Knockin' over the words

Darkling Muse, fresh from all sorts of sideshow terrors, has gripped my pen hand firmly the past month or so and forced me to finish my second novel, 809 Jacob. This one is currently 110,000 words long, and is one I actually started before my PhD.

I will set about doing the final edit run-through once I return from the jungles of PNG. I'm off for two weeks geological field work in the deep dark and spooky jungles of the Highlands from the 21st of this month, and man, what an adventure this will be!! I will get a helicoptor ride each morning out to the region we will be working on that day, then a ride back to the base camp each evening. Last time my boss was out there, he had a Death Adder fall from a tree onto his hat, and a crazy rebel point a home-made shotgun into his face! Definite story material...

I've also had a slight change of plan regarding my first novel. The idea in that book is bulging at the seams, so in line with my plan of developing it into a trilogy, I want to add a little more to it in order to link these new ideas. So, for now, 809 Jacob will take priority; I intend to submit this novel to publishers by the second half of this year (which will please the dark fellow).

But for the next 10 days before I fly out to jungleland, I will be finishing some short stories - and getting stabbed by needles and sorting out visas and getting Malaria pills.........

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.

Turning the Screw

So that's Christmas. There goes all the good will and cheer, the New Years celebration, the Xmas crackers, turkey and cranberry, rejoicing in the fact that the world's clock has ticked over another year and we're all still here - gone and dusted. So long and thanks for all the fish, as one cool book said.

And with the new year comes the renewed drive. This is gonna be the year I do it, the year my name is up in lights. Here are my goals and now watch me reach for them. That type of thing.

Well, Darkling Muse doesn't work that way - unfortunately. He didn't stop over Christmas, didn't celebrate the way I wanted to. His dark circus continued their shows, his carnival companions taking no time off. His drive is formidable, sometimes more than I can cope with. The ideas (are they fictional or things that really happens backstage, beyond that heavy curtain? I shudder to think) come faster than I can write, blasting into my head on his hollering voice only to be echoed immediately by another.

He laughed when I told him I was going to post my New Years resolutions, threatened to involve me in his ideas in a whole new way, and the look upon his shadowed face when he said that - no, I'd rather not push him. So no New Years resolutions from me...

Darkling Muse doesn't believe in them. For him, each story is going to be better than the last, published in bigger magazines and collections. Every story is a stepping stone. He's a hard task-master - I'd hate to think what would happen should (and I'm whispering this so he won't hear me) he fail a resolution - were he to let them be known, that is...

So I'm learning his method - every story we write is going to win an award, is going to be published in a best-selling collection, gonna become a classick. And while the stories seep from my pores under his guidance, the first novel is going to be at publishers, relentlessly, until it is published. The second novel has already been started, and the drive is on to finish that now, too.

First though, I'd better finish the synopsis for the first (am almost there).

Oh-oh, he's just realized what I said - I'd better go now.