Michelle Garren Flye and the other wonderful folk over at Dark Recesses Press have accepted my story 'Events at the Wigwam Rock Diner, Nevada' for a future issue.
Events is the tale of a girl, her dog Bacteria, eyeballs and a Paiute myth.
In other news, I have declared this week officially the first week of the year, well it is Chinese New Year on Sunday. I insist that you humour me.
Ooh, two awards in one day. The first is the 'You are My Sunshine' award - blows kisses at Jamie Eyberg. The purpose of this award is to thank the people who regularly visit your blog for their support.
I'm passing this award onto:
Katey Taylor and Aaron Polson because they paid me squillions of monopoly money and begged me to choose them, which leads me onto my next award.
Alan Davidson is under the impression that I'm an honest scrap. I feel the need to do the mwahahaha thing... Honesty is boring, here are ten made up things about Cate... Erm, me...
1. Cate talks about herself in the third person all the time. For instance, here is a line she used at the local sweet emporium this very afternoon: 'Dear Mr. Shopkeeper, Cate would like a chocolate bar the length of her bath tub and a kettle to boil some water.'
2. Cate toddles along to work in ten-inch sparkly heels and hot pants, even in the snow. Tights are for wimps.
3. Cate is not actually Cate, that is, her name is a pseudonym. Her real name is Clarissa Swellington-Head - think about it, she is British.
4. Mid-afternoon, Cate drinks tea with her pinky raised, eats cucumber sandwiches and has a man servant kiss her toes.
5. Cate used to live on a canal barge. Unfortunately, she annoyed the ducks so much by warbling Britney Spears songs, that they pecked a hole in the side of it and left her to drown. To this day, her eyelashes are still wet.
6. Whenever you hear thunder, Cate just sneezed. Whenever you see lightning, Cate switched off her computer screen.
7. Cate was the first person to toddle on the moon. NASA erased all images of her crawling down the steps ahead of Neil Armstrong.
8. The piece of lunar rock perched above her computer monitor smells suspiciously like cheese.
9. Cate hosts zombie cage fights on the first Saturday of every month. She wears the hot pants, heels and is known to nibble on dead men's ears.
10. The Colin Firth you see on screen is not 'the real Colin Firth'. Cate stole him in the mid 1990s and hid him in her basement. She insists he call her Elizabeth. She hopes Mr Polson doesn't carve any doors to let him out.
I must now pass this award on to two of the most
That's enough plugging for one post... Okay, not quite.
The 2010 Million Writers Award is now open for nominations, so head over there and nominate your favourite online short story of 2009. I think my pick is fairly predictable to everyone who reads my blogger blog. :D
Since only a small percentage of books published make it into bricks and mortar stores, how did a new writer (or even a mid-lister) get anyone to buy their books in the days before the internet? Even now, the idea of drumming up an audience is a little scary. I remember they used to put mail order forms for other titles at the back of books. I also remember never filling one in. I heart thee internet.
In other news, I completed two new flash stories this week. Though I'm kinda cheating with that sentence. The first is for the Shock Totem contest and thus shall remain anonymous, and the second is a massive 150 words. Wipe the sweat from my brow. I sent it off to a market that replies within 24 hours and expected a barrage of what the fucks and never submit here again, but the reply was actually rather pleasant. It's titled Dandelion Fluff and it's about a dandelion and a spaceman.
Shock Totem are running a writing contest and fools that they are they've put the awesome Mercedes M Yardley in charge. For a full list of the rules check Mercedes' blog or the Shock Totem website. It's a delicious the entrants choose the winner deal. You know you want to play.
Time to fire up the laptop.
Cue panic attack. First reaction was to say I've trunked the novel, which I had, but then I forced myself to open the file and remembered how much I loved the story and thought what the hell, I can take another no thanks to my super rejection busting powers (ie chocolate for brains). So I cobbled together a synopsis*, reworked the first three chapters and pressed the magic button. Now, I'm making my way through a 95,000 word manuscript (which has slimmed down to 93,672) and giving The Midnight Motel a little shine. If nothing else, it's waking up my writing genes.
*note to would-be-agented writers, never cobble together a synopsis, leave the cobbling to elves.
And here's the song that inspired the story...
Oh my, I am the perfect definition of a struggling writer. The word factory seems to have sunk to my boots and it's in danger of seeping out through the soles. I'm a little fearful I'll never write and write and write again, but I'm sure normality will return soon. Here's a little about my current WIP...
Story Title: Daylight Filtered Through Bone
Draft: One
Word Count: A painful 1002 and counting
Days worked on so far: 6 - please do not calculate how many words a day that equals.
Time spent in the brewing stage: about 15 minutes (and herein may lie my problem)
Story Inspiration: The want to write something brilliant (erm...) for Clarkesworld, a picture of two homeless men and a picture of a stranded ship.
First Line: "Is it going to rain today?" Frank shivered within the threadbare weave of a tartan blanket.
Favourite Line: When the government reclaimed the land, they gave no thought to the dead things floating there.
In much brighter news, Gary McMahon has sold two novels to Angry Robot Books. Go bask in his glow.
Kicking away my new year funk, the wonderful folk over at Parsec Ink have just accepted The Meaning of Yellow for their Triangulation: End of the Rainbow anthology.
I be stoked.
As a side note, you'll find a story by Aaron Polson in last year's Triangulation: Dark Glass anthology, and to celebrate I just ordered a copy.
Submitted Opheliac to its intended market and filed it away. It's the least confident I've been about a story in some time which of course means it is probably a work of brilliance - isn't that how it goes? The ones we love grow stale and unwanted until they end their days hiding in a dusty corner, while those we're not sure of find love at the first kiss.
Whatever, I've moved on to story number two for 2010. So far we have a premise (which I'm kind of excited about), a beautiful title, 91 words and a tartan blanket. I need to practice kneeling and doing the whole 'not worthy' thing because it's intended market is shiny and on the top shelf. Perhaps I should cease with the bowing and find a ladder to climb.
With a nod to Paul Abbamondi and his progress report blog posts (which are inspirational and fascinating), I bring you my first WIP Wednesday of 2010.
Story Title: Opheliac
Draft Two - finished
First draft: 998 words; Second Draft: 1012 words
Days worked on: 6 (unbelievable)
Time spent in brewing stage: about a fortnight
Story Inspiration: Scene in TV adaptation of Dicken's 'The Old Curiosity Shop'.
Genre: Desperately seeking Horror.
First line: Perched on a rusting shopping trolley, three fathoms below the surface, the man in the top hat wound a necklace made from teeth and bone around his knuckles.
Favourite line: On closer inspection, the weapons proved to be umbrellas.
Things googled: What is a fathom? / Opheliac / Oyster Shells / Floating Pearls Dead / Single White Female
Confidence in story: 100% at inception; 59.6% now (it's not as scary as I hoped, if in fact it is scary at all).
I'm taking some time to get off the runway this year but it's only a wee thirteen days breathing, there's still time to conquer the world, or at least my office (which is looking rather chaotic).
It's been a strange old start to the year. First off, I had the flu (geez, will you shut up about it already) and it took until yesterday to get any writing done - a wonderful 500 words, well 500 hundred probably not-so-wonderful words when I re-read them later, but we have lift off. Working on a short story that I hope is scary enough to send to Necrotic Tissue, working title too hideous to post here. When the short is done, I'm hoping to get back into the novelette I was working on pre-Christmas (Cobweb Strings of the Rotting House).
One final note. Four things guaranteed to add sparkle to flu-days: 1) receiving a card with a pug humping Santa's leg; 2) getting a free copy of Shroud magazine; 3) Receiving a handmade get well card from your 4 year old neice; 4) Glitter added to snot...
And on that lady-like note, I bow out...
It's that time of year again. Fantasy Magazine are running a 'Best of' poll. If you enjoyed my story Trench Foot, I'd love it if you could take a moment to vote for it, and if you didn't, there are many other wonderful stories that I am sure would love to receive your vote.
Sales: 21 (of which 2 were pro-pay)
Rejections: 148 (it's a typo, I'm sure)
Total Word Count 2009: 191,765 words approx, plus 50,500 words (rewriting Theatre)
I wrote 14 new flash stories and 17 new short stories. I rewrote Theatre of Curious Acts (currently out with a publisher), The Drawing of Dolls (needs more work) and The Poisoned Apple (retired), and I completed the first draft of Grim Glass Vein. My chapbook, The Sour Aftertaste of Olive Lemon, was released (and sold out), and it was fantastic (and scary) to have a very, very tiny book in print.
I wasn't overly impressed with my efforts in 2009, but I'm hoping to kick ass in 2010 - if I can get started, darn this flu.
My goals for 2010 are to make three pro-pay and eight semi-pro short fiction sales. I want to finish Grim Glass Vein, and to complete the first and second draft of my next book. I'm aiming for 15 new short stories and a novelette / novella. Plus, of course, there's all the usual agent/publisher/Jensen Ackles materialises in my room daydreams.
Happy New Year.
It's almost here... No, not the season of joy and goodwill to all men (and Editors bearing rejection letters). I'm talking about January 1st, that magical time when we believe all our dreams will come true, and yes we will work harder than we have ever worked before, and write better than we have ever... Yawn. I swear the elves are sprinkling magic dust over my shoulders. It's a strange old time of year.
So, my early 2010 looks pretty much like this...
Finish 'Grim Glass Vein' and make it the most sparkly book ever written (even sparklier than Meyer's vampires only there are no sharp teethed ones here).
Then I have the in-construction-plans for two novellas, both science fictionish. "When Orange Lanterns Lit the World" is more dystopian future (I've fallen in love with dystopia this year), and "The Moth Brigade" (title will change) is a little steampunkish affair that may be past-set or may be future-set and probably won't be all that steampunkish at all. I love it when I make no sense at all.
And before all that I really need to
W
At the beginning of the year I resolved to subscribe to at least one small press magazine a month (or buy an anthology), and I kept my promise at first, but then I fell off the bookcase mid year and forgot why I was on it in the first place. Now, sitting at the end of the year surrounded by many unread books etc, it seems I forgot the following resolution...
In 2010, I will spend more time reading small press short stories than I do twittering.
Earlier today, Aaron Polson posted a list of all the magazines, anthologies etc he'd purchased in 2010. Here's mine... Subbed to Necrotic Tissue, Murky Depths and Postscripts, and still have issues of all three to read. I also bought Shock Totem #1. I bought one copy and won another of Space and Time, 2 issues of Grave Tales (still waiting on one), and an issue of Talebones.
Thanks to an in-my-favour swap, I received Kurt Newton's 'Black Butterflies', and a generous editor (ie Mark Deniz) sent me a free copy of 'Grants Pass'. I bought and read KC Shaw's 'Jack of All Trades', Rio Youers 'Mama Fish' and Joe Hill's 'Gunpowder' (PS Publishing) and I'm part-way through Paul Jessup's 'Glass Coffin Girls'. Languishing on my to read shelf are Joel Sutherland's 'Frozen Blood', Camille Alexa's 'Push of the Sky', Simon Bestwick's 'Pictures of the Dark', Joshua Reynolds' 'Bury Me Deep', Robots Beyond anthology, Spook City anthology, Grimm and Grimmer anthology, and Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes poetry anthology. Plus Feast by R Scott McCoy is on my Christmas list. Oh, and I've pre-ordered Courting Morpheus. I think that's it, though I'm not convinced.
Next year, as well as reading the above (began my resolution today by finally opening Gratia Placenti, the Apex anthology I bought in 2008), I'm going to devour as many online short stories as I can. I've already read a handful of Clarkesworld stories, and started in on Apex this afternoon.
And as if he wasn't busy enough, Aaron Polson is starting Skull Salad Reviews, which will be reviewing Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror stories in the small press.
I think I need to lie down now...
At the beginning of the year, I intended to keep a list of all the short stories I read online and in magazines over the year so that I could list my favourites in December. I fell off the wagon in early March. So here are my nine favourite stories from Jan-March 2009* in award order (noting that if its on the list - even at the bottom - I loved it):
Facing Myself by Marshall Payne (Fear & Trembling)
Fish Balls & Mushrooms by Natalie L Sin (Tainted anthology)
The Tethering by WD Prescott (Tainted anthology)
Post-Procedural Care on the Bloom Memorial Line by Jeremy Kelly (Malpractice anthology)
The Camping Wainwrights by Ian R MacLeod (Postscripts 17)
The Adventures of Petal, the Paperdoll Pirate by Paul Jessup (Fantasy Magazine Feb '09)
Keepity Keep by Carole Lanham - Fantasy Magazine Dec 29th '08)
Going to Pieces by GW Thomas (Every Day Weirdness)
Gary Sump's Hidden City by Aaron Polson (Every Day Weirdness)
Other stories that I can remember loving in 2009 that feature in no-particular order:
The Container of Sorrows by Mercedes M Yardley (Pedestal Magazine)
The World in Rubber, Soft and Malleable by Aaron Polson (A Fly in Amber)
The Music Box by TL Morganfield (Shock Totem #1)
Complexity by Don D'Ammassa (Shock Totem #1)
Slider by David Niall Wilson (Shock Totem #1)
Shades of White and Road by Camille Alexa (Fantasy Magazine, April)
White Paper by Rachel Green (52 Stitches)
The Unkindness of Ravens by Stephanie Gunn (Grants Pass anthology)
Boudha by KV Taylor (Grants Pass anthology)
Hells Bells by Cherie Priest (Grants Pass anthology)
Animal Husbandry by Seanan McGuire (Grants Pass anthology)
Ink Blots by Amanda Pillar (Grants Pass anthology)
Lime Green Closet by KV Taylor
Mi Casa Es Su Casa by Barry Napier (Every Day Weirdness)
End of Our World as We Know It by Robert Swartwood (Space & Time #109)
Small Motel by Dennis Danvers (Space & Time #109)
Next year, I resolve to keep a more complete list as I'm certain I've missed a really important story (oh and yes, it's by you). I'm so far behind with my short story reading it's insane... I have a few issues of M-Brane SF to read, ditto Murky Depths and Postscripts. I also have my free issue of Black Static, the October issue of Necrotic Tissue, Space and Time, and several anthologies to devour.
Oh, and an extra note. My top three anthologies of 2009 are...
1. Malpractice edited by Nathaniel Lambert
2. Tainted edited by Aaron Polson
3. Grants Pass edited by Jennifer Brozek and Amanda Pillar
*Note to members of the Academy Awards - never put me in charge.
I have a list of fifteen books that I have passed onto family members for Christmas in the hope that my 'to buy' list dwindles down to a few books. I refuse to panic about the wobbly tower that is my 'to read' pile and shall instead focus on some of the gems I've pulled from it in 2009. If there was such an award as the 'Cates' for outstanding fiction, the below novels would be my top five this year.
Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev
Unwind by Neil Shusterman
Jack of all Trades by KC Shaw
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
A few weeks ago I won a copy of Space and Time when Robert Swartwood ran a competition on his blog, and it arrived this weekend. I, of course, had to place it on top of my 'to read' pile, and in fact shoved Cherie Priest's Boneshaker aside to read it.
What a fantastic magazine... And I'm left feeling guilty as I've had a copy of issue #106 (this is #109), unread, on my shelf since earlier this year, despite it containing stories by Camille Alexa and Kurt Newton. Wrists duly slapped.
My favourite stories were 'End of Our World As We Know It' by Robert Swartwood (and for those thinking well she would say that, I challenge you to pick up issue #109 and prove me wrong) and 'Small Motel' by Dennis Danvers.
Small Motel is a slice of small town science fiction with delicious characters and a sprinkling of green tea. There is an ease to Danvers tale about alien abduction, and I'll be searching out more of his stories next year. End of Our World is beautiful, brilliant, and an excellent example of how to write in second person narrative. Oh, and Robert... You might notice something missing from this post.*
*For those wishing to understand that final, cryptic note - you'll have to read End of Our World.
My watchwords for 2010 are Clarity and Focus (it's so important I feel like putting it in fancy font). Here are some examples of rejections from 2009...
You are a good writer, but I found this story too confusing in the beginning. I think you need to concentrate on the focus of the story, i.e., what are you trying to say? (Abyss & Apex)
This had some evocative description, but I hadn't the faintest clue what was going on during most of it. (Every Day Fiction)
The details and ideas are marvelous, but we spent a bit too much of this scratching our heads. (Shimmer)
I took several hits on the head re clarity before I sat down to tackle it, we're still mid battle I'm sure, but I'm hoping to have sorted the beast out before 2010 makes me another year older. 2009 has provided me with quite a lot of valuable advice in the form of rejection letters, but I think the below is the one that really struck a chord and left me with a eureka moment (we've all had those, right?)
Some great potential to the premise, but all of these interesting ideas (wings! 10,000 years of waiting! dead father glowing!) are thrown out and then left hanging. Take the time and write the full story - it sounds more like the plot of a novel than a piece of flash fiction. (Every Day Fiction)
I swear the above made me pull up my socks to my thighs, which is quite an achievement for ankle socks.
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
catephoenix- Cate Gardner
- www.categardner.com
Syndicate
