Dit Dit Dit Dash Dash Dash Dit Dit Dit

The Ditmar Awards are coming up. For those who came in late, there are two types of Awards in Aussie Spec Fic. The Aurealis Awards are judged by the genre In Crowd, and therefore showcase the works that have the greatest literary merit. The Ditmars are determined by readers, thus highlighting stories that lots of people seem to like.

I've never thought of either as particularly relevant to my writing. I don't reach for literary greatness (that would involve knowing what it is), and I'm not popular in the writing scene. I can't afford to go to conventions and the job and kids keep me too busy to even do the literary recluse thing.

But then, over at the blog of Shane Jiraiya Cummings, Shane has recommended to his readers that they vote for Finding the Words for best short story, and for me as best new talent! Shane *is* a well known, finger-on-the-pulse guy. He also writes some slick horror and is a badass real-not-just-the-gym Ninjutsu artist, so why argue with the guy? Go and get yourself a nomination form, and you can transform me into something I've never been before... a guy who got one nomination in the Ditmars.

Okay, time for a story. Last night my wife (in second trimester of pregnancy) couldn't sleep. She tried a hot milo. She tried sleeping on the lounge. She tried having something to eat. She turned on the air con. At last she read a little of Matthew Reilly's Area 7. Zzzzzzzz....

Nothing like gunfire and explosions to relax one.

Shot anyone lately?

I'm currently reading the thriller Remote Control by Andy McNab. He's ex-SAS, and writes from experience. All the little matter-of fact details really make it, the things you'd only know to write because you've been there and done that.
Brilliant stuff, but a little discouraging. How can an Australian ex-cattle farming computer programmer hope to ever compete with a guy who really has done black ops around the world?

My other blog

Just thought I'd mention the launch of Cute, Comic, Crazy (http://awsocute.blogspot.com/). I've seen so many cute and funny things from my own kids and others, I thought I'd start writing them down. Check it out for a corker that occurred recently at the house of a close relative.

Book of Shadows

I received my contributor copy of the Book of Shadows Volume 1 yesterday. Dang, it's good.

You know it's not your usual Aussie Spec Fic Ghetto piece before you even open the package. It's the right frigging size. I'm sure there are some good reasons for the small press to print books in the bigger size (cost being a major one, I imagine), and the quality of many of those works is still top-notch, but nothing screams SMALL PRESS like that bigger size of book. This baby presents itself with the best (well, paperback anyway). The cover art is appropriately ominous, and not distinct. It just gives you a feeling, not an object to focus on. That works for me. I'm the type of guy that reads through an antho wondering which story includes that chainsaw wielding cow I saw on the cover.

The stories? Well, you read Shadowed Realms don't you? Almost all of the stories are taken from SR's first year(it includes my little story Moving Dad from SR #6). The difference here is that you can read them all in one sitting, and what amazed me was that no recurring themes or styles came up. No editorial obsession with one topic, no underlying "If it ain't new wierd, it ain't fiction" bigotry, just damned good stories. Some are creepy some are poignant, all are dark.

The future is looking good for Aussie Dark Fic. Onward and upward, Brimstone.

ptang!

For the last week or so I've been writing every day! Okay, so it's only been a couple of hundred words or so, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a drop in the bucket, or something.

What I've written is utter crap, but I've given myself permission to write an awful first draft (thus, hopefully, enabling it to actually happen).

I'm writing my thriller, Ante Body, and I'm up to my very first gun fight! The protag, a mystery man and a host of unknown bad guys are exchanging steel jackety death in a shopping mall. Just for fun I might go Matthew Reilly on them, where the bad guy is right there and things just miss and action happens in italics!

Oh yeah, and I got another rejection from a professional market. Oh well, out it goes again.

Hoooowwwl

So I thought I'd have a look at how some of my upcoming publications were progressing. I went to the Coyote Moon Publications web site to see how ShadowSword mag was getting along- and I found a note to say the publisher has folded! They cancelled publishing my story (and all others, obviously) and didn't tell me.

It also had this note:
Additional apologies to anyone who has not received a personal e-mail from me about this matter. Some of the addresses I had on file were apparently out of date or non-responsive, and my ongoing troubles have included internet connectivity problems.

The contact addy I gave them has been in use for a good 10 years, and is still my main one. I wonder how long it's been cancelled for.

So now I have to find another market for Girl Power. Which isn't easy, as it's humour. That means most of the Aussie SF community, for example, write it off a priori as having 'nothing to offer the reader' (apart from ASIM, of course, who accepted it into their round 3 but it wasn't picked up by an editor).

Anyone know any good humor markets?