Suddenly I’m In Stuff

I don’t know. You spend months slogging away at your keyboard, writing and submitting short stories and novels and all manner of writings that never see the light of day… and then suddenly two of them get accepted at once.

I posted last week about being published in the latest issue of Shoreline of Infinity – which you can now buy, incidentally, if you want to look at the lovely artwork by Tsu and also maybe read the story – something I’m very excited about. Just waiting for my copy to arrive…

But earlier this week I had another bit of good news. I mentioned back in August (or seventeen years ago) that I was entering a competition by Grimdark Magazine, sponsored by the excellent Matt Ward.

I dusted off a very old short story I wrote (for some history homework back in Year 8, I think), threw away everything but 50% of the basic concept and then wrote a nice harrowing 4000 words about a plague doctor having a generally miserable time.

I entered the competition. And then I won it. So that’s pretty cool.

‘The Only Cure’ will, all being well, be appearing in the 25th issue of Grimdark, coming out on the 15th of January next year. So if you want to keep the spirit of pandemic going into 2021, save the date.

And if you’re writing too, don’t give up. Good things come to those who wait, and those who keep on trying. Even if you’re waiting and trying a long time.