In social gatherings, I rarely say I’m a writer, unless I’m at a writer’s meeting. It’s much easier to say I’m a private English tutor, or I make money from affiliate marketing, or I do some voice-over work. Telling them I’m a writer instantly leads to the next question. Now, if I was a romance writer, it would be easy. But, I’m not.
So, here’s my attempt at answering that question. If you plan on becoming a science fiction writer, you might find this helpful.
So, what do you do? I’m a science fiction writer. I write short stories and novels about aliens. Really? Sounds cool. What are you working on at the moment?
Oh, it’s a bit complicated. Try me! Well, if you’re sure. <deep breath> My latest novel is about an interfrequency starship with a crew of 300 different alien races that has been sent back 2.5 million years and across millions of kilometers to Andromeda where they encounter a conscious planet that has control of the entire galaxy, while in the year 2133, a rogue plant-alien is working to connect across space-time to tap into that planet-creature’s power, and use it to shift the Milky Way Galaxy into a higher frequency, and if the plant-alien does that, it will mean the end of the Solar System, so the ship in the past and the people in the present of 2133 have to find a way to stop it. Oookaaaay. That’s in part one. It gets more complicated after that. Riiiiggghhhtt.
Well, that’s what I should’ve said. Instead, I said something like Oh, just a simple space opera. A bit like a Doctor Who, Star Trek, Babylon 5 mashup, with some plant-alien enemies! What do you do?
There are far too many negative blog posts out there, and my positive drop in the negative ocean isn’t going to cause much of a reaction. Still, I plan to continue writing soft blog messages, or information blogs rather than fall into that negative mindset that attracts a massive traffic funnel, but ends up giving you cancer after 20 years.
I’m aware I’m in the minority, but one of my mantras is, “When you hurt someone else, you hurt yourself,” as I believe we’re all connected in some way.
It doesn’t mean I’m a walk-over. As a teacher, I know that many parts of me still need a few lessons! But I’m unlikely to say something bad about a person, group, race, religion or country, just because everyone else is doing it.
The downside is that it is a huge struggle to find something to say on a blog! I guess I could tell you what I ate this morning. Some rice, and a tin of soy, garlic and ginger flavoured salmon. See you’re falling asleep already! LOL.
And so, without much to say today, and already 3 days late (Google likes a minimum of a daily update to a website to retain a ranking, and a minimum of hourly updates if you want a stab at being on the front page for certain keywords) I thought I’d post some simple SF related memes that I contributed to the site ‘ImgFlip‘ for, hopefully, your enjoyment.
Saw the perfume when doing an ego scan. Not sure why alien perfume came up for my book series Alien Dimensions, but was quite happy to see it. The similarity to Kosh is, I suspect, a ‘coincidence.’ Still, if I ever have cash to throw away, I’d buy it and send it to JMS as a weird thank you present for Babylon 5!
As a vegemite eater of over 40 years I lost count at the amount of people around the world who have tried it and told me it was awful. So, with The Orville being the only comedy science fiction show in 2017 that had someone throwing up, it was ideal for a vegemite related meme.
There was a series of memes where words kind of rhymed with ‘father’ and I was surprised no one had done this one yet. After all, Anakin would have lost a lot more than his hair in that fire.
And, this is my closet. If you look very carefully you’ll see that the two blue ties have Tardis shapes on them! The yellow one has a Sherlock Holmes shape. I can be professional and geeky at the same time!
Imgflip users organised an ‘Aliens Week’ so, of course this was the most logical thing to create, which got a few upvotes.
But this one was more popular. I might turn it into a template later.
Last year I threw this one together. An ‘The Orville’ / ‘Doctor Who’ mashup. Yes, those are actual quotes from that ‘The Orville’ episode. Pretty sure Seth was tapping into Doctor Who fan reaction at the time!
Everyone loves this episode of Star Trek, and with one poster creating memes about his electricity bill using the Picard facepalm meme, I had to add this one to the comments.
And here’s one for Star Trek week:
I don’t have photoshop, but I played around a bit with Photoimpact in 2013 and came up with this. This is the central control console for the inbound wine orders call center that I worked at for a short time, and a few friends who came over to help with redecorating. Ideal to use in the comments when someone else comes up with a photoshopped Doctor combo picture.
And another Doctor Who related meme. This one responding to a user about plants taking over the world.
And one more Doctor Who related meme. Yes, this is the actual scene. Took ages to find it in that Robot episode!
So, there you go. A nothing post with just a few memes that may or may not be humorous. Hopefully I’ll have something a little bit more compelling to talk about next time.
Edit: In the past month this has become one of the most popular posts on my blog. Many thanks to everyone who has visited and hopefully had a laugh. Here’s a new one for you, though it is a bit ImgFlip specific.
and another. My nod to Fringe.
And here are some that are my first attempts at making memes. I think only I find them funny.
Alien Dimensions features stories by authors both new and experienced, exploring aliens and the future.
Issue 15 is the most recent edition, and I’m sure you’ll find the stories interesting.
This issue is a bit different in style to those issues that came before, in that I’ve also included some excerpts from previous authors’ novels, as well as some shorter length stories.
Issue 16 will be back to normal with longer stories, reduced promotional pages, and no excerpts, at this stage.
If you’ve loved Alien Dimensions so far, and wish to submit a story for the next issue, please read my guidelines here: Alien Dimensions Submission Guidelines. They’re quite restrictive! I’d rather you knew ahead of time what I’m looking for, rather than having to send out hundreds of rejection notices every day.
Having gone through most of the stories again that I’ve rejected over the past couple of years, I’ve discovered that there seems to be some kind of correlation between inventiveness and substance, and whether it has been written in the third person or not. As it has turned out, many of the stories I had to reject had been written in the first person.
First Person Storytelling
Why do you think that could be?
Is it because a first person story ends up being a stream of consciousness story where barely anything ends up happening?
Is it because there are so many published writers writing second-rate first person stories, and new writers attempt to emulate them, thinking this is how to write?
Or is it because first person story writing means the story gets bogged down in emotions and angst and reminiscences and circumspection, and everything else is described through how that one character perceives the world?
I’m not completely against first person storytelling, but I’d much prefer multiple characters and lots of head jumping, rather than a single first person view from beginning to end.
So, sadly, I’ve had to add ‘Written in the third person’ to the list of requirements. I realize this will probably reduce the amount of submissions to just one a month, but I think it will be for the best.
In my day to day marketing of Alien Dimensions and other titles, I’m always on the lookout for ways to make it easier for readers to find them. To that end, I was trying to find a way to link Alien Dimensions issue #15’s iPhone listing from the Alien Dimensions website, and from this site.
A bit of backstory. Having used a PC since the 90s, and Microsoft since Windows 3.1, I have yet to delve into the Apple iPhone ecosystem. iBooks is not available outside the restrictive iPhone-user-only interface, and I’ve never had the $ to buy an additional something from Apple that would enable me to get in. (Any spare $ was spent on updating Windows, or paying for Office subscriptions, or antivirus software or… I couldn’t justify running both environments.)
How did I get Alien Dimensions on iBooks when I’m not an iPhone user? Smashwords!
Smashwords enables me to upload a doc file for conversion and distribution to the iBooks system. Unfortunately, as they also distribute to quite a large number of ebook systems, it’s not possible for them to list the links. So, I usually have to find them manually, then work out what part of the link can be used by PC users.
While searching Google for the link (iTunes does not have a search feature for non-iTunes users), I stumbled across Galactic Central. I was totally gobsmacked by the discovery of this privately created bibliography of science fiction, fantasy and weird works, among other things, and took some time off from searching for links.
Totally worth it!
Incredible Database
The site features over 9000 carefully edited indexes of magazines, books and the like, with links to author lists. If you’re an author who has featured in a book at sometime, but haven’t seen your name up anywhere, perhaps this is where you’ll find yourself listed.
I was very happy to see that not only was Alien Dimensions perfectly indexed, but that even some of the things I hadn’t included in the contents in a few issues were listed.
The gentleman is thorough!
But, I think one of the most important things about this site is what ISN’T there.
There’s no advertising, no affiliate links and no requests for donations.
The site is a labor of love, and in the 21st century with so many sites supporting themselves with advertising, this is quite an achievement.
Congratulations to Igor Ashurbeyli for becoming the officially elected Head of the Nation of Asgardia.
It’s impossible to put into one blog post what a monumental achievement Asgardia is. (Well, I could, but it would run to about two hundred pages!) So, if you haven’t heard of Asgardia the Space Kingdom before, here is a quick rundown.
Asgardia was created with three top goals in mind: to ensure the peaceful use of space, to protect the Earth from space hazards, and to create a demilitarized and free scientific base of knowledge in space. Asgardia also has a long-term objective of setting up habitable platforms in space, and building settlements on the Moon.
We believe that the creation of a new legal platform for the exploration of near-Earth and deep space is crucial to keep pace with humanity’s rapid technological and scientific expansion off-planet. Universal space law and astro-politics have to replace the current outdated international space law and geopolitics.
That sounds interesting, so I read through a lot more, then signed up as a citizen. Here are some other great points:
* Any human adult can become a citizen. (Space citizenship is different to Earth citizenship.)
* Asgardia already has a satellite which represents its location in space
* Plans are moving ahead for the establishment of Space Arks and settlements on the Moon
* Asgardia citizens make it the 171st largest populated nation
* Visit the site to see the flag, coat of arms and anthem here
* The Asgardian National Bank is currently being set up
* A cryptocurrency called the Solar will be available soon
* Embassies to be set up in several countries are in the planning stages
* Discussions with the United Nations regarding membership will also commence in the near future
* Asgardia is open to business propositions and is currently developing its taxation system
* A space court has been assembled where justice will be served
* The inauguration of the first Head of Asgardia took place on the 28th June in Vienna. Click here to see pictures and a report of the event:
* If you’d like to contribute to Asgardia, you can sign up here: https://asgardia.space/en/
* Asgardia has its own calendar which is 13 months long. The additional month, between June and July, is Asgard. There are 28 days per month with an additional day on the 31st December. You can view the Asgardian and Gregorian conversion chart here
* And everything is in 12 official languages!
And these are just the tip of the iceberg. After all, the nation is being created from the ground up – forming departments, agreements and more in a few years what took countries centuries, and then replacing those sections that didn’t work too well with something that will hopefully work better. Expect education departments, passports and more.
I look forward to seeing what Asgardia has in store in future.
When I was growing up, I was obsessed with science fiction books and attending conventions. I got to know many wonderful people throughout quite a number of different ‘codes’ – Doctor Who Clubs, Star Trek Clubs, Bablyon 5 clubs and more.
However, that tiny room off to the side that appeared at comic conventions and the like, devoted to ‘real’ aliens, didn’t appeal to me that much.
Thirty years later and I’ve just signed myself up as an ambassador for World UFO Day.
I guess times have changed. Or perhaps I have.
Real Aliens
The important thing about World UFO Day is to just help people become aware of what is above them. (Even harder these days with most people looking down at their mobiles!) There are a lot of organisations teaching people about aliens, and you can find anything you need to know searching Google.
But, I think the most important thing that has happened in the past 10 years is that many governments have released their materials to the public. Much of which can be easily accessed online.
Le GEIPAN, Groupe d’Études et d’Information sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non Identifiés fait partie intégrante des missions du Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) is the official French government UFO research department. This site is a comprehensive archive, which also includes guides for teachers. Find out more here
The Denmark Airforce UFO files are now behind a login, but I have the 329pg pdf which you can download here: UFO_materiale
There are a lot more official government sites out there with UFO information, and many more governments releasing materials (I believe Germany will be next) so it’s not about whether you want to believe or not. It’s whether you’d like to get interested. If this is a subject for you, and you’d like to meet a real alien one day, going through the archives and familiarising yourself with the thousands of different types of alien craft, could go some way to acclimatising yourself for when Official First Contact takes place. (Sometime within the next 15 years.)
And, if you can’t wait for that to happen in normal reality, you can always try organising a more private contact experience yourself. Check out this book, and perhaps it’ll help you meet some aliens outside of normal reality!
If you haven’t heard, Australia now has an official department called the Australian Space Agency (launched 1st July 2018).
Of course, we’ve been heavily involved in space work since at least early last century. Even our tracking stations were instrumental in getting the moon landing event’s signal to Earth. The signal was received at Goldstone, Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra, and the Parkes Radio Astronomy Site in New South Wales, and then retransmitted. Without Australia’s help, the rest of the world wouldn’t have been able to see Neil Armstrong on the moon live.
So, we’ve been involved in Space for a very long time!
RAAF Woomera Range Complex
But, while we’ve had many space related disparate systems in place for decades, the RAAF Woomera Range Complex in South Australia is probably one of the longest.
Having been established in 1947 (hmm, that year sounds familiar), and also known as the Woomera Rocket Range, it’s always seemed to me to be a futuristic space port. Military weapons testing and experimentation, and lots of reported UFO activity (well, testing of advanced technologies at the very least.)
As the complex is over 400 kilometers away from Adelaide, it is quite a forgotten and seemingly secret area. In fact, you could even say that the area could be classed as Australia’s answer to Area 51. It’s not so secret though. You can find out more about the RAAF Woomera Range Complex history here
Rocket launch 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPOK3R-JtwI
Rocket launch 1967
I’d love to work there, from a fantasy point of view. But the reality is that it is hard, dangerous work, and you need to have a certain strong mindset to be able to do it. (It is a military research base, after all.)
Australian Space Jobs
And so, the Australian Space Agency has been set up for those who want to play in the business field of space, rather than do the grunt work of putting interplanetary missiles together.
If you’ve got great management and negotiation skills, and know how to sell technology, and space services, and you’re an Australian citizen with plenty of government work experience to executive level 1 or APS level 6, you could be what they’re looking for.
Find out the latest Australian Space Agency jobs here
Launched 1st July 2018
The Australian Space Agency is temporarily based in Canberra, until the other Australian states have finalised and submitted their proposals. Personally, I’d love the agency to be close to where I live, but as this is for the future of all Australians, and the world, it should be somewhere that can generate the most business and jobs.
Here’s my take on where the first agency could be set up.
Adelaide, South Australia
Arguably, Adelaide is currently set up to be the best location for a department focused on innovation and science, as well as being so close to Woomera. There are already multiple aerospace organisations there, such as Boeing Defence, and the local government is strongly focused on making South Australia a city of the future.
Melbourne, Victoria
Melbourne would come a close second with so much research and development going on in multiple universities. Not to mention having the largest population of people interested in space in Australia. (Asgardia Melbourne Member List) With so many students in Melbourne happy to work there for free, there is ample opportunity to build it on a shoestring and expand it quickly, investing spare money into R&D. (Australian Space Agency? Work for free? What are you talking about?! I’d pay to be able to work there! LOL)
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
In regards to being an easy stop for officials, Canberra is best placed for this, and has plenty of space to expand. I think it’ll remain in Canberra for quite some time before branching out.
Darwin, Northern Territory
For having all the action in one place, and for bringing much needed investment into the area, I’d say Darwin would be a great location for not only a space agency, but also a working space port. Mainly due to it having a lot of convenience, plenty for tourists to do, a lot of opportunity for international businesspeople to make deals, and close to the equator, thereby reducing the cost of rocket launches thanks to having the already boosted Earth speed spin of over 400 kilometers an hour. However, the city is way too hot for many so if you plan to work a long time there, I hope you have plenty of melanin to cope. (I’d personally prefer a job in the antarctic rather than go anywhere near the equator again, or at the very least have my own personal refrigerator and sun protection suit!)
West Kimberley Region, Western Australia
Perth is currently too far away from everything, direct flights to London notwithstanding, and firing rockets above the Indian ocean for safety, against the spin of the Earth, isn’t financially feasible. But Western Australia generally has some great places a space port could be set up. You could have the agency in Perth, and the Port three thousand kilometers away in the West Kimberley region. A great place could be the abandoned Ellendale Diamond Mine. You could set up a space port there, and while building it, dig for diamonds – killing two birds with one gemstone! Some of those underground tunnels would be ideal for a refit as a secret underground base.
Cape York, Queensland
Then again, if money saving and safety is key, then Cape York in Queensland is ideal. Closest point to the equator, near an already built airport, not many people nearby and plenty of space either side of the peninsula for the occasional faulty rocket.
Spaceport Australia
My personal feeling is that the main location of the Australian Space Agency will end up being all over Australia. Especially as each state can offer unique benefits. I’m sure the current lobbying to get the first official location will be long forgotten when we have an outpost in every city. And with over 60,000 abandoned mines across the country, there are plenty of places where underground departments could be built for data storage, and keeping computer systems cool for launches. Every town could have a space port!
And, if we act now, we could begin converting all of Australia into one combined continent-port where interplanetary moon-sized ships could easily ‘dock’ in our million square kilometers of deserts, depending on their mass and gravity strength!
(Trivia. Yes, Australia is wider than the moon, and even if it docked with the outback, the curvature of the moon would still put it above all our cities. When we finally work out how to control gravity, we could bring it down and mine it! Hmm, I feel a story coming on.)
Update 060718. Check out this awesome article about Australia’s space exploits here from Business Insider
There are a number of stories I’ve written over the past few years that are either no longer in print, or are no longer that noticeable. So, I thought, why not make them free, or at the very least, choose some excerpts for people to read online?!
And so, here is the list. All these are available on my site right now for you to read. Of course, an opportunity may appear that will mean I take them off again, but in the meantime, I hope you find something interesting.
Have you ever had one of those days when you just wanted to write a story, but had absolutely no experience about how to ‘really’ write it?
Awhile ago, I wanted to write a story about a researcher who was going to use magnets to increase his brain waves to hyperepsilon, but without having first hand experience of that, I needed to find a way to get hold of some kind of magnetic medical system to see which one would work best for the story.
Thankfully, Gumtree regularly features posts by students willing to pay a few dollars to anyone who wants to undergo some of their experiments. For science!
So, I signed myself up for whatever I could get. First, an MRI and MEG scan, followed by a TMS session.
Much to my surprise this enabled me to come up with three different stories.
The MRI
What I learnt from being under this was not only how uncomfortable it was (information easily found online) but WHERE it was uncomfortable. The rigidity of the bed, the inability to stretch for long periods of time. The position of the neck and how that put pressure on the lower back. And the brrzzzz chock chock bang brrzzz chock chock bang as parts whizzed about, recording the responses of my brain.
Each time the equipment moved, I could feel a slight heat through my skin, a mild flicker of my nerves, a burning along the side of my neck tendon, and an aching shudder through my skull. Not to mention the uneasiness of having to squeeze two tiny orange things and push them into my ears to reduce the sound, (still echoingly painful), and the restrictive helmet system that held me in place.
You can see me in the picture above. All that, and I was still freezing in there!
A positive was being able to watch a documentary on the cordyceps fungus, and how it attacked ants. This ended up in the story ExtraForrestrial. Later I was horrified to find this fungus could be bought online in capsules to eat. No thanks!
As I did the MRI experiment three times, I now have that brrzzz chock chock bang permanently engraved in my memory, but I haven’t included this experience in a story yet. Maybe soon!
The MEG
I only had to use the magnetoencephalography machine once, and I can barely remember it. Though, as it was mapping my brain, I’m sure there’s a record of those memories somewhere!
The system made little to no noise, and after the MRI, was quite relaxing. For some of it, I was even in the dark. I felt like I was in a cold plastic egg covered in lots of wires that had to be stuck on and removed. It think the initial coldness of the glue and wires was what surprised me, as well as how long it actually took to get hooked up.
I used this experience to add a bit of realism to the story Cosmic Joke
The TMS
I underwent Transcranial Magentic Stimulation three times too, over a period of several months.
The first stage was to put the skull cap on and glue all the sensors to my head. The gooeyness of the blue-green stuff that was poured into the holes in the skull cap, the scraping of the gel nozzle, as well as the vibration from the top of my skull down to my jaw whenever the scientist clicked the TMS coil, was all a bit disturbing. Imagine having things stuck in your ears, being unable to move, and someone dropping cold dollops of oil into your hair, scratching each dollop with a blunt knife, then hitting you with a tiny hammer!
The first lot of clicks was to locate the exact place in my brain to begin the experiment. To do that, she glued a sensor on the inner part of my thumb, and clicked across my frontal lobe with the TMS coil until my thumb twitched. She knew then that she had found the right spot and could begin the experiment. Sometimes it took awhile to find that exact spot, and the weird part was that I could feel the clicks within my skull. Either that was referred pain, or the vibration resonating within the skull cavity, or it was really stimulating some nerve endings somewhere inside my cerebrum.
Afterwards, she washed my hair, and it took a bit of time to get all the gel out. So, these little things, which aren’t easily found online, were the sorts of things I wanted to include in a story.
In 1992, I organised a writers’ club that met at my parent’s home in Sydney. Two of the writers, Elaine McCarthy and David Clancy, were interested in working with me on a way to release our stories for others to read. With the internet still in its infancy, we decided a photocopied version was the best way to start.
We ended up publishing a science fiction anthology together in 1993. It was called The END Result (Elaine, Neil, David) and featured a few of our stories. We sold a few copies through Galaxy Bookshop in Sydney, which was very exciting.
The black and white cover was of the planet Jupiter, with the beginnings of an explosion about to rush across its surface. (Poorly drawn by yours truly!) I’d heard about Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 at the time, and that it was due to break up in Jupiter’s atmosphere in 1994, so thought I’d predict a more dramatic outcome in 1993. Sadly, Jupiter ended up with just a few spots for a short while, rather than a new star. At the time, I hadn’t had any concept as to how tiny the comet truly was.
I have since re-released one of the stories from The End Result Issue One. You can find it here: The Learning Curve
Unfortunately, the sales weren’t worth the hours of typing, photocopying, collating, then traveling to the city to sell it. Basically, it wasn’t possible to break even with it.
And so, only one issue was released, and no copies were kept.
Still, I thought it was worth doing because it gave us that added incentive to keep working at our writing.
David has produced a number of works since then, some of which can be found on Amazon. (Check out Trees of Bone)
Alien Dimensions
As magazine sales were dropping world wide, but digital magazines hadn’t yet made mainstream (apart from scans of magazines via Napster) I decided to wait until there was a platform that was sufficiently developed that could deal with one.
While I had known of the electronic publishing service through Amazon since 2008, I had focused on using it for my other books and stories. I had not considered it to be an ideal platform for a regular anthology series. When I finally got around to it, I found there were already more than 10 different publications available.
Somehow I had missed the train. I quickly got on the next one!
Alien Dimensions issue 2 became a bestseller on Amazon for a few weeks.
The following images are of screen shots taken from Amazon’s lists in late January 2017 and are now out of date. Please visit Amazon for the latest lists here: Amazon Best Sellers: Science Fiction & Fantasy
It also put my name on the top 100 science fiction authors list for a short while.
This is an outdated author rank picture. The latest list is here: Amazon Author Rank
After buying the stories, paying commissions, advertising, expenses, fees, bank fees, conversion fees, sales were enough to cover costs. Sales were also enough to cover the costs of 8 subsequent issues as well! Unfortunately, no other issue has come close to that, so when the budget ran out in late 2017, I reduced the issues released.
The ones that came after issue 2 had more stories and less mistakes, so I’m not sure why that issue reached those heady heights. Even so, I enjoyed making it, and hope to continue to produce issues. I have a pile of new stories that I’ve recently received from writers, and I will start reading through them next week.
Hopefully, I’ll have Issue 16 out later this year.
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