Creepy Freebie.

Hi. If you're looking for my Creepy Freebie, please nip over to my Kelda Blog.

Yes, I have two.

Sorry.

It's confusing.

Listen to One of my Favourite Stories at Toasted Cake

'Aunty Merkel' has been podcast by Tina Connolly over at Toasted Cake. This is flash and translates into a five minute story.

Podcasts are great aren't they? But if you're not of a listening type you can always read it, over at Nature where it was originally published.

Art and Words Show Tonight

I'm thrilled to see Anonio Lanza's painting inspired by my story 'The Unmoveable Sky'

This is one of the works at The Arts and Words Show: 48 original works of Art & Words on display; 12 writers and 12 visual artists. Gallery opens at noon; reception and live jazz at 6:30; reading of short stories and poetry at 7:30.

Art on the Boulevard 

4319A Camp Bowie Boulevard

Fort Worth 

Texas 76107

If you can't make the show you can read the story on Helena Bell's 'After Ever After'

Imposters, The Lot of You

Some of my writing friends have been discussing Imposter Syndrome. That's the feeling you have when you don't feel that you deserve the success you've had.

Writers no credits think they've never going to sell.
Writers who've made their first few sales think they're flukes.
Writers with a lot of credits think they're never going to replicate their success.

There's a lot of it about.

I don't have it. I think, 'Well I'm writing as hard as I can. If the sales come, great. If they don't, oh well.' To be fair, in the conversations I had there were a few writers like me.

And that's not to belittle anyone's feelings.  I've seen other writers say, "oh the only writers who aren't insecure are horrible and arrogant." And I'm not, honest guvnor.

So what is it about writers that promotes insecurity in this way? Is it the nature of the business? There's Alex's Insecure Writers' Support Group that touches on the same theme. That's got 324 members and counting.

I respect people's negative feeling, and hope that they can reconcile them. But I'd love to hear others talking about the good side of writing.

SFF UK Correspondent Wanted for Award Winning European Website

EUROPA SF is a website dedicated to the promotion and support of European SF&F.

And has recently been awarded The European Science Fiction Society the 2013 Spirit of Dedication prize for the best European website.


EUROPA SF are looking for a British volunteer to send short news reports on the British SF&F landscape (on monthly or quarterly basis).

You can contact them through the website here.

My story 'Aunty Merkel' has been published in this month's issue of Revista SRSFF in Romanian Translation as 'Tuşi Merkel.'

Excellent!

Sale to 'The Night Land' and to 'Dark Expanse'

Two sales last week, both to shared world venues.

The first is set in the Dark Expanse which is an online role playing game. My story, 'They Cannot Scare Me With Their Empty Places' is set on a desert world and the story is told through the eyes of  Lat, a soldier in the militia. Lat is my favourite kind of MC -- the unreliable narrator. The story will be embodied within the Dark Expanse game, to be unlocked like as a prize for completing a section of the game.

Some of the stories will also be collected into a Dark Expanse anthology to be edited by Alex Shvartsman. Dark Expanse is also looking for new writers ("with solid resumes"). You should contact Alex, he made a request through Facebook, if you're interested in applying.

You can read stories set in the Dark Expanse here.  (Go to Getting Started, then to Races). I love their music, by the way.

The second sale is to The Night Land. This is a venue that extends the world written by William Hope Hodgson. Set many millions of years into the future, the night land is a bleak place, a place of the dying earth.    My story, 'Low the Ascomoytan Sky' will appear around Christmas. But you can read stories set in the Night Land by other authors on the site

In others news I'm joining my writer friend, Sarah Grey in her "Project Write Like Rabid Jaguars are On Your Ass' to write five stories in two weeks.This is making me very nervous. But hey, it's good to push the boundaries, isn't it?
You can follow Sarah on twitter @sarahthegrey.

 And no doubt I'll have some more to say about it too.

Arts and Word Show

Prose inspiring visual art and visual art, and visual art  inspiring  prose. I've contributed two stories to this exhibition. This will be the first time my stories appear in a gallery. 

Whoooo! I'm On a List (Datlow's Long List)

Bit of a brag post. But, hey. Sometimes you gotta do, what you gotta do. (Let's have some fun with this writing malarkey)

I made Ellen Datlow's long list for Year's Best Horror Volume 5. Four times.

I'm so pleased that Daltow reconises poetry, too.

Congratulations to all my writing friends on the list. Woooooh!

Non-English Markets for Short Stories

I would highly recommend Douglas Smith's Foreign Market List. Foreign markets meaning in this case non-English language markets.

 I've just sold a reprint to the Romanian venue Revista SRSFF.

The nice thing about the writing business is that you can resell a story over and over again. Once the rights revert back to you, the writer is free to offer other language rights.

As you will be offering different language rights to different venues, (i.e.  Romanian language rights to a Romanian publisher, German language rights to a German publisher etc.), you are also free to submit a story  simultaneously to different venues.

Douglas Smith provides a good introduction to selling to overseas markets on his website. I would recommend it. And there's a good post from him on the Amazing Stories blog.

Have you sold a story to a non-English language market. Any recommendations for me?

Writing and Sacrifice

A recent post on the Horror Writer's Association LA chapter from Lisa Morton caused a fair bit of comment recently. It's a list of questions that tell you if you're a professional writer or not. Ten Questions To Know If You're a Pro. Defining professional is a very touchy subject for many writers, and it sparked off a fair amount of comment.

Here's a link to John Scalzi's blog that provides a commentary that I agree with.

Now I'm posting not wanting to reawaken controversy, but because I thought Ms Morton's post was interesting. It made me think. Not so much about defining professionalism, but about sacrifices and a writing career. And that niggling question, 'Am I working hard enough?' or even, 'Am I working too hard?'

I reckon I work quite hard. I do about 5 hours writing a day (but that includes everything, research, time wasting on the internet, editing). Undoubtedly, I could work harder (I failed the test).

Ultimately it's  a question we can only answer for ourselves. But it's good to stop once in and while and reflect.

Surrendered Human published in Nature's Futures

'Surrendered Human' is up at Nature's Futures. This story was playing around with the 'surrendered wife' philosophy. What's all that about, eh? Is there a surrendered husband thing? I must tell Chris.

Short Story Writer: Reading

I read a lot of short stories. Mainly short stories, only very occasionally a novel.

When I first started writing I was sad to find that I lost my enjoyment of reading. I couldn't read without engaging my writing brain.


I cured myself of this by an act of will. Before I started reading, I'd think I'm not going to think about characterisation or plot or sentences. I'm just going to enjoy this. 

This seemed to work for me. The mind is an amazing thing. I can now decide before I start reading if it's going to be for pleasure, or if I'm going to read with my writerly eye engaged.

But that's by the by. What I wanted to talk about was the difference between reading anthologies (short stories by lots of different authors) and collections (all by the same author).

I am going to heartedly recommend that if you're reading with your writerly eye you try reading a collection. I've recntly discovered that it's much easier to notice elements of style (things that a writer might want to emulate) when you read a body of work by the same author. This is because a short story writer will to a greater or lesser extent have a voice that is common to all her stories.

So that's my advice (and it's very rare, I hardly ever give writing advice). If you're reading to learn stick with the same author for a few stories.

Of course many talented short story writers have published collections. You can also check out your favourite author's website where they often have links to their free online stories.

What's been your experience in reading short stories. Do you find it helpful for your own writing?

editted. Guys, if you're having problems commenting, could you let me know @deboree. Thanks!