The Old Factory Award: Behind-the-Scenes

The Old Factory Award has been published by the wonderful Abyss and Apex magazine who have described it as 'One of the most unusual pieces we've ever featured.'

Suffice to say that I'm really pleased with it.

So I thought I'd write about how it came about.

Let's start by saying that I'm really glad that Abyss and Apex published it now in October, when the weather turns to cold and rain because it really feels (to me, anyway) like a Winter story. If it had a colour it would be red, like carpets and wine and dying leaves.

The story first came to me a couple of years ago as a feeling. I had a 10 minute walk between the tube and my house then by a not-too-busy road with plenty of trees and a wide-open park.The whole pavement was strewn with leaves and the grass in the park would be silver. I'd walk with my hands in my pockets and my hood up and I'd retreat into a little warm burrow not just in my coat but in my head as well.

There are particular stories we like to read in Winter, there are myths and tales born from gathering close around a campfire to keep warm, ghost stories and fairy tales. They're very close and intimate stories with no huge cast or epic battles, they're stories that happen behind doors, not in front of them and the only sense we have of them is as people passing by and seeing the warmth and light spilling onto the street.

I wanted to write that kind of story, something that had a warmth and a happy feeling, a celebration of something and a feeling of an intimate event behind closed doors that hardly anyone knew of.

A friend, Conrad Mason (The Demon's Watch out in 2012), said it reminded him a little of American Gods and I'd agree with him. There's a vein of Neil Gaiman stories that aim for this same space (October in the Chair leaps to mind).

So as I walked that walk twice a day an idea began to form around that feeling.

There was a song I was listening to at the same time. I was very into Elbow then (I still am) and was listening to The Seldom Seen Kid almost daily. Now there's an entire album that feels like it's also that same rich red (in fact look at the colour of the album cover). And there's a song in there different from all the rest called The Fix which seems to be about a party in which some grand, mysterious master plan has just fallen into place and made everyone very rich. It's brilliant. You can see it in your head; plush cushions, drapes and gauze, low lamps and feather-trimmed masquerade masks.

Here it is.

  

So of course my story began to swirl around an equally mysterious and lavish party with dancing and laughter and extravagant figures. And so the story took shape and I had to begin writing it because an idea only gets you so far.

Now I should tell you that something else was happening in my life around that time. I'd met a girl.

We'd only been going out a few months but I was increasingly falling in love with her. She'd fallen for me because of my writing a story called Promises (appearing next year in Something Wicked) that I'd sent to her and a number of others for feedback. We'd flirted a while and then, courage bucked up, she asked me out.

I wanted to write something for her, something for a Christmas present. Cats deliver dead birds, some men deliver dead stags or briefcases of money or cars or jewellery. I wrote a story with a bit of that same sentimental heart that Promises had. It was a story I knew she'd like, was cheaper (I'm a writer) than all those other things other men get but ultimately gets me to the same place. (Yes, that place).

Details came to me as I wrote the story, little tricks and turns and characters and after a couple of weeks the story was finished. It didn't come out exactly as I'd imagined. There wasn't as much of the warmth and sentimentality I'd wanted it to. It came out a bit urban and, in a few places, a little bit dark and modern. That's entirely my fault, part of me knows that life doesn't work out how you always want it and reality creeps in wherever it can. A party will always need organising, technology will creep in if you set it in today no matter how much of a fairy take you want to write.

She loved it. And I got there. And I'm still there today.

I think A&A are right in calling it unusual. It's certainly the weirdest story I've written it. In some ways I worried it would never be published because it was too unusual. It's mostly description, hardly any dialogue and there's not a massive amount of drama. From another, bigger author it might have had a better time, I thought. It seems people are more accepting of different if you've already made a name of yourself but from a newbie? Probably not.

But here it is! A&A took it. And published it. And now anyone can read it. I can only hope they enjoy it.

You wait forever for one bus...

And then two come along at once!

This is an emergency bulletin as in the past week not just one but two magazines have accepted my short stories. For money! Some people out there have liked my stories so much that they're willing to reach into their pockets and give me some of their own hard-earned cash. Fantastic! Money, if anything, is a good way of keeping score of where you're at as a writer (and buying meals at GBK) and I've been told at work that being paid money now puts me under the label of 'professional writer'. This does give me a warm, glowing feeling.

So at the end of this month, (30th November) if all goes to plan, you will be able to find my short story Kids in the latest issue of Electric Spec. Hurray!

And

In late 2011 my short story The Old Factory Award will appear in Abyss and Apex Magazine. Hurray again!

And to remind you all that No Longer Living can be found on Tales of the Zombie War, which is also great.

Anyway, I really should get back to writing.

Schrodinger's Publication Date

Planning is great. Other than the Saturday, on which I was working on a very hard scene, writing has been smooth sailing. It's been one of those weeks where, after all the weeks of worrying and stressing, writing has just come easy and you know exactly why this is the kind of thing you want to do (hopefully) for the rest of your life.

I've been writing and changing scenes in accordance with the new plan, some things have changes (for the better I hope) as they have occurred to me but the rest is ticking along nicely. I might even have finished by the end of the month!

Short story front is quiet. Murky Depths turned down The Old Factory Award.

"It's a very clever piece of wordplay. However, we're going to pass on this as it doesn't seem like a Murky Depths piece to us. "

So there that is.

Revolution SF have still to publish No Longer Living but I'm being patient and don't really mind not knowing when it will be. It's a philosophy that borders on quantum physics, Schrodinger's Publication Date, it is not defined or measured simply by the act me looking. It just is, whether I know the date or not.

Promises and Earworm Turns are going to get a bit of an update so I can start sending them again. Just re-read them recently and think they could do with it just to make sure that they're the best stories they can be. That's the worry about sending stories, you always wonder if they're turning it away because of a gaping plot hole they didn't bother telling you about, poor writing, the fact that you're a nobody when they could be publishing somebodies or a mixture of all of the above and more. This is just my little precaution so I can tell myself "It's all them, Tiger, it's not you. It's all them."

Thanks for reading