Write1Sub1 Week #30 Check-In

Sunday is Write1Sub1 Weekly check-in day. I'm posting updates on my short fiction output here as well as over on the main Write1Sub1 blog.

Managing to keep my head above water despite summer holidays ...

Written :

• A Midwinter Sacrifice (fantasy, short story)
• Outro (Twitter)
• Buried Memories (Twitter)

Submitted :

• Outro (Twitter)
• Buried Memories (Twitter)

Accepted :

• The Bitter End (SF, 8400 words, co-written with Dominic de Mattos) by Jupiter SF
• Kinda : I Saw Hearts But You Saw Skulls got an honourable mention in the Clarity of Night Elemental competition. Does that count?

Published :

• (Non-W1S1) Terahertz by Brain Harvest
  

Flash Fiction : Light Years (99/100)

... age ...








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 Bitter End Accepted by Jupiter SF

Apocalyptic SF story The Bitter End - co-written with Dominic de Mattos - has been accepted for publication by Jupiter SF. This is quite a long piece - over 8000 words - so technically it's a novelette. It will be my second story to appear in Jupiter after 22nd Century Genie, last year.

Editor Ian Redman had some nice things to say :

Really, really enjoyed this piece. Very emotionally charged.

 It should be appearing in October.

Terahertz Published by Brain Harvest

SF flash story Terahertz is published over at Brain Harvest today. You can read it here should you wish ...

“I have to hear, and soon my brain won’t be able to hack it. I’m not going to live forever like you.”

Short Story Anthology Latest

So I've been thinking about which stories to reprint in my planned short story anthology. The current plan is here if you want to take a look. I've obviously excluded stories that are on submission at the moment, or which I won't have the rights to in the immediate future.

All told, the stories I've pencilled in come to 111,000 words. I'm pretty sure I'm going to mix genres and just reprint the stories I like. I've also included my favourite Twitter-length stories : the plan being to interleave the longer stories with these microtales.

I'm still thinking about titles. It has to be something cool and not "Collected Short Stories" or something. Once I've got a list of candidates I'll open up the voting and see which people like the most!

I also had the idea, by way of marketing, to embed a hidden puzzle in the book somehow : a trail of clues across the stories that leads to some reward/prize. Not sure yet if this is madness or genius ...

Write1Sub1 Week #29 Check-In

Sunday is Write1Sub1 Weekly check-in day. I'm posting updates on my short fiction output here as well as over on the main Write1Sub1 blog.

Not much short fiction written this week - and it's going to be a struggle from now on, to be honest, as the school summer holidays have started. We shall see how it goes!

Written :

• I Saw Hearts But You Saw Skulls (flash)
  

Submitted :

• I Saw Hearts But You Saw Skulls (flash)

Accepted :

• (None)
  

Published :

• (None)
  

Flash Fiction : Light Years (98/100)

... I ...








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.

A Short Story Anthology?

What do you do with your short stories when they've been written and edited and polished and, if things go well, published? What happens to them afterwards? I've built up quite a few like that, now, and they pretty much just sit there on my hard disk trying to attract my attention. Hey, remember me? You loved me once! You thought I was the best thing ever!!

Occasionally one might resurface in an anthology or something. Mostly they just sit around jawing about the good old days, before all these hotshot new stories came along. So what's to do?

In fact, it's completely obvious isn't it? Don't know why I didn't think about it sooner. Actually, I blame Joe Romel, for a comment he (very kindly) left on one of my posts a while back. Have you considered putting together a collection of your short work? Seems like you've sold more than enough to fill a book. And I say, um, no, and move on. Except the idea sticks in my mind. Then I'm sitting there reading Cate Gardner's fantastic (in all senses) collection of her work one evening (Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits). Then there's my firiend Sue and her recent collaborative short story anthology, Triclops. And I suddenly see : I could do the same.

So, an eReader anthology of previously published short stories. Print, too, maybe. Sounds like a whole bunch of fun. And work. But mostly fun. I think it has to be. I've dipped my toe in the water previously with an ePublished short story or three, but an anthology would be way coolerer. It would be like, a book. Just need a neat title like Cate's. And some great artwork. And to choose the stories ...

Which, actually, could be an issue. Regular readers will know I generally shun genre boundaries. What, I have to choose? Like, forever? Some of my favourite stories are fantasy, some are definitely SF, some are mainstream (I'm gritting my teeth just typing that), some are magic realist or slipstream or dark fantasy. They're all just stories as far as I'm concerned. I want to include them all.

But maybe that's completely naive of me. Maybe creating a single collection of such disparate tales just doesn't make sense. What would you call it? How would you market it? Who would want to read it?

I don't know - but I'd be grateful for any views. Would a genre-spanning antho even work or should it be a case of Volume 1 : Fantasy? Love to know what you think ...
 

Write1Sub1 Week #28 Check-In

Sunday is Write1Sub1 Weekly check-in day. I'm posting updates on my short fiction output here as well as over on the main Write1Sub1 blog.

Short story Eighteen Million Butterflies from last week was released into the world this week.

Written :

• Spoiler (Twitter)
  

Submitted :

• Eighteen Million Butterflies (Short Story) 
• Spoiler (Twitter)

Accepted :

• (None)
  

Ooh, Possibly :

• Miasmas, held onto by Electric Spec for voting.
  

Published :

• Empathetic (Twitter) by PicFic
• Straight to Hull (Twitter) by 7x20
  

Flash Fiction : Light Years (97/100)

... and ...








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.

Write1Sub1 Week #27 Check-In

Sunday is Write1Sub1 Weekly check-in day. I'm posting updates on my short fiction output here as well as over on the main Write1Sub1 blog.

This week's short story - Eighteen Million Butterflies - is another that started out as a flash story but grew and grew (pupated?) as I wrote. It ended up at around 2K words. Hopefully I can polish it up next week and send it on its way ...

Written :

• Eighteen Million Butterflies (Short Story)

Submitted :

• Bad Hair Day (Twitter)
• Cerb 'R' Us (Twitter)

Accepted :

• Cerb 'R' Us (Twitter)

Published :

• Meteorology For Beginners by Zahir
• (Non-W1S1) Up in Smoke (Twitter) by 7x20

Flash Fiction : Light Years (96/100)

... galaxy ...








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.

Meteorology for Beginners Published by Zahir

Flash fiction story Meteorology for Beginners has been published in Issue 27 of Zahir. It's available as a free read here. Delighted about this one - one of my favourite little tales.

"What makes the wind blow, daddy?"

Write1Sub1 Week #26 Check-In

Sunday is Write1Sub1 Weekly check-in day. I'm posting updates on my short fiction output here as well as over on the main Write1Sub1 blog.

Quite a bit of work on novels and other longer things this week - but I did manage to write and submit a flash fiction piece, Lifetimes.

Written :

• Lifetimes (SF, flash)

Submitted :

• Lifetimes (SF, flash) 

Accepted :

• Empathetic by PicFic
• Six by Ether Books

Accepted/Published :

• Planting Plans by One Forty Fiction

Flash Fiction : Light Years (95/100)

... The ...








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.