Submitting a story to:

a. Smith Journal. Some time ago I wrote an article for Cracked.com about "Six Smells You'd Never Belief Are Trademarked" but the editors (MXY!) never published it. So I've re-vamped it and its going off to to this quirky publication - http://www.smithjournal.com.au/submissions

b. [wherever], a new magazine about travel literature. http://www.wherevermag.com/submit-writing/ I wrote a story years ago about Australia's south-west and how it should have been a French terriroty, and now with all the wine could easily be mistake for western France. So that's getting polished up too and off it goes.

Will report back on my success or failure.

So you're seditious even towards your own country.

I never got a response from the editors on that pitch. I think they abandoned the short (less than five points) list format for non-timely articles.

Sure JQ, sure.



Well, I can hardly be seditious to yours, can I?

He doesn't quite know what that word means, Dave.

being seditious means you're not joking, right?

It's a Mexican soup.

Mmmmm, it's seditious!

it's seditiously seditious!

Superseditious.

That's where you draw the American flag, crumple it up, put it between your butt cheeks, set fire to it, and run around the building as many times as you can without dropping it.

Unless you're Australian, in which case you must do it with the Australian flag. Otherwise, IT MAKES NO SENSE.

So, Seditious is another name for Sunday at Mxy's house?

My mistake. I was thinking of "subversive". Less stringent.

what's a subversive?

Shut the fuck up Donny.

Yeah, that.

Okay.

This assessment fascinates me. Its an odd thing to be criticised for being "subversive" when one holds unblinkered critical views of something.

Given Amercian patriots in the War of Independence were clearly subversive, and the French suppporting them were underpinning that subversiveness, I think I'm in fine company. I read a great story a few weekends ago. Forgive me for not recalling the precise details. The British general who lost the final battle in the War of Independence tried surrendering his sword to a French general. The Frenchman declined to accept it and pointed instead to an American colonial general. The British regarded the colonials with such contempt that even in defeat they could not regard them as equals. I seem to recall that the English band played a song called "The World Turned Upside Down" as they marched in formation to surrender. The story is immensely appealling: the triumph of the underdog Americans, the gallantry of the French in refusing the accept the surrender, the bitterness and bewilderment of the superior force.

Is it subversive to show sympathy for those who struggle in righteous causes, even those I do not share or cannot entirely emphathise with? Possibly. The Scots are on their way to a doomed referendum for independence next year. Current polling suggests that the referendum will be defeated by a margin of 2:1. Yet I cheer them all the way, though the outcome would be the end of British union. Same goes for Catalonian independence from Spain.

Anyway, enough navel gazing for one day.

And French Quebec's push for separation from Canada.

One report I saw said that only immigration to Quebec has created the votes necessary to keep them in Canada.



I think when you look at the U.S. War of Independence, you have to look at the legitimacy of their grievances. As I recall, it was the Boston Massacre that was the final outrage that led to revolution. Remember that at the end of the French and Indian War, the colonists were fiercely loyal British subjects, and proud to be British. It was a series of contempts for them by the king, in the form of oppressive taxes and open attacks on them, that drove them in barely 12 years to rebellion.

I wasn't aware that the British General Corwallis had asked to surrender to the French, who told him to direct his surrender to the Americans (an important gesture of recognizing U.S. sovereignty).


I don't think you're "seditious" in simply recognizing that Australia's history could have had a different outcome.
New York City could have remained in the hands of the Dutch and remained New Amsterdam.
The Japanese could have won at Midway, and turned the tide of the Pacific War.
The U.S. and Russia could have destroyed each other (and the world) in the Cuban Missile Crisis (it came very close to that).

As I recall, Australia was first discovered and mapped by the Dutch, and had a different name.

You can't fight in here! This is the war room!

New Holland. Bloody silly Dutch. They kept crashing their ships here.



Well, neither of these went anywhere, which probably demonstrates that the first thing you should do, is something.

My wife likes Game of Thrones so mostly for her entertainment I'm writing a sword and sorcery epic at night before I go to sleep. She likes it, but then,. she likes Twilight so who knows how good it is.

I am a member of the committee of the peak writers association here in Western Australia. There is a local writer who kept complaining to his wife that he had a novel bottled up in him. She finally turned to him and said, "Have a year off to write it, and it better be good". So, he wrote some chapters, and sent them to short story contests. He wons some prizes. He used those as leverage to get a publishing deal for the novel. Smart strategy.