New story published soon
A new short story titled Hollow Edge will soon be published by those venerable Americans at Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k).
This is a story with a long and tortuous history. It has been entirely re-written no less than three times over the last eleven years. I’ve taken less time to write novels. All of them. Finally, with more than half the original text excised and a few editorial nods for North American eyes, it has found its place in the literary canon. It’s nice to have it there.
It will be turning up over at the Almanac(k) in the next few weeks. I’ll make sure I let you know when it happens.
Read MoreiPad and DRM: Take a deep breath
I think I may have already established that I’m no fan of digital rights management. The technology has already broken the corporate spirit of the music industry (not necessarily a bad thing) and—despite its cheerleaders—has little impact on the film and television industries. But, despite all evidence, much of the discussion surrounding the iPad and iBooks assumes that the publishers will take up Apple’s option of applying DRM to iBooks.
I’m yet to see any publisher publicly embrace DRM as the salve for their piracy paranoia, although for some reason it does seem probable that past mistakes will soon be repeated for yet another industry attempting to ‘go digital’. At the moment, we seem peripherally privy to these industry giants stalking each other like rival predators around a rotting carcass. Actually that’s unfair. The carcass is still alive and kicking. To call it rotting sounds more dramatic, though. So as a fiction writer, I’ll stick with drama.
And so, to the point.
I am somewhat bemused by the shrieking response from some quarters over Apple’s DRM announcement. Apple,via their CEO, have already gone on record (three years ago) to state a case against DRM, painting themselves as reluctant enablers of a twitchy industry and DRM itself as a stepping stone towards a more open digital marketplace. Whether genuine or not, that was their take on music and I see no reason to assume their approach would be any different to publishing.
Although I quite like their products, I’m no Apple apologist. But in the case of DRM, it seems the company practices what it preaches. All of which makes the foaming rhetoric around the DRM option a little disingenuous.
Let’s hope I’m right.
Read MoreQWC Blog Tour 2010: Writing Work Space
The Queensland Writers Centre is again touring the blogs of Queensland writers, this time to catch a sneak glimpse into the writer’s world: the desks, benches, or couches where the “magic” happens. While it seems rather strange that anyone would want to look at the pathetic bit of faux timber I call my desk, I admit to feeling more than a little intrigued at what everyone else’s spaces will look like.
That’s voyeurism for you.
Something you should know before you sticky-beak at my desk: it looks clean, perhaps anally so. That’s a bit of a sham. It doesn’t normally look like that. I’ve just moved house, so everything is still more or less still where I put it when I set the desk up. I haven’t had a chance to turn it into a bomb site yet. But, rest assured, I will. Soon.
Anyway, here it is:
It’s a bit compact, I’ll admit, but when space is at a premium—as it certainly is in my house—you write where you have to.
In the interest of clarifying what you’re looking at, I’ll point out a few features I consider essential for banging out a manuscript.
The computer is a notebook. Very important for when necessity calls for a couch or verandah sojourn. Quite a bit of my last novel was written not as my desk at all, but the house we were in was not as conducive to desk writing as this is.
You can’t tell from the picture, but the seat tilts back allowing me to write with my feet on the desk. If I couldn’t do that, I might not write anything at all. I’m a habitual chair tilter. I’ve fallen backwards off a number of chairs, so the tilting chair prevents making it a trend.
A guitar is always handy. Distractions are not necessarily a bad thing.
My notebook is open beside the keyboard. Without it I would have lost a number of stories to the vagaries of my memory. I also use it to map out characters and scenes. Seems to work better on paper than on screen.
Copies of the Macquarie Dictionary and the Style Manual on the bookshelf are primarily for for editing jobs. I’ve also got a copy of the Shorter Oxford, but it won’t fit here. I have to keep it elsewhere. It would make my little bookshelf here sag.
Envelopes for the endless stream of submissions that flow from this space. Sometimes I wonder if writers are singlehandedly funding Australia Post.
Juggling balls—see guitar.
Photos of the kids. The top one is very out of date now, but it’s such a nice picture I can’t quite let it go.
A picture of me, drawn by my son: a blob with stick limbs. I’ll let others judge its accuracy.
Rejection slips. I keep the good ones. Yes, there is such a thing. One in particular ends with “Great writing though.” A lovely sentiment except for the last word.
A Flaming Lips poster for no apparent reason other than I like the design. And the band.
The cover of my story Coda, a piece by the talented photographer Bronwen Hyde. Even in my poor reproduction it still looks cool.
Blank CDs. One can never have too many.
So I guess that’s the 50c tour. I really need to get back to work.
Read MoreConfessions of an accidental print fetishist
Things appear to be speeding up in the digital publishing world and finally the eBook is beginning to matter. No sooner does Apple announce their contribution to the continuing argument around what an e-reader should actually do than Amazon and MacMillan dive at each other’s throats in a way that would make even shareholders blanch. MacMillan won the stoush, but only because Amazon (somewhat uncharacteristically) caved. Nevertheless, this is a sign of things to come. Both publishers and technology vendors want control of the market. Which means the product is important. Who would have thought?
For so many years everyone dabbled in digital publishing, whether as an insurance policy or through Quixotic righteousness. Suddenly the big six are in the game and Amazon is attempting to impose its vision on the rest of the world whether through muscle or threats, while Apple attempt to make a product that will hit the market like a neutron bomb.
I have a sense that the current rash of insanity from the big end of town is still premature. No offence to the people who already enjoy their Kindle or Sony, but everything hinges on Apple selling truckloads of iPads. And I’m yet to be convinced they will. I wouldn’t call the device underwhelming—it does a hell of a lot for its price tag—but I still suspect the device—like all e-readers—solves a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s a better overall package than the Kindle, no question, but can it possibly live up to all that promise?
Then again, my partner mentioned something pretty enlightening the other day (she does that sometimes):
‘If they offered, say, ten free eBooks with the iPad, I’d definitely consider buying one. For much the same price you get all the books and the computer.’
I’m yet to see evidence that they will offer this, but it would seem to be an easy enticement to generate sales, even though the iPad’s price—especially in Australia—will be well off the price of ten books.
So where does all this leave tiny, single artist-operated ventures like mine? To be honest I don’t know. The title of this post comes from the sense that, in my championing of the PDF format as the most appropriate digital publishing platform, I have been thinking of the ultimate reading device as a static book-like thing where the publisher controls all aspects of the experience: the text, the formatting, the font, the page breaking. Since reading more and more on my iPhone apps Stanza and the gorgeous Classics, I’ve actually realised that texts need to be far more flexible and publishers (and authors) need to hand over to the reader their control of font, text sizing, and layout. If a reader wants my stories in magenta coloured Comic Sans on a raging red background, who am I to say no?
In offering beautifully formatted and strictly tamper-proof PDFs of my stories from this site, have I missed a fairly important point about the experience of reading on screen? Am I just limiting my potential readership? Am I shooting myself in the foot?
More and more, I suspect so.
Read MoreThe Books
