Tate Hallaway interview

Tate's Bio:

Tate Hallaway is the best selling alias of the award-winning science fiction author Lyda Morehouse.  Lyda wrote a four book trilogy about angels, computers and the end of the world all of which are currently out of print, though she still writes and publishes science fiction/fantasy/horror short stories.   Tate’s books are all in print with more in the Garnet Lacey series in the works.  You can find both Lyda and Tate all blogging all over the internet including places like LiveJournal, Blogspot, MySpace, Facebook, and even YouTube.  “They” live in Saint Paul, Minnesota with five cats, a five year old son, and many, many fresh water fish.

Blurb for Romancing the Dead

It’s been one heck of a week for Garnet Lacey. The Vatican witch hunters finally think she’s dead, the FBI has closed their file on her, she’s co-founding a new coven—and the gorgeous vampire she loves has just asked her to marry him. How lucky can one girl get?

Then, her fiancé goes missing and Garnet’s worried sick. Has he been kidnapped? Or could he have run off with that blonde from the coven? Now Garnet will have to seek the help of her future stepson—the same brat who turned her over to the witch hunters for a brand-new Jaguar. But there’s more bad news: the Goddess Lilith, who camps out in her body, has been making embarrassing appearances. And on top of that, some killer’s on her tail...
 
 
INTERVIEW
 
What was your inspiration for writing ROMANCING THE DEAD?

ROMANCING THE DEAD is the third book in my paranormal chick-lit Garnet Lacey series.  People often ask me how I, as a writer, stay inspired when writing about the same characters.  I think I could get pretty bored if I didn’t allow my characters not only to be human (and thus full of flaws), but also to change and grow. 

A lot of the romance I read when I first started reading romances were “first blush,” as in the main point of the story was the excitement of meeting someone new.  At the end of these novels, things faded very quickly into the nebulous (and unrealistic) happily, ever after.  One of the things I’m trying to do in the Garnet Lacey series is promote the romance that can be found in a long-term relationship.  I mean, Garnet is in love with a vampire, for goodness sake.  You don’t get more “ever after” than that.   I, myself, have been together with my partner for more than twenty years, and I don’t think those kinds of relationships get a lot of glory in romance novels, you know?

Plus, in every novel I like to take on one of the tropes in urban fantasy and do my own thing with it.  In this book, I have Garnet meet someone who may or may not be a werewolf.

Who are your favorite authors and books now and when you were growing up?

Currently my favorite authors are writing graphic novels.  I’m in to Brian Michael Bendis’ NEW AVENGERS.  I just finished reading NEW AVENGERS: ILLUMINATI in preparation of the up-coming Secret Invasion.  I’m also a huge fan of Ed Brubaker’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, particularly his WINTER SOLDIER stuff.  Comic books haven’t been this fresh for me since I first picked up Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s FANTASTIC FOUR when I was a kid.

For more traditional fare, my favorites are Rachel Caine, who writes the Weather Warden series, and Kristin Katheryn Rusch who writes the Disappeared series, which is a kind of futuristic a police procedural set on Mars.  When I was growing up my favorite authors were Katherine Kurtz and Anne McCaffrey. 

What is it about fantasy/science fiction that attracts you?

The explosions.

Seriously, I was talking to a friend about this at a bar the other night, and I confessed that one of my favorite things about writing paranormal romances/urban fantasy is that you get to have all the relationship/girly stuff married to the high-octane adventure/boy stuff.  That’s pretty near perfect for me.

Why did you decide to make Garnet a Witch?

Because I am.

And it can be very difficult to find realistic portrayals of Wiccan religion in novels.  One of the things that drives me crazy in movies and TV shows like “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” is when a complete novice reads a spell they find in a dusty book and they conjure a demon without breaking a sweat. 

Of course, because the Garnet Lacey series is fantasy, I take liberties, too.  Real-life witchcraft can be pretty dull.  The scope of Garnet’s power is a lot stronger than anything I’ve experienced in real life, but I try to show ritual as part of her daily practice as well.  In other words, she doesn’t just cast spells, but she also prays to a Goddess and observes the cycle of the seasons, like the real witches I know. 

What (besides writing) do you do for fun?

I’m an aquarist.  I have four fresh water fish tanks in my house and have had over the course of a year:  powder blue dwarf gourami, neon tetra, bettas (a spawning pair), a white cloud minnow, yellow tuxedo guppies, and several goldfish (comet and shubunkin).  I’m so into it I read fish magazines and occasionally write long, boring blogs about my fish triumphs and woes on my livejournal:  [http://lyda222.livejournal.com].  My betta Johnny/Giant-Girl is even a YouTube star:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Gg0mfEfTw.

What sort of research did you do to write this book?

Well, because I’d decided to play around with the urban fantasy trope of werewolves and the story takes place in Madison, Wisconsin, I did a little research and discovered that Wisconsin has its own werewolf myth: “the Beast of Bray Road.”  There’s a book about it by LInda S. Godfrey called BEAST OF BRAY ROAD: TAILING WISCONSIN'S WEREWOLF.

Garnet loves astrology. Is that your favorite thing too?

One of them.  Just like Garnet I’m an amateur astrologer. Yeah, we’re talking about predictions and horoscopes and stuff.  No, I don’t think the stars rule my destiny, but, yeah, I think it’s all a very fascinating and entertaining way to look at life and relationships.  

I love astronomy, too.  My friend Rachel takes me and my four-year old out star-gazing on clear nights.  The science fiction fan in me loves seeing the rings of Saturn and such.

What are you writing now?

There’s more Garnet Lacey in the works.  I’m currently putting the wraps on book four, DEAD IF I DO, which I like to describe as “The Wedding Planner” meets “Night of the Living Dead.”

Did you always want to write? Or did you stumble into it? How did you get where you are now?

It took boredom to turn me into a writer. 

True, I was an English major in college, but other than dabbling a little in fanfic as a teen I didn’t really do a lot of creative writing.  After college, I had a series of dead-end secretarial jobs and really didn’t require a whole lot of my brain power.  One of these jobs didn’t even come with a computer, but when I incessantly bugged my boss for work she taught me the art of the slack.  She said, “Sometimes it’s important to LOOK busy.”  So, I started typing letters home to friends.  The letters turned into little silly stories, limericks, and finally, the beginning of my first novel, Sidhe Promised, which has never been sold.

Someone either a friend or my partner talked me into taking a science fiction writing class at the Loft http://www.loft.org  I had an awesome teacher who taught us the art of critique and encouraged us to form writers’ critique groups outside of class.  The one I formed from that class with my friend and fellow writer H. Courrage LeBlanc, Wyrdsmiths is still going strong today, nearly twelve years later.  If you want to check out the "life" of a writers' group, we have a blog: http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com

Eventually, through a friend of a friend I got my second novel, Archangel Protocol, under the nose of an agent.  The rest, as they say, is history.

What does a typical writing day look like for you? How long do you write, that sort of thing?

Well, I’m in crunch time now, so I write close to four hours a night, from about 8:00 pm to midnight.  Normally, however, I tend to clock closer to only a couple of hours, if that.  I have a full-time job as a mom, so my writing time doesn’t start until everyone is fed and tucked in their beds.  When not writing under a deadline, I also take weekends off.

Hm, which may explain why I'm in crunch time now, eh?

Where do you write??

Wherever my laptop is.  I tend to write propped up in bed or on the couch in the TV room. 

What is easiest/hardest for you as a writer?

I’ve always found dialogue the easiest to write.  That’s probably because it’s the part I practice the most.  Not only do I love to talk, but also when I’m falling asleep at night it’s the fictional conversations that I play with in my head. 

As for hard, that would be plot.  If I had my druthers, no one would do anything.  They’d all sit around in a coffee shop and argue.

This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there?

Though all of them are meant to stand more-or-less on their own, there are two previous Garnet Lacey books:  TALL, DARK & DEAD and DEAD SEXY.  Both follow the exploits of Garnet Lacey, a Witch who accidentally drew in the dark and murderous Goddess Lilith to protect her coven from attack by Vatican witch hunters.  When the stories start, she’s on the run and trying desperately to give up witchcraft, which Lilith (and, consequentially, she) crave like a drug.  Tall, dark and dead Sebastian Von Traum comes into the bookstore the Garnet manages and, as they say, hilarity ensues. 
And explosions… or at least zombies.

There’s an excerpt of the first chapters of all three books available on my website  http://www.tatehallaway.com.

Other useful stuff:

Amazon.com links to Tate's books:

Romancing the Dead:  http://www.amazon.com/Romancing-Dead-Garnet-Lacey-Book/dp/0425221334/

Dead Sexy (Garnet Lacey #2): http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sexy-Garnet-Lacey-Book/dp/0425215083/

Tall, Dark & Dead (Garnet Lacey #1):  http://www.amazon.com/Tall-Dark-Dead-Garnet-Lacey/dp/0425209725/

Places to find Tate on the Web:

Website:  http://www.tatehallaway.com
Blog:  http://tatehallaway.blogspot.com
Wyrdsmiths group blog: http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com
Fangs, Fur & Fey (group blog for paranormal romance writers): http://community.livejournal.com/fangs_fur_fey/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/tatehallaway

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Last one for today

I've been away for a week, which explains the sudden flurry of posts on my blog. I have a bulging inbox, mail file and clipboard full of notes to get to, so I'll probably be silent for another week while I try desperately to catch up.

Anyway, we've settled on a date and time for the Hal Spacejock 4 book launch:

Where: Dymocks Cannington, Westfield Carousel Shopping Centre
When: 27th May at 6:30pm
RSVP: Dymocks on (08) 9356 8888 (Trading hours & contact details here)

That's in Perth, Western Australia for all you overseas blog readers. This is what it looks like from (way) above:


View Larger Map

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Hal 3 review

The “Hal Spacejock” books are funny, very much in the tradition of “Red Dwarf” and “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” but there are plenty of things that make them different, and in some facets superior, to those famous titles.

This isn’t a gaudy, exotic, higher-state-of-consciousness type SF future; it’s a run-down, penny-pinching, two-bit swindling kind of future, and Hal Spacejock is often the biggest swindler of them all.

Full review here (Minor spoilers included)

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Measuring success

There are several ways to measure the success of a novel - and good reviews and appearances in bestseller lists don't really define the kind of success publishers are looking for. Sure, they're great when they happen, but you still have to shift the bulk of the print run to make any money, and a two-three week splash after release isn't enough to do it.

Because stores can return unsold books (within reason), initial orders for a particular title don't really tell the publisher a whole lot. If they print 5000 copies and ship 3000, there's a good chance 20-50% of them will come back for credit at some stage. (Publishers would prefer that books be non-returnable, but the problem with hard sales is that bookstores then order 1/2 to 1/3 what they'd take IF they could send them back again. And a big pile of copies in-store is a far more effective sales tool than nifty bookmarks or expensive press adverts.)

Back to the point. If a publisher prints X thousand books and sells the lot, then prints another x thousand and sells those too, THAT's success on their terms. In other words, second printing, third printing .. I like to think of it as going back to the goose for more golden eggs ;-)

I don't often post without mentioning Hal, so you can probably see where I'm going with this ... yes, my publisher just informed me that they're ordering a third printing for the first Hal Spacejock book. Now we can talk about Hal Spacejock 5 ;-)

And with every reprint, and every new Hal book, the price of the series to overseas publishers is going up, and up, and up ...

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

P-p-pick up a penguin

Just found this on my daily trawl through the web:

"Do you have what it takes to write a commercial crime/thriller novel? If so, enter our Penguin Crime Writing Competition and if you are judged the winner by our expert panel you will be published by Penguin Australia."

(Open to Australian residents)

Penguin Crime Writing Competition

Entries close 23rd June, and you can read the terms & conditions on the competition page. A quick scan shows they're only after the first few chapters (up to 5000 words), plus a complete synopsis with the estimated final word count. In other words, it doesn't look like you need a completed manuscript to enter (he says underhandedly)

Not a bad looking contest at all.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Hal 1 review

Rarely have I read a book that was simultaneously so amusing and so warm-hearted. Humour usually revolves around laughing at the misfortune of others, but there’s precious little nastiness here. This is an excellent novel, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Book Review - Hal Spacejock by Simon Haynes

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

LibraryThing coolness

Today I discovered LibraryThing has added venues and events to their database. Users add their favourite bookstores, with links, and if you specify a location in your LT profile you can get a list of nearby bookstores, with ratings, and also any upcoming events in those stores.

Just go to www.librarything.com/local to see the results in action. You even get a Google map of the bookstore location.

All very web 2.0

I stuck Fantastic Planet and Dymocks Carousel in the database, since both stores have been kind to the Hal books. If you're on LT and have a fave local store, why not add them in too?

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Chapter One Samples

Below you'll find a double-sided flyer for each novel in the Hal Spacejock series. Each contains the complete first chapter of the relevant book, along with a cover shot and publication details.

Some suggested uses:

• School librarians could use them to tempt reluctant readers.
• Bookstores could leave a few on the counter*
• Bookstores could tuck the next flyer into the previous book.
• Keen Hal Spacejock fans could give them to friends & fellow SF aficionados.
• Dedicated Hal fans could put a few on the leaflet table at the next con.
• Rabid Hal fans could hand them to total strangers in shopping malls.


   

One side is colour, the other monochrome. I print the mono side on my laser first, then flip them over and run them through the inkjet (borderless printing) for the colour.

These are three-fold leaflets - fold the back flap in towards the middle, then fold the cover over it.


* Because we ALL know how much empty space there is on a bookstore counter ...

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Publication blog

I promised to blog about non-sekret communications with my publisher, giving you an insight (hopefully) into the process.

I can't talk about this or that or even the other, but I can mention that I'm meeting with Clive and Claire from FP next week to discuss a major publicity idea for Hal Spacejock. (My idea of having a lifesize Clunk crash all the breakfast TV shows fell on deaf ears. It seems they're already hosted by expressionless old robots, so another one barging in wouldn't raise any eyebrows.)

I can't even discuss my grand idea yet, but it involves zero cost and isn't the least bit illegal. Bound to fail, in other words.

I also have five review copies of Hal 4 sitting on a shelf above my desk. At this stage I can only send them within Australia, so if you're in any way connected with a reviews site, blog, major daily newspaper or breakfast show (creaky robotic presenters notwithstanding), please leave a comment.

I'm guessing copies will start appearing in stores mid-May, which is just four weeks away, so I don't suppose there's any harm in posting a review from early May onwards.

The other thing I got was a nice poster with nice covers of the four Hal books and my ugly mug in the corner just to even things up. It's a good poster though - nice quality - and I'm sure I can organise copies for any bookstore staff who happen to be reading this. (Three that I know of, plus the incognitos who drop by to see whether I've finally written something other than Hal. Sorry.)

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

The first review of Hal Spacejock 4 (No Free Lunch)

Unfortunately, you can't get your hands on a copy until June, but review copies are circulating and that means early reviews. (Don't worry, I'd never post spoilers.)



Anyway, the first Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch review is in, and they liked it!



"No Free Lunch is an effortless read that doesn't take itself too seriously. The plot is fun and intelligent, with some genuine laugh-out loud moments. [...] it is more subtle, and the main character more complex and endearing, than the macho title suggests." Bookseller+Publisher, May 2008.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

New Hal Spacejock 1 review

Hal 2 yesterday, Hal 1 today. Different reviewer, different take on the book.

This is one of the funniest books I've read in a long time and can't wait to buy the next in the series.

Every reviewer picks up on a slightly different facet of Hal's character, or the plot, or the humour. This is the first review I've seen where Hal is compared to a headstrong boss in the workplace ;-)

Full review here.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Hal 2 review

I recently met up with Guy Salvidge after he joined Stromatolights (the Western Australian SF/F mailing list). We got chatting about SF, books, publishing, books and more SF, and then I did a nasty, horrible thing ... I offered him a copy of Hal Spacejock Second Course.


... a refreshing change from the post-cyberpunk trying-to-be-cool futures we get so often in SF these days.


Usually I'm pretty good about giving away books. I always make sure people get the first in the series, because I know how much I hate starting mid-stream. Recently, however, I've had to give away either book two or book three, simply because the first was in short supply.


Haynes is a skillful writer, but he never forgets that he is writing to entertain.


Anyway, Guy read Hal 2 in double-time and has now posted a nice review. Now I'll have to rustle up a review copy of Hal 1 for sure.


Descriptive scenes are particularly well done, conjuring just enough detail to keep the reader 'in the loop,' but not so much as to bog the story down. In short, Haynes knows what he's doing.


So, he's obviously a nice Guy ...

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Annual Locus Poll

If you're into SF and/or Fantasy, you might like to know about the annual Locus poll:

Locus Poll

There's a few days left if you want to fill it out. You don't have to be a Locus subscriber, and they publish a comprehensive table of results later in the year. More data points = more comprehensive.

Spread the word!

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Good Readings

Nope, not what you think. I just wanted to say thanks to Andrew at the Readings (Australia) bookstore chain. I emailed them because they were still showing an outdated cover for Hal 3, and not only did he fix that up but he also added summaries to all the books AND linked them all under a common author name. You'd think this would be standard for any bookseller, but take a look at some of the online catalogues around and you'll find four different spellings/combinations/re-imaginings/complete stuff-ups of my name - one for each book (and sometimes with a spare.) Another bookseller's catalogue has the most hilarious mashup of blurb sentences which stops mid sen--

The other point of this post? To let you know Readings are taking pre-orders for Hal Spacejock book 4.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Guest Author on the Zimbooktu forums

The Zimbooktu people have kindly invited me on board as their author of the month, and I'll be answering questions and generally making a nuisance of myself over there throughout April. (As opposed to making a nuisance of myself here, which is my usual course of action.)

Feel free to drop by and participate.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Hal 1 hits the bestseller list ... again

Fantastic Planet just posted their bestseller list for the month of March 2008, and what should appear in eighth spot but the original Hal Spacejock? This book was released in 2005, so it's pretty good going ...

March 2008 Bestsellers at Fantastic Planet

1...The Execution Channel, Ken Macleod
2...Off Armageddon Reef, David Weber
3...Heart of the Mirage, Glenda Larke
4...Halting State, Charles Stross
5...Rynemonn, Terry Dowling
6...Spiked, edited by M. Rode
7...Cosmonaut Keep, Ken Macleod
8...Hal Spacejock, Simon Haynes
9...Grave Sight, Charlaine Harris
10..Alliance Space, C. J. Cherryh
10..The Awakening, Bevan McGuinness

Just a reminder that Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch (book 4) will be released across Australia and New Zealand on June the 2nd. There will be a launch event, and I'll do my best to visit bookstores around Perth to sign stock.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

In case you missed it ...

Yesterday, I set up a new front page for my website.

Today, I'm reconsidering my choice of web hosting service.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

LOL bookz

If you like a chuckle, check out Jim C. Hines' (Mr Goblin himself!) LOL book posting for today.

Lots of previous efforts to giggle, smirk and snark at too.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Tusk tusk ...

How did they pull this stunt then?

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

April Fools ... not

My faithful, reliable digital watch, which must be nearing its 20th year now, reliably and faithfully informed me this morning that today was April 1st.

I'd already spent 20-30 mins reading my favourite news sites, and I got this sudden aha! as I realised all the ludicrous junk I'd been reading was nothing more than elaborate April Fools gags.

So, I went back and re-read the stories, looking for 'Avril Premier' bylines, grinning to myself as I realised how I'd been taken in unawares.

I also implemented a few tweaks on the Hal Spacejock website, to confuse visitors. Some new images, a bit of code, upload the lot .. done.

Then I spotted the date in the corner of my screen. March 31. Oops.

I'm busy reverting the website and adjusting the watch as you read this ...

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

More good news

I found a parcel on the doormat this morning, and when I ripped it open I realised it contained four copies of Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch!

I've scanned the front and back covers, and put them online for your viewing pleasure:



Remember the cheeky business card I designed? My publisher went for it! It's right there on the back cover:

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Surprised and pleased

I was very happy to see the Andromeda Spaceways co-op pick up a Ditmar for "Best Professional Acheivement" last night. (The Ditmars are the Australian Science Fiction Awards, and they recognise excellence by Australians in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.)

There's more good news: We published Rick Kennett's story 'The Dark and What It Said' in ASIM #28, and he just scored the Ditmar for the best short story of 2007.

And more: Tehani Wessely, a founding member, editor of numerous issues, and the driving force behind the three ASIM best-ofs, picked up the Ditmar for best new talent.

Yea verily, we're rolling in recognition, and it feels great.

I also learned that Hal Spacejock: Just Desserts scored a Tin Duck for Best WA Professional Long Work, which is wonderful news. Big thanks to those who voted for the book, and I'm very grateful. (Series authors face several challenges, including stores carrying later books and not the early ones, the prospect of having a series dropped mid stream, author fatigue with the characters, etc, etc. A nice award right out of the blue sure helps dispel those concerns, and it's a very handy tool for sales reps when encouraging stores to order the next in the series.)

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Plot synopsis project

A couple of weeks back Joshua Palmatier suggested this project, in which published authors post a copy of the synopsis they used to actually sell their novel to a publisher. (Or in some cases, the document used to describe the book to the author's editor. There's a subtle difference.)

His post is here, so you can see the reasoning behind the project.

I'm posting the synopsis of Hal 3 - the document I used to show my editor what I was intending to write. We went back and forth a number of times, and while the finished book diverges a fair bit from this original outline, I must point out that reading this outline could spoil the book for you

So, if you're an avid Hal fan hanging out for Hal 3, don't read on. On the other hand, if you have no interest in Hal and just follow my blog for the writing and publishing tips, go for it! (Hal fans - dozens of writers have posted their synopses today under a similar title, so you'll be able to find others to read.)

Without further ado, here's the summary as presented to my editor:

Hal Spacejock Just Desserts original outline

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Interview with Paul Melko

Paul lives in Ohio with his beautiful wife and four fairly wonderful children. He is an active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, where he sits on the board of directors as the South-Central Regional Director and is chair of the Grievance Committee.

Paul's fiction has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Spider Magazine, The Year's Best Science Fiction, Talebones, and other magazines and anthologies. His work has been translated into Spanish, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, and Russian, and it has been nominated for the Sturgeon, Nebula, and Hugo Awards. TEN SIGMAS AND OTHER UNLIKELIHOODS is his collection of science fiction.



1) What fiction did you select for this collection and why?
TEN SIGMAS is a collection of my science fiction short fiction, all published within the last decade or so. The twelve stories first appeared in such places as Asimov's SF, Talebones, and Strange Horizons. The title story first appeared in Talebones #28, and was subsequently picked up by Gardner Dozois for his year's best collection.


2) Explain the title for my blog readers.
The title story "Ten Sigmas" is from the view point of a character who lives simultaneously in billions of universes. He's a normal distribution of all his selves. During the course of the story, he continually makes decisions that drive him farther and farther to the edge of the normal distribution, until he is so far away from the center -- ten standard deviations, or ten sigmas -- that he becomes unique again in his consciousness, just like you and me.


3) There's some overlap of stories between this collection and your first novel, isn't there?
My first novel -- SINGULARITY'S RING -- was released last month. It's the story of five teenagers that are actually a plural human who can share thoughts and emotions among themselves. Each chapter is from the point of view of one of the teens. When I first wrote the book, there were six humans in the composite human. Subsequent editorial decisions resulted in the sixth person being dropped. The collection includes the original sextet-based stories that became the novel, as well as the section cut from the novel and first published in Asimov's SF: "The Summer of the Seven." Also in this collection is the Nebula-, Hugo-, and Sturgeon-Award nominated story "Walls of the Universe." This story is the basis for my next novel, of the same title, coming out winter 2009 from Tor Books.


4) Why did you choose Fairwood Press to publish this collection?
Fairwood Press publisher's Patrick Swenson published in his magazine Talebones a number of my stories: six of them, in fact. Two of them are included herein. The sixth is in the current issue of Talebones, "Cankerman's Shower," available now. When it came time for me to publish my collection, there really was no choice except for Fairwood Press. Check out the other collections available from Fairwood.


5) Come on. Which story is your favorite?
All of these stories are special to me. How can you ask that? All right, "Ten Sigmas" is the story that is most significant to me. I still choke up when I read the ending. Yes, I'm a big baby.


6) Who drew the artwork?
Adam Hunter Peck drew the awesome cover. Check him out here: http://www.adamhunterpeck.com/


7) What are you writing now?
I've just turned in the novel version of "Walls of the Universe." My follow-up novel is set in the same universe as "Cankerman's Shower" and is entitled CANKERMAN'S TWIN. It's the story of a misogynistic remittance man with no scruples, traveling about the galactic empire, getting into trouble and adventure.


8) Where will you be next?
I'll be at Millenicon in Cincinnati March 14-16. Then I'll be at the Nebulas in Austin, Texas April 25-27. Over the summer, look for me at Marcon in Columbus, Confluence in Pittsburgh, and WorldCon in Denver!

Link to buy: www.fairwoodpress.com
Link to Amazon Listing

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

More on yWriter

yWriter4 is easily the most-searched, most-downloaded and most-used of my free software apps, and after a suggestion in a blog comment yesterday I decided to set up a Google Group for the program:

Visit the yWriter Google Group

It's a public group, so you'll be able to read posts even if you don't join. Hopefully people will use the thing as a source of yWriter info and tips, and maybe we'll even get some of that community spirit going.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

yWriter 4 review

Just had an email letting me know of the first major review of yWriter 4.

Lots of pros, a good score, and only two cons. One of the cons (no submission tracker) is irrelevant, since I already have Sonar in the stable. The other ... well, I don't believe in hand-holding when it comes to software ;-)

Anyway, take a look at the review for more.

EDIT: Don't miss the new yWriter mailing list.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Publishing diary #2

A couple of weeks back I promised to post about all the interactions with my publisher leading up to the launch of book four ... and maybe beyond. We're still a long way from release date (2nd June) so the posts won't be that frequent, but I do have a couple of updates for you.

Yesterday my publicist emailed about getting together to talk about the upcoming release, but thanks to my dodgy back I've had to put that off for now. I had a CT scan and xrays this morning, and it's still giving me a lot of pain. Anyway, I offered to chat on the phone initially, and perhaps we can have a meeting to discuss any points raised.

The other thing I discovered is that review copies of Hal 4 are going out. I've not seen the finished book myself yet, despite my casual hints, but I suppose I already know how it ends and I can't very well post an unbiased review. Anyway, I put in a word for Mary Koenig, who reviews for the WA education department. Their publication only comes out 2-3 times a year, which means long lead times. She obviously enjoyed the first three books so I'm keen to see her reaction to #4.

Speaking of fours, today was the fourth time I've driven my car since the Xmas holidays, so after the xrays etc I decided to make the most of the trip and went to visit the nice people at Dymocks Carousel. (The first drive was round the block back in February, when I was checking to see how my back would stand up to it. The second was to pick up an Atari 1040 STe, also in February, from a guy who contacted me via my website after seeing my emulators page. He just wanted it to go to a good home, and I now have it set up in my office. The third trip was last week, when my daughter missed her bus. But I digress.)

The reason for the Dymocks trip was to advise them about Hal 4 coming out, but they asked me about the book launch before I could bring the subject up, so we're good there.

Finally, I had nice email from one of the local Penguin sales reps, congratulating me on the upcoming release of Hal 4. Penguin distribute the books outside my home state, so this rep has no financial interest in the Hal books and can't even take orders for them, but that just made it even nicer to get her email. I know publishers can seem like faceless conglomerates, but little touches like that show there's a human side.

Oh, one more thing... I just spotted a familiar name on the Tin Duck (WA SF awards) ballot. Yes, Tehani Wessely, who put together the three Andromeda Spaceways best-ofs last year (details here), has been nominated for Best WA Professional Production. Go T!

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Aussiereviews.com and Hal Spacejock 2 & 3

These reviews were posted late last year, and I somehow managed to miss them. (I had the pleasure of meeting the reviewer, Sally Murphy, at the All Saints' Kids' Lit festival in April last year, and I was happy to sign a copy of Hal Spacejock to her - right underneath the promo blurb for the book which my publisher snipped out of her first Hal review!)

Hal Spacejock Second Course reviewed here

"Often sequels to successful first books can be downright disappointing or repetitive, but this sequel is better than the first, with more development of Hal and Clunk as characters and an interesting cast of supporting characters, as well as a plot with twists and turns, and plenty of humour."

Hal Spacejock Just Desserts reviewed here

"Author Simon Haynes has found a formula that works, yet manages to make each new instalment sufficiently different to avoid it becoming predictable."

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Interview with Alma Alexander

ALMA ALEXANDER is a novelist whose work has appeared in thirteen languages and more than 20 countries worldwide. Her international bestseller "The Secrets of Jin Shei" is perhaps the best known of her adult books, but in 2007 she branched out into the world of YA literature with the release of the first book in the Worldweavers trilogy, "Gift of the Unmage", which has garnered a great deal of reader enthusiasm and critical praise, being compared to Susan Cooper, Madeleine L'Engle, and even J K Rowlings. "Spellspam" is the second book in the Harper Collins trillogy, released March 11, 2008. The third book, due in the spring of 2009, is entitled "Cybermage".


1) What was your inspiration for writing Spellspam?

Back in 2002 I went to my first-ever World Fantasy Convention. I had no plans to do any writing in the YA arena, but I wandered, at some point, into a panel on YA literature because it had a bunch of writers on it whose work I have admired - Charles de Lint, for one, and Jane Yolen. After about five or six minutes of chatter on the subject of YA, someone from the audience raised a hand and asked, "What about Harry Potter?"

And Jane Yolen sighed and said, "I was wondering how long it would be before that particular elephant walked into the room."

This was 2002 - Pottermania was in full swing. And I am sure they went on to discuss that, amongst other things, But I didn't exactly hear any of it. Because the next thing that came out of Jane Yolen's mouth was something about how she didn't particularly like the way that the Potter books treated girls. And I was off and running, making the acquaintance of Thea Winthrop - not the Boy Who Lived but the Girl Who Couldn't - and exploring the Last Ditch School for the Incurably Incompetent, to which she would be sent because she, born a Double Seventh, the sventh child of two seventh children and the most magical of entities, cannot do any magic. At all. At ALL.

Until everything changes...


2) Who are your favorite authors and books now and when you were growing up?

Good grief, I read EVERYTHING. I blew through the kids' section of our library like a tornado, and there were always books in my house, and the rule was if I could read it and if it interested me then it was allowed. There were no restrictions. I grew up in language heaven. I could not possibly start naming all my favourite authors, the list would go on forever. I cut my teeth on authorless books - the collections of myths and legends from various sources. But when it comes to a few seminal influences - Tolkien, of course. The Narnia books. Roger Zelazny.

But also Henryk Sienkiewicz, Sigrid Undsett, John Galsworthy, Pearl Buck, Ivo Andric.


3) What is it about fantasy/science fiction that attracts you?

The fact that it allows for the telling of pure unvarnished truth, and because it's wrapped up in such a pretty tissue of lies and enchantment people seldom realise that the story they are reading is far more real and far more emotionally true than much of what they cling to in their "Real" worlds. I believe in fantasy. I have always thought there was a vast power in dreams.


4) Why did you decide to make Thea "incapable" of magic ?

Because everything has a price - as my Alphiri (a race of elves with the souls of Star Trek's Ferengi will take great pleasure in telling you). And this is a coming-of-age story, and coming of age means finding out what your values truly are, and how they shape who you are becoming. Thea's inability to to magic in the first book of the trilogy is a very important formative period for her.


5) What (besides writing) do you do for fun?

Heh. Reading.

Also, photography, embroidery, watching a few good shows on TV (currently - spring 2008 - "House", "Lost", "Men in Trees").

Travel.

Did I mention reading?


6) What sort of research did you do to write a book?/What kind of preparation do you do when you are writing?

That depends entirely on the book. "The Secrets of Jin Shei" and "Embers of Heaven" were extremely research-intensive - but then, they were historical fantasies based on and rooted in things that existed in our own world, and it was important. Even though the world I was creating was my own - to make it right, to make it true, even though I had to break the rules to do it - and for me to be able to do that I needed to know exactly what the rules were to begin with.

With the YA books, yes, there was research done. For "Gift of the Unmage" I read up on the Anasazi, and learned about the world creation myths and the elder gods of the Native Americans, the peoples who first walked the North American continent before the Europeans came. It imbues the books with a certain amount of mysticism which makes the books intrinsically American, as American as Harry Potter was English. But there were other aspects of the story that needed research, too, and for the third book I read up exhaustively on Nilkola Tesla, who is one of the major characters in "Cybermage".

I stir in all kinds of things into this particular YA brew - First World gods and tricksters, modern cutting-edge cyber-magic, Eastern European fairy tales, and pure invention (like the Alphiri, for instance). It was a wonderful writing experience.


7) What are you writing now?

The new project is an adult novel inspired by Byzantium. Vastly more complex and research-intensive than the Worldweavers books were. But it's time for another of my complicated, lush, vast, broad-canvas stories - and I've already waded into this one, and it is going to be GOOD.


8) Did you always want to write? Or did you stumble into it? How did you get where you are now?

In order, yes, no, and I stumbled blindly along what I thought were lots of different roads but there was only one, and it led here.

I grew up in love with words - it began with the influence of my poet-Grandfather who read me his sonnets from when I was five years old and it stuck, I never could shake language from me after that, I devoured books, and I started writing my own poetry when I was six or so. I wrote my first novel at 11 (and it was horrible, and thankfully doesn't survive). I won a national writing competition back home in Yugoslavia when I was 12. I wrote the next novel at 14, and you know, it isn't half bad if I went back and tweaked the 14-year-old-ishness out of some of it. I started publishing before I was twenty - but I didn't get a "real" book published until 1995, when I was in my early thirties, and I went full-time only eight years ago. But in the meantime I managed to earn an MSc in Molecular Biology, run an allergy society professional journal, do a stint as senior editor with an educational publisher where I produced text books in subjects as widely varied as Social Studies and Mathematics, got married... lived a life.

But I am, and have always been, first and last a WRITER. That has never changed. It never will.


9) What does a typical writing day look like for you? How long do you write, that sort of thing?

There is no such thing as a typical writing day. The one thing that all days have in common is coffee - lots of coffee - hello, my name is Alma and I am an addict. But the rest of it - if I am reading a research book, I am "writing" just as much as if I had my behind planted in a chair and my fingers on a keyboard. Writing is what happens in the mind, and for me it's a constant and ongoing process - putting actual words on a page is just the final installment of that process, the culminating act. THere are days when I will spend hours doing that, pouring out the words, writing up to 10 000 words a day. There are days I will go for a long walk and wrestle with a scene or a character until I can get to a point where I CAN sit down and let the words come. That's half the joy of being what I am. I have no "routine". I am responsible only to myself, my story, and my characters - and it takes however long it takes.


10) Where do you write?

In an office with a view of cedar woods, where deer occasionally come to my door to greet me and woodpeckers flutter around in the trees. I have a massive oak desk, my present to myself from the first check from "Jin SHei", and a library full of books at my back.


11) What is easiest/hardest for you as a writer?

Dreaming is easy. My stories... just come, and are already fledged, and fly away with me.

Rewriting... is horrible. It all mucks about with my instinctive sense of order, and screws around with the shape of my vision, and drives me demented. I know it is necessary, sometimes essential. I don't have to LIKE it..


12) This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there.

"Spellspam" will be my ninth published book.

I started out with a collection of three fantasy short stories - much like the Oscar WIlde fairy tales, "The Nightingale and the Rose", like that - which was published by Longman UK in 1995 and STILL brings me in a trickle of royalties to this day. That was followed by "Houses in Africa", an autobiographical volume describing my growing-up years in Africa, published by a small New Zealand publisher and now out of print. That in turn was followed by an epistolary email novel called "Letters from the Fire", written in collaboration with R.A. ("Deck") Deckert, the man I subsequently married. That, too, is out of print. But then came the "Changer of Days" books - published in 2001/2002 in New Zealand, and reprinted in the US in 2005 by Eos as "The Hidden Queen" and "Changer of Days"; and my big successes, "The Secrets of Jin Shei" and "Embers of Heaven", both published by Harper Collins in their English editions and by a plethora of foreign-language publishers elsewhere.

The YA books were next, with "Gift of the Unmage" in 2007 and "Spellspam" in 2008 and "Cybermage", my jubilee tenth published book, due out in 2009.


Visit Alma at her website, www.AlmaAlexander.com, and learn more about the Worldweavers books at their own site, www.WorldWeaversWeb.com. Alma also blogs at http://anghara.livejournal.com, and is a regular guest blogger at www.SFNovelists.com and www.Storytellersunplugged.com.


About SPELLSPAM:

When Email Attacks!

What would happen if the spam that accumulates in your inbox suddenly started carrying live spells - open a "Lose Weight Now" email, and you do, you drop pounds, you open the thing inadvertently twice and you turn into a wraith? Or a "Free GIft" email results in a subscirption to a magazine in Mandarin Chinese or a pair of Emperor Penguns delivered to your door?

And what happens if it is a grounding tenet in your world that the only thing actually impervious to magic IS a computer, and magical... SPELLSPAM... is frankly impossible...?

Welcome to Thea Winthrop's next adventure ... Spellspam

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Interview with Maria V. Snyder

Maria V. Snyder changed careers in 1995 from being a Meteorologist to a Novelist when she began working on her first novel, Poison Study. Published in October 2005, Poison Study won the 2006 Compton Crook Award, was a 2005 Booksense pick, and received a Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly.

Maria's second book, Magic Study was a 2006 Book Sense pick and a RITA Award Finalist. Her latest release Fire Study is due out March 1, 2008. While doing research for Fire Study, Maria learned that working with glass requires deft coordination, arm strength, tons of patience, and a good partner—she now has an extensive collection of misshapened paperweights, tumblers, and bowls.

1) What was your inspiration for writing Fire Study?

1A) I wanted to explore the uses and abuses of power in this book. Poison Study, which is the first in the Study series, concentrated on Yelena’s inner conflicts and her self-confidence, and only touched briefly on magic. Magic Study focused on discovering the extent and type of powers Yelena possesses. In the third book, I wanted to show the extent some magicians will go to gain power over others. Using magic to solve problems can be addicting, and, in Fire Study Yelena realizes how much she depends on her magical abilities. She must learn how to balance the use of her power with more mundane methods and to discover that completely turning your back on magic isn’t the right answer.

2) Where do you find your inspiration?

2A) It can be from anywhere. I get ideas from newspaper and magazine articles, from something I see on television, from something that comes up in conversation, from dreams, or from something my children say or do. I tend not to lack for ideas just time!

3) Who are your favorite authors and books now and when you were growing up?

3A) Currently my favorite authors all have humor in their books. Since my life is so stress-filled and complicated, I’ve been enjoying light and fluffy reading with Mary Janice Davidson’s vampire series and her new mermaid series, Connie Willis is another favorite of mine, and I’ve recently discover the mystery/suspense thrillers of Harlan Coben. Growing up, I started with mysteries because that is what my mother enjoyed. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were my favorites before I graduated to Agatha Cristie, Dick Francis, Robert B. Parker, Barbara Vine, and Ed McBain.

4)Who has influenced you in your writing?

4A): I read a ton of mystery novels growing up. My favorite mystery author is Dick Francis and his books have influenced my writing style. I also use first person point of view and try to keep the story’s pace moving. My cliff hanger endings are a direct result from his books; I can never stop reading one of his books at a chapter break. My favorite fantasy writers all have strong female protagonists and interesting characters in common. Barbara Hambly’s books have a nice mix of action, character and humor - all essential elements to what I consider good fiction.

5) What is it about fantasy/science fiction that attracts you?

5A) As a writer, the attraction is in exploring new settings and characters and not having to worry too much about what is physically possible or not. I make my own rules about my world and, as long as I stick to them, can explore various problems generated by the unique setting and situation. As a reader, I enjoy traveling beyond my everyday world to a new place full of wonder and surprises.

6) Why did you decide to make Yelena a Soulfinder?

6A) The concept of everyone having a soul fascinates me. I never consciously decided to make her a Soulfinder, it just happened toward the end of Magic Study. My subconscious must have been working on it because even in Poison Study, when Yelena chooses to become the Commander’s food taster there is a moment where she is peering at her reflection wondering if she still has a soul. She felt so empty and used that she was sure her soul had gone, leaving behind a thin shell.

Being a Soulfinder also added conflict to the story. The Sitian people feared the power. Someone who has the ability to manipulate a person’s soul is serious business, especially since the last person with the power abused it by creating his own soulless army. So here’s Yelena – already an oddity by being raised in the northern lands of Ixia, conflicted over her loyalties between Ixia and Sitia and now has this ability which could condemn her before she even explores what she can do with it.

7) What (besides writing) do you do for fun?

7A) I love to travel with my family. Exploring new places and meeting new people and experiencing other cultures are wonderful for the writer’s soul  I also enjoy playing volleyball, reading and I dabble with photography.

8) What sort of research did you do to write this book?

8A) In order to write the scenes with Opal, a glass artist in the book, I needed to enroll in glass blowing classes. The teacher made it look so easy to gather a slug of glass. But when it was my turn – yikes! It was HOT! The big vat of molten glass was kept in a rip roaring furnace at a toasty 2100 degrees Fahrenheit. I held a metal rod, and, while squinting through an eye-melting orange light, I dipped the end into the thick goo and spun it, gathering a glob of glass onto the end. The incandescent glob glowed as if alive.

Once acquired, the slug then needed to be quickly shaped. Glass cooled at a rapid pace, and, even though heat waves pulsed from the slug, it didn’t stay pliable for long. My first paperweight was a misshapened blob. After hours of practice, my ability improved, and I created a paperweight worthy to hold down my next novel’s manuscript pages.

I learned that working with glass required deft coordination, arm strength, tons of patience, and a good partner—it’s a good thing I have a day job!

9) What are you writing now?

9A) I’m writing the fourth book based in the Study world titled, Storm Glass. Set five years after Fire Study, Storm Glass has a new protagonist and she’s the reason for the new series title. Storm Glass will be out December 2008. Here is the cover copy of the book:

“As a glassmaker and a magician-in-training, Opal Cowen understands trial by fire. Now it’s time to test her mettle. Someone has sabotaged the Stormdancer clan’s glass orbs, killing their most powerful magicians. The Stormdancers—particularly the mysterious and mercurial Kade—require Opal’s unique talents to prevent it happening again. But when the mission goes awry, Opal must tap into a new kind of magic as stunningly potent as it is frightening. And the further she delves into the intrigue behind the glass and magic, the more distorted things appear. With lives hanging in the balance—including her own—Opal must control powers she never knew she possessed...powers that might lead to disaster beyond anything she’s ever known.”

10) Did you always want to write? Or did you stumble into it? How did you get where you are now?

10A) I started writing because of boredom! My first job after college was as a Meteorologist for an environmental consulting firm. The amount of work came in waves, and we were either extremely busy or very bored. During the slow times, I started writing a short story. Ideas were always floating around in my mind, but that was when I began using them. I submitted my first short story for critique at a writing conference in Philadelphia, and when the workshop leader gave me 7 out of 10, I thought that was pretty good for a first effort and decided to stick with writing for a while. After my son was born and I only had about one hour a day to myself, I had to decide what was important enough to spend that precious time on. Most days writing won.

11) What does a typical writing day look like for you? How long do you write, that sort of thing?

11A) I sit down at my computer after my children leave for school. After answering email and procrastinating for an hour, I start writing and only stop briefly for lunch and continue until my son comes home around 3:30 p.m. During the school year, I’m very productive, but once summer comes along I can only do revisions.

12) Where do you write??

12A) I write in my home office. My husband enjoys woodworking and he built me a great writing room with built in bookcases and a custom made desk. I keep a number of toys nearby to fidget with as I’m working out a problem in my head, and I keep weapons nearby to make sure when I write an action scene, I’m not describing something impossible.

13) What is easiest/hardest for you as a writer?

13A) Dialogue is the easiest and the most fun to write. I struggle with details. I tend to go light on details, preferring to focus on action and dialogue. Also describing emotions without using clichés is very difficult for me, finding something fresh is hard, but when I do—it’s like hitting the lottery.

14) This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there?

14A) The first and second books in the series are still available.

In Poison Study, Yelena starts her adventure in a dungeon, waiting to be executed for murder. She is given a choice of the noose or to become the new food taster for the Commander of Ixia—a military dictator paranoid of being poisoned. She chooses the job, and learns how to taste foods for poisons without dying. Life in the castle is full of hazards, the General, whose son she killed, wants revenge, rebels plot to seize Ixia, and Yelena develops magic she can’t control—magic which is forbidden in Ixia and punishable by death. As she searches for a way to freedom, Yelena is faced with more choices, but this time the outcomes aren’t so clear.

In Magic Study, Yelena is on her way to be reunited with the family she'd been stolen from long ago. Although she has gained her freedom, she can't help feeling isolated in Sitia. Her Ixian background has changed her in many ways, and her newfound friends and relatives don't think it's for the better. Despite the turmoil, she's eager to start her magical training. But her plans take a radical turn when she becomes involved with a plot to reclaim Ixia's throne for a lost prince, and gets entangled in powerful rivalries with her fellow magicians. If that wasn't bad enough, it appears her brother would love to see her dead. Luckily, Yelena has some old friends to help her with her new enemies.

Links to author:

Website address – www.mariavsnyder.com

MySpace page – www.myspace.com/mariavsnyder

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Interview with Jim C. Hines

Goblin War, by Jim C. Hines
Published March 4, 2008, by DAW Books

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Readers have dubbed Jim C. Hines the Goblin King. His third novel Goblin War has just been released in the U.S. His goblins are also showing up in France, Germany, Russia, and several other nations. The books have earned praise from the likes of Julie Czerneda, Ed Greenwood, and even Wil Wheaton, who called Goblin Quest "too f*****g cool for words!"

Q) What was your inspiration for writing Goblin War?

A) It's the unwritten law of fantasy. I had written two goblin books, but as a fantasy author, I had no choice. I Must Write Trilogies.

There were things I wanted to accomplish with the third book, of course. In the first two books, Jig is constantly struggling to protect himself from adventurers and heroes, not to mention his fellow goblins. This time, I wanted to bring that struggled to some sort of resolution. This is an all-or-nothing adventure. If Jig succeeds, he'll be able to keep himself and his fellow goblins safe for years. But if he fails, he's going to fail big.

There were other factors as well. Jig' and Smudge are a lot of fun to write about ... my readers enjoy him and wanted more ... perhaps most importantly, DAW was willing to pay me for a third book!

Q) Why did you decide to make Jig a goblin?

A) I wanted to take on the fantasy genre from the monsters' point of view. I've seen it done a few times before, Shrek being one of the more famous examples, but I never felt like they got it right. Shrek is really just a big, gross, socially awkward human. We never see anything about his family, his culture, or his background, and his motivations are completely human.

I also thought the tougher monsters had it too easy. Sure, anyone can survive an adventure when you're big enough to recycle armored knights and punch dragons in the face. So I decided to go with the underdogs, and you don't get much lower than goblins.

Q) What sort of research did you do to write this book?/What kind of preparation do you do when you are writing?

A) You wouldn't think a humorous fantasy would require much research. At least, I wouldn't have until I got started. But from day one, I was e-mailing a geologist for information on cave formations, looking up cooking sites to come up with good goblin recipes, double-checking armor and weaponry ... for Goblin War, I spent a fair amount of time trying to make sure my armies were using sensible formations and tactics.

Goblin War also required me to go back and re-read The Giving Tree. And no, I'm not going to explain that one.

Q) Are there any interesting scenes or ideas that didn't make it into the final book?

A) The biggest thing was a romance between Jig and one of his fellow goblins. I tried ... I really tried to make it work. I think I'm a pretty good writer, but I just couldn't pull it off. Maybe it's self-preservation, but my brain refused to go there. Much to the disappointment of my agent, who was hoping for a fourth book called "Jig gets Jiggy."

The first draft also gave Jig a magical elf cloak, a la Lord of the Rings, but I kept giving myself flashbacks to Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. Besides, invisibility would have made Jig's life far too easy.

Oh, and the scene where we learn that Smudge the fire-spider is gay didn't fly. I guess my publisher doesn't think the world was ready for homosexual spiders.

Q) What are you writing now?

A) DAW recently bought three more books from me in a new series. The first book is called The Stepsister Scheme, and should show up in January of 2009. I just finished revising that book, and have started on the rewrite of The Mermaid's Madness. The books are basically my response to the overcommercializiation of the fairy tale princess. My princesses come from the older fairy tales, which means these are some very conflicted characters with pretty dark backstories. I basically did a mash-up of those old fairy tales and Charlie's Angels.

Let's just say my version of Sleeping Beauty can kill you with a spoon.

Q) What does a typical writing day look like for you? How long do you write, that sort of thing?

A) I do most of my writing during my lunch breaks at work. Typically, a few minutes are spent actually eating, and then there are a few minutes of stalling and procrastinating before I dig in and start typing. 50 minutes or so isn't a lot, but I've found I can do about 5000 words in a good week, which allows me to write a book every year in addition to some short fiction.

These days, I'm having to make time in the evenings and weekends to keep up with deadlines. I'm glad the writing is going so well, but I also struggle to balance family, writing, and the day-to-day jobs like shoveling snow or fixing the zipper on my daughter's backpack.

Q) This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there?

A) There are the first two goblin books, Goblin Quest and Goblin Hero. All three are a lot of fun, particularly if you're a fantasy fan, because you'll catch a lot more of the jokes. I've also written close to 40 short stories. (Well, I've written a lot more than that, but I've sold close to 40. Big difference.) A fair amount of the short fiction is humorous sword and sorcery, but there's some serious stuff as well. I was quite happy to make the preliminary Nebula ballot this year for one of the serious stories, even though I got knocked out of the running for the finals.

Q) Who is your favorite author?

A) The answer changes from day to day, depending on my mood and what I've been reading. Today, I think I'm going to say ... Snoopy. His prose isn't always the greatest, but as an author, he's quite the inspirational little beagle. He never lets rejection slow him down, and he knows the most important thing is to drag that typewriter onto the doghouse and just keep writing.

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Previews of all three goblin books are available at http://www.sff.net/people/jchines/Goblins/

Jim's blog is at http://jimhines.livejournal.com

Find the Goblin Series on Amazon.com: Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero & Goblin War

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Easy way to keep up to date

I'm not sure how many of you have seen iGoogle, but those of you running it will know you can add handy little applets, jokes and news to your home page.

Anyway, the point is I've set up links to the Andromeda Spaceways, Hal Spacejock and Spacejock Software news. Just click the buttons below to add a summary widget to your iGoogle page. (It's just as easy to remove them again, btw.)

Andromeda Spaceways:

Spacejock Software:

Hal Spacejock:

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Diary of a book release

I've covered plotting, writing and editing novels in detail, but I don't think I've blogged much about the process leading up to the launch. That is, from the minute you hand your baby over to the publisher until the day it, er, graduates.

So, I thought I'd start blogging about the process. It might only be two blog posts or it might be a whole series of them - that depends on how much I'm involved this time around. (And let me tell you, with the first book you're so involved the publishers start thinking they've employed you around the office.)

Anyway, the launch date for Hal 4 is June the second, and it's now mid-February. That gives me three months to cover, and we'll see how it goes.

Fremantle Press has a new publicist, Claire, after Scott was whisked away to New York for involvement in the film industry. So, best wishes to Scott ... and good luck to Claire ;-) I got an email from her the other day, and we're going to meet up to discuss publicity ideas soon.

And speaking of promo, I was pleased to get an email from a public library in Victoria. They like the Hal books and were writing to ask for posters and/or bookmarks to promote them. I already like their library and I've never been there. So, I fired an email off to Claire about posters and I packed up some bookmarks to send off.

Claire also got in touch asking whether I could present at a local writers festival (school age), which sounds interesting. I've said yes, so we'll see where that leads.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Hal Spacejock February Draw

Notification emails are on their way - if you think you're in the draw and you don't get an email, then your ISP is blocking me or your submitted email address is incorrect.

Remember, you can enter the draw here. Duplicates are fine, as are new entries with your replacement email address.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

New book reviews online

No, not mine. There's a batch of new book reviews up at Andromeda Spaceways. Enjoy!

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Andromeda Spaceways Issue 32

Please feel free to distribute as widely as you can! Every bit of publicity helps the mag, and the mag ONLY exists to help new and established writers.

Also, when you buy a PDF copy of ASIM please be aware you're actually downloading your copy from the server in my office, right next to where I'm busy working on the next Hal Spacejock novel. Doesn't that give you a thrill? (If so, you really need to get out more.)

-- Andromeda Spaceways Press Release --

What are you giving your loved one this Valentine’s Day? Flowers and chocolates are so passé for the keen speculative fiction reader! Why not offer your sweetie the delectable Andromeda Spaceways #32 instead? When ingested by the eyes, doesn't hang around the thighs! What better gift could there be?!

Available for devouring in print and PDF right now, issue 32 - edited by Monissa Whiteley - has a firm outer coating by the delicious Dan Skinner, and mouth-watering insides from scrumptious authors such as Brian Dolton, Ian Nichols, Dave Luckett and Karen Maric. Other goodies are served up by D Gellen and M Owton, Damon Kaswell, Eugenie Edquist and Kent Purvis. To really put the icing on the cake, Tansy Rayner Roberts interviews the yummy Justine Larbalestier about her writing and Simon Petrie gives us a "Little Nut Tree".

ASIM #32 is available to purchase in print and PDF at www.andromedaspaceways.com and in specialty bookshops around Australia including our newest supplier, Gleebooks at Blackheath in the NSW Blue Mountains. You can also get a print or PDF subscription to ASIM online.

Go on, give your loved one what they REALLY want!

-- End Press Release --


Better dash, my server is making strange noises under the sudden load.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Software Update

A few updates on my free software ...

Sonar 3 was released as a beta a week ago, and so far I've not had any bug reports. It must be broken somewhere, so it might be time for me to announce the beta on spacejock.com

I'm in the middle of converting BookDB3, my home library software, to dotnet. It's running, including using the new xml database format, but the user interface needs a fair bit of work and for some reason drag/drop on my laptop touchpad just stopped working - but only in two programs.

I also turned to yWriter 4 and added a few features. First, project-wide notes so you can stick random bits of information into the program. There's a tab to the right of the scene listing, and when you click Notes the scene list vanishes and you get the note list instead. These features will be in the next release.

Second, yWriter has had a spell checker since version 3, but I keep getting emails asking me to add one. So, I've added a menu entry which downloads the dictionary, unpacks it to the right place, then unhides the spell checker menu items. I don't include the dictionary because it's not mine to distribute.

yMail is another app I've been tweaking. (It's an offline mail reader like Outlook Express, one which I first starting working on in 2003.) I've vastly improved the local file caching, making it a lot quicker, and I've also added a spell checker for mail composition. I've also built a response system which allows you to build canned responses to many questions (e.g. the answer to 'Will you add a spell checker to yWriter?'), and the feature is intelligent enough to scan the incoming question and pick the closest reply. Very handy for customer support, and it's helping with my backlog.

The other app I've been tidying up is yEdit. It's a text editor where you specify a word count (e.g. 500) and then start typing. The status bar shows how many words to go, which is a boon for people trying to write X words in a session.

By the way, I installed Ubuntu on my main desktop PC yesterday. Carved out a 10 gig partition and installed the thing in an hour or so, including all the updates and the essential installer from getautomatix.com. Then I set up compiz and, quite frankly, was stunned. Holding the middle mouse down and shifting the mouse left and right sticks your current desktop onto a big 3d cube, zooms out, and allows you to rotate to any of your other desktops. (Ubuntu has 4 by default, but I set up 8 for the fun of it.) Then, for amusement, I ran two AVI files in each desktop window and rotated the cube. The movies kept playing, and it was something to see.

Anyway, back to my software (but still on Linux.) I used automatix to install wine, and then installed BookDB, yMail, yWriter and yGen in rapid succession. Every one of them by double-clicking the exe file in Linux, and every one installed and ran perfectly. I got desktop shortcuts, a start menu entry for each, and all the features worked including installing updates over the net. The last time I tried Wine I spent two weeks frigging around with .config and reg files, so this was some eye-opener.

I'll repeat that ... install Ubuntu Linux, install Wine, and my apps all run without a hitch. Neat.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Hal 4 release date announced

Unfortunately the Australian release of Hal Spacejock 4: No Free Lunch has been pushed back to the 2nd of June 2008. I know a lot of you are keen to get your hands on this new book, and I apologise for the delay.

To whet your appetite I've put a completely unauthorise mockup of the cover online, without any permission whatsoever.

If they sue, arrest or chide me severely I'll blame you lot.

It's also time for another giveaway of the first book in the series. I'll do a draw in the next day or so, and you're welcome to share the contest link with friends/coworkers/family and also editors at UK and US publishers seeking a funny, ongoing SF series for their list ;-) (My agent is still shopping the series around, but these things take time.)

The link to the contest page is here. Duplicates are discarded automatically, so you're welcome to go ahead and submit again if you can't remember whether you entered or not.

I'm expecting at least three* entries this time, so have at it.

* a slight understatement.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Interview with Paul Melko

Fellow SFNovelist Paul Melko has a novel coming out tomorrow, and this is his chance to tell you why you should buy a copy.

1) What was your inspiration for writing Singularity's Ring?

This is all Lou Anders' fault. He was inviting authors to write stories for his upcoming anthology entitled Live Without a Net back in 2001. "Give me something where the internet and computers are not the be-all and end-all of technology. Give me something different," he said. "What kind of future would that be?" I wondered, thinking his anthology wouldn't find a lot of takers. Of course, my subconscious rolled the idea over and over, and by the next morning I had the genesis of "Singletons in Love." That story went on to be reprinted in Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction, and it became the second chapter of Singularity's Ring.

2) Who are your favorite authors and books now and when you were growing up?

As a youth, I read to escape and loved a good science fiction yarn: Heinlein, Farmer, Harrison, Haldeman, and Panshin. These days, I'm reading more YA fiction as my daughter starts to read: Westerfeld, Rowland, and Tolkien. Just this last week, my son started reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's been fun to re-read it with him.

3) Summarize the book for our viewers.

Singularity's Ring is set several decades in the future, and the world has collapsed in a technological cataclysm. Most of humanity has died or disappeared in a singularity event, and what is left of humanity is being shepherded carefully by Pod Society. Pods are an experiment in multiple humans: duos, trios, quartets, and quintets of humans that share thoughts and emotions among themselves. The environment is unstable and the world seems on the brink of another cataclysm. Apollo Papadopulos has been bred to fly a starship through the Rift, a remnant of the singularity event. Only forces don't want him to succeed. And, amazingly, someone has come down the space elevator from the supposedly empty Ring.

4) Why did you decide to make Apollo a quintet?

My protagonist is not one person, but five. Lou Anders didn't want silicon computers, so I created a biological computer: Apollo Papadopulos is five humans altered to think as one. As such, his thoughts benefit from the synergism of their network; he can make great intuitive leaps, understand things quickly, and come to more logical conclusions. Of course, there's a trade-off. You or I would see him (them) standing still, grasping hands for seconds at a time while he (they) come to consensus.

5) What (besides writing) do you do for fun?

Recently I took up Taekwondo. My children started last year, and it looked like so much fun, I joined them. I was right; it was fun. We're all blue belts. We've managed to not break anything in the house yet.

6) What sort of research did you do to write this book?/What kind of preparation do you do when you are writing?

Singularity's Ring is an adventure story that follows Apollo from the Rockies to Geosynchronous Earth Orbit to the Amazon and Congo. There's also, of course, an orbital structure, the Ring. The scope of the book allowed me to draw on the details of these exotic locales, as well as create a technological artifact that's larger in diameter than the Earth.

7) What are you writing now?

I just turned in the novel-version of my Hugo-, Nebula-, and Sturgeon-nominated novella "The Walls of the Universe." This is a parallel universe story in which one version of my protagonist tricks another version out of his life. Farmboy John Rayburn is cast into the multiverse, and tries to get home again.

Bio:

Paul lives in Ohio with his beautiful wife and four fairly wonderful children. He is an active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, where he sits on the board of directors as the South-Central Regional Director and is chair of the Grievance Committee.

Paul's fiction has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Spider Magazine, The Year's Best Science Fiction, Talebones, and other magazines and anthologies. His work has been translated into Spanish, Hungarian, Czech, and Russian, and it has been nominated for the Sturgeon, Nebula, and Hugo Awards. Singularity's Ring is his first novel.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Sonar 3 beta

Unfortunately I spent almost all of January immobilised due to lower back pain. However, thanks to my laptop and wifi connection I managed to use the time constructively, and I've not only converted the thousands and thousands of lines of code I use for all my software into VB2008, I also converted Sonar and added a bunch of new features.

* Resizable forms
* Colour coded lines
* Single data file in XML format
* Load, use, save as many different databases as you want
* 'Stories' now called 'works', so non-fic writers can use the prog
* You can double-click entries in any list to view details
* Text fields now have unlimited length
* List subs by work AND by market (e.g. a list of everything sent to F&SF)
* All lists can be sorted
* Sortable date columns for dates

etc etc

Now, this is a BETA version, and it will probably crash and/or lose data. People who download it will be existing Sonar 2 users who are keen to see where the program is going, and who don't mind trying various menus and forms in order to let me know of any problems.

There's a Sonar2 data importer built in, and you can have both apps installed at the same time without any problems. Importing your Sonar 2 data won't change the original files.


Installing

Because Sonar3 is a .NET Version 2.0 application, you'll need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 if you don't already have it.

Best bet is to download and install Sonar3, then run it. If you get an error message about a missing runtime environment, you can grab the .NET Framework from the link below and install it.

Link to Sonar 3 install (about 800kb)

Link to .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x86)

(If you're running 64-bit windows there's a link to the x64 version on the same page.)

Sonar 3 has a 'check for updates' feature under the Utilities menu. I'd use it fairly often ...

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Linux for 2008

I've been using Linux for over ten years now, running various flavours on servers and even a desktop or two. Ever year since about 1999 has been touted as 'the year of the linux desktop', but ironically it seems the key to Linux adoption isn't dependant on coming up with a 'better Windows' ... it's the falling price of hardware.

I've been reading about the Asus Eee PC with much interest, given the price, the features and the fact it runs Linux. A mini-laptop for under A$500 isn't a bad deal at all, and it's not surprising they're selling out of the things all over.

But what prompted THIS blog post wasn't the Eee or some new Linux feature. No, I just cleared the mailbox and amongst the usual junk mail was a catalogue for The Good Guys (a white goods retailer) There's a regular, everyday laptop on the front, an Acer Aspire 4315-100508CI with all the usual features. After rebate, the price is just A$499, which is a couple of hundred bucks less than I've seen any laptop selling for before now. And right there in the features it says 'Linux operating system'.

I'm not a Windows-basher by any means ... after all, I started using it several months before picking up Linux, and I earn a living writing Windows software. It's just that I love a good David and Goliath battle - the battling underdog with no chance of survival, the giant's look of surprise at an unexpected wound, then panic, then the reaction ... fun.

If nothing else, people looking to buy Vista down the track will be able to thank the Linux OS for a lower price ... perhaps.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

What I've been up to

Still have a bad back, still not mobile. I've been using the laptop and programming 12-16 hours a day, which is one way to keep the mind busy.

For the past two days I've been writing Sonar3, which is a refresh of Sonar2, my submissions tracking software. v3 has a new file format (XML), autobackups, improved forms and more. (Sonar1 and 2 were designed when 15" 800x600 screens were the norm, which is why all the dialog boxes are so tiny on modern screens.)

Apart from that I've continued converting apps to Visual Basic 2008, which involves learning a whole lot of stuff about the new graphics handling methods. yLaunch2, yGen2, yCopy2 are all complete and working, and on my own system I'm now using those live in place of the originals.

The problem with converting old code is that many of the tweaks and constructs no longer work. There are two ways you can approach a conversion:

1) Import the old project and set to work converting code in hundreds (or thousands) of places, rewriting everything which doesn't work

2) Still using the old language, take a copy of the project, bump the version number, and rewrite the code so it still works in the old language AND it will work in the new.

I was doing my conversions the first way, and the problem there is that you end up with two wildly different projects. During the conversion process I inevitably fix and tweak other things, until the new project has features not in the original. Then, if I add something to the original I end up with the opposite situation. And doing another conversion from the Improved Original involves losing all the new changes AND all the converted code.

This is what happened with yWriter, and it's the reason I abandoned the new conversion of yWriter 4 and instead wrote it in the old language. It wasn't wasted effort though, since every attempted conversion teaches me more about the new language.

Anyway, over the past couple of weeks I've been working the second way (hence Sonar3), and the difference is incredible. For example, when I imported yLaunch (a nifty little app, by the way) it only had seven errors to fix, instead of 300+. The result was a fully-working new version in under a day.

So, what next?

After Sonar3 I've got a pick of other projects:

Tweak yWriter4.
Write a new database for my charting software.
Discover how printing works in VB2008 (or rather, doesn't.)
Write BookDB3 with a new database format.

Fascinating stuff, eh?

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Another mad January idea

I've decided to offer my services as a programmer for hire, specifically with the idea of working on legacy Visual Basic projects (VB5 and VB6, although I've also designed and written major projects in VB3, VB4 and VB Dos .. even QuickBasic 4.5)

I'm not after a job, but I am interested in exploring the idea of contract work. Full details on the link above.

What prompted this? A comment on Slashdot, a discussion on SFNovelists, and a desire to continue working from home.

I mean, here I sit with over 20 years experience, and it's mostly going to waste.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Fantastic Planet top 50 bestsellers of 2007

Pinched from their blog:

1...Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
2...The Court of the Air, by Stephen Hunt
3...Temeraire, by Naomi Novik
4...The Prefect, by Alastair Reynolds
5...Black Man, by Richard Morgan
6...Bad Case of Loving You, by Lainey Cairo
7...Pushing Ice, by Alastair Reynolds
8...The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch
9...Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman
10..Engaging the Enemy, by Elizabeth Moon

.

23..Hal Spacejock: Just Desserts, by Simon Haynes

Yay!

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Helping hand

One of my new year resolutions was to try and help a few people in need, and I just found a great vehicle for lending a hand ... www.kiva.org

Kiva.org allows individuals to make $25 loans to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world (microfinance). By doing so, individuals like you provide affordable working capital for the poor (money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc.), empowering them to earn their way out of poverty.

I just signed up and loaned a few bucks to Neba Ferdinand in Cameroon and Elen Suci and Normawati of Bali, Indonesia. Some of these folks are only asking for a $100 loan to start a new business, or to expand the one they're running now. (You can lend as little as $25, so a group of people can all chip in to help one borrower.)

Anyway, I've set up a Kiva profile, and if you have the wherewithal you might like to give Neba, Elen or Normawati a hand as well - or anyone else on the site, for that matter.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Christmas, Western Australian style

Went out with the family today, taking in a trip on the Swan River. We stopped off for a barbie and sunk a few tinnies too. It was a nice day out, and I've included a few pics below.

To those of you enjoying snow, sleet, rain, cold temperatures ... ha ha ha. Then again, we almost hit 46C on Boxing Day (115F) so you can laugh at that. (It wasn't that hot today, or we wouldn't have ventured outside.)

And greets to my eldest daughter, who turned 13 yesterday. Yes, we now have a teenager in the house ... fortunately, she's not the wild sort.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Merry Christmas to all!

Phew - two weeks weeding the garden, tidying the house & surrounds, buying stuff for xmas dinner (new folding chairs, food, etc), wrapping prezzies, hanging xmas decorations and lights, going to the dentist, more weeding, cleaning the pool, more cleaning ... I almost wish I was still slaving over my NanoWrimo effort!

Still, the turkey is defrosted in the fridge, the veggies are all peeled, cut, diced & whatever, and everything is ready for a great day tomorrow. We'll have around 20 people over for the day, and I'll be on the go from about 9:30 am, which is when I have to make my Special Stuffing (I just stuck the recipe on my website) Crumbled bacon, bread cubes sauted in olive oil, onion, egg, fresh rosemary and thyme ... last year it was so good people were passing up the turkey and tucking into the stuffing instead.

I'll put the turkey on at 10:30 am, since it's a 5kg size (about 11lb). I've cooked turkeys in our barbecue for the past 10 years, and this one won't be any different. When the summer temp is 38-40 degrees outside (over 105F) you really don't want the oven making things worse, so cooking on the BBQ is the solution. I use shallow oven trays and invert them over the hotplates and grille, then light the outer burners only (4 of the 5, leaving the centre one unlit.) The turkey sits in the middle, and the hood goes down. In our oven we usually roast at 180C, but the BBQ can hit 260-280 with 4 burners on full, so it's important to keep an eye on it.

The turkey will take 3 hours all up, and an hour or so into the cooking I'll put potatoes, pumpkin, whole onions and parsnips in to roast. These sit in baking trays, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. I usually wrap the pumpkin in tinfoil and bake it whole.

Half an hour later I add a huge metal stock pot containing peeled potatoes and lots of water - plus mint & salt. These will boil, and are ready by the time everything else is done.

Inside the house, in the nice cool aircon, we just have to steam the green veggies - brussels sprouts, peas, beans, etc. They only need 5-10 mins, and aside from heating custard and warming the christmas pud, that's the only cooking we'll need to do indoors.

I know I've missed some of the food (cured ham, for example, but that's just sliced & served cold) but these days I can cook a whole xmas dinner for 20-30 people on autopilot. I just make sure I have a spare gas bottle, and I check under the hood every 30 minutes to see whether anything is getting too well done. If so, wrap in tinfoil or reduce the heat.

Anyway, if I don't post again before the new year, Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope you have a fantastic time.

Cheers
Simon Haynes

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Upgrading to the best version of Windows

Here's a comparison of XP and Vista, specially written for those stuck with the buggier of the two. (Non-computer types and the humour-impaired can safely skip this article.)

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Terry Pratchett

I have to say, this really sucks. Here's a guy who's given an enormous amount of laughs and good cheer to a huge worldwide fan base, and he's rewarded with a cruel blow like this.

I still remember the first time I heard of Terry Pratchett. I was an enthusiastic teen computer user, spending hours per day on my Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and one of the games I picked up was a computer version of The Colour of Magic. That must have been 1984 or 1985, and it's been wonderful to see his books hit greater and greater heights ever since.

Well, here's hoping modern medicine can pull off a miracle ... and a few experts in high-end brain chemistry wouldn't go amiss either.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Catastrophic Windows Failure ... ho hum

Another day, another refusal to boot. Switched on my PC at 7:30 am and it wouldn't go anywhere. Tried safe mode and it kept rebooting after showing the MUP.sys driver. Used Google from the laptop, found a zillion people with the same problem and about as many solutions. (This is the third time this has happened to me in the past 18 months. You think I'd have switched to Linux by now. If it weren't for certain games ...)

Anyway, I set up a second copy of XP on a spare hard drive, booted it, tinkered with the main C partition, no go. Fortunately (or rather, intelligently) my C drive is just Windows and Program Files - my 'My Documents' folder is on its own 5gb partition on a second drive.

So, I ran Paragon Drive Backup, took a snapshot of the broken C partition, then restored my latest snapshot dated October the 11th. Rebooted into my now-working, but outdated install, let AVG and Firefox and Microsoft and Adobe and Java all update themselves, sorted folders in the Program Files folder by date on my C drive AND in the backup snapshot, and reinstalled all apps I'd added to my system after October. Updated to OpenOffice 2.3.1. Restored my Firefox profile in the Documents and Settings folder. Rebooted to confirm it's all working.

Total lost time: around 5 or 6 hours. I have to pick the kids up from school in half an hour, which means basically the whole day is shot, and I've yet to answer a single email. Mind you, I'm lucky I can fix this stuff. For the average punter it would have been wipe and reinstall, perhaps losing all their data in the process.

Now, had this been a Linux installation I'd have booted from a live CD, manually edited the broken config file in a text editor (no registry on linux, thank heavens) and rebooted to a working machine. Net wasted time: around 5 minutes.

And Microsoft want me to upgrade to Vista? The hell I will.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Vanishing act

I've been so busy lately that blogging has been the last thing on my mind. What with getting Hal 4 ready, completing nanowrimo, rewriting Remind Me Please and yWriter 4, doing essential maintenance on the house etc, etc, I've hardly had time for a breather.

I owe emails to quite a few people, and I have a load of paperwork to get through. Bear with me ... it will happen. NanoWrimo and the new yWriter 4 application have both generated huge quantities of email on top of the usual load, which hasn't helped.

Oh well, at least the Xmas break is coming up.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

NanoWrimo progress

I really wasn't looking forward to NanoWrimo this year. I've been plotting, writing and editing Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch since April, and I only finished the final proofs early in November. I must have read the manuscript over thirty times, and the thought of starting another book immediately made me feel ill and very, very tired.

But despite that, I felt a strong solidarity with all those people embarking on their own Nano journeys, and from day one I never doubted I'd get there in the end. I took it easy, writing as much as I could each day and forcing out an extra 500 words here and there. I also put a lot of time into yWriter 4, which is probably the most user-friendly and reliable release of this app yet. (If you're one of the many thousands of yWriter users worldwide, I hope you find it as useful as I do.)

Oh, and I wrote myself a little text editor which allowed me to set a word count and then go at it, watching the count decrease in the status bar as I typed. I reckon that prog was the difference for me on many slow writing days.

So, without further ado:

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

What am I reading?

Marshal Zeringue of the Writers Read blog recently asked what I was reading and what I had on my TBR pile. Naturally, I revealed all.

Also, I just saw the CMIS Resource Bank website has a listing for all three Hal books, giving each a nice review and rating them as suitable for ages 13+. (This site is run by the Western Australian Education Dept, and I guess that explains all the wa.edu.au visitors to the spacejock.com.au site ... they can't all be after simple recipes.)


Snips from the reviews for each book:

Hal 1: "As might be expected, things start to go wrong and just keep going that way in this clever novel."

Hal 2: "The rich variety of characters and the very clever humour is attention-holding from beginning to end."

Hal 3: "The satire is great, the plot oddities continue to fascinate. Simon Haynes wants to write fifteen Hal Spacejock books. We are happily waiting."

I like how each review ends with a plea for the books to be turned into a TV series or a movie. (Although the phrase 'over my dead body' springs to mind. Hands up if you've seen a mainstream movie oozing with clever humour* lately.)

* Hey, that's how the reviewer described it ...

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

yWriter 4 beta is out

To celebrate handing in the final, final proofed manuscript of Hal Spacejock: Just Desserts I've released a beta of yWriter 4. The timing is awful, what with me needing to write 1800 words per day from now until the 30th of November, but what the hell.

(By the way, if I sent you a copy of Hal 4 for a cover quote, the final date of the 31st/Oct was wrong. Still have about a week to go.)

Anyway, you can import yWriter 2 and 3 projects into version 4, and you should read the warnings on the web page before running it.

(In short: When you open a yw3 file it's renamed to yw3.bak. Therefore, please make a copy of any project folders if you intend to open the contents in yWriter 4.)

Oh yes, and enjoy!

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

The lol phenomenon

I know my sense of humour isn't defective, so why don't I laugh at the lolcatz pics spreading across the net like wildfire? I feel like I'm missing the joke. Maybe it's the fact they're cutesy, or the fact many of the pics have dumb animals carefully arranged into staged positions so we humans can laugh at them.

So, what kind of lolcatz would make me laugh? Something clearly not staged for the camera, something where the pic and the caption tell two completely different stories, something with hidden meaning for those in the know, something which is not the same old run-of-the-mill cute. And something where I know I shouldn't laugh but I just can't help myself. (Yeah, I'm picky, but I apply the same criteria to my novels.)

Anyway, my ideal lolcatz is something like this:

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Ripper wrapper

Supposed to be getting my Nano words done and, more importantly, finishing the final proofing of Hal 4. So what did I do today? Amongst other things, I went to a concert my wife was playing in and wrote a system tray prog which wraps Video Lan Client (VLC).

VLC has this great transcoding mode you can run from the command line, so if you happen to have a DVD with home movies on (you know, a menu system plus several tracks, some of which are the ones you want), then my prog lets you view the DVD contents by track and playing time, tick the tracks you want and then rip & transcode them to much smaller AVIs in the background. It names them track by track, and does the whole lot one after another before stopping. (Incidentally, VLC is my movie-playing app of choice. Worth a download - and it runs on Windows, Linux and OS X.)

On a dual core CPU you can merrily do this ripping bizzo while foreground tasks run as fast as ever, which is sweet. And making it a systray app means no clutter on the desktop. For now there's a big kludge where the command line options are dumped into a text box, but ticks and checkboxes will follow. First I have to proof Hal 4 and finish my nano words for the day...

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

Out of character

What happens when your major character gets involved in a situation where you suspect he'd probably act one way, and yet in the interests of entertainment you force him to do the opposite?

I'm having a fine old time writing a series of scenes featuring Hal, but they're not in character. Without revealing too much, he gets caught up with a military type, and they're trying to escape from a hotel which is under siege. Now, I'd half expect Hal to hang back, let the other guy do the work, and then nick off at the first possible moment. Instead, he's loaded to the eyeballs with assorted weaponry and is going for it like Arnie on speed.

The humour comes about because he's hung all these grenades off his belt .. by their pins. Now and then he loses one, yells 'Grenade', and in the ensuing destruction he fires off a few random shots to 'get' the person attacking them.

Nobody gets hurt, but the destruction is more and more impressive at every turn, and it's as funny as hell to write. Not only is he single-handedly destroying this hotel, but his military offsider has no idea it's Hal causing the damage.

I have no idea where this is all going, or whether these scenes will ever make it into a finished Hal book, but right now this novel is Die Hard meets Lost meets Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Fun!

So, what do you do when your own characters run amuck? Do you straighten them out and tell them to behave, or do you write on and see where they take you? (This is where series books can be tricky, because you've already established the character. However, that's no excuse for keeping them in a straight jacket ... just look at how much some characters changed over the course of BtVS or Angel, for example.)

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)