Market Pickup

My scifi story The Other Side, just got accepted by The Fringe Magazine – will be published in August this year. Happy because it is an Australia-setting short story picked up by an Australian magazine. This is my second with Fringe.
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Cover Reveal for Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation

It would appear that Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation, will be released on time in April 2011. My short story, The Happy Mouth, is one of the 14 short stories contained therein (along with 2 full length novels) totaling to 550 pages. A large tome (tomb?) indeed.

Thanks to Unearthed Press for including my Mythos story into their project.

So here's the cover – pretty full on; I like it.

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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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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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steampunk, steampunk, steampunk

Wrote a 3000 word steampunk short today. Conceived it in about an hour of thinking last night, and today it just spun out, and very well to boot. A little different than my others, where I enjoyed the alternate universe thing, but in this one, steampunk is with us, but it is largely hidden.
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Record turnover

My short story, The Lucky Mouth, was accepted by Unearthed Press for their Anthology III, to be published in June 2011. That’s 6 days from conception, writing, drafting, submission and acceptance.
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A Bit of Mythos

Ah, I have been a Lovecraft fan since I could read, and I have designed Mythos stories for well over twenty years – more like 26 – all RPG. I reckon I designed, maybe, 50 or 60 stories. Well, for the first time I am writing a mythos story for a challenge among my circle of writer friends. The only question rising out of this – why didn’t I do this before? Title is The Lucky Mouth. Should finish it by tomorrow.
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A Milestone Nevertheless…

Ah, a small amount, but I received my first payment for a short story today – A Far Away Place, in January 2010’s edition of Beyond Centauri. I view my career as a series of steps up a ladder – this is one such rung.
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History Repeats Itself

Yes, history does repeat itself. I feel like I’m in one of those Sixties b-grade scifi movies where the main character gets caught in a time loop. Or possibly even Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

I wrote a short story a week or so ago (The Comfort of Beanbags) that was quite a challenge (I blogged that point during the process), and I now realize that part of the difficulty of this particular piece was to instill the intended theme and moods in a short work. The jury is still out on that matter, but I have come believe now that the path I should have taken was to write a longer work, a short novel, or novella.

Ironically, going through the process of writing the short story may have been a necessary ingredient to come to this realization…

So… I have another project in scope. I can’t let it go now. I am sure this story will turn into something a lot better in longer form.

Why does history repeat? Because that’s exactly what happened with Guardian of the Sky Realms. A short story turned into a novel.

Stay tuned.
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