A while ago, I successfully auditioned for a spot in a shared universe, because playing in someone else’s backyard is always good fun. Each author got to use the main character of Katya, a capable assassin in a bizarre Byzantian setting, and it was an absolute hoot to write this. The good news is that these stories have just gone live, the even better news is that they are all available for free at the following website:
My story “Dead Letters” is one of the forthcoming pieces, but if you register as a member on the site (free membership) you will get access to these stories as they are released for public viewing. The first handful of Katya stories are now live, and two other serials will also be launched on the site in the near future. Editor Larry Segriff has attracted some seriously good writers to this project, including authors of D&D novels and some of my WotF buddies too. The setting is rich and detailed, much along the lines of the early Forgotten Realms, and as far as characters go Katya is seriously, seriously cool.
Sometimes, the best anecdotes involve those things that didn’t quite work out. In writing circles, we’ve all got that project that crashed and burned, the one that got away, the thing that for whatever reason lost its mojo, usually after a lot of effort, time, and heartache.
One of my favourite failure anecdotes was to talk about Tusk. This was a novel I wrote in 2004, the product of the Colin Thiele Literature Scholarship that I received from the SA Youth Arts Board. I was fortunate enough to be mentored by local fantasy author Tony Shillitoe, and over the course of 18 months or so I wrote this novel to the best of my abilities.
The tagline for Tusk is this: telepathic elephants enslave mankind. Planet of the Elephants, or as Tony called it “Gladiator in Grey”. So I spent a large chunk of time/money writing this book, sent it to one place, got a rejection, buried it in a drawer and it physically pained me to look at this MS forever afterwards. Again, we’re talking the journeyman stage of my career, where the sting of rejection is a brutal thing.
This was 2005 me. 2011 me is much older, much wiser, and much more ruthless. Especially when it comes to editing. So, after many years of fermenting, Tusk has once more seen the light of day, and has been polished to within an inch of its life. Even better than that, it’s already found a really awesome home.
Which brings me to the next part of this announcement. Black Glass Press have teamed up with the folks at Black House Comics to come up with a new regular anthology comic, called Terra Magazine. There are some brilliant (nay, award-winning) folks from comic circles involved with this project, and there’s a bit of everything in this book. It’s a bit like 2000AD, in that there are ongoing serial stories, you will soon find it on the shelves in your local newsagent, and there’s never a dull moment.
This book has got samurai, detectives, freaks in space, sorcery, yakuza, and cyborg lunatics. Terra Magazine is also the new home for Tusk, which will now be released as a serial story, illustrated prose much like Gaiman’s original stardust. It’s the only non-comic instalment, and will appear in each issue.
So since July 4th I’ve been a full-time writer, and shall be until the end of the year. Putting my money where my mouth is, I’ve cashed in all my long service leave, and taken the rest of the year off from my job to work on a number of projects. Chief amongst these is the novel “Papa Lucy and the Boneman”, which has landed me a Project Grant from the good folks at Arts SA. So, I’m basically a scruffy house-bound bum until 2012, supported by you, the tax-payer 🙂
In many ways I’ve been well-behaved, and have treated this chance at doing my dream job as, well, a job. I’ve steered clear of blogs and blogging (though admittedly I continue to dabble in the short sugar-hit aspects of social networking). I’m working through a list of goals, in order of time sensitivity, and putting down solid word-counts on a regular basis (average word-count is 1500-3000 words/day). So far, so good!
The List is as follows:
After the World: Army Corpse (1st draft now completed)
Embargoed Project
Papa Lucy and the Boneman (novel)
Embargoed Project
Both of the embargoed projects are super-cool, and rest assured I’ll be dishing out some more details when I can. Here’s some hints for the wise, *cough* elephants *cough* computer game *cough hack wheeze* 🙂 So this writing full-time thing is going very well, and if I keep this momentum, I’ll have no trouble meeting these goals, with oodles of time to polish everything up, and work on a few other bits and pieces that need doing, such as the story fragments kicking around on the backburner, the composition of new pieces for my upcoming collection (Everything is a Graveyard, from Ticonderoga Publications), and whatever else needs doing.
The first challenge with writing full-time was finding the rhythm of things, the sweet spot where I park my arse and unpack a bunch of words from my head. Clocking in a 8am with a cuppa and a smile just doesn’t seem to work for me, and I’ve had to try a few different methods before finding the one that works. The best method, the one that often gets that awesome absentee writer thing (where you vague out and come back hours later with something that you’re only partially responsible for) works for me as follows:
Mornings are for chores, correspondence, pottering, research, wool-gathering. An early lunch is held at the computer, going over the previous day’s work. Then the rest of the day is given to writing like buggery, until the family are all home, and then there’s tea and family time, and then another solid stretch of writing in the evening, through to 10-12 o’clock. And just like that, I’m pulling in 3000 word days, and it doesn’t even feel like I’m working. Am truly grateful for the opportunity to work like this, fitting writing in with family and full-time work was a bit of a bugger and this sojourn makes me very happy indeed 🙂
Some days the rhythm just doesn’t work, or other things come up. The wheels sometimes fall off for a day or two, but everything is mostly ticking along and I’m hopefully justifying the faith that has been put into my mad enterprise.
Will also try and update this blog/website more often while I’m on the public dollar. Speaking of which, when next I swing by I hope to talk about arts patronage, and some of my experiences in the last few years. I figure if I’m going to have an Official Website, I should use it to do Highminded Things.
Haven’t done an updatey type post for a while, but here’s some writing-related stuff worth whacking on the ole blog:
Anywhere But Earth
First up, the complete Table of Contents for the Anywhere but Earth anthology has been released here: http://keithstevenson.com/CDLblog/2011/04/06/anywhere-but-earth-official-line-up/
It looks AWESOME. Several of my local writing idols have rated a spot in the book, and I’m totally chuffed that one of my Clarion stories “Eating Gnashdal” is also in the mix. Can’t wait to get my grotty hands on a copy (I especially love that retro-looking cover).
Shared Universe Shenanigans
A project I’ve been involved in with some of my Writers of the Future colleagues looks like it’s about to go live. It involves a single character in a shared universe, and it’s been both interesting and challenging to work for. Will say more when I can, but the editor has a great track record, the other authors seem to be top-notch writers or prolific young turks, and rather than a e-zine it seems more like an interactive community with some great possibilities. Again, more when I can say, will pop the link here when it all goes live. I maintain that writing is the single coolest job I’ve ever had 🙂
Review – An Eclectic Slice of Life
A review of Eclecticism’s first anthology An Eclectic Slice of Life has just gone live over at Horrorscope. Reviewer Matthew Tait has this to say about my contributions to the volume:
“Both Houndkin and The Ward of Hours take on mythological creatures set against eccentric backdrops – one in a hospital ward that lies at the nexus of time. The prose is mature and effortless … and it’s easy to see the argument for his success”
That’s lovely, made my day that 🙂 I really get a kick when someone enjoys my Raoul stories, the same protagonist as from my WOTF-winning story House of Nameless – oh look, here’s a link where you can read it for free! http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/43525 Oh hey, here’s the Ditmar ballot where it’s up for Best Short Story, if you’re so inclined http://wiki.sf.org.au/images/d/d4/2011_Ditmar_ballot.pdf 🙂
Midnight Echo #6
Just on the tail-end of it all now, doing the usual jiggery-pokery with contracts, bios, edits, and putting together an editorial for our themed issue. Was great fun, but will definitely be a relief to hand everything over once we’re finished.
RIP Livejournal
I’ve decided I’m more or less done with the infamous Russian Spam Factory, and will migrate most of my f-list and feeds into Google Reader. I just can’t do it anymore, everytime I fire it up it’s just depressing. I’ll still export this website via an LJ x-post, but apart from that I probably won’t be on there much from now on.
And the teaser…
There’s another cool bit of news that landed in my inbox this week, but it is unfortunately embargoed information. It’s killing me but the rules are the rules, I’ll post a mini update when it’s announced and all official-like. I LOVE BEING A WRITER! 🙂
My Writers of the Future winning story “The House of Nameless” is now available on Smashwords as a free e-book, available in several different formats. While I’ve ostensibly released this free version onto the world for Ditmar reasons (with the full blessing of the publishers at Galaxy Press) it’s also my trial run at formatting and managing an e-book. It’s also quite hard to get hold of the WOTF anthologies in Australian stores, so if anyone’s interested in seeing the type of story that gets into the book, here is one example. These anthologies are all available through Amazon, and now via Kindle as well – they also contain many words of wisdom from the best-selling judges, which are well worth the small download fee. If you want a hard copy, you will generally have to order these in (hence this e-book experiment to raise some 11th hour awareness of my story).
Not much more to add, but it’s coming together beautifully, and it’s nice to be nailing down the “ecology of the supernatural” that I’ve explored in the related short stories. In fiction I’ve always loved the use of ephemera, and in the jesusman stories this has been kicked up a notch – the world of Now runs on a scavenger ecology, a brutalised society picking through Before-Time junk from “bleedthroughs” simply to survive. Time itself, and the brutal nature of the Crossing, has all but wiped out knowledge of the soft world these settlers left behind. All they have to prop up their broken culture is what bleeds through, and some of this drifting ephemera can shape politics, even religion itself.
All I can say is, you’ll find one in every country town…I cannot wait to give the world Lesterton. Mwahahah.
Gauntlet Fuel Du Jour
You’d better *believe* that this novel is powered by bogan tunes. For those about to write, we salute you.
