Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Australian writers’ Category

About “The Cyborg’s Story”—a short story

Posted in Amazon KDP, Australian editors, Australian writers, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction writers, genetic engineering, Harlan Ellison., Indie authors, Kindle, new writers, stories about cyborgs, The Cyborg's Story, the writing process, tagged , , , , , , , on March 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

The Cyborg(1)

 

Just as in every short story collection there’s usually one that causes the writer a great deal of difficulty, I imagine there’s also one the writer likes above all the others. This is certainly the case with me. “The Cyborg’s Story”, originally published as “Roses” is definitely my favourite short story—of the ones I’ve written, that is. My favourite short story ever is “Catman”, by Harlan Ellison, a wonderful story, which incidentally has nothing really to do with cats.

Published in the Australian sci-fi/fantasy magazine Aurealis in 1999, “Cyborg” tells the story of Michael 64, a winged cyborg security expert hired by Thurston, the human Director-General of Genetic Engineering, to guard Azuria 27, a famous winged cyborg dancer, whom Thurston has operated on so that she can pass for human. Such a procedure is illegal in 2175, the year in which the story is set. Azuria is secretly in love with a man called Elliott. She thinks she is making the change for love, but Thurston has much bigger plans; he is a man who believes that humans are merely a link in the evolutionary chain towards cyborgs. Michael, who starts out in the story as a hardened security expert addicted to Blue Monday, an off-world drug imported illegally at exorbitant cost, ends up in love with Azuria and saddled with the problem of whether or not to out Thurston and his plan for cyborg supremacy.

I had a heck of a time getting this story published in Aurealis in 1999. Dirk Strasser, the editor, had a strict 6,000 word policy for submissions, and the story was 7,000 or thereabouts. He wouldn’t budge as a matter of principle, although he liked it. I sweated some more and managed to get it down to where it is now: 6,350 words. Beyond that, I couldn’t go; I was right down on the bones of the story. Desperate, I sent it back to Dirk, with 6,000 words printed on the title page, and he accepted it. Whether he knew it was really longer, I’ll never know, but honour had been satisfied and the story then called “Roses” saw the light of day. It’s the only sci-fi story I ever wrote. Or ever will.

It’s a very soft story, a mix of love story and mystery. Perhaps that’s why I like it so much. I get bored very quickly with most genre writing, demanding as it does a devotion to straight line narrative, and often lacking any sense of something bigger, particularly in the area of characters and their relationships.

Anyway, here is is, my favourite of them all: “The Cyborg’s Story” aka “Roses”. Only one more to go and I will be able to start working on the collection. “Cyborg” is available for 99c at:

Smashwords:   https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/524901

and Amazon:   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UE3NKHI

I hope you like it as much as I do,

Dani

Read Full Post »

Last Train to Parthenia – genesis of a short story

Posted in Australian writers, C S McClellan, Danielle de Valera, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, Fiction writers, Indie authors, Indie publishing, last minutes of life, north coast of nsw, photographer, railway accidents, Short stories, stories about pople facing death, sword & sorcery stories, Sydney, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 14, 2015| 6 Comments »

Last Train

In every collection of short stories I imagine there’s always one that causes the author real problems. This was certainly the case with me. “Last Train to Parthenia”, a death trip story, caused me more problems than all the rest put together. Maybe it was the considerable length of 8,500 words; I don’t usually work in that length, preferring a shorter one of around 5,000 words. Maybe it was the story itself, I don’t know. I just know the thing caused me all sorts of problems, and took about three times longer to perfect than any of the other stories I’ve so far put up. In its various incarnations, I ran it past three different readers (two male, one female) none of whom liked the early versions or got what I was trying to convey. I had opted for subtlety, you see, but clearly that wasn’t going to work. I ended up having to spell the darn thing out far more than I had intended, and I hope that, in the collection coming out at the end of the year , where there’ll be a print book, I can pull back a little again in favour of subtlety. I have always preferred mystery to explicitness — which is why porn leaves me cold, I guess.

The story Unhappily married, Bob Johnson has taken a night job working on the inner-city circle of StateRail, Sydney. He is a man who has always sought escape from reality in sword and sorcery magazines. His great favourite is the work of Robert E Howard, ill fated author of the Conan novels (dead at 30 by his own hand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard). One night Johnson finds a pewter bracelet on the railway tracks. He decides to keep it, regarding as a lucky talisman—an amulet. A few nights later, while at work, he is hit by a train. In the last seven minutes of his life, before his brain shuts down, he imagines that, through the magic power of the amulet, he has been transported to a romantic world full of broadswords, intrigue and glamorous women.

Anyway, here is the darn thing, and am I glad to be finally leaving it behind me. It’s now around 7,500 words long and available for 99c at:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/515862

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TGIVXAI

I hope you enjoy it. Oh, and the very best to you all for the Year of the Sheep, Dani

Read Full Post »

Transference – genesis of a short story

Posted in Amazon KDP, anecdotes, Australian writers, Danielle de Valera, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, Indie authors, Indie publishing, north coast of nsw, psychological stories, Short stories, the writing process, transference, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 Transferance

When the children were in high school, I found myself with a bit of time on my hands. I lived in a small country town, jobs were hard to get, so I decided to try to make some some money writing short stories. I was working in the dark. Although I’d written a novel and had a few articles published in newspapers, I didn’t write short stories; I’d always thought of myself as a long distance writer. Still, as they say (or used to say), Needs must when the devil drives. I tried the Women’s Weekly first, but I had no luck. I didn’t understand at that stage that you need to study the publication you’re aiming for to get a feel for both the style and the kind of content the editor likes.

With no luck there and the need for money still pressing, I turned my attention to the men’s magazines. Here I was lucky: my partner Gianni Cosatto bought a Penthouse every month. Strictly for the articles, you understand. For a year I clawed my way past crotches and garter belts every month and studied the particular likes of the then editor, Phil Abraham. He was publishing one story per issue, good quality stuff of around 5,000 words by such Australian luminaries as Susan Geason, Peter Corris, Roger Raftery, etc. After trying a few different stories on Phil, I finally struck it lucky with “Transference”, a 4,500 word story about a man who becomes obsessed with his wife after she leaves him, goes to a therapist for help and ends up becoming obsessed with the therapist.

It was my first ever published story, and a monument to the technique of studying the publication you’re aiming for. The money was considerable for those days, and caused us much excitement. We went straight out and bought a VCR and mainlined movies all through that summer. My mother, who lived with us, was still alive in those days, so she was able to enjoy the largesse—a fact that, even today, gives me pleasure.

Well, there you have it. There’s nothing dubious or smutty in “Transference”; Phil Abraham wasn’t that kind of editor. It’s light with a heavier undertone. It should make good holiday reading, and is available at:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/497498

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QUDR8OC

The beautiful image that forms the cover is by ejimac. You can see more of his stunning work at:

http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/digitalart/fractals/?q=ejimac

Best wishes to you all for Christmas and the coming year,

Dani

Read Full Post »

Trio: Three award-winning short stories

Posted in Amazon, anecdotes, Australian writers, chance, Danielle de Valera, delusional thinking, domestic violence, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, Indie authors, Indie publishing, mental illness, north coast of nsw, Short stories, Stories about domestic abuse, stories about pople facing death, tagged , , , , , , , on November 13, 2014| 2 Comments »

Sunflower field at dawn

 What with the remaining cat’s veterinary bills, things are a bit tough financially, but they used to be tougher back around the turn of the millenium. At that time the local paper, the Byron Shire Echo decided to hold a competition for a short story of less than 1,000 words. The winning entry would receive publication in the Echo and prize money of $1,000. Needless to say, I decided to have a go. To my absolute surprise, I was lucky enough to win with “A Happily Married Man’, which told the story of a young man who thinks he’s had a message from God to eliminate the man his wife has left him for.

That was in 1997.

Next year, I decided to try again. This time I wrote about a single mother who’s life is threatened by a jilted lover with a shotgun. I called it “The State of Grace”, to try to explain the sense of calm that came over the her in the end, after she realises she is going to die. I didn’t hold out much hope for the story, but they were judged blind and to my amazement, I managed to win again. Now that’s what I call luck. It kind of made up for all those years of rejections. (I sometimes wish I’d kept my rejection slips; I really could’ve papered a wall with them.)

That was in 1998.

In 1999, Shelley Jackson of Lismore ran a fiction competition for women on the north coast of New South Wales. I was on a roll, so I tried again. The story I entered was called “The Sunflowers”. It was about a woman who’s been married for years to a husband who is physically abusive, but she won’t leave him. Finally, a particular incident involving gardening makes her decide to go. Again, I was lucky.

And there my remarkable streak of luck more or less ended. After that, I concentrated on writing novels and on getting stories published in magazines to improve my literary CV. In those days, you sent the publishers your novel extract by post, along with a pleading letter and what was called a literary CV. A good literary CV might sway editors in your favour. It seemed like a sensible idea to concentrate on this. As the song says, “Know when to fold’ em. Know when to walk away, Know when to run”.

Being only 1,000, 1,000 and 1,500 words respectively, the three stories described above were too short to publish separately on the web, so I’ve put them together in a bundle of 3,575 words called “Trio”. In the short story collection I’m hoping to put out in 2015, these three stories won’t run together as they do in “Trio”, but will appear separately in various places through the book. Anyone reading them to discover the fate of the four main characters in the collection (O’Neill, Johnson, Lawson and Star) needs to bear this in mind.

Trio” is FREE at Smashwords in three formats: EPUB, mobi (for Kindle) and pdf.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/492081

PS Many thanks to the people who’ve taken the trouble to review the stories I’ve put up so far. Reviews are necessary to sell anything on the web, so your kindness is very much appreciated.

A note on reviews:

Making life even more difficult for indie publishers, Amazon, the giant in this business, responsible for approximately 70% of all internet book sales, does not link its sites together where reviews are concerned. A review placed on the Australian Amazon site will not appear on the US Amazon site for the same book, or the UK’s —or any other Amazon site, for that matter. You would expect that one review would show up across all of Amazon’s sales sites, but it doesn’t. As it would be a dementing business for well wishers to copy and paste their reviews over all the sales sites, I would suggest placing your review where you think it will do the most good.

Read Full Post »

“The Real Thing”—genesis of a short story

Posted in Australian writers, Baz Landy, betrayal, C S McClellan, Danielle de Valera, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, Maralinga, north coast of nsw, resilience, seduction and betrayal, Short stories, stories about coin fraud, stories about numismatics, stories of betrayal, Stories set in Maralinga, the writing process, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Real Thing-final(1)

One day in 1989, when I was struggling with the first draft of “Transference” (eventually published in Penthouse), my good friend and ex, Gianni Cosatto, strode into my house and plonked three handwritten foolscap pages down on the kitchen table.

“There you are,” he said. “I’ve written the first scene of a story for you.”

I picked up the pages and scanned them. The scene was written from the 1st person point of view. It seemed to concern a man who’s sent to a planet called Gerar to check the authenticity of a coin found there. As he sits in Reception, still shocked from the hyperspace, this gorgeous chick with long red hair comes out of an internal door and is rude to him. I gathered that rudeness was a turn-on for this hero, who immediately decides to fall in love with her. End of scene.

“What else happens?”I asked Gianni. “I mean, What’s the story?”

“Dunno,” said Gianni, “I just wrote the first scene. You’re the writer.”

“Well, thanks,” I told him. “I’ll have a crack at it later.” I might as well have said: I’ll bury it later. I had no intention of having a crack at it. I pleaded busyness whenever Gianni enquired about it in the years that followed.

One rainy day in the twenty-first century, long after Gianni had died, I found the story in a drawer and decided to try to finish it. Seductresses with long red hair didn’t interest me, so I made it a gay story. But it never really worked. Sci fi mags I submitted it to were put off by the gay relationship; mags that might’ve been interested in the relationship were put off by the sci-fi angle. I was stuck with it. One day, I realised that the the idea of finding a coin on Gerar or anywhere else, for that matter, was so preposterous a plot I might as well set the story in Australia. I chose Maralinga, with its interesting history of British A-bomb explosions in the late 1950s and early ‘60s.

So here it is. I’ve recently worked it over yet again to fit the Charles Lawson thread in the short story collection I’m building, tentatively entitled North Coast Stories. It’s 5,885 words long and available for 99 cents at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OQAB7UW

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/485382

Whatever misgivings I might still entertain about the story’s far-fetched plot, I’m immensely happy with the cover, which author C S McClellan created from a recent photograph of Maralinga country by Baz Landy.

For those who are interested, below is a recap of where we’re up to now in the North Coast Stories collection:

  1. Busting God

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J8ZIE8S

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/416303

  1. Remains to be Seen

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LNDWRM2

FREE at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/454352

  1. Stella by Starlight

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTVVG96

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/467119

  1. Star’s Story

FREE at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/479505

  1. The Real Thing

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OQAB7UW

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/485382

 

Read Full Post »

Star’s Story – genesis of a short story

Posted in Amazon, anecdotes, Australian writers, Danielle de Valera, domestic violence, e-book frmatting, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, Fiction writers, hippies, Indie authors, Indie publishing, north coast of nsw, Publishing, Self-publishing, Short stories, the writing process, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 28, 2014| 6 Comments »

Star-goldceleveniafinal

 

Star’s Story—the genesis

Sometime around 2004, when I was on the Aged Pension and a more assured income, I had a little time to experiment. I wanted to see if I could get into Meanjin, the foremost literary journal in Australia. I had something of a knack for styles. If I could get hold of enough back copies of a magazine, say ten, I could usually nail down the style their story editor liked. I’d done it with Penthouse and the Women’s Weekly—why not Meanjin? Unfortunately, I could only afford to buy one copy; the pension doesn’t pay that well, and business wasn’t booming at that point in time.

I had always found the stories in Meanjin rather mystifying, and downright inaccessible at times, so I constructed a rather post-modern story with flashbacks and time jumps that weren’t always sequential. Should be inaccessible enough, I told myself. I ended up with a piece of around 3,000 words, which I called “No Through Road”.

I didn’t send it off to Meanjin straightaway, ah no. In my experience, the best way to pick up a little lucre was through competitions. I chose two which had well established writers as judges (one was Frank Moorhouse) and a first prize of $1,000AU. Even getting shortlisted in one those would help to get a more sympathetic reading from the editor of Meanjin.

I was lucky, though I never hit the jackpot. “Road” was shortlisted in the prestigious My Brother Jack short story competition in 2004 and in the equally prestigious Hal Porter in 2006. Right, I thought, now for Meanjin. So I sent the story off – in those days, you still sent manuscripts through the post –  and waited. And waited. Eventually I got a lovely rejection letter from the ed, saying that although the piece had almost made it, they had decided not to take it up.

Well, it wasn’t bad for a first time, and I’d only had one copy to study; I’d do better next time, I thought. Then the internet hit us, and I began to consider publishing on the web. I saw in it a way to obtain print copies of all my work to safeguard when I was gone. Better than leaving the manuscripts to moulder in the tin trunk, I figured. I live in the sub-tropics, it’s very humid, I was worried about how long they’d last. Maybe I could be discovered posthumously and the grandchildren would make a fortune. So probably goes the thinking of millions of indie writers.

To return to the point: I changed the title of the story from “No Through Road” to “Star’s Story” to make it easier for anyone following these stories on the web as they come out. Publishing serially like this, I think you need to remind readers of where you’re up to in the collection. Which I’ll publish next year. I also changed the point of view from 1st person to 3rd; the thing seemed just too confronting in 1st.

Because it’s only 3,000 words long, it’s FREE in three formats at Smashwords. (Amazon won’t let writers sell their stuff for free unless they join Amazon’s KDP Select, and then only for 5 days out of every 90.) I’d love some feedback on the cover, love it or hate it. I could also do with a couple of reviews of this story as it’s unlikely to garner anything favourable from the general population, it being so literary and post-modern, hem hem. The link is: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/479505

Below is a recap of where we’re up to now in the collection:

  1. Busting God

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J8ZIE8S

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/416303

  1. Remains to be Seen

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LNDWRM2

FREE at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/454352

  1. Stella by Starlight

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTVVG9C

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/467119

  1. Star’s Story

FREE at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/479505

Only another seven stories to go.

Read Full Post »

Stella by Starlight: genesis of a short story

Posted in adversity, aging, anecdotes, attempted suicide, Australian writers, Blindness, cat lovers, cats, Courage, Danielle de Valera, domestic violence, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, Fiction writers, Indie publishing, macular degeneration, north coast of nsw, Publishing, resilience, Short stories, struggling writers, suicide, the writing process, true stories, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »

super moon in starry sky on sea

 

Nine years ago or thereabouts, the Australian Women’s Weekly ran a short story competition with a first prize of $5,000 and guaranteed publication in this most circulated of Australian women’s newspapers. Being a writer and thus financially on the rocks (I figure I’ve made about $8 a week from my writing over the last 20 years, and that’s a high-end estimate), I decided to enter. I didn’t expect to win, but I thought there’d probably be a short list and the stories on that would be offered publication. And the Women’s Weekly pays, baby, pays.

So I sat down and sweated out a story of 5,000 words and sent it off. Months passed. Eventually the result was announced, but Danny Margaret had scored zero, zilch, and there didn’t appear to be a short list. Well, I thought, so much for that, and I put the story away in the proverbial bottom drawer.

Five years went by. One day (I must’ve had nothing better to do, perhaps it was the wet season) I pulled the story out and reread it. It’s not bad, I thought. Very Women’s Weekly – what a shame it didn’t get anywhere … Then I remembered Australian writer Marele Day saying once in a writing workshop that magazines were always looking for Christmas stories. They were drowning in the other kind, she said; but they were always short of Christmas stories. Hmm, I thought.

At the time my finances were in worse-than-usual disarray. Publication in the WW would sort all that out. O-kay. There was just one hitch: My story wasn’t a Christmas story. To solve this problem, I had the main character’s daughter refer to Christmas in an already-existing phone conversation and I had two people the main character passes on her way to the beach wish her a Merry Christmas. That’s all I did.

By now, my CV had filled out, and I had a little more confidence than I’d had in earlier years. I approached the editor of the Women’s Weekly by email, gave her my CV and a 3-line synopsis of the story and asked if she’d be interested in reading my “Christmas story”. Next thing I know I’m being offered publication in their 2010 Christmas edition.

The moral of this monologue is: If you put a short story in a competition and it doesn’t get anywhere, that doesn’t mean anything. What matters is being published. Craig McGregor told me this way back in 1979, but I didn’t take any notice. Besides, being a single parent, I needed the money that comps could provide.

Now here is “Stella by Starlight” minus the Merry Christmases. I’ve also made one other change, transforming the main character from female to male, to fit the story into the collection I’m publishing next year. Everything else, though, is the same, and the theme and moral of the story are unchanged.

Sales points for “Stella” are below. I hope you enjoy it. I wish I could provide a direct sales link to Apple, but I’m digitally disadvantaged.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTVVG9C

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/467119

Read Full Post »

Two Squatters by Martin Playne

Posted in Australian writers, e-books, Two Squatters by Martin Playne, tagged , , , , , on June 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »

P1030241

 

Thank you, Danny, for this kind invitation to write a little about my new book. It’s quite a contrast to MagnifiCat, your poetic and mystical work on Mullimbimby, which you recently released. I am still trying to work out how the two of us, who both trained in agricultural science, have come to writing works that have little to do with agriculture or science. Be that as it may, let me get serious and tell you something of my 432-page book, a social history.

 

Set in the 19th century, the book examines the lives of two men of contrasting personality. One, George Playne, was born in Gloucester to a poor family. His father was a saddler and harness-maker. His mother had come from Jamaica. He trained at the Gloucester Infirmary and later was appointed as Apothecary and House Surgeon. After some twenty-two years at the hospital, he suddenly decided to emigrate to Australia in 1839. Emigration to seek wealth may have been a prime reason for his decision; his friend and business partner, Daniel Jennings (who was wealthy) funded his travel.

In contrast, Daniel Jennings, was born in London and became a land agent and investor. He was always impetuous and eccentric in his behaviour. On arrival, he formed a business partnership with George, and purchased (for an alleged £10,000) the occupancy rights and the livestock to one of largest holdings in Victoria (around 200,000 acres with 10,000 sheep) called Campaspe Plains Station. He also invested heavily in both city and rural land in Victoria. He departed for Calcutta suddenly two years later, leaving behind his wife, and leaving George to manage the property at a time of deepening recession in the livestock industry. Two years later, he returned to the Colony with a new wife, and resumed his role as a gentleman squatter and investor. He left Victoria permanently in 1851 to retire to England. He was certified as a Chancery lunatic in 1865, and died in 1872, leaving a Will, which led to a legal dispute between his wife and his brother.

 

The Campaspe partnership between Daniel and George had been dissolved on Daniel’s return to Victoria in 1844 at George’s instigation. George then set up to practice medicine again in Melbourne. He became part of the colonial establishment, with important roles in lobbying for improved tenure for squatters, in the Melbourne Club (Secretary 1844-8), and in efforts to form a new colony separate from New South Wales (Secretary of the Separation Committee, and Joint Treasurer to the Delegate Committee), to establish a medical association and a hospital, and to form a new bank. He was a magistrate from 1843 until 1854. In 1850, he built one of the finest mansions in South Fitzroy. He had a strong influence on the development of a civilised society in Victoria. After 1851, his dream of a large city house, a gentlemanly existence, and a country property on the Mornington Peninsula was realized, but became impractical because of the shortage of labour after 1851 and the squalor and drunkenness when the gold rush started. He decided in 1854 to leave Melbourne and return to England.

 

These two men epitomize many early settlers whose contributions have been barely recognised by historians. To read more about them and the early devlopment of Victoria, or to obtain a copy of this book, go to:

http://www.bookstore.bookpod.com.au/p/8759432/two-squatters—the-lives-of-george-playne-and-daniel-jennings.html

Read Full Post »

And Now for Something Completely Different

Posted in Australian writers, books about prison, Canadian prisons, Canadian writers, Carol Middleton, e-book frmatting, e-books, Ed Griffin, Editing, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, Fiction writers, Indie authors, Indie publishing, inmates, jail, Kindle, MagnifiCat the novel, north coast of nsw, prison, prison reform, prisoners, Publishing, Self-publishing, Short stories, social media, the novel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 19, 2014| 7 Comments »

Novel under const'n

 A few days ago I was surprised to receive an email from Carol Middleton, an Australian award-winning writer, and a reviewer for the prestigious Australian Book Review. In the email Carol invited me to join the Writing Process Blog Tour, in which writers are invited to reply to four questions about their writing process and then pass the baton on to another writer/s.

Many thanks to Carol for inviting me to contribute to this tour, which in its construction is like a chain letter but nice. You can see Carol’s Writing-Process Blog published Monday 12th at http://carolmiddleton.com.au/wordpress

Here goes.

 

 

What am I working on?

Having put my first novel out on Amazon and Smashwords last year, I decided to try to get myself a bigger presence on the web by putting up a short story a month in 2014. Being the digital klutz that I am, it took me three months to learn enough to put up my first story Busting God, now available at: www.amazon.com/dp/B00J8ZIE8S. I’m now working on formatting my second story Remains to be Seen, which follows the fortunes of Busting God’s hero as he tries to recover from the post-traumatic stress caused by his participation in the Vietnam War.

I’m a tortoise, very slow at everything I do, and not very comfortable on the web. However, I’ve decided that having a higher profile there will help my novels eventually, so I’m nailed to the cross of formatting these twelve short stories for the remainder of 2014.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

How to answer this question? My short stories were published in such diverse places, ranging from Penthouse to Aurealis to the Australian Women’s Weekly. Each time I adapted my basic writing style to suit the market — I was a single parent and I needed the money. My only novel published so far is MagnifiCat: www.amazon.com/dp/B00H0ORWQY — a strange little animal fantasy about a family of cats who find themselves on the poverty line in a small country town in New South Wales, Australia. In it I aimed to produce a kind of Wind in the Willows for adults. To what extent I succeeded is hard to gauge. The novel’s definitely not satire; it’s more like a fairy tale for adults, with an underlying heavy core that makes it adult fiction, though I plan to release a children’s version of it in 2015, minus the alcohol and the angst.

Why do I write what I do?

In my case there are two answers to this. The short stories were written either for money — publication or competition money — or to add to my literary CV. In the novels, however, I get to please myself. And I notice that what comes though in all of them (I have another four in various stage of development) is a desire to nail down a particular time and place that’s now long gone. You could say I’m obsessed with transience, and writing about these places is my way of trying to keep them alive in people’s memories after they’ve disappeared under the bulldozer of progress. My Queensland novel is set in Brisbane in the early 1960s; MagnifiCat is set in Byron Shire in the mid-1980s, and somewhere in the dim future, should I live that long, I’d like to write a novel set in Brisbane during WWII. It’s as if I’m saying to readers, Remember how it was. Don’t forget this.

How does my writing process work?

I write first draft material in the morning, while I still have some contact with my unconscious. Editing, a completely different process requiring a different part of the brain, I can do any time. I never work after dark unless I have an editing job or a manuscript appraisal for another writer and the deadline is looming.

To me, producing first-draft material is like digging semi-precious stones out of the ground, while editing is like polishing those stones into something people might find beautiful or useful. Basically, I want my writing to entertain, to make people happy. At the risk of sounding overly ambitious (or merely quaint), I’d like it to give people hope. Life can be tough sometimes.

 

The writer I’ve asked to continue the Writing Process Blog Tour on Monday 26th is Ed Griffin, a Canadian novelist and prison reformer. Ed taught creative writing in prisons for many years. He blogs at:

prisonuncensored.wordpress.com

Check him out on Monday 26th.

 

Read Full Post »

About ‘Busting God’ (short story)

Posted in Agents, aging, Amazon KDP, Australian humour, Australian writers, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, Fiction writers, Humour, Indie authors, Indie publishing, Kindle, Self-publishing, Short stories, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 11, 2014| 2 Comments »

 

bustinggod(2)

A long, long time ago, back in the early ‘90s, I had my first short story published in a national magazine. My children and I were over the moon: the money (AU$1,500) was astronomical in those days. A few years later, I decided to see if I could crack the same market again—after all, $1,500 never goes astray.

I’d just read Narc! Inside the Australian Bureau of Narcotics by Bernard Delaney, who was a senior investigator in the narcotics bureau for some years before becoming Commander for the Southern Region of Australia. So I wrote this 5,000 word short story about an undercover narcotics agent, basing the procedures on Delaney’s book. After the usual eight drafts, I submitted it to the editor who’d accepted my previous story. My timing was bad. A week after I submitted the story, the magazine was sued for defamation. In the chaos that ensued, ‘Busting God’ went nowhere. I put it away and concentrated on the next draft of my Brisbane novel. Some twenty years later, I sent the story to an Australian magazine called Blue Crow, edited by Andrew Scobie, who accepted it enthusiastically.

Now that I‘ve decided to put all my work up online before I fall off the perch (it seems safer than wrapping it in ‘fireproof’ material and putting it in the tin trunk, but I might be wrong), I gave the story yet another draft and put it up on Amazon and Smashwords. In brief, it’s the story of an aging undercover agent who, along with his long-time Vietnam buddy Baby Johnson, is sent to the Northern Rivers of New South Wales to bust a heroin dealer everyone up there calls God because he’s so big. Apart from successfully running God to earth, the major conflict in the story takes place in the hero’s head. Will he stay in law enforcement or get out before his slowing reflexes get him killed? That’s the main idea behind the story, and the idea that leads to the next story I’m putting up in three weeks time, this time for free, called ‘Remains to be Seen’. As part of my plan to try to save the work before I drop off the perch, I plan to put up another eleven stories on the web this year, half of them for sale, half for free. This one has a price on it, but I chose the lowest price both sales sites would allow.

‘Busting God’ is one of the three favourite stories I’ve written; there’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek humour. It’s also the first thing I’ve ever formatted. Being the digital klutz that I am (oh yes, I am — see my previous post on this subject at: https://danielledevalera.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/for-all-you-luddites-out-there/, formatting that story took me a long time and I’m so chuffed that I managed to do it. I was further encouraged by fellow writer C S McClellan, who did the you-beaut cover for me. Thank you so much, Connie; designing an ebook cover is way out of my league.

If you’ve got a moment or so, pop over and take a look at ‘Busting God’. You can read about 30% for free at either:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/416303

or www.amazon.com/dp/B00J8ZIE8S

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »