eneit has given me 5 words that came into her head when she thought about me.

The five words were: Pink Floyd, bands, art, clowns, hats

Now it is up to me to try and explain why those five words apply to me so, here I go:

Pink Floyd: When I was 10yrs old I inherited my parents' old collection of 45s (that's vinyl singles, the platter shaped ones with the little grooves for all you young'ens out there). That was in 1980 and it pretty much (thankfully!) ensured I missed out on most of the shit-pile of music that was The Eighties. The collections was mainly Beatles and Rolling Stones singles, originals too, but there was also Beach Boys, Johnny O'Keefe, Crash Craddock, Buddy Holly, The Hollys, The Kinks and a bunch of other stuff in there too. That got me started on my musical explorations backwards into the Blues (mainly Delta and Mississippi Blues) and forward to my search for new and interesting music that continues today. In the 80s I listened to everything by The Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Bob Dylan, T-Rex, Bowie, Brian Eno and a thousand others. But, it wasn't until about 1985 that I discovered two bands that changed everything about the way I listen to music.

That was in music class, one day when the teacher was away. We sat in music class and stuffed around while he was away. I raided the store room for something to keep me amused and found an old cassette tape. It was a blank tape. Written on one side, in biro, was the word 'Doors'. And, on the other side 'Floyd'. I put the tape in my walkman and started to listen. Side one was the album 'Strange Days' by The Doors. Side two was the album 'Meddle' by Pink Floyd. Never had I heard anything like either of these bands. I listened to nothing else for days, maybe weeks. Eventually, the tape was chewed up by my tape players. Bereft of this inspirational music I set out to discover everything ever recorded by Pink Floyd and The Doors. And that was the start of my musical journey into psychedelia.

The Doors will always be a special band to me, but Pink Floyd were the ones who really inspired my imagination, fuelled my art, and became the soundtrack to my first feeble attempts at writing fiction. I was mesmerised by their sounds - not just of Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, but of Meddle and Animals and Atom Heart Mother and A Saucerful of Secrets too. Even Syd Barrett's solo works were played, much to my parents' annoyance, non-stop for months.

I still listen to the Floyd quite a lot. They are sort of a benchmark band for me - defining exactly the sort of sountrack-style music I require for my writing and art. Other bands have come and gone, but Pink Floyd have always remained on the top of my playlists. I don't think that will ever change.

Bands: Music, I love music. I can't think of how my life would be if I didn't have a soundtrack playing to it all the time. My world seems empty if there isn't some form of music in it somewhere. But, I don't just enjoy listening, I also enjoy playing. Back in the late 80s and early 90s I played lead guitar in an originals band called Emily's Child. We did alright for ourselves, played around Sydney quite consistantly for a few years, put a couple of songs out on compilations CDs and even had a couple of tracks played on TripleJ. You can read much more about Emily's Child in one of my old Blogger posts, and even hear a few old tunes in MP3 format, here: http://kephra.blogspot.com/2005/12/blast-from-past-emilys-child.html

Even today, I will still take listening to a 'band' (I mean a real band, with instruments, not computers) over crappy pop singers any day. My kids are amazed that their old fart dad is listening to albums for months before they even appear on TripleJ's radar - so much for it being a youth network - and often years before the hype hits commercial-world and the band is plunged into the stormy world of 'commercial fame'.

Art: My parents always encouraged creativity. Maybe, for me, it was just a way to get out of doing the 'harder' subjects? Nevertheless, I chose music, art, history and music as my electives and majors at high school. I was never really too good at art at school - others were much much much better and I didn't go the traditional route my art teachers wanted me to take - but I'm a persistent bugger. In 1987-88, while my other HSC comrades were doing traditional painting, I was doing airbrushing, pen & ink illustration, scratchboard and the beginnings of computer art. 'Computer Art!?' my teacher said. 'What the hell is that? Computers aren't art tools, they're maths tools!' Boy I'm glad he was wrong.

I've never been trained outside of high-school. Never done a course or gone to design school. But, as I said, I'm a persistent bugger. I just drew and painted and did computer art anyway. I bullied and pleaded and sold myself into jobs that I really wasn't qualified for. I did artwork for free. I do it because I have to.

If I can't write, and I don't feel like picking up my guitar, then I must draw. That's just the way I am. Might as well, I decided 15yrs ago, try and make some money from it. I'm still not making much money from it, but that's not important. What is important, is that I've now placed myself in a position where people ARE paying me for my art; where I can do the things I love and not have people telling me I'm wasting my time.

Writing, Music, Art - the three things in my life that are inseparable. They feed off each other. When I'm in a writing funk, my artistic creativity is higher. When I get artistically creative, it feeds my music and my writing and brings them back to life. I really enjoy the cycles these three parts of my life take me through.

Clowns: For a long time clowns have gotten a bum-wrap. Our culture has pegged them as the Scarey Ones, despite their purpose in bringing us laughter and joy. As much as I love Stephen King's IT and Will Elliot's Pilo's Family Circus and all the other freaky clown tales out there, I never quite understood why they are so maligned. I probably wouldn't have thought about it so much though, if not for a birthday card my son (then 7yrs old) made for me. It had a clown on the front (clip-art) and said "All the Clowns in Clown Town wish you... Barrels of fun on your Birthday". I still have that card and it is very important. It led me down a road to a place called Clowntown - a place I have now written about 5 times, with 3 of those stories already published or accepted for future publication. Clowntown is a place far away from the world, maybe in a different dimension, where all the clowns live. Not people with painted faces who pretend they are clowns for a few laughs, but REAL clowns. That's not make-up, that's their real faces, their real clothes, and their not acting. They are bumbling loveable people trying to live their lives.

That card from my son stuck in my head for months. From it mutated a story about Clowns being the ones who were threatened and scared. Clowns who are terrified and terrorised. In order to write "All the Clowns in Clowntown" I immersed myself in Clowndom - I learnt to juggle, I listened to circus marches, I learnt the old routines and gags, and I wore a funny wig and a red nose while I wrote. I drove my family mad! And when I was finished, very happy with my story, I apologied to my family and said I wouldn't do anything that freaky again...

Unfortunately the Clowns of Clowntown had other ideas. They revisit me frequently. They tell me tales of their town that I have an obligation to put down into words. I love my clowns, and I love writing about them. I don't think they'll be leaving me anytime too soon :)

Hats: I was never really a hat person, so it is a bit strange to me that I've become known as "The Guy with the Hat". At a recent con a well-known and respected Australian author was looking for me to thank me for a review I had written of her latest novel. When she asked around the con who and where I was, she was invariably given the answer - "Look for the guy in the hat". Apparently, it made finding me very easy.

I've never liked hats before I picked up an old fedora a few years ago. I don't know why, but I tried it on. It fit. And, it felt good. I wore it for about 9mths and got strange looks wherever I went - who wears old hats like that these days? Who does he think he is? Phillip Marlowe? But then, everyone started selling and wearing fedoras - even KMart and Target sell them! So, I was a bit annoyed at 'my thing' being taken by so many other people. I stopped wearing my fedora because it no longer made me different.

Then, one day in an old 2nd hand shop, I saw a bowler hat (or Derby for you US readers). I hadn't seen anyone wear a bowler since the days of Laurel and Hardie. It looked silly on the rack, very old fashioned. But, I put it on and looked in the store mirror. It fit perfectly, like it was meant to be on my head. I bought it and haven't looked back since. So, if you're looking for me at a con, just look for the smooth black curves of a bowler hat drifting through the crowds and you'll find me.

Only problem is... I'm starting to see bowlers everywhere these days too! In fashion mags and the like. They haven't hit the stores yet, at least not in the way fedoras did, but it looks like it is heading that way. I'll no longer be different! I'll have to find a new hat! Maybe an old naval tricorn hat? I doubt too many others will pick that up as a fashion statement.

I was up 'til 3.30am last night getting that BIG PROJECT website online and live for the client. It all went pretty smoothly, but I'd been up since 6.30am the previous morning and I was exhausted.

Nevertheless, I had to be up again early this morning to take the kids to school. I didn't go back to bed like I was planning to though.

Instead, and with welcome cheers, the writing bug decided to return!

I've been a bit too brain-drained and tired of late to write, and the ideas just weren't flowing too much either. But, now that the BIG PROJECT is done, the ideas have come with dam-busting force. I'm still tired, but who cares. Writing comes first, especially when my thoughts are running so fast I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. And, by the time I did fall asleep, it would be time to wake up and pick the boys up from school again.

So, furiously jotting down ideas and scouring the web for research material.

Lots of fun, especially as the idea currently at the forefront is a new Clowntown story. I've had the idea to do something about a rodeo clown for a while, but never found the catalyst to bring that story out.

Last night, whilst working on the site change-over, I was listening to a collection of Ennio Morricone soundtracks. The music must have worked its way into all the right writerly places of my mind whilst I slept though.

Firstly, I think showers -hot, blasting showers- are a great tool in the writer's toolbox. I can't count the amount of times I've lost myself in the steam of a hot shower, only to find the pieces that have drifted separate through my unconscious for who knows how long are finally clicking into place.

This morning's shower: I heard those Ennio Morricone sound tracks; I thought of a rodeo clown; I thought of A Fistful of Dollars and Clint Eastwood.

From those ingredients cameth the full picture, and thus The Rodeo Clown With No Name was born.

It will contain greed, corruption, good-guys and bad-guys, a frontier town, a shoot-out, and lots of clowns!

The title?

"Once Upon a Time in Clowntown"

The first line?

"The cowboy stood atop the ridge and looked down upon the town."

Tonight, I'm going to open a bottle of shiraz, un-wrap some crumbly vintage cheese, and drag out the Dollars Trilogy again from the DVD rack and watch them all.

Then I'll write the rest of the story.

Even better part? This story falling into place has also led to a previously, most unfortunately, aborted Clowntown story falling into place too!

My Clowntown gangster noir novellette "A Plan for Pierrot" was going very nicely until I worked out that I didn't actually have a Plan to give Pierrot!

Now I do, and I'll be going back to finish that one as soon as "Once Upon a Time in Clowntown" is complete.

That will make 5 Clowntown stories in total - if you count "Calliope: A Steam Romance" as it has links with "All the Clowns in Clowntown". Although it seems these stories are all going to be written and published out of chronological order, here is how they would run on a Clowntown timeline:

"Calliope: A Steam Romance" (set 1910 - alternate history/streampunk) - published "Show Plays" anthology (2007).
"A Plan for Pierrot" (set in Clowntown - modern noir) - unpublished, incomplete
"The Dumbshow" (set outside Clowntown - Shakespeare's Tempest, with mimes) - published "Masques" anthology (2009)
"All the Clowns in Clowntown" (set in Clowntown - dark fantasy) - to be published "Macabre: A Journey Through Australian Horror" anthology (2009)
"Once Upon a Time in Clowntown" (set in New Clowntown - rodeo clown western) - unpublished, incomplete

I like the fact that the stories are coming out of order though. Jumping backwards and forwards is quite fun, and I think it allows me to reveal things in very different ways to if the stories were written (and/or read) in a straight chronological order. Mainly, I just like being back in the world of the clowns :)

Hey, I've got 2 more Dreamwidth invites if anyone wants them.

Issue 2 of Midnight Echoes, the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writers' Association, is on the way and I'm very happy to say I have a story appearing therein.

My tale, "The Message" will be appearing alongside other stories by Kurt Newton, Bob Franklin, David Conyers, Joanne Anderton (navicat), Shaun Jeffrey and Felicity Dowker (felicitydowker).

For more information, check out the website:

The Ditmar Awards ballot for 2009 has been released. You can view the full list of nominees at: http://wiki.sf.org.au/2009_Ditmar_ballot

Congratulations and good-luck to all nominees, especially those on my f-list!

When I read the ballot I was pretty blown away to find my own name on the list... not once, but twice!

Best Artwork
1. Aurealis #40 cover, Adam Duncan
2. The Last Realm, Book 1: Dragonscarpe, Michael Dutkiewics
3. Gallery in Black Box, Andrew McKiernan
4. Creeping In Reptile Flesh cover, Cat Sparks
5. 2012 cover, Cat Sparks
6. Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shaun Tan

Best Fan Artist
1. Rachel Holkner, for "Gumble Soft toy" and other works
2. Nancy Lorenz, for body of work
3. Andrew McKiernan, for body of work
4. Tansy Rayner Roberts, for "Daleks are a girl's best friend"
5. David Schembri, for body of work
6. Cat Sparks, for Scary Food Cookbook
7. Anna Tambour, for "Box of Noses" and other works

I don't know what sort of chances I've got against the likes of Shaun Tan's "Tales from Outer Suburbia" or Cat Spark's brilliant "Scary Food Cookbook" but just to be nominated on the ballot is an extreme privilege. Thanks to those who nominated me, it is very much appreciated. Hopefully there will be enough people at the NatCon who know me and my work well enough to put in a vote for me.

So, today is the first chance I've had to 'not do work'. I thought I'd show you 'round the digs a bit, most especially my own private part of the house... or property because technically it isn't attached to the house at all. We call it 'The Library', although it also includes my office as well as the obligatory books. I've still got some work to do to make it all nice, and some BIG comfy chairs are required for The Library before I can truly call it my retreat from the world, but I'm extremely happy with my space - as we are all extremely happy with the house, the yards, the pool, the schools, the community, the weather and just about every possible thing there is about this place. Buying our own house and moving out of Sydney was definitely the best thing this family has ever done.

Anyway, on with the slide-show...

Here is the view from our back patio to the right:



Most afternoons and many evening are spent on the patio - reading, drinking, chatting and generally just relaxing. On Sundays, once the papers have arrived and the coffee is brewed, Kylie and I barely move from those chairs.

A closer look at the pool area:



'The Library'- my special place - looking left from the patio:



Looking back from the Library door to the patio (with Strickland State forest the eucalypt covered hills in the background):



'The Library' looking in from the entranceway:



There are 12 bookcases in all... and I'm going to need more already! Luckily the Library still has room for at least another 12 book cases... with space left over for the comfy chairs :)

And looking back the other way:



And, you can't see the door, but in the wall in the far right is the entrance to my air-conditioned office with...

Computer desk (for writing, coding, illustrating and gaming):



And, opposite that, my old writing desk (now used for pen/pencil/paper writing and drawing):



Hopefully, now that I've dispensed with most of my work and I'm writing more frequently, I'll also be posting here more often. Let's see how we go.

Well, that's it. Time to pack-up my office. Pretty much the last room in the house to go in boxes.

We settle on the new house at 12noon tomorrow - Friday 13th, a good date for a horror writer. And we move in on Saturday, 14th... my wife bought me a house for Valentine's day!

We are all very excited and can't wait to get there.

Bye for now! Back in about 10days. Be good, don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Well, we're still in Sydney and, unfortunately, will be for another week. The settlement on our new house got postponed a week because the current owners aren't able to move into their new house yet.

It sucks. It sucked even more when we were first told - another month! that's like a lifetime away! - but it has actually given us a little more time to get sorted with the move. You always get to that last day before moving and discover all those little, annoying, fiddly bit that you haven't packed yet. And then, you spend you last night not getting any sleep because your trying to pack all that crap somewhere before the moving truck arrives. Well, we're now at the day before we were supposed to move... and all with got to pack are those little, annoying, fiddly bits! Now we've got another week to sort that stuff instead of 24 hours. That's comforting, but probably so comforting that we'll do absolutely nothing about it until next Thursday.

The extra time has also meant I've had time to catch up on some work and tidy that aspect of my life away before I move. I've been working through most of the night ('til about 4am) and then back up again at 8am to get the kids ready for school. If it is too hot (like it is getting today) I might try and have a nap in the afternoon once I've picked the boys up. But once they're home, and dinner is cooked and eaten, and we've sent the blighters off to bed, it is back to work again most nights.

I re-typeset the CSFG Masques anthology from scratch last night in an InDesign typesetting frenzy, and Aurealis 42 is nearly done too. I've finished the new AussieCon 4 website and, once the content is complete, it will go live early next week. There will be a brand-new look to the GoodReading magazine website sometime next week too. That's a huge chunk out of my To-Do list. It doesn't complete it - nowhere near it! - but it is enough progress to make me feel like I'm actually getting somewhere.

By Wednesday I should be able to concentrate on nothing but moving my family and our belongings to a house that is ours, and not some dodgy landlord who drives a brand-new Mercedes but can't afford to fix a window on his property that has been smashed for over 3 months! Good bye Jerzei Balowski, we won't be missing you!

If one more pimple-faced emo-girl comes into the shop asking for one of the Twilight books, I am going to scream!

There are no Stephanie Myers books in Australia! There won't be until the end of January (at least!). That's plenty of time for you choose something else, something good, something actually WORTH reading instead.

So, stop asking or I will SCREAM!

Yesterday we celebrated Summer Solstice. We don't do the Christmas thing, but we do celebrate the Solstices and Equinoxes as the earth moves around the Sun. These are natural occurrences, explainable by science, and such important events in the life of our planet. Without them, and the turn of the seasons, life as it is would have found it extremely difficult (most probably impossibly difficult) to have reached the stage it has on this planet. We see it as a great way to celebrate the wonder that is nature without resorting to any religious explanation - my wife and I don't think it ever necessary to resort to religious explanations. The kids just think it is great they get four celebration a year instead of just one.

Anyway, yesterday morning, after the boys had opened their presents, we received the best Solstice present ever! Our solicitor called to say the house we'd put a bid on was all ours and that contracts had been exchanged. This is our first house purchase - we've been renting for 20yrs - and it is a step we've been meaning to take for years but never did. Now we have!

We've bought a house at Narara on the Central Coast - an hour and a bit away from the stinky, crowded, noisy, over-priced and violent city that is Sydney. The house is 10 minutes to waterways, 10 minutes to the beach and our parents on both sides, a 5 minute walk from National Part rainforest (or 5 mins to the station, or 5 mins to the Primary and High Schools) and the house has a separate, air-conditioned home-office in the back that is going to be my library and writing room... and that's not to mention the in-ground salt-water pool and heated spa!

We'll be moving (all things going to plan) in early February.

I'm a bit happy! Can you tell?

I'm a happy little chappy this morning!

I just received an email from the CSFG 'Masques' anthology editors to tell me that my story 'The Dumbshow' has been accepted for inclusion!

I'm over the moon about this as I think it is a really fun story. I know it was lots of fun to write, as all my 'Clowntown' stories are, but this one also isn't quite as dark as I'd normally write either. It's not even set in Clowntown, but more 'Mimes do Shakespeare's The Tempest in Hicksville USA'.

I do know that the story wouldn't have been anywhere near as good as I think it is if it wasn't for the new Australian Horror Writers Association online crit-group, and the guiding editorial hand of Gillian Polack [gillpolack]. The AHWA crit group tore into the story like there was no tomorrow, and it is definitely all the better for it. Gillian offered various suggestions on the tales's depth and characterisation and really made me think about the story in some very different ways.

So, that's made me so happy I don't feel like doing any more work today. Think I'll just enjoy myself, read a book, play a PC game, or watch a DVD... at least until the boys get home, and then its good-bye quiet time. I might as well enjoy those last 2 1/2 hours while I can!

Definitely a slow writing week, but I finally found some time tonight to get some words on the page.

As an exercise I decided when I started to write this one that I'd attempt everything in a much more fluid style. I'd let the words flow and not worry so much about comma placement and punctuation - the sort of things that, for me, disrupt the words from reaching the page. One of the parts of this exercise was to totally dispense with quotation marks for dialogue. Normally, I find this affectation pretentious - when reading Cormac McCarthy it distracts me greatly. But, Tim Winton has always done it and I've never noticed until I was 'examining' his latest novel "Breath". I enjoyed the novel thoroughly, just as I've enjoyed 'Cloud Street' and 'Dirt Music', so I wanted to go back and see some of the things that made it tick.

One of the things I've found amazing about Winton's storytelling is the way everything flows and builds up rhythms within the narrative. In fact, everything flows so well that he doesn't need quotation marks for the dialogue! You just know, from reading the words and feeling the cadence of the sentences, exactly who is speaking what. So, I thought I'd see how I went.

And, losing the quotation marks is so strangely liberating! It is amazing what shackles little things like this become to your mind when you're writing. Always thinking about starting a new paragraph, making sure the comma is inside the quotation marks (or outside as the occasional exception requires), avoiding pointless dialogue attribution and clichéd verb modifying adverbs. We might not think that we think about these things, but we do. And NOT thinking about them, not worrying about them, has led me into what I feel is a much more natural writing style.

It helps a lot that I'm writing in first person. I also don't think it would work for every book or story and maybe I'll have to go back when I'm finished and add them all back in. But for now, it is helping me write this story in a voice that I think really works for it, and a style that really works for me.

I probably also won't be so sceptical about these sort of 'non-quotation mark' books as being pretentious literary twaddle any more. I can definitely see a point, for some story to be written this way for both the benefit of the author and the reader.

Help Yourself - Wordcount

19 years ago today, my wife and I met for the first time. It was a chance meeting, but one that changed both our lives from that point onward.

I was invited by friends to the 1989 Sydney University end-of-year party. I wasn't a student, but hey, cheap alcohol and a night out was okay by me. I was actually sort of seeing someone at the time. We'd been out a few times but nothing much seemed to be happening. Either way, she wasn't interested in coming to a Uni party with me and my mates so I went on my own. I caught a train to Redfern station and was met there by my friends. They had a few other people with them - other friends, other students - that I did not know. One of them caught my eye immediately.

She was fairly tall, with long dark hair. A nice shirt, jeans and tasteful boots. A finely sculptured face, pale but with red lips and eyes that danced with intelligence and joy. She put her arms around one of my friends and walked back towards Uni. Oh well, I thought. She's taken. And I followed.

At Uni, the party was in full swing. Weddings Parties Anything were playing and students were everywhere. When the band finished a dj played. I stood against the walls with a few of my mates, drinking and watching girls dance. I didn't dance. Couldn't dance. But I enjoyed watching and listening.

And then I saw her again, on the dance floor. She lifted her arms above her head as she danced and the curve of her neck, the bunched muscles of her shoulders, the tilt of her head... it just took my breath away. She looked across the room and locked eyes with mine. She smiled.

Me? I panicked and looked away. Dorky, geeky, teenager! How could I possibly have any chance?

Luckily for me, she was a little more persistent.

Over the course of the night I noticed her more often. She was around more often. Not dancing, but hanging around with us guys. Moving in next to me. Asking questions about me. Telling me about herself.

Her name was Kylie, and I am so damn glad she had more courage than I did. Who knows where I'd be now if she hadn't?

I'll admit I was a little slow to catch on, or maybe it was just the inability to believe she could be interested in me at all.

Eventually, when the Doug Anthony All Stars began their main act, she wanted to get closer to the stage. I said that would be a good idea and looked across the sea of people she wanted to traverse. I couldn't see any way through. I just stood there and stared like a dope.

Then Kylie took my hand. I felt her palm, her long fingers entwining mine, and she dragged me into the crowd!

I went with it. I didn't have a choice. I didn't have a chance.

After DAAS we left the party and wandered the streets of Newtown. Both of us talking. Both of us listening. Exchanging thoughts and lives and hopes and desires.

How strange to find a person that made you realise you'd never been whole before. Someone who made you realise there was a hole in your soul and that they were the one who could fill it.

We've been together ever since. We talked about marriage three days after the night described above. We told her parents and mine.

Strangely enough, they actually seemed to believe it as much as we did.

19 years later we're still together. We are married with two wonderful boys. She's still my best friend and the person who makes me whole.

I also know that will never change. That sort of certainty is a comfort in this strange world and it drives me on through life.

We we're 19 when we met and now it is 19 yrs later. We've known each other for as long as we were alive before we even met. But, it is hard to remember the time before that night. Hard to remember what I was like without her. I could never go back to being an incomplete person again.

Now, I've got to rush off. I've written much more than I intended to and I still have a story edit to finish and an anniversary dinner to start cooking. And, as I'm doing a slow-roasted Greek lamb leg, I've only got an hour of editing time left! 5 hours might seem like a long time to roast a leg of lamb, but it will all be worth it by about 7.30 when I dish it up. :)