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I've been reading the newest serials by Douglas and Cole Parker with great joy and relish. It struck me that while both are extremely well written, the reading experience each offers is different. To use an art metaphor, the poetic quality of Douglas' prose highlights literary negative space. On the other hand, Cole's characters fully inhabit their space. I hope this belongs under Readers Rule :)!

A friend and fellow author that I have a great deal of respect and admiration for is having a crisis of confidence. I will not name him but I too have suffered from this type of criticism. Some people can not tell a plot element from an endorsement. When a murder occurs in a story, is the author endorsing murder? When drug use happens in a story, is the author glorifying it? Silly questions? As authors, I believe that the interesting stories are told on the edge. Somewhere on the border of normalcy and madness there is a place where drama comes from. That place can be mundane or high brow. It can be common or rare. It is about people in conflict facing adversity and without it our stories are just so much soggy granola. I have read stories that glorify drug use. I know what they are when I see 'em. Yawn. I have read stories that are nothing more than a common masturbation fantasy typed with one hand. Snore. You know what they have in common? They are simply not interesting. Touchy subjects can be addressed if the author handles it right. If you start reading a story and stop four chapters in because a character smokes a joint, then you don't know what happens in the other umpteen chapters. You miss the character suffering negative consequences like failed relationships and hanging out with a lower class of people. You miss him getting busted and asking himself what's wrong with me. You miss out on that characters chance at redemption or his fall into jails, institutions or death. So you see something about a story that makes you uncomfortable. GET OVER IT. Here's YOUR chance to look at situations that you would never chose to face without getting your hands dirty. Here's your chance to experience things vicariously that would cost you body, soul or life to experience and maybe... avoid, identify with or recover from or perhaps have empathy for people who have actually been there. An author is NOT his work. At his best an author is a catalyst to help the reader see and understand with different eyes. At his worst he is a propagandist or a pornographer. It is up to the reader to make this determination for himself. If there is truth in his work and an author has applied his craft with heart, then the work will stand or fall on its own merit. As an author all that I ask is that you think for yourself. -JS

Having spent a couple of months desolate and bereft of the urge to write anything, other than shopping lists, it appears that my flighty friend, confident, and all-round blithering idiot, Muse, has returned. W00T I say, and W00T some more.

I'm talking about revision. You get back what you thought was a tightly polished story, and damn me it's suddenly got a plethora of 'things' that need fixing. I have one paragraph - a description of two people sitting on a bench overlooking a meadow - which it seems I've spent a decade on ... and it still isn't quite right. Oh, it was fine before, ;) but now, no. English is a very silly language. There are so many ways of couching the same thing, and each has something to recommend it. Then there is tense. I normally write in the first person, so it's a doddle (hmm), but third is so, sooooo much harder. On the one hand it's great, because you can have multiple points of view. But when you're trying to deal with different time lines, it's brain ache. And, and, and .... Pshaw! Anyway, if I finish my paragraph in time it will be posted this weekend. And the rest of the story as well. Camy: the brain addled Emu.

It's gorgeous weather. It makes such a difference to my frame of mind. I'm feeling quite perky, which is good for many reasons, not the least of which is, I hope, my writing. I now have so many part written stories it's not funny. Just to finish one would be a wondrous delight, yet I'm beginning to wonder if I've 'shot my bolt'. Virtually everything I've written has been written during 'bad' times. I wrote to escape the stress. Now I'm not so stressed I'm finding it really difficult to write anything. Dunno. Perhaps worrying about writing is going to stress me out to the degree I come up with a peach (I like peaches). Or perhaps I need to change my perspective, somehow .... Or stop whining and just get on with it. ;) Rehearsals are okay, but not brilliant. The problem is we're getting so damn fed up with the damn set. I saw Bob Dylan an age ago and never understood why he'd start playing a song - then stop eight bars in and start another one. Now I do. He's probably banished beds made of brass on pain of death. Still, a gig is a gig, and I'm much looking forward to it. I hope it doesn't rain.

This is one weird week. I've received both an awful bit of news - in that The Hub is closing, and a great bit of news - in that I've made Dude's pick for July with my short story: 'JJ and The Boys.' First, The Hub. Rob and Kitty followed a dream, and built a small, but vibrant community. They went through awful trials, worthy of Greek myth, and finally won through. Then ... stuff happened, and Kitty left. Rob carried on for a while, but he has a life to lead and rightly decided that enough was enough. They were my friends, and Kitty my mentor and editor. Now they've gone, and I'm saddened. Truly saddened. The only upside is that Rob will have some space, and hopefully, he can start writing again. As Richard Attenborough said in Jurassic Park "Life will find a way." And to get a Dude's Pick has ... erm ... Picked me up. :) Thanks Dude! Camy

Seraph, chapter 13, will be up this weekend. Apologies for the delay Camy

hood, airhead, applesauce, baby, bad egg, baloney, besotted, big bucks, big money, bilgewater, bitch, bite, blind drunk, blotto, boffin, boloney, bolshy, bosh, built, bumph, bun-fight, bundle, bunfight, bunk off, burnup, buy it, caff, can-do, cert, chuck, clean, cockeyed, codswallop, corker, crocked, deck, ditch, dreck, drool, drop-dead, feel, folderol, freaky, fuddled, gat, give, good egg, grotty, guvnor, heebie-jeebies, heist, hooey, hoof, humbug, jitters, juice, key, legs, loaded, mean, megabucks, niff, nosh-up, old man, out-and-outer, pie-eyed, pile, pint-size, pint-sized, pip out, pissed, pixilated, plastered, play hooky, plum, plumb, pong, poppycock, potty, rip-off, rod, rubbish, runty, sawed-off, sawn-off, screaming meemies, shakedown, shlock, shlockmeister, sister, slam-bang, slopped, sloshed, smashed, soaked, some, soused, sozzled, square, square-bashing, squeeze, squiffy, stacked, stiff, straight, stroppy, stuff, stuff and nonsense, taradiddle, , tiddley, tiddly, tight, tipsy, tommyrot, tosh, trash, tripe, trumpery, twaddle, uncool, well-stacked, wet, wish-wash, Pixy, Coal, Cole, Sour-Apple-Squirts.

I love 'Duck Duck Goose' and I hate it, too. As a story it's had me in all states of emotion, yet as a writer I know I could never write anything similar. That kind of length would get me twisted up in knots so fast I'd have to admit myself to the loony bin. But why? That's what's bothering me. Why can I only seem to write short stories? I have a couple of nearly finished novels, and yet every time I think of finishing them, I get into a cold sweat. Know thyself is good advice. I obviously don't. Yours, miffed. Camy --- I've finished 'Bathtime', a short (how did you guess?).

I'm not very good with inventing unique character names. Appalling actually, no idea why, just one of those things. So, as no matter what I do I get a lot of spam, I came up with the idea of using the senders names. Now, some of these really are unique, otherwise they'd get caught by my good friend and colleague: 'Spammy', the spam filter. I keep them in a file called ... erm *shuffles about looking embarrassed* 'good names.txt' Here are today's: Carson Richmond Jarek Looman Jaramillo Camille Isabella Russell Luella Conn Stuller Schlund Allie Jorgensen Vonfeldt Merriam Guillermo Scruggs Colville Carrigan Gullace Riback Hordei Africanthropus Expect to see them in a story, sooner or later. Word. If the cat would get off the desk I might be able to post this in a timely fashion. "Timely," she says, meowling. "There's nothing you've ever done that's timely." "Yeah, right," I reply. "Grub? Litter refilling duties? Opening and closing the back door a thousand times a day?" "Yes, but you love me, don't you?" She says, looking like butter wouldn't melt. "And whose fault is it you don't fit a Cat flap. Purrrr?" "You're a tart, you know that don't you?" I say. But she's fallen fast asleep .... Cats. Who'd have one? Emus are another matter entirely! The last chapter of Seraph is not making me happy. It's not making me happy, because it won't ... work. *sighs* 'Bathtime', on the other hand, is nearly finished. As are 'Tiatrather', 'Probisher', and 'Berkeley Tales'. Enough. Ave. Camy

I'm marginally happier now since I finished www.camysgaff.com, and Codey's 'Broken Heart'. It's kind of strange that I worked harder on that song than I ever work on my own stuff. I know I'm genuinely lazy, but that - that recording - has shown me I can achieve more if I want to. Now all I need is a month in a proper studio and a band. Fat chance. My new short 'Gin' was almost finished when I showed it to a mate. Now: I'm ripping it apart and re-writing. I wanted to post it soon, but there it is. One day it'll see the light of day. I've had two shorts accepted for 'www.iomfats.org', which I'm chuffed about ... and the weather seems to be getting better, too. I don't know what it is about the weather that affects my moods, but Lord do I get depressed during the winter. Yes, yes, I know it's raining outside. I'm not that stupid. Ave. *shuffles off to write another line or two before tea*

'Harvest Time' - the novel I was writing for NaNoWriMo - is still unfinished. That's not say I'm not continuing it, it's just that the 'gotta get to 50,000 words or look like a pranny' impetus has gone. Such is life. I've also got other stories to finish too - including 'Bathtime' which I promised Cole an age ago. I've sent a short story off to a magazine, and am waiting patiently for the rejection slip. At least this time I didn't send a 'Dark Drama' to a SciFi mag. Duh. Cole Parker's 'Bleat Bleat Quack' is quite trying my patience. This bi-weekly posting malarkey is causing no end of angst to my digestion, and until I get to the end I don't think life is going to get back to normal. It also seems that the Raccoon is going to be visiting our fair shores. I've decided to avoid the capital for the duration, and have told my sister to padlock her bins. The Hub's new Anthology is now on-line. The theme was 'Voyeur' and there are seven great stories there. Well, six and mine. And that's it for now. Hmm. Camy