Galaxy group signing on October 9th
So I was supposed to be appearing at Book Expo this weekend, but it was cancelled at the very last minute by the utterly incompetent organisers. It’s a huge blow to many authors and publishers, not to mention readers who had bought tickets, lots of whom have invested large sums of cash in travel, accommodation and so on. However, you can tell I’m angry and disappointed, so let’s just leave it at that. But there is some silver lining!
I was originally going as a guest, along with Greig Beck and Lee Murray, of Cohesion Press, who are publishing my new monster novel, Primordial, next year. It’s co-written with David Wood and I’m very proud of it. There were going to be early Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) for people to get at Book Expo. My other books would of course also have been available there and I was looking forward to meeting readers and signing books. Well, the awesome Geoff Brown of Cohesion Press has organised a last minute replacement event at Galaxy Bookshop in Sydney.
I’ll be there from 2pm to 5pm, with all my books, including some copies of Crow Shine and those ARCs of Primordial. Greig Beck will be there with his new monster thriller, Fathomless, and Lee Murray from NZ will be there to sign her novel, Into The Mist. As an added bonus, my mate Andrew McKiernan will also be there to sign copies of his collection, Last Year, When We Were Young.
It’s a huge mass signing event at the best SFF bookshop in town! So be there if you can.
2pm to 5pm
Sunday October 9th
Galaxy Bookshop, 131 York Street, Sydney.
http://www.galaxybooks.com.au/
Hope to see you there!
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Conflux 12 – what a great con!
I’m home from Conflux 12, my first as an official Guest of Honour, and what a wonderful con it was. I haven’t missed a Conflux in years, because it’s always great and has long been my favourite Aussie convention. So of course, to be the GoH there was a double treat. So much happened, I won’t be able to record it all, but here’s a bit of a run down on my experience of events.
The MC was the awesome Sean Williams, and the international guest was David Farland (he of the Runelords series and so much more, who you may also know as David Wolverton, the name he uses for his science fiction novels). The picture to the left there shows (left to right) Sean Williams, David Farland and myself, taken at the con banquet on the Saturday night. Both Sean and David were brilliant. I really enjoyed David’s interview, conducted by Tim Napper. David has been in the business for a long time and is a really heavy hitter (he’s the reason Harry Potter got as big as it did). His insights and experiences were fascinating.
There were numerous panels over the four days, covering a wide variety of topics. The theme of the con, based on the year in Chinese astrology, was Red Fire Monkey, so a lot of stuff was based around that. A lot of Asian-influenced SF was discussed, which is great because it’s a largely un-mined source of great fiction in the west.
One of the real high points for me was the launch of my first collection of short fiction, Crow Shine. The amazing and completely lovely Kaaron Warren was kind enough to launch for me and she said such great things about the book. I made some souvenir “moonshine” for the event that we all used to toast the launch and I sold a bunch of books. Hopefully people will enjoy the read. The book is officially released (in hardcover and ebook along with the paperback you see below) in November, so watch here and my social media for details as they come about. Here’s Kaaron and I right before things got under way.
Another high point for me was my Guest of Honour Q&A, with horror master Robert Hood interviewing me. It was a really interesting hour, where Rob’s questions had me interrogating myself and my ideas around horror and dark fiction quite deeply. I enjoyed it a lot. And when Rob opened the floor to questions, he insisted that anyone with a question take Eric the Monkey (a plushy toy monkey with an evil gleam in its eye) and try to hit me with it while I was answering. One shot got through, with Ian Nichols tossing a monkey with more velocity than I expected it capable of! I saw the shot coming and got a hand to it, but just deflected it into my own head due to the unexpected pace. The pic below shows me and Rob mid-discussion. That bastard monkey, Eric, is just out of shot to the left, waiting for his moment to shine.
And I think the other thing that really deserves a mention is the Sci Fi Tai Chi! As part of his MC duties, Sean Williams devised a new short form of “tai chi”. Most tai chi styles have moves with poetic and descriptive names, so Sean decided to develop a science fiction version, with each move referencing some SF or fantasy movement known to all fans. He taught a few moves at each significant con event, and I had the obliging Dave Versace video the final lesson from the closing ceremony, where Sean demonstrated the last three parts. I joined him in learning and demonstrating the “Sean Williams Sci Fi Tai Chi Form” and here it is on YouTube. For reference, the moves are:
Rimmer Salute Part 1
Jedi Mind Trick
Vulcan Salute and Nerve Pinch
Grab the Gungan’s Tongue and Bop Him on the Head
Neo Shakes Off the Dust
Marty McFly Checks His Watch
Know Where Your Towel Is
Venusian Aikido
Get Away From Her You Bitch
Slayer Strike Right
Slayer Strike Left
Thunderbird Walk
I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing
Rimmer Salute Part 2
Enjoy!
So that’s my short wrap of Conflux 12. Already, I can’t wait for Conflux 13 next year. As ever, Cat Sparks was roving around all weekend with her camera and her full photoset of the con is on Flickr here. If you can ever get to Canberra in early October for a Conflux, you won’t regret it.
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Conflux 12
I’m still coming to terms with the idea that I can be a Guest of Honour at a convention, but it’s true. I’ll be the GoH at Conflux 12 in Canberra this weekend. It’ll be heaps of fun and there’s loads of good stuff happening. We’ll be launching my collection, Crow Shine, with the inestimable Kaaron Warren. The book isn’t officially published until November, so it’s a good chance to get your hands on an early copy.
I’ll be on a bunch of panels and doing my Write the Fight Right workshop too, along with plenty of other stuff. And there’ll also be a whole bunch of fun stuff that doesn’t involve me! The full program is on the con website here. And the rest of the time, of course, I’ll be in bar. So please come along and join in the fun. All the details are on the con website. Four days of SFF fun in Canberra. Can’t wait! Hope to see you there.
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Newsletter prize pack
So you know I have an irregular newsletter, right? It’s a great way to keep up with new releases and stuff like that, because you might miss announcements on the blog here. And I share other stuff too, like what I’ve been reading lately, short story news, appearances and stuff like that. Every now and then I include a free short story just for subscribers, and other bits and pieces as they occur to me. You won’t be bombarded either – I only send a newsletter every couple of months at most. I try to make it monthly, but I’m crap at remembering. You get a free ebook just for signing up, and there are often other giveaways too. For example, with the last newsletter that just went out, there’s a chance for people to win a copy of Blood Codex, a copy of the Balance Omnibus, or a copy of Crow Shine.
But don’t worry if you missed that, as I have a new giveaway organised for next time, and it’s a corker. If you sign up in time for the next newsletter, which will come out sometime around mid-December, you’ll learn how to win this prize pack:
Copy of Murky Depths #16 which includes my short story “Mirrorwalk”
Copy of M-Brane SF #13 which includes my short story “Trial Not Required”
Copy of Seizure #4 which includes my short story “Deep Sea Fishing”
Copy of my supernatural noir novella “The Darkest Shade of Grey”
Copy of my collaborative horror novella with David Wood, “Dark Rite”
Copy of my first Balance novel, RealmShift
Copy of my second Balance novel, MageSign
Copy of the anthology I helped put together, Dark Pages
Pretty sweet, right? A lot of that stuff isn’t in print any more, and it’ll all be signed. If you win and you want it personalised, no problem. And it won’t be a very difficult to win either. The giveaway is planned around the international release of Bound: Alex Caine #1, and will be themed on that. But to learn more, you need to be a newsletter subscriber. So sign up now, get your free ebook, and wait for the next newsletter in mid-December. Signing up is easy – I’ll never share your email address with anyone else. You’ll find the sign-up form at the bottom of the homepage (just click Home above and scroll down) or right there in the sidebar. (If you’re on a mobile device, the sidebar appears right at the bottom after all the posts, so keep scrolling down.)
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Short story writers I recommend
I recently did a video Skype chat with the wonderful Joanna Penn, of The Creative Penn website. Jo is also an accomplished thriller writer, but in this interview (which I’ll link here when it’s posted to YouTube in a few weeks) we were talking about the art and craft of short stories. When Jo asked me who I’d recommend people read to get a good taste of short fiction, I rattled off a bunch of names, then said, “You know what? I’ll blog a list and you can link to that.” Because there are just so many. And this is that blog post. It’s certainly not exhaustive. I know damned well I’m going to miss people who should absolutely be included, but I will come back and periodically update it. (If I’ve made any egregious omissions, especially friends, mea culpa! It was hard to gather all these into one place.) And, given it’s my list, it’s unashamedly weighted to the SF/F/H end of things, but not entirely.
I’m going to make the list in three parts. First of all, the old classics – stuff from before the turn of the century that people really should check out (some of them still writing today). Then I’ll list the great Antipodeans – that’s writers from Australia and New Zealand – and then I’ll list everyone else. It’ll be mostly a long list of names, but where I’ve particularly enjoyed an author’s short fiction collection, I’ll put that beside their name. Though be sure to read all you can by all these authors.
Before the list starts, it’s my blog, so I get to plug me. My own collection of short stories, Crow Shine, is being published by Ticonderoga Publications in November. I’m so excited to finally have my own collection coming out! It’ll be published in paperback, hardcover and limited edition hardcover (limited to 100 signed and numbered editions), and ebook. The pre-order page for the three print editions is up now, so if you want to get in early, especially if you’re keen for a limited edition EDIT: It’s out now, all the details here. EDIT EDIT: My second collection of short fiction, Served Cold, is also out now – details here.
And now, the lists (alphabetical by surname):
The Old School – the greats from before
Clive Barker – all volumes of The Books of Blood are essential reading.
Algernon Blackwood
Ray Bradbury
Ramsey Campbell
Raymond Carver
Roald Dahl
Philip K Dick
Harlan Ellison
Robert Howard
Shirley Jackson – The Lottery and Other Stories
Stephen King
Sheridan Le Fanu
Ursula K Le Guin
Stanislaw Lem
Thomas Ligotti – Songs of a Dead Dreamer
H P Lovecraft
Richard Matheson
Edgar Allen Poe
Peter Straub
The Antipodeans – Australian and New Zealander short story writers of note
Joanne Anderton – The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories
Peter M Ball
Deborah Biancotti – Bad Power
Jack Dann (American, but he’s an Aussie now!)
Felicity Dowker – Bread and Circuses
Paul Haines – The Last Days of Kali Yuga
Lisa L Hannett – Bluegrass Symphony
Robert Hood – Peripheral Visions
Deb Kalin
Margo Lanagan – Black Juice
Martin Livings – Living With The Dead
Kirstyn McDermott
Andrew McKiernan – Last Year, When We Were Young
Greg Mellor – Wild Chrome
Jason Nahrung
Garth Nix
Dan Rabarts
Angela Slatter – Sourdough and Other Stories
Cat Sparks – The Bride Price
Kaaron Warren – Dead Sea Fruit
Kim Westwood
Sean Williams
Kim Wilkins
The rest – All the great modern short story writers from elsewhere around the world
Dale Bailey
Nathan Ballingrud – North American Lake Monsters
Laird Barron – The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
Ted Chiang – Stories of Your Life and Others
Ray Cluely
Brian Evenson
Jeffrey Ford
Eugie Foster
Gary Fry
Neil Gaiman
William Gibson – Burning Chrome
Ted E Grau – The Nameless Dark
N K Jemisin
Stephen Graham Jones
John Langan
Tanith Lee
Kelly Link
Ken Liu
Usman Tanveer Malik
Nick Mamatas
Gary McMahon
Willie Meikle
China Mieville
Sunny Moraine
Lisa Morton
Haruki Murakami
Sofia Samatar
Clark Ashton Smith
Michael Marshall Smith
Lucy Snyder
Wole Talabi
Steve Rasnic Tem
Tim Waggoner
Alyssa Wong
There really are so many great short story writers out there and I know this isn’t close to all of them. I also know I’ve missed some that I would like to include, and as they occur to me, I’ll come back and add them to this list. There are many not included simply because I haven’t read their work yet, though I’m sure they’re amazing. Everyone above is a writer I’ve personally read and loved, so I’m sharing that love. I’m sure you’ll find authors here that will blow your mind, so get to it!
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The Alex Caine Trilogy Launch wrap-up.
Man, what a night I had! We launched The Alex Caine Series in style on Thursday 30th June at Galaxy Bookshop in Sydney, so now all three books in the series (so far!) are out in the wild and on bookstore shelves across Australia and New Zealand. And Galaxy have a bunch of signed copies of all three if you’re quick. I’ve also just learned today that the series took out the 1, 2 and 3 spot in Galaxy’s bestsellers for last week, so that’s just fucking fantastic. The US, UK and everywhere else will start to see their release from December this year, so hang in there, you guys! Meanwhile, I thought I’d post here wrapping up everything that’s accompanied the launch so far.
Here I am crapping on about something while Garth Nix watches thoughtfully.
Galaxy Bookshop were fantastic, and with the publisher, HarperVoyager, they put on a great event. Garth Nix was a superb MC and official launcher, and a decent crowd turned out to make an absolutely stellar night. I’m so lucky and so grateful to everyone involved that I could enjoy such a great event. This post will collect everything in one place, starting with a video of the launch itself. It’s about 20 minutes and records the Q&A with myself and Garth, then questions from the audience. Massive respect to Alice Wood from Voyager, who I asked to film it and who stoically held my phone steady for the entire time! Also, apologies for anyone getting motion sickness watching this – I honestly had no idea how much I sway when I’m standing around talking.
After the video will be a link to a huge photoset on Flickr, thanks to the amazing Cat Sparks for that. She’s truly the Aussie SFF paparazzi master. After the link to the photoset will be a series of links to all the guest posts about the series so far, where you’ll find interviews with me, with Alex Caine, posts about fighting, writing, psychopaths and more. So enjoy, and thanks again to everyone who made all this possible. This is what it feels like to be living the dream.
It’s launched!
Video of the launch, with myself and Garth Nix:
Here, Garth asks me all kinds of questions about the series and its origins, and I talk about favourites, paths to publishing, manuscripts under toilet doors, and more.
Photoset of the launch and the dinner afterwards, with huge thanks to the amazing Cat Sparks:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/42956650@N00/albums/72157669430754560/page1
Blog tour posts:
I’ll list the interviews first. They’re all a bit different, so well worth having a squizz at them all, even if you just skim the questions for things you might be interested in.
Interviewed at Smash Dragons:
http://smashdragons.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/interview-alan-baxter.html?m=1
Interviewed by the wonderful Angela Slatter:
http://www.angelaslatter.com/alex-caine-lives-again-alan-baxter/
Interviewed by the also wonderful Peter M Ball:
http://www.petermball.com/talking-writing-and-the-alex-caine-series-with-alan-baxter/
Interviewed by David McDonald:
http://www.davidmcdonaldspage.com/2016/06/in-conversation-with-alan-baxter/
Interviewed by Annie Mitchell:
https://annieonwriting.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/alan-baxter-author-in-the-spotlight/
Interviewed by Ian McHugh – this one is just slightly spoilery.
https://ianmchugh.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/interview-with-alan-baxter/
Robert Hood interviews Alex Caine himself!
http://roberthood.net/blog/index.php/2016/06/20/an-unexpected-chat-with-alex-caine/
And the guest blog posts:
At Speculating on SpecFic I talk about why I write dark fiction:
http://www.speconspecfic.com/2016/06/20/blog-tour-alex-caine-trilogy-alan-baxter/
At Book Frivolity I explain that I’m really not a psychopath, honest:
At Kaaron Warren‘s blog, I talk about the spark that started the Alex Caine fire:
https://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/alan-baxter-trilogy/
And at the Voyager blog, I talk about fighting as a metaphor for life:
http://www.voyageronline.com.au/guest-blog-alan-baxter/
Signing books, living the dream.
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You owe me nothing, but if you’d like to help…
There are loads of memes flying around social media that are some variation of “How to help an author” or “Support Authors” or “Fuck you, reader, dance for me, you monkey!” The truth is, you owe an author nothing. At all. Just because I wrote a book, and that book got published, doesn’t mean anyone is under any obligation to read it or buy it, let alone do anything else. And even if you, dear reader, did read a book I wrote, and you loved it so much you went around with it stuffed down your pants for a week, you still owe me nothing. Although, you might need to consider getting out more if you really did spend a week with a book down your pants.
Put simply, there is no obligation of any kind on readers. They choose to either buy, borrow or steal a book, or not. Then they get around to reading it or they don’t. That’s it. Finished.
But, of course, there is a lot more they can do, should they so choose, and lots of those things really honestly genuinely help authors. And these ideas, while they can be listed in a trite meme, are maybe better explained in a little more detail. This stuff applies to big trad books and indie books, well-known authors and newbies. So here we go. I’m going to start by talking about the buying of books, but it’s not all about money, so read on!
Buy The Book
Well, d’uh! Right? Not entirely. What we really need are readers, but more on that later. However, at the bottom line, book sales keep authors and their publishers alive. It’s especially good with a new release if you buy the books during week 1 or 2 after release, because publishing can be a machine and it doesn’t stop. It swallows authors, chews them up, and spits out their gnarled remains. The way an author survives the machine is if they sell well enough to not be spat out. And the best way for an author to sell well is to start by selling well. Sure, many books are successful on a slow burn, but to sell they have to be on shelves. Bookstore real estate is highly contested space, so if a book sits on a shelf for a while and doesn’t sell, it will be sent back to make space for a new book. But if it shifts several copies, the shop gains confidence in it and gets more copies in. The sales data is good, it might hit in-store bestsellers charts, and stores order yet more. The profile of the book is raised and it gets more traction. That’s momentum happening right there, and that’s what we need. And if your local store doesn’t have them, order them in.
Order them at your library.
But you’re skint? No problem, man, I know those feels. Books can be a real luxury. There are other options than buying, which we’ll cover, but you know who has free books for you to read all the time? Legally? Your local library. Go there and ask them to order the books. When libraries buy a copy, that’s another sale. And authors get a small amount of money for each library borrow their books have, so that’s another income stream for them in the long term. And more importantly, it’s greater visibility of their books out in the world.
(You know what? Even if you do buy the books for yourself, order them at your local library too. Other readers will find them over time. More readers are what it’s all about.)
Buy them as gifts.
Buy for yourself, of course, but if there are any birthdays or other celebrations coming up (Xmas, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, International Day of the Needy Author) buy another copy to give as a gift. That’s more sales and more readers, who may not have bought the books otherwise. I love buying books for people and introducing them to new authors, and I love it when people do that for me. You can also give your copy away as a gift, and introduce a new reader that way. A pre-loved book is a cool gift: “I just read this and you’ll love it. Here, have it!”
Tell friends, family and colleagues all about them.
There’s much more to a book’s success than sales, and here’s where we talk more about readers. Garth Nix calls it the transfer of enthusiasm. When you love a book, don’t keep that to yourself. Talk about it! Tell your friends and family, talk about books at work, show off the copy you love so people recognise the cover when they see it again. Be enthusiastic and transfer that enthusiasm all around. Nothing works better than genuine, honest word of mouth. That’s what really sells books and that’s where books find success. A successful book is one that enjoys a groundswell of genuine enthusiasm. So recommend them wherever you can.
Lend your copy to a friend.
You don’t want to give away your loved copy as a gift? That’s cool. If you’ve loved a book, lending it is a great way to transfer your enthusiasm, and then you get it back. But that’s another reader, hopefully another fan. That’s another person talking it up to their friends and transferring their enthusiasm. Momentum!
Talk them up (and share the cover images) on social media.
If you only have 14 followers on Twitter and 38 friends on Facebook, don’t think for one second that you lack influence. People will pay attention to your social media commentary if they are your friend or follower. That’s why they’re your friend or follower. Every single eyeball counts. So just like you talk up the books in person, do it online, wherever you hang out online. And again, share the cover image so people can spot it easily in store. It really helps.
Leave a review and rating on Amazon, Goodreads, iTunes, etc.
And when it comes to talking about them online, if you can be bothered, reviews make a huge difference. You don’t need to be a great reviewer. You can write:
“this book was really grate, I loved the action. people will definately enjoy it to.”
Seriously, that’s awful spelling and grammar, but it counts. Because it’s the transfer of enthusiasm that matters, not your writing skills. And the more reviews something has, the more visibility it gains on that site, and the more likely other people are to take a chance on it, because it seems like it’s already popular.
And that’s the thing about getting more readers – the more popular something appears, the more other people will want to check it out. The more other people check it out, the more likely they are to talk about it too. Hopefully they’ve enjoyed it and they’re talking it up, so the more transfer of enthusiasm we have. That means even more readers, that means even more talking and more enthusiasm. It’s a self-perpetuating engine of literary love. The book has a greater chance of being a hit. And you helped. Only you can help, really. Readers and their enthusiasm are an author’s pulse and lifeblood. We love you people.
(And incidentally, if you don’t go to libraries, you can’t afford the book, and you don’t know anyone with a copy to borrow, you’ll be able to find it online somewhere, you naughty pirate. You know, I’d rather you didn’t, but the only thing worse than piracy is obscurity. So if you’re motivated enough to pirate a copy, do the author a favour and talk about it to friends and other readers! Transfer your enthusiasm too, with a bottle of rum and a yo-ho-ho.)
So you owe an author nothing, but if you do want to help, buy, borrow, lend, order at the library, talk, review. Be part of that great word of mouth engine. If you do any of that stuff, I genuinely can’t thank you enough. You totally rock!
Transfer your enthusiasm!
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New YouTube vid about the Alex Caine paperback release.
I’ve just posted a new video to my YouTube channel where I get a bit over-excited about the release of the entire Alex Caine trilogy in paperback in Australia and New Zealand. Stick around to the end for a little outtake.
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On making time and recognising privilege
I posted the meme you see here the other day on Twitter and Facebook, etc. It generated a fair bit of comment, some of it a bit snarky. So I thought maybe I ought to address the concept. Firstly, I stand by the basic premise of the meme, which we’ll look at below. But of course, real life has nuance that a few words on a picture don’t.
So let’s start with privilege. Yes, it’s absolutely true that if you can make time to write you are enjoying a certain level of privilege. If you live in a war torn country or you have to work 18 hours a day just to live, making time to write is not even on your radar. If you’ve had enough education to be able to write at all, let alone create coherent sentences that others might want to read, you are privileged. But in all honesty, a meme like this isn’t directed at people unfortunate enough to have no education or to spend all their waking hours simply not dying. We need to direct aid and care to those people wherever we can, not trite internet memes.
This meme is targeted squarely at the “I’d love to write but I just don’t have time” brigade. No one has time. We’re all busy living life. Unless you are incredibly privileged, and it’s a sad truth that a lot of successful writers are the ones who actually are incredibly privileged. We can’t ignore that truth. The ones who have independent wealth in the form of a trust fund or a partner who’s happy to pay all the bills. They don’t need to fit writing in around work, because they can make writing their work whether it’s actually paying anything or not. This meme is not for them, either. If they can’t find time or motivation to write, then fuck ’em. That’s just lazy or they don’t really want it.
This meme is directed at the regular people. Those folks privileged enough to have an education and a job and a roof over their head and no fear of starving to death in the immediate future. Those people are busy as hell, sure. We have jobs to go to, families to take care of, social engagements to meet, sleep to get somewhere if the kids will let us. But if people in those positions want to write, they absolutely can do so. They have to make the time, that’s all.
Let me use myself as an example. When I wrote RealmShift I was working a nine-to-five office drudge job to pay the bills and I was training and/or teaching six nights a week. I had a wife who wanted to see me sometimes. So I made time in the middle of the day. I used to have a bunch of stuff in the fridge at work and every lunch time I would quickly make a sandwich, then sit at my desk and eat it while I worked on the book. I wrote that entire novel, and a large part of MageSign, during lunch hours, plus any other time at weekends or evenings that I could make a space. Because that’s how badly I wanted to write.
Subsequently, I began building a life that included writing. I retrained to get my full fitness professional qualifications and I went into business for myself as a personal trainer. I had early morning and lunchtime clients, I taught martial arts in the evenings, and I had chunks of time between those things – a few hours mid-morning or mid-afternoon a few days a week – where I wrote. I made writing as important as those other things to make it happen, because that’s how badly I wanted it.
When my son was born, I’d just sold a trilogy to Voyager. I did most of the editing of those books one-handed, with a sleeping newborn cradled in in my left arm. And no, he didn’t sleep like a baby (what a fucking inaccurate piece of garbage that saying is!) But whenever I did get him to sleep, I would sneak into the study and edit. He’s two and a half now, and currently napping. I might get an hour or so to write, so I’m writing this. I’m sacrificing an hour on the current novel because I thought this subject was important.
And that’s the heart of it. Sacrifice. Like the meme says, How much do you want it? If you want it badly enough, you will make time. And if you don’t want to make time, if you don’t actually want to write – need to write – that badly, then that’s okay. Really, it is, there’s no shame in that. But don’t go around acting like anyone who is writing is doing it because they have all these bags of empty time on hand and they’re just having a lark. Those people writing are working fucking hard. They are sacrificing. Because that’s how much they want it.
How badly do you want it?
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CI-A, Me and the Battle of the Worlds
I was looking through some old stuff my mum had saved and discovered a bunch of old exercise books. Most of it is pretty rubbish, appalling “religious education” that was nothing but Christian indoctrination and so on. In truth, I always hated school, never got on well with a classroom environment, with one exception: I loved English. The chance to write stories and read books? That was my kind of schooling. It’s the only thing I was ever good at, academically, so it’s no surprise that these days I’m a writer and a martial artist.
I remember my first ever experience of storytelling. I was about seven years old and we were told to write a story about what we did on the school holidays. Most kids came back with paragraph or two about nanna’s house or whatever. I came back with seven or eight pages about a dude who went back in time and got chased around by dinosaurs. The teacher didn’t believe I’d written it and rang my parents. They said they had no idea about it, I must have done it all in my room. So my teacher, duly impressed, got me to read it to the class. As I stood up there with my knees trembling, reading this thing, I realised all the faces were enraptured. After class, kids were coming up to me saying how great it was and how they wished it wouldn’t end. I was amazed. I had discovered the power of storytelling. I never looked back.
Sadly I can’t find that time travel story I remember so well. Maybe I will one day. But I have found other stuff. One was a story I wrote when I was nine years old, and it shows my influences so clearly already. There’s science-fiction, horror and fantasy, shameless pillages from Star Wars and Doctor Who. It’s classic early Baxter. So I decided to transcribe it for posterity here. Below you’ll find the story, accurately transcribed with all my spelling errors and so on included. But I have added paragraphs. Seems I had a thing about not using them – lots of other stories in big blocks of text with my teacher getting more exasperated about it every time.
After the transcription are scans of the original pages with my teacher’s notes. Perhaps my favourite thing about this story is the teacher’s comment at the end:
“Very good, Alan. I think you enjoyed yourself too. 1 house point.”
You’re right, teacher. I really did enjoy myself. And I still do – nothing is more fun than writing stories. And I scored a house point! That was a big deal back then. Anyway, don’t expect anything brilliant, but here I present to you:
CI-A, Me and the Battle of the Worlds
(A story from California)
by Alan Baxter (age 9 ½)
“Com’n CI its time to get up.”
“Bleep Bleep Bleep Bloop.”
“No I won’t let you lie in I’ve gotta catch my breakfast.”
“Bleeeeep.”
“bleep bleep or not I want my breakfast. Look CI if you get up you can have some of your favorite drink.”
Bleep bleep bleep.
“Yes oil. Now you get up while I catch my breakfast.”
Bleep bleep bleep sis bloop?
“Yes you can pour your own.”
I caught my breakfast and ate it. Then we got in our spaceship and flew to ALPHA-Z-6 (which was CI-A’s home planet) and landed on the spacestations landing pad and went inside the station. When we got inside the station we found out that it was completely demolished.
“My god CI is this the right planet?”
“bleep bleep athermative.”
“Com’n CI I’m gonna get to the bottom of this.”
“DINCAS APPROCHING.”
“Whats approching”
“DINCAS master”
“What the heck are dincas”
“Those are dincas master”
“Stop calling me master will you. Suffering sausages are they the dincas.”?
“ATHERMATIVE.”
“HECK, their just the daleks CI.”
“Athermative they are the second type of daleks.”
“Second type would they attack us”?
“Athermative. But I could fight back with my lazers beams.”
“What.”
“Lazer beams”
“All right I heard you the first time. But you couldn’t fight all of them theres dozens of them you’ve only got 7 lazers.”
CI gave a loud whistle and hundreds of CI-A’s came zooming in.
“We are going to attack the DINCAS they have completely destroyed our planet so we are going to destroy them! CHARGE.”
All the CI-A’s went zooming off fireing their lazers at the DINCAS. After a long and very noisey fight the DINCAS were all destroyed and not one of the CI-A’s.
“Well thanks CI you and your brothers sure did destroy them.”
We all helped build a new space station and after 2 ½ years the new space station was built. CI interduced me to his best friend. I made friends with him and he was called 8-9-Z CI-A 8-9-Z and I lived on the planet for a couple of years and then we had a spacestorm on the part of the planet where we were. A space storm is very colurful, but very dangeous aswell. It is a storm of colured lazer beams. One of the beams hit our ship so the robots and I could not get home.
When the storm finished we all went out to look at the ship to see weather it was re-buildable or not. We were all dissapointed. “O well you two we’ll have to start building one from scratch. After 6 months we had finished building it and 8-9-Z, CI-A and I flew home only to find that the dreaded wherewolf had attacked the village. There were dead people lying everywhere. O well here we go again another adventure to sort out. Just then CI-A sent up a rocket jet flare and all his brothers came down in their space-ship to help us out again. All CI’s brothers and sisters said that they had brought some equitment for catching wherewolfs. That made me pleased because it would make it easier to catch it. Just then there was a low growl.
“Ut, oh here he comes.”
Cis brothers went forward to attak but they retreated when they saw how huge the monster was.
“Look at the size of it CI is that the one that attaked your planet last month”?
“Athermative it is the one that attaked our planet.”
“Holy mackeral its eating the houses”
“Hang on a minute whats 8-9-Z doing with that spray”?
“He is using the water of life to bring the dead people to life.”
Just then the wherewolf came into full view of us CI-a swung round and fired all 7 lazers at it. It fell down dead and 8-9-Z CI-a and I put it in a little rowing boat and sunk it so all Cis brothers went home and CI 8-9-Z and I could settle down to a happy life again.
THE END
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