Jack Bryne


Good morning everyone!  I’m delighted to be here, and I’d like to give Michael Rupured a big thank you for hosting this guest post for me.

Firstly, I write a LOT.  I write short stories, I’ve written three novellas and five short stories this year, and I’m working on two novels at the moment.  I plot and structure stories, and I mud-wrestle uncooperative muses, and I have to admit I’m better at writing action and hot sex scenes than I am at romance.  So when a friend suggested I write for Dreamspinner last year, I was a bit nonplussed.  If you had told me last year that I’d be working on a full length romance novel at the moment I’d have been very dubious.

But the idea stayed with me, and the characters came to me, and the thought of a change of pace was intriguing.  So I gave it a go.  I sat down one day, closed my eyes, and the pictures started to flow through my head.  First of all, I could see a bloke in the Australian outback, chopping wood.  Why was he chopping wood?  To make cattle yards.  What was around him?  What’s always around you in the bush: heat and roos and koalas and birds and lizards… and snakes. Then a gunshot rang out and we got our first glimpse of our tall, handsome second main character.

It was about then that I decided that I’d better start typing bloody fast, because this movie was playing in my head and I’d better keep up!  So that’s how The Billabong started.  I stopped after I had reached novella length, and sent if off to Dreamspinner, hoping the hell it wasn’t awful.  Apparently it wasn’t, because they accepted it and politely enquired whether I was planning to write any more.  I got a great laugh out of the puzzled edits from American authors asking me what all my ‘Australian’ terms meant… I had no idea I didn’t speak English until I wrote for Dreamspinner.  The Bushrangers series now has three novellas in it, The Billabong and Walkabout, which came out on 27 August, and Dingo Run which is in the editing stage with Dreamspinner at the moment.  I’m also 35,000 words into the novel.  These guys are determined to have their story told!

A little bit of confidence is a wonderful thing, and I submitted two short stories to Dreamspinner for the A Taste of Honey and Hot off the Press anthologies, which to my delight they accepted.  J Scott Coatsworth created a Facebook group for the authors of A Taste of Honey and we all had a ball chatting to each other.  That eventually gave me the courage to try guest blogging, so here I am!

If you have any questions, I’d love to hear from you, and the first reader who can tell me what a ‘billy’ is used for, can have a free eBook copy each of The Billabong and Walkabout.

 


5 responses to “Jack Bryne”

    • Hello! Yes, that era has always fascinated me, because I had a grandmother and great-uncle around when I was young who would tell me endless stories about the way the ‘bush’ (what Australians call the outback) was like back in their parents’ and grandparents’ eras. Most of the settlers lived in tiny 20 foot by 20 foot huts made of slabs of hardwood. The thing is, you will occasionally see one of these around still, but most were eaten away completely by termites, so a lot of that history is invisible, and only survives through verbal accounts.

      Also, riding horses for a living and working out in the country, the pace of change is much slower than in the cities or around them. So you still feel connected to that era when you live out here.

      I’m so glad you loved these books, I really enjoyed writing them. Thank you for your comment!

  1. I’ve read both The Billabong and Walkabout. So I’m not going to compete for them. But I did have a question.

    I see that Mark used horse antisera in an effort to save Jim’s life. Where did you get the idea for that from?

    • Hi, I’ve actually seen it done for a foal that got bitten. The old bushie I was with did it by getting blood from the mother and spinning it in the billy just like I described. He said the mare would probably be immune to all the local snakes. He told me it would work on people too, but only if you knew the horse had strong immunity to that breed of snake, and only for certain types of snakes. But he also said keeping an animal in water (if you could find any) was a big part of it too, I don’t know why. I certainly wouldn’t advocate trying any of this though, due to the risk of infection. Ambulance is your best bet these days!

      Snakes are the main reason Aussie bushmen wear boots and sometimes even knee-high chaps. It’s a helluva lot easier to prevent a snake bite like that, than to treat them. With an Eastern Brown you would have, probably ten minutes before you were dead? When I got bitten I was 15 minutes from the house and help, so I figured when I made it to the house without dying I was pretty much right, he must have just grazed me, not pumped a lot of venom in. My foot swelled up for a few days though.

    • Kayla, hi, thanks! I got that idea from seeing an old bushman do it for a foal that had been bitten, using its mother’s blood. He spun it in the billy because we had nothing else. He told me it would only work if the horse had a strong immunity to that particular snake, and only for certain types of snakes. He also said he had heard of it used on people but had never done it himself. Myself, I’d call an ambulance. These days we have the Flying Doctor service.

      Snakes are a real problem in Australia. Out of the 33 deadly species of snake in the world, we have the 10 most venomous, I think? And they’re not an occasional problem, they’re very common. It’s the reason Australian bushmen wear boots and leg protection up to the knees. When I got bitten, I was lucky because it was only a young snake, about two feet long. I knew I had ten minutes to live if it was a fatal bite (depends on the amount of venom they get into you). Since I was 15 minutes from the house and help and had no phone, I had no choice but to walk up to the house and hope to hell I made it. Luckily it wasn’t a fatal bite, but my foot swelled up like a balloon for a few days.

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