Alan Baxter's Blog, page 128

Want to get your hair pierced?

I went out for a ride on the motorbike with Halinka today and we stopped in a little town for lunch. I did laugh when I walked past this window.

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Darkening – #fridayflash

For this week's #fridayflash piece of fiction I went digging around in my short story archives. I'll often write up part of a short story, or write a short story as flash fiction, to get the ideas down and return to them later. Sometimes I'll develop those ideas into a proper short story that I'll try to sell somewhere, sometimes they're better left as flash fiction (which I may also try to sell somewhere) and sometimes they're better left alone completely (like the great ideas you jot down...

Editor Unleashed 25 Best Writing Blogs 2009

Bizarrely, this very site is one of them.

I must say, it's been a good couple of weeks. I was very pleased a little over a week ago when I discovered that I'd been nominated for the 25 Best Writing Blogs at the Editor Unleashed website. I'm a big fan of that site and usually float around their discussion forums from time to time.

A couple of days later I got confirmation that The Word was being archived by the National Library of Australia due to its "national significance". I'm still having a ...

Karen Lee Field's flash fiction contest

My friend Karen Lee Field has recently done a complete overhaul on her writing website. She combines her interests of writing, reading, genealogy and history on the same site. To celebrate the overhaul, Karen is running a flash fiction contest. The prize is a $25 Amazon voucher and an electronic copy of the fantasy anthology, Speculative Realms. The winner will be decided by public votes, and one lucky voter will also receive an ebook of Speculative Realms.

The contest is a themed one. You...

The surname book meme

I picked this up after spotting it at and . It goes like this:

From the biggest bookcase you have, pick out one book whose author's last name starts with each letter of your last name. If you have no books by an author whose last name starts with a particular letter, go to the next letter. If you have two of the same letter in your last name, get two separate authors, not two books by the same author. Bonus: If you can, pick the first book you haven't...

Decennial General Meeting – #fridayflash

For this week's #fridayflash story, I present a whimsical little yarn about a bunch of trolls, lamenting their lot in the modern world. It's not really a complete story, more a vignette, a snapshot in the secret lives of trolls. It's possible that there's a bigger story hidden in here somewhere, but for now I'll let this piece go as a #fridayflash whimsy.

Decennial General Meeting

'Sorry I'm late.' Glom collapsed onto a log, running one hand over his knobbly face. He smoothed back his tangled g...

The Word to be archived at the National Library of Australia

I'm sitting here a little bit stunned at the moment. Apparently I have cultural significance to my country. A few days ago I got an email from the Digital Archiving Section of the National Library of Australia. At the top of the email it said: Request for permission to archive The Word : the website of author Alan Baxter. I started smiling, wondering which of my friends was yanking my chain.

Then the email started talking about how:

The National Library of Australia aims to build a comprehensive c

Writer Appreciation Week

There's something fitting about me finding out about this on a Thursday. It's a bit like when I fell in love with rock and roll music in the 80s and wished I'd been born in the 50s. Or when I finally got that pair of blue plastic trainers with velcro instead of laces in the late 70s only to discover that everyone had moved on and Converse Hi-Tops were back. But still, at least this time it's not quite over so I can still join in a little bit.

According to Nathan Bransford – Literary Agent this we

25 Best Writing Blogs

One of my favourite websites, Editor Unleashed, is running a poll to select the 25 Best Writing Blogs. There are five categories, Fiction Writing, Marketing & Social Media, Publishing Trends, Creativity and Freelance Writing. Each category has ten nominated blogs in an open poll.

And I've been nominated. I know, hard to believe, but it's true. The Word is listed in the Fiction Writing category here. Any of you good readers that enjoy this blog, I'd love it if you could take a moment to drop in ov

Additions to the Markets For Writers page

I've made a couple of quick additions to the Markets For Writers page here at The Word. The first was a terrible ommission on my part. Given that I'm a member of the Australian Horror Writers Association I shouldn't have left off Midnight Echo magazine, but for some inexcusable reason I did. That's now been added to the list.

Also, my friend and outstanding writer, Cat Sparks, recently directed me to the The Inkspillers Website. This is a site for Australian writers that is regularly updated with