My Limit

Unfortunately my family has found the limit of my Internet broadband allowance. This in itself is amazing as it's pretty big but a little unchecked downloading and bang--she's all over. This means I'm going to have to do a lot of what I currently do at home, during my lunch breaks at work or during other down times until the 6th of August when my limit returns to normal.

This has resulted in me having a couple of strange days of little or no work on the 'Net.

Today I've used the time to carefully read through the entire Issue 1 of Black magazine. There is some really good stuff in it. There is some stuff not exactly up my alley and some great fiction. Pretty much what you'd expect from a magazine about all of Australian dark culture, not just horror writing. I'm in the process of writing up a review of it all which will be published on my website. I was going to publish it on HorrorScope but I think it'll be too big to fit into the 1000 word limit and it's not going to be 100% complimentary. It's missing some bits that it should have had in regards to the features contained and there are some unnecessary typos which should have been found in the editing process - Stephen King's first name is not spelled with an "8".

But regardless of the small short falls, it is a brilliant first issue. The features are informative and the fiction is riveting. The reviews are interesting although they tend toward the positive in many instances--they can't all be good, can they? I'll post a link to the full review when I'm done with it.

The UK version of Writer's Marketplace arrived yesterday. 10 days or so after ordering from the UK--can't really complain about that. It has also alerted me to a new resource all writers need to be aware of. The Writers Market Website is a free to register, searchable market database. For Australian writers, and others with similar currency exchange rates, this could be a very lucrative find. I advise everyone to go and register and use it in their search for suitable markets. I'll be combing through it soon to add all the horror markets of note and in my competition page that I'll be working on soon.

Back to work tomorrow. Back to my real job that is. Not really looking forward to it. I've been there now for 8 years and 3 months. Still 21 months to go before I'm eligible for long service leave. That's three months of paid leave which I'd be using to find a new job or to write or both.

By the time it comes up, I'll also be halfway through my diploma, so I should have an idea if I have a real future in this industry. I'd like to think so but until I start to gain some real success, opinion's still out.

Time I got back to reading. I'll be posting future updates from work until my Internet access returns to normal in August.

Speak to you tomorrow.

Nothing but good thoughts from me to you in regards to your writing endeavours.

BT