Happy Birthday, Mum!

Grant. Yes, Grant.

The sky's getting all thunderous, the earth is shaking and I have been given a grant.

I haven't been able to blog anything until today, but Ozco has given me a grant. So I'll be able to spend next year writing a fantasy children's series called "The Players". I've wanted to do this for some time, but this series involves a lot of research (mainly into acting and stagecraft) and I really didn't want, nor could afford, to do it justice unless I had a grant. So I've spent the last six months not even thinking about the G (or the P) word, because I really didn't expect to get it.

But I did, and I'm still wrapping my head around the whole thing.

Thanks to the extremely tolerant Ben Peek for letting me know, and sending me a photo of the grants list via phone when I didn't quite believe him, because I didn't, not that I don't trust Ben, but I just couldn't imagine that I would get it. And even when he'd sent me the photo, I really thought it must be some other Trent Jamieson, until I got the paperwork on Tuesday.

Thanks to Marianne De Pierres and Margo Lanagan, who helped me beat my submission into shape. And thanks to the guys at Shiny for taking my story Cracks, which I used as part of my writing sample. And thanks to the ABC for publishing the Shimmaron books because I'm sure that helped. And thanks to all my Ror family because I think every writer needs something like ROR.*

And thanks to Diana who's encouraged me all the way, despite some pretty awful stuff that went on this year.

Now, I better write something damn good in 2008. And you'll be hearing all about it here.

*Unless they don't.

Walking Talking

I've a sample chapter up over at Marriane De Pierres' Message Board.

It's called Walking Talking. If you want to see one of things I've been working on this year, check it out, warning though, it's pretty rough, still needs a good kick around, and an edit, so feel free to laugh at my punctuation.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!

Dad holds someone that looks suspiciously like Marlon Brando

1977

Let's see, 1977.

Star Wars was released, and it was just called Star Wars.

Annie Hall was released, and subsequently renamed Annie Hall: A New Hope. The ending was later replaced with a digitised, more up beat denouement; Diane Keaton was removed, and Scarlett Johansson substituted.

Stephen King published The Shining.

Def Leppard formed. (no... seriously)

The Clash release The Clash

Oh, and this person was born:

Happy Birthday, sis! I can't believe another sibling's hit the big three O.

1001 Nights Cast and Sundry Thoughts

I was very fortunate indeed to have a story become an infinitesimal part of Barbara Campbell's excellent 1001 Night's Cast. The performance has come and gone, but you can check out the text here. Any one considering submitting something definitely should have a crack, it was fun, and a perfectly liberating way to end the week.

And what a week it was.

Some things fell apart and some things came back together again. I finished the first draft of my Brisbane novel, then sold a flash piece to Dog Versus Sandwich. Then I thrashed around trying to work out what it is I want to write while the first draft of the novel ferments in my head because it needs the time, because while this has been the least painful first draft of my life, it's still very far from there. I'm always like this after I've finished something bigish.

Next week should be a more focussed week.

Creative Spaces

Check out Martin Living's blog for photo's of various writers and artist's creative spaces. My room has just gone up, if you want a stickybeak, but there's been some excellent writers' rooms already. Have to say that it's really only been very recently that the bulk of my writing has been in that room, most of my writing over the last eight or nine years has been on the bus or the train or waiting for the bus or the train.

Zahir is right here

Get yourself a copy of Zahir 14 here.

It sure looks pretty, and it contains my story "Hardeen Reflects on the Dark Arts and His Wife".

You know you want it.

First Shiny Review

Here's the first review of Shiny. Quite an interesting, and well considered one at that.

Talking about my story - and writers like to talk about their stories, in the main - I was very pleased that the reviewer picked up that I was trying to get the reader out of the narrative - even if they were a little irked by it.

There's a scene in the story - which is only quite a short tale, and part of me wonders whether it quite bears the weight of what I was trying to achieve - where my character, Julia, talks about the sort of story she would have prefered to inhabit. This was the original story I was writing, until the story told me it wasn't, which was something of a pain at the time, because I think the original story would have been easier to write.

Anyway, get yourself a copy of Shiny, and see what you think. Eugie and Sue's stories are excellent, and both worth the price of the e-zine, in my opinion.

Oh, but it's raining. Fucking pissing down, and there's lightning, and the city is remembering what it is to be wet and slick, and moving, not just dry and still, or breathing with the hot dry breaths of a dead thing.

And the rain is dancing, sliding across the sky.

And it's a Brisbane storm. And the city is at once gorgeous, and the city is at once pathetic, because it's a Brisbane storm, but barely, and soon it will be gone.

Balloon

Sometimes the realisation that control is something of an illusion is extremely liberating. In what has not been such a wonderful week, it's good to let that desire for control go, and watch it float out of the room like a helium balloon.