Alan Baxter's Blog, page 59

Red Penny Papers Vol III, Issue 1, featuring my story “Crossroads & Carousels”, out now

Check out that brilliant cover (by artist C. Bernard). What a thing of beauty. This is the second anniversary issue of The Red Penny Papers and it features my story, Crossroads & Carousels. The full ToC is:

- A Connection to Beyond by Cat Rambo
- Breathing Room by Jamie Mason
- Fearsome Critters and Friendly Giants by M. Bennardo
- Crossroads and Carousels by Alan Baxter
- The Extravagant and Venturesome Lives of Woman Pyrates by Katy Gunn

That’s a pretty great line-up and I’m very proud to be a part of it. On top of all that, the whole thing is free right here. The ebook version of this issue should be out soon and mini-interviews with all the authors are forthcoming.

Crossroads & Carousels is a story I’d been planning to write for a long time. I finally found the right framework for the story and I’m very pleased it found a home at RPP. The story is a homage to two things I’ve always loved – the old blues legends of the crossroads and the Dire Straits song, Tunnel Of Love. I have a pretty eclectic taste in music and, while I might be a blues and metal fan at heart, I’m into a wide cross-section of sounds. One of my favourite bands for years has been Dire Straits. Mark Knopfler’s blues inspired guitar playing is just sublime. In fact, it’s almost entirely due to Mark Knopfler and David Gilmour from Pink Floyd that I learned to play guitar myself.

It’s also the lyricism of bands like these that appeals to me so much. Both Dire Straits and Pink Floyd tell fantastic stories with their music. One of the stories that’s always appealed to me and fascinated me is Tunnel Of Love. It contains such evocative lyrics and such emotive imagery. I finally found my crossroads story through a short fiction retelling of the story behind Tunnel Of Love. So I hope my homage is as enjoyable to everyone reading as it was to me in the writing. I’ve changed the location and a lot of things about the song, of course, as it was inspiration for this story – I haven’t just written a short story version of the song. But you’ll recognise key motifs in the story if you know the song. I hope I’ve done it justice.

Go here, and read.

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Dark Places 2 anthology out for Halloween

The publisher of my novels, Gryphonwood Press, has got a bit of a tradition going. Each Halloween there’s a new anthology featuring dark short fiction from Gryphonwood authors. The first one was last year, and now there’s Dark Places 2. That makes it a tradition. So shut up. You can get it in any ebook format you prefer right here from Smashwords.

Dark Places 2 features short fiction from Justin R. Macumber, Terry W. Ervin II, John E. Bailor, David Wood and myself. My contribution is The Seven Garages Of Kevin Simpson. This story was a Pseudopod original in episode 242 back in August 2011. That, of course, was a podcast. Now it’s available in text at last.

For the absolute steal of 99c, (buy it here, now!) these five stories should hopefully entertain and set a good Halloween vibe. I’ve read David Wood’s Aqua Zombie and it’s a great yarn. And yes, an aqua zombie. Think about it. Now go and get the book and read about it. You’ll also get my creepy story about a dead man with seven unexpected garages, plus stories from Justin Macumber, Terry Ervin and John Bailor. How can you go wrong with that?

What’s more, if you wait till Halloween to buy the book, it won’t even cost you 99c. It’ll be free on Halloween. Seriously, free. Nada. Zip. Nothing. But seeing as it’s only 99c anyway, you might as well get it right now. I’ll put a quick post up here on Halloween with the coupon code for the freebie, but I’m sure you won’t be able to contain your excitement. I mean, what’s 99c? You can’t even buy a newspaper for that kinda moolah. In fact, you’ve probably already gone to buy it and I’m talking to myself right here, aren’t I. Huh? Aren’t I? Hello?

Excellent.

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El Orfanato (The Orphanage) – DVD Review

I’ve been a fan of Guillermo Del Toro for a long time and his films are usually well worth the time. In this case, the Pan’s Labyrinth director is a producer for director Juan Antonio Bayona’s gothic horror about an old orphanage that is being reborn under the care of an ex-resident. As a child, orphaned Laura lived in the big old house by the Spanish seaside and has fond memories of her time there. She was adopted and left the home. Now in her mid-30s, Laura returns to the dilapidated institution with her husband, Carlos, and their seven-year-old son, Simon, to reopen the orphanage for just a handful of special needs children.

But, naturally, there is something weird going on in the beautiful old house. Simon’s behavior begins to grow increasingly strange and Laura and Carlos start to think the boy is getting carried away with his imaginary friends. On the opening day of the new orphanage, Simon’s bizarre behavior is written off as a bid for attention until truly strange events occur and Simon disappears. The search for Simon leads Laura deep into her memories of the orphanage and she begins to uncover troubling things that occurred after her own adoption…

Read the rest of my review at Thirteen O’Clock.

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Festival of Learning and Leornian

Many of you may have heard me mention here and there that I’ve had the pleasure of working on a videogame recently. It’s not some huge release by a big international studio, but it’s been great fun all the same. It’s called Leornian, and is a game about Game Based Learning, or GBL. Leornian is being developed for the education sector in NSW, and I’ve been on board in charge of writing the narrative.

While the game itself is designed to showcase all different types of gameplay, which teachers can then play in order to understand gaming and use it in their classrooms, it needs to be more than just a collection of examples. To that end, the PLANE team were tasked with creating an open sim environment within which to situate all these gaming examples. To keep people interested, the whole thing needed emotional engagement. For that, we need story. That’s where I came in, developing a story that gave players a reason to continue on to the next task. We set the game over three levels – medieval, steampunk and sci-fi. The story is woven through all the levels, with an overreaching plot and all kinds of sub-plots and minigames throughout. It’s been enormous fun and a good challenge to get this thing happening, so I’m very pleased I got to be a part of it. I’ll embed a video below that shows the opening sequence to the game.

This weekend, Friday and Saturday, I’ll be at the PLANE Festival Of Learning in Sydney. PLANE stands for “Pathways for Learning Anywhere, anytime – Network of Educators”. To take the description from the website:

PLANE is a Professional Learning community built by educators for educators. It is an environment in which educators can enrich their own and others professional practice in an ever evolving technology-rich world. Since its inception, PLANE has been shaped by the ideas and needs of educators who are looking to impact change in student learning. This continues to be a guiding principle of PLANE.

The Festival of Learning will mark the official launch of the PLANE online learning environment, including the first level of Leornian. I’ll be presenting there about storytelling and speakers include Adam Elliot, Kitty Flanagan, Dr Jason Fox and others. If you’re interested, you can learn more about it here.

Here’s the opening sequence for Leornian:

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On suicide and hope

This is a very serious post. I’ve just come back from the funeral of a teen suicide. I’m not going to go into any more detail than that and I’ve thought long and hard all week about writing this post, but I think it’s important. I’m also going to plug a book here, with good reason, so bear with me.

Any loss of life is just terrible. When a person takes their own life, to me it’s far worse. To think the person reached a state where they considered suicide the only option is just appalling, for all involved. Especially when that person has barely even begun their life. As a friend of mine, who used to be a high school teacher, said, “I always told the teens at school to keep in mind that it will get better than this.” And he’s right. So many people yearn for the halcyon days of their youth, but you couldn’t pay me to be a teenager again. It fucking sucks. It’s hard and you feel like you have no control over your life and no one understands the very real concerns you bear every day.

But once you get beyond those teen years and start taking responsibility for yourself as an adult, even if life is still shit, at least it’s your shit. As an adult you can make your own decisions. It’s never as hard as it is when you’re a teenager.

But of course, even when a person is all grown up and in charge of their own destiny, they can spiral down to feeling like there’s no way out. They have no other options and suicide is the only thing that makes sense. It’s not the case, and these people are clearly not in their right minds, lost to despair. It’s easy for us to say, “Never give up!” when we’re not the ones in the middle of the fight. But never stop reaching out. Sometimes people are failed by their friends or family, sometimes by the system, even as they’re desperately trying to get help. Sometimes everyone is doing the best they can and suicide is still the only option people can see. There are no easy answers. But never stop reaching out. There are always people somewhere who care.

What we can do is be there, show we care, show the person that there are other options. We have to recognise that the issues and problems the person is dealing with are very real for them. And here’s where I plug a book, because it’s something I think can really help. A while ago I was asked to donate an original story to an anthology called Hope. The publisher lost her son to suicide when he was only 18. She decided to make this book to raise awareness about suicide and to raise money for suicide related charities, and that’s why I’m plugging it now. All the stories are speculative fiction, and all work towards a hopeful ending. In between each story throughout the book are articles and information about suicide and suicide awareness – how to spot suicidal people who might be experts at hiding their distress, things you can do to help them and resources where you can get help.

Here are some of the things I learned from the book:

Approximately 1 million people die by suicide each year worldwide.

In 2006 there were 1,799 suicides recorded in Australia (a country of only 20 million people).

In 2008, 24% of all male deaths aged 15 to 24 were by suicide.

A person doesn’t need to have a mental illness to be suicidal.

The book has lists of causes for suicide, warning signs to look out for, how to help friends, myths and facts and more. There are essays from Beyondblue, Dr Myfanwy Maple and Mr Warren Bartik from the University of New England. All of this set between a great selection of stories by some excellent authors. I’m very proud to be a part of this book, because I think it really can help.

There’s a lot we can do about suicide, if we learn about it. There are lots of ways to learn more. You don’t have to buy the Hope anthology, of course, though it is a very good resource and all the profits from it go to suicide awareness. There are plenty of other resources out there. Below I’ll list some Australian places. Wherever you are, there will be similar organisations you can find, whether you have thoughts of suicide yourself or you’re concerned about someone else. Don’t just let it go and think it will all be okay. It very well might not be.

In Australia:

Beyondblue infoline – 1300 224 636 http://www.beyondblue.org.au

Kids Helpline – 1800 551 800 http://www.kidshelp.com.au

Lifeline – 13 11 14 http://www.lifeline.org.au

Suicide Call Back Service – 1300 659 467 http://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au

You can buy the Hope anthology (edited by Sasha Beattie) directly from the publisher, Kayelle Press, or from Amazon or any other good book store. It’s available in print or ebook.

Suicide is very real and it’s horrible. There are things we can do about it.

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Small press and non-digital survival

It’s a fact of the publishing world that new ventures rise and old ones fail all the time. Running a small press is incredibly hard work, and there’s not much, if any, profit to be found. So many small presses are run for the love of it, with their owners also keeping a full time job and using their own money to keep the press afloat. If a small press can break even, financially, it’s considered a success. Of course, there are those which do actually turn a profit, even if it’s not a full living wage, and those presses could go on to eventually become financially successful ventures. But it’s not easy and by no means definite. With the way the publishing world is currently changing, there are a lot of pitfalls along the way, just as there are a lot more opportunities out there. Never before has the phrase “Adapt or die” been more relevant.

So it was with sadness and some consternation that I read about the closure of Wet Ink the other day. From their announcement:

It is with great regret we have to announce that Wet Ink is closing down after seven years of publication; the current issue, number 27, is the last.

We were hoping for number 28, but it isn’t feasible.

Basically, the reasons are financial. Retail sales are weak, advertising and sponsorship are almost impossible to obtain and subscriptions levels haven’t been enough to make up for the shortfall in other areas. Despite all of these problems we are not interested in only going digital, as it isn’t for us a meaningful alternative.

Now I quite understand that some people are married to the physical artefact and not interested in reading ebooks. I understand that many publishers aren’t interested in learning new skills to engage with the digital marketplace. Even though those skills are easy to learn and implement, I get that some people aren’t interested. And, as a result, the publishing endeavours of those people will die because of it. What confused me more in the case of Wet Ink was this line:

Despite all of these problems we are not interested in only going digital, as it isn’t for us a meaningful alternative.

(The emphasis is my own.)

Only? Meaningful? The implication there is that survival is only likely with a purely digital product, which is simply not true. Digital production doesn’t mean only ebooks. With technology as it is today, it’s quite possible to build any publishing venture into a print and digital product without any compromise on quality and with far lower operating costs. Print On Demand technology is responsible for producing some truly beautiful books and magazines these days, without the high cost of physical print runs. Also, the difference between producing a print product and then adjusting that product for the ebook market is negligible in terms of time and effort.

A press that is producing a quality magazine with high running costs can switch to POD and ebook production quickly and easily and still produce their own favoured high end print artefact, as well as making ebook versions available, thereby maintaining any existing (print) subscriber base and potentially attracting a whole new set of electronic subscribers. That’s adapting to the modern era and giving yourself a chance at survival.

To suggest that it’s death or digital, as in suggesting that it’s a choice between losing money on beautiful books or giving in to those awful ebooks, is misinformed. It’s a perfect example of refusing to adapt, therefore dying.

I feel for the people behind Wet Ink, I really do. It sucks when something you love becomes unsustainable. I quite understand that there are people who don’t want to learn or embrace the new digital ways. But it’s a shame that a well-respected journal like Wet Ink has to die because digital isn’t seen as a “meaningful alternative”. What’s not meaningful about keeping a good thing alive?

Adapting to the modern environment is something people have always had to do. Every industry goes through many changes and old technologies die or change. Publishing, until recently, has been strangely insulated from change. But not any more. It’s very sad to see Wet Ink die, just as it’s sad to see any journal die, thus reducing the variety of publications out there.

I wish the people behind Wet Ink all the best. And I hope other publishers stay on top of this changing world and manage to adapt so their publications don’t die too. Still, even if they do, young turks will come along with new ideas, embrace the new technology and opportunity, and exciting new things will appear. Publishing isn’t dead or dying – far from it. It’s never been more vibrant.

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New mailing list

I’m going to start a new mailing list. I’ll send out emails once a month or so (there will be no fixed regularity to this!) and that email will hopefully contain lots of interesting and useful stuff for readers and writers. I’ll use it to share news of new releases (my own and other people’s) and anything worth noting in the publishing world. For writers, I’ll include any publishing news and any cool looking submission calls I happen to spot. When possible I’ll have special offers, the occasional free or discounted book (from myself and others) and anything else I can think of that might be interesting for you lovely people. Sometimes I’ll even throw in a free story, just because I like you all so much.

When you fill in your details on the subscription page here or using the box on the right hand sidebar, you’ll be taken to a confirmation page. I’ll never sell or share your email address with anyone, and you’ll have an unsubscribe option with every email I send. Easy.

You can sign up for the mailing list here. Tell your friends!

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Tuesday Toot – The Fildenstar

Tuesday Toot is a semi-regular feature here. An invite-only series of short posts where writers, editors, booksellers and other creatives have been asked to share their stuff and toot their own horn. It’s hard to be seen in the digital morass and hopefully this occasional segment will help some of the quality stuff out there get noticed. It should all be things that regular readers here will find edifying.

Today, it’s The Fildenstar. Here’s Kate Rowe:

The Fildenstar was born out of a desire to tell original SF stories, but in song form. We look like steampunk(ish) aviators, and we sing tales from other dimensions. It’s really fun! And I hope, also, that it’s haunting and beautiful for the audience to listen to. We sing about things like ghost butterfly ships, space junk, strange gods, and places where night is illegal. And more importantly, about the people witnessing these things.

Kate Bush is one of my biggest influences, and I often think about her song ‘Cloudbusting’ in relation to The Fildenstar. Like that song, we try to tell you enough of the story, but not everything—we are aiming to make the unusual perfectly believable. Our piano style is fairly simple, classical in style—something like the American Beauty soundtrack but with synth and occasionally percussion.

Our actual names are Kate Rowe and Ryan Morrison. We also perform as singer-songwriters under our own names on the folk festival circuit, both for grownups and for children, and have traveled all round Australia and the UK. We’ll be working on a Fildenstar album soon, so if you’d like to keep in touch, email thefildenstar [at] gmail.com, or visit www.thefildenstar.com to hear a couple of demos. Listen to ‘When the Gods Walked Among Us’: we were playing live with a fantastic percussionist from W.A. called Steve Richter and it was very exciting!

You may remember that I mentioned these guys in my wrap-up about Conflux recently, which is where I saw them. Kate does indeed have a beautiful voice and the storytelling in their songs is excellent. Be sure to check them out if you get the chance. – Alan

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Red Penny Papers – ToC, anniversary, giveaways

I mentioned here recently that my story, Crossroads & Carousels, will be published in the Fall edition of The Red Penny Papers. The full Table of Contents for that issue has now been announced:

A Connection to Beyond by Cat Rambo
Breathing Room by Jamie Mason
Fearsome Critters and Friendly Giants by M. Bennardo
Crossroads and Carousels by Alan Baxter
The Extravagant and Venturesome Lives of Woman Pyrates by Katy Gunn

That’s a fine ToC, and one I’m very proud to be in. But wait, there’s more! As you may remember, it was Red Penny Papers who published my novelette, The Darkest Shade Of Grey. As this is their second anniversary short fiction issue, and as I’m a returning author in their pages, they’ve organised a very cool giveaway. Here are the details:

…to celebrate our second anniversary, it seemed appropriate to do a little giveaway. The first two people to purchase The Darkest Shade of Grey and email their receipt to redpennypapers AT gmail DOT com will receive an eBook of Alan’s debut novel, RealmShift.

Ah, but wait, there’s more. Keep sending those purchase receipts, because at the end, we’ll do a drawing for a complete set: both RealmShift and the sequel MageSign.

Happy birthday to us!

I’m obviously a bit biased, but I reckon that’s a bloody good celebratory offer right there. All the details here.

I’ll drop a note here when the issue in question comes out.

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Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing and my thoughts on rules

I picked this up from the Brain Pickings website. You can click the link to see it there, but I wanted it permanently copied onto my site too, because this is good stuff.

Usually I have issues with all these “rules of writing”. Seriously, fuck the rules. Write the way that works for you.

For example, so many people say, “You must write every day!” I say, bollocks. You may not being able to write every day, and that’s okay. There’s no point in berating yourself and having writerly existential crises if you don’t or can’t do that. Sure, you should write as often as you possibly can. If that’s every day, then bully for you. If that happens to be every Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, that’s fine. Just make sure you actually make time to write as often as you can, because you won’t find time. No one has spare time just lying around.

There are so many other rules out there and you can drive yourself batshit lala trying to adhere to them all. In truth, rules are there to be broken. More often than not, they’re designed to give you a framework that gives you the best chance of succeeding as a writer. And remember, kids, succeeding as a writer is first and foremost writing. If you write regularly, instead of just talk about being a writer, then you are a writer. If you write, you are a writer. Simple as that. How far you get with it is something else entirely. So when I see lists of rules that put all this pressure on people, it gets my back up and I get all, “Fuck the rules, man!” Just like I did in the paragraph above this one.

So why am I reproducing Neil Gaiman’s rules? Well, yes, it’s partly because I’m a total Gaiman fanboi. But I would still argue with his rules if I didn’t agree with them. As it happens, Gaiman’s “rules” are actually the best, most simple writing advice I’ve ever seen. There are no hard and fast directives, and every part of it is something that I can vouch for as being effective in my own writing life. Remember, if it doesn’t work for you, that’s cool. Don’t worry about it. The only one of these eight rules that absolutely applies to everyone is rule 1. But I do agree with the others too. I particularly like rule 5. Here they are:

1. Write.

2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.

5. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

7. Laugh at your own jokes.

8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

See what I mean? That’s good advice, right there. And don’t forget to check out Brain Pickings, as there’s plenty of other good stuff there too. But really, this is all you need. Now go and write.

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