Avid isn’t just a bookstore – though that would be magical enough in itself – it’s a piece of the heart of the community that is West End, and Brisbane. There is no place like it (and I’ve worked in a few bookstores). And you don’t get to be like that without a hell of a lot of work, and love. The book trade can be tough, but it’s an important one, and I am very pleased to be part of it.

So, congratulations my darling shop!

Oh, and on the writing front (hmm, I nearly wrote writhing there) lots of things are bubbling away – still a bit secretively, but bubbling they are.

This year may actually turn out all right.

But it doesn’t mean that I have stopped writing, in fact I have finished two drafts of things in the last month, one a book that has haunted me for nearly five years (actually six, which is rather alarming, but there you go), and the other a Death Works novella (which I am polishing now, more on that later, but it has been a wonderful thing to write, and it’s turned out a little longer than I was expecting – let’s just say that people’s lives – and deaths – didn’t get any less complicated after the Business of Death).

There’s been some teaching as well – my poor students having to put up with my slurry voice – and more writing.

I don’t think I’m the most prolific writer.

I’m not a churner, even if it occasionally looks like I am. But I sit down as often as I can, and I try and write, because even when it’s bad it’s good. Writing is the constant in my life, and has been since I could write a story (or try to write a story). And it’s a goad and a comfort, and it’s interesting, and it’s sunk into my bones and my marrow, and when I take that away I feel kind of hollow.

I might clump and clunk, but it’s still me. And I always hope to get better, and even when I don’t, there’s always room for more hope.

That is all, except you can now get this which is a really rather grand anthology and my story The Lighterman’s Tale is in it. As are some truly wonderful stories by some of Australia’s most wonderful SF writers. Worth a buy.

It’s a sort of mosaic story and it’s also a key to a lot of my fiction – and it’s about love, and time, and dreams, and a narrative drug called Thread (what is it about me and weird drugs in my stories?). There is a city of the edge of the universe, there are storms and weird quests and a break down of how many times a planet turns out to be earth.

It also has graphics like this:

I’m really happy with how it turned out. And you can check it out here.

The Sue Isle story is wonderful, too, her work always is. So you can jump over my weirdness, and get straight to hers (I’ll never know).

Still, in that time I’ve finished a draft of a book – more on that in the next few months, I guess – and am nearly finished a new Death Works story (more on that when it finds a home).

Other books are starting to take shape and vie for attention so I think this is going to be a productive year. One can hope anyway.

This is my favourite time of the year. The light’s changing, the morning’s are gorgeous, and I always seem to get so much more done. Winter’s coming which means camping and coats, more writing, and time curled up beneath blankets reading. Things don’t get much better than that.

I’m running a short story clinic with the QWC over the next six months (starting March).

The Dates are:

• Thursday March 21
• Thursday April 18
• Thursday May 23
• Thursday June 20
• Thursday July 25
• Thursday August 22

If you like my short fiction (or my novels) you’ll know I’m very genre friendly – I tend to come at this stuff from a spec fic perspective – but I don’t stop there. Cate Kennedy is one of my favourite short story writers, as is Maile Meloy (check them out).

What you’ll get in these clinics is talk, some writing exercises (I didn’t do this the last time I ran a clinic, and I think it suffered for it, I love writing exercises and these will be fun and instructive), and critiquing – which if you’ve not experienced it before can be a great introduction to editorial-like feedback, and it can be a great way of finding a person who reads your work with sensitivity, and who you trust – a lot of friendships come out of these clinics.

You’ll also get me. Six months of being able to hurl stories at me (well, at least a few), and get critiques, and some of that experience (six books, around seventy short stories, and my years of living a Hemingwayesque lifestyle – drink lots of water, and learn how to swear, or something).

So six clinics, six months of hanging with a group of writers, six months of deadlines and time devoted to writing (and time is precious), and me as your fearless leader (well, slightly fearful, I don’t like heights, much, not at all, really).

Think about it. You can book here where you will see a rather young-looking picture of me (without a beard, it was a phase I was going through).

It hasn’t stopped me writing, I’m nearly finished a new book (obviously by finished I mean, a draft of new book which will then require a stack of rewriting) and it’s one I’m very happy with. More details when it’s done and finds a home.

I’ve also been working on republishing some of my short fiction. I’m aiming on getting the whole lot out in the next few months (there’s quite a bit of it). A lot of this stuff has been published only once or twice (though Carousel has been translated into several languages), and for some of the flaws in the writing I’m really very proud of these stories. You’ll see all my usual themes in them – Death, Love, Clocks (less the clocks, but the ticking of them) – and even encounter a few characters half-formed from the novels. If you like the novels you might like these (or you might not).

Anyway, here’s the first round. Click on the links if you fancy buying one, I mean, an author needs beer money, right?

A Point of Wager – this is an oldie, vampires, a city imperiled, and a world coming to an end. But is it really? Hmm, Trent, that doesn’t sound like you at all.

Link

This one’s a first contact story about a man losing his wife. The first contact is kind of peripheral. I wanted to slip two world shattering events together the personal and the historical. Does it work? Well, it’s been translated into Serbian and Greek, so people seem to like it.

Link

This is one of my oldest stories, but I have such a fondness for it. It’s about a girl and a song she sings. If I was ever going to write an epic fantasy (as opposed to say Sword and Sorcery) novel it would be set in this world. But, sometimes a short story is enough, it hints at the greater story beyond.

Link

This is the best value of the lot in regards to wordage. It has a contemplation on death and magic, and me playing around with long sentences, hunting for a kind of languor. There’s also a story called Tumble which is about a man grown addicted to a city, and the terrible tasks it sets him to. Oh and Persuasion, a love story that ends the mini-collection it’s a bit Austeny and I wrote it once on a holiday where I caught the flu – this story got me through it, somehow.

Link

The City of Tate.

Tate was always a city that loomed. In my mind, and hopefully on the page.

I kind of imagined it as that first real classic cinematic fantasy city The Emerald City* in The Wizard of OZ, but a darker version of it.

Tate was less a part of the landscape than something forced on it, visually, politically, environmentally. In the time of the Night Bound Land the city not only loomed it fumed with a dark and terrible energy and heat. – despite its frozen walls and roads.

I originally described it as a looking like a wedding cake. But then I picked up Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines. And there was his description of his city looking like a great big old wedding cake. So scratch that. (But it still does, dammit.).

Tate is ultimately a city at war with its landscape. A war that it cannot hope to win.

People often draw similarities between this and William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land and the Last Redoubt. I was aware of the book, I even have a copy somewhere, but I haven’t read it -well, I tried, but let’s say that I didn’t get very far. That said, the sense of creeping horror, of a force monstrous, relentless, and slowly winning is very much part of the SF DNA.

I got to destroy a lot of cities in the Night Bound Land, but Tate’s destruction was the most fun. Tate was the Metropolis most prepared, and the most set up for failure. It set the tone of the books.

Tate – she looms and fumes.

I also have the beginnings of a novella set in Tate from a Sweepers perspective. I’ll get to it soon, I promise.

*Metropolis is there, too. But Metropolis is far more like Mirrlees-on-Weep. It’s also part of the SF DNA.

Hope

All of my books are hopeful. I’m really not that much of a pessimist. I don’t see any of these books as being absent of hope. But I do like to undercut humour with tragedy and vice versa. The one thing I hope I never do is write books that are pompous. My books are about frailty.

Characters being not particularly likeable.

I like to write about people that I don’t necessarily like. Steven, for example, contains a lot of the elements of my personality that I dislike. He starts off as a somewhat selfish slacker who thinks he’s funnier, brighter, more rebellious and a better worker than he actually is. He is terribly flawed, and as the books progress he shifts from folly to understanding his flaws, to actually doing something about them – even if those actions are directed through the prism of his flawed characteristics. He’s not exactly a hero, or an anti-hero (he’s never quite cool enough for that, there’s too much of the klutz in him) just a flawed individual who steps up and tries to do their best.

Hell, we’re all fragile and prickly. We’re all a bit broken, a bit annoying, a bit foolish. It’s those elements that make characters fun to write about – and read.

You could say the same about David, I guess. All David wants is peace and quiet. And he never really gets it. David, Margaret, Medicine Paul, Mayor Stade, Mother Graine and Kara Jade, all of them live in a world toppling into destruction. They’re doing the best they can in the face of impulses of despair, hedonism and doubt. The world of Shale itself is somewhat punch drunk. I wanted the first book to shudder, to feel almost uncertain of its own narrative, the second book was about action in the face on uncertainty. Of course, Roil being one of my first books I don’t quite think I managed to pull it off, but then again, I wouldn’t change it. You’re meant to feel as if the world is shaky that it’s crumbling, and that your guides aren’t quite what they should be. I kept snipping back the beginning of the book (and the backstory) because one, I wanted to start in the action of the story, and two I wanted it to feel as if there was a chasm of knowledge behind the reader. The histories in each chapter opening were deliberately contradictory. They were supposed to obfuscate as much as illuminate.

This by the way is no defence of the books, just an observation of my intent (which is constantly mutable during the writing of a book). The reader’s just as entitled to the throw the book against the wall and yell – that totally sucks shit. Are there things I would change about the books? Yeah, but not much.

Shale is as real to me as the Brisbane in the Death Works books. These characters still stomp around in my brain. I really do adore them.

Cicatrix City

This is the ultimate urban space of the Pomp. The blood of a Pomp will send a Stirrer back to their city in the Underworld. It’s the lock on the door that a dead body presents to the undead. Cicatrix City is the lines on the palm of a Pomp, the scars that produce a map of their pomping career.  Scars are a mark of the living, of a life lived. Look  at your own flesh and you and you will see this. Every scar is a story.

Look at a Pomp’s hand and you will see this.

You won’t see that on Google Maps.

So, my Urban Fantasy, is contained in a hand which has seen the sketch marks of a Pomp’s blade.

I’m working my way through other elements of the books, so there’ll be plenty more of these over the next few weeks – with added lame drawings.

And, yes, there are plans for new stories in both of these worlds.

*

Finally you can buy my books from Avid Reader here

Amazon here (while you’re at it, why not write a review. Night’s Engines could do with a few – hey that rhymes)

and Angry Robot for DRM free versions of the Night Bound Land here

As far as medical conditions go it has been very mild. Other than not being able to close my eye (but drops and gel seem to be keeping discomfort and dryness at bay). Though that said, I’d still rather not have it.

On the writing front, the new book is coming along rather nicely. This draft looks like it should be finished in the next month, which pleases me greatly. I’m very happy with this, and the next book I’m working on*, and writing, consistently writing always makes me a happier person – even if what I’m writing is dark or even depressing.

I don’t think there is a better way to play for me. And I’m lucky that I’ve had it almost all my life as comfort, challenge, and therapy.

Have decided to revisit the Death Works and Night Bound Land books here, too. Partly because I think there’s still plenty of stories left in those worlds (seriously, one way or another there’s another six books worth of Death Works and the NBL has some stories fore and aft of the novels that I’d really like to play with) and partly to build a little scaffolding around them. And hey, I reckon they’re actually good little books. So if there’s anything you’d like me to expand upon let me know. I’ll work it out as we go along.

Finally, here’s a little sketch of our house guest of the last month – and who has just headed home.

*yeah, I’m always looking ahead.

So, once my relatively low word target was reached (hey, I’m still getting used to the discombobulation that is Bell’s Palsy) I sat down and read Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth In Captivity. There’s a reason these comics have been nominated for Eisner and Harvey Awards. There’s a dark magic to this post-apocalyptic tale of half-animal hybrid Gus, and the violent, utterly flawed Jepperd. It’s Cormac MaCarthy mixed with the Stand*, and one of the best comic series I’ve read in years.

Lemire recently finished the series off. I’m in no rush to finish it, it’s that good that I want to take my time(Lemire’s art is worth lingering over) and I’m frightened just where he might be taking the story, and that’s a fine and rare thing.

*and much more. Just go and read it, you won’t regret it.

Me, I’ve gone and gotten Bell’s Palsy, which is a very difficult word to say when you have Bell’s Palsy (those hard B and P sounds are too hard for my half paralyzed face to produce).  It’s one of those weird conditions where no-one is quite sure of the cause and it’s very benign (unless it’s not, but we won’t think about that, yet!). You tend to wake up in the morning (sometimes after an ear ache, sometimes not) with half your face not doing what it’s supposed to be doing (moving).

Me, not being a doctor, and having never heard of Bell’s Palsy assumed I’d had a stroke. Except, of course, it was only my face that was affected – in fact Diana had to talk me out of doing push-ups to “prove” that it wasn’t, though how that was going to prove anything, I don’t know.

The moment the doctor saw me he said: you’ve got Bell’s Palsy, Kid. (He may not have said kid, kid is there simply for dramatic effect, or something).

The nerve (the 7th cranial nerve, don’t you know) that controls the right side of my face is no longer talking to my brain (maybe they had a bit of fight, it tends to happen, my brain and body rarely agree on anything). Which means I can’t smile, well, I can but it’s very lopsided, I can’t raise my eyebrow (and we all know how MUCH I like to do that), and I can’t say the words Bell’s Palsy.

I’m on a short course of steroids – apparently hitting it early with steroids is quite effective – and the paralysis should clear up in the next few weeks (or months, but fingers crossed it’s only weeks). But when you work in retail it’s rather inescapable. For a man who’s just turned forty and who is used to a certain level of eloquence, and possessed of a certain level of vanity (who isn’t) it’s been quite an eye opener (literally in the case of my right eye which can’t quite close). People aren’t sure what to say about the lopsided face, and actually explaining about Bell’s Palsy means I have to say  “Bell’s Palsy” so we all end up looking confused.

Hopefully this will be all gone in a few weeks, but I can’t help but wonder how this must be for people who have to put up with similar conditions for their whole life (actually, I don’t need to wonder, I’ve had a pretty good glimpse). So, to anyone that I’ve ever looked at oddly, or seemed awkward around (hopefully never deliberately) please accept my apologies. I can do better, and I will.

And thanks to everyone (particularly Diana, my family, and workmates at Avid – my second family) that has helped make me feel a lot less sorry for myself over the past few days. Friends, laughter, and people willing to listen to me moan have been invaluable.

So that’s been my interesting little holiday. I guess, if you’re going to get a relatively benign condition, and you’re a Fantasy writer, something as odd as Bell’s Palsy isn’t too bad. I’m putting it down as research (though I don’t think I can get away with claiming it on my tax return) and appreciating that it’s paralysis of the face, not fingers, because my holiday’s over, I have lots of writing to do.