stephen-turner.net

I’m on the lookout for an artist to illustrate a comic script I’ve written. It’s already gone through one artist, apparently because the story is “too defamatory”. So if that sounds like your cup of tea, check out my MEENA page, which has a short introduction and the complete script for your perusal. It’s only a 16 page minicomic, but even the best had to start somewhere.

Oh, and it’s heavily political, with some serious social commentary about the disaster that is Australian foreign policy towards asylum seekers (well Australian policy in general is pretty disasterous right now.) And it has multiple fatal shootings. If the first part didn’t get you interested, I hope that does!

I finally watched “The Bone Collector” – it wasn’t bad, and primarily interests me because it inhabits that thriller genre that I am interested in. I hadn’t read the book, but I’ve read one of Jeffrey Deaver’s other books. I actually liked that one (The Blue Nowhere) less than The Bone Collector.

As for this movie, I like Phil Noyce’s work as director, and Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie were excellent as pretty much always. It’s got a great support cast (actors like Luiz Guzman and Ed O’Neill) and is generally interesting and thrilling without being too gory.

The ending was a bit of a letdown, for one obvious reason: I guessed the killer less than half way through the movie. And it wasn’t even the stories fault really, the killer ended up being the one supporting character established who had no real role obvious to play! And things were a little too convenient at the end as well. Though I thought the detective work in the story was excellent and the relationship (both work and personal) between the two leads was refreshingly original.

So it was an interesting story to see – with its fair share of defects as well as quality. Most of all, everytime I see a remotely decent thriller, it really gets me thinking about stories and structure and my own writing.

Then I want to go and write… so I do.

Finally we’re staying in our new home for an entire weekend… instead of driving back to Sydney for one reason or another. This should give me some time to write among other things… though I still think much of my time will be unpacking, cleaning house and working out where things should go.

There’s a few fun things to do around here. We went to the local shopping centre and got a few things, and joined the local Club. Might even join the gym there – finally get some more exercise since I’m not even really walking much now! There’s an exhibition at the National Library that is nearly over – we really have to see it. It’s on great historical documents and books – definitely worth seeing.

I think I’ll even be getting ADSL internet access set up soon. Netspace is the way to go it looks like – only $239 to setup and $70 a month for 3Gig. Way better than Telstra… and finally I’ll have fast and permanent Internet access.

But it’s my writing I really want to get back to this weekend

Well that little vent was a few hours ago now. But a lot has happened in the last month. Very little of it writing related unfortunately, but it’s packed my schedule just the same.

In the space of a month, I have got myself a new, nicely paying day job, and moved to a new city. I now live in sunny (but very often cold), Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. The capital of my fair (well, unfair right now,) nation. I work for a mob called IDP Education Australia (hi there if they’re reading this – I think this site may have helped my get the job – or at least provided some vague amusement.) My job is similar to the old one, in that it’s about web writing, design and publishing. This time, IDP is a company that provides educational services to foreign students coming to Australia to study. Interesting enough so far I guess – it’s about exactly what I was wishing for in my last post.

But the moving has been far more traumatic. Canberra is only three hours from Sydney, but moving has been a total bitch. It took days to pack and will takes days or weeks to unpack – which makes writing kind of hard to prioritise.

To make matters even worse, my computer has been down for nearly two weeks! I moved it down here and had the power supply blow up on me almost straight away! So from when I started my job (Jan 21) until now, I’ve had no home Internet access. But at least that problem is over now.

Getting worse still – my car died as well. As nice as having an Audi sounds, it was a very bad decision. After a series of problems, it completely died 100km down the freeway back to Canberra (after a weekend in Sydney,) meaning I had to pay $300 to tow it, and am now facing a $2000+ cost to fix the completely dead transmission. It has to be paid – but I so want to get rid of this car now for something cheaper and easier to repair.

And don’t even ask me about money – the credit card debt is really mounting up this month – see above for most of the reason.

But don’t think it’s all bad though… living in a new city is fun (not that we’ve done much here yet.) There’s almost no traffic, driving is a breeze (I can get home from work by 5:20pm,) and the climate is nice.

My new house is just amazing – a four bedroom palace that costs less than my old shoebox in Newtown. We might have to drive a little more to get to stuff (but again, that’s easier now,) but the house is so worth it. When we have the place completely unpacked, living here should be great.

So much to say… so much to do. But all I really want to do is write. I should be able to get back into the rhythm really soon now. It’s all I want to really do.

Aaaaaargh!!!!! Far too much to tell, far too much to explain, far too little time to put it down here!!!