Mar 30

*expletive deleted*

GodDAMN it!

Doing my usual exercises yesterday aggravated the back, for reasons I do not understand. There was no pop or crunch or twinge, just slow build up of pain and oh boy yay we’re back there again are we?

I’m SO angry at myself for letting this happen! Revision was finished, new story begun and now I can’t sit in this bloody chair for any decent amount of time. At least I can walk properly again today, yesterday I was doing the zombie shuffle.

DAMN.

Mar 30

Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror Vol 3!

Via HorrorScope:

After a delay, Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror Volume 3 (ADFH3) goes on sale in bookstores around the country this week.

This anthology is the third installment in the annual dark fiction anthology edited by Angela Challis and published by Brimstone Press.

The table of contents is:

  • “Subtle Invasion” by David Conyers (Australian Shadows Award nominee)
  • “The Dark and What It” by Said Rick Kennett (Ditmar Award winner)
  • “Between the Memories” by Matthew Chrulew (Australian Shadows Award nominee)
  • “The Wildflowers” by Marty Young
  • “The Jeweller of Second-hand Roe” by Anna Tambour (Aurealis Award winner)
  • “A Scar for Leida” by Deborah Biancotti (Aurealis Award winner)
  • “Special Perceptions” by Richard Harland (Australian Shadows Award nominee)
  • “Dead Air” by Gary Kemble
  • “There Was Darkness” by Martin Livings (Australian Shadows Award nominee)
  • “The Ringing Sound of Death on the Water Tank” by Stephanie Campisi
  • “Trail of Dead” by Joanne Anderton
  • “Kadimakara and Curlew” by Jason Nahrung
  • “Lion’s Breath” by Miranda Siemienowicz
  • “The Cutting Room” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings
  • “Signs of Death” by Sean Williams

    • I can’t wait to see it. And Oh My! look at that TOC. I feel humbled and excited to be in there.

    Mar 27

    More gardening distractions…

    You don’t want to hear me complain about these words. I don’t want to hear me complain about these words. Instead, more gardening.

    A miniature forest in my miniature greenhouse. Broccoli, tomatoes, onions.

    Poor experiments. My first test subjects.

    See, even vegetable growing can be creepy.

    creepy growing food

    And blurry.

    Mar 25

    Gardening, not revision

    Revision is starting. And because the details of revision (‘wtf does that mean?’ ‘when did I forget how to use punctuation?’) are less interesting to other people than they are to me, I’m going to talk about gardening stuff instead.

    Poking around at the plants this arvo I met an extraordinary creature. Check him out!

    A giant!

    Giant caterpillar! Look at his cute feet:

    But I didn’t want him eating my happily-growing creeper with the pretty flowers. So off he goes.

    Didn’t want to kill him either, so we was transplanted to the jasmine growing wild in the backyard. He can eat that all he likes.

    As it turns out, he is an Australasian Privet Hawk Moth. At least, he will be. Prettier at this stage, I think.

    Mar 23

    Fiiinally

    First draft. Done.

    You know how some stories are harder to write than others? Yeah, this was one of those. The first draft has finally come in at 11,000 odd words but boy, oh, boy does it need some work.

    This little bugger of a tale did not want to participate. The reasons for this are many and varied (because I know you’re all just dying to know what these are…) The main reason was the pressure I felt writing it. I felt it had to be more than good. It had to be perfect. This led to a kind of performance anxiety-paralysis when I would write a few words, stare at them, gnaw fingers, stare at them some more. Not conducive to the actual writing. In the midst of the first draft some other, exciting things happened and suddenly, it was really difficult to focus. Then the whole reason I was so hung-up on getting the damned thing perfect fell through, and suddenly I was left with a ‘is there still any point’ feeling. Which, of course, there was. But still, it was a battle to keep fingers on keys.

    Ahh, writerly angst. Don’t you just love it.

    Anyway, it’s done. I’m actually looking forward to the revision. Just wait for me to eat those words when I realise how much revision will need to be done.