Fantastic Wonder Stories is coming...

My story The Wildflowers is set to appear in Ticonderoga Publications Fantastic Wonder Stories, which is going to be launched at SwanCon 32 "Inconceiveable" over the Easter Weekend, 6-9 April 2007 in Perth, Western Australia.

It's a desert story, set in the small dusty town of Elsewhere somewhere deep in Australia, where the desertfolk smile with shifty looks and shadows blow across the hazy mulga bush landscape towards town...

Pre-orders can be made here.

Ah, Darkling Muse is very happy today, cos we've also submitted the novel.....

Ploughing on...

Well, Darkling Muse has finally cracked a smile. His hands have unclenched and he has stepped back from behind me - I'm glad he's no longer breathing over my shoulder 'cos I've gotta tell ya, his breath is ripe and full of dead things...

He's smiling because the novel synopsis is - finally and absolutely - done, and becasue I've got the time to start writing stories again.

First plan of action is to submit the novel, and that's both exciting and daunting (it's just a pity I can't send Darkling Muse in there to meet with publishers :)

My article called Australian Horror Fiction - An Overview is also done, all 6000+ words of it. Done and sent off to the editor of the collection, which will see publication in December in India!! While the article was a hard slog that took me from my muse, it did open up a whole world of early Australian horror, going right back to 1857. There's some pretty good colonial Australian 'horror' stories lurking about in history.

But I'm glad that article is done because I haven't managed to do much writing lately, and there are many, many ideas building in my head. They're starting to cram up against one another, so I'm going to have to put them into words very soon before that creepy sideshow fellow decides on another way to pry them from my head...

2007 continues to rumble along, with my 4th story for the year being published by Demon Minds. Already, I've had more stories accepted for publication in 2007 than I did in the whole of 2006, so that's pretty cool. I'm feeling in a good place with my writing now, so it's time to step up as gear. All that cluttered scientific jargon left over from my PhD has been cleaned out of my system and the words seem to be flowing quite well.

It's time to return to the carnival...

The Ups and Downs of Writing

December and the start of January represented a great period for me and my writing, with three acceptances in a row, all short stories of 3000 words plus. Woohoo!!

Since I started writing seriously in late 2005, this is the best month I've had in this crazy adventure through the carnival.

And then, bang-bang-bang - three rejections in a row in January, just to bring me back down to Earth...

They were those frustratingly positive rejections, but rejections none-the-less. Still, I'll take 3 acceptances out of six submissions any day.

As for the novel, well, the synopsis caused me a few headaches, but with the help of two wonderful ladies - Kim Wilkins and Josephine Pennicott - I do believe I've finished it. I should be ready to launch the novel into the world of publishers within the next week or two. Frightening...

Here's a little bit of incentive - Dr. Seuss's first children's book was rejected by 23 publishers. The 24th sold 6 million copies.