Alan Baxter's Blog, page 125

Looking for a wife or girlfriend?

You so need to come to this store in Bega. They have such a great range.

Where the wild things are

And by wild, I mean me. I'm going to be off around Brogo and Bega for the next week, with pretty poor and infrequent internet connection. So, don't be surprised if things go a bit quiet around here and Twitter and Facebook over the next week or so.

Of course, I can't handle being away from the net for too long, so I'll take my laptop with me. And I'll have my iPhone, naturally. In truth, there's every chance that no one would even notice my absence, depending on mobile reception where we'll...

Writing exercise from Karen's desk

I quite enjoy the little writing exercises that people come up with sometimes. You get these at a lot of creative writing courses and workshops. They're basically little triggers designed to get you writing. The truth is that when it comes to being a writer, there are six really, REALLY important things that you have to do:

Read, read, read, write, write, write.

All the other skills you learn, getting help with your grammar, getting stories critiqued and all that is very important. But first...

Testing my Wordpress iPhone app

I've downloaded the Wordpress app for my iPhone. I'm currently sitting on my couch with my iPhone linked to my home wireless network typing out this test post. Hopefully it works. If it does I'm going to have a little nerdgasm. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love the future.

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Friday Flash – The Darkening

I've been copping a bit of (friendly) flak the last couple of weeks because I've slipped on the Friday Flash thing. It's hard to keep up with all the projects that I have going on, especially with people hassling me for the next book and the next Ghost Of The Black novella. Plus I'm working with Blade Red Press on the first anthology, trying to write and sell short stories and keep a bit of freelance stuff on the go. No, I don't want your sympathy. I'm just making excuses for the...

"The Book" published in Antipodean SF #136

I'm happy to say that a piece of my flash fiction has just been published by Antipodean SF. It's a whimsical little yarn about a book. Therefore it's called "The Book".

You can read it here. Let me know what you think.

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Stories read and future predictions

Not much going on at the moment, just catching up with stuff. You know, life as usual. However, I do have some new books to help me cope. One of the blessings and curses of the whole convention situation is the dealer's room. It's a big room, full of people selling stuff you really want. A deadly thing. It's also a great place to hang out and chat with people and generally soak up the vibe of a con. As a result of this room of delight, as with every con, I now have a newly enlarged reading...

Kindle editions are back

Amazon seem to have finally started catching up with their backlog of emails and I'm happy to say that the Kindle editions of RealmShift and MageSign are available again. The price now matches the Smashwords and DriveThru price of US$2.89 each. That's less than a cup of coffee! It also looks like they've kicked in this bloody stupid region coding plan, so if you're looking from Australia, for example, you won't see pricing information and there's a nice green box telling you that you can't...

Whatever

I read this today and had to laugh. According to Language Log the Marist Institute of Public Opinion has released poll results that reveal the words and phrases that Americans find most annoying. The results were:

whatever – 47%

you know – 25%

it is what it is – 11%

anyway – 7%

at the end of the day – 2%

What the Marist Institute didn't reveal very clearly was that the above phrases were the only options respondents were given to choose from. Ridiculous.

As one of the commenters over at...

Nameless, the Paul Haines Challenge

This is something I've been meaning to get around to looking at for ages and I've finally followed up on it. The Australian Horror Writers Association has put together a very interesting challenge that involves horror, loads of great writers, a competition and a bit of philanthropy, plus a great prize. You can't argue with that.

Basically, numerous great Australian speculative fiction writers have each added a section to a single story, started by Felicity Dowker. The penultimate part was...