Writing Walking Whatever

New blog for a while

2008-12-17T16:04:00.001+09:00

As much as I like this Blogger page, I had to open an LJ account to keep in touch with friends, so rather than keep up two blogs, I'm now blogging over at: http://carolryles.livejournal.com

Some Links To Look At

2008-11-21T08:13:00.005+09:00

Bruce Sterling talks about Steampunk: The Users Guide to Steampunk (Thanks to Jay Lake)

The people at NASA think a patch of ocean near Perth, Australia would be an ideal spot for a Space Elevator

Book View Cafe is here. An online smorgasbord of out-of-print, experimental, or otherwise unavailable work from over 20 authors including some of my favourites, Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Sarah Zettel and Aussie, Sylvia Kelso.

Baby Wattlebird Leaves the Nest

2008-11-12T16:15:00.006+09:00

The baby bird flew away yesterday. It was great watching her get bigger, venture out onto the branch and then just flutter away. Here's a pic I took a couple of days before while mum was still feeding her. If you click on the pic and make it bigger you'll see the baby bird with its beak sticking up just behind the small branch in front of its nest.

Her tree was getting a tad crowded, now that it's in full bloom. I refuse to buy a leaf blower, so it looks like I'll be out sweeping the truckloads of petals that are going to end up on the driveway. They look pretty, but turn the driveway a slushy brown if left for too long. Good for the arm muscles

Wattle Bird's Nest

2008-10-21T17:56:00.006+08:00

This week a couple of wattle birds have been checking out our back patio, much to our cat's consternation (she's afraid of birds). But, in the end, they chose the Jacarada tree outside my upstairs study window. In a week or two I won't be able to see the nest any more because the tree will be covered in purple flowers.

Wastelands: Age of Iron

2008-10-20T16:08:00.004+08:00

Returning home from Wastelands was like coming back from Clarion. I was just getting into the swing of being around like-minded people who love sf, fantasy....and (best of all) Steampunk and it was time to go.

It was:

Fun and frightening reading out my paper (a first for me).

Great catching up with friends new and old.

Awesome listening to Nick Stathopoulos about art and the titanic and Mr Squiggle.

Fantastic eating cupcakes and drinking tea and talking with the ladies from Twelfth Planet Press.

Amazing looking at all the dress ups. There's something about the Victorian costume that makes me wish we still dressed like that, except maybe for the corsets in summer. And, of course, the girl who gave me a business card advertising "The Arte of Weaponry" was dressed totally the coolest. And so was Lily Chrywenstrom who seemed to be dressed in something different every time I saw her!!

A totally awesome time. Congratulations Callistra and Cheshirenoir for a job excellently done.

Next steampunk convention, I'm dressing up!

Wastelands: Age of Iron

2008-10-17T08:11:00.002+08:00

I'm presenting a paper at Wastelands tomorrow morning:

A Brief History of Steampunk: What Wound It Up and Why It Still Ticks

Steampunk can be purely science fictional or a mixture of science fiction and fantasy, suffused with anything from a heavy dash to a light sprinkling of neo-Victorianism. So why not neo-classicism? Or druidism? Or Roman chariotpunk? What is it about the Victorians that secures their place in steampunk? To explore this question, I will look at works of proto-science fiction, beginning from the early 1800s, following an evolutionary branch to the works of Jeter, Powers, Blaylock, Gibson, Sterling and Mieville.

And While I'm on the Subject of Caves

2008-10-08T10:52:00.007+08:00

Back when I scuba dived Piccaninnie Ponds, Mt Gambier, I managed to take a few fuzzy photos underwater. This video from wavesncaves on YouTube brings it all back much more clearly though.

My best dive in Pics was a night dive when the water was so clear it felt like you could see forever. On the way back up again, you'd stop at about 30ft and turn your torch off and look up and see the stars. It felt just like floating in space.

And to think, if I hadn't read Jules Verne's novels, I might not have done this.

Steampunky Trivia

2008-10-02T17:11:00.004+08:00

Dare I admit how long ago it was that I read the works of Jules Verne? Journey To the Centre of the Earth was my first SF novel. That impressed me so much that I kept reading SF and, when I grew up, took up caving and cave diving for a few years. Today I decided to have a reread of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in preparation for the paper I'm giving at Wastelands: Age of Iron. How tickled was I to relearn that Captain Nemo's Nautilus was powered by electricity.

All you DIY steampunkers and steampunk musicians whose awesome creations get dissed because they don't spout steam, here's your defence: The Nautilus didn't spout steam either!!

I know, I'm a failed blogger

2008-09-01T12:23:00.009+08:00

Anyhow, here's some nice pics of Seattle:

The Suzallo Library, where I spent a few relaxed hours writing and critting:

Mt Rainier from Red Square:

A pretty street near UW:

I'm Home

2008-08-18T20:55:00.003+08:00

Have been home for about 10 days. And I'm sorry for not blogging Seattle, but the writing experience turned out to be so intense, I ended up eating, sleeping (not much sleeping, mind you), writing and critting 7 days a week. That's what I went for, so I'm happy.

Anyhow, I'll get back into blogging soon, write some more about Seattle. The trip home was great -- all 40 sleep deprived hours of it -- thanks to the turbulence all the way from LA to Taipei. If it wasn't for this hilarious Japanese time travel movie, Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust (2007), I might not have survived. Here's the trailer:

Seattle Week 1

2008-06-23T14:02:00.005+08:00

I'm over the jet lag, but the urge to write a story is much greater than the urge to blog. So here's a quick run down of what I've been up to since leaving Perth.

Highlight of the Flight: Seeing snow-capped Mt Fuji from the plane and a minefield of volcanoes on the approach to Seattle.

Awesome People I've spoken to: Vonda N. McIntyre, William Gibson, Paul Park, Gardner Dozois, Nisi Shawl, Connie Willis, Eileen Gunn

Awesome People I've heard speak on panels: Neil Stephenson, Jack Womack, Greg Bear, Charles N Brown plus some of above

Awesome People I've heard speak at the Hall of Fame: Peter Beagle, David Hartwell, Richard Gid Powers and Family, Rod Serling's Family and some of the above.

Awesome News I've heard: The announcement of the Locus Awards for Shaun Tan (for The Arrival ) and Jonathan Strahan (for The New Space Opera ed with Garder Dozois)

Spent lots of hours exploring nearby Seattle, sometimes with a walking stick, sometimes without, depending on how my foot feels at the time.

Finally, here's a picture which I'm sure BJR will love:

Blogging Seattle

2008-06-14T10:23:00.003+08:00

My son came home from school yesterday and told me that someone who reads my blog (Hello Elimy) is tired of reading the Steampunk entry I wrote back in April and wants to read something else. So, okay, here's something...

I'm off to Clarion West Seattle next week. Lists have been written, jobs have been finished, plans have been made. Just when I thought everything was running smoothly, I fell off a step and broke a bone in the top my foot (Navicular). Fortunately, after resting up for a few days (Ohhhh how frustrating), I can walk on it again, but only if I wear my hiking boots for ankle support. Well...I'm not going to argue with that because I love my hiking boots.

So now I'm frantically catching up again. I'd hoped to do some writing in preparation for Clarion, but I've done very little as I've been madly finishing off my proposal and writing a novel chapter so that when I get back I'll still be up to date with my uni timetable. I hear it's good to go with a clean slate, anyway. Hopefully, I'll leave all my old bad writing habits behind me, try things I haven't tried writing before, surprise myself.

My aim is to blog the Clarion Experience as much as I can without it interfering with my writing. So I'll aim for once a week, and possibly fit in a tad more.

Steampunk Music

2008-04-11T16:19:00.004+08:00

I was looking up Seattle today and found this link to Abney Park. I'm really liking this genre.

Reading Frenzy

2008-04-06T09:20:00.004+08:00

I've got to get this proposal out of the way, so I'm reading like crazy. This week I finished off China Mieville's Perdido Street Station which is a veritable feast and one book (along with The Scar and probably King Rat) that I'm going to refer to a lot in my PhD essay. Also read K.W. Jeter's Morlock Nights which is one of the first (or maybe THE first) Steampunk novel. I found this really useful in deciding which themes I want to pursue when I write about Mieville's work because it's by far less complex and easier to critique. Now I'm halfway through Gibson & Stirling's The Difference Engine which I hope to finish tomorrow. I love the writing in this book and I keep trying to figure out which bits Stirling wrote and which bits Gibson wrote, but that's not what I'm supposed to be looking for. Once that's read, I'm going to knuckle down to some proposal writing and also try and get through Tim Powers' Anubis Gates and something by Moorecock and Sean McMullen and maybe Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. Busy times ahead.

Hint: If your having trouble with pantry moths (which I am right now), Perdido Street Station is probably only going to make matters worse!!!

Why Seattle

2008-04-02T12:21:00.005+08:00

A friend asked me yesterday why I chose to apply to Clarion West, Seattle over San Diego and Brisbane. I've got to say, it was a difficult choice. All three Clarions have an excellent line up of tutors this year and I've heard excellent reports about all three from past students. If I'd had to base my decision on that alone, I would have ended up just pulling a straw out of a hat. Even when I sat down and thought hard about it, there were pros and cons on all three sides.

Brisbane Clarion, unfortunately is bad timing for me. January is Aussie summer and school holidays and the only time of the year all five of us are operating on the same wavelength. I'd hate to miss out on that. San Diego and Seattle Clarions, however, are right in the middle of Aussie winter. The kids have a 2 week break and Phil can take time off work to spend time with them. That leaves only 2 1/2 weeks of school either side of school hols. My 16 year old has end of semester exams, but my plan is to harass her into studying a few weeks before so she's at least a bit better prepared than she would have been if I were there. My 18 year old will be on uni break and my 13 year old will be simply cruising, as usual. So hopefully, when the time comes, I won't feel too guilty about leaving them. Next deciding factor was climate. Seattle is mild, San Diego is hot. I'll take mild over hot anytime. Also, I visited San Diego about 20 years ago, but not Seattle. Plus, Seattle has an enormous volcano (Mt Rainier) which might have some snow on top while I'm there, and will definitely have some walking tracks and spectacular woodland around it, so that's where I'm heading after the workshop: Mt Rainier for a day walk (or two).

I still can't believe I'm actually going!!!!

Edit: Another reason why it's better for me to do Clarion in June rather than January is that I'd be doing it early in my PhD rather than a third of the way through. That gives me more time to use what I learned, I reckon.

Still Flabbergasted About Clarion

2008-04-01T10:03:00.003+08:00

Today I really want to get my 500 words done, plus make headway on my PhD proposal, which of course, means lots of reading and thinking and 15 pages of theoretical writing. The trouble is, I want to do it all at once. And now I want to write a short story or two as practice for Clarion. I've been working on this novel for months, planning, writing, experimenting. I think I'm finally getting a good idea about what I want to do (Steampunk fantasy! who would have thought!). The world building has come together nicely. I have six very troubled characters and a tangled plot, which is possibly a reflection of my mental state at the moment (in a good way).

I also have an idea for a short story set in the world of my novel. I'm wondering if I should just let it ferment a bit in my head, then write it at Clarion in week one, to get me started. Last time I did that, with the 'Bridal Bier' -- a story I pretty much wrote over a week when I was supposed to be writing an English Essay on 'Why is Frankenstein' more than a gothic novel' -- I ended up with a pretty neat story, which ended up in Eidolon 1 and a couple of shortlists. At the time, it felt like a fluke, but now I think it was more the product of a few months of fermenting in my head.

This blog entry seems a bit stream-of-consciousness unfocussed, I know. But that's how my head's operating at the moment. Tomorrow, I'm booking my flight: most likely Seattle via Tokyo. Plus I'm back on hunter-gatherer food again, trying to keep the migraines at bay. Haven't had one in two weeks, so I guess it's working, probably because I'm not getting any refined sugar or msg (or basically, anything processed). Last time I did the hunter-gatherer thing, I remained migraine free for 8 weeks. It's hard on the will power, but worth it. Well worth it! And once you get the hang of it, it's easy to do: fresh fruit, veges and good, natural protein like eggs, fish, meat, nuts.

And the good news is...

2008-03-27T17:29:00.003+09:00

I've started my PhD. I'm writing at least 500 words of my novel per day. Daylight savings ends this weekend. I'm going to see Miss Saigon on Saturday. I'm going to the graduation ceremony to pick up my Honours on Monday. I get my first pay check from my scholarship soooon....

and this morning I got a phone call from Seattle.

I'm going to CLARION WEST!!!! YAY!!!!

Review: Tumble by Trent Jamieson (Podcast)

2008-02-08T10:18:00.001+09:00

Online at Pseudopod 74 25th January, 2008

I’m a big fan of podcasts, especially literary ones. I wack them on my ipod, then go for a walk around the burbs for an hour or two and come back well exercised and a little bit happier for having achieved two things at once. So when I discovered Pseudopod – a free horror podcaster – I thought I’d give it a try.

Horror is a genre I approach with trepidation. I’ve got to be in the mood to willingly stick with a character who, by dint of some twisted literary convention, is doomed. If I’m tempted to read horror, I look for stories that promise more than a vicarious shudder.

After listening to the first paragraph of Trent Jamieson’s Tumble with its juxtaposition of the fantastic and the believable (tiny cockroaches hissing in Mother Beet’s eyeball, perhaps irritated by the smoke of her cigarello) I knew I'd found something worth reading (or more accurately, listening to). The language is mature and convincing enough to give me more than one “aha” moment. When the narrator, Grieve, waxed philosophical, I knew exactly what he was on about, despite having been dropped into his strange and frightening world only minutes before.

Mother Beet is a scary crone in a world where demons run riot, where cities outside the main city (named Wish) are falling to ruin. Mother Beet’s son, Daniel, is even worse, a cold blooded murderer who has been known to eat the still-beating hearts of his victims. Grieve is ordered by Wish to eliminate Daniel and, although Grieve is no lawman at heart, he’s addicted to Wish and cannot refuse.

I found this story interesting because the horror works on two levels. In the big picture, there’s this science fictional world where people are literally addicted to a city that both nurtures and controls them. This is a neat statement about the way today’s city dwellers are addicted to and controlled by consumerism. It not only provides an unusual backdrop to the story, but also adds to the inevitable horror at the story’s conclusion.

On the second, more personal level, we have Grieve who is street-wise and driven, but terrified of the evil he chases. He must face it head on, no hesitation, no backing down. Even so, his success is not guaranteed even after the battle is over. That’s the trouble with evil. By the time I neared the end I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, things would work out for Grieve. But this is horror, right? Things do work out in horror, but not how you want.

Fortunately (for me) the gory bits are not overdone. Some is told with minimalist precision, enough to make me shudder but not enough to make me want to switch my ipod over to something a little less confronting. Other bits are told by evading the usual signifiers of violence and referring instead to peripheral happenings or memory. I found myself shocked by Mother Beet’s murder (told in flashback) almost as much as if I’d been shown it all in stream-of-consciousness detail.

Reading horror is one thing, listening to it is another. You absorb the words at a slower pace. There’s time to let them marinate and work up a stew of emotions. There’s inflexions and emphases that only a speaker can impart. Cheynne Wright’s voice is decidedly creepy in this podcast, and certainly adds a dark tone to an already dark story. After listening to the story twice (I walked 9 km during that time), I switched off and, for a few moments, felt a tad disorientated as if I'd returned from somewhere else. Suddenly, the Perth city skyline looked really pretty in sunlight.

A brief Getaway

2008-02-05T22:33:00.000+09:00

One reason why I love Eagle Bay

But three days isn't enough...
Now it's back to work. My MA (soon to be PhD) has begun...

Human v Inhuman II

2008-01-25T07:30:00.000+09:00

Review: Pahwakhe by Gord Sellar

Online at fantasy magazine 21st january, 2008

Spoiler Warning: Maybe this is more of a critique than a review. I don't like spoilers, but found it hard to write about this story without giving (what some readers may think) too much away. I don't think I have, but I thought I'd warn you just in case.

A tale of paternal love that is undermined by selfishness and greed. A man forces his daughter, Pahwakhe, to marry a ghostly visitor: a musician who takes her away to a place beyond the limits of the living. A year later a child is born – part-human/part-ghost – but it does not fit into its ghostly father’s world, so Pahwakhe returns to her parents, hoping her child can fit in here. Human love, it turns out, has the potential to either save this child or destroy it.

Pahwakhe is told mostly in the form of flashback and from first person point of view. This works really well here because, by choosing to leave certain emotions unsaid, the narrator (Pahwakhe’s father) exposes his flaws. His tragic moments are often understated yet at the same time illuminated.

The story feels very much like a tale told by a fireside. It is framed by two scenes set in the present which serve firstly to foreshadow the conflict and lastly, to reinforce the magnitude of that conflict. The prose is sometimes stark, sometimes lyrical and filled with images of startling clarity:

The singing voices out on the water are moving, sad fiddles calling out like broken birds. They’re coming here. I never imagined them returning.

The setting has an unearthly feel to it, possibly because there is little in the way of description of the normal world. The reader senses that the village is somewhere in North America from keywords such as ‘longhouse’ and ‘chiefs’ and ‘pemmican’, however the lack of reference to any distinctive feature does not rule out that this story could also be set in Polynesia, perhaps on a volcanic stony beach. But this does not matter. What’s important is the overlap between the worlds of the living and the dead: the fog through which the visitors arrive, the unsettling music, the ghostly faces.

On my first reading, I wasn’t sure if the narrator’s claim that the visitors were ghosts was meant to be taken literally or not. It rings true with indigenous people’s first encounters with Europeans, where they believed that pale skinned people were returned spirits, where poor farming practices damaged the land. I like this ambiguity. It grounds the story in both the real and the fantastic. Not knowing what is really happening until later is more unsettling than being told outright.

Although the narrator often understates his emotions, he is clearly miserable. This misery can be felt through his observations, eg, the strangers’ words were “heavy like stones” followed up later with “I cannot find the words. They’re heavy on my tongue, too, now.” His strongest emotion however – the one he dwells on the most – is his yearning to possess first his daughter and then later, his grandchild. Disturbingly, it is not love or sadness or remorse that he articulates most clearly, but his need to possess. For me, this is yet another of the story’s strengths.

Interesting to note is that where the previous story I reviewed (How To Hide Your Heart by Deborah Coates) focuses on acknowledging one’s humanity as a means to survive, this story does the opposite by showing humanity in a far from ideal form. Rather than bring people together, it drives them apart.

If I say any more, I’ll give away the ending. Instead, go read it yourself. It’s a neat little story with a lot to say.

On Reviewing

2008-01-23T15:37:00.000+09:00

This reviewing thing is a new experience for me. I’m new to the genre of fantasy, new to being a full-time writer/student. In the meantime, I’m just finding my feet – figuring out what’s new in fantasy literature, what’s old, what’s over-used, what’s different., what can and can’t be done. At this stage in my studies, I’m not sure. So most of my early reviews will not be taking historical aspects into consideration. I’ve yet to learn which themes have been done to death and how, what’s cliché and what’s not. I have a fair idea, but that’s all. I’ll need to read some more to make sure. Hopefully I’ll learn how to make old themes look original (if such a thing is possible). So right now I’m reading and reviewing purely for the pleasure of it. Purely for the story.

I’ve started by looking up Duotrope’s Digest (A Resource for Fiction Writers and Poets). This generated a long list of online fantasy magazines to sort through. Thus begins this current leg of my journey…

Human v Inhuman

2008-01-22T14:39:00.001+09:00

Review: How To Hide Your Heart
by Deborah Coates

Online at Strange Horizons
21st January, 2008

Max is a hunter of ‘Things’: inhuman creatures (or maybe demons) that take the form of ‘not-zombies’, ‘not-vampires’, ‘not-wendigoes’. When not hunting, Max attempts to deny his own humanity by remaining homeless, indulging himself in brief liaisons with “girls whose hearts won't break.” When hunting, he is helped by people who do not understand what they are helping with.

Then he meets Beth. Plain, sloppily dressed, Beth’s only promising feature appears to be her prowess at driving cars. But Beth, it turns out, knows more about ‘Things’ than Max realizes. Max wants to use her for her skill and then forget her; but Beth is much more world-wise than she looks. Her connection with Max has the potential to make or break him.

There’s a lot I liked about this piece of urban fantasy. I liked the way the inhuman creatures mean different things to different people. The reader doesn’t really get to ‘see’ what they look like – or even understand what they are – but mostly ‘feels’ their effects: the fear they provoke and the deadly chase where the stakes are not exactly spelled out but are implied as being more than just a loss of life. Even in the story’s two violent encounters we see only darkness, shadows and claws. The only thing we are really sure of is that there’s going to be a battle.

Without the added strength provided by the tentative relationship between Beth & Max, I think this story would have ended up as just another ‘let’s go kill monsters’ story'. On the other hand, without the monsters, Beth and Max would never have connected, let alone found common ground. As unlikely as it seems (in Max’s mind), the two spark from the beginning, albeit reluctantly. This compelled me to read on and although the ending is by no means a resolution, it is certainly a satisfying exploration of human need struggling in the shadow of inhuman aspiration.

Reviewing

2008-01-22T14:33:00.000+09:00

I'm certainly not a practiced reviewer, but I thought I'd have a go at writing one a couple of times a week. I'm pretty sure there's a handful of friends who are interested in reading and writing as much as I am. Satima? Helen? Sonia? Jessica? Anudhara?

Okay, so I'm blogging my thoughts on people's stories. I'm only going to write about the ones I like at this stage. Plus I'm currently learning about reading fantasy (in the past I've read mostly science fiction), so hopefully this will give me a better understanding. Did I tell you my thesis is about fantasy?

Oh...and if I don't review your story, it doesn't mean I didn't like it. There's way to many stories for me to blog them all, let alone read them :)

Many successes

2007-12-20T08:32:00.000+09:00

My KSP buddy Sonia Helbig has won second prize in the fourth quarter of the Writers of the Future Contest. Huge congrats to Sonia. Another friend, Ian McHugh, has also won a prize in the third quarter of the same contest. Ian used to be a member of KSP, but now lives in Canberra. Great to see people's hard work start to pay off. Best wishes and many more successes to you both.

I'm also feeling chuffed as UWA has offered me a scholarship to do an MA in Creative Writing, which I'll most likely upgrade to a PhD at the end of 2008. All this means, of course, is that now I absolutely must finish my novel, so I'd better get writing.

Aurealis Award Nominations 2008

2007-12-11T11:17:00.000+09:00

Aurealis Award Nominations 2008 have been announced over at the award website here. Big congratulations to all nominees. I've read and enjoyed a few of the works listed so it's good to see these people getting recognition.

The Novel Takes Over

2007-11-05T14:35:00.000+09:00

Dear Blog,

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. I've been working on my novel and now I have 10,000 words. That can only be a good thing. 90,000+ to go,

Will finish blogging Denmark Bibbulmum when I need time out.

Sir George the baby Brushtailed Phascogale

2007-10-07T10:31:00.000+08:00

We found Sir George huddled up on the decking at the back of the house we were staying in. At first we thought he was a marsupial mouse (his body was about 5 cm long), maybe injured because he made no attempt to run away from us. Then we realised he was actually a very young baby of something much larger, maybe a possum: eyes closed, nuzzling blindly, barely able to crawl. Every now and then he'd make a chirping noise and something on the roof would chirp back. We decided to leave him alone in case his mother returned. But she didn't. The next morning we found him curled up in the BBQ cover we'd left on the ground, still chirping, still nuzzling. So we made him a little nest out of a Jatz box and tissues, hoping that his mother would come back while we were out walking. But she didn't. The next morning he was still in the box, still chirping and nuzzling, no sign of scat or mother, so we took him to the ranger. The ranger was quite pleased to receive him. "They're not common around here," he said. He then took it to a carer who would look after it until it was old enough to be set free.

Good luck Sir George.

Here's some info about Brush-tailed Phascogales

Bibbulmun Track: Light's Beach to William Bay Campsite

2007-10-06T14:33:00.000+08:00

2nd October:

4.5 km (9km return)

We chose this walk because it promised views and not too many hills. The trouble was, the views were too good, the wildflowers too prolific. We kept stopping to just stand and look and take photos. Here we are on the first leg.

I knew walking around Denmark was going to be good, but I hadn't realised it was going to be this good. The track led us over a beach where we had to leap over a creek mouth. "What do we do if the tide comes in?" B asks. "Wade," we say. I didn't mind if I got my shoes wet, but as it turned out, they really are waterproof.

Sometimes we walked through trees:

And sometimes through sand. Some of us liked to stop for a close up look at the wildlife:

Some of us needed help up the hills:

We all liked sitting on rocks to admire the views:

More views:

My Top Three

2007-09-03T19:17:00.000+08:00

Satima has been blogging about her all time favourite books, so I thought I'd join in for fun.

My favourite sf book would have to be Jules Verne's Journey To the Centre of the Earth because this is the first sf book I read at around the age of ten. I loved it then because, wow, what an adventure! I wanted to take up caving just to feel what it would be like and fifteen years later I did, getting myself into water-filled sink holes down at Mt Gambier as well as dry caves that had me squeezing through underground tunnels for hours. And yes I did find a deep cave with a giant lake in it, but no dinosaurs. One of the things I really like about Journey to the Centre of the Earth is that, at the time of writing, some of the science was wrong. Neptunism was already discredited. Even so, the story has endured because it's a good story.

Another favourite would have to be Jeanette Winterson's The Passion. Yep it's about passion and a woman from Venice with webbed feet who cross dresses and works in a casino and falls in love and cooks for Napoleon. Beautiful imagery and a touch of history and fantasy. It's a book I read every couple of years because it's such wonderful writing.

And as for the classics, well, I just can't make up my mind over those: Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy. Too hard to choose. So maybe, Twelfth Night, Great Expectations and Tess of the D'Urbervilles or maybe Far from the Madding Crowd.

Can't choose. Sorry.

A story finished

2007-09-01T09:17:00.000+08:00

It feels good to finish a story. This latest one I've been working on for nearly a year. I write it, put it away for a few weeks, rewrite some, put it away again. This week, after sending it to my writers' group for a crit, I played with it some more and at last it feels finished. And I'm proud of it.

Thanks Helen and Satima for your input. It really really helped. The story is on the first leg of doing it's rounds, so I'm hoping.

Online Alien Stories

2007-08-26T13:30:00.000+08:00

No bushwalking today as we all baulked at getting wet. Though I don't mind the rain as I have a new rain jacket, guaranteed waterproof. But no one else was keen and, well, reading and writing is just as good.

Instead I messed around reading online fiction and was quite impressed with the stories I read on Strange Horizons. I like stories about aliens and thought two stories by a writer from Nova Scotia, Joanne Merriam, were excellent. Joanne is also a poet and some of her poems are up at her website and worth checking out. Two stories that I especially liked were Little Ambushes (about an alien who is visiting Earth in order to learn the basics of human art) and Harvest (an alien abduction story). Both are quite short and economical, a pleasure to read, and show a whole lot more than the sum of their parts.

I also liked The Girl From Another World by Leah Bobet which is more about alienation, but very nicely done.

Walking The Burbs

2007-08-23T12:18:00.000+08:00

The suburbs are weird to walk in during the day. Imagine if suddenly all the cars disappeared. The streets would be deserted.

Three or four times a week I like to walk about 800 metres down to the local shops and pick up a few extra groceries to get me through till I’m desperate enough to drag myself to the generic supermarket. And the crazy thing is, you can walk all the way there and all the way back and not pass another walker. There’s plenty of cars going past and who knows where they’ve come from. Total strangers all of them. As are the owners of most of the houses I see. I’ve walked past them a thousand times and have no idea who lives in them. The doors are locked, windows opaqued with blinds or curtains. There’s room in the driveways for two or three cars. No kids playing outside, but there’s signs of them in the front yards with playground equipment and discarded toys. Crazy, though, I’m having much more luck getting to know which houses own cats. There’s the calico one that’s always on the veranda two blocks away. And a couple of houses after that, there’s a black one that likes to sit on the steps and blink at you as you pass. The dogs aren’t all that friendly, yapping as if I’m out to steal something. Last week I saw more people walking the Bibbulmun track than I see walking during the daytime in the burbs.

Six o’clock in the morning is a different story. The footpaths are so full of the usual crowd of joggers and walkers it’s like you’re walking on a conveyer belt, the same faces passing you everyday. I have no idea who they are though. We can’t stop and get to know each other because we’re all too busy keeping fit.

It’s the cars I blame for this. I wish we didn’t need them so much.

2007 KSP Science Fiction & Fantasy Award

2007-08-20T08:37:00.000+08:00

Huge congratulations to my KSP buddies Helen Venn and Sonia Helbig for their successes in this year's KSP award, with Helen taking First Prize and a Highly Commended and Sonia a Commended. List of winners as posted at Helen's blog:

Shire of Mundaring National Young Writers' Awards

1st place Melissa Wellam (ACT) The Succubus
2nd place Monica Revy (WA) The Day of Reckoning

Commended
Stephanie Wong (WA) Unfolding Plots and Story Lines
(Gingerbread)

Open Section

1st place Helen Venn (WA) The Healing
2nd place Susan Wardle (NSW) The Chance

Highly Commended
Helen Venn (WA) Surrogate

Commended
B.J. Thomason Uptoun Wells
Sonia Helbig (WA) Trillion Dollar Baby
M. LeGuier (WA) Deathwatch
Monica Carroll (ACT) Dog Luck

Congratulations to everyone. I look forward to seeing your stories in print.

Bibbulmun Track: Hills Forest Discovery Centre to South Ledge (Return Trip)

2007-08-19T20:05:00.000+08:00

Hills Forest to South Ledge: 4.25km (8.5km return)

Okay, so we’d planned to do 16km all up, but B forgot his raincoat and … well, as expected, it rained (excuses excuses :)

Today was the official beginning of our end to end walk of the Bibbulmun track, a long-distance walking track that is almost 1000km long and stretches from the hills town of Kalamunda to the southern town of Albany. Though, seeing as we only have one car, we should probably be calling it our *end to end to end* walk because, until we can work out a better system (ie, find a second car) most of our walks are going to be return trips. Our aim is to try to walk at least once every two weeks and we’re in no hurry to finish, so it may take us anything up to twenty years before we can call ourselves end to enders. Though if we’re brave enough, things could speed up a bit next year if we decide to do some two or three day walks, overnighting at shelters.

We joined the trail at the Hills Forest Discovery Centre and a short walk through a nice thick growth of jarrah, marri & wandoo trees to the Weir View Lookout. I’d forgotten how pretty the iron-stained dirt looked in winter, still damp from recent rain and edged with lush growth (well, lush by Australian standards, anyway). The air smelled of wattle and eucalyptus. Black cockatoos winged overhead and a couple of rabbits darted across the trail in front of us, so quick I was convinced that their fur was green, instead of brown. It was nice to see the dam looked nearly full – I’ve never seen so much water in it.

The trail continued to wind downhill, towards Mundaring Weir. Up here, the signs of civilization are never far away. Cars, motorbikes on the road nearby. Aeroplanes that may or may not be thunder. For a short while, we followed the water pipes that carry water to Kalgoorlie and stopped long enough to put our ears against them to find out if you can actually hear the water flowing through. You can. Or maybe it was the pumps we heard. Then past the Mundaring Hotel where a group of bikers lounged under the veranda, a couple of shiny BMWs and a Triumph parked out front. Brought back memories, but no, I prefer to be on foot these days. My new boots feel like they’re custom made and I want to walk all day.

After crossing the Mundaring Weir we headed uphill again towards South Ledge and the Golden View Lookout, past great views of the valley. Wildflowers are emerging already – wattle, little purple orchids (?Purple flags), lots of yellow buttercupy things (darn, I need to get myself a wildflower book). It started raining just as we reached the lookout. The Mundaring Weir is about one and half kilometres back the way we came and 120 metres below, but the view over it is worth walking to.

Then we had to turn around. “If it stops raining when we get back to the car, we can do a few kilometres towards Ball Creek Campsite,” they told me. But we didn’t. We went to the Lavender Tea house instead and ate Lavender Scones and Lavender Cheesecake and drank tea and hot chocolate and made plans to walk again next week, hopefully a tad further.

Let The Blogging Begin ... Again

2007-08-15T09:39:00.000+08:00

Okay, so blogging's addictive.