Andrew Leon Hudson's Blog, page 8

Crashing back down to earth

Why do we love our mothers? Because, just when you’re on the verge of breaking through to the literary mainstream in a cascade of sparkling glory, they send you a PDF of your early, “difficult” period, aged about five. I therefore present this early glimpse of stardom / damning indictment of my capacities as a writer, unedited (aside from a little cutting and pasting of my capitalised name):

My editor should take note: apostrophes remain a problem area, and although my spelling has improved it is still far from perfect. I presume these are errors, of course; only paper planes are flung through the air, and if 747s went “boing” then act two would lose all tension. I am rather pleased with my quite FABULOUS gun, pen and notebook accessories. Guess I won’t be selling many copies in Arizona, but all that fire power should balance me out in Texas.

I direct the world’s attention to my innate flare for visual storytelling. Though I seem to have brushed over the bit where someone tries to shoot down a passenger jet (with propellers no less) in some sort of fighter plane. In the movie that gets more attention.

It was fully twenty years later that I studied a master’s degree in screen writing, yet even in childhood I showed a keen grasp of narrative structure courtesy of my ground-breaking unfortunately/fortunately/unfortunately reversals model.

[Please Note: I do not know if I got the apostrophe right in "master's"]

And I Bring It Home Like A Pro with that second unfortunately, who knew that this was to be tragedy at its most poignant? I’m particularly taken with the emotional-state-corner-thumbnails, it’s vital to keep track of where your characters “are” at any given moment, but my tendency to start with lots of colour and detail but trail off to a rushed anti-climax in the final chapters still rings distressing bells to this day.

Thanks, mum.

xx

THAT STORY AGAIN IN FULL:

ANDREW was going to the airport
for a ride in a Boing 747
to USA. He had a suitcase with
things he would need and
some thing's very speshel, a
gun, a pen, a noatbook.
so he went on and got a
seet and thæy were of!
Thay were fling in the are
when
UNFORTUNATELY
the prpelers stoped !
forTUNATELY
thay started againe. And thay
landed. At last he said,
I can go to the Hotel!
unfortunately
it was full so he hatd to
go back againe

Approaching the launch pad

It’s been almost half a year since I told the world I’d signed a deal to publish my first novel, The Glass Sealing, set to be the fourth title in Musa Publishing’s Steampunk series The Darkside Codex, so I’m sure You, my reader, are very eager to know what’s been going on since then. Well, sit back and enjoy!

After a period of stony silence (nail-biting for me, Christmas-through-Chinese New Year for you) Musa finally got in touch again, partly to apologise for the lack of communications and partly to bring me back up to speed in much the same way I’m doing for you right now. This meant a run-down of the hoops I’ll be jumping through over the next few months, details of which I’ll spare you for now, along with a confirmation that my manuscript is with the series editor and that I can also expect contact from a “promotions specialist”, who I expect will look at how I conduct myself online and throw their hands up in horror…

However, all this good stuff pales into insignificance beside one thing: I now have a release date for my novel!

I’m going to post progress updates over the coming months to give you a glimpse of what goes on in the build-up to being published, the trials and tribulations, the laughter, the tears, ahem, the clichés. But in the meantime, please set your calendars for St(eamp)un(k), and May 23rd!

Art is never finished, only abandoned

So said Leonardo da Vinci, which can only mean that my entry in Defenestrationism‘s Flash Suite Contest has been kicked from the moving car of creativity onto the cold, hard streets of public consumption to lie shivering at the corner of Success and Failure.

My piece, a four-part journey into a fractionally changed but increasingly disturbed world future, is really meant to be read all in one go, and fortunately that is now possible by clicking on the following link:

The lines, the trees, the cliffs, the eaves

First of all, I hope you like reading my story. I’ve resisted the temptation to be explicit about what inspired it as I think the clues are there, but perhaps I’ll give just one hint – what would you expect to find in each of those places, and who made them frightening?

Second of all, I hope you’ll vote for it too. There are four official judges plus the public vote as the fifth. Apparently you can vote as many times as you want, but I’ll happily settle for just the one from each of you – and then only if you actually liked it. Call it modesty, call it a championing of the democratic principle, call it establishing an excuse in advance of poor performance… call it whatever you like, just Vote.

There are nine writers in the contest and, of course, it would be nice to win. I’m in with a chance, but it won’t be easy and I wouldn’t want it to be: you’re only as good as your competition, and some of the entries are really good. My favourite (my other favourite, I should say) is Broken Toys by Julie Duffy, who makes suburbia thrilling…

All the completed suites can be viewed here. Best of luck to them, my congratulations to the winner, and a salute once again to Defenestrationism for letting us have our fun.

The lines, the trees, the cliffs, the eaves

Hello again. As I mentioned last year, I’m a finalist in a slightly strange online writing competition: all the entries must be “Flash Suites”, collections of three or more flash fiction stories with a shared theme. Since early December the suites have been published one-piece-per-day, and now it’s my turn at last!

The entries are a mix of styles and genres, but mine is spec-fic and a kind of homage to one of my favourite storytellers (whose name I won’t mention!) in the form of four near-future encounters after the world has changed in a very specific, unsettling way. The first part appeared today and the other three will follow later this week.

The contest is being held by Defenestrationism, and my story shares its title with this post. I’ll update with the dedicated page for my suite when it goes live.

After the last suite is completed a public vote will be held started January 13th, with the winner announced on January 19th. I hope you’ll click over there and take a look–cheers if you do!

Double Negative: Don’t Not Read!

As I might have mentioned once or twice before, last year I contributed a story to a speculative fiction anthology called Lucky or Unlucky? which was compiled from the work of various friendly, mostly amateur writers of the SFFWorld forum. In case you mistake that for a slur let it be known that, in the original sense, amateur writers are the best kind–we write for love of writing.

…anyway, the participants have been engaging in a little blog tour and, at the risk of sounding like a one trick pony, it’s now my turn to drop hints about how talented we all were in the hope of provoking my massive regular readership (plus random browsers drawn in by the tag superb erotic babes) into helping out the Children’s Hospice South West in the UK by buying, and possibly even enjoying, an inexpensive book. So now I will.

One of our 13 Stories of Fate is Double Negative by Eric J. Best, which appropriately enough is about an impoverished youngster who laments that he was born with crippling bad luck… until he discovers a game of chance that rewards exactly that. I really enjoyed it, so here’s a brief excerpt as a salute to Eric and an encouragement to everyone else to buy enough copies to crash the internet (but help a needy child):

On a doorstep in a back alley a man sat and wept; his fancy clothes were streaked and torn from the mud and stone of the street. Felix stepped up and knocked on the door behind the man. A tough with a neck bigger than my waist answered, but he ignored us and went about kicking Mr. Fancy-Clothes down the street. With the door left unguarded, Felix grabbed my sleeve and pulled me inside to witness a real round of Rogue.

The men smoking their tobacco leaf rolls laughed when my stunted, malnutritioned head appeared just above the table edge. My brother fronted me ten coppers, and an hour later the men weren’t laughing any more. My brother and I were young and ignorant and played until we’d emptied every pocket and trod on every fragile pride. We had our first lesson in winning as the men slapped us around the room and held us upside down to make sure they took back every cent, and our ten coppers as well.

My brother cursed me, realising I really was Satan’s bastard, and told me so.

I was sore at being beat around, but I realised I was wiser than my brother–if there was anything that constant failure taught a person, it was wisdom. I had it in spades.

I started out small. I crafted four pair of dice out of river clay and fired them in my mother’s cook fire. They were hardly perfect, and I remade them more than once. I started with boys my own age, winning things that boys hold dear: smooth or pretty stones, sticks that looked like bows or swords, an apple, and once a real knife. I was so delighted by the dull iron treasure that I ran all the way home to show it off. For the first time in my life I witnessed one of my older siblings jealous over something I had. I felt like a god.

My inner longing had been kindled. I was like a performer who receives a standing ovation for the first time and is left with a hunger to hear the applause and see the smiling faces again and again. I was eight now and had formed my first addiction. The condition was hard to argue with: it was feeding me better than my family, it put better shoes on my feet, it made kids whisper when I went by, and even some of the toughs began regarding me with an air of respect. Forget that winning was feeding an infinite sized hole of egotistical need that had been lurking inside me; I didn’t even understand the concept at that age. All I knew was that I was living better than I ever had with only myself to thank for it–and a bit of consistent bad luck.

That’s just getting things started, of course. This budding gambler’s path crosses that of a strange and, by definition, tragically unlucky slave to produce a rather sweet story with a vein of both fantasy and humour running through it. So, my congrats to Eric, and to all the others who helped put together a fun collection of stories. Like me. Congratulations to ME.

Lucky or Unlucky? 13 Stories of Fate can be reviewed at Goodreads, hopefully by you, and is available at these online stores for a handful of virtual pennies that you’d otherwise lose down the back of your virtual sofa:

Amazon UK    |    Amazon US   |    Smashwords    |    Barnes and Noble

Okay, as the Victorian coin tosser said to his buddy the snake oil salesman: shilling over.

Flash: sweet…

I have great plans for 2014 and it seems they’ve started without me. I’ve been selected as a finalist in a “Flash Suite” contest being held by the certainly unique online magazine Defenestrationism – so named in celebration of “the act of throwing someone or something out of a window”. In this case, stories. And maybe their authors.

The contest is simple. Each finalist submitted a suite of at least three connected flash stories, each part no more than 1000 words long. These are being published on the site (one per day since December 9th) until all the suites are completed. I expect my entries will start appearing in the first week of January as I was the last finalist selected, so expect another post here when they show. When they’re all up reader voting can begin.

The winners will be announced on January 19th and there are modest cash prizes for first and second place, although naturally we’re all really in it for the art… Of course, I wouldn’t want mere charity votes from my friends and loved ones (non-overlapping magisteria?) but there’s sure to be some interesting, bite-sized fiction over the festive season. And since you’re probably already paying for your internet service, it’s all effectively free!

I’ve read the pieces posted so far and the standard of competition looks good. For now all you can see of me there is an author bio alongside my now hated rivals on the Meet the Finalists page, but at least people who used to know me can find out what I look like these days (the consensus of babies and small animals seems to be scary and/or interesting).

So, not really a consensus at all. That’s the kind of linguistic precision you can expect from me in the future.

Lucky or Unlucky? 13 Stories of Fate

I’m happy to announce that–sooner than I anticipated–the SFFWorld anthology Lucky or Unlucky? containing my short weird western is now available to buy!

Thirteen Bullets is a cut-to-the-action horror tale in which a wandering troublemaker can’t even spend one night in a local jail without the wild west going to hell all around him. It joins twelve other substantial stories in a collection that covers a variety of ground under the broad umbrella of speculative fiction–scifi, horror and fantasy are all represented here. The only common theme is mis/fortune, so if you’re scared off by the prospect of a cowboy yarn written by an English northerner there’s sure to be something else to grab you…

I’m saving the best for last: you can find it in multiple formats on Smashwords, Amazon US and Amazon UK, where it’s selling for around one dollar. Editor N. E. White has footed the bill but some of the proceeds will be donated to the Children’s Hospice, so there’s no reason at all not to buy three or more copies for everyone you know who owns an ebook reader.

Hope you try it, hope you like it, hope you let me know!

A shot at being lucky

In 2012, the writers’ corner of sffworld.com (that’s for “Science Fiction & Fantasy”, of course) ran a lengthy short story contest with the goal of publishing an anthology of members’ writing. The theme was the end of the world (because 2012, naturally) and the result was The End – Visions of Apocalypse, featuring a dozen tales ranging in quality from “jolly good effort” to “actually, this one is solid gold”. The contest was a lot of fun and the book raised a bit of money for charity, so an all round good idea really. I didn’t give myself a chance to participate then (I did proofread, but only after the real ship had sailed), something I’ve regretted ever since.

Fortunately for me, The End’s organiser and editor N. E. White decided to do something similar for 2013. The theme this time was luck (I’ve no idea what she’ll do next year – the only interesting thing about fourteen is that it’s the number of toes she has*), but after struggling with a bit of post-apocalyptic sf (I’m slow to notice change, I guess) I ditched it at the last minute, wrote a weird western story in three days flat and submitted that instead. Well, as of last week the decision is in–and so am I. My story is called Thirteen Bullets and it got second billing! Well, it’s second on the contents page, that’s the same thing, right? Right?

…anyway, it should come out before the end of the year, or the world, and the cover will be something like this. Click on the picture to visit the anthology’s place-holder site, or wait until it comes out and just buy it.

Punk.

* on her left foot

Meat for the Grinder

It feels strange to have good friends you’ve never met. Before the internet gave all our voices global reach, pen-pals filled that role, I guess. Now it’s soash-nets and forums and I seem to speak with more people in other countries each day than I do my own flesh and blood. Fortunately my own flesh and blood are also in a different country than I am. What I’m saying is, in general, it’s probably nothing new.

What is new is Blogger Bill Ryan‘s decision, after several glorious years, to make his annual State of the Union address on the subject of horror fiction–The Kind of Face You Slash–a collaborative venture. All October he’ll be joined by a veritable slew of opinionated talent, and I’m proud to be the first pig to the slaughter.

Probably because I suggested it, actually.

Anyway, I wrote a review of David Wong’s comedy-horror novel John Dies at the End. Not just that, though. I touched on frightening monkeys too.

Clouds on the horizon…

…of steam.

During 2013 I have been working towards something. In the first week of January I read that an American small press called Musa Publishing was starting a Steampunk shared world project called The Darkside Codex, and would be inviting pitches for potential novels or novellas at the start of April.

I approached them with a plot synopsis and 20 sample pages which they were very enthusiastic about, but they needed to see more before they could make a decision. In early August I sent them just over half the novel, and this month they got in touch to accept and offer me a contract. Guess if I signed.

The novel’s not quite finished yet and neither is 2013, so obviously I’m still working towards something – but if all goes well it could be in all good ebookshops this Christmas. Failing that, maybe Chinese New Year.