Monday, May 26, 2008

Re: Cover

It's been one of those weeks where things have conspired to thwart any authorial intentions I may have harboured. With a significant re-write required on one of my recently submitted tales, I've been diverted by everything from illness to financial reports (yup: near-death and taxes).

So it's good to see that others have been forging on in my absence. Over at Morrigan they've just released the first shot of the cover for the upcoming Voices anthology, and mighty fine it is too:



Release date is still fixed for September ... so I really need to get my finger out with those edits.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Carried Away by Temptation

An unexpected block of free time yesterday meant I could finally sit down and work on the synopsis for Temptation, the yarn I've been asked to write for Morrigan Books' Scenes From the Second Storey.

I tend to write reasonably detailed synopses for my stories - I take the 'reliable road map' approach rather than the 'high-altitude overview' that some writers feel happier with. That's not to say I can't deviate from my intended route - now and again the process of writing will open up options for characters I hadn't spotted earlier on - I just like to have the security blanket of knowing where everything is before I start.

Even by my standards, though, this job came out extremely long - I got so swept up the story that I started typing, looked up and I'd written 2200 words. That's not so much a synopsis, more a bare-bones, frill-free first draft.

Still, the fact that I was so involved in the story bodes well, and when I was finished I had that energised feeling of a job well done. Days like that are what I write for.

That said, I'm still cautious - or cynical - enough to realise that even if I think it's the best short story ever penned, there are going to be problems with it. Yes, there will be huge holes in logic and structure I've missed in my euphoria - it's inevitable. So away it's gone to some trusted readers, who I've asked to kick the shit out of it (thanks to Rach, Paul and Amanda for agreeing to handle the brutalising). Most of the feedback is still to come, then - for now I'm going to enjoy the buzz.

Wheeeeeee!

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Voices On

Well, word's come back that the story I was talking about yesterday has indeed made the cut, and will be featured in an upcoming anthology from Morrigan Books called Voices. Hurrah!

The story's called Just Us, and - like all the other tales featured in the collection - it involves some nastiness in a hotel room. There's still some work to do on it (editorial tinkering and rewrites to fit the overall theme more closely) but at the moment the book's scheduled for a September release. I'll obviously be posting more details as work progresses - which should be reasonably quickly!

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Time Out

With no immediately pressing deadlines, I've been ferretting about for the last week on those little jobs I tend to forget about when I'm writing (or plotholing a synopsis). A week of catching up on my reading, wasting time on Facebook and the like doesn't make for very exciting blog material, however, so here's a quick run-down of things going on outside my control.

The bods at the Beeb have approved the stories for the Transmissions anthology, which means I don't need to make any last-minute changes before it goes to press. Hurrah! (I was a little worried by my opening scene, which involves a misleading incident with a knife ...)

Meanwhile a decision is imminent on another story I've worked on - news on whether that's made it into the anthology concerned as soon as I get it.

I've also become the biological equivalent of an EMP - anything I've interacted with in the last week that has a microchip in it has died horribly. Amongst the casualties have been my cable TV receiver (no Playhouse Disney for the littlies, no Premier League for me until the repair guy gets here ... in another week) and my internet connection, which dropped to slower-than-dial-up speed for a day or so.

(Amusingly I was moaning about this in an IM conversation with Mark Deniz when his connection decided to cark it too ...)

And that's really about it - domestic mundanity abounds. Back soon with something more entertaining.

[Oh, and a quick shout out to the ludicrously talented Mish in Melbourne, who helped me out with a problem earlier this week and confessed to being a regular here. *Waggles fingers* Hello!]