Trucky Ducky

I found out today why the ducks have been on the non-river side of the road lately. When Basil and I got there this morning, a logging truck was pulled up (engine still running) and the truckie was out feeding the ducks bits of bread.

When we got back from that walk I went out into the back yard to check on Basil's progress with his excavations. The hole he got the Christmas antlers out of is bigger, but there's no sign of anything untoward in there thank goodness. I took the opportunity to carry on with my anti-thistle war. I think I'm finally winning that as there don't appear to be any more outbreaks, so now it's just a matter of me having time to pull up all the current crop. At least until next spring, but lets not think about that for now.

I pulled a muscle in the run portion of my last walk today. Guess I'll have a rest day tomorrow and hope one day's enough to get me back on my feet for the walks. I don't want to take too long off as I've been losing weight and gaining fitness quite well of late.

Happy Little Vegemite

Basil's been getting bored with his dry food lately. He'll leave his breakfast in his bowl till late afternoon before he gets down to it. Paula put some Vegemite toast and an egg in there the other day and he seemed to appreciate the added variety, so today while making my own breakfast, I cut up a slice of Vegemite toast to add to his bowl too. Instant success, seems it's much more interesting with the addition.

We made it to Lonny today thankfully. The cupboard had been fairly bare. We got some flour directly from the flour mill in town too, excellent stuff. I'm sitting wearing another of our purchases from today too. The single most comfortable dressing gown (or bath robe as Paula calls them) I've ever owned. Picked up a suit today too, for surprisingly little cost. I haven't worn a suit since march 2008, so it's going to be a little odd, but it's not as though it'll be getting a major workout, just the odd wear here and there. Sadly, I'm not an easy man to fit, so it doesn't completely match, the only pants of my size where black, the only jackets navy, but a very dark navy. Paula mistook it for black in fact till we held the jacket and pants together, but it's not too bad a match.

Basil and I took a slight deviation to our late afternoon walk today. Instead of turning right when we get to the picnic ground and following St Paul's river down to the Esk river bridge, we turned left and walked under the esk highway bridge over St Paul's river. Till we came across a log that had fallen over the path. It was only about 40 or 50 cms high, but Basil didn't want to cross it, so we turned around and went down to the Esk river before going back home. I guess it's a good thing Basil doesn't like crossing barriers like that or he'd have been over our back fence and among the next door neighbours sheep long ago. He'd be more than capable of making the jump, he's a fairly big dog, strong and fast too.

Lexi has been loving the fire, though I don't think she realises that's why the TV room is suddenly so much warmer. She'll come and get me out of the office if I dare stay past five o'clock so she can curl up on my feet or in the crook of my leg as I spread out on the couch. My mother would pay a small fortune for a cat that would sit on her feet, but then my feet aren't cold which is why cats want to sit on them. The Catch 22 of cats, people who want 'em to sit on them are cold, which is why cats wont do it, cats only like to sit on people who are warm.

Another thing we bought today in Lonny was a new tug-o-war toy for Basil. We've been looking for a pet store that stocks the Kong variety. We like the Kong toys because they're the only ones Basil can't seem to destroy... It took him five minutes to destroy his brand new indestructible toy. NOT HAPPY JAN. Paula has written an email off to Kong Co in the USA, we're not normally complainers of this type, but this was an exceptional circumstance.

I'd better go now, apparently the bed isn't warm enough... Lexi is walking over my keyboard.

Dug Up Weirdness

Basil's been digging up all sorts of strange things from the backyard since we got here. The latest is quite possibly the weirdest, even scariest so far. He's found a gold sequin covered pair of … how do I describe this... Christmas Antlers in a shallow hole he's dug in the middle of the back lot behind our main backyard, the bit that used to be a veggie patch but the same size as a normal suburban property. I'm beginning to get worried again about what else he may find, so I'm keeping a very watchful eye on any new holes he may create out there.

Paula and I started out towards Lonny today, but turned around about half way to the Midlands Highway due to the extreme winds. Our little car was being blown around all over the road, especially when a truck passed by going the other way at ludicrous speed for the conditions. We got in behind a campervan just before we turned around. It was a primary deciding factor, no way I wanted to be hit by bits of it as it broke up from being turned on it's side. We'll go tomorrow.

Basil spotted the ducks again on our second walk, they were already in the water so he just stood on the bank watching them for a while. He's not a great lover of the water. I introduced him to a local natural rock ocean pool back when we lived in Kiama (NSW) he jumped in to me, but panicked and scrambled out again as quickly as he could. He's not been back in the water since.

Duck Season

I'm doing three walks a day now with a run for some of the middle one. Basil is having the time of his life. Today he saw the local riverside duck family on the other side of the road to the river. He had a great time herding them into the water. It's beginning to feel a little like a Warner Bros cartoon, rabbits and ducks next I'll see Elmer Fudd sneaking up being vewy vewy quiet....

We got the fire going at long last tonight. Once the initial smoke cleared it was quite nice. The room heated up well and the whole family (cats, dog, Paula and I) spent a nice cosy evening bathing in it's gentle glow. Very therapeutic.

The writing has fallen behind this week because of other commitments, but they'll be over on the 5th of May, so should get back on track by then.

Stage Two Fitness

Well, it seems I've reached stage two ahead of schedule. Stage two in any fitness programme is where you're no longer sore, you're still fat, but the fitness is already becoming more apparent. You're more able to do things that would have been well beyond your capabilities before. Still not exactly what I'd call fit by any means, but on the way.

Basil saw a rabbit the other day while on walk three of the day. He's never seen one before so didn't entirely know what to do. The rabbit gave him a clue however. It took off into the bushes. Basil checked with me first, when I waved him in saying "Where's the rabbit?" he charged into the bushes after it, thinking he'd found a new playmate. Paula came with us on our third walk today, when we came to the place where we saw the rabbit, I said to Basil "Where's the rabbit?" again, he tore off into the bushes looking for his playmate again (no luck of course) very smart dog is Basil.

It's starting to get pretty cold now, most of the Autumnal leaves etc... are fading to brown already. Autumn doesn't last long here in Tassie.

Autumnal Splendour

I had a call out to Ross today. One of the prettiest towns it's ever been my good fortune to visit. A majority of the buildings on the main road through town are of historical interest being a concentration of some of the oldest still in use in Australia. There's an avenue of seasonal trees leading into town and at this time of year the effect is stunning. Gold and crimson mixing with the bright greens a veritable rainbow corridor welcoming you into town. Then you arrive in town to be faced with all the lovely stone buildings and English style trees you feel as though you've travelled in time and space to a town somewhere in the midlands of England in the mid 1800's or so. It almost seem incongruous to have been called there to fix a computer.

Basil is enjoying his two daily walks. He's going to absolutely love when I step it up to two walks and a jog. (In a week or so maybe...)

I've decided I'd rather just read Dantes Inferno (and maybe the rest of the divine comedy... maybe not) than listen to any more of this awful lecturer. He's pretty much decided me firmly against the idea of an Arts Degree after all, not if I have to deal with such incessant waffle. I'll keep an eye out for a copy on ebay or some such perhaps, a friend of mine said he had part of a recording of an audio book version, but doesn't know either if it's complete or where it is. I'd rather have the written form anyway. If it's half as good as it's reputation it'll earn it's place right next to my Tolkien collection in regular rotation for re-visitation.

First Stage Fitness

Any new fitness kick starts off with the same transitional phase. I'm in that phase now. Basically, you start out fat and unfit. Next, you're sore fat and unfit. Doesn't take long to get to phase one, first day is about par for the course. I woke up this morning unable to move my right arm at the shoulder and my left arm at the elbow. I decided rather than the run my new programme called on I'd walk the same distance twice, three times if I could muster up enough enthusiasm... twice it was. Basil loved the extra walk. I had a nice long soak in a hot bath when I got back, and that combined with the miracle of Methyl Salicylate meant I could at least gain some mobility in my arms again, though I still can't lift my right arm even to shoulder height. Serves me right too! Yesterday I did 48 push ups... well, okay 46 the last 2 where so pathetic I can't really count them, but that's more push ups than I've done in a decade, maybe even two decades. To say I'll take it slower and ease into this now is an understatement. I still mean to go ahead, just at a pace more suited to my advancing years and receding hairline. Time to take warm ups and cool downs more seriously too.

AWAK Alert

I've sent off my latest updates for the belt wars story to my pre-editorial team. I'm not happy about the latest work I've done on it. I have a nasty feeling I'm breaking one of Carvers' cardinal rules: AWAK (As We All Know) it's a clumsy device to be avoided by all but the most clumsy of authors and as I've found out an easy trap to fall into. Basically put, the writer has their characters hold forth in unjustified exposition of information through dialogue, thus explaining what's going on or giving important background to the reader. The problem is, it gives the whole story a feeling of unreality, it can jar a reader out of the immersion in the story any good author strives for.

I had an extra long play session with Basil this evening in an attempt to tire him out. I thought at the time it was unlikely, he is part border collie after all. Much to my surprise it seems to have worked. Not long after we finished (he actually gave up before I did) he took himself off to bed and we didn't see him again till just before we retired for the night. He stumbled in to the office asleep on his feet. I've never seen him so groggy. Speaking of groggy, time I slipped off to bed myself. I started a new fitness programme today and I mean to stick to it, which means I've got a 1.5Km run to go on in the morning. Basil wont know what's hit him!

Ghost Town in the Sky

Very heavy mist this morning, seeping cold with it, but the day warmed up nicely when the mist cleared up... or was it the other way around? I finally met our local policeman this morning. While taking Basil for his walk, I noticed Sam (our policeman) unpacking his gear from his 4wd. He'd obviously just been out keeping our street safe from high speed interstate interlopers. I took Basil over and introduced myself. He seems a remarkably nice young bloke. Younger than I'd imagined from the talk we've heard. Kind of a poster-boy look about him, I could see his face on recruiting posters for the police force of old. Tall (almost as tall as me) and muscular, imagine his teeth glinting in a corny black and white movie as he closes in on the bad guys. A very old fashioned stereotypical country cop like when they had a requirement to be over six feet tall in order to join. Yet another odd way in which I feel we've stepped back in time in many ways moving to this town.

After consulting with our good friend google-maps, we determined that there are two ways to Ben Lomond from here. Both according to 'maps' should take around one and a half hours. If a road ran directly from here to there, it'd be about twenty minutes, half an hour tops, but that's the way thing go... "You can't get there from here." We decided to go one way and come back the other. Turns out what maps didn't tell us was that the way we went was almost half on logging roads. Lets just say it took longer than anticipated to get there and never speak of the route via Fingal again... ever. Well, okay one more thing about the approach... it was taking us so long and we hadn't seen any signs for so long that we decided we must have missed a turning, so we turned back and I went up to a house by the side of the road. As I walked around the back to the door a man who I assume was the occupant was disappearing over a hill behind the house on a trail bike with a rifle strapped to his back. The faint strains of Duelling Banjos echoing in my head as I came back to the car were dispelled by an approaching ute that I flagged down to ask directions. Seems we had been going in the right direction, if we'd only kept going another fifteen kilometres down the road we would have come back on to the main road. (The main road being the one we would have been on had we come the other way.)

The road up to Ben Lomond from the main road certainly had it's moments. Paula was terrified to the point of nausea. One part in particular had the road going up a virtual cliff face in a series of switchbacks with hairpin turns at every turn. This is a section of the road I believe the locals call Jacobs Ladder. Stunning views all along the trip, rainbows in rock as background to pristine pastures. Breathtaking. It'll be fascinating to see it in winter with snow there too.

We finally arrived at the alpine village that serves as the ski resort during winter. Desolate, stark rocks stabbing at the sky all around this isolated virtually deserted loose collection of unpainted uninviting buildings. The pub's for sale, along with the accommodation arm of that particular business. One of the other places that probably serves as a takeaway place in season only had half the sign up. There was a barracks like structure behind the pub to the south that looked as though it had a couple of people staying at the moment. Probably off season caretakers I imagine. The main hotel like accommodation was a grey concrete affair on the hill behind the pub. Holes in the concrete facing suggested it was either just recently redone or otherwise need to be redone before the season starts. Food prices at the pub were no big surprise, extortionate! Four dollars for a very ordinary pie that would be around two dollars in the average rip off service station, though frankly most service station pies are of a far higher standard than this sorry limp thing. At least they didn't charge extra for sauce.

Horrible Take Away

We went on our trip to St Helens today. A lovely drive, if a tad long and with some very windy bits as you come down from St Mary's. Paula got nauseous on the windy bit, both going down and coming back up. Sadly, no shop in St Helens had fireplace paraphernalia. Not too many shops where even open. Unfortunately for us, one shop that was open was a take away place called The Big something or other, bit or cafe or some such. Disappointing would be a mild way of phrasing the meal. Dreadful would be more accurate. My hamburger was clean at least, but uninspired. The chips tasted of fish... bad fish. Paula's seafood basket looked and smelled awful, and apparently didn't taste much better. Paula is getting tired of paying almost thirty dollars for poor quality food, then being expected to pay more for sauce! I just can't believe I've yet to find a takeaway shop anywhere in Tasmania that has hot chilli sauce. They all have sweet chilli, nobody here apparently (with the exception of yours truly) ever asks for the hot stuff.

We didn't get to Ben Lomond today as it would have been dark by the time we came down the mountain. Not a good idea for a place with roads of the quality we've been told to expect, especially as we've not seen them yet. Tomorrow for sure Paula says.

There was some sort of emergency going on down on the coast as we came back up to St Mary's. Three emergency vehicles passed by going down at a rate of knots. With that road, it's surprising they didn't come off and head down the fast way.

There was a lively fire at the Avoca tip as we got back to town too. It looked suspiciously deliberate as the council guy who supervises the tip on Saturdays and Wednesdays was locking the gate for his knocking off time as we went by and the fire was still well ablaze. By the smell of it, it wasn't just the wood and garden waste pile either, there was definitely plastics involved.

Daves Inferno... Almost

It finally arrived this morning. After four months of waiting we have a baffle plate in our fireplace. The real estate agent's handy man came by at 7:30am with the new part that's taken so long to arrive in hand... naturally it didn't fit. He did have an alternative one he keeps in the back of his ute which did. Of course this begs the question... if he's had this alternative one sitting in the back of his vehicle all this time, why didn't he try to fit it when he first diagnosed the problem in the first place??? To be fair, he replaced the fan unit in the fireplace too, but again, that was a standard part he had in his ute anyway. Now all we're missing in order to have a lit fire is fireplace paraphernalia, ie: a fire proof bucket, shovel, poker that sort of thing. We're off to get them from a Tasmanian discount chain called "Chicken Feed" on the morrow. Haven't decided if we're going to go to Lonny or St Helens, my vote is for St Helens, we haven't been there since December and Launceston is a regular trip for us. An added bonus to St Helens would be it's closer to Ben Lomond which I'm still keen to visit soon.

I've "spoken" ,well okay exchanged emails, with my chief pre-editor and agreed to a weekly deadline for submissions of revisions and additions. I think having a weekly deadline set to which I'm answerable to someone else will be good for me. It never really helped back in my school days, but that was then, this is now.

Basil managed to get himself two lots of dinner tonight, one from me at around 5:30pm, then again from Paula an hour later. He's been allot quieter tonight than normal, must be all the blood being called on to digest the extra large lump. Of course, it didn't stop him from begging for more from our dinner plates. For once, even Paula didn't give him any table scraps though.

I made lasagne tonight, something I've never done before. Turned out alright too. Especially considering the rather depleted state of the cupboards at the moment, no mushrooms for one thing. Sadly, that may well mean Lonny rather than St Helens for tomorrow after all. St Helens has an IGA, but they're more expensive and with more limited range than Coles or Woolies.

Dante's Lecture Purgatory

I've started the lecture series I downloaded from Yale University on Dante's Divine Comedy. Listening to it may not be quite hell, but it certainly feels like purgatory. I heard the eighteen minute introduction to it the other day and it did send me warning signals. Today's lecture was an hour... on a poem Dante wrote when he was seventeen. I've only made it through half so far and the lecturer only just read the thing. It was all of twenty or so lines. Sure, I recognise the importance of analysis for the classics, but I have to say easily ninety percent of what the lecturer has said so far was sheer unadulterated waffle. I mean an hour lecture on a twenty line poem, I ask you? He keeps interrupting himself and taking himself off on wild tangential asides... only to get further distracted and even more sidetracked. If this guy tried to make it in the science faculties he'd be drummed out so fast he'd still be asking why as his backside hit the pavement out front. There's a line from the original star wars movie, right towards the end said by a totally unimportant bit player, but would be a really good one for this lecturer to heed. "Stay on target."

We got our Tasmanian drivers licences in the mail today. It's official, Paula and I are Tasmanian now. I suppose we should do something to celebrate, maybe go for a drive up to Ben Lomond this weekend as we keep meaning to do before the snow comes. There's apparently a little ski slope up there in winter and it's less than an hours drive from here. The roads are very narrow we're told and could be a bit dicey if we haven't seen them sans snow first.

The Editorial Team Grows

I asked my friend from Sydney today if he and his wife (with whom I've been friends even longer than he) would be willing to join my pre-editorial crew. He said yes for himself and a most likely on behalf of his wife. I sent of a copy of Dream Stealers (with revised ending and a new title 'Dream a Little Dream' trust me, you'd understand if you read the new ending.) I'll send them the latest on the current work in progress on the morrow. I fell better about the project than I have in a while. With my editorial staff on hand, I have implied deadlines and expected work loads.

Had a lovely chat with the neighbours from over the back fence today. They proudly showed off the chook motel, a gargantuan free range chicken enclosure they've built to safely house their flock of over thirty chickens. We traded apples, some of our granny smiths for some of their red ones and a couple of their quinces. It seems they're very fond of watching Basil as he prances about our back paddock watching the sheep in the yard next to us. They can see his tail dancing around like a flag in the breeze.

I should be finished with the downloads of the Dante lectures tomorrow, so I'll start on them. I'm a little nervous I'll find the lecturers waffling style too irritating based on the intro I listened to, but maybe he'll settle down when he's actually discussing the text... I can only hope.

Animal Demands

As it gets colder, the whole family (the wife, 2 cats and dog) are getting grumpier and or more demanding. Paula sleeps till almost midday, then takes another nap in the afternoon, heaven help anyone who disturbs her. She makes fun of me saying it's cold, but I think it's her who's really feeling it. Basil insists on being taken for his river walk earlier and earlier in the day and wont stop chewing me throughout the rest of the day. Yes, I said chewing me. He uses a toy of his, or his blanky and comes over to me chewing it. He deliberately chews it on top of me so as to "accidentally" miss and chew me instead. It drivers me nuts. I'm not a dog person, and he's not doing anything to endear the species to me with this rough treatment. Paula's no help, she indulges his every whim. 'Awwww, isn't he cute the way he lunges at your face when you try to kiss me?' Lexi has taken to perching on the back of my neck for warmth. Neck/shoulder perching is not an entirely new behaviour for her, she's done it since she was a kitten, but is was always with an eye to get access to high up places otherwise out of reach before. Now, she'll sit there for an hour. This is about warmth. Loki is more clingy too, at least at night. I guess I shouldn't be surprised about the cats and dog, it's their first (and mine) truly cold autumn... wonder what winter's going to be like. Warmer inside at least I hope with a working fireplace any day now.

Not much to report on the writing front today, I'm trying out some techniques from the UK open Uni lectures I listened to yesterday, early days yet though.

iUniversity

Well, it had to happen really didn't it? Everything else these days has an 'i' in front of it (even Vegemite for a very short while) so why not tertiary education? Today I was updating my iPhone view iTunes on my PC and noticed a tab heading I'd not noticed before. "iTunesU" so, I decided to have a look, see if there where any freebies of any value available. Turns out there are a host of open university lectures available as pod-casts via iTunes. I've downloaded two so far, one from the UK open university program called "Start Writing Fiction" in 6 episodes, and another from Yale entitled "Dante in Translation". I've listened to all 6 of the UK eps and the first of the Dante so far. The UK one is excellent, if somewhat short. It's presented by published writers (none of whom I've heard of, but will look up now) of various genres. Dante is going to be a whole lot harder to listen to, the lecturer rambles aimlessly, and in heavily accented English... Italian I think (well, it would make sense) but the Divine Comedy is such an important work that's always fascinated me, so I'll take this opportunity to study it.

We should, hopefully, be getting our baffle plate for our fire place on Friday. When I told some of the locals today we still didn't have one, they were horrified. Allot of them seemed to think it amazing we haven't frozen to death yet. Just about every other house is now in full wood burning mode, but I have to say while it is cold, it's not life threateningly cold... yet. I would have thought Tasmanians would be more able to cope with the cold than me.

I submitted my edited version (with one extra paragraph) to my pre-editor tonight with one hour to spare on my self imposed deadline. Not something I was ever good at in school. I got high marks, but that was just from exams. Fundamentally, I was a lazy student, so if I even put in more than a half-arsed effort at an assignment, it was extremely rare for it to be handed in on time. Amazing how age gives a change of perspective. I feel allot better about the story and how it's going after both the feed back I got from the first draft, and from hearing yet more evidence from published authors (via the UK open university thingy) that's it's perfectly normal for an author to occasionally get nagging feelings of doubt and unworthiness. A few of them said, they never felt their own writing was any good till they passed it on to a trusted friend. I'm thinking of asking another friend (one I've actually met, unlike my current editor) to be a secondary pre-editor. It may be useful to get more than one perspective.

It's odd... I'm actually thinking of formalising the study I'm doing at the moment. Applying as a mature age student at a University as my wife has. The strangest thing about it is, I'm actually thinking of doing an ARTS degree. Me! The merest speculation never even considered the possibility of letting the thought cross my mind to do an arts degree back in the days of my youth. But then, really, what would I do with such a silly piece of paper. At least the course my wife is planning to do has potential earning capacity at the other end. For me, an arts degree would just be an expensive wall decoration, as would any degree for that matter. I don't need one to write, and I certainly don't need one to fix and build peoples computers. Computer Science graduates (with one notable exception) have always made by far the worst of any of my employees in the past. Something to toy with anyway, would be nice to have a degree I guess, even a "BA", everyone else in my family have uni qualifications. Kind of makes me the disappointing family embarrassment not to...

Politics

More has emerged in my Belt Wars story today about the political situation in the Belt. Dissatisfaction on the part of some of the smaller groups about being lorded over by the big two. At the same time, the big boys have seen this coming and have been building up “security forces” in secret. Question of course is... just who are the bad guys, the diplomats, or the secret security forces? Haven't decided... yet. I've also given the big guys a major leg up technology wise with their fancy new drive system. (Just backstory right now, but it'll seep through so the readers find out about it in the story soon enough.) So, I'm thinking that means I'll have to balance the scales a little... maybe a new weapons or armour/shields technology. I hadn't wanted to introduce forcefields as such to the belt wars universe, not until much later on at least, so maybe a weapon or targeting system of some sort. It'll have to wait till much later in the story either way.

At the same time, in sunny Tasmania, more about the political situation since the recent election has finally emerged. Of the 25 seats in parliament, ten each are now held by each of the two major parties, while the other 5 are in the hands of the new kid on the block. No one party has anywhere near enough to form government in it's own right, and the views held by each of the parties are too divergent for there to be any thought of formal coalition. So... the party that was in power, is staying... with the consent of the other two, both of whom has more or less agreed to at least not let the state grind to a halt through the inability to get any legislation through. There is talk (or at least one person has said it would be a good idea) to give a ministerial cabinet position to the leader of the smaller party as incentive to play ball. Seems the houses of parliament here in Tassie are even more like a school-yard than in the other states (or federal) with the popular/rich kids in one corner, the sporting types in another, and the geeks in the library tucked out of the way. So, as I see it, the sports guys have made a somewhat shaky truce with the geeks because they've both agreed the rich kids are too brainless/spineless to govern their way out of a wet paper bag. The geeks have agreed to help the sports guys do their homework and the sports guys have agreed not to beat the geeks up... for now.

Nose Firmly back on the Grindstone

It felt good to return to the project after nearly a months absence. I felt it hard to keep up my spirits for the whole thing in the face of the total lack of response from Aurealis. Looking at their website, it's beginning to look to me as though they may be going (or gone) out of business. The current issue (according to the site) is from August 2009. So, unless they're now an annual publication, things look grim. Oh... I just checked their back catalogue. To say they're an annual publication would be to imply a sense of order in publication dates. They seem to put out an issue about every 8 to 11 months on no discernible schedule apparent to casual perusal. While this doesn't help my feeling of impatience, it does make me feel a bit better about the potential for acceptance of my work. It looks as though they wait till they have sufficient material of high enough standard to publish. Given the infrequency of publication, I may not have all that much competition in this country. Question is... is that a good thing? It may mean that my work has a better chance of being published due to the scarcity of talent in this country. On the other hand, it may mean that the standards of acceptance are so high that the work of a starting out scribbler such as myself has no chance whatsoever of seeing the light of day. Guess I'll just have to wait the three months from submission time to find out... sigh.

I submitted the work in progress of my current Belt wars story to my favourite pre-editor today. Something I've avoided in the past as it never seemed right to show incomplete stories. It felt important to do it though to help me re-introduce a sense of urgency into the project. Seems I only work well when I have deadlines.

Speaking of deadlines... if I do manage to get this current story up to scratch before I hear back from Aurealis, seems I'm going to have to submit it to either an American or UK based mag as there's not much else here in Oz. I think it has the feeling more of an American kind of story really. Kind of like the difference between original Star Trek and early Doctor Who, the two markets just feel different to me in flavour and or essence. Australian Sci Fi (what little I've managed to find of it) has a distinctly different taste to either, especially American. Somehow the American product always seems more finished or do I mean processed? Big budget perhaps. While the British stuff always feels more backyard, knocked up in the potting shed or shot on site in an abandoned quarry sort of thing. The Australian authors that I've read and enjoyed always seem a little wilder somehow.

All these descriptions are of course generalisations and don't really make any sense in the context of written word, but do compare for example the work of Isaac Asimov with say Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Asimov's stories are all very well polished extremely well researched and with a rich unwritten back story that just oozes out between the lines. They do however all involve a certain required suspension of disbelief, of accepting new and previously unthought of possibilities, even almost "magical" technology such as "positronic brains". Asimov never even attempts to explain to the reader any of this wonder tech, it's just there as a background fact of his story. Clarke's on the other hand are written by a man with obvious talent and a wealth of scientific knowledge behind them but have more the feel about them of invention on the fly, a very British way of doing things, and of gritty realism, everything in his stories is a plausible extension of principles we know or can guess at now.

Now... having read two of the greatest America and Britain have to offer, read some Sean Williams or Shane Dix. The thought processes behind these two are so intensely different from anything you'll find elsewhere in the English speaking world. They're raw and wild. I can see why Sean and Shane changed their book "The Unknown Soldier" so radically from the original Australian version for the American version "The Prodigal Sun". I have both. Reading them one after the other is perhaps an important lesson to would be Australian authors wanting to sell to the USA.