I've had an up-and-down couple of weeks in mental health terms, which hasn't been much fun, but I've managed to keep writing throughout, although at times it's been a case of grinding it out. Nonetheless, stuff has got done, and stuff has happened.
The last novel I completed in first draft, Tatterskin, was finished on 24th November. Since then I've been trying to complete the next novel. I've started two and ended up having to lay both aside as I ran into blocks and problems. Hopefully I'll be able to go back to them, figure out where I was going wrong and pick up the thread again at some point in the future.
Meanwhile, though, the new book is coming along. I have no idea what it's about, or if it's any good, but I'm doing my best not to think about that and just write the next right thing in the story. I recently broke the hundred-page mark, which always feels like a milestone. But I've got that far before with at least one of the projects I've laid aside by now, so I'm trying not to be overconfident. So, we'll see.
I'm taking a break from the novel in any case, for a couple of weeks, as there a couple of short stories I want to get written. With any luck, it'll still be there when I get back.
Other news: well, I'm delighted to say that my story 'Redwater' has been accepted for The Alchemy Press Book Of Horrors 3: A Miscellany Of Monsters. More information on this anthology when I have it.
Also, I was delighted to receive my contributor's copy of The Best Horror Of The Year #12, which includes my story 'Below' from Terror Tales of North West England. Many thanks to Ellen Datlow, and to Jason Katzman at Skyhorse Publishing. It's got stories from amazing writers like Catriona Ward, Joe Lansdale, Laura 'Bricklauncher' Mauro and Gemma Files (with 'The Puppet Motel', which also appears in her storming collection In That Endlessness, Our End.) Along eith many more. I've only savoured a couple of the stories so far, but I'm looking forward to reading the rest.
Finally, I'm glad to finially be able to announce my involvement in Out Of The Darkness, edited by the most excellent Dan Coxon and published by Unsung Stories. In one way or another, all the stories in the anthology tackle themes of mental health, and are written by authors with experience of those issues. One additional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a massive spike in mental health problems: all author fees and royalties will be donated to Together For Mental Wellbeing.
I've never made any secret of my own experiences with anxiety and depression, so I was proud to be asked to contribute. My story 'The Hungry Dark' will appear alongside contributions by authors including Laura Mauro, Nicholas Royle, Tim Major, Aliya Whiteley and many more.
The anthology has already met its initial Kickstarter goals, but it's now chasing new targets, hoping to add more authors to the anthology. If you'd like to support Out Of The Darkness, you can still contribute to the Kickstarter here.
You can read more here, at Ginger Nuts Of Horror, where Dan talks about the background to the anthology.
Sorry, Dave - I only had room for one author picture!
A Different Kind Of Light is released by Black Shuck Books on February 25th, and to celebrate and signal boost it I'm throwing a Facebook Launch Party. There'll be live readings from me and from my Special Guests Dave Jeffery and LauraMauro (aka Bricklauncher,) book giveaways and a Q&A. Bring your own booze and order your own food from Just Eat. What else is there to do of an evening these days anyway? 😃
A new review of And Cannot Come Again has surfaced at SFRevu, describing it as: 'An excellent collection that will keep you entertained and disturbed at the same time.' Many thanks to Mario Guslandi for the kind words. (Props too to my Horrific Tales stablemate Thana Niveau, whose The House Of Frozen Screams also got a shout-out this week over at The Eloquent Page.)
I have some new acceptances, which is great, BUT I CAN'T TALK ABOUT THEM YET because contracts have to be signed, etc. Bah. So for now they are Super Sekrit, but details will be announced before much longer.
Anyway, that's all for now. And consider yourself invited to my Facebook party!
I'm still off work, as I have been all year, trying to find a way back through the anxiety maze. It's bloody draining; that's the most frustrating thing about it. One day you can schedule a series of tasks and stick to them, and think you're progressing - the next it all falls apart, with panic attacks, random general anxiety or general debilitating knackeredness kicking in. I do not recommend it, at all.
Most of last year was spent completing the final draft of one huge novel I've been revising on and off for the better part of a decade; my then agent enthused about it, but then took a job as a commissioning editor. Still, the Huge Novel was ready to be sent out in the hope of securing new representation, so towards the end of last year, out it went...
...at which point I should probably mention that it's about a devastating global pandemic that collapses civilisation. I have a certain knack of timing!
Luckily, one agent liked it enough to ask to see my next book. I've completed two novels so far this year (one begun last summer) and am hard at work on a third. The first one has now gone out into the world.
Despite everything, I'm managing to write 1000 words every day, with very very rare exceptions, and that ensures steady progress gets made. I used to write a lot more than that per day, and still think it wasn't enough, always in a hurry to get somewhere else; now, a thousand words seems plenty. It frees up time and energy to work on more than one thing at a time, and more importantly, it helps make the book about the journey and not the destination.
Best of all, I'm still lucky enough to have a wonderful and loving spouse who is also a phenomenal author in her own right. Anyone who's not read Cate's collection These Foolish and Harmful Delightsreally should.
The fantastic illustration at the top of this post is by Reiko Murakami, for the cover of Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year #12. As always, it contains a roll-call of fantastic authors, including Gemma Files, Laura Mauro, Nathan Ballingrud, Stephen Graham Jones, Sarah Read, Paul Tremblay, Sarah Langan and Joe Lansdale. My story 'Below', from Paul Finch's Terror Tales of North West England, is included therein.
Best Horror of the Year #12 is released on October 6th, and you can preorder it here.
October will also bring the first of two all-new novellas, brought to you by that fine gentleman Steve
Shaw of Black Shuck Books. The second one will be out next year; the first, all being well, should see the light (or the dark) on Halloween. More details to follow soon.
So October's looking like a good month, but then so does September, with Flame Tree Press bringing out an original, non-themed horror anthology, After Sundown, edited by Mark Morris. The successor to the Spectral Books of Horror and to Titan Books' New Fears, After Sundown features stories by a host of amazing writers -- too many to list here, but just take a closer look at the cover for a full roll-call! My story 'We All Come Home' is included.
After Sundown is out on September 15th, and can be preordered here.
And that's all the latest news from Castle Bestwick. Have a good weekend, everyone.
I'm currently still off work, and haven't been venturing out much, so the unfolding coronavirus epidemic's had a slightly unreal quality. We had been thinking of going to Manchester this weekend, to meet Catana Chetwynd - we love her comics - but she's cancelled her tour due to the outbreak. There've been so many pandemic scares over the last decade or two that they've taken on a 'cry wolf' quality (although one of the reasons many of these outbreaks haven't been worse will have been prompt action and treating them as an urgent crisis) but it looks as though this one will be the real thing. I hope it's under some sort of control sooner rather than later (although with the kind of brain-donors we have in charge here and in the US, I'm not getting my hopes up too high), and to see old friends and Facebook friends, and maybe make some new ones too, at StokerCon in Scarborough. On a happier note, this week I received some fantastic news when Ellen Datlow selected my story 'Below' (originally published in the mighty Paul Finch'sTerror Tales Of Northwest England) for inclusion in The Best Horror Of the Year #12. You can read the full TOC here. I'm in some stellar company, including Gemma Files, Robert Shearman, Joe R. Lansdale and Catriona Ward, not to mention friends such as Ray Cluley and Ren Warom. Great to see S. Qiouyu Lu's excellent 'As Dark As Hunger', which I finally read in Black Static the other week (I'm very behind with my reading), included, and special congratulations to Laura 'Bricklauncher' Mauro, for finally ticking one off her bucket list and making a Datlow anthology! (The first of many, I have no doubt.) I'm absolutely over the moon about this. I'm also delighted to report that the first review of Cate's new collection, These Foolish And Harmful Delights, is now up at The Eloquent Page. Of it, Paul Holmes says: "There is an introspective, almost intimate quality to each entry in the collection. Gardner’s powerful writing brings together tales of love and loss, rebellion and empowerment. These Foolish & Harmful Delights encompasses the full gamut of emotions. The stories delicately dance that fine line between dark fantasy and psychological horror. If you enjoy your fiction in the short form and are looking for something memorable, I can confirm that Cate Gardner is the author for you." Couldn't have put it better myself.
e-ARCs of the new edition of And Cannot Come Again are now available from Horrific Tales, including the previously unpublished stories 'In The Shelter' and 'Black Is The Mourning, White Is The Wand' and an updated introduction from Ramsey Campbell. Still can't get over how amazing Ben Baldwin's cover art is... My very cool friend Joely Black is leading a workshop: Making Magical Objects: Experimental Archaeology Meets Creative Writing later this month in Manchester. Joely's a fine writer, whose academic background focuses on religious and magical practices in the ancient world, so she knows what she's talking about. I promised to help spread the word about this event, but sadly it's actually sold out already! Nonetheless, any Mancs who like the sound of it should keep an eye out for future ones. And that's the lot for now. Have a good weekend, all.
I'm another year older, which has long since passed the point of feeling like any sort of improvement, but as someone once said, it's preferable to the alternative. And things could be a lot worse. There are some health issues, but I'm loved and in love, with a wonderful spouse and wonderful friends, and I'm writing. That's not too bad.
Locus Magazine has published its recommended reading list of work published in 2019, which you can read here. Shout-out to the wonderful Priya Poppins, Practically Perfect In Every Way Sharma (private joke!), whose superb novella Ormeshadow is namechecked there. There are many other names I recognise, many other friends, but if I even attempt a comprehensive list I'll end up missing people out.
Also on the list is the title novella from my collection And Cannot Come Again.
On the subject of which...
As readers of my blog will know, I ended up in the not-very-fun position of having to ask people not to buy And Cannot Come Again when a host of unsavoury revelations about the publisher, ChiZine, emerged.
Luckily, the collection quickly found a great new home with Graeme Reynolds' Horrific Tales, and a new edition, containing an additional two previously unpublished stories, will be launched at StokerCon in Scarborough this April. You can preorder the ebook here.
The new edition also features a stunning cover by Ben Baldwin, which I'm delighted to present here. Huge thanks to both Graeme and Ben for their work.
Another - and particularly excellent - collection of stories is also due out soon: the ever-reigning Cate Gardner's These Foolish And Harmful Delights, which is released by Fox Spirit Books this coming weekend.
Cate is (in my admittedly biased opinion) an amazing writer (but don't take my word for it, read this interview with Priya Sharma, Laura Mauro and Georgina Bruce instead, where they all agree on this point! Also, you know, read it because Priya, Laura and George are all brilliant writers and lovely people too) and this is a fantastic collection, including some of Cate's best work. It's built around four novella-length works, interspersed with shorter fiction. The stories include Cate's BFA-nominated meditation on love and grief, When The Moon Man Knocks, the Mr Punch-themed This Foolish and Harmful Delight, and Cate's own favourite novella, Barbed Wire Hearts. And much more. She's a unique writer, and you should take the chance to acquaint yourself with your work if you haven't already.
And if the fiction wasn't reason enough, it also boasts this ravishing cover art by Daniele Serra.
That's about all the news that's fit to print on this cold and windy Monday morning, anyway. Wrap up warm, folks, and have a good week.
Laura Mauro started writing short fiction in 2012 and hasn't stopped since. Born in London, England, her stories have appeared in Black Static, Interzone, Shadows & Tall Trees, The Dark and a variety of anthologies. Her debut novella 'Naming the Bones' was published in 2017. Her short story "Sun Dogs" was a Shirley Jackson Award finalist, and "Looking for Laika" won the 2018 British Fantasy Award in Short Fiction. She loves Finnish folklore, Japanese wrestling and Russian space-dogs. She tweets at @lauranmauro
1) So, what’s new from you?So you might have heard in passing that I’ve got a little book coming out soon. My debut short story collection Sing Your Sadness Deep is being published by Undertow Publications, which is incredibly exciting. I’m especially thrilled about it because Undertow were actually the ones who published my first ever short story back in 2012 (‘Red Rabbit’) so it feels like something of a homecoming for me. The collection includes two completely new stories, titled ‘The Pain-Eater’s Daughter’ and ‘In the City of Bones’. The latter is the most recent story I’ve written, and like many of my other stories it’s about one of my weird obsessions – this time, about number stations.
2) How did it come about?
For ‘In The City of Bones’ - I’ve had an image in my head for a long time: a woman in some kind of cabin or shack, completely alone, as in apocalyptically alone – nobody else for miles around. It’s pitch dark, and it’s snowing. As she looks out of the window, she can see a shadowy figure approaching her, walking through an abandoned children’s playground. The number stations came later, largely because visualising this scene gave me the creeps, and number stations also give me the creeps. So I figured that if you smush two creepy things together they accumulate an even greater creepiness. Hopefully my maths is sound.
3) Tell us about the process of how you created it.
It sort of happened organically. I spent a lot of time listening to number stations and wondering what kind of utility they might have outside the popular explanation (it’s thought that they are coded messages used to communicate with spies in the field). Once I’d figured out the purpose they serve in the story, I then built up the rest of it. I found a suitably empty, apocalyptic location (Kadykchan, an abandoned city in far east Siberia). It turns out that this place already comes with its own horrific lore – it’s built on the Kolyma Highway, which was built by prisoners from Stalin’s gulags. Forced to work in terrible conditions – east Siberian winters are extremely harsh – a great many prisoners died, and because it was impractical to dig graves in the permafrost their bodies were interred into the road itself. Because of this, the Kolyma Highway is known as the Road of Bones. From that point on, the story basically wrote itself.
4) What was your favourite part of the process?
There was a lot of miscellaneous research on subjects I found fascinating. Researching Kadykchan was fascinating – you can find lots of photographs from people who’ve been bold enough to explore the region and drive the Road of Bones between Yakutsk and Magadan. One of the coolest things was finding a photo of someone’s abandoned home, still full of their belongings, and working the title of one of their books into the story. It was quite uncanny in a way, as I’d pictured the children’s playground in my original vision, and photos of Kadykchan tend to feature an abandoned playground quite prominently. Researching Siberian climate and fauna was really interesting as well. It’s the kind of landscape you can be quite poetic about.
5) What was the toughest part of it?
The protagonist is living with a congenital skin condition called Harlequin Ichthyosis, which is something I came across during my years in an antenatal clinic – no actual cases as it’s very rare, but plenty of literature. It’s quite a shocking condition when you first encounter it – google with caution as the pictures can be intense. Babies born with this condition have incredibly thick skin, almost like plate armour, which tends to split and crack painfully – the word ‘Harlequin’ refers to the appearance of the cracked skin, like a jester’s motley. There was a time when Harlequin Ichthyosis was a death sentence, and afflicted babies rarely lived beyond a year. These days, as we gain more and more understanding of the condition there are more and more cases of sufferers surviving into adulthood. The protagonist is one of these adult survivors. It was really important to me to make sure I got the facts right regarding living with this condition, so the research was far more intense.
6) Is there a theme running through it?
I think the overall theme is about people who don’t fit into the world, and how those people often find one another. To be honest, that might be the accidental theme of my entire collection. It’s a subject I know a lot about.
7) If you had to sum this story up in three words, what would they be?
“They’re coming home”
8) Where can/will we be able to get hold of it?
“Sing your Sadness Deep” is available to pre-order here in both paperback and hardcover, and eBook will soon be available too. It’s going to be released around July, so very soon! I hope people will like it….!
So there goes another Fantasycon. Another brilliant event, another brilliant year.
Belonging is important. Finding a tribe, a group of people who share your values, the things you care about and love.
This is a time of year when absent friends come to mind. Today, the day after the con ended, Facebook reminded us all it's Graham Joyce's birthday. October was the birth month, too, of Joel Lane; November will be the fifth anniversary of his death.
Talking to the fantasy author James Bennett this weekend, he told me about his first Fantasycon. He was nervous, if not terrified - a young gay man, taking his first steps into a community he wasn't sure would welcome him or not. Joel saw that, took his hands and said, simply: "You belong here."
Yeah. That sounds like Joel.
That word came up again this morning, while I was reading different people's con reports on Facebook. The author Eliza Chan spoke about how the convention put to bed any fears that she didn't belong.
The British SFFH community gets a bad press in certain quarters, and it
isn't deserved. I've always found it to be a friendly, welcoming and
open community. No-one who loves the fiction we create and celebrate at Fantasycon should ever feel as though they have no place here. They do. I hope no-one has ever been made to feel otherwise.
The awards ceremony was, for me, a high point of the convention, when I got to see my dear friend, the lovely, talented and ridiculously modest Laura Mauro win the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story for the brilliant 'Looking For Laika'. I don't think I've ever seen someone more genuinely gobsmacked to win. (And I've seen a few.)
A couple of people who are normally mainstays of the convention (for me, anyway) couldn't make it this year - Lynda E. Rucker and Sarah Pinborough. The August Derleth Award went to Victor LaValle's The Changeling, but I was standing by as Sarah's stunt double in case it went to Behind Her Eyes. She sent me a short acceptance speech, and here's part of it:
"Fantasycon as ever evolves and changes and we may bicker on the internet and get riled about stupid things that mainly don't matter, but when push comes to shove, we are a family. Fantasycon has been there since the very start of my writing career, and it was through coming to Fantasycon every year that I made so many good friends, and gained so much inspiration to try harder and do better."
Yep. Exactly that. So: if you love horror, SF or fantasy, Fantasycon is a place where you will be welcome. Doesn't matter what the colour of your skin is, your gender, your sexual orientation, whether you're cis or trans. Never doubt that you belong here. And never hesitate to let others know that they do too.
Reviews have continued to come in for The Feast Of All Souls, from both Fantasy Book Review, who really liked it -
I finished The Feast of All Souls in short order, always a good sign
that I enjoyed a book, in fact enjoying it every bit as much as the
Herbert and King novels I read in my teen years and... the
[Adam] Nevill books I have read in recent years. I turned the last page both satisfied and impressed... an author I would not hesitate to read again.
- and from SFX, who weren't so keen:
There's a lot going on in this novel: hauntings aside, there's time travel, torture, grief, and even a bit of Arthurian Grail lore. The interesting stuff comes in fits and starts, though... it's infuriating, especially because Alice is such a horrible character to spend time with... The reason behind the . haunting, when it's revealed, is inventively grotesque, and the various strands of nastiness weave together satisfyingly enough. Still, there probably needs to be an epilogue where Alice apologises to literally every other character in the book.
Actually, I kind of like that idea. I might write it and post it here... :)
[Just FYI: there's no link to the SFX review as I haven't been able to find it online, not because I'm sulking over it!]
Hayley Stevens
As part of the promotion for The Feast Of All Souls, I interviewed one of the people who helped me Hayley Stevens. Originally a fervent believer in all things paranormal, now she's a rationalist and skeptic who applies scientific method to find the explanation for weird phenomena. John Revell's approaches in The Feast Of All Souls owe a lot to her.
in my research for it - real-life paranormal investigator
Not that everything Hayley's encountered has had a wholly rational explanation... but you'll have to read the interview, here and here, to find out about that. And to find out more, check out her website.
An excellent cross-genre blend which shall appeal to horror, military, and action fans alike... a thrilling tour-de-force novel full of military grade action sequences
and complex characters, but also moments of intense emotion and the
lightest touches of romance which combine to deliver a compelling story
that pulls you in and refuses to let go, adding Bestwick handles the conclusion of the story with the touch of an expert
storyteller while also setting up the story to continue into book three
with a new threat. It is clear that he has more in store for fans of
‘The Black Road’ series and we will not be disappointed.
Over at Ginger Nuts Of Horror meanwhile, Laura Mauro says: In many ways Devil’s Highway is a high-octane action movie of a book:
the Mad Max: Fury Road of genre novels, only with more dialogue. And
this is not a bad thing.
Laura particularly rates the portrayal of Helen Damnation: In the hands of another writer, Helen might have become a dull
caricature of a ‘strong female character’. Here, though, her flaws and
failings are put under a narrative microscope and viewed alongside her
strengths and triumphs: she is a brave warrior, a survivor, a leader of
men. She is also weak and selfish and dangerously impulsive. She is
imperfect, and all the more interesting a character for it.
I did chuckle over this bit, admittedly: There is a particular moment of loss which hit me especially hard, and I
think it speaks of Bestwick’s skill as a writer that he is able to make
me care so much about a relatively minor character. Mainly because I remember an email from Laura that read "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU KILLED [DELETED] YOU UTTER BASTARD." There can be few higher compliments for a writer...
The review concludes: A potent mix of grim, dystopian sci-fi and visceral horror, combined
with a vibrant imagination, lift a standard ‘Good vs Evil’ narrative and
have turned it into something quite special indeed.
So all this has been much-needed good news, among the general gloom and doom of world affairs and other matters of a more personal nature.
Derek M. Fox
We're off for dinner with friends tonight, which is good as this week began on something of a sad
note.
Back in the 1890s 1990s, when I was starting out as a writer, I used to attend the Terror Scribes meetings, where UK horror authors (usually based in the North or Midlands) gathered together for alcohol and curry. I still remember the one where I decided that pints of Stella Artois followed by Lambs Navy Rum chasers were a good idea... actually, 'remember' probably isn't the right word. They were started off by Chesterfield author John B. Ford, who invited a bunch of writers he knew to join and Simon Clark in a Sheffield pub in order to generally get drunk and shoot the breeze; the whole thing was that much fun, it became a semi-regular thing for several years.
One of the stalwarts of the Terror Scribes (and of the UK horror small press in the '90s) was Derek M. Fox, who died shortly before Christmas last year. Author and creative writing tutor, much-loved by his family and with a wicked sense of humour, Derek was a good guy and will be very much missed. I hadn't been greatly in touch with him for many years, but even though I was aware he'd been in ill-health for some time it was a shock to hear of his passing.
The funeral service was on Tuesday, and a few of us from the old days - Paul Kane, Marie O'Regan, Rob Rowntree, Lisa Negus and me - were there to pay our respects. Much love to Derek's wife Kath, and to his extended family.
RIP Derek. Get us all a round in, wherever you are.
The main event of the week took place when Ellen Datlow published her longlist of Honourable Mentions for last year. (You can read its three parts here, here and here.) Among the tales listed no fewer than ten from The Second Spectral Book of Horror Stories:
'Mary, Mary' by Ray Cluley 'Marrowvale' by Kurt Fawver
'Who Will Stop Me Now?' by Cliff McNish
'Beyond The Wall' by Thana Niveau
'The Veils' by Ian Rogers
'The Larder' by Nicholas Royle
'Lump In Your Throat' by Robert Shearman
'Little Traveller' by Simon Kurt Unsworth
'Wrong' by Stephen Volk
Congrats to all the writers, and to editor Mark Morris for putting the antho together.
Other than that, there's the Joel Lane tribute antho Something Remains - but I'll blog about that elsewhere. Meanwhile, here are a few bits and pieces that caught my eye in the past week.
Laura Mauro, an excellent writer, wrote this piece in the last week - something which struck a chord with me and probably will with most writers. Yup, it's about that old friend of yours and mine, impostor syndrome...
It was luck, it was a fluke.And even if it wasn’t – even if that award
nomination/sale/good review was legit – it doesn’t matter, because
you’ll never produce anything of that quality ever again. The future is
one failure after another. You’ll be the literary equivalent of that
person who turns up to parties – the one nobody really likes but
entertains anyway because they all feel a bit sorry for them. You know
the one.
Simon Morden - another excellent writer - also shared a great piece here: Change is inevitable and
there's nothing you can do about it. The title sums it all up:
Change is inevitable. Resisting change is perhaps noble but ultimately
futile. Managing change is wise, but even then, change – the abrupt
collapse of the Roman Empire, the Norman invasion, the break-up of the
abbey estates, the Enclosures Act, the arrival of the railway – can be
disruptive and unexpected. That something else will come over the
horizon to break down the walls is a certain: less certain is what
that’ll actually be.
It's well worth a read.
And, as some of you may remember, I blogged a while back about the lost village of Tyneham. I found some more stuff relating to the place recently, so I blogged again here.
The last few days have seen me trying to get back into the groove of writing. It's been a bit weird, not least since the laptop I've had for the better part of ten years - my trusty E-System, a Christmas present from my parents in 2007! - finally appears to be dying. As laptops go, it's had a pretty good run, so I can't complain, but I'm trying to work on the purple Acer laptop I bought last year.
See, the E-System's one flaw - or its biggest advantage, from my point of view - is that it's rubbish at connecting to the internet, meaning that I can work on it pretty easily without being distracted by Facebook. The Acer is great at connecting to the internet. That wasn't so bad in Barmouth, where there was no wifi in our flat, but now we're home again.
And yes, I've installed Freedom. Thing is that, unlike the version I've used in the past where you just downloaded a programme onto the machine, Freedom is now some weird cloud-based thing. And even when I've switched it on, the damn thing still connects to the internet. So once again, the wacky world of IT has delivered an updated, upgraded, 'improved' version of something that's about as useful as a pork pie at a bar mitzvah.
Even so, my short story mojo continues unabated. I wrote another story the day after my wedding, and two more on the honeymoon with another underway. That's a total of eight short stories so far this year, most of them in the past month.
That said, I need to get back on the Devil's Highway; there's still a lot of work to do before the deadline at the end of June. It's been nice, though, to work on some again.
Writers can be divided up any number of ways - and probably shouldn't be divided up at all, but that's another story - but one of the most interesting is the old question of whether you're a Planner or a Pantser. That is, do you plan out what you write before getting started, or wing it and make it up as you go? It's more of a spectrum than an either/or thing - much like sexual orientation, which gives me something of a segue to this blog post by Janine Ashbless, also known as Keris McDonald. One of the UK's foremost erotica writers, Janine is a confirmed Pantser. (And when she gets the time, she writes some superb ghost/horror fiction under her Keris McDonald byline - highly recommended if you can track some down! You can find out more in her Lowdown.)
Until recently, I'd have described myself as a dyed-in-the-wool Planner. That's certainly how my novels have been written - with more and more detailed planning, in fact, before I set pen to paper. A few years ago, I extended the practice to short stories, as I was finding hardly any time to do them. For the past couple of years, in fact, I've hardly written any stories that weren't to commission.
And I was feeling dissatisfied.
The short fiction I did write was feeling stale, repetitive, done before. There was a time when what I'd written had come both easily and from somewhere deep in me. I believed in it and felt proud of it, and many people had liked it a lot. All without planning. I wanted to get back there.
The last few short stories have all had that quality, or some of it. I think I'm some way to go before I'm getting the same thrill from what I do as before, but I'm on the way. It'll have to be fitted in around the novels, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - and among many other things, short stories can be great playgrounds and testbeds for ideas and settings and characters you may want to do more with.
So all of that's been nice.
www.alexcf.com
Less happy was yesterday's news that the YA science fiction author Nicholas Fisk had passed away, albeit at the good age of 92. I grew up reading his science fiction - along with Dr Who novelisations, books like Time Trap, Antigrav, Space Hostages, Trillions and the classic Grinny (an odd sort of alien invasion novel that's also damned creepy) were some of the first SF I read as a boy. His story collection Sweets From A Stranger was superb too. He wrote intelligent, thought-provoking and entertaining stories and novels for young readers that still hold up today (and are worth a read by adults too.)
In other news, Laura Mauro, a very fine writer, wrote this excellent piece on magical thinking and OCD. I suspect a lot of writers have MH issues of one kind or another, if only in the form of depression caused by banging one's head repeatedly against the brick wall known as reality.
There was also this fascinating article on bodies of strange creatures allegedly found in a London basement. In fact, they're the work of writer, illustrator and sculptor Alex CF, which is going to be of great appeal to anyone who enjoys the outre, the macabre or the just plain weird. I've included two images from his collection here; go to Alex's website and see the rest.
Two final items. First, my old friend Rob Kemp, who readers of the 1990s small press may remember as r.j. krijnen-kemp, author of a small but perfectly-formed body of weird stories, wrote this article on a bit of Shropshire folklore. Which reminded me of something else.
The late Joel Lane's first novel, From Blue To Black, told the story of a fictional '90s rock band; the book included the titles and even some lyrics of the band's songs. I got very into folk music in the late 2000s, and one of the titles, 'Still And Moving Water', caught my imagination, as did a line from the fictive song. I asked Joel if I could turn it into a song of my own; he agreed, as long as he got a co-credit, and my friend Iain Mackness recorded a very rough demo of it. Working on the recent tribute anthology to Joel ended up inspiring me to make a YouTube video for the song, and I was reminded of it again by Rachel Verkade's touching and perceptive review of Joel's posthumous story collection, Scar City, over at The Future Fire. So here it is.
Laura Mauro tells it better than I could: 'Most writers will tell you they’ve been writing since they were
small, and I’m no exception. I started out writing poems, which
graduated into awful teenage angst poems, which eventually grew into
aborted attempts at writing a novel.
I started writing short stories in 2011 but never took it seriously
until joining Absolute Write, where I was contacted by a member of the
T-Party. Since then, I’ve been what you might call a ‘serious’ writer,
although I’m yet to give up my day job.
I’ve had stories published in Shadows And Tall Trees, and in Black Static. My short story “Red Rabbit” made Ellen Datlow’s longlist for Best Horror Of The Year 2014, and “When Charlie Sleeps” was reprinted as part of the “Best British Horror 2014″ anthology, edited by Johnny Mains. In September 2014 my short story “Ptichka” was published as part of “Horror Uncut: Tales Of Social Insecurity and Economic Unease”, out now from Gray Friar Press. In 2015, my short story “The Grey Men” appeared in Black Static.
As of May 2015, I’m in the early stages of writing a novel.
I live in Essex, under extreme duress, and when I’m not making things
up I enjoy reading, travelling, anime, video games, collecting tattoos,
dyeing my hair strange colours and making up nicknames for my cats.'
1. Tell us three things about yourself.
- I work as a laboratory technician, currently in
antenatal screening, which is not nearly as exciting as it sounds. Mostly it
involves putting stickers on things, then putting them into a machine and
pressing a button. I enjoy it, though. I also work as a healthcare assistant in
an outpatient clinic some evenings, mostly in gynaecology. Sometimes, I wish
I'd studied medicine at university.
- I have nerdy tattoos. I’ve got seven, two of which are
Final Fantasy related. I also have a three-quarter sleeve in progress based on
my favourite film – Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘Spirited Away’. I know tattoos aren’t for
everyone and people probably think I’m a bit mental for covering myself in
pictures but it makes me happy.
- As a kid, I apparently saw a ghost at my nan’s house. I
don’t remember this, but my parents tell me that I’d come downstairs and tell
them that there was a lady at the end of the bed, and could they please ask her
to stop talking to me as I was trying to sleep. A little later on, I told them
her name was Betsy. I wasn’t scared to begin with, but as time went on I became
more and more frightened of Betsy, and eventually my grandparents had my
brother and I sleep in a different room. I stopped seeing her after that, but
other people saw weird things in that house – someone walking upstairs when
there was nobody else in the house, that kind of thing. Sometimes, I think
about checking the census to see if anyone named Betsy ever lived in that
house.
2. What was the first thing you had published?
I wrote a poem about my cat aged 7 and it got into an
anthology. That's what the publishers said, but we've never been able to find a
copy with the poem in, so I don't know if I can claim the credit!
3. Which piece of writing are you proudest of?
Probably "When Charlie Sleeps", which was in
'Black Static' (and ended up in 'Best British Horror 2014'). It was the first
time I'd really let myself off the leash in terms of embracing weirdness. I had
this line in my head from a Skunk Anansie song ('Charlie Big Potato') and I
found myself turning it over in my head, trying to unravel the story of it, and
everything I came up with came back to this sad, childlike monster. I told
myself that it was too weird, and that nobody would want to read about an ugly
monster in a bathtub, but I wrote it anyway because I wanted to write
about it. And as it turns out, people seemed to like it.
4. …and which makes you cringe?
I started writing a cyberpunk novel a few years ago until
it became horribly apparent that I have no idea how technology works and that I
should probably leave it to the people that do. I sometimes wish I could
virtually burn that novel.
5. What’s a normal writing day like?
I work full-time and have a part-time job on top of that,
so I tend to write whenever I have a spare hour. Usually my lunch break, or
after work if I'm not at my other job. The routine starts with a cup of tea -
always tea, no other beverage will do. Then it's a matter of forcing myself not
to fanny about on Facebook and focus on writing. That's the hardest bit for me
- actually getting down to it and not being distracted by cat videos, or
arguing with people who are wrong on the internet.
6. Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read
you before pick up first?
Anything they like! But I would probably suggest
"Ptichka", in 'Horror Uncut'.
7. What are you working on now?
I'm trying to gather the courage to start work on a
novel. It's set during the 1960's in south London, and it's about a woman who finds
herself caught up in the underworld of gangsters and villains, and the
underworld beyond that - a world of ghosts who tell dangerous secrets she
really shouldn't know. I sort of fell into a research hole with this one. I was
too afraid to start it because I didn't think I knew enough about the 60's to
make it feel authentic. But the advice I got was to just go ahead and write,
and fix the time-period details on the redraft, so I'm staring into the abyss
and ready to take the plunge!
