2014 and 2015

Another new year already. Traditionally (by which I mean for the last two years, which seems to qualify as a tradition these days) I start the year by reviewing my writing achievements over the year that's finished and looking ahead to the year to come.

During 2014, my writing has been somewhat disrupted by… well, by writing. Since March, my official day-job has been as a freelance copywriter, and the work I've needed to put into building that up — which seems to be paying off — has severely cut into my creative writing time. Still, among all that, I seem to have got through a fair amount.

I'm not as far as I'd hoped through my current novel (working title The Empire of Nandesh) but I'm more than 50,000 words into it. I'd been hoping to be nearly finished by now, but both the copywriting and other projects have cut into it. I revised the novella The Dweller in the Crack, and wrote three shorter pieces, Finder's Fee, Turning the Tables and Gerda and the Darkness, but the biggest distraction was my very unexpected diversion into children's fantasy.

A few years ago, I wrote a very short piece called The Biggest Dragon in the World, which featured a sorceress called Cariana. I really wrote it for my own amusement, but it turned out as a children's story. During the summer, I attended a workshop of mainly children's authors and took the story along as my one qualifying piece. They loved it and encouraged me to expand it into a series.

I've now written half a dozen other connected stories, but the series took an unexpected turn when, in the second story, I introduced Cariana's nearly-eleven-year-old apprentice Flea, who's taken over as the central character. I'm having huge fun writing about her — in the most recent, she has an encounter with pirates — and the aim is to add perhaps three or four further stories and then, after revision, try to pitch it as a book.

I've begun self-publishing some of my out-of-print work, which has been an interesting process. I have mixed feelings about self-publishing, but it's a valuable option for an author with the experience and willingness to put in the work it needs. So far, I've republished At An Uncertain Hour, the novel previously issued by StoneGarden, and Steal Away, the first story about Karaghr and Failiu, which first appeared in the late, lamented Golden Visions. I'm also hoping to bring out the sequel, Rainy Season, also a Golden Visions story, and perhaps others.

As far as professional publication is concerned, December saw the publication of my second ebook from Musa Publishing, The Lone and Level Sands. A contemporary (or nearly contemporary) fantasy but set in a secondary world, this is archaeological fantasy somewhat in the Indiana Jones tradition. It came out just before Christmas, so I'm gearing up again to restart promotion.

Besides these, I've had stories in The Colored Lens (Damned) and Plasma Frequency (The Lady of the House and The PetrologicEngine, the latter my "flintpunk" story) as well as in three anthologies, two of which I was involved in producing. Light of the Last Day was the somewhat overdue anthology from Fantasy-writers.org, which I co-edited and contributed Lari's People and Dayglow, while the equally long-in-making The Tale Trove is the first production from my live writers' group, the East Herts Fantasy Writers. My contributions are Return Switch, Hanuut's Stand, I See a Voice and three poems. I've also appeared in Unburied Treasure, a follow-up to last year's Trespass, with the custom-written Finder's Fee.

So what of 2015? I'll probably continue to have less time to devote to writing than I did before last year, but I have The Lone and Level Sands to promote, and I hope to reissue Rainy Season this year. On a slightly longer-term basis, I've been considering self-publishing a collection of stories about Eltava. All but two have been published in various markets, and all rights have now reverted to me, so it might be a practical option. But a lot more work than putting out single stories.

I'll continue with both The Empire of Nandesh and the Flea stories, and hopefully I'll finish the draft of the former and have the latter ready for submission during the year. That's assuming I don't get diverted again. We'll see.

I'd like to wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Damned published in The Colored Lens

Issue 11 of the excellent magazine The Colored Lens in now out, featuring my short story Damned. The first of three stories (so far) in a loose series set in a magicpunk world (or magitech, as I prefer) is about moral choices in a dystopic society whose treatment of the magically gifted will be only too familiar to anyone familar with twentieth-century history.

Besides Damned, this issue features stories by Marcelina Vizcarra, Peter J. Enyeart, Steve Toase, Greg Little, Melinda Moore, Jeff Suwak, Dusty Cooper, Damien Krsteski, Iulian Ianescu, J. A. Becker and Todd Thorne.

 

 

Excerpt from Damned

 

 

The spell to start my car didn’t work that evening, so I contacted the repair service and walked home from the office through darkening drizzle, rather than being ripped off by the Instant Transportation System.  Rain insinuated itself inside my upturned collar.  Typical: they spend a fortune on improving the fireballs and blasting spells, but nothing on controlling the weather.

 

“Can I see your papers, sir?” said a voice behind me.

 

I turned with the practiced air of having nothing to hide, but my mind was racing.  Had he heard my thoughts, and would he consider them disloyal?  I’d always doubted the rumours of the peacekeepers using mind-reading devices, but I wasn’t so sure at that moment.

 

It was reassuring that his fireball-thrower was still in its holster, although his hand rested on it, but his face was blank and unreadable as they always were.  He had the spell-shield slung over his shoulder, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice and reflect any hex back on the attacker. 

 

I fumbled the papers from my inside pocket and tried to stand calmly while he scanned them.  Everyone feels paranoid in this situation.  Or maybe just me.  It’s not as if anyone would dare to discuss it.

 

He looked up at last.  “Seen any of the damned, sir?”

 

The question threw me, as was no doubt the intention, but I was able to answer truthfully, “Of course not.  I’d have reported it if I had.”

 

 

You can buy The Colored Lens on Kindle from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

 

 



2013 and 2014

2012 was a great year for me as far as publication was concerned, but 2013 seemed to slow down a little.  Even so, there's been a fair amount to celebrate.

Perhaps the biggest thing out was The Triarchy's Emissary, issued by a new South African epublisher, Fox & Raven.  This was a story I wrote several years ago for a shared-world anthology that collapsed before it was complete.  We created the world between us, and I've always been proud of the story I wrote for it, even though no-one was accepting it, so I'm grateful to Marius for putting it out and delighted to be helping Fox & Raven get off the ground.  Coincidentally, another contributor to the anthology also had an acceptance for her anthology story at around the same time, which was wonderful.

Following the publication of The Treason of Memory (still available) at the end of 2012, Musa Publishing have accepted The Lone and Level Sands, my secondary-world Indiana Jones style story about archaeologists, desert countries and ancient, haunted temples.  I don't have a publication date for it yet, but I look forward to getting to work on it.

Besides The Triarchy's Emissary, I've only had one story newly published this year — River God in the excellent magazine The Colored Lens, a story that combines fantasy with ecology and owes a little in influence to John Boorman's haunting film The Emerald Forest.

I've also had two reprints, though.  A Deed Without a Name, which featured during 2012 in Penumbra's Shakespeare-themed edition, reappeared in The Best of Penumbra Vol. 1, while Just Deserts featured in Leslianne Wilder's anthology Trespass (available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com).  This story about Eltava and the spoilt princess from hell was first published by Quantum Muse in 2007, and I was a little mortified to find they'd published it as "Just Desserts".  Well, there was meant to be a pun along those lines, as it involved cannibals (just like the other pun referring to its setting in a desert) but I'm delighted, among other reasons, that it's now available under the correct title.

On the downside, StoneGarden.net, who published At An Uncertain Hour, have closed down.  Kris always ran it as a one-man-band, and he needed more time for other parts of his life, such as his family.  I wish him all the best, and many thanks for putting the book out.

The positive from this is that all rights have reverted to me, so I'm free to self-publish a new edition.  I have mixed feelings about self-publication — while it's a great option, much of what's put out seems in dire need of professional input — but as At An Uncertain Hour has already been extensively edited by StoneGarden, I see no reason not to go ahead.  I'm hoping it'll be back in print early in the new year.

Away from fiction, Fantasy Faction published my article series this year on The Chaotic Champion, a concept about the nature of heroes in fiction I began as a book in the mid-1990s but lost to a computer crash.  I've finally got around to writing it, although in a much shorter version than the original concept.  Still, it seemed to go down well, so who knows?  I may yet expand it into a book.  Links to all my Fantasy Faction articles can be found on my website.

On the writing front, the big news is that I've finally finished my trilogy The Winter Legend.  Well, apart from all the extensive rewrites, of course, but it still feels incredible to have a complete version of the project I first conceived nearly forty-five years ago.

I've now started on my next novel, with the working title at the moment The Empire of Nandesh, which is both sequel to At An Uncertain Hour and prequel to The Winter Legend.  Just to make it more difficult for myself, I'm writing it in four separate first-persons, with extensive flashbacks in all of them, in the same sort of style as At An Uncertain Hour.  Well, I wouldn't want to get bored, would I?

I only wrote four shorter pieces this year, though one was a novella — The Dweller in the Crack, a story about Karaghr and Failiu, whose tales could be viewed as my most successful series, since all three of the stories so far have been published, including The Temple of Taak-Resh.  This one, currently 26,000 words, still needs to be stretched and hacked into shape on the Procrustean Bed of revision, but I'm looking forward to having it finished.

So, onward to 2014.  As I said, I'm hoping to have At An Uncertain Hour back in print (physical and virtual) early in the year, and I have one outstanding story to come — The Lady of the House in the February/March issue of Plasma Frequency.

The Tryst Flame, the first part of the trilogy, has been to a few agents and will be knocking on the doors of many more in the new year.  The other two parts will need to be pulled into shape at some stage, but my priorities for now are to finish the draft of The Empire of Nandesh and get The Dweller in the Crack in a fit state for submission.  And hopefully there'll be other story ideas waiting to ambush me.

Happy New Year to everyone.  I hope all your projects turn out to be twice as successful as you planned.

River God in The Colored Lens Autumn 2013 Issue

The Colored Lens Autumn 2013 Issue #9

Edited by Dawn Lloyd and Daniel Scott

Contributors: Rhonda Eikamp, Nyki Blatchley, Rachel Hayes, Lauren Fawcett, Sean Monaghan, Holly Jennings, Jamie Lackey, Sara Puls, Matthew Hentrich, Jennifer Stakes and David Gallay.

 

Available to buy here on Kindle

My story in this issue is River God, an ecological fantasy story.  This had, if I remember correctly, more than a touch of influence from John Boorman's haunting film The Emerald Forest (as, I strongly suspect, James Cameron's film Avatar also did) but I've looked at the situation from a completely different angle.  If we should choose, for our own convenience, to dam a river in an unspoilt paradise, it certainly impacts on the indigenous people who rely on it.  But what about the god who lives in the river and has kept it flowing for millions of years.  He's not going to be happy, I imagine.

This story tells of how the god and his people fight back against the more questionable aspects of progress.

The river-god turned over in his sleep.  He’d worked hard for countless millions of years, guiding his river down to the sea, and he needed rest.  Voices came and went, but this was more insistent and beat on the gates of his slumber.

“Awake, O great god.”  The voice slipped into a dream that wasn’t quite a dream.  “Your people call on you in their need.”

His bed was less comfortable than usual: hard, jagged stones, instead of gentle water to rock him.  The dream from within slowly merged with the world outside, and the voice was saying, “You shall have whatever offering you wish, great god.  We beg you to awake.”

The river-god sat up, rubbing his eyes, and looked about.  So that was why his bed felt so uncomfortable.  The course down which his water should pour was empty, exposing its stony bottom.

 

Read more in the magazine