Rusty Writing

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

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

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...

...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

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...