Well, blow me down…

Ready for a bit of deja vu?

I have just been contacted by the NSW Writers Centre and told that my second novel “The Fibonacci Killings” has been shortlisted for their genre fiction awards.

How spooky is that?

The novel is a murder crime yarn set the near future in a world I have constructed called “Three lives”. You get to live again if you die by uploading the chip inserted at birth into a clone body and hay presto! your alive!

The only drawback is that it can happen twice – hence the three lives (It makes sense, honest)

Into this world I unleashed a psycopathic killer who collect these “lifechips”, and he picks his victims by using the mathematical Fibonacci sequence. Always knew that maths would come in handy.

Anyhoo,,, I find out if I get anywhere in another month or so, at the moment I am one of 19 selected from the 200 entrants.

Back in tha saddle again,

terry

Concept Sci-fi winner announced

…and it’s not me!

But, I’m pleased to say the story that did win, ‘Renewal’ by Greg McElhatton, was pretty good. So that’s OK.

As promised, my own story is going in the Fiction section.

Cheers,

Graham.

Sometimes He’s Happy, Sometimes He’s Sad

Today? Well you work it out.

I just got an email from Bernadette saying Orbit won’t be publishing Time and Tyde. She didn’t give a reason (except it ‘wouldn’t suit our Orbit list.’)

Strangely, I’m not too despondent. I still like the book enormously and the one I’m writing at the moment is also good. One of them will find a home one day, I’m sure.

Besides, Time and Tyde got me into the Bribie Island gig, it got me noticed by one of Australia’s leading publishers, and I got to meet all you guys! Not bad going, really. It also got me started on seriously trying to sell my stuff. A mixed blessing, perhaps, but I have been writing more and (I believe) better than ever since Bribie Island. I have certainly become better networked into the world of writing and I certainly know a lot more about who and what is important in that world than I used to. These are all good things.

And, of course, Orbit isn’t the only publisher in the world – or even Australia. The good news about Bernadette’s rejection is that it ends the ‘option’ Orbit had on Time and Tyde. I was beginning to realise that an option like that could be quite constraining. (Imagine trying to sell a book to another publisher while Orbit still had an option on the previous one.) Now I’m free to go where I like.

On the other hand…

Ah well.

I really hope someone among us has more luck than I did.

Graham.

Whoo hoo!

I’ve just learned that I’m on the shortlist for the Concept Sci-fi magazine 150-word flash fiction competition. I’m not quite sure why I’m so very chuffed about this – but I am! So chuffed, in fact, that it feels as good as winning.

Graham.

Waiting to exhale and inhale and exhale…

Luke Keioskie writes:

Am I the only one who gets driven crazy by the waiting game?  Does anyone else desperately check their email, hoping to see a publisher’s name in the address and, finally, find out whether your work is up to scratch?  Am I the only one waiting for an answer?

I can’t be.  Too often when writers get together the talk turns to the other side of the game and just how long it takes for a novel to go from your brain to the book shelves.  A friend of mine had his first adult novel accepted by Random House.  He started writing it in 2006, heard a positive ‘we like it but it needs work, do this, do that’ in 2007, had a face-to-face meeting with the publisher in 2008, and now the novel is due to hit the shelves late 2009.  And he’s published more than 50 children’s books in the past!  This doesn’t bode well for us emerging/developing writers, does it?  We tend to wait longer just to hear a ‘no’.  My record is 9 months for a rejection, and that’s not counting the rest that don’t even bother to get back to me.

Novel writing teaches you to be patient.  Well, in truth, it forces you to be patient. 

But how much longer must this go on? 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!