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Okay, point the first: Twelfth Planet Press has offered up free e-copies of their 2009 projectsin the name of getting folks to read them prior to the Hugo nominations at this years Worldcon in Melbourne. That means there are free copies of Horn up for grabs. Make of this what you will. (I should also mention that the inimitable Robert Hoge has started a campaign to get Australian’s nominated to the Hugo ballot, and he’s compiling a small list of recommendations for people who might be interested; the real action is over in the facebook group where everyone’s pitching in names).

And so, point the second: February is the month where I combat The Fear again.

It’s a stupid thing, The Fear, all the more stupid because it commonly manifests itself when things seem to be going right. People start accepting stories and asking for submissions and nominating me for awards and suddenly this little voice in the back of my head starts saying “you don’t deserve this” and “you’re going to fuck it up” and the next thing I know I’m sitting on top of a dozen half-finished stories and binging on coke and junk-food because it’s so much easier to not finish things than to start sending them out and face the fact that maybe, just maybe, this time people will realise I suck. Nothing unusual about any of that, really. I’ve never talked to anyone who wants to write who hasn’t experienced The Fear at some point or another. It’s just part of the process, and if it wasn’t for the fact that The Fear creeps up on me in stealth-mode and messes with my head it wouldn’t actually be a big deal at all.

My way past the fear is pretty simple: I start submitting stuff. Lots of it. Writing and submitting stories is actually habit-forming, and The Fear stops being a factor after you get into the routine. It doesn’t go away, but I get to stop capitalizing it. And, as with most things, I can distract myself by focusing on numbers. Make eight submission in February. Accrue 100 rejections this year*. Make sure I write 1500 words a day. Forgo the coke and chocolate which is salving my psychological wounds as I wallow in self-indulgent panic about never getting published again.

So for February I get back to basics and focus on numbers again.

Current Project: Getting Back to Basics
Number of Stories Submitted in February: 0 of 8
Rejections Accrued in 2010: 0
Consecutive Productive Writing Days: 0
Days without coke and other soft-drinks: 0
Days without chocolate: 0
Today the Spokesbear is: Sighing and giving me meaningful looks as he gets all passive-aggressive about the fact that I *should be working* right now if I mean to make any of this happen.

*A goal picked up from my friend Chris Green, based off the theory that you can’t control the acceptances but you can send a bunch of stuff out.

 Three things worth noting:

1) Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts @ Podcastle

The audio version of Ben Fransisco’s story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts is live over at Podcast. Go forth and feast your ears upon it; you will not be sorry.

2) Fantasy Magazine Best Story of 2009 Poll

If you haven’t had the chance yet, hie yourself over to Fantasy Magazine and place a vote in their 2009 reader poll to determine the favourite story published there last year. My votes swung towards Angela Slatter’s The Chrysanthemum Bride and Lisa Hannett’s The Good Window, but as usual you can’t go wrong with the majority of the stories that Fantasy publishes.

3) Apex Magazine’s First Annual Reader Poll

Apex Magazine is also looking for your vote on the best story they published in 2009, although I’m steering clear of recommendations given that two of the stories involved were mine.

Data Point the First: There’s about seven days left of Twelfth Planet Press’s Silly Season Stocking Stuffer Sale, whereby Australians can pick up a copy of my novella Horn with free shipping (and everyone else in the world gets a massively discounted postage). Given Horn’s cover price of $10, that’s a pretty sweet deal.

Data Point the Second: As of about six minutes ago, there were only 9 copies of Horn left in Twelfth Planet’s inventory.

Data Point the Third: The free shipping on Horn is a total “while stocks last” kind of deal (and there are plenty of other awesome books included in the sale.

Now I’m not mentioning this to suggest you should go buy a copy of the book right away. Nope, not at all. This is the silly season after all, and folks are generally watching their budgets in order to ensure maximum goodwill and festive cheer for those they love.

I’m not even saying “get it now or forever lose the chance,” since it sounds like we’ll be doing a reprint at some point in the future.

I’m certainly not say that Horn does make a kinda neat Stocking Stuffer for those friends who might be inclined to like a story about unicorns written specifically for people who hate unicorns. ‘Cause some people just don’t dig unicorn squick, and I’m okay with that.

What I might be saying – just maybe - that it’d be pretty damn neat for yours truly if those last nine copies went to a good home between now and Christmas.

‘Cause there’s not many things you can say to those extended family members you see twice a year when they ask “how’s the writing going” that actually sounds impressive, particularly when you write more short stories than anything else. But maybe, I don’t know, just maybe, “the book sold out a few days ago” will do the trick

And lo, I have finished the long march from empty page to submitted manuscript and a copy of Cold Casesis now winging its way to the publishers via the miracle of the internets. And well-timed it is, all things considered, since it gives me a few free moments to take part in the QWC Blog Tour of Queensland and answer some quick questions from the fine folks at the Queensland Writer’s Centre

Where do your words come from?

I borrow most of them from the dictionary. For some reason this whole writing lark works better when other people recognise the words you’re using and understand what they mean. Of course, my dictionary’s kind of old, so it’s missing words like D’oh andjiggy. Those I borrow from television shows and trust readers keep up.

Where did you grow up and where do you live now?

My parents were teachers, so I spent my childhood moving. We basically went between northern Queensland and the Darling Downs before finally settling on the Gold Coast when I was thirteen and stayed put for a long stretch. These days I live in Brisbane, which suits me far better than the Gold Coast ever did. I suspect it’s got something to do with access bookstores.

What’s the first sentence/line of your latest work?

“The first time the Black Dog showed up I was five.”
 - From Black Dog: A Biography in the Interfictions 2 anthology.

What piece of writing do you wish you had written?

Oh, man, that’s a long list and it’d get a different answer depending on the day. Lets go with William Gibson’s Neuromancer or Dylan Thomas’ poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. The former blew my mind when I came across it at fourteen and I suspect there’s a little part of me that will always want to be William Gibson, while the latter expresses a sentiment that’s becoming more and more important to me as the years go by.

What are you currently working towards?

I just mailed off the manuscript for Cold Cases, the manuscript that should follow up my unicorn-noir novella Horn, so I’m looking forward to getting some short-stories written before I hear back from Twelfth Planet Press and get stuck into the edits and rewrites. After we’re done with Cold Cases I’ll be starting work on the third novella in the Miriam Aster series and revisiting a long-neglected novel draft.

Complete this sentence… The future of the book is…

Not something that really bothers me, to be honest. I try to remain aware of the conversation and experiments in the publishing industry and I’m excited about the prospect of finally being able to carry e-books around in things like an i-phone, but when you get right down to it I’m primarily interested in being able to make stuff up and share it with other people. If the books the best way to do that, I’ll go with the book. If the future says the best choice is an e-book, or even a different vehicle for story altogether like the computer game, then I figure I’ll do what I can to work with that. Stories existed before books, and so did professional storytellers. I’m not sure either will go out of style, even if the book as a paper artifact does.

This post is part of the Queensland Writers Centre blog tour, happening October to December 2009. To follow the tour, visit Queensland Writers Centre’s blog The Empty Page.

Alongside the release of Interfictions II comes the Interstatial Arts Foundation Auction featuring art peices, jewelry and other works based upon the stories in the two Interfiction’s anthologies. A full list of the peices is being rolled out on the IAF Auctions blog over the coming month, but allow me to call attention to Item 4 on the list, Mia Nutick’s Black Dog Forever, which is based on my story in IF2:

I don’t know about you, but I file this under “cool.” Go forth and peruse the other awesomeness on offer, for all sales go towards the IAF. Hell, let me just quote for this bit: “The Interfictions auctions have become a major aspect of the Interstitial Arts Foundation’s fundraising efforts, allowing the organization to fund other interstitial arts projects, including future Interfictions anthologies. Please join us in celebrating the anthology and support the Interstitial Arts Foundation by bidding and spreading the word.”

Interfictions II has also racked up its first review courtesy of Charles Tan’s Bibliophile Stalker blog if you’re still wondering about the book itself.

And with that, dear internet peeps, I dissappear back into the morass of the Cold Cases manuscript draft in an attempt to kill the damn thing off before it *eats my goddamn brain*. For if I don’t, the spokesbear get’s angry, and the bears got paws, man. Don’t be fooled by the apparent fuzziness and the styrofoam bean filling, the bear’s got paws.

‘Tis true, the Interfictions Two anthology has been released like a releasy thing (sorry, hard morning at the keyboard and I’m all out of simile). You can pick it up in hardcopy or DRM free PDF depending on your preferences. You can read the story by me, should you really want to, but personally I’m diving straight for the contributions by folks like Jeffrey Ford, Ray Vukcevich, Lavie Tidhar, Theadora Goss, and Brian Francis Slattery*.

The anthology’s alreadybeen named as one of Amazon ’s Top Ten Fantasy and Science Fiction books of 2009. And if you’re still left scratching your heads as to what an interfiction actually is, head over to the Interfictions Annex and peruse some of the awesome free fiction on offer as a warm-up.

*And then, just quietly, I’m going to go have a cup of tea and a quiet lie down while I recover. My inner reader is a little geeked out after perusing the TOC.

First, a little pimping: The Queensland Writer’s Centre has announced the November Writing Frenzy, a month-long initiative to get people writing whether they’re engaging in the month-long madness that is NaNoWriMo or just looking to get a project done. Part of the program consists of several Writing Races held on the Australian Writers Marketplace Online Forums, including one this Sunday between 3 pm and 4 pm where I’ll be floating around and answering as the guest racer between the frantic attempt to kick off the NaNoWriMo project. Drop by, say hi, and get some words down if you’re a AWMO subscriber.

Unlike the puntastic Jason Fischer, who’ll be following up as a guest/race captain for the 10th of November Writing Race, I don’t promise to wear a tricorne hat while executing my duties (which seem to consist of “talk about writing” and “write,” which are pretty cool as duties go).

I may have a bear on my head though. It’s been that kind of week.

The invite came at a good time actually, because this weekend is going to be all about the words (Unless you’re actually my friend Chris and you’re coming over for a game of Bloodbowl during my one break from the deadline madness, in which case there will simply be the wailing and gnashing of teeth as the dice fail my team of plucky halfling football players yet again). My current plan for the weekend write-fest looks something like this:

Friday - Write Club with the inimitable and awesome Angela Slatter. Must cook dinner, write a lot, and apologise for the lack of chocolate this week. Then write, bitch about writing, catch up with news of the outside world, make zombie jokes, and write some more. If things go well I’ll have the Cold Cases draft done by the time I turn in this evening. Write club is awesome. I heart the write club.

Saturday – World’s longest writing binge. Seriously. My current plan is to get up early, write a like a manic to finish any of the chapters that aren’t finished on Cold Cases, get some rewrites of chapters that are already outdated and need fleshing out, take a break to play Bloodbowl, then review my notes on the NaNoWriMo project. If I actually get Cold Cases done on Friday night, all the time scheduled for novella drafting will be devoted to a short story instead. Either way, I’m hoping to write until my fingers bleed and collapse into bed with visions of spellchecker faeries dancing through my head.

Sunday – NaNoWriMo Kick Off, the aforementioned Writing Race in the afternoon, and some revision on the Black Candy manuscript in the evening because my poor ol’ novel re-draft has been fermenting that little bit too long now.

Basically, it sees that I’ve hit one of those periods where it’s actually less stressful to spend seven or so hours at the computer, producing words, than it is to avoid the work. I like to capitalise on those periods while the opportunity is there.

…so I may as well go with the hat-trick when it comes to blatant acts of self-promotion this week and mention the following:

1) The Coming Dark at the Internet Review of Science Fiction

A long-ish article about the apocalypse in its varied form, put together by my write-club peep Angela Slatter and featuring a bunch of talented Aussie writers (plus me, who is pretty lucky to be sounding coherent given that I was drafting responses to these questions during Gen Con Oz a few weeks back. Not to self – don’t agree to deadlines that coincide with conventions you’re working at).

Spec-fic writers tend towards the strange, the weird, the unpleasant—that’s their writing, not their personalities. We’ve had the apocalypse penciled in for a while now, so how are some of us going about documenting the coming dark? How is our changing, frayed environment affecting the writing of authors on our side of the literary divide?

A small chunk (really a thin, dietary slice) of these folk grudgingly agreed to answer some questions whilst waiting for the sun to burn and the moon to crash. So I locked them in a small room, put the kettle on and gave them some homemade biscuits to distract them. The subjects ranged across scary strangling vines, Mad Max, whether the environment really is out to get us, and the Age of the Puffin. The writers gromphing down the custard kisses and jam drops (and muttering about mandatory detention) are Deborah Biancotti, Kaaron Warren, Peter Ball and Jason Fischer.

And for the record, I’d totally support Jason’s theory about the ascent of the puffin.

2) Interfictions Two Available for Pre-order (Due for November Release)

If you’re left wondering exactly what an interfiction is, you can probably get a good taste of the style by looking over the anthology’s online annex, featuring a bunch of free stories that supplement the anthology. Or you can go check out the Interstitial Arts Foundation  which tends to be full of interesting people talking about the ways genres intersect and mutate (check out the essays, but be prepared to lose to day of your life as you move from one to the next).

Or you can just take the my word, biased as it is, and pre-order based on the fact that the first anthology kicked nine kids of butt. I mean, even if you aren’t a particular fan of the story I’ve got in there, the book contains new work by folks like Jeffery Ford and Brian Francis Slattery, and I’d happily shell out the cash for a copy based on those two facts alone

The October edition of Apex Magazine went online this week, with my story To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament among the table of contents and available for free online or via print or PDF for a reasonable cover price.

I should probably mention that of all the stories I’ve written, Horn included, this one is probably the weirdest and the squickiest. And since the working title was “John Flamsteed has sex with aliens to save the world” you should probably get fair warning that it’s a little on the smutty side,  so it’s probably not safe for work unless your co-workers are particularly forgiving of alien-sex. Not that it’s all squicky sex, or even that it’s the focus, but…well, you know…it’s there.

I’m currently preparing to head off to the Gold Coast, primarily to spend a few days catching up with my parents who I haven’t seen for longer than a dinner since they came back from their trip OS a month ago (and, it must be said, to languish in the peaceful surrounds of their home and get some writing done while I’m away from the internets). With that in mind I’m going to forgo today’s entry and make mention of an anthology due to hit shelves in December. Of course, you don’t want to wait for December to organise your copy, because *all the really cool kids are preordering now*. You want to be one of the cool kids, don’t you?*

Descended from Darkness: Apex Magazine Volume 1
Scheduled Released December 1st, 20009

Man, I’m excited about this one. Descended from Darkness collects a lot of the work that appeared on the Apex Magazinewebsite during the first half of 2009 (and maybe a little 2008) into an attractive anthology that has the dual benefit of letting you read these great stories offline *and* contributing a few dollars to keeping a pretty damn awesome online magazine running (with the added benefit that if you order using that link on the top, you may also be contributing beer money to your not so humble author).

So why get Descended from Darkness? Well, for starters, it’s one of those ultra-rare anthologies that’s going to feature me and my most excellent peep Jason Fischer(recent Writers of the Future Winner, Clarion Mate, and all-around dude) on the same table of contents. Plus the genre that Apex promotes (Horror-SF) is one of my favourites and I suspect it doesn’t get enough love. Plus there’s a bunch of other writers on the TOC that make for an assemblage of awesomeness - Mary Robinette Kowall, Lavie Tidhar, Ruth Nestvold, Ekaterina Sedia, and Theodora Goss among them. And the best thing is that it’s a total try-before-you-buy thing if you want it to be – just go check out the magazine archives to see what Apex has been doing.

*All suggestions of peer pressure should be attributed to my own tendency towards awkward cheesyness  when engaging in self promotion, not a reflection of said anthology. Which will be very cool. And has an awesome cover, which I haven’t been able to convince my website to upload and display. And this makes me sad.