If you can't stand the heat...

I recently came across something that disturbed me somewhat, and it left me wondering just how silly and naive some writers are.

An internet market for speculative fiction that is run from the USA, increased its rates for fiction up to professional rates. This is a bold step as it increases your ongoing operating costs. At the same time, it potentially elevates your publication into the stratosphere of being one of the 'professional' markets. The other side of the coin however is that any publication increasing its remuneration to authors, immediately starts receiving many more submissions, increasing turnaround times and workload.

It should be noted that increasing author payment rates does not mean there are more slots for stories opening up, just more money for those authors whose works are selected for publication. If more submissions are being received for the same number of slots, then there will be a corresponding increase in the number of pieces not selected for publication. One would hardly think it took Einstein to work that out.

It was very disappointed to find that this market now began receiving some very hostile 'how dare you reject my work!' responses to their 'thank you but not for us at this time' rejections. Hey - if you want to be an author, then I have news for you. Get ready for and used to rejection! It is just part of the game.

The writing world is full of stories of top-level writers whose works were rejected. JK Rowling's Harry Potter was rejected by something like eight or twelve publishers (depending on whose account it is) before being accepted. Stephen King's Carrie was rejected so often that he famously threw it out. It took his wife retrieving it from the rubbish and insisting on he try again before King's first novel was finally accepted by a publisher. The list goes on and on. Rejection is simply part of the game. If you cannot handle rejection of your work, then I'm sorry, writing isn't for you.

I have to admit that I did not respond well to one rejection for a non-fiction piece, but in that case I had been lead to believe that they wanted the piece in question. That difficulty was smoothed over and I now have an excellent working relationship with that publication as an occassional freelance author for them. However if I had responded with 'how dare you reject me, you scum-sucking pigs that wouldn't know quality literature if it bit you on the arse', do you really think they would want to be bothered with me now?

During a brief flirtation working in the visual arts in 2010, I found some aspiring visual artists responding in much the same manner because their work was not accepted for a particular exhibition. 'But I submitted my work therefore you should have accepted it!' seemed to be the attitude. However, like filling a fixed number of slots in a publication, a gallery has only so many places in which to exhibit artworks.

A professional takes these things on the chin, learns from them. I learned that from some of the best. Having a hissy fit because a publisher does not think your work is right for them at that time is not how a professional operates. Was it truly as good a piece as you could do? I was disappointed to receive a rejection for a story one time - until I later had another look at it. Oh dear Lord - how could I have possibly let something go out with THAT many mistakes etc in it! The human reaction is all too often: if it looks crap then it probably is crap. Getting past those errors to the story itself, now looking at it with fresh eyes I realised it was not nearly as good as I originally thought it was. Have you had others review the piece and critique it before you sent it out, by which I don't mean having Mummy say 'oh that looks wonderful, darling!'

Becoming a published author ain't easy, at least in the majors. Having hissy fits that a particular publisher isn't falling over themselves and breaking out the brass band for your short story, ain't helping anyone. If you can't stand the heat, get outta the kitchen.

A Heartfelt Thank You

Since  announcing that I now have to undergo the full brain surgery option to have my aneurysm fixed, I am really quite touched by some of the concern that is being shown to me, in particular on how I am going to cope post-surgery while I recover, with numerous offers of assistance, visits to hospital and so forth. One dear friend warned me to expect provision of home-cooked meals and the latest sci-fi movies to watch.

Yesterday yet another valued friend informed me yesterday that she had told her other half that if Ross needs somewhere to stay where he can be looked after when he gets out of hospital, 'he's moving to our place.' There was even an offer to drive me down to Victoria to stay with my family.

I hope all that won't be necessary, but all the same I am really touched and appreciative.  It is only when you really need them that you find out who your real friends are.

Because I am not very good at these things in person, a heartfelt thank you to all.

Book Review: Wrecking Crew by Caesar Campbell

This review first posted at www.boomerangbooks.com.au.

The sub-title of the book is ‘the brutal true story of the Bandios’ legendary sergeant-at-arms.’ ‘Brutal’ is no understatement. If anything, ‘brutal’ has been a simple fact of life for Caesar Campbell.

This was a compulsive read once I had started, unable to put it down. It held an almost horrid fascination like going past the scene of a terrible car accident and just having to have a look.

At times I found myself being oddly drawn to Campbell through his love of and loyalty to first his family then the biker club he was the founding member of in Australia. Then he would casually relate something such as the collection of fingers he used to keep in a jar of formaldehyde as souvenirs of people he had bashed. So I found I was bouncing between grudging respect and shocked exclamations that the man is a complete psychopath.

The book is an eye-opener about the world of the ‘outlaw’ biker. They really do see themselves as a world apart from what is the norm for the rest of us. It also shows how that world began changing in the wake of the Comancheros ambush of the Bandidos at Milperra in 1984, with many members of both clubs in prison for murder and manslaughter. It was no longer the tight little world it had once been.

Quoting Campbell...

“When I started out in bikes, you joined a club because you wanted mateship, and you wanted blokes to ride with. And for hardcore blokes like and my brothers, the outlaw bike club was the last place you could go to enjoy that territorial rivalry that went on between clubs. It was like being a Viking or Scotsman highlander. Not that we went around bashing people willy-nilly, but we loved that atmosphere of tension. The feeling that trouble may be just around the corner. ...whenever you were riding through another club’s territory, there was always the thrill that you might get stopped and end up in a punch-up. We fed off that.”

We also see how Campbell was betrayed by another Bandido, bringing an effective end to his time there. As far as he is concerned, Caesar is still on leave of absence from the club (part of their surprisingly rigid code) and therefore is still a Bandido, even though the man Campbell made the agreement with took the details with him to the grave without revealing it to members of the club.

This is not a pretty story. Far from it. Readers will find themselves by turn repulsed, respecting, upset and horrified by the story of Caesar Campbell.

BOOK REVIEW: The Edinburgh Dead

This review first posted at www.awritergoesonajourney.com

The Edinburgh Dead

Brian Ruckley

Orbit

2011

The blurb

In the starkly-lit operating theaters of the city, grisly experiments are being carried out on corpses in the name of medical science. But elsewhere, there are those experimenting with more sinister forces.


Amongst the crowded, sprawling tenements of the labyrinthine Old Town, a body is found, its neck torn to pieces. Charged with investigating the murder is Adam Quire, Officer of the newly- formed Edinburgh Police. The trail will lead him into the deepest reaches of the city's criminal underclass, and to the highest echelons of the filthy rich.

Soon Quire will discover that a darkness is crawling through this city of enlightenment - and no one is safe from its corruption.

And wot I fink is...
When writing an historical novel, even one delving into a bit of Gothic horror as this does, the danger is always that of making sure you have your history spot-on. That has been a significant reason why I tend to steer away from it myself, because the moment you do get it wrong, nitpickers come flooding out of the woodwork to have a gripe. Like me.

From the interesting interview with the author located in the rear of the book, Ruckley describes his basic idea stemming from the thought that what if the infamous body snatchers who turned to murder to supplement their supply of corpses, Burke and Hare, were dealing with more than supplying medical schools? The novel only touches on Burke and Hare but does relate a particular ending to Hare which unfortunately overlooks the fact that there were supposedly confirmed sightings of him in England at a later date. That was my little historical nitpick.

From discussions with a friend of mine who knows Edinburgh very well, the descriptions of the New and Old Towns rang quite true, as did the policing of the time.

It is unfortunate that I have only not long finished reading and reviewing another historical novel also with a backdrop of body snatching, albeit in London. That protagonist and Ruckley’s protagonist have a number of similarities as does aspects of the plot. Please note that I am not suggesting plagiarism or anything of the sort, but merely that once you enter a historical setting like that with a protagonist who is a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, and there were plenty of those, the chances are that more than one writer is going to have similar ideas. But not all readers are going to have also so recently read a similar book.

The pace of the story drew me along pretty well until the closing stages which fell a little flat with me. There were also a few points within the story that puzzled me a little as to what they were intended to be doing. For example, an obviously darkly magical charm is placed in Quire’s room but we never really find out exactly who put it there or what it was intended to mean other than something dark and nasty was probably in Quire’s future.

If you like the mixture of history and Gothic, then this is worth a read although it will not be making it into my final list of favourite books of the year. But then I can be a picky bugger.

Book Review - Gallipoli by Peter Hart

Gallipoli
Peter Hart
2011
Profile Books

review first posted at www.boomerangbooks.com.au

Here in Australia we are more used to seeing books on Gallipoli presenting a much more Anzac-centric focus on the Dardenelles campaign of 1915. It comes as a surprise to some to learn that the Australian and New Zealand troops were just one part of the multi-national Mediterranean Task Force and greatly outnumbered by British troops. Also making up the force were French, Indian and even troops from New Foundland (although the latter do not get a mention from Hart).

It is also not as well appreciated as it should be in Australia that the landing on April 25th, 1915 at Gaba Tepe, which later became known as Anzac Cove, was just one of a number of landings on the Gallipoli peninsula, both real and diversionary. Anzac Cove was also far from the worst of the landings - that dubious honour is held by the British landing further down the peninsula at V Beach.

Something that really struck me in this account was just what a great job the Turks did, particularly in the confusion of that first day. The invaders were often held up by far fewer numbers of troops who admittedly held the high ground yet were not that well equipped. The fire discipline of some of those units lead some of the attackers to believe that they were facing machine guns when the few Turkish machine guns were not brought into the line later in the day, depending on where the need was believed greatest. At one point a British advance was held up by the sight of a line of Turkish troops, laying on the ground ahead of them. If only they had realised that the Turks were out of ammunition and only had the bayonets left to fight with.

Hart is far more condemnatory of British planning and conduct of the campaign than is often the case with British researchers and authors. He also condemns aspects of the Anzac landing, while still paying the compliment of how remarkable was the grimly determined Australian and New Zealand grasp on their toehold.

It was also interesting to read some accounts by British seaman that shed some light on a significant aspect that greatly increased the confusion of the Anzac landing.

While this book does not flow or read as well as say, Les Carlyon's Gallipoli, it is far from the dry read that you might expect from a professional historian. For anyone with an interest in the larger picture of the Gallipoli campaign, this title is definitely worth a look.

Rule of Three

I was recently reading something by a noted author but it just did not seem to be grabbing me at all. This puzzled me as at first glance, it seemed well written. After some re-reading, it finally dawned on me what the problem was.

Some time back I was able to interview the author, Diana Gabaldon. One of the things we discussed was the Rule of Three as it applies to writing. In short, repeating things three times will make a reader remember it, such as a plot development - but be a bit subtle about it. Similarly, the Rule of Three applies to use of the senses in writing. We have five - use three of them in a scene to really hook a reader.

In this book that I was reading, I realised that the author had focused predominantly on just one sense - sight. They had described in detail what things looked like, but rarely what things sounded like, how they smelled, tasted or felt. So the scenes tended to be one-dimensional which was why things were not grabbing me in any real way.

So the moral of the tale is to make sure I use three senses in a scene when I am writing. The dark dungeon becomes much creepier when we know that it also smells like the corruption of rotting corpses and we can hear the skittering of rodent feet across the slimy flagstones.

Review: All Day Long the Noise of Battle

All Day Long the Noise of Battle: An Australian attack in Vietnam
by Gerard Windsor
2011
Pier 9

as reviewed at Boomerang Books

In writing any history, the immediate issue facing the research/author is that of information sources. At first glance, this may seem a relatively straight forward thing in this instance when many of the participants are still alive and may be consulted along with official records. What Gerard Windsor amply demonstrates here is that this is anything but straight forward. The problem of memory is a real inhibitor – different accounts because of different memories of specific events even comes into play with accounts written very shortly after the event, let alone some forty years later.

Despite this issue of conflicting accounts and memories, Windsor has compiled a detailed and very interesting account of the actions of the men from C Company, Seventh Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (7RAR) in Operation Coburg.

Australian ‘memory’ of the fighting in the Tet Offensive in 1968 is heavily influenced by US sources such as film. Yet Australian infantry and artillery units on the ground also played roles. Operation Coburg saw the men of C Company assault a North Vietnamese bunker complex. This was no fleeting contact in the jungle or a rain-obscured contact and rescue as at Long Tan, but a concentrated assault over three days. It was in fact arguably the longest attack by Australian troops during the Vietnam War. Yet the events were barely recorded in the media at the time and recognised little better by the military itself.

I found the book something of an eye-opener as it told the story of an event that has gone strangely unnoticed. Windsor has gone to considerable effort to relate as much of the account as possible to the individual soldiers taking part, which gives the book a greater human dimension than may otherwise have been the case.

This account should interest not just those with an interest in Australian military history, but also those with a broader interest in Australian history in general.