Android Kindle App Released

Amazon have just released their Kindle App for Android 'phones and tablets, which means I now have the whole Kindle catalogue available to choose from on my diminuitive eReader. Ooh, exciting!

Of course, the very first thing I did was to download one of my stories - the SF yarn The Armageddon Machine, which I've previously ePublished as a test, as you may recall. You have to say, Amazon are pretty switched on. They knew I'd already bought the story on my PC and I was able to slap it on my 'phone without any fuss. A couple of seconds and there it was, in all its glory. I was able to read my own story on my own 'phone. Is that sad?

I continue to be pleased about this Kindle experiment by the way - to date around 60 people have paid for a copy of this particular story to read on their Kindles, which I'm delighted about.

Meanwhile, what should I be eReading? Hmm ...

New Year Resolutions - Half Way Checkpoint

At the start of the year I rashly set out some writing resolutions for 2010. Half-way through the year already (like, where did that go?) I thought I'd see how I was doing. Of course, it's always very tempting to ignore these things after sticking to them for a day or two. But that would just be wrong! So, how's it going?

• Find an agent for Hedge Witch, my first novel

Hmm, no luck so far. Still a work in progress. No points.

• Continue to write at least 500 words per writing day on average 

Going well! I'm averaging over 750 words per day. 1 point!

• Complete a draft of Engn, my second novel

 It's coming along. I'm 75,000 words in now and I think that's about on course. 1 point!

• Make at least 3 short story sales ...

Hmm, kind of. I've had 2 short pieces accepted for which actual money has changed hands, but several others accepted for which payment has been in kind. Let's call it 0.5 points.

• ... including one that qualifies me for Associate SFWA membership

Failed so far. Nil points.

• Reach 50 blog followers ...

 Yes! Made this one. Thank you all. 1 point.

• ... and 200 Twitter followers

On course - I have about 180 right now so we'll call that 1 point.

• Read, I don't know, oodles of depressingly great books by other people. One a week sounds like a good start. 

I'm not to obsessive about this one. Strictly speaking I should have read 24 books so far but in fact the total is 22. I'd say that's close enough and I give myself 1 point.

So, overall, that's 5.5/8. Not too bad I suppose. Another story sale or two and interest from an agent and it'll be a successful year ...

How are your resolutions going?

Flash Fiction : Light Years (42/100)

... One ...








Light Years is a work of flash fiction. In fact it is the slowest piece of flash-fiction ever written. In real-time its one hundred words would take exactly 10,000 years to recount. Because of the limitations of a normal human life-span, it has been specially accelerated to the speed of one word per week. It will therefore take just under two years to tell from start to finish.

For a full history of the transmissions, click here.

Flash Fiction Friday : Up In Smoke

He took all his stories and poems and built a bonfire. The smoke smelled sweet as they burned. He should, he thought, write that down.







Flash Fiction Friday is a weekly post of a work of fiction small enough to appear on Twitter etc.

An SF Short Story Released on the Kindle, iPad etc

I've just made another SF story of mine available for download onto the Kindle and the iPhone, iPad, Android etc. This one is called Live from the Continuing Explosion, and was originally published in the Irish SF magazine Albedo 1 :

A near-future SF short story.

A terrorist sets off a bomb in New York's Grand Central Station. But it is immediately obvious this is no ordinary explosion. Everybody nearby is caught within a bubble of space-time inside which time grinds almost to a halt. The world watches in horror as the explosion unfolds in close-up slow-motion.

Kirsten Campbell, a young girl, escapes the blast but her twin brother is caught inside it. She can do nothing but watch him there, frozen, as she ages. Meanwhile the explosion, and then Kirsten herself, become the focus for cataclysmic change the world over.

It had a few nice reviews at the time :

"affecting, chilling post-9/11 science fiction ... offers depth enough for drowning."
- TRS2 Reviews

"scores highly with a very vivid central image and conceit."
- Best SF

"A fascinating and metaphorically effective central idea."
- The Elephant Forgets

"Original and well done."
- SF Crowsnest


As you may recall, I previously released an SF novelette (The Armageddon Machine) in the same way, just to see how easy it was, really, and to find out what happened if I did. The experiment was pretty successful, all things considered. Around 50 people have bought it for their Kindle so far.

But this time I wanted to see how a short story would fare. I've recently joined the ranks of the eReaders myself and it seems to me that the short story is specially suited to these devices. The way I use them at least. If I'm sitting down for an hour or two to read then, sure, give me a paperback. But I find I'm reading quite a bit on my 'phone when I'm waiting somewhere without a proper book - in a traffic-jam or a waiting room. It works really well. And I can't help thinking there's going to be a real market for short stories on these devices : short bursts of fiction you can download as and when and read in ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. Right now, the ebook stores I've seen aren't particularly well geared up for all this - but that, surely, will change.

So, let's see how this experiment goes. If anyone wants a free copy of the story to read or review, I'd be more than happy to provide one. Meanwhile it's on the Kindle here and all the other devices here. On some devices - those that allow it - the story is set to "free, pay what you like". It'll be interesting to see how that experiment goes too ...

Seek Alternative Route to be published by Spilling Ink

I've recently heard that Spilling Ink are to publish a short story of mine, which I'm really delighted about. Seek Alternative Route is a realist piece, entirely devoid of zombies and aliens. No, really. It's about two guys who meet in a traffic jam on a motorway. They think they're going to hate each other but find they actually have a certain amount in common. No-one dies and then they go their seperate ways. It's a good read, honestly!

Publication date is set for September 1st. I'll let you know when the story is out there.

Flash Fiction : Light Years (41/100)

... stars. ...



And for those that have asked, here's a recap of the entire story so far :

One thousand light-years from home. Six centuries of time. The cold of vacuum. No hope. Earth? No word. The starship malfunctioning. I’m alone with the universe. New suns blink by, there, gone. I leave behind countless unknown novae, nebulae, neutron stars ...

Light Years is a work of flash fiction. In fact it is the slowest piece of flash-fiction ever written. In real-time its one hundred words would take exactly 10,000 years to recount. Because of the limitations of a normal human life-span, it has been specially accelerated to the speed of one word per week. It will therefore take just under two years to tell from start to finish.

For a full history of the transmissions, click here.

Flash Fiction Friday : Lightning Rod

When the thunderstorm came he climbed to his roof and stood tall, arms wide. A bolt struck. He became, briefly, a figure of pure light.







Flash Fiction Friday is a weekly post of a work of fiction small enough to appear on Twitter etc.

Next WIP : Celtic Fantasy?

So, I'm back from visiting the haunts of my youth on the Isle of Man. Lovely time, thanks.

As ever when I go back there I find myself thinking about the myths and legends the place is so rich in. And then how I could bring some of them back to life via fiction. As you may recall, a work of Celtic/Manx fantasy fiction of mine has just been published by Mirror Dance. But that story is set firmly in ye olde fantasye days, and I've been thinking what I'd really, really like to do is bring some of these gods, monsters and characters back to life and place them in a modern, maybe urban setting.

There's so much scope. Manx mythology is perhaps closest to the Irish, but it has figures all of its own - for example the Phynoderee, the Buggaine and  the fearsome Moddey Doo. Then there's Manannan himself, the god after whom the island is (probably) named. What would he be like now? What would he make of the modern world? What would he be up to?

These are all just vague ideas at the moment, but this is definitely something I'd like to work on. It's a novel-length project and that's a slight problem because I'm well into the first draft of another novel right now (Engn, which I must tell you about some time). But I do love urban fantasy - the idea of these mythical beings walking our streets - and I do love these old Manx stories, which are so evocative.

Meanwhile, here's a snap of the Fairy Bridge, which sits on one of the main roads on the island. No self-respecting Manxperson would dare go past without giving the fairies there a friendly greeting. It's a sign of the effect the place has on me that I - sceptical rationalist that I am - always do precisely that. After all, they can be such mischievous little creatures ...

Flash Fiction : Light Years (40/100)

... neutron ...








Light Years is a work of flash fiction. In fact it is the slowest piece of flash-fiction ever written. In real-time its one hundred words would take exactly 10,000 years to recount. Because of the limitations of a normal human life-span, it has been specially accelerated to the speed of one word per week. It will therefore take just under two years to tell from start to finish.

For a full history of the transmissions, click here.

Two More Works Published by Thaumatrope

I learned today I've had a couple more pieces of SF Twitter fiction published over on Thaumatrope. Ten Million Years was published on June 8th and Final Day is published today, on June 11th, just in time for the World Cup ...

Flash Fiction Friday : Eyes Write

His eyes said, ‘Dance with me.’
His wife’s said, ‘Don’t.’
She answered them both with a single, silent message.
‘It’ll cost you.’




Today's Flash Fiction Friday story is a guest post by Susan Howe. Sue is both beautiful and brilliant. She said to say. She blogs over at the long and the short of it, where you can find more of her short fiction. It's well worth a read.


Flash Fiction Friday is a weekly post of a work of fiction small enough to appear on Twitter etc.

The Big 50

No, not my age - I'm not quite that old yet - I'm referring to my tally of blog followers, which has just hit the magical 50. Many, many thanks to each and every one of you - it's very much appreciated. When you're a struggling writer, each new person who takes the time to start following you is a great encouragament.

So, 50. That's only half-way to 100 isn't it?

Automatically Tweet Your Blog Posts

If you maintain a writer's blog, and you also use Twitter, do you have your system set up so that your blog posts are automatically tweeted too? If you don't, it's pretty easy to set up. I thought I'd run through how I do this in case you want to do the same.

Like many people, I use Feedburner to provide the RSS feed address that I publicize. In other words, I point Feedburner at the raw RSS feed this blog generates (the clumsy http://spellmaking.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss) then tell people about the address Feedburner exposes (the rather nicer http://feeds.feedburner.com/spellmaking). The point is that Feedburner also provides various enhancements and improvements to the process of creating the RSS feed, and one of these is the automatic tweet facility.

So what do you do? Go into your feed in Feedburner and click the Publicize tab. From there choose Socialize from the menu on the left. This takes you to the Twitter connection set-up page. Add your Twitter account there and, actually, you're pretty well done done. The neat thing, though, is that you have some control of what gets sent to Twitter and how. For example, I have Feedburner automatically prefixing my tweets with "#writing blog post -", which makes it a bit clearer to my Twitter followers what is going on, and which also, hopefully, makes me visible to a wider circle of interested readers because of that "#writing" hashtag. I also have Feedburner including a link back to the original post in the tweet, so people can easily find my blog.

This is all really very easy to set up and the great thing is, once it's done you can forget about it. Your blog posts will automatically be tweeted too. Why not give it a go?

PS. My set up is actually a little more complex than this because I wanted certain blog posts - the flash fiction ones - to be tweeted in a different way (with the "#vss" hashtag for example). I won't bore you with how I did this just now, but it is possible and if anyone's interested, I can explain how in a later post.

Flash Fiction : Light Years (39/100)

... nebulae, ...








Light Years is a work of flash fiction. In fact it is the slowest piece of flash-fiction ever written. In real-time its one hundred words would take exactly 10,000 years to recount. Because of the limitations of a normal human life-span, it has been specially accelerated to the speed of one word per week. It will therefore take just under two years to tell from start to finish.

For a full history of the transmissions, click here.

Flash Fiction Friday : Wiring Fault

He studied the iRobot wiring plan, looking for the fatal bug. Damn thing was meant to look after its owners, not go and slaughter them.







Flash Fiction Friday is a weekly post of a work of fiction small enough to appear on Twitter etc.

A Sorcerous Mist Published

A Sorcerous Mist, a Celtic fantasy tale of mine, has been published in the Summer 2010 issue of Mirror Dance magazine. You can read the story online here.

As well as commenting on the story you can also read my fascinating answer to the interview question : "Where do you get the ideas for your stories?" while you're there.

Do check it out!