Somebody Has To Say It

Interview With Russell Blake - Guest Post By Amber Norrgard

2012-03-18T09:30:00.000+11:00

TodayI'm welcoming Amber Norrgard to my blog to interview author RussellBlake. In know I said there wouldn't be any more posts until April, but, well... I didn't have to write it. We'll actually be having another guest blogger, Kelly Stone Gamble, guest blogging here later in the week as well.

Amber is the author of The Color of Dawn, a book of poetry, and you can find her blog here or follow her on Twitter @AmberNorrgard. I'll now hand you over to Amber to introduce us to our guest, Russell Blake!

Nottoo long after my husband gave me a kindle for our seventh anniversary (sigh...still the BEST GIFT EVER!), I came across an independent writer by the name ofRussell Blake. In June of 2011, Fatal Exchange was Blake's only novel,and was avail only in e-book format - and with its low price, what did I haveto lose? Well, for starters, I lost a great deal of sleep the night I startedreading Fatal Exchange, due to the fact that I could not put it down.

After finishing whatwas one of the most amazing, not to mention unique, thrillers I had read inover twenty years of being a literary junkie, I sent a tweet to Blake ontwitter letting him know how much I enjoyed it, and asking him when his nextnovel would be available. Fatal Exchange was the first of many novels I'vewritten reviews for, and after almost a year, still one of my favorite ofBlake’s work. One thing has changed, and that is Russell Blake has pulledthe incredible feat of THIRTEEN novels being published in just ten months, andthe only thing cookie cutter about any of them is the amazing genius behind it. So I am very happy, and quite honored, to have interviewed Russell Blakeon the occasion of his thirteenth book going live, as well as to kick off aguest blog tour.

The thirteenthnovel is The Voynich Cypher, and I can tell you firsthand that it’s an amazingread, in the tradition of The Da Vinci Code and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but atlightning pace.

Where did the ideafrom Voynich come from?

I wanted to writesomething different than my customary conspiracy-driven thrillers, and I'dalways had an idea floating in the back of my mind for a Raiders of the LostArk kind of treasure hunt as the basis for a book. When I finally decided itwas time, I started looking for something that was real, and would lend itselfwell to a mystery, and I remembered a discussion with a buddy of mine years agoabout this obscure medieval document written entirely in code thathad confounded cryptographers for nearly ever. One thing led to another, andpretty soon the first 20K words were written.

Voynich seems to begrander in terms of details on real places. How long did the researchtake for the novel?

Hundreds of hours.On the Voynich Manuscript itself, on geography and history, on cryptography,you name it. It was a TON of research.

Will we see Dr.Cross again in a later work?

I think so. I'vealready got a glimmer of an idea in my noggin. Just need to sort of let itsteep for a bit until it's got more substance.

You always seem tohave several work in progress projects lined up. What's up next for you?

I'm putting thefinishing touches on the sequel to King of Swords, tentatively titled Revengeof the Assassin. That should launch end of April/early May. Then I'm thinkingthe sequel to Fatal Exchange, and then a sequel to Delphi, and then probably asequel to Voynich. The protag, Dr. Steven Cross, is the protag from my Wall St.thriller Zero Sum, so I think he's going to feature in a few more books overthe next year or two.

What made you startwriting? Is there an author who inspired you to write?

You know what?Probably Stephen King, and John Grisham. Because they made it appear easyenough that I foolishly thought, “I can do that.” I think Ludlum and Forsythinfluenced me a lot as a reader, but I really think when I first sat down towrite, I was thinking, “I’ll write The Firm, and A Time To Kill, and be done bylunch.” Needless to say, there’s more heavy lifting to it than that. I’ve spentthe last twenty years figuring that out.

You've stated inprevious interviews that Al from the Geronimo Breach is one of your favorite characters. Will your readers be seeing him again?

Boy, I don’t seeany reason to reprise him at this point. Because part of his beauty, hissymmetry, if you will, is that he is what he is, and the more situations youput him in to draw it out (milk it) the less like he is that he necessarily hasto be. Al’s essence is that he’s almost irredeemably flawed. How can you havehim evolve in Geronimo, and then come back in book two, without him being thenew, improved Al, which to me spoils some fascinating part of him; or have himnot evolve, in which case he stops being interesting, and just becomes aregression to his loathsome and reprehensible self? I think the interestingthing about Geronimo is that it’s a road novel. A journey, in which the protagchanges over its course. Hard to sustain that without becoming formulaic.

AndI’d rather not do sequels if I feel the character hasn’t got something to carrythe second book. Some characters, like Steven Cross of Zero Sum, or MichaelDerrigan in Delphi, or ESPECIALLY El Rey and Romero Cruz in King of Swords andNight of the Assassin, beg to be reprised. So I plan to. My new one, TheVoynich Cypher, uses Dr. Steven Cross from Zero Sum, and continues with a newadventure. Next one, Revenge of the Assassin, is an El Rey/Cruz book. But moreAl? I just don’t see it at this point. When I sit down to write, I always havea little voice in the back of my brain that asks, “Why? Why this, why now?” AndI can’t think of a good reason for Al to share more about himself than in thatone book.

How long did ittake you to write your first novel, Fatal Exchange?

About 18 12 hourdays. Not counting rewrites.

You seem to have awealth of ideas. How do you come by them?

Tequila. No,honestly? Tequila. And I am naturally skeptical of everything and everyone, soI assume that I’m being told a lie whenever I hear anything, until provenotherwise. That lends itself nicely to thinking up alternative explanations,which brings me back to Tequila.

What do you do inthe mornings to get yourself woken up and going?

I feel a constantsense of unfinished work, and a fascination with what I’m going to write next.Not in a creepy, ‘I’m standing outside of myself watching my fingers type wordsI can’t later remember’ kind of way, although we’ve all had that – right? But Iam excited to get the story out. That’s why I write like I do – very intense,12 to 15 hour days of keen focus. I wake up wanting to get the scenes out. Hardto explain. That, and a sense that I’m making progress and getting better at mycraft. I feel like a kid, when you’re looking at the teenagers going, ‘I can’twait to get there.’ I can’t wait to get to the next chapter. I realize thatsounds completely weird, so maybe I should change my answer to cocaine andhookers. I hear they can keep you awake…

Do you have anywriting quirks?

No. I am in everyway normal, other than the nude ice dancing thing and the preoccupation withLatvian and Estonian prostitutes, and of course, battling world domination byclowns, and their chimp minions. What’s a writing quirk, by the way? Nerdyfetishism of some sort? Just curious…

What do you thinkof books that are later made into movies?

Depends. Silence ofthe Lambs didn’t suck. Most do. I tend to write in a very cinematographicstyle, so I’d love to have some studio squander millions ruining one of mybooks. I personally think that either Banderas or Del Toro should option Kingof Swords, because that book, and the rest in the series, would be their DieHard or Terminator. So call them. Please. Really. I’m not kidding. I thinkWilliam Morris Endeavor reps Banderas. I could get you the number…

If you were goingto be stuck on a deserted island, what three items would you take with you?

Anti-clown weaponry,Latvian and Estonian companions (those count as one, right?) and Tequila.Although I’m assuming there will be a three star Michelin restaurant with arotating menu there, right? If not, I could probably give up an Estonian inexchange for food…

What three booksare on your "to be read" list?

Groan. I reallydon’t have one. It’s too embarrassing. I have at least 16 books on my kindlenow, 8 of which I was sent for a “browse” which I am months behind looking at.So much as I’d like to appear deep, and claim the Dalai Lama’s latest (I assumehe is still pumping them out) is on there, I have nothing for you on this one.

What is the bestthing about the town/city you live in?

Are you kidding?It’s frigging Meheeco, baybee. Beach, warm water, cold beer, blue sky, easyliving and friendly natives. Summertime, and the living’s easy. You wantCalifornia dreaming/endless summer? Come to the pacific coast of Mexico. Justtry not to get beheaded by the cartel enforcers. Puts a damper in your day.

What book could youread over and over again?

David FosterWallace. Infinite Jest. Like going to church. More on a single page than mostauthors can muster in a career.

What is yourfavorite band or musician?

Boy. So many bands.Rhino Bucket, album one. AC/DC, the Bon Scott years. StevieRay Vaughn. T-Ride. Stanley Jordan. Jean Luc Ponte. Holdsworth. Queen.Floyd. There are just too many. May I also say I haven’t heard anything worthlistening to in a decade? I know. I’m an anachronism. But it’s true. SorrySnoop. Dre. Eminem. Even you, Beyonce, and you know I have strong feelings foryou. But you aren’t the Beatles or the Stones (and how is Keith Richards stillalive?) or even Bon Jovi. Sorry. Hope the billions soften that blow. Toughlove.

What book do youthink is a necessary read?

Necessary? Again,hard to say. The Magic Mountain. Infinite Jest. PS Your Cat Is Dead. TheHolographic Paradigm. Day of the Jackal. Ludlum. Anything by Le Carre.All for entirely different reasons. Essential for what reason? Entertainment?Style? Philosophy? And of course, all of mine. In no particular order. I’d buythem all to be safe. Wink.

What advice can yougive to newbie independent authors?

You probably won’tmake it. Odds say you won’t. Overwhelmingly. So write out of ego, or a need totell a story, or pride of craftsmanship, or some ephemeral drive you can’tdescribe, but don’t do it to be a hit. Do it to tell the story you need totell, in as vital and competent way as you can. That’s the why. The how? Readand reread The Elements of Style. Then you can toss it. But only once you’veinternalized it. Especially, rule number one.

Eliminate unnecessary words.Meaning tell the story as clearly and eloquently as you are able, in as directand efficient a manner possible. “To be or not to be” is infinitely moreeloquent than two paragraphs saying the same thing. And the other how – forceyourself to write, every day, no matter what. No whining or sniveling. Nobody’sholding a gun to your head. You want to write? Be a writer. That means write.And do so better than anyone else – or at least aspire to, and put in the workto be better every day. Appetite comes with eating. So eat. Every day.

Be yourown harshest critic – your internal dialogue should be ruthless, and demanding.Push yourself. Constantly. You are either shrinking or growing. Stasis isdeath. You want a ticket into the game? Be the player that is worth callingonto the field at the bottom of the ninth. Make your work a small miracle forthose who read it. Less is, well, less.

Having said allthat, delight in crafting sentences that resonate - that nobody else could havecreated. Because in the end, that’s probably all you’ll have from the effortother than an ulcer, a fat ass, and lasting bitterness. And twelve cats. Can’tforget those. Mister Mittens will not be denied. Trust me. Humans won’t want tobe around you much, and the animals only because you feed them. And their lovewill be conditional and temporary.

Other thanthat, it’s a pretty fulfilling gig.

You can connectwith Russell Blake at the following:

website: http://RussellBlake.com

twitter:@BlakeBooks

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Russell-Blake/e/B005OKCOLE/ref=sr_tc_ep?qid=1331436268

Russell Blake isthe acclaimed author of the intrigue/thrillers Fatal Exchange, The GeronimoBreach, the Zero Sum trilogy of Wall Street thrillers, King of Swords, Night ofthe Assassin, The Delphi Chronicle trilogy (The Manuscript, The Tortoise andthe Hare, Phoenix Rising), The Voynich Cypher (March, 2012) and Revenge of theAssassin (May, 2012).

His first satiricalnon-fiction work, How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time (even if drunk,high or incarcerated) released to rave reviews from literary luminaries likeLawrence Block, John Lescroart and David Lender.

His secondnon-fiction book, "An Angel With Fur," is the true story of Lobo themiracle dog and is an international bestseller.

"Captain"Russell lives on the Pacific coast of Mexico, where he spends his time writing,fishing, collecting & drinking tequila, playing with his dogs and battlingworld domination by clowns.

Relentless Butt Plugs and Twitter Etiquette

2012-03-03T17:09:00.000+11:00

…or was that book plugs? That probably depends on whetheryou write erotica or not!

I’m guest posting over at Find A Good Book to Read by Wodke Hawkinson today onthe topic of Twitter etiquette and other Twitter peeves. Those of you who havebeen with me for a while now know I did a post on this in the very early daysof this blog (which you can revisit here), but as a special favour to WodkeHawkinson, in need of an anonymous gun-for-hire for a good rant, I am doing areprise… or a revise. I just skipped the anonymous part. Anonymity? I spit onanonymity! Don’t worry, if I’m going to say you piss me off, I’ll do it to yourface!

I have touched again on some of the points I raised in theearlier post and, in addition, I’ve informally polled some Tweeps to see whattheir pet peeves are and discussed those as well. It seem like relentless bookplugs are everyone’s number one pet peeve… although if you write erotica, youmight misread that as relentless butt plugs, as did one of my Tweeps. Really,ladies and gentlemen, minds out of the gutter for a few minutes, please.

Although for myself, relentless butt plugs might be evenmore unpleasant than relentless book plugs!

In further news, after my last post, on whether I should dothe A-Z Blogging Challenge, I have decided that I will. Thanks to everyone whocommented and offered ideas. I usually post fortnightly on this blog, but inpreparation for the Challenge there will be no post in a fortnight’s time. Youcan look forward to the near-daily blogging fun of the Challenge in April instead.

I have topics for nearly every letter now except J, K and Z.If you have a topic for any of these letters, let me know in the comments. And please… be kind!

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Should I Do the A to Z Blogging Challenge?

2012-02-17T03:00:00.000+11:00

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I keep swinging from yes to no and back again. I’d like to do it, itsounds fun. But on the other side I have these reservations:

Am I going to have time for this? My husband isconstantly telling me I over-commit and make myself too busy. Full-time work,I’m a mother, a wife, writing a novel, working on multiple short stories,promoting myself on Twitter, managing two blogs (yes one wasn’t enough for me),I’m usually doing writing workshops (four right now) and my latest project isto establish a newsletter (subscriptions are open if you’re interested).Perhaps he has a point?
If I do have time for this, I need 26topics. I usually only blog once a fortnight on this blog, so that’s a year’sworth of topics. I think about that fact and it’s an immediate disincentive todo this challenge. Those topics could get me through the next 12 months!
To cut that down, I could post somefiction instead. I don’t usually post fiction on my blog, preferring to seekalternative markets for it (OK I haven’t done much of that yet, I’m working onit, all right…) but I could do some flash fiction for the blog.

So tell me in the comments what you think? Should I:

Participate in the A to Z Blogging Challengewith 26 topics; or
Participate with 13 topics and 13 pieces offiction (or some other combination of your choice); or
Just write some fiction for you to read and notparticipate at all; or
If you insist, you can suggest ‘Other’.

This is the list of possible topics I have so far.

A – Achy Breaky Heart and the Perception of Country Music

B – Big Business, Big Bucks

C – Country goes City – Drizabones in Sydney CBD
D – Daylight Robbery – How My Electricity Company Steals MySolar Power

E – Etiquette of Critiques

F – Fidelity and Its Continuing Relevance

G – Gun Laws: Should Australia Relax Regulation?

H - ???

I – Intellectual Property Rights for Books Explained

J - ???

K- ???

L - ???

M- Music – In Defence of Country & Western

N – Names – Did You Change Yours?
O – Oh My God, Are You Really Wearing That?

P - Public Transport and Cityrail’s Campaign AgainstUndesirable Commuters
Q – Discuss With A Q – Reasons to Use This Comment Widget

R - Raising the Bar for Self-Pubbed Authors

S – Switching from Blogger to Wordpress: Should You?

T – Triberr Etiquette

U - Unwinnable War? Ciara Vs Telecommunications Giant

V – Vexatious Blog Habits

W – Writing Workshops – Are They Valuable?

X - ???

Y - ???

Z - ???

Anyone for a dose of fantasy fiction?

Feel freeto suggest a topic you’d like me to rant about or some inspiration for a shortstory in the comments. Let me know which of these topics you’d most like tosee!

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You Want Me To Pay You For What?

2012-02-10T14:01:00.000+11:00

Today I bought movie tickets online. I don’t usually do so,but we didn’t want to risk missingout. Everything was fine until I noticed I was being charged $3.65 per ticketadministration fee!

What?!

Just so we’re clear, let me get this straight…. There isvirtually no cost to you in selling tickets to me online, but you want tocharge me an administration fee? A per person administration fee? Whenwhatever costs you might be incurring can’t possibly be related to the numberof tickets I purchase but are surely related to the number of transactions?I’m positive the costs are higher to sell me a ticket at the cinema, butthere’s administration fee attached to that!

This is just outrageous. Essentially the cinema has reducedits costs and is charging me more. Double whammy!

Even more outrageous is the practices in outlets sellingtickets to concerts and the like. We have two, in Australia. When you choose your tickets, you also choose if you want to pick them up in person, have them mailed to you, or have them emailed to you and you print them yourself. The bizarrething about this arrangement is all of them have an administration feeattached.

I understand postage if the tickets are posted. In the worldof online sales, everything has postage. Mostly. Unless you spend more than acertain amount, which come to think of it, is less than what two concerttickets usually cost. And really it costs $.065 to send a standard letterenvelope and you want to charge me $8.50? You had to twist my arm, but you’veconvinced me there really is no excuse for charging so much to deliver ticketsby standard mail.

I will accept the $8.50 charge to pick the tickets up fromthe box office. These days everyone wants to encourage people NOT to come totheir office. There’s probably something weird about that… anyhoo, moving along to the real whopper...

An administration fee to have my tickets emailed to me?What does it cost you to email my tickets to me? Nothing. So… basicallyI’m paying you for the privilege to use my own ink and paper to print my owntickets…

To add insult to injury, I believe they lump a transactionaladministration fee on top and, if you’re paying by credit card (what? This isan online purchase, right?) they’ll charge you a surcharge as well.

Hold on a minute, I just have to do an invoice up. Right, mybill for the ticket agency to outsource their ticket-printing facility to me isnow in the mail. Terms are 14 days, got it?

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3 Things You Should Never Say To A Pregnant Woman

2012-01-26T21:36:00.000+11:00

I had a rough pregnancy. Some of you know that, and some ofyou don’t, but unless you’ve ever witnessed a truly horrific pregnancy (or beenunfortunate enough to experience it) you don’t really know it.

I’m not talking about those pregnancies where theunfortunate mother is hospitalised. That is certainly one kind of horrific andI’m not suggesting it isn’t. It’s just not the kind I’m talking about.

The kind I’m talking about is the lesser known kind. The kindwhere every minute of every hour of every day of the better part of nine monthsis sheer misery. Where getting out of bed becomes almost (or not so almost) animpossibility and shuffling down the hall to the toilet an act of torture andyou can’t get in and out of the shower without assistance. Where you can’t pickup a glass or read a book or cut your meat because of the damned pregnancyrelated carpal tunnel in your hands and it doesn’t matter if you sit, stand,walk or lie down, something (or everything) hurts and getting to the end of theday is no relief at all because you can’t bloody sleep, owing to the fact youcan’t lie on your back or your stomach and half an hour on one hip is enoughfor the damn thing to seize up and inflict sweet excruciating agony.

I had a few things said to me by unwise – or, to be blunt,just plain stupid – people. So here is the Idiot’s Guide on what not tosay to a pregnant woman. Ever. That’s E-V-E-R. Did you get that?

You chose to be pregnant – No, actually, sheprobably didn’t (even assuming the pregnancy was planned). What she chose wasto have children. Unfortunately, getting those children means the woman has toget pregnant. No choice involved. Funnily enough the man’s choice to havechildren does not involve getting pregnant. Lucky him. If we couldchoose, we’d definitely choose the man to get pregnant. Hands down, every time.So don’t tell me I had a freaking choice.

Think about the miracle of the life you are creating– This really doesn’t make you feel any better. It doesn’t make it any easierto get through the next minute, hour, day and whatever you’ve got left of thosenine months. It doesn’t put your hips back together afterwards. You hear womensay they’d like to get their figure back after pregnancy. I’d settle for havingmy back the way it was and not freaking out every time I get a strange twingein a finger. Funnily enough, I noticedthis comment was only ever made by men. I can’t imagine why!

You’ve been pregnant forever – She knows this.Her forever feels a damn sight longer than your forever. She doesn’t need youto tell her.

Any one of the above is liable to get you attacked by thepregnant woman in question. If you’re lucky, you’ll merely be savaged verballyby the hormonal, mood-swinging feral beast she has become. If you’re unlucky,she’ll take your head off with a half-brick in a sock. Whether you’re lucky orunlucky may depend on whether you’re the first or the hundred and first to makethat comment to her. Today.

So tread wisely…

3 Ill-Advised Ways To Make Your Wedding Memorable

2012-01-12T22:55:00.000+11:00

We all want our wedding to be memorable. There are many waysto achieve such an outcome. Some are good. Some… not so much. Like thedifference between famous and infamous. Here are three ways I recently witnessed ina wedding my family will never forget…

Readingfrom Hell - Have your new mother-in-law do a reading at the service abouthow a wife should be obedient to her husband and the husband should respect hiswife even though she is a the weaker partner. If you are the bride, I don’texpect your husband will be getting lucky any time soon. In the instance Iwitnessed, it was the groom’s mother-in-law. Her reading, while delivered in acompletely reasonable tone, was accompanied by a stern look threatening to rainhellfire and brimstone on any woman who was not an obedient wife.

This is a sure way to have at least one side of the church punctuated byexclamations of ‘What the - !’ and ‘Did she really say that?’ as you take yourvows. Ah, sweet memories.
LiveMusic - You would think it would be difficult to take the cake from the fireand brimstone reading, but no… Have your mother-in-law sing at your weddingservice! Of course, if your mother-in-law is someone as talented as, say, Beyoncé,this may make a fantastic impression. Alas, in this case the mother-in-law wasuntalented and painfully unschooled. I am sure there wasn’t even a whisker ofkaraoke experience there. Coupled with what appeared to be a complete lack ofpreparation or rehearsal. Shania Twain, forgive us, it was a truly awfulrendition of ‘From This Moment’.y family being what it is, though, my aunt has now fervently promised her sonshe will be performing at his wedding. I suggested a little rehearsal might bein order, to which the response was an airy dismissal and the assertion ‘Whoneeds practice? I’m tone-deaf, too, but that doesn’t matter!’ Anotherunforgettable moment.
Speeches -Don’t forget to add the icing to the cake by having your mother-in-law do aspeech at your wedding reception. This speech should be filled with sternmarital advice and concluded by your father-in-law hoping for moregrandchildren, at which point your mother-in-law must seize the microphone andshout ‘NOT YET!’. Your father-in-law will add the finishing touches to yourmortification by advising the guests it is now permitted for you and your newspouse to have sex.

This was undeniably an unforgettable wedding. I confess Iwanted an unforgettable wedding. However, I think few of us want their weddingto be the butt of family jokes from their wedding day into eternity.

If you want an unforgettable wedding, have the bride wearred. It’s far less embarrassing. And if anything like the above happens, it’spossible the guests won’t notice the red in your face for the red in her dress.

12 Blogs of Christmas – Decorations That Have ‘Kangaroos In Their Top Paddocks’

2011-12-18T12:00:00.000+11:00

In case you’re wondering ‘kangaroos in the top paddock’ isan Australian expression for someone who is a little nuts. So… this is a blogabout Christmas decorations that are a little bit nuts… or at least a littleleft of centre, in a weird, hideous, or cute kind of way, featuring decorationscontributed by other participants in the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

We start with the wackiest decorations and work our way downto some unique and poignant family traditions.

Chucky the Snowman by Ciara Ballintyne - This thing ishideous. OK, it doesn’t look hideous. It looks kind of cute – in a mad,axe-wielding scarecrow fashion. It’s also huge. I mean, at least three feethigh. Once it starts singing, though, it’s hideous. It sings ‘Let It Snow’. Inthis awful high-pitched voice which should not be permitted to exist. Mum lovesit. Because everyone else hates it she says. What does that say aboutMum’s sense of humour? Dad says she doesn’t have a wicked sense of humour, shejust likes to laugh at other people’s misfortune. I suggested that hereconsider that statement in the context of the definition of the word ‘wicked’and then get back to me.

What’s worst about this decoration, though, is kids reallylove it. They don’t want it to stop. After this thing has sung its song a halfdozen times even Mum is ready to put an axe through its music box. But the kidswant it to keep going. In the words of Bill Cosby… ‘Do it again!’ I would have liked to provided a video but it just wasn't happening.

6 White Boomers by Ciara Ballintyne - I also can’t miss thisopportunity to mention ‘Six White Boomers’. This originates from a Rolf Harris song(of 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down' fame – if you don’t know him, be sure to look up Rolf and hiswobbleboard).

Santa’s sleigh is pulled by eightreindeer, right? Everywhere else in the world, maybe. But not Down Under. Here, in Australia, the sleigh is pulled by… six white kangaroos. Of course… No I have never seen a white kangaroo, but just go with it... OK?

This does make anawesome yard decoration though.

Christmas is Cactus by Kelly Gamble - When you live in adesert, you make do with what you have, right? Instead of a Christmas tree, howabout a Christmas cactus. Ethel M's Chocolate Factory has a huge cactusgarden that they light up every year, and it is so strange, but unique. And after looking at the various cacti, you can eat chocolate!

Visit Kelly here for book recommendations from the 12Blogs of Christmas.

Creepy Christmas by Karen Delabar - A couple of years agowe were at my husband's grandparents and we did the annual search for thepickle ornament on the tree (I have no idea how this tradition started but it’sfairly popular around here). I was so excited when I found it because it meantI won a prize. :)

Then I opened my "prize" and found what I thoughtlooked like two figurines screaming to be put out of their misery. Trying to beof the Norman Rockwell variation, these two Christmas carolers look... well,creepy. However, since I technically got them from his grandparents I can'tthrow them away. Each year I bring them down from the attic and put them in adrawer. When his grandparents stop by they come out for the hour or so and thenback in the drawer they go until Christmas is over and they join the rest ofour Christmas decorations back up in the attic.

Visit Karen here for some favouriteChristmas movies from the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

Fallen Angel by Erica Lucke Dean - Several years ago my mothergave me the vintage 1960's tree topper from our childhood Christmastrees. It's just about the ugliest angel I've ever seen but itbrings back wonderful memories. My kids won't let me put heranywhere but the back of our tree but I don't feel it's Christmas unless she'stucked in there somewhere.

Visit Erica here for some childhoodnostalgia with the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

Football Santa by Marie Patchen - We might be living in the milderclimes of southern Arizona these days, but my family is Pennsylvania born andbred. And if it's one thing we take pride in, it is our belovedPittsburgh Steelers.

Now, we don't go to heck with the joke, but thetruth of the matter is, if Santa Claus came out of the closet as any otherfootball fan but a Steelers fan, we'd have to take issue with him. Thisis why we make sure that when he visits us, he's always dressed in his finestblack and gold, and has a prime spot underneath the Christmas tree. Because honestly, what other football team is there?

Visit Marie here for Christmascartoons with the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

More Power! byNatalie Kenney – My mother likes lights on the tree. Lots of lights. It's acrime not to have lights on your tree in my family, punishable by coal in thestocking. (All of the house lights are off in the first picture. I swear).Last Christmas, one of the cats spent all her time trying to blend in with thedecorations… After all, she lit up too!

Visit Natalie here for some deliciousChristmas Cookie recipes from the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

Good Things Come In Small Packages by Amberr Meadows – I used to envymy ex-boyfriend's mother for her Christmas decorations until we went to visither at Christmastime. She had two Christmas trees, one of them devoted entirelyto Santa ornaments and the other devoted to expensive Disney ornaments. She hadmore Nativity scenes and Disney displays in the yard and around her home thanI'd think could fit comfortably in one storage shed, and I resented hermagnificent collection of outdoor and indoor twinkly lights. Her familyChristmas stockings were of the finest material, and she even had a damn snowmachine. I could never have hoped to have decor even half as lovely with mythen-salary.

In spite of it all, it took only the one visit to determine I was the luckierone. She was batshit crazy and constantly going through bouts of mania anddepression and bringing us along for the miserable, unwanted ride. Afterjumping through hoops and dealing with the issues associated with thatmatriarchal drama queen, I realized something important. It didn't matter thather home was more lovely and her decorations were of the finest quality – she wasmiserable and destined to continue in this vein, because she thrived on it. Theatmosphere in her home was dark and dreary, and not even five storage shedsfull of fancy ornaments would have remedied the problem. I hated every minuteof my time there.

When I returned home, I looked around my tiny one-bedroom apartment with the18" Christmas tree decorated with mini-Santas and didn't feel the usualsad Holiday feeling. I felt grateful and humbled. The scant decorations didn'tmatter in the slightest; genuine joy lived within these walls, and I never tookit foolishly for granted again. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Visit Amberr here for traditionalChristmas food from the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

Wreathed In Christmas by Justin Bogdanovitch - I love the bubblelights and other vintage ornaments of the fifties and sixties and I'm partialto multi-colored lights for a tree... an all-white lighted tree is static tome, same with the all-gold theme some really stylish people can't seem to dowithout. Give me the green, red, blue, yellow, and orange lights powered up tothe nines with only a few of them blinking away in syncopation.

Having said allthis about color, my favorite Christmas decoration is a large house wreath hungon the side of the house. It only has the tiny twinkling white lights becausewhen our last wreath grew too weathered with so many winter seasons, thecurrent model was the only one readily available. Just seeing the view as Idrive home or walk the dogs around the pond adds to the peace of the season.

Visit Justin here to read the 12 Faux Pas of Christmas -- part of the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

It’s Raining Christmas Trees by D.C. McMillen - Myfavourite tradition during the holidays is to walk around downtown – mostly thefinancial and the shopping districts – to look at all of the amazinglydecorated Christmas trees.

Many of the trees are the same every year so myexcitement builds to an excruciating level before I’ve even left the apartment.Will Dundas Square feature trees made from stacked balls of light again thisyear? Will the snowflake tree in The Esplanades Park be set up in the fountain?

Of course, my absolute favourite is the Swarovski tree in the Eaton Centre.This rotating, 35 ft high tree is covered in ten thousand sparkling Swarovskicrystal ornaments. Every year I snap a picture and then complain that thepicture simply does not do it justice. On that note, here is the picture:

Visit D.C. here for favourite festivedrinks from the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

Personalised Christmas Ornaments by Raine Thomas - OurChristmas tree this year is the "pretty and stylish" design that I like. We also have a "kid-friendly"version with lots of brightly colored lights and ornaments, but this "moretraditional" one is my favorite. Sothat my husband and daughter can more enjoy the tree, though, they hung anumber of ornaments that reflect them... including Chewbacca and the Disneyprincesses. And I'll admit it... the Atlanta Braves ornament is all mine!

Visit Raine here for favourite Christmas music from the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

The Yule Log by Maureen Hovermale - In any home at this timeof year, there has to be a Yule log. In Neo-Aramaic (the Chaldean language -think Iraq) yule meant child. It took a while for the tradition of the log tobe in a hearth, but when it finally did, it was sprinkled with salt, oil, andmulled wine then prayed over to protect the home.

Nowadays, it’s a cake rolled like a log and decorated withicing holly and roses. Sounds better than salted and oiled wine to me!

Visit Maureen here for a look at the Christmas Clauset in the 12 Blogs of Christmas.

Winter Wonderland by Melody Kauffman - Myfavorite Christmas decorations are outdoor lighted ones. My parentsdidn’t do yard decorations when I was growing up. I always loved thehouses where the yard was lit up with reindeer, snowmen, and other colorfulfigures. They were so magical. As a kid I always wanted to have a housewith a yard like that. I had no idea the time, expense, and work thatwent in to them. The first year we owned our house we didn’t decorate theoutside. I told my husband how much I wanted to decorate the yard and welooked at a lot of decorations. I suffered a bad case of sticker shockand decided not to even try to decorate that first year. After Christmasthat year my husband bought me my first yard decoration - a lighted, beadedsnowman. I was so thrilled. The year we put it up he bought me aset of the lighted beaded presents to go with it. The beaded designallows the figure to reflect the light better at night. During the day thebeading prevents the figure from looking skeletal. We’ve added a lot ofdecorations since then but the snowman and his presents are still outthere. They give me a ridiculously happy feeling when I get in from workat night. They sparkle like some magic winter wonderland dropped right on to mylawn. Childhood dream decoration realized thanks to my awesome hubby.

Visit Melody here for some fun Christmas toys fromthe 12 Blogs of Christmas!

Thanks for stopping by. This is one installment in the 12 Blogs of Christmas series –do be sure to check out the others!

Merry Christmas!

If You Can’t Say Something Nice, Don’t Say Anything At All

2011-12-09T09:49:00.001+11:00

That’s what my mother taught me and for the most part Istick to it.

Unless you cross me. If you piss me off, I’m like a bearwith a sore tooth. And maybe a hangover to boot. Who is nevertheless extremelyarticulate. In this frame of mind, my husband describes me as ‘dangerous’. I’mrelentless. I cannot be stopped. At least, it hasn’t happened yet.

When my husband is the unfortunate object of such ire, hesays he’s left with the feeling that he definitely lost the battle, but in adazed and bewildered way, he’s not precisely sure how. I don’t swear when I’m angry. I use a lot of big words. That,he says, is the scariest thing about it. He knows I’m angry but he doesn’tunderstand a damn word I’ve just said.

If you have read my Twitter profile, you already know this alittle bit. If you haven’t read my Twitter profile, you probably should…

I’m not currently that pissed off. I’m just a little…irked,if you will.

I had a blog post all planned for today. And this isn’t it.Because someone…irked me.

Two days ago I posted Worldbuilding 101 as Taught by Robert Jordan. One of my Triberr tribemates tweeted it out and one of hisfollowers sent this tweet.

Duh.

Well. That was articulate.

I wasn’t entirely sure how to take that tweet. Was he sayingmy entire post was ‘Duh’? If so, clearly I didn’t agree or I wouldn’t haveposted it. Was he saying a particular part of my post was ‘Duh’, in which case,more information please. Or was there something else I had completely missed?

So I asked.

The response I got was something along the lines of ‘Thedetails will vary depending on the impression you are trying to convey’.

Well I would have thought that went without saying. Forthose of you who read the post on worldbuilding, you’ll know that I did notdictate what details should be used in worldbuilding, only what details youmight consider determining in order to fully realise the world. I gaveexamples. I suggested sources of inspiration. But how you build your world isultimately up to you. I don’t want to build it for you. Frankly, you couldn’tpay me to build it for you. I have enough of my own that need building.

I said something to the effect that I had not purported totell people what details to use in their worlds.

Before even receiving that response, this person thentweeted some actions which were clearly recognisable as the angry habits ofNynaeve from Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. If you’re a fan, you’ll know them;the smoothing of skirts, the yanking of the braid. I was even more confused.This seemed to be an example of characterisation and I didn’t see theconnection with worldbuilding. I said as much.

To which the reply was ‘Believe me, I sincerely regret eversaying anything. It was a good post but it’s sad that it needs to be said’.

It is? Really? So… writers should spring from the womb fullycognisant of the finer points of worldbuilding? I really must make my18-month old daughter do all the worldbuilding in future so I can get on withthe actual writing.

I, politely I thought, said that it would have been helpfulhad he given that response in the first instance instead of ‘Duh’ (as obviouslyit is far more informative) and that I didn’t consider it to be sad that it hadto be said. New writers don’t know everything. In fact, now that I think of it,no one knows everything.

Recently I took a workshop on worldbuilding whichcovered the finer points of slang, profanity and other invented words. Thisdespite twenty years of writing. It taught me things that perhaps Isubconsciously knew but consciously studying it helped me to use it moreeffectively.

Before receiving my polite response, this person thentweeted to me ‘I understand you’re boring, you’re a lawyer, but why botherwriting?’

Whoa. You’ve spoken to me for maybe 5 minutes or a total of1400 characters (assuming you used all your allotted 140 characters per tweet,which you didn’t) and out of that you:

Presume to know me well enough to make a judgement callabout who I am;
Presume that this entitles you to insult me to my face; and
Stereotype lawyers (and possibly I’m the only one you’veever met socially).

Just wow.

To be honest, I was more offended by the fact this personfelt they had a right to insult me than by the actual insult. I’ve been calledboring plenty of times before, usually by people who didn’t know me very welland whom, once they got to know me, fervently wished they still thought I wasboring. These are the people who describe me as ‘Interesting’. There’s apregnant pause before that word and a certain inflection when spoken. VisuallyI can best represent it like this ‘She’s….in-ter-resting.’ This broadlytranslates as ‘stark raving mad’ or ‘totally crackers’. So yeah, I’m not reallyinsulted by boring. It’s probably safer for his sanity to think that.

If you think all this is bad enough – but wait, there’smore!

Not only did I discover that this person attacked anotherTwitter friend of mine last week (for unacceptable religious and racialreasons, notwithstanding his assumption was completely erroneous) but whenseveral of my loyal Twitter friends leaped to my defence, he insulted one ofthem too. My Tweep declared ‘You may have been gifted with the knowledge atbirth, but others have not. These blogs are for them.’ To which this personreplied ‘No, it’s called having a functioning brain cell, you freak.’

Really? At this point in time I’m inclined to believe thisperson doesn’t have any functioning brain cells.

My husband suggested it was penis envy. You know, where guysbehave like dicks to compensate for *ahem*. Except it’s not that his penis issmaller than mine (obviously, I don’t have one) but his following. He has 26followers. I have, as of this week, around 5000 (and I am grateful to everysingle one of you! *mwah!*). My husband might be right. Or, you know, the guy might nothave any functioning brain cells.

What is even more hilarious is his Twitter profile, whichreads ‘Enlightened Being’ and his website which reads 'profoundly insightful, infinitely wise and painfully humble'. Really? Did I blink cause I seem to have missed that.

I am embarrassed that this person touts themselves as anepic fantasy writer. Mortified that I share any kind of category with such anintolerant, bigoted, entitled, patronising, egotistical maniac. I'm not sure if this behaviour technically meets the online slang definition of 'troll', but the behaviour was about as uncivilised as that of trolls who populate fantasy worlds.

I don’t understand why people feel the need to behave likethis. If you don’t like the post, don’t read it. If you don’t like me, don’ttalk to me. You can avoid so much angst by just ignoring the things that bugyou. It’s not like he thought I was misleading writers or distributing falseinformation! There is no reason to start a pointless, baseless argument andinsult someone over something so minor. This kind of behaviour probablyaccounts for why he only has 26 followers instead of, say, 500 (based onhis ratio of tweets to mine – 2000 tweets, he’s not new to Twitter by anymeans).

As my mother said, if you don’t have something nice to say,don’t say anything at all. It’s called manners, people. Courtesy. It exists fora reason. It’s the grease in the gears of society.

I terminated the conversation after I was insulted. I had alot of things I wanted to say, but I am here to market myself and my books andit’s very easy for a 140 character tweet to be taken out of context ormisunderstood and damage one’s reputation. Really he just wasn’t worth it.

So I’m saying it here, where I have plenty of room to say ithow it is.

Cause, you know – somebody has to say it!

Straight from the Horse's Mouth: Publishing Advice

2011-11-26T06:00:00.000+11:00

Tweetpitchers (from left to right):Darren Stephenson, me,
Zena Shapter, Lucy Stone, Monique Kowalczyk

A few weeks ago I attended the Speculative Fiction Festival2011 in Sydney.

I was lucky enough to win a free pass in The NSW Writing Centre's tweetpitch competition. The rules were you had to mention @writingNSW, use the hashtag #specfic11, and fit a pitch in however many of your 140 characters were left. The book pitched had to be speculative fiction. I won one of five passes with this tweetpitch:

'Betrayed by everyone she loves, an assassin must decide who to trust to stop evil gaining the key to immortality'.

For those who don’t know, speculative fiction includes thefantasy and science-fiction genres and, more peripherally, horror. There wassome advice given by publishers and published authors that I thought would beworth sharing with my fellow writers.

Pan Macmillan Australia also announced it is launching a newebook imprint in 2012. They are the first Australian publisher to do so. Theydon’t see ebooks as the death of traditional print books, just as a new format.The good news for us as writers is that more people are reading now than everbefore.

Publishers' Talk

The first session of the day with a panel of publishers. The panel included Stephanie Smith of theVoyager imprint of Harper Collins Australia, Zoe Walton from Random House, ClaireCraig from Pan Macmillan Australia and Keith Stevenson from Coeur de LionPublishing.

These esteemed publishers had this advice to offer:

Don’t look at trends. By the time we, aswriters, spot a trend, it’s usually too late to jump on the bandwagon.Publishing is cyclic, so trends come around again. If you can’t sell your bookduring the current trend, keep trying and your genre will eventually trendagain. Writers also need to write to their strengths – there is no pointwriting what’s trending if it’s not your strength;
The paranormal romance trend has outlivedexpectations, which means it has hung around long enough for writers tojump on the bandwagon. However, the longer a genre trends, the more saturatedthe market becomes. At this point publishers are looking for books within thattrend but with original and different elements to what already exists.Cross-genres may become more appealing at this point. For trending genres, anoriginal cover can become important in helping a book stand out to readers;
Sometimes a stand-alone book will be more appealingto a publisher when the market is over-saturated with series. Don’t dismiss theselling power of a stand-alone novel.
Don’t be discouraged by rejections. It’s not justabout your writing;
Publishers are looking for strong voice,compelling story and superb writing. Especially, they’re looking for what’sdifferent about a book.
Cross-over books can work but are harder to selloutside their home country because they are not easy to slot into defaultgenres;
Stories that push boundaries are attractive;
Traditional high/epic fantasy is the beatingheart of speculative fiction (e.g. George R. R. Martin). There is always roomfor these books. This was fantastic news for me as I write nothing buthigh fantasy. And of course, I too think of it as the beating heart ofspeculative fiction. Naturally!
There is a lot of interest in sci-fi currentlyplus room for modern humorous fantasy;
Sword and sorcery books are mostly gone, thetrend has shifted to paranormal romance. No good sword and sorcery had beenseen recently;
Traditional fantasy naturally lends itself toseries, often trilogies, but there is room for stand-alone books.
Publishers do like authors to have a socialnetworking presence but it’s not essential. When the market is flat, an authormight have a huge social networking presence – and it can make no difference tosales. However it can help to get the word out and publishers encourageit;

Margo Lanagan

Don’t send a first draft to a manuscriptappraisal service. You should self-edit first. Having had an appraisal won’tnecessarily influence the publisher’s decision as they will make their own assessmentbut appraisal services and editors are useful to improve writing when awriter needs an outside perspective. Writers’ groups and critique groups canalso fill this function, usually on a reciprocal basis.

WhatI took from this is if you’re writing paranormal romance at this late stage inthe trend you probably aren’t in a better position than those of whose genres aren’ttrending. You should write what you’re good at. And high fantasy ROCKS.

The question put to the panel at the end of the session was ‘Whatbook would you absolutely be unable to turn down if it crossed your desk onMonday?’ and here are the various responses.

A story with great voice and fully realisedworlds;
A story with great voice, great worlds andlyrical writing;
A comic genius like Terry Pratchett;
A great gripping story that can’t be put down.

I too would like to see another Pratchett genius! If you’rehiding out there somewhere, there’s a publisher who wants you! Please do standup.

Versatile Artists

This was the second session I attended, with four Australian published speculative fiction authors. Theywere:

D.M. Cornish – a successful book illustrator whowas asked to write a book to go with his illustrations;
Pamela Freeman - award winning author of booksfor adults and children;
Margo Lanagan – an author of short fiction andnovels; and
Kate Forsyth – author of The Witches ofEileanan series and one of my favourite authors.

One of the questions put to the panel was ‘How do you knowwhen to stop a project?’ The answers that most resonated with me were:

Supermarket queue/traffic light test – when youare stuck in a queue or at traffic lights with nothing else to do, and you don’tthink about your project;

D.M. Cornish

If it’s not the last thing you think aboutbefore falling asleep.

I often fall asleep with one of my stories on my mind! I confessI have never stopped a project. I have put them aside for later consideration(sometimes years of consideration!) but never actually terminated one.

Here’s a little bit about what each of the authors had tosay.

Margo Lanagan

Noting that the title of the session was ‘VersatileArtists’ she observed that she considers ‘versatile’ to be a nice way of saying‘flailing around trying to find what works’. She considered that a fairassessment of what she had done.
Do not write poetry. Poets generally get paidless than writers i.e. nothing or the next best thing!
If you get bogged down in a novel try a shortstory for instant gratification or to learn how to finish.

To finish her novel, Margo says she had to pretend it was ashort story. Some reviews actually say it reads like a short story collection.It’s interesting that she clearly has a strong preference for short stories.

In Margo’s opinion, the value of writing short stories isthat they are therapeutic to write, they help writers to learn about finishing,they can help to refresh your writing when you have been bogged down in alonger project and they are useful professionally for keeping your name outthere and marketing yourself. Indeed, I don’t like short stories, but I haveforced myself to write a few recently and I am about to send the first off to Fantasymagazine – following the advice ofTobias Buckell to start at the top and work your way down.

Pamela Freeman

Pamela Freeman

Pamela’s first adult book was a thesis for a doctorate. Shestarted writing with short stories and in her opinion, people are usuallyeither short story writers ornovelists. In her case, she considers herself a short story writer who managedto write a novel.

Her advice is that royalty checks only come twice a year soversatility in other areas is valuable to help have a more steady income.

D.M. Cornish

An illustrator by preference, he had to learn to write while writing his first novel (at the publisher's request). He found the experience painful and difficult and had to force himself to finish the third book. Sometimes writing is just about discipline.

Kate Forsyth

Kate has written children’s books for all ages, adult books,poetry and articles. She has neverwritten short stories (I’m jealous). Like Pamela, she considers writers areeither short story writers or novelists. Her very first attempt to write ashort story grew into the Witches of Eileanan (a 6 book series). Shewrites smaller projects between big projects as a refresher, but never shortstories.

The advice from panellists on what to do while waiting toget published was mixed. Some authors said ‘don’t write’ and others said writeas often as you can, get a job doing technical writing or freelance writing,anything.

I expect this comes down to personal preference, where yourstrengths lie, and what kind of income you need. I blundered into technicallegal writing myself and I can say that if you do technical writing it canbe difficult to keep this technical, formal writing style out of your creativewriting. I find myself editing it out. Another technical writer I know has thesame problem. But it does help you to hone grammar, sentence structure, worduse etc. so it has advantages.

For those of you in Australia, the last advice given was:

Don’t sign with an agent who is not amember of the Australian Literary Agents Association; and
The avg annual income for an Australian authoris $11,000 pa.

Pitching Session

The highlight of the day for me was the one on one pitchingsession with Stephanie Smith of Harper Collins Australia’s Voyager imprint. Idon’t think I have been this nervous since I did my very first mock legal trialat university – to the point where at lunch I felt like throwing up might be agood idea.

Kate Forsyth

This is ridiculous, given that a lecturer in the role ofjudge squinting down at you from a judge’s bench, polished to a high gleam fitto blind counsel for the applicant, is inevitably more intimidating than a oneon one chat with a publisher in a lounge-style setting (and I was about tenyears older!). Nevertheless, that was how I felt. I’m a little embarrassed toadmit it – hey, I’m a lawyer, public speaking is supposed to hold no fear,right? Well, mostly it doesn’t… but for those of you who are or have beenintimidated by face to face pitching sessions, I will freely admit I wasterrified. Fortunately once it got going it wasn’t so bad, though of course itwas hard to remember everything I wanted to say.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to send in a partial. Ihave my fingers crossed but I’m trying to keep my expectations at a reasonablelevel!

All in all it was a fantastic day, although I couldn’t stayfor as much of it as I would have liked. I hope the advice I have shared heremay help some of you.

I Have Never Met the Person Who Gave Me My Greatest Gift

2011-11-10T02:00:00.000+11:00

‘Don’t take your organs to heaven, heaven knows we need themhere’.

So reads the sticker across the back window of my parents’4WD, where it’s been for more than 6 years now.

Ever since my Dad received a heart transplant.

He is one of the lucky ones, the ones who didn’t die whilewaiting on the organ donor list, or because they couldn’t afford the surgery(here in Australia this is a 100% government funded operation).

We never knew how sick Dad was until he was more or lesslisted for a transplant. We were aware he had cardiomyopathy but we had beenleft with the distinct impression that this was a manageable heart conditionthat wouldn’t affect his lifespan.

How wrong we were....

Five years after his diagnosis, Dad’s heart was so bad hecouldn’t get out of bed without gasping for air. It just couldn’t pump theoxygen around his body. Since we were unhappy with the management by hiscurrent doctor, we sought a second opinion.

Needless to say we were rather shocked when the new doctortold us that 50% of sufferers are dead five years after diagnosis and most ofthe rest in another five years after that. That fast, Dad went from amanageable heart condition to being dead in five years.

My Dad couldn’t die in five years. I wasn’t even marriedyet, I’d be lucky if I had children in five years. I didn’t want my children tomiss out on their grandfather and I didn’t want Dad to miss out on my childreneither. There were so many things I’d lose – he’s the one I ride horses with,the one I share my Wheel of Time theories with. A girl needs her Dad. And in fiveyears, there wasn’t much chance I was going to have yet published a book. Indeed,that was 1 year ago now. And I don’t have a published book (due, atleast in part, to the fact I haven’t even tried).

The doctor told us that at this stage there wasn’t anythingmore that could be done with drugs. Dad’s only possible option was a hearttransplant.

Despite not being sure he wanted to take that step, Dad wentoff to see the transplant team at St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney. Shockingly,the doctor there told him he was a walking heart attack waiting to happen andpromptly admitted him to hospital. While he was there, they ran the tests tosee if he was eligible to be listed on the transplant list. You have to meetcertain criteria you see. There’s not much point in giving a donor heart tosomeone who either isn’t healthy enough to recover from the surgery or who isdying from something else. Things like drug abuse also tend to disqualify you.

I was engaged to be married in a few months time. Ten daysbefore my wedding, Dad was officially listed on the transplant recipient list.We were told that the average wait was 6 months to 4 years, though some peoplewait longer. Some people don’t survive their wait.

So we idly discussed what we’d do if Dad received a donorheart before my wedding – but it wasn’t going to happen, so it didn’t matter.

Dad and I, 8 days after his heart transplant

Thirty-six hours later Mum wakes me up at 1am to tell me thehospital has a heart. They live an hour away and I’m virtually around thecorner, so I tell them I’ll meet them at the hospital. My brother has his boysfor the night, so we tell him we’ll call him when we know for sure what ishappening. The hospital routinely calls two or three potential candidates to docross-matching tests and then gives the organ to the best matched recipient, sowe didn’t know for sure anything would happen.

We waited around at the hospital for a few hours. Anotherfamily came in, with a daughter I suspected was had cystic fibrosis, andtherefore probably a potential recipient of the lungs. Did you know that oneperson’s decision to donate their organs can save the lives of up to ten peopleand improve the lives of more? That’s without counting their friends andfamily. Heart and lung transplants are done at St Vincent’s in Sydney, otherorgans at other hospital around the city.

We waited for someone to tell us if Dad was getting theheart but it wasn’t until they wheeled Dad off for surgery that we knew forsure. It was so sudden there was no time to call my brother.

My fiancé came to pick Mum and I up and take us back to my apartment.Mum called my brother on the way. He headed over immediately, so we all gotabout an hour’s sleep before he arrived and had us up for breakfast. Exhaustedand worried we headed back to the hospital for another five hour wait,including one heart-stopping moment when alarms went off and nurses skiddeddown vinyl-floored halls in alarm. Whoever they were responding to, it wasn’tDad.

Mum had a book the hospital had given her, called ‘thepurple book’. The first half is about being listed for a transplant and copingwith the wait. The second half is about post-transplant issues. None of us ionmy family have read the first half of that book. We were lucky not to have toexperience the fear and anxiety that so many families endure while waiting forloved ones to receive organs. But the go to whoa experience sure was one hellof a rollercoaster ride.

The carriage that drove Dad and I to my first wedding

Dad was still in hospital the day I got married but he waswell enough to be allowed out on day release. My uncle drove into the city topick him up while we all got ready and brought him back to my parents’ house. Dadgot to ride in the horse and carriage with me and he was there to walk me downthe aisle.

The marriage didn’t last but the memories of Dad aresomething I’ll have for a lifetime.

Dad took his second chance rather seriously. He did a fewthings he wanted to do, like flying in a seaplane and piloting a helicopter. He’slived to walk me down the aisle a second time and he’s seen his onlygranddaughter born. He’s going well enough there’s no reason he won’t live tosee my second child born.

I’ve promised to take him to Scotland, where he was born.He’s never seen it since he left when he was two. I have and I want to share itwith him. There’s just something about Scotland that feels like home. It’s likeyou can feel your ancestors in the bones of the hills there. I won’t be able togo back for a few years owing to small children and Dad worried he might notmake it, though right now there’s no reason to believe he won’t. I promised himif he didn’t I’d scatter his ashes in the highlands. I have no idea what thecustoms regulations are around that and hopefully I’ll never need to find out,but... promise made.

Dad and I, at my second wedding

Not enough people donate their organs. Too many familiesoverrule the wishes of their loved ones and refuse to donate organs, eventhough it’s what that person wanted. More people just never think about theimportance of organ donation or don’t think to tell their families what theywant. When I told my colleagues Dad needed a heart transplant, one of them whenhome and immediately registered herself as an organ donor. People don’tthink about organ donation, but when they do, they realise itsimportance. I’m an organ donor. Are you?

Don’t take your organs to heaven. You can’t use them there. Morethan ten people here can. You can change more lives than just those of theorgan recipients.

I never met the person who gave my Dad his heart. I nevercan, since they died to give me this gift. I never met their family, who caredenough to make this gift to people they didn’t know and would never meet. I amgrateful to them, more than words can ever say. If you have a loved one whodonated their organs in Sydney, Australia, in 2005, it might be you I’mgrateful to.

Be an organ donor. You could be giving someone like me thegreatest gift possible.

The gift of a father. The gift of life.

This World Will Not Change Me

2011-11-02T11:54:00.000+11:00

So it’s past overdue for me to write another blog post and Ijust couldn’t find the inspiration. Or maybe the energy. I’m anal enough towrite potential topics down when they come to my attention, so I have plenty ofthings to rant about. But I just don’t want to.

I can see the shocked looks of the people who know me. It’srare that I get off my soap box. It could be new love… but it’s not. I’m stillhappily married to the man I fell in love with five years ago.

I think I’m just tired. But of what?

Of the debate about whether self-publishing is better thantraditional publishing. You know what? It really doesn’t matter. We can talkabout the percentages until the cows come home. We can talk absolute dollarsuntil the cows come home. Everyone can choose the model they prefer. And if youdon’t want to traditionally publish, that’s great! I won’t have to vie with youfor some publisher’s attention. You are, in effect, improving my odds. Thanks.

What I do care about is quality. Get it right. But I’veranted about that before and if you missed it you can get it here.

I’m tired of bad drivers. I regularly drive up and down HeathcoteRd in Sydney between my parents’ house and my house. It has a 100kmh zone thatsomeone invariably drives 70kmh in and it is single lane most of the way. It’san hour drive between my house and my parents’, with a baby in the backseat,and of course an hour back, so my time is precious. Shit or get off the pot.

Unfortunately an all too common sight on Heathcote Rd due to drivers who drive either too fast or too slow

I’m a little bit tired of social media. Not Twitter so much,I have a mad Twitter addiction. Facebook, yes. I’ve never liked Facebook. Itslingo of ‘being friends’ is corrupting the meaning of the word. Just becausesomeone is in your Friends List does not make them your friend. When you readFriend on Facebook, you should mentally translate this to ‘Contacts’. They might be your friend, but some of them will be acquaintances or just contacts.

Facebook is really a tool for reconnecting with and keepingcontact with people you lost contact with. These people are not your friends.If they were, you wouldn’t have lost contact with them, would you? And youdon’t need Facebook to keep in contact with your friends (except maybe the friends you've made online). You have theirphone numbers, remember? It’s mostly only useful for keeping your friends inthe loop for things you might otherwise wait months to tell them. And don’tget me started on how Facebook has influenced the trend for people to ask ‘CanI be your friend?’ What are you, five??

I’m very tired and depressed about how much writers getpaid. Not because I was hoping to get rich and famous, you understand? I’m alawyer by day and I get by all right. Of course it would be nice to get paid lots to daydream, butit’s not necessary. It’s just sad that we pour so much of our time and energyinto something that is both an art form and a contribution to culture, forlittle monetary reward. Is literature so poorly regarded?

Don’t even think about what a writer earns from the sale ofone book for months or even years of effort as compared to what a rap artistmakes off one song that took maybe twenty minutes to write. You’ll just depressyourself even further. Is rap music even art? Culture, maybe. I’m not sure I’dgo so far as to say art. Artists of visual arts might even feel the same. Oftenart doesn’t gain real value until the artist is dead. That must suck somethingshocking.

Starry Nights by Vincent van Gogh. He was virtually unknown during his lifetime, but a van Gogh sold in 1990 for $82.5 million ($144 million in today's dollars). He appears 5 times in the list of 17 most expensive paintings ever sold.

I’m tired of the endless unethical (and often ineffective)marketing practices I come across. I’ve ranted about this before, but I’ve comeacross a few new ones, including people taking money to write false reviews andpeople who constantly pester you to read their blogs, leave comments, liketheir books etc. but who never take the time to read your blog, comment, orlike your book. For that matter I object to ‘liking’ each other’s books, pagesetc. without having read the book or having any clue as to the quality of theproduct you are promoting. More on that in my next post…

Which leads me into bad reviews and Amazon. I’m still tiredof that too, though I’ve come across a few new suggestions to solve theproblem, including weighting readers reviews to make them more meaningful andgiving authors some kind of ‘higher rating’ if they have professional editorswork on their book. I’ve also heard Amazon is taking steps to improve theirsystems. I look forward to it. But it’s not today, and today I’m tired.

I’m tired of clients who call me at the office and want toknow stupid things like why they can’t get copies of their original documentscertified as true and correct copies, only to be told they didn’t take theoriginal with them. Well, how do you expect someone to certify it’s a true copyof the original if you don’t show them the original? I've suggested that we implement a stupidity surcharge...

I’m tired of the kind of stupidity that has people callingmaintenance about a lack of hot water only to discover they turned off thepilot light for their own hot water system. I am definitely tired of the kindof stupidity that has people entering asbestos-filled houses after being lockedout by the landlord for their own safety. Natural selection, perhaps? There isa reasonable chance this person will kill themselves out of their own stupiditybut probably not fast enough to have any evolutionary benefit for thepopulation. It’s always possible with that kind of stupidity they’ll dosomething else to speed the process along a little faster…

I am also tired of news stories about a parent who has areversed over their own toddler in their own front yard, severely injuring themor killing them. It seems like lately there has been one of these every week.Before you drive your car anywhere, make sure you know where your own child is!Worse are the stories about child abuse, children beaten, killed, starved and tortured. There is something wrong with people who perpetrate these horrible crimes. It's not like there is a grey area here, people! It's just plain wrong. These stories make me want to cry.

I’m tired of contradictory policies like these. In Australia, real estateagents rank single mothers the worst tenants, and therefore at the bottom ofthe list for rental properties. Because, what, single mothers are automaticallybad people? My friend is a qualified accountant with two children going throughan unfortunate divorce due to no fault of her own, and because of that shecan’t find somewhere to live? Single dads are great, though. They rank ahead ofsingle mothers. He must be a star!

On the other hand, Iam told by my cousin (who has a son out of wedlock with a woman he no longerhas a relationship with) that recent legislation means he can’t have his sonovernight until he is three, because of fear of abuse by the other parent. Sosingle dads are stars if they have custody of the kids, and single mums arenot, but those single mums are better people than the single dads who don’thave custody of their children, because these poor guys are star candidates toabuse their kids…. Yeah, like all that makes sense somewhere?

I guess what I’m really saying is I’m tired of all thestupidity, ignorance, immorality and depravity (or, in some cases, all of the above) inthe world. Not everyone is like this, but it seems I’ve been over-exposed to itthis week. Or maybe it’s the last month. No matter what I do, it seems to be a drop in the ocean and nothing ever changes.

Garth Brooks

On days like this I try to remind myself of ‘The Change’ byGarth Brooks.

‘And I hear them saying, you'll never change things, and no matter what you do it's still the same thing, but it’s not the world that I am changing, I do this so, thisworld will know, that it will not change me.’

It would be nice to change things. It would be nice to make a difference. But if nothing I do does make a difference, then I can at least be true to myself and not allow the world to change me.

Well, world, you won’t change me. Consideryourself on notice.

No matter how tired I get, I'll never be that tired.

Are You Saying It Enough?

2011-10-13T21:48:00.001+11:00

There are many things most of us probably don’t say enough.I love you. Thank you. I miss you. The one I want to talk about is gratitude.

It’s nice to know you’re appreciated. And it feels prettygood to tell someone else you appreciate them. Wait - maybe I just think thatbecause I do so much of it while I’m inebriated? On the other hand, that initself says something about how and when we tell people they are important tous.

It’s true our friends and family probably know weappreciate them, but how long can that probably hold up in the face ofno thanks? Treat your friends and families like flowers and water them as oftenas they need. Too long without water and the friendship might suffer as bad asthat rose bush. Thanking people is one of the ways we reinforce to people thatwe do care. If someone goes out of their way to show gratitude, you know they’reprobably not just here for what you can give them. In a way, genuine gratitudeis saying ‘I’d do it for you, too.’

It can be nice to thank people with gifts, although this canget expensive, especially if you have a lot of people to thank! Sometimes,though, it’s enough just to say it. So I’d like to take this opportunity tothank some of the people in my life, both online and offline. Here’s a few ofthe reasons why I’m thankful to them.

My husband, Matt

The reasons I am thankful to you are many, but recently Ihad a competition deadline to meet for my manuscript. You were nice enough togive me the time to get it finished, including taking our daughter out to giveme peace and quiet to focus. You also turned a blind eye to the pile of dirtydishes I left in the sink owing to a lack of time to clean them because – youguessed it – I was working on my manuscript. I noticed when I came home todaythat you’d washed them for me.

Nikki

You’re my oldest friend. We have now known each other for87% of our lives! You totally know I went and calculated that just for this –and you’re not surprised. You get me (and I guess that works both ways). Evenafter months of not seeing each other, we can pick up exactly where we left offwithout any awkwardness. Recently I was reminded how important it is to hold onto a friendship like that.

Kylie

I’m not sure how to explain this one. You’re me! With biggercowboy boots and more attitude. We read the same books, listen to the samemusic, and suffer through our lack of gallbladders together – well, OK, wesuffer 20 minutes apart, but close enough. If you’re like me, and I’m like@safireblade, we might be triplets! This actually is a friendship where wedon’t get all gushy about how we feel, because that would be… weird. But youknow you’re important to me. And in case you don’t, I’m telling you (but youdo, I know you do).

Erin

Oh so complicated… You married my cousin and then we didn’ttalk for years. Pride is a sin I admit to being guilty of. Thanks for beingproud of me for being brave enough to take the first step to reconciliation(even if, once again, I was inebriated). Thanks for being a shoulder to cry on.Thanks for going places with me (even if it did mean a 1 hour stay in a lift).Thanks for taking emergency phone calls at strange hours. Just… thanks. Sometimesyou don’t appreciate someone until they’re gone. I’m lucky it wasn’t gone forgood.

Irene

How long are you going to stay in Ireland?? Come homealready. Emergency lunch with you ‘same time, same place’ got me through someof my worst divorce days. I miss you.

Nicole

You are possibly the most under-appreciated of my friends andI apologise for that. We don’t always see eye to eye, but I know you’ve got myback. Sometimes you’ve gotten the dirtier chores in my life, like helping setup for parties, staying after parties to clean up (wait, you take the leftoverstoo!) and taking me out for a much-needed drink at bizarre hours without muchnotice. But I know you’re there for me and I hope you know it’s reciprocal.Thank you.

Kim

The newest addition to my friends. It’s rare for me to meetsomeone new that I get along with, but you fit the bill! I think you alreadyknow my deepest, darkest secrets. I know I can count on you.

The #Stabbylove gang

You know who you are. All I need to say is ‘synopsis’. Youknow what I mean. Special thanks to @Flickimp for sharing an example of a goodsynopsis and @sirra_girl for patiently helping me through multiple drafts fromsucknopsis to something vaguely resembling a synopsis. Oh, and for giving me avery calm talking to when I started to panic and being my stabby twin. It’snice to know there are other people who think like me.

@ericaluckedean

Thanks for giving me the verbal equivalent of a slap acrossthe face (or possibly a double shot of vodka) when I started going intomeltdown about writing a synopsis. Thanks also for sharing your example, itreally helped me to get my brain in gear and see where I was going.

@KellySGamble

There’s a reasonable chance you already know this, but I wastickled pink by your post Dam Dragon. Every writer hopes that they touch thereader or have some effect or influence. You gave me a real high! Oh yeah, and you help me keep my sanity.

@aewrites

You gave me a rare insight to myself on your blog. It’salways a strange experience to see yourself through someone else’s eyes, but inthis case it was strangely good. I always just think of myself as ‘plain oldme’. I’m not remarkable, I just do what has to be done. So it was a bit of abuzz to see that from a different perspective. I was flattered and deeplyhonoured by your comments.

@safireblade

For CIA stuff. Icould tell everyone, but then we’d have to kill them. Oh, and for possiblybeing my long lost twin. Or am I up to triplets now? Uh, quads? I’m losingtrack. Anyway, we relate, and I love that. Right down to fantasy books and thecountry music. Wanna go to Nashville? We can take Kylie. Nicole might want to come too.

After reading all of this, you possibly think I am ahopeless drunk. Really, I’m not. I drink rarely, and get drunk less, but I’mjust a sappy drunk so I cram in lots of emotional stuff when I do.

Anyway, think about it. Are you saying it enough?

Freedom

2011-10-01T03:00:00.000+10:00

This is a joint blog by four writers who have all contributed their views on freedom. You can find this post here and on the other writers’ blogs. The contributors are myself, Ashley Elizabeth, Imran Siddiq and Mark Brassington.

Ciara Ballintyne

Freedom. What is it? Like many idealistic concepts it’s hard to pin down.

When I looked up freedom I got these definitions:

1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.

2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

3. the power to determine action without restraint.

4. political or national independence.

5. personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom.

You’ll notice there is a lot of talk about freedom from external control, regulation or interference, or lack of restraint. We certainly don’t have that kind of freedom in Australia or many other countries. Every time our government legislates to restrict guns, or ban smoking, we are subject to interference or regulation.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as the power to determine action without restraint. Some people restrain themselves by their own consciences. The rest will take what they want by force if something else (the law or a stronger person) does not restrain them. Action without restraint is nothing but the rule of strength. The law of the jungle. That’s not freedom at all, in my opinion.

My conscience restrains me. I’m happy for the law to restrain the people who don’t have one. And I regret there are places in the world that are not lucky enough to have the freedom we do.

About Ciara Ballintyne:

Opinionated lawyer and writer of high fantasy. Born not made argumentative. Caution: contents explosive in the presence of idiocy. You can find more about me at http://ciaraballintyne.com/ or follow me on Twitter @CiaraBallintyne

Ashley Elizabeth

Freedom is a pretty open topic. I mean, it's well open to interpretation. Freedom is defined as being free of confinement, regulation, or restraint. I, however, think most people interpret this wrong. It seems when freedom is brought up, people talk about what they are freed from; people spend more time listing what they are tied to.

(It is imperative that I note that this viewpoint of freedom stands from a fairly liberated and democratic point of view.)

Someone may say that responsibilities act as the hindrance to freedom. Some people may fault responsibilities such as bills, debt, family, or significant others. But in reality, those are all choices. The responsibilities we have are ones we choose to live with. For example, I choose to have a computer, and therefore, I choose to pay for the electricity to power it.

I say I have true freedom because I suffer from no constraint, regulation, or confinement. Sure, there are things in my life (such as bills) that I have to bend to. But, I choose to. Freedom lies more in the mind. It is most likely why people feel they lack the freedom.

It is with purpose that I stand behind my decisions. I do not accept the "norms". In fact, I have a tendency to challenge them. I have stopped thinking about what I'm supposed to do, and I make choices that I am happy to stand behind.

Make a choice, stand behind it, and be present in your situation.

Make the choice that you are going to be truly happy with. The choice that is solid to your core, moral beliefs, and your willingness to follow through. Then, instead of trying to pick it apart and looking for the strings that hold you back, look at the shackles you shed by making that choice.

Freedom is as intangible as your state of mind. It is a mental cage or a mental playground. It is a choice.

About Ashley Elizabeth:

I am a writer. I read, I write, and I edit. I also have a tendency to be an optimistic cynic. Follow me on Twitter @AEWrites ... it’s the best place to distract me and interact with me. For ravings and rants: http://aeoutloud.blogspot.com/

Imran Siddiq

Freedom deserves as many interpretations as the word itself implies. My take is a rather solemn one of caution. Most will state that they have the freedom to do whatever they wish to do, and that the hindrance against such would be a travesty against mankind. I agree to an extent, but then that does mean on what are they expressing that freedom to.

I happily use my freedom to purchase, listen, read, eat, and drink as I wish. The ‘halt’ comes if I intended to use that freedom to harm, scold, tease, or damage something/someone. Just because I own a hammer, it does not mean I can smash a wall. No - that is where the privilege part of freedom kicks in. I have the freedom to own a hammer, but I do not have the privilege to destroy.

Freedom also comes with social barriers that can decrease the level you can apply. If someone heckles me in a conversation, I have the freedom to feel anger, pain, suffering, the dark side, but my social role might strangle my freedom to shout back. That is I being cautious. If I utilised my freedom, I could start an argument which would end up with someone being hurt. And as stated above, I do not want to use my freedom to hurt.

So, I will sing and dance that freedom makes us unique to be someone/something without become a dystopian drone, but we have to curb that freedom when a situation requires sensibility and morale to prevail.

About Imran Siddiq:

Not yet published, but I have a museum of tales I hope to extract and tell. Details of my progression can be found on http://www.imranwrites.com/, and you can follow me on Twitter: @Flickimp

Mark Brassington

“I'm free to be whatever I, Whatever I choose, And I'll sing the blues if I want, I'm free to say whatever I, Whatever I like, If it's wrong or right it's alright” – Oasis, Whatever.

Lyrics by Noel Gallagher and Neil Innes which sum my thoughts on Freedom.

It is my belief that God gave us all freewill and therefore the ability to make our own choices and as I grew up I learnt the difference between making the right or wrong decision.

There have been plenty of times in my life that I have not felt free of a situation and completely trapped; being bullied at school, being in a job I hated and under extreme pressure from the role itself and my then boss, even in previous relationships and of course bills and as much as anyone of these things has brought me down and made me feel trapped I have pushed through them and come to move past them and accept them.

Probably the hardest thing for me from the age of about twelve onwards way for me to feel free to be myself, this ties in with me being bullied from around that time from at least another five(ish) years. You learn to not speak for fear of your own words being used against you, so that other do not learn who you are and what you like as this will become that latest in their line of ammunition during school life.

Eventually I left school but only to keep those same walls and as much as I became more confident as time went on the walls of trust still stayed up and I would say that only in the three or four years have I become free to be myself and tell people about me – “I read comics” “I am aspiring author” “I like sci-fi” – these were big things to admit but now I freely tell people and I would say that tough life lesson only gave me thicker skin.

So whatever makes you hold yourself back try to push these things aside as they are what makes you, you. Be free to be yourself.

About Mark Brassington:

In my day job I work in Commercial Banking but I am unpublished aspiring author with hopes to one day tell my tales of fantasy and sci-fi. I blog about my progress and other things at http://markbrassington.wordpress.com/

You can follow me on twitter: @markbrassington

The Writer's Long Road

2011-09-16T22:18:00.000+10:00

I made a comment this week that newbie writers are not ready to publish.

So we’re clear, when I said ‘newbie’, I meant they have literally just picked up a pen for the first time to write a novel. This may not have been clear on Twitter, where 140 characters doesn’t allow room for such caveats and disclaimers, but I was surprised when someone tweeted me about the comment.

This person found my statement so disheartening they felt they should stop writing altogether. I must confess, I was taken aback by this sweeping statement. Why should someone be disheartened by such a comment? Don’t people already know this?

Apparently, people don’t know this. Which is perhaps a reason for me to say it more often.

But we should know it. We none of us expect to ride a bicycle perfectly the first time – that’s why we have training wheels. My first day at law school, I was not ready to be a lawyer. Hell, my first day in my current job, I was not ready to be a lawyer, and yet, eight years later, I am a senior lawyer. These things take time. Is there anything that anyone can expect to do well the very first time they do it?

If a writer expects to succeed immediately, I would suggest they need to think again. The very act of writing is a lengthy process, even if you can devote your full attention to it, and most of us need to have day jobs as well. I have been working on my current WIP since January 2008. Granted, there was a long time in there when I did nothing, but if we break it down into actual active time it looks something like this:

• Four months to write a first draft and revise;

• Three to six months receiving feedback from critique group;

• Six months revising and editing (three times).

Now that’s very nearly eighteen months, and I haven’t even finished the last set of revisions, nevermind written a synopsis or query letter. Even if I was to land an agent, it would take time to find a publisher, and then it’s something like two years for the book to land on the shelf. We’re talking four years minimum from go to whoa. It can easily be more.

Granted, it’s much quicker if you self-publish. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. But you can see my earlier post on indie publishing for that particular rant.

The reality is a writer’s first ever manuscript is unlikely to be publishable without significant revisions. I won’t even try to rewrite my first manuscript. Or my second. Maybe – maybe – my third. The fourth I will.

Even well-known and best-selling authors were rejected multiple times before being published. Here are a few of the ones I know:

John Grisham’s ‘A Time To Kill’ - rejected 45 times;
Dr. Seuss - rejected 46 times;
Tom Clancy’s ‘The Hunt For Red October’ - rejected 12 times;
Patricia Cornwell’s ‘Postmortem’ - rejected 7 times;
Mary Higgins Clark’s ‘First Story’ - rejected 40 times;
William Stevenson’s 80’s bestselling thriller, ‘A Man Called Intrepid’ - rejected 109 times; and
James Lee Burke’s ‘The Lost Get-Back Bookie’ - rejected 111 times over a period of nine years, and upon publication was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won the Edgar.

If it took these authors this long and this many rejections to be published, then why should anyone expect to pick up a pen and immediately be worthy?

I’m not trying to be pessimistic. I suggest writers be positive, which I distinguish from optimistic. Optimism is believing the best will always happen. I’m sorry, it won’t. Being positive is believing you can make the best happen, with hard work if necessary. Optimism allows no room for realism, being positive does.

Realism is important, because if you aren’t realistic, you will only be disappointed when the things you expect don’t happen.

Writers, the hard, real facts are, if you want to be a writer, you must be in it for the long haul.

Go Back To My Site

Twitter Etiquette and Marketing

2011-09-09T15:18:00.000+10:00

Etiquette. I’m big on etiquette.

Not the kind of etiquette that says things such as, in relation to tea:
‘After stirring, place your spoon quietly on the saucer, behind the cup, on the right hand side under the handle.’

I don’t see the point in this. Why does it matter where on the saucer you put the spoon? Putting it down may have value – I’m thinking about the person at the next table who taps their cutlery in a repetitive and annoying fashion. But am I likely to be offended or inconvenienced by where on their saucer they put their spoon? I doubt it.

No, I mean the kind of etiquette that helps us manage relationships, usually with people we don’t know well, and avoid conflict.

Allow me to explain further. Some of you may have seen the #stabbylove hashtag going around on Twitter. A few people have asked me about it. I explained it (in a non-writing context, as not everyone who asked is a writer) as:

‘#Stabbylove is when you tell your best friend that, yes, her dress does make her butt look big. Because she needs to know, and you love her’.

Someone then asked me (tongue in cheek, I’m sure) why that doesn’t apply to strangers.

Well, the real answer is ‘etiquette’. We can say something like to this to our best friend because she knows we mean well and we’re trying to help her not to embarrass herself. If we didn’t tell our friend, and she found out later, she’d be mortified.

The stranger on the street, on the other hand, will probably just think we’re being nasty and be offended. Because they are likely to be offended, it’s simply rude to say so. It’s bad etiquette, even if you meant well. Such is the oil that greases the wheels of civilisation.

Etiquette should be easy. It’s common-sense, and it doesn’t take much effort. Unfortunately common-sense isn’t all that common and too many people are lazy, which breeds a culture of rudeness and selfishness.

Etiquette also runs into problems when we develop new technologies. It’s commonly accepted now that to write LIKE THIS in an email is to shout at the recipient, but when email was new, we didn’t have those kinds of accepted practices.

So what about Twitter etiquette? Although there is no written rule that says I must, I routinely welcome my new followers. It takes nothing except a little time on my part, and I think it’s a nice courtesy. Nice enough that more than a few people have commented on it. With fairly minimal effort on my part, I have made someone feel good. Not sure there is a downside to that! There may come the day when this is no longer sustainable, but I haven’t reached that point yet.

But there are many things on Twitter that annoy me and other people I know. I think they are discourteous, but if you are a writer who is marketing yourself on Twitter, you should also consider the effectiveness of the techniques you are using. Will you sell more books by doing something that annoys someone? Probably not.

So here is a list of the things that personally annoy me:

• Repeated spamming of my timeline with promotional tweets about your book or blog and nothing else. I don’t mind promotional tweets here and there, but when I can go through the timeline of a list that has one hundred people in it and see nothing but a long list of promotional tweets for your book or blog, you are tweeting it too much. Once every few hours would be my maximum guideline, but if you must insist, once an hour might be acceptable. And please, try to tweet something else in between. I am more likely to read your book or blog after I have gotten to know you personally – if I like you. In the case of blogs, I know some people who won’t follow you until after they have read your blog, in which case you don’t need to promotional tweet them. In either case, your tweets are either ineffective or unnecessary;

• Sending a direct message to welcome a new follower. If you want to welcome someone, do it publicly. Is there any reason you can’t? Your new follower gets a mention, and if you’re going to be nice enough to welcome someone, why would you want to hide it away? Of all the things in this list, this one probably annoys me the least. It’s only a minor irk. But hey, if you are marketing yourself, don’t you want to show everyone how fabulous you are?

• Sending a direct message to a new follower - and you’re not following back! Don’t get me wrong, I do not subscribe to an auto-follow or follow for follow policy (more on that later). But it’s just rude to send someone a direct message they can’t reply to. Few things on Twitter annoy me as much as this one, and after I’ve tried and failed to send you a direct message, I’m unlikely to bother tweeting you. If you are going to contact someone, do so in a format that gives them the opportunity to respond. As well as being courteous, this also helps you to connect more meaningfully with your followers.

• Sending a direct message to a new follower – and it’s spam. The last thing I want from someone I just followed is spam. I don’t know you yet. Sending me a spam direct message does not help me to know you, but it helps me to dislike you. Get to know people before you encourage them to read your blog or your book – especially a book you expect them to pay for. People are more likely to respond positively if they know you and like you. Spam is not likeable. I know people who will automatically unfollow someone who sends them a direct message that is spam. Think about that before you decide to use this to market yourself.

• Repeated requests to F4F (follow for follow). I do not F4F or auto-follow. When someone follows me, I will check their profile, and if they look interesting, I will follow them. But I may later unfollow them if they don’t prove interesting. I don’t expect people to follow me back just because I follow them, although now that Twitter is imposing rationing on the people I can follow, I may from time to time unfollow people who are not following me. I may find them interesting, but if I have to choose between two interesting people, and one likes me and interacts with me and one doesn’t… Well, I don’t think the choice is too hard, do you?

• Auto-response – I only just came across this one in time for this blog, so maybe it’s not very common – or maybe I just hadn’t noticed. I received an ‘automated’ direct message from someone I just followed. Now it’s entirely possible some of the tweets I’ve complained about above are also automated, but this one had some kind of tag that drew my attention to this fact. I was unimpressed. I did not feel welcomed by an auto-response. It was like the recording you get when on hold to a call centre – ‘Your call is important to us’. No it’s bloody not. This person had ‘welcomed’ me and probably didn’t even know I was following.

Now I’m not suggesting these things annoy everyone, or that this is a universal list of unacceptable Twitter behaviour. But they annoy me. They annoy some people I know. If you’re doing any of these things, you are not marketing effectively to us. There’s a reasonable chance you’re not marketing effectively to other people.

Stop and think when you devise your marketing strategy. Think about what annoys you, and people you know. If the things that annoy you are not Twitter related (e.g. unsolicited telemarketing calls) think about what might be a Twitter equivalent (e.g. unsolicited spam direct messages). And don’t do them.

Think clever, be courteous, and above all – be effective.

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The Versatile Blogger Award

2011-09-08T13:41:00.000+10:00

So there have been a few more blog posts from me lately than you’d usually expect. In fact, there will be three by the end of the week, including my regular post, when usually I only blog once a fortnight.

The first of these was a post to let everyone know about the guest post I did for Erica Lucke Dean last week, and this is the second.

So, I've been awarded the Versatile Blogger Award by @Valeriebrbr. Thanks Valerie! You can check her out here or follow her on Twitter.

The rules of the Versatile Blogger Award are:

1. Thank the blogger who awarded you and link back to them.

2. Share 7 interesting facts about yourself.

3. Pass the award on to 15 newly discovered blogs.

Now I assume it’s not compulsory to participate. How could it possibly be enforced? *checks over shoulder for gun-toting assassins* But I decided that it might be a little fun, so I figured I’d give it a shot. In the same spirit, I don’t expect anyone I ‘award’ to feel obliged to participate either. You can take it as a sign of my respect for your blog, and make your own decision about whether to participate. Some of you may well have participated previously.

So here’s seven interesting facts about me:

1. My Mum drove me to my last job interview. It was 2003 and I was aged 22. I would have caught the train, but it was ‘in the city’ and she was concerned for me. She still is. I get admonished not to ‘walk around the city in the dark’! I keep trying to tell her that occasionally this is a necessary evil of my job. And yes, this does mean I have been in the same job for 8 years.

2. At high school I studied mathematics (seriously advanced mathematics – I was the only student invited to advance to the class that studied ‘imaginary’ numbers. I declined, to the teacher’s relief), English (funny, that. Again, advanced…), Ancient History, Agriculture (say what?? And again, advanced – this subject required a scientific experiment with a report to be submitted to the Board of Studies for the entire State. My report was 100+ pages long) and Biology (this was my bludge subject). Notice how many science-type subjects I did? And yet I’m a lawyer who writes epic fantasy… Bizarre, yes? I regret that I didn’t study physics. I looked up the origins of the universe once. For fun. Then got angry when no one had any answers.

3. The best put-down I ever heard was when a fellow student boasted about how he was top of his physics class. Another student replied to him that was only because I wasn’t studying physics. That may have been a complete misrepresentation – I might totally suck at physics! But the look on this guy’s face was priceless.

4. My three best friends I have known for 26 years, 19 years and 19 years respectively. Since I’m 30, that’s not a bad effort. None of them are related to me, but one of them did marry my cousin. Who she didn’t meet through me. Weird, huh?

5. Yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not the way I am because I’m a lawyer – I am a lawyer because I am the way I am. Did that make sense? No? Try to keep up. The results of my personality profiles are very disturbing. We did one at law school which had 4 categories. Each personality test gave you an X and Y coordinate to plot on a graph, and the whole class had to plot themselves on the graph on the board. Each quadrant of the graph represented a personality type. The closer you were to either axis, the more traits you shared with the personality in the next quadrant. I was in the top left quadrant. Top left of the top left quadrant. About as far from the axes as you could get and still be on the graph. On my own. Everyone else with my personality type was clustered near the intersection of the X and Y axes. Not only am I a weird personality type, I am an extreme example of my personality type.

6. I sing karaoke and I like country music. I don’t usually sing country music at karaoke though. Mine is not a voice generally suited to country music. Mostly I sing songs performed by men, as I have a very deep voice for a woman. A friend and I did a duet once – ‘A Whole New World’ from Aladdin. She was Jasmine and I was Aladdin!

7. My Dad has had a heart transplant. He was placed on the transplant list on Thursday 4 August 2005. I was due to get married on Sunday 14 August 2005. People can spend years on the transplant list, so we idly had the discussion of what we would do if Dad got a transplant before the wedding and couldn’t attend, but not with any seriousness. 36 hours later Mum’s on the phone telling me St Vincent’s Hospital has a heart for Dad and can I meet them there. By 12pm Saturday 6 August Dad had a new heart. I was fortunate enough for the hospital to let Dad out on day release so he could walk me down the aisle. I had a throw-posy for the tossing of the bouquet (because if I threw my actual bouquet it was likely to knock someone unconscious), so I gave my bouquet to Dad to take back to hospital. When Dad made it back to the hospital that evening, the poor chap in the bed next to his woke up and saw a man in a suit carrying flowers and thought he had woken up at his own funeral!

Here are the fifteen 15 people who I think deserve The Versatile Blogger Award.

1. Erica Lucke Deane - The Daily Blog - Light fun! Highly entertaining.

2. Christi McMillan - Christi McMillen

3. Kelly Gamble - Staring Out The Window

4. Leif Notae - Writing More With Less

5. Rhiannon Paille

6. Lisa McFerren - LHM Thoughts

7. D.C. McMillen - Not for the faint of heart! ;-)

8. Sirra - The home of the random tips & information for writers and the wannabe writers - Highly recommended for writers of all kinds

9. AE - Out Loud

10. Heather Jacobs - Heather Jacobs, Author

11. Imran Siddiq - Imran Writes

12. Anime - Anime’s Musings

13. MaryAnn Kempher - Conversations With MaryAnn Kempher - An interactive style blog for writers wanting to share experiences

14. Derek Flynn - Rant, With Occasional Music - I do so like a good rant!

15. Jessie - The Life Story Of A Bookworm

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In Pursuit Of The Perfect Cuppa

2011-09-07T10:31:00.000+10:00

Last week I did a guest post for Erica Lucke Dean's blog (@ericaluckedean). I 'won' this guest post for extraordinary clumsiness, although I still insist that the string of events was in fact an exatrordinary run of bad luck.

This is a fun, light-hearted post in the spirit of the clumsiness that won the guest spot, and you can find it here - http://www.ericaluckedean.com/the-daily-blog/2011/9/2/in-pursuit-of-the-perfect-cuppa.html

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Stupidity In the Raw

2011-08-26T13:16:00.002+10:00

I have a fairly high threshold when it comes to being shocked by stupidity. I’ve seen so much of it I have become inured to it. It takes something jaw-droppingly stupid to truly surprise me. There are many things that I shake my head at but not so many that really stop me in my tracks.

I tell you this so you can understand the true depths of the stupidity I am about to relate to you. This is a tale I read in a local Sydney paper a few months ago now. It was like an infomercial. But wait… there’s more. Every time I thought the woman in question couldn’t possibly get any stupider… I was wrong. And the people who know me will tell you that I am rarely wrong. My husband even complains about it.

So, we have a backyard nudist. OK, some people like to sunbathe nude in the (ahem) privacy of their backyards. Such as it is. Not me, but each to their own and all that. This woman was complaining because the trees that provided privacy to the rear of her backyard had been cut down.

Well, fair enough you say. I’d be a bit miffed if someone came along and cut down my trees, whether I was in habit of sunbathing nude or not. I reasoned they might have been diseased or storm-damaged and therefore had to be taken down for safety reasons. I could see myself being a bit disappointed if I lost some mature trees in this manner. Particularly if I was in the habit of getting my kit off in their shade. Which I repeat, just so we’re clear – I’m not.

But no… the trees had been cut down by the adjoining school. Wait… you sunbathe nude in your backyard and your property adjoins a school? A primary school? What were you thinking? All I could think was these poor children under eleven who might be copping an eyeful.

Well, that aside, the trees were on the school’s property, and I figured they had every right to cut down trees on their own property. You can’t rely on trees that belong to someone else to ensure privacy in your own yard. Plant your own trees, for god’s sake. In the meantime, I should think your fence would provide some privacy. Put some lattice on top or something. Take the initiative (and some responsibility, but let’s not get side-tracked on the topic of people who can’t take responsibility for themselves) and do something to protect your privacy. It’s your problem, not someone else’s.

Hang on a moment… The school has offered to erect a fence and share costs. There‘s no fence? Your backyard abuts a primary school, there’s no fence separating it, and you sunbathe nude in that backyard? Have you no shame?

But wait… there’s more (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?).

Our nudist wasn’t happy with the school’s offer to build a fence. Really? How much privacy could the trees have offered with no fence? Anyone could have walked into her yard! So because she wasn’t happy, she decided she would protest. By handing out fliers. With naked pictures of herself. To the parents of those primary school children at home time.

There are so many things wrong with this on so many levels that I struggle to know where to begin.

Firstly, it becomes something of a moot point, does it not, to complain about your lack of privacy if you are going to voluntarily hand out naked pictures of yourself? What privacy do you have left to protect at this point?

Secondly, and more disturbing on a wider level, how could anyone possibly think it was a good idea to hand out naked pictures of themselves to parents of children under eleven while those parents have those children in tow? I shudder to think of the inevitable question. ‘Mummy, what’s that?’ ‘Nothing, sweetie, really, nothing..’

Seriously, what was running through your mind?

The only answer I can come up with is… nothing. Absolutely nothing. If there was even a modicum of intelligence in there, even one, lonely brain cell, surely it would have told her to stop? All I can conclude is that here is a woman whose IQ makes a room-temperature IQ look scorching hot!

And the very last, disturbing piece of news? Her husband whole-heartedly supported her. Clearly, he wasn’t much brighter than she was.

I hope they never breed.

Indie Publishing: Traditional Publishing’s Competitor – or Slush Pile?

2011-08-12T21:25:00.002+10:00

This is probably not a post which is likely to make me very popular but, you got it, I’m going to say it anyway. To avoid pointless arguments about what I’m not saying, I’d like to be clear upfront. I am not saying that writers should never indie publish.

But… What is indie publishing?

I expect there are as many different definitions or concepts of what indie publishing is as there are for each genre and subgenre of fiction. We could probably argue about it until the cows come home. So I’ll tell you what I think it is. Then you can argue about it, and I’ll just watch.

I consider indie publishing to be an alternative to traditional publishing for writers who have submitted to traditional publishers and/or agents and received responses along the lines of ‘It’s great but it’s not for us’ or ‘You’ve got a fabulous story but it’s not commercial’.

In other words, indie publishing is an alternative for writers who are skilled in their craft but can’t get an editor or an agent to take a risk on them for reasons that do not relate to the quality of their work.

How about what indie publishing is not?

· It’s not an excuse to cut corners on your WIP. A lot of them exist for a reason. If the response you are getting is that your WIP is not interesting enough, engaging enough, well-written enough, or suffers from other technical problems, indie publishing will not magically solve them;

· It’s not the ‘easy option’ for the ‘lazy’ writer. Good writers are not born, they are made. They are forged in the crucible of reviews, critiques and, yes, rejection. Only when we are told what is wrong can we make it better. If you have just penned your very first novel or story and indie published it (particularly without an editor, or review or critique by someone who knows what they are talking about) I am sorry, but it’s probably more useful as toilet paper.

And yes, I say that as a writer. I have one of those ‘first novels’ lying around. Like most writers who have been around the traps a bit (and after nearly 20 years at this, sorry to say I am old enough to be one of them), I pray to god or anyone else who might be listening that no one ever sees it. How embarrassing. As a matter of fact, I can’t even tell you where it is right now. Probably on a floppy disk for which there will shortly be no means to read it. I can hope, anyway. Maybe I am lucky enough for it to have been the broken one I found the other day.

· It’s not publishing for ‘vanity’. In the old days (which I remember, crivens), writers had to pay other people to have their book vanity published. Now a writer can epublish their book, even if it’s absolute drivel, and expect other people to pay them. If you are providing a product to consumers, it should be a good one, and not just to stroke your own ego. People pay for a good product or service. Money spent by a consumer just to make you feel good is not money well-spent. Unless maybe it was spent by your mother.

· It is not an excuse to drop standards. If you are indie publishing, I expect you to know how to spell, and have good grammar, as the most basic tools of your craft. You don’t need to know the names (I can never remember what a preposition is) but I expect you to know how to use them. I also expect you to know good dialogue, to not infodump, to weave backstory carefully, to have interesting plots, believable characters with depth… The list goes on. In short, everything I would expect from a traditionally published novel. I’m sorry, but the method of publishing does not change the ingredients in a good book. Yes, I have high standards, but in my defence I will say I never held someone to a standard to which I did not hold myself;

· It’s not an excuse to break the rules – without good reason. In traditional publishing, as an unknown author, we are told all the time that breaking the rules will land you in the slush pile. Not so in indie publishing. What slush pile? Well, that may be true, but rules exist for a reason. If you break a rule, and it doesn’t somehow add to your story or advance the plot or somehow make it better than if you had abided by the rule – then breaking it is probably detrimental;

· It’s not an excuse to not know the rules. If you want to break rules meaningfully and intelligently, you need to know what they are. Learn them, please. Study your craft.

I recently heard the question asked ‘are you regarded as having achieved less because you indie publish?’ I don’t hesitate in saying ‘you betcha!’. We all know the odds against traditional publishing. Ergo, if you are traditionally published, you have achieved something of heroic proportions. You beat the odds. Even if your writing is not great literature, you still beat the odds.

That, however, does not automatically mean that an indie book is bad, because we all know plenty of good work doesn’t get traditionally published. Unfortunately, a lot more of what doesn’t get published isn’t good work, which brings me to my next point.

I recently heard suggested that we should do away with one star reviews because they are ‘not fair’ to the writer. Really? Why not? If the quality of your work is that poor, why shouldn’t you get 1 star? Because your fragile ego can’t bear it? I’m sorry, but if you can’t take negative criticism, you are in the wrong line of work.

Granted, there are bound to be a number of undeserved 1 star reviews. But then, as discussed in my last post ‘What Price Your Honour?’, there are also large numbers of undeserved 5 star reviews floating around. Maybe we should also do away with 5 star reviews?

But then, now 2 star reviews are undeservedly harsh, and 4 star reviews are coveted. I know! We shall have 3 star reviews only. Now you are all the same. Is everyone happy?

I expect not. That was a very exaggerated example, but most of you probably got the point. A review system is, by its very nature, designed to distinguish between good and bad. Any scale, no matter where it starts and finishes, will have a lowest point and a highest point.

As a reader, I can say that I have seen enough false reviews that I don’t bother looking at the star rating of a book anymore. It is meaningless data. Worse, I have started discriminating on the basis of price point. Two bad experiences with (traditionally published) 99c books, and I am ready to swear off them. If I won’t buy traditionally published 99c ebooks, what hope do indie books have? Not much, I’m afraid.

I have in fact never bought an indie book. I have read free excerpts of various indie ebooks, designed to entice and lure the reader into purchasing the complete work. Sad to say, none has yet been of sufficient calibre, or sufficiently intriguing, to induce me to do so (though some clearly had promise). What a sad state of affairs.

I like the theory of indie publishing, but as you can see, so far the practical reality is disappointing me. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that all indie authors are bad, I am saying that inconsistent standards and unreliable reviews are demotivating me to look for the diamonds in the rough. I am sure they exist, but where to start looking? It is the proverbial needle in the haystack. I am time poor, so I must choose the books I read carefully.

If indie publishing wants to be taken seriously, and to provide a viable, commercial and, ultimately, profitable alternative to traditional publishing, writers need to hold themselves to some kind of quality standard in the work they choose to self-publish. Otherwise, indie publishing will be doomed to be nothing more than a very public slush pile for traditional publishing. I would think that a tragic waste of something that could have been so much more.

Fellow writer, I implore you – always strive to improve yourself. Take workshops. Join a review group. Use beta readers. Pay an editor. Listen to the feedback you get. But please, don’t publish anything less than your absolute spit-polished best.

Hold yourself to a standard and be proud.

What Price Your Honour?

2011-07-29T20:45:00.001+10:00

What value do you put on your word? On your honour? Is it even something you have ever thought about?

Without meaning to blow my own trumpet (ye gods, I have enough people putting their hand up for that without doing it myself) I put a fairly high value on my word. If I give it, I keep it. I’m not in the habit of making promises I can’t keep, or even a promise I don’t know I can keep. My word reflects on my honour, and yes, my honour is pretty important.

I won’t go so far as to say my honour is my life. I would lie to a gunman to save my life. But that’s smart. That’s natural selection at work (based on the theory that stupidity is something we want to evolve out, and therefore intelligence should be a survival trait). But short of that, I do put value on being considered honest, loyal, trustworthy.

These days, though, the concepts of your word and your honour are almost archaic. Even in more prosaic terms of ‘keeping promises’, or being trustworthy, it doesn’t seem to be something our society values highly, or at least not one it promotes itself as valuing highly. We rarely talk about it, discuss, or say we value it, except in negative terms, usually when we’ve caught a politician with his pants down. I value faithfulness highly, but I find it hypocritical to crucify said hypothetical politician when the rest of the time society barely gives a passing nod to the concept of fidelity.

Making a promise and keeping it is such an important concept (or was, somewhere in the dark mists of time) that it is now backed up with the full force of the law – contract law. If you make a contract (a promise) and you break it, the law can be called upon to make you abide by that promise. It doesn’t always work, but we are only talking about the theory, not the practice. A large part of the fabric of our society depends upon the very idea that promises will be kept. Your electricity provider supplies electricity on the promise you will pay. You pay deposits on the promise that the goods will be delivered.

Why is it, then, that in our personal lives, so often the concept of keeping one’s word, and in the wider sense, of being honourable, or honest, is increasing seen as meaningless or valueless? I raise this point in the context of a practice that I have come across in the writing community recently. Those of you who are fellow writers may well have come across this practice as well.

The fake book review.

It most often seems to occur in indie publishing, although I expect there exist instances of it in traditional publishing. For those who don’t know, it is where a writer implores his friends and family to write glowing reviews on websites such as Amazon, whether those friends and family have read the book or not, and whether they believe the review is justified or not. Those friends and family who agree to write such reviews do so, I am sure, out of filial obligation or in the name of friendship. But, I’m afraid, all parties are guilty of dishonesty. Worse, this is dishonesty of the kind designed to con the innocent consumer out of his hard-earned dollar and deposit it into the pocket of undeserving writer. Or if not designed for that purpose (in some cases, it may solely be designed to stroke the ego of said writer) it certainly has this effect.

False reviews are not always easy to spot. Having so many 5 out of 5 reviews that it stretches belief can be a sign, particularly if they are mixed with a number of very poor reviews (1 out of 5 stars). Think about it – even authors like Stephen King do not get strings of perfect reviews. Other than that, there’s not much to go by. If the author has a website, check it out. Sometimes sample chapters are available for free, and you can read and compare to the reviews. Sometimes it is glaringly obvious the reviews are not justified.

A similar practice is where writers review each other’s work, and one of them tries to hold the other to ransom – ‘I wrote you a good review, now you must give me a good review’. Bad writer, bad writer. This is not a barter exchange. You get a review that befits your work, not the review you are giving the writer’s work. In some ways, this type of false review (if the ransomed writers bows to pressure instead of standing by their integrity) is more damaging, because the review has been given by someone who is assumed to be an authority on the subject matter.

Both of these practices completely undermine the system of giving reviews and trusting reviews. If false reviews abound, potential buyers don’t know what to believe – or buy.

As a consumer, what do you feel when you purchase something which does not live up to your expectations? Cheated? Ripped off? Lied to? I would.

As a writer (if you are one) how do you feel when you see this type of thing occurring? Angry? Ashamed maybe? Embarrassed that one of us is guilty of this type of behaviour? I do. It reflects on every last one of us when one of our number behaves in this fashion.

Why do it? For monetary gain? For an inflated sense of self-importance? Your writing, if it is any good, will stand on its own merits. If it’s not any good, the reader is going to spot this, and no amount of good reviews will change their mind. If this is the case, then you should be learning from your errors and working to improve yourself. Lying about it, and worse, encouraging others to lie on your own behalf, is not going to make you a better writer. The only thing that will do that is hard work.

I’m afraid people who have so much conviction in the brilliance of their own writing that they not only encourage people to write false reviews, but shout down the honest yet bad reviews they receive, are never going to improve.

Improvement necessarily involves acceptance of a lack of perfection.

I’m always striving to write better. I try to help others to write better where I can, and I have been lucky enough so far to only receive heartfelt thanks for my efforts (but now I risk straying into a rant on the etiquette of giving and receiving critiques). I don’t want fake reviews – a fake review won’t help me improve. An honest review will, and if I improve enough, I’ll earn honest good reviews.

I’m not perfect. Are you?

Stranger Than Fiction

2011-07-15T22:28:00.000+10:00

My first blog received the comment that my profile said a lot about what other people thought of me, and not a lot about me in my own words. So I thought that for my second blog, I'd tell you a bit about me.

Is this something that ‘somebody has to say’? I can assure you, just about anything that could have been said about me has already been said by someone. I might as well lob in and say something myself. The problem is', how would I even begin?

There are reasons for that. Firstly, I think it’s terribly immodest to talk about oneself. I don’t know where I got that attitude, but it has stuck with me. Possibly this is one of the ghosts of my childhood that has unwittingly haunted me through to adulthood. I was the quintessential nerd. Talking about my achievements was not going to improve my popularity at school. I had precious little of it to start with.

The second reason is I do not often indulge in self-analysis. I am who I am, I like who I am, and I am comfortable with who I am. There is nothing about myself I feel driven to change, although of course I have naturally evolved with age and experience. I learned very early on that some people will like me for who I am, and others won’t, and that’s fine. My own self-acceptance means that I rarely have the need to stop and think about who I am or how to describe me. I am just me. I don’t consider myself to be especially remarkable. Because of this, it is the people who know me best who most often come up with interesting and accurate descriptions of my true self.

The third reason is you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you. At first glance, that sounds like immodesty, in defiance of my rules, but it’s not. I said you wouldn’t believe it. I didn’t say that was because I am unbelievably fabulous! Like most people, I have my own flaws and foibles, and, like the rest of me, they tend to be on a scale that is larger than life.

Even if I did describe myself to you, how much do the words really paint a person? At best, it’s a line drawing, with blank areas waiting to be filled in. You can’t get a real concept of a person from them (think about it, it takes a whole novel for you to really get to know a character). The best way you can learn about me is from observation. As the advice to writers goes, ‘show don’t tell’.

Now, you really can get a sense of who I am from what others have said. You can read some in my profile, but here are a few others you might not have read, before I go on in my own words. I will stretch my distaste of immodesty far enough to say I would not have included this if I didn’t agree with it, so you can assume that the quotes of people who described me as an intolerant judgemental b***h have been omitted. What would they know?

· My oldest and closest friends describe me as tactless (I think they mean honest, really...), stubborn, loyal, passionate, quirky, strong-willed, confident, trustworthy, determined, and ‘bent on world domination’ (Um... thanks Kylie. What can I say in rebuttal? The world would not like me as dictator!).

· A friend hand-picked me a birthday card that read ‘She had not yet decided whether to use her power for good or evil’;

· My boss said 'if I didn't know you I wouldn't believe you could exist';

· After a first meeting, people who don’t know me describe me as ‘...interesting’ It would be nice to think they are speechless in the face of my brilliance, but it’s probably just shock.

And here’s some extra titbits I thought I might throw your way.

If I was a Dungeons & Dragons RPG character, my alignment would be Chaotic Good. If you don’t know what that means, ask Google.

My favourite quotes are:

· 'I have loved to the point of madness; that which is called madness, to me, is the only way to love.' - Anon

· 'Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.' - Dr Seuss

· You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.’’ - Ray Bradbury

This is the 'User Manual' created by my friends of 20+ years:

Rule 1: Ciara is always right.

Rule 2: If Ciara is wrong, refer to Rule 1.

Did I mention I'm a lawyer? There's a reason I chose that profession... Absolute conviction in your own infallibility goes a long way in law.

My favourite authors include Terry Goodkind, Fiona McIntosh, Diana Gabaldon, Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson and Brent Weeks.

I love Stargate (SG-1, SGA and SGU), Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Supernatural.

My favourite word is 'defenestrated'. Who would have thought there'd be a word for this? It means to be thrown out of a window. Often used in the context of killing someone, in which case, in the interests of maximum efficacy, the window should be high.

My favourite place to visit is Scotland. I was there in 2008 and I am dying to go back, which won't be until 2015 or 2016. I recently discovered there is a subgenre of romance called 'Scottish Historical'. Clearly I am not the only one who thinks it is a romantic, magical place.

I'm currently working full-time as a lawyer, writing and/or editing, participating in a writer's critique group, undertaking a number of writing workshops, marketing myself online, blogging and raising a daughter. Oh yes, I am an excellent time manager.

And for those people who really want me to describe myself, I have prepared the following, at great emotional cost to myself. I hope you’re happy!

I am an action-oriented perfectionist. I am a decision-maker and a leader. I am demanding, forceful, strong-willed, and determined. I thrive on competition and perform well under pressure. I am fiercely independent, and I work best when my boss just leaves me alone. I am intelligent. I am easily bored.

I am a planner and an organiser, but I am hopelessly untidy. I believe in rationality and logic. I have no tolerance for stupidity (really, none… don’t believe me, try me). I don’t like taking risks (this is almost a pre-requisite to being a lawyer). I am detached and analytical, but at the same time I can be extremely empathic and compassionate.

I am (I think) uncomplicated in my desires. My husband may disagree. I am direct, I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. I won’t play games or politics. This makes me tactless to an extreme. If you ask me to critique your work you will get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I won’t be cruel or nasty, but I won’t lie to you. I will provide helpful examples. I promise not to do the critique in red pen. I can’t be held responsible for whatever colour Word chooses to use on marked up text.

I don’t like time-wasters, or being told what to do. I’m compulsively argumentative. I am assertive, aggressive and confrontational. I don’t like arguing with the people I love.

I am a cynic and an atheist, but I love fantasy and magic. I don’t believe in ghosts and the supernatural but I watch Supernatural. I read fantasy and watch science fiction.

I am a contradiction.

If I was a character in a book, would you believe in me?

What's It All About?

2011-07-02T23:10:00.001+10:00

When I first conceived this blog, I didn’t know what to write. That may seem strange to you – why write a blog, if you don’t know what to write? Isn’t that putting your cart before your horse, so to speak?

I am an aspiring author, and a blog is the ‘done’ or expected thing for a writer actively looking for an agent or publisher. As it turns out, I’m not writing this blog for that reason. I started thinking about writing this blog for that reason.

I was resistant to the idea of writing a blog as part of a self-marketing exercise. What would I say? I had nothing I wanted to share with the world, no words of wisdom, no particular area of expertise (beyond the one I get paid for, that is, and I am not inspired to blog about my day job), and no particular interests to blog about. Besides writing, of course, and I knew early on that I did not want to blog about writing.

It’s simply not in me to expect people to read my words purely for the superficial reason of marketing myself if what I had to say was not also worthwhile on its own merits, and I could not for the life of me think of anything that was.

My resistance started to melt when I began to get the feeling that I did have something I wanted to share with the world. I didn’t know what it was, but I could feel it there, like a forgotten word, balanced on the tip of the tongue, refusing to be drawn forth from the vault of memory. It tantalised me with its formless substance. It was there, but could not be named.

As it took shape, I had certainty that, yes, this was something I could say. Doubts lingered. There were many things I wanted to say, but they didn’t appear to be on any one topic. Having an incredibly limited experience of blogs, was it appropriate to blog when one’s topic could not really be described? I suspected the answer was yes, but then what would I call it?

Searching, for inspiration or reassurance, I turned to Google. What were other people blogging about? I came across this webpage – 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write (http://www.chrisbrogan.com/100-blog-topics-i-hope-you-write/). On the list was ‘Somebody Has To Say It.’

I leaned back in my chair, smiling. That was it. Someone who didn’t know me had somehow summed up in five words exactly what I wanted to blog about.

There are many things that could potentially fall into that category. As a general guide, I do not, at this time, intend to blog about the Big Three controversies (religion, politics, and sport, possibly not in that order). I am not here to shock, revolutionise, denigrate or insult. I get paid to argue in my day job, so I’m not here for that either. On a good day, I might hope to entertain.

No, this blog is for all those things I see that leave me shaking my head in disbelief, when I wonder what was that person thinking when they did that, and are you for real? The things that send me reaching for my phone to text a best friend to check that yes, it’s not just me that thinks that’s nuts, and I do have a passing relationship with normality.

So that it’s it. Somebody has to say it. And that somebody is me!