The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Inspiration

I'm hosting my very first guest blogger, and I've started with a bang. I'm delighted to introduce Cate Gardner. Cate is a writer of very fine weird fiction who has been making rather a splash lately. Her chapbook 'Nowhere Hall' was a sell out, gathering excellent reviews along the way. Her short story collection Strange Men in Pinstriped Suits, and her recent novella Barbed Wire Hearts were published to similar acclaim. Her short stories have been published in lots of places that I want to be published in like Fantasy, Shock Totem, Postscripts. . . . 

And her new book Theatre of Curious Acts, is published today. And I'm the first host on her blog tour. Isn't that great? But this isn't about me, it's about Cate, who's talking about inspiration. 

(That's rather apt as my last post was about inspiration too. In my case I get inspired by random children's toys, Cate is rather more professional about the issue.)  

First off, many thanks to Deborah for inviting me onto her blog as part of a tour to celebrate the release of my book Theatre of Curious Acts. As Deborah is an inspiring individual, I thought that a post about inspiration would be apt. So here goes…

Do you have a book of words?

Or better yet a book of titles?

Do you hear marvellous things that you think would make for super titles, but then you move on and forget what you heard? Or perhaps what you saw? Write it down.

People often tell me that my story titles are good. It's a little intimidating because now I'm afraid to call a story something like THE RAT even if one of the characters is an evil, despicable rat of a person, because I feel people expect more. Intimidating and a heck of a compliment.  Of course, those folk may be mad. In fact, I know some of them very well and they are indeed… Well, let's just say they dally with fairies.

So do you have a book of words?

Or a book of titles?

If not, get one. Buy the prettiest, or the meanest, notebook and keep a note of things. Before you know it, you'll be plucking inspiration for both stories and titles with ease (okay, almost with ease). Or, you may even find yourself weaving a story to fit a fabulous title. Is that cheating? I don't care if it is as long as I'm writing.

Start scribbling in that notebook now…

And in case you're wondering, yes, that's how Theatre of Curious Acts, my tale of Great War soldiers and the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse, was born. I had a title and I had some soldiers I wanted to manipulate. You can find more about the book  at www.categardner.net

It's Chit Win. It's Chit Win. It's Really, Really Chit Win.

Family songs, you got to love them. And who is Chit Win? Here she is:

A Littlest Pet Shop toy, named by my daughter, who became the eponymous alien in one of my stories. My space western story, 'Chit Win' has been published as the last story from Daily Science Fiction this year. Funny where you get your inspiration from, isn't it?

'Chit Win' hit subscribers' mailboxes today and should be available for everyone to read on the DSF website in about a week. 

If you fancy a weekday dose of science fiction and fantasy stories delivered to you for free, why not consider subscribing? 

A Happy New Year to y'all.  

Mythos Story Published

My story 'Stone City, Old as Immeasuarable Time' has been published by Lovecraft E-zine. What a fabulous illustration by Steve Santiago. Cosmic horror, despair, old stange places, and neolithic monuments. They tend to slip into my work. The stone mothers in my story are inspired by the prehistoic Venus Figurines, quite a familiar trope in my work.

I'm designating this Lovecraft Homage month, because a couple of weeks ago Innsmouth Free Press published 'Future Lovecraft' which includes of of my poems.

Goals for Short Stories

Goals: I've been thinking about them. I'll probably continue with my goal I've been using for the past two years, which is four subs to the professional press a week.

It's not as scary as it sounds, once you've built up a little inventory. Say you have four science fiction stories, right off the bat I can think of ten venues for them:

 Analog, Asimov, Clarkesworld, Cosmos, Daily Science Fiction, Digital Science Fiction, Fantasy and Science Fiction,   IGMS, Lightspeed, Lore. And I could go on. Honestly, there are heaps.

So four stories will give you 40 subs, and so on and so forth. Because the beauty of it is you can re-sub a rejected story to a new venue. Rejection is good. Yep, it's a great little goal.

But I've been trying to  think about a goal relating to improving quality. And I think I've come up with a good one.

Before I make a sub, read a story from that venue. 

Something that it seems only polite to do. And yet, although I do read heaps, it occurs to me that my reading can be patchy. The idea being that  reading and thinking about the story, will give me a better idea of the editors' taste, and hopefully (somehow, as if by magic) transfers some of that quality to my own writing.

Have you set your goals for 2012, yet? Any good ones?

First 200 words of your story, critiqued by IGMS editor

edit -- This is closed now, he's got the 20. 

If you're quick and brave,  you can get the first 200 words of your short story critiqued online by Edmund Schubert, editor of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. He's going to comment on the first 20 entries on the Magical Words Blog.

linky

I'm not doing it. I'm too chicken. But you should.

Sometimes You Just Got to Flaunt it (Bragging Post)

Recently I've been posting my news in a sidebar. Figuring that my readers don't want to be overwhelmed with my braggage.

But sometimes, a woman's got to do what a woman has to do . . . .

I was very pleased to see that my drabble (100 words, no more, no less), 'Forest Born'  was selected for the featured story of the week at Luna Station Quarterly. This was first published by the sadly lamented Necrotic Tissue.

I've got a poem, 'Cup and Ring Carving'  up at Mirror Dance, one of my favourite venues. Featuring one of my recurring tropes, a mysterious prehistoric monument. Good to see my friend, Simon Kewin there too.

Future Lovecraft has been published. With one of my poems. Looks like I'm table of contents buddies with Nick Mamatas and many other fine authors.

Finally I'm going to announce two exciting acceptance this week, a poem from Dreams and Nightmares, oh my word. And a micro for Earthbound's Dark Stars anthology.

What's in a Name?

I was following a writers' discussion about self-promotion. This being award season for the science fiction and fantasy community, it's a topic on our minds.

One writer, who has a few tasty publications under her belt, said, that to get published by the top magazines, she felt she needed to get her name out there.

And by out there, I guess she meant being active in the social medium (especially twitter), writing articles, giving interviews, meeting people at conferences etc.

Well, that got me a-wondering. I've never really believed that. I figure that people do get plucked out of slush without having a name.  I sold to  professional  paying magazine without having a blog, for instance.  I always feel that story is queen, and that your other accomplishments don't matter a toot.

I guess it's different if you're self-publishing. Then you really want to get name recognition. But I'm happy, at the moment (and watch this space) writing and sending off to magazines.

It's a delicate subject, few people want to come out and say that they are experts in self-promotion.  Most of us (?) want to be recognised for our art.

What do you think? Is getting your name out there important? Will it make a difference to sales?  Have I got a name? And if so, is it a bad name or a good name?

How Long Does it Take a Slush Reader to Reject your Story?

A delightful innovation from Hey Publisher lets you know. Hey Publisher is submission service that various magazines subscribe to.

First off, I I got an e-mail informing me that my story is being read. Then a minute later I got a form rejection.

A minute! I might not even have got the full 60 seconds. Feeling discouraged.

Illuminated Manuscripts in London

I visited the British Library today to see the illuminated manuscript exhibition. Wow. They have some wonderful works in there. I've been inspired. 

Although I was a bit disappointed that I had to pay £9 to see them. All the other exhibitions I've been to at the British Library have been free. They ran a good one on science fiction during the summer and that was free so I don't know what's going on. 

If you get a chance the exhibition is running until March. If you don't you could always download the app for the exhibition. Yes they have apps. Now if only I had an iPad. Hmmm. Christmas is coming. 

Writing Faster

Here's great post from author Rachel Aaron explaining how she quintupled her daily word count.

How I went from writing 2,000 words a Day to 10,000 words a Day.

And another great post from prolific writer, Jay Ridler about increasing speed:

The Speed of Excellence. Part 1.

You can tell what's on my mind, can't you? Any tips from you writers out there? I want to write faster, but with the same, or even improved quality. I don't want much, do I?
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Drabbley Goodness

The Drabbler re-opens. Boy, I love drabbles. Stories of exactly 100 words (some count the title, others don't. The Drabbler doesn't). The theme is: Death Bed Confessions.

If accepted, you get a copy of The Drabbler and a dollar. Now, sadly, paid by PayPal. I used to love getting my American dollar through the post. It reminded me of the days when I worked in a fabric factory and we got paid in cash every week. Just imagine that-- cash. Oh dear, I'm showing my age.

Talking of drabbles, for you of a womanly persuasion, check out Luna Station Quarterly, who are accepting speculative drabble at the moment until the 15th.

'Ovoids' up at Nature. Also as a Podcast.

My story 'Ovoids' is up at Nature's Futures, and there's also a podcast. This is a new initiative from Nature. I think the editor, Dr. Henry Gee,  did a great job reading it. But, hey, I'm biased.

Nature's Futures takes  flash science fiction stories. It's a SFWA accredited venue and they send you 90 squiddles. Guidelines are here. You may also like to check out the podcast when Dr. Gee talks about Futures. Interesting listening.

Writers' Forum

I'm writing a novelette (or is it a novella I always get them two mixed up) for a competition on my writers' forum. Now normally I'd be complaining about that. How hard it is for me to write 20K. But seeing as how many of you are doing nanowrimo, and I know that a couple of you are writing 2 books in a month, I don't think I'll get away with it. So I shall just get on with it.

However, it has reminded me to talk about writers' forums. I belong to Codex, which is a group for speculative neo-pro's. To join, you need to have sold a story at professional level (SFWA accredited plus a few others) or to have attended an interview based workshop like Clairon or Odyssey.

It really is a fine group. The membership requirements means that we're all working at the same level. Sorry if you don't qualify-- yet. You can do it. Keep on subbing.

Codex  holds competitions (groan) just for the glory, we chat about the craft, about the submissions opportunities, about the business of writing. There's also a fast critiquing facility.

What writers groups do you belong to? Any that you'd recommend?