Hardened Hearts now available for preorder!

Unnerving’s Hardened Hearts anthology will be released on 4th December, but you can preorder it here, now!

There are many cool authors with stories in it, myself included ;); ););));;);)););) but also work by new exceptionals such as Gwendolyn Kiste, Tom Deady, Somer Canon, Meg Elison and more.

My story, “Brothers”, took me ages to write. And it came out backwards.

I started it as part of my project of rewriting trunk stories to prove to myself that I was a way better writer than I used to be. From an old story whose title I can’t even remember, I kept nothing but the central relationship between two teenagers. As more characters entered the narrative, I realised that they needed developed too, and wrote from their perspective, heading backwards in time. I then assembled these fragments in the right order, thought the story was finished, held onto it for ages, then wrote the overarching storyline linking the three pieces together. It seemed to click. Then Eddie of Unnerving told me it was missing an introductory scene, and then it did click.

I’m convinced a creative writing class would have nothing to offer me: “Today we’re going to find an old story, delete almost all of it, write a new one backwards, think it’s finished, hold onto it for months, realise it isn’t…”

It’s a writing process to which I’ve been trying to return. It produces my best work, I think. I’m guilty of reading litmags and getting scared into trying to write like other writers. This kills my writing intuition and gives me strained and incomplete stories, with forced poetic lines, that grasp at profundity without having earned it. As well it should: my subconscious is the guy doing most of the work, and when I try to tell him he’s been doing it wrong, or needs to do it better, all his thoughts get tangled and he can’t give me much. (I also imagine he then starts sobbing and apologising even although I’m the one in the wrong, because he’s a bit like a more childish version of myself, and that’s what I used to do.)

Let that be a lesson to any writer reading this: good writing is authentic exploring, not expert mimicry. The most rewarding stories for readers and writers are those where you set out not fully knowing what it is you’re trying to say. (Later on, it’s about plot and characterisation and all that shite. Later.)

Unnerving as you probably know released my novella, “The Grimhaven Disaster“, this summer, and an ebook of “Bonespin Slipspace” only last month! I’m forever thankful for their support of my work, and their tireless efforts to present the best of the best darklit writers out there—an effort of which this collection is exemplary.

A dark, creepy and melancholy Christmas treat for one and all I’m sure