First story in a while

I had an idea a month ago about the effects of a large advertising hoarding, bolted onto the side of an apartment block, one that showed all singing, all dancing neon ads. What would happen to the tenants inside, so close to all that electricity, all that static? What would happen during the day, when the ads were switched off? Ooh...

And so was born "Chicago String Quartet", my first story in three months. I've subbed to Day Terrors, a terrific looking anthology from Harrow Press.

Here's hoping...and waiting.

Writer's Block, sort of.

I've been tangled up in a big beefing up of my Under Earthless Skies story for the last month, getting very little done and not being happy with what I did manage to get down "on screen", so I'm laying it aside, snapping out of it and getting on with something else.

I love the premise of UET, the intellectual battle between man and machine, the machine's battle between fake humanity and overpowering automation, but I suspect I'm just not in the right place mentally to write the story yet. It's one of the few ideas I've had in the last year that I've suspected might even be a good basis for a, der der der, wait for it.....novel! *Gasp!*

So, today's job is to line up 2-3 stories from the usual antho/zine market and get started on them, probably Monday.

Will be good to be back in the saddle.

Terminal Earth Teaser

This is just a portion of the Terminal Earth cover, where my story Outstanding Matters will be appearing in the summer. Pretty cool, eh? Looks like all of humanity walking to its fate into a lake or something.

Pandora's Nightmare is out!

This is the anthology from Pill Hill Press where my horror desert island story, One Morning, A Chest resides snugly.

This will be its home on amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Pandoras-Nightmare-Horror-Unleashed-Anthology/dp/0984261079

Outstanding Matters - Accepted!

Outstanding Matters, a story about an apartment block's resident committee in the final days of this planet's existence and there's a guest appearance by a garden gnome called Nigel. This will be appearing in the Terminal Earth anthology in the summer of this year. Very pleased with this story and I worked hard on it in the first half of February.


The anthology required people to write tales of "what ordinary people are doing as the sands of time run out" so I wrote about immensely ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances.


Outstanding Matters is my fourteenth acceptance.

Stats Check

Stories accepted so far:

Anthologies

One February Evening
One Morning, A Chest
Storm On Fifth Avenue
Those In The Flames

Magazines

A Long Way To Hope
Five Second Delay
Screen Six
The Weight Of The Wish
Leave In Silence

Online

The Small Town Storyteller
The Other You

Other

The Bridge Builder Of Arta
The Fisher Men

-------------------------------
Acceptances: 13
Rejections: 32
Acceptance Rate: 28.8%

Penny Dreadful Chapbooks

It was confirmed today that two of my stories ("The Bridge Builder of Arta" and "The Fisher Men") will be published together as a single chapbook in May by the fantabulous Penny Dreadful Company, headed up by all round good guy Neil Jackson. Being a chapbook means though quite small in size, it'll just be good ol' me.... No need to share the glory with anyone else.

I've written about both of these stories' creation on this blog, so to have them accepted and go into their own little book is superb news.

I should have updates to this soon with the exact publication dates and also the all-important cover!

Manny has a home!!

After Screen Six was rejected by some heartless fiends in December, I was worried my favourite security guard was going to be homeless. But tonight I got an acceptance for it from Encounters magazine (Black Matrix Publishing) - should be out in the spring although no definites on that publication date.

Have a real soft spot for this story, maybe because it was inspired by where I'm currently living in Buenos Aires. And I love Manny as a character too. And, it's my longest story accepted so far - 6990 words!

One Morning, A Chest - Accepted!

Another acceptance today, which is great news. My story One Morning, A Chest has been accepted for the Pandora's Nightmare Anthology by Pill Hill Press.

The story tells of a dozen English sailors washed up on a Pacific island in the early years of the 19th Century. One morning, one of them discovers a chest lying on the sand. Will he open it, Pandora style? Oh, I think we all know he does - but what happens next forms the heart of One Morning, A Chest.

As you can see, the (provisional) cover of the anthology is great looking too. Looking forward to seeing this one in print!

It's official - I'm in a book!

With my copies sitting safely in the damp south of Ireland, it fell to my mate in balmy South Carolina to send me some photos proving I'm now officially in print.

The Bridge Builder Of Arta

 

The Bridge Builder of Arta tells the story of an architect who finds a special, secluded place in the coastal town where he lives, a place where there are two peculiar statues. He discovers that one of them is the bridge builder of Arta, the man who built a famous bridge in the north of Greece, inside which his wife was buried alive in order to successfully bring the project to termination.

I visited the town of Arta when I was living in Greece - a very atmospheric place. My inspiration for the public space that forms the heart of the story was my three windswept years in the town of Aberystwyth.

With any luck, I'll soon have news about this story.

The Story With Three Titles

I wrote on this blog in December about a story called The Last Foot - that was the story's second title and it's now got a third!

It began with the title "Beet Surrender" which I was enormously impressed with. I thought that was the cleverest title going and I had a good chuckle to myself as I read it. (For those who weren't following the UK music scene "Beat Surrender" was a huge hit for The Jam in 1982). But I was put in my place by the other writers who told me in no uncertain terms that the title was appalling.

So it became "The Last Foot", which while not as 'clever', was certainly more relevant. The story ended up in the sample of short stories that we sent off for our Fifty Grand project that was ultimately doomed. But it always remained one of my favourites - for reasons I'll explain shortly.

I've now expanded the story to more than double its previous length and it now tips the scales at about 2100 words. The focus has altered and its new title is The Fisher Men, its third ever title.

This story wrote itself. The initial idea for it came to me fully formed and I just needed to keep the steering wheel straight while it got to its destination. Some stories, you have to battle to the finishing tape like a bear, but this was one of those happy instances where I had a few word-choice decisions to make, but little else. I'm almost ashamed to take a writing credit for it!

The protagonist of the story is an A330 Airbus jet that has been frozen in time, just 12 inches above the ground as it plummets to its doom, hence its second title! We pass into the passenger cabin and we meet a few of the passengers who are about to get the big splat treatment, some more distraught about this than others.

In its new incarnation, we discover that there is one person aboard that is going to be saved from the crash. We discover something about why he's being plucked from disaster, but that is not really important to our story. The Last Foot was probably my favourite of the 1000-word stories I'd written last year and I desperately didn't want to ruin it.

It's being submitted to a project I should be able to speak about more in the coming week.

My first amazon link

The Love Kills Anthology (Pill Hill Press) got its Amazon page today, so this is the resting place for One February Evening.

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Kills-My-Bloody-Valentine/dp/0984261052

A special moment in any aspiring writer's career - their work appearing on Amazon for the first time. Maybe the 21st century's equivalent of the framed uncashed cheque. The framed screenshot of the Amazon listing? Not quite the same romantic ring to it...

The Other You - Accepted!

This was always one of my favourite stories of the last couple of months and I beefed up the original 1k weekly contest version to a little over double that and Rotten Leaves picked it up this evening. Unfortunately, their print editions aren't quite ready yet, so I think it'll be only online. Boo!

The Other You tells the story of a less-than-sane man who decides to use cutting-edge (pun!) computer dating which promises to find him "his other half". Is that such a good idea?

Retro Spec Cover released

This will be the cover of Retro Spec, where my story Storm On Fifth Avenue will be appearing later this year. Pretty cool, "understated" feel to it. Like it!

Stats Check

It's been an insane week or so and I'm now up to 8 stories accepted.

Acceptances: 8
Rejections: 26
Acceptance Rate: 23.5%

That is a crazy acceptance rate and I know it'll fall in the next month or so. Duotrope lists the average at 8.6%. If I can keep mine much above 12-14%, I'll be over the moon!

One reason for the high acceptance rate is that I've been cherrypicking old stories to send off. Once I'm in a routine of only subbing to anthologies or higher level magazines, it'll come tumbling. I'm very aware of that!

One February Evening - Accepted for Love Kills Anthology

Today's been a great day. The Love Kills Anthology should be out in time for Valentine's Day and One February Evening will be part of it.

The story centres around the digging of a hole on the beach. What could be more sweet and innocent?

Mwuhahaha!!!

Leave In Silence - Accepted!

The same day I have a whinge about rejections and Cantaraville Literary Quarterly comes through with an acceptance and Leave In Silence will be in their October edition. Woo!

This started life as one of the entries in our 1000-word contests (grabbed a bronze too!) but I always loved the idea and beefed it up to about 2000 words.

It's the tale of the last silent film made by a major studio in Hollywood in the early 1930s. The studio's main star isn't best pleased by the switch to talkies - but what's he gonna do??

The Art of Rejection

The stats are against us, there's no denying that. You enter this business and you're setting yourself up for a bloody nose anywhere between 70% and 95% of the time, depending on the level of markets you choose to sub to. Write sci-fi exclusively for Asimov and Clarkesworld and the like and you're going to be disappointed 97/98% of the time. Ready for that?

Rejections are awful, obviously. They get you doubting not only a story's quality but even yourself as a writer. "What am I doing?" you ask yourself. "Sending out trite, formulaic crap to be shot down - there must be something better I can be doing with my spare time!"

There are several reasons a story (or even a writer!) is rejected. Editors make a big deal out of saying "it just didn't fit our project" and this is undoubtedly true a good deal of the time. But, but, sometimes the writing is just poor. The storyline predictable, the dialogue wooden, the adjective/adverb dial turned up just a little too much - and a thousand other things besides. In short, it's badly written.

If a writer has a history of publication, they can write, so the problem is more likely the story itself. Good writers write awful stories. It happens. They get an idea into their head and won't be shaken from it, however many times it's rejected and however many times friends brush faint praise upon it with words like "yeah, it's got something...maybe work on the end a bit" which translates as "I value our friendship and cannot bring myself to tell you how Hell-scrapingly bad this is - if you send me yet another, 8th, rewrite, the eye-poking device is coming out of the drawer!"

So then what to do when you do get a rejection. First rule is never, ever reply to the editor. Ok, you can do so but only 24 hours later and only to say something along the lines of "Thanks for considering me." Never ever go into rant mode. I almost did once, then thought better of it. An editor had been ultra uber mega petty and I almost did the same: it's a very strong, satisfying temptation. In today's world of twitter, facebook and endless blogs, your reputation will go down fast than the Titanic should you get into a slanging match with an editor. Remember this: you can't force somebody to like either you or something you've produced. Suck it up and move on!

What about the story, though? Some good stories undoubtedly are rejected because either it wasn't a good fit for the anthology or the editor was having a bad day or has odd tastes or whatever. If you truly believe in the story, it has to be worth at least two or three submissions. After that, it's probably time to get the message!

If the editor gave any detailed feedback, read it, take it on board. Maybe that character is flat, maybe the ending really does suck big balls. If an editor comments on a particular feature that lets the whole down, that's great! You can work with that, make changes. Consider that type of feedback to be a rewrite request, if not for that market, then certainly for another.

There are so many markets out there - you can always sub a story "down a level". If that pro-payment site didn't want it, that 2c-a-word might! And if they don't, wouldn't you prefer that non-paying e-zine to have it rather than it sitting in your "Yet To Place" folder on your laptop for the next six months?

In short, don't give up on a story but don't flog it to death either. Take a step back (with colleagues) and think about what could be improved with it. And if absolutely nobody wants it, well you can always wear a funny Santa outfit and read it out on Youtube. Your mom would watch it. Possibly.

A Long Way To Hope - Accepted!

This has been quite a few days....3 quick acceptances. I know there'll be whole months without a single one, so happy to make hay for the time being. This is my sixth overall acceptance.

This story was written for the young adult sci-fi mag Beyond Centauri and while not exactly representative of my normal work, was a quick and fun write.

My long-term aim is to get as many stories published on both sides of the Atlantic as possible by the end of this year with the ultimate aim of getting an agent working for me on the strength of my publishing record. So far, that plan is going very well.

A Long Way To Hope is quite a formula-driven 2.5k piece that follows the fortunes of 30 adults and 5/6 kids as they land on a new planet with the goal of establishing a colony. Only, all their supplies burn up in the atmosphere and they need to show some teamwork and determination to survive the difficult early months on their new home planet.

Definitely one for the kids (it's aimed at a 13-16y.o age group)!