The Sign in the Moonlight: The Sign in the Moonlight & My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy Aged 7

Finally, the title story!  Though - a small confession - it wasn't always intended to be.  That honour was originally meant to go to The War of the Rats, as the longest and newest work.  But since our artist Duncan Kay, who had by this point produced interior illustrations for every story in the collection, couldn't get the picture for that particular tale to a point he felt was cover-worthy, we all eventually agreed to go instead with one he'd already produced an absolutely stunning image for.  It turned out to be one of those decisions that felt right as soon as it had been made; now it's almost impossible to imagine how anything else could have gone on the front of this book.

In fact, I'll go further: I don't know that there's a tale in the collection that sums up its spirit quite as perfectly as The Sign in the Moonlight - originally published, by the way, a couple of years back in Nightmare Magazine.  It's absolutely a weird tale, one that might even have creeped out Lovecraft himself, what with his notorious phobia of the cold.  It follows a party of mountaineers that is itself hot on the heels of an expedition which included notorious British occultist Aleister Crowley - a real and documented historical event, by the way - and finds more than it bargained for upon the slopes of Mount Kanchenjunga.  I've said this before, but it was almost creepy how this story came together, and how much my research threw up real life details that fit perfectly, not only with the narrative I was constructing but with each other.

By comparison, My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy Aged 7 is a wee slip of a thing, written with little forethought in one mad splurge: a joke, really, though one that's either rather sad or kind of cruel, depending on how you decide to look at it.  I got one of my nicest ever reviews for this story, which acknowledged just how difficult it is for a grown man to write in the style of a seven year old girl.  Yet the truth is, it wasn't that difficult at all.  I don't often talk about characters finding their own voices and all that nonsense, but Daisy certainly did, and she went on to more or less write her own story, which required next to no editing and which I'm still entirely happy with nigh on a decade later.  I guess it's just a shame that she couldn't have come up with a happier ending for herself!

Here's an extract from The Sign in the Moonlight:

You will have heard, no doubt, of the Bergenssen expedition—if only from the manner of its loss. For a short while, that tragedy was deemed significant and remarkable enough to adorn the covers of every major newspaper in the civilised world.

At the time, I was in no position to follow such matters. However, in subsequent months I’ve tracked down many journals from that period. As I write, I can look up at the wall to see a cover of the New York Times I’ve pinned there, dated nineteenth of May 1908, bearing the headline, “Horror in the Himalayas: Bergenssen five reported lost in avalanche.”

In a sense, I suppose, it’s a spirit of morbidity that draws me back to those days upon the mountain and their awful finale, which I failed to witness only by the purest chance. Equally, there’s a macabre humour in the thought that to almost all the world I am dead, my body shattered and frozen in the depths of some crevasse. But what draws me most, I think, is the memory of what I saw after I left Bergenssen and the others—that knowledge which is mine uniquely. It’s without disrespect to the Times that I say they know nothing, nothing whatsoever, of the horror of Mount Kangchenjunga. Likely, there is no one else alive who does.

Fishfinger in the Abyss

I see no shame in admitting that I only submitted to 01 Publishing's Whispers From the Abyss anthology because I loved the hell out of Josh Finney's cover art.  I mean, look at it!  It's hard to mess up painting Cthulhu at the best of times, but sticking him in a trench coat is genius.  In fact, Cthulhu in a trench coat may actually be my new definition of that word.  But then there's the deeply weird and creepy way that his head and tentacles remind me of a first world war gas mask, which makes no sense on any remotely logical level but absolutely perfect sense on a twitchy, nightmarish, "Jesus, Cthulhu's head looks like a freaking world war one gas mask!" level.  And are those shadows in the bottom right kinda forming into monster shapes, or have I just been staring at this thing too long?

Point being, I like that cover a whole lot.

And that's really all I have to say, except that Whispers From the Abyss is now out to buy on Kindle for a wholly reasonable amount, and that it has my story My Friend Fishfinger, by Daisy Aged 7 in it, which I'm glad to see getting another airing because it's both the most adorable and the most twisted thing I've written, which is no mean feat when you stop to think about it, and oh hey, there's an introduction by Alasdair Stuart, who I go way back with, and who says some nice things about my horrid little tale and some particularly intelligent things about horror in general (albeit lifted a little from Bill Friedkin), and it's probably worth mentioning as well that I'm about half way through Whispers already and that there are a few really excellent stories contained therein. 

But mostly ... hey, look, it's Cthulhu in a damn trenchcoat, with a freaky gas mask head!

Sign in the Moonlight Out, and Other Short Story News

Considering that I'm working hell for leather (whatever the hell hell for leather means) on getting Prince Thief wrapped for its end of March deadline and Endangered Weapon B ready for July, I'm a bit surprised by how much short story stuff I seem to have going on right now.

Because even freaky ghoul kids need hobbies.

For a start, there's The Sign in the Moonlight just up at Nightmare magazine; you can read or listen to it for free here, and personally I'd go for the audio version, since in John Rubinstein they seem to have actually found an early twentieth century mountaineer to narrate this weird tale of  Tibetan adventuring amongst the Edwardian rich.  Or you can buy the full issue here for a measly $2.99, roughly the price of three quarters of a bagel in Jimmy's New York Bagelorama, and also get stories by Jeff VanderMeer, Molly Tanzer and Livia Llewellyn, along with plenty of non-fiction goodies.  Speaking of which, there's also an interview with me regarding Sign here.

Cthulhu PI.

On top of that, I've had a couple of new sales.  My main reason for submitting to new outfit 01 Publishing's inaugural anthology Whispers From the Abyss was that gorgeous cover on the right.  But having dug a little further, I think these guys are going to be seriously worth watching; they're putting out some stunning-looking books.  Anyway, my blackly comic take on Lovercraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth, ridiculously titled My Friend Fishfinger, by Daisy Aged 7 - and once, long ago, my first story to appear in print, back in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #30 - should be appearing behind that lovely bit of artwork sometime soon.

Last, there's First Date, another older tale and beyond doubt the kinkiest thing I've written, so much so that I was starting to think that no publisher was ever going to embrace it's take on a near future where digital smoke and mirrors can make any sexual fantasy come to life.  So special extra thank you's to editor D F McCourt at AE - The Canadian Science Fiction Review for giving it a chance; I can't wait to see what people make of this one!

Ten Things the Small Press Can Do As Well (Or Better) Than the Professional Press, Part 9: Personality

Back in the day, before all the madness of a three book novel deal came along, one of my chief pleasures as a writer was getting to muck around, trying odd new things and taking risks, safe in the knowledge that the worst that could happen would be that I'd end up with an unpublishable short story - or that I'd inadvertently sell something that by all rights was too silly to see the light of day.*  There are many sucky aspects to being an amateur writer, but that's not to say it doesn't have its virtues too, and surely one of those is that you can treat storytelling as a playground rather than a workplace.  Want to write a second person romance, or a fairy tale where the prince is a weregoat and the princess is a serial killer?  Hey, why not?  Possibly no one but your mum will ever read it, but at least you might pick up some tricks for the next one, and - if you happen to really take some risks or go all out on the crazy - you might even end up with something special.

My impression is that all of that holds true for the small press too, at least in most cases.  Obviously as a small press editor who hopes one day to be a professional editor, you might not want to make too many embarrassing mistakes or take too many unnecessary risks.  But it seems to me that those editors, the ones who are primarily interested in working their way up to bigger things, are in the minority; the majority of small press editors want to be exactly that, and to enjoy the freedoms that it entails.

Only, what exactly does that freedom entail?

It strikes me that the least interesting thing a small press market can be is a cut price version of a professional market.  Without naming names, I can think of a handful of webzines that are a lot like, say, Strange Horizons, only with lower production standards, less quality control and reliably weaker fiction.  That's not to say those markets are worthless; at the very least they offer a ground for learning writers on their way up.  But without the obligations of needing to reach a large readership, surely there are more exciting things to do than what someone else is always going to do better?

Point being, one of the values the small press is uniquely well placed to deliver is character.  In fact, character is high on the list of things a good small press market can't afford to be without.  I've touched on this in other posts, but what I'm really talking about this time around is stuff like developing a distinctive editorial voice, looking for themes that no one else is touching, trying to keep authors whose work you like coming back and representing all those choices with a distinctive visual tone - trying, in short, to make something that has a bit of your unique identity in it and so is unlike anything else out there.

It's a hard thing to get right, just as figuring out how much of your personality should make it into writing or blogging or any other kind of interaction takes time.  It's easy to slip into creating an ego product; in both writing and editing, it's vital to love what you do, but equally important to keep a small part of your mind concentrated on the question of whether other people will be able to love it too.  Still, like I said, it's completely necessary.  If you need proof, just keep an eye on a site like Duotrope's Digest, see how many cookie-cutter webzines are announced, with similar names, similar designs, asking for similar stories - and see how many of them are still around in six months' time.

A few words of caution, though.  Like anything, you can take this stuff too far.  It's always struck me as unfair, for example, when editors come up with themes so wilfully obscure that writers are obliged to write stories that can't possibly be sold elsewhere.  It might seem like a great idea to put together an anthology of Lovecraftian horror featuring anthropomorphised soft toys, and maybe it is - in fact, now that I think about it, that would be the best anthology ever - but it you receive a hundred submissions and accept only twenty, that's eighty authors who've put time and energy into work that stands no chance of seeing the light of day.  Too many small press editors don't seem to even consider things like that, but routinely wasting people's time is hardly a great way to make friends.  Similarly, there's a fine line between exploring interesting niches and being needlessly obscure, and the latter doesn't exactly tend to drag in readers.

Which, I suppose, is only to make the obvious point that having a distinctive editorial character means having a good - or at least interesting and entertaining - editorial character.  Let's just take rule eleven, "not acting like a jerk," as read, okay?

Next week: Part 10!  No one ever believed it would happen!  Or much cared!  But it will ... oh yes, it will...



* Which, in fairness, did happen at least once.  I'm thinking here of the weasel-filled barrel of crazy that was My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy Aged 7, as published by those adorable loons at Andromeda Spaceways.

Flight Booked With Andromeda Spaceways for The Painted Planet

Man, I'm worn out with coming up with crap names for these blog posts! I think we're up to about Wednesday, by the way, but the news keeps coming in and I can only post so fast.

Note to universe: that wasn't me complaining.

The gloriously titled Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, who published my almost as gloriously titled My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy Age 7 back in August 2007 - and indeed, provided me with both my first print and semi-pro sales - have clasped another one of my stories to their bosom. This one's called The Painted City, and if it's not quite as demented as My Friend Fishfinger was, it's a close thing. It's another one of my longer tales, that I've been struggling to find a good home for, and I'm immensely glad to see it headed ASIM's way. Also, unlike a few of my recent sales, it should actually be out pretty soon, which means December this year. Unless we all plunge into a black hole or something...