One of my regrets this year is that I've been so busy with novels and other big projects that not have I not been able to write any new short stories, I haven't even had time to send out the ones I've already written. In fact, until recently, the closest I've come is editing some of the backlog I've been stockpiling over the last four years.
That's changed a bit in the last couple of months, with the first draft of Prince Thief done and dusted, and the extra hard work of beginning to tout some twenty stories began to pay off last week, when John Joseph Adams accepted my The Sign in the Moonlight for his new horror webzine Nightmare. Considering that my first sale to John, Stockholm Syndrome, appeared in the World Fantasy Award nominated anthology The Living Dead, and my second was Jenny's Sick, published in Lightspeed during its multi-Hugo nominated first year, I've got to admit I have some hopes and expectations for this one.
As for The Sign in the Moonlight itself, I'm sure I'll talk about it plenty when it comes out. For the moment, suffice to say that it was one of the most satisfying but also bizarre writing experiences I've ever had. Acting completely out of character, I did a ton of research - into Alesteir Crowley, rock climbing, Tibet and the mountain of Kanchenjunga, amongst other things - and the stuff I came up with was almost too perfect for the tale I wanted to tell ... so much so that I got quite spooked before I was done. Then, once it was finished, I weirded myself out even more when I discovered that the final word count was 5555; an odd coincidence given how significantly and often the number five occurs throughout the story.
(Go on, just guess how many points that sign in the title has!)
That's changed a bit in the last couple of months, with the first draft of Prince Thief done and dusted, and the extra hard work of beginning to tout some twenty stories began to pay off last week, when John Joseph Adams accepted my The Sign in the Moonlight for his new horror webzine Nightmare. Considering that my first sale to John, Stockholm Syndrome, appeared in the World Fantasy Award nominated anthology The Living Dead, and my second was Jenny's Sick, published in Lightspeed during its multi-Hugo nominated first year, I've got to admit I have some hopes and expectations for this one.
As for The Sign in the Moonlight itself, I'm sure I'll talk about it plenty when it comes out. For the moment, suffice to say that it was one of the most satisfying but also bizarre writing experiences I've ever had. Acting completely out of character, I did a ton of research - into Alesteir Crowley, rock climbing, Tibet and the mountain of Kanchenjunga, amongst other things - and the stuff I came up with was almost too perfect for the tale I wanted to tell ... so much so that I got quite spooked before I was done. Then, once it was finished, I weirded myself out even more when I discovered that the final word count was 5555; an odd coincidence given how significantly and often the number five occurs throughout the story.
(Go on, just guess how many points that sign in the title has!)
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