Still Not Dead Yet

 Two... Two...

It's like those movies where someone finds an old spaceship that's been under the ice for a thousand years, and after switching on a few switches and twiddling a few buttons the whole thing fires up and starts pulsing and glowing as if it really hasn't been gathering dust all that time. 

Actually I've never seen nor heard of a movie like that, but I like the image as a metaphor for firing up this Blog again after whisking it away from right under your noses nearly 10 years ago to the day. I can only imagine the torture I've put you all through wondering where on earth he went and whether he died or went to prison or why did he stop after all this time etc. 

Well, you know how it is. Life gets busy, we get older, the world changes under our feet. Does anyone actually Blog anymore, or has that been replaced with TikTok videos and podcasts? My head spins when I try and work out what's "in" at the moment and what all the young people are doing. I try not to even think about it anymore. As you get older you become less and less concerned with what's popular and hip and you become more interested in what you like and what you enjoy. Or at least that's my experience so far - how's it holding up for you? 

I used to enjoy writing this blog. I didn't quite realise that until tonight I logged in and worked my way through all my previous posts. My word - what a time capsule - what a window into a time and world that wasn't all that long ago but somehow seems like a lifetime. And now I feel like blogging again. It's highly possible that I will never feel like this again and this will end up as one more dangling little orphan of a post, separated from its ancestors by decades and never to have any children of its own. But who cares? Let us live for this moment and damn the consequences, as some wise man probably never said. 

People sometimes (I was going to write "often" but that would have been a lie) ask me if I still write. My answer is always a slight variant of the same theme. I wrote my books and short stories when my boys were small and went to bed early, leaving me a few undisturbed hours to focus. Now that they're hairy teenagers they go to bed way later than me, and the house is definitely no longer peaceful in the last few hours of the day. Of course I would have this no other way. But if I'm honest, it's not the entire reason I haven't written anything much in a decade. 

The real reason is that my experience as a published author involved lots of wonderful experiences that I was grateful for, but also a lot of negative things that still leave a bitter taste in my mouth. The details aren't important. It's sufficient to say that the hard work and frustration doesn't end when a publisher accepts your manuscript. In some ways, that's when it all begins. 

There's something else I want to say. I said above that the world has changed, and so it has. When I first conceived of the idea for what would become Tales of the Blue Jade, I was living in a world where it was completely acceptable for a white Australian of European descent to borrow elements of other people's cultures and attempt to blend them willy-nilly into his or her own work. 

This is no longer acceptable. And thank god. 

Nowadays it would rightly be called "cultural appropriation". I look back now with deep regret at what I didn't see at the time, and I have to say I am deeply thankful that the series sank like a stone and is no longer in print. It's next to impossible these words will ever get to anyone who needs to hear them, but all the same, I want to say publicly that I apologise for any offence I have caused. It was done with good intentions, but that doesn't make it good. 

That said, I would like to write again. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I have ideas galore running through my little head, ideas that are not based on stealing from a culture not my own. I'm not sure if I could ever go through the torturous path to publication again, but I think I'd be happy just to get some of these ideas into writing, even if it was just for my own satisfaction. 

And so I fire up this long dead blog again. Let's see where this old star-ship can take us. 

A While Between Drinks

... yes indeed it is, but I'm happy to report that the story I mentioned in the last post has been accepted by Aurealis. I've been trying on-and-off for a few years to get into that mag so it's nice to finally succeed. When I find out which issue and when it's coming out I'll be sure to post it here for your perusing pleasure.

I'm also reading Stephen King's On Writing at the moment. It's been on my hit-list for several years. Lots of really good advice, some of which I've heard before and some of which is totally new. I should add that I don't agree with everything he says. The more I go on in this writing game the more I realize how important it is to distinguish between good writing advice and an individual author's personal taste. Often the two things get intertwined to the point you can't tell them apart.

That said, it's an excellent book and I would happily recommend it.

Still Here...

Salutations faithful blog reader. Yes, it's been just over a year since my last post, which I'm sure is a huge no-no in the book of blog-writing etiquette. And yet here I am posting once again, and it's very nice to be back.

"What has happened in the last year?" I hear you cry. Lots, but not a lot of writing. Part of that was due to my lack of motivation after Shamblers was rejected. Part of it was due to life just getting busy. We're in a new house now and there's lots to do, and those young boys who used to go to bed faithfully at 7.30 are getting older and staying up later. All of it chews into writing time, alas.

The good news is that this year I've set a goal to get back into writing again. I've already submitted a short-story to Aurealis, fingers crossed, and I've started writing a new novel which I have to say I'm enjoying more and more as each chapter oozes onto the page. With a bit of luck I might have something ready to submit by the end of the year.

I'm also hoping to shop Shamblers around to more places. I might be biased, but I think it's a pretty good story, and I'm sure there are lots of readers out there who would feel the same.

So that's my update. If the stars align, I might post another before a whole year goes by.

Sliding Doors

Just over four months after sending Shamblers off to the publisher I finally found out the book has been rejected. Apparently the powers that be in the wider arm of the company didn't think it was a goer. It's a bit of a blow, especially after hanging out for so long to find out and not really being able to get into anything else in the meantime. What scared me the most in their reply was the fact they didn't want to take any kind of risk because Tales of the Blue hadn't done very well for the company. Now that's a terrifying thought. If your previous published books are not considered a "commercial success"does that condemn you never to getting back into print again? Surely not!

So here I am, in many ways right back where I was 6 years ago when I was tidying up the final draft of Ghost of Ping-Ling for submission. Yes, it's scary. But it's also fairly exciting. Both my publisher and my editor liked Shamblers (bless their hearts). My beta-readers liked Shamblers (big wave to Teresa, Pete, Shilpa and Brendan). And I like Shamblers (and I'm not a bit biased). There's a lot of love here floating around for the book, so I feel I can allow myself just that little smidge of optimism as I reach out to submit the manuscript to as many publishers/agents as I can possibly find.

First off the rank was Allen and Unwin with their Friday pitch. I have to say, I don't feel particularly confident about that one, namely because I haven't had much luck with them in the past. I have this terrible fear they attach an enormous amount of importance to your 300 word synopsis and, quite frankly, my synopsis writing stinks. Let's hope this time I managed to come up with a better specimen.

In the meantime I'm trying to hammer out a query letter. I'd forgotten how much I hate writing those. Maybe then I'll start working through the list of agents I've been following for a while, if it gets to that.

And in the meantime, it's back to work. Time to dust off a couple of projects I've been working on for a while and see if I can make them into anything half-way decent.

Musings.

Tonight is our very last night in our home of 16 years. When we moved in here we had to plug a cord into the phone-line in order to get internet, our TV was 30 cm wide and could only receive an analog signal (which was frequently blurry), my mobile phone was the size of a brick, and Friday night entertainment meant driving to the video store to hire a VHS cassette of the latest release.

My hope is that when it comes time to move out of our new home, it'll be by teleporter.

To George, or not to George

So a few weeks back I got an email from a 10 year old girl in New Zealand, saying how much she loved my books. Words can't express how much it boosts an author's morale to get a letter like that. To date I think I've probably read it about 93 times, and I'm not done yet.

The only slightly negative thing about the letter was that it wasn't sent to me, at least not initially. It would seem the young writer googled my by name and came up with an author in the UK. Mercifully, the other Peter Cooper was able to track me down and forward it on, otherwise I would never have seen it. If that particular Peter Cooper is reading this -- cheers old chap. If I ever get any of your fan mail, I promise to pass it on.

This, of course, brings me back to a dilemma that I've blogged about before. My name is simply way too common.

If you google my books by title, you'll get me straight away. If you're reading this blog, you'll hopefully know that you can flip over to the profile page and get my email address from there. But if you try and find me by sticking my name into a search engine you'll get the phone book. Not only that, I haven't a hope of registering a sensible domain name. The .com is taken, as is the .com.au. I think I might be able to get the .com.nz, but it's unlikely anyone's ever going to try and find me that way anyway, so I think not.

So, what I'm coming to, is this. Should I be successful in getting another book published in future, I'm thinking fairly seriously that it will be under the name Peter George Cooper.

Not that that's my middle name. I don't actually have one. But I think George would be nice, given that it's my paternal grandfather's name, and a likely choice I guess, if my parents had ever considered giving me one (his other name was Herbert. I'm glad they didn't go for that one).

I could always follow a bit of a trend in fantasy novels at the moment and published under P.G. Cooper. It has a nice kind of "literary" ring to it, which might trick people into thinking my work is deeper and cleverer than it is. But no, I think the full version is better, should I use it at all.

And one of the big advantages is that the domain name is free. Which means, if I go ahead with it, I'll be able to get a proper authorial-type website happening, which is what people tell me I should have, being an authorial-type.

So there you go. That's where I'm leaning at the moment. Watch this space.

Movements.

So we sold our house a few weeks back, which means we're now able to buy the one we had a contract on. We'll be moving in January just after the holiday madness. The house we're moving to was built in 1870 and used to be the local school-house. It has no mains water, no mains gas, no air-conditioning and no electrical heating. We're relying on rainwater tanks and log fires. That's it.

Yes, that's a little scary, if the truth be known. In some ways it's like stepping back a hundred years. Our current house has ducted reverse cycle airconditioning and gas appliances and the whole shebang. What it doesn't have is a view from the backyard like this.

That's what I see when I step out of my new office. Which means when I get bored with editing or stuck on an idea for a new story, I can just waltz on out and breathe the air. Which makes any potential hassle more than worthwhile.

And anyway, I like the thought of having a bit of separation from the utilities we've depended on for so long. There's something freeing about knowing your water supply comes directly from the sky, rather than through some sort of mysterious treatment works and several kilometers of underground piping. And if it means we have to learn to manage it better, that's a good thing. Not to mention the cost savings, made even better by the fact there's a 3.8KW solar system on the shed roof.

It should be an exciting time! Now we just have to move. It's amazing how much stuff you pick up when you've been in once place for 15 years.