Ah well. It was definitely worth the effort. I might have swum around the event with rookie’s eyeballs, but who cares? I had a great time. The thing that surprised me most of all was how many friendly faces there were in the foyer, even sans the Orbiteer gang (fye on you lot!). Considering that I didn’t know anyone in the spec fic community until May last year, seven months on it was really really cool to feel part of this caring and nuturing bunch of loons.

The awards ceremony itself was more interesting than I had expected (dreadful humour though), and a sellout at that. Some very erudite comments from a number of industry heavyweights, but I think Rob Serdiuk’s words regarding the meaning of the Awards themselves really punched home why they should be supported. Can’t for the life of me remember exactly what those words were and I’d hate to misquote him, so hopefully the organisers will put up a transcript of the various speeches. I’ll track’em down if I can. 

Anyway, congratulations to the winners, of which a complete list can be found here.

Also interesting was the annoucement that Fantastic Queensland will end their reign as organisers of the event after next year, opening up the position to others keen to take on the mantle. Yes, NSW Writer’s Centre, I’m looking at you…

As for the knee’s-up in the foyer afterwards, it was just a really wonderful chance to catch up with a bunch of likeminded folk. I didn’t stay for all the shennanigans as I was still pretty rough from the day before, but hopefully put on a good enough show. I did get some really encouraging advice which is excellent, just need to be disciplined and focused and not waste the opportunity I have. So a bit less blogging and more writing from now till the May deadline.

I think the only real disappointment with the night was the number of winners who weren’t there to receive their awards. Of the 14 awards handed out, six or seven were accepted by proxies. I just felt that it undermined some of the signficance of the night, and of the genre - if you can’t be bothered to rock up to be acknowledged by your peers, how can you expect the general public to acknowledge you? I’m totally sure there are a number of very good reasons for the absences, and none of the finalists knew if they were gonna win or not so the effort and the expense was a gamble purely from a “being there to receive the loot” point of view but still, 50% seemed like a shame. I don’t know if that’s fairly typical of these kind of events or not, but it just struck me as a bit casual. The only real blemish on an otherwise great night.

Anyway, hats of to everyone involved in putting the show together, I had a blast and I hope to be there next year!

Jeremy

PS. Business Cards Delivered: 5
1 to a friend who placed it close to her heart
1 to an author friend of that friend
1 to an editor friend of that friend
1 to the taxi driver
1 to the lovely dame beside me on the flight 

Why share all this? Cause tonight’s my first night as a tagalong at the Aurealis Awards, of which I’ve heard many things, and as an aspiring writer of good breeding and astute purpose I had intended to prove the quality of my work by holding my own at the bar. But right now I can barely hold down anything, let alone a stiff drink, so I fear that my reputation as a writer of quality is already at risk. I look wan and sickly, as though I haven’t see enough sun for decades, I’m clammy and nervous, worried sick that I’ll be sick. 

Actually I might fit right in.

Hats of to the Brisbane Goths though, who were out in full force at the mall in town, dressed to the elevens despite the heat. That never-say-die anzac spirit personified. Me? I’m cooling my tookus in the hotel room, down to the boxers with the aircon set to 18 degrees, though it still feels a hellavua lot warmer…

…and this is why I like the cold. No matter how hot things get, you can only take so much off and get away with it. But no matter how cold things get, you can always put more on. 

I hope to provide a sober account of the night. With clothes.

Jeremy

That’s what most of my friends have said when I’ve told them that we are moving to New Zealand. Middle Earth wouldn’t be too bad, if you had a thing for pipeweed and hairy feet (which I do) and didn’t have a thing against orcs and dwarves (which I don’t) but we settled on Dunedin in the South Island instead. I’m pretty sure Sauron doesn’t have designs on Dunedin.

Sixteen days to go. Most of our worldly possessions are now in rusty containers in ships on the high seas, and we’re in the thick of farewell fever, which is getting a bit hard on the heart. Still it’s only 3 hours away (closer than Perth!) but it’s gonna be tough, especially taking the Little Guy away his grandparents. We will be raking in the Frequent Flyer Points.

So why do it? Living the life we want to live is the simplest explanation. I really wanted to free up more time to spend with the wife and kid and make time for more writing, Ness wanted more time with her son and to pursue an artistic career. Where we were in the Inner West of Sydney we had a pretty nice flat but a hefty mortgage, and we couldn’t have another little one, or let me work less and write more, or let Ness pursue her artistic dreams without failing to meet our commitments. So we knew we had to have that lifechange, in order to live the lives we wanted to live. That plus the floorboards were ridiculously thin, and the arseholes who lived there loved to play the worst music in the universe, right under our little guy’s bedroom. All night. Every night. 

So we knew we had to move, ditch the mortgage, and find a decent place for Ness to study. We’re both waaay over Sydney — it’s a fantastic place to wallow if you’re wealthy, but we’re not. So we started searching further afield. And after much searching it came down to Blue Mountains west of Sydney — or Dunedin.

I felt the call of Dunedin about ten years ago. Can’t remember, either saw it on the teev or read about it somewhere, and just knew I was gonna end up there some day. Yeah, weird. I know. Ness and I finally visited some mates there a couple of years back, and again last year for their wedding (yay!) and realised that it’s actually is a pretty cool place. Small, seaside university town, 100,000 plus 20,000 students; beautiful landscape in every direction, decent folk, and we could afford to buy a good house outright — so no mortgage. Which meant that Ness doesn’t need to work unless she wants to, and I only need to work three days a week. And that sounds like a pretty good solution to me. The University of Otago was offering the perfect course for Ness to study, I’d have more time to write, the little guy gets his backyard, and though people keep telling us it’s cold, at least it’s not as bad as this (thanks Kurt):

Now this is cold!

But there was the family and friends factor, and so we looked really hard at the Blue Mountains. And it involved compromise after compromise. I won’t go into it, but it wasn’t what we had in our hearts when we started the ball rolling. For a time we decided that we were going to move there. We had just put our house on the market and two days later the arse fell out of the financial industry, and we were scared we wouldn’t be able to sell at all… and for months we alternated between the two options, til choice paralysis set in and we lost our way. 

But in the end our hearts were set on Dunedin. So we’re going.

Maybe we’ve made the worst decision in our lives, and will be back in Sydney before we know it, tails between our legs, no place to live, and considerably poorer. Maybe I’m not as good a writer as i hoped to be, and all my efforts amount to nothing. Maybe we miss our friends and family too much. Maybe it really is a cold as everyone keeps saying. At least in two year’s time we will know for certain. We will know. And I think that is a plays a big part in going. Cause I am certain that if we chose the safer path and remained in Australia, the thoughts of what might have been would gnaw at my insides… and if we eventually decide to follow our destiny, but no longer had the opportunity to do so, what then?

So yeah. Maybe on some really naff allegory, we are stepping out that big green round door and walking down the path from Bag End. I kinda feel like we are, which is good for the heart and warms the soul. It’ll be a grand adventure. And maybe, just maybe we’ll find some treasure.

Though if we come all boggle eyed with a penchant for wriggling fish and whispering “my precious! my precious!”, please just throw us in the nearest volcano.

Jeremy

PS. The map in the headline image comes from this fantastic online collection of old maps now in the public domain. Go check out the rather saucy named Hipkiss’ Scanned Old Maps if you’re into that sort of thing.

Click here to see the full map.

How to trash a continent:

1) Find a good map.
2) Raise the sea level til the map looks cool.
3) Drop a few nuclear explosions on key urban centres.
4) Rename what’s left with puns if possible.

and voila! instant post-holocaust australia!

Had a lot of fun doing this… it was inspired by an ancient RPG called After the Bomb, where mutant animals take over the world. The Australian supplement “Mutants Down Under” had this really lameo map in it, and I’ve always wanted to have a crack at doing it better. 

And the cool thing was that I actually learned a fair bit more about Oz while researching it. There really is an independent free state in Western Australia called the Hutt River Province that managed to get the thumbs up from the Queen… and there were plans to make a separate state named Auralia for a while. Lots of nifty little bits of knowledge like that… why I like writing historical fiction too, you just keep stumbling over strange little stories and incidents. 

Jeremy

No more! Over the next few weeks I’ll comb through the flaking temples of my portfolio and see what falls out. Here’s some old stuff to start. Hope you like ‘em!

Xeowolfe © 2006 Avery Axton

Xeowolfe is a philosophical little space adventure series by my mentat brother. First time I’ve ever work completely in Photoshop, although I am a big fan of using textures, especially from the generous folks over at Mayang.com. There was supposed to be a big tentacular greeblie on the receiving end of that blast but the critter just wasn’t coming out right. Still I like it.

The Fates © 2005

The Fates is some concept art for a space opera tv series some mates of mine were pitching on. It was a really good story, George… anyway it began as a detailed sketch and ended up coloured in Photoshop. The eyes have it.

Malignicant © 2004

Malignicant is a funny little sketch… it was done while working for the highest paid Australian director to never make a film, as part of a concept for a snake warrior monster thing, but was waaaay outside the parameters of the brief. But he saw it in my sketch book, said he loved it, and thought it would make a fine snake warrior king for his film. I dropped contact with him about a day or two later, and never found out exactly where I stood with him about ownership of the concept. So if you ever see this guy up on the big screen let me know….

Jeremy

… and flow… 

… and flow…

And I can’t tell you how good that is. Well I could, but I’m too busy writing again.

I had hoped to submit two new pieces, but time constraints forced me to go with a new short work Fat of the Land and with the first act of Grimshaw : The Binding Passage. Which is a good thing anyway as I been nibbling away at the edges of Gimshaw for some time, and now I’m gonna bite off more than I can chew again. I’ve got till May next year to have the manuscript super shiny, and this retreat is gonna be great for getting me back into it.

So yeah. Coolness. 

Jeremy

I’m not one for mentors, I’ve always tended to make my own mistakes and learn from them - eventually. But right now I’d give at least an elbow for one.

My old mentor, lovely man, had such a positive effect on my writing, really lifting my game. His advice wasn’t free, nor should it be, but he was worth every penny. And right now I wish I could get him back. It was a professional friendship, and he opened my eyes in so many ways, but it’s not to be.

The reason why I pine for him, or for someone to fill his rather sparkly shoes, is that I currently face the daunting task of rewriting my Grimshaw manuscript, and the edits required are so extensive that it’s akin to writing an entirely new novel. Sure the themes will remain the same, as will certain scenes and some characters, but it took writing the first draft for me to finally understand the central character. Thus far he was the victim of a story, battered by the plot and beaten by the themes… but now that I have a better understanding of who he is, his life, his experiences, his personality, and his purpose, he is an entirely different man to the one I originally thrust into the limeylight. The changes he has undergone in my mind are so vast that I am quite tempted to rename him entirely to sever any connection to his first incarnation.

And here’s the crux of the matter: a writer’s peers, aspiring writing groups and like-minded friends will always support the writer, even if he’s making a grave mistake. Sure they’ll be as honest as they can; but they cannot bring years of experience and training and professional acumen to inform their advice, to guide the writer and propel the writer into achieve new levels of ability.

If you can find a mentor who you trust and you have a connection with, treasure them: they’re worth their weight in words.

Jeremy

So, having salivated heavily on the monitor for a minute, this neglected little patch of pixels is alive once more.

‘bout bloody time….

Jeremy

I’ll talk more about the Heroes and Criminals simply because I went in there with a specific purpose in mind and walked out with three pages of notes. The weakest character in my Grimshaw manuscript is the protagonist — in my first draft a lot of stuff happens to him, but I hadn’t really found a solid grasp of who he was. I was hoping to gain a better understanding of the character and thanks to the discussion I believe I have. Hopefully I’ll be able to apply this successfully to the next draft.

I think the best way to approach the discussion is to simply list some of the points made by each author: