blog last updated 27.4.12
My satirical science fantasy novel SINKRONISITY now available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007WH7GMY
and free for a limited time at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/154346
I am working on a new cover design.
REVIEWS of Ian's Story:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/300844406
http://acflory.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/ians-story-a-review/
http://www.amazon.com/Ians-Story-ebook/product-reviews/B0052DNENU/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
Read daily entries in my Writer's Notebook at
http://stephenfaulds.wikispaces.com/ http://www.stephenfaulds.org/stefau3/
Please read my latest interview: http://www.whohub.com/stephenfaulds
I have had to shut down my Guest Book due to relentless spamming. I don't understand what motivates these people. Why do they think anyone is interested? They just create a chore for others who have to delete their garbage. I have created a guest book archive and at some point in the future I will try a new guest page in the hope of genuine contributors. If you have a comment please go to www.stephenfaulds.org/stefau3/ where I have a monitored blog.
Invitation to trawl through my Writer’s Notebook and add your contribution: http://stephenfaulds.wikispaces.com/
FREE BOOK OFFER
Write a review of my novel "Landscape" and post it on amazon or smashwords and I will email you a free copy of "Ian's Story" in any e format you choose.
Retail prices of Landscape, Ian's Story and The Old Black Stump now $4.99 at smashwords and amazon.
LINKS:
Free PC desktop Kindle reader
http:// http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_pc_mkt_lnd?docId=1000426311
Free Mac desktop Kindle reader
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_mac_mkt_lnd?docId=10004649
http://www.stephenfaulds.org/stefau3/?page_id=73
Read my interview with Lottie Chase at SYP InDigital
On Twitter “I just spent time on your website, reading samples. You're a WONDERFUL writer. I've sent samples to my Kindle and expect to purchase both.” Patricia Sierra MyKindleBooks@twitter
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/83710
The Old Black Stump a nature fantasy for young adult readers now available at smashwords.
#samplesunday for Twittersample from Landscape http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004OR1UEU
Mark’s reverie is disturbed by a knock on the door. It is the Goth girl. Her appearance is startling. She is wearing a short black skirt with black stockings, a semi transparent black lace top and a tangle of silver jewellery. Her eyes are ringed with black with mascara. The distraught look on her face alarms him.
‘Look I’m sorry. I need help. Please.’
‘What is it?’
‘In my room. Quickly.’
He follows her.
A pale naked man about ten years older than Mark, is on the bed groaning and clutching his chest. A partial erection hangs across his thigh.
‘I think he’s having a heart attack’
Mark’s hands begin to perspire.
‘Ring an ambulance!’ The girl stares at him. ‘Now!’ he yells. She doesn’t move. He looks around for the phone and runs to it. He dials triple zero. While he speaks to the operator, the girl stands staring at the man on the bed. By the time Mark is off the phone the man’s pain seems to have eased. He lies back, breathing heavily. His penis has shrunk to a red jube.
‘The ambulance is on its way,’ Mark tells him. ‘Can I do anything?’ The man’s face droops pathetically. He tries to move but he is completely helpless. Mark looks at the girl. Her cheeks are trembling. There are some clothes hanging over a chair.
‘Let’s get him dressed.’
They drag his trousers on. Mark stuffs underpants into a pocket. The shirt is more difficult.
The paramedics arrive and begin their practised routine of making a physical examination and asking questions about symptoms duration and intensity. They don’t ask for an explanation of the situation involving two men and a strange young girl.
‘Do either of you want to accompany the patient to hospital?’
Mark and the girl both shake their heads. They watch the two uniformed men carry the stretcher to the stairwell. Mark can almost hear the innuendo waiting to break into their conversation.
‘Thanks,’ the girl says to Mark.
‘That’s okay.’ He turns to move away. ‘Are you going to be all right?’
She nods. Mark can sense her fragility but he isn’t sure she wants him gaping any longer into her private crisis.
sample from Ian’s Story http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052DNENU
It was nearly midnight and he knew Maureen had not gone to bed. He decided to go to the kitchen and make himself a cup of tea. It would give him a pretext to find out where she was. He saw no sign of her as he walked through the house. He put the kettle on. It was raining lightly outside. He hadn’t noticed. He went down the hall, thinking he would offer her a cup of tea. The front door was open. He walked out onto the front porch. There were clothes scattered on the floorboards. He heard the thin falsetto of Maureen’s voice, singing. Then he saw her. She was skipping along the footpath, naked. The streetlight illuminated her with a strange green hue and the shattering rain flew off her body like sparks.
He went to the gate and stood in the rain. He called her softly.
- Maureen come inside.
sample from The Old Black Stump a story for young adult readers soon to be published at amazon and smashwords
The chilling warble of a magpie echoed across the flats. Jik remained motionless. There was no danger in the sound but it did quicken a lizard's heart, that primordial recognition of a predator's call. Only in spring, to feed their young would magpies bother with such small prey as skinks. And they came in silence when they struck.
From his vantage point, two metres above the ground, Jik's sharp eyes surveyed the wetlands. The old Flooded Gum where Jik's tribe lived was on the western edge of Ferndale Flats, near a wide bend in the Canning River. The flats stretched mainly west and north. To the southeast they disappeared around the river. Directly to the south, they bordered the streets of suburban Ferndale.
Looking north, Jik could see the lush green winter grass, giving way to low, red samphire bushes and patches of bare salt pan near the westward swing of the river. Tilting his head slightly, he scanned to the west where the flats rose into light woodland. The wind barely stirred the grass and the trees seemed to be drinking the pale sun through their winter-cooled leaves.
Jik was a young skink of three summers. His finely scaled skin was a dark grey-brown. In the sunlight, it had a coppery metallic sheen. His sleek body was almost ten centimetres from his pointed nose to his finely tapered tail. Each tiny foot had five spatulate toes. A pinstripe ran from his eyes down each flank, giving him a slightly decorated appearance. He was free of scars, an almost perfect specimen.
The sun was just warm enough to quicken Jik's blood. The cool afternoon breeze would soon be taking away its warm bite and Jik was enjoying every moment of his unseasonal bask. He loved to shake off the cool drowsiness of winter sleep. It wasn't just the basking. He liked to be alone. Winter basking rarely attracted many lizards to the surface. Winter is a good time for thinking. With most of the tribe sleeping or enjoying long, drowsy conversations in dark fissures, it was easy to find time alone on the bark. Summer was full of games and hunting and every other way of being busy that made solitude a luxury.
The sky began to pale. Slowly it slipped into the thick bank of cloud that lay, like a second horizon around the rim of the earth. As the last rays evaporated from Jik's skin, the cool breeze signalled the end of his warm sojourn. Flicking his body around, he darted to the edge of a crack in the bark. Pausing, he cocked his head to the west. The sun had been completely absorbed into the thick grey mass of cloud. The chill vapours of coming rain were stirring overhead. As he clambered down into the dark crevice, spots of water were already hitting his tail.
Landscape was reviewed by Lottie Chase at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004OR1UEU
Lottie found some proofing errors: Renae for Renee and Paul for Mark. If you want a free corrected version to replace the one you purchased please contact me.
"The Stone Frog" a children's story now at amazon and in the premium catalogue at smashwords. The Old Black Stump available soon.
On Twitter
“I just spent time on your website, reading samples. You're a WONDERFUL writer. I've sent samples to my Kindle and expect to purchase both.” Patricia Sierra MyKindleBooks@twitter
"Hi, finished Landscape last night and loved it!" LottieChase
Landscape and Ian's Story are now in the premium catalogue at smashwords
Landscape and Ian's Story selling at smashwords and amazon for $2.99
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/stephenfaulds
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/61598
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052DNENU
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0052DNENU
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004OR1UEU
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004OR1UEU
I am currently preparing my young reader's novel The Old Black Stump for publication at smashwords and amazon.
Landscape selling slowly but surely. I am setting up a new Facebook page just for my writing. If you are willing to write a review for amazon and smashwords please contact me for a free copy.
This website is now archived at the State Library of WA.
Please feel welcome to become a friend on facebook.
facebook.com/stephenfauldswriting
BLOG ARCHIVE
Delhi 15.3.11 Had talks with Partho Chakrabarty from The Second Foundation Theatre Co who is interested in my Krishnamurti play. He also asked me to write a him a monologue.
Chennai 8th March
Visited the Krishnamurti Foundation - the gardens where I heard Krishnamurti talk in 1984. Found some dvd's of the talks I attended. They will be invaluable in writing my Krishnamurti play.
Going to Chennai in March to do some more research on my Krishnamurti play, to Goa for a swim, Mumbai for a meal at Leopolds, Delhi to visit friiends and talk to some theatre people about a Delhi production then to Varanasi and Sikuldihar to celebrate Holi at my son in law's home village .
Have begun INLITENMENT the sequel to Sinkronisity and Treuth.
Now pitching Norbett Thickle and Sinkronisity to American agents.
The latest draft of Séance was assessed by John Aitken and Ingle Knight at STAGES.They were very perceptive and gave me some real direction for the next draft.
Tweeted my short story Sweet Fruits of Revenge 24th October to 28th December.
I have set up an alternative website at www.stephenfaulds.org/stefau3/ which is primarily a blog to promote my work and communicate with people interested in specific genres such as Science Fiction, children's writing or script writing. This is a simpler site where I will focus on projects that I think have the best prospects of finding a wider audiences: my scripts which have had some success and the manuscripts which have attracted the most interest from agents and publishers - the almost published, but.
Once I have finished developing the site I plan to link it to various blogs concerned with different genres in an attempt to attract interest in my own work - my “clever and cunning plan.” Please feel free to make suggestions of sites/blogs or attention seeking internet techniques. I am also tweeting as StephenFaulds.
Tell me if I seem bitter and twisted.
In September 2009, a well known literary agent said she liked one of my novels. She sent me some notes and asked me to write another draft, which I delivered in October. In November she asked me to leave the novel exclusively with her. She said she would begin looking for a publisher in February 2010. She sent more notes and asked me to write another draft which I delivered in January. By May I had not heard from her. I tactfully contacted her. At the end of May she informed me she had decided not to represent me. She promised me an explanation but to date I have not received it. My manuscript was in effect on hold for seven months with no prospect of finding a publisher. I have had similar experiences with most of my ten novels. One publisher kept another of my novels on hold for over a year. The only thing that keeps me writing is the fact that I am addicted to writing and constantly getting ideas for stories.
HEARING THE OCEAN
They say you can hear the ocean
in a seashell.
You know I can hear it
just as well in a wine glass.
A Year in the Life of a Stranger first draft completed 25.4.09. This is a sample page.
The capacity for psychological change fascinates me. Some people live their entire lives without changing their basic outlook. They live and die according to the set of beliefs they were raised with. No less in India than elsewhere, I am sure.
The spiritual life can be just as limiting as any. Dogma, whether it is Christian, Hindu, Muslim or secular, can lock a person into conditioned responses to their experience. This prohibits change. Only learning from experience brings about change.
For me and for Michael, and I’m sure for many others, the experiences we had in India changed us, fundamentally. But that is not to say we adopted the mind set of people raised as devout Hindus who may be just as limited in their outlook as people in the Church of Reformed Souls.
I believe there is such a thing as the fully Enlightened Being and therefore we each have the potential to attain a fully enlightened mind. But very few of us have done so. Until we do, we must continue to remain open to to experience and to learn from it. If we stop learning, we stop growing. We stop progressing toward enlightenment.
Whatever drove Michael into obsessive, dogmatic belief in the teachings of the Church of Reformed Souls, did not stop there. It propelled him further on his search for truth than he at first realised. It drove him into experiences which shattered his limited understanding and freed him from the set of beliefs he had adopted. He was able to open up to something greater.
India, with its kaleidoscope of colours and experiences, was the perfect place for Michael, the single minded Missionary, to realise the limitations of his belief system and begin to explore the wider world of spiritual belief.
Island issue 115 has now been published including my Domestic Fracture short story “The Sweet Fruits of Revenge”. It's a classy literary magazine that looks very impressive on coffee tables. It's available from PO Box 210 Sandy Bay Tasmania or www.islandmag.com. If you happen to be buying a copy it wouldn't hurt to say it's because of my story.
I have a blog at www.srfaulds.bigblog.com.au where I post samples of my writing.
After dramaturgical assistance from Polly Low, I am now writing another draft of "Séance".
Seatown is well on the way to being a trilogy.
The original script is re-titled “The First Secret.”
I have written the first draft of the second play “The Last Secret” and had some dramaturgical advice from John Aitken and Hellie Turner for the next draft.
The third script will be called “No Secret.’
I am printing limited editions of drawings from Art for Small Spaces and mounting them in small home made wooden frames.
I hope to finish my school from hell novel "The Experiment" this year.
