Storybook Perfect

Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

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Screaming Woman Bird – Redux

April 20, 2014 / / 1 Comment
Bush Stone Curlew (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Bush Stone Curlew (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

If you read my post a while back on the screaming woman bird you know I quite like bush stone curlews. There’s a haunting mystery to them. Until I googled them I had never even seen what they looked like and it has only been recently that I have seen them live and in front of me.

There is a park near by that Xander likes to visit after dark sometimes (because his sense of adventure knows no bounds) and being near the water there is a nest somewhere in the area and as he plays you can hear them calling from the shadows. A couple of times as we pull up into the car park we’ve been lucky to see one in the head lights, but way off.

Until tonight.

Tonight they must have been tempted by all the scraps left by Easter holiday visitors, because it wasn’t the odd one visible in the distance, but several of them, some as close as only ten meters away(which sounds far away, but considering how hard it has been to see one until now this is pretty special).

Just like when I first heard them as a teen and I imagined them to be some odd sort of owl then was surprised to find them a ground-dwelling bird, I was surprised again tonight. I thought they were small, quail-like in size, but some looked like they might be almost up to my knee height.

Sadly, I only had my phone so couldn’t get any good pictures and I didn’t want to chase any and disturb them from their feast. I’m hoping tomorrow will be another big day for visiting the park so our family can drop by after dark and this time I can bring my camera along and get a shot. Fingers crossed 🙂

A Quick Update

April 16, 2014 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been having a few problems with my website not loading these last few days, but I’ve updated a few things and that should fix it all now.

On a big plus side my vertigo is almost completely gone. I still get a little wonky if I’m tired or push to hard, but I can read without words getting jumbled and walk (mostly) normally again.

I’ve fallen way behind on reading all the blogs I follow. It was hard enough to keep up to date on my reading challenge with the vertigo, so I didn’t even look at my feedlist and now… well let’s just say it’s going to take a while to catch up ;p

On a positive note I’ve managed to get back to revision and writing and my day job, so life is almost back to (my version of) normal.

Added after posting: While going through that massive list of blogs I came across Chuck Wendig’s reaction to the series finale of How I Met Your Mother (spoilers and bad language warning for that link) and after reading the part where he said “You can’t build some fancy skyscraper and then put a giant ceramic clown taking a dump at the top of it.” I felt compelled to share with him this (which I share with you with just as much mirth), the Asahi building in Tokyo.

Australian Spec-Fic Authors Challenge 2014 – March Round-Up

April 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

high lordI have started way too many series and left them unfinished with this challenge. For March I set out to finish one. I read The High Lord, the last of the Black Magician trilogy.

Far more action packed than its predecessors, The High Lord delivers on the promises of the earlier books in the series.

Sonea is still the favoured apprentice of the High Lord Akkarin, a position she doesn’t want as she knows he practices forbidden black magic and she is being held hostage in this position to ensure the two others who know his dark secret also keep their silence.

Akkarin gives her books and insists she read them. Slowly Sonea realises the books are revealing tid-bits about black magic to her. Sonea is horrified, thinking Akkarin intends to teach her black magic – possibly against her will – and she confronts him.

We see what Cery is up to after being rejected by Sonea as well as seeing several relationships bloom. Also Akkarin’s motivations are finally revealed.

The world the story is set in continues to expand, showing a wealth of world building. The world is something I love in this series. It’s rich and full, but you don’t get bashed over the head with information.

I was a little disappointed with one small piece of information laid out in the climax SPOILER ALERT: about how the entire University was made of magic that a black magician could use, but then it was never used. Not even the arena. It kind of bummed me out. True it means Sonea was a thousand time more awesome for not having needed to use it, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen a great tool offered to characters which then doesn’t get used. Is this some new thing in books I’m not aware of – red herring ultimate weapons? /SPOILER

With plenty of adventure and romance this is definitely my favourite book of the trilogy. And I enjoyed the sneaky little last page twist. Giggles and grins for me.

For April I’m planning to finish reading Sam Bowring’s Broken Well Trilogy.

Aurealis Awards Ceremony

April 7, 2014 / / 4 Comments
Obligitory pre-awards selfie

Obligatory pre-awards selfie

As some of you know, the 19th Aurealis Awards ceremony was held on Saturday night. Being a nominee I moved heaven and earth (and my family’s budget) to attend. It was a fun night, meeting other writers and judges and some of the fantastic team who pulled this whole event together.

Simon Brown and Sean Williams were the masters of ceremonies and didn’t fail to make me laugh even once. The Great Hall at University House in Canberra was a beautiful place for the ceremony to be held as well.

I was surprised to learn that the category Short Circuit was shortlisted in (Best Fantasy Short Story) received 194 nominations. Knowing my story was amongst the top 5 is such an honour, and to be in that category with writers who I own books of (like Kim Wilkins and Jay Kristoff) is genuinely thrilling.

I also added more than a few books to my ‘to read’ pile as each nominated piece was given a short synopsis before the winners were announced.

A very cool band played songs to open, close, and during the intermission. The Fildenstar suited a speculative fiction awards ceremony in both lyrics and sound and I’ll be keeping an eye out for their performances in future.

So, with new books to read and some new friends to catch up with I’ll have to leave you all with the advice that it is a fun night, well worth attending!

Also, if you want more pics and info, Sean the Blogonaut gathered a bunch of social media outbursts that puts the whole night in view for you. Here it is.

March Goals Round-Up 2014

April 1, 2014 / / 0 Comments

March was still a bit slow for me – vertigo sucks – but on the plus side I’ve been getting much better recently, but have been needing to do a lot of housework to catch up.

I’ve started a new short story, 7,000 words into what will be approximately 10,000 words. I’ve also fleshed out a few plot lines and tinkered with a few new ideas.

I managed last month’s critique group meeting as well, but this one (April) will be the first I’ve missed since joining the group. Instead, I’ll be in Canberra instead attending the Aurealis Awards Ceremony 😀

Help A Great Magazine Thrive

March 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

subscriptions-45Today’s post is a call to action. There’s a great magazine that promotes diversity in speculative fiction. That magazine is Crossed Genres.

You may recognise Crossed Genres as the publisher who gave me my first acceptance letter and who published my Aurealis Awards finalist story ‘Short Circuit’. This same publisher releases a monthly magazine as well as great anthologies like Subversion, Oomph, and the recently released Fierce Family.

To keep the magazine running, Crossed Genre’s needs 600 subscribers by the end of June.

Head over to their website to get a better idea of what they have to offer.

I’m subscribed.

Are you?

February Goals Round-Up 2014

March 1, 2014 / / 4 Comments

This month my goals progress has been somewhat impeded by whatever it is that this constant dizziness is. On the plus side I still made more progress in my writing than in getting a diagnosis.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a few new ideas but not lucky enough to be able to write anything of substance.

I did have a few clear-minded days, but I spent most of that time working on feedback from near-miss rejections and my critique group, thus getting some of my short stories out (or back out) into the submission pool.

Despite my vertigo I did manage go to my critique group meeting at the start of the month. Though I think I scared a few friends no one can doubt my commitment.

And no matter how little I managed to get done nothing can diminish the fact that this month my story Short Circuit became an Aurealis Awards finalist.

I hope everyone out there is making good headway on their goals for this year.

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

March 1, 2014 / / 3 Comments

prophecy's ruinI was given a lovely gift by one of my critique group friends at the start of the month and since it was a trilogy by an Aussie spec-fic author I decided it was fated to be my February read. So I read the first book of Sam Bowring’s Broken Well trilogy, Prophecy’s Ruin.

Light and Dark have been forcibly separated and the two forces pursue an endless war for dominance. A prophecy announces that a boy with blue hair will end the bloodshed. When this child is finally born both the light and dark are looking for him. Two warring mages discover him and in the massive battle that follows they tear the child’s soul in half, creating two blue haired boys – but which is the prophecised hero?

I loved this concept. Blue-hair touches on my anime/manga affections, twins is just a weird obsession I have, and I love stories which look deeper into prophecies. I know some people whinge about being over prophecies in fantasy, but as long as it’s a fresh take like this I love it.

This book was the sort of book I would have powered through in a matter of days. Unfortunately my still undiagnosed vertigo disorder means that sometimes looking at text makes me feel like my eyes are bleeding. I thought when I started the book on one of my good days that I’d slam through the whole series this month (I have waaaaay too many series I’ve started but haven’t finished with this challenge (Death Works, Black Magician, Obernewtyn Chronicles, Stormdancer series)). No such luck.

The world is rich and full. There are so many places and species of both the light and dark wonderfully imagined and fleshed out. I really love the border between the two, and the gods themselves are pretty cool. Fans of world building should love this.

The characters of the saviour’s soul split in two, Losara and Bel, are delightfully opposite sides of the same coin, though I think most people will probably like Losara more than Bel.

The only thing that bugged me was a bit at the end. Not the ending itself, but something that happened near the end. SPOILER ALERT. Near the end  Losara dreams of a possible future and we the reader get to wade through the dream for about 30 pages. Not kidding. It written like it’s happening and there are many scene changes where you wonder, are we in reality yet? While what was happening was interesting, it irked me because I wasn’t sure what was dream.  Considering the fact it was a ‘it was all just a dream’ moment I felt 30+ pages was overkill. END SPOILER

I’m looking forward to finding the time to finish this series when my head is a little clearer.

2013 Aurealis Awards Finalist

February 16, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Professor Farnsworth agreesI have some fantastic news that has me super excited.

My story Short Circuit (published in Oomph: A Little Super Goes A Long Way) has been announced as a finalist in the ‘Best Fantasy Short Fiction’ category in the Aurealis Awards.

The Aurealis Awards are Australia’s premiere speculative fiction awards so this is a huge honor and I’m stoked to be in the company of so many authors I admire.

A Few Things Of Interest

February 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

aurealis_66_cover_fallen_angel_by_melissa_gannonI was catching up on my short story reading (gotta read lots of the good stuff to write the good stuff yourself) and enjoyed a non-fiction article at the end Aurealis vol 66: ‘Go The **** To Sleep – With Zombies’ by Patricia L O’Neill. It’s a scientific article on sleep patterns. It got me to thinking a bit about Yui and Madison from Storybook Perfect and how Yui is totally a lark and Madison a complete owl – just another thing that creates contention between the two friends. Oh, and I’m totally a lark too.

Also, check this out: Book, Book, Goose – a website which brings online the random discovery of walking into a book store and stumbling across something awesome (or hilarious).

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