It's a Writer's Life Part 3

I set one of my children free today. Er, not one of my actual children, they're much too valuable where they are. (Lol jks kids! I still love you all...) No, I mean I published a new story and made it available for free download on the internets.

Having won or been shortlisted in so many competitions now, I've grown a little tired of waiting for someone to publish my fiction, and have decided to release my better works as eBooks. Much more satisfying than having them sitting neglected on a hard drive gathering cyber-dust.

I already had my story The Walking Wounded, which won the Byron Bay Writers' Festival/ Varuna unpublished manuscript award a few years back online, now it's the turn of Papertrail, which was shortlisted in the Varuna/ HarperCollins publisher's fellowship competition last year.

I really enjoyed writing Papertrail, mostly because it has the kind of characters in it that pretty much write themselves. They are warm and funny in just the way I wanted them to be. The premise rests on the life of Marilyn, whose husband deserts her just after she finishes the house renovations. Although I always intended a happy ending, I had great fun pulling the rug out from under her on every opportunity I could find. The strapline 'How the worst year of her life became the best year of her life...' pretty much sums up what happens.

I was also interested in seeing how much material I could 'plant' in the story which would have a good pay-off at a late point in the book. That was fun to do and I think it works. Above all though, like The Walking Wounded, I wanted recognisable, believable characters - people you could easily imagine knowing and liking and hanging out with - who were quietly undergoing remarkable personal changes. I think both books are among the best I've written.

As I said, they're online for free (although I've set up a PayPal link so that if you're feeling generous there is a way to reimburse me). What are you waiting for? Check out www.simonluckhurst.com now.

Here are the Top Ten reasons why you should download my free eBooks:

1. They're free.
2. They're eBooks: the pages won't crease, the spines won't snap, the covers won't get stained, you can never lose them (as long as you don't delete them accidentally or lose your eBook reader, I guess. But they're pretty robust, you'd have to say...)
3. Did I mention that they're free?
4. They're great Christmas presents for anyone buying gifts on a budget.
5. If you read them soon, you'll be among the trendsetters who read me before I 'brokethrough'.
6. If you read Papertrail, you'll be able to create a cute origami shape out of folded paper - although you'll spend the whole book guessing what it is.
7. If you read The Walking Wounded, you'll gain a unique insight into unorthodox counselling methodologies - which can be quite fun if you're into that kind of thing.
8. Both books should leave you feeling happier and wiser than before you read them - or your money back.
9. I think I mentioned that they're free, didn't I?
10. If you're the kind of person who believes in reward for effort and choose to make a donation, then you get the chance to decide how much you want to contribute... and this will be an interesting exploration into personal ethics which carries it's own reward in terms of your personal growth and development.

Gees, what are you waiting for? Have fun, and even if you don't donate, I'd love to hear what you think. Download my kids now!

Mainly because the following sentence is such a satisfying way to end this post, I will now quote Bela Lugosi playing Dracula, bearing in mind that the context is completely different and I usually write in the mornings. But it's such a great line.

'Listen to them, children of the night, what music they make.'

Stupidity Rules Part 2

So even though we haven’t quite made all the payments on the Queen’s recent visit, now we’re stumping up for the fawning and swanning and obsequiousness in overdrive, not to mention the circus of security, that is the current trip down under made by a certain Mr Obama of Washington and parts thereof.

Look, I know it’s polite when the visitors pop over to ensure they're safe and that they’ve got enough lamingtons and somewhere to crash but there are Other Considerations here. I think you know what I’m talking about. You must have seen it. It’s impossible to miss. There are blind people out there who have actually felt it assaulting them through their flat screens. I’m talking about the smugness factor. Not his. Hers. Julia’s. In every shot I’ve seen of them standing side-by-side she looks like the cat who’s got the cream. And not your bog standard supermarket-standard cream, either. I’m talking King Island Secret Stash Royal Reserve Mega Premium Double Thick Double Dollop Hand Stroked Extra Special For Your Eyes Only Sourced From The Secret Magic Cow Allowed Only To Feed Upon The Purest Greenest Grass Grown In The Ripest Pasture In All The Land-type cream.

Smug smug smuggety smug. As smug as a slug on a drug. As smug as it’s possible to be without actually dying of pure smugness. We need to ask why this is... Is La Gillard secretly watching her sagging polling fortunes start to rise? Or is it simply that the nerd from Unley High School is practically holding hands with the most powerful – and one of the cutest, from her perspective, I dare to suggest – blokes in the known universe. Having private chats with him about national security, foreign debt and how Stacey in Fourth Form never thought Julia would amount to anything.

But that's not actually the only scary part of this cavalcade of  congratulation, is it? There's also the question of the new US base, where a couple of thousand Marines are going to hang out in the Top End and drop ridiculously efficiently from helicopters – presumably with ropes or parachutes – onto anyone underneath them who isn’t quite in the loop about the training exercise going on overhead.

This is a concern because as soon as Ms G and Mr O head to Indo and start spruiking to the countries around us that there’s ‘nothing to fear’ from the new base, you know that there’s actually a helluva lot to be righteously afeared of – and I'm not talking about the Festival of Smug.

It's a Writer's Life Part 2

Another balmy tropical evening on Thursday Island... What a blessing to be brought to this place to work with a bunch of amazing people: actors, musicians and our producer and audio engineer to create a new series of radio plays. This is a stunning environment and it produces amazing people.

We are recording eight eps of the play and a music video. Spent two days rehearsing and translating what I'd written after the initial workshops and subsequent readings into yumpla tok. This way of speaking which used to be called Torres Strait Creole or broken English or sometimes just 'broken' is now called yumpla tok which means 'our people's way of speaking' from what I understand.

Hearing the play performed in this way is amazing by itself. I'm working with Danni and Rhiannon who I worked with on the last series as well as James, Joseph and Chiomi who constantly blow me away with their ability and enthusiasm. As well there's Patrick Mau 'Mau Power' who is simply a rapping prodigy and able to create amazing music. Heather has pulled the whole thing thing together, Corey and CJ are filming it and the awesome Nigel Pegrum is recording. After we fly out on Friday we spend some time editing in Nigel's Pegasus Studios in Cairns.

On my return I spend the following weekend giving a workshop on writing for the stage in Bowral NSW which I hope goes as well as the one I gave in Bermagui the weekend before last.

I always had a dream to go to interesting places and be paid to write and here I am. Amazing!

Hint hint...

You know what it's like. You invite the nice folk you think you'd like to impress round for a barbie. You spend slightly more on the prawns than you meant and buy a case of clean skins because you don't want to run out of grog if the evening starts to kick along.

At first it all seems to be going well. The visitors are smiling and nodding in the right places even in some of your more dubious anecdotes. But then the evening starts to drag and you and the missus exchange eye contact a couple of times and realize that on this occasion at least you're both in synch. It's time for them to go. You start dropping hints: you have to get up early in the morning, the kids have been running you off your feet, you're very tired and you even attempt a not so subtle yawn or two. Still they sit there holding out their glasses for more.

Now it's getting serious. Do you state the obvious or continue with the subtleties? At what point exactly do you lose all tact and shout loudly across the lounge room: 'Go home you pair of historical anachronisms swanning around the countryside at the Australian tax payers expense! Liz and Phil, I guess it was kind of nice to catch a glimpse of you and get some sense that as head of state you do remember we actually exist, but now it's time to leave! We've got things to do: carbon and mining taxes to debate while simultaneously selling our children and grandchildren woefully short because we're not taking them as nearly as seriously as we should. But we need to abase ourself in private if you don't mind. Now go home and live off your own taxpayers again!'

Stupidity Rules Part 1

The question is not whether women should be allowed to fight alongside men on the front line of the army but rather why they would want to. Really, after all this time, the best women are able to do is get themselves in a position where they now have equal rights for the possibility of a high velocity copper coated soft point round to become suddenly intimately acquainted with their individual neocortexes?

The fight should actually have been to get men to stop shooting rather than to get women shooting as well, I would have thought. The dream of Natalie Sambhi, a 29-year old Master's student who speaks six languages and who apparently lusts after the opportunity to become Taliban target practice, is an intriguing one. It seems that none of the languages she speaks offers the opportunity for her to argue the case for peace, and instead she's fought for well, more fighting.

Australia, Canada and NZ are currently the only places which allow women in full combat roles (unless you count countries where female suicide bombers have done their bit to ensure a bunch of kids live in terror a while longer), however don't expect the US to wait too long to join the trend as this seems an easy solution to current recruitment shortfalls.

One curious offshoot of this decision must be that those who dislike gay people in the military will lose the centrepiece of their argument: the distraction of foxhole sex mid-invasion. Surely those beach-heads are going to be one long orgy of shagging and shooting between all genders now. If only they could just forget about the shooting...

It's a Writer's Life Part 1

A good day today... first up interviewed an archeologist who is returning to Cyprus to recommence work on a dig near Paphos, the site of an ancient theatre. She spoke of the sounds of sparrows, of the cooking smells, of hidden churches in the hills containing relics which comprised religion both ancient and modern (kissing the saint's skull), of the role of linen and weaving in history and how important the art of spinning was in an age where clothing wasn't a fashion item but a necessity for survival. And how those in olden times could do some things better than us, and of the shadows that are sometimes all that survive.

Then I finished editing a novel I intend releasing as a free eBook, so check my website (http://www.simonluckhurst.com/) and expect to see something available soonish.

This was followed by a meeting with a fellow writer, equal part whinge against those who constrain us, and celebration of those who support us, which is probably exactly how it should be.

The final meeting of the day was with a production company which will soon begin further pre-production work on a script I have written for a modern Gothic Australian musical film.  It also included a component on some corporate work we are doing, and I'm happy to report that it doesn't matter what level one works on, it is always possible to learn more, and to contribute.

So, a good day. Life is a weekend. Remember, you read it here first.

Poddie Part 1

So, how cool are podcasts?

Back in the day, and in the place (OK, stand up and take your dues, Australia in the late 70s early 80s, you know what it was like) there infrequently came a simply breathtakingly good piece of audio broadcasting. When it happened, as rarely as it did, it was always far more revealing than This Day Tonight or whatever ephemeral piece of alleged news was on the television. Between the punctuation of static and less informed minds demanding a change to the commercial channels, the ABC would, every now and again, dish out the goods. But, however, it was a hit and mostly miss affair.

Now we can podcast the hell out of the internet and get anything we like. I'll talk about some of the ones I like in the forthcoming weeks, I'm sure, but to get the ball rolling I'd like to mention open source universities. I've just listened to a series of lectures from Yale Open University by Professor David Blight on the American Civil War. 27 lectures by a leading figure in the field, all available for nix nada nothing straight into your phone or pod. How cool is that?

Great for long car drives, lying in bed, pounding the pavement. And every one contains something inspirational in this most seminal of conflicts.

I LOVE the idea of open courses. You don't get the qualifications but you get the knowledge. Great for people with access to the internet but no access to formal education. I'm not saying you should be operated on by a doctor who studied in such a fashion, but if you personally want to hear a bunch of facts delivered by an expert in his or her field, this is the sort of cyberspatial corner you should be hanging out on.

There are hundreds of them, all loaded with intellectual carbs. This is one chance you should take to get as fat you can...