Autumnal Activity

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Autumn, Chess, Creativity, Horror, Novels, procrastination, Rejection, Short Stories, speculative fiction, The Lempkin Variation, Writing

Time to cap the month off with a rambling post about writing. Yes, this is a writing blog, even if I have diverged into film reviews of late (and attracted more blog traffic than ever…).

I’ve mentioned before how Autumn’s fruitful attributes often translate into writing accomplishments for me. It’s something to do with that sensation of winter encroaching, of harvesting and stocking up food – making casseroles and soups in abundance. The weather is always dramatic one way or the other. The east coast USA is currently in the jaws of Hurricane Sandy. Leaves are abandoning their branches lemming-style and I feel like I’m watching the whole thing in sped-up time-lapse photography with a suitably apocalyptic Philip Glass soundtrack layering the scene with building menace.

I find my dreams are even more fecund and bizarre at this time of the year. That may be partly due to my body battling off the annual assault of cold viruses and infections. This is also due to my writing output increasing back to old levels. I’m relatively pleased with the amount of new stories I’ve written in the last six months. And the ongoing project of completing the various first drafts and aborted attempts littering my hard drive is progressing apace. I’m still no closer to starting any of the novel ideas, although I regularly add to the growing files of notes on all of them. There are four ideas all competing for attention in the category of novel-waiting-to-be-written. Only one of them fills me with confidence that it’s a good idea, but it’s the one that will be the most research-heavy and although I’ve begun that research, I still need to read a lot more history before I can attempt it.

As a way to prepare for the sort of effort required to revise a longer piece, I hope to attempt a revision on my long-forgotten novella about chess and demonic possession, The Lempkin Variation. Hence the chess-related image above. It’s a story that’s entirely worth the effort of revision. It always has been, but I am a lazy, work-shy ne’er-do-well and have a magical bottomless bag of excuses for not doing what I should be doing. As a writer friend of mine said to me the other day in an email. –

Start finishing your stuff. I’d put money on the fact that you’re probably sitting on a  pile of gems.

Best news of all, although this isn’t an official announcement yet (I’ll do that once it’s, well… official), I sold a story this morning to a really great magazine. It’s a story I only wrote in July and had only sent it one other place where it received a swift rejection. It’s a story of drug addiction, nostalgia and transcendence. I’ll have more news to follow and it will get its day in the spotlight. Bring it on, Winter.

Listen to the static, or Pinning the genre-tail on the story-donkey

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Edinburgh, Horror, Inspiration, Listen to the Static, Novels, Pinning the genre-tail on the story-donkey, Progress Report, Rejection, Short Stories, speculative fiction, The Edinburgh Street Stories, Writing

There’s a passage in one of my unpublished short stories (which is currently on submission#12, but I’m still holding out hope for it) about radio static –

Static sounds the way I imagine the universe would sound if you could listen to it. A billion tiny voices all crying out for attention, but each one has dwindled to a whisper. The distant hiss of life across light years, every one craving the recognition of the other. None of them hears. It’s the loneliest sound.

And then earlier this year I wrote an Edinburgh-set horror piece called ‘Listen to the Static’, a 6000 word short story, but it’s a structurally impaired patient in need of serious rearranging. Anyway, all of this leads me to discussing an exciting new project. Borrowing the title of that short story, and some of the themes of that paragraph from my oft-rejected short story I have a new idea for a novel, which is currently usurping The Drover as prime contender for being written.

It’s nice to be excited about a big idea that has huge scope beyond being just a short story. Tonight my main character has a name, as do at least two other characters. And I’m already forming the voice in my head. In fact, I even wrote some actual words tonight to test out the voice and what I intended to be a short sentence or two became 100 words in a heartbeat. Dare I pin down the genre? If I say the words Paranormal Fantasy then my gut churns. I hate pinning the genre-tail on the story-donkey. I could simply call it horror. It has ghosts, and I fully intend to contribute to your nightmares as far as possible. Lets just call it words for the moment, and even make the bold step of starting a regular progress report, including word count and related stuff.

LISTEN TO THE STATIC – PROGRESS REPORT

Words today – 100

Words total – 100

Improvisation in the key of observing crowds

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Creativity, Edinburgh, Egypt, Fringe, Improvisation in the key of..., Inspiration, Max Boyce, Rejection, Rwanda, Short Stories, Welsh Rugby, Writing

(…in which I riff on some loosely connected bits in my head without any kind of a plan, conclusion, or even necessarily a point, as an attempt to blog more often…)

I’ve been mostly oblivious to the events taking place today in Egypt – scenes that will be replayed again and again. A peaceful revolution of this sort is the kind of spectacle that inspires and manages to instil some hope that we can all live in harmony, and make a change for the better (even in this oh-so-cynical world).

I overheard someone speaking about visiting Rwanda today, and the charitable mission of their visit to help build schools for the communities there blighted by the sorts of horrors that I can never fully understand, having only seen them through the distancing, safe lens of TV. This person spoke about how it was impossible to appreciate what these people had gone through – living side by side with people who had murdered their friends and family in the 1994 genocide – unless you actually went out there and spoke to them and saw with your own eyes the after-effects.

Hearing about that, and watching the Egyptian ‘revolution’, it’s set me thinking about the way we perceive events from our privileged Western perspective, and the difficulty of separating our own personal, little lives and the bizarrely mundane things we obsess over and work on in our daily lives.

In a tortuous fashion, I wrestle this back to the subject of writing, as this is a blog about writing and not politics, but it has prompted me to write this, stunned as I am by the scenes in Tahrir Square, of the rippling mass of crowd so big it stops being just single people any more. But here I am, just a person, in a city and country where many people (perhaps the majority of, but I don’t want to get into sweeping generalities) are trapped inside their own heads, deep inside their little lives, placing importance on the smallest of things.

The only crowds I witnessed today while at work were the chaotic red and white mob of Welsh rugby supporters invading Edinburgh for a weekend of strangely shaped ball action and alcohol consumption. For the Welsh it’s a huge tradition, and they even have a song about it written  by the leek-wielding Max Boyce –

Oh! We went up to the highlands of Scotland,
To the land of the loch and the glen.
And we’ll all bring our wives back a present,
So we can go next time again.

I’ve always been fascinated by the behaviour of crowds, especially when seen from a distance (the aerial camera over Tahrir square), but the feeling of being swept up inside one is incomparable, whether it’s the desperate hell of what happened in Rwanda, the current events in Egypt or the absurd ritual of the rugby. I think more often than not, I’ve found myself on the outside looking in, which, is perhaps why I became a writer – some need to observe and report my findings. Hence my identification with the chap in the picture.

On the subject of writing, I completed my first short story since November last year, which I am tentatively titling ‘Down the Back of Donald’s Couch‘. That’s the first new draft of the year, and I also final drafted and submitted ‘Unpicking the Stitches’, which received one extraordinarily fast rejection of 48 hours and is now somewhere else, where it should be a good while longer before any news returns.

Any good improvisation should really end right at the point it becomes hackneyed or a vehicle for anything resembling a structure…

May Update

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Chess, Fiction markets, Holidays, Horror, Loch Fyne, Rejection, Short Stories, speculative fiction, Writing

There goes another month sucked down the plughole of time. And here I am trying to avoid the whirlpool and the jammed hairs and stay on my feet.

Thought I’d better get a monthly update in before the month is gone. Two weeks holiday on the tranquil shores of Loch Fyne have eaten up the majority of the month and, oh, how I wish I was still there (with a decent internet connection rather than the dreadful on/off nonsense I managed to tap into while there).

I did accomplish some writing while there, albeit a small amount, but it seems to have been enough to propel my motivation as I’m now close to 9000 words into my chess-themed novella, ‘The Lempkin Variation’. And I’m feeling the buzz of writing again which is a novelty after the slog of revising that I’ve been doing prior to this.

The revising paid off to an extent, although I didn’t get quite as much done as I’d wanted, but it resulted in a few submissions. Most of which are still away. One rejection already, and I have a story away for close to nine months at one place. It’s a place I really like, so I want to keep it there as long as I can stand. I queried once in February and received no response, then once more last week, but still nothing. Beginning to lose my patience with it.

And there endeth the update – light on content, but it’s a way back in, and I shall blog some more, in fact I feel a rant coming on…

Publication news

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Critique, Edinburgh, Fiction markets, Online Writing Workshop, Rejection, Sci-fi, Short Stories, speculative fiction, The Ranfurly Review, Writing

Some good news this evening. The Ranfurly Review, a Scottish literary journal, will be publishing my story ‘Woe is Me’ in their March 2010 issue.  It’s the first story that I’ve used crits from the Online Writing Workshop to improve that I’ve had published.

I’m quite happy to get this one out there after seven rejections. I was considering a huge rewrite if it was rejected again.

Holiday week two

Tags

Critique, Fiction markets, Novels, Online Writing Workshop, Rejection, Sci-fi, Short Stories, speculative fiction, Writing

Back from the serenity of the Western Highlands, but still on holiday and trying to get a load of writing work done before the return to the dayjob. I’ve re-subbed three stories that were rejected in the last two weeks, so I have four out there under consideration. One of them has been out there quite a while with a notable SF zine – far longer than a previous sub to them. Fingers crossed as always.

Still to do: – many critiques to catch up on at the Online Writing Workshop. Four stories to redraft and make ready for submission a.s.a.p. The (dare I mention it) novel to get cracking on the second draft. And a new story in the pipeline which is taking shape nicely.

Rejections & Inspiration

Tags

Allen Ashley, Aoife's Kiss, Catastrophia, Fiction markets, Inspiration, PS publishing, Rejection, Short Stories, Writing

The realisation comes that I still have such a long way to go. My story ‘Purify‘, that I wrote last summer has had six rejections now. Fresh one arrived today from Aoife’s Kiss Magazine. It might be easier, strangely enough, if they were just form rejections, but they all keep telling me it’s a good story, just not right for them. I think the hardest part is trying to find an appropriate market to fit the story. Writing it is the easy part!

Which brings me to my second topic, inspiration – keeping in mind the idea of trying to match stories to markets. I am never short of inspiration when reading through the fiction market databases. I desperately want to submit a story to the Catastrophia anthology (edited by Allen Ashley, by PS Publishing) and have a nice idea that is taking form rapidly. I already had an idea for it, but it ballooned out of all proportion and I had to turn it into a novella to contain the whole idea. I’m pleased with it so far, but it’s taking me a while. Ah well, a surfeit of inspiration is not something to be unhappy about.

Perhaps I should get on with the writing and stop blathering in this blog!