International Women’s Day

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Those of you not living with a survival cult or in a bunker probably noticed International Women’s Day. This is one of my favourite days of the year because it always opens my eyes to the gangsta stuff women are doing – not just have done, past tense, but are doing just in, you know, their day jobs. I’d like to present you with a list of stuffs that celebrate women being generally awesome, so we can take IWD into International Women’s Week, and perhaps even International Women’s Year. These are little examples you can share with your friends, your co-workers, your kids, that kind of thing. Don’t feel like you need to say, “Hey, there’s a chick being awesome here.” You can totally just say, “This is a cool thing,” because all of these are cool things that are Read More …

Help Me Get Famous

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Hey. This almost slipped by me: Sir Julius Vogel nominations are open (2017 edition). I could use your help. The SJVs are fuelled by a little social proof: to get judges to look at your stuff, people need to nominate you (and like with all social proof, the more the merrier). They’ve made it a bit easier this year with a handy web form — I’d love it if you could give me a nomination. It won’t hurt for you to nominate other people as well; it’s not a use-once vote, so get busy with your favourite authors’ work. Doing this takes less than two minutes and would really help me a lot. My eligible work is Night’s Fall, and if you need some help with the fields here are some suggestions for how to fill it out. The form is here: https://goo.gl/forms/iGCXIa870UWCwVsE2 Read More …

Live Writing

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A video that might be more interesting to writers – a quick glimpse of my “creative process.” Like that’s an actual process rather than some scary face-rolling on the keyboard. I re-write a scene, making it (fingers crossed!) not suck. Note: creation video sped up a *tiny* bit – I am not a line printer in disguise.   If you prefer YouTube, that’s okay with me: the video’s better quality there too for whatever Weirdness of Facebook™ reason.

How I get shit done

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This is an archive copy of one of my world-famous email campaigns, sent 23 February 2017. Click to view the PDF, because the copy-paste below leaves a lot to be desired. The toolchest Working from a home office is one of those things that will teach you – in a very Nietzsche way – whether you’re able to work effectively or will just spend the day on your PlayStation. One of the most common questions I get* is variations on the theme of, “So, what do you use to write?” I think there’s a base belief that a set of tools is magical, like a shaman’s staff, and there’s some truth to that. Why? A lot of the tools we have cost time, rather than save time. They might be cool or have nice drop shadows, but they are time vampires. Read More …

Demolitions

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People have shit taste. Not just other people, but everybody. You, me, even the President. My theory? Everyone’s got a … unique set of preferences, and they’re all wrong. Hold up, I’m going somewhere with this. You may have heard that I finished up work last Friday, and I wanted to take a week or two off before picking up the pen on Night’s End again. Unfortunately I have this thing where I can’t actually do nothing, which is probably going to cause all sorts of problems. But not today! Enter: the outdoor room. This was a kind of semi-enclosed veranda the previous owners of our villa put in. Every side was enclosed in cheap panelling: the wood untreated, the fibralite of the cheaper variety so that it’s not, as you can attest, see-through. Because it was a shitty place to hang out unless you Read More …

Being Equal

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We’re right on the edge of something particularly awesome. I know this is probably the view of anyone at any given time in history – you know, that guy who’s sitting around the first human-made fire. Screw collecting burning trees struck by lightning and trying to keep ’em burning: this dude’s rubbed some sticks together or whatever, he’s got fire on demand, he’s getting warm, and that dude’s saying, “Man, being a human is awesome, and we’re right on the fucking pinnacle of achievement here.” The more specific awesome thing I’m talking about here is equality, but we’re not quite there yet. I think we all have a part to play, through our own personal platforms. You can help. Yeah. You’ve got a platform. You might not know it, but you do. My most obvious one is books, but I Read More …

Getting Crafty

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Hello, Internet. My friend Jane from Three Hats Ltd and I are on a quest: Right every wrong. Propagate peace and understanding to the farthest corners of the universe. Source a locally-made craft beer in NZ that doesn’t taste like the sphincters of recycled hops. These are not in priority order. The genus of #3 came from my sojourn to North America, where it seems that both the US and Canada make excellent craft beers (lagers, ambers, whatever) that are smooth, creamy, rich, almost sweet. I’ve drunk a lot of beer – a) I’m a New Zealander and b) I live in New Zealand, basically it’s our cultural identity and religion in one – but my quest for craft beers has turned up nothing but sharp, acerbic shit. I appreciate that these comments may be divisive. Having said that! If Read More …

The Same Standard Distribution of Asshats

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I realised today that not *everyone* is an asshole. Bear with me. This might take a while to break down. You know how people are getting depressed or anxious more in today’s world, right, this isn’t exactly news. There have been more meds proscribed for more conditions than ever before, and if you don’t know someone suffering from depression or anxiety you’re probably an insensitive jerk or living in the woods wearing nothing animal skins, and if it’s the latter you’re probably not reading this anyway. I’m wondering, you know, about why this is. People are talking about how it’s the way we live life, the pace of it, or the transitory nature, or the lack of creativity, which I think are all true. These things make sense – if you’re just sweating behind a desk for The Man, you’re Read More …