Write1Sub1 Week #43 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 :

• Snow Angels (flash)
  

Submitted :

• Snow Angels (flash)

Accepted :

• Trick or Treat by One Forty Fiction

Published :

• Trick or Treat by One Forty Fiction

Trick Or Treat!

It's Hallowe'en Week over at One Forty Fiction and my microstory Trick or Treat is published there today as part of it.

Bwah Ha Ha Ha HAH! Or something.

Write1Sub1 Week #42 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.

Good week. End of the year in sight and it's a lunge for the finishing tape ...

Written :

• The Grandmother Paradox (5x5)
• The Empty Tomb (5x5) 
• Sleeps Beneath The Streets (poem)

Submitted :

• The Grandmother Paradox (5x5)
• The Empty Tomb (5x5) 
• Sleeps Beneath The Streets (poem)

Accepted :

• (Non W1S1) The Flying Incredulo by Apocrypha and Abstractions
  

Published :

• The Bitter End by Jupiter SF
• Cerb 'R' Us by Trapeze
• Spoiler by PicFic 

Cerb 'R' Us Spoiler

Two Twitter microstories published today : Cerb 'R' Us by Trapeze and Spoiler by PicFic. #happy.

The Bitter End Published by Jupiter SF

Delighted to report that Jupiter SF issue 34 ("Euporie"), containing The Bitter End written by myself and Dominic de Mattos has just been released.

This story is quite long for a "short" story - about 8,500 words. It's an apocalyptic tale told entirely through an exchange of emails, which was certainly interesting to write. It had quite an interesting genesis : Dom and I originally wrote it for an apocalyptic anthology, which didn't work out. But I'm delighted it has found such a good home now.

This is my second story to appear in Jupiter, following on from 22nd Century Genie last year.

The apocalypse, eh? It's not the end of the world, is it?

Write1Sub1 Week #41 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 I wrote some things and submitted some things.

Written :

• A Box of Photographs (short story)
• Why The Dog Didn't Die (SF, flash) 
• An Infinite Loop (5x5)

Submitted :

• A Box of Photographs (short story)

Accepted :

• Kinda none.
  

Published :

• GSOH (Seedpod)
• Introductions (Seedpod)
  

Why You Should Know About QR Codes

You may have seen a few of these cryptic little square patterns recently : they've started popping up in all sorts of places. In case you're wondering, they're called QR ("Quick Response") codes and they're definitely worth knowing about.

QR codes are basically two-dimensional barcodes. The code above contains the URL for this blog : http://spellmaking.blogspot.com. So what? The point is, smartphones, tablets and other devices these days will most likely have a camera in them to allow such codes to be read as well as the software required to interpret them. So by pointing, say, an iPhone at this image printed on a piece of paper somewhere, you'd be able to browse to this web site without having to remember and/or type in the URL. QR codes allow you to easily grab web site addresses from somewhere out there in the physical world and onto a computer. For writers, they're another way of letting readers find your web site, blog or whatever. That's why you see them more and more on the back of books, on promotional bookmarks, on adverts.

QR codes are easy to generate and don't cost anything to make. I used this online generator to create mine (althought his one says non-commercial use only; there are plenty of others). They don't, incidentally, have to be used just for URLs; they can be used to encode anything.

Why not just spell out the actual URL? That's because computers are bad at interpreting letters and numbers. Human brains and computers are very different things. You're good at pattern-recognition; your poor, mindless computer isn't. That's why you often have to type in strings of characters on blogs etc. They stop someone automatically generating a zillion spam posts. When a computer tries to interpret a URL it can easily make mistakes. But a computer can read a QR code effortlessly.

So, if you're producing some marketing material or publishing a paperback, it's well-worth considering adding in a QR code along with all your human-readable contact information ...

Write1Sub1 Week #40 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 output ticking over nicely ...

Written :

• The Genehunter (SF)

Submitted :

• Panopticon (SF, flash)

Accepted :

• GSOH (Seedpod)
• Introductions (Seedpod)

Published :

• Just Desserts (Cuento)

Avoid Distractions: Stay Online!

The internet is supposed to be a terrible distraction isn't it? You see the advice all the time on writery blogs : unplug yourself from email and Twitter and all the rest of it and you'll be able to get on with your writing free from interruption ...

I beg to differ. My broadband is broken just now - again - and I'm only able to use the internet at the sort of speeds we thought were good in the early 1990s. And then only if the wind is in the right direction. And you know what? It's really distracting. I'm sitting here writing and worrying about who is emailing me, what's going on on Twitter, what blogs I'm not keeping up on, what new markets I don't know about. The world is moving on and I don't know about it ...

Disconnect from the internet? No thank you very much.

Right, now to see if I can publish this post. I think the wind is in the right direction ...

Write1Sub1 Week #39 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.

Good week on the short fiction front, back into some sort of groove ...

Written :

• Panopticon (SF, flash)
• The Last Man In Space (SF, flash)
• A Late Night Call (Twitter)

Submitted :

• The Last Man In Space (SF, flash)
• A Late Night Call (Twitter)

Accepted :

• Fastest Route (Nanoism)
• A(mong Rel)atives (PicFic)

Published :

• Fastest Route (Nanoism)
• (Non W1S1) Dan Quixote (Inkspill)

Gosh, October already, eh? Soon be Christmas, my friends ...