We started day two with breakfast at Macca’s – raisin toast and a flat white, hoping to get onto the internet. No such luck. Wifi worked, but not internet access, so I guess their ISP had a problem. Bugger. So we were reduced to printed maps. How last century. We decided we’d stop at Longreach…
Day one – aaaaargh. It was supposed to be a simple little trip up the road to Emerald. Easy. Australia’s main highway north, west at Rocky (Rockhampton), arrive Emerald around 3:30, 4pm. Wrong. The problem, you see, is Australia’s main highway north. The Bruce Highway is a six laner out of Brisbane but well south…
Not so long ago a reader told me that when the main character in my Iron Admiral books, Admiral Saahren, fell in love pretty much at first sight, the character was diminished. That reader didn’t believe in love at first sight. Another reviewer said much the same thing. But I am unrepentant because I KNOW…
While idly scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed I came across an interesting promo for a book. So I had a look at the blurb and the cover and noticed a reference to “a great new NA book”. (Or words to that effect.) I frowned. NA? Not applicable? New Age? And then I twigged. It’s another…
A lot of things we believe come from some pretty suspect sources. If you’re like me, you believe that in the days of sail navies – both military and merchant – were full of press-ganged victims, that the food was foul, the officers brutal and you could be flogged for little or no reason. In…
I watched The Hobbit the other day. It’s old history, I know, but that’s how it is at my place. Anyway, having watched the movie (part 1) I re-read the book for the first time in many years. It was an interesting exercise in seeing how a children’s book was adapted to be a fitting…
As a writer, I rub shoulders (virtually) with lots of other writers. On Facebook I’ll often see quotes from people like Stephen King, or Hemingway and others. Inspirational stuff. I think. But sometimes writing advice needs to be weighed and measured before it’s blindly believed. Here are a few I’ve encountered. Read lots Really? Oh,…
Although the vast majority of the action in To Die a Dry Death happens on the Abrolhos Islands, some of it takes place in the city of Batavia itself. Pelsaert had a meeting with Governor Jan Pieterszoon Coen to inform him the ship Batavia had been wrecked, Pelsaert had a second meeting with the new…
There is one rule of writing you break at your peril, and that is – do your research. I was involved in an interesting discussion with writers of science fiction, based on a blog post about whether the ‘science’ was important in science fiction. Specifically, the author discussed a scenario in a novel where a…
It’s time to start a new writing adventure, face the cold, blank screen and begin. For me, it’s the hardest part of the whole process – the empty page. Once something – anything – is down, words are written, then you can read them back and change them, because the thought is there, translated into…