_jamie_

That's right. After much fussing about the bare-bones site is up!

There is still a lot of design stuff to mess with but I'm pretty happy with how things look at the moment.

JamieMarriage.com

Had dinner with the ever wonderful Marianne de Pierres and the insanely fun Yunyu, much fun was had.

Jamiemarriage.com is offically mine! Which means we should be up and running at the start of the new month.
Watch this space.

I haven't gotten fully into the swing of writing again yet; seem to have taken on a few too many projects.

One is putting together a proper website (of which I hope to have up by the end of the month).

It's good to be busy, it keeps my mind off how long it takes publishers to get back about work.

It's been a while since I last wielded my camera with the aim of doing a proper photo shoot.

My new house mate happens to be a beautiful English girl who likes to pose.

Combine two points. Create art.

At this point any creativity is good.

It's 5:30am and I'm back from a night of "Research". I use that word in its broadest sense. Almost everything in life I consider to be a research project, which is how I choose to see my military career as well.

Anyway; I'm using the time between getting back and going to bed in a productive way. Sent out a couple of stories, fingers crossed but I've gotten to the point where unless there is a very specific publication I want in on I consider it more of a happy ending if things get picked up.

I really need to get back into a nocturnal lifestyle. I always get so much more done in the wee hours of the morning.

At AussieCon04 (which was awesome) I went to a great forum that had some really high up editors talking about what kind of covers sell books.
It was a fun little insight as to what the public will or wont buy. For example hooded characters were all the rage for fantasy books until recently, or black books with single objects on the front sold several metric tonnes of books thanks to a certain series.

I was looking around at covers for Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, one of my top ten books, as I had found a rather interesting copy in a second hand book store. When I found this cover.



This cover really annoys me for one main reason. The main character, who is apparently portrayed in this cover, is supposed to be black. ....What the hell is this supposed to be? Will people not buy a book that has an African-American male on the front so they need to put some pasty rapper on instead?

Sad days.

Giving over publishing control for my young adult blogs to the Burn Bright staff is a great way to take away the pressure for these little writing stints. It means I can put my ramble down, give it a quick once over and buzz it off without having to worry about formatting issues or rejection letters or insane waiting times.
I have a lot of respect for the admin team there; as much as I love being a bit of a tech-head running a website dedicated to young adults isn't within my power.

Speaking of which; just sent off my Gonzo jounalism blog. I consider my creative mission done for the day.

Back on Duotrope to dig for markets.

After my self-inflicted month-long writing halt I'm ready to start sending a few pieces out, A few from last year and a new one from this.

I really do love this site. It gives you the chance to send to the people that you really want to publish your work.
My priorities are simple. Long pieces I want in a tactile format (Anthology/Magazine...etc), shorter pieces I'm happy to have online. Weird to have that kind of attitude in an electronic era I know, but so far it has worked for me.

Hopefully I'll have another blog for Burn Bright by tomorrow.

I was doing research for a Burn Bright blog and discovered that my sister has Datura growing in her garden.
This is a plant that is the other half of the voodoo formula to turn a person into a zombie.

Random is as random does.

It was one hell of a year. 2010 brought out a lot of changes, opportunities for research and new methods of thought.

Burn Bright has been a fun project to be part of; this coming year I'm planning to push a lot harder with my blogs and reviews.

Title Goes Here; took not only a story I am very proud of but also some of my photography for the cover of Issue 5. (at this point I am their only repeat authour)

Pound Lit Press released one of my stories in their Terminal Earth anthology. I recieved my copy on the same day that the Review was released. And what a review!

I have many plans for this year. I'm going to make it a damn good one.