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Hi all, I’ve just finished reading the non-fiction book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. It’s a book which posses the question: what would happen to the world if humanity suddenly disappeared? It seemed the world would do pretty well without us until I got to the chapter on nuclear power plants. The author reckons that half the world’s 420 nuclear power plants would meltdown after running out of coolant. The resulting radiation would probably kill just about everything on planet earth. Interestingly the author visited Chernobyl while writing the book and says the animals and birds and insects are returning, but they are mutating. I learnt from the book that one of the best wildlife reserves in the world is the demilitarised zone between North Korea and South Korea , due to its complete lack of humans. While the wildlife could repopulate the earth - if it wasn’t for those nuclear power plants - after man left, the same could not be said for sea life, where degrading p...

Hi all, I’ve been busy with work and very tired afterwards, so my second job as a writer suffered last week. I did the bare minimum of writing on each day. I did manage to read a few more chapters of the novel I am critiquing though, and also a couple of chapters of a non-fiction book. I had a look at the Melbourne Writers Festival guide, none of the sessions or authors had me rushing out to book tickets. There are no sessions devoted to speculative fiction and a dearth of speculative fiction authors. Of the 311 or so writers only one Margo Lanagan could be classed as a fantasy author. My experiment in book promotion (before the novel is completed) continues and seems to be going okay. I will have to devote more time and creativeness to it in the coming months for it to really go somewhere. Finally, I went and saw the Dark Knight on the weekend. It’s a good film, with it and its predecessor Batman: The Beginning, coming in second to the X-men series as the best films to...

Hi all, I am getting over a cold. It didn’t stop me from continuing to write every day, but did stall my attempts to up the word count. I also spent a bit of time re-arranging my novel outline from one of happenings in a semi chronological ordered into structured chapters. I didn’t read much last week, including the novel I am critiquing. I have read a few things articles recently which have relevance to previous posts of mine. One of the judges involved in the shortlist for the Booker of Bookers award, said that the Booker should dispense with judges and just have the general public vote on a short list: this is happening in the Booker of Bookers awards, where the public has voted on the internet. I myself would prefer that suitably qualified judges continue to decide the Booker, because they would have read all the books on the short-list. A writer/publisher, in a newsletter I read, said she has finally finished a book which she spent about an hour a day on – persisten...

Hi all, I have been thinking about whether my writing space is conducive to writing. Here are a couple of pictures of it. Note the many ideas for stories pinned to the board in the background. I think I've gotten rid on all the incriminating evidence from this picture. Even mores shelves with books in them. Pity I have only read about a third of them, but I am not short of a book to read. This is the scintillating view from my window: I am certainly not going to be distracted by it. Lately I've tried listening to music while writing, which seems to have helped at least prolong a writing session. But 80's newwave and pop music is probably not the most inspiring music to listen to. Mathew Reilly says he watches the cricket while he's writing, I wonder if that's a sentence between overs and a burst of productivity at lunch and tea times, and does he only write in the summer time? I don't have any set times for writing but it seems to happen in the late afternoon, a...

Hi all, I got a bit closer to what I want to achieve in a week as a writer last week. I did the most writing I have done in a week for months, read a few chapters of the story I am critiquing and read a few chapters of the novel and non-fiction book I am reading. I hope to better that this week, but I have cold and I am a grumpy frustrated cold sufferer. I've started listening to music while I write. It seemed to help in the quiet spots when I was searching for the next word. I usually like to write without distractions. It's time to sneeze, cough and do all those other lovely cold related things. Graham.

Hi all, I thought about how to do my comparison of Australian Science Fiction that I had read to that of the rest of the worlds. A list that ranked them all would be a bit too complicated so I have started with a ranking of the novels and anthologies by Australian authors. In the list below I highly recommend 1-6. 1) The Sea and the Summer, George Turner, Grafton Books, 1989. Probably the best science-fiction novel I have read. It takes place in a Melbourne ravaged by global warming. 2) Genetic Soldier, George Turner, Avon Books,1994. Aborigines fight off a second invasion. 3) The Dark Between the Stars, Damien Broderick, Mandarin Australia, 1991. The best one author speculative fiction anthology I have read. Most of the stories are memorable. 4) Quarantine, Greg Egan, Legend Books, 1992. Once I got into the jargon it was a great read. 5) Souls in the Great Machine, Sean McMullen, Tor, 1999. Fantasy/science-fiction. Set around the area I live. Why can't he get published in Australi...

Hi all, Halfway through the year and I have still written on every day of it. Is it an easy habit yet? No, I still have to force myself to the keyboard on most days. But on some of those days the words flow. In the second half of this year I am going to make a concerted effort to increase my word count to somewhere around a 1000 words a day. I think I am now more than halfway through the first draft of the novel I am writing. I have just started chapter ten and the narration has made its first jump in time. Chapters 1-9 covered the first six days of my protagonist's adventure, but chapter ten jumps to two weeks later. I hope that a reader will have perceived certain patterns of behaviour from the two main characters and expect them to be behaving in a certain way and if they aren't, start to wonder what happened in the preceding two weeks to change things. After chapter ten the narration will again take a jump in time to cover a few momentous days. I still have a pile...