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Hi all, I wrote every day last week. That’s a huge change from recent weeks. But it was all for an article I am writing on gardening for Divine. As the article does not have any fabulous quotes from great interviewees, and does not impart any startling information, its style was all the more important. I ended up writing something a bit more whimsical then my usual writing. Divine recruitment  Divine online magazine have started a recruitment campaign for Victorian writers with disabilities. The articles you write should have a disability element. I have enjoyed writing for them, and hope to continue to do so. Still not writing any fiction Then will I have a good fiction writing week? I haven’t had one in months. Too busy trying to duck the shit life has been throwing at me over the past couple of years. The pessimist in me is yelling, why the bother. You will probably just start getting into a fiction writing groove and then a gigantic wombat ...

Hi all, I have been debating whether to post anything about my latest health concern. People who still read my blog – which is supposed to be about writing - must be getting sick of me telling them about my latest illness. I know I am. But I have previously felt obliged to mention the illnesses because of the effect they had on my writing, especially my motivation. Another reason for not mentioning this latest illness is the stigma of it being a lifestyle illness that can be avoided getting off your fat lazy bum. For the past twelve years I have swum three kilometres, three times a week. I lift weights three times a week. I have a set of exercises (push-ups, sit-ups and dumbbell exercises) that I do four times a week. I walk everywhere, including to the main shopping area of Wangaratta (a 5km round trip) four times a week. I also spend a lot of time gardening. But I still was diagnosed as a diabetic a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately exercise couldn’t change my genes; diabet...

Hi all, I am trying to direct my thoughts towards my next article for Divine magazine . So far I just have a general theme on how gardening can affect the way a person thinks. It may end up being mainly from my perspective, because I am yet to find any local potential interviewees. Hopefully my thoughts and a bit of research on horticultural therapy will be result in an entertaining and worthwhile read. I reckon that if everyone did a bit of gardening the world would be a better place. Need an Apostrophe? I saw a cartoon in the Age last week referring to a debate about the lack of an apostrophe in much of the paraphernalia for the Melbourne Writers’ Festival . I am “occasionally” a sloppy punctuator so I went back to see if I had put an apostrophe in the festival’s name in a previous post. I had, but I made the festival exclusive to one writer by labelling it the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. The festival and I am not alone in misplacing apostrophes. A lo...

Hi all, Disabilities in Science Fiction. I have a new article up on Divine about characters with disabilities in science fiction . The ending of the article has changed since its original posting as some emails about last minute revisions went astray. Rise of the Apes I saw the prequel to Planet of the Apes on the weekend. I wasn’t expecting it to be very good, especially after Tim Burton’s unneeded remake of the classic original, but it surprised me. It is probably the best science fiction movie since Inception (I know that is not saying much as their have been very few reasonable science fiction movies in the past year or so). I was expecting the plot to revolve around trained apes revolting, happily the plot was much more original. A scientist’s experiments on apes, with a drug that he hopes will cure brain disorders, has unforeseen consequences (and no, the apes are not let out by a bunch of radical greenies). The main scientist’s f...

Hi all, Another week has passed without me overindulging in writing. Everything in moderation they say. Well at least with writing I seem to be getting that right. Characters with Disabilities in Science Fiction. I wrote an article for Divine online magazine about characters with disabilities in science fiction. Before I started doing some research I was scratching my head a bit to think of such characters. In the end I discovered/remembered plenty of paraplegics, vision impaired and those with artificial limbs. Not so many hearing impaired and characters with intellectual disabilities. When I wrote the article, word constraints had me cutting out a number of examples. My article is much more than just a list. It questions the use of technology in relation to characters with disabilities, and I comment on the future of characters with disabilities in science fiction. Turing Evolved. I finished reading David Kitson’s excellent self-published e...

Turing Evolved by David Kitson My rating: 4 of 5 stars A really good read. Full of fresh ideas about artificial intelligence. The central theme is about attempts to create an artificial entity that has free will and makes its own decisions to the benefit of humanity. The plot revolves around a man who is thrown out of the military after reporting a his comrades for their terrible actions during a virtual simulation. He was a symbiotic pilot of robotic weapons called Demons. He then gets a job helping people come out of long stays in virtual worlds. He meets and falls for an artificial guardian of mankind called an Angel. The Angel, Rachel, falls in love with him, but Jonathon has trouble with the idea of love between human and machine. The Angels are built by one of his long-term virtual world extractees, Peter. Meanwhile his ex-comrades try to extract revenge on Jonathon. There is a lot going on in the plot, but all of it revolves around what it is to be human. There is ...

Hi all, I have been busy researching an article I am writing about characters with disabilities in science fiction. At first I thought there were very few such characters in science fiction, but just thinking about the subject has prodded my memory. How could I have forgotten John Varley’s brilliant story Persistence of Vision ? It is about a commune set up by the deaf and blind. And then there is The Day of the Triffids.   I then recalled a story where an avid reader discovers an intact library after a nuclear war. But then his thick glasses are broken. It turned out to be a Twilight Zone episode. I am still searching for the name and author of a novella I read years ago where people with disabilities are forced into specially constructed tanks to fight wars. They are viewed as dispensable. I think it was written by an Australian.  My research reminded me that Darth Vader had his arms and legs amputated and replaced with artificial limbs. His ...