Alan Baxter's Blog, page 57

Dreaming Of Djinn and Urban Occult

I love being able to announce new forthcoming publications, so you can imagine how happy I am to be announcing two. This is a fine way to round out the year. Two new anthologies have bought stories from me and both will be published in the first half of 2013.

The first is Dreaming Of Djinn from Ticonderoga Publications, edited by Liz Grzyb, which will feature my story, “On A Crooked Leg Lightly”. The blurb goes like this:

Scheherazade’s One Thousand and One Nights stories have captured imaginations for a millennia. Fairy tales and fables abound, telling of the fantastic and mysterious, the comic and dramatic.

This anthology will explore romantic Orientalism through a speculative fiction lens. You might find lost cities, magical lamps, mummies, thieves, intrepid explorers, slaves, robotic horsemen, noble queens, sorcerers, outcast princes, harems, dancers, djinn, assassins and even smart-talking camels and cats, set in exotic Persia, Egypt, Arabia, the Ottoman Empire, or a modern incarnation of these. More information on the exact mysteries contained will be revealed shortly.

I can tell you that my story contains assassins and djinn and palaces and market bazaars and all kinds of dark magical goodness. I’m very happy to have scored a place in this book. Here’s the full ToC:

Marilag Angway – “Shadow Dancer”
Cherith Baldry – “The Green Rose”
Alan Baxter – “On A Crooked Leg Lightly”
Jenny Blackford – “The Quiet Realm of the Dark Queen”
Jetse de Vries – “Djinni Djinni Dream Dream”
Thoraiya Dyer – “The Saint George Hotel”
Joshua Gage – “The Dancer of Smoke”
Richard Harland – “Tale of the Arrow Girl”
Faith Mudge – “The Oblivion Box”
Havva Murat – “Harmony Thicket and the Persian Shoes”
Charlotte Nash-Stewart – “Parvaz”
Anthony Panegyres – “Oleander: An Ottoman Tale”
Dan Rabarts – “Silver, Sharp as Silk”
Angela Rega – “The Belly Dancing Crimes of Ms Sahara Desserts”
Jenny Schwartz – “The Pearl Flower Harvest”
Barb Siples – “The Sultan’s Debt”
Pia Van Ravestein – “Street Dancer”
DC White – “A Dash of Djinn and Tonic”

No cover for this one yet, but I’ll be sure to share it when it comes around.

The other publication I can reveal today is Urban Occult from Anachron Press, edited by Colin F Barnes. As you can see, this one does have a cover, with artwork by Sarah Anne-Langton.

The blurb for this one says:

“Urban Occult is a horror/weird anthology due for release around February 2013. The exact date will be announced closer to the time. It will contain fifteen stories of the weird and the strange events set within urban environments. We have a rich collection of authors spanning the globe.”

My story in this one has strange amulets, time-bending and lost love.

The ToC for this one is:

Gary McMahon – “Just Another Job”
Gary Fry – “On the Horizon”
K.T Davies – “Wonderland”
Jennifer Williams – “Spider Daughter Spider”
Alan Baxter – “A Time for Redemption”
Saran Anne-Langton – “The Strange Case of Mrs West and the Dead”
Chris Barnhem – “The Other Woman”
Adam Millard – “Elevator”
Julie Travis – “Pieces”
Jason Andrew – “A Simple Job”
A.A. Garrison – “A Kind of Love”
James Brogden – “Remover of Obstacles”
Nerine Dorman – “Probatio Diabolica”
Mystery Writer 1 – TBA soon
Mystery Writer 2 – TBA soon

Mystery writers! Exciting stuff.

So keep an eye out for these. I’ll blog again when they’re available.

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“Salvage In The Void” now published at Kasma SF and free to read

I’m very pleased to announce that my science fiction short story, Salvage In The Void, has been published at Kasma SF Magazine and it’s free to read online. Not only that, but the story has been illustrated in fantastic style by Jose Boreas. I honestly couldn’t be happier with it. This story features those spacefaring friends, Peevy and LaVey, an engineer with a phobia about deep space and his synthetic hound. These guys first appeared in my story, Trawling The Void, which was published in Midnight Echo issue 6, the science fiction/horror special. Salvage In The Void follows on directly from the events in Trawling The Void. And I have in mind at least one more adventure for Peevy and LaVey, and possibly more after that. I’ll post an excerpt below to give you a taste and a thumbnail of the artwork. You can go to Kasma SF to read the rest and see the art in all its glory. And while you’re there, stick around and read some of the other stuff – it’s an excellent online magazine (and this is my second feature there.)

Salvage in the Void
by Alan Baxter

“I don’t know how long I can bear this,” Peevy said. Deepfear churned his stomach as he absently stroked the SimHound’s head. “I didn’t want to die back there on a doomed ship, but I don’t think I can take this.”

LaVey whined in sympathy, looking up to lick a kiss across his master’s cheek. Peevy hunched in the cramped pod, the demi-sphere of radiation-shielded plasglass at his back. He felt the black out there, a yawning void trying to suck him into icy depths. He tapped and flicked in the holographic cube before him, called up images and charts. “I know I can manage the ‘fear, LaVey,” he said as he worked.

LaVey huffed in agreement.

Peevy read speeds and vectors, tried to correlate the information with on-board charts. There was very little in the way of accurate cartography so far out on the edge.

As the mind-numbing enormity of space became ever more apparent Peevy trembled more deeply, ‘fear tightening his chest, constricting his throat. “It’s so much easier to manage on-board ship,” he said.

LaVey whined softly, sitting close to his master, resting his chin.

*****

A sharp beep brought Peevy out of a fitful doze. LaVey, curled at his feet, looked up.

“A ship!”

LaVey sat up, barked in excitement.

“It’s a small vessel,” Peevy said. “What’s it doing all the way out here? Looking for the Clara Halo? It ‘s…” He cast a haunted look at the SimHound. “Dead. They ‘re all dead.” LaVey gestured with his nose at the comm.

Peevy keyed up a comm-link, took a deep breath to calm himself. “Vessel callsign VSC7811, do you read me, over?”

Man and dog sat still in tense expectation. Nothing but a soft hiss came back over the comm.

“Vessel callsign VSC7811,” Peevy said again, “This is Chief Engineer Peevy, recently of the USV Clara Halo, sole survivor. My pod has limited range and supplies, please respond.”

More crackle and hiss. Peevy’s eyes were wide as he looked at LaVey. “Can’t they hear us?”

LaVey shook his head, lips forward in concern. He tipped his head, flicked one ear.

Peevy read the dog’s body language, their bond deeper than anyone ever understood. “You think they’re ignoring us?” He growled with annoyance. “Vessel callsign VSC7811, this is Chief Engineer Peevy, sole survivor of the USV Clara Halo…”

“We hear you, engineer.” The voice was gravelly.

“Oh, thank everything in the deep, wide black! Please, can you pick me up?”

A guttural laugh came across. “Hold your horses there, engineer. United Spaceways Vessel, huh? You’re a company man.”

“Yes. But the Clara Halo is gone.”

“Really? Well, I don’t want any contact with the company or the Democratic Alliance of Planets. I’m sorry.”

“What? Wait! I don’t want to drift in this pod forever.” His stomach lurched at the thought. “I’ll die of starvation or lack of oxygen before I find anyone.”

“Why is that my concern, engineer?”

“Simple human kindness?” Peevy ventured weakly.

…Read the rest at Kasma SF.

I’ll also add a permanent link on the Dark Shorts page.

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An interview and an ebook

A strange little double header of news today. Firstly, I’ve been interviewed over at On Fiction Writing, wherein I answer questions like Has a book every made you angry? and Which four literary characters would you like to invite to dinner, and why? and What was the first story that ever made you afraid? among others. You can find the full interview right here. It’s a good bit of fun.

Secondly, the ebook edition of The Red Penny Papers: Vol III, Issue 1, Fall 2012 is now available at Smashwords for FREE! That’s the one that contains my story, Crossroads & Carousels, as well as fiction by Cat Rambo, M Bennardo, Jamie Mason and Katy Gunn. It’s available in any e format you can think of there, so have at it. While you’re there, you might like to pick up my supernatural noir novella, The Darkest Shade Of Grey, also published by Red Penny Papers, and only $1.99.

Enjoy.

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Tuesday Toot – Jason Nahrung

Tuesday Toot is a semi-regular feature here. An invite-only series of short posts where writers, editors, booksellers and other creatives have been asked to share their stuff and toot their own horn. It’s hard to be seen in the digital morass and hopefully this occasional segment will help some of the quality stuff out there get noticed. It should all be things that regular readers here will find edifying.

This time, it’s Jason Nahrung. Take it away, Jason!

Who is Jason?

Jason Nahrung grew up on a Queensland cattle property and now lives in Melbourne with his wife, the writer Kirstyn McDermott. He works as an editor and journalist to support his travel addiction; in particular, an abiding love affair with New Orleans.

He has an on-again, off-again relationship with short fiction, but when they’re on, the stories are invariably darkly themed, perhaps reflecting his passion for classic B-grade horror films and ’80s goth rock.

His most recent long fiction title, the Gothic tale Salvage (Twelfth Planet Press), was released earlier this year.

His next publication will be the outback vampire novel Blood and Dust, a bloody piece of Australiana hopefully out in time for Christmas. Ho ho ho!

Jason lurks online at www.jasonnahrung.com.

What are you tooting about?

Salvage, and the fact it’s now available at Amazon for Kindle,and through other e-sellers, too. The story was developed over three years, one week per year, during an annual writers retreat on the island that forms the backdrop.

Melanie and Richard head to the island to try to save their rocky marriage, but Melanie meets Helena, and consequently has to reconsider her ideas about love, death and happiness. And stay alive. Because Helena’s got a few secrets of her own …

There are shades of the story ‘Carmilla’ and the movie ‘The Long Weekend’ in there. There’s a bit of Fraser Island, a bit of Bribie. It’s a slow burn, kind of like slipping into a warm bath, only to realise that not all the ripples are yours: that there’s something else in there with you that’s not … quite … right.

It’s gratifying to see the book available in digital format; others are on their way. The digital realm is probably a good fit for a novella-size read, so I’m glad it’s out there, testing the waters and sharing some melancholy love!

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Publetariat Omnibus ebook

I started out as an indie author, and I still believe the hybrid model, where writers combine aspects of self-publishing and traditional publishing, is the best way forward. I have some self-published stuff out there, plenty of traditionally published stuff too and I have every intention of continuing in that vein. And regardless of how your stuff gets out there, a lot of the processes are much the same. For a long time now I’ve been a regular contributor at Publetariat.com, a website built for indie authors, but also of enormous benefit to small press owners, indie collectives and even big publishers for that matter. The powerhouse behind Publetariat is April Hamilton and she has now put together an ebook which collects all the best advice from the first four years of Publetariat.com into one handy resource.

A few of the articles in there are mine, and I share the pages with some very well-informed folks. Here’s the official blurb:

A compendium of advice, lessons learned and how-tos from leading authors, publishing industry pros, consultants and subject area experts, drawn from the first four years of Publetariat.com’s operation. They’ve been there, done that, and now they’re sharing their lessons learned. This book includes articles written by:

Alan Baxter, Julian Block, Mark Coker, Melissa Conway, Nick Daws, Joel Friedlander, April L. Hamilton, Joseph C. Kunz Jr., Cheri Lasota, M. Louisa Locke, Shannon O’Neil, Joanna Penn, Virginia Ripple, Fay Risner, Mick Rooney, L.J. Sellers, Dana Lynn Smith, Bob Spear, Richard Sutton and Toni Tesori.

Here you’ll find everything from craft advice to tax advice, from marketing tips to design walkthroughs, from self-editing how-tos to copyright boilerplate you can use in your own book, and more! Having these 67 collected articles is like having a publishing consultant, editor, designer and business adviser by your side as you set out on your own indie publishing path.

The book is set out into sections:

Think; Write; Design; Publish; Sell; Business End and Lighter Side Of The Writing Life.

It really is quite a significant resource, and only $5.99 on Amazon. Go get it here.

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Words by Craig Furnis

A friend of mine sent me this recently because he thought I’d like it. He found it via a mutual friend on Facebook. He was right – I fucking loved it. It’s a poem about words by a guy called Craig Furnis. He posted it at his new blog and was happy for me to reproduce it here. He’s been too nervous to put his words out into the public until now, and I think he needs to keep at it. Make sure you visit his new site to see when he puts up some more words. In the meantime, check this out. It’s long, but worth it.

Words by Craig Furnis

Words
I love words
Mapping emotional, spiritual, political topology
But sometimes, irrelevant of meaning, it’s just the sounds that get on top of me.
Get right into me.
Tickling and pleasing me.
Piglet – all percussive symmetry
Infinity – small label for a huge dude so big I can’t begin to grasp your magnitude, you’re just too big for me
Flippantly – thrown out with no forethought you care not a jot for the other words or phrases surrounding
Allegorical – your meaning woven through the pages of prose or poetry
Love – four little letters, so simple yet with just a thimble full of you dark turns to light, day from night and I find the might to struggle on, despite the pain remaining in the rest of my life.
Fuck – filthy-dirty and deliciously potent; violent, sexy and ready for all manner of moments
I love words
When packed with meaning they move and abuse me, hearing or reading them they allow me to lose me
Fusing me to a thought or thoughts that hadn’t previously visited or viewed me
Crudely I try to use them to express the complexity I feel, the complexity that is in me, that is me
I don’t say that lightly and I don’t say it self indulgently
We’re all complex, we’re beautiful and we’re all dying slowly
This staggeringly complex strength and frailty exists in each and every one of us eternally
Birth to death, from first to last breath we each express our best and worst and worst and best through the words we get off our chest
The ones we use, and yes the ones we have the unfortunate habit of using to abuse
We’re all the conflicting feelings of peace and rage, action and passivity
The horror and the beauty is inside all the yous and all the Me’s, it’s in all our do’s and all our deeds, it’s in the he’s, the she’s and the we’s, it’s in our wants and in our needs across races, religions, colours and creeds.
I love words.
They’re our greatest achievement.
Language gives is freedom, gives us the opportunity and the tools to reason, it both describes and inspires feeling, can leave us reeling in a million different ways; hurt, laughing or healing
I love words
It’s words with which me make starts to the journey we share with the one person who, because of how much they seem to care, we dare to show our whole self to.
And it’s words we throw like stones. When we’re overcrowded yet somehow alone and every hard word is blown up and out of all proportion.
Yes its words with which we make starts, but it’s also words we use to break hearts.
But I love words.
They’re the building blocks for the stories we tell
Foundations laid to build heaven from hell so shout, scream, yell,
Compel the world to change through words placed on a page or spat from a stage
It’s not about rage or rebellion, it’s about connection
About communication, about education, about evolution of ideas
Change the story, change the fears and watch as these changes echo through the years to change everything
Cheer as the mere musings of mortals written and told affect the young and the old alike
Watch as the dike of opinion bursts it’s banks and give thanks that words have this power
With words we can make deities cower
We’ve invented cellophane flowers and saved princesses from the tallest of towers
Our ideas given birth to – we’ve shown sin, we’ve shown virtue
We’ve shown reflections of out world to be beautiful though it seems sometimes determined to hurt you.
I love words.
They can change the world.
Change your own world by changing the words that you use.
Change all your cant’s to can do’s, your No’s to yeses.
Change to determination, forget second guesses.
Blessed be the ones who embrace a new story for life.
Blessed be the storytellers and blessed be their minds because they take us out of here, away from here, take us anywhere, everywhere, somewhere
To see anything
They’ve shown mountains exploding and seas emptying
We’ve seen the coronation of kings, wooden boys alive with no strings – words breathe life into so many things
So soar on the wings of a story through fantastic landscapes teeming with life gloriously never before imagined.
Laugh and cry as you learn how it happened. How it all began.
Where it’s come from and where it’s going.
Slack-jawed and astounded at the storytellers showing it all to you
Leading you hand in hand through wonderland, the sands of time slowing into a stretched moment you know you can visit again and again.
Pick up a pencil.
Pick up a pen.
And tell me your words. Your moments.
Tells me your stories, tell me your lies.
Tell me of good times. Of bad.
Tell me the worst nightmare you’ve ever had.
I want to hear it.
Speak your words direct to my soul, I want to feel it, breathe it, be it, believe it.
Let me spend five minutes in your mind and you can spend five minutes in mine.
Let’s get a cheap bottle of wine and spend some time sharing our words.
I offer you mine.
I’d love to hear yours.
Because I love words.
They’re our greatest achievement.
Language gives is freedom, gives us the opportunity and the tools to reason. It both describes and inspires feeling, can leave us reeling in a million different ways; hurt laughing or healing.

***

Good, eh? Stick at it, Craig – don’t hide this talent away.

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The Next Big Thing

THE NEXT BIG THING is a chain of book and author recommendations. One author tags five others, who then each tag five others. The idea is that we all help people out there learn about all the good stuff that’s just out or coming soon. The wonderful Angela Slatter tagged me on her blog and now it’s my turn.

1. What is the working title of your next book?

It’s called Bound. That’s actually the final title, so I hope it sticks. Although you can never be sure until the ink is dry on the cover.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

I’ve always been told that I write great fight scenes, and I do enjoy writing them. I’ve even run successful workshops on the subject. So it occurred to me that I should embrace that in a full novel and I came up with a character who is a very talented martial artist and the story grew from there. I combined it with a nasty little idea I’d had knocking around in my fevered noggin for a while and it turned into a book of which I’m very proud.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Like RealmShift and MageSign, it’s a dark urban fantasy horror kinda thing.

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I have no idea. There are two main couples in the book, but I’m reluctant to suggest actors because I like readers to paint their own pictures of what my characters look like.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Alex Caine is a masterful fighter and the master of his life, until a chance encounter exposes him to magic, danger and a total loss of control.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

That’s currently in process, but it won’t be self-published.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Hard to say. Probably somewhere around 6 to 8 months.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Well, it’s in a similar vein to RealmShift and MageSign, as it’s set in the same world. In fact, there are a few cameos from those books. As for other authors’ work it compares to, it bears similarities to the work of Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, H P Lovecraft… and more. Think good, dark urban fantasy and hopefully it bears comparison.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

As mentioned in 2. above, it came partly from the main character, which was a person I wanted to explore. And also from the primary item the character gets tied up with, but I won’t say what that is, because I don’t want to give anything away.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Martial arts, beautiful people, monsters, magic, items of magical power, elder gods, chaos, mayhem and excitement! And that’s only in the first few chapters.

And now to tag other authors. You can read their answers to the same questions next Wednesday.

I tag:

Joanne Anderton

Andrew McKiernan

Rob Hood

David Wood

Jason Fischer

You can see their answers to the questions above next week, on Wednesday, November 28th.

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Tuesday Toot – Jo Anderton

Tuesday Toot is a semi-regular feature here. An invite-only series of short posts where writers, editors, booksellers and other creatives have been asked to share their stuff and toot their own horn. It’s hard to be seen in the digital morass and hopefully this occasional segment will help some of the quality stuff out there get noticed. It should all be things that regular readers here will find edifying.

This time, it’s Jo Anderton. Take it away, Jo!

Who is Jo?

Apparently, Jo Anderton looks quite normal from the outside. But don’t let this fool you, because she’s actually a writer, and you know what they’re like. Even worse, she writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror. You should feel sorry for her characters.

Jo’s had a few short stories published here and there, most recently in Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear and Epilogue. She won the Australian Horror Writer’s Association short story competition in 2012. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for a couple of Aurealis Awards, and the WSFA small press award. Her first novel, Debris, was published by Angry Robot Books in 2011. It was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award and a Ditmar. Jo won the Ditmar for Best New Talent.

Whenever she’s not torturing characters and cackling manically to herself, Jo works as a marketing co-ordinator for an Australian book distributor. She lives in Sydney with her husband and too many pets.

What are you tooting about?

Suited, the sequel to Debris! This series is set in a world of industrialised magic, where most people can see and manipulate semi-sentient, subatomic particles called pions. Pions can be used to rearrange matter, and the stronger you are or the more people you have working with them, the greater the effects. So you have enormous cities full of impossible, majestic buildings, all powered by massive pion-binding factories. But this comes at a cost. Pion manipulation creates debris — a waste product that destabilises pion bonds. As you can imagine, this could be terribly dangerous for a world built on pions. Most people can’t even see debris, so the ones who do are conscripted by the state to clean it up. Really, they’re nothing more than glorified garbage collectors, over worked, poorly paid and definitely underappreciated.

In Debris we met Tanyana. She starts off as a powerful and wealthy pion binder. But a terrible accident leaves her scarred, and her pion sight gone, replaced with an ability to see debris instead. She’s forced to become a debris collector, with a suit of living metal drilled into her very bones, her income slashed and her life in ruins. The first book is about Tanyana struggling to come to terms with her new identity… but nothing is what it seems. The accident that ruined her might not have been an accident at all. In fact, debris itself might not be the waste product everyone thinks it is. It might be something much more important.

Suited follows straight on from where Debris left off. Tanyana deals with the consequences of the choices she’s made, the alliances formed and the enemies she’s well and truly pissed off. But the hardest battle is within herself.

These books are a little bit science fiction and a little bit fantasy, with influences from anime and video games. I’ve loved writing these books, and I hope readers enjoy them too!

You can find Jo online here.

I should post a caveat here, as Jo is a very good friend of mine, but I can also vouch for the fact that her writing is awesome and her books are well worth the read. I loved them and can’t wait for the third book in the trilogy. If there’s any doubt about her talent, look at it this way – she was nominated for the 2011 Ditmar Award for Best New Talent, and I was nominated for the same award. Jo won it and I couldn’t be happier for her, because she totally deserved that win. (I mean, sure, I wish I’d won a Ditmar, but Jo totally deserved it.) So, go and buy her books. You won’t regret it.

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Are you still submitting? Determination is the key.

You’ve heard it before, I’m sure – you have to keep swimming. That’s true for the actual act of writing in the first place. No matter how hard it is, you just keep going. To quote the erstwhile Chuck Wendig, “I will finish the shit I start.” And then, to explain why, we’ll quote the incomparable Angela Slatter: “You can edit shit, but you can’t edit nothing.” Notice how shit features in both those quotes? Subconscious, I’m sure, but it helps to make the point. Nothing is shiny first time around. In writing, you really can polish a turd, if you keep at it, make the necessary changes, listen to critique and so on. But you have to have a turd to start with, and that means working hard, writing, writing, writing, essentially, keep pushing until you’ve squeezed one out. And then start polishing.

But I think it’s time we moved away from the crappy analogies. Sorry, it seems I can’t help myself.

Let’s assume you did get the thing finished, be it novel or short story or whatever. Then you started polishing. You edited, tweaked and buffed till it was perfect. Then you sent it out to your critiquing friends and beta readers, and those bastards pointed out all the imperfections. So you listened, because you’re smart like that. And you polished again and again. Eventually, it really was about as good as you could make it. So you submitted it to your favourite market.

And it got rejected.

“Fuck ‘em!” you cry, and send it somewhere else. Their loss if they can’t recognise your genius, right?

Yes, to a degree. Because no matter how good a story is, it might not be right for that publisher’s catalogue, that editor’s taste, that publication’s readership and so on. You have to have a good story – that, above and beyond everything else, is a pre-requisite – but you also have to find the right home. And that’s as much luck and determination as it is smart planning and skill. Of course, if you send your werewolf story to a soft porn magazine it’s not going to sell. Are you laughing? Cos that happened to me.

To be fair, it wasn’t really my fault. When I was moving to Australia permanently, I asked an Australian friend what magazines out here might be good for fiction. I thought I’d start submitting, see if I could get a bit of Aussie publication going before I got here permanently. He said to me, “Picture Magazine publishes fiction, give them a go.” And he sent me the submission address. Old-school post back in those days. Of course, he was winding me up, but I didn’t know that Picture Magazine was a soft-core porn publication. I sent them a story about a werewolf detective. I got a letter back. It said, “This is a beaut yarn, mate, but really not the sort of thing we publish. Thanks anyway.” That’s because the fiction they usually publish is a reader’s-wives/confessions-of-a-randy-plumber type of thing. I didn’t know this before I submitted or when I got the rejection.

When I got to Australia I looked into it. I laughed. Then I went and kicked my mate in the nards for being such a douchebag. Then we both laughed about it. True story. Anyway, write good shit and know your market, is the core of what I’m saying here.

After that, it becomes all about determination. I write this post now because I was recently reminded of the importance of determination by a friend of mine. Ian McHugh is a bloody brilliant short fiction writer. He’s sold stories to such pro markets as Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov’s and many more. He’s a Writers Of The Future winner and his first collection is coming from Ticonderoga Publications in 2014. Yes, he is one accomplished bastard.

Why am I citing Ian as an example of determination? Well, even with a record like his, he still gets a lot of rejection. He recently made a pro sale with a story that has taken a long time to find a home. How long? I’ll let Ian explain:

This was actually the 19th time I’d submitted this particular story, so it’s my new record holder for number-of-rejections-before-selling. Previous best was 14. My general rule has been to trunk a story after 15 rejections. I broke it for this one because I got some lightning-to-the-brain feedback with the 14th rejection and rewrote the ending.

That means that not only was it rejection 14 times before he had a sudden realisation about how to improve the story, but it was subsequently rejected another four times with the new ending before it found its home.

As Ian said, “Take whatever lessons you will from my Obsessive Compulsive Bloody-Mindedness Disorder (OCBMD).”

The lesson I take from it? Trust in yourself and keep looking for a home. My personal record of rejections before a sale is the same as Ian’s previous best: 14. What really surprised me was the people on our email list expressing amazement at Ian’s tenacity, saying things like, “I couldn’t handle that much rejection” or “I give up after two or three rejections.”

What!?

Let me share some of my own numbers. My recent short fiction sales are all stories that didn’t find a home right away. In fact, my stories hardly ever do. Only a handful of things I’ve written have sold to the first place I sent them, and those are usually things written for a specific themed anthology, or stories written by request/commission. Of the 3 recent stories that I wrote simply because they were in my brain-juice, and then tried to sell, I got 11 rejections, 2 rejections and 6 rejections before they sold to the 12th, 3rd and 7th market respectively. That’s actually a fair cross-section of submission numbers. (And I was bloody happy with the one that sold on the third attempt!)

So, don’t give up on writing something – finish that motherfucker. Then, when it’s finished and polished to its highest possible sheen, start submitting and do not give up. Stay open to the possibility of change, like Ian’s sudden inspiration. I recently did that and changed a story’s structure entirely after something like 10 or 11 rejections, but it’s still essentially the same story and it’s still out there looking for a home.

Finish it, polish it, submit it, repeat.

Off you go.

Caveat: It gets to a point when you have to admit that your story might not be a polished gem at all, but actually just a stinking turd. Sometimes you do have to trunk a story. Ian’s method is give up after 15 rejections. Mine is probably about the same. But when I give up, I never really give up. I rewrite the story, use the ideas in a different way, make it into something else and then send it out there again. Never. Give. Up.

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Scared Twitless

I’m a member of SpecFicNZ, Speculative Fiction Writers of New Zealand who are, obviously, happy to include Australians in their group. They’re a cool organisation and they’ve recently run a twitter horror contest. You can read the entries and help decide the winner by voting.

The winning three entries are up for signed copies of Bloodstones, Mansfield with Monsters, and Tankbread. One of the signatures in question will be mine in Bloodstones.

So, go here, read, enjoy, vote.

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