Theaker's Turns Fifty

I have been writing, now, for oodles of years, he says, being purposefully vague because he can't be bothered to stop and figure out how long he's been writing for and also possibly because if he did then it would make him sound kind of old.  The point is, I've been at this writing thing for a while now, I've been selling short fiction for almost as long as I've been writing, and in that time I've seen a lot of markets come and go.  I mean, a lot.

Goddammit, now I am sounding old.  Maybe not that many.  But more than just a few, okay?  Enough, at any rate, that I've gained some insight into just how hard it is to keep a magazine going, month after month, year after year.

For this reason, I have much admiration for Stephen Theaker for getting Theaker's Quarterly Fiction to its fiftieth issue.  That's no mean feat.  Then again, nor can it be easy making a magazine as reliably good as Theaker's tends to be; and I'd imagine it's hardly a piece of cake to imbue that magazine with its own distinct character, something Theaker's has almost an overabundance of.  But I think that what's impressed me most over the years is how every time I return to it, Theaker's has grown that bit more polished, to the point where this "most amateur of magazines" (Stephen's words, not mine!) has been looking awfully professional for a long while now.  It's a hell of an achievement to produce fifty issues; it's an even bigger one for every one of those issues to be a little better than the last. 

As such, I got quite excitable when I ran into Stephen at last year's FantasyCon and he mentioned that issue #50 was on its way; so much so that I started immediately trying to force a story on him. Eventually we settled on a piece called The House That Cordone Built.  It's old work, but it's a personal favourite that I was always sad not to have found a home for, and I gave it a hefty overhaul before I felt happy letting it out.  It owes a lot to my possible all-time favourite short science fiction story, Heinlein's "And He Built a Crooked House", a lot to M C Escher, and there's a bit of stuff in there about interregnum religious cults too, because I don't know why but there is.


Anyway, here's Mr Theaker himself with some talk about what's going on in the rest of his momentous, half-century issue:

"This three hundred and twenty-four page issue – our longest ever! – features fiction from many of our previous contributors, who have returned to help us celebrate fifty issues and ten years of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction: Antonella Coriander, David Tallerman, Douglas J. Ogurek, Howard Phillips, Howard Watts, John Greenwood, Matthew Amundsen, Michael Wyndham Thomas, Mitchell Edgeworth, Rafe McGregor and Walt Brunston!

Plus reviews from Douglas J. Ogurek, Howard Watts, Jacob Edwards and Stephen Theaker. Stephen and members of the reviews team answer your questions in “Ask Theaker’s”! Cover artist Howard Watts takes us through his process in “Artful Theakering”! And there’s a round-up of everything Stephen Theaker read last year but didn’t have time to review! Happy fiftieth to us!"

Yes indeed.  If that's piqued your interest then you can go here to find a free copy in your format of choice.

Last Testament and Devilry in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction

The latest issue of the ridiculously sublime and / or sublimely ridiculous Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction is now out to buy in print, or to read in an almost improbable number of digital formats.

Now only does it contain my story Devilry at the Hanging Tree Inn, which I blithered extensively about here when Mr Theaker first accepted it, it features a very special tale by my mate Rafe McGregor.  Why so special?  Because I suggested the premise to him, that’s why.

Not to imply that I gave Rafe all his ideas or anything.  In fact, it was all the result of a deal / challenge we made each other, what seems a very long time ago.  The plan - and I can’t remember who came up with it, or exactly why - was that we’d both write a story based on a rough idea from the other.  My suggestion was for a mix of sci-fi and Lovecraftian horror set around a bomb disposal robot in a near-future middle-eastern war.  Somehow, Rafe’s brain morphed the near future into the late nineteenth century, the middle-east to India and a bomb disposal robot into elephants.

One of these days I might have a go at writing my version.  It probably won't be as good as Rafe's excellent The Last Testament.

As a point of vague interest, Rafe's suggestion to me was to write a barghest story.  The result was The Hair of the Hound, a semi-sequel to Rindelstein's Monsters, as published in the Comet Press anthology The Death Panel and featuring the same protagonist.  I really like it and I wish someone would publish it.  Comic fantasy seems to be one of the toughest possible sells in today's short fiction market and I'm never entirely sure why.

Which brings us neatly back to Theaker's, and Devilry at the Hanging Tree Inn, which is definitely fantasy and hopefully at least a little bit comic.  And - did I already mention this? - it's free!

York-based Spookiness 2010

If all goes to plan and the trains don't get snowed off, I will be spending next Saturday in The Minster Inn in York, drinking beer and swapping ghost stories with a group of fellow writers.  This is how I've passed the last three first-Saturdays-of-December, and I hope I get to do the same for a fair few more, because it's become one of the high points of my year.  I mean, beer, ghost stories, more beer ... it's hard to go wrong with a recipe like that.

It also means that I've had to write a new ghost story - otherwise what would I read?  So far, the results have been pretty positive.  In 2007, I read The Untold Ghost, which ended up as the editor's pick in Pill Hill Press's Haunted anthology,and in 2008 I went with The Burning Room, which should be out in Bull Spec next month.  Last year's story, Knock, Knock, is still looking for a home, but it's a strong tale and I've faith that it'll make it eventually.  Meanwhile, this year I'll be debuting a tale I put together last month and literally just finished the first redraft of, called Prisoner of Peace.  I'm really pleased with it, I think it might even be the best of the bunch, and it'll be interesting to see if anyone else likes it as much as I do.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, I guess, depending on your perspective), I'll be trying to hold me own against some serious competition.  I'm not sure just who's going to be around for this one, but previous years have featured the likes of author / editor David Stuart Davies, the excellent Mark Valentine and my friend Mr Rafe McGregor, who introduced me to the whole thing, (and gets mentioned in this blog almost more than I do!)

So if you happen to be in the vicinity six days from now, around one in the afternoon, why not drop in and listen to a bunch of ghost stories?  Did I mention there's going to be beer?

Glass Houses out in Theaker's #34

Hot on the tail of last week's publication in Encounters, I've just discovered that I've another story out - and sticking with the theme of the month, it's another shortish, slightly mad sci-fi tale.  Only this one is called Glass Houses, and the magazine is the always delectable Theaker's Quarterly Fiction.

I've made no secret of my fondness for Mr Theaker's eccentric magazine baby, it's odd as all hell and a labour of love in the best possible way.  One of the things I really admire about it is that each issue is a noticable step forward from the last, and issue 34 is no exception. For once, I've actually managed to get my hands on a copy before blogging about it, and it's definitely the finest TQF I've seen. 

First up, the cover is by Howard Watts, another TQF regular whose art - despite a knee-jerk resitance I have to computer generated imagery - I've come to seriously like.  Isn't it neat how that building in the background looks just like the Statue of Liberty until you actually concentrate on it?  The details in Howard's work - like those banks of poor, exposed trees - hint at whole cultures, whole worlds even, just waiting beyond the edges of the image, which has always been one of my favourite qualities in genre art.

Inside, you have a whole ton of fiction - including what might possibly (but hopefully won't be) the last published story by my semi-retired author friend Rafe McGregor - a quite staggering number of reviews, and a fair amount of editorial content from the always entertaining Mr Theaker himself.  At 156 pages, it's a particularly colossal issue.  And, all else aside, (and not counting the milliseconds of life it takes to download a copy), it's completely and utterly free.

My First Fantasycon, Part 2: All the Stuff That Is About Trying to Sell My Novel

For Fantasycon this year, I decided to try something a little different.

In fact, I decided to try plenty of different things, I guess - actually attending being the main one - but for this post I'm just going to focus on one, since I covered the rest in the first part (Buying art!  Spending £20 on a book!  Staying in a hotel that had clearly been designed by Stalinists!)

For a variety of reasons, most of them to do with my day job, I ended up going almost directly from finishing my first novel, Giant Thief, to beginning my second, currently known as Funland.  That meant I didn't have much time or energy with which to submit or promote Giant Thief - and the more time passed, the more my enthusiasm waned.  With novel number two out of the way, I knew I had to turn that around, but even when I started tentatively submitting my heart wasn't entirely in the process.

I'd been telling myself for months that if I made it to Fantasycon, one of the justifications for the expense would be trying to sell Giant Thief.  I had a few ideas, but one in particular stood out, something Rafe McGregor had suggested.  Rafe's idea - perhaps influenced by the decidedly unconventional theories of self-promotion ninja J. A. Konrath - was to print up a promotional sampler via a print-on-demand service like Lulu, and to hand that out in place of the leaflets, bookmarks and such that authors tend traditionally to go in for.

Now, before Rafe accuses me of trying to pass the blame for my dumb ideas, it's worth mentioning at this point that I'd completely misremembered the conversation.  In fact, Rafe had been considering the samplers as a method to promote an existing novel, not as an alternative to the traditional submissions process. This, of course, makes far more sense than my version, which possesses very little logic at all.  Unfortunately, by the time Rafe reminded me of this, and pointed out what a potentially terrible idea it was, I'd already decided to go ahead.  I figured that the risk - of alienating publishers by appearing to buck the traditional submissions process - was worth the potential gains.  It wasn't that it seemed like a particularly great idea any more, or that I thought for a second it might lead to a sale.  But thinking about my samplers had done far more to rekindle my passion for Giant Thief than cobbling together synopses and sending out sample chapters had.  For the first time in months, I felt excited about it, and could remember why it had consumed me for the better part of two years.


So, at great expense, and with much screaming and throwing of furniture at Lulu's bewilderingly obtuse cover-designing software, I put my samplers together.  I compiled three chapters, my bio, and a short story - Imaginary Prisons, as published in issue #29 of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction - the latter partly because I was still hanging onto my misremembered version of Rafe's theory, and more rationally, because I thought I might conceivably peak the interest of anthology-only publishers.

The end results, pictured left, weren't exactly mind-blowing, and were a million miles away from what I had in mind, but at least they looked half decent.  I was particularly lucky to discover that Francisco Goya had been decent enough to illustrate an image from my first chapter in his 1818 painting "The Giant".  Unfortunately, neither of us banked on Lulu's deciding to reproduce it approximately thirty-seven shades darker than it had originally appeared, but it still looked just about okay.  I was armed and ready.

Now, it's worth pointing out at this point that I'm not the most naturally gregarious of people, and even if I was, I doubt that attending a conference on my own and then harassing complete strangers with samples of my novel would have been an entirely pleasant or relaxing process.  Despite encouragement and interest from the likes of Alisdair Stuart, Alison Littlewood and Geoff Nelder, the Saturday proved less than productive, and most of the samples I got rid of ended up with friends and acquaintances.  By five o'clock, I was a little despondent, not to say exhausted, and I'd barely shifted one in three of my Giant Thief booklets.

Sunday, however, went a little better.   Perhaps I was still drunk from the previous night - it's physiologically unlikely that I could have sobered up much from four hours sleep - and it definitely helped that the seller's room was much quieter.  Maybe more importantly, I was a little clearer on what I wanted to do ... that being, get rid of samplers, say 'hi' to complete strangers and learn a little about the publishing scene.  With my expectations realigned, I found that I was actually enjoying myself.  The highpoint of the whole experiment came from Nicky Crowther of P S Publishing, who was kind enough to actually be impressed, and to point out that my pamphlets would be much easier to read in bed than normal submissions.

So would I recommend this approach to other writers?  Not hardly.  It was expensive, time consuming, stressful and probably won't be in the least productive -certainly no one's expressed any interest yet, despite me including my contact details not once but twice!  But it did open my eyes to a lot of things that as a writer I can and perhaps have to be doing.  I can see now that it's vital to take the opportunity to talk to publishers - too often the only communication between our two camps is submissions and rejection letters, which gives each side a false impression of the other.  It's no bad thing to look at my work with fresh eyes, and failing that, in a fresh form.  I don't think anyone was grossly offended by my unusual take on submitting, so I guess it's okay to push the envelope a little.

Anyway, thanks for everyone at Fantasycon who encouraged and took interest in my mad endeavour, and especial thanks to the publishers who accepted my samplers.  It would have been a much, much less fun weekend without you.

Now to think of a crazy scheme that actually succeeds in getting Giant Thief published...

The Weird and Strange Return of Rafe McGregor

Rafe McGregor, excellent crime / horror writer, author of the great and depressingly hard-to-find The Architect of Murder, has just rereleased paperback / electronic versions of two of his short story collections via Lulu.

Now it's no secret that I'm friends with Rafe and thus completely biased when it comes to his work.  But in my defence I'd point out that, since I'm far too honest for my own good, I only ever manage to stay friends with writers whose work I really like, and that's certainly always been true of Rafe.  For that reason, I feel totally justified in pimping these collections - and also because I've read (and pulled apart earlier drafts of) all of the stories therein and I know that they range from good to excellent.  For the record, my personal preference would lean slightly towards Six Strange Cases, which contains three of my all-time favourite Rafe McGregor tales, but if you have any affection for the authors Rafe namechecks below then you won't go far wrong with either.

Sherlock Holmes makes an unexpected intervention in a murder case.  A curious woman investigates the dark secrets harboured within the ancient chapel of a ruined castle.  An antique ivory hunting horn will spell fame and fortune for Professor Goodspeed.  An age-old duel ends in Ruritania.  An eldritch voice draws a lonely man ever closer to the drowned town of Lod...


Eight short tales, each directly inspired by a master of the mysterious or supernatural - Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, Anthony Hope, or M.R. James - which will send chills down your spine...

http://stores.lulu.com/weirdbook

Private investigator Titus Farrow is doomed by an encounter with the Chambers Scroll.  Roderick Langham solves the mystery of the ‘Demeter’ from his armchair by the sea.  A failed author goes in search of the barghest for inspiration.  A missing person case turns even nastier than blackmail.  Sweeney Todd meets his match.  These six stories make a gripping journey through ‘The King in Yellow’, ‘Dracula’, ‘Sweeney Todd’, and the noir fiction of the pulp era.


http://stores.lulu.com/weirdbook

Everything Must Go?

Something me and my writer mate Rafe McGregor often used to debate was the question of whether a writer should ever give their work away for free.  At the time, and perhaps partly due to a bad early experience, I was very much against it: even an imperfect story still amounts to hours, perhaps tens of hours work, and I didn't see how an editor could expect to receive the fruit of all that labour for nothing.  Rafe was more philosophical about the whole thing.  It can often be a huge slog getting a story hooked up with a paying market, and then the amount in question is unlikely to be life-changing.  Why sit on a story for yet more months, or attempt yet another polish, when said story could be out there being read?

We debated it back and forth and, buoyed by a few good sales, I decided on a hard-line stance - I'd sell work for semi-pro rates, (that is, at least a cent a word), or not at all.  Writing, like any business, requires a certain amount of financial investment - stamps, postage, paper and ink, and additional contributor copies don't come free - and even with those good sales, I was barely making a profit.  So why should publishers get away with the argument that they couldn't pay me because they wouldn't be able to break even if they did?  Nope, editors could pay or they could not publish my work.

Editors chose the latter.  There followed the worst dry spell I've had for sales since the day I started submitting.  And as the months edged by, inevitably, I began to question my position.  Might it not be better to get something, anything out, then to go the rest of my life without ever seeing my name in print again?

Needless to say (since it's obvious from some of the things I've had out recently) I changed my mind.  I realised that payment can come in more forms than just the financial, especially when the difference is only one of a few dollars.  I'm not, after all, writing to get rich at this stage.  If I was I'd be an idiot.  I'm writing to build a career, to train myself to be a better writer, to understand the industry, to bring myself to the attention of editors, and if I can possibly make a little pocket change on the back of that then that's great.  But I want to get my work read.  I don't want to kill a story that I'm sure people will enjoy because it's out of line with current fashions.  I want to enjoy what I'm doing, and part of that enjoyment comes from having work published. 

Moving into 2010, I suspect another rethink is on the way.  I'm pleased with how the Kings of the Realm anthology turned out, for example, but having to buy my own contributor copy from the US left such a dint in my wallet that I'll think seriously before submitting to a non-paying antho again.  Also, I've shifted the vast majority of my back catalogue over the last few months, and am writing less and less short stories as my focus shifts more to novels. 

So, for the record, here are a few alternate forms of payment I've accepted or would have considered over the last few months:

- Having someone podcast my story. 
- Having someone illustrate my story, particularly when that story's a comic script.
- Having my story appear in a well put together magazine or collection full of work by writers whose work I enjoy.
- Having my story edited by someone who really knows what they're doing.
- Having my story reprinted so it can find more readers.

All of these things can, and have been, as or more satisfying than cold hard cash.  And here seems as good a place as any to mention Stephen Theaker, who's published my stories in both Theaker's Quarterly Fiction and the British Fantasy Society's Dark Horizons, who's written convincingly on this very subject, and who I suspect I'll keep submitting to simply because he's a pleasure to work with and I always enjoy the magazines he puts out. 

Finally, a note as to what I'd strictly avoid. I've come to think that there's very little to be gained from any magazine that takes my work and sticks it on their website without paying me.  There are some great paying webzines out there, and I've been fortunate enough to work with some of the better ones, but I find it hard to believe that readers will flock away from venues like Flash Fiction Online and Chiaroscuro to ones where the editors have so little faith in the work they're presenting that they refuse to pay even token amounts for it.  The same goes for non-paying electronic anthologies.  I don't doubt that many of the people behind these have the best of intentions, or that they genuinely mean it when they promise to bring writers exposure, but experience has led me to think that those promises are nevertheless pretty hollow. 

Anyway, if anyone has further thoughts on this question, or an approach that radically differs from mine, then I'd be interested to hear about it...

Friendly out in Theakers # 31

A few snippets of news as the year grinds to a close. First up, the new issue of the ever-wondrous Theaker's Quarterly Fiction is available for free download or purchase from Lulu. Not only does it contain my story Friendly - a wildly batshit tale of interplanetary relations and disturbing alien sportsmanship - but one can also find a tale by Alison J. Littlewood, going by the name of Day of the Bromeliads. I was introduced to Alison through the oft-mentioned-here Mr Rafe McGregor, and have since had the pleasure of catching up on a lot of her previous work - which is uniformerly great and well worth tracking down, perhaps via her website. I can't say much else about the issue, since I'm waiting for my dead tree copies to arrive from Lulu, but the cover is tremendous and TQF is never ever less than entertaining.

Not really news as such, but I finished my copy of The Death Panel, as published by Comet Press and containing my Rindelstein's Monsters, and by heck it's a good collection. Of thirteen stories, five knocked my socks off, and of the rest only one failed to float my boat, (not my own, I hasten to add). In fact, hey, I'm just going to come out and say it: David James Keaton's Nine Cops Killed for a Goldfish Cracker is the best short story I've read in ages, Keaton's the next damn Charlie Huston, and - if you have the faintest liking for hard-boiled crime or horror - you'll be screwing yourself if you don't pick this one up.

Now, since I'd like to actually get in a little writing while I'm here, the other news'll have to wait a day or two...

Rindelstein Committed

Rafe McGregor, friend and persistently excellent crime writer, says that Rindelstein's Monsters is my best story. He should probably know, having read just about everything I've written (a staggering task for anybody), assisted in more than a few rewrites, and generally helped to keep this show on the road for the last three years or so.

I would certainly place it in my top five, and I have to admit I'm very proud of it. I've always been determined that, however everything else fell out, Rindelstein's would make it to a good home - one where it's oddities (and it has a lot!) would be appreciated as well as its virtues.

Well, finger's crossed, Comet Press is that home. Rindelstein's Monsters, my possibly-best-yet story, will be appearing in their forthcoming horror /crime anthology, which - judging by their output and reception so far - should be nothing short of awesome. If you're going to buy one anthology with a David Tallerman story in this year, make it this one. Or failing that, one of the others. Or donate the money to a kitten sanctuary. Or buy yourself a new T-shirt, maybe one with a funny slogan or something. Hey, it's your life.

Theaker's Quarterly Fiction # 29

As of the start of last week, Theaker's Quarterly Fiction # 29 is now out to buy in print from Lulu, or to download for that best of all prices, absolutely nothing.

Somewhere towards the middle is my short fantasy story Imaginary Prisons. One of my great bugbears with fantasy (and increasingly, with bad sci-fi too) is the use of destiny and prophecy to paper over the cracks of otherwise horribly implausible stories. Imaginary Prisons is me poking a bit of fun at that whole idea, and asking some of the questions that have always bothered me about it. Like, okay, things are pretty straightforward if you've only got one prophecy to follow - but what happens if there are two, and they don't match up? Or three? Or maybe half a dozen? And what if the dark lord decides to come up with a prophecy of his own, where the hero gets it in the neck before he even sets a foot out the door?

Anyway, this is a nice publication for me for a couple of other reasons. This is my second time working with editor Stephen Theaker, who accepted my story The Tyranny of Thangrind the Cruel for the British Fantasy Society's magazine Dark Horizons last year. It's also my first appearance alongside John Hall, who I've been fortunate enough to meet on a couple of occasions, and my second time beside friend and crime novelist extraordinaire Rafe McGregor.
In short, it's sort of the magazine equivalent of a night in the pub with my mates!

The Architect of Murder

I recently finished Rafe McGregor's first novel The Architect of Murder, and while the idea of reviewing something written by a friend and which I even had a small hand in editing is clearly ridiculous, I'm going to have a go anyway. I tried hard to read and enjoy it purely on its own merits, and as it turned out that was easy to do.

Because I'm lazy, here's the plot summary from the sleeve:

Major Alec Marshall VC, newly back in London, is enlisted to make inquiries into the will of the late Cecil John Rhodes, the wealthiest man in the British Empire. That same night one of the witnesses to the will, Eric Lowenstein, is found beaten to death in a seedy boarding house, where he was lodging under a false name. As London prepares for King Edward VII's coronation, Marshall discovers that Lowenstein harboured a deadly secret concerning not only the vast fortune Rhodes amassed, but the very future of the Empire. Marshall's investigation takes him into the dark heart of a flawed genius, and sets him on a personal journey that will change his life forever.

What's most striking about Architect, as first novels go, is its ambition. What starts as a straighforward-seeming murder mystery spirals off into a political thriller that takes in a huge cast of characters and grand and complex events, many of each culled from the history of the time. That complexity is there on just about every level. My absolute favourite thing about Architect is the way Rafe handles Marshall's post-war trauma; it's a sub-current so subtle it's easy to miss, and yet once you notice it, it colours every moment. Indeed, Marshall is a delightful character full-stop, all surface calm and damaged interior, a fish out of water grown sick of war but still more than capable of bloodshed.

Its complexity is both Architect's great triumph and - on occasions - it's one real weakness. There's a point around the half way mark where I suspect most readers will get a little lost amidst a barrage of character names, conspiracies and misdirection. For about a chapter it looks as if it all might spin out of control. Instead, Rafe shifts gears, and what was threatening to become a worthy tale of Victorian realpolitik turns into a cracking thriller, complete with a couple of tremendous action sequences. Perhaps the change of direction will befuddle some, but me, I loved it, and found it both natural and in keeping with its pent-up hero.

Although John Buchan is perhaps the obvious point of reference, Architect - with its genteel surface, abrupt and shocking violence, and conflicted gentleman hero - reminded me most of the work of Geoffrey Rogue Male Household. Coming from me, a huge Household fan, that's a heck of a compliment, but one that's well deserved. Architect exceeded all my expections, and I can't imagine anyone not taking something away from it.

The same can't be said for Rafe's recently podcast short story Blue Mail, here at CrimeWAV; it's a personal favourite - brutal, nasty and black as all hell - but I guess there are people who might not consider those things virtues. If you're over 18 and not afraid to hear about very bad people doing very bad things to each other then go give it a listen, you won't regret it.

Five Star Goodness

I just came back from a weekend in suprisingly sunny Cambridge to much news, both good and bad.

Let's get the bad out of the way first ... it came in the form of a couple of rejections (one, interestingly, accusing me of plagiarism) and the news that The Willows magazine is now officially defunct. I guess that in epitaph I can admit I had mixed feelings about The Willows; still, it was a unique home for Weird Tale pastiche, it published more of my work than any other market, and on the whole I was pretty fond of it. Perhaps more to the point, from a selfish angle, my turn-of-last-century ghost story The Burning Room is now without a home. One of my deep dreads since I started writing to publish was that a market would accept my work and then die a death; now it's happened.

Hey ho.

(If anyone wants to pay me money for a cracking little ghost story then, hey, leave a comment.)

Right! Good news!

Rafe McGregor saw fit to answer my answer my recent challenge to write a twitter [140 character] story; not only that, but I've read the results, and they're marvelous; not only that, but twitterzine Nanoism have accepted it for imminent publication.

Buoyed by this success, I'm extending my challenge to the entire population of the Earth - or at least those that stumble on this blog. I have an ulterior motive here, I have to admit; my groovy map thingie tells me people are passing by, but no-one's commenting. I know that by its very nature this blog is about writing in a vacuum*, but come on! So, to anyone who reads this, comment with a story of less than 140 characters - if you dare! Or, better still, write it and get it published. Brevity is the soul of wit, right? So, hey, maybe it's the soul of great fiction too.

Lastly and bestly ... a while back Jake Freivald published my story Strive to be Happy in his reliably wonderful webzine Flash Fiction Online. Before, during and since, Jake's been immensely supportive of what's unarguably a difficult little story, but this is something else.  It's a touch baffling and immensely touching to see something I wrote get praised to such a degree.  Thanks, not for the first time, to Jake, and to David Erlewine for such a thoughtful review.

Really lastly, I stumbled across this quote from Robert Holdstock, of Mythago Wood fame, in the British Fantasy Society's magazine Dark Horizons, a response to the question of whether the short fiction market is shrinking, and was touched by the sheer damn truth of it:

"Writers are not in free fall. They float above the clouds and hope, as always, to be a part of the rain where the rain is welcomed."



* Okay, technically speaking the moon has an atmosphere, albeit a pretty thin one. But none of us are going to be taking the wife and kids for a picnic there any time soon, so I'll let that one stand.

Nanoism

First up, my first published twitter tale is the inaugural story at twitterzine nanoism.

I'm developing a strange fondness for supershort fiction that I can't quite explain. I was recently reminded of Hemingway's wonderful six-worder:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

If you like that there's more here - including miniature masterpieces from writers like Alan Moore, Bruce Sterling, Stephen Baxter and Neil Gaiman - at Wired. I have a sneaking suspicion that anyone could write well given enough time and enough words. Whatever the merits of my own word-limited efforts, I think it's good practise sometimes to put these (perhaps slightly absurd) constraints on yourself. I recently hacked a nearly 2000-word story down to under 1000 and found it a sobering but rewarding experience.

I have challenged Rafe McGregor to write a twitter story. He hasn't responded yet. Perhaps a more public challenge will draw him out...?

Finally, I've put a little time into sorting this blog out, and hopefully all the links are now working. It's still looking a little sparse, what with lack of visitors and such, but hopefully time will smooth out those rough edges. Either way, this post has taken me all of about five minutes, compared with the hour or so it would have the old way, so I think the experiment has been validated.

From Frustrating Website to Frustrating Blog...

Today is the dawn of a new era - and like all dawns of new eras, it's been aggravating, distressing and generally disastrous.

On the advice of my pal Rafe McGregor, I've transferred the "news" part of my website here to Blogger. That's why all the previous posts have a timestamp of 12:00. I don't have a compulsion to post at noon or anything, it just seemed easier than trying to remember what time I added news articles a year and a half ago. Anyway, the whole decision was motivated partly by the fact that I've never been very happy with my website and because it's always been an absolute nightmare to post information there.

Thus, I've spent three hours today transferring information from website to blog. It's been mostly successful, except that for some reason Blogger has decided to randomly remove the hyperlinks I spent so long putting in. Rest assured, I'll fix this and all the other faults I've no doubt introduced into my carefully ordered web presence over the next month, and I'm sure in the long term it will all be for the best. Certainly I hope to comment a lot more, and perhaps do more than just pimp my sales and publications (although that will still be the main purpose!).