Stephen Crabbe's Blog
December 17, 2022
Another novel is born!
I'm thrilled to announce that Book 3 of A South Australian Saga is now available as a paperback and as a Kindle e-book. You'll meet again all the characters from Book 2 as they continue to grapple with exigencies of the Great War, their friendships growing closer in the face of intensifying hostility from several quarters of the community. And, of course, each still has personal issues to deal with. You will find this novel at your local Amazon store: Seeking Peace in Adelaide (Book 3 of A South Australian Saga).
February 3, 2022
War in Adelaide, my new novel
I'm finding it hard to sit still as I write. The excitement is about the imminent release of War in Adelaide, which is Book Two in my series, A South Australian Saga. The first book in the series is Conflict on Kangaroo Island. The new release should occur within a day or two, all being well. I'll have much more to say about this book soon!
April 16, 2014
Striking Out
In my South Australian adolescence I practically lived in the ocean or on the beach. Even when I was at school or university my mind was sprinting over sand, cutting across a jade-green wave-face or thrusting underwater through the translucent greens, pinks and ambers of the sea-weeds. Not the best way to scholastic success you might say, but eventually I groped my way onto a more conventional path towards teaching career and raising a family.
A life-time later with the publication of my 2013 book, Song of Australia, my life was plunged deep into a new phase. I felt like an adolescent all over again, alternately out of my depth or cutting a curl. I managed to surface and for about six months trod water, just trying to come to terms with the demands of life as a contemporary independent author.
But now I'm striking out once more on a bold new venture: my next fiction book. It's already giving me thrilling wave-rides that finish all too soon, followed by long periods of bobbing on a gentle swell as I wait and wonder and searching the horizon for the next promising idea.
Righto, I've exhausted that metaphor! Writing a novel is often like swimming and surfing, but only to a point. To produce an original and engaging piece of historical fiction the writer must spend much of the time in hard research to find information about events and people. Then there's the relentless necessity to get inside the hearts and minds of characters, while also managing them from the outside to create a plot that will grip the reader. These and other things are too much to ram into that earlier swimmming-surfing-sea metaphor.
Nevertheless, the youthful energy and sense of adventure of the adolescent is surging again within a very non-adolescent body and brain. All being well, in 2015 my new book will be ready to launch! (Mmmm ... there's that maritime analogy creeping back. Maybe an idea looking for a place in the novel?)
A life-time later with the publication of my 2013 book, Song of Australia, my life was plunged deep into a new phase. I felt like an adolescent all over again, alternately out of my depth or cutting a curl. I managed to surface and for about six months trod water, just trying to come to terms with the demands of life as a contemporary independent author.
But now I'm striking out once more on a bold new venture: my next fiction book. It's already giving me thrilling wave-rides that finish all too soon, followed by long periods of bobbing on a gentle swell as I wait and wonder and searching the horizon for the next promising idea.
Righto, I've exhausted that metaphor! Writing a novel is often like swimming and surfing, but only to a point. To produce an original and engaging piece of historical fiction the writer must spend much of the time in hard research to find information about events and people. Then there's the relentless necessity to get inside the hearts and minds of characters, while also managing them from the outside to create a plot that will grip the reader. These and other things are too much to ram into that earlier swimmming-surfing-sea metaphor.
Nevertheless, the youthful energy and sense of adventure of the adolescent is surging again within a very non-adolescent body and brain. All being well, in 2015 my new book will be ready to launch! (Mmmm ... there's that maritime analogy creeping back. Maybe an idea looking for a place in the novel?)
