Musings – Page 4 – markwebb.name

Getting to “The End” – novel first draft finished

Well, last night I wrote the words “The End” in the notebook I’ve been writing my novel Unaligned in. Those that have been following along with the blog know that I’ve been trying a new approach to getting regular writing done this year, and because of it I’ve managed to get to the end of the first draft of the novel I started back in 2011 (and pretty much abandoned throughout 2013) over the last three months.

Of course I still have to convert the last 20,000 words from freak-localised-household-fire-could-ruin-me notebooks to backed-up-in-about-4-different-places-should-survive-the-apocalypse electronic form. And then do a structural edit, because I’m pretty sure the end doesn’t connect up properly with the beginning given the 2 years between writing the two parts. And even a cursory read over my early work makes me blush, as, now that I think of it, does a cursory reading over my later work. So lots of copy editing. And the dialogue could use some work. And there are a lot of dodgy/lazy metaphors. And I’m worried the ending doesn’t have the right level of crescendo.

But apart from that, it’s excellent.

But despite all that it feels like an achievement. At GenreCon last year, crime author John Connolly talked a lot about finishing the things you start. While I was listening to him, my normal cynical self was parsing his words as self help clap trap. But despite that initial reaction, those words stuck with me and I began to realise that not finishing the novel was subtly bugging me. My reasons for leaving it to one side had been sound – there was a lot of life going on at the time that quite rightly demanded my attention and I decided that in what little time I had available to write I wanted to practice my craft on shorter length pieces, where I could get more immediate payback/feedback. But not finishing was creating friction in my subconscious, that tiny irritation that’s always there but hard to detect until its gone.

Well now its gone.

I’m excited about the challenge of editing and making the story the best it can be. There’s a lot of work ahead – more than the effort of getting this first version down, that’s for sure. But I am left feeling that a milestone has been met, and I didn’t want to let that pass by without note.

So, let it here be noted.

My new writing process – 2 months in

So, at the end of last year I wrote a post about my plans for my writing in 2014. In it I put forward a new writing process, to try for “slow and steady” progress. I thought it might be time for an update on how it is going.

I’ve tried a lot of different techniques for getting more regular in my writing. After trying a lot of pieces of software, I’ve landed on Scrivener as my preferred electronic writing tool of choice. But as I’ve commented elsewhere, when writing directly on the computer I find it hard to turn off my inner editor, and it is difficult to get any momentum going.

Back in 2012 I had some success with setting myself weekly goals instead of daily goals. By having a target of 2,000 words a week, I managed to get 70,000 words into the first draft of my novel over a 6 month period. However, this happened to coincide with a very slow period at work when I could pop down to a local cafe at lunch time and get 30 – 45 minutes writing done. Once work picked up to its usual frenetic pace, this technique fell away.

Since then I’ve been drifting – writing in fits and starts. The long period between writing sessions would mean that I would take ages to get started. Kids would interrupt, time would run out. Every now and then I’d get inspired and get a lot of words down in one big session, but it was very hit and miss.

So, my new plan. I took into account a few factors:

I seem much better at turning off the inner editor when I am writing freehand.
Regular writing is more important than volume of writing.
I am never going to find distraction free time.

With all that in mind, my new writing technique has been going like this. I have a preferred type of notebook for writing (a certain type of Moleskin notebook with completely blank pages, each page roughly A5 size). On each page I seem to average 100 – 110 words. So, I decided on the following:

Each day I have to write at least 1 page in one of my notebooks. That’s only 100 words. It doesn’t matter how late I stay up, how much other stuff I have on, I need that 100 words.
Most of the time those 100 words happen as my absolute last thing of the day. I’m tired. I’m often slightly snarky. It is exactly the opposite of the time of day most people recommend for writing. However, it is about the only time that is practical.
Most nights I do more than 1 page. Some nights I only barely do 1 page.
I leave the writing sitting, then follow along about 6 weeks behind typing it up into Scrivener. Here I let my inner editor go crazy, and what I type up is often quite different than what I wrote in the first place. It’s still pretty crappy, but it’s slightly more consistent crap.

Since I started this technique on 1 January 2014, I’ve written about 150 pages, conservatively about 15,000 words. That’s about the same number of words than I wrote in all of last year. I seem to be able to sustain it. It seems to be working. I’ll never be the most prolific writer in the world, but I’m very glad to be making progress.

That’s enough for now – I still have a page to fill up before I can go to bed.

Reading stats for 2013

Inspired as always by Sean Wright, where he shows his reading stats for the world to see, I’ve decided to do the same again this year. In 2012, I made a lot of rash claims about what I would do in 2013 reading wise. I met very few of those claims. And I quote:

Claim 1: “I am really looking forward to Perfections by Kirstyn McDermott, Blood and Dust by Jason Nahrung and Quiver by Jason Fischer. They are all loaded up on the Kindle ready to read and get my year off to an Australian start. “

Well OK, yes I did this one. And they were all brilliant (see my reviews of Perfections, Blood and Dust and Quiver).

Claim 2: “I also should mention the last volume of the Wheel of Time series is coming out in a few days. I started reading this series when I was a teenager and now sheer bloody mindedness is keeping me going. Having said that the last three books did lead me to the writing of Brandon Sanderson and I do quite like his work. But mostly I just need to see how the damn thing ends.”

OK, I did that one too. Finishing The Wheel of Time series has removed a weight I didn’t know I was carrying around. I’ve also determined that I won’t need to read the series again until I retire and am scratching around looking for ways to fill the empty void that my life will probably become. Or something.

Claim 3: “I’m also hanging out to see what Deborah Biancotti does next. Given how much I’ve enjoyed all her work so far, I don’t even really mind what it is that she writes, but I am secretly hoping for something longer set in the Bad Power universe.”

She didn’t publish anything! Well, not anything in the long form. She did announce the publication of a novella, but not until 2015. That’s a long time to wait, Ms Biancotti. A long, long time. So, not done but not my fault.

Claim 4: “I’ve just received the Library of America 1950s Sci-Fi collection curated by Gary K Wolfe – I think there are 9 novels in there, which will constitute the “learning more about the history of the genre” phase of my reading this year.”

Yeah, I didn’t read a single one of those novels. They look very nice on my bookshelf though. I know Gary is a huge reader of this blog (*) so my apologies. 2014 is the year of improving my SF reading credibility – promise!

Claim 5: “I’m currently rethinking my short story approach, but I will look to read Jonathan Strahan’s Best of the Year for 2012 to catch up on the good quality short fiction from 2012 that I missed. I’m also considering committing to Strahan’s Eclipse Online series of short stories which I think is an excellent forum.”

Well, I bought Jonathan Strahan’s Best of the Year for 2012. Does that count? Short fiction reading went the way of the dodo for me this year. I kept up with Aurealis (barely) and that was about it. My Kindle mocks me with oodles of back issues of Analog, Asimovs, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed etc, which I’ve only dipped into sporadically and randomly.

Claim 6: “There are quite a few “must read” books from 2012 that I haven’t actually read yet (e.g. 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson)”

I did actually manage this, in the dying gasps of the year. And pretty much only 2312 by KSR. I can’t even remember what the other “must read” books of 2012 were.

Claim 7: “I also intend to have read the Ditmar and Aurealis Award short lists before the respective award ceremonies, especially so I can vote intelligently in the Ditmars.”

Yeah, I didn’t do that. And frankly, I was a bit silly for even suggesting I would. There are a LOT of works published in Australia each year.

Claim 8: “In 2012 I completely failed to read the Hugo short list. I intend to fail to do so again this year.”

Nailed it! As promised, I completely failed to read the Hugo short list in 2013.

So, given all that failure, what did I read?

Total number of books read: 26 (down from 42)
Total by female authors: 13 (50%) (down from 60%)
Total by male authors: 12 (46%) (up from 40%)
Total by a mix of authors: 1 (4%)
Total by Australian/New Zealanders: 17 (65%)

While I was happy to be focusing on the greater Australiasian region, in going back over my admittedly small sample of books read, I didn’t read anything outside of the North America/UK/Australia/NZ block in 2013. And that is really disappointing.

Looking back over my Goodreads reviews, my 5 star reviews included two books by Kirstyn McDermott (Perfections and Caution: contains small parts), The Corpse-Rat King by Lee Battersby, Black Glass by Meg Mundell and Blood and Dust by Jason Nahrung. So, I guess that constitutes my reading recommendations for the year that was (and early 2014 5-star review went to Bloody Waters by Jason Franks, but I shouldn’t spoil next year’s reading post too much!).

The 2013 Australian Women Writers Challenge was another source of inspiration for reading this year, and I’m pleased to say that I made it to my goal. I’ve signed up again for 2014 – if you haven’t already, then check it out.

What else for 2014? Well, if 2013 has taught me anything it is that making rash predictions is a mugs game. But I’d like to get to that “history of the field” reading I mentioned in last year’s blog. And I’d like to read more fiction from non-North American/UK/Australia/New Zealand sources. And I really do need to keep up with those Best of the Year books. THESE ARE NOT PREDICTIONS. Just statements of desire.

What did you read that tickled your fancy in 2013? What’s coming up in 2014 that you absolutely cannot wait for? Tell all in the comments below.

(*) This is what we call in the industry “a lie”. Gary K Wolfe wouldn’t be seen within 5 kms of this blog! Well unless he is very lost. Or has a Google alert on his name. In which case: hi!

Tea – the Australian way

I was reading Chuck Wendig’s blog last night, where he appealed to his reader-base to help him learn how to make a good cup of tea. I don’t often dive in and leave a comment, but I’ve been thinking a bit about this topic recently and felt compelled to put down my thoughts.

A reproduction of my comment on Chuck’s blog follows. The three main purposes of this post are:

a. I liked my response and wanted to preserve it;

2. I thought of a couple of edits about 1.5 nano-seconds after I clicked submit on the comment; and

gamma. I was interested to see if anyone violently objected to my tea making style.

I get my loose leaf teas from T2. I generally prefer the stronger black teas (English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Morning Red) for the morning, a lighter black tea (Assam, Darjeeling) for the afternoons. I have these kinds of black tea with milk and sugar.

If making a pot of tea:

1. Pour hot water in the pot first to warm it up. What, are you going to make tea with a cold pot? Work on those barbarian tendencies.

2. One teaspoonful of tea per cup plus one for the pot (i.e. if the pot is big enough to pour out three cups of tea, put in 4 teaspoons of tea). I don’t know why the pot insists on its own extra teaspoon of tea. It just does, OK? Maybe it was a middle child.

3. Water as close to boiling as possible when you pour it in. You want to be standing by the kettle, so that when it starts to whistle or goes bing or plays the Lithuanian national anthem or whatever it does when the water is boiled, you can immediately snatch it up and pour that angry, restless water into the pot.

4. Steep for about 3 or 4 minutes. Don’t be tempted to steep longer, the tea starts to get bitter. That sounds obvious, but you’ll want to steep it for longer. You’ll say “my tea must be strong, strong like me.” You might even feel the urge to beat your chest. Resist. Over-steeped tea tastes like arse. Bitter, bitter arse.

5. If I’m pouring a cup of tea from a pot, I prefer to have the milk and sugar already in the cup before pouring. I recognise that this is a hotly debated step in tea circles. Seriously, amongst tea aficionados you could lose yourself for days in discussion about tea/milk/sugar order. Actually that brings me to my number 1 tip: avoid getting into a discussion about tea with tea aficionados.

Oops.

6. Of course your cup was warm before you poured in the tea right? Did you learn nothing from step 1 above? Sigh.

7. If you’re going to attempt to preserve the remaining tea in the pot for a second cup, remove the leaves. Some prefer to go through a complicated process involving a moonshine still, a magical straining handkerchief woven from the hairs of a pixie and three guinea pigs turning a hamster wheel for power, but I bought a teapot with a removable strainer built in. Six of one…

8. Enjoy!

Tea bags:

If you are stuck in a post-apocalyptic icy wasteland, where all that remains for sustenance is cockroaches, tinned peaches and tea bags, the order is slightly different. Note that this scenario is one of only two circumstances in which you should use a tea bag of your own volition. Laziness is the other.

1. Still warm the cup. You might be fighting for survival against the worst scum that post-apocalypic {insert country of choice here} can offer, but that doesn’t mean you should abandon all sense of propriety.

2. Water still as near to boiling as you can make it. If the lack of modern conveniences that come from the fall of civilisation means you no longer have your Lithuanian-national-anthem-playing kettle, stick your finger in to gauge exactly the right moment (*). You’ll thank me later.

3. For tea bags, do not, I repeat do not, put the milk and sugar in first. Why? The answer to that is so obvious I refuse to insult your intelligence by explaining further.

4. Steep for 3-4 minutes, or as long as you can hold off the radioactive, mutant cockroaches.

5. Remove the tea bag immediately. If you got the temperature of the water right, you could even use the bag as a makeshift sling shot to hold off the hordes that are, as we speak, descending on you in order to steal your near-perfect cup of tea.

6. Add milk and sugar to taste. I like to add just enough milk that you can see it cloud up just below the surface of the tea, like the mushroom cloud that started you on this non-tea-leaf-journey-to-hell to begin with.

7. Stir anti-clockwise or clockwise as your hemisphere dictates, and sip gently. It is traditional at this point to burn your tongue on the first sip, ruining the rest of the tea experience, but that should not be considered compulsory.

For green tea:

1. Exactly the same as above, but no milk and no sugar. Oh, OK you can add a little bit of sugar if you want to. I’ve been known to. But for the love of your favourite deity, don’t tell anyone. There are few social faux pas greater than mentioning to a green tea drinker that you’d like a little sugar in your cup.

2. For the purposes of milk and sugar, any royalty associated with the Grey family should be treated as green tea (i.e. Lady Grey, Earl Grey etc).

Miscellaneous:

1. Sugar should be those misshapen lumps of refined and raw sugar that you see in your fancier cafes. I think the feeling of superiority that comes from using them actually makes the tea taste better.

2. If a cafe brings you a tea bag for the cup of tea that costs exactly the same as your friend’s cup of coffee, NEVER GO TO THAT CAFE AGAIN. Even if it is the only cafe still standing in your post-apocalyptic world.

3. I’ve tried lemon. I’ve tried honey. I don’t care for either. So they’re not going to make an appearance in this post.

Right, so that’s it from me. What about you? Are you currently frothing at the mouth as you consider my blasphemous tea making way? Let fly with both barrels. Have the perfect way of making a cuppa, handed down from father to daughter over many generations? Spill the secret.

(*) My legal advisors tell me that recommending this step is not sensible and that I should tag it with an appropriate caution. WARNING: sticking any body part into boiling water is likely to cause pain.

Writing – a 2013 recap and 2014 plan

My 2013 writing year was a hit and miss affair. I had two flash fiction pieces published at Antipodean SF (The Regersek Zone and Hindsight is a Bitch). Nuke at Antipodean SF has been a great supporter, and I was very pleased to get a couple of pieces done for him.

This year I decided to put my novel writing on hold and focus on a few shorter pieces, to try and get more “end to end” experience of writing something. The result was four pieces in addition to the published two above:

11,000 word fantasy piece that I’m still tinkering with called The Reclaimers.
5,000 word I guess you’d call it urban/modern rural fantasy short story called Showdown.
4,000 word science fiction piece called Wefting the Warp.
600 word flash piece called Learning and Development.

I like all four, but it is fair to say that I have accumulated a lot of rejections on the last three so I don’t think that feeling is shared in the broader publishing community! Still, I’m very happy to have finished some pieces.

2013 was a difficult year work wise and with a few family issues, so my writing fell away a lot, especially towards the end of the year. I wasn’t writing regularly enough and it became more and more difficult to pick up a pen or a keyboard and start typing. Genrecon came along and gave me a good kick in the backside and I’ve had a few weeks off over Christmas to hopefully do some battery recharging. Given I’m going back into work I figure I’m as recharged as I’m going to get, so I’ve decided on the following for 2014:

I don’t like telling people I have 2/3rds of an awful first draft of a novel. It’s a bit embarrassing. I’ve decided that I want to tell people that I have a full crappy first draft of a novel. Getting that last third of the novel out onto paper is a now a goal.
I’m going to rest my short stories for a couple of months and come back at them with fresh eyes. Given the feedback I’ve been getting they are just not good enough but I think I need a little distance before I can pull them apart effectively.
I need to be writing more regularly. I’ve worked out that writing longhand, if I write one page in the notebooks I like to use it equates to about 100 words. I’ve set myself the goal of writing at least one page every day, even if it means staying up a bit later of an evening to do so. As is often the way, one page often turns into 2 or 3 or 10, but I think I’m going to have to keep this “slow and steady” approach or I’m never going to get anywhere.
I’d like to try and get involved with the right writing group – somewhere where I can get feedback of course but also get more of a support network for my writing. Fitting something like a writing group in around my family and work commitments is difficult, but it is something I’d like to make time for. I’ve had some great support from some individual writers out there as well and I’d also like to continue to build that network.
Assuming all this goes to plan, the back half of the year I’d like to spend time editing my crappy novel first draft into a slightly-less-crappy-but-still-crappy second draft.
I enjoy writing the shorter pieces, so I’m hoping a couple more flash fiction stories might find their way onto the Antipodean SF website during the year.

Now, by writing all this down and putting it into the public domain I’m hoping I can embarrass myself into actually following through. So, if you see me around the traps feel free to ask how things are going. If I look shifty and try to distract you by asking if that is Elvis Presley in the corner, you’ll know things aren’t going so well!

2014 Australian Women Writers’ Reading Challenge

If you’re looking at my blog more generally, you can probably tell that I’m in catch up mode for finishing off my 2013 reviews for the Australian Women Writers’ reading challenge. Given I’m focused on the challenge today, I thought I’d also announce my intention to give it a whirl again in 2014.

Once again I’ll be trying the Franklin level – read at least 10 books, review at least 6. And this year I’ve given particular consideration to trying to extend my reading beyond speculative fiction. My heart has warmed as I’ve read of others that have expanded their horizons, and reaped the rewards of an enhanced and more nuanced view of the world. People have almost uniformly announced that they are better people for reading more widely, and it has been pointed out to me that I should take any opportunity to be a better person. I’m working from a fairly low base.

But bollocks to that – I’m lucky to find any time at all to read, and I’m always feeling guilty that I don’t keep up with all the releases in the speculative fiction field. I don’t want to feel guilty across multiple genres. And besides, being a better person is overrated.

So, Franklin level is the name, and speculative fiction is the game. I’ve got quite a few books that I didn’t get to in 2013, plus a lot of new releases and old series I’m looking forward to getting stuck into.

Interested in participating in this year’s challenge? Go to the 2014 challenge website and sign up. You won’t regret it. (*)

(*) Musing of a Wannabe Speculative Fiction Writer cannot guarantee a 100% absence of regret for any activities advocated on this site. I’d put this in the low 90s though.

What is the sound of one hand writing? Or is it typing?

Another interesting thread from a writing mailing list has inspired another slightly tangental post on my behalf. The question – do you write long hand or directly into the computer?

My early career was in the computer industry and I’ve always had computers in my working life, so when I started to write I got myself set up with a laptop and the Scrivener writing software package and did all of my drafting electronically.

However, recently I realised that I have a lot of trouble turning off my inner editor when I write on the computer. I’m always going back and fiddling with sentences. This was fine when I was writing primarily flash fiction, but it has become a bit problematic when tackling longer pieces. I can’t get me no momentum!

So recently I’ve been writing longhand on lunch breaks, while waiting for my daughter to finish her dance lesson, in the stolen moments when the kids go off to a birthday party – basically anywhere I can grab a few minutes spare. I seem to be much better at saying “oh that’s roughly correct, I’ll fix it when I type this up” when I’m writing by hand. As a result, I’m getting more first draft material down without my internal critic slowing me up. Also, the typing up process is an excellent way of giving my work a first level line edit. And for those that have read my writing, you’ll know the more editing the better!

Of course I also have a growing volume of almost indecipherable hand written semi-prose that I haven’t quite got around to typing up yet. And, every minute that goes by reduces the chance I’ll ever be able to re-interpret my own scribbling, meaning some story ideas and fragments may be lost forever. But that’s the price I pay for the impetus gaining by a moving object.

I’ve also been giving some thought to writing materials. Recently I’ve begun using a series of “whiteline” books (where the page is a very very light grey and the lines are white). Much easier on the eye. Sadly I haven’t yet found a pen I really like, so I drift from shop to shop constantly searching, never finding true pen love.

What about you? Is your preference for long hand or is it electronic-word-capture-or-bust? Have you found pen love? A particularly well formed notebook, whose pages soak up your speculative fictive ink like a sponge in a rock pool? The perfect keyboard for your iPad, allowing your fingers to fly faster than light while you sit at the local cafe? Do sponges in rock pools actually soak up anything? Tell me all about it.

Submitting stories – going against wise counsel

I recently attended the NSW Speculative Fiction Festival where many fine speakers imparted much accumulated wisdom. A good time was had by all. There was one session focusing on the art and craft of short story writing, chaired by Cat Sparks and including Angela Slatter, Lisa Hannett and Dirk Strasser. All very accomplished writers, editors and publishers with a plethora of awards between them. One of the main pieces of advice they gave was submit to pro markets first. Why publish your story for free when someone might pay you for it? Why take 2c a word when someone might pay 10c a word? Why miss an opportunity for your work to get out to the wider audiences that the pro markets command?

Why?

It’s good advice. It is logical. Across the room I could feel the pluck of my fellow neophyte writers stiffen as we all resolved to send our short stories to Asimov’s as soon as we got home. I suspect the online submission systems of many a professional magazine were swamped with stories from down under. I did it myself, adding some prestigious names to my steadily growing pile of rejections (always boilerplate rejections, never those good personally written ones that everyone talks about :-). And as we’re always told, you’re probably being rejected because your work isn’t quite right for that particular editor at that particular time. Sure, some work is rejected because it isn’t good enough, but not yours. Never yours. Right?

I like my stories. When I leave them for long enough that I can barely remember writing them and re-read them as if I’m reading a strangers work, I enjoy the experience. They aren’t literary, but then I’m not a literary guy. I think they are OK. And considering I’ve only been writing for a short time, that’s good. I’m proud of the work I do.

But OK work that I’m proud of does not necessarily a pro market publication make. And some markets take months to get back to you. By my rough calculations, if you submitted to every pro market that gives you credit towards say joining Science Fiction Writers of America, your story could be tied up for years. And stories sitting in slush piles do not help me learn how to be better.

I’m beginning to think that what I need to be focusing on is mid-tier semi-pro markets where an editor might take some interest in my work, and perhaps provide suggestions on how it could be improved. At this stage, that would be much more valuable to me than large amounts of money. The flash fiction pieces I’ve published on Antipodean SF have been fantastic experiences, working with the editor there (Ion Newcombe) to make them better. Perhaps I need the equivalent for longer works.

I’m undecided. The lure of a pro market sale is strong. But I know I’ve got a lot to learn about the craft of writing, and wasting time sending solid but not dazzlingly brilliant stories to markets that are never going to publish them might not be such a great idea.

So, my friends – what do you think? For the writers out there, what is your approach to short story submissions? Is it all-pro-all-the-time? Free to a good home? Somewhere in between?

Day jobs and writing

“Day jobs and writing” was the subject of a recent thread on a writing mailing list I subscribe to. It was interesting reading about how a lot of people struggle with a job that lets them pay the bills, but takes them away from their first love, writing. There was a lot of dreaming of the day when they could chuck the day job and write full time. I threw my $0.02 in, and I thought I might repeat some of the sentiments here.

I love my day job. I work in the public sector (government work), and get a great sense of satisfaction out of serving the society I live in. My day job does not involve large amounts of writing, and what writing there is takes the form of briefing notes etc. The job is very demanding in terms of hours which makes it hard to fit in writing. I also have chosen to live within walking distance of my work, so no commute time to do writing (but with an hour and a half of walking each day, plenty of time to think about writing!). I have a young family – so difficult to fit writing around family activities. I do wish I had more time for writing.

However, I do not aspire to be a full time writer.

I’ve only been writing for a couple of years (late starter – I blame the mid life crisis) and I always felt obscurely guilty about the fact I didn’t want to be a full time writer. I went to a few writing courses and conventions, and there was a lot of attitude that translated to “if you are serious about your craft, your goal has to be to be a full time writer. Therefore if you don’t aspire to full time writer status, you can’t be a ‘real’ writer”. It was a bit depressing – I began to feel that I didn’t “belong” in the writing community.

Then I went to a panel session at the excellent GenreCon in Sydney Australia late last year and there was a writer that I admire saying that he loves writing, that he is absolutely serious about his craft, that he always wants to improve, that he loves being published but that he didn’t want to be a full time writer.

He loved his day job. He loved not feeling commercial pressure to make money from writing and the creative freedom that offered him. That he hoped to “break even” on his writing, but that his writing business plan had at its goal being a part time writer.

I felt good after that session, let me tell you.

So, I love my day job. I love writing. Long may they both live!

What about you?

Zombie flash fiction competition entry – intrigued?

A writing friend, P J Keuning, is new to the field but displayed mad newbie writing skills and had one of his short stories published in the just-released anthology In Fabula-Divino. To support his introduction to published glory, I’ve been following the release activities for the book. One of the authors, Holly Kench, is running a zombie flash fiction competition to celebrate the launch.

I was reading an entry when the following very short story occurred to me.

Edit 5/5/2013

I’ve removed the story temporarily as I’ve submitted it to a flash fiction site. Will put it back up if the story is rejected. Or you can write to me and ask for a copy!

Edit 23/5/2013

My zombie story, Hindsight is a Bitch, has been accepted by Antipodean SF for publication. Look for it in issue 185, due out in November 2013.