writing

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Continuum, Slights from Angry Robots, and some vampires

So I’m in post-convention funk, short on sleep and strong on caffeine, a day back at work and wondering where the weekend went. The receipts tell some of the story: cabs, airlines, two dinners at a Chinese restaurant with lots and lots of chilli and an amazing capacity for seating and feeding 17 people at the drop of a hat, Japanese, innumerable coffees at the Lindt cafe and the State Library and that excellent sandwich bar in the Queen Victoria Building and other places besides…

Cat Sparks’ (as always) fun photo diary helps fill in some blanks, too.

So, the event was Continuum 5, held in the basement of the sprawling Mercure hotel complex in Melbourne, with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro as international guest of honour. She was rather grand, too. I enjoyed my vampire panel with her, and taking a new novel in the making for a walk during a reading session on the Sunday. I enjoyed meeting up with a bunch of folks from around the country, seeing Deb Biancotti launch her first anthology and Richard Harland steaming on with Worldshaker … and Kirstyn McDermott landed an award trifecta with her short story “Painlessness”, which had already won an Aurealis and a Ditmar before taking a brand new Chronos.

Next year there will be another Continuum, in February, and in September there will be a grandaddy of conventions, the Worldcon aka Aussiecon 4, also in Melbourne. If you are in Australia and write any kind of spec fic, you really owe it to yourself to be at the Worldcon.

Slights by Kaaron Warren

Slights by Kaaron Warren

On the flight home from Melbourne, I finished Kaaron Warren’s debut novel, Slights. It’s one of the first books to be released under HarperCollins’ new spec fic imprint, Angry Robot. It’s a weird title for an imprint, especially given that Kaaron’s book doesn’t have robots in it, nor any science fiction at all. The SF component of two of the other first four books also seems non-existent. No matter. What matters is that Aussie writer Kaaron’s book is a real gem. Sure, I had a little rant about the number of literal errors — you can’t get away from them these days — but don’t let that distract you. This is a compelling read, even though it’s not exactly express train pace. It’s a steam train of personality and character, wit and dread; such fully realised characters just don’t pop up that often, especially when they’re digging up family secrets in the backyard, pissing off their brother, tormenting all and insundry — and paying a heavy price. I can’t say Stevie is likeable, but her honesty is refreshing, her barbed one-liners engaging, her relationship with and indeed morbid curiosity about death intriguing and just a tad spooky. She namechecks Aussie writers Richard Harland and Robert Hood, too. Cool.

Kaaron has two more books signed to Angry Robot. So what’s to be angry about, huh? You tell me, robot.

Despite the previously mentioned funk, there is no rest for the wicked. I’m up to my jugular in vampires, and will be till Saturday when I present a wee talk at the Logan library’s SF month about the evolution of the vampire, from Byron to, ahem, Twilight.

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for the love of Aussie books

In The Courier-Mail, Kathleen Noonan makes the case, with her usual passion,  for maintaining our existing territorial copyright.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25659282-5012506,00.html

It’s depressing, reading that more than 18,000 Dymocks subscribers have signed their petition. Makes my decision to quit the Dymocks newsletter seem rather insignificant.

You might also like to check out what Tim Winton, latest winner of the Miles Franklin award for Breath, has to say on the issue: http://www.penguin.com.au/breath/video.cfm

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A weekend of peace at Olvar Wood

Zoe, Veronica, Helen and myself at Olvar Wood

Zoe, Veronica, Helen and myself at Olvar Wood

It already seems like years ago, though it was only yesterday…

My Corpse writers, just the four of us, spent the weekend at Olvar Wood at Palmwoods on the Sunshine Coast. Olvar Wood is a gorgeous, secluded retreat set on 20 acres of native bush, reached by a narrow, fairytale path overshadowed by branches and trees. The building is eco-friendly, boasting four bedrooms, separate dining, living room, wrap-around veranda with a view of either treetops or the Blackall Range, a massive kitchen and separate office, even a laundry. An atrium-style tropical garden with water feature is a centrepiece with glass walls, and a gorgeous unpolished pole occupies the landing between the dining area with its Jimmy Possum table and the generous lounge with its wood-burning heater and leather lounge suite.

Very occasionally, the sound of birdsong and wind-whispers is broken by a vehicle on the invisible access road. It is idyllic for writers, with no televisions at all, just a CD player in the sumptuous timber living room with its floor-to-ceiling glass walls and doors opening onto the veranda. Each of the four bedrooms — one is detached with en suite, two small ones share a bathroom and toilet — has a desk and dictionary. I scored the Hemingway Room, with its amazing flower-petal fan, dark timber bed, shower and spa bath, separate toilet and walk-in robe, and a wall of louvres offering a view of nothing but trees and sky.

Only a short, secluded drive from the village of Palmwoods, Olvar is ideally placed at the foot of the Blackall Range. Palmwoods has a superb Asian restaurant and pretty darn fine pizza cafe, with a couple of other cafes and greasy spoons and a bakery with superb pepper steak pies if you can get there early enough. There’s a bottle shop and an IGA and a pub and a funky shop or two, a chemist, a servo: all you need, really. The adventurous can scoot up the range to the tourist villages of Montville and Maleny or hit the concrete apartments and shopping precincts of the coast, but that wasn’t what this trip was about.

desk at Olvar Wood

desk at Olvar Wood

I confess I slept a lot. It took a while to leave the drudgery of everyday life behind — time and a few glasses of red, anyway. And then the words and ideas dribbled forth. Nothing another week of such serenity wouldn’t have helped.

This description doesn’t do the property justice. The kitchen is amazing, the gully with its rocky waterfall, the attention to detail right down to the dragonfly motif running from floor mats to tea towels to vases, the pantry large enough to lock children in … the whistle of the red kettle on the gas stove announcing the water’s hot, come and get a coffee and have a chat; the organic food and the organic toiletries, the smell of wet earth and leather and wood smoke … it’s special, all right, and highly recommended for the writer on the run who needs a space to stop and take stock. And maybe even get some words down.

More pictures  of Olvar Wood

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voices in my head

After months of nothing, finally this week I wrote something. Something fictional. Creative, even. And it felt *good*. For the first time since, hm, September maybe, I’ve got voices in my head unveiling their lives to me, piece by piece, and I’ve got more than seven pages of notes and assorted scene grabs to show for it. Not a lot, but it’s a start, a blessed start. I hadn’t realised how lonely I was without them, these people in my head. I don’t know where they come from but I’m sure glad they’re back.

I think perhaps we all need downtime. A recent article brought this home to me, the importance of giving oneself permission to do nothing. To recharge and revitalise. And then there’s this piece from Cory Doctorow in Locus about maximising writing time amid the distractions. Great advice, especially the bit about leaving something for tomorrow, leaving something for you subconscious to niggle at while you do other things. Resting included.

I figure a little bit of crop rotation in the fertile fields of the mind can’t hurt.

Now I should go write something. The voices are calling.