Simon P. Clark's Blog, page 11

On The Reading and Writing of Short Stories

For one reason or another, I've found my literary life revolving more and more around short stories recently. While I set out to become a writer  - with no limitation on style or form - the accepted wisdom of the day has always been that you can't make a living - not real money - from short stories. Novel are where the big bucks are. Poetry? Forget it.

Still, I have always written short stories - usually between 1500 - 4000ish words - and I've read some fantastic collections in my time.

So...

Book Deal News!

Very excited to be able to share this with you all - it's been all hush hush and keeping mum for a bit - but EREN has sold to Constable & Robinson as part of a two book deal.
YEAH.
The news came at a time when I was getting despondent, for the first time, really, about my writing, and I could NOT be happier. My agent has been a complete star through all of this and I owe her a drink when we next meet. The editor at C&R, Sarah Castleton, said lovely things about EREN and it's clear that...

A Letter to Future Simon

Dear Future Simon:

Hi there. You alright? Hope so. Hope you're still alive. It's 2013 right now, and this is me (you!) writing to you (me!). Because who knows what's coming for our stories and your books?

Maybe you've made it - you have books out, in real bookstores, and some nice people even buy them and read them. Maybe you''re still slogging away, putting short stories up here on the blog, editing EREN and crafting and reworking other tales, other books. I hope so. I don't want tha...

His Story - AW March Blog Chain

My turn has come in this month's chain from Absolute Write. If you don't know what this is, just go here. A bunch of writers all commit to write something inspired by a single prompt and share their work. What's not to like? This month's prompt is What the Leprechaun Said. You can find links to the other contributors and their stories at the bottom of this post, and I'd encourage you to read, share and comment with frankly wild abandon. 
I hope you enjoy this story. I enjoyed wr...

What's going on and what am I writing?

Hullo, hullo. Time for another catch up.

The first blog in my new series for Writer & Artists is now up, to be followed every Monday by a new topic. You can see all posts by me by going here - and do check out the rest of the site while you're there. For writers, there are few other places with such good resources.

This month's Absolute Write story chain is going strong. In just a few more days I'll be posting a new story on this blog as part of it. The piece is called HIS STORY a...