Craig Laurance Gidney's Blog, page 14
June 26, 2020
My beautifully chaotic writing process
Like many writers, I have a collection of notebooks of all kinds. From Moleskins to school composition books. Gilt-edged tomes, bespoke journals made of heirloom fabric and hand stitched. Ruled and unruled paper, or unlined. None of them work for me, though. The fancier the notebook is, the more daunting it is to fill with scribbles. Those books and journals are a pleasure to have and hold. But I always think that I need perfect handwriting to fill those pages. I write messily. It’s full of crossed out words and misspellings and my handwriting, though perfectly legible, is not aesthetically pleasing and switches between block letters to scrawling across the paper. What works for me is a notebook that can lie flat, so I’ve turned to spiral notebooks. I find them less intimidating and they don’t inhibit the flow.
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Where I indulge in whimsy is in the ink I use. I have an arsenal of multicolored gel pens I use. The various colors denote the different writing sessions. It might be blue ink for a morning session and black for a late night impromptu spurt of inspiration. It’s also visually appealing to consult a page filled with different hues.
I have three “active” notebooks — one for short fiction, another for whatever novel I’m working on, and one for blogging/non fiction. My process is making notes, sketching scenes, coming up with character names in ink and using that as jumping off points/warm up techniques before I start computer work. When I’m stuck, I return to the notebooks and comb them for ideas or jot down ideas for future sessions. My A Spectral Hue notebook, for instance, is filled with anything from complete scenes to random lists of words. My process is somewhat chaotic and amorphous, and it took a long time to develop. I have found that while I mostly draft things on computer, putting actual ink to actual paper has to occur at some moment in the act of creation.
June 25, 2020
My Outer Dark Podcast Interview is Up!
The incisive and thorough Anya Martin (author and cohost of the Outer Dark) and I talked for an hour about A Spectral Hue, Hairsbreadth and other fiction projects. It’s now available for your listening pleasure!
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June 18, 2020
Today is the one year anniversary of A SPECTRAL HUE!
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Thanks to everyone who brought, read and reviewed the book!
June 17, 2020
June 16, 2020
Celebrating Pride & the 1-Year Anniversary of my novel with a free eBook (on Kindle)
THE NECTAR OF NIGHTMARES eBook (on Kindle) will be free from June 16 -June 20 to celebrate Pride and one year anniversary of A SPECTRAL HUE! Nectar is mosaic novelette and it is illustrated!
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June 7, 2020
Lovecraft eZine Podcast Today (6/7/2020 6PM EST)
Today’s podcast, live at 6:00 pm EST (or watch any time in the future)! Our guests:
Craig L. Gidney is a speculative fiction novelist and short story writer, and Linda D Addison is a poet and writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction.
AND… we just might have a mystery guest. We’ll see! 
June 6, 2020
Brief notes on the intersection of White Supremacy & Police Brutality
I shared this over on the Book of the Face, and I might as well share it here.
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June 3, 2020
Pride StoryBundle!
Catherine Lundoff (of Queen of Swords Press) has amassed a StoryBundle of queer SFF ebooks for the low, low price of $5 (for $15, you get more books)! I’m honored to have A Spectral Hue included in this bunch of books. It supports a great cause, and is a nice way to celebrate my book’s birthday — June 18,2018 was the official release date
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Here’s the official announcement:
Celebrating Pride Month with a StoryBundle has become an annual tradition, one in which we present a different and wonderful collection of LGBTQ+ books and authors each June.
This year, I’m curating the Pride Month Bundle for StoryBundle and it is an amazing lineup. We have novels and novellas as well as an anthology and a single author collection, each one a unique and terrific read. As always, at StoryBundle, you name your own price—whatever you feel the books are worth and you can designate a portion of the proceeds for our selected charity, Rainbow Railroad. Rainbow Railroad is a nonprofit that works with LGBTQ refugees, helping them to leave dangerous situations and safely resettle in new areas.
The 2020 Pride Bundle includes two works by creators from New Zealand, in honor of this year’s Worldcon. A.J. Fitzwater, author of the joy-filled collection The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper, is a Sir Julius Vogel Award finalist this year, as is editor Andi C. Buchanan, whose ground-breaking special issue of Capricious SF Magazine, Capricious: The Gender Diverse Pronouns Issue, is also included in the bundle.
Like your queer fiction to have elements of the Southern Gothic, perhaps a touch of horror and mystery, coupled with sumptuous writing and compelling characters? You’re sure to enjoy A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney and Catfish Lullaby by A.C. Wise. Looking for beautifully written stories set in historical settings with a fantastical edge? We’ve got you covered with Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett’s Armor of Light, Floodtide by Heather Rose Jones and Will Do Magic for Small Change by Andrea Hairston. Want adventures set just beyond the worlds we know? Come along on some glorious adventures with Grilled Cheese and Goblins by Nicole Kimberling and the novellas The Counterfeit Viscount and The Hollow History of Professor Perfectus by Ginn Hale. And finally, for something a little different, join author R.R. Angell’s cadre of queer college students as they play an unusual game set in virtual reality with an AI who’s more than she seems in Best Game Ever.
Not only is this year’s bundle an intriguing mix of stories, it’s star-studded too! Our bundle’s authors and editor have won the Astounding Award, the Otherwise Award, the Sir Julius Vogel Awards and several Lambda and Spectrum Awards, as well as being finalists for awards like the Nebulas. So there we have this year’s Pride StoryBundle – lots of variety, lots of new voices, a fun mix of new and classic tales, adding up to 11 great reads for a great cause! – Catherine Lundoff
June 1, 2020
Chapter Two of Hairsbreadth, is posted
The second chapter of Hairsbreadth, my serial novel from Broken Eye Books (through their Patreon Eyedolon) has been posted. You can “unlock” the chapter for as little as one dollar!
The second chapter is entitled The Blue Woman and you can check it out here!
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