I’ll be honest, I have no idea what public schools are like. Except I suppose what I learned from watching Mean Girls.

I also have a new release out - Jasper and the Dead - which is part of the Under the Southern Cross anthology. Zombie story set in 18th century Sydney, which includes my favourite convicts. The Under the Southern Cross anthology is a collection by Australian authors which is quite fun, as I know some of them. Here’s a blurb:

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, a zombie outbreak threatens to wipe out Sydney. Zombie hunter Jasper Blue and Pape Sassoon, a ferryman’s secretary, are charged with getting the governor safely out to the ship anchored in Sydney Harbor. Despite a sparking mutual attraction, the two men hire a cadre of bodyguards and attempt the mission. But when the zombie horde threatens to overwhelm them, their fight for the governor becomes a battle for life, and love, and much more.

I’m currently working on two YAs: Mizzenmast and TBBHATS. I’m halfway through Mizzenmast but boy can it be tough going! I wish I had a ghost writer but I’ve no idea where to find one… and I probably couldn’t afford them anyway. TBBHATS on the other hand is trucking along. It’s going to be quite short but I think I’m okay with that. It’s only the first story in the series anyway.

“That was Arthur Smithy, ladies and gentlemen,” cried Sandy Greyson, host of the reality TV show, Find Me A Hero. “Let’s give him a big hand.”

The crowd cheered as she grabbed Art’s skinny arm by the wrist and raised it in the air, like a prize-fighter claiming a championship.

“Great work, Art,” Sandy purred. “Now let’s see what the judges thought of the song. Over to you, Gary. What’s running through your mind?”

Gary—industry giant, manager to the stars–quit picking at the tiny mic tucked in the lapels of his jacket and looked up at the stage blankly, as if he’d completely forgotten why he was here in the first place.

“One of your strongest performances in the competition, Arthur,” he admitted. “But I’ve got to be blunt here. You’re not right for Hero. Your voice isn’t strong enough and you don’t have the right look for a boy band. Daniel does. At the end of the day, I don’t think you can sell records and that’s really what it’s all about.”

“Money, money, money,” Helena purred disapprovingly from the chair on Gary’s left. Beautiful, vapid Helena was the diva of the show—in fact ‘the diva’ had become her nickname. “Don’t take any notice of him, Arthur,” she continued. “I love you, sweetie. The audience loves you. Everyone loves you. It’s no wonder you made it to the final two. You’ve got your own style, you’ve got your whole, um, dark, gothy thing going on…”

She trailed off uncertainly. Sandy relieved the silence by pushing her microphone into Art’s face.

“Thanks,” Art mumbled.

The final judge was DJ-MORE—rapper, producer, and gold medallion aficionado. “Look Arthur, let’s get real. This isn’t a high school talent show. This is Find Me A Hero. Right now you’re about here,” he said, indicating a space somewhere at shoulder level. “But at this stage of the game, we need you up here.”

Up here? Up where? Art wondered miserably, wilting under the spotlights. Does he want me to grow taller?

“Well that’s what the judges think,” Sandy giggled, “but we know it’s up to you at home to decide which one of the boys is going to be our Hero.”

She tilted the microphone toward the crowd, and the roar of excitement was as loud as thunder. The stadium was full tonight—but the stadium was always full. Find Me A Hero, with its odd combination of singing, adventure and general knowledge quizzes, was one of the most popular shows on television. Tonight eight thousand people had gathered in the stadium to watch Art and Daniel compete to become the fourth member of the internationally successful boy band Hero.

Most of the audience was teenage girls, who screamed and waved signs professing their undying love for the contestants. (Well, mainly their undying love for Daniel.) The rest were a mix of reluctant boyfriends, boys who wanted to be in boy bands, and middle-aged adults—most there with their daughters, but some alone and waving their own cardboard placards. Their messages flashed up now and then on the stadium’s jumbo screens:

 We Heart U Daniel

Daniel is my HERO

I’ll make DAN-YELL anytime

 “Voting is about to close, Arthur,” said Sandy, jogging Art’s elbow. “Got any last words for your fans?”

Give up? Art thought. To be honest, he wasn’t sure if he had any fans. Every media outlet in the country was already crowning Daniel the winner of Find Me A Hero. Betting shops had him down as a dead cert. Art wasn’t jealous of the one-sided attention. Secretly he thought Daniel deserved to win, too. Art was as surprised as everyone else that he—the weird, quiet, goth kid—had made it through to the final two.

Hopefully the band liked a good underdog story, he thought, his gaze drifting from the crowds to the curved platform hidden directly above the judges’ table. This was the band’s balcony, where the three remaining members of Hero—Lee, Steven and Fraser—could watch the show out of view of the audience. Most of the time the trio stuck to the shadows like operatic phantoms, but sometimes when he was on stage Art could see them moving about up there.

Flashes of pale hands, and now and then a glimmer of gold light glinting off Lee’s fair hair…

“Your fans are waiting, Arty,” Sandy prompted him.

Art blushed and leaned in to the mic. “Thanks for your support.”

His words were followed by a round of applause. For a moment—a brief, strangely exhilarating moment—Art imagined that the audience were clapping for him.

Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and knew that they weren’t.

“Hey, thanks, wow!” said Daniel, suddenly beside him. Above the stage, the jumbo screens immediately zoomed in on Daniel’s sparkling green eyes, his perfect teeth and perpetually half-tucked shirt. The camera loved Daniel… but then everyone loved Daniel. You only had to look at him to know he was destined for great things. Now he enveloped Art in a tight hug as if they were best friends reunited.

“Oh my gosh, it’s Daniel,” Sandy gushed, sounding almost as pleased as the audience. “And what do you want to say to your fans?”

“Wow, Sandy! I’ve so much to say!” Daniel clasped his hands over his chest and took a deep breath—acting as if what he was about to say hadn’t been rehearsed a hundred times in front of his dressing room mirror. “I want to start by telling them they’re fantastic and beautiful people. You just… you just make me humble, okay? Just so humble. I do it all for you. Give yourself a cheer! You deserve it.”

The crowd’s screams were so loud they made Art’s ears ache.

“What a superstar. This is going to be an amazing… wait, wait.” Sandy touched a hand to her ear-piece. “News just in. Voting has closed. The votes have been counted and I can tell you it is extremely close. Only a handful of votes separate Arthur and Daniel.”

That had to be a lie, Art thought. He doubted he’d come anywhere close to getting the votes Daniel had. Sandy was probably trying to keep things interesting right up to the end.

A stagehand passed a yellow envelope to Sandy, who cleared her throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of Find Me A Hero is…”

She paused for dramatic effect. I don’t care if I don’t win, Art told himself, preparing for the inevitable rejection. I don’t like Hero’s music. I don’t even know why I’m in this competition! They’re a boy band who play stupid pop songs. Daniel deserves to win. Daniel wants it.

“Should we cut to a commercial break?” Sandy grinned; the audience groaned.

Just get it over with, Art thought, covering his face with his hands. Just say his name. Just say it. Daniel.

“Let me get this envelope open…”

Daniel.

“The new member of Hero is…”

Daniel.

“…Arthur Smithy!”

Dead silence.

Art peeked out between his fingers. He wasn’t sure if it was a joke. Would Sandy joke about that? But of course it had to be a joke, because Daniel was the star, Daniel was practically born to win Find Me A Hero. Except as Art scanned the audience—the suddenly silent audience—he didn’t see a single laughing face. Some looked confused; others looked sick; and in the very middle of the front row were three girls wearing Daniel t-shirts, tears running silently down their faces.

“Arthur Smithy,” Sandy repeated, a hiccup in her voice.

A delayed explosion of stage fireworks and confetti bombs went off, and noise suddenly rolled back into the stadium. People started muttering. And shuffling. Someone booed. Over on the judging panel, Gary unclipped his microphone and threw it at the stage. DJ-MORE was unsuccessfully trying to storm out past Helena, who was too shocked to pull in her chair. And Daniel… poor Daniel was blinking stupidly into the spotlights, an almost comical expression of disbelief on his face. You could almost hear him thinking: It was meant to be me!

Something had gone terribly wrong, Art realised. Something had gone terribly wrong, somewhere, somehow, and now… and now what? He looked at the audience, still seething in indecision (he guessed they don’t know whether to cheer or throw things), and then to the show’s host. In all his time on the show, Art had never seen Sandy fazed by anything—not the contestants fighting each other, not the judges’ cruelty, not even the craziness of die-hard fans. But Sandy looked utterly lost, her knuckles white around the mic.

So Art, now feeling quite lost himself, looked past Sandy and then up, beyond the spotlights and the audience and the judges to the band’s balcony.

And saw the band looking right back at him.

Lee, Steven and Fraser. The trio stood at the railing, pressed shoulder to shoulder as if they were posing for a publicity photo. Art couldn’t clearly make out their faces—the spotlights were too bright—but they didn’t seem to be angry that they’d wound up with the dud contestant. In fact they didn’t seem particularly surprised, either. Perhaps, Art thought, Hero was rooting for me all along…

The band started to clap.

Art opened his mouth, and Sandy just managed to fumble the mic over in time to pick up Art’s final words.

“Thank you,” said Art. Partly to the fans, but mainly to Hero. “I won’t disappoint you.”

2

“Introducing Arthur Smithy, the newest member of Hero,” said Art to his bathroom mirror. “Ladies and gentleman, let’s give him a big hand.”

He gave his teeth one final polish and then spat a gob of toothpaste into the sink. It was the morning after the Find Me A Hero finale, and the first rays of sunlight were creeping through the thin blinds of his flat. In the half-light his reflection looked pale and peaky. Shaggy black hair, short on one side, long on the other—a style that his sister Jenn said made it look as if he’d run out of the hairdressers before they’d finished—stuck out around his head.

Not-very-rockstar-like, he thought, pushing a well-chewed strand of hair out of his eyes. And then reminded himself: No, not rockstar.

Not rockstar, popstar.

Art still wasn’t sure how he felt about being a popstar, much less being in a boy band. His musical idols had always been goths and glam 80s idols like Peter Murphy, Robert Smith and Adam Ant. Since the beginning of Find Me A Hero he’d tried to convince himself that being a musician—a professional, actually-getting-paid-to-make-music musician—was all that mattered. Who cared if you had to sing cheesy ballads, so long as you were rich and famous?

But now that he’d won the show, Art wasn’t so sure.

“Art Smithy, the newest member of Hero,” he said again, frowning at his reflection. “What a complete sell out.”

He grabbed a pair of jeans and waddle-walked into them as he headed out of the room. Outside the lounge was a mess, as usual. Stacks of old vinyls teetered in piles on every available surface, records he’d bought from op shops and vintage music stores. A brimming ashtray sat on top of his record player. He considered venturing into the kitchen to put the kettle on, but didn’t fancy having to deal with the tiers of old pizza boxes he knew were waiting on the counter.

The television was tuned to an episode of Entertainment Stop. Art sunk onto the sofa and fumbled for his morning cigarette. It took him a moment to realise that the television presenter had started talking about him.

“In music news, Hero fans have taken to the internet to vent their anger at the results of the Find Me A Hero finale. The show ignited controversy following a voting upset last night, which saw Arthur Smithy win over fan favourite Daniel Fortune. We talked to Mr. Fortune as he left the studio last night. He was tight lipped about his Find Me A Hero disappointment, but did let a little info slip about an upcoming solo album–”

The screen went blank. Art spun around.

“Jenn, I was watching that!”

“Ugh, I don’t know how you can listen to it,” his sister said, dropping the remote control onto the coffee table. Despite the hour, Jenn Smithy looked fresh-faced and smart in her school uniform, her dark hair pulled back into a severe bun. “It’s awful.”

“Daniel should have won.” Art shrugged. “I mean, even I think it should have been him. The guy was robbed.”

Jenn sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t smoke inside,” was all she said, handing him an ashtray.

Art accepted the ashtray without protest, even though it was his flat. But he liked Jenn. Technically she was Art’s step-sister, the only daughter of Art’s father’s third wife. Mostly Art didn’t stay in touch with his extensive family (he hated their drama), but Jenn was the exception to the rule. She was seventeen and nerdy and also, funnily enough, a huge Hero fan—although she’d become less of a Hero fan since Art had made it onto Find Me A Hero.

Which was fair enough. Art guessed it would be kind of weird to be a fan of your own brother.

“So now you’ve won, what happens now?” Jenn asked, perching on the sofa’s arm.

“I become part of Hero. I get rich and famous.” Art exhaled smoke, trying to look cool. “Actually, all I know is that we’re supposed to be performing live in ten days as the new Hero. I’d be scared if I wasn’t used to it by now.”

“This is weird, isn’t it,” Jenn said. “You don’t even like boy bands. I can’t believe you even auditioned, never mind won the competition…” She pushed him in the shoulder. “Oh for goodness sake, you should be more excited about this.”

“I know, I know.” Art chewed his lip. “I just feel like it’s not real, you know? As if at any moment someone’s going to show up and tell me it was all a joke. Honestly, look at me, Jenn. Who’d vote for me over someone like Daniel?”

A flash of annoyance crossed Jen’s face. “Well, on the rare, off-chance that the biggest opportunity of your life is real,” she said shortly, “you might want to try at least faking some enthusiasm.”

Art cringed. Jenn was always cross at him for being unenthusiastic. He didn’t get excited about anything… but he’d never really wanted much in life. A roof over his head, a job he enjoyed, and enough money to buy all the records he loved. The chance to make music for a living still seemed like a fantasy. Maybe it wouldn’t feel real to him until he got on stage with the Hero boys.

The doorbell rang, giving him an excuse to escape Jenn’s withering stare.

“That’ll be my ride.” He stubbed out his cigarette into an ashtray and grabbed his backpack. Last night the studio had told him to pack four changes of clothes for the morning, and no more—the Hero boys travelled light. Personally, Art had his doubts: four changes of clothes didn’t sound like much when you were going to be on tour for months.

He took one last look around the place before he left. He’d been living the flat for six months, and signing the lease was the first proper, adult thing he’d ever done. The landlord had been uneasy about renting to an seventeen year old, but Art proved himself a good tenant—he paid on time, he kept the place clean (well, clean-ish) and he didn’t stick things on the walls.

He’d quit his job as a petrol station clerk the day he discovered he was in the Find Me A Hero’s top thirty. Not because he thought he’d stay in the competition for long, but because he didn’t want his boss to worry about finding someone just to cover his shifts. In fact, he’d been confident that he’d be back selling petrol and Mars Bars and Playboys before too long… but then the episodes kept rolling and he kept being called back…

Things weren’t bad before Find Me A Hero, Art reflected, opening the door. This was supposed to be his big beginning, the start of his new superstar life, but it felt like an ending.

Thankfully there weren’t any paparazzi waiting for him outside. (He’d heard stories about paparazzi stalking celebrities at their homes—but he wasn’t a real celebrity yet, was he?) Art had assumed the studio would send over a proper driver: a posh-looking, older gentleman who’d open the door for you and say things like, Where to, sir? But the person standing on his doorstep was a scruffy teenager in worn-out jeans and an argyle jumper with patched elbows.

He did, however, have on a peaked driver’s hat, which he’d pulled down so low his red hair bristled out from beneath it.

“Are you, er, here from the studio?” Art asked.

“Heard you needed a lift, Smithy.” The teenager raised his cap an inch, revealing a pair of clever brown eyes and a quirky half-grin. He also had one hell of a tan—remarkable, considering it was the middle of winter. “Got your bags?”

“Yeah, just the one bag.”

“Good man,” said the teenager, and clapped his hands once. “You want me to carry it or are you right?”

“I think I’m, er, right.”

“Oh my god,” Jenn squeaked behind him. “Do you know who that is?”

Art squinted at his driver. The red hair, the freckles, the dry, northern accent… It was Fraser. Hero-Fraser. He looked different—but then Art hadn’t really seen him up close before. On the show, the producers had gone to great lengths to keep the contestants separate from the band. They didn’t want Hero to jump the gun and choose a new member themselves before the show ended.

“Fraser! Sorry, I didn’t think it’d be you,” Art said, feeling his face turn red in embarrassment. Jenn had a ridiculous poster of Fraser above her bed wearing a leather jacket and very tight jeans—the sort of photo you’d normally see on the cover of a cheesy romance novel—and now Art couldn’t get the image out of his mind. “They said they’d send a car—”

“They did. That’s what I came in. Technically it’s the Official Hero Tour Bus, not a car. And instead of a driver you’ve got me.” Fraser tipped his hat. “Given we’ve only got ten days to become friends and pull a stage show together before our first official concert, I figured I should jump at any opportunity to hang out with you. You want to tell your parents you’re leaving?”

“Just my sister, Jenn.” Art would have liked to introduce her properly, but Jenn was hiding behind the door now, star-struck and giggling. “Step-sister. My parents divorced when I was a baby. They both remarried. And then divorced and remarried again. And again. Anyway I’ve always been sort of… stuck between all their different families.”

“Should have told that to the Find Me A Hero producers,” said Fraser. “They love a good broken home story.”

“Glad I didn’t, then.” Art hated that part of reality television. Why would you want to have the intimate details of your life revealed in front of everyone? He turned back at his sister, who was fanning herself with the sleeve of a Joy Division vinyl. “Are you going to be alright?”

“I will be in a minute.” Jenn grabbed his arm. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He was. Reluctantly he dug his apartment key out of his pocket and dangled it in front of her. “No mad parties, okay?”

“Please, I don’t need you of all people telling me what to do. Trust me, mad parties are furtherest from my mind.” She snatched the key out of his hand before he could take it back. “Unlike you I want to go to university. Not everyone gets a free ride with a boy band.”

“Just keep the place clean, all right?”

“Why? You don’t.”

Art looked to his new bandmate for support, but Fraser was already striding away, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Not one for long goodbyes, obviously. Art gave Jenn a quick, one armed hug and followed Fraser down the street.

The Official Hero Tour Bus turned out to be a run-down yellow monster that had obviously been part of the metropolitan public transport system in a previous life. The hubcaps were caked with the dirt of a thousand rural roads, the radiator was overrun with rust, and the entire frame was covered in dents. Fading graffiti tags—most of them completely indecipherable—scarred the paintwork. Only the wheels looked new: they were big, thick-tread tyres, the sort you normally saw on off-road vehicles.

There were no signs at all that the bus belonged to the biggest boy band on the planet.

“Not what you expected, right?” said Fraser, leaning against the door.

“Not really, no,” Art admitted.

Fraser pulled a lever above the bus’s front wheel, and the doors folded inward with a creaking sound. “She’s getting on a bit, now, our bus,” he said fondly, “but we do love her.”

Can’t think why, Art thought. He’d been looking forward to zipping about in a cushy limo, or, better yet, a sports car. It wasn’t as if Hero couldn’t afford something better. A band with their celebrity had to be rolling in money. But maybe their celebrity was the problem? The yellow bus could easily slip past the paparazzi, and even die-hard Hero fans wouldn’t give it a second look. “I guess it’s more authentic,” he said, trying to sound positive. “Having a real rock and roll tour bus.”

“Rock and roll?”

“Uh, I mean a real boy band tour bus…”

“Don’t pout,” Fraser said. “You’ll be surprised how comfy it is inside. There’s a little kitchenette and a living area with a TV and sound system. The back has hammocks—we often wind up sleeping in the bus. You’ll be sleeping in Teddy’s old bun-”

He clapped a hand over his mouth.

“It’s okay,” Art said quickly. “I figured that since I’m replacing Teddy in the band, I’d be taking his bed, too.”

Fraser looked away, pressing his thumbs into the corners of her eyes. “Sorry. Promised myself I wouldn’t talk about him to you,” he muttered. “It’s a new band now. A new start. Steven, Lee, Fraser and Art.”

“I don’t mind if you want to talk about—”

“I don’t.”

Art swallowed. “Okay, no talking about… that. Got it.”

He made to step onto the bus but Fraser held him back.

“Before you get on the bus, we have a little good luck ritual. First you need to stand like this.” He placed one foot on the first step of the bus and the other on the ground, inviting Art to copy him with a curled palm. “Then repeat these words after me: Neca eos omnes, deus suos agnoscet.”

Latin? If it was, it wasn’t a phrase Art had heard before. “And this is going to give me good luck?” he asked suspiciously.

“That’s what I’m told.”

Out of habit Art looked over his shoulder, checking for any reality TV cameras. But the street was empty. If this was a prank, he might as well get it over with.

“Neca eos omnes, deus suos agnoscet.”

“Brilliant,” said Fraser, hooking his arm around Art’s shoulder. “Got a question for you, by the by. How do you feel about dogs?”

“Dogs? I’m not too keen on the little yappy ones, but I like big dogs. Great Danes, Alsatians. The bigger the better, really.”

“I get the feeling you’re going to regret saying so,” said Fraser.

At the time he didn’t think it was anything important. He’d had funny lumps before: chicken pox, mosquito bites, pimples, med-rash, blood blisters and even a nasty boil Mr Takuira said he’d gotten from not eating enough fresh fruit. So he didn’t tell anyone about the lump, especially not his mother (who would worry, who was always worrying). Most of the time he forgot it was there, but now and then his t-shirts would brush against it, and he’d think: Funny.

A year later Royal started feeling dizzy when he woke up, so much so that his best friend Gwyn started calling him torus-apad—wobble-foot in pirate Creole. It got so he was tired all the time, it got so bad he would wake up and have to go straight back to bed again, and at night he dreamt his body was falling apart like a battered old airship, panel by panel.

Eventually Mr Takuira drew Pachito aside and said, “There’s a problem with your boy.”

“His father died,” said Pachito. “He’s grieving.”

“His father died six years ago,” said Mr Takuira. “I think this is something else.”

Pachito wouldn’t go, so Mr Takuira brought Royal to the hospital. The doctors took some of Royal’s blood and went away to test it. Royal and Mr Takuira were left to sit in a long pink waiting room, shoulder to shoulder with syphilitics and leukemics and haemophiliacs and a wild-eyed woman with knuckles like tangled tree-roots who called Royal white-devil and told him the Japanese had killed her great grandfather in a war long, long ago.

Two hours later a nurse called Royal’s name, and he was brought into a new room (small, white, blank) where the doctors gave him their diagnosis. Simply, apologetically, like it was all their fault.

Cancer, sorry.

Sorry, cancer.

Well, Cancer, actually, Cancer-with-a-capital-C, because after that day everyone always spoke about it as if it was sentient, a malevolent spirit rather than a collection of mutated and dividing cells. Royal Ottoman’s Cancer was a sneaky thing, creeping silently from organ to organ, leaving a trail of tumours as it went like glossy white breadcrumbs. His lungs, his liver, his bowel, the lymph nodes in his armpits and neck. From there it had seeped into his bones, where it festered and multiplied and became CANCER, all capitals, a shout, a scream, a massive elephant of a disease that beat itself against the sides of Royal’s fifteen-year old body while Pachito wept and the doctors explained (quietly, as if scared they might further enrage the beast) that they were doing all they could.

Cancer happened to Royal for a long time, for months and months, for so long that he started to forget what it was like to not have Cancer, to not have to spend weeks in hospital, to be able to go outside without carting a silly IV bag behind him on its clumsy metal hat-stand.

One day Royal came back to his ward to find a thin man sitting on his bed. He was dressed in white like a doctor, and Royal was about to ask after his latest test results when he saw the man’s eyes. They were the colour of pitch and had no depth, so that when Royal looked into them he saw nothing but his own reflection shimmering on the surface like sunlight on oil.

Royal shuddered. “Mr Desangua?”

“Master Ottoman.” Lucian bowed with his hat held against his chest. Lucian was always doing dumb things like that. Clowning Around, Pachito called it. Except it was never funny, because Royal knew that under the silly act was a brain as sharp as a cut-throat razor. Royal had always been scared of Lucian, of Lucian’s brain, of what Lucian’s dead black eyes (and they were dead, it was like there was no one inside him) could see.

“I should sleep,” said Royal.

“I hear you’ve got cancer,” said Lucian. Pronouncing it cancer-with-a-small-c. Like it was No Big Deal. “We should probably fix that.”

“How?” Royal wanted to know. Frustration made him bold. He was pale and skinny and half-dead from a combination of chemo and pills with made-up names like ALANAX and HEDOPHINE. He was sick of injections, of people taking stuff out of him, putting stuff in. “I want to be cured. I want to be better. But nothing works. What do I have to do?”

Lucian said: “Wipe this cotton bud around the inside of your mouth and I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Is this going to make me better?” Royal asked.

“In a way,” said Lucian. “I am going to make a better you.”

Bink remembered these things happening, although he knew he shouldn’t be able to. You couldn’t clone someone’s memories, that was impossible, that was science fiction—except there the memories were, inside his head, bits and pieces of Royal’s life before Bink. Bink knew things about Royal’s childhood he had no reason to know, no right to know, no desire to know.

Like how Royal had been scared of the dark and scared of spiders and scared of needles, but scared of dying more than anything else, because it meant losing everything, and he’d already lost so much.

Like how Royal missed his father, and blamed Lucian, and hated the seedy hi-house hangars he saw every day from his hospital window, as bulbous as the tumours in his x-rays.

Like how Royal yearned, above all things, to go home.

That project is Mizzenmast, that bastard bastardbastard of a thing which has been lying around on my hard drive for upward of five years. Fuck knows how I’ll manage to squeeze it into shape.

Today I sat down and squeezed a potentially 80,000 word plot into a more manageable 60,000 words by nixing a handful of characters, removing whole plot lines, and simplifying a lot of the relationship between the antagonists, as well as switching the “romance” from one couple to another. You better believe my brain is burning from the effort.

Tonight I’m going through the 20,000 or so words I have of it and excising many of the sub plots. I’m keeping the explosions but removing almost everything between and after them. It might be a weaker story as a result, but at least it’ll be concise.

I’ve currently got a novel and two short-stories on my commission list, plus a short-story for a charity anthology, but I’m deffo open for new novella and short-fiction length stories. Chances are I’m not going to do much submitting to magazines any more - I really hate that submishmash thing and I only use it when I can get my husband to do it for me - so if you’d like something from me, let me know what you want and I’ll get on it.

Some notes, though:

• I only do charity anthologies when I believe in the charity.
• If your submission guidelines include social justice stupidity about inviting people “without privilege”… and all the related fun around that… I’m not interested.
• I’m okay with meeting deadlines. But I will likely need one to get motivated.
• I’m probably not going to be able to manage anything more than 20,000 words, especially with a novel hanging over my head (to say nothing of the novel I actually want to write).

If you’d like to run a reprint, a lot of them are currently off-limits. Please ask before reprinting! I’ll be able to let you know that way what’s good to go and what’s not.

Excerpt:

There’s a girl in SoWatt who can tell you what your dreams mean.

She’s got laser-perfect blonde hair and wears designer knock-offs she gets cheap from the pirates of Okhotsk. Her accent is clipped and sounds maybe South African, but with SoWatt being such a cultural melting pot, it’s hard to tell. She mainly works out of cafes and restaurants, the more expensive the better, but sometimes, when business isn’t so good, she’ll do it for you in your office.

With the quarantine on, business is pretty bad—pretty fucking bad, actually, which is why the dream girl is now in a hotel suite talking to a blue woman in a bath.

“Rats?” says the dream girl. Trying not to look at the woman. Not because the woman is naked but because the woman’s skin is a queer, marbled blue like an expensive cheese. “Rats. I’ve never heard that one before.”

“They come out of my mouth,” says the blue woman. “I can feel their tails slithering in my throat.”

“Ugh.” The dream girl wrinkles her nose. “That’s some fucked up shit.”

“I know.”

“No, I mean that’s genuinely fucked up. As in, not normal.”

“What’s normal, then?

“Teeth falling out. Being naked in public places. Having sex. That kind of thing.”

“Fine, forget it,” says the woman, stretching, her blue tits with their blue nipples bobbing to the water’s surface like twin icebergs. “Rats, schmats. Jesus, the only reason I invited you up to my suite was because I thought you were a hooker. Who the fuck else wears a skirt that short and loiters in a hotel lobby? Just take your money and get out.”

The dream girl sighs and swipes the woman’s credit card on the lacquered lining of her purse. “I think,” she says carefully, “your dream means you like your job.”

Next thing on my list, which I ought to get finished in a week, is three (3!) short stories for the sky-pirate anthology. I’ve mentioned these before, and the plots I’m thinking of writing are:

• Del Desangua and Bink Ottoman meet after she gets her job back at Interpol. They kind of break up but not.
• Del investigates a murder which has been seen around the world on someone’s “feed” channel – like all day youtube.
• Katya Sushi sits in quarantine for 7 days and does fun stuff.

The last two I haven’t quite worked out yet, but number 2 will include Nemutaph, the opera singer, who cut off all his fingers.

1. Jasper and the Dead. A gay Australian romance novella, which is at 10500/15000. This thing is a monster that I’m very uninspired about – I’m just not feeling it. I keep thinking I should start over with a new concept, but now I’m so close to finishing it’s like… I might as well keep trucking. I may wind up liking the story later, and I’m just whining now… but it just hasn’t felt right for me.

2. Mizzenmast. Oh yeah, that thing, you say. Well I’m 15000/70000 on that one and I’ve worked out some failures in the plot and how to fix them. There’s no due date on this though (I’m looking at delivering it “sometime” next year), so I’m feeling more comfortable about sitting on this.

3. 2-3 short stories for Signs over the Pacific, AKA The Skypirate Anthology. I’ve been asked to write a story on Katya Sushi, the cancer survivor who can’t be read by disease airport scanners… but aside from that I’ve got pretty free rein on what I can write within the Ave Pasifika universe. I’m currently considering completeing the following stories:

• Katya and Alleluia live through a quarantine, caused by Katya.
• Del escorts a lefty journalist into Pasifika to do an interview with a band of psychotic women who cut off willies. Guest starring RESYS.
• Something with Jean Ottoman in it. Maybe relating to the List. Also guest starring RESYS.

 I think that’s everything I need to do, but I also want to complete a co written story for the next Kindle All-Stars book. I may also help the husband with his new project, which is going to be poetry. Eee!

Anyway, I’ve set the story in the convict era, added zombies, and am using the following characters from Actual History:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_Macquarie
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Blue
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Caesar
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pearce

I’ve already realised that some of the dates I’m using aren’t going to fly. I’ll need to justify, for example, while Macquarie is around and looking after the colony in New South Wales in 1824, when in reality at the time he was a) not in Australia and b)dead. Still, some of the research I’m finding is pretty interesting, particularly the high incidence of gay relationships in convict colonies. Who knew? Certainly not me, but school never taught me about awesome historic fictures like Alexander Pearce or Billy Blue either. School sucks. But I digress.

Note I didn’t say I’m no good at writing gay stories. I didn’t think I wrote a lot of GBLT themed fiction, but I’m about to sign a contract for Signs over the Pacific and other stories which is a collection of all my Sky Pirate short stories. I was looking through them the other day and, well, they’ve virtually all got GBLT elements. Really. The contents are:

• Propagation – an AI that’s trying to work out (among other things) its gender.
• Signs over the Pacific – bisexual protagonist.
• Faceless in Halukan – it’s just one long gender-bend, really.
• The Bad Thing – heteroflexible protagonist.
• Ma-Ma – lesbian protagonist.
• Greenwich Mean Time Plus – gay relationship.
• The Future of Lole San Paulo – gay protagonist.
• How You Make The Straight – amusingly straight. (Although this wasn’t originally the case, I just flipped the protagonist’s gender before I wrote the final version.)
• Mother & Daughter – the only one with non-specific content.

I don’t remember this at all, to be honest. But there you have it. So I guess if you’re looking for books with GBLT themes that also include sky pirates*, you should grab this anthology when it comes out.

* Think Somalian or Indonesia pirates, rather than fun happy people in flying steampunk airships who “fight the man”.