Published: She Has Been Here

A revamped short story of mine, She Has Been Here, has been published by The Fringe Magazine (ezine, and it has been chosen to be published in pdf format at a later date). This has two important features to it, for me. Firstly, She Has Been Here is one of those stories where I have a a special love for, and so I am pleased indeed to publish it. I had trouble publishing it over some time, in part because it is very hard to classify – is it a love story? A fantasy? A ghost story? Historical Fiction? Maybe all, perhaps even more. I also have to admit that I have become a better writer (hey, practice makes perfect), and with a small polish, it is a better story – I can thank a few editors from other magazines who rejected my story, and taking the trouble to say a few words of constructive criticism.

The second reason why I am especially pleased is because The Fringe is an Australian magazine – remarkably, my first Australian publishing effort.
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Editing Progress: Ian Hall’s Opportunities: Jamie Leith in Darién

In my role as editor in IFWG Publishing, I have the pleasure of working with new titles coming through our pipeline. I certainly can add Ian Hall’s Opportunities: Jamie Leith in Darién, as one of them. I’m at just over 80% through the copy editing phase, and then we turn it over to the proofing cycles.

IFWGP is a speculative fiction specialist publisher, but we don’t mind delving into other genres, on occasion. Ian’s work is quite long – around 200k, but this is not uncommon for historical fiction. There is a tendency for historical titles to have a bit more meat to it, and oh, what a delightful repast it is! I have to say it is difficult indeed to refrain from divulging what happens in detail – but let may say this: it has it all. "All in what way?" you may ask. My response is simple – "what do you expect to happen in an adventure set in 1699 with a heck of a lot of sea voyaging?" In the Caribbean. *smirky grin*
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Aurealis Magazine – Poor PR

Something interesting for you Australian specfic writers, or those who are interested in Aurealis Magazine. Their editor has retired and they are closed to submissions. Those who submitted prior to the closure are totally in the dark – every query gets a stock standard blurb which makes no statement on the status of pre-closure submissions.

Their PR is poor indeed.

I sent an email query to the editor email address as well as another, generic address. When I got the following, I sent an email back to a ‘Stephen’, and got exactly the same blurb back. They are clearly not reading their email AT ALL.

Here is an image of the blurb. Try to work out how it responds to a query about what the status of pre-closure emails are about:

With the retirement of current editor, Stuart Mayne, the publishers of Aurealis, are taking the
opportunity to restructure and improve the magazine. The new look Aurealis will be in place by the end
of 2011. In the meantime, AurealisXpress, our monthly e-bulletin for subscribers will continue. We
will be open for story submissions again around the middle of the year. Updates will be published in
AurealisXpress and on the website http://www.aurealis.com.au.

All orders (books, back issues etc.) will continue to be processed as usual.

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How Important Is Reading for an Author?

I’m sure some who read my subject title think its a trivial subject; a no brainer. "Of course it is important to read other writers’ fiction, to improve." I agree at that level, but it actually has more to it.

For one thing, as a writer I am driven to write whenever I can and reading encroaches on my time. I have to do my day job, I have responsibilities to my family, including my daughter, etc etc. With what’s left, I have to make priority decisions. This is the most obvious consideration.

Another area of concern is the degree in which we immerse ourselves into other writers’ styles and worlds, and it can chip away at our own inspiration. I have heard writers say that other people’s stories (be it fiction, cinema, plays etc) inspire them for their stories – I do have some concern here as I believe it can, from a particular degree of exposure, stifle creativity. It’s a balancing act.

For much of my life I have been a copious reader – mostly speculative fiction, but no small amount of other genres and non-fiction, poetry and so on. When I started to write seriously, I almost closed it off completely. I needed the time to write, not read, and I genuinely felt I could generate my own creativity without the need for inspiration from other writers. It worked for me, but only for a few years. As I developed my skills, somewhat like an athlete developing their fitness, there comes a time when one has a hyper-sensitized skill level to detect what is needed for the next step up. I realized I needed to read more; much more.

Jay Lake, the voluminous bloggist and excellent, well-respected speculative fiction writer, blogged just on this topic and referred to the dual role that must be balanced – the consumer versus the producer. Here is his fifth part of the discussion with references to his earlier posts. He puts a valid case forward that there is a time and place for each, and I entirely agree with him.

Before Jay produced his interesting set of blogs with thesis, I made a New Year’s Resolution at the start of 2011. Eleven in fact. One of them was that I would read more. Much more. I set the goal of 24 books – any genre, style etc, and would include the books I edit. It isn’t a case of categorization here, it is to do with keeping the synapses running, exploring new ways of doing things by way of other’s experience, and ultimately finding your own unique style and inspiration, and writing better stories for it.
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Special

My short story, Special (which is a science fiction, concerning autism) has been accepted in an anthology titled Flying Island Press Benefit: Autism Awareness. As you can tell by the title, this is a benefit anthology with proceeds going to an Autism fund raising benefit.

It’s not too late for new submissions to be accepted (noting it requires a strong autism plotline, or character, to qualify).

It will be released in June 2011.
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Comfort #2

This continues an earlier discussion (thread really) regarding my story conception of The Comfort of Beanbags, which I originally wrote as a short story. Here is the earlier discussion.

In line with the most basic of writing tenets, I know that this story should not be longer than what is needed in the telling, and with more time spent conceptualising this story than any other, I believe it should be more like novella – perhaps (gut feeling) around 30k. I have come up with lots of ideas on world building, and I am happy how it has settled. Very happy. However, I have never had to take so much time coming to this final form.

Now to do it. 🙂

Submission Acceptance: The Bond

Nice turnover.

My steampunk short story, The Bond, has been accepted by Rune Wright, in their Penny Dread Tales Vol 1: Gears, Coils, Aether & Steam anthology. Their cover is pretty amazing – you can catch a glimpse in the submissions page (they are still asking for submissions) – http://www.runewright.com/submissions.html

I wrote the short on 8 March.

Next 😉
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Ginger Fred

Late last night finished (largely) my latest short story, Ginger Fred, the Pavement Artist. Somewhat different for me – light horror, more a mystery with undertones of the supernatural. Difficult to classify, but at a high level, perhaps horror. Hmm.. Fantasy? LOL

Wont go into it too much – it involves a tramp who regularly visits a seaside town and creates masterpieces of pavement art – but it gets weird when the pictures are able to convey what will happen in the future.
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Asia Pacific Copping It

I don’t normally write blogs on current affairs, but over recent weeks, perhaps months, I have been amazed, and affected by natural disaster in the Asia Pacific region.

Basically, at home (Australia) we had floods and cyclones of record-breaking proportions, with many billions of dollars of damage, and loss of human live.

Then our neighbour, New Zealand, had their horrific earthquake near Christchurch, that basically flattened large parts of their city and no doubt they are still finding the poor victims.

Finally (I hope) we had the earthquake and resulting tsunamis near Japan, and the damage and loss of life just eclipsed everything, and can perhaps only be compared to the 2004 tsunami further south.

I know that this string of natural disasters is a coincidence, and if there is anything that ties them together, is a solemn acceptance that mother nature is powerful indeed. It doesn’t change the fact, however, that I feel that our region of the planet have copped a lot lately.

My heart goes out to all who were affected, and in particular those who lost love ones. The largest hunk of my heart goes to our neighbours in Japan.
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Book Review: The Story of England, by Michael Wood

I always take a little longer to read non-fiction – just the nature of the beast.

Michael Wood is a long-standing favorite of mine – in tandem with his television series. He truly is a rarity – a historian who knows how to popularize history without losing insight and scholarship.

When I heard about his The Story of England, I just had to get it straight away. The concept of depicting the culture and history of England from prehistoric times to modern day, through the archives and archaeology of a single set of village hamlets, was inspiring. And I can say that the reading validated my anticipation.

I particularly liked the medieval period of history, and the Tudors, but I can say that the book was interesting and insightful throughout. What I particularly liked was his ability to use contrasts and comparisons between different time periods (often with examples of families who lived in or near the locale for those represented periods), and expressing insightful patterns in history.

And of course, his writing is crisp, fluid, and even at times, poetic.

Perhaps the only criticism I can throw in – which does not undermine my rating of 5 for this work – is that the geography often mentioned of areas outside of the locale are not represented by maps. As a non-Englishman, I simply lose my sense of direction and geographical context when reading about various counties and cities. It would have been helpful to have a few extra maps.

I heartily recommend this book to any student of history or culture.

Five stars
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