Simon P. Clark's Blog, page 6

A Look Back (I Steal Things)

Inspired entirely by fellow WeAreOneFour'er Kat Ellis' great post My 2013 In Review, I thought I'd start off the new year on m'blog by looking back at where I've been. After all, "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal," as T. S. Eliot probably wrote (He did, actually - see this helpful investigation into the quote's source).

What I Got Up To in 2013
January

At the end of 2012 I found out my short story The Storyteller's Jig would be published in an anthology of fairy tales. Januar...

Time to Wrap Up - 2013

It's been a good, good year for me. A lot of things happened. Three of my stories are already out there (The Storyteller's Jig, Octopus Rules, and Billy McGuire's Faerie) and more are to come - 2013 was the year I signed my book contract with Constable & Robinson. Eren will hit stores next year, and there is a lot to do before then. (My editor, Sarah, is an amazing person and I stand in awe of the entire C&R team).

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In many ways this has been the year I really understood what Twitter wa...

Stories, stories everywhere

Lots of thoughts and lots of writing to be done, but it's been a busy week (because of parties, which is the best way to be busy). 2014 is creeping nearer and things are starting to become a lot more real than before. Over on WeAreOneFour you can see more cover reveals happening as good books from good writers slowly take shape. It's a special magic to see words become something physical

Stone Crowns Magazine, who just published my short story 'Billy McGuire's Faerie' in their second issue, ha...

Books, Neil Gaiman, Birthday, Thanksgiving, Life

I've been ignoring the blog, I know. Sometimes it seems silly - sharing things that aren't important with people who aren't interested - but it's a good place to organize thoughts and keep track, if only for myself.

It's been a busy few weeks. I've been copyediting Eren for the last few days - one of the last stages of the editing process, but one that requires close reading and answering awkward questions from very perceptive critics (questions like 'Are daisies always white? Can notes be 'mi...

Stone Crowns Magazine # 2

Happy Monday, all.

Happy to share that a short story I wrote, Billy McGuire's Faerie, was published this week in Issue 2 of Stone Crowns Magazine. You can download it by clicking that link or by going to www.stonecrowns.com.

Stone Crowns Magazine is a free literary magazine specifically for Young Adult readers. You can download is for mobile or laptop (free, remember?) and check out some of the great stories and artwork from up-and-coming writers. It's great to see a magazine aimed solely at ch...

Why I Write in Train Stations

Where we write matters. I've written before about how travelling makes you a better writer, about seeing new worlds and places and letting that change how you tell stories. It's something I believe in, and feel lucky to have done.

A question in the Writers' & Artists' message boards recently asked whether writers prefer to edit at home or out in a coffee shop (a cliche, maybe, but hot drinks you don't have to make yourself are awesome).

All that got me thinking. Where do I like to write mos...

The Choice of Stone - 1031 Story Challenge.

Happy Halloween! For the past few weeks I've been inviting writers to take part in a challenge to write a short story of 1031 words or fewer. There are some fantastic pieces - read them all here - and they're still coming in, which is amazing. Below is my own, inspired by the fascinating carvings of the Soul Effigy, Father Time, and Death on some of the oldest graves in Boston, MA. To learn more about that, see here and here). Enjoy.

The Choice of Stoneby Simon P. Clark
The grave was fresh...

Eren is Finished

I sent an email yesterday. That's not much of a story, is it? Add a few details, though, and it becomes something quite different: I sent an email yesterday to my publisher, along with the final manuscript of Eren, the book I've been working on for four years.

Actually, even that's a simplification. The first few sparks of Eren came when I was a teenager. That book never came to light, but the idea stuck and fermented without me even knowing it, and when 2009 came it was there, still waiting.

E...

NaNoWriMo With Writers' & Artists' Yearbook

It's a chilly October morning here in New Jersey, which can only mean one thing - National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner.

NaNoWriMo is a month of 'literary abandon' when many thousands of people try to write a novel - 50,000 words - between November 1st and November 30th. Sound impossible? It's not - though it is hard. If you're still trying to get that amazing idea down and turn it into something more than just thoughts, NaNoWriMo could be the collective kick up the keyboard y...

The 1031 Story Challenge

Friends, writers, sundry:

Halloween is almost here, and whether you celebrate / party / believe or not, there's no denying that it's a great time for writers. Tales of ghosts, ghouls, other worlds and all things scary have always been a big part of our world - and there's something special about a good horror story.


To have some fun this year, I'm proposing The 1031 Story Challenge. What does that mean? Simple - those who want to take part just have to stretch their imaginations, be brave enoug...