Storybook Perfect

Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

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Lucky Duck

May 15, 2014 / / 0 Comments

trouble twistersI entered a giveaway on the wonderful website – Speculating on SpecFic – and won. My prize arrived the other day but due to my typically hectic lifestyle I haven’t had a good chance to admire them yet. The Trouble Twisters books look like slightly younger fare than what I generally indulge in, but I never could resist twins, particularly magical twins. I mean Fred and George people. Nuff said. Bel and Losara from the Broken Well Trilogy are another good example. (I might have to do a post about magic twins, but I might out myself as a crazy fangirl. Oh, you already knew? Well then ;p )

You might be interested to learn that the anthology 18 (with my latest story Nightfall in it) is free again. How lovely, I get free books, you get free books – karmic cycle ;p

Guest Post: The Winding Way To Kickass Heroines by Kenneth Mugi

May 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

As part of the grand celebration of the Vision Writers anthology release ’18’ today Kennenth Mugi of No Shovels Here is sharing with us his thoughts on video game heroines and the Longest Journey.

 

The Winding Way to Kickass Heroines

Guest Post by Kenneth Mugi

As a white male who constantly fights with his morning stubble, I have a bevvy of video-game characters I can relate to and imagine myself being. There’s Garrett swiping things in Thief, Booker DeWitt saving Elizabeth in BioShock: Infinite, George Stobbart who stumbles around in Broken Sword and…well, every taciturn hero who finds themself in a first-person shooter. It’s not difficult for me to connect with digital entertainment because most Xbox One titles are specifically crafted for my fantasies.

The downside of this enormous a la carte imagination parade (and my first world, white male problem) is that I usually find myself in the company of other white males. Mostly they’re good folk, using me as a way of getting their death-match score up, but there’s always one. There’s that guy. He’s in my headset, yelling, screaming and cussing up a storm about how ‘you b****** be owned’ until he gets dominated by one of the many females lurking on the server.

Which, at that point, he tells the female-gendered player she’s doing it ‘wrong’ and males are superior to women in video games anyway. After all, isn’t that why most titles feature rugged, Hercules-with-guns type heroes? Women don’t play games. Not real games. They just cheat and that’s why Y-chromosome-predominant characters aren’t interesting.

Except Lara because she’s got ‘jugs, man’.

To that guy, I say you’re a fake geek and should only be allowed to play Frogger.

There are kickass heroines who don’t have Lara or Croft in their names. There’s Jade who fights for her friends in Beyond Good and Evil, Samus Aran who used to save the galaxy without daddy issues and…April Ryan.

Possibly, my favourite game of all time (even more than Prince of Persia: Sands of Time or Mass Effect 1 & 2 or Command and Conquer: Red Alert) is The Longest Journey. And it features April Ryan as the main protagonist.

April’s just a typical, stressed-out uni student who’s dealing with ex-boyfriend issues, a boss who refuses to pay her and a grumpy landlady. She’s also living in the future and gets tired of you trying to combine the same items in a desperate, last-ditch effort at problem solving.

Unfortunately for her, she’s got magical powers and can dimension hop. That sounds like fun until she gets dumped with saving the world by some random old guy whom she took pity on. Well, bad for her… fantastic for us.

The Longest Journey is my favourite title by far because it has a flawed protagonist who doesn’t want to be there, struggles with their newfound responsibilities and yet uses their wits to keep going. She doesn’t strip off and flash the bartender to get a drink, or talk coyly into a man’s ear so he drops a magical key. Hell, April doesn’t even lose her clothes as the game progresses. She’s simply a human trying to make sense of the new world she’s been forced into.

It was one of the three titles that showed me games were about more than accomplishing set tasks; they were about generating emotional experiences with the player. That even though I was a twenty-ish-year-old male, I could connect with the struggles and challenges faced by someone outside my gender. She was me; I was her. It paved the way for me for to search outside of the chiseled-men-and-square-jawed-hero narratives that had dominated my youth.

It said, without fanfare, “The protagonist’s gender doesn’t matter. Art is f’ing art. Respect.”

So I did.

Now, when that guy lights up my eardrum with his profanities, I tell him he doesn’t know anything about video games. He’s still playing in the kid’s pool with his toys and floaters. The rest of us, we’ve moved on, and if he wants to join us…he should play The Longest Journey.

After all, April is waiting.

Kenneth

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Discover more about Kenneth at his website: http://www.noshovelshere.com or read his latest story, Flickering Lives, in the recently released anthology, 18.

Happy Mother’s Day (+ free fiction!)

May 11, 2014 / / 0 Comments

As the title says, happy Mother’s Day to all of my readers who are mothers. In particular a huge happy Mother’s Day to my own mother for whom my appreciation can never be fully articulated (and for a chatterbox like me – that’s something!).

If anyone out there is looking for a last minute gift may I suggest a copy of the anthology 18, containing my most recent story Nightfall? Or for hero-loving mums Oomph: A Little Super Goes A Long Way.

Ha ha, shameless plugs aside, as a special gift for my mother (and I suppose everyone else can read it too) here’s a flash fiction about a new mum.

Back To Work

by Kirstie Olley

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Shona asked, trying to keep her voice even, her eyes flickering between her husband’s face and the rugged up bundle in his arms.

“I’m more worried about you,” laughed Dave as their daughter, Monique, wriggled in his arms, turning to stare up at her mother with big blue eyes.

Shona’s heart turned to mush at the sight of Monique’s tiny nose, shaped like a racing car lolly. She stooped and kissed it.

“Are you really ready to go back to work?” Dave asked, his brow creasing.

Shona sat down, tightening the laces of her boots. “I have to, besides we discussed this. You always wanted to be the stay at home dad.” They had discussed it. A lot. But the last three months had changed her feelings somewhat.

Struggling through the sleep-deprived first six weeks when Monique woke every two hours had been a form of torture she’d never endured before, but even amidst that haze there had been moments of magic. The soft, new baby smell that made her insides squiggly. The warm, floaty feeling when she cradled Monique while she breastfed. The elation when Monique smiled at her for the first time (sure some silly scientist claimed Monique couldn’t be smiling, that it was just gas, but Shona suspected soon another scientist would disprove the first). All those wonderful feelings made her reluctant to leave her daughter. Despite that she still felt the urge to get back to work. It beat in her, like a second pulse in her veins. Each time she blinked she changed her mind again.

“I know but…” Dave trailed off, looking at her as she pulled her hair back in a tight ponytail. His eyes lingered on his wife’s shape, a smile taking over his face.

“Is my uniform too tight?” she asked, worriedly glancing down at herself, unable to ignore the fact there was a little more skin around her stomach than there had been last time she’d worn these clothes.

“It always was pretty tight,” he teased, grinning broadly.

Monique cooed in her father’s arms, raising a pudgy fist up, demanding the attention of both parents be returned to her.

The ache returned as Shona looked at her daughter. She hadn’t thought it would be this hard to leave. After all she loved her job, she was passionate about what she did and couldn’t possibly give it up. But to leave Monique behind? The infant uncurled her fingers and clutched at the air between herself and her mother.

Shona’s phone gave an agitated beep. She rolled her eyes and peered at the screen where the words HURRY UP were written all in capitals followed by a ridiculous number of exclamation points. As hard as it was to leave, there were people relying on her.

“I love you,” Shona said, leaning in to brush her lips on Dave’s. “Both of you.” She bent to kiss Monique again.

“When will you get home?”

Shona smiled weakly. “You know I don’t know the answer to that,” she replied as she affixed her domino mask over her eyes.

“Come back safe.”

“I always try to.” Shona winked before she stepped out the door and flew off, cape streaming behind her.

Typing difficulties

May 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments
I'm old school like that

I’m old school like that

Typing on a phone or tablet doesn’t keep the creative juices flowing for me, it takes too long to type with just a thumb(on my phone) and when I type on tablet I type too fast and the tablet gets confused and thinks I hit two spots at once so ignores both and the words are all gobbledegook thanks to auto correct. On a keyboard I can just keep flowing with the idea, expanding and growing. Even with pen and paper my note taking can keep up with my imagination, but on a phone it’s just a little too slow.

I wonder if the generation before me, those less familiar with computers, feel the same way about normal keyboards? I’m fine because I was using typewriter keyboards from a young age so they’re old hat to me. I loved my typewriter so much as a kid that I’d take it along with me on camping trips, giving up what little foot space I had in the car (no idea why a notebook and pen weren’t good enough for ten year old me).

Transitioning to computer keyboard was great because the only thing that frustrated me about my typewriter was when I typed too fast the arms would sometimes get stuck together up near the page and that doesn’t happen with computers.

I haven’t had the same transition with phone keyboards. Even on the larger tablets it just feels awkward to me.

What methods do you prefer? Is there something that you just can’t seem to adapt to?

The Ever-Changing Face Of A Story

May 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments
Free today! (10/5/14)

Free today! (10/5/14)

In yesterday’s post about the anthology, 18, that my critique group released for its eighteenth anniversary, I mentioned the work wasn’t just the product of the members imaginations but also showed the critiquing of the group and the ability of the writers to take that feedback and work on it. I also mentioned that my story, Nightfall, went through a great deal of change. In fact it is one of the stories that probably changed the most from the original.

In my original story Marrille had a massive fear of giving birth and therefore of being assigned a mate, but the group thought this distracted from the much bigger themes in the story – muddied the waters so to speak (though I’m definitely keeping that fear for some poor future character to suffer).

Also, in the original version Marrille and Sario successfully made their provision run, visiting the local town, bartering for food and allowing me to show off all the wonderful creatures I’d populated the world with. However, cool as it was to me, not enough happened in the scene, and it set the action of the hawk attack too far back from the start, meaning a longer slog for the reader before life and death hung in the balance.

So my second version had both of those removed (along with some smaller more finnicky stuff I won’t waste time here on), however my story was still well over the word count and there was still something about the story niggling in a few minds and we eventually uncovered what that was.

The fix was to chop apart the start again. I thought I was killing a darling (a writer’s term for removing something you love that just isn’t working) when I cut the market scene, but taking out the start was much, much worse. My favourite character’s best moments were cut, in fact the whole power of his presence was diminished massively – but it wasn’t his story, it was Marrille’s so it had to go.

This should show how much a story can change between first draft and when it appears on printed page. A critique group, or at least some outside opinions, can help so much in finding flaws that you can’t see yourself, whether you can sense something’s wrong or not.

The cut start is still a darling, and though it was killed from the story I couldn’t let it wallow in a shallow grave in the Word Cemetary, so I’ve made it available here(read on site or pdf). You can read Nightfall in it’s final form first and come back to see the longer opening because of curiosity or read it first then read Nightfall as it appears in the anthology 18. You can buy 18 from Amazon. You can read the darling start by downloading it in pdf or reading it here on this site.

18 – The Vision Writers Anthology

May 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Long-time readers will be familiar with the fact I’m a member and Vice-President of a fantastic critique group: Vision Writers.

18visionVision Writers celebrates its eighteenth anniversary this September, and current president Belinda thought it would be a smashing idea for the current generation of the group to make an anthology. Our original intent was to release a little closer to the anniversary in September, but at the meeting on Sunday we found the ebook version was good to go so – SURPRISE – you can go buy it now!

All of the stories have been critiqued by the whole group at least twice, so aren’t just the product of the imaginations of group members, but the toil of our critiquing and our members taking on board the feedback and actioning it(more on that in an upcoming post where I’ll give you a chance to check out how dramatically my own story Nightfall changed throughout the process).

And I’m going to issue a challenge to all readers of the anthology: one of our members is sweet sixteen. Her piece is in here with everyone else’s. I GUARANTEE you won’t guess which one is hers. Yes. Guarantee. I’m going for that strong a word.

Obviously I’m totally biased as to the awesomeness of this anthology, so go check it out on Amazon and peek inside. The ‘look inside’ function on Amazon will let you see the first story and a little bit of the second and I’m confident you won’t be able to stop yourself there.

Australian Spec-fic Authors Challenge 2014 – April Round-Up

May 5, 2014 / / 0 Comments

destinysriftIn February I read the first book of this trilogy, Prophecy’s Ruin, but, being sick and tired of starting but not finishing series with this challenge, I decided to finish the trilogy.

The whole series is based around the old fantasy trope of the prophecised chosen one, but the trilogy starts with both the forces of light and shadow converging upon the birthplace of the prophecised champion. The opposing forces fight over the infant, the mages pulling with magic to bring the newborn to them and then suddenly there are two babies – the champion’s soul is torn in two. They run back to their respective bases, no one knowing which is the real champion.

As with the first book, the rest of the series continues to turn staples and tropes of the fantasy genre on their head. I personally found Losara (the shadow champion) the far more likeable of the two heroes and truly appreciated the way the shadow people were not shown to be particularly evil – there were dark individuals, but as the series continued various characters on the light’s side started to make questionable choices too.

soulsreckoningI loved seeing some of the locales in the light and shadow realms (though did experience a moment of writerly irritation in the second book when one of those locales was very much like an area in one of my unpublished stories, The Glass Witch, but such is life ;p ).

There are some really inventive species on both sides which I was intrigued by, like the Zyvanix who need two translators when talking to humans, since neither species can speak the other’s language, but they can understand the other, so you need a human translator to say what the zyvanix are saying the the other humans, and a zyvanix translator to say what the humans are saying to his/her own species.

One thing I liked in the second book was a female character was uncertain as to how she felt about having children. This probably sounds like an odd thing to like, but most fictional women seem to either never face the though or be strongly pro- or anti-children. As someone who for quite a while in my younger days was up in the air on the issue myself I like seeing this view shown in fiction as a legitimate option for a young woman (who says you have to be decided yet?).

I definitely enjoyed the books all up, but I did have a bit of a problem with the ending – not so much with what happened (I love the concept of what happened), but more that some things didn’t add up and some questions that I thought the narrative posed didn’t seem satisfactorily answered to me. If you are desperate for the details they’re in my Goodreads review. I wasn’t so disappointed in the ending that it ruined the series for me though and as always it may be something personal to me that made me feel that way about the ending. I still strongly recommend the series to any fantasy fan.

April Goals Round-Up 2014

May 3, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Well this month I attended the Aurealis Awards ceremony in Canberra for my piece ‘Short Circuit’ which was a finalist in the Best Fantasy Short Story category, but as far as progress on my goals for this year goes:

For goal one (finish editing Written By The Stars) I’m working through lesson two of Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel – which requires a full read through of the novel (after having done a full read through in lesson one as well ;p ) so plugging away on that goal. This also takes care of goal four (keep learning). Everybody loves two birds one stone!

Didn’t touch goal two (finish Keys, clocks, quests first draft) – I like to take things one novel at a time ;p

Goal three (keep writing and submitting short stories): I finished my latest novelette, Look Skyward, this month. I rounded it out at 11,300 words (I only wrote the final 4,300 this month) and I also wrote a 400 word flash fiction piece, Back To Work, about a mother returning to work after maternity leave.

I also made a few Found Fiction drops, both while I was in Canberra and around Brisbane. It’s lot of fun and I plan on planting a few more this weekend.

Not a bad month, but I think I can do better(long time readers will know I always think I’m under performing).

How are you going with your goals?

Why I Love Face Off

April 24, 2014 / / 0 Comments

I am not much of a fan of reality TV shows. My dislike is not on a ‘they suck because there’s no writers’ basis. My dislike is based on how they show the very ugliest of people, not just through bringing out the cut throat nature of some individuals, but also that there are people who want to watch that. Rabidly. And further still that people are editing things together to make people look even nastier or less intelligent (this is not true of all reality shows, but certainly more than I would like there to be).

Not to mention the quality of the content isn’t very high (again not always true but c’mon yo gotta give me crap like ‘real housewives’).

IcecreamfaceoffBefore you worry this is just an endless ‘I hate reality TV’ rant, let me say there is one reality show that I love. I’ve been into it right from the start and have followed every single season religiously. Face Off.

For those unfamiliar with it, Face Off is about movie monster make-ups. A group of contestants compete – sometimes in teams, sometimes individually – to put together vampires, werewolves, orcs, and more than you can ever imagine(see Miss Ice cream to the left) for judging by professionals in their field.

The viewer gets to watch them go from conceptual sketch through sculpting, moulding, fabricating, and painting then finally applying it to a model. You learn about different painting styles, different types of moulding material (silicone, poly foam, ect) and get to hear the amazing back stories these talented people dream up for their works of art.

Face-OffNow obviously as a lover of the fantastic and of art this show appeals me but it isn’t that alone.

This show is the only I’ve come across where nobody ‘plays the game’. True enough there are disagreements of creative opinion, and a few times there’ve been romantic entanglements, but no one is cut throat. They don’t waste their precious energy on playing mind games or being jerks, they just focus it all to creating the very best creature they possibly can and winning that way.

Even more shockingly whenever someone needs help, like cracking open a particularly stiff mould, other contestants take time out from doing their own work to help. Not just once or twice, but almost every single episode. It’s hard not to like that.

Syfy-Logo-1024x768There’s also no cranky wanker judge who just hates everything and thus no need for the bleeding-heart, always too sweet to say you suck judge. The panel is made up of knowledgeable professionals who rate each work with care and intelligence.

I recommend the show to anyone who likes watching horror, sci-fi, and fantasy movies and loves the creatures within. You not only get to enjoy seeing the finished product but see how it’s made and even learn how as you go.

The finale of season six just aired and I already can’t wait for season seven to start!

Recently Syfy have also started airing a puppet/animatronic version of this show, The Jim Henson Creature Shop Challenge which so far is quite fun and interesting as well (the second episode was about the Dark Crystal <3 )

Does anyone else love Face Off? What appeals most to you?

Animal Encounters

April 23, 2014 / / 0 Comments

curlew2I would have posted this sooner, but at the moment my website keeps dropping out on me, so unless I’m lucky when I try to post, I get a 503 error. >.< I’m working on it, but I’m only slightly tech savvy, not champion level ;p

I had some luck on Monday night trying to get some photos of the bush stone curlews (no idea what I’m talking about? read my last post). While T-J and Xander played in the park I crawled around on the grass trying to get close enough for a good shot without scaring the birds. Some of them even stopped, looking at me curiously as I lay stomach down on the dirt with my camera watching them. Still not the best shots, but for an amateur with an old camera the results aren’t too shabby.

curlew1My encounters with wildlife did not finish there however. Earlier that day my husband walked through the door between the living room and the kitchen and suddenly yelled: “Snake!”

With his reaction I expected a big fella, maybe not as huge as some we’ve had in our old house (which backed directly onto a creek and bushland)(we once had a carpet python on the back stairs so large we actually called a professional because we were genuinely afraid for our dogs (beagles)) but certainly not a little juvenile snake barely the length of my forearm.

The poor little guy disappeared under the fridge before I could get a good look at him, so we had to take precautions for catching him because I couldn’t say (at that point) that he wasn’t a venomous species. SIDE NOTE: you may think a juvenile venomous snake is less venomous than an adult. Not true. They can inject less venom because they are smaller, but if it’s a venomous enough snake you’re still going to need a hospital.

So my very stylish and totally professional precaution was to put two large bedsocks on my arm (the thickness of which should ensure the fangs wouldn’t reach my skin). With a stunning teal forearm we got him out from under the fridge and he tried to hide in the pantry. The bedsocks worked perfectly as when the poor little guy (frightened out of his mind) tried to bite me the only reason I knew I’d been bitten was because I could see it happening.

Once captured I gave him a quick look over to make sure he wasn’t immediately identifiable as a venomous snake. He didn’t have the black head typical of a juvenile brown snake or the distinct belly of a red belly black snake. I’m not a professional herpetologist, but I grew up on a farm so do know some of the identifiers. He looked like a little tree snake, so we took him to the nearby bushland and released him by an old log.

I love wildlife stories, so if you have any, feel free to share them in the comments 🙂

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