Ray Daley's Blog, page 79

Writing the garbage (again)

When you write, there’s an inner debate every time.

‘Is this actually any good and should I bother writing it down?’

There occurs the moment of choice.

Do you write something you are fairly sure is going to be rubbish or do you do nothing? Is it better to just be writing, even if it IS trash or do you wait until something better occurs to you.

Personally I prefer to try and write down almost everything.

Note that ALMOST.

I’ve had ideas that I’ve trashed before ever committing them to paper.

It’s not easy to recognise a bad idea and doubt is probably the worst demon that lives inside a writers head.

At least if you are writing then you are being productive.

February ebook release

Smashwords — Artificial Intelligence — A book by Ray Daley.

Artificial Intelligence – Ray Daley | Feedbooks.

Rejections

Had my first rejection of the year yesterday from Linguistic Erosions, turning down “First One There Dies”.

Not sure if it was too long, not the right genre or just plain not good enough. The email said it “does not fit with our needs at this time”, whatever that may mean.

I’m fairly certain it’s not due to the amount of material they have available to print otherwise you’d have to wait a lot longer than we currently do (a maximum of about 3 days) to hear if they are printing your submission or not.

My last submissions went from accepted to online in 2 days, 3 days and the same day in that order. Maybe they just don’t want to have people getting sick of my being published a lot.

Anyway, I don’t mind. I know the story is okay (it’s not brilliant but it’s not shyte either) and I’ll get some usage out of it elsewhere further down the line this year most likely.

Just got to put my head up and crack on.

More on the fan fic

I’ve written 3 new characters, they are named and have a purpose.  Just a matter of creating more for them to do in the story other than simply exist for a couple of scenes.

There’s the possibilty of wrapping them around another character who has more of a storyline and I think that will be the way to use them, as accessories of his story.

I also pitched an idea to someone else who writes in the same genre, he has given me some helpful feedback.

Another flash of success!

Published again by Linguistic Erosion, here:-The Last Mighty One | Linguistic Erosion.

Very happy.  Got another short in to 365 Tomorrows yesterday and am looking at another to LE as I seem to be doing quite well there.

I’d like to thank them for taking the chance on me and a personal thanks to Earl Wynn.

Cheers Earl!

Feelings on fanfic

I’ll start by saying this.  I’ve written some.

A few stories set in the Terminator and Blade Runner universes.

I did it because I like the original ideas and how they’d been used and I felt familiar enough with the characters and the realities they inhabited to be able to make something that could stand alone and still seem to belong within that reality.

I’ve also got stuff either in development or in progress.  More Terminator stories (so far those have all been flash length and probably always will be), a Doctor Who idea and some Discworld fanfic too.

After reading some more DW based stuff recently I recalled I had some ideas well over two years ago and never did anything with them.  So I’ve started trying to make some sort of framework to build them onto.  So far it’s feeling very like Terry (Pratchett).

How long it’ll take to finish, I have no clue, ditto what kind of length it’ll be either.

I’m  working on them.  Which is better than writing nothing.

Fact into Fiction

I’ve used real things to write fiction before.  For example my story “The Sniper” used a real event that happened to Hitler (his encounter with Henry Tandey) to write an alternate timeline.Smashwords — The Sniper — A book by Ray Daley.

So I read something a few days ago and it stuck with me. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

And this particular story was VERY strange. IBM wipes supercomputer’s hard drives in bid to stop potty-mouthed machine uttering obscenities | Mail Online.

A computer that SWEARS? Oh yes! I want me some of that!

But they decided it was a bad thing and wiped the hard drives so it’s now back to where it was.

And thusly was a new idea for a story born.  It’ll end up on Smashwords as the swears in it preclude it from being sent to any of the flash fiction sites.

A good start to a new year

Welcome to 2013 and it’s been quite eventful already.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to do monthly releases at the start of each month or not but I felt fairly happy having completed the resolution of at least one e-title every month last year so I put this up on 1st Jan.  Smashwords — Letters Home — A book by Ray Daley.

Last year I submitted a flash story to 365 Tomorrow in mid November.  I then got an email back from them on 12th Jan 2013 telling me my story was going to appear on the front page that day.

Here it is!  Return From Red Zone : 365 tomorrows : A New Flash of Science Fiction Every Day.

So I was quite pleased.  So I had a little shufti around and found somewhere else I was curious about sending work to, the folks at Linguistic Erosion.  On the same day I sent them something, got an email back on 14th Jan that they were going to publish it.

And on 16th Jan it went up, here:- The Man Who Was Twelve Bears | Linguistic Erosion.

On the same day I submitted something else to them and late that day they emailed back but I didn’t see it until the following day – they’d accepted that as well!  So today they published me again!

And that’s here :- Ground Zero | Linguistic Erosion.

 

I’d also like to thank the people at QuasarDragon.  for their support and plugs of some of my work last year.  Thanks very much folks, it’s deeply appreciated.

Getting some recognition at last!

One of my books (The Grandfather Army) is being plugged on the Quasar Dragon Blog!

http://freesciencefantasy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/freebies-vs-drm.html

 

It’s one of the places I quite like as well so it’s nice to be recognised and promoted by somewhere I respect, many thanks to them.

 

Extra Special Forces isn’t far off being my most popular Smashwords title now, it’s even getting close to knocking Death Wears A Black Basque off it’s almost unassailable perch.

I think the 2nd anthology will go on sale through Amazon because I don’t really know anything about selling through Smashwords, I’d rather leave my account there for my free work.

Just about to type some stuff up for Write Now, then might have a crack at completing the penulitmate journey aboard The Night Bus.

What’s popular?

As I’m doing a new release tomorrow I thought I’d look around & see what my most popular title is across the various distributors. D/l stats where available:-

Smashwords – Death Wears A Black Basque, 427 d/l’s

Feedbooks – What You Never Read In The History Books, 2,334 d/l’s

Itunes – What You Never Read In The History Books

Barnes & Noble – Death Wears A Black Basque

Kobo – Peril At The Pop-up Library

Diesel – Will You Carry Me?

Sony – The Sniper