Australian Shadow Awards Announced

As you know, I've not been online very much in the last few months due to physical restrictions, so I was somewhat blown away when I received a phone call from Alan Baxter of Blade Red Press fame, and author of the excellent books Magesign and Realmshift, to give me the excellent news that Dark Pages Volume 1 had made the short list for this years Australian Shadow Awards!

I don't expect to win, but then I wasn't expecting to be nominated either - but I should have been as I was given an opportunity to work with very talented authors, the best copy editor bar none, and a very supportive and encouraging publishing house.

Perhaps now would be a good time to click on the link in the sidebar to buy a copy of the award nominated anthology!

Here’s the full list of finalists:


LONG FICTION

* Madigan Mine by Kirstyn McDermott (Picador Australia)

* The Girl With No Hands by Angela Slatter (Ticonderoga Publications)

* Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healy (Allen & Unwin)

* Under Stones by Bob Franklin (Affirm Press)

* Bleed by Peter M. Ball (Twelfth Planet Press)

EDITED PUBLICATION

* Macabre: A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis & Marty Young (Brimstone Press)

* Scenes From The Second Storey, edited by Amanda Pillar & Pete Kempshall (Morrigan Books)

* Dark Pages 1, edited by Brenton Tomlinson (Blade Red Press)

* Scary Kisses, edited by Liz Gryzb (Ticonderoga Publications)

* Midnight Echo #4, edited by Lee Battersby (AHWA)

SHORT FICTION

* “Bread and Circuses” by Felicity Dowker (Scary Kisses)

* “Brisneyland by Night” by Angela Slatter (Sprawl)

* “She Said” by Kirstyn McDermott (Scenes from the Second Storey)

* “All The Clowns In Clowntown” by Andrew J. McKiernan (Macabre: A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears)

* “Dream Machine” by David Conyers (Scenes from the Second Storey)

Congratulations to all the nominees.

Winners to be announced on April 15th.

Researching

Recent topics Googled or read about in actual books!

• White slavery
• Deduction
• True Crime cases
• Mormonism
• Avenging Angles
• Danites

Point of note: This idea I have is inspired by the the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story titled 'A Study in Scarlet' where he outlines a "supposed" militant group of people the Mormon's employed many years ago to "recruit" suitable white women. My story will not involve the Mormon people, or any other religious group. My idea is far more seedier and much more despicable than that, but, in the end, it will be a love story. Not a Mills & Boon-style romance, a real love story - it will just be buried beneath a great deal of other stuff...

Think Bourne meets Ashanti with a fair sprinkling of Paperback Hero garnishing around the edges, but there will be no Jason Bourne, or even someone who knows martial arts as our hero. I'm going to drop a pretty nice, but also pretty average, bloke into the middle of a medieval nightmare which takes place in the 21st century.

At least that's the plan as it's playing out in my head. It will evolve and as it does, I'll post snippets of what I'm doing and what I'm researching as I go. Not sure if I'll go into word count updates at this point - I'm not sure that sort of thing will help or hinder, or even matters.

Research and Plotting

I've been knee deep in research and I've made a couple of major changes regarding required characters, and that has led to changes in the plot.

All this is being written down longhand.

No subplots yet, but there wouldn't be, would there? I haven't finalised the characters yet so how would I know what tangents they're likely to go off on...

Now when people tell me 'I'm off in my own little world', they don't know how right they are!

Working title for this project: Avenging Angels (hint: it has nothing to do with angels or religion)

Like Sands through The Houglass

It's been a long time.

A quick update:

My back is still preventing me from spending any quality time in front of a keyboard. Anymore than a few minutes typing and I start to push the pain tolerance levels.

But this doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about it!

I've been reading, and I have a new idea. I spend my time formulating how I'm going to progress once I'm fully back in the saddle. This time, I'm not going to be spending large amounts of time networking or giving progress reports. This time I'm going to be writing.

While this is still a couple of months away, I'm spending the time on research and plot development. The end goal is very firmly fixed in my head, as is the path for my character to get there. The background is percolating nicely.

Plans are in place...this year, it's time to follow through.

But the biggest news - it is not horror. It's not even really dark.

I've been considering all the advise I've been given and read over the first few years of me trying out this writing caper and have come to the conclusion I've been playing in the wrong sandbox. Now I'm learning about a new way to formulate a story, one I would enjoy reading.

That's about it for now as the back is now killing me - told you I can't spend much time in the chair.

Speak soon

BT