A Pint of Bloody Fiction – Featuring MY story!

A couple of months ago I hadn’t written anything for ages. A couple of months, I thought, but when I checked it turned out to be almost a year. When I saw a call for submissions of 200 words by House of Horror for their new anthology A Pint of Bloody Fiction, the urge was irresistible. I whipped up a 200 word story in half an hour, and then spending twice that long editing it!

I sent it in, and the acceptance wasn’t long coming. Why isn’t it always that simple? The grin on my face stayed for over a week; anyone who know what a miserably bugger I normally am can testify this is an extremely rare event.

So my story “The Blade Bites Deep” appears in the collection, alongside some other stuff by some other writers. (Who are actually pretty good too!)

This burst of confidence also unleashed a six week write-fest, where I wrote something every couple of days. About twelve stories were produced in that time, and now the inspiration seems to have taken a backseat I better get to editing and submitting the buggers before my own version of writers block (life in general, grrr!) starts getting in the way again. So wish me luck!

And go get yourself a copy of  A Pint of Bloody Fiction and tell them I sent you!

Within the pages of this book of nightmares you will find horror stories in small doses, just enough to quench your bloody thirst. From an insomniac vampire to a library filled with human skin bound books, this collection will take you on a wild ride of chills and thrills without you even having to leave your seat. With each story being no more than 200 words, this collection is only a fraction of what these writers can do. Forty-Two chilling tales from many talented authors, trust me you will not want to put this book down.

Available now from House of Horror, Lulu.com and coming soon to Amazon.

Morpheus Tales Dark Sorcery Special Issue – I was nearly in it

The latest special issue from Morpheus Tales, is the Dark Sorcery Special Issue, edited by Tommy B. Smith.

It’s a great looking issue and I was very nearly in it. When I heard about this special issue I thought Dark Sorcery is for me, and went and wrote a story for it. It’s a great story too, about this young wizard running around town making sacrifices all over the place, being chased by the King’s men, and attempting to do one last spell to complete his task, a task that will change him forever. It’s even better than I’ve described it, as there are various twists which would ruin it if I told you.

So, as I was writing this story I got a bit carried away and wrote a thousand words over the maximum word count. Editing… I hate editing. Writing is a joyful experience, it’s fun being god for a little while and being in control of all my little people. But when it comes to editing, my fear of failure comes and smacks me in the face. However good it sounded in my head when I typed it out, reading it back during the editing stages makes it sound hideously turgid and boring. Whether it is or not. I can’t really tell. Anyway, I put off editing the story. And put it off, and put it off some more. And low and behold the deadline passed, and it was too late for my murderous little tale to make it in the final edition.

Despite this issue not featuring my fabulous story, it’s still a great issue.

Go check out the free preview at lulu.com and buy yourself a copy:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/morpheus-tales-dark-sorcery-special-issue-large-format-a4-edition/12192006

The full range of Morpheus Tales Collector’s Editions are available at www.lulu.com/morpheustales

Writing…

I’m having a hard time writing at the moment. It’s not a lack of ideas, it’s more a lack of passion. I discovered writing when I was in my teens and loved it. I felt compelled to write down my every idea, thought and feeling. I kept a diary, I wrote most days. It wasn’t a choice, it was as natural as waking up, as natural as eating.

I wrote thousands of stories and seven novels, I wrote reviews and articles that appeared in magazine all over the place, but I wasn’t ready to share my fiction. I wanted to keep it for myself. I didn’t edit hardly any of it because I hate editing.

Then one summer, lacking ideas for my latest novel, I decided to edit the ones I had already written. I worked my way through all of them, and then again. Pretty soon I’d been editing for two years, and hadn’t written anything. For me editing takes the passion out of writing, it makes writing lose the magic that makes it special.

I haven’t written anything substantial for several years now. The fire that burned inside me is almost out. I have no lack of imagination, no lack of inspiration, just a lack of sitting my arse down and writing.

Writing now seems like a chore rather than a joy. In fact most things in adulthood seem like a chore. But some chores take priority, like earning money to pay the bills.

I’m not focused on writing like I was before. I have too many other hobbies that take up too much time.

I still write a short story occasionally, although I now have to push myself. When I do a spark of that old fire comes back, the joy returns while I weave my world from words. But I need a kick-start, I need something to push me.

Whilst threatened with redundancy earlier in the year I planned to write a book and to learn a language, at least until I found another job. Fortunately the redundancy didn’t happen, but unfortunately I don’t have the time to spend doing the things I would really like to do.

My latest idea was to get my books proof-read by a professional and start submitting them, but that’s actually fairly expensive if you want it done properly, and trust me, from what I can remember of my last (fourth) edits of my novels, they need to be looked at properly.

So I sit, filling up a blank screen with my moaning instead of writing another story, one I have an idea for. About a private detective who is visited by a beautiful woman who brings with her a box that kills people when it’s opened. Ok, so it’s not that original, but I could do something with it.

May be I would try and see where it takes me…