Cate Gardner's Blog, page 28

Three Things

I don't know where to start so I'll start with the thing that left me floored...

Several months ago when I contacted Peter Tennant about reviewing my novella Theatre of Curious Acts he kindly offered to do a double-up review of Theatre and my chapbook Nowhere Hall (which he'd recently read). Obviously, I was stoked. Then when he offered to also review Barbed Wire Hearts well my happy dance needed a ballroom to contain it. Of course (serious voice), reviewers are not guaranteed to like your book (still happy dancing -  all reviews are good reviews if you get me) and reviews are not guaranteed, something could come along and push your book off the review roster (ooh no, my happy dance faltered and then restarted again).

Anyhow, imagine my delight when Pete emailed me a copy of the review that is in the current issue of Black Static and features all three books. I spun so fast around my room I almost broke Jack Skellington. And it's funny I should mention Jack because....

"Cate Gardner doesn't write like anybody else. In a field where individuality is prized and having a unique voice is valued above all else, she is a true original, a writer whose work brings to mind the imagery of Magritte as distorted by the aesthetic of Tim Burton, but with a playfulness and humanity that is all her own..." Peter Tennant, Black Static.

...and then he goes on to say wonderful things about all three books. I should stop spinning in about a week. Until then it may be best to avoid Liverpool. I can't wait for my subscription copy to arrive.

And... heck, what else can she have to say. Well, Damien Walters Grintalis invited me to write a guest blog for Women in Horror month and it went live today. I'd love it if you'd head over there and read it, but you must promise not to try and calculate my age.

And the third thing... I treated myself to a bag of Edinburgh Rock. Seriously, with me spinning from that sugar rush you should probably avoid the entire North West for the month.

Right, back to my WIP and my bemoaning cries of 'I can't write for crap.' Seriously, we writers are weird.

The Moon Hill Blog Tour: Riding Wind Gusts

Today I welcome Anthony J Rapino onto my blog. Anthony has just released a short story collection, Welcome to Moon Hill. His first novel, Soundtrack to the End of the World, is forthcoming from Bad Moon Books. As you're about to discover, Anthony rocks on the healthy side of weird. We like weird here...

(note: although I have albums full of funny face photos there was no way they were being unleashed on the internet ;)


Welcome, Anthony....




All glory to Cate Gardner, the high priestess of weird.  And thank you for helping celebrate the release of my new horror collection, Welcome to Moon Hill.  You will be greatly rewarded when we defeat all social norms and establish the Peculiar Church. 
It may also interest all you fantastic people that to celebrate Valentine's Day being over, I'm giving away my collection for free, for only 24 hours. 
As you may or may not be aware, I'm on a quest to destroy all normalcy in the universe, but it's not going well. 
My first order of business was to establish the Schizo Squad (part fan page, part street team, part conformity destroyer).  Once done, I introduced the "Funny Face Challenge," wherein members were asked to post weird, funny, crazy pictures of their faces (for a prize).

You can see up my nostrils!
There were two entries.
What I failed to take into consideration is that most people don't want to make fools of themselves, even if it is for the greater good...and a prize.  The next challenge asked for a simple post of the strangest things members could find (pictures, videos, whatever).  Again, I was met with failure. 
Why does no one want to ride my coffee-fueled insanity rocket?  This question required much thought, so I retired to my contemplation balloon.  Drifting 1,000 feet in the air, I looked down at the tiny world below and did the first thing I always do when I'm in my hot air balloon. 
I spit and watched it fall.  Oh beauty, oh wonder!  Next I had a ham sandwich and a bubbly drink.  I waved hello to a gaggle of geese, a murder of crows, and an unkindness of ravens.  Then I pretended to be Winnie the Pooh.  "Think, think, think."
Yes!  Eureka!  Brilliance!
The prizes, of course.  Had I offered a $100 Amazon gift card, the contest entries would pour in.  It was so simple.
I promptly jumped from my hot air balloon and wafted down to Earth on conveniently placed gusts of wind, blasting the occasional fart when a course correction was required.  Upon touchdown I made my way directly to the bank, fully intending to withdraw a crisp hundy to purchase the aforementioned gift card.  What had briefly escaped my mind is that I am a writer, and therefore quite poor.  In fact, it only then occurred to me I don't even have a bank account.
The security guard was not kind.
Of course, the moral of this story is that it's perfectly appropriate to fart when there are only birds in the immediate vicinity.  Or else, the moral is don't be a writer, because you'll end up getting kicked out of banks.  Wait...that doesn't seem right.
Back to the contemplation balloon I go.
Spit, ham sandwich, crows, think, think, think, eureka, look out below!
Right.  The moral of this story is that you should join my Schizo Squad and help me take over the world. (Also, if you invite me to write a guest post, be prepared for hate mail).

If you'd like to help me defeat all normalcy left in the universe, join my Schizo Squad. 


Welcome to Moon Hill: A collection of 19 stories, and a couple of surprises.
Moon Hill is a forgotten place that few purposely visit, and even less leave. Once you arrive, the deep dark of the forest creeps into your mind and will not relent. Strange flowers that grow from deer carcasses, murderous lunatics, talking ravens, wriggling parasites that induce eruptive confessions, and demons of every variety: they all live here too.
Even so, the residents of Moon Hill can feel, beyond the fear and distress, that this land is special and they are lucky to live here. Most everyone feels that way right up until the day they come a little too close to the magic of this place. When dusk's light leaks through their carefully locked doors and rips holes in their minds.
Then, they pray for release.
--Welcome to Moon Hill.

Attic Toys

Second acceptance of the year.

Dreams of a Ragged Doll, a tale of a girl desperate to join the circus and a doll determined to live, will appear in Jeremy C Shipp's Attic Toys anthology forthcoming from Evil Jester Press. Really excited to be working with Jeremy.

That is all.

A Shocking Freebie

My story 'Pretty Little Ghouls' is in this issue of Shock Totem and today you can download the magazine for free from Amazon US or Amazon UK. It's an awesome magazine and well worth your time. And, if you miss today's offer, you can download issue three for free tomorrow, issue four on Thursday and the special holiday issue on Friday.

It's also an excellent opportunity for would-be submitters who have never read the magazine before to check out the sort of stories the editors like.

Being Human

I guess I should start this post with a gigantic...

*SPOILER ALERT*
...in case you're in the US and haven't watched any of the UK episodes of Being Human yet (I say yet because seriously I suspect our Being Human kicks your Being Human's ass - hey where'd everyone go!) or haven't caught up with last night's episode.

So it was the first episode of season four, that is, the season without the dirty pretty Mitchell, and George was leaving too, so would I love it as much as previously? So far, that's an unequivocal yes, but... George was still a major part of the episode until the end (sob!). Good death scene (you who just hit the screen - I told you to read no further) for George. Appreciated the humour surrounding the supporting cast of vampires. Not so certain about the whole girl from the future thing (thought she was Eve, guess she isn't), George's replacement is okay (used to him from the last series), not certain about the new vampire yet, didn't like the new ghost at all. Looking forward to the next episode.

*End Spoiler Alert*

(Never) Slept in Sunday

I am spending the day with dead people... We're destroying things and breaking hearts. We've also lost a sock. If found destroy it.

In other news, there's a lovely review of my story collection Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits over at Bloody Bookish. Thank to Mary Rajotte for that.

Guest Blog: Chris Gerrib

Today, author Chris Gerrib jets in to tell us about his love for science fiction. Chris's book 'Pirates of Mars' is forthcoming from Hadley Rille Books this month...

*
I love science fiction. My love started as a young boy, when I would ride my bicycle down to my small town's tiny library, there to devour everything they had in science and fiction. To this day, I remember pages from an even-then dated book by Werner Von Braun, illustrated by the Walt Disney people, about building spaceships to go to Mars.

But as I got older, I noticed that fewer and fewer writers were talking about Mars. Much of that was because the more we learned about the planet, the more we learned it was just like Arizona except colder and with a lot less air. Edgar Rice Burroughs' Dejah Thoris would freeze and asphyxiate at the same time.

So, most science fiction writers moved on from Mars. The ones that stayed on-planet, so to speak, tended to focus on the first landing, the first colony, or some other Martian first. Which is fine, I suppose. Except people are first to do something tend to be square-jawed Dudley or Doris Do-Rights, and hyper-competent to boot.

Also known as "boring." I wanted science fiction with unboring characters. I wanted real people, with warts, farts and bad hair days. Well, in 2001, I just wasn't seeing that being written. So I said to hell with it, and wrote my own.

That novel, The Mars Run, came out in 2006. It's a first novel, with all the flaws therein, but I liked the characters so much that I decided to go back to the well. My latest effort, Pirates of Mars, is pretty much what the label on the tin says it is – Pirates, Mars and the goings-on they get themselves into.

My pirates are not Jack Sparrow; for one thing, they all own soap and showers. For another, they're not nice people. Nor are the people who fight them all 100% Dudley and Doris Do-Rights. But that's what makes them interesting. They're ordinary people who've found themselves in extraordinary circumstances.

Come visit my blog at chris-gerrib.livejournal.com or my personal website at www.privatemarsrocket.net.

What I did in January (and other odd things)

I wrote a story about a puppeteer (Yellow Bird Strings) and it found a home (A Season in Carcosa anthology)
I wrote a strange little tale about even littler people, betrayal and loss (The Mechanical Heart of Him)
Monster Colours is a hibernating work in progress with a first draft full of graffiti and sacrifice.

Those are the shorts.

Completed the plan for Cobweb Strings of the Rotting House (a 'to be' novel*) and have so far scratched out 4,296 words. Hit a stumbling block when my protagonist slipped back in time to her ten year old self and we are currently searching for her ten year old voice. So far we have excitement, marionettes and rotten mattresses.

Completed the plan for Wicked, Full of Promises (a 'to be' novella*) and I'm just over a 1,000 words into it. This is the one that has me ensnared at the moment. It's kind of an Orpheus in this world, and I've stolen parts of my city and littered it with broken jukeboxes and I'm stealing my childhood home and pretty much destroying the streets of my childhood.

Those are the longer things that at the moment are not so very long at all.

- I also booked tickets for my first ever convention.
- Attended an event in Liverpool where I a) met up with a friend and b) stared wide-eyed and petrified at other folk.
- Took an online self-confidence test that claimed I was semi-confident and thus I cried bullshit.
- Ate chocolate, vowed never to eat chocolate again, ate more chocolate, vowed never to eat Cadbury's chocolate anymore, bought a creme egg.
- Watched so many episodes of Fringe that there are almost none left to watch. I ❤ Joshua Jackson.
- Bought books. Read less books than I bought.
- Scurried across the blogverse with my Travelling Theatrical Tour. Now I'm relaxing in the tent and the audience and acts have gone home.

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: It Always Rains Here

The Travelling Theatrical Tour ends today and how apt that it finishes at the blog of fellow Hadley Rille author Chris Gerrib . Today we have a wee tale in The Travelling Theatrical Tour: It Always Rains Here.

Chris' space opera 'Pirates of Mars' is released next month. It looks like riotous fun and I look forward to reading it.

Many, many, and a few more many's, thanks to everyone who has hosted my blog tour and to those who have stuck with it (you are a brave and hearty few and I owe you all a drink one day).

And before I go, the awesome Carole Lanham (author of The Whisper Jar) has reviewed Theatre of Curious Acts. "Darkly imaginative and utterly unique, Cate Gardner's Gaimanesque new book THEATRE OF CURIOUS ACTS had me the first second I fingered the moonlit beauty of it's ghostly cover." You can read the full review here.

Twisted Tales

Attended another Twisted Tales event on Friday evening. There were rumours that this would be the last event, but nope, they're just not going to hold them every other month as they did in 2011. Excellent news.

About half-an-hour before I was due to leave for the event it started to lash down and added a thunder and lightning show to spice up my nervousness, so I booked a taxi and dashed as fast as I could from the drop off point to where I was meeting Simon Bestwick.

Had a drink and a natter with Simon before the event and got to fondle a copy of The Faceless  which is out this week (in fact, Amazon insists a copy is on the way to me). Looks fantastic.

The Twisted Tales readings this time were by Paul Kane (bloody awesome short story with a fabulous ending - but, of course, I always loved Paul Kane's stories back in the late 90s), Peter Crowther (reading from his new novel Darkness Falling) and Ramsey Campbell (who did a hilarious and character-full piece from his book Ghosts Know). Our little corner of Waterstones was packed. I think that has to be the most attended event yet. Or at least, the most attended one that I've been too. There was a question and answer session after the readings, and then a signing. Ramsey needed a pen. I provided said pen. Claim to fame achieved.

I bought Ramsey Campbell's Ghosts Know, Paul Kane's The Butterfly Man - both PS Publishing books and bloody gorgeous - and I also bought Peter Crowther's Darkness Falling. All signed of course.

Then, on attempting to leave the store, the automatic doors wouldn't work. This isn't unusual - automatic doors often don't recognise me or they decide to eat me. But this one even refused to recognise Ramsey Campbell or Peter Crowther. So wrong! We escaped eventually at which point I turned back from a mouse into a person and climbed into a pumpkin.

In other news, I finally (it's only taken two years) booked tickets to FantasyCon, which takes places in Brighton this September. Let the nail-biting begin.