Writing

Bone Flowers

Aaaaand… a Happy New Year to you! I hope it’s a good one.

My story “The Osteomancer’s Husband” is now up at Diabolical Plots as the January 2016 story.

He warned his wife the villagers would come. With their pitchforks, their fire. Their hateful ignorance.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We have to leave. They saw beneath my mask.”

The inspiration for this story were a couple of photographs used for a writing group prompt challenge. One image was of flowing water (“…the burbling mountain stream…”), the second was of a hand tossing what looked like tiny bones to the wind (“Like…tiny snowflake vertebrae…”), both by the talented Robin Cristofari. To me the bones looked like seedlings, so I immediately began to wonder what their origin might be.

If you like the story (or even if you don’t), please feel free to comment here or on the Diabolical Plots site. Any feedback is always welcome.

“Les Feuilles mortes 3” by Robin Cristofari.

The Dragonmaster’s Doom

Received in the post today a copy of Dragons, Droids & Doom: Year One, the collected stories from the first year of Fantasy Scroll Magazine, edited by Iulian Ionescu and Frederick Doot. Amongst many other stories by many other authors, it contains my Mevlish story, “The Dragonmaster’s Ghost”, first published in FSM #4. Very happy to see it reprinted in what is a very handsome-looking physical book.

Dragons, Droids & Doom: Year One is available as a trade paperback or as an e-book from most of the usual places as well as from its own dedicated website.

On Persistence

In which I both vacillate and state the obvious, but here goes…

Should you ever give up on a story?

Yes, absolutely. Some stories are stillborn and can’t be revived. Sometimes, usually (but not exclusively) early on in your writing career, you just can’t recognise that. You see the story you wish, not the story that is. Maybe you’re not aware of the clichés that plague it. The clunky prose. The unoriginal premise or predictable ending. The beginning scene(s) that benefit the writer not the reader. Unless you come to recognise and acknowledge these potential flaws you’ll end up in an endless cycle of rejection and growing frustration and bitterness. Why oh why can’t anyone recognise the sheer magnificent genius of your work? You can’t move on. You can’t write new stories. You’re creative font becomes clogged. You become paralyzed with uncertainty. What if you’re too niche? What if you’re no good? More pertinently, what if the story is no good? The answer to that last most definitely could be, yes: the story is no good and it needs revision (but beware Heinlein’s 3rd rule), or indeed it is too broken to be saved. So learn the lessons. Move on. Apply them.

But, really. Should you ever give up on a story?

No, absolutely not. Have you scrutinized it in the light of any personal rejection notes? Do the editors have a point? Is it fixable? Do they say they like the story, or the writing is good but it’s just not a “fit”? After each rejection, have you revised the story to match your current writing skill level (which should always be evolving, improving)? Do you still love the story and have faith in it? Are there markets you are happy for the story to appear in but haven’t tried yet? Are there any markets you’re too scared to submit to because you think you’re not good enough? Then submit. And keep submitting.

Because there are stories I’ve looked askance at after only a few rejections and thrown so deep into the apocryphal trunk they’ll never see the light of day again, and there are stories that have received over 30 rejections, have spent a total of 1689 days out on submission at different markets, and they’ve still been published and paid for and received complimentary reviews.

So should you ever give up on a story?

The answer, my friend, is maybe, maybe not. The trick is to write and keep on writing, to keep learning and challenging yourself, so that you have many stories to choose from.

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Hands Out

My story “Dance of the Splintered Hands” is now up at the Autumn 2015 issue of Kaleidotrope. What are you doing here? Go read it now!

Closer to the dome, I began to make out the hands in more detail. They varied hugely in size and shape: from crab-like creatures the size of dinner-plates, up to huge multi-legged earth-moving monstrosities that chewed up the ground with their jagged mandibles. Many of the hands were smoothly metallic, some were covered in swirling geometric patterns, and others were organic-looking and roughly textured — no two were exactly alike.

Although “Hands” is one of my earliest stories, it’s still a favourite of mine, set in my novel-verse milieu of the Heptatheon, with its god moons, angels, faces and hands. I’m really glad it found a home.

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre crab sculpture, Vancouver, Canada. Photo (C) Neil Every.

The Devil’s Waltz

My horror short story “The Velna Valsis” has been accepted by Fantasy Scroll Magazine and, touch wood, should be out later this year. Although the image below wasn’t part of the story’s origin (I came across it on the interwebs long after I had finished “Valsis” and sent it out on submission), I immediately thought of that dark, dark little story when I saw it…

The Fugitive Chickens Are Finally Caught

Very happy to learn that my story “Dance of the Splintered Hands” has been accepted by Kaleidotrope and should be published later this year. This is one of my favourite stories, certainly one of my favourite titles, and I’m very glad it’s found a home.

“Dance” contains some fugitive chickens. Hopefully they will survive edits. But nope — they are not the focus of the story.

Diabolical Acceptance

No, the post title doesn’t refer to a vitriolic critique of the third instalment of Jeff VanderMeer’s excellent Southern Reach trilogy — my story “The Osteomancer’s Husband” has been accepted by Diabolical Plots for their inaugural year of publishing fiction. I am January. Or rather my story is. Yes, that’s next year. Here’s the ToC:

March: “Taste the Whip” by Andy Dudak
April: “Virtual Blues” by Lee Budar-Danoff
May: “In Memoriam” by Rachel Reddick
June: “The Princess in the Basement” by Hope Erica Schultz
July: “Not a Bird” by H.E. Roulo
August: “The Superhero Registry” by Adam Gaylord
September: “A Room for Lost Things” by Chloe N. Clark
October: “The Grave Can Wait” by Thomas Berubeg
November: “Giraffe Cyborg Cleans House!” by Matthew Sanborn Smith
December: “St. Roomba’s Gospel” by Rachael K. Jones
January: “The Osteomancer’s Husband” by Henry Szabranski
February: “May Dreams Shelter Us” by Kate O’Connor

Glad that my story was fished out of an anonymised slush pile by the folks behind the hugely popular and useful Submission Grinder. It’s a long wait until it appears, but the following image hints at the theme…

Miniature cement skeletons by Isaac Cordal

The Maze of His Infinities

My flash story “The Maze of His Infinities” has been accepted by Perihelion Science Fiction and is now available in their February edition.

This story arose from a combination of a dream that involved The Construct as described in the story (I woke shouting: “Infinity is not a number!”), vague recollection of this New Scientist article, and a story prompt based on the lyrics of Blue Öyster Cult’s “In The Presence of Another World”. It’s one of those stories I wonder if I should have fleshed out to a fuller length, say 3 or 4K, or perhaps even longer….but oh well. So many ideas. So little time.

NB: Also my flash story “Starfish and Apples”, originally published by Nine, is currently available for free all this week at QuarterReads. This is the first time it’s been available without being behind a paywall and you can check it out here.

Serge Salat’s “Beyond Infinity” art installation.

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The Ghost In The Scroll

Happy to announce my story “The Dragonmaster’s Ghost” is up at issue #4 of Fantasy Scroll Mag. What are you waiting for? Go read it now!

“Ghost” is a sequel to “The Clay Farima” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #128), and the third story to feature the world and characters first introduced in “The Edge of Magic” (included in Fantasy For Good, just out this month).

The canonical order of the three “Mevlish the Mighty” stories:

The Edge of Magic
The Clay Farima
The Dragonmaster’s Ghost

I’m still considering if the Near and Far Kingdoms or Mevlish will feature in more stories. I have no doubt they could. But I do wonder if they should.

Let me know what you think, either here or on the Fantasy Scroll Mag site.

That’s my final published story for 2014, which brings the total to five. Two fantasy stories, two science fiction, and one horror. Sounds about right.

“The Dragonmaster’s Ghost” (Mevlish #3) – Fantasy Scroll Mag, December 2014.
“The Edge of Magic” (Mevlish #1) – Fantasy For Good – Anthology, Nightscape Press, December 2014.
“Kella Vector” – Perihelion Science Fiction, November 2014.
“Within Without” – Lakeside Circus, August 2014 (also available as a podcast).
“Animus” – Horror D’Oeuvres, June 2014.

“Into The Vortex”, photo by Rick Holliday.

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The Edge of Magic

The first story featuring my wizardly character Mevlish the Mighty is published today in the all-round awesome charitable anthology Fantasy For Good. Still can’t quite believe my story is in the same volume as works by some of my childhood writing heros, authors who inspired my own writing. It’s a very strange feeling! And raising funds for such a good cause too, close to the hearts of many of the readers as well as the contributors. Huge kudos to Richard Salter, Jordan Ellinger, Trent Zelazny, Jennifer and Robert Wilson for bringing it all together.

In “The Edge of Magic” I knew I wanted to write a classic-style fantasy, but with a gritty edge, and a strong female lead. No way Kaffryn was going to let herself be pushed around by her troubled spouse Mevlish. The original idea developed from a swirl of questions: What would happen if two powerful mages disputed custody of their child? Who would win? And what if magic followed a law similar to Newton’s universal gravitation? Would there be a Roche limit equivalent, a region where the strength of magic would tear you apart? What would lie beyond that limit and would anyone ever be able to breach it? In “Edge” and its sequels I try to explore, at least in part, some of these questions.

I hope readers enjoy the story, just one amongst thirty varied and diverse tales in this great anthology. I hope it raises lots of money for Colon Cancer Alliance.

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