Trapeze Hallowe'en Competition Honourable Mention!

Ooh, and just heard : my Hallowe'en Twitter story The Ghost Train has received an honourable mention in Trapeze magazine's Hallowe'en competition today. It and the other winning stories can be read here.

Spooktastic!

A Fantasy Short Story for the Kindle

So I've decided to add to my small stable of short stories/novelettes available on the Kindle, iPad etc. by publishing an urban fantasy piece. The previous two stories I put out were both SF and I'm interested to know whether fantasy fares any better (or any worse). I remain convinced that short stories work really well on ereader platforms. They're the literary equivalent of the casual games that are so massive on the iPhone etc. I'm surprised there aren't more of them out there.

One of the two existing stories - The Armegeddon Machine - continues to sell in reasonable numbers. In a typical month it sells 40-50 copies on the US Kindle store and maybe 5 copies on the UK Kindle store. The other story - Live from the Continuing Explosion - dribbles out on both sites. I did maybe a couple of hours of promotion work on Armageddon, more or less nothing on Continuing, which maybe explains the difference. This also tells me I need to put more effort into the publicity side ...

The new story is called Guitar Heroes. Here's the artwork : what do you think? The story is a fairly light-hearted urban fantasy romp about a rock band, something like a British Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Come to think of it, today (Hallowe'en) would be the perfect day to release it. I have a vague plan to write a series of stories about the main characters. As with the SF stories, Guitar Heroes has (in an earlier form) already been published by a paying market, which somehow makes me feel that "self-publishing" it is OK. Probably old-fashioned thinking on my part.

Anyway, here's what one reviewer said about its earlier incarnation :
 

“I loved it. It has a wonderful camp feel to it ... I see them leaping from the stage, all hair extensions and spandex suits, off to do battle with demons.”

The story will be out there very soon. I'll let you know. Anyone fancy a free review copy to look at?

Flash Fiction : Light Years (60/100)

... a ...








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.

The Halloween Tuesday Twitter Tale : Interview With A Victim

‘Can you describe your attacker?’ ‘Tall, very pale. Teeth’. PC Gough sighed. Next year she’d make sure she avoided the Halloween shift.






The Tuesday Twitter Tale is a weekly work of tweet-length fiction. It is posted here and on Twitter (along with the #vss - very short story - hash tag).

British vs. American SF

So, an interesting talk about SF at the Cheltenham Literary Festival last week. The panel members were Michael Moorcock, Iain M. Banks, Gwyneth Jones and China Miéville. I have to be honest and admit I mainly only went to see and hear Moorcock, who is a bit of a hero. But of course all the panel members were fascinating.

Moorcock played the avuncular elder-statesman role. Banks was as witty as ever; if the SF ever dries up I'm sure he could cut it as a stand-up. Jones frankly looked a bit mystified to be there and Miéville was a one-man lecture on the sociological aspects of SF. At various points, each of the other writers, stumped by some question, said "I'm sure China will be able to answer that." Smart guy. I've started reading his books ...

The main discussion centred on the differences between British and American SF. I must admit, I'd never really categorized science fiction into those terms but I could see what they meant. So, American SF tends to be both more militaristic and more individualistic. British SF ("chocolate biscuit SF") tends to be more about communities than individuals. Or does it? I keep thinking about exceptions to such simplistic rules. American SF has tended to be polarized between the social-democratic left and the individualist right. British SF is generally just of the liberal left. Again, I can see what they mean, but again, it's surely more complex than that. I don't know, what do you think?

Anyway, thought-provoking stuff and a good turn-out. I'm thinking about tackling a pure SF novel next and I could certainly see how it might fit into a conception of "British SF" ...

Flash Fiction : Light Years (59/100)

... second ...








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.

Happy Hop Tu Naa!

Bwah-hah-hah-hah!!!!

Ahem. OK, so it's slightly early for Halloween, I know, but I'm taking part in N. R. Williams's Halloween Party this year and besides, it's a time of year I love. Greetings if you're taking part in the party - or even if you're not.

In case you're wondering, Hop-Tu-Naa is what we called Halloween on the Isle of Man when I was a lad. Just thought you might like to know! We didn't have trick-or-treat and we didn't do dressing-up. But we did go round neighbours' houses and sing a particular song - Jinny the Witch - in payment for which we did (sometimes) receive sweets (candy). So I guess it's the same thing. And I've always thought that, one day, I really should write a story based on the tradition ...



Anyways, here are some treats for all my visitors. Hopefully this will prevent any tricks being played in the comments ...

Oh, and next Tuesday's edition of my regular Tuesday Twitter Tale slot has a definite Halloween feel to it. As did last Tuesday's come to that. Do have a read.

Fangs for dropping by!






Thanks also to Luigi Diamanti for the Halloween image.

Twitterfiction Story Sale To Nanoism

Nanoism have published a Twitter fiction story of mine called Bees today. You can find it here.

I'm delighted about this one. I do love Nano's style of subtle, literary fiction. Also it's good to see this particular story out there : when I woke up with it bouncing around in my head I thought it was about the best Twitterfic work I'd come up with.

For the record, this was my sixth submission to Nanoism. I'll definitely submit some more ...

The Halloween Tuesday Twitter Tale : Carla

‘Mum, I want to be a vegetarian.’ ‘Carla, darling, don’t be ridiculous. Whoever heard of a vegetarian vampire? Now drink your dinner.’






The Tuesday Twitter Tale is a weekly work of tweet-length fiction. It is posted here and on Twitter (along with the #vss - very short story - hash tag).

Are You an Optimist or a Pessimist?

I was in a big book shop yesterday. The pessimist in me said, "There are more great books written than I'll ever be able to read in my lifetime." The optimist in me said, "I'll never run out of great books to read."

I don't know, how do you see it?

Flash Fiction : Light Years (58/100)

... 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.

Got My Ticket for Michael Moorcock!

I've just got my ticket to see Michael Moorcock, Iain M. Banks, Gwyneth Jones and China Miéville at one of the Future Fictions events at this year's Cheltenham Literature Festival. Very excited. Moorcock was hugely important to me when I was younger. I would sometimes read several of his books a day. Ah, how I loved Corum.

It's good to see speculative fiction having some sort of presence at the festival. Some of the sessions are slightly bemusing, though. There's one called "How to Read Science Fiction". I suppose credit is due for trying but, uh, that's actually pretty easy guys. What you do is you open an SF book and there'll be all these words there ...

I'll report back on Sunday on how the session went.

The Tuesday Twitter Tale : Skydiving

When Calum’s main parachute failed his training kicked in. When his reserve failed his religion kicked in. That didn’t save him either.






The Tuesday Twitter Tale is a weekly work of tweet-length fiction. It is posted here and on Twitter (along with the #vss - very short story - hash tag).

Hedge Witch Query Pitch Revised!

After all the helpful feedback I received on my old Hedge Witch query pitch last week, I thought I'd show you the current version :

Schoolgirl Cait Weerd is struggling at school. Her father is dead and her mother has given up. And she has absolutely no idea she's being tracked down by the undain : sorcerous creatures of necromancy that feed off the spirit of the living. She doesn't know the undain need her blood to survive. She doesn't even know she's a witch, descended from a long line of witches. Cait Weerd doesn't know a lot, really, but all that's about to change.

She visits her grandmother at Manchester Central Library and witnesses a series of terrible events. In the chaos she’s handed an old book that’s been hidden there for years and told to run. Hide the book, destroy it. It contains all the secrets of the undains’ existence. They and their human servants want to find that as much as they want Cait.

If all that isn’t enough, Cait learns the fate of two worlds is at stake : our own and the one the undain come from. Just what she needs. Along with definitely-not-a-boyfriend Danny, Cait has to decide what the hell to do. Run, fight or just hope it all goes away.

It's only then that she starts to learn who she really is, along with the terrible truth of what the undain have been doing in our world all this time ...

Hedge Witch is a 110,000 word urban fantasy debut novel.

Apologies if I ignored your advice - I weighed up everything that was said very carefully. The version that goes out to agents will have further biographical flummery on it but I think this will be the gist of it. What do you think?

I found this quite a tricky operation I must admit : on the one hand creating something compelling, on the other coming up with something that genuinely represented the book. I've noticed before that blurb writers often don't bother too much with creating something honest. You know how books are sometimes nothing like they sounded from their pitch? Perhaps that's marketing for you but it just seems wrong ...

Flash Fiction : Light Years (57/100)

... it's ...








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.

The Tuesday Twitter Tale : Introductions

‘And this is Ted. Been here years, can’t get rid of him!’ The boss’s usual joke. Ted grinned but, inside, added an item to a long list.






The Tuesday Twitter Tale is a weekly work of tweet-length fiction. It is posted here and on Twitter (along with the #vss - very short story - hash tag).

The Hedge Witch Pitch

When I mentioned my idea of using a fictional blog to promote Hedge Witch the other day, I received an amazing amount of invaluable advice. Many thanks to all who commented. That response alone was enough to convince me, once again, of the value of this blogging malarkey.

It soon became clear that :

1. The fictionalised blog would be a good way to promote a book to readers but not to hard-headed agents/publishers.
2.  It therefore wouldn't be worth doing until such time as the book is set to be published.

So, I think that idea is on the back-burner for now, although there's no harm in doing groundwork and preliminary planning ...

Another comment that really stuck in my mind, however, was from Angela Ackerman, who wondered whether my query pitch was good enough if I wasn't getting that many requests for a full ms from agents. I looked at my query again and decided that, yup, it probably could be improved. I have to admit this is something I've struggled to come to terms with in the past. You write what you think is a great book - that should be enough shouldn't it? Well, no, because, as I'm sure you're all well aware, you also have to pitch the thing to the right agent at the right time in the right way. Maybe the world shouldn't work like this, but work this way it does. Get used to it, Simon.

So I've been working on my query "elevator" pitch for the book. Here's the latest version. I plan to send it to somewhere like Evil Editor to get feedback on it, but I'd be real grateful if anyone had any observations right now. Here's what I've come up with :

Cait Weerd's life is going nowhere. She's struggling at school, her father is gone and her mother has given up. And she has absolutely no idea she's being tracked down by the undain : ghoulish, superhuman creatures of necromancy that feed off the spirit of the living. She doesn't know the undain need her blood to survive. She doesn't even know she's a witch, descended from a long line of witches. Cait Weerd doesn't know a lot, really, but all that's about to change.

Across the aether, meanwhile, in the misty realm of Andar, another young witch lies close to death. Fer has been almost killed in a confrontation with an undain lord that has flown across the vast and wide river An. It is the vanguard of a massing army. For the first time, incredibly, the An is set to freeze over. The peaceful land of Andar will be destroyed. Once she is awake, Fer is persuaded by Hellen Meggenwar, eldest witch of Andar, to cross to our own world to retrieve a book of necromancy hidden here many years ago. The book contains the secret of defeating the undain. Fer is helped by several companions, including Johnny Electric, a refugee rock musician from our world, and an archaeon, an illustrated-manuscript dragon that inhabits books and hates being interrupted all the damn time.

Back in our world, the book of necromancy ends up with Cait. The undain and their human servants want that as much as they want her. The fate of both worlds is at stake. Just what she needs. Along with definitely-not-a-boyfriend Danny, Cait has to decide what the hell to do. Run away, fight or just hope it all goes away. It's only then that she starts to learn who she really is and what the undain have been doing in our world all this time ...

What do you think? Does it work for you? Too much information? Too little? Confusing? Boring? Any comments gratefully received.

Flash Fiction : Light Years (56/100)

... Instead ...








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.