All Quiet on the Blogger Front

Well, it has been a long time between drinks hasn’t it and I’m sure you were all ready to give up hope and believe that I’ll never blog again.

Wrong!!

But I freely confess that I have been more than a little slack when to comes to keeping you updated with all my latest stories. So what do I have for you today, well that’s going to have to wait for now because I’m going to take a little time here to bid my farewells to one of Townsville’s great writers.

My friend and one of my inspirations, Hettie Ashwin, is leaving our sleepy little town and heading even further north than what we are already. Over the years Hettie’s drive, knowledge, conviction and pure zest to write has been an inspiration for me to write more than ever before and try harder to get my work out there for the general public to see. It was Hettie who taught me how to create and manage a blog and that lesson has landed me here today. So, as you could guess, it is with a heavy heart that myself and all those that Hettie has inspired, I’m sure, bid her a fond farewell and best wishes on her travels. You can find Hettie’s work at her blog hettieashwin.blogspot.com

So what do I have for you today? Well today is a little different from every time before because I don’t have a short story for you. No, today I’m going to let you all read the first chapter of my novel. The book is titled Zicastor and my plan is to get it out to you all later this year. So watch this space and enjoy ‘Dark Halls, Dark Duties’.

Don’t worry, the short stories are still coming too...I’ve got one tucked away which I might throw up next week.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my faithful readers.

Ah, the joys of Christmas in North Queensland; the weather is always 32 degrees centigrade, the mangoes grow larger than emu eggs (well some of the mangos off our own tree anyway) and are so plentiful that you can see them falling off trees.  The rain comes down so hard that you can’t see three feet in front of you or even hear the person sitting next to you as they scream out “The rain is heavy, isn’t it?”

That is a brief glimpse of Christmas in North Queensland and in truth; it’s not that bad it just takes some getting used to.  The good bits are just like any other Australian Christmas.  That is, homemade slip n’ slides, kids laughing, hopefully only a little sunburn, the bell of the Ice-cream van, the smell of fresh-cut lawn, Christmas BBQ’s by the pool, cold beer and prawns.

So what has Santa bought for you today, well, it’s hardly a Christmas story, and I just don’t think I could write A Miracle On Any Street.  If I wrote a Christmas story it would probably turn out like Gremlins.

So what have I got for you then? Well, in all honesty, it’s not my favourite, I had a great idea and then had a lot of trouble putting my thoughts to paper, but it has been well received and so enjoy: Steven. 

The Marking of Time

Where...Oh where does the time go? It is the question that has plagued mankind for centuries and it is a burden that is on the writer.  At least the slack ones like me. But in my defence I had a fantastic week of writing a story that, if it is well received, I am considering making a series of.

Ohhhh, I hear you say. Cool, I hear from you.

 Yes it is cool and it is a venture that I have not tried nor even really thought of before. I am hopeful for my new story but that is not the story that I’m going to present for you today. Today’s story has a familiar flavour but the genre is not something I have tried before and it was well received at a recent reading so I’m presenting it to you for your own appraisal. So with no further ado I present to you “How I lost my pants.”

See, now you’re interested already.  

Excuses, excuses, excuses... and Writers Block.

Apparently I seem to come up with a lot of excuses as to why I don’t update my blog more often or as to why I don’t write as often as I should.  Well excuses no more; I’ll just write as regularly as my mind and fingers enable me to.

So as I sit here and type at my computer and wonder what I’m going to write. Writers block assails me and my mind drifts to thoughts like; how does a man who drives a snow plough get to his work in the morning?

Writers Block is a curious phenomenon and I have fallen prey to its vile clutches time and again. I have sat at my computer and typed vigorously for hours on end and then stopped...felled by one word I can’t seem to remember and then it’s gone, that magical writing spree as dead as winter grass and me left with just the faintest memory of what it was I was going to write.

“How do you fight writers block?” I hear you ask.

It is a struggle. The battle can take mere minutes, hours, days or in the case of one of my stories...years. This story was one that I struggled with for days. I knew the start, I knew the middle, and I even knew the ending. But I was trapped by a series of sentences that slowed me right down and left me fighting Writers Block until the very end.

So for your Halloween story and for those of you who love Halloween (you know who you are) I present to you ‘Ocean’s Apart.’  

Tomorrow Never Comes.

I was going to post this tomorrow. I said that yesterday. And here it is: Today.

What?

Well. What a few weeks it has been. Queensland Writer’s Week was a huge success and a big congrats to everyone involved especially Carla, of the Townsville Writers and Publishers Centre, who organised the whole thing in only 4 weeks. Personally I can’t wait for the next one.

So what’s been happening that has kept me away from you; my wonderful audience. What is more important than you? Well simply it was the writer’s week. So much to do, which meant a swag of late nights and takeaway dinners.  And, of course, I’ve been hammering away at those keys. Producing quality work to grace the pages of this blog is not an easy venture. Oft times I have a fantastic idea for a story and start to turn that thought into words and then...something goes horribly wrong and what I have written is hardly worth the time wasted in thinking of it. In the past week, though busy, I have managed to thrash out a couple of shorts.  However, for now they will remain with me until I feel completely happy with them.

Maybe those that go horribly wrong can be salvaged and re-written; maybe they need a tweak here or there; or maybe I just need to delete and start all over again. It’s not easy sometimes but when it works, you can look back at it time and again and really appreciate what you have done. Even if no-one will ever see it other than you. Thank god, I say, for the internet and for blogs because here is one such gem that I personally believe is one of my best. You may read this and note that it has a similar theme to Fallujah and Alone, but this came first. It is many years old, was written on an electronic typewriter, before the current medium and though short, tells a story that can raise many questions to its end. So enjoy Starship Down.

Queensland Writers Week

Hey Y'all, as they would say in the deep bayou's of the south. This week is Queensland Writers Week and I will be participating on Wednesday the 12th in a group interview hosted by the Townsville Writers and Publishing Centre http://www.twpc.org/ . Hope to see you there and check out the website for all the events that are taking place.

Due to computer malfunctions and internet problems and stupid conferences, I was unable to post a story for you this week.

"NOOOOO!!!" I hear you scream or maybe that was just a convienent curlew in the backyard. But I will be back this week with a story for you. I may even post it tomorrow.

And now for something completely different.

Well kids it’s been a long week and this is coming a little late due to slaving over household renovations and a small dose of ‘meh’ on my part.

“Are we coming to the end?” I hear you say. “Is this ‘meh’ boredom or even an excuse to elongate the process because he’s running out of stories?”

“NEVER!” I scream back. Perhaps a little too loudly. Even as we speak I’m churning out pages of awesomeness the world has never seen.  Are you laughing at my display of perhaps ill timed confidence?

Laugh away then...on the other side of your face!! Stories flow from me like water over Niagara Falls and someone is bound to love one of them!

So onto today’s story. It’s a little different to what you’ve read so far. This is a true story that I heard from a work colleague which I just had to write down with my own little spin. Cocky and Needle in this story are based on actual pets. Cocky being the focus of the story and Needle being based on my grandfather’s dog. Every Australian can identify with Wally, the stern faced Aussie farmer with the soft heart.

And with the hope that it brings back some childhood memory of characters that you may have known, enjoy.