Reinvention

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Blog, Creativity, dark fiction, Dreamweaving, Horror, Ilan Lerman, Scotland, Unpicking the Stitches, Writing

See you on the other side.

For a long time now I’ve been wanting to re-title this blog. I first started a website and then this wordpress blog five years ago, and I had no clue about what might look or sound good. Not that I’m claiming that I have any more of a clue now, perhaps I’m just as deluded, only now I’m comfortable in my delusion.

The “Writer of Dark Fiction” title began to strike me as pompous as long as three years ago, but I never had any idea what to do about it. I’ve always wanted some sort of title to sum up the blog, or rather sum up where my writing inspiration comes from. I would say dreams and nightmares have long been the fuel for my creativity. Many of my stories have been inspired by dreams I’ve had. In some cases (Unpicking the Stitches) I’ve lifted entire images from a dream and riffed a complete story around them.

So, I’ve gone with DREAMWEAVING. Yes I know it’s alarmingly close to a Stephen King novel title, but it stuck in my head and there it is. It may even sound ten times as pompous as the previous title, but if that’s case then perhaps pomposity is just where I’m at. I’ve kept my name in the tag line, and what I do (dark fiction).

The new header photo is an instagrammed shot I took from the Glenmore forest park in the Cairngorms National Park. As apocalyptic as it looks, the image of arboreal destruction is actually a careful programme of tree clearing designed to help regenerate the native pinewoods. But, stick a black and white filter on and it looks cool.

Perhaps I may even write some stuff here. You never know.

Downtime

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Creativity, Inspiration, Million Writers Award, procrastination, Scotland, Short Stories, Unpicking the Stitches, Writing

Lets just ignore the howling gap in time since my last post.

I’ve been pondering the whys and wherefores of writing, perched uncomfortably on metaphysical and metaphorical mountaintops. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write, but the act has escaped me for some time now.

I’ve recently been on holiday,  in the north west of Scotland under impossible May sunshine for day after day and , despite feeling the usual constriction of city living returning, I am feeling a gentle current of relaxation stream through me. It’s too easy to get into a mental rut, to only be able to see what needs to be done as a pointless and brain-melting chore, but then I have to remind myself that I used to really enjoy writing. It’s difficult to explain why writing is something I think about constantly, why ideas continually come to me unbidden like inquisitive little creatures who want to take up residence and start a life for themselves. I can’t explain it, but it happens, even in a general state of ‘non-writing’.

Things have been changing for the positive, though. I’ve started submitting stories again after allowing all my submissions to lapse once the rejections rolled in. I’ve even rewritten little bits of some stories to try and give them new opportunities. So there’s three of them out there at the moment and I have fresh ideas for new ones.

Encouragingly, ‘Unpicking the Stitches‘ made the lengthy ‘notable stories’ list of Story South’s Million Writers Award. There’s some pretty strong competition, but even being noticed is enough to create that warm feeling, to fuel that desire to continue. I’m sure I’ll gaze back at this period as a nasty pothole that flattened my front tyre.

Onwards!

Weekend Wonders and Weirdness

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Chess, ChiZine, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Fringe, Fiction Reviews, Horror, Inspiration, Neon, Novellas, Short Stories, speculative fiction, Unpicking the Stitches, Writing

Bearing in mind that my weekend is a Sunday/Monday rather than the traditional one, this has been a momentous weekend for me and others.

I met up with an old friend and as a result found myself on my knees on Princes Street playing speed chess (or ‘blitz’ as it’s more commonly known). It was nice to play some face-to-face chess again (even if I only managed to win one out of about eight games over the weekend), and reminded me of a certain novella I need to revise. Add to this massive life-changing decisions for the two people closest to me in life, and it all makes for an atmosphere of huge potential; the feeling that anything can happen.

Woven through all of this was a full-on weekend of Edinburgh Fringe-going, with Frisky and Mannish and Jon Richardson being most enjoyable, and just the atmosphere of the whole place, reminding me why I live in this great city with history practically seeping out of the walls. Leaving a show in the evening, breathing the still night air with just a whisper of sea breeze, to be almost knocked off your feet by the fighter jet screaming overhead towards the castle to entertain the folk watching the Tattoo. Lying in Princes Street Gardens eating ice-cream. Drifting with the crowds from all over this planet (and possibly others – who knows, I wouldn’t be surprised) through the streets of the old town.

And to top it off with a glistening cherry, I discovered a review of ‘Unpicking the Stitches’ in the British literary zine Neon. And it’s a generous, humbling and inspiring review, reminding me that I can write and must push on and make something of this. Incidentally, I did once submit a story Neon, probably two years ago at least, and received a kind and helpful personal rejection.

ChiZine Issue 48 out now

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ChiZine, Fiction markets, Gord Zajac, Horror, Short Stories, speculative fiction, Unpicking the Stitches, Writing

The new issue of Chiaroscuro Magazine is online today, and in it is my story ‘Unpicking the Stitches’. Read it here – Unpicking the Stitches. Tell your friends. Pass it on.

Also have a read of some of the other superb dark fiction there, and Gord Zajac’s wonderfully written editorial about how to get published in ChiZine.

Story Sale – Unpicking the Stitches

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Acceptances, ChiZine, Critique, Fiction markets, Horror, Online Writing Workshop, Short Stories, Story Sales, Unpicking the Stitches, Writing

This appears to be the last place I’m mentioning this, where it should really be the first, but I wanted to use it as a platform for thanking folk as well and I wasn’t at home when I posted on Facebook earlier in the day, so couldn’t remember every name.

The news is that ‘Unpicking the Stitches’ will feature in the July 2011 issue of Chiaroscuro, or as it’s more commonly known, ChiZine. Quite a fast turnaround from writing that story, redrafting it and then having it accepted. If only they all sold like that.

This marks my first full professional sale (by SFWA standards at least), and ChiZine is an awesome online zine backed up by an independent book publishing arm. They publish the kind of dark, weird, horror-ish stuff that I like and it’s the perfect home for this story.

I must then thank some people for their input on this story – Erin Stocks and Neil Williamson gave me some hugely detailed and insightful critique in particular, and also Henry Szabranski, Gio Clairval, Steve Chapman, Jack Westlake, Boz Flamagin, Michael Keyton, Crash Froelich, Camille Picott and Kyle Aisteach all contributed comments and critique and it wouldn’t be the same story without them. And last but not least, my partner, Alexis who championed this story from the start.