Six Published by Ether Books

Flash fiction story Six has been published by Ether Books today - my fourth story with them. I should thank Rebecca Emin for prompting me to write this one : an earlier version was placed third in her It's Only a Number competition a while back. Thanks Rebecca!

Six is to be a free download to users of the Ether iPhone app (and soon, an Android app, for those of us who don't get on with iTunes!)

While we're on the subject of Ether, they've recently released v1.4 of their software, with lots of sparkly new improvements including the ability to share details of favourite stories with friends via Facebook and Twitter. Very cool. Well worth checking out iPhone folks!

Planting Plans Published by one forty

My latest micro story Planting Plans is published over at one forty fiction today. Feel free to leave a comment! Mind you, if you need cheering up, it's probably best to give it a miss ...

Write1Sub1 Week #25 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 fiction work this week has been mostly on Three Miraculous Homunculi - a fantasy short story I roughed out earlier in the year but which has really come on this week. Hopefully it'll be polished up soon and sent out. It isn't complete yet but we'll count it as this week's write 1 :

Written :

• Three Miraculous Homunculi (fantasy, short story)
• Old Time's Sake (Twitter)
  

Submitted :

• Your Call May Be Recorded For Training Purposes (SF, flash)
• Old Time's Sake (Twitter)

Accepted/Published :

• Distant Bells by Seedpod
  

Published :

• First Contact by Microcosms
• Shadow Beings by Microcosms
• At Night, When He Sleeps by Microcosms

Flash Fiction : Light Years (94/100)

... Immortality. ...








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.

Three Poems Published on Microcosms

Delighted to report that I'm featured poet over at Microcosms this week. They've just published three of my short SF/fantasy poems in their twitterstream : First Contact, Shadow Beings and "At Night, When He Sleeps".

I think the last of those is my favourite but I'd love to know what you think ...

Write1Sub1 Week #24 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.


Written :

• Your Call may be Recorded for Training Purposes (SF, flash)
  

Submitted :

• Last Train to Morden (short story)

Accepted :

• (None)
  

Published :

• The Rose Glow of Dawn by Three Line Poetry

Flash Fiction : Light Years (93/100)

... 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.

Journal of Unlikely Entomology #1 - Free PDF Download

You might like to know that the Journal of Unlikely Entomology Issue 1 - in which my tale Museum Beetles appears - is now available as a free PDF download. You can grab a copy of it here.

Watch out for those bugs.

The Amazon Kindle: First Impressions

So I've finally joined the massed ranks of the Kindle-owners. I've been reading stuff via the Kindle app on my 'phone for a while, which works pretty well, but now I have a luxury, bottom-of-the-range WiFi-only Kindle too. Also a rather snazzy Eco-Nique hemp case which makes it feel like some dusty old spellbook I'm carrying round. Which, obviously, is a good thing.





Chances are you have a Kindle already, or you want one, or you're damn sure you don't want one. Still, in case you are undecided, here are the pros and cons of the device as I see them so far.

You have to hand it to them, Amazon are really switched on. The Kindle arrived already registered to me and I just had to do a quick synch to have all the books I'd previously purchased downloaded to my new device. Stupidly easy.

... which, however, feels a bit Big Brother, like I'm now more in the clutches of the all-powerful Amazon than ever.

The battery-life is great. Haven't had to think about recharging so far.

... although, the battery-life of a paperback is even better. Really.

When the machine isn't on it displays a picture like the cover of a book. Which seems pretty cool ...

... at first. Then it starts to get annoying. The Kindle just chooses one of its built-in images at random. Wouldn't the obvious thing be to display the cover of the book you're currently reading? Like, duh. And of course there's no colour anywhere. You get black, white and, well, grey.

It's very good you can read the screen in full daylight, just like paper ...

... but, again, just like paper, you can't read it in the dark. You have to get an external light-source. Aren't we supposed to be making technological progress here? Can't we have a back-light that's there if needed? And while we're on the subject, the screen isn't so much black-on-white as black-on-grey. It reminds me rather of an Etch-a-sketch screen. It works but it's drab.

The Kindle does all sorts of additional clever stuff like voice-synthesis and letting you choose font-sizes. And it has a built-in web browser which means there must be all sorts of interesting possibilities for the writer, getting readers to find your web site etc.

... although a lot of it feels superfluous. I tried the voice synthesis. Once.

It's wonderfully light, fantastic for travelling and it doesn't get any heavier as you add more books (I think - please correct me if I'm wrong on that, physicists). And It can store a lot of books.

... but I haven't yet dared read it in the bath for fear of dropping it. And reading books in the bath is, of course, one of the five great pleasures known to humanity.


Overall, I actually really like it. More than I thought I would. And paperbacks have their pros and cons too, of course. The screen-flash doesn't bug me at all as I worried it might (Nathan, you were right).

Mind you, I am still reading paperbacks as well. I don't really see that old and new technologies are competing. They're just different ways of reading fiction. And that has to be a good thing.

Meanwhile, coming soon, I'm going to write a post on how to put your own artwork onto a Kindle to replace those darn built-in ones ...

Write1Sub1 Week #23 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.

Back into a bit of a rhythm this week : drafting a new story, polishing up and sending out a story from a previous week : 

Written :

• Last Train to Morden (short story)
• A(mong Rel)atives (Twitter)

Submitted :

• Slieau Whallian (fantasy, short story)
• A(mong Rel)atives (Twitter)

Accepted :

• (Non-W1S1) Terahertz by Brain Harvest

Published :

• Last Days of Summer by Cuento

Flash Fiction : Light Years (92/100)

... of ...








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.

Brain Harvest Buy SF Flash Story Terahertz

Just learned that Brain Harvest magazine have bought SF flash story Terahertz, which they kindly describe as "thoughtful, interesting, different". Happy with that!

The story is scheduled to appear on the interwebnet on July 24th.

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses An Eye

Greetings and welcome to my post for Alex J. Cavanaugh's It's All Fun and Games blogfest!

Taking part in this Blogfest involves listing my three favourite games. Wow, that's tricky. I mean, I couldn't even begin to name my three favourite computer games. Or board games. And do sports count?

Here's my list anyway. It would probably be different if I wrote it on a different day ...


Scrabble
I love wordplay in all its forms : crosswords, puns, poetry and fiction. Scrabble is a game I play constantly. For the record, the most I've ever scored with a single word was 176 for EDUCTION (played across two triple word scores.) True fact!

Cricket
Sport counts, right? It came down to a choice between cricket and gridiron (American football) : two games, it seems to me, with almost limitless depth and subtlety. Cricket edges it. One of these days I'm going to attend all five days of an England test match somewhere warm. What could be finer?

DragonQuest IX
Had to include a computer game. Ah, so many to choose from! Plants vs. Zombies? Lords of Midnight? Quake II? Elite? In the end I picked this as I'm currently playing through it on the Nintendo DS (adventuring alongside my elder daughter on her DS) and I'm utterly hooked. Wonderful game. Here's a picture of my Level 64 Mage called, um, Simon. He looks more like a warrior type, I know, but that's because he refuses to pander to stereotypes ...


There we go! Thanks for dropping by.

Write1Sub1 Week #22 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.

Been on holiday this week so not too much writing done. Did Ray Bradbury even take holidays do we know? A small amount of short fiction/poetry progress to report ...

Written :

• "From High in the Sky" (haiku)
• "Photographed in Stone" (haiku)
• Cerb 'R' Us (Twitter)
• Bad Hair Day (Twitter)
• Repeats (Twitter)
• England's Hour of Need (Twitter)
• Birth Moth(er) (Twitter)
• A Close Shave (Twitter)

Submitted :

• Birth Moth(er) (Twitter)

Accepted :

• (None)

Published :

• An Explosive Relationship (Twitter) by Trapeze
• (Non-W1S1) Their Song (Twitter) by Cuento

Flash Fiction : Light Years (91/100)

... that ...








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.