Tor Roxburgh

Random Magic

2020-10-19T18:52:00.001+11:00

Today, I submitted my entries to the Scribbles Creative Writing Awards. It was a nice feeling, even though I could improve the stories if I kept working on them (forever, ha!). These two characters were snapped in Seville a couple of years ago: a bit of ordinary, ciggie-smoking, magic on the edge of the street.

Writing Life Hurdles

2020-08-14T14:17:00.000+10:00

I began writing professionally when I was 26. In the beginning, I loved it so much it felt as though every moment was a joy, including all the muddy bits and the mistakes and the struggles. Fourteen years and 14 books later, the joy evaporated. That 14th anniversary challenge, my first writing life hurdle, was all about something Jen Storer calls creative shame. My success wasn’t successful

Thinking of cork trees again…

2014-03-14T18:31:00.000+11:00

Cork tree in Extremadura - after the harvest Now that I’ve almost finished writing my young adult, science fiction, murder mystery novel, I’m almost ready to start volume II of the Promise of Stone series and I’m going to use a new method. In February this year I had the good fortune to be able to listen to Hugh Howey speak at the Savannah Book Festival. I hadn’t heard of Hugh and hadn’t

My Cory Bernardi-style Nightmare

2014-02-26T11:48:00.000+11:00

Meet my… bond mate? shadow daughter? love niece? significant other? clone? daughter’s mother’s daughter? I’ve been thinking about English language kinship terms and their woeful inadequacy when describing contemporary family relationships. Wife, husband, mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, niece... Even if I list them all, including the gradations of cousins and the step and

Fix the Boats

2013-08-17T19:47:00.001+10:00

The original boat image is by Jimmy McIntyre - Editor HDR One Magazine (An old fishing boat Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. I remixed it under the creative commons licence by adding the words ‘Fix the Boats’. We argue in my family about who came up with the half facetious and half serious ‘Fix the Boats’

Marketing Ebooks

2013-01-28T13:16:00.000+11:00

The Light Heart of Stone on Kindle 2013 is my personal “Year of the Ebook”. Most of the other self-publishers whom I’ve met have focused on ebooks from the very beginning of their publishing journey. In fact, Patrick O’Duffy commented that he was ‘floored’ when he heard about my focus on The Light Heart of Stone as a traditional, physical book. I can understand why. As a reader, I’m a

The Next Big Thing

2012-12-04T19:22:00.000+11:00

Ballarat Town Hall... It no longer exists in my Next Big Thing: a young adult novel set eight generations in the future I’ve been off the blog for far too long (and by the way off the blog isn’t anything like being off the grog) but I’m back on it again because Patrick O’Duffy invited me to contribute to an online writers’ roundabout called the Next Big Thing. Each writer answers ten

Representing Local People

2012-07-17T16:39:00.001+10:00

Moorabool Shire Council - Civic Hub "Fearless" by Anuradha Patel and Velislav Georgiev On 10 July, Moorabool Shire Council held a community and candidate information session to encourage and inform anyone considering standing for local government on 27 October this year. Being a local councillor isn’t always a popular and highly sought after elected position. In Moorabool, the workload

Help! My plot has come unstuck

2012-07-14T12:52:00.000+10:00

It's 200 years into the future. Fortune SweetSong looks out at this view and... And I stopped writing because I realised my plot was in trouble. I commenced this writing year really well by starting a new science-fiction novel in Steven Carroll’s master class at Writers Victoria. I wrote every day for the first four months. It was great. But here I am, six months after that wonderful

Creating Worlds – part 2

2012-07-03T17:58:00.000+10:00

I’m consumed with thoughts about world-building because I’m preparing for this Sunday’s panel discussion at the Bayside Literary Festival with Alison Goodman, Jesse Blackadder, Narrelle M Harris and Lindy Cameron.I’ve been reflecting on my own writing process in relation to creating speculative fiction worlds. In my last blog entry I had a look at the factors that I need to have in place in order

Creating Worlds – part 1

2012-07-01T18:10:00.000+10:00

I am busy preparing for a panel discussion at the Bayside Literary Festival. This year’s festival is The Art of Words and – being a speculative fiction writer – I’m involved in a panel about speculation and invention: Creating Worlds: Real and imaginedScotland 1561; Melbourne 2012; an almost-Chinese mediaeval kingdom; an alternate, undated universe. World-building is an integral part of

Continuum – Melbourne’s Science Fiction Convention

2012-06-24T15:51:00.005+10:00

I was lucky enough to be able to participate in Continuum 8 – Melbourne’s science fiction convention. I was at Continuum as a panellist, a reader, a fan and a learner. Learning I loved being in the audience for ‘The Crafty Middle Ages’. I got to listen to Canberra-based writer and academic Gillian Polack talking about day-to-day and special occasion crafts in France and England. I especially

Page Parlour & The Light Heart of Stone's Melbourne Launch

2012-06-04T11:52:00.000+10:00

Page Parlour The Emerging Writers’ Festival hosts an event called Page Parlour, which is a market place for small independent press and self-publishers. I wandered through Page Parlour in 2011 and this year I had a stall. It was a really fascinating experience and I went home with a hot-off-the-press comic by Matt Nicholls and Lee Taylor, a book of poems by Claire Jansen who has established the

Continuum

2012-06-02T10:05:00.000+10:00

The Panellist's LifeContinuum 8, Australia’s National science fiction and fantasy convention commences on 8 June in Melbourne. I’m participating in these panels: Backyard Speculation - Saturday 10:00 Independent Publishing And Speculative Fiction - Monday 11:00 Everyone Loves A Good Murder - Sunday 10:00 Crossing The Divide: Writing In Different Genres - Monday 14:00 Beyond Paranormal Romance In

Copy Copy Copy

2012-04-10T18:27:00.000+10:00

Printed, Shipped, Cleared & Stocked! The Light Heart of Stone on pallets After the galleys were checked, the Hong Kong printing presses rolled and The Light Heart of Stone came into existence as a paperback on the Everbest production line. The books were then loaded onto pallets and Publiship brought them to Melbourne Port. I acted as my own import agent and cleared the books through customs and

Darling Little Dyelines

2012-02-01T10:34:00.000+11:00

The digital proof for the cover of my new fantasy novel, the Light Heart of Stone, arrived from Hong Kong in the middle of January. It didn’t look so very different from the printouts Michele and I used when we were pouring over design options. That’s the point, though. The proof should look the same as the original design, apart from being printed on slightly higher quality glossy paper. Cover

Book Trailer Making

2011-12-12T17:43:00.000+11:00

I have been working on a book trailer for my new fantasy novel, The Light Heart of Stone. If you haven’t come across book trailers before, you might like to have a quick look at a few examples: Stunningly beautiful – the New Zealand Book Council’s trailer for Going West by Maurice Gee Great fun – 13 Words by Lemony Snicket and Maira Kalman Simple but effective – Alison Goodman’s trailer for

The Search for the Perfect Book Printer

2011-07-06T20:09:00.000+10:00

A surfeit of me One of the nice things about being published by a mainstream publishing house is that the marketing and publicity department take some of the responsibility for promoting you and your writing. In reality, you still have to do your fair share of self-promotion and you often have to have a crack at your own bio copy, but you don’t have to initiate and write every single thing –

Marketing, Emerging Writers’ Festival, Publishers, and THE COVER

2011-06-07T13:36:00.000+10:00

Marketing Plan #1 Gets Some Adjustment When Velislav Georgiev and I began making public sculpture at the end of the 90s, we got our first break by joining forces with another artist, Annee Miron. Together, we could offer project management (me) and good art (Annee and Velislav). Within a couple of months, we won the contract to create sculpture for the new landscape at the Middle Brighton Baths

Borders bottoming out

2011-05-25T19:41:00.000+10:00

I was in Melbourne today. Had lunch with a friend who works in a major publishing house. We didn't really talk about publishing, but the Borders demise was mentioned. On the way home, I went to Borders in Highpoint. I bought $502.40 worth of books for $50.24. It felt uncomfortable. I felt a bit ashamed to be picking at Borders' carcass. Worse still, was the guilty feeling I had about buying

Covers, speaking in public & the magic of Castlemaine

2011-05-24T21:42:00.000+10:00

Design by Committee The last two weeks have been filled with some amazing and fortuitous experiences. I drove to Castlemaine the week before last and stumbled across a really good book designer, Josh Durham of Design by Committee, who has agreed to design some templates for the interior of The Light Heart of Stone, my new fantasy novel. The really amazing thing about finding Josh was that: a) I

Novels Covers & Answering the Question: 'What's it about?'

2011-05-06T18:39:00.000+10:00

'What's it about?' Last post, I wrote about drafting a back cover blurb for my forthcoming fantasy novel, The Light Heart of Stone. The funny thing about back cover blurbs is that they tend to talk up a couple of opening incidents in the book, but don't really tell you what the story is all about. When a friend posted that exact question, 'What's it about?' I opened up my files to cut and paste

Creating Back Cover Blurbs and Other Painfully Difficult Writing Tasks

2011-05-01T15:58:00.000+10:00