Writing the Future at the Royal Society, London

I'm looking forward to my day out this Wednesday (1st May) when I'll be attending the mini conference, Writing the Future. 

"The afternoon is designed as a series of creative short presentations and panels themed around the transformative power of science, technology, communication and the human imagination.

Fast, forward-facing and fantastically futuristic, Write The Future condenses the best bits of a typical two-day conference into a single afternoon of compelling content, inspired by the life and work of science fiction author, inventor and futurist Sir Arthur C. Clarke."

The topics include:

• Wrangling Shamans, Snake Oil and Science Fiction. 
• Kinking Reality and Imagining the Future. 
• Don't Feed the Lizard Brain. Surviving the Social Media Comedown
• Free Your Words and Your Mind Will Follow. Language as Technology and Ludwig’s Talking Lion
• The Bionic City of the Future
• Botworld. A Printer That Prints Its Own Face, and How The Web Won't Stay Trapped Behind Glass
• Future Now

If any one would like to join me you ARC have announced a discount code,  "whatthefuture"  via twitter: that gives you a discount bringing the cost down to £35 for the afternoon.

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New Story up at Dark Expanse

My story, Light Bringer, can be read at the Dark Expanse website. The Dark Expanse galaxy is home to a multiplayer online strategy game.

Dark Expanse^© is a free-to-play, real-time, massive multi-player online strategy game of galactic conquest. Local commanders develop their resources, improve their planets, colonize new worlds, research new technologies and build space fleets while defending their territory and conquering enemy worlds. Choose your friends and allies carefully because mutual offensive, defensive and navigational capabilities can be achieved through combining forces with other commanders.

The creators have commissioned a number of writers to develop the lore of the Dark Expanse galaxy.

This was a first for me, as it was set in a shared world. So parts of the story were already in place. My story for instance was based on a gaseous species called the Methenes who had already some defined racial traits. And as other writers to were also writing stories set in the Dark Expanse galaxy we needed to co-ordinate details (which we did via a private forum).

It was a very interesting experience. The fact that I was working in an established world actually made the story easier to write. Has anyone else written in shared world environment?

I hope you like the story, or maybe you'd prefer to play the game. Either way, enjoy.

My Story to Appear in the Art and Words Collaborative Show

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, she of the lovely dark story in Clarkesworld,  is curating the Arts And Words Collaborative Show. 

My flash, and regular readers might remember it, 'The Unmoveable Sky' is going to inspire a piece of art. I'm going to write a bit of flash or a poem inspired by another artist's painting.

Eleven artists and eleven writers. Then all the contributor's stories, poems and art are going to be displayed in a gallery in Fort Worth.

Wow. How much fun is that?



Have you ever been inspired by a visual prompt?  Sounds like a nice idea doesn't it? Wandering a gallery seeking out inspiration.

Maybe I'll also write a story inspired by my avatar, 'Venus Complaining to Cupid' by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Short Story Markets: New Scientist's Arc

All you writers of short science fiction, have you been subbing to Arc? In fact, as you can see from the guidelines below it doesn't have to be science fiction your story just has to have some bearing on the future.

But I imagine that mundane science fiction (that's near future, realistic science fiction) will be well recieved. 

They've published some of the biggest names in the genre. And *whistle* look at the pay. That's the highest pay I've seen on an open call.

You can buy past issues at Amazon for £4.99 if you're interested in reading what they've bought before. I just got 1.4. It's a good read too

But knowing what they like and writing it. Aha. That's a different kettle of fish. But onwards! I did sell a story to them when they were running the competitions. So you never know. 

They also buy poetry (hmmm interesting) and non fiction. 

From the guidelines:

Arc publishes short stories over 5000 words.

On acceptance, it pays a flat fee of £1500 (c. US$2370) for first world serial rights

We publish stories that have some bearing on the future. You don't need to write science fiction to do that -- all we're interested in is your vision, your skill, and your ability to move us.

....

We like technology and science, but we love people. The stories we're looking for will explore their anxieties, their joys and fears. We don't publish fantasy and if you send us anything with even a whiff of steampunk about it we will come round and burn down your house.

This submission engine is for fiction only. Arc also publishes features, essays and poetry. Please contact us before submitting these as we have very specific requirements and we usually commission this work.

Our boilerplate rates are

for essays under 1500 words    £250

for features over 2000 words £500

£75 per page for poetry and experimental work.

We commission news pieces and reviews for our blog at http://arcfinity.tumblr.com. We pay £30 per blogpost. If you're interested in contributing, tweet or DM us at @arcfinity.

Writing at Novella Length: Advice Wanted

I've got a real craving to write a novella. I want to stretch myself. So I'm looking for advice. Here's what I know:

Novellas are longer than short stories, by definition. Let's say short stories are anything up to 7.5 thousand words and novellas are 17.5-40 thousand.

One thing I've learnt about writing is there aren't any hard and fast rules. And that's the way I like it. But in general you can say that novellas:

Have more plot elements.
May incorporate subplots
Might spend longer on character description and setting.
Can incorporate multiple points of view.

And from a personal point of view: can't be written without planning. (I know, I've tried).

That's about it. My plan is to read a couple of Susan Hill's novellas with a writers eye, making notes about the plot-line and pacing.

Now, what else do I need to know? Do you the three act structure for planning, or other planning structures (with short stores, I just wing it)  Do you write at this length? What else should I be thinking about?

New Poem up at Eternal Haunted Summer

Somebody told me it was National Read a poem day. May I humbly suggest 'Utterly Pure' up at Eternal Haunted Summer.

This was inspired, as many of my works are by a chance encouter with Wiki. Wikipedia rules! Did I mention I've been doing a little Wiki editing, by the way.

This Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons image is from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at //commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snake_Goddess_Crete_1600BC.jpg under the creative commons cc-by-sa 3.0 license.

Writers, How Do you Know you're Improving?

This question/worry fascinates me.

The classic answer is: First I got form  rejections for my subs, then a few comments, then really complimentary personal rejections and then I started to sell.

Hmmm. A nice linear progression that. But I've always sold (lucky old me) and got a few complimentary rejection letters.

I suppose if you're improving you'll make more sales, but as time's gone on I've started subbing more and more to professional press. So that doesn't help much. If I chart the number of sales they're much of a muchness over the last few years. (2010= 7 pro sales, 2011= 4 pro sales 2012 = 7 pro sales) And I'm happy with those numbers. I know that I couldn't have worked much harder.

Maybe I've plateaued? How can I tell? Maybe *le gasp* I'm getting worse.

So how do you tell if you're getting better?

Reprint Sale to Toasted Cake Podcast

I've just sold another reprint to the podcast venue Toasted Cake. A Nature story this time, 'Aunty Merkel.(Toasted Cake is closed until August at the moment).

I'd love to sell a few more stories to the podcasters. Who is your favourite podcaster? I know about Pseudopod, Escape Pod and Podcastle.

Are there any other podcast venues that you'd recommend?

Spam Comments

At first they just e-mailed me, telling me how much they enjoyed my post and adding a link to their site. Now the spammers are posting on my blog.

It's very annoying. Although its nice that they're enjoying my posts so much.

Of course I can delete them, but I wondered if there was another way of preventing spam. Any tips?

May 2013. Edited. Thanks for the advice. I've left my blog readers with the ability to post anon, but I've activated comment moderation after 7 days. This is catching most of my blog spam.

Do You Google Your Name?

I just read a comment by an author who said that she never googled her name.

This is not the case with me. I google my own name, and my pen name, oh I don't know, whenever I'm bored and remember to.  Every few weeks.

It's fun. Sure you might encounter a reader who didn't love your work, but on the other hand you might encounter a reader who did.

Today, for instance, I found out that GoodReads reviews short stories published free on the internet. And that someone had been engaged enough by my Nature story to post a rating. And that I have a GoodReads fan. Now that's fun.

I've googled my name and found meh reviews of my works.

But a good way of thinking about it is that once the work is published it belongs to the reader, explained here by Jay Lake.

What about you, reader? Do you admit to googling your name? There's no shame! Do you seek out response to your stories, or would you rather not know?

Short Story Writer: In the Flow: A Revelation

I've been a working hard on my writings all week. I've been working on five stories. Yep, I like to write on more than one thing at once.

Horror Flash = finished
Fantasy Flash = finished
Science Fiction story for an anthology
Fantasy story for an anthology

I was quite happy pootling away when my research for the science fiction led to another idea, and I got distracted and started writing another science fiction story.

And, oh. I got into the flow. That lovely feeling when the words were just flowing onto the page.

Afterwards, once the story was finished, I got to thinking. Why was it that story that was so enjoyable to write? It wasn't the science. It wasn't the length. It wasn't the premise. I had similar elements in the other stories, yet they hadn't been so much fun.

And here's my revelation. it was the fact that the my main character was an unreliable narrator. And I love reading short stories about unreliable narrators. And come to think of it, I love writing them, too.

And maybe that explains why in the horror genre, I've written so many Cthulhu stories, because I love reading them.

So that's my revelation. Write what you love. And you'll love what you write. (mileage may vary).

And in fact I remember reading that advice a few years ago. But it never crystallised for me at the time.

Now I'm going to be looking for story elements in my reading. I know that I've got a fondness for what I call character reveal stories, when the character doesn't solve problems but the emotional pay-off at the end of the story is the unexpected/yet somehow inevitable character reveal. Could I write one of those? I know I've got a fondness for sublime language. Could I do more with my prose?I like sarcasm and sly humour. I like happy endings. And what other elements make me enjoy  a story? What else can I be inspired by?

Oh, happy day.

What about you guys. Have you thought about this. Do you write what you love to read? Have you ever had a writers' revelation that is so obvious?

Skitter Over to Toasted Cake to Hear my Story

Tina Connolly has done a great reading of my flash story, 'The Unmoveable Sky' over at Toasted Cake.Toasted Cake is an award winning podcast of speculative fiction. It was so fascinating to hear my story spoken by Tina. It was like encountering my own words for the first time.

The time of Kali has passed. 

This is the little story that could. First published in Poe Little Thing's 'In Space No One Can Hear You Scream' anthology and reprinted in Helbell's After Ever After zine. (for those who prefer to read it rather than hear it).

Hourly Versus Word Count Targets

I am such a fan of targets. For a long time I used this style, focusing on weekly targets for completed stories and poems, and submission:


                                    completed words completed poems           stories subbed    poems subbed
Week 1                           5K                        1                                  5                       2
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Monthly totals

A few months ago I switched to hourly targets, counting the number of hours I spend writing each day and not bothering with word count. I thought that by abandoning this soulless production would improve quality. And I'd rather write one wonderful story than four mediocre ones.

The first month went deceptively well. But here I am, four months down the line. My production has halved. I have written no new poems for months and I can see no improvement in quality. So I'm switching back.

How frustrating.

A writing friend has just tweeted me asking what went wrong. I'm not quite sure. I guess that an hourly target allowed me to indulge my preference of starting new stories without completing the old ones. I guess I didn't write any poems because there's always so many new stories I want to write.

I was hoping for an improvement story quality, though. I guess I'm not the best judge, but the stories look pretty much the same to me.

I was going to post moaning about how I can never seem to improve my ways of working. But no! It's good that I know what works for me.

Do you use targets? What works for you? Have you ever tried to improve your production and failed?