Blog Posts for Simon Haynes

How to plot a novel ... now with extra plot!

Simon Haynes — Sat, 23 May 2009 05:32:00 -0700

Not sure whether you've seen my article on How to plot a novel, but there's a tantilising pic of a completed outline where the font is just too small to read. I keep getting emails from people asking me to make the pic bigger so they can read the text, or to provide the Freemind outline it belongs to. In the past I've said no because the outline was written for my own use and could contain just ...

Writing: you call that a scene?

Simon Haynes — Thu, 14 May 2009 08:15:48 -0700

I posted a version of this to the yWriter 5 group earlier today, but realised it might be useful to others outside that list.I've been working extra hard on my novel for the past week or so, and after much editing and re-editing I suddenly realised that working on dozens of scenes with 1500-3000 words in each is not much fun. After a few dozen changes to each scene, usually involving a bunch of ...

Hal 4 powers on

Simon Haynes — Sat, 09 May 2009 00:57:36 -0700

Great news for the Hal Spacejock series ... the 2009 Ditmar Awards ballot has just been announced, and Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch (Book 4) is a finalist in the Best Novel category. Last month Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch took out the WA Science Fiction Foundation 'Tin Duck' award for best SF/F/H novel of 2008. Earlier this year it was one of only five finalists in the Aurealis Awards Best SF ...

Ker-thunk

Simon Haynes — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:51:30 -0700

I love that moment where you've been working on a novel for months, you've written two thirds of the draft, and you suddenly get a flash of inspiration which allows you to greatly improve a sub-par subplot. Not only that, you also manage to tie it firmly to the main plot AND foreshadow upcoming events.This happens to me with every book I write, which is why I'm happy to write chapters and scenes ...

News Roundup

Simon Haynes — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:49:14 -0700

I've been twittering lately, hence the lack of blog posts. First bit of news: an award! Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch won the WASFF 'Tin Duck' award for best professional long work at Swancon last weekend. This is the second WASFF award in a row for the series, after Hal Spacejock Just Desserts won the same award last year. It's a very handsome trophy, although it was a real pain ...

Where's Simon?

Simon Haynes — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:10:34 -0700

These days, mostly on Twitter: http://twitter.com/spacejock Brevity and random scattered thoughts suit the way my brain works.

JA Konrath on piracy & ebooks

Simon Haynes — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:36:53 -0700

JA Konrath is currently on a blog tour, posting on different sites every day in March to promote the release of Afraid, a horror novel he wrote under the name Jack Kilborn. I put my hand up to participate in the blog tour, and when it came to the topic I said 'give me something on ebooks'. Here's JA Konrath's article on the subject ... Let's talk about illegal downloading and ebooks. As of ...

Flycon 2009

Simon Haynes — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 04:08:03 -0700

Pinched from Chris Dolley's blog because I'm up to my elbows in floor tile adhesive... FlyCon – the worldwide online SF/F con – starts today at midnight (Australia, EST) and 9am (US Eastern Time) and finishes at 5pm Monday in Australia and around midnight the day before in San Francisco. Panels and author chats are running continuously plus there’s a dealer’s room and a masquerade ...

The Hal Spacejock ebooks: how to score a free copy of Hal #2

Simon Haynes — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:49:06 -0700

Last year my publisher released Hal Spacejock book one as a free ebook, and we've seen just over 50,000 downloads to date. As of today the rest of the series is available in DRM-free ebook format at a super-low price of A$5 each. (Approx US$3.50) That means you can grab the entire series for A$15 (approx US$10), which is less than the price of a single paperback, and way less than the ...

Getting closer and closer ...

Simon Haynes — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:19:01 -0800

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