Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Yay!! Excitement!! Saving Money!! Cheap!! Squee!!

From now until the end of January you can get 10% off when you buy Death, Dismemberment and a Little Bit of Sass.

And, because I’m awesome, I’ll even tell you how to get it.

First, you go to this page here

Then click “Buy” and enter code ‘ READMORE2010 ‘ at checkout.

It’s so easy you should buy two Three!!

Plane tickets and boxes and bags. Oh my!

In just under two weeks (right before new years) I’ll be moving south. Just in time for the middle of summer. It seems like a good idea, Melbourne being just about next door to the south pole and all. But no, I learnt last year that they get heat down there too. Weird.

(Note – I just typed several paragraphs discussing the weather and the differences between here and there. Then I realised I was talking about the weather and decided I didn’t want to write about that in my blog, so I deleted it all.

But it was very very articulate, insightful and interesting.

Just so you know.)

Back to the point -

The move to Melbourne is no longer an ambiguously dated plan, no longer “some time in the future”. Not only does it have a date and a time, it also has plane tickets.

And time is moving quickly again, the end of the year is approaching like a tidal wave. The lists of things to do is enormous. Less than two weeks and I’ve barely begun to pack. I still have things that need organizing.

And there’s Christmas shopping as well!

Then there’s things to do once I’ve moved. Looking for work, looking for a place to live and most importantly – Looking for a scarf and a good jacket.

But I’m looking forward to all of it. It’s exciting and frightening all at once, as the best things are.

I’ll be starting the new year in a new place with a whole new beginning…

Wish me luck.

Death, Dismemberment and a Little Bit of Sass – my POD published book of insanely good short stories is now available at Lulu.com.

In the midst of a zombie apocalypse might one man have a second chance at love?

When a werewolf hunter faces his worst nemesis yet – a psychiatrist – who will come out on top?

A woman in a religious cult begins to hear voices but will they lead her to salvation or destruction?

A family’s vacation is cut short when they try to help a stranded spaceship, but who really needs the help?

All of these and more in this collection of eleven murderously good short stories

There is –

• Where Wolf?
• Truckstop Unicorn
• Icy Dead People
• Dah’min
• Oneirophasia

And much, much more… Eleven in total.

Here’s what the critics are saying -

“This books is awesome!! Amazing! Four stars… What? If you want more stars, it’ll cost you extra. Where’s my money?”

“I’ll say whatever you want, just leave my kids alone. Please.”

“Oh god!! Stop hitting me!! Okay, okay, Five stars. FIVE STARS!! Oh god, I’m bleeding.”

I’m very proud.

So, BUY IT NOW! and enjoy almost 200 pages of murdery goodness!

I know I did -

AKA – A long post about what I’ve been up to lately…

Due to unforeseen circumstances, it looks as though I may not complete NaNoWriMo again this year.

I say “may” because there is still time left, and if I were to write just over 5000 words per day for the next week I might finish… Though a daily word target like that is highly unlikely to be hit around here. I haven’t even finished cleaning my place yet.

But I have come up with a list of ways to NOT get it finished. Here is the top ten things to do if you don’t want to finish NaNoWriMo this year.

Number Ten – Procrastinate.

…Obviously. Putting things off is a great way to not get things done and there are so many ways in which to do this.

A few personal favourites include watching Tv, cleaning, twittering, or even just going for a walk. All of these are a great way to push work away for a good chunk of time.

When all else fails, I like to use coffee as an excuse to put things off for a few minutes. This works well as I love my coffee and it sounds quite reasonable to say “I’ll get started right after a coffee”

Number Nine – Quit your job.

This sounds like a good idea, and in most ways it is.

But it won’t help you if you’re looking for more time to write. With so much extra time there is no longer any urgency to get any of it done. There is always time to do things later, you have all day tomorrow to catch up and next week you can work extra hard all week to make up for what you didn’t do this week.

I quit my job a few weeks ago. For other reasons, not to make time for writing, but I did think that with all that extra time and with a little tenacity I might be able to get a lot done.

That was until I…

Number Eight – Burn your hand

A great way to keep yourself from writing is to incapacitate yourself. And what could be more laborious and slow than typing with one hand? I mean apart from typing with no hands.

Nothing. Exactly.

So that’s what I did.

This happened to me one night while saving a box of kittens from a burning building, I was set upon by a group of ninjas and robots… and robot ninjas. They were all packing microwave meals, overcooked and only seconds out of the microwave. They demanded the box of kittens and when I didn’t comply they began throwing the meals at me. I managed to dodge most of them except one, which gave me second degree burns on the fingers and palm of my left hand.

I swear all that is true… Except the building, the kittens, the ninjas, the robots and the robot ninjas.

Number Seven – Watch Television.

I know I put this under number ten as a form of procrastination but there are two reasons that it needs it’s own spot.

For one, Television is the enemy of creativity. It really is.

Just by having it on you’re slowing yourself down, but added to that it dulls the creative process. I’ve always found that days in which I watch less television, I get alot more (and better) work done. Unfortunately television works much like any addiction in that unless you cut yourself off from it completely, including all access to it, then it will slowly and inevitably creep back into your life.

And I’m not ready to do that just yet.

Maybe after this season of Dollhouse has finished…

And the second reason this got it’s own entry – I accidentally miscounted and when I realised I didn’t have something for seven this was the first thing I came up with.

Number Six – Get Tattoed

A great way to spend a sunday afternoon, having needles stuck in your arm and/or leg and leaving deposits of ink there. Ah, good times.

Got two done myself last week… After six years since my last tattoo, I finally got around to getting some new ones.

And if you wanted to waste a little more time you can do what I did and walk to the tattoo parlor. Then, once the tattooing is done, you can find out that you’re in some backwards place that doesn’t have eftpos and so you’ll need to spend some more time walking to the shopping centre down the road. All in all, I spent about an hour and a half walking that day.

** A haircut could be substituted here if you prefer not to get tattooed… Or you can do what I did and get a haircut aswell.

Number Five – Buy a new computer

Who doesn’t like a new toy? Especially a nice big-ass super-expensive one like this –

This is my spanky new bitchin’ all-in-one touchscreen multimedia high definition yada yada computer. Ain’t she sweet? The touch screen is fun to play with. It’s heaps big monitor-wise and it’s all new and pretty.

The best thing about new toys like this?

You can spend all day just setting it up. Installing all your favourite programs and getting all the settings to how you like them and so on. I’m still not finished doing all that.

Number Four – Have a personal life

I’ve been trying this out lately. Doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’ve learned that there is nothing better to get in the way of writing than to have a personal life. Especially one as disasterous as mine.

People lie, people betray, people confuse and humiliate, people leave voids and people leave sorrow.

And you can’t control them or understand them like you do the characters you’re writing.

Bastards.

Number Three – Work on plot

Stop and think about your plot. Are things flowing as you want them too? Is the right information revealed at the right stage? Which scene goes next? Is the story moving to slow? Or too fast? And so on…

This is a great wait to slow down your writing. And if you really think about it, it may stop you altogether.

I did this. I decided to do a bit of plot planning, starting with listing all the scenes/elements that I wanted in my story. I came up with a list of 105 things, and it’s still growing… much more slowly now but still it’s growing.

Here’s a wordle of the list -

(because I haven’t posted a wordle in a while)

Anyway, working on the plot always seems to lead to –

Number Two – Starting from scratch.

Yeah, I’ve started to do this…

Well, I will when I’ve finished with everything else on this list. I’m still working on the plot a bit more. I’m going to put all of the elements/scenes that I listed in order and then write more on each one… and all the rest of it. You know how plotting is.

Writing is like eating soup with a fork, only you keep missing the bowl and stabbing yourself in the forehead.

Number One –

Instead of writing the story, write a top ten list about how to fail at writing the story.

To be fair, it’s not exactly a top ten list. It’s more of a ‘first ten things I thought of that I’ve been doing lately instead of working on NaNoWriMo’ list…

There are probably more that I could think of but I have some writing to do… So I’m going for a nap now.

What goes up must come down. This is basically what my last month has been like, since I last posted anything here. I’ve been meaning to, but never got around to it. But, long story short, good shit happened, bad shit happened. Some other good shit happened. So it goes…

For a while there I was on a writing streak but then, as I often do with this project I’m working on, I stop and ask myself if I’m writing it the right way. Maybe it would work better in third person. No, First person. Maybe more linear storyline. No, go the disordered route. Second guessing my second guesses. So I’ve gone back to the drawing board… or writing board. And am re-planning the whole thing. This time on little cards.

Speaking of writing – The NaNoWriMo starts in less than a month. Will I work on this project? Or another one? Who knows. But whatever the case, I plan on being more prepared this year. I plan on getting some planning done first. Maybe. Also, whatever the case, I plan on totally rocking the 50,000 words this year. You just watch me.

You might’ve noticed that little guy in the corner. That there is a sneak peak. To what? Not telling. But that’s a little snippet of what I’ve been working on the last few days like a zombie with a hard-to-break-open skull in his hands. It’s all looking great and I’m hoping it won’t be too long till I get to show all of you people who care nothing about it. Wink.

Speaking of Zombies… Yesterday this little baby arrived in the mail -

It’s Forrest J Ackerman presents Anthology of the Living Dead. A great book full of awesome zombie-fied short stories. There’s some really good stuff in there so if you haven’t gotten a copy yet, you’re missing out. But never fear, for I is here, you can get a copy from Amazon – Click Here.

There’s something strange about this book though. I opened up to page 163 and found a short story whose title seemed oddly familiar and the Author of which had a very odd name. Here’s a picture of what I’m talking about -

Weird, hey?

It’s almost like it’s my short story in that book…

Oh wait, it is!

Booya!

I actually sat down and read it last night. It’s the first time I’ve looked at the story in over a year and the first time ever I’ve read my work without editing or any such thing, and I have to say I enjoyed it. Is it wrong to laugh out loud (several times) while reading your own short story? It’s not exactly akin to laughing at your own jokes, is it?

Well, in any case I found myself laughing throughout the story. All the things that I worried about not being funny, just being stupid and weak, they worked… for me at least. I hope they do for everyone else to.

Oh… I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. I’m just so proud!!

Wink.

Anyways, get yourself a copy. It’s awesome. I’m off to read the rest of the book soon, it’s all been great so far. Then up next on the To Be Read List is this odd little number –

You might’ve also noticed the picture of yours truly up in the banner. It’s not there because I’m vain or anything, I’m just that pretty. Actually, it was just a bit of practice that turned out much better than expected. And so I’ve taken to putting it up there. A little howdy do.

Anyway that’s it from me, catch ya later.

Hey, how ya doin?

I’m doing Awe… wait for it… some.

I am doing awesome because of a recent purchase which arrived just yesterday. It’s a little Toshiba Mini Notebook, an Nb205… Just to get technical on ya.

Aint she pretty? I shall call her Abigail.

She arrived in the mail just yesterday afternoon, a mere half an hour before I had to go out and due to a late (and long) bus ride I only arrived back home with an hour before I had to leave for work.

I had to wait so long to play with my new toy.

But Abigail has been worth the wait. I’ve just finished installing and setting up all the programs that I know and love and now I’m getting a chance to just click and play and type.

She has some pretty decent hardware, almost on par with my larger notebook I bought just two years ago but the biggest selling point for me was the nine hour battery. On high power saving mode, the battery is supposed to last nine hours! Now that is awe… wait for it… some.

Now, I’m off to do some writing… either that or some procrastinating.

either way – I need a coffee.

Until next time, This is Captain Awesome signing off.

As mentioned in my previous post, I’m working on getting my shit together. I’ve been letting time pass without making any effort at all for far too long, so it’s time to put in some effort. To quote Randall Graves ‘It’s time to shit or get off the pot.’

One way of doing this was to create a site for flash fiction type dealys. Yesterday I did that. Which was good in two ways because it was simultaneously moving forward and also procrastinating. But the site is up now, mostly. And it’s ready for updates. There isn’t anything there yet but It’s called Evil Ninja Penguins. Click through and have a look-see.

I was thinking of making a daily thing but I don’t know if I can manage that, I’m going to try doing a bi-weekly or even a three day a week thing. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays kinda thing.

And – as promised – Number one of the Daily photos deal. It’s from while I was working on the site. It looks a little different now but that was what it looked like in its first hours… -

ETA: I also started a new short story last night. Got 500 words before I even realised it.

It’s been a week since new years already. Can you believe it?

So much has happened already. So, here’s a bit of an update -

First up, I decided to take a weeks holiday down in Melbourne at the end of January. I’ll be there for my sisters birthday party. I got a great deal on the flight and it ended up costing me about half I thought it would. It’ll be good to get away from my hermit-like existence for a while too.

Then there’s my new phone. Well, it will be new when I get it. I’ve been thinking about upgrading my Treo for a while now and so I was looking at it again. I always feel uncomfortable replacing something that still works well enough and I almost passed, to leave it for another month, when I realized my present phone is almost two years old now, which i decided makes it alright.

I also got my copy of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Which is awesome with a capital awe. Still hilarious as when I first saw it, the songs still rock and it still makes my cry like inspector gadget when he found out he had cancer.

Also, (did you hear?), the new Doctor was announced a day or so ago. It’s some dude with no eyebrows and the name Matt Smith. (Would’ve been better had his name been John…)

And last but not least… (But pretty close enough). I came across this site xtranormal, where you make little movies. I wanted to try it out so I used a conversation between me and a friend over the net. My side of the conversation is from the… piggy? thing? on the left.

First things first – Check out my site now bitches!! Yes, Yes it does rock. – www.JeremyBoland.com

It took a lot of fiddling and code writing and screwing around, and a couple of days, but I finally have this new kick ass looking site up and going. My site and my blog, which were once two separate entities are now one and the same, and all my old pages are here too. I’m not sure if I’m going to leave it opening onto my blog or make a front page but that can all come later.

My old site still exists, at least for the moment, at www.jeremyboland.com/old/.

Doug of the Darkness has reached the 10,000 word mark, and it’s still going strong-ish. If your not up to date with Doug of the Darkness or haven’t even read Doug of the Darkness, you should head over to the Doug of the Darkness website and start reading Doug of the Darkness now. You won’t be borry.

What else, What else, what else? Isn’t it always like that. You go into writing a blog entry thinking ‘how will I fill it all in?’ and then halfway through you forget all the topics you wanted to go over.

The other day I came up with a completely new idea for a book. What I mean is – Most of the things I’ve worked on in the last (I don’t know how long) have been rewrites of old stuff, working on old ideas or it was based on two old ideas put together… so on and so forth in that fashion, you get the idea.

I mentioned it in passing in the last entry but that was only when it was an inkling of an instigating circumstance. But slowly it grew in my head and at the worst possible moment, while I was at work, more and more ideas hit me. Between customers and fixing a cupboard door that fell off it’s hinges I wrote a whole synopsis of a back story for the novel in my moleskine.

(I’m very excited about this)

I’m not sure if it’s going to be one persons stories (probably in first person) or a series of interrelated stories that encompass the whole events… I’m leaning toward the latter. Just know, I have some great ideas for it either way and I can’t wait to get started on it.

But first, my workspace could do with a bit of a tidy up…

Also excited about – Act One of Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is released today. I’m a big Whedon fan, Fillion fan and Doogie Fan, So this is just Awesome.

In other news, I just finished reading Hal Spacejock 4: No Free Lunch, and I recommend it to anyone who likes fun and light scifi about interesting characters with quite a few laugh out loud moments. Not only is this a great series, by the way, but they work as stand alone novels as well, There are references to previous novels but nothing that would confuse a new reader.

At the moment I’m reading The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and I’m loving it. My favourite section so far is ‘Night Meeting’… with ‘And the Moon be still as bright’ coming up second.

Anyway, I think that’s all for now. In the mean time check out this hilarious clip of Patrick Stewart in Extras

P.S. – Do people actually buy these things?

When my futon died last week, I thought it could never be replaced… At least not cheap.

But I found a nice little couch that folds down and all.

Today I picked it up.

I’d like you all to meet my butt’s new best friend -

I call her Couch.