway they’re on the gallery site. http://pv.rumspringe.org.au/wp-gallery2.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=282
grey river
Went to Grey River with Natalie. Thanks to the Sparrows. Natalie loved
searching in rockpools most of all, I think. I got some writing done,
we ate well and slept like crazy. 9 hours a night, when I have been
getting 4, plus the odd afternoon nap. There are about 8 houses strung
along the road on the slope, with koalas in the back yard. Heaven!
Have a look at the pictures in me gallery. http://pv.rumspringe.org.au/pictures