David Kernot

Archive for March, 2008

31/03/08: I thought that I’d blog the fact that the nice people at Penguin replied to “Strange Beginnings” – they are still contemplating it, and will get back to me in a month or so. This is good, because I don’t have another home for this story, and it is still in play with the folk at Penguin.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

31/03/08: While I was on a roll, I patched up my short and sent it off.

Wish me luck – it was an oh so sad, tear jerker and I’m sorry that I had to kill him off.

I’ll let you know if it too finds a home.

1/03/08: Bad news!

I didn’t get into the program… Of the 10 positions (2 of which had to go to Queensland) I wasn’t one of the remaining 8 out of 165 people who were accepted. Congratulations to all those who did get in.

Looks like Islade may be shelved for a while…….

As stupid as this sounds – I had to book holidays at work just in case I got accepted, and now have a week and a half off work to… Write!! Yeah!!

Note to self – go and organise a day in town and catch up with jasoni!

Go and ask David Conyers and his fam up for a BBQ at home…

Going to write full on another story during this time.

I hated the fact that I got so excited that I let myself down. Oh well, that’s the way it is in these comps I suppose.

6/03/08: Well, it’s done. Thanks to a lot of sweat and tears, and some really good critiques by members of the OWW, I think that I’ve licked my problems with “Dead Man Walking”.

It’s ready to be sent off – it’s looking for a home.

I’ll let you know how it goes finding one.

25/03/08: Well, this week is THE WEEK.

It rained – we got 6mm – the first time it has in 6 weeks – and I’ve got 6 things on my mind, ALL ending in the next 6 days.

Anyone believe in the number of the beast (666) – maybe it will be a good evil sign.

1 – Hearing from Orbit – Hatchette Levre/ QWC about my sub for “Isalde”.

2 – Had some really good feedback about “Codeword IRIDIUM” too.

3 – Considering a short story sub.

4 – Uni assignment due and completed.

5 – “Dead Man Walking” will be completed and submitted.

6 – I just emailed Penguin re “Strange Beginnings” – the waiting time is 4 months and for whatever bizarre reason, after almost 6, I’ve asked them how it’s going.

I’ll let you know how it all goes.Ah yes, my good mate Jason Fischer did a REALLY good job at Writers of The Future too – they’ve asked to keep his piece for inclusion in one of their anthologies. Way to go Jasoni – you deserve it mate, after all the hard work.

0/03/2008: I’ve been away this week in Canberra and Sydney with work. Flew to Canberra with a mate, Simon – who is always good company – and we drove to Sydney. I was amazed at how lush and green the Australian countryside was. This was significant because Adelaide has not had any decent rain in months – everything is brown, dry, a harsh looking countryside. More so when you compare it to the green of the eastern states.

So I’m behind in my critiquing of OWW stories, and I’ll have to try harder to catch up and get the ones done in my list (about 5 of them).

The harsh conditions, and living so close to the desert, South Australia being 2/3rds desert – it was an eye opener travelling over to the lush green, and strangely quite positive because a lot of my stories include this harsh climate. Isalde, in particular has a lot of the harsh desert in it. Living in it might give me an edge – who knows.

While I was away I read most of Harry Potter’s, “The Chamber of Secrets.” I enjoyed the second book in the series – it was better than the first. Now started on Karen Miller’s “The Riven Kingdom.”

The only sad news was hearing that Arthur C Clarke died this week – even at 90, somehow, as one of the greats, you would think he could live forever – at least in his writing he will. IBM will always be HAL (*move each letter backwards by one*), “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and “Rendezvous with Rama”, are classics!

Oddly, I have always had an affiliation with Clarke. One of my first short stories published was The Sentinel, similar in many ways to his story of the same name. I grew up on a dose of Heinlien, Bradbury and Clarke. As a young lad I painted a watercolour of the harbour of Minehead in the UK, where Clarke was born. I’ve walked many of the streets of Minehead and sat at the Quay and enjoyed the taste of the salt air. Somerset is a wonderful part of England. Having flown in and out of Sri Lanka when it was once Ceylon, I can only say that Clarke’s resting place is a lovely place in the world. May you find peace, and I for one thank you for your literary contribution to the world.

Got to go: working on “Dead Man Walking”.

unday, 16th March 2008:

Hey out there…

Whoever you may be – quiet innocuous readers – this is the new look site. I’m done for a bit. Managed to get most of the info from my old layout onto this new one – took me most of the weekend, but I’m happy about it. It’s got a way to go, but at least now, for me, it will be easier to manage and I can spend more time writing as a result.

Posts should come more often now.

Feel free to add some comments any time you want.

1/03/2008: I have this graphic on the desktop of my computer. It’s a quote from J.K. Rowling, and it’s an inspirational piece, but some may well know that I’ve never read Harry Potter. Well NOT so any more. David Conyers – every time he sees me – says go and ready Harry Potter. Well I did, and I quite enjoyed the humour in it – the adult / children’s jokes – and it was quite an eye opener. Well now I’m onto the next one, having read The Philosopher’s Stone in about a week, I’ve attacked The Chamber of Secrets – although, sitting on the train, I do have the cover bent over itself so none of the other commuters know what I’m reading.

27/02/2008: The Online Writing Workshop is good value. There are a lot of people on there who are great at critiquing stories. I submitted my piece “Dead Man Walking” into the workshop for review – actually, it was the one that I was polishing up for Jonathan Strahan’s Eclipse. Last year when I submitted it to the OWW, I took a hit over the ending, I rewrote the ending and resubmitted and took another hit, again over the ending. So this time I doubled the size of it, addresses the concerns of the critters, and the feedback I got was good. Some said that they thought I should turn it into a book, but all were very positive about the ending – so I am happy that I must be learning because I penned the ending over half an hour, a week ago.

Patty Janson, did something quite unique. She emailed me her crit directly, bypassed the OWW – which meant that she didn’t get any points for her efforts – and it was like a one on one writing lesson, using my piece by way of example. She was quite candid about some of the troublesome writing quirks I have – but thumbs up to her because it was excellent advice.

Coincidentally, Satima Flavell did the same thing late last year with Isalde. She suggested that I should consider writing in a tight third POV, and suggested a number of writers that I might learn off. I ended up buying Karen Miller’s “Empress of Mijak” to see what I could learn.

So I’m working on “Dead Man Walking” again – trying to get it up to my new standard., but the OWW is good value, as are many of the critiquers.

28/02/2008: I missed the deadline for Eclipse – even though I worked my guts out to get something to Jonathan. David Conyers clued me in to this fantastic collection, so I emailed Jonathan about my 9,400 word piece and he was really supportive. In the end, though, I got some advice to say NOT to submit my piece, as it wasn’t quite ready. I had to agree – eventually – but with missing the earlier WOTF and now Eclipse, I’ve started to think about my writing output. I need to write more – I’m slipping – I need to get back to last years levels. Now that I am focussing on larger – bigger – stories I’m not getting anything out there.

Anyway, enough about me – go check out Jonathan’s site. http://www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp/