That concept is described on the back of the book thusly:

Humankind carries the past as invisible baggage. Thirteen brilliant writers explore this, looking at Australia’s cultural baggage through new and often disturbing eyes.

Sounds pretty cool, huh? The Table of Contents is:

Vision Splendid — K.J. Bishop
Telescope — Jack Dann
Hive of Glass — Kaaron Warren
Kunmanara – Somebody Somebody — Yaritji Green
Manifest Destiny — Janeen Webb
Albert & Victoria/Slow Dreams — Lucy Sussex
Macreadie v The Love Machine — Jennifer Fallon
A Pearling Tale — Maxine McArthur
Acception — Tessa Kum
An Ear for Home — Laura E. Goodin
Home Turf — Deborah Biancotti
Archives, space, shame, love — Monica Carroll
Welcome, farewell — Simon Brown

As my part of the blog tour, I asked three questions of a cross-section of those contributing authors. The cross-section in question being Kaaron Warren, Deborah Biancotti, Laura E. Goodin and the editor herself, Gillian Polack.

The questions were:

1. The anthology is called Baggage and explores the cultural baggage carried by people, from a specifically Australian perspective. When you first saw/concocted this theme, what was your initial reaction? What do you see as Australia’s baggage?

2. Do you think baggage is essential? Would we be better off without cultural baggage?

3. What actual baggage do you always take when you travel? What’s your essential piece of physical baggage?

Their answers are below.

Kaaron Warren:

The anthology is called “Baggage” and explores the cultural baggage carried by people, from a specifically Australian perspective. When you first saw this theme, what was your initial reaction?

I thought, Rats, so I can’t pull that zombie wishing he was a werewolf married to a vampire story out of my to-be-finished pile and submit that.

I was also struck by how many layers of thought it was going to take to get to the heart of the theme. I liked that; it’s the first time I’ve been asked to write a story based on an almost abstract idea rather than something more specific.

What do you see as Australia’s baggage?

Australia’s baggage is like the really good set you get from your friends for a wedding present if a lot of them get together and are pretty generous. The history people bring with them as well as the shared history. Ditto for culture; the things people bring and the things that have been created here.

We have some shameful baggage and plenty of heart-breaking history. I think it’s the details which hurt. I recently saw the Dunera Boys exhibition at the National Library. One item was a case full of notes and stories written on toilet paper because there was no other paper available.

Do you think baggage is essential?

I think it’s inevitable. You can’t live even the quietest life without gathering some. There will have to be hurts, bad memories, loves, losses.

Would we be better off without cultural baggage?

Of course this is impossible, but I think we are better off keeping our cultural baggage. A lot of it can be negative, with slights going back hundreds of years. Memories of murder, rumours of betrayal, who scored the best position on the boat over. These things are remembered and handed on.

But these are the things which give us substance. They are the things which form our decisions and make us different from each other.

What actual baggage do you always take when you travel?

My big brown handbag. Room for a book, some lollies, travel sickness pills, the travel documents, things for the kids to do and read, phone, diary, note pad, many pens, keys…it really is very useful.

What’s your essential piece of physical baggage?

I usually travel with husband and two kids.

Deborah Biancotti:

The anthology is called “Baggage” and explores the cultural baggage carried by people, from a specifically Australian perspective. When you first saw this theme, what was your initial reaction?

I thought it was brilliant. Australia has such a tapestry of histories I couldn’t wait to see what people had come up with, what cultures we’d find in the book. I thought it was the perfect theme for our country!
For me, though, working to the theme proved to be tough. I’ve never really related to Australia. I’ve never understood ‘what it is to be Australian’. I tell people I didn’t feel at home until I *left* Australia in my twenties. (I came back, of course, but coming back was hard.) And so for me the only way to write a story of the Australian experience – my Australian experience – was to write about homelessness.

What do you see as Australia’s baggage?

Well, we don’t have a great track record on human rights. And we’re embarrassingly good at wars. All up, that seems to suck.

Do you think baggage is essential? Would we be better off without cultural baggage?

Maybe it’s a necessary evil. Baggage can make you wise, and wisdom can stop you from being overwhelmed by all your inevitable baggage.

What actual baggae do you always take when you travel? What’s your essential piece of physical baggage?

Nowdays it’s my phone. Boo-yah for inbuilt GPS and that whole data downloading thing! How else can you find the best Mexican in San Francisco while you’re on the run, eh?

Laura E. Goodin:

The anthology is called “Baggage” and explores the cultural baggage carried by people, from a specifically Australian perspective. When you first saw this theme, what was your initial reaction? What do you see as Australia’s baggage?

When I heard about this project, I thought, “Wow. An anthology for people like me!” I’ve been an expatriate for, oh, about 15 years now [Laura is American - Alan], and I’m acutely conscious of my difference, of my non-belonging to the society in which I live. I’ve been forced to confront a lot of my cultural baggage, just in the course of learning to get through the day and do some meaningful and valuable things while I’m here. I’ve been forced to shed the assumption of rightness, that my people’s way is the way that makes sense, and everyone else’s is second-best. Of course, no thinking person consciously decides that his or her culture is, by the very fact of its existence, the one that any rational person would choose if they had the chance. It’s just that until you’ve lived overseas, you’re not compelled to decide otherwise.

Obviously, it’s not just expats who carry baggage, but host-country people as well. I wouldn’t presume to stand here and wag my finger at Australians about their assumptions and cultural preferences, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have them. This obsession with bringing back Hey Hey It’s Saturday, for example – but no! No, that’s just none of my business. You people do what you think is best. No, really. *makes surreptitious “Oh my God” faces* [In our defence, I don't know ANYONE that thought it was a good idea to bring back that show - Alan]

Do you think baggage is essential? Would we be better off without cultural baggage?

I do think it’s essential, and I find the term “baggage,” with its pejorative overtones, ambiguous at best. Rather, you can consider it “context” or “cognitive framework.” Cultural baggage is how people make sense of what they’re witnessing, thinking, and feeling. Cultures evolve because they meet the needs of a group of people (or some of their needs, anyway). That’s a strength: to have a system of thought that both meets your needs and offers you a way of evaluating what you’re going through. Of course, as my karate teacher told me once, our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses, and the same framework that gives us strength to get through the day in a confusing world is the framework that can limit our thinking and make us bigoted, parochial, and paranoid. That’s why being a compassionate, open-hearted traveller is such a wonderful thing to strive for.

What actual baggae do you always take when you travel? What’s your essential piece of physical baggage?

Hm. I always take more warm clothes than I’ll probably need (I have a horror of being cold). I usually take my laptop. I always, always take a notebook, a pen, and a book to read. Perhaps the most unusual thing I never travel without is my radio. It’s an AM/FM/shortwave, which means I can always listen to the cricket (joke). But, in all seriousness, when I’m in another country, or even another city, the way I key into what’s happening and what things are like for the people who live there is to listen to their radio stations. Even if I can’t understand the language, I can hear their music and at least get an inkling of their news. Radios. Radios are cool, and immediate, and random in a way the Internet is not. You take what you get with radio: no picking and choosing, no clicking until you find someone who only reinforces what you thought already. Radio can surprise you. Moreover, the batteries last way longer than a laptop’s.

Gillian Polack (editor):

The anthology is called “Baggage” and explores the cultural baggage carried by people, from a specifically Australian perspective. When you first concocted this theme, what was your initial reaction? What do you see as Australia’s baggage?

I must have seen the theme for the first time, but it feels as if it’s been with me always. Finding a way of expressing it so that other people saw what I saw: that was tricky.

What is Australia’s baggage? See my answer to the next question. It’s shared stuff. Some of that shared stuff is amazing and positive. Some of it is sad. Some of it is quite nasty. We’re not aware of it all – in fact,
we carry most of it around all the time without expressing, explaining or even understanding it.

Do you think baggage is essential? Would we be better off without cultural baggage?

Without cultural baggage we don’t have any tools for communication, for living. How do we know when to wake up in the morning? How to smile at someone we love? How to cut steak? Cook steak? Eat steak? Some cultural baggage is strongly negative, but the vast bulk of it is the stuff we carry with us all the time without even knowing. The shape of your bed; how you get out of bed; what you do when you’re out of bed: cultural baggage.

We have eyes, but it’s our cultural baggage that trains us how to use them. It’s the shared aspects of that cultural baggage that enable us to look at each other and interpret what we see in a way that enables us to live in a shared world.

What actual baggage do you always take when you travel? What’s your essential piece of physical baggage?

I always try to carry a handbag big enough to fit at least one book. If the voyage is going to last more than 3 hours, then my netbook is slipped into my handbag, all powered up, with several books loaded. I also always carry paper and pen – and I always need it, too.

Thanks to everyone above that took the time to talk a bit about their perceptions of this great collection.
Get your copy of Baggage here.

(Incidentally, the awesome cover art shown above is by the very talented Andrew McKiernan.)

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Both Kate and Belinda have a new book to promote – The Wildkin’s Curse by Kate and The Ruby Talisman by Belinda – and they’re touring the interwebz together. I was lucky enough to get them both to answer a few questions about their writing and their lives.

Which of you was published first? Was there competition there?

Kate – I would normally say that I was published first as I had my first novel Dragonclaw published in 1997 which is nine years before Belinda published her first novel, The Quest for the Sun Gem – by the time that came out I had already published 14 or 15 books. But Belinda reminded me today that she actually wrote a book that was published while I was still at university! It just wasn’t a novel. And she’s catching me up fast – I’m now working on my 25th book & Belinda is writing her 10th.

Belinda: There wasn’t so much competition as trepidation. While I had worked as a professional writer for 20 years, both my sister and brother were bestselling authors and so I wrote my first book in deepest secrecy! Kate found out I was writing it by accident and she was so excited. However I was terrified that Kate would hate the manuscript. Luckily she didn’t!!

Is writing something that runs in the family, or is it just you two that are the literary over-achievers?

Belinda: Writing definitely runs in the family! Not only are my brother and sister authors, but there have been writers in our family for about 180 years. Our great-great-great-great-great grandmother Charlotte Waring wrote the first children’s book published in Australia. My grandmother was an English teacher and with our mother, always fostered our love of books, poetry and writing. She used to tell us the most wonderful, romantic stories about history, our family and Scottish folklore full of adventure and brave, feisty heroines. She would talk to us about Shakespeare and Tennyson, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.

Kate: Charlotte Waring’s book was called A Mother’s Offering to Her Children by a Lady Long Resident in New South Wales [Surely one of the best titles ever! - Alan] and it was published in 1841. It’s an amazing book – the first time Australian flora and fauna was described in a work of fiction, the first time Aborigines were described, the first recount of Eliza Fraser’s experiences after her shipwreck… it’s really appalling that she is not more celebrated. Then her daughter Louise Atkinson was the first Australian-born woman novelist and the first Australian female journalist… there’s a flower named after her!

What’s your ideal writing space/environment?

Kate: I love my study! It’s painted pale green and is lined along two walls with bookshelves laden with books on history and witchcraft and folklore and literature. The third wall is hung with framed covers of my books and a map of Middle-Earth and a map of Narnia. The fourth wall is a huge picture window that looks out across my garden, through the peach tree to the harbour and the ocean. It’s a lovely place to work. However, I am very used to working anywhere at any time – in bed at 4am, at the airport, on a plane, in the park while my children play, with my notebook on the bench while I cook dinner…

Belinda: I have a beautiful office now, full of books, with a fireplace and a view over the garden. But while I was away travelling with my family for two years, I wrote in many beautiful and wild places – in the Kimberley in far north Western Australia, in the Scottish highlands, on the verandah of a friend’s cattle farm, on outback stations, in Margaret River…

Where do you get your inspiration?

Belinda: Life! My children. Travel. Things that happen all around me, every day…
I was inspired to write The Ruby Talisman because my family and I spent two years travelling and having adventures together, including a wonderful sojourn in France. We explored the gorgeous French countryside on horseback, by foot and on board an old fishing boat. We even crawled down into the dank, dark tunnels under the streets of Paris where the aristocratic bones were tossed of those murdered during the revolution. The French Revolution seemed an ideal period in history for a book of deadly danger and exhilarating adventures!

Kate: I find that ideas come to me all the time – I can reading a magazine (or a jewellery catalogue like I was when I first got the idea for The Puzzle Ring) or staring out a car window or reading a book on Cornish folklore or walking past a creepy old house… and then I’ll begin to wonder… I think the main difference is I see these moments of wondering or imagining as the seed-bed for a story while most people would just be distracted for a moment and then keep on walking.

I think that’s something true of all writers – we see the potential for a story in everything.

Do you help each other out with writer’s block or sticky plot twists?

Kate: We talk about what we’re doing a lot, and often find just by talking it out we come to the solution… or one of us will say something really quite obvious that sparks an idea. I remember with The Wildkin’s Curse I was bothered about my final scene and Belinda said, ‘Well, what can your hero do that no-one else can?’ and at once my brain was off and running, and my sticky problem was fixed!

Belinda: Kate and I tend not to read each other’s manuscripts until they are finished – we find it’s better that way. We do help each other in so many other ways, whether talking through a difficult plot problem that is bothering us, helping to look after each other’s children or giving each other a stern talking-to, when we are doing too much, or getting stressed from juggling the many demands of motherhood, career, family and writing.

Is there still competition between you both?

Belinda: In a sense, we can be quite a competitive family. But we usually celebrate each other’s successes and are very supportive of one another. The keenest competition can be when we discover (yet again) that there is some quirky similarity between the two books we are writing at the same time. For example, with our latest books we discovered we had both called our heroines Tilly, so we had to negotiate a compromise – I won!

Kate: Sometimes we ring each other and say, ‘How many words did you get done today? Ha-ha, I did more!’ But it’s only ever as a joke. And we’d only do it if we knew the other one was writing happily away and not stuck or busy on other things. This week we were teasing each other because our books were the No 1 & No 2 bestsellers at a bookshop – and the bookseller was too scared to tell us which was which in case whoever was No 2 would be upset. But of course were both thrilled – both for ourselves and for each other.

Belinda: Yes – it turned out Kate was the number one bestseller, but I was nipping at her heels! I was only one book sale behind!

Does it help that you’re both writers? Can your success help to influence the other’s success?

Kate: A writer can really only forge their own success. It didn’t matter how many books I’d written or how many millions I’d sold, no publisher would have taken on Belinda just because she was my sister. They took her on because her books were so good! And people buy them because they’ve read her earlier books and loved them. Customer satisfaction and word of mouth is what sells books, not who you’re related to!

Belinda: It can actually be a hindrance – Kate’s agent refused to take me on because she thought it was too incestuous! Actually, in many ways it does help. Kate has definitely been a wonderful mentor to me, and has taught me so much about how the industry works. In other ways it made it harder, because Kate was so successful that I was very naive about how difficult it actually is to get published. I thought all authors sold hundreds of thousands of copies of their books!! But that too was an inspiration because I thought if Kate can do it, so can I!

Tell us a bit about your current release.

Belinda: The Ruby Talisman is an exciting time slip adventure where my modern day heroine, Tilly, falls asleep wearing an old ruby pendant and is magically transported back in time to the glittering and opulent court of Queen Marie-Antoinette and King Louis XVI. Tilly wakes up in Versailles on July 14th, 1789, the day the peasants storm the Bastille, sparking violent uprisings against the aristocrats all over the country. Tilly sets off on a series of terrifying adventures throughout France to help her aristocratic ancestor Amelie-Mathilde escape the dangers and chaos of the French Revolution.

Kate: The Wildkin’s Curse is a tale of true love & high adventure, set in a world of magic & monsters, valiant heroes and wicked villains. It tells the story of two boys and a girl who undertake the impossible task of rescuing a wildkin princess from a crystal tower.

Princess Rozalina has the power to enchant with words – she can conjure up a plague of rats or wish the dead out of their graves, she can woo a cruel king with her stories and, when she casts a curse, it has such power it will change her world forever.

The Wildkin’s Curse is a book about the power of stories to set us free.

Thanks so much to you both for sharing this stuff with us. If any of you out there are interested in learning more about Kate and Belinda you can check out their websites. Belinda’s site is here and Kate’s site is here. You can also watch the book trailer for The Wildkin’s Curse here – one of the best book trailers I’ve seen.

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I love the fact that the post introducing the podcast carries a warning!

This fantastic podcast roams over some interesting topics so I hope you enjoy it!

Warning: There is some questionable language and talk of horror, violence and religion so please don’t listen if you might be offended.

Yeah, that’s my kinda podcast. Talk about author branding.

So, head over to this post and download the podcast if you’re interested to have a listen. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

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Like other construction workers, we creators of word worlds own toolboxes filled with necessary implements. We have hooks to hook the reader, glue to glue their attention, a feather or two to tickle their funny bones.
We find nails to nail our points and hammers to hammer them home. We find nuts and bolts to connect our story elements and trowels with which to lay a concrete foundation. And we find pliers for getting the attention of agents and editors, because we all know that task is as difficult and painful as pulling out our own teeth. (Word of caution: Do not use pliers on said agents/editors. They might take offense and refuse to look at your work.)

We need awls and augers (maybe even augurs) to poke holes in our inflated prose, and we need saws to cut away the deadwood. And we definitely need screwdrivers to screw up our courage and we need screwdrivers to drown our sorrows when agents/editors/critics shoot us down again. (A bulletproof vest would also come in handy, but they are too bulky to fit in the box, and besides, they make our clothes fit funny.)

But the most important and versatile tool of all is the chisel. We can use it to knock the chip off our shoulders. Perhaps you’re right and agents/editors are idiots who can’t recognize good prose. But perhaps they are idiots who can recognize good prose, and you’re not writing it yet. (Notice I say you? I, of course, write excellent prose. Agents/editors just don’t recognize my good prose when they see it.)

Chisels will help keep criticism and compliments at more than arm’s length. Too much criticism can kill creativity; too many compliments may keep us from improving. And we can all improve.

A chisel will help pare away verbiage, those superfluous words and elements that blunt the clear lines of our prose. For example, I chiseled away excess from the phrase excess verbiage, since it’s redundant. Verbiage by definition is excess.

And a chisel will help us shape our story into a world so vital and inviting readers won’t be able to tear themselves away.

So, let’s open our toolboxes and get to work.

You first.

Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado and a lifelong resident. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book — character and story driven novels that can’t easily be slotted into a genre — she decided to write her own. Daughter Am I is Bertram’s third novel to be published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC. Also available are More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

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Recently, I’ve had some conversations with very smart people about the future of publishing, specifically about how readers and writers can connect directly and make old-style functions like reviewers obsolete. It’s a great notion with dangerous consequences, and if you’re game, I’ll explain why.

Here’s the thing: the internet breaks down barriers and actively enhances communication between people. In the old days, it was impractical for an author to chat with their fans; today, it’s downright pedestrian. The old notion of “word of mouth” expanded beyond your neighbourhood and now covers the globe. Tell your five best friends about your new book, and they’ll tell their five best friends, and eventually you take over the world. It is, theoretically, pure unbridled exponential growth (at least until you run out of people to tell). This is the way of the future.

Except it’s not as easy as it seems. Just because you tell your five best friends, it doesn’t mean all of them will like your writing enough to tell anyone else. There are lots of factors that play into the “infection rate”, but the end result is you may only get one of your friends to follow through. And then only one of their friends. And so on. It’s still exponential, just working on a lesser scale.

Word of Mouth (WOM) depends less on the potential pool of converts, and more on the accessible pool. There are billions of people on the planet, but you probably only know 0.000002% of them. Add in decay (meaning your WOM is not eternal… eventually, the lag in reading will affect the infection rate) and your growth is severely capped. If you have 135 friends at the start, in most cases you’ll end up with a total audience of 621 (note: all numbers are based on a rough systems model and are probably too high).

Next time around, you’ll have a base pool of 600 to work from, which helps a lot. But unless you’re willing to spend years and years building up an audience, straight WOM is not going to cut it.

This is where Super Users come in. They are, very simply, people with a lot of friends and influence. If they say “this book is awesome!” a larger percentage of their network will act on the promotion. You get a 1% infection rate, but they’ll score 10% or higher. Add that to their larger pool, and your growth will have much more potential. Switch from a gentle curve to a steep one, and you see the difference.

The other benefit of a steep curve is that the decay is postponed… someone, somewhere will always be finishing your book and telling their friends about it. It creates a constant state of critical mass, which also ups the infection rate. Think of it this way: nobody likes to be dancing alone, but if you’ve got a large pool of people all dancing together (even if some of them cycle out after every song), it looks like a party. You’re more likely to dance if that’s what everyone else is doing. Super users can find enough people to throw that party.

Super Users can take many forms online, but one important role to weblit is the reviewer. People are looking for advice on what to read, and reviewers read a lot of material. As a reviewer proves their merit, their social network grows, and so does their influence. Writers can expand their network with every new title, but reviewers can expand with every new posting.

The value for authors is that a single positive review by an established reviewer can give them access to thousands of eyeballs, not just hundreds. If you have no social network, a reviewer can give you one. If you already have a solid base, a reviewer can help you tap a different set of people, or at least add to your own influence.

To compare: if your book is reviewed by someone with a social network of 1,000, your total audience potential increases from 621 to 4,937. If their social network is 10,000, you’re looking at just shy of 82,350. Imagine someone with a million Twitter followers reviewing your book… you’re looking at 8,242,224 converts.

The trick for weblit reviewers is that, right now, very few of them have large followings. That’s something authors can help change, by supporting and promoting them. It may seem unappealing to put reviewers on a pedestal (especially since it reeks of gate keeping), but if you look at it objectively, a healthy weblit community depends on a healthy reviewer class.

The question of how to build a SMART reviewer class is something I’ll cover in a guest post on Novelr tomorrow. And yes, it’ll have more graphs. Yay!

MCM is the creator of the animated series RollBots as well as the author of several picture books for kids. His grown-up work includes the sci fi thriller “The Vector” and a crowdsourced mystery novel called “Fission Chips”. He has a background in programming and systems thinking, which is how he learned to make graphs. He lives in Victoria, BC, Canada with his wife and kids, and may be at least partially insane.

What are your experiences with word of mouth marketing? Do you trust all reviewers or no reviewers? Do you have particular places that you’ll go for reviews to help you decide on a purchase? Leave a comment.

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Our Saucy Medieval Heritage

Guest Post by Michael of a Nadder Good writing is often harsh. It avoids euphemisms and lays out the bare truth behind a character or storyline. Say, in Alan’s Realmshift when Samuel Harrigan first s…oh never mind, just read it if you haven’t. Or in Catch 22 when Yossarian unexpectedly shows up not wearing any clothes (because he doesn’t want to). Sometimes the best way to make a point is with some crudity or ridiculousness.

Where does this tradition come from? I think the roots are partly in classic medieval literature. Now, we sometimes have strange ideas about the past. Probably because the past itself is strange. Being Spawn of the Satanic Sexual Revolution, we often associate “medieval” with sexual prudishness and the stranglehold of the Church (at least in Europe). There’s an element of truth to it. But it’s not the whole story.

Though official chronicles and epic romances can be quite pompous, the ordinary people weren’t much different from us. For example: as you might know the medieval European town often segregated people by profession — and named the street accordingly. Miller and Baker Street are examples that have survived unto today. Interestingly, prostitution was no different, with female prostitutes often congregating in a single street in a typical English town. Its common name? Gropecunt Lane (by now these streets have evolved to something more tame, like Grape Lane). The medievals were quite direct with their words and images.

But of course this goes beyond Street Naming Conventions in Britain in the 14th Century (now there’s a niche!) — because we probably owe a great deal in the sharpness of our “cutting edge” literature to works from the period:

The Canterbury Tales This is a very wide collection of stories which includes things like the Parson’s Tale — an indubitably boring sermon which is also the longest tale in the book. But there are also stories that will give American Pie a run for its money. For instance, The Miller’s Tale which rests on spinning religious bullshit to cuckold an absent-minded husband, presenting an arse out the window when being asked for a kiss and other acts of High Courtly Love.

Gargantua and Pantagruel Forget Douglas Adams, this is the original Trilogy in Five Parts. A great satirical classic, it has in my opinion much more hidden meaning and allegory than any religious text. Rabelais makes fun of every aspect of his society, including a graphic description of Gargantua’s diarrhea which drowns most of Paris, a list of about 250 items you can append before “fool” when insulting someone and a climax where the characters go into battle with an army of fried pig intestines. Go figure.

The Decameron This was the partial inspiration of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and shows that the Italians were also open to glorious crudeness. More so than Chaucer, this collection is known for every saucy combination imaginable. Of particular note are tales of the sexual adventures of monks and nuns — probably a more accurate reflection of reality than the celibacy “ideal” promoted by official sources. My personal favourite is the First Tale of the Third Day. The author gave each tale a quick one-line summary. The translated summary for this one is “Masetto da Lamporecchio pretends to be deaf and dumb in order to become gardener to a convent of nuns, where all the women eagerly lie with him.” Believe it or not, Castle Anthrax in Monty Python and the Holy Grail wasn’t 100% original…

But That’s Not All. Of course crudity is not specific to medieval Europe. It can happen:

• Before — the first recorded British joke from the 10th Century isn’t half bad: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before? A key.” Better than the Sumerian one, that’s for sure.
• After — the classic Tristram Shandy can be considered as a 500p dick joke. But no spoilers here.
• Outside Europe — if you read the proper Arabian Nights (not the abridged versions with familiar “family-friendly” tripe like Sinbad the Sailor) you’ll find that some stories will make a reader of Playboy blush.

And thus, I recommend reading some of these wonderfully-risqué works, or at least appreciating the great debt we probably owe them today.

To see more rants by Michael check out his blog at a Nadder.

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Sorry for the interruption

I just wanted ot let you all know that I am still here, but due to having my computer down for the next two weeks – I have limited usage and time with a computer until then.

In two weeks, I will be back with Quote of the Days!! and more reviews! So please do not leave me, as I am not leaving you. Stupid computer!!!!

LOL

Anyways, I got a sec to tell everyone this, so please stay tuned. I will be back!

Crikey that’s a lot of exclamation marks. So that would explain the elusive Day 7 of the the tour. Hopefully Ruth will post the MageSign review when her computer woes are past and I’ll be sure to let everyone know when she does.

Meanwhile, on with the last day of the tour. To wrap things up I’ve got a guest post at The Furnace, the very interesting blog of Lord Shaper, where I talk about what inspired the novels RealmShift and MageSign and what’s happening next. (I should also point out that I mention the new book at the end of that article. I can confirm here that I have started writing that new book, I’m very excited about it and there will be the occasional cameo of old friends).

So, let’s wrap this thing up with:

Blog book tour Day 10 – The Inspiration for RealmShift and MageSign at The Furnace.

Don’t forget that for the duration of the tour (until July 29th) you can get ebook editions of both RealmShift and MageSign for just US$1 each. This is an offer exclusive to Smashwords. The beauty of that is that Smashwords offer the books in a variety of formats, including Kindle friendly .mobi editions.

To get your special priced copies all you have to do is enter a discount code at the checkout. This will change the price from the usual US$3.50 to a special price of US$1. Go here for RealmShift and enter code ZR95S at the checkout; go here for MageSign and enter SF97B at the checkout. And don’t forget that you can get my novella Ghost Of The Black: A ‘Verse Full Of Scum from Smashwords for free all the time. Click here to grab your copy of that. Please spread the word about this special offer and hopefully lots of people will take advantage of getting two novels for just two bucks. Can’t say fairer than that.

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Blog book tour Day 9 – Indie authors and the future at Musings Of An Aussie Writer

Don’t forget that for the duration of the tour (until July 29th) you can get ebook editions of both RealmShift and MageSign for just US$1 each. This is an offer exclusive to Smashwords. The beauty of that is that Smashwords offer the books in a variety of formats, including Kindle friendly .mobi editions.

To get your special priced copies all you have to do is enter a discount code at the checkout. This will change the price from the usual US$3.50 to a special price of US$1. Go here for RealmShift and enter code ZR95S at the checkout; go here for MageSign and enter SF97B at the checkout. And don’t forget that you can get my novella Ghost Of The Black: A ‘Verse Full Of Scum from Smashwords for free all the time. Click here to grab your copy of that. Please spread the word about this special offer and hopefully lots of people will take advantage of getting two novels for just two bucks. Can’t say fairer than that.

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MageSign by Alan Baxter – Read and loved it, but you have to wait until July 26th when Alan comes on over for a visit to read the review!

So that’s promising. She read and reviewed RealmShift back on June 14th and gave it 4/5. Here’s hoping for a similar result for MageSign. Anyway, I hope all is well with Ruth, but thought perhaps the best thing would be to move on with the tour and hope that Ruth and her review catch up in a day or two.

So, on to Day 8. I love this one – it’s a great idea. Pat Bertram, author of A Spark Of Heavenly Fire, has this great site called Pat Bertram Introduces… On this site she features interviews with the characters from novels, rather than the authors. It’s a really cool concept and I had a lot of fun answering interview questions in-character. So, head on over to Pat’s site and check out the interview with Isiah, protagonist from RealmShift and MageSign.

Blog book tour Day 8 – Pat Bertram introduces Isiah, hero of RealmShift and MageSign

Don’t forget that for the duration of the tour (until July 29th) you can get ebook editions of both RealmShift and MageSign for just US$1 each. This is an offer exclusive to Smashwords. The beauty of that is that Smashwords offer the books in a variety of formats, including Kindle friendly .mobi editions.

To get your special priced copies all you have to do is enter a discount code at the checkout. This will change the price from the usual US$3.50 to a special price of US$1. Go here for RealmShift and enter code ZR95S at the checkout; go here for MageSign and enter SF97B at the checkout. And don’t forget that you can get my novella Ghost Of The Black: A ‘Verse Full Of Scum from Smashwords for free all the time. Click here to grab your copy of that. Please spread the word about this special offer and hopefully lots of people will take advantage of getting two novels for just two bucks. Can’t say fairer than that.

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