Tatto For You

Apparent Technology Luddite warning! (though, in such a medium as a blog this is a nice irony) One of the problems with digital is it is very hard to archive long term, which will bemuse future historians I think. We've had computers in the mainstream for how long now? Maybe 30 years tops; and how many operating systems have we gone through? My the original files of my old stories written on my parents Amstrad 664 [TM] are gone, baby! The only version of them extant, printed copies. One day - and maybe the youngest of us here will be alive when it happens, but I am thinking a couple hundred years time - they may well come to the conclusion that paper is the most advanced step for (especially long term) storage of information. I certainly think the complete digitisation of the world is not as necessary as the digitisers would have us think... but that is just me. No one ever seems to think it necessary to really ask "Just because I can, does it mean I should..?" Having s...

I am feeling pretty good having just handed in the first 20 chapters of the 2nd draft of Book 3 (with about 7 or so to go) to my editor, Celia, here in Oz. This is a tunnel after all, not the ceaseless dark of endless night I feared. Phew! I was beginning to wonder there... I am also feeling rather bemused because here in Australia our government is contemplating the abolition of Parallel Importation Restrictions in our country. This might appear as a good thing, yes? 'Restriction' is a bad word - we should get rid of 'restrictions', it sounds like they are impinging on our 'freedom'. Yet the purpose of Parallel Importation Restrictions (and they exist in the UK and US as well) is to provide a frame work by which an author can make income from the licencing of the copyright of their story within the three major English speaking markets. So these 'restrictions' actually create clear boundaries by which the publishers in each country knows how to behave ...

Here is a (very!) rough prototype scribble of the possible formation of landmasses about the Half-Continent, a fair part of the southern lands of the Harthe Alle (snazzed up a bit with fancy computer trickery). This is still an ongoing exploration for me, which keeps things fun. The pallid areas are landmasses, the orange to glaucous the oceans (the colour shift representing climactic/temperature change = north hotter as you approach the 'equator', cooler the further south you wend). The solid red mass is the Half-Continent as revealed to you in the Monster-Blood Tattoo books and on the map site . The names in parenthesis are largely old even forgotten appellations for the regions at the time of the Phlegms. Given the size of the Half-Continent already, I think this would make the whole 'planet' rather large indeed. I believe that though our earth is the optimal calibration for life, a much larger globe is theoretically possible, and even if it weren't, it is now. ...

What we have below is two page layout views of the first few chapters of Book 3 (those who know MS Word will know what this is, which is probably most of you). The first is Draft 1, the second Draft 2 with all the changes tracked in red. ADDENDUM as of 1/7/9 ~ WELL... the above is what you would have seen, but a contractual issue back o' house has me now removing said images - though they were diagrammatic and illegible - from the public space. For those who saw them and were edified by them, glad to be of encouragement. For those who did not, well, wow, they were the most spectacular things you will ever behold in your span of years upon this planet... there was certainly a lot of red on them anyway. You will be able to see them again once Book 3 is out... in a little while... Apologies to my publishers for my careless enthusiasm to share. Sorry folks, more normal transmissions will resume in their usual erratic manner. Happy New Financial Year, btw.

Almost two weeks on (!) I surface from the Sea of Words - the Pontus Logia - to say what a swell time I had at Conjecture 2009 ; met many amazing folk - organisers, readers, writers and editors alike - though no one from here (thank you for asking Portals ). Apologies to you Klesita for not letting you know earlier, would have been great to meet you - I could have answered you questions that are still rattling about my noggin, directly... How about I do so now anyway. The one most on mind is... One of the things that intrigues me more is how Clementine, been so far away from everywhere and more over been so far inland, became a centre of power. Most centres of power become that because their position is strategic in one way or another. What is strategic about this place? I must admit when I look at the placement of Clementine/ Benevente on the map I do scratch my head a little and wonder how it got to be so powerful. Its strategic significance is not nearly as relevant in the curr...

I am surfacing from my Pit of Editing [TM] ( cess pit, maybe...?) to let those of you in the Adelaide vicinity know that I will be doing a reading and what they call an 'author appearance' on Saturday 6 th June ( this Saturday!) at this year's Conjecture Spec Fic convention . Details as follows: Saturday 2:30 - 3:30 1st floor Holiday Inn, Hindley Street, Adelaide ...then at 5:30 at same venue I will be helping to launch Richard Harland's most excellent new truly steampunk offering, Worldshaker , a novel definitely worth your time to read (I liked it so much they put what I thought of it on the cover). Along with this book I cannot recommend highly enough Richard's WritingTips website. You can even download a . pdf of the entire document for free FREE FREE from the site . Richard is an absolute legend for producing it, so go see, please! It is an veritable mine on the whole process of this thing called writing , from getting going to getting published -...

I thought it would be simplest to show you the very beginning of Lamplighter . I will make some comment on each version but will let them speak for themselves - my hope is that when you click on an image it will show it at a better, more readable size. Please, ask any questions you like. As you can see my initial beginning was markedly different from what we now have in the book. My first thought was to start the very next day from where Foundling left off. I am glad that I did not. The where to begin a story is one of the big challenges in writing. Apart from this, other problems clear to me (now, at least) are a/ that Grindrod is unrealistically harsh & b/ the excessive use of capitals for his voice. Next is the proper beginning to the story; it is bloated and clumsy - but that is the nature of my first drafts for you... The comments on it are made by the fair hand of my publisher, Dyan Blacklock. The change from first to second draft is hard work but seeing the better, tighter ...