Nice Things of the Week

Well, my self-imposed Facebook ban bore fruit. I didn't deactivate my profile, just banned myself from liking or commenting on Facebook. I lurked occasionally, and exchanged a few direct messages - which was more than I'd meant to do- but I found myself with a LOT more free time. I got more reading done - and better still, more writing.
 The week before Christmas, my agent sent me a set of notes and edits for the crime novel. There was a LOT to do (there also appears to have been a LOT of writing LOT in allcaps this week, too, oddly) but it's all about getting the novel into the best possible shape to go out into the world. I finished the first redraft yesterday and emailed it off. There'll probably be more changes to make before it's ready, but hopefully the biggest jobs have been done.

Out of the blue, I got an email from a professional horror podcast, enquiring about reprint rights for two of my stories and offering pro payment for them. I checked with the editor who'd originally published the stories, who was fine with it as long as it wouldn't prevent her possibly reprinting one of them herself!

Another nice thing happened yesterday: the anthology THE HYDE HOTEL was published by Black Shuck Books. Edited by two fine gentlemen, James Everington and Dan Howarth, it includes stories by the ever-reigning Cate (of course), Ian Rowan, Alison Littlewood, Ray Cluley, V.H. Leslie, S.P. Miskowski, Mark West, Alex Davis, Amelia Mangan and Dan Howarth. Oh, and one from me.

The Hyde Hotel looks almost exactly as you’d expect it to: a faceless, budget hotel in a grey city you are just passing through. A hotel aimed at people travelling alone, a hotel where you know so little about your fellow guests that they could be anyone… and where, perhaps, so could you. But sometimes things are hiding in plain sight, and not everyone who stays at The Hyde gets a good night’s sleep… Enjoy your stay.

Here's a snippet from my tale, 'Wrath Of The Deep ':

You can check out any time you like...

The first thing he registered when he opened the door was the smell. It was a cold, briny stink of seaweed, dead fish, and stagnant air.

The second thing was the cold; the next breath he drew in seemed to scorch his lungs and when he breathed out, it hung pale in the air like smoke.

The third thing was the figure down the corridor.

It stood between him and the top of the stairs. He knew, of course, that it was the source of both the stench and the cold. It was very tall, well over seven feet in height, and dark. He couldn’t make out any features in detail, only its silhouette – except for its eyes, which were round and luminously gold...

In other good news, my 2011 novella Angels Of The Silences will be out next week, in paperback and
ebook form, from Omnium Gatherum. I'll blog more about that soon; it's a piece I'm very fond of, and it's  good to see it getting a second outing. In the meantime, I have to read the proofs!

Another lovely thing - two lovely things in one, in fact - was getting an advance peek at Peter Tennant's reviews of Hell's Ditch and Angels Of The Silences for Black Static #50. He loved them both: Angels he describes as 'without doubt one of Bestwick’s finest stories', and Hell's Ditch as 'a magnificent achievement, the work of a writer who knows how to tell a story and make it hurt, but in a good way, and putting on my fortune-teller’s cap I suspect that the best is still to come.'

Peter's also just posted his 'Best In Class' list for 2015. The laurels for 'Best Novel ' went, unsurprisingly - and deservedly - to Sarah Pinborough's The Death House (which if you haven't read yet, I can heartily recommend), but Hell's Ditch is listed alongside works by Simon Kurt Unsworth Alison Littlewood, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Marko Hautala, Angela Slatter and Nicole Cushing as one of the close contenders for the title.

Today marks a new feature on the blog, the Friday Freebie, wherein I make a previously published story available each week. Think of it as a thank you to all who come here! The first one up is a personal favourite of mine: 'Lex Draconis', which first appeared in Tales of the Nun and Dragon in 2012. I'm also adding a 'Donate' button: I'm going to look into a Patreon account in the future too, but in the meantime, it's a sort of online busker's cap that you can toss the odd coin into should you wish.

And that's pretty much it for the first proper week of 2016. Hope you've a good one, folks; I'll be back on Monday with The Lowdown! Till then, have a good weekend - and why not pop over here and have a free read? 

Awards Eligibility and Assorted Grumblings

A hard-earned and well-deserved prize. :)

I have to admit to being pretty ambivalent about awards. I wish I could be completely indifferent to them, as some claim to be; God knows I've tried. What matters is the work: I've said that many times and I believe it. That's what counts, not the money or the tick you get from teacher for doing it well, but show me a writer who's never suffered crippling doubt or a profound sense of 'why the hell do I even bother doing this?' and I'll show you a liar or a raving egomaniac (who's quite probably a shit writer into the bargain.)

Self-doubt is a bastard that gnaws at us all. Over the past few years, I've seen many other writers get multi-book deals while my own career stayed stalled. It wasn't their success that rankled; just my lack of it. It doesn't take much to bring out that persistent little inner troll that tells you you're a fraud, a fake, an imposter, a second-division hack who's worthless compared to the other talents out there. I've had a good year in professional terms, but that doesn't kill the troll; it's a persistent, nasty little beast, and you take whatever fire you can to drive it back into the dark.

In the absence of fame or riches, an awards nomination can mean a lot. And there are many, many good writers whose work, through no fault of theirs, just isn't commercial enough; if they're not going to get the big bucks, they at least deserve a damn good shout-out.


(Hell, when you're feeling low enough, a nice review on Amazon or Goodreads can do wonders for your spirits. By the same token, a one-star review can be an almighty kick in the tadpole factories, but we won't go into that.)

The flipside of that, of course, is how the run-up to awards sees so many people feverishly self-promoting, spamming and bigging themselves up. We've all seen awards of one kind or another cheapened by it, and by the prizes going - in some cases - to the loudest mouth, rather than the best writer. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate self-promotion and passive-aggressive Facebook posts whenever they get a bad review.

If your work's good, it should get noticed, but that doesn't always happen. I've been in more than one anthology that's sunk without trace due to poor promotion or other fuck-ups, and stories (no, not just mine) that deserved a wide readership failed to make even a blip on most readers' radar.

A degree of self-promotion is necessary, but pinpointing how much is too much is never easy. Blowing your own horn often goes against the grain, but if you don't make at least some attempt to call attention to your work, there's a good chance you'll be completely overlooked.

So, anyway, here's what I had published for the first time in 2015.

Novel:
Hell's Ditch (Snowbooks, Dec 2015.)

Short Stories:
No Room For The Weak (Mark Allan Gunnells' blog, December 2015.)
The Climb (Black Static #49, ed. Andy Cox, TTA Press, November 2015.)
Horn Of The Hunter (Second Spectral Book of Horror Stories, ed. Mark Morris, Spectral Press, September 2015.)
The Face Of The Deep (Game Over, ed. Jonathan Green, Snowbooks, August 2015.)

Ah well: when all else fails, there's always these wise words of W.H. Auden's: "Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered."

For 2016

A few things are going to be different around here. Hopefully not in a bad way.

1) First off, The Lowdown will be, for now, once a week instead of twice weekly. Largely this is because I'm in danger of running out of writers otherwise! Also, though, it's because I want to clear a bit of space for a new feature (see below.)

2) As of Friday, I'll be putting a free story on the site every week. I've got a pretty extensive backlog of published stories. Some of them are in anthologies or collections that are still out there. Others haven't seen daylight in many years. So I'm going to start sharing that backlist. If it means a few more books get sold, I can live with that.

3) Another thing I'm going to try and do is write more short fiction this year. I've been massively focused on novel-writing - and I still will be in the year ahead - but I want to fit more short fiction in. They're often where other, bigger things get started, and a place to road-test and play with new ideas.

4) In tandem with that, I'm going to start valuing my work a bit more. Guys, I hate to seem mercenary, but over the last few years waaay too many of my stories have first seen print in anthologies which have paid nothing beyond a contributor's copy.

There are two problems here.

First, the market for reprints is nowhere near as big as the one for original fiction, and rarely pays as well.

Secondly, writing a story takes a day, if I'm lucky. Often longer, especially with rewrites. A day when I could be working on a novel, or on a story for a paying market. That is basically what you're asking a writer to do when you ask them to write a story 'for exposure.' So, with one or two exceptions, I won't be sending you an original story unless you're willing to pay me for it. A reprint, maybe, but even then I'd prefer something a bit more substantial than 'exposure' to put in my bank account.

5) One BIG thing I want to do this year is cut down on my social media use. 2015 was a very productive year, but that was in spite of the amount of time I spent dicking away on Facebook in particular.

Of course, social media still has its uses - I've got a number of good things out of it, and just before Christmas I actually saw it save someone's life - but it can also be addictive, especially to anyone who's needy, constantly seeking ways to procrastinate and work-avoid, and with a touch of the obsessive and compulsive in their make-up. Like, you know, a writer.

I've got another blog post to share later today, but after that you'll only find me on Facebook from Friday evenings (to publicise the free story) to Monday mornings (to publicise The Lowdown.) (In between, during the weekends, I'll be dicking around as before.)

In the interim, if you need me you can email at sbestwick2002NOSPAM AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk (deleting the NOSPAM, etc, of course.)

[The picture above was taken near Barmouth in Wales, one of my favourite places - just after I'd come down from Dinas Oleu onto the road that ran along the Mawddach Estuary... several miles from the town. It was a fairly long journey back - but a very pretty one!]

The Lowdown with... Chesya Burke

Chesya Burke has written and published nearly a hundred fiction pieces and articles within the genres of science fiction, fantasy, noir and horror. Her story collection, Let's Play White, is being taught in universities around the country. In addition, Burke wrote several articles for the African American National Biography in 2008, and Burke's novel, THE STRANGE CRIMES OF LITTLE AFRICA, was published in December 2015 by Rothco Press. Poet Nikki Giovanni compared her writing to that of Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison.

Burke's thesis was on the comic book character Storm from the X-MEN, and her comic, Shiv, is scheduled to debut in 2016. 

Burke is currently pursuing her PhD in English at University of Florida. She's Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Charis Books and More, one of the oldest feminist book stores in the country.

1. Tell us three things about yourself.

                1. I’m black.

                2. I’m a woman.

                3. Those things sometimes bother people when I speak out.

                Bonus: I don’t really give a shit.

2. What was the first thing you had published?

Interesting question. I had been writing and sending out submissions for a few months with no bites. I had gotten personal rejections, but no offers of publications. Then my grandmother died. I went to the funeral and came back, tired, planning to close my writer’s email and give up. I opened the email account to my first acceptance. It was for pro rate (3 cent a word) publication titled 1000 Delights. The story was 'Out of the River'.

3. Which piece of writing are you proudest of?

I read somewhere that artists always pimp the most recent project. I’m not sure if that’s because, as artist, we are always growing and thus our work gets better with each new piece, or if it’s for pure promotion reasons. Or both. Either way, I really would say my novel, The Strange Crimes of Little Africa. It is based on my favorite short story, 'I Make People Do Bad Things' and I enjoyed researching and writing it.

4. …and which makes you cringe?

Cringe from being embarrassed or horrified? If embarrassed, I’d say all of those oldest works. Thinking back on 'Out of the River', for instance, I cannot believe anyone was willing to publish it. It was horrible, but it did help me as a writer and pushed me to hone my skills. If, however, you meant horrified, I’d say my short story, 'I Make People Do Bad Things'. It follows a woman who is forced to decide between killing a powerful child or saving herself and the people around her. The problem is the child is who she is because my protagonist made her that way. I’ve been told that it’s disturbing for many readers.

5. What’s a normal writing day like?

I wake up too early after falling asleep too late. I fight getting out of bed. I get dressed for class. Spend too much time taking selfies in the mirror. Miss my first bus. Sit through class. Talk too much. Go back to my apartment. Write, maybe. Smoke, probably. Realize its 4 am and I still can’t sleep. Because I have insomnia.

6. Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up first?

TheStrange Crimes of Little Africa.

7. What are you working on now?

A few projects that I can’t mention yet. And a sequel to The Strange Crimes of Little Africa.

P.S. Have you gotten your copy of The Strange Crimes of Little Africa? Did I mention it enough in this interview to make you want to buy it? The Strange Crimes of Little Africa.

 

Happy New Year, Folks

A picture from a slightly more wintry winter.

Coming up briefly for air here; I meant to do an end-of-year vlog for New Year's Eve, but I'm working on a novel redraft that needs doing by Monday, and by the evening I hadn't got round to it. Yesterday passed in much the same way.

So, a few quick words on 2015.

It was a tough start to the year. Cate's mum passed away just before last Christmas, which was a huge blow. Pauline was a kind, funny lady who had deserved better from life than she ever got, but never let it get her down. I'd liked her a great deal and wish there'd been time to know her much better, and she and Cate were very close. Seeing the person you love in that kind of pain and being helpless to make it go away is awful.

Plus, we were still living in the neighbourhood where Cate and her mum had lived for decades, in The House Of Damp And Mould (and perenially malfunctioning boiler.) I hadn't published a novel in three years, unless you counted the serial Black Mountain, and still didn't have an agent. (Although I was working on a new novel for Solaris, so it wasn't completely bleak.)

A lot has changed since then.

Cate's lovely and moving piece here says more than I could about coming to terms with loss. We moved in June from Tuebrook to the Wirral, to a little house we both love. There are plenty of green spaces close to hand, we're fifteen minutes from the beach by bus and our landlord's great. It's a new start, and it's done us both good. And we've set the date for our wedding next year - this year, I mean.

Hell's Ditch, which I'd started to fear would never see daylight, found a home with Snowbooks and came out last month. It's the first book in a story that's been steadily evolving since I was nineteen. I started writing it back in 2010, broke off for 2011 to write The Faceless and finished it in early 2012 before the long hard task of shopping it around began. Now it's out, and suddenly the rest of the Black Road needs to be travelled. In a few weeks I have to go back to the world of Helen and Gevaudan, Danny and Alannah, of Dr Mordake and Colonel Jarrett and Tereus Winterborn, and start writing about it and them after a three year absence (although I did pop back for a couple of brief visits without too much trouble.) It's exciting, and it's scary. All being well, The Devil's Highway will be out in October. (The paperback of Hell's Ditch will be released this March.)

I finished the novel for Solaris, The Feast Of All Souls (the original title, Redman's Hill, was felt to sound too like a Western for American readers!) and that'll be available in December 2016. Watch this space for a reveal of Ben Baldwin's brilliant cover art.

In between the first and second drafts of Feast, I wrote another book - a crime novel, belted out hard and fast, at white heat. It was great fun, and it got me an agent.

Four short stories came out, including 'The Face Of The Deep' in GAME OVER, which was singled out for praise by the Financial Times, and 'Horn Of The Hunter' in THE SECOND SPECTRAL BOOK OF HORROR STORIES - one of fourteen stories picked out of over 800 submissions! The others were 'The Climb' in Black Static #49 and 'No Room For The Weak', published on Mark Allan Gunnells' blog as part of the Hell's Ditch blog tour.

So 2015 ended a hell of a lot better than it started. It wasn't an unbroken uphill climb, of course: there were setbacks and downturns along the way. Especially in the wider world. There was the election result back in May: Britain, already a darker, meaner and more frightening place, is becoming more so. And then there were the horrible massacres in Paris, Baghdad and Beirut, and the vicious racism and hatred that's arisen in response to them. And the Christmas period has brought a succession of horrendous storms with torrential rain and flooding across many parts of the country. There will, very likely, be more to come. But there's still good in the world; there's compassion and kindness and love. Sometimes I think there's actually enough of it. But I always was an optimist.

However good things are going, something can always happen to pull the rug out from under. But just
because it can doesn't mean it will. So I'm starting 2016 with guarded optimism: there's a lot of hard work ahead, and not everything will be easy. But I have my health (touch wood), I'm with the woman I love and I've reached a couple of professional milestones.

2016 will see two novels published - The Devil's Highway and The Feast Of All Souls. And in a couple of weeks, my novella Angels Of The Silences will be reissued by Omnium Gatherum (and here's the new cover art - ain't it beautiful?) It's going to be a busy year in every way: hopefully it will be followed by more.

Happy New Year to all of you. I hope it brings you everything you want, need and hope for.