Darkling Muse

Pack up yer bags...

2012-01-19T10:34:00.000+11:00

...cos I'm moving.

This blog will no longer be updated as my new one, Screaming Ink, has kicked into life (we had to drag it from the bowels of hell so it's not impressed at being thrust under the spotlight, but we have it well chained down so it's not going anywhere).

Screaming Ink is a consortium of the imaginarium, a group blog set up with AJ Spedding, Mark Farrugia, Juliet Bathory, Dave Schembri, and myself. We're all just that little bit wacky so we get along fine--plus they're a talented bunch so I figured I should ride along on their coattails and live off their success :)

We've got some big plans this year, some exciting announcements to make (but not allowed to for a few months), and some even bigger crazy plans I haven't spoken to anyone about yet... So stay tuned, grab your gear, and head on over to the new place. There'll be free scotch on arrival (but you'll have to pour it yourself. From your own bottle).

Oh, and while you're at it, check out my all new website: www.martyyoung.com - it's still being built with some wild artwork to come from Big D, but I think it's starting to look all right.

The Death of '11 and a Warm Welome to the End of the World

2011-12-30T20:06:00.000+11:00

2011 was crap, shit, a big dog's poo and there I was, standing right in the middle of it--in bare feet. My shifty sideshow freak of a muse had gone off with the circus clowns and was enjoying wild, kinky sex backstage, leaving me to stand in my crap alone.

So come New Year's, I'm going to have a bonfire and burn the ghosts and demons of this past year, then bury those ashes well and good. Maybe they'll rise from the grave in true zombie fashion but if they do, I'll be ready for them cos none of that shite is coming back this new year.

Sure, it might very well be the end of the world in 2012 but it's going to be a fun ride towards the end as far as I'm concerned. I have plans, great big, no-poo-on-my-shoe plans--and I'll be hunting down my muse and dragging him off the circus freaks and hauling him back into my dark domain--he'd best pull up his pants too, cos there is writing to do.

I said 2011 was a bad year and it was, at work, at home, and in my writing. It sucked. But there were some good things to come from '11; my mate Rosscoe got married, I made my first pro short story sale, Tanya and I got a dog, I took on the Executive Editor role at Midnight Echo magazine, and (finally!) semi-began my new career as a consultant.

Other than that pro-sale (which was fucking awesome), my writing career pretty much stagnated; I wrote two short stories over the course of the year and both remain unpublished (one was rejected with the words '...while this was a strong story, one I really enjoyed, it doesn't quite fit the direction the anthology is going...' and that's a very sucky rejection...). I subbed novel number 1 to the agent fella and he said that he loves my writing but the novel was too slow paced for this day and age. He did, however, ask me to send him my next novel--but I didn't end up finishing the final edits on that novel.

I told you, this year sucked. It's like the engine just wouldn't tick over, and every time it did and I'd find first, a little old nun would tumble out onto the road in front of me and I'd have to wait for her to finish crossing. By the time she was across, the engine had died again...

Now I'm not sure about making New Year's resolutions as I don't think they last much past the first hangover of the year, but I've made some resolutions regardless and they are:
1. Finish novel number 2 and get it to my awesome editor in California, and then to the agent fella in London. Deadline is ASAFP (February at the latest)
2. Review novel number 1 and sharpen it up in line with the agent fella's and my HWA-mentor's comments. Deadline is 2 months from starting on it.
3. Write 3 short stories and submit them to pro-markets.
4. Sort out my website and blog. Deadline is NOW!
5. Learn about self-publishing and sit down with a very stiff scotch and seriously consider going this route--perhaps whilst chasing down agents.

I think the writing industry will see some big changes in 2012 and we're smack in the middle of it all. It's exciting.

Some other possibilities for 2012:
1. Take a course in publishing/editing
2. Take a course in marketing
3. Learn how to use InDesign
4. Pick up my pencil and paintbrush and get back into my art

All through it all, I intend to feed my muse so his appetite is sated and he has no need for those other sideshow freaks and he can focus his interests on me, instead. Him and I, we have business to attend to, this new coming year...

Starting now, actually.

Now This I Like...

2011-12-14T11:06:00.001+11:00

David Conyers has just announced on his blog a new anthology he is co-editing, and it's something that has my imagination soaring. The anthology is called Extreme Planets, and as David says:

Chaosium is expanding into new lines of speculative fiction. Extreme Planets will be the first of these publications, with a science fiction anthology of short stories set on or about alien worlds that push the limits of what we believe is possible in a planetary environment.

Story length is 4,000 to 10,000 words (they may accept a couple of novellas up to 20,000 words from established authors), with payment at US 3 cents a word and 3 contributor copies. So that all sounds pretty sweet, but more important is the subject matter.

Before I turned to geology, I was studying astronomy at uni; I had always wanted to be an astronomer and used to spend many nights when I was very young sitting on the shed roof at home with my trusty telescope and notebook, writing down my observations under red cellophane-wrapped torchlight. Yes, I was a geek. Even now, I'll sit outside deep in the night when no one else is stirring and watch the sky (although now I often have a scotch to keep me company instead of my telescope; I'm saving up for a big juicy telescope at the moment, one that will show the rings of Saturn in clear detail).

The problem I found with astronomy as a degree was the physics and calculus and chemistry... All daunting subjects, and when you started getting so in-depth, you began losing the magic. I enjoyed classical astronomy as that taught the history of the subject, and I did pass astrophysics, but then I discovered keg nights hosted by the geology department and I was lost to the dark side...

I've always maintained a strong interest in astronomy though and have been following the ongoing exoplanet discoveries with a sense of wonder. There are some spectacular worlds out there, seemingly pinched straight from sci-fi novels, and there are some very exciting ones too, especially those perched right within the Goldilocks Zone. There might just be some exciting times ahead...

So it looks like I have a short story to write...(AFTER I finish novel 2)...

The State of Pro Markets

2011-12-07T11:38:00.001+11:00

One of my New Year's resolutions--which actually kicked off last week--is to first and foremost target pro markets (5c/word or more) with my writing from now on (unless there is an anthology I love the sound of, or am asked to contribute somewhere by someone I respect). To get a clear understanding of the state of pro markets, I browsed Ralan's market report and this is what I found.

There are currently 47 pro markets listed. Of that number:

4 are closed til Jan 1, 2012 or later
1 is indefinitely closed
2 are merging
5 are closed until further notice
1 is dead
1 is not recommended due to lack of response to submissions and queries
1 is listed as having subs open by assignment only
1 is closed to unsolicited submissions

That leaves 32 currently open to subs. That's a pretty healthy number of markets. Response times range from a few weeks to 4 months, which is also pretty good.

Breaking this down even further to remove those who do not accept the type of story I write (ie horror/sci-fi), I find that:

1 is open to adventure fantasy only
1 is Canadian and only publish a limited number of international stories
2 are for readers aged 9-14
1 does not accept horror
2 publish mystery/crime only
2 publish stories set in an existing 17th century world
1 is a 'magazine of wholesome fun' for children up to the age of 12
1 is a literary magazine for children
1 is medieval fantasy and set in an existing universe

This now leaves 20 pro markets currently open to horror/sci-fi submissions. Still a good number but not as good as the 32 I first thought were available. But for someone like me who only manages to write 2 or 3 short stories a year, this should be more than enough to keep me busy.

I also found 2 pro rate anthologies currently open to submissions, although one seems a bit dubious...

To self-publish or not to self-publish...

2011-11-24T13:57:00.000+11:00

I've been reading a bit lately about the 'new' publishing world, and how self-publishing has become a legitimate way for a writer to become published. It's an interesting time, to say the least, and one that's making me sit down and seriously consider the direction I take my career.

Some of the advice I'm reading (from more than one refutable source) includes:

why you no longer need an agent but an IP attorney instead.

also included in this was why you should ignore publishing houses who say they will not accept unagented queries or submissions and send them a very professional submission package

why going both routes (ie, indie publishing and the traditional way) should be the new normal now, as this provides you with options when it comes to negotiating contracts etc.
how being self-published will not impact on your chances with a traditional publisher
how being a smart writer is vital; this includes learning all there is to know about self-publishing and knowing a scam when you see one

All of this is of course built upon the basic premise that you know how to write well, you have your work edited by someone who knows how to edit, you have a stylish, eye-catching cover (because believe it or not but people do judge books by their covers), and you make sure your book is correctly formatted.

There are numerous resources out there now to help you self-publish in the best way possible (okay, I'm writing this mostly as notes for myself while I consider my writing future, because in typical Marty fashion, I'm about a year behind everyone else on this), and David H Burton provides a brilliant post listing a lot of extremely useful info (after explaining why you really should avoid Penguin's self-publishing program Book Country) regarding this. There are enough links on that page to keep you reading for days...

Interesting times... I don't profess to know anywhere near enough about the pros and cons of self-publishing versus going the traditional route, but I will definitely be reading up on this topic. I had a short story published on Horror World back in April that is now no longer available to the public; maybe I should consider self-publishing this?

Novel update: am finishing off my last short story for the year and will then be delving back into novel #2, with the aim of finishing the edits by the end of the year. Then I'll revise novel #1, perhaps with the aim of turning that into a novella.

Just brought another eBook, too (damn you one-click purchase!): The Indie Journey by Scott Nicholson

Finding That Write Balance

2011-11-22T10:58:00.001+11:00

The thing I struggle with most when it comes to writing is finding the right balance between short stories and novels. I invest so much of myself into the telling of either that to switch between them is really difficult.

When I'm working on a novel, it's all I think about; I live with my characters and explore their worlds, I research every aspect of their universe until I know the predominant wind patterns and what time the sun sets and how it looks casting the last of its light across the hills bordering town. I know everything there is to know; I spend a year with these characters in their world. I'm their best mate and worst enemy.

Writing a novel is a huge investment, and I find myself needing to work on it without break in order to maintain the flow.

It's the same with short stories, which I find extremely difficult to write and probably why I only get one or two done a year. But I still find myself deeply immersed in those smaller worlds, so much so that when, a month or two later when I emerge, I have no idea where I was up to with my novel and have to go back to the start so I'm confident I'm not forgetting important threads.

I really admire those who can do this effortlessly, and often wish I was one of them because there is a lot of reward in having short stories published.

My HWA mentor once told me when I raised this with her that the horror writing genre is small and because of that, we tend to get a skewed perception of each others' success. For instance, unless you publish in the NYer, Glimmer Train, Harpers, etc, it's really not going to do much for your career as a novelist. Not many people in the big houses know what Cemetery Dance or any of the genre mags are, so those credentials aren't going to do much apart from make you feel good about yourself.

There's nothing wrong with feeling good about yourself, and if novels aren't your thing, then there's certainly no problem in living in this small press world. My HWA mentor also said that it's good to write short stories because sometimes your best work comes when you're running free, and that I completely agree with.

As a writer, ideas come to me all of the time, and when these ideas have been fed and nurtured just enough, they need to be born or they go on to haunt your head, growing up into indomitable mutants suckling off your creativity. So writing shorts is necessary--although as someone who is always looking out for my next novel to write, I'm probably feeding these ideas on KFC and bacon until they're fat little buggers. Maybe that explains why I find the writing process so painful...

Sometimes though, you know when you have a short story and not a novel idea, and that's good. But then I still have to remove myself from my novel world and invest myself into this temporary short story world, and that's hard work. Back when I was doing my PhD and living, breathing, science 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it was all but impossible to switch between science writing and fiction writing.

I sometimes think it's a bit the same with novel and short story writing.

Macabre eBook is now available

2011-10-18T12:09:00.000+11:00

Great news!

The eBook version of the Australian Shadows Award winning and Bram Stoker nominated Macabre; A Journey through Australia's Darkest Fears is now available via Amazon and Smashwords, and is expected to be available via all other outlets by Oct 30.

It's only $4.99, and that's one hell of a bargain for this 672 page tomb containing 38 short stories by some of the past, present, and future masters of Australian horror. Over 200 years of terror, now at your fingertips.

Also, the Print On Demand version has been accepted by Lightning Source and is expected to be available via its global distribution network within 4 – 8 weeks. I'll have more information on this version in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, for the price of a hamburger you can now purchase your very own copy of Macabre, and that's just cool.

It's alive (again)! ALIVE (again)!!

2011-09-28T22:13:00.000+10:00

Well, it turns out I get bored if I'm not waist-deep involved in the spec-fic scene... So say hello to the new (again) Executive Editor of Midnight Echo magazine.

First point of business was to set up the magazine with it's own website, which we've done. Check it out here (I had a slight accident with the url--don't ask--but we'll be moving to midnightechomagazine.com in November).

Then we decided to double payment rates, from 1c/word to 2c/word. We're planning on getting those rates up to professional rates of 5c/word...

And to celebrate this 're-launch,' we're holding a massive subscription drive across the Halloween month. There are loads of prizes to give away, including $200 in cold, hard cash! So don't miss out. Take out a subscription!

The website also provides all the latest news regarding the up-coming sci-fi horror issue 6, edited by David Conyers, David Kernot, and Jason Fischer, plus submission guidelines for issue 7, to be edited by Daniel Russell and with the delectable theme of taboos...

So go check it out--and better yet, help us spread the word.

Exciting News

2011-09-07T22:29:00.000+10:00

So I have some cool news to announce but I think I'll leave that for a bit and instead share with you one of my favourite childhood memories from TV land. Sesame Street, of all places, back when the Cookie Monster was only interested in cookies, and the only definition for the word 'gay' with Ernie and Bert meant laughter and fun.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, are the Yip-Yips, encountering a radio:

Funny what sticks in your mind, but I remember these things so clearly. Remember them finding a phone for the first time, too. Ah, such times :)

Writing times, Macabre the eBook - plus Spider Goats!

2011-08-16T16:05:00.001+10:00

I've had my bum firmly planted in my seat lately, writing away til the wee small hours of the night when it seems I'm the only one left alive in the world. With so much silence surrounding me, the writing has been going well. Heck, I've even managed to cram in a short story, almost ready to submit. Got two others burning holes in my cranium in order to get out so I really need to write them down before I fill up with water next time it rains.

Novel 2 is coming on strong and it's an action-packed joyride into psychosis and paranoia, and maybe a dash of a global conspiracy, too. It's been fun to write, and far more up tempo than my usual psychological style. I wonder if this will come across in future short stories?

The eBook version of Macabre is well and truly a happening thing so expect this within the next month or so. All the contributors are on board and it will be great to see the anthology released in this format. It will make it far more accessible to the wider public as I know postage costs have been causing headaches for some, especially those on the other side of the world. I'll post more on this in the lead up to its release.

And now for something truly different. Spider Goats! Awesome. Yes, I know they're old news but I love 'em. It seems as if there is a new use for the silk gene that has been introduced into goats, and that is to use it to make bulletproof skin for humans! A wonderfully wacky scientist is working on this, and even plans to replace the keratin in our skin with spider silk so our bodies become bulletproof!

Sometimes it's like I fell asleep and woke up in a truly weird place...

Alfred Hitchcock is back!

2011-08-03T16:32:00.000+10:00

It seems one of Alfred Hitchcock's earliest films, 'The White Shadow,' has been unearthed in the land of the hobbits (that's New Zealand, for those who don't know their hobbits). It was found amongst a collection of unlabelled American nitrate prints that had been stashed away for the past twenty-odd years and only now come to light.

Only the first 3 reels of the 6-reel feature film made back in 1923 have been found. Hitchcock was 24 at the time, and was credited as the writer, assistant director, editor, and production designer. This is the earliest feature film with his name on it. Not sure if the rest of the film will ever be recovered though, as apparently no other copies exist.

But what a find this is! I'm a huge Hitchcock fan; he made some brilliant movies and was a true master of the suspense film. The White Shadow, which starred Betty Compson as twin sisters, one of which didn't have a soul, will be shown on September 22 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Los Angeles. Not sure when/if it'll be shown in Australia, but it sounds interesting...

If they don't find the rest of the film, I wonder who they could get to complete it...?

Two Great Review

2011-07-29T19:23:00.000+10:00

I don't post enough reviews of my stories on this rustly ol' blog so I figured now was a good time to start changing that.

Innsmouth Free Press has just posted a wonderful review of Macabre, one that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside (or is that the scotch?). Anyway, go check it out to see for yourself. Here's just a little taste:

"The foreword, by Dr. Young, gives an insightful overview of the development of Australian horror literature and sets up the reader for the stories within. The attention to detail, and the hours (upon hours) both editors spent researching and reading, shows their passion for the genre and its cultural significance for those of us who read and write dark fiction."

And this bit:

"There are stories in here for everyone – from those who like their horror dark and visceral, to those who like the quiet creep that lures your imagination into working with them. Macabre, like the stories in the ‘Classics’ section, is an anthology for the ages and I cannot recommend it enough."

Again, that's just awesome. And although the publisher, Brimstone Press, has closed its furnaces, Macabre is still available in all good bookshops, or by contacting me directly. There will also be some POD (Print On Demand) options shortly available, and hopefully it will be re-released as an eBook in the near future.

There has also been a review of Dead Red Heart posted on sheneverslept.com. It's a good review too (cos DRH is a great collection!). Here's some juicy tidbits:

"With “Desert Blood” by Marty Young bringing back Yara-Ma and “Breaking The Drought” by Jay Caselberg introducing the Wandjina from the DreamTime of Aboriginal creation stories, the vampire stories from Australia are both very rich in myth and psychology..."

And:

"I have been fortunate in this volume not only to be entertained but to actually learn something as well. I recommend Dead Red Heart for readers without a fixed notion of what monsters should be like (or at least the ability to put those notions aside)."

It was given 4 out of 5 tentacles.

For information on where to buy Dead Red Heart, check out Ticonderoga's website.

In other, sadder, news, Blade Red Press is shutting it's doors. They only put out two books during their all too brief existence, but one of them was Dark Pages, which included my story 'Clip Notes.' This anthology was nominated for an Australian Shadows award in 2010, and while it didn't win, here's what the awards' Guest Judge Rocky Wood had to say:

"Dark Pages 1 (and let’s hope there are more) is a treat – a collection of dark fiction ranging outside the horror genre (including science fiction) and including authors from outside Down Under. Marty Young’s neat little “Clip Notes” has the classic Twilight Zone feel to it and is but one example of what makes this anthology a deeply satisfying read."

There's only limited time left to get copies of Blade Red Press' books before they're discontinued, so don't waste time reading this. Go to their website now. Now, I say, now!

Right, I've got a short story to write--oh, just on that note, I've added 5 or so new markets to my Markets page that might be worth checking out... Now then, where's my scotch?

The Frightningly Awesome Past Part II

2011-07-25T16:25:00.000+10:00

Me being the nutty doctor that I am, with a geekish like of all things dinosaur and geologically past (as I've said once before, where better to get wild and crazy ideas for monsters?), I came across an article in one of my geeky science magazines on some new species of Mesozoic crocodiles.

The one that really caught my eye was this beastie:

It's called a 'BoarCroc' and it lived in the wetlands of the Sahara about 100 million years ago. Nasty looking fella, right?

This chap stood upright and would've been about 6 meters long, with 3 sets of fangs that jutted above and below his snout when it was closed. The BoarCroc has been described as 'rough and tumble,' and as 'a sabre-tooth cat in armour.' It would have also feasted on dinosaurs that came to waterholes to drink, charging up on land to get them.

This thing is awesome--but I'm glad it's extinct...

Disturbing Dinner

2011-07-24T21:05:00.000+10:00

So do you fancy your (raw) squid dancing when it's dished up to you?

No? Me either. But it seems that's one option available these days (although maybe not in Australia as the method is banned). This is a Japanese delicacy known as odori-don (dancing squid rice bowl). You get served the squid (have I mentioned that it's raw? No? Oh, well, it's raw) sitting on a bed of rice and when you pour soy sauce over it, the squid comes alive. ALIVE I tell you!

Ckeck it out...

<p><a href="http://video.news.com.au/2063870393/Dancing-squid">VIDEO: 'Dancing' squid</a></p>

Apparently it's the sodium in the soy that causes the neurons to fire, giving the impression of life. It's all a bit disturbing for this horror writer though. I like my food dead, well cooked, and not moving, thank you--and before you call me a piker, I have tried raw crabs and live shell fish during my trip to South Korea, so I say again, no thank you.

I read about this on news.com.au and one paragraph in their article stood out: "Of course, the dish is definitely not for everyone and will probably get us into no end of trouble should alien squid monsters ever decide to invade planet Earth like in a manga movie."

Well, we'd probably deserve everything we got...

The Amazing Writing Process

2011-07-16T20:55:00.000+10:00

Just recently, I found myself stuck on a short story I was writing; I had the idea figured out but I wasn’t sure how to tell the story itself. So I delved into one of the bibles on writing, ‘On Writing Horror’ and read an interesting chapter on characterization by Tina Jens.

Tina suggested finding the character first and then, with one eye on the plot, come up with a fully realized person, someone you know like your best mate--or better. Spend time on a character sheet (where did they grow up? What's their favourite music? What do they do when stressed or angry? What are their political views? Their general philosophy on life? Their eating and drinking habits, their best friend etc. Go the whole hog with 'em, become their stalker until you know everything there is to know about them. You probably won't use all of this in the story but it will help you understand your character in a completely three dimensional way).

And then, as Tina says, listen to them. As you work out the plot, let them sit next to you and explain how they will overcome the obstacles you put in their way (chances are you won't have a choice here). Basically, you'll find them reacting according to their personality, their motivation are desire etc, without any forcing on your behalf.

I've always created character sheets in the past, but only adding in enough detail to get that character through the story, adding in whatever details I need along the way.

Did Tina's way work for me? Yes. Absolutely. Even as I was filling in character details I could see what was wrong with my story. The direction I was trying to take the story was completely wrong. I had the ending right but the path there made no sense, hence why I was getting stuck. My new flesh and blood character pointed out the problems and explained to me how he would really react in that instance, and what he'd do next. None of it was even close to how I was trying to force him to act.

Thanks to my character, he got us to that end point, and the whole thing fitted together seamlessly. The writing part of it turned out to be pretty easy once I'd spent a little bit longer with my character.

Pity I had to mutilate him at the end. He really didn’t deserve that...

And it’s funny how the brain works. In the story I’m writing, I had an important scene in which my character was listening to particular sounds about him. Natural and man-made sounds. I thought to give this scene some depth, I should take time out and go put myself into such a situation and listen to what I could hear—only then I remembered that about 15 years ago I’d done exactly this; I’d sat outside with a notebook and a pencil and for no reason I knew of then, spent a couple of hours writing down what I could hear and how those sounds made me feel.

I filed this notebook away in my filing cabinet filled with other random bits of paper and messed up notebooks and forgot all about it—until yesterday when I suddenly remembered it, and even knew where to find it. Those notes were exactly what I needed for this story.

It's amazing how stuff like that happens.

Pity I can't remember more important things like my wedding anniversary, or to turn off the sprinkler after ten minutes so the vege garden doesn't drown...

Frightening Critters

2011-07-13T22:40:00.001+10:00

I just finished watching the last few episodes of season 5 of Primeval, and they had the return of my favourite beasties, the Future Predators. This got me to thinking about some of the other awesome critters that have appeared recently on-screen (or in books); I'm not talking about human monsters, and forget about the classics like Freddy and Jason and Frankenstein and Alien and Predator and Godzilla etc. No, I'm thinking of newer monsters, supernatural or not, that for one reason or another struck a chord with me.

These are the ones I came up with (in no order):

Future Predators (Primeval) - highly evolved vicious (and carnivorous!) descendants of future bats (kind of), that use sonar in place of vision, have their ears on the front of their face, are extremely agile and strong, and lightening quick on their four clawed legs. They just look cool.

The Gentlemen (Buffy) - these ultra creepy demons gave me nightmares when I first saw them on Buffy; bald, pale, human-like things that are always grinning to expose horrible teeth. They wear black suits and don't walk, but float gracefully over the ground. Oh, and they each carry a satchel with a scalpel in it so they can cut out hearts. Damn graceful creepy bastards.

Weeping Angels (Dr Who) - probably the most original and terrifying creature I've come across for a hell of a long time. They are an ancient race of winged humanoid aliens, their origins unknown, who feed off the potential time energy of others--they can send you back through time with a touch, and feed off the energy left behind. The Angels are "quantum-locked," appearing as statues with their hands over their eyes, only able to move when they're not being observed. And then they can move silently and quickly, unsheathing fangs and claws to attack. Just awesome. Once they've seen you, you have to keep staring at them to keep them in the statue form. Whatever you do, don't blink...

Wraiths (Stargate Atlantis) - a vampire-like, telepathic race of aliens who feed off the life-force of humans. They are highly intelligent and technologically advanced, who feed using a feeding organ on the palm of their hand, which they place over a human's chest. Their prey ages when being fed upon, quickly becoming a dry husk. Ruthless, cruel, smart--everything you want in an enemy (on TV). Plus their green greasy-looking skin just adds the final horrible touch.

Clover (Cloverfield) - the giant (25 stories tall) amphibious, semi-quadrupedal "baby" alien that destroys New York (like any good alien should). It's covered in dog-sized vicious parasites that scatter about town to further add to the chaos. The beastie is all the more frightening because it's only seen in glimpses.

There must be others but I can' think of what they are right now (it's too cold, my brain's freezing up, and I really shouldn't have any scotch tonight). I struggled to think of any I'd come across in books I've read recently, too. But then most of the long lasting monsters become immortalised through film, don't they? I mean, when you think of Dracula, it's Bela Lugosi you think of; Hannibal Lecter, it's Anthony Hopkins; It, Tim Curry etc.

Burning Out as per Clive Barker's Advice

2011-07-10T13:40:00.000+10:00

Back in November 2009, the AHWA held an online chat for its members with Clive Barker, one of my literary heroes (The Books of Blook volumes 1-6 are amongst my prized possessions). I asked Clive what advice he could give new writers and this was his answer:

"I can certainly throw out some observation about the process of creating which may be of use. Firstly, it's the best & the worst of worlds, because the only fuel you have to make the fire blaze on the page / screen is the stuff of your own being. An artist consumes his or herself in the act of making art. I can feel that consumption even now, sitting here at my desk at the end of a working day. In order to generate the ideas that I have set on the page for the last 10 or 11 hours I have burned the fuel of my own history. This is, obviously a double-edged sword. In order to give, the artist must take from himself. That's the deal. And it's very important to me that the work I do is the best I can make it, because I know what is being burned up to create. As the villain of Sacrament says: "living & dying, we feed the fire."

So in true Barker fashion, I burned myself out last night. I had the house to myself and my shifty sideshow freak of a muse dragged me through hell in order to pull this cursed story from within me. I ended up with a little over 3000 words, most of which I still like today. The story needs work, sure, that's only to be expected, but it's the first short story I've written since October last year (Desert Blood, published in Dead Red Heart).

It felt great burning out like that, giving it my all until I was worn through and could barely make it to bed. Such a sense of satisfaction and achievement.

Dance Power!

2011-07-07T15:27:00.000+10:00

Ever heard of piezoelectrics? No, it's not some new fandangled static-filled meat pie, but materials capable of converting pressure into electrical energy. Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne have worked out how to use piezoelectric thin films to turn mechanical pressure into electricity. This means by typing, you could power your laptop, iPad, or iPhone. Built into shoes, each step could help charge your mobile.

A nightclub in London recently built a piezoelectric dance floor, so nightclubbers, by dancing, generate 60% of the power to run the club. What a cool idea.

I wonder if you could add piezoelectric thin films to car tyres. Then you'd have a way a charging your electric car without having to plug it in once you got home.

Piezoelectrics... look out for piezoelectric devices in a store near you soon(ish)...

Stop procrastinating Dr Young!

Back into the Saddle I Go...

2011-07-05T15:15:00.000+10:00

Inspired by Jason Fischer's six month writing sabbatical, I think it's time I stopped procrastinating and really, seriously, got back into writing. My shifty sideshow freak muse hasn't been talking to me for a while now, so I should probably take it out for a romantic dinner, some good wine, and see what happens. I have a London-based agent waiting to read novel number 2 as soon as I've finished the edits (the deadline's September!), plus at least two anthologies I'm keen to submit to, so I have pressure!

Pressure!

And I need pressure otherwise I wander. I get lost in translation--or is that procrastination? I get lost somewhere (usually trying to get home).

As I said in a recent post, plans for The Next Big Project are coming along nicely, but something I've realized is how out of date I am now with the spec-fic scene, especially here in Australia. There's so much going on, so many good books coming out by great writers, but I feel as if I've had a blindfold over my eyes for the past 6+ months and the world has sped on without me. Wouldn't have a clue what's happening out there in Penland, and holy cowbells, Batman, where and how do I begin to catch up?? I guess it's time I reinvested myself and soaked up the vibe again. Perhaps get myself to a convention or two. Go and get nutty with writer folks and find out the gossip.

A quick note on e-books again; Copyright Agency Limited has released the results of a digital publishing trends survey, and it makes for some very interesting reading. For a bit of an in-depth discussion of the results, check out Alan Baxter's blog. Well worth a read. A very interesting comment made on Alan's Facebook page regarding this too, from an ex-music industry executive who reminded us all that the music industry went through what the book industry is now going through with the digital revolution, so don't expect those digital books to be going away anytime soon......

I've Been Kindle-d!

2011-07-04T14:31:00.000+10:00

So I finally brought my Kindle and y'know what? I quite like it. Actually, it bloody well rocks.

I've sat outside in the sun, feet up and sunnies on, reading on it and the screen with its e-Ink technology works a treat. I've sat at the table, eating lunch and reading, and there was no need to rest my plate on the book to hold it open at the page I was on.

Sure, it's not a book, and sometimes I do feel guilty for using my Kindle instead of a paper book (I'm sure those paper books of mine sitting on my bookcases--and on the floor--in my study have started glaring at me with jealousy. I wonder what type of revenge they could impose..? Maybe tipping my bookcases down on top of me next time I'm lying on the ground beneath them...), but the Kindle is easy to read, it's extremely portable and far easier to hold than a Stephen King tome.

I'll always prefer a proper paper book but my transition to the digital world of reading hasn't been as bad or as traumatic as I'd feared.

Disturbingly Brilliant

2011-07-03T00:49:00.002+10:00

Sometimes you read a story and even as you're reading it, you're wishing you could just put down the book and forget the words that have already seared their way into your head but you can't, you can't, you have to keep reading, following the events and the characters and the disturbingly brilliant writing to its conclusion, all the while wishing you could screw shut your eyes against those words so their vile images don't burn, burn, burn their degradation upon your world and so that in the midst of the night, when you're lying there awake instead of sleeping, those visions don't come to you again and unsettle you all over, so they don't disturb you once more and give you reason to hate the genre that is horror and yet at the same time remind you of why you love the genre so very, very much.....

The Next Big Project...

2011-06-28T12:27:00.000+10:00

Something is stirring...

When I stepped down as President of the AHWA last September, I needed to get right away from everything and recuperate. Catch my breath. Spend time on my own writing. Read some books—read lots of books. Just have fun.

And I’ve been doing this, and it’s been going well, and I want to keep doing this—but maybe a couple of months ago now something started stirring deep down inside of me, where I thought I’d poured enough scotch to kill all living things for the next decade at least.

Whatever it was, it continued to grow, making me unsettled, unable to relax. Anxious.

The Next Big Project, that’s what it is. I’ve now seen the top of its ugly head, seen its hideous eyes staring up at me from the dark. Felt it kicking as I lay there trying to sleep.

So, knowing it won’t go away, and knowing that, in line with the demented side of my nature, I don’t want it to go away, I’ve slowly but surely been drawing my plans...

Oh, I’m not alone in this madness, I have co-conspirators, friends to help raise this demonic child of ours. We can’t give any details just yet but stay tuned, that’s for sure. Because it’s going to be huge.

On another more wacky note, I posted in December about how a retired NORAD officer had predicted UFO sightings over Moscow and then London. Well, it turns out he was mostly right. They’re the Galactic Governance Council’s ships, apparently... Honest. There’s going to be a cosmic intervention within the next few years. Serious. The aliens are going to save the world because our ecosystem is on the verge of collapse. I kid you not.

I’ll be out there in my tinfoil undies, waving my sign, ‘Take me! Take me!’ Ah, it'll be grand.

The Stokers, live on the computer!

2011-06-18T15:31:00.001+10:00

For those of you--like me--unable to make it to the States to watch the Bram Stoker Awards this year, you can watch it live at 11.30am Sunday 19 June Australian EST (Sydney time) on Ustream, following this link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/horror-writers-awards.

Macabre; A Journey through Australia's Darkest Fears (edited by Angela Challis and yours truly) is nominated in the Superior Achievement in an Anthology category, with Kirstyn McDermott's story from that anthology, "Monsters Among Us" nominated in the Superior Achievement in Long Fiction category.

For a full list of nominated works, check out the Horror Writers Association website.

Personally, I'd be stunned if Macabre won but not so surprised if Kirstyn pulled it off ("Monsters..." is a fantastic story and Kirstyn's having a golden year). Either way, it'd be damn brilliant. So best of luck Macabre, and best of luck, Kirstyn!

And besides, if Macabre doesn't win, I still have this: 'Dr Marty Young is a Bram Stoker nominated editor...' and that's just hilarious.

It's so good to be home

2011-06-16T20:43:00.000+10:00

What a long two weeks it’s been.

I spent the first week in Oxford (that’d be England for those without any geographical yee-haw), catching up with long lost friends and no doubt making a tit of myself at my mate’s wedding (I mean, c’mon, who’d ever pick me as a Best Man??). Awesome fun though, met some awesome folks, and learned without doubt that I really absolutely have to buy a PS3 (thanks Chris!). Nazi Zombies rule!!

It’s always great hooking up with Rosscoe, and it was doubly great meeting the new Mrs McBride, hanging out with Mikey again after an absence of what? Something like twelve years?—and getting to know the crowd that puts up with Ross. I did spend most of my time there fighting jetlag; the days leading up to the wedding were pretty non-stop, so I didn’t really get a chance to catch my breath after landing, and this wasn’t ideal when trying to talk to strangers.

Oh, and boys, those stag night photos...... altogether way too much nudity in them—especially seeing as how there was no female stripper in sight... Naked men doing the haka. Probably shouldn't say anything more.

(photo by Chris Knight)

Anyway. Then it was off to Krefeld, Germany, for work. So I’m slowly recovering from jetlag and the craziness of a wedding, and now I find myself in the land of pork knuckles and beer. This, I tell myself, is not too bad, but I soon find the language barrier tiring after an already tiring week (no, no stinking rotten cabbage for me please, no, you don’t understand, I only want the pork - turns out though that I quite like stinking cabbage).

I hit the shores around the time of the e-bola outbreak and was instantly told not to eat salad, which to me, meant I had to stick to pork and beer, which I was kind of happy about (boy, I’ll be hitting the gym when I get home!). Tried several local dishes, most of which were damn good, but the herringsstip was a little too special for me (slimy cold fish soaked for months in salted water, that's what it tasted like....). Still, you do have to try these things.

Found a great restaurant and discovered you're pretty much given a beer the moment you sit down, and keep being given a refill unless you put a beer coaster over your glass. Excellent. You even get kicked out if you ask for anything other than beer. And if you'd asked for beer from another region..? Well, best not to do that, either. These wacky Germans.

So what do you do in Germany (other than eat pork and drink beer)? Well, for a geo-geek like me, you race down freeways that have no speed limits (never knew you could be made to feel like you’re standing still when going 150km/h...) and visit a huge coal mine (5km long), then play with 12 million year old wood that would burn fine on a fire today. Basically, you do lots of other work-related rock stuff. Yes, I did mention that word 'geek,' so what did you expect? I was there for work, after all.

I was incredibly well looked after by my hosts but was looking forward to getting home again by the end of it all. I really do need to learn some more languages, especially with all the travel I do. Maybe Latin, that’s a good base language. It's really quite a challenge when you don't speak the local language.

Never made it to Amsterdam, which was a shame as I liked the idea of getting ‘lost’ there for a night. Oh well, gives me something to aim for next time—and it’s probably safer if I do that under adult supervision...

Despite all the wedding madness, the work madness, the pork and the beer, I did manage to finish Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. Awesome series, with Wolves of the Calla being my favourite. The final book was so terribly sad; I don't think I've hated and loved a book as much. A real heart-wrencher. And the ending..... Ah man. Shit.

So now it's onto a collection of science fiction short stories - while I wait for my Kindle to turn up!

Being Prepared

2011-05-23T20:02:00.001+10:00

See? This is what I've been afraid of... it's bad enough waking up in the middle of the night from a nightmare in which you're being chased by unrelenting zombies--especially when the neighbours' dogs are barking madly--but when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention begins taking the possibility of a zombie apocalypse seriously you know there's trouble coming. The CDC even released an emergency plan of what to do in such an emergency.

Ah, it's all going to end so badly...

On another note, a huge CONGRATULATIONS to Richard Harland for winning an Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story with his brilliantly creepy tale "The Fear." Well done, Richard!! "The Fear" was first published in Macabre and also reprinted in Ellen Datlow's US anthology Best Horror of the Year #3. It's a top notch story, that one.

Congrats also to Kirstyn McDermott, for picking up a gong for Best Horror Novel with Madigan Mine, a truly excellent book. If you haven't read it, go git yerself a copy. Go on, do it. Well done to everyone else, too--a good night was had by all, so the photos would suggest...

And on just one more note, Amazon recently announced that the sales of e-books topped print books for the first time, with 105 electronic books sold for every 100 paper books now. Kindle e-books are outselling hardcover books two-to-one (not really surprising there). The times, they surely are a-changing.

Alan Baxter posted an interesting post on how it is now vital for us, as readers, to provide some kind of quality control over what's published. With the advent (and success) of Print-on-Demand and e-books, anyone can write a book and get it published, regardless of how good--or more likely how bad--it is. Read his post; Alan makes some very good points.

Now then, I'm going to tuck my tail between my legs and slink off with my exhaustion... Damn that Amanda Pillar and her hubby....... Damn their bacardi.....

Wait! What? Oh, that's okay then.

2011-05-16T20:14:00.001+10:00

So I got up the other morning at 4:30am and trundled outside in me undies to stare up at the sky. And there I saw Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, all bunched together as if they were commenting on what I sight I was.

Even had a number of shooting stars joining me in this pre-dawn steak (the eta Aquarid meteor shower). For a space geek like it, it was quite something.

A time like this gives you an interesting perspective on the world; most sensible folk are still curled up asleep, blankets and doonas tucked in tight and pulled up under chins to ward off the cold, the streets are silent, the world pretty much yours and yours alone--other than the billions of stars above (oh, geek coolness number two: the Photopic Sky Survey - a 5,000 megapixel photograph of the entire night sky stitched together from 37,440 exposures! Just awesome).

Under such massiveness, all the little things seems petty. It's almost like a cleansing of the soul; left alone with yourself and your thoughts--and those untold stars and their planets and who knows what life that flitters and twitches on them--it really is quite liberating. You just shuck off all the arguments and problems and worries, and enjoy the moment for what it is and what it only ever is--a moment in time. And when you're given such a stunning backdrop in which to live that moment, why on Earth--or anywhere else--would you want to fill it with turmoil and bitterness?

Well shit, that was deep. BBBUUUURRRRPPPPPP.

On another note, I've just ordered The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction - 792 pages (it's bigger than Macabre!) covering 150 years' worth of the best science fiction stories. It has 52 stories. That should keep me entertained for a while.

The countdown to the UK and Germany is on--15 days til this wee lil' fella goes and gets lost somewhere in the land of beer steins and pork. Oh woe is me.... It's going to be, well, just terrible.

Last Days of Macabre

2011-05-02T21:19:00.001+10:00

Correction (17 October, 2011): It turns out that news of Brimstone Press' demise was a bit premature and I'm happy to say that the furnaces are not closing down.

Brimstone Press, the awesome Aussie small press and publisher of some damn good horror collections, is closing down. This is sad news; these kids, whether you like 'em or not, have done a hell of a lot for Aussie horror and those writing within this genre over the past decade.

From the ground-breaking online magazine Shadowed Realms in the early 2000s--the only Oz mag to pay professional rates for at least the last decade--to The Year's Best collections, their products were always very stylish and filled with top notch stories. None more so than Macabre; A Journey through Australia's Darkest Fears (of course :) How could I not say that?)

SPECIAL CLOSING DOWN SALE - Get your copy of the Australian Shadows Award winning and Bram Stoker nominated Macabre for only AU$25 (plus postage). With 38 stories, that's 66c/story (man, is that all our hard work boils down to??). This special ends on Saturday the 8th of May, or while stocks last.

While you're there, you might also want to snaffle up the wickedly awesome Paul Haines' The Last Days of Kali Yuga for only $20 (this title will still be available at the Author’s Melbourne Launch to be held at Dymocks Southland on Sat July 2nd at 12 noon).

There are other short story collections featuring many of the biggest names in Aussie horror available at discounted prices during this final week. These include:

Shadow Box CD - $5
Black Box CD - $8
Book of Shadows - $5
Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror volume 1 (2006) - $8
Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror volume 2 (2007) - $13
Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror volume 3 (2008) - $8
Shards - $8 (this title will still be available as an ebook available through Amazon, Smashwords, etc – but due to the format, it does not contain the art work of Andrew McKiernan)

So--wait, let me get my scotch...okay--so here's to Brimstone Press, thanks for all you've done and may your future be stress free and fun.

Screw this glass, gimme the bottle...What is it? Maker's Mark. Okay, that'll do then.

Shut up, muse, you shifty sideshow freak. I'll get to you in a second....

Run! Flee! Cthulhu is Coming!!

2011-04-30T11:54:00.000+10:00

I was off to get lunch yesterday when I stumbled across this frightening looking thing lurking in the garden at work:

Aargh! I thought to myself. It's the Great Cthulhu, come again! Run! So I fled back to my office, my rumbling tum no longer of any concern, thinking only of condemning those blasted warlocks who'd been trying to recite forbidden spells from dangerous books without any thought to the rest of us.

But as I hurriedly packed my survival kit in preparation for said fleeing, I learned that the monstrosity peeking up from the garden bed was actually an Octopus Flower, A Cuttlefish Fungus, Anthurus archeri.

It puts off a stench like decaying meat or rotting fish, but it's no ancient deity being summoned back into out world. So everything's fine. Carry on.

The State of Spec-Fic Magazines

2011-04-26T18:09:00.000+10:00

The death of the magazine! It’s all doom and gloom... Well, not necessarily. While print circulations for most magazines are down on previous years, readership for digital and online issues continue to increase (as too do pay rates for online magazines). Digital subscriptions for Analog in 2010 totaled 2,500; for Asimov’s it was 4,700; both figures are up from last year. What does this mean? It’s obvious; print magazines really do need to offer digital editions to survive, and maybe even flourish. Most already do.

But it’s still great to see that some spec-fic magazines have print circulations in the tens of thousands! Their figures become even more impressive when online sales are included. Hell, these are the mags to get into, although I imagine doing that will require a feat of some brilliance. Best I go put my brilliant shoes on then and get brilliant-ing.

Here are some facts for 2010 (from Locus magazine, February 2011):

Analog – 22,791 subscribers (20,291 print) and a circulation of 29,050
Asimov’s Science Fiction – 17,866 subscribers (13,166 print). Circulation is 24,747
Clarkesworld (online magazine) – readership is about 21,000 per issue (conservative figure)
Lightspeed (online magazine) - average 20,000 readers per month
Fantasy & Science Fiction – 10,907 subscribers. Circulation is 15,172
Fantasy Magazine (online magazine) – average 15,000 readers per month
Apex (online magazine) – 95 subscribers, and ~12,000 unique visitors per month
Realms of Fantasy – 9,000 subscribers and a total circulation of 10,600
Cemetery Dance - ~5,000 subscribers and a print run of ~10,000
Albedo One – 125 subscribers and a circulation of ~900
Aurealis – 320 subscribers and a print run of 650
Strange Horizons (online magazine) – no website figures but traffic is up from 2009
Subterranean (online magazine) – no website figures but traffic is up from 2009
HorrorWorld (online magazine) – (approx. 648 unique visitors per day according to MuStat.com: I added this one as I had a story published there in April 2011)

Science fiction and fantasy have the bigger audiences, which is no real surprise. But it’s good to see a number of horror outlets drawing large numbers of readers.

It’s also interesting to see how poorly Australia fares here (I’ve only included Aurealis in the above list as it has the biggest circulation of the Oz mags); are we not embracing the digital evolution strongly enough, or is there some other problem afoot in the magazine industry down under? Maybe I’m missing data that would refute what I’m saying (Eclecticism E-zine)? The quality of Aussie fiction isn’t in question. Does it come down to marketing? Maybe we’re not promoting ourselves well enough on the world stage. Is it that we don’t pay enough to attract bigger names that would, in turn, attract a wider audience? (There are no Australian magazines paying professional rates.) Or perhaps consistency, both in publishing schedules and quality per issue, has something to do with it?

With the online world going from strength to strength, I really can’t see any reason why an Aussie online publication couldn’t get into the 10s of thousands of online readers per month. Sure, it would be a hell of a big job, but is it really impossible? I don’t think so.

I had a horrible thought the other day, one no demented look from my ever suffering shifty sideshow of a freak of a muse could tear apart, and that was I’d love to get involved in running a magazine again... I told my wife and she just walked off, shaking her head.

Fortunately though, I drowned that idea in Maker’s Mark, and that seems to have ended the nonsense...

The Vampires are Here!

2011-04-26T10:40:00.000+10:00

Ticonderoga's awesome looking Dead Red Heart, edited by kilt-wearing Russell B Farr, and featuring my short tale Desert Blood has been released! It's alive, ALIVE! Oh, wait, wrong monster--ah, who cares? It's alive!!

Check out the table of contents - there are some brilliant writers in this bloody book so it's shaping up as a fantastic read - 32 stories, 454 pages, and over 130,000 words. Another door stopper.

“The Tide”, Martin Livings and friends
“Mutiny on the Scarborough”, Shona Husk
“Sun Falls”, Angela Slatter
“Such is Life”, Jeremy Sadler
“Apolotoi”, Chris Lawson
“Punishment of the Sun”, Alan Baxter
“Red Delicious”, Felicity Dowker
“Just a Matter of Economics”, Yvonne Eve Walus
“Quarantine”, Patty Jansen
“Out of the Grave”, Amanda Pillar
“Desert Blood”, Marty Young
“Thin Air”, Simon Brown
“Kissed by the Sun”, Jodi Cleghorn
“Black Heart”, Joanna Fay
“Renfield’s Wife”, Damon Cavalcini
“Listening to Tracy”, Jen White
“Breaking the Drought”, Jay Caselberg
“Children of the Cane”, Jason Nahrung
“The Sea at Night”, Joanne Anderton
“Sky in the Morning”, Sonia Marcon
“Taking it for the Team”, Tracie McBride
“All that Glisters”, Pete Kempshall
“The Rider”, Martin Livings
“Vitality”, George Ivanoff
“Coming Home”, Kathryn Hore
“The Little Red Man”, Ray Gates
“Deathborn Light”, Helen Stubbs
“The Life Stealer”, Donna Maree Hanson
“Behind the Black Mask”, Jacob Edwards
“Interview with the Jiangshi”, Anne Mok
“White and Red in the Black”, Lisa L Hannett
“Lady Yang’s Lament”, Penelope Love

The anthology was launched at Swancon36 this past weekend, and rumour has it that the launch was filled with debauchery, insanity, bloody stakes and red wine. I'm bummed I missed it--and the whole con for that matter.

Still, at least there are photos on Facebook I can enjoy...

Gunslinger action

2011-04-14T20:19:00.000+10:00

I was recently given volumes 1-7 of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, and have now devoured the first 3 volumes. It's just brilliant, I'm loving it--and the best part is, I still have 4 more volumes (well, 5 really, counting the new one due out in 2012) to get through. It's been a long, long time since I've been so lost in the pleasure of reading. Come one am and I'm going, just one more chapter before I go to sleep, just one more...

It's great to be pals with Stephen King again.

And just to confirm how behind the times I truly am, I've just discovered that The Dark Tower is being adapted into a couple of feature length films and TV series, directed by Ron Howard (who I have a lot of respect for as a director). Check it out (although I suspect everyone in the world other than me knew about this years ago): http://www.darktowermovies.com/

A (belated) Macabre Congrats to our Authors

2011-03-15T23:16:00.000+11:00

I'm a little late in posting this but then I am known to be all arse about face and upside down...Anyway, aside from the award nominations Macabre is picking up as an anthology, a number of our Macabre authors are picking up some great recognition for their brilliant stories:

Richard Harland's “The Fear” is being reprinted in Ellen Datlow's Year's Best, with 7 others making the honourable mentions list:

“Monsters Among Us” by Kirstyn McDermott
“Erina Hearn and the Gods of Death” by Kyla Ward
“Here Be Monsters” by Susan Wardle
“Sweet as Decay” by David Witteveen and David Conyers
“Hive” by Stephen M. Irwin
“Feast or Famine” by Gary Kemble
“Take the Free Tour” by Bob Franklin

Kirstyn's “Monsters Among Us” has also been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in the Superior Achievement in Short Fiction category
Andrew J McKiernan's “All the Clowns of Clowntown” has been shortlisted for an Australian Shadows Award in the Best Short Story category

So raise a glass with me folks, and congratulate them all.

Editing Macabre was a huge learning curve for me, one filled with many ups and downs, long, long hours spent researching old magazines and newspapers (old as in 1830s etc), and reading lots and lots of stories (and I mean lots and lots!). But through it all, through all the trials and tribulations, our contributors remained professional, patient, and just damn awesome to work with. They never gave up hope in seeing Macabre published.

So here is a belated Thank You everyone for sticking with it and putting up with my often inane emails. As someone once said, youse guys rock.

The brick--er, book, is just great as a door stop once you've finished reading it, too.

And would I do it again? Hell yeah!

(but just don't tell my wife I said that)

Awards and Stories

2011-03-03T14:00:00.001+11:00

I've well and truly sated my muse these past few weeks, inspired by some Great News, so the shifty sideshow freak shouldn't be complaining any. I've also been writing as if I'm holding a burning pen, reading old Weird Tales stories from the magazine's original run, and watching lots of cool flicks. Even my dreams have been truly bizarre.

But it's not enough for him; the more of a creative appetite I get, the more demanding he gets. It's as if I'm slipping more and more into his backstage world of shadows, where he can get a better grip on me and it's not so easy to ignore what he whispers.

But you know what? I'm loving it! I'm feeling inspired like I haven't for a long, long time. I guess Good News will do that for you.

What Good News? I hear you say...and what's with capitalizing the blasted words?

Well, let me tell you, seeing as how you asked...

Macabre has made the final ballot of the 2010 Bram Stoker Awards for superior achievement in an anthology, which is bloody awesome!

But wait, there's more. Kirstyn McDermott's Macabre story 'Monsters Among Us' has also been nominated for a Stoker in the Long Fiction category. It keeps going, too: the anthology has been short listed for the 2010 Australian Shadows Award, with Andrew McKeirnan's story 'All the Clowns in Clowntown' likewise shortlisted in those awards for Best Short Fiction. And to top it off, Richard Harland's story from Macabre, 'The Fear', will be reprinted in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year 3!

Go Macabre!

And as for my own writing, check out HorrorWorld next month (April) as my story 'Behind the Midnight Blinds' will be featured there.

It's a story I'm pretty proud of, and one I wrote while living on Pitt Town Road. It's mostly based upon real events (apart from the supernatural events, that is). An old, empty house next door, ancient books stashed under the only piece of furniture left in the place, and a sensor light outside my bedroom that kept coming on in the middle of the night...

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Blade Red's awesome Dark Pages anthology, in which I have a story ('Clip Notes') was shortlisted for an Australian Shadows Award in the best edited collection category. How could I forget that?? Terrible, Marty.

A Time for Reflection

2011-02-13T17:35:00.000+11:00

So it's been a little over 5 months (!) now since I resigned as President of the AHWA and I thought it time for some reflections on those years. It's taken me a while to become enthusiastic about writing again, and about horror. For 5+ years I was El Honcho, and it was exhausting. In the end I think it wore me out. I could have walked away and never looked back by the end of it all--but then I knew the bug to write would've returned eventually. It's always been that way. Keeps my demons in check, and that's probably best for everyone.

During those 5+ years, I had the chance to work with some amazing people. Folks who were nearly always willing to give their time to help, often asking for nothing in return. These people inspire me and I will always be here for them. But I also had the misfortune to work with some complete assholes, people I would happily go out of my way to run over with Tonka my truck. Jerks who only ever thought of themselves and couldn't care less for anything or anyone else. Oh, and way, way too many writers have egos so huge I'm stunned the Earth hasn't fallen into the sun yet.

A fair few people gave a lot and never had a good work said about them, only conspiracies of corrupting awards and lies about them having ulterior motives. Too many people found it easier to bitch than to offer anything positive. Sometimes, on those rare occasions when I was feeling postal because of what some idiot was doing, I'd think we should've been called Backstabbers Abound! But I guess this is in part human nature, and it is also unavoidable when you're working in such a small pond like the Aussie spec-fic (or horror) one. People clash, not everyone gets along. Some people are actually passionate in their hate. I guess you can't help that.

And boy, did I find myself in the middle of some searing confrontations. I have an awesome blackmail folder on many boys and girls in this genre, but it's safely tucked away, cos I suspect a fair few people also have files of their own on me! Still, one day maybe I'll write a book...

But it wasn't always grim; there were a lot of great times had. And as I always told myself, if I couldn't handle the heat, then get out of the kitchen. The fact I never until I hit the 5 year mark of something I'm happy about.

There were many projects we never got off the ground, either because we couldn't find people to manage them successfully (some managed only when they wanted to, for personal gain and nothing else), or because those ideas died during incubation. Some ideas, especially the mentor program, Midnight Echo, and the Crit Groups did survive birth, and of these and most of the people involved, I'm immensely proud. I hope they continue long past my reign.

Perhaps the biggest issue I can see is disharmony. Too many folks are trying too many different things with little or no unity between them. Rather than consolidating the resources and abilities of the many, we're starting to have isolated structures basically repeating what's been done before. None of which is going to help the genre in Australia move forward. It's a small field as it is, and I really believe people need to work together if they want to see massive changes for the best.

But the problem there, like I said earlier, is that too many people would rather complain and quit than to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in to help improve things. And here I was thinking Aussies were hard workers :)

Another thing I was really proud of was the budding relationships with the British Fantasy Society and the Horror Writers Association. This is the way forward. We're a small fish is a big pond (again with the pond metaphor) and we need to build bridges between these other organisations. Ramsey Campbell and then Stephen Theaker of the BFS, and Rocky Wood of the HWA were all enthusiastic in these unions, so let's hope something great comes of them.

I made a heck of a lot of friends during my stint in the high chair, friends I hope to see succeed in their endeavours cos I plain on celebrating with them. I also made some fairly big contacts too, and hopefully those people help me to succeed!

Sure, I made some enemies, it was unavoidable. I didn't go out of my way to be a prickle or to put people offside, but some things go the way they go and you can't do jack about it. I hope those kids let bygones be bygones and move on, cos I have.

I even had a stalker! This was great fun--to begin with. But then this bird kept trying to get my address (which really, probably isn't that hard to get) and revealed just how much she knew about me. Then it was frightening. So I went after her and now I have no more stalker (it's nowhere near as bad as I've just made that sound).

So if HG Wells turned up and said, "Marty m'boy, jump in my time machine and I'll take you back to 2002," I'd probably say sure! Actually, I'd probably say can't you take me back to the age of the dinosaurs, me being the geek I am... But yeah, of course I'd do it again, I've learned way too much to curse those 5+ years.

Now though, for once, it's all about me. Me and my writing.

For all those Evil Geniuses out there...

2011-02-04T11:41:00.001+11:00

Ever wanted to take over the world but haven't been sure how to go about it? Well, with a few household items, now you can! It's as simple as one-two-three.

Step 1. Get a fibreglass satellite dish and line it with 5800 small mirrors all focused into one spot. And just like that, you now have a solar death ray, capable of burning holes in paint tin lids, cutting a soft drink can in half, even melting rock and concrete! Serious, some kid in the States did just this and then presented it on YouTube. Check it out.

Step 2. Go find the Scientists who have recently made a paper clip invisible using calcite, use your newly created solar death ray to kidnap them, and get them to build you an invisibility cloak (apparently this new invisibility technique is only limited by the size of the calcite crystals, which can grow up to 21ft long so this isn't really a problem).

Step 3. You are now invisible and you have a weapon of destruction (presumably also invisible as a satellite dish walking around by itself would look a bit obvious). It's time to take over the world. Good luck. May the Force be with you.

Better hurry though as I imagine the military will be in on the action pretty quickly...

Damn Zombies Nearly Got Me!

2011-01-25T11:44:00.000+11:00

So I was indulging my muse last night by watching The Walking Dead episode 2. Now this is a cool series (episode 1 was all kinds of freaky!), but I'm going to have to give my shifty sideshow freak a talking to after what happened.

After the show, I trundled off to my study to do some writing, feeling all inspired and motivated as always happens when I watch something cool. A few minutes later I hear the unmistakable sound of the side door off the internal garage creaking open. I thought the old wifey had gone outside to check on the horses or something like that. Only a few seconds later I hear her cry out from the lounge; "MARTY! MARTY! MARTY!"

Major crap in a bucket! The zombies were here!

I grabbed the biggest thing at hand (a torch) and charged the garage. Whipped open the door, all ready to split open the zombie's head, even if I didn't give my torch much chance at helping out here, being plastic and all. Still, if I could get past the first one, I could reach the axe or mattock hanging patiently on the wall to defend us from the horde of walking dead I knew had finally arrived. Didn't even think about getting a knife from the kitchen...

But fortunately, no one was there.

I checked under the car, knowing full well that zombies that can't walk can still crawl, but all was clear. So quickly, my plastic torch at the ready and my heart pounding (I wasn't scared, dear, honest), I hurried to the side door and closed it. I made damn sure it was locked.

I think the ol' wifey and I were lucky it was so windy last night cos what I believe happened was that this zombie had managed to open the door, but having dead legs and all, he lost his balance in a strong gust of wind and fell away from the doorway. This gave me time to close the door and avoid the zombie apocalypse that nearly unfolded last night. I heard the neighbours' dog barking shortly after, too. Poor zombie, he wouldn't have stood a change against Digger the Great Dane.

Close call though.

I'm not sure I want to watch anymore zombies tonight...

A Recommended Book, by Jeeves

2011-01-20T21:36:00.003+11:00

So I don't recommend books here often for no other reason than I'm a lazy arse, but I was walking past my bookshelf on the way to the scotch when my eyes lit upon 'Spin' by Robert Charles Wilson.

Now I'm not a sci-fi freak or anyone who knows anything about sci-fi other than Amanda Tapping from Stargate and Sanctuary is damn hot, but this book rules. It's awesome. The sheer scope of the ideas within are mind-boggling. Sure, my mind boggles rather easily but still, this book rocked.

Yes, I know this book was published in 2005 but that's generally how far behind the times I am. I'm a geologist, I work to a different time frame to others--other than Her Grace, Duchess Amanda of Rock. Anyway, go check out Spin cos it's awesome.

Screaming ink

2011-01-19T21:52:00.004+11:00

That damn pesky shideshow character has returned--and returned with a vengeance!! Dear God!

He's back to wreck havoc on my sedate post-AHWA life of picking garden vegetables for dinner and feeding the goldfish. Now he's insisting--insisting I tell you!--that I pick up my virtual pen once more and delve back into the land of the written word. Tis time to create, to reign as a god once more (and no blasphemy intended there, but when you write stories you are a god to your creations--you give them life, a world to inhabit, and trouble to overcome in order to test them).

I'm not sure I have enough scotch for this. Quick, to the batmobile! Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na- okay, all good. The scotch shelf is full, the crystal tumbler clean, and the ice maker clanking.

My head is itching with fresh views of a horrific world shown to me by my shifty sideshow freak of a muse. He has well and truly parted the curtains, but more, he has taken me by the front of my shirt and dragged me backstage cos, to be honest, I haven't wanted to go here for some time. I was happy sitting in the rafters watching the show, laughing along with the clowns.

But no more! I have no choice. The muse is a demanding fellow and I have been lonely without him. And to prove my loyalty to him, I have delved back into my novel, changing what needed to be changed (I may not have written for nearly 2 months after completing NaNoWriMo, but I have at least spent this time researching the location of Parkton, and building my town). It's going well, to tell the truth, excitingly well.

I've managed to placate the shifty sideshow freak by getting a story (Desert Blood) accepted for publication in Ticonderoga's Dead Red Heart vampire anthology, but he's not settling for that. Oh no. Not now I don't have the AHWA to use as an excuse.

Now he's demanding I take this writing lark seriously. No more pussy-footing around. Time to aim high.

Oh-oh, he's found me again---what? No, I'm not writing on my blog. Honest. No, I'd never lie to one such as you. I wouldn't dare. Okay, okay, I'm coming. I know, we have writing to do.

Shit, where's my scotch?

Super on two accounts

2011-01-07T16:33:00.001+11:00

Super Number 1) The edits on my novel are coming along very well indeed. Parkton (my fictional town) is coming alive; I can see the streets and the shadows spreading across the roads as the sun goes down. I've even come up with a rich history, something I can definitely build upon in future Parkton stories.

(And I've just gotten a copy of Charles L Grant's The Hour of the Oxrun Dead (his first Oxrun Station novel) and am looking forward to visiting...)

Super Number 2) WE ARE THE ARMY, THE BARMY ARMY! England have won the Ashes, beating Australia 3-1 (yes, I'm a pom today).

Let's go Number 11!

2011-01-02T11:42:00.003+11:00

So welcome to 2011!

A whole new year, as yet untainted by our daily tread (well, okay, a few days marred now, but still pretty shiny). Let's hope we can all make our year sparkle--but not in a gay vampiric way...

Might as well start the year with this - zombie ants!! Check out this wild YouTube flick by Sir David Attenborough. Nature's so cool.

I've begun '11 on a high with an acceptance, but more on that shortly. For now, i still have 2 days holiday left, still some books to read, some scotch to drink, and my hammock to enjoy...

Macabre Review Rocks and don't forget early January 2010 is it...

2010-12-06T20:31:00.001+11:00

...when a UFO will appear over Moscow, apparently. Followed one week later by another one over London. So says a retired NORAD officer by the name of Stanley Fulham. The 'Transcendors' told him so. Good ol' Stanley predicted UFO sightings over New York back in October.

Cool, this will be fun.

Anyway, back into it I go, struggling to retain my focus... Seems to wander all about the place of late. I went out the the kitchen the other night in need of sustenance so I could keep writing and what do I find there? My concentration; it had already gathered itself a plate of biccies, poured itself a scotch, and was heading off to the lounge to watch highlights of the days' Ashes test. No wonder I wasn't getting anything done.

How do you stop your concentration from wandering? Can't really tie it up, can you? Maybe I just need to let it out more often, and constrict my writing efforts to short, sharp periods.

Or maybe my concentration is counting down the days til my holiday, in which case there's no chance...

In other news, ScaryMinds have posted a brilliant review of Macabre, giving it 10 out of 10 and saying it is...

...an ambitious project that Editors Challis and Young have managed to pull off with a high degree of polish. Macabre presents value for money on any of a number of levels. As a sampler of Aussie dark fiction, as a historic record of the development of the dark genre in Australia, and as simply a good book to have at hand.'

Personally, I liked this bit the best:

'The collection is worth the price of admission for Down Under horror scholars on the strength of Dr Marty Young's essay on the history of the dark genre in Australia that kicks off the book. It's pretty comprehensive and I certainly learnt a few things I didn't know via reading it. I hate to think how much research went into producing one of the great dark genre non-fiction pieces yet published.'

Go me :)

Now go check out the full review--and buy yourself a copy! Go on, do it. Now!

And now for something completely different...

2010-12-02T17:15:00.000+11:00

First thing first, I survived NaNoWriMo! Go me. I've written just under 60,000 words of a new novel, and think I have about another 30k to go. 60k in one month. Not bad, if I do say so myself. It was great turning off my internal editor and just writing.

I'll also be heading to the States shortly to spend some time in the setting of one of my novels in order to soak up the character of the place. That should be fun, too.

Anyway, as the title of this post says, And Now for Something Completely Different...

Me being the geek that I am, and being massively interested in alien life (take me! Take me!), I have to admit to being one of those caught up in the excitement of NASA's announcement:
NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p. m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Boy, hasn't that given folks something to chat about. There are all manner of rumours circulating cyberspace, such as arsenic-based bacteria, evidence of alien life on Titan, extraterrestrial life discovered in an ice meteorite...

When I first read this press release, my immediate thoughts were, brilliant! They've discovered alien life!! But although we won't know until tomorrow morning (my Aussie time) what the announcement will be, a lot of people think it will be about the arsenic-based life forms. And if it is, this is still huge news. As The Telegraph says;

If we found a microbe that used arsenic as a substitute for phosphorus, that would be a very exciting development. It might mean that, instead of evolving from a common ancestor with the rest of life, it developed in a second, entirely separate moment of biogenesis: that it is a limb on a “shadow tree of life”. Since this would mean that life has evolved twice on Earth alone, it’s reasonable to think it might have evolved elsewhere in the universe as well

I've always said alien life would be just that, alien. In every sense of the word. Planets we think totally inhospitable could very well be perfectly fine for alien life. It's naive to suggest otherwise.

Well, that was all rather deep. BBUURRRPP!!

One week in...

2010-11-06T11:03:00.000+11:00

...and all is well.

NaNoWriMo is a week old (or there abouts) and I've now completed 11,544 words of what is a thriller, maybe a thriller with a sci-fi conspiracy theory running through it? Yeah, something like that.

It's great fun, writing by the seat of my pants like this. I have a general idea of where I want to go and what the story is about, but already the characters are taking over and leading me up different paths. It's weird when this happens and trying to explain it to people who don't write is really difficult. They say things like, 'but you're writing it, aren't you?'

It was like this in the first novel I wrote, too; I rewrote one particular chapter 3 times because something kept happening that I didn't want to happen. I did everything possible to change it, but in the end, I gave in and let the tragedy happen. I guess it needed to happen. The book was dictating it.

I wasn't impressed though--but then I was also impressed because it meant my story was evolving and filling out. It was coming alive - alive, I tell you! Alive!

So who knows where this one will end up. I'm guessing not where I have penciled in for it to go. Time will tell. Actually, another 24 days will tell...

If anyone else is taking part in NaNoWriMo, let me know and we can buddy up.

Novel No. 2, here I come.

2010-10-28T20:13:00.000+11:00

Okay, so the novel has finally been sent off to the agent. Here's hoping he likes it enough to take me on as a client!!

If not, that okay 'cos I'm at least off to a good start. This is the first agent I've contacted and he asked to read the whole MS, so I've gotta be doing something right. And I'm prepared for the hard yards, regardless.

So now it's onto the next novel, and I'm going to use NaNoWriMo to get me out of the starting blocks. Actually, I think I might aim to do this every year. It's a good way to motivate myself, as I find beginning a novel a monumental task, one that I view with both terror and excitement.

I've been busy nutting out the plot and characters, the storyline and structure, and reckon I'm about good to go.

And cos I'm so organised, I had time to think about getting involved with Movember - always thought I'd look a crack up with a mustache! But maybe next year... We had a site wide video conference at work the other day, and one of the presenters had a mustache. All I could think of while he was giving his presentation was, 'gee, he looks like a porn star.'

Oh, and The Art of Tim Burton finally arrived, and what a book this is! Tim Burton is a genius, a talent and a half; his art style is so distinct. Sometimes it's so simple but it's just brilliant. What a source of inspiration this book is.

Mmmm... pork...

2010-10-18T20:50:00.000+11:00

I love bacon. It's delicious. Roast pork too, with all that crackling. Then there's ham, a whole leg of ham. What a wonderful animal this is. What did Homer once say? 'Porkchops and bacon, my two favourite animals.'

Homer: I’ll have the smiley face breakfast special. Uhh, but could you add a bacon nose? Plus bacon hair, bacon mustache, five o’clock shadow made of bacon bits and a bacon body.
Waitress: How about I just shove a pig down your throat?
(Homer looks excited)
Waitress: I was kidding.
Homer: Fine, but the bacon man lives in a bacon house!

Problem is, I love animals and while I have a huge vege garden, there's no way I could have pigs. No way could I go out to Mr Piggy and slice off a bit of his hide for my Sunday roast each week. It just wouldn't feel right.

It would be so much better if pork grew on trees. Then I could just plant it with all of my other veges, the corn and carrots, spinach and spuds, capsicums and cucumbers etc. Just imagine, a bacon tree. How wonderful would that be?? I wouldn't have to worry about garden gnomes nibbling my toes, only Homer living there.

Okay, that's my Dr Suess moment over for the week. Back to the writing.

Beneath the covers

2010-10-16T20:50:00.001+11:00

Two new covers to present today, one for my story Joey Blue and the Gutterbreed appearing in ASIM #48 (edited by the wild and wacky Jules), and the second for my flash fiction piece Breaking Point, appearing in Daily Bites of Flesh.

Both covers are truly awesome.

My Joey Blue story is a 'Parkton' story, that is, Joey's a character that appears in my novel, and Parkton is the town in which he finds himself. It ain't a nice place, either... An old bluesman who fell into his songs one day and never found his way out again, that's Joe.

And some of the contributors appearing in Macabre have been posting snippets of their stories for your reading pleasure, plus a bit of background on how their stories came about. Check out the blogs of Shane Jiraiya Cummings and David Conyers for a start, and stay tuned for more.

Meanwhile, my long lost sideshow freak of a muse has unfurled from the depths of my mind and started feeding me stories again... The madness is back, fresh and deformed, and it's such a wild and wonderful feeling!

Also just had the wonderful Sarah Langan, my HWA mentor, provide some brilliant feedback on my novel. I'm making a few changes in accordance with her suggestions, and then the whole MS will be off to the London agent fellow. Keep your fingers crossed!!

And then it's NaNoWriMo next month, and that pesky Jules character has roped myself and AJ (and no doubt a number of other poor souls) into taking part (I say pesky but I don't mean it, honest). Should be fun; only 1666 words per day. Easy.

Dragons are real!

2010-10-06T14:36:00.003+11:00

Well whaddya know? It turns out dragons really did exist - at least according to one Mike Hallett, discoverer of the Hallettestoneion Sea Zoria Dragons.

These creatures were apparently the biggest (100-300ft) and most advanced marine reptiles to have ever existed on Earth, going extinct around 540 million years ago - although 'latest results' date these beasties at 484 million years. Their teeth were 3 foot long (see below), which would make T-rex look like a vegetarian.

But, er, the remains look like rocks. I'm a geologist so I know what a rock looks like. But that's okay cos it's all about Zoria Repeat apparently, which I don't know about. Once you understand this, you can see things in the rocks. Wouldn't that make my day job fun?

Here's what this Mike fellow has to say:

What nobody is doing today, in the paleontological scientific communities is addressing the real scientific questions related to explaining the origins of the specialized configurations of stones (Seazoria remains). Basically the common school of thought is 'rocks are rocks because rocks have always been rocks". This is the 21st century and it is now time for science to evolve a grater understanding and explanation of why these particular stones are arranged in the exact configuration's of large scale extremely advanced prehistoric sea dragons. Yes it is much easier to to just label the Hallettestoneion Seazorias are rocks but where are all the scientists that want to get to the bottom of the Seazoria prehistoric biological mysteries. The global scientific community should be explaining accurately the triggering event that caused the creation of the specialized configurations.

I can hear my pal Bones getting all excited over this...

There was another fellow, and this is going back some years, who was convinced he had discovered a microscopic race of humans. Apparently he found evidence of them while looking at some microscope slides of spores and pollen. Little tiny humans, all about 50-100 microns in size (there are 1000 microns in a millimeter).

Man, I'm obviously not taking enough drugs--or scotch. Better ramp up my intake...

But hey, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong on either of the above.

Macabre's on the Radio

2010-09-24T13:47:00.002+10:00

Hey hey, just discovered that Macabre was on Afternoons with Richard Fidler on 612 ABC Brisbane. He interviewed three of our contributors, Gary Kemble, Stephen M Irwin, and Will Elliott.

Way to go, guys!

And I love what Gary said about Macabre being a landmark anthology - because it's the only Aussie horror anthology that can be seen from space. Hah, classic!

Check out the audio here

The Monstrous Military

2010-09-22T15:24:00.000+10:00

Came across an article today worth posting about. It's from www.mania.com:

Back in the 1950s, psychological warfare planners within the American military began spreading tales of blood-sucking, monstrous vampires being on the loose in the Philippines. The reason: to terrify the superstitious, Communist Huk rebels that at the time, were engaged in an uprising in the Philippines.

The operation was a truly ingenious one that was coordinated by a certain Major General Edward G. Lansdale. Born in 1908, Lansdale served with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War. Then, in 1945, he was transferred to HQ Air Forces Western Pacific in the Philippines; and, in 1957, he received a posting to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, working as Deputy Assistant to the SoD for what were vaguely termed as “Special Operations.”

At the specific request of President Elpidio Quirino, Lansdale was assigned to the Joint United States Military Assistance Group to provide assistance and guidance in the field of Intelligence, to the Philippine Army, as the latter sought to squash the Huk uprising. And it was while lending assistance to President Quirino that Lansdale had the bright idea of exploiting a local legend for psychological warfare purposes – namely, that of the deadly, predatory and monstrous Asuang Vampire. A very strange “special operation” had well and truly begun.

In his own words, Lansdale would later say that: “To the superstitious, the Huk battleground was a haunted place filled with ghosts and eerie creatures. A combat psy-war squad was brought in. It planted stories among town residents of an Asuang living on the hill where the Huks were based. Two nights later, after giving the stories time to make their way up to the hill camp, the psywar squad set up an ambush along the trail used by the Huks.”

Lansdale continued: “When a Huk patrol came along the trail, the ambushers silently snatched the last man of the patrol, their move unseen in the dark night. They punctured his neck with two holes, vampire-fashion, held the body up by the heels, drained it of blood, and put the corpse back on the trail. When the Huks returned to look for the missing man and found their bloodless comrade, every member of the patrol believed that the Asuang had got him and that one of them would be next if they remained on that hill. When daylight came, the whole Huk squadron moved out of the vicinity.”

And, as a direct result of these actions, key, strategic ground was taken out of the hands of the Huk rebels.'

Good thinking, that...

Rusty Writing

2010-09-21T10:39:00.000+10:00

So two and a bit weeks after resigning as AHWA's President and the rust is slowly sloughing off... I actually sat down at my computer last night and spent 3 hours on my novel - mostly research - but it was a wonderful feeling.

Then I watched Dexter. That guy's so cold, it's awesome.

The Happiness of Being Human

2010-09-08T22:11:00.000+10:00

So that's the Worldcon, thank you very much. And what a trip!! Ye Gods, I drank too much, said too many silly things, but jeez I had an awesome time :)

Met loads of cool cats, folks I've spoken to via email for years but had never actually met, and caught up with many old friends. It was a brilliant time - but somewhat chaotic! There just didn't seem to be enough time to do half of the things I wanted to do. Oh well, there will be other cons.

The Nightmare Ball went really well (a huge THANK YOU to Kyla for that; she truly did do us all proud), with many crazy-cool costumes. And the one thing I forgot to do - throughout the whole con - was to take photos! D'oh.

A mate of mine would call that a Dave Moment...

Oh well, there are plenty of photos doing the rounds on Facebook (and fortunately, I'm yet to see any of me in drunken disarray, which is always good...).

I caught up with the agent fellow (John from Zeno Agency) and had a very positive and exciting chat about my novel, so I've come home enthusiastic and eager to get back into writing - which of course I can do now I've passed on the Presidential reigns to Leigh Blackmore (who is gonna rock as the new head honcho). Exciting times indeed...

Macabre was even launched and damn, that book looks great (okay, so I'm slightly biased here, but damn it looks great). Met Bob Franklin, TV/movie star and horror writer, and cool dude. He's one of our contributors so I got him to sign my copy (go Bob!). Missed out on getting many other signatures though, so it looks like I'll be lugging that tomb of a book around at the next con...

And I even brought a domain name for my new coming-soon website - can you believe I managed to get www.martyyoung.com? Couldn't believe it wasn't taken.

So as well as writing frantically, I'll also be updating this rusty, cobwebbed blog and changing a few other things. It's a new start, and an exciting one at that!

The Bitterness of Being Human

2010-08-21T16:53:00.000+10:00

Feeling a mite bitter with mankind today so I thought I'd pen a poem. Something a little different...

People are strange
Jimmy Morrison said,
but they're more than that,
worse than that;
People are human,
and there's no end to what
humans can be...

Yeah, okay, pretty crap, but it does the job.

Sometimes people amaze me and I'm amazed at that. After all of this time, to still be shocked and stunned by what people do... No wonder our poor planet is having an identity crises, hot and cold flushes; it's revolving around so many people...

Macabre's nearly here...

2010-08-16T20:27:00.000+10:00

...and I'm damn excited!

It looks bloody awesome - and it's a door-stopper at 672 pages. There're a whole swag of kick-arse writers in the anthology, going all the way back to John Lang's first ever Australian ghost story from 1836.

I'm real proud of this; Angela and I worked hard to get it together, and all of those involved have been fantastic to work with. Thanks all for your patience and perseverance, and here's to a wild launch at Worldcon in September!

The sheer scope of this project meant it wasn't possible to include everyone who deserved to be in there, but that just means there's enough material for a volume II sometime down the track. I still have a pile of stories from the colonial era right up to the 1980's looking for a home (got some great pulp era stories, too).

But for now, make sure you enjoy this Macabre feast - with 36 stories, it's an honest to goodness fuckin' smorgasbord!!

Check out the details (including the really important ordering info!) here: http://www.brimstonepress.com.au/macabre.htm

Oh! And a big THANK YOU to everyone who voted for my story 'Black Peter' for the Ditmar Awards! That story is now nominated in the Best Short Story category, and that's just cool :)

I'm gonna go git me a scotch and raise a toast. Then I'm 'a gonna drink that there scotch.

'Black Peter' was also honourably mentioned by Ellen Datlow in the Best Horror of the Year volume II, so looks like that's at least 3 glasses of scotch I'd best go enjoy...

Synopsis update

2010-03-26T22:19:00.002+11:00

Okay, so the synopsis is now complete!

Thank God.

It took 4 attempts, 3 severe edits by Paula, before I got the damn thing right. And now it bloody well shines :)

I re-read my first attempt and it made me cringe. Even I wouldn't have asked to read the manuscript had someone sent me that synopsis. Funny, cos at the time I was sure it was a knockout. Proves how much I know.

Oh Dr Young, you think you know all there is to know, don't you..?

Turns out I barely know where my next full stop is.

Anyway, the synopsis is done - well, let me clarify. A synopsis a little over 8 double-spaced pages is done, and now Paula is asking for me to shrink it down to 2 pages, and even 1 page. This request made me go fill up my glass with scotch and take a hefty drink.

Two pages is bad enough; how the hell am I supposed to shrink this thing currently 8 pages, something that was a struggle to limit to 8 pages, down to 2 pages? Or even 1 page? One page!

I think I need another drink...

The idea is to have a couple of different length synopsis ready to go should an agent request a 2 page one, or even a 1 page (shudder) one.

So it's with a groan that I haul myself back to the keyboard..... Will aim to get the 2 page version done this weekend. The 1 page, well, we'll see...

Meanwhile, the research into the most suitable agents continues...

The Great Australian Booklist

2010-03-22T20:43:00.001+11:00

Good ol' Chuck McKenzie has been at it again, stirring that brain of his and finding within it this bloody brilliant idea. And thanks to his cohorts (Gillian and Nyssa), the idea has become a reality:

So you're after a book that's published in the US or UK, but which is unavailable to purchase in Australia due to parallel importation restrictions? Maybe your local bookseller isn't stocking the desired range of exciting Aussie small press publications? Or perhaps that novel you've been looking for is long out of print? What can you, as an Australian reader, do to get your hands on the books you want to read?

Readers may use the Great Australian Booklist to nominate 'wish lists' of overseas, local small press and out of print publications, which will then be made available to Australian publishers, distributors and booksellers, to be taken into consideration when purchasing copyright, choosing titles to republish, or stocking shelves.

With this register, book-buyers and the Great Australian Public will benefit by having their say in our industry. Simply nominate all the books you wish you could get hold of, but that your bookshop doesn’t stock, or if it's already up there, use your voting powers. Share your idea on facebook or twitter, and get others to vote for it.

Support the Australian bookselling industry: nominate here today!

Novel Progress: 809 Jacob Street

2010-03-14T13:50:00.002+11:00

I thought it might be worthwhile keeping a regularly updated record of this journey from finished novel to published novel, for my own sanity, and in case it helps others on this mad and hectic road to publication (I doubt that it will, so let's just go with saving my sanity).

So where are we up to? Well, I have a shiny manuscript all ready to go - a supernatural thriller of approximately 96,000 words.

This manuscript has been through the wash half a dozen times, been pulled apart by Paula, and slowly put back together again by me. The end result (final edit completed on the 6th of March, 2010 - boy did I have a scotch of two on that day!) is something I'm immensely proud of. It's a far, far better novel than when I first wrote 'The End.' Or even the second time I wrote 'The End.' Or the third time, the fourth, fifth......

My favourite character is still the old homeless bluesman, Joey Blue. Him and his pesky fly thoughts... He's such a poor chap, but he's the one who keeps feeding his demons, no one else. And not even I knew he had that song in him when this journey began:
Barstool eyes, in a dark-lit bar,
Juked-up wails of a jukebox cries,
to drown the despair that seeps from his soul....

But that's Joe for you.

So what's next, then? Well, I have just finished the second draft of my synopsis after Paula tore the first draft to shreds (thanks again, Paula :). She is going over it, no doubt with fangs and claws ready... But that's good, 'cos I want this to shine. Writing a synopsis is hard work. How the heck do you condense a whole novel, all ~96,000 words, into a couple of pages?? With a lot of groaning, that's how.

There are a lot of useful resources out there though, offering tips on writing a synopsis. Check out the following:
How to Write a Synopsis (Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent)

The Synopsis (BookEnds, LLC - A Literary Agent)

How to Write a Synopsis (Writing-World.com - Mark Gilks)

Writing a Novel Synopsis (Fiction Writer's Connection)

Writing a Synopsis from the Ground Up (Writing-World.com - Dee-Ann Latona LeBlanc)

Once the synopsis is done, I still have to write the cover letter. Boy oh boy, I'm beginning to think that writing the blasted novel was the easy step!

Meanwhile, the research into suitable US Agents continues... This is vitally important, as I want to make sure my novel reaches the right agent.

I tells ya, when I submit 809 Jacob Street that first time, even if I get a rejection, that's going to be a huge thrill - although I imagine that by the 20th rejection, the thrill would have probably faded...

Masters of Horror, here I come!

2010-02-27T18:44:00.007+11:00

Awesome, the cover art for the MoH anthology has been revealed and I gotta say, it looks damn cool!

You'll find my story 'Fireflies of the Bushfire' nestled neatly inside. Publication date is scheduled for about April... more details soon.

In other news, I'm about 1/3 of the way through the copy edits of my novel and boy oh boy am I sick of this...... but hang in there Marty, nearly done. Just gotta add that final polish and then it's off to US agents we go.

A big THANK YOU to Paula, my editor extraordinaire, who has made this book so damn amazing. Hope those sunny Californian skies are looking after you well :)

Onwards and upwards Paula!

Being Scared...

2010-02-06T11:17:00.008+11:00

So have you been scared lately..?

I don't mean scared for your life in the real world, cos that just sucks, really. I lived in Canberra (in one of the worst hit suburbs) when those bushfires ripped through the place and I was pretty damn scared then. The fire front reached the house accross the small cul-de-sac road from me before the wind turned it away (my short story Fireflies of the Bushfire, to be published this year, is based on that experience). Absolutely terrifying. This lil' ol' kiwi had never experienced anything remotely like an Aussie bushfire before that.

But I'm talkin' about the fun kind of scared! Y'know, that 'HOLY JESUS!' moment where you're just freaking the hell out and LOVING IT!

I used to have 3 crazy dreams on a semi-regular basis when I was growing up, one was about zombies chasing me, the next about T-Rex coming after me, and the last about Jason from Friday the 13th hot on my heels. All were pretty much unstoppable, and I used to wake up terrified. Not fun. Man, I'd be a psychiatrist's wet dream...

But no, that's not really the fun scared I'm talking about, either.

I reckon the most fun scared I've been was during Paranormal Activity--especially that scene where the lady's leg is-- well, I'd best not spoil it. But crap, that movie did a major number on me. Blair Witch frightened the heck outta me too, but PA was so much better. I saw this a few weeks ago and I reckon it's the spookiest movie I've ever watched.

Maybe I'm just a wimp.

How about in a book? That's much harder, although The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs was pretty damn terrifying. Novels? Hmm.....

There was a novel by Richard Laymon that freaked me out - can't remember what it was called but it was about this sicko who broke into this family's house and killed the parents, then went after the kids. That got me, but only because shit like that happens in our fucked up world. Goddamn people. My money's on the sharks.

(and don't even try with your flying tanks - they'll run out of fuel eventually and then where will you be? Yeah, you know it, punk)

Welcome (belatedly) to the future!

2010-01-23T21:29:00.002+11:00

So it's 2010.

I thought we'd all have those hover skateboards by now. You know the ones from Back to the Future? I've been looking forward to them for a while--well ever since I saw that flick.

But no. Not even a jetpack. I've got an iPhone but that hardly helps me to fly.

Boy, this future sucks. It's so much like the past. Only the date has changed. Where are the aliens? The wormholes leading to another universe? The wonderful revelations? I've been looking forward to so much but it's just taking too damn long to get here.

(And by the sounds of things, it's all gonna end in 2012, so my blasted jetpack had better hurry up or I won't have time to enjoy it! Huh? I hear you saying... Check out "2012: The Good, the Bad, and the Apocalyptic" by Dr. Amy H. Sturgis)

So anyway, what of this new year, 2010? I guess I should write some more stories seeing as how I have no completed ones left (I submitted 4 stories in the past year; 3 have been published/accepted for publication, and 1 is sitting on a shortlist. That's a good return). I also need to get my novel off to an agent or two, now that it's been through the cleaners and has come out shiny. Time to pull my finger out, stop pouting about my lack of a jetpack, and do some bloody work.

My muse has finally returned from his holiday too, the blasted shifty sideshow freak. God alone knows where he went--and I'm too scared to ask. He's got this look about him, a sparkle to his eye that wasn't there before. Maybe he got laid. Dunno. Don't want to know. But it means trouble for me 'cos he's been circling lately. Moving in closer like a Goddamn shark. He has sights to show me and I can see his fingers itching to peel back the curtain.....

Ah crap, here he is now.....

So then, what's next..?

2009-08-29T12:19:00.003+10:00

South Korea needs to learn how to cook their food. What's with all the raw stuff?? The fish was good - even ate something people thought might've been whale (it probably wasn't, and I hope it wasn't cos it really did taste good). But the raw crab was a bit much. You had to suck the flesh out of the shell like drinking through a straw. And the still live shell fish...... urgh. Oh, and the fermented cabbage - phew.

Glad we had rice wine to force it all down with.

All up though, it was a good adventure; saw a bit of the island, experienced the culture, and discovered the people to be rather friendly (even if I had no idea what they were going on about).

So now then, seeing as how I've forgotten this is a horror blog and have been blabbering on about my somewhat chaotic travelling of late, I might as well harp on about what's next...

Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur to be exact. On Monday. And this one is only for 4 days. That'll make my 3rd big trip is about 6 weeks... (which is silly, really). But the good thing about this trip (apart from the 5 star hotel I get put up in - jeez I'm becoming a hotel slut), is that last time I was there I discovered a cool secondhand bookstore that had a monster spec fic section, and sold their books for the equivalent of AU$1.

Awesome. So I'm packing light this time in order to fill up my suitcase.

And even better? This is my last overseas trip til August next year, and that rocks cos frankly, I'm all a bit sick of cattle class...

The Adventures of a horror writer pretending to be a scientist

2009-08-16T12:47:00.006+10:00

It’s always an adventure when I head for the planes...

This time I find myself in South Korea for the IODP STP meeting, via a 4 hour stopover in Hong Kong, then to Seoul, and finally to Jeju, the island down the bottom of Koea where the 3-day meeting is being held (my trip to Malaysia has been postponed til Aug 31). The airport wait wasn’t too bad; I found a luxurious sofa/bed thingie shaped like giant lips and fell asleep for about an hour.

But my flight from Seoul to Jeju was cancelled. And because they couldn’t get a hold of me, I didn't find out til I was standing at the check-in counter. So I had to take a 40 minute bus ride across Seoul to Gimpo Airport to try get onto a flight there. Not good when you’re still wearing the same undies you were two days ago.....

And Seoul is a mad place; I thought it was just sky-scrapers as far as I eye could see til I realised they were high-rise apartment buildings. We were still 18km from the city. But the pollution!! At one stage, you see this massive bridge spanning a huge bay, but it fades out into smog halfway across (damnit again! I really do need to learn to take my camera everywhere). It’s 33 degrees, pretty humid, and as smoggy as hell. And again I’m so very tired...

These high-rise apartment buildings were all the same too; 15+ stories with a giant number on one side, each one like a great big letterbox number.

It’s a pity I didn’t get to see the city of Seoul itself cos it must be something - if you like that sort of thing (millions of people, traffic jams, pollution, noise...). Personally, I'm looking forward to the field trip on Sunday afternoon up the 1,950m Mt. Hallasan to see the lava tubes, but then I'm just a geek...

Still, all the aches and tiredness faded to insignificance when I reached my hotel in Jeju. I'm staying at the Hyatt Regency, and wouldn't you just know it? My room has a pretty cool ocean view. Completely unobstructed (the view below is looking away to the left).

Plus the toilet in my room has a wild looking control panel on the side of the bowl! Some of the options are: Air Drier; Front Cleansing; Rear Cleansing; Nozzle Position; Water Temperature.

I had to give these a go, no matter how tired I was.

I pressed the Rear Cleansing button... A small nozzle, about 10mm in diameter, slowly came out from the back of the toilet bowl. When it protruded about 15cm, it stopped, then sprayed a jet of water up into my face.

After drying myself off, I did what any sensible person would do and sat on the loo. I really had to give this a go.

Boy it tickled!

I'm going to try the Front Cleansing button tonight :)

Italian pizzas rule the world!

2009-07-26T21:59:00.015+10:00

Italy was hot. I never realised how hot the crazy pasta munching place could get. The whole week I was there--except for one day--was in excess of 33 degrees C. But that aint all together bad...

So what did I think of the place?

I think I liked it. History smacks you in the face with all that you see; the food is wonderful (the pizza, damn and heck! Homer would drool for a week); the towns are chaotic and the streets madly narrow (too narrow for cars, in all seriousness, but do you think that stops them?); the wine flows like water, and the folks are direct and to the point, but forever saying prego (you're welcome).

See? That road just aint a road...

It's hard not speaking the language though. Makes ordering dinner quite a challenge and a real adventure. The number of times I sat there looking at the food, wondering what the hell I'm now supposed to eat... But you get that in foreign places.

I learned some Italian before I left home (hi, thank you, you're welcome, I'm sorry but I don't understand, I don't speak Italian, honestly I have no idea what you're talking about even if you talk slower), but everytime I tried explaining I don't understand, the strange rolling words would get tangled on my tongue, leaving me looking like a toad. My expression of complete ignorance said more than any attempted Italian ever could.

On the last night of the course, the class all went out to dinner, then to a pub hidden down one of those crazily small backroads of Urbino, the mad, labrynth walled city:

The bar was called 'The Bosom Bar' and nope, not one of 'those' places. It was just a pub, albeit one with brick alcoves and arched brick ceilings. And it was filled with people. The streets of Urbino were nearly empty but this pub was full. Obviously where everyone in town went to at night. It closed about 2am, when everyone spilled out into the tiny street, taking their drinks with them (it was then I understood why they were serving us in plastic cups). About half an hour after that, someone yelled "To the next bar!" and this motley collection of Italians and Germans, Begiums, Dutch, Columbians, Egyptians, Kiwis, Canadians, Poms, all friends and strangers alike, went as one big bunch of suddenly close people. It was mad. A drunken United Nations out on the town.

God knows how we managed to even talk to one another. So much beer and wine had flowed by then that we were all probably speaking our native tongues in perfect understanding!

I escaped at close to 3am, still having to shave, shower, and pack before my 7am taxi. Then began the homeward spiral; a taxi, a bus, two trains, another bus, a plane from Paris to Florence (and damnit if the Alps weren't covered by clouds), and one further train ride for good measure before I reached my destination in downtown Paris at around 11pm. Piece of cake eh? As my Belgium colleague was saying by the end of the course, Sweet As, Bro.

The Alps from the plane... ah, if only I'd taken my camera on the way over...

My hotel in Paris was 200m from Notre Dame, so that's where I arranged to meet Rosscoe, me ol' kiwi mate - only it turned out that the hotel was 200m from this Notre Dame:

Not this one:

Which was actually about a 10 minute taxi ride away...

Hmm... good start. But pretty much what was expected, to tell the truth :) We've been lost in NZ in the past.

Paris was a blast; that's one way cool city. Ross and I only had a day there, but from snails at midnight to gargoyles at noon, the place rocked. Oh, and the taxi ride around the Arc de Triomphe!! Fuck me. That is the most insane roundabout in the world! We'd spent the morning watching the traffic navigate the thing and worked out that traffic on the roundabout has to give way to traffic coming onto the roundabout!! Think about that for a while; it's just not going to work. The roundabout just gets busier and busier.

The taxi driver was great, although I'm sure his eyes flickered nervously when Ross asked him to take us round the Arc. But he did it, God bless him. And there were cars everywhere. Every-fucking-where. At all angles! Any space you see, you go for it, but if someone beats you, you slam on your brakes so you don't hit them. And the first chance you get to get off, oh boy do you take it!

Simple. If you're stark raving bonkers.

But now I'm home, and as cool as the trip was, and as great as it was to catch up with Ross, I'm glad to be home, although my jetlag is making me wake at odd times and fall asleep when I should really be awake. I'm supposed to be heading to Kuala Lumpur in two weeks time, then South Korea two weeks after that. And that's a problem, cos I really don't like long distance travel..... It's so nice of the airlines to give you a tour of First Class and then Business Class, before leading you into the cattle pens.

Such a long, long trip...

2009-07-18T18:46:00.002+10:00

Well, that was a hell of a trip!

Thirty-nine hours spent on a plane, train, bus, or waiting to get onto a blasted plane, train or bus! Urgh. Hell, Australia is a long way away from here... The last leg was the worst; the 1 hour, 25 min bus ride from Pesaro to Urbino, at 6pm, 34 degrees C. Even I could smell myself by then. It was only because the bus was packed with people that anyone sat next to me, I’m sure of it (I did notice it was the last seat filled).

But I made it, and oh how I slept (so much for not packing sleep!). Same again last night; another 10 hours straight; I had 2 beers with the class after the course had finished for the day but declined the offer to head into the old Urbino town for dinner. Tonight, we’ve got dinner at the Summer School, where the course is being held (with panoramic views of the rolling hills – what an awesome place to go to uni), but otherwise we’ll be heading into the old walled township every night so there is ample time to check out this medieval place. And I’m looking forward to it.

But it wasn’t going to happen last night. Jet-lag and the beers had conspired against me by then. The idea of a 20 minute hilly walk—“it’s about 20 minutes,” they say—was so beyond me I doubt I’d gone even if they’d promised I’d see Kate Beckinsale clad in leather fighting werewolves up behind that mysterious giant stone wall.

Actually, that might’ve gotten me moving...

There was one cool thing about all the travel (besides me now being in Italy!), and that was the flight between Paris and Florence. We passed over the Alps, a truly spectacular mountain range; massive craggy peaks, some crested in snow, with great rivers scything their way through the ranges and glaciers rolling their ominous way down towards the towns cradled within the valleys. The peaks faded into the distance, first losing their details to a fine blue mist, then becoming indistinguishable from the surrounding clouds. I really have to take my camera in my onboard luggage on the way back, cos this is a sight that needs to be taken. It was breathtaking. I’m flying to Paris in the afternoon on my way back though, so the lighting may be completely different and the magic might not be visible, but we’ll see.

Italy, here I come!

2009-07-14T22:04:00.002+10:00

All right then. It's off to Italy tomorrow, via 3 planes (24 hours travel time), 2 trains (3 hours) and one bus (1 hour)... Boy, it'll be an aventure just to get there!

I'm heading to Urbino, halfway up the calf of the big boot that is Italy. There's a week long Advanced Workshop on Dinoflagellate Cysts (work stuff) being held there, and I'm still wondering how I managed to talk my bosses into agreeing for me to go.

On the way home I'm spending 24 hours in Paris and get to catch up with me ol' kiwi buddy Rosscoe, who is now living in Oxford. Two lads from Hawkes Bay having a wine under the Eiffel Tower... how cool :)

Ross and I once got lost in NZ on our month long tour of the North Island; we couldn't find the ocean at one stage. So I'm a little concerned over our up-coming efforts in Paris. I can see us wandering the backstreets looking for this pointy thing that pokes up into the sky.... Our hotel is 200m from St Michel/Notre Dame, so at the very least, I should manage a cliche picture of me looking longingly at the gargoyes: 'Why was I not made of stone... like thee?'

Such a powerful and heartfelt line, that. Damn good movie, too.

So many sights to see over the next 9 days. I've decided not to pack sleep and will catch up on that when I get back. It's just a pity I don't have time to fit in a ghost tour, as I like doing when I go overseas (I'm heading to South Korea next month for more work, so I'll have to do so then). Still, I do plan on visiting the Catacombs of Paris (Catacombes de Paris - I'm practicing my French), and that should satisfy my macabre needs... maybe I'll stop in on Jimmy Morrison too, say G'day.

Oh, and some great news to head off on; my short story Black Peter has been accepted for publication in Tasmaniac Publications's Festive Fear anthology! Woohoo! A lot of secret thanks to make here (whisper-whisper, you know who you are...), plus some cudos to the boys and girls of the AHWA Crit group. Bring on December the 1st!

I've only subbed two short stories this year because I've been working hard on my novel. Thus far, I've had one acceptance, and my other story is still warming the slush pile. So at the worst, it'll be a 50-50 year.

I'll see if I can dust off the, er, dust, from this here blog and post something from the land of Pizza and Mafia...

Kill Santa

2009-05-19T11:04:00.004+10:00

I should've posted this a lot earlier (sorry Steve), but let's go turn Christmas dark and spooky...

Tasmaniac Publications (and aint that just a cool name??) are accepting submissions from January 1st to June 30th 2009 for FESTIVE FEAR, the annual that showcases a darker, more sinister side of Christmas.

As it says on their website, 'Tasmaniac Publications announce the launch of an annual series, Festive Fear, in which we invite Australian writers to offer horror stories based within a ‘Christmas down under’ theme.'

So c'mon, let's take over Christmas and scare the b'jesus outta all those pesky wee elves... Heh-heh, let's terrorize the kids, too :)

"Santa? Oh Santa. No Johnny, you don't want to write a letter to Santa. It's best he doesn't know you even exist. Trust me there. That big ol' fat man sneaking into our house late at night? No, you really don't want that at all..."

The Year's Best (late, I know, but then that's me)

2009-05-03T14:21:00.006+10:00

Yay! Just received -- well, okay, it turned up last week -- Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror volume 3, in which my wee tale 'The Wildflowers' appears.

ADF&H is the year's best Australian short stories, so to have my story reprinted here is way cool bananas! I'm stoked, very chuffed. I appear alongside some elite company- Rick Kennett, Deborah Biancotti, David Conyers, Sean Williams, Martin Livings - the list goes on!

'The Wildflowers' first appeared in Fantastic Wonder Stories (Ticonderoga, 2007). It's a great anthology, one well worth buying. But ADF&H volume 3 is what we're talkin' about right now, and you really, really, oughta get a copy of this, too.

Go me!

Beneath this gruff exterior lies a teddy bear...

2009-04-17T10:16:00.002+10:00

I write horror; I kill people in my stories. I also investigate ghosts and monsters. Even spent a night in a haunted castle. But when I watched the clip of this Susan Boyle blowing away the world with a stunning voice, I nearly cried. I had goosebumps.

It was just so spectacular, so inspiring, and so damn wonderful!

I don't watch the show but I came across an article in today's newspaper. So I thought I'd best go investigate. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. That was cool.

Go Susan! You rock!

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Time Travel - yep, sure is possible

2009-03-05T09:02:00.002+11:00

I'm off to Hawaii tonight at 6pm and will arrive at Honolulu at 6:45am. Same day.

It's a 10 hour flight (groan... hope they've got decent movies) but I'll end up arriving before I've even gotten out of bed. Which works out well for me because I'm awfully forgetful.

*ring-ring*
"Uh, hello?"
"Hey, Marty man, sorry to wake you."
"Who's this?"
"It's me--well, us. I'm you."
"Huh?"
"It's Hawaiin Marty here."
"Huh?"
"Listen, I know I don't exist in your world yet but by some quirk of the metaphysical, I've found a way to call you."
"Huh??"
"You've forgotten to pack your underwear. Don't forget your undies when you pack today-"

Yeah, something like that. Though if you look closely it all falls apart...

I always leave packing til the last minute and then end up having to rush. Maybe I should go do so now instead of wasting time writing nonsense here...

Sometimes...

2009-02-28T18:53:00.004+11:00

Sometimes even a mushroom needs love...

Maybe I should copyright that? (c) Marty Young. There.

Grim Tidings for Black magazine

2009-02-24T20:57:00.006+11:00

Alas, so it has come to pass. Black magazine will no longer be found in newsagencies. And that is such a bummer. That bites the big one. Black filled a void in Australia and it was only getting better, too.

The wonderkids at Brimstone Press should stand tall and proud because they achieved something grand. And fortunately it's not all doom and gloom. This from the website:

[ BLACK: Australia's dark culture and entertainment magazine is moving to a free-to-read online format.

We are immensely proud that Black Magazine has been embraced by the Australian public and generated thousands of eager readers and fans. We are also proud to have published Australian exclusives previously thought out of reach for an independent press: a new short story from Stephen King, interviews with genre stars such as George A. Romero, Alice Cooper, M. Night Shyamalan, Jared Padalecki, and Jensen Ackles, and many Australian authors, and in-depth coverage of issues outside the realm of the mainstream media. We also published some brilliant fiction including Paul Haines' Australian Shadows Award finalist "Her Collection of Intimacy".

However, the magazine industry presents high risks and low returns for a small publisher, and the investment required in money, energy, and time in a period of economic uncertainty has proven too much for a two person management. After much consideration, we have reluctantly decided that issue #3 will mark the final print edition of the magazine.

The plan is to relaunch Black in 2009 as an online portal for Australian dark culture. A key component of this plan is to merge Black with Brimstone Press' award-winning HorrorScope website, which currently publishes book and movie reviews and acts as the news source for the Australian Horror Writers Association. Black Online will continue to publish many of the feature interviews, articles, and regular columns that appeared in the print edition. ]

There's more on their website you should check out, including a newsletter you really should sign up for.

Angela and Shane, you guys kicked arse. Hang on a sec while I put on a top hat.... Okay, there. Now, I take my hat off to you both for what you've created, and you have my full support in Black's new future.

Let's hope it returns to print sometime in the future...

Myspace on Facebook's blog twitters and flickrs...

2009-02-18T21:20:00.004+11:00

How do you keep up? Facebook and Myspace and Live Journals and Blogs and Flickr and Twitter and oh dear God there's more...

Fortunately I'm IT-illiterate and don't know half of the web critters out there just waiting for a plump juicy bug like me. I think I'll stick to this rusty blog (and a website once I'm a big famous writer). So if I don't sign up or accept your request for friendship or post photos of me next to the pottie explaining how much of a relief it is to get THAT out, it's not cos I don't like you, it's cos I'm running just to keep up. I'd rather spend the time I do have free on my writing than updating various profiles on various websites for various people to whizz across on their way somewhere else--or perhaps nowhere else in particular. Just another star in the sky, watching meteors.

Shit, what did I have for dinner? Whatever it was seems to be repeating on me.

Wonder how many people are lost in the web? And the irony of it all? We share so many aspects of ourselves with the world, with a whole heck of a lot of strangers, and yet our physical selves close off more and more.

Right. That's it. I think I'd best pour myself a scotch and get rid of whatever else is twittering away inside of me before I sprout more nonsense...

My love/hate relationship with mankind

2009-02-13T21:22:00.005+11:00

Sometimes I love being human. Most times I hate being human.

It's a shame it takes something as terrible as the Vic bushfires to bring out the best in us. But wow, how good can we be when the situation calls for it? I've been brought to tears by how compassionate people can be.

And it's equally as fucking terrible that during such times, the real assholes of humanity float to the top. To them I guess an opportunity is an opportunity.

Can you believe it? Looting. Fake charity collectors. At a time like this! And lets not even talk about the wankers that started the fires...

Urgh. Okay, got that out of my system. And I held back, too. You should hear me ranting and raving in the privacy of my study.

Okay, on a happier note. The key word--well, one of them--this summer is koalas. Some fantastic photos going around at the moment about these poor buggers coming to us for water. Cripes, it must be hot if they're doing that (I just hope they can tell the assholes from the rest). So let's end on a happy note:

Danger! Zombies!

2009-02-08T09:14:00.008+11:00

As bushfires rage across Victoria and floods ravage north Queensland (be safe, everyone), here's a little bit of craziness to take our minds from the real life horrors.

Wacky kids in Illinois have hacked into electronic road signs and changed the text.

Other signs have been changed to read 'DAILY LANE CLOSURES DUE TO ZOMBIES,' 'RAPTORS AHEAD - CAUTION,' and 'NAZI ZOMBIES! RUN!!'

Pretty distracting if you're driving, I imagine.

Officials aren't sure how they're gaining access to the signs, and for those of you curious about how you might hack into one of these electronic road signs once you do have access (not condoning anything, of course), a good place to start would be here.

But remember the boy who cried wolf? If we all go out and start claiming that zombies are coming when they're not, who will believe us when they really do show up?

The Frightningly Awesome Past

2009-02-07T15:45:00.006+11:00

How's this (taken from the news.com.au website):
'STUNNED scientists have found the fossilised remains of the world's greatest snake - a record-busting serpent that was as long as a bus and snacked on crocodiles.

The boa-like behemoth ruled the tropical rainforests of what is now Colombia some 60 million years ago, at a time when the world was far hotter than now, they report in a study released today.

The size of the snake's vertebrae suggest the beast weighed some 1.135 tonnes, in a range of 730kg to 2.03 tonnes.

And it measured 13 metres (42ft) from nose to tail, in a range of 10.64-15 metres, they estimate.'

They had an artist's rendition too:

This thing, at its greatest width, would've come up to your hips.

...and you wonder why I get excited about geology. Yeah I'm a geek but it's also a horror writers' paradise.

Hawaiian Ghosts

2009-02-05T21:39:00.002+11:00

So I'm off to Hawaii in March for a 4 day meeting. Kind of a cool place to hold a meeting, I reckon. It's for a new role I've taken on at work, meaning I have to attend 2 international meetings a year.

That aint so bad either.

So Hawaii. Aloha. Pipeline. Lava. Scantly clad women. Baywatch beaches. Dave Hasselhoff in speedos.

I'm looking forward to it. My first night there I'm off on a ghost tour of the island of O'ahu. Cool bananas! Get to hear some local tales of the supernatural, visit haunted locations, old graveyards. Should be a hoot.

Then on my last day, I've got a flight to the Big Island (Hawai'i) where I'll spend the day on a volcanic tour. Hopefully I get to poke flowing lava. Cool--perhaps slightly toasted--bananas!!

This year is shaping up to be an interesting one. It seems my passport will be getting an excessive workout with several O/S trips coming up for work. Still, the old dark fellow is pretty excited by it all. Old Darkling Muse, he's been a bit starved of late, but now the novel is done and off to editors and publishers, it's time to flex his wrists and bring him back to some semblance of life.

Two Magical Words

2008-11-27T10:47:00.002+11:00

So I wrote two words last night at about 11pm, each one only three letters long.

THE END

Woohoo!!

The novel comes in at 103,500 words. It's a supernatural thriller. Am I happy with it? Yes. Absolutely. The story feels complete. The ending just. It's been a hell of a journey. My writing has improved so much since I started, so I've had to go back over the older sections and edit them. Even now I'm tempted to give it one more edit, but no, not just yet.

My next step is to get copies out to the two critics I've got lined up, who will give it a solid going over. I've told them I want, need, their honesty. Forget they know me and be brutal (but loving; I'm a delicate wee thing).

That's a spooky thing. Writing The End was kind of spooky (here's this world full of characters I know and love and hate so well, and it's time to draw the curtain on them. I didn't want to), but now I have to show someone real my novel and get them to pull it apart and tell me where/why it doesn't work, or what has to be improved.

Yeah, that's spooky.

Once my friends have given me their critiques, I'll send the manuscript to an editing agency and have a professional tidy up done, too. Or maybe I'll look at getting that done now.

Anyway, in the meantime, I need to write a synopsis and start the job of working out how to get the thing published... I want to hunt down an agent, I think.

And I've also got a head full of short stories that are demanding I write them out, so I will take a breather from novel writing for a few months and clear out my head a little. I haven't written a short story for nearly 10 months. I'm looking forward to it.

But that next novel is blazing away already and if I'm not careful, it will soon blind me from those shorts I need to write. That novel is already written; I just need to add the bits in so it works as a trilogy.

Phew, the keyboard's smokin'...

Wasting time like a good time waster

2008-11-16T14:41:00.009+11:00

The novel is grinding on; I’m midway through the climax. It’s exhilarating, daunting, and even frightening, writing the conclusion. But I’m getting there. Reckon I’m only a few weeks out from writing those magical words, The End...

Today though, today has been a day for procrastination; my study has never looked so organized, the web so thoroughly surfed, or my bookshelf so terribly raided. Still none of that sedated my urge to waste time, so I thought I’d get my More Than Meets the Eye world tour started. I’m off on a magical mystery tour of the middle earth, out looking for things that don’t exist. Reptilian Humanoids. I figure this should waste a suitable amount of time for me.

How’s this for a start? This is from the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, Chapter 2, verse 10: ‘That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in Earth, and things under the Earth.’

Could be meaning earthworms, but I don't think they have knees.

Numerous societies have reptilian beings as part of their culture; the Nagas of South Asian mythology, snake-humans that lived in an underground city; the Sarpa of Indian legends, a Reptilian race who founded civilization; the Zulu shaman of Africa, who claimed knowledge of the Chitahuri, reptilian beings who controlled the Earth; the Hopi of northern Arizona and their snake-brothers, the Sheti, who occupied underground cities in Arizona, California, Mexico and Central America. The Cherokee and other American Indian races all made mention of Reptilian races, and even Cecrops, the first King of Athens, was said to be half man, half snake.

Apparently, the Australian aborigines mention a race of Reptilian beings that lived underground and governed over men (I've heard of the Wati-kutjara, or lizard-men, but I'd have to look into this more); the Mayans spoke of the Iguana-Men, who descended from the sky to take control of their civilizations. East Asian cultures have their versions (the Japanese kappa, the Dragon Kings in Chinese mythology). Modern day encounters with reptilian humanoids are numerous, and there are tons of websites detailing some of these experiences.

Many cultures believed that these beings were the ancestors of a race of dragon-humans that once lived on a massive continent in the Pacific Ocean (Lemuria, or Mu). Vast expanses of the continent were believed to have sunk beneath the waves many many years ago after a massive natural catastrophe.

There was an article in the Los Angeles Times, dated January 29, 1934: "Lizard People's Catacomb City Hunted,” was the headline. The article explained the efforts of a Los Angeles mining engineer who believed he had uncovered a well planned underground labyrinth dating back thousands of years beneath downtown Los Angeles.

At the time of the article, the engineer and his team had drilled down two hundred and fifty feet, and planned to keep going until they reached one thousand feet.

However, the project was suddenly stopped and abandoned in the wake of the media attention generated by the article. No further excavation was allowed, and nothing had been permitted since...

So then, there're a few starting points on my merry magical mystery tour...

Going under...

2008-11-12T21:56:00.002+11:00

I've got it!

My sights have found their target and thus the fun begins. I'm a'huntin' wabbits- er, reptilians!

That's right; Reptilian Humanoids (do a Google search and you will find a whole stack of info on what they are).

See, it compliments my days spent working as a scientist by keeping my research skills fine-tuned, plus it balances my need to write fiction by letting me delve into something surreal and fantastical.

I've already written a novel based on these things, but that novel has turned into an unwritten trilogy, so this 'hunt' can also be considered necessary research.

But more than that, I'm just plain intrigued by the idea of a race of advanced humanoid reptiles living beneath the ground. Beings that have infiltrated our society, creatures that have appeared in all manner of cultures right across the world pretty much from human day dot.

So this isn't pure Crazy Doc nonsense. There is a logic behind my methodical madness. I'll start my investigation this weekend, and will post regular updates here as I find curious facts or, just imagine, sightings! Heh-heh. But don't imagine this will be wrapped up anytime soon; it's going to take a while.

Plus I've got a novel to finish! 809 Jacob - it's so, oh so close to being finished. I'm writing the ending now. And it rocks, even if I do say so myself. I just really like the story; it feels whole. It feels right. The ending formed itself and no matter how many times I rewrote one of the key scenes towards the end, I kept being led to the same conclusion. It's the natural conclusion to the story, and certainly an ending I didn't suspect half way through.

Funny how your characters take control...

On closer inspection...

2008-11-04T12:47:00.003+11:00

So if I wanted to hunt down a faery, goblin, vampire or werewolf, how would I go about it?

Such tasks always look insurmountable to begin with. Fortunately I've completed a PhD, and THAT looked impossible when I started too, so I have experience with the insurmountable. You just need to find a starting point, and then, with one eye on the end, start taking those baby steps. Don't think about the miles in-between.

But the biggest problem here is, do such things actually exist, or are they simply the imaginations of a superstitious, ignorant mind?

In this day and age, with the facilities so readily at our disposal, it should be possible to find out.

This world of ours is intriguing. So many, many people believe in monsters and ghosts, aliens and devils, that you have to wonder if there isn't some inkling of truth to it all. The other option is a little too frightening; life is too bland for us.

We need, crave the emotions believing in monsters gives us. The fear, wonder, excitement. The danger.

Maybe we need to believe because it makes us feel alive. It lets us appreciate our own existence more. The idea that one day we might accidentally stumble over something surreal and then we'll know there is more to the world than we're led to believe. That there is magic in the world.

So then. Where's my starting point?

I guess I need to determine what I'm going to hunt...

The Return of the Living Doc

2008-11-03T21:50:00.003+11:00

Cccrrreeeaaakkkkkkk......

Sounds like a coffin opening.

I wrote a story recently ('Revelations') in which two guys basically watched the end of the world happen on their TV. I love the idea, but it made me realise that I've become rather skeptical. No doubt that's a result of my science background.

I wonder how much I'd believe if a good friend told me something fantastical. My wife or dad, my brother, what if they said they had seen an alien, or had spent a day trapped in another dimension?

A lot of people I know have had strange experiences (myself included) and it's not that I don't believe them, it just that, well, I don't believe them.

I'd like to think that I'm open to the possibilities, but the thing is, the only way I'd ever accept what others told me was if I'd seen it for myself. It's not the way I really want to be but I've spent the past decade surrounded by science, by facts and figures and microscopes and chemicals; it's hard NOT to be skeptical.

Hmmm... maybe I'll put on my investigatin' hat and go investigatin'...

The Box is about to open...

2008-03-18T09:53:00.003+11:00

Black Box

2008-02-23T21:09:00.002+11:00

The curious things you see...

2008-02-23T12:36:00.006+11:00

We've got this picture of Hopetoun Falls hanging on the wall (copyright Ken Duncan). I like it; it's a neat photo, but...

...have a closer look midway along the far river bank...

There's a cube!

Hmm.... wonder what that is...

On one side an Honorable Mention, on the other...

2008-02-09T13:58:00.001+11:00

News in from Ellen Datlow, wonder editor extraordinaire...

My story The Wildflowers (Fantastic Wonder Stories, 2007) has been given an Honourable Mention in the up-coming international Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.

Cool bananas.

I told Ellen that next year, I plan on having a story in the collection...

And on the other side of the coin, an old edition of my article Muncaster's Ghosts was published instead of a new and improved version... bit of a bummer but at least the article still reads okay... This greatly annoyed me, but alas, what can you do?

To cheer me up, I poured myself a scotch and stared at a photo of the castle itself, remembering the weird sounds and strange things that happened in the haunted castle the night I stayed there.....

Actually, that was a great two weeks; I toured England and Scotland without once staying in any cities or towns. Instead, I stayed in B and B's and inns, and spent the days visiting old castles, stone circles, cairns, and of course, Loch Ness.... it was a brilliant time. I certainly saw an interesting side to the country.

Have you seen...

2008-02-02T22:12:00.000+11:00

More Malaysian encounters...

2007-11-23T14:01:00.001+11:00

So they trundled me off to the airport again, sat me on a plane and told me to be ready for another adventure...

This time to Kuala Lumpur, where I was to spend a week working in the Ulu Langat core warehouse, just on the outskirts of KL itself. Another dodgy taxi ride each day to and from work, up over the mountains. That was actually pretty cool; I was expecting--and hoping--to see monkeys scampering amongst the trees and swinging on vines, with the city as an interesting backdrop, but no, that didn't happen. I did see an awful lot of rain though. Sheer, unrelenting rain.

Put your head in the kitchen sink and turn the tap on full. That's what it was like. Make sure the water is warm, too. How these mad taxi drivers manage to see where they're going, I've got no idea. All the motorcyclists congregate under bridges or wherever they can find shelter during these downpours and hope for the rain to stop (good luck to them). Meanwhile, my taxi zipped by, the driver chattering away and me, confused and trying not to look out the window, forcing myself not to clench the seat or fret over the fact that the seat belt didn't work....

And humidity... urgh. I'm hoping I can set up a project to do research in Antarctica next time. I've had enough of the tropics.

I came home a few inches shorter, which is a problem because I really can't afford to spare any inches. But it was so, so humid that every time I stepped outside I just started melting. Me dribbled off me in torrents. I just didn't have enough undies to cope.

And the hotel? Oh boy, what a luxury resort that was..... Next time (if there has to be a next time) I think I'll take my tent and pitch it in the jungle. I'd certainly prefer that over a 3-star hotel that is just pretending and is really only a half star - perhaps a black hole is more accurate, judging by the number of room service meals that went missing.

(to tell the truth, I enjoyed the jungles of PNG much more than the human wilds of KL)

One good thing on this adventure was the discovery of a second hand bookshop directly across the road from my hotel. Joy! And the best thing? There was a huge sci-fi/horror/fantasy section!!!! Happy-happy-joy-joy. Books for 5 ringits, roughly $1.70 Australian.

Yes, I did fill up my suitcase at the expense of clothes. Who needs clothes anyway? Tarzan seemed to get by pretty well without them. Okay, sure, I'm a bit more rounded than he is, and a little whiter, but that's just more reason why I should strip down and go live in a tent in the tropical jungles.

I could take my suitcase full of books...

Why writing horror isn't fun...

2007-07-28T23:25:00.000+10:00

My Malaysian taxi driver is starting to freak me out.

I've spent 4 days in his company now, with Mr. K--g picking me up in the morning from the hotel and dropping me off at the S---l offices, then doing the opposite at the end of the day. Which is all good. He's promt, reliable and the fare never changes.

Excellent.

But then yesterday, on the ride home, I was staring out the window at this wacky world in which I've found myself when, from the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. K--g's hand moving towards the centre console. I think it was the way it was moving that caught my attention. So I kept watching, pretending I wasn't. Slowly, he picked up a pen, hid it in his hand and then just as slowly moved is hand back to the steering wheel.

Hmm, said I.

Mr. K--g then swaped the pen to his other hand, doing it like he was trying to hide doing it. Then he droped his arm to his side and hid the pen under his outside leg.

All of which I found quite intriguing...

The ride went on. Only, every now and then, I could see him gripping the pen like he might a knife. Lifting his hand slowly, like he was getting ready. Every time I looked across, he hid the pen under his leg again.

Okay, not so cool now; by this stage, my paranoia had woken up and was bitching about being away from home, taken to a place where I had no idea how anything worked, what people were saying or what I was eating...

I wanted my wifey.

I've seen Hostel, I know what happens to foreigners; I'm going to end up in a huge warehoue in the slums somewhere with Stinking Stan paying to have his way with me...

See? It's just not fun being a horror writer. Why couldn't I write romantic stories?? Maybe then Mr. K--g and I would develop an illicit love affair, only for me to break his heart when I returned to Australia...

Damn this muse of mine.....

Lost in Translation

2007-07-25T23:06:00.000+10:00

Well, I'm in Miri, in a hotel room listening the the near-monsoonal rain...

More fieldwork, more travel, more time away from my family (and house!), which I'm not too fond about, but hey, at least I'm getting paid to see another country.

This place is wild; the taxi drivers become your best friend--especially when they find out you will be needing a taxi to and from work every day for 10 days!--but I'm pretty sure they were all formula one drivers in their previous lives. Hell, we've topped 140km/h so many times that it's no longer exhilerating. And those road markings? Those lines indicating the lanes? Nah, that's just grafitti; you don't have to pay attention to those... And how much space do you really need when you're overtaking? So long as you don't hit another car, a few centimeters will do it, right? A miss is a miss; it's like winning by 20 points or winning by 1. Either way, you still win.

And it's muggy, so humid that I'm rapidly running out of undies.

Was sitting in the hotel bar just after dinner (now there was a feed!! Aint gonna need to eat for a good 3 or 4 days now), reading one of the local papers, and I came across a couple of things that caught my attention....

The Malaysian government was 'deeply troubled by the growth of "irresponsible" alternative media.' For examples, blogs :) The govt will be taking legal action against bloggers who flagrantly belittle Islam or the Yang de-Pertuan Agong. They want to see blogs used as a means of obtaining accurate information, a reference point for honest opinions. Crap, that's me out.

There are no laws to restrict the number of passengers in private vehicles here in Malaysia. Apparently, it's not easy to limit the number of passengers, although one new proposal is for those sitting in the back to have to wear seatbelts......... Go figure.

For a mere RM17 (about $7 or $8 Aussie dollars), you can buy a 'bona fide' medical chit (a doctor's certificate), complete with a stamp from a government hospital. The undated stamps carry all different doctors' names. The chits comes from an unknown syndicate that has been running for about 6 months, but you have to be in the know to get one.

Machines (eg, the washing machine) were causing women to become obese, especially once they passed 40 (the women, that is, not the machines)...

And on the topic of women, apparently more of them are becoming involved in dadah trafficking. Nope, dadah nothing like doodoo; it's actually a heck of a lot more serious. Had to look it up after reading that article.

In Rantau Panjang, the State Anti-Smuggling Unit foiled an attempt to smuggle 90 sacks of cockle spat into Thailand. The monetary value of these sacks was RM72,000 (about $24,000 Aussie dollars). What the heck's 'cockle spat?' I know what a cockle is, and it's pretty tasty, but a cockle spat sure doesn't sound appealing...

About this stage through the paper, I was feeling kinda ignorant, so I went and got me another beer. That always helps to understand things a little better, I've found. Hopefully, the Tiger beer would go well with the Long Island Ice Tea I'd had at dinner.

So thus freshly whetted, I continued...

Next article: Immigration in a spot over two 'princesses.' Seems two young ladies, claiming to be princesses from the ancient Sunda empire, were detained at the 'buffer zone' between Malaysia and Brunei. They were carrying passports issued by the Sunda Democratic Empire, but unfortunately for them, Sunda isn't recognised by Malaysia. Immigration has no idea of the young ladies' status, and were even confused over how to go about deporting them, as they were found in this buffer zone. The poor lasses; last heard, they were still being detained, 14 days later...

The last article I read was by journalist Rehman Rashid, who said he was given some transformative advice when he started out in the business 25 years ago, advice that could be summed up 'in a single earthly colloquialism: Lu siapa?'

Rashid goes on to say; "Get out of the office, out of the house, out of the comfort zone and out to where real people lived real lives in the real world. Get them talking and listen to them, taking notes."

Seems like pretty good advice.

The Call of the Hammer...

2007-07-21T20:08:00.000+10:00

Well, it's been a wild time of late - brought a house and am off to Malaysia on Monday for fieldwork...

Woosh!

Did you see that? No? That was me, wizzing past - at least that's how it's felt of late.

Buying a house is an exciting experience. It's also stressful, mad, chaotic, and involved! Especially when the settlement is only 6 weeks! And even more especially when your - well, no, I'd best not start complaining here about who didn't do what they were paid to do... Let's just say, my phone bill was in the hundreds, my work output dropped dramatically, and scotch never tasted so good....

Our brand-spanking new house from the paddock...

But it all worked out in the end (only just!), and now we have a house. A you beaut, brand new, modern as heck house, 4 bedrooms and a double garage. Got just under 4 acres, too, of flat green land. The horses are loving it ('cept they're getting a bit, er, large...). My wife is loving it (she had the biggest smile upon her beautiful face). I'm loving it too.

I'm even loving the hour and a half+ ride to work and home again each day (no, seriously, I am, hear me out), cos I sit on the train with my headphones on, listening to Marilyn Manson, Dimmu Borgir, Rob Zombie, Rammstein, Slip Knot, Cradle of Filth, etc, and write.

And it's been bloody brilliant. I've done so much work on my novel this past week, it's such a great feeling. The effort is so focused; I can't go anywhere, can't really do much else- I feel like my writing has been solid, and I feel like I'm really getting somewhere.

And now, not 2 weeks after we moved, I have to head off to Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur and then Miri) for 2 weeks fieldwork. Collecting rock samples from core sheds this time, so no hiking through jungles for me (which is good, and bad, but mostly good). Instead, the company I'm working for are putting me up at a 5-star spa and resort....

Sigh... It's going to be such hard work :)

However shall I cope?

The Gruesome and the Ghost

2007-05-04T22:01:00.000+10:00

Well, just watched Hostel - and I've got Saw II recorded ready to go, too...

I thought, to hell with it, I'll sit down and bear the gruesome and see what the hype is, or was, all about.

I'm not sure I worked it out. Hostel was okay but certainly not one of the most gruesome flicks I've ever seen, nor one of the best storylines, either. But it did make me think about things...

Hostel, Saw (and its sequels), Wolf Creek, The Hills Have Eyes - all of these flicks use 'loud' horror to express their story, and these movies are raking in the money at the cinemas. People love this shit.

Back when I was a teenager (God, so long ago now), I used to love this shit too; loved watching the most violent, disgusting flicks I could find. The more blood spilled the better. But now, I can barely watch when they show the blade slipping into the calf and slicing... Perhaps it's because I'm older and I value life more.

There are two quite dramatically different schools of horror; loud and quiet (there might very well be more, but these are my thoughts so if I say two, then two shall it be). Loud evokes feelings of disgust, while quiet causes shivers and feelings of fear, or fright, without actually showing anything (or everything).

I'm more a man of the quiet school. To me, the things that you don't see, or perhaps only glimpse from the corner of your eye, are the things that scare me best. Okay, sure, your loving next-door neighbour with the fetish for leather aprons, clamps, rusty blunt scalpels and hooks, and who knows where you leave your spare back door key, is pretty damn frightening, but that's different. It's a different kind of horror.

And I'm not sure I can explain why, clearly.

One is a fear of what might be done to you; the violation of your body, your sacred temple. It's the thought of that loon peeling off a steak of flesh while you thrash and scream, helpless to do otherwise. It's the terror of such pain, of such deformity. And in our most fucked up world, well, this type of thing is horrifying because it happens! Wolf Creek was based - perhaps loosely - on real events. The simple fact of the matter is that people torture people for no reason. And we, the sick voyers that we are, wanna watch. We get off on it.

But where is the fun in that? That shit happens in our world, and I choose to watch horror to escape from reality. Watching horror-snuff flicks just reminds me of what humans really are capable of. It does nothing to make me feel better about things. Sure, I might go, well struth mate, I'm sure as heck glad I'm not that poor unfortunate bastard, but at the end of the day, when I turn off the DVD, I'm more depressed than when I started watching because now I know so much more about humans. It's frightening what we can do...

Quiet horror, on the other hand, doesn't show you these extremes. It lets your mind play games with you. You're never quite sure what could happen. There could be torture, they may be things in the dark that are after you, or there might be nothing more than just your imagination and upbringing causing you strife. It's psychological. And it's spooky because it's more removed from reality than that torturous prick next door. Spooky in a different way, and certainly more enjoyable - for me, at least.

That's they key to the village; I like quiet horror because I find it more enjoyable than loud horror. You have to take that leap of faith and believe in the story, then the scares come. Once the flick finishes, you go on back to your real life and go, phew, what a rush. But you feel safe in your world 'cos you know there aren't any monsters, there are no ghosts.

You don't have to worry about the creaking floorboard in the middle of the night...

Double figures

2007-04-26T22:07:00.000+10:00

Great stuff!

I've just had a story accepted for Black Box, the sequel to the ground-breaking charity e-anthology Shadow Box, published by those great kids at Brimstone Press. Woohoo!

After looking over the list of contributors, there was no way I was going to miss out! That list reads like a who's who of Aussie spec-fic, and I wanted to be a part of it. And now I am.

Black Box is due for publication in January '08, so stay tuned for more details...

This marks my tenth story publication since I started focusing on fiction after my PhD, which finished in late 2005. I'll be the first to admit that it has taken a good year to get rid of all that deadly boring science writing out of my system (or at least to confine it to work), but this year, I've felt a freedom starting to appear in my writing, a free-flow of words that happens when the story demands to be told. It's a good sign.

Onwards and upwards, I say.

I'm a happy camper. And so is Darkling Muse, kind of... He has actually been throwing daggers at the other carnival folk through my lack of writing; he's pretty pissed at the moment, if truth be told... But it's been so hard getting back into my rhythm after PNG. I know it's been 3 weeks, but man...

Darkling's sideshow eyes have a real nasty gleam to them that makes me quite nervous. I try to tell my muse that he's making me feel uncomfortable being alone with him, but all he says is that he'd never harm me directly... (like that helps!)

At least my novel is chugging along - I've managed to finish the final edits on 23 of the 386 pages over the past 3 weeks, but neither myself or Darkling Muse is happy with such slow going. We really do need to crank up the pace. I aim to have this submitted to publishers by the end of the year.

And Macabre, that mystical magical beast of an anthology I'm editing with Angela, well, it's coming along nicely. There are some great stories slated to appear in the collection, both original and re-prints by new writers and by some of the best we've got. We're deep into the editing at the moment, but it's coming, and oh, what an anthology it'll be. We've got a great little surprise in store, too....

Okay, I've gotta go, the shadows are calling...

Thank you for the recognition

2007-04-16T20:47:00.000+10:00

I found a cool surprise waiting for me in my inbox when I got back from the jungles of PNG the other week: I had been nominated for a Ditmar!

As it says on the Australian Ditmar Awards website, 'The Australian Science Fiction Achievement Awards, or Ditmars, are awarded by Australia's National Science Fiction Convention and are voted on by members of that convention. They are thus a popularity award representing the choice of Australian science fiction fandom.'

I've been nominated in the category of Fan Achievement for my work establishing and promoting the Australian Horror Writers Association.

So thank you, to those who voted for me. You guys rock.

But my name shouldn't be the only one up there. Carl has been here from the start as well, and is responsible for much of the admin work; he's the nuts and bolts guy, an invaluable member who has put in stacks of time over the years (he's also a cool vampire artist!). James, Kim, Mick, Kirstyn, Angela, Shane, David, Ian, Chris, Brian, Talie, Andrew - this is recognition for all the work these kids have done or are still doing.

The AHWA wouldn't exist without such a team effort, so thank you guys, for all we have achieved. We're not done yet, though, not by a long shot...

It's also great to see Angela up there for Brimstone Press , and Edwina Grey for Prismatic, Brett for Mother, Will for the mad clowns, Martin and his Carnies - aw gees, so many horror lads and ladies have been nominated, it's so good to see!

In case you haven't seen the list, check it out here.

Oh-oh, that shifty sideshow freak is approaching from behind, and he's looking anxious to get back into the writing after several weeks off, so....

From the deep dark jungles...

2007-04-07T12:04:00.000+10:00

I'm 3 belt holes slimmer after my 2 weeks in the jungles of PNG. I'm covered in cuts and bruises, stings and bites, but it was one heck of a rollicking adventure!!

And sheer bloody exhausting, too...

Breakfast was at 5am, then we finalised the plans for that day. For me, this meant confirming the region I'd be looking at, working out where to get dropped off by helicopter and where to be picked up and when (the latter done in case the signal from the walkies wouldn't make it to Dispatch back at camp).

Once the sun came up, we were off - we included myself and my two PNG locals, whose job it was to prevent me from falling down a ravine or off a cliff, stop me from getting lost or from stepping on Death Adders or bumbling into ants nest, warn me away from salaut (a nasty stinging tree that hurts like hell) - basically, try to keep me alive until the chopper came to take us back to camp.

Camp itself was situated about 50m above the Hegigio River, deep in the Southern Highlands Province of PNG.

Our camp in the Southern Highlands Province (taken from the chopper).

One of the spectacular views from the camp.

There were 101km of jungle to cover geologically, but we were only making on average about 3km a day because the landscape was so tough. If we weren't trudging through ankle deep mud that seemed intent on sucking you down, we were climbing up limestone cliffs or tumbling down steep descents.

My camera kept fogging up with the humidity, my clothes were soaking wet, I was covered in mud and hurting from all the things that had bitten or stung me, my muscles were aching and my head pounding, but for some inane reason, I was loving every second of it, even as much as I hated it!

It was a real adventure.

Our path through the jungle was barely a path; the company I was conducting the work for uses minimal bridging, that is, they do as little as possible to impact upon the environment. So there might've been a hand rail leading down a 60 degree slope, a mad looking ladder going up a cliff, or a tree slung over a river for you to balance your way across.

Some fairly decent bridging, actually...

Sometimes, there was no path at all, and we had to use machetes to cut our way through the jungle. My two guides were brilliant at preventing us from getting lost and for repeating all day long for two weeks, 'you don't touch this or tomorrow you won't work,' 'you don't touch that or tonight you won't sleep,' 'You must come this way,' 'don't go that way...'

This ladder continued up the face of a cliff for close to 100m.

At one stage, we rounded a corner and came across a huge python(?) lying on the path! We had to walk past it, which we did so slowly. Fortunately, it had no interest in us other than to keep an eye on what we were up to. We also encountered two Death Adders (one of which we nearly stood on) plus a small ground snake of some kind. There were tree kangaroos up in the canopy (which itself was about 50m high), cassowary, wild pigs (which tasted pretty darn good), and butterflies (or moths? Hercules moth, I think) about the size of backpacks!!!!! I kid you not... That's a ridiculous size for a moth to grow.

There were also hornbills flying from tree to tree, making an odd wooshing sound with their wings as they flew overhead, a cave filled with thousands of bats that came roaring out (just like you see in the movies!) when we disturbed them. Rivers disappeared into the ground, raging waterfalls came out of cliff faces - the limestone terrain was pitted and ravaged; caves and ravines were as numerous as the trees.

The snake in our path...

The cave of bats...

And then, after reaching our destination each day, we (or me, really; my two helpers were of an entirely differenlt level of fitness to me) collapsed on the helipad and tried to call up base to organise a lift home. The chopper was Bravo-Charlie. We were Geo-crew. Helipads were labelled with a number followed by a letter, and call signs went accordingly; alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, echo, foxtrox etc...

But of course, I kept forgetting, so my call signs went more like; apple, bat, carrot, dinosaur...

And then we waited for the chopper. What a joyous sound that beast was when your ears finally picked up the rotors. The heavy clouds would begin to roll in after lunch, so if visibility grew too bad, we'd have to camp out in the jungle overnight and then get a lift out the next day. I was hoping this would happen so I could experience a night in the wild, but honestly, after hiking across the terrain we'd been hiking across for the past 6 or 7 hours, all I really wanted to do was get back to base camp, take off my shoes and socks and clothes, stumble into a cold shower and then fall into bed...

One of the helipads, perched atop a rise in a small clearing...

And thus did I spend the next 11 days, reaching levels of exhaustion that I never knew possible...

Another of those wild views you get from the jungle...

But just when the end was in sight, all hell broke loose... A man, loaded up on drugs, went crazy with his machete and started destroying some of the company's property at another base about 15km away due east. He seriously wounded a couple of people when they tried to stop him, too. The police finally managed to get him under control and threw him in the slammer (there was a small police station at the second camp).

But the man then hung himself.

His clan believed the police had beat him to death, so they went on the rampage. Subsequently, all activities at that camp and at our camp were shut down, especially after the clan started firing automatic weapons at the cop shop, then disappearing into the jungle!!

The army was called in, and we had 17 heavily armed special forces men move into our camp, bringing a whole hoard of weapons with them. The clan were making threats to kidnap an expat, had blocked the only road into/out from the second camp.

I was due to fly home on Thursday 5th April; there was a meeting between the company I was working with, the police and the clan on the Wednesday before to try to sort out the issue (the clan were seeking compensation from the company I was working for, believing that the police were only there because the company was there, ergo it was all the company's fault).

At one stage, the clan sent away all their women and children (an ominous sign).

The plane from Cairns to the second camp was due in that afternoon, but if the problem got any worse, or if the pilot wasn't comfortable landing there, then that was it; I wouldn't be flying out on Thursday and would have to spend Easter over there under seige... But that never happened.

The plane landed, I got a helicopter ride down to the second camp on Wednesday afternoon, and flew out of the country on Thursday.

One of the last things the camp boss at the camp I had been staying at told me was that he had been asked if he had enough provisions should they be locked down for weeks... I hope the situation never grew any worse - there were a number of people hoping to get home within the next day or so.....

Anyway, that was my PNG adventure - rough, harsh, exhausting, exhilerating, mind-blowing and frightening.

Would I ever want to go back?

Hell yeah.

...going jungle for 2 weeks seems to make you quite hairy, for some reason...

Knockin' over the words

2007-03-12T11:53:00.000+11:00

Darkling Muse, fresh from all sorts of sideshow terrors, has gripped my pen hand firmly the past month or so and forced me to finish my second novel, 809 Jacob. This one is currently 110,000 words long, and is one I actually started before my PhD.

I will set about doing the final edit run-through once I return from the jungles of PNG. I'm off for two weeks geological field work in the deep dark and spooky jungles of the Highlands from the 21st of this month, and man, what an adventure this will be!! I will get a helicoptor ride each morning out to the region we will be working on that day, then a ride back to the base camp each evening. Last time my boss was out there, he had a Death Adder fall from a tree onto his hat, and a crazy rebel point a home-made shotgun into his face! Definite story material...

I've also had a slight change of plan regarding my first novel. The idea in that book is bulging at the seams, so in line with my plan of developing it into a trilogy, I want to add a little more to it in order to link these new ideas. So, for now, 809 Jacob will take priority; I intend to submit this novel to publishers by the second half of this year (which will please the dark fellow).

But for the next 10 days before I fly out to jungleland, I will be finishing some short stories - and getting stabbed by needles and sorting out visas and getting Malaria pills.........

Fantastic Wonder Stories is coming...

2007-02-23T13:19:00.000+11:00

My story The Wildflowers is set to appear in Ticonderoga Publications Fantastic Wonder Stories, which is going to be launched at SwanCon 32 "Inconceiveable" over the Easter Weekend, 6-9 April 2007 in Perth, Western Australia.

It's a desert story, set in the small dusty town of Elsewhere somewhere deep in Australia, where the desertfolk smile with shifty looks and shadows blow across the hazy mulga bush landscape towards town...

Pre-orders can be made here.

Ah, Darkling Muse is very happy today, cos we've also submitted the novel.....

Ploughing on...

2007-02-22T11:18:00.000+11:00

Well, Darkling Muse has finally cracked a smile. His hands have unclenched and he has stepped back from behind me - I'm glad he's no longer breathing over my shoulder 'cos I've gotta tell ya, his breath is ripe and full of dead things...

He's smiling because the novel synopsis is - finally and absolutely - done, and becasue I've got the time to start writing stories again.

First plan of action is to submit the novel, and that's both exciting and daunting (it's just a pity I can't send Darkling Muse in there to meet with publishers :)

My article called Australian Horror Fiction - An Overview is also done, all 6000+ words of it. Done and sent off to the editor of the collection, which will see publication in December in India!! While the article was a hard slog that took me from my muse, it did open up a whole world of early Australian horror, going right back to 1857. There's some pretty good colonial Australian 'horror' stories lurking about in history.

But I'm glad that article is done because I haven't managed to do much writing lately, and there are many, many ideas building in my head. They're starting to cram up against one another, so I'm going to have to put them into words very soon before that creepy sideshow fellow decides on another way to pry them from my head...

2007 continues to rumble along, with my 4th story for the year being published by Demon Minds. Already, I've had more stories accepted for publication in 2007 than I did in the whole of 2006, so that's pretty cool. I'm feeling in a good place with my writing now, so it's time to step up as gear. All that cluttered scientific jargon left over from my PhD has been cleaned out of my system and the words seem to be flowing quite well.

It's time to return to the carnival...

The Ups and Downs of Writing

2007-02-03T11:41:00.000+11:00

December and the start of January represented a great period for me and my writing, with three acceptances in a row, all short stories of 3000 words plus. Woohoo!!

Since I started writing seriously in late 2005, this is the best month I've had in this crazy adventure through the carnival.

And then, bang-bang-bang - three rejections in a row in January, just to bring me back down to Earth...

They were those frustratingly positive rejections, but rejections none-the-less. Still, I'll take 3 acceptances out of six submissions any day.

As for the novel, well, the synopsis caused me a few headaches, but with the help of two wonderful ladies - Kim Wilkins and Josephine Pennicott - I do believe I've finished it. I should be ready to launch the novel into the world of publishers within the next week or two. Frightening...

Here's a little bit of incentive - Dr. Seuss's first children's book was rejected by 23 publishers. The 24th sold 6 million copies.

Turning the Screw

2007-01-16T20:09:00.000+11:00

So that's Christmas. There goes all the good will and cheer, the New Years celebration, the Xmas crackers, turkey and cranberry, rejoicing in the fact that the world's clock has ticked over another year and we're all still here - gone and dusted. So long and thanks for all the fish, as one cool book said.

And with the new year comes the renewed drive. This is gonna be the year I do it, the year my name is up in lights. Here are my goals and now watch me reach for them. That type of thing.

Well, Darkling Muse doesn't work that way - unfortunately. He didn't stop over Christmas, didn't celebrate the way I wanted to. His dark circus continued their shows, his carnival companions taking no time off. His drive is formidable, sometimes more than I can cope with. The ideas (are they fictional or things that really happens backstage, beyond that heavy curtain? I shudder to think) come faster than I can write, blasting into my head on his hollering voice only to be echoed immediately by another.

He laughed when I told him I was going to post my New Years resolutions, threatened to involve me in his ideas in a whole new way, and the look upon his shadowed face when he said that - no, I'd rather not push him. So no New Years resolutions from me...

Darkling Muse doesn't believe in them. For him, each story is going to be better than the last, published in bigger magazines and collections. Every story is a stepping stone. He's a hard task-master - I'd hate to think what would happen should (and I'm whispering this so he won't hear me) he fail a resolution - were he to let them be known, that is...

So I'm learning his method - every story we write is going to win an award, is going to be published in a best-selling collection, gonna become a classick. And while the stories seep from my pores under his guidance, the first novel is going to be at publishers, relentlessly, until it is published. The second novel has already been started, and the drive is on to finish that now, too.

First though, I'd better finish the synopsis for the first (am almost there).

Oh-oh, he's just realized what I said - I'd better go now.

Rounding out a good year

2006-12-28T10:20:00.000+11:00

December with all of its Christmas cheer has been a great month for me, writing-wise. I made my first US sale with my short story Decky's Plight set to appear in the special monster issue of Black Ink Horror (September 07), my story Knightsbrea was one of the 4 finalists in the December competition at Spinetingers and will be published on their website on January 1st, and... I completed the final edit of my novel! Finished it yesterday, actually, witing the words 'THE END' at about 7pm last night.

Then I indulged in a couple of glasses of wine :)

I spoke about my novel to me wifey on the drive home from Newcastle on Christmas evening, and we devised a - what I believe - brilliant story arc, one in which I can develop a number of books, not necessarily sequels but linked adventures in an interesting world. The idea is based around a blend of science fiction and horror, so I'm pretty excited about starting work on the next book...

For now, make sure you check out Spinetingers on January 1st for my story, Knightsbrea.

Nothing Beats the Classics!

2006-12-13T13:36:00.000+11:00

I've managed - somehow - to watch a number of old, classic sci-fi/horror movies during the past week without really trying, and it's been great!

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) was on tele over the weekend, and y'know, for an old flick, it was pretty darn good. Then Invasion of the Body Snatchers was on, only this wasn't the original but the 1978 version with Donald Sutherland - still pretty cool. A work colleague lent me Forbidden Plant (1956), so that was Monday night's viewing and again, pretty enjoyable for an old movie. This was followed up with The Day of the Triffids (1962) last night (Tuesday), and although this differs somewhat from John Wyndham's book, it wasn't too bad. I think I'm a fan of the 1981 TV series more so than this film, though.

I wonder why no one has remade The Day of the Triffids?

A fellow writer friend of mine just informed me that next week on the ABC, we've got Invaders from Mars (1953) on Tuesday, then The Thing from Another World (1951, remade as The Thing by John Carpenter in 1982), followed afterwards with The Body Snatcher (1945, starring Boris Karlof). The Body Snatcher isn't related to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it should make for some great late night viewing!!

Bring on the classics, I say!