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Hi all, Well the day started off alright. Did my exercises and weights; watered the vegies, pot plants and fruit trees, picked a few tomatoes, thought about mowing the lawns. And then we got a telephone call that my father had collapsed and been taken to the Wang Base Hospital. Went to hospital. My father is okay. His blood pressure is causing some concern - they want to send him to the private hospital to see if his pace-maker is still working, but wont dare to move him until his blood pressure settles down. My father had a Ct Scan of his brain yesterday and we fear that it may have damaged his pace maker. My mother is with him, so I go for a shorter walk than usual and head home. Follow Norman Mailer’s quote: A real writer produces work even on bad days, I turn on the computer and struggle to write 50 words. Phone call from hospital. My mother had been told that my father will probably have to stay overnight. She wants me to collect a few things for him and take them to the hospital....

Hi all, Sad to hear that Arthur C Clarke has died. He and Asimov were probably the greatest contributers to the popularity of science-fiction. We have him to thank for the idea of the satellite too. I’ve read a few of his novels - Cradle and Rendezvous With Rama being two of the more memorable - and many of his short stories, using the Nine Billions Names of God for an essay during my masters. Clarke was always more of an ideas writer than one who had a great flare for language or characters. 2001: A Space Odyssey is still one of the greatest films ever made, and its sequel, 2010, is one of my favourite films. An interesting discussion about his death has been going on www.eidolon.net involving allegations that he was a paedophile. I had heard these allegations before, but it seems the Daily Mirror, which printed the original allegations, ended up printing a retraction. The authorities in Sri Lanka found Clarke had no case to answer after the three boys who made the original allegation...

Hi all, Sad to hear that Arthur C. Clarke has died. He and Asimov were probably the greatest contributers to the popularity of science-fiction. We have him to thank for the idea of the satellite too. I’ve read a few of his novels - Cradle and Rendezvous With Rama being two of the more memorable - and many of his short stories, using the Nine Billions Names of God for an essay during my masters. Clarke was always more of an ideas writer than one who had a great flare for language or characters. 2001: A Space Odyssey is still one of the greatest films ever made, and its sequel, 2010, is one of my favourite films. An interesting discussion about his death has been going on www.eidolon.net involving allegations that he was a paedophile. I had heard these allegations before, but it seems the Daily Mirror, which printed the original allegations, ended up printing a retraction. The authorities in Sri Lanka found Clarke had no case to answer after the three boys who made the original allegatio...

Rated from * to ***** *** Armageddon's Children, Terry Brooks, 2006. A young adult fantasy/science fiction novel that is just about all prologue for the coming books in the series. The characters are clichéd, eg a mystical American Indian, but I enjoyed his post-apocalyptic world where magic and genetic engineering are set to battle it out. By the end it had me wanting to read the next book in the series so it had achieved its purpose. ** Asimov Magazine, July 1999. I enjoyed and remember the opening story, Soherzo with Tyrannosaur by Michael Swanwick. An article about the future of science-fiction writing by Norman Spinard was interesting. * The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson, 1995. Having read Snow Crash by the same author I was expecting a great original read, but what I got was more of the same and a couple of main characters that I didn't care about by the end of the book. The setup broke down halfway through this long book, and lead to a ridiculous climax where hundreds ...

Hi all, I was reading a post on Stephen Dedman's blog on livejournal.com and he mentioned Ian Irvine's writing rules at www.ian-irvine.com. Ian reckons a writer needs to write for 10,000 hrs before they will complete a publishable novel. That's the equivalent of treating writing as a full-time job for five years. I estimate that I have spent around 3,000 hours actually writing and editing over the years. If I also include critiquing of other writer's work, which I consider essential to learning about writing, I could probably add about 500 hours. If I included the writing courses I have done - without the time spent writing and critiquing included above - I could add about another 800 hours. And if I included the time I have spent reading writing books then I could add about another 200 hours. So all up that gives me about 4,500 hours, barely halfway. I have also read that the first three novels a...