RJ's Talkback Radio

Using real characters

rjastruc — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 08:33:43 +0000

Husband wants me to write The Service - the story about prisoners going back in time like a penal colony. Which has made me decide to set it in the late 1700s – so that the people who wind up on the colony are English convicts. Instead of sending them to Australia, they send them to DINOSAUR TIMES.

I want to use some real characters from that era. The three I’m thinking about are:

John Caesar
Billy Blue
Elizabeth Williams
Alexander Pearce

I’m going to write them in their late teens/twenties, which isn’t correct for all of them – Pearce is chronologically about 25 years younger than the others – but I can see this being more of a young adult story. I can’t think of any other interesting characters from that era.

What do I write next?

rjastruc — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:57:14 +0000

What a question. Now I’m having fun with longer fiction, I’m left to work out what I need to do next. I’ve got a few options:

Dark Country. This is a post apocalyptic novel I’ve never finished and really should because it’s quite good. Currently has 22,000 words to it, and it’s horrifying and stark and everyone gets murdered and raped. What happens? The world has ended, and our main characters live in the city of Holding, a military base and ex-prison. The mistress of a General has a vision of a prostitute being raped and enlists the help of a jaded veteran to help catch him. The veteran has secrets of her own, relating to her violent military service. I suspect it’ll wind up being about 40,000 words.
The Service. I’ve done no writing on this baby. It’s a science fiction story. In the future, prisons close and the prisoners are sent back in time to the Jurassic period. There’s no option of return. It’s the civilised way of removing undesirable people from earth – it’s not the death penalty, technically. A society has evolved as a result of these people being sent back. One girl is trying to get back to her own time; she’s helped by a guy who was born in the Jurassic to criminal parents. I’m seeing this as about 30,000-40,000 words. Lots of room there for sequels, too.
All the Cigarettes. Chick-lit. Girl gives up cigarettes, falls in love with work accountant, tragedy, love, withdrawal. And so on and so forth. I’ve got a few thousand words of this, and can see this hitting 10,000, but no more. I’d consider this an interesting little writing exercise.
[Untitled] Tinker Tailor is the biggest boy band ever. They’ve just chosen a new member, Art, thanks to a hugely popular reality television show (Who’s The Next Tinker?). Art is excited as all fuck until half-way to a gig, when the band stop their tour bus, get out , and fight a giant tentacle monster. It turns out Tinker Tailor isn’t just a boy band. That’s their cover so they can fight Lovecraftian evil. Oh yeah.

So what do you think? What should I write? Actually, it’s more about the order I write them in.

Thanks for your support

rjastruc — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:54:49 +0000

Thank you everyone who’s been buying my books lately! I’ve never seen Amazon ratings that good on my fiction before.

If you’ve got the time please do write me a review on Amazon or Goodreads, it’d be spiffin’ lovely.

In other, sadder news, Dory Previn died. I’ve listened to her music since I was a child and she never fails to either depress me, creep me out, make me cry or make me laugh. Or some combination of the four. Amazing woman, incredible poet.

Street of Two Doors, currently free, may be evil

rjastruc — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:58:49 +0000

Chicklit? Check me out.

rjastruc — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:55:00 +0000

This fortnight’s challenge (to keep my end in) is to write a romance novelette. Why? The same reason people climb mountains. Because they’re fucking stupid. Here’s an extract of the story so far:

All about me

Let’s do this AA style.

My name is Fran and I’m a smoker.

I’ve been a smoker from my very first puff, which happened at age fourteen, in an alley way behind my high school, with three otherwise forgetable girls called Linda, Katie and Susie who I haven’t seen since graduation. (I’d be hard pressed to remember their last names now, truth be told). One of the girls had stolen a half-empty pack from her mother’s purse. We all snuck out to the alley during our lunch break and Linda–she was the cigarette expert, her big brother had shown her how–taught us how to light up.

We coughed a lot, we spluttered, we had tears streaming down our faces, but we were all troopers to the last. We sucked down those cigarettes between dry retches and asked for more.

By the end of the month I was alternating between bumming cigarettes of strangers and sneaking into the only newsagents in town that didn’t check for ID. By the end of the year I had a steady habit: two cigarettes a day, one in the afternoon in the alley with friends, and one at night, sneakily puffed out my bedroom window so my parents wouldn’t catch on.

Since then it’s been a sad descent into cigarette madness. On a normal day I’ll sneak in at least five during work hours, five before work, and then twenty (yes, I can’t believe it myself as I write it down) after hours. I smoke while I watch television. I smoke while I think. I smoke while I use the internet. A few years ago I started smoking while I ate and from there it was a small step to smoking in bed. Trust me if I could smoke in the shower I would.

What all this adds up to is a serious habit which has lasted for seventeen years. That’s right, I’ve been a smoker for most of my life.

Arthur from work (he’s in accounts) sent me in a spreadsheet the other day. In one column of the spreadsheet were a list of the years I’d spent smoking. In another was the approximate cost of my upwardly spiralling habit. I won’t tell you the sum total of the money I spent on smoking–it’s far too depressing. But I will say this: if I’d saved up all that money, and if I’d had a penchant for expensive luxury yachts… well, I’d have a bloody nice yacht right now.

I said as much to Arthur, an ex-smoker himself.

“I quit four years ago,” he offered. “It’s not that hard.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am lying,” Arthur admitted. “It was the most terrible month of my life. Even now when I see people smoking I want to bite their faces off and steal their cigarettes.”

“Oh,” I said.

“This one time while I was in the grip of withdrawal I went to the pub, sat at a table with an overflowing ashtray, and inhaled over it for about an hour.”

“You’re not helping at convincing me to quit,” I said. “In fact I want to light up right now.”

“Why don’t you make a list of the pros and cons of smoking?” Arthur suggested. “That helped me take the plunge.”

Arthur’s suggestion has led me to the following:

Cons of being a smoker

1. Cancer. My grandfather loved his smokes and died of lung cancer. My high school science teacher loved her smokes; she got lung cancer. I read in a magazine once that virtually all smokers will get cancer eventually. I don’t want cancer.

2. Health, generally. I’m not healthy. I cough and wheeze, rain or shine. I’m sick of getting puffed when I attempt to climb the stairs at work. I’ll never be a gym-bunny, but I’d like to be able to make it to the first floor at least without starting to sound like a dying moose. Which brings me to:

3. Shame. Along with the shame of being unhealthy comes the much graver shame of being a smoker. It was okay in the old days, when smoking was cool. When people did it on television. When you heard all the good gossip on your smoke break. Now it’s tres unhip. People hear that you smoke and the first thing they say is always, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you trying to quit?” instead of, “Wow, you must be really groovy.”

4. Money. Boy, they cost a lot these days, don’t they? I remember back in the good old days (and let’s face it, all of the tobacco industry’s best days are behind it) when you could get a pack of twenty for six dollars. Now the price has tripled, if not quadrupled. I’ve found myself plenty of times in situations where I have to weigh up the cost of cigarettes with the cost of buying a new skirt, or getting a book, or (once) paying my gas bill. And I’m sick of cigarettes always winning.

5. Motivation. I want to do it. I know can do it. I’m pretty sure I can do it. I’ve seen plenty of half-wit D list celebrities talking about how they quit. My mother, a lifetime smoker, quit the day her father died (see point 1.) and has never been tempted since. The teenager who works the tobacco counter at my supermarket quit a pack a day habit at the tender age of nineteen (and said he’d give me tips, if I wanted them). So, obviously people can quit smoking. And I’m people.

Pros of being a smoker

1. Cigarettes are bloody fantastic.

2. They are, aren’t they!

Pimping the unpublishable

rjastruc — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:38:55 +0000

I’ve put up Clockworld and Street of Two Doors on Amazon for Free for a while. So jump on Amazon and grab them while you can. And if they’re any good, tell your mates! Clockworld is number 8 in gay and lesbian fiction and 39 in science fiction right now, which is jolly nice.

I’ve decided that I might as well put up all my unpublishable or out of print novels on Amazon. That means two books, essentially:

New Tricks, first published in 2005 or so, and a horrible abomination I wrote on a bet. It’s a werewolf romance. Yes. That’s right. A werewolf romance. The things I do for a bet, hey.
The Arraeli’s Flight, which I wrote in 2001. It’s a “funny fantasy” (by which I mean a fantasy in which people have awkward sex and make bum jokes) and also a total mess!

So stay tuned for rubbish. Yay!

Street of Two Doors

rjastruc — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:12:48 +0000

“That’s my trouble, Helen,” said Leroy, winking, and I knew in that instant that I’d found a kindred spirit. “I could have any woman I want. Problem is, I want them all.”

Now that I think back I can’t remember the last time – or any time – that Leroy and I had a conversation about real things. He didn’t like to talk about his kids or his ex-wife or his job; I didn’t like to talk about my writing or my family. Global events, literature and politics weren’t really Leroy’s style, and I can’t stand sport. So when we spoke at all it was always about sex. Doing it to each other and doing it to other people. What we intended to do and what we had done and what we wished we could do but would never have the guts to try. Our filthiest and our tamest fantasies.

Helen always adored Leroy Bale, but she wasn’t the only one. A friend to most, a lover to many and a devoted dog owner. What’s not to like?

And now he’s dead.

Murdered. Stabbed in the back and shot with his own gun in a seedy hotel room. Not the most glamorous death scene for a lovable police officer. Helen is looking for the reason behind it all, and everything she finds leads her back to one place: La Rue des Deux Portes.

The Street of Two Doors.

A secretive club for consenting adults to meet and find mutual pleasure, no strings. Leroy was a member, and his friend and fellow cop Charlie says there’s nothing more they can do through official channels.

Helen knows something is up at La Rue. She knows the only way to solve the murder is to join a sex club, no matter how ludicrous it seems. But will the sins of the flesh cloud her judgements about the crime?

This is officially my first proper Indie publication (that wasn’t a reprint or something else)! It’ll be on Amazon within the next 12 hours.

Cover art/model: Thalie Astree

Comfort levels

rjastruc — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:03:48 +0000

I’m more comfortable writing in science fiction worlds. Maybe it’s the fact I’m in IT. Maybe it’s just because I find it hard to remember – let alone create – a world without the internet, with all that knowledge immediately available for anyone with a connection. Yes, I write fantasy but I don’t really believe in it, I don’t have big exciting worlds, just small urban shit. I can make galaxies in science fiction, but I struggle to world build a city in fantasy.

I probably need a new science fiction world. Although conceptually I’m down with my alt-history Brazza, it’s difficult to build it, to expand it without running into little limitations like Oh that didn’t exist back then.

Dead Prince

rjastruc — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:03:20 +0000

So, that new story we were working on. (Hubby writes, I plot.) It’s got a title – Dead Prince. I can’t tell you when it’ll be finished (buggered if I know) but we’re hoping by the end of January. A tight deadline, did you say? Well, there you go.

Dead Prince is the story of a girl who brings people back from the dead. It’s kinda sorta her day job. We’re all voodoo up in here.

For fun, here’s the first chapter – unedited, in all its glory.

ONE

An average grave contains about 13 square metres of dirt.

An average shovel holds one shovel of dirt.

It’s dark and gloomy, the moon is full and I am standing at the bottom of a six foot pit, sweating like a pig. My feet are resting on the newly uncovered lid of a wooden coffin, because the Fingers are a bunch of ignorant twerps and I am a sucker for profit. It’s midnight, as tradition and ritual demand, and the wind is howling across the top of the open grave as if it has somewhere to go. It carries the sound of grand ships, rough ocean waves and the tolling bells of the Temperance Society clock tower.

It also carries the smell of fish.

Wigstaff Cemetery stands silent and indifferent on a cliff to the south of Brazza, countless mausoleums looming predictably in the moonlight. The cemetery resembles a city in parts, with huge structures arranged in precise rows and even paved paths for the comfort of mourners. Many of the mausoleums are adorned with angels, crosses and patron saints, reaching up to higher powers. Many more have carefully idealised idols of their occupants in the prime of their lives, begging us regular mortals to remember them when they were pretty and important.

Climbing out of the open grave, I can see the less civilised outskirts of the spooky city. Simple stone blocks scattered along the hills mark the mass graves where plague victims were tossed. Each stone is marked with a letter, so ancestors con grieve alphabetically.

I’m focused on just one deathbed right now, though. I raise up my arms as dramatically as I can and start saying the words that need to be said. I light all the candles and start saying the voodoo incantation just the way Granny Pangier taught me all those years ago in her run down old shack on the other side of the island. I sprinkle the appropriate dust – three parts magic, one part sparkle for effect – into the hole and pull off some very impressive hand signals. In my head a a clap of thunder goes off.

Nothing happens at first. Then a swirling ribbon of ether slips from within me and flutters into the open grave. I crouch down beside it and peer into the gloom.

The lid of the coffin stirs. Rises.

The corpse emerges, although the term conjures inaccurate imagery. There are no hunks of rotting flesh, eyeballs are not sunken, bones are not protruding from places and worms are not feasting on anything apart from dirt. If anything, the corpse looks more like a man who has just emerged a rough sleep. He smells of dirt and mustiness, but so do I at this point.

“How have you been, Oliphant?” I say, leaning over with a cheery grin.

The corpse blinks. I should say the living man at this point, because he is truly alive at this point. Just because someone recently emerged from a coffin is no reason to discriminate. If I squint I can spot a cord of silvery-blue magic like a thread running between the two of us, tying us together. My spell is keeping him alive.

“Who are you? What happened to me?” He looks around, probably gathering the basics.

“You ran into a spot of bother, lost a lot of money to the wrong sort of people in the wrong sort of places. Made some proactive enemies. Although you probably know that bit. The guard had to deal with you.”

“I died,” he says.

“Yes, and now you’re back,” I say.

“You raised me from the dead. This is magic… necromancy!” He gestures as wildly as possible in a three foot wide hole.

“Yep.”

“But why? I don’t know you. I mean I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but when you wake up in the middle of the night as a zombie and find a dirt-covered necromancer girl staring down at you it makes you a little curious.”

“Ah,” I say, standing up and brushing the dirt off my knees, “there’s the bad news.”

“Um… what?”

“I mentioned that matter of money earlier. Do you remember who’s money that was? The ladies really do like it when people pay their debts. And they’re rather determined. Death isn’t going to get in the way of something important like revenge.”

Even as I speak to the poor living man in the hole, the Ladies of Temperance are emerging from the shadows, knives in their hands and dangerous emotions in their eyes. They are clothed in their usual prim and proper attire, but most have elected to slip large, thick aprons over the top to catch the spray. Some of them are wearing heels, which strikes me as impractical, but who am I to judge. The ladies converge on our position and I step away.

“Best let you all sort things out then,” I say.

“No you can’t! No!” Oliphant yells to everyone at once.

I find a nice headstone to sit on, a comfy cheap job with a round top, and stare back at the nearby town.

Behind me, I hear Oliphant screaming and the cackling of chaste women. Knives don’t really make much of a sound themsleves, aside from the thud of a well placed swing.

Eventually the silvery-blue cord of light flickers and vanishes, its edges fraying in the air.

Kindle All Stars Giveaway!

rjastruc — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:11:10 +0000

I promised a post would be coming along these lines… and here it is!

The Kindle All Stars: Resistance Front anthology is available on Amazon for $0.99, and contains a copy of my cyberpunk story, The Ghosts of Los Hellas. Buy a copy and support the the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The Ghosts of Los Hellas is a sequel to my novel Harmonica + Gig, which is also conveniently available on the Kindle. (If you live in Australia or New Zealand, Harmonica + Gig should be in your local bookstore too.)

This week I’m giving away a paperback copy of Harmonica + Gig to a Resistance Front fan.

If you’d like to go into the draw to win a copy of Harmonica + Gig, you can do one of two things:

If you’ve read Kindle All Stars: Resistance Front, leave a review on either Goodreads or Amazon and link me to it.
If you haven’t read Kindle All Stars: Resistance Front, check out the Fringe Scientist website – look for #KindleAllStars interview posts – and tell me about the author who’s story you’d most like to read.

To respond, leave a comment on this blog or a reply to me on Twitter (@astruc).