Farewell, Gitte.

It is with great sadness I write this.

My friend and fellow writer, Gitte Christensen, passed away this morning after a long illness. A couple of weeks ago, surrounded by family members, her life-support was switched off.

Even then Gitte showed great courage, as she has done all along. I’ve been told she said that despite the machines being switched off, she would continue to fight.

Gitte was very private, and asked that I not share her situation with anyone until now.

Those who read Gitte’s blog will know that from time to time she mentioned her illnesses, her surgery and her pains. But you will also know she never dwelt on them, or complained about them. And she certainly never went into any details. She just wrote about how they were preventing her from writing.

I spoke to Gitte several times about her health. Gitte never described what was wrong with her, and I never asked. I believed it was cancer, and I’ve now had this confirmed. Gitte was a Danish warrior. Two years ago she was told she would not live to see that Christmas. It was only two months ago she went horse-riding, one of her great loves. 

Gitte was honest, humble and full of integrity. And optimistic – always optimistic. She was a prolific writer, a quiet achiever. Unknown by many in Australia, she had some great publishing credits. Andromeda Spaceways, Aurealis, Eric Guignard’s  ‘Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations’, ‘The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror 2010’, and a whole bunch more. Last year one of her stories was selected by Alex Dally McPherson for inclusion in ‘Aliens: Recent Encounters.’

Gitte and I always wanted to share a TOC. This dream was realised only last week, as we both have stories in issue 59 of Andromeda Spaceways. I’m thrilled that in the past month Gitte has sold even more stories, including one only a few days ago. Her family will be maintaining her website, and details will be published there as those stories go to press.

I first met Gitte at a Sean Williams workshop. We said nice things about each other’s writing, and stayed in touch. From there we developed a mutual respect which became a friendship. Gitte and I encouraged, supported and congratulated each other. Every year we would meet up at a convention or writing event. I last saw her at a Jack Dann workshop. She was unable to finish that course due to her health.

Take a moment to wish her well on her travels into the great unknown, and if you are so inclined, donate money to a cancer research organization.

Farewell, Gitte.

Getting It Too Right?

While it's important for characters, settings, events and dialogue to be authentic in fiction, is it possible to have these elements too accurate for the reader?

I'm currently re-writing a story where John Belushi appears as one of the characters.In my story he becomes excited about something, and does a backflip in response. One of my readers informed me that Belushi would never have done this, and it didn't ring true. I know Belushi used a stunt double for the series of flips he did down the church aisle in the James Brown scene, but I understand that he did some of the other flips himself. More than that, I recall reading in his biography that when he got really excited about something, he would perform a standing flip spontaneously.

Yeah, so I read that book a long, long time ago, and now I need to dig it out and check that to make sure I just haven't imagined it. But even if he did behave like that, should I include it if readers don't feel it rings true?

Jack Dann published The Rebel, an alternate history that imagines James Dean didn't die in a car crash and went on to become a politician. Dann had reviews that criticised his lack of research for describing James Dean as a blond. While the public perception may be that Dean was dark, he was actually dirty blond. Of course, if Dann had given Dean dark hair, others would have criticised that.

I wrote a short story, Best Served Cold, about a detective who becomes involved in the vampire world. This story was rejected from one market, with a comment that in a particular scene 'a real detective wouldn't behave like that'. There was no reason to point out that after thirteen years on the police force, I actually knew of detectives who had done that. Mind you, this same critic also described a major plot point and said it made no sense. Um, yeah. That's because it never happened in my story. I guess they were too busy watching TV while rejecting the story. Ultimately the story worked for another editor who took it without any major changes.

A friend once showed me a painting he was working on. It was fabulous, but then he pointed out that one of the characters was missing a foot that should have shown behind the other leg, and one of the metallic objects had reflections on it that were impossible. He showed me that with the extra foot in place the character actually looked awkward and wrong, and the reflection was what the observer expected to see rather than what would actually be seen.

A story needs to sit right with the reader, bearing in mind that you will never be able to please everyone. It needs to feel authentic rather than be authentic.

Workshops.

There simply aren't enough SF writing workshops available to those of us who live in Australia.

My American based friends and peers seem to have access to  many workshops with name writers and editors. I always see someone I know who's off to learn the finer points of writing at the feet of these masters. But here?

Clarion South has  been in hibernation for a few years. Writers Victoria offers SF specific courses every couple of years, while their general short story courses seem to run only during working hours. Even then they tend to be run by people I've never heard of, although I'm sure they are quality writers and teachers.

About 18 months ago I attended a once-a-month workshop with Jack Dann. It was pretty good and I learned a lot, although I would have preferred it to have been more of a masterclass rather than a beginner's course.

I've done a couple of online workshops, which I found extremely beneficial, but in many ways I'm an old fashioned learner, and like to have face-to-face contact and teaching.

Those American based workshops look great, but it's hard to justify for myself when I have to add airfares and accommodation and time off work and so on. Maybe we should just convince some of those guys to come out here and teach us.

Or convince some of our homegrown talent to run a few for us.

A Learning Process.

I had my first session with Tracy Hickman last week. I signed up for his Scribe's Forge course, as I'd previously threatened to do, and thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a 90 minute webinar, where he taught us via webcam, and we responded and asked questions by typing as we looked up pages in a workbook.

Obviously a face-to-face workshop would be better - it would certainly suit my learning style, but I'm limited here in Australia.

I've written on the dearth of Spec-Fic workshops in the local scence before. Writers Victoria runs them from time to time, and I've recently completed a good Jack Dann course there. I also did a two day workshop with Sean Williams a few years ago, and I spent three months being mentored by Paul Haines.

Most of these, however, were based on critting each others work and developing our own stories. The Tracy Hickman workshop is based around some writing theory and method, and this is something I've longed for.

Already it's given me better ideas on how to construct stories and characters, and that's only after the first session.

It's all learning, and that's something I continue to do. I look back at stories that I wrote even just a year ago, and can see how I could have improved them. I analyse elements of short stories I read, and see what works and what doesn't. But mostly I try to apply what I've learnt to my new writing.

I always learn a lot as I go. But a course or two in the basics never goes astray.

Bread And Butter.

Way back in the early 90s, while teaching English in Japan, I bought a couple of grammar books to help me along. I wasn't qualified to teach English (or anything else for that matter) and was unsure of a lot of the terminology.

One of the books I bought, Elements of Style (Strunk & White) continues to rear its head. Jack Dann in his workshop repeated "Strunk and White"  almost as often as "Show, don't tell." They were virtually mantras by the time we were done.

Since the 90s I have updated my edition of this book, and re-read it from time to time. I've also completed a couple of degrees in English and English Education, and ended up teaching conversation and grammar in Japan for around six years. I've also taught high school English for 8 years now.  I'm reasonably confident in my grammar, and I tend to write very clean copy.

I recently stumbled across a blog by a "writer" lamenting a lack of success and sales. Unfortunately his ramblings were almost undecipherable. Sentences were incomplete, punctuation was missing, words were misspelled. Whole sections of the post made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Surprisingly, this writer claimed some publication credits. I didn't follow through on checking them out, and I'd never heard of any of the markets, so I'd question the status of said credits. Of course, I haven't read any of his stories either. Perhaps he's a brilliant ideas man, who has an amazing editor who pulls it all together.

I suspect not.

Strunk and White. Strunk and White. Strunk and White. Om Mani Padme Hum.

Grammar is a writer's bread and butter. It's the foundation, the basics. Typos and spelling mistakes can be forgiven, and that's what spellcheckers and beta-readers are for. But tense changes and no sentence structure? That's not on.

Workshop Shopping.

I recently completed the Jack Dann workshop, held at Writers Victoria. It consisted of five sessions, roughly a month apart. And while I found it very useful and valuable, it wasn't exactly what I'd thought it was going to be.

I guess I really wanted a masterclass.

There was an extremely diverse range of experiences among the participants - from a few who had never written a sentence before to a couple of us with a history of publications. As such, much of the critiquing was aimed at the beginners.

I read of writers in the U.S. that attend workshops held by Orson Scott Card, or Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith, Mike Resnick, or other writing luminaries. You often need to audition, to submit a piece of writing to attend these workshops before the participants are selected.

I rarely see any SF workshops like that advertised here.

Earlier this year, I looked at an online course advertised by Tracy Hickman. It looked good, the price seemed reasonable but the time was wrong. I'd just signed up for the Jack Dann thing and was finishing up a university course. I decided I would wait until the second half of the year before applying.

I checked it out recently - credit card in hand, and was rather surprised to see that the course had been restructured to involve live online sessions and the price had increased dramatically. More than doubled, in fact.

I'll pass, for the moment. And I'm not disparaging Mr. Hickman. I'm sure his course is excellent. It's just that it's more than I'd planned to spend at that time.

Clarion in Australia is on indefinite hiatus and, even if it re-commenced, taking the six weeks required to attend would be far too costly. (And I think my wife would not be happy.)

If anyone knows of any great online workshops run by people who know their stuff and at a reasonable price, I'd love to hear about it.

I've found the biggest improvements I've made in my writing were immediately after the Jack Dann course, and the Paul Haines mentorship.

And I'm all for improving my writing.

At The End Of The Week.

The last few weeks have been hectic.

Exam marking, writing reports, finishing university assignments, making sure the semester comes to a clean end. But that's all done now, and I'm free to get some writing done. For the next couple of weeks at least.

I finished the Jack Dann workshop yesterday. I tweaked the story they critiqued last time and re-subbed it. It had a generally favourable reception, and some more excellent comments and advice. The five month program has been excellent.  I'd like to thank Jack and my fellow attendees.

I also wrote a story that I am very, very pleased with. It poured out of me easily in a single three hour session and needed little work afterwards. I commenced a second story, but have now put it on the back burner. It was for an anthology that closes this weekend. Unfortunately I was going to run out of time, and - more importantly - I realised the aspects I'd tried to incorporate (in order to match the anthology's theme) were not central to the story and so would probably not be suitable anyway.

And so, the results of this week.

One new story written.
One other new story half-completed.
One story re-written and subbed to the workshop.
Two other stories re-written.
Three submissions.

A successful week.  Now we wait!

Nine Thousand Divided By Four?

I never did get that story started on the weekend.

My computer decided it was time to crash, and so I spent much of the day saving files from the C drive (they were all backed up, but it was good to make sure I kept everything in its very latest form) then rebuilding the machine.

I'm one of those unfortunate enough to have had the issues with Windows 7 on their system. Whenever it's loaded, the machine locks on a black screen. About a year ago, I worked out how to fix it. Unfortunately I didn't take notes and this time it wouldn't work for me. Eventually I gave up and installed an older Windows.

Then I started installing all the software I need. Of course that didn't run smoothly either. I found the Office installation disc, and that was fine, but for the life of me I couldn't find the pocket it came in. And that's where the product key is printed. (Yes, legitimate software here.)

I did eventually find it, on Monday night, but by then I was tied up with work stuff. I made sure I found the time to tweak the story I'd written for the Jack Dann workshop, but beyond that I still hadn't written my words.

Of course Saturday is the 30th, and the end of the month is the natural time to close subbing periods. I had a brainwave for one antho on the weekend, which you may have noticed my peers decided to discuss in the comments section of my last post, but no ideas for the other.

And now it's happened. I've had an idea. Which means I should write two fresh stories and rewrite another by Friday night - all ready for subbing on Saturday. I completed the first draft of one last night, and I'm pretty happy with that, but it still needs a lot of work.

I can do it. I know I can. If Sean Williams can write 784 Star Wars novels in 18 months, I can manage 9,000 words in a few days.

Can't I?

I Gotta Wear Shades.

Like any other skilled activity, the writing experience is a series of improvements punctuated with plateaus where not much seems to happen - either in sales or personal writing growth. Or at least that's how it has been with me.

Recently I've felt that I've been stuck, wheels spinning and not advancing, not getting anywhere at all - although no doubt I was improving and honing my skill. I was just too close to see it myself. But I've recently started to feel that I was getting closer to another burst of improvement.

I've got two stories on hold, two stories just sold and another re-subbed after a rewrite request. And I have high hopes for a couple of others.

Yesterday, I came away from Jack Dann's workshop with some excellent criticism on my subbed story from my fellow participants and Jack, along with positive and encouraging words. And while I don't agree with everything that was said about my story, I will look at everything, consider carefully, and rewrite parts as appropriate.

Continuum is creeping up on us, and I'm looking forward to catching up with a bunch of people. I've signed up to be on a panel with my friend, David McDonald - and that should be a lot of fun. It's a shame Gitte Christensen won't be able to make it, but it was lovely catching up with her yesterday and I look forward to reading her current work-in-progress. Once it's completed, of course.

I must admit I'm also very excited about hearing my name listed among the nominations for both the Chronos and Ditmar awards. And, of course, attending the launch of Epilogue.

Timbuk 3, anyone?

2011 Aurealis Awards.

Congratulations to all the winners at last night's Aurealis Awards. I've read most of the winning titles, and enjoyed them all. I'd like to specifically mention a few of the winners.

I'm currently attending Jack Dann's workshop on Spec-Fic, and so I've gotten to know him a little as a mentor. Ghosts by Gaslight, edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers is a fantastic collection. Congratulations, Jack.

The late Paul Haines was, of course, my mentor for several months, and then became a friend with whom I was in regular contact. The Past is a Bridge Best Left Burnt from The Last Days of Kali Yuga is wonderful, and fully deserves the award.

I first met Thoraiya Dyer at the launch of Anywhere But Earth in November of last year. I'm proud to be sharing a TOC with her in FableCroft's upcoming anthology Epilogue. Her story, Fruit of the Pipal Tree in After The Rain is a most worthy winner also.

Robert N Stephenson's story, Rains of la Strange, shared a TOC with my own So Sad, The Lighthouse Keeper in Anywhere But Earth. Congratulations to Rob, and publisher/editor Keith Stevenson.

I've met Kim Westwood on a few occasions, and also shared a TOC with her in the above anthology. The Courier's New Bicycle is an excellent novel. Congrats, Kim.

Twelfth Planet author, Sue Isle picked up an award for Nation of the Night, while Lisa Hannett scored a couple for Ticonderoga's excellent collection Bluegrass Symphony and the short story The Short Go: a Future in Eight Seconds. I thoroughly enjoyed these works when I read them.

I wasn't able to justify flying up to Sydney for the ceremony, but it sounds like everyone had a great time. One of these years I'll get there. In the meantime, I've had a great week. I sold two stories, had a rewrite request on another, and have two stories on hold.

If I keep at it, maybe one day I'll be fortunate enough to be nominated for an Aurealis.

We wait.

I've had a good week's writing.

I finished my short story for the Jack Dann writing course I'm currently attending. I wrote it for the course when we first started, and had plans last week to write a second draft, but I just didn't have time. In the end I glanced over it, changed a couple of words and subbed it. Of course there's part of me that is looking forward to the critiquing, and a part of me that's completely terrified by the prospect.

When I was in Sri Lanka in January, I had a short story idea which I duly wrote down in my notebook. It was a basic premise, and needed a lot more to be developed before it was story-worthy.  Last week I realised that the premise fit an anthology to which I had hoped to submit. Of course the deadline was approaching faster than I'd thought, and so I had to work hard to get the story up and running. I still didn't know where it was going to go - even as I wrote the first three hundred words. And then a beautiful thing happened. As I kept writing, the whole plot and narrative fell into place.

I was able to turn out a clean first draft and send it to my writing buddy, David McDonald, for an emergency crit. I literally sent it seconds after I wrote the final word and hadn't reviewed any of the story myself.  David kindly read the story for me, making notes, and sent it straight back. From there I reworked parts of the story, tightened other aspects and subbed it with an hour to spare on the deadline.

Usually I leave stories for a while so I can go back in with a fresh mind and viewpoint and see all the little problems you don't notice when you're too close to it.

I just hope this story is as good as I believe it to be.

But now it's subbed and the market usually has a quick turnaround. I'm also waiting on news about a bunch of other stories that are out at the moment. I anticipate hearing on most of these in the next week or so.

And for now we just wait, wait, wait.

This Week Had Seven Days.

An insanely busy week.

I had parent-teacher interviews on Thursday night which does not, as someone recently said, mean you get to just sit down and chat. They take a lot of preparation, and there's always the possibility of aggressive or hostile parents. Fortunately the parents that came to see me were fine. The ones I needed to see never came.

I also finished my university assignments and submitted those. Since I was overseas for a few weeks, I had quite a bit of catch up reading and writing to do. But they're done now and out of the way.

Jack Dann's writing workshop continues full steam ahead. During the week I somehow found some time to read and critique the stories for yesterday's class. Some nice moments and some good writing, and a couple of stories I'd like to see developed further. And I learned quite a bit. I'm already re-imagining future stories in my head to make them tighter. This course is doing exactly what I hoped it would.

There was a Ditmar nomination a few days ago, and I'm thrilled by that. I'm also very appreciative of the comments made and emails people have sent me. Especially since some of those came from writers whose work I had on my shelf but had never met only a year or so ago. Thanks. I currently have a couple of stories on hold, which I was hoping I'd have had more news about by now. Many friends (or at least writers I know) have been nominated for awards, which is always exciting.

All I need is some time to write some new stuff.

The sun is out and the sky is blue. My new audio system sounds great. I'm enjoying my work (apart from parent-teacher interviews) and my dogs are fine.

A busy week, but a great one.

In Which Doris Gets Her Oats.

Phase one of the Jack Dann workshop at Writers Victoria kicked off yesterday morning.

There was a wide range of experience amongst the attendees, from those who may have scribbled down the occasional paragraph and have a few ideas, to those who have a publication history. It was great to see Gitte Christensen again and to trade tips, ideas and war stories with her.

It took me back to when I was starting out, three or so years ago. I'd written two quick, short stories - just to see if I could write, and then had no idea what to do with them. I signed up for a Sean Williams workshop with no real idea of what to expect. We had to sub 1,000 word sample to Sean, which in my naivety I presumed was only so Sean could see what our writing was like. I had absolutely no idea about manuscript formatting. And, I had absolutely no idea our work would be critiqued.

I was embarrassed by my writing, and very, very reticent to show it to anyone.

Yesterday, it was interesting to see those who are just starting to write. Some of the attendees were unsure of even how to start that first paragraph, and a couple seemed to find 5,000 words over the next month or so a little daunting. Me, I'll knock out something and sub it without too much worry, and look forward to the critiquing.

I must admit after the Sean Williams workshop, it took me a long time to find critters I could trust. I was confused by the range of comments, some from clearly inexperienced writers. I rewrote that story, trying to incorporate all the ideas - only to discover that I'd sucked all the life and soul from it. I threw that out and returned to the previous draft.

It's about discernment. By all means, listen to all critters - realising they are all potential readers, but also understanding that inexperience and enthusiasm may limit their critique value. Select carefully the comments you pay heed to, and then decide whether, and how, to incorporate any changes.

And it's always valuable to have critters who are either at a similar level to yourself, or somewhere you want to be. After all, I have a much better understanding of what makes a good story than I had three years ago.

Chronos Awards.

The awards season is upon us and I've just heard that both Kaaron Warren (for writing short fiction) and Jack Dann (for an anthology he edited) have been shortlisted for the Stoker. Congratulations. They would both surely deserve to win.

I'm eligible for a coupve been conle of upcoming awards. I'sidered for the Aurealis Awards, but it will take a little while before the shortlist is announced. And I'm also eligible for the Chronos and Ditmar Awards, both of which will be presented in June.

I truly believe last year was the breakout year for me. I stepped up my writing practices and skills and sold a number of stories to quality markets. So Sad, The Lighthouse Keeper is the first of those stories to be published, and I am very proud and honoured to have had it included in Keith Stevenson's fantastic anthology, Anywhere But Earth.

Since publication it has received excellent comments and reviews. If you have read the story and enjoyed it, (and are so inclined to do so) please consider nominating it for the Chronos Awards here.

If you haven't read it, then you should consider purchasing a copy.

I promise I'll name my first-born after you.

The Next Level.

This week has been fantastic. In a single 24 hour period I had five amazing things occur that really made my day. And, therefore, my week.

Little of it had to do with writing. In fact, during that time period I also received two rejections - one of them from a market that continues to call me with its siren song and yet manages to elude me every time. But neither of these rejections bugged me like the ones I referred to last week. (And yes, I'm slowly getting over those.)

I managed a sale - a minor one in the scheme of things, but it was a story that I really liked and yet it had received flat rejections everywhere I subbed. It's the only flash piece (sorry, Cat) that I've ever written. I must admit I was starting to despair of it ever seeing the light of day.

My rejections these days are frequently personal, with notes  complimenting my writing but then adding there's something that didn't quite work for the editor. And there's a lesson to be learned from that.

I've decided it's time to ramp it up, and proceed to the next level.

And so in two weeks time I commence Jack Dann's writing course. And this week I start my new writing regime. And then I have further plans for later in the year once my Uni assignments are over. On top of that I'm committed to keep all my available stories out in circulation until they are sold or dead. Everything I have currently completed is either awaiting a minor rewrite or subbed at markets.

Watch out for me. I'm determined you'll see a lot more of my work.

Learning.

This year is going to be a year of learning for me.

Last year I commenced a post graduate course at Swinburne University that was related to my teaching. I've passed the first half of that course, and will complete the rest by June. And while I've no doubt some of it will be beneficial to my work, I must say I'll be glad when it's done and dusted. I'm not a very good on-line student. I'd much prefer to be in the classroom with real live teachers.

I've also been awarded (after an application and interview) a two-week study tour of China. I'll be heading off in a few months time with a bunch of colleagues from around the region to look at the Chinese education system in action. I must say I'm very excited about that trip and the implications it has for my own teaching. The National Curriculum, which is supposed to be hoisted upon English early next year, has Asia Literacy right at its heart. And so I intend to learn as much as I can while enjoying the people I meet and the food I am forced to eat.

Jack Dann is a name synonymous with science fiction here in Australia. A lively presence (how's that for tact?) at any convention or event of importance in Melbourne, Jack's a lot of fun to talk to and has a proven track record of published and edited work. And so I'm excited to have signed up for a five month course with Jack through Writers Victoria.

Anything else?

Well, there's always something more to learn, and I do have further plans for later in the year. But I guess those three will do for now.

Continuum.

I had an absolutely fantastic weekend at Continuum.

The Philip K. Dick panel ran smoothly and was well received. Both Bruce Gillespie and David McDonald were fantastic - great insights and an obvious appreciation of PKD's work. I really want to thank them for agreeing to be part of this panel. I also need to thank Tessa B. Dick, Phil's wife, for so kindly answering a few questions for me. Don't forget, both her biography of Phil and her own autobiography are available.

The other panels I was on were good fun too. Sure, I was nervous just before they started, but once they were underway I completely relaxed.

It was great catching up with old familiar faces (Gitte Christensen, Earl Livings and Sue Ann Barber to name a few) and meeting new people. Once again I find it thrilling to be able to sit down and converse with people whose work I've bought and read and names I've only heard of. Richard Harland, Jack Dann, Joel Shepherd, George Ivanoff, Narrelle M. Harris -  and that's only naming a few. I must admit I was a little disappointed not to see some of the usual luminaries there, but I guess people have other publishing commitments and being the long weekend means other events are on also.

Despite the range of panels not being as varied as in previous years (C'mon, do we really need another three or four Vampire panels?) it was still an amazing weekend and I had a great time.

Onward and upward.