The End is Only Just Beginning

I haven’t written in the last week, not so much because I was on holidays and gorging myself as I was busy. In fact, I didn’t gorge myself except for some wine imbibition. Otherwise, I was finishing up the rewrite of my novel The Fool’s Game. It’s languished for a long time and I always meant to rewrite it…again.

Then I read about the Terry Pratchett prize by the famous humor fantasy author in England. The contest was free to enter and it was for a manuscript that takes place on Earth in some way. My novel fit the bill and I’m of a Commonwealth country, one of the rules for entering. The prize is a publishing contract and 20,000 pounds. That would be lovely to get.

I used the deadline, today, to work on the novel over the past few months, getting down to the wire and the nitty gritty today. I had to rewrite and shorten the synopsis as well and that was a good thing. I also added nine thousand words to the novel, changed a few things and gave more description. Will I win? That would be nice but there could be hundreds, even thousands of entries. I’m a competent writer or understands the techniques of writing. That will give me a better chance than probably half of the entries, but then it will depend on the uniqueness of the story and how well it’s told. I won’t know until March so no point worrying about it now. It’s winging its way across the ether to the other side of the pond.

Other writing news includes that the Evolve anthology http://www.vampires-evolve.com/with my well-received story “An Ember Amongst the Fallen” is number five on the Barnes and Noble list of the top vampire books of the year. That’s great news. http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Explorations-The-BN-SciFi-and/The-Best-Vampire-Releases-of-2010/ba-p/767920

http://cuttingblock.net/books.html

The Horror Library Vol. 4 story has not been receiving any reviews yet. I’ve only found two and “Exegesis of the Insecta Apocrypha” isn’t even mentioned which is disappointing. I’ve always said I’d prefer a bad review than no review so not being noticed sucks. The editors also had great hopes for this disturbing story, but the book hasn’t been out long so there is still hope for it. And the story did get good comments when I read it at Orycon. Besides those two stories, “A Taste For Treasure” also came out this year in Alison’s Wonderland, as well as two poems, “Of the Corn” in Witches & Pagans #21, and “Bones of the Earth” in the summer edition of Country Connection magazine. Not a bad year and “Lover’s Triangle” should have been out by December but should be out soon in New Vampire Tales.

That wraps up the writing year, but we’re only as good as our last written story. I will now have to catch up on some slush reading for ChiZine Publications, getting ready to judge poetry for the Rannu competition which closes as the end of January I believe, and then of course write other stories. I can now write the steampunk story placed just before the US Civil War and which is already plotted out. I just didn’t have time.

Then I have another dark story to write about skin and power, and there is a backburnered sci-tech story waiting to be pushed along. And now that I’ve rewritten that novel it’s time to get going on the other novel which is under construction. I hope this coming year will be even more stellar for writing.

And to all of you who read my blog, may you have a fantastic year, achieve your goals and have fun and love. Happy New Year to all.

On Being Freshly Pressed

This week, my blog post made it to the WordPress front pages and I was freshly pressed or featured. And thanks to everyone who came by to read my post and congratulate me. I’d been bumping along on my posts, getting modest readership and it was really interesting to see how the readership soared.

Creative Commons: http://dancurtis.ca/2010/07/

I’ve read the page on being Freshly Pressed and the five things to do: original content, no profanity, a picture that’s not stolen or credited correctly (I’ve started using Creative Commons images if not my own), using tags and categories, proofreading, etc. So I posted about “The Only Good Thing About Snow” on Tuesday and popped it up quickly. I’m a writer, an editor so I tend to always proofread but I was on my way for dental surgery and had to run. So I didn’t proofread (until later and there were only a couple of typos/grammar issues), I forgot to post any tags, and I only had the default category of culture listed. And I was freshly pressed.

I went and read the page again and really wondered because this beasty didn’t fit some of those categories, so I emailed WordPress. They told me that it helps to a degree but too many tags or categories can make it so that the pages don’t show at all. Interesting. I asked how many and they said five to ten is good but don’t sweat it. Okay, I’m not sweating it. I’m not making money on my blog, just posting to air my opinion, to inform, to let people know I exist, but if I was depending on it for income, I’d sweat it big time. And that is how I was freshly pressed, by not following some of the rules. A true mystery I guess, or a seasonally appropriate blog with a picture of the right width to fit into the Freshly Pressed

format.

Still it was fun but I wonder what I would have done with a format that went viral. I was hard pressed (pun intended) to keep up with and approve all the comments. There were about 50 and I have it set for pre-approval on a person’s first comment. I was at work so my mailbox filled quickly.

I’m curious to see how my blog will progress now. Will it go back to the normal number of readers or increase. I noticed that some people have subscribed and I thank you for that. Continue to give me feedback.

Cutting Block Press: http://www.cuttingblock.net/books.html

If nothing else, this gives me a place to write regularly when I have a writing block in the fiction world. That’s not the case right now. I’m about 30 pages from the end of my novel rewrite, with a bit of backtracking to fix a few areas. But I will hit the goal of having it done before the end of the year. Then I can get to two stories percolating fully in my brain. The steampunk one has a fully laid out plot and I just have to write it and clear up  a few things about engines and flight. Another one is getting there, very dark and about a quest for power. And of course I still have manuscript submissions to read. It’ll slow down over the holidays.

I’ve also been reading through the anthology Horror Library Vol. 4 in which my story “Exegesis of the Insecta Apocrypha” is featured. There are about 30 stories and while I don’t normally do a review on an anthology in which I have a story I do have to say that overall these very dark stories and well written, thought provoking and disturbing. (Okay, I don’t really like the cover–sorry, guys–there have just been too many scary skulls.) Catherine MacLeod’s story “Stone” stands out as being very disturbing. The best stories often touch on social mores, morals and taboos. Catherine’s does all this and makes one really think of what is acceptable and whether it should be. People often poo-poo speculative fiction (encompassing horror, SF, fantasy, etc.) as not being really but it is a place to look at morality and social commentary in a very strong image. Don’t discount supposed genre fiction because you think it’s like a trite movie. It’s often much deeper than you think.