Back so soon? Yes, I know but there you go - when it rains, it pours...
Just thought I'd update things a bit. No book deal or publishing credits to share (and I've given up on the sponsorship thing) but that's not to say things haven't been rolling along...I feel a bit like one of those steam engines building pressure and gaining traction...I may not be moving yet but once I get going it will to full steam ahead.
At the moment my dry period of ideas and inspiration (I refuse to call it a drought) while I have been reading and reasearching, has broken like a dam...or a drought..I'm mixing my metaphores a bit so I'm not sure which it is but it doesn't matter. The ideas are coming thick and fast, and while they may not all be good or even great ideas, there are some real gems. Some are longer, like Dying Civilization (working title only) and Audrey and Jane, a story my wife particularly wants to read after hearing the pitch. Then there is a selection of short stories some that are still ideas, some I have started. Amongst the ones I've started writing are Only a day away (a story with tulips but not about tulips), Reason to Live (no tulips, but I think will turn out to be a hell of a story) and All in your head (which I hope will have a sort of Twilight Zone feel)...
Anyway, for a change of pace, I will not be doing the usual 'history of Sean Greenhill as a debt collector' interlude (never fear, dear readers it shall return) but in it's place we will have a special guest segment I like to call 'My Family Tree/ I heard it through the grapevine' or 'Is it in the Genes?'
I imagine that most writers/painters/musicians have reached some point where they ask themselves 'Do I really have IT or am I just kidding myself?' I hope they do anyway, otherwise it's just me. Luckily for me, I've been able to look to my cousin, Craig Greenhill. Craig is a photographer with The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, Aust and has won numerous awards, including two Walkley awards for his stunning images. (and yes, actually, I took all of the images in my photography page).
Recently, I was also able to confirm that I am related (distantly admittedly - first cousin twice removed) to Harold Greenhill, the renowned Australian painter, who won the Sulman Prize in 1950 and 1956.
One of Harold's daughters, Annette Kay - who became Annette Kay Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Clayeboye - is the mother of the illustrator and special effects artist, Freya Blackwood. Freya's special effects work can be seen in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and she has won this years Kate Greenaway Medal for her illustrations in the children's book Harry & Hopper.
So, what does this show, apart from the fact that I can name drop too? It means that if it's in the genes, then I just might have a hope. Who knows, it might even be a head start? Of course, if you don't believe, it doesn't mean anything...but still, it helps.
Cheers
Friday, October 22, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Nothing but time
October already? Like Alice's rabbit - I'm Late! I'm Late!
Okay the (few) highlights first...
My story Ease of the Midnight Visit - a ghost story that's more thought provoking than scary - was published in Short and Twisted 2010 (Celapene Press, AUS) in June and, I think, that copies are still available for purchase at Celepane Press. My story is the last in the book and I'm taking this as 'saving the best for last'. Submissions are now open for Short and Twisted 2011 and I'm going to see if I can't go for two years in a row. We'll see...
Long Live the King! has had another outing, this time in Twisted Tongue (UK) Issue16. For some reason I really like the main charcter of this story, Vince Card/Charlie King, to such a degree that I have continued it beyond the orginal 2500 words or so, and it's now out to about 9000 words. Could it possibly be a novella or novel I hear you ask. I'm hoping so and have done a mountain of research on the D.E.A. and the mafia, including wading through Selwyn Raab's 800 page Five Families. Fascinating but I wouldn't try to read it again. So much detail, it did my head in.
I've also knocked out a couple of good short stories, Everett - featuring a character so annoying that I can't help loving him, and Live to Ride - a story I will admit was directly inspired by the recent reposts in the media of the 'Lemontree Passage Ghost'. I also have written a story called A Friend Like Bob to see how far I could take what was essentially a one line joke. 1500 words, apparently. Don't expect to see it published - ever.
I've also kept myself busy reading about 20 - 30 real crime novels as research. They are fascinating but stightly horrifing, not just what some people are capable of doing to other people, but in the fact that chance and dumb luck seem to solve more crime than any amount of so called 'traditional policing'. I constantlly wonder how anyone is ever caught at all.
Anyway...I won't leave it as long next time...promise
What's that? My lesson from the past?
Back in the 80's, more than twenty years ago, I worked in property finance, when it was still like the wild west, and slick cowboys rode into town and rode out just as fast, some with their ill gotten gains, some with their tails between their legs.
I was introduced to one on those cowboys once, we'll call him 'Sneaky Pete' to avoid any law suits. Sneaky Pete was a wheeler and dealer, a man with a smile on his face all the time. But Sneaky Pete wore a black hat and I was warned. 'Don't be fooled and don't get to close. He's bad business.'
Later on, in the nineties, I saw 'Sneaky Pete' again. He was spruiking his latest idea, and quiet respected people were being photographed with him, but then it all feel through and Sneaky Pete disappeared again.
Imagine my surprise when I turned on the news this week and saw 'Sneaky Pete', slightly older, rounder and with grey hair, telling the media that he couldn't talk about the current case invovling hundreds of thousands of dollars that shouldn't have gone missing.
The lesson. A leopard never changes it's spots.
Cheers
Okay the (few) highlights first...
My story Ease of the Midnight Visit - a ghost story that's more thought provoking than scary - was published in Short and Twisted 2010 (Celapene Press, AUS) in June and, I think, that copies are still available for purchase at Celepane Press. My story is the last in the book and I'm taking this as 'saving the best for last'. Submissions are now open for Short and Twisted 2011 and I'm going to see if I can't go for two years in a row. We'll see...
Long Live the King! has had another outing, this time in Twisted Tongue (UK) Issue16. For some reason I really like the main charcter of this story, Vince Card/Charlie King, to such a degree that I have continued it beyond the orginal 2500 words or so, and it's now out to about 9000 words. Could it possibly be a novella or novel I hear you ask. I'm hoping so and have done a mountain of research on the D.E.A. and the mafia, including wading through Selwyn Raab's 800 page Five Families. Fascinating but I wouldn't try to read it again. So much detail, it did my head in.
I've also knocked out a couple of good short stories, Everett - featuring a character so annoying that I can't help loving him, and Live to Ride - a story I will admit was directly inspired by the recent reposts in the media of the 'Lemontree Passage Ghost'. I also have written a story called A Friend Like Bob to see how far I could take what was essentially a one line joke. 1500 words, apparently. Don't expect to see it published - ever.
I've also kept myself busy reading about 20 - 30 real crime novels as research. They are fascinating but stightly horrifing, not just what some people are capable of doing to other people, but in the fact that chance and dumb luck seem to solve more crime than any amount of so called 'traditional policing'. I constantlly wonder how anyone is ever caught at all.
Anyway...I won't leave it as long next time...promise
What's that? My lesson from the past?
Back in the 80's, more than twenty years ago, I worked in property finance, when it was still like the wild west, and slick cowboys rode into town and rode out just as fast, some with their ill gotten gains, some with their tails between their legs.
I was introduced to one on those cowboys once, we'll call him 'Sneaky Pete' to avoid any law suits. Sneaky Pete was a wheeler and dealer, a man with a smile on his face all the time. But Sneaky Pete wore a black hat and I was warned. 'Don't be fooled and don't get to close. He's bad business.'
Later on, in the nineties, I saw 'Sneaky Pete' again. He was spruiking his latest idea, and quiet respected people were being photographed with him, but then it all feel through and Sneaky Pete disappeared again.
Imagine my surprise when I turned on the news this week and saw 'Sneaky Pete', slightly older, rounder and with grey hair, telling the media that he couldn't talk about the current case invovling hundreds of thousands of dollars that shouldn't have gone missing.
The lesson. A leopard never changes it's spots.
Cheers
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