It’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog with the
news that I have a new short story out. It’s partly for want of not trying to
get anything in print, and it’s partly for trying and failing to get anything
in print. If you’ve read the last blog post here, then you’ll know my physical
and mental resources have been deployed elsewhere for quite a while. I hadn’t
really written any new fiction for quite a while. And after my dad died, I didn’t
feel much of an urge to either.
But slowly something began to come back to me, a
scribbled piece of flash fiction here, and attempt at a longer effort there. I
tried to finish a short story I’d begun before my parents got to the stage
where they needed my care, and it ballooned and (at last glance) was up to
57,000 words and no end in sight. Or even the suggestion of an ending. Or where
it might lead to get to that ending.
I wanted to finish something.
So last November, I think it was, I tried my luck at
writing short fiction that wasn’t flash fiction again. And came out with a
couple of stories a week for a month. They poured out of me, as if they’d been
waiting all that time for me to unplug the dam.
Well, fair enough. It was a relief to write them. But
were they any good? I’d no real confidence in myself to judge them any more.
Assuming I’d ever had any skill in judging my own stuff. I sent them off to a
couple of friends, who assured me I wasn’t running around with the back of my
trousers torn off, showing my nether regions to any who had the misfortune to
look up on them.
So I subbed a few of the tales, to see what would
happen.
And got some good news pretty quickly. Two of the tales
were accepted for print by Flame Tree Press, a company that makes really
handsome books and publishes the novels of Ramsey Campbell, a writer I’ve been
reading since I was about twelve years old. And it quickly got better when I
saw the contents of one of the collections I’m to be included in - part of
their Gothic Fantasy range, a book called WERE-WOLF. My story “When Sleeping
Wolves Lie” is going to appear in a book containing one of the great man’s
tales. That alone makes me smile and think I’ve done enough to satisfy myself
for quite a while.
The other tale I have in a Flame Tree book,
incidentally, is a piece focusing on the Norse Trickster God, Loki, and will be
in their forthcoming LOKI anthology, as part of their Myths, Gods & Immortals range.
I’ll let you know when the books come out. Forgive me,
but a boy has to plug his wares now and again.
I’ve another couple of pieces that have been taken this
year as well, but as the publishers haven’t announced them as yet it’s probably
for the best if I employ a measure of caution and don‘t say what they are just
yet. But when I can, I’ll be sure to mention them.It’s nice to be back writing.
It’s nice to know I can,
sort of, do this again.
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