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.

Promises finds a home

This month's update has actually some information to update about!

In the middle of last week, Joe Vaz and his magazine Something Wicked accepted my short story Promises for publication. Hurray! Anyone following this blog will know that Promises has been out in the cold for quite some time. In fact it has been rejected 17 times (for various reasons from it being too long to 'not being the right fit for the magazine').

But that doesn't mean it wasn't liked by many of them. Here's what magazines have had to say about it thus far:

"The writing...is very strong" - Pseudopod

"Good writing" - The Opinion Guy's Speculative Fiction

"We loved this story. It's melodramatic, romantic, affecting and well-written" - Murky Depths


"An exquisite piece of writing" - Something Wicked


So now it has a home at Something Wicked which has already featured several award-winning authors including Arthur C Clarke Award winner Lauren Beukes, Sarah Lotz and Abigail Godsell. Promises should be appearing late this year or early next year. (I will be asking for early next year for reasons I shall go into another time).


As I have probably said before, my short stories serve a purpose. They are great exercises that increase my skills in writing and plotting, they're a great way to experience that feeling of victory which is especially important during the long hard slog of writing my trilogy, they're great fun to do and some of them bring in some pocket money, which is more than welcome. But the most important, I feel, is that they are steps toward my goal of becoming a full-time writer. All of my writing credits will be going on the covering letter for when I finally send off the novels to an agent and should help me stand head and shoulders above all the hundreds of other hopefuls they no doubt receive every month.


As an update here are my writing credits so far:


Contract                                        Twisted Tongue Magazine


No Longer Living                          RevolutionSF
                                                      Reprinted in Tales of the Zombie War


Kids                                              Electric Spec
                                                      To be reprinted in Bete Noire Magazine (Autumn 2011)


The Old Factory Award                Abyss & Apex Magazine (Winter 2011)


Promises                                       Something Wicked (Winter 2011 / Spring 2012)


Should look pretty good on a covering letter, I think. It shows I'm serious about writing, am not without talent and (hopefully) worth investing time and money in!


In other news the novels are progressing well. I cut out an entire 20 pages this week. 20 pages that were born of desperation and word count padding but are now no longer needed; a little stitching and it'll be like they were never there. An author once said if you can takes something out of a story without having to do much of a rewrite then it should never have been there in the first place. This was definitely the case.


Though my count is now inaccurate with things needing to be revisited and entire chunks being lifted out, I am now 49% through my current stage of editing.


Now, on to things I have read. This will be quite a short list for reasons that will soon become apparent.


The Accident - This is without a doubt the best Linwood Barclay I have read. The characters are good, the pacing is great and the way he threads the themes through the story is masterly. Well done to him for this.


A Red Herring Without Mustard - I have talked on Alan Bradley before. The main character Flavia De Luce is a very well realised character who jumps out of the page. The author is a man of mature years and I think it shows in her personality. She is a wish-fulfillment character, intelligent, precocious, curious everything a man would want to see in a granddaughter. He gets all the fun because he only has to see her seldom, the rest of us have to put up with here all day every day and a good slap around the face would do this girl wonders.


Double Indemnity - one of the few instances where the film is better than the book. There was a radio play called Double Jeopardy a few months ago (based on the true story) where Raymond Chandler is contacted by Billy Wilder to help him with the script for the film. At one point they describe James M. Cain's dialogue as terrible. They weren't wrong. Some of the stuff the characters say don't sound like they're coming out of a human mouth.

A Dance With Dragons - the big one. Most of this month has been spent reading this monolith. It's very well written but I won't have a proper opinion on the story until I've finished reading it.


So that's all for now.


As usual, thanks for reading.

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.

Dodge and Fukkit make it Big (or they will one day)

So, as of this evening, it's back to the novel.

It was fun writing Dodge & Fukkit, think I'm on to something there, but unfortunately it had to be curtailed when I realised that it had become over 20,000 words in length, probably didn't count as a short story any more and I still had miles to go with it. Maybe it'll become a novel one day but for now it has to go on the backburner along with a number of other stories.

Going back to Machinations is a bit intimidating this morning. It's this big monstrous thing with plot-tentacles and an as yet ill-defined character and I don't know where to begin making it better. I'm thinking the best way might be to print out everything I've got and work through it page by page taking notes.

Yeah, that might work.

The grass is always greener...

The novel is on the back burner at the moment. It needed a rest and now it's having one until I get my Machinations muse back.

Right now, I'm working on a new side project; my first detective story, which I might call Dodge and Fukkit if a better title doesn't come along.

It's nice to be writing something new. When I’m editing or reworking and not writing new stuff, having the words flow out from under my fingertips, I begin to wonder whether I’ll ever be capable of writing something new ever again or whether that particular talent has deserted me.

But then I sit and start something new and there it is, the skill just comes back and I find I can still write at the same pace as I can create.

Then I have an idea too late, something that should have happened before this or that bit or a new thread or theme or plot point pops into my head and I think ‘that’d be an awesome thing to do’ and I begin to wonder if I still have the ability to edit and polish, to work a short story and incorporate new ideas and make the language flow and sparkle; basically turn a nice short story into a great one (great, here, being a relative term. For you, dear reader, read 'ok').

I guess there's just no winning with me. I always feel I'm losing the skill I'm not using at the time.

A quick catch-up

Just a quick update.

Still working on the final few chapters of the novel, still hoping to finish Act Two by the end of this year / very early in the new one. Think I'm still in for a chance to manage it even though lots of Christmas commitments have slowed me down this past week.

There've been no new rejections but I need to put another couple of irons in the fire and make sure to send a couple of stories off to magazines as soon as I can.

Chris Wooding has recently been putting up writer's tips on his blog, which have been very good, I've been enjoying them a lot. Catch them here.

Now it's off to see Avatar. I'm not expecting another Aliens or anything but hopefully it should be fun.

Hope you're all enjoying No Longer Living on RevolutionSF. It's no longer on the main page but has been shunted down into the archives but you can still find it here.

Thanks for reading.

Author's First 'Review'

It's been a couple of weeks since No Longer Living went live on Revolution SF. Unfortunately, it is no longer on the front page, having made way for even more recent stories, but you can still find it here.

It also got its first 'review'. It was written by Michael Bey (no, not that one), one of RevSFs Fiction Editors, so it might not technically count, but I've been writing so long and waited so long for a review that I'm counting it.

He says:

"This is an exceptional zombie story. I like how it focuses on the personal anguish of the main character who is left to suffer with the death of a loved one day after day after day. Freeman doesn't pull his emotional punches with this one."

Which is nice.

In other news, I'm fairly confident that Act Two of the novel will be redrafted by Christmas, which is nice. Might even have the novel finished this time next year.

Abyss and Apex Magazine turned down Earworm Turns saying: "It was well received here, but after some thought we have decided not to accept it for publication."

Which is a shame. I'm taking this to mean "Good story, but wouldn't fit in with the rest of the mag."

So, that's it from me, for now.

Thanks for reading.

It has Arrived

No Longer Living has arrived.

It can be found on the front page (for now at least) on http://www.revolutionsf.com/

Enjoy!

A Glimpse of Sunshine in November

Strange Horizons sent me a rejection today for Earworm Turns. So, I know, that means the title is a little misleading but SH has an acceptance rate of 0.92% so I'm not that annoyed. Abyss & Apex are next, whom I've never submitted to before so that should be interesting.

But today, I finished another sweep on Act Two and think that this might be The One. I shall begin reading it again tomorrow and hopefully the new novel structure will stand, then it's a case of tidying it up and then on to the third and final act.

It's days like this that I think I might actually finish this novel. So my head is full of dreams of literary agents and publishing contracts.

So today, I love writing.

Work, VIctory,then Work Again

So No Longer Living is now with Revolution SF. I have been told that there's a few other stories ahead of mine in the queue but that it should appear soon. Hurray!

The second publishing makes me quite happy, though I am of the personality that when I work hard for something day after day, week after week, year after year when I eventually get it I smile, nod to myself, say 'Good. Finally.' And then get back to work and yearning, though maybe now I'm aiming for a slightly higher profile magazine or whatever.

So I'm still working on the novel, the usual doubts and 'no one will ever think this is good' worries assailing me. I also took a stab at a new short story Back to the City, which might start seeing magazines in the near future, but perhaps not. I want this one to be a bit special with a certain feel to it and make it resemble the one I have in my head, which isn’t quite coming out onto the page yet. That might mean taking my time with it.

Thanks for reading.

Being Jealous of Wooding

It's been almost a month! Argh!

Though luckily few things have happened. Chapters 24-26 are ready to be polished. Much was changed but what is now there feels streamlined and tight. Roll on 27-30!

Steve from RevolutionSF responded to a prod I gave him (they've had No Longer Living for five months now). He said that he remembered my story (hurray!) but thought that he had already replied (oh) but may have passed it onto Matt (hurray?). That was last week and I haven't heard back since. So, hopefully, that means their taking it seriously.

The same goes for Joe at Something Wicked, who have had Of The Father for seven months now. He assures me it is top of the pile, so I should hear from them soon too. Exciting!

At the moment, I am being relatively jealous of author Chris Wooding. First novel written at 16, agent by 18, published at 19. The jealousy that courses through me right now, you could bottle it. And I'm looking forward to his new book Retribution Falls. Grrrrr. I hate writers that I can't help but like.

Well, actually I don't. Good for him. I'm just jealous of his success. I'd like me some of that.

Here's hoping!

Thanks for reading.

Where did all my work go?

I'm so glad that I'm struggling with the novel.

The last few days I barely managed anything. I simply paced whatever room I was writing in, thinking, planning and trying to see my way clear of continuing this story. I didn't manage much actual words on paper but, do you know what? What I had, I liked.

So why, just when I've been starting to get back into a rhythm, did the file corrupt and I lost the last three day's work?

Bloody computer.

Anyhoo, all is well otherwise, stories are with people and Kids Today is finished and may soon be sent to people. Would very much like to be published again. The urge; she itches.

Why is there so much vampire porn?

I'm getting later and later in writing these.

This week I've been having fun writing Outlined in Chalk, the sequel to last year's Of the Father. I can't say there was anything I really liked about the story itself but writing it was fun. The characters aren't right, the scenes aren't right. It all needs a lot of work, basically, but that's a worry for another time. Going to go back now and start redrafting / editing Old Factory Awards next week. Should be fun.

Other than that not much is going on. I'm a little annoyed at Amazon. I like to look through their Presellers lists especially Fiction, SF&F and Children's Books but SF&F is always so full of Manga, character stuff (Star Wats, Star Trek, Warhammer 40K etc) and vampire / werewolf erotica with names like Deep Blood and Dark Awakening that I rarely see anything I like. *Sigh* If that's what people like to buy, I guess...

Oh, well.

Thanks for reading.

To Write or not to Write?

A productive week has gone by, I feel.

I finished the latest go on Act Two and put it away for a bit, allowing the dust time to settle before I look at it again. There's a lot I want to change but I want to see how the changes I've just made settle into the story first.

To keep my mind occupied, I've made another pass on my new short story, The Old Factory Awards, and written the fast draft of Kids Today, which came out rather spiffing, I'd say. What I'm going to do tomorrow, I have no idea. I might try writing another story but I don't want to end up with a massive backlog of unfinished stories when I go back to the novel. Or do I? I don't want to take a break, I'm enjoying myself but a lot of unfinisheds can be irksome.

Anyway, it's been nice working on some new pieces for a while.

Friend Rob read The Old Factory Awards. He said he liked it, thought it was clever, enjoyed many lines from it and thought the beginning needed tidying up. I agree with him on that last one, at least. I don't know if I'm getting better or he's getting softer on me. Oh, how I long for some harsh criticism just to reassure me that I'm actually quite good and the people who read my stuff aren't just being polite!

No magazines have got back to me yet. Damn. I'm getting itchy. Nothing makes me feel better then sending something off. It beats waiting.

Anyway.

Thanks for reading.

Almost Something

This time next week I'll be 25 and 25 is feeling like the next chapter of my life.

I'm not one to worry about my age. I look back and find a number of short stories behind me, a novel that is progressing, another waiting in the wings and four aborted ones; a time of skills being built, groundwork being done. I don't see my youth as wasted and know there's still a good few years of youth ahead of me that I plan on turning into something to be proud of. I look forward, almost, to turning thirty and seeing what I've achieved in the next five years.

Two of the track titles of Amanda Palmer's album have been haunting me this week.

A Short History on Nearly Nothing
and
A Short History of Almost Something

I know which one of those I want to be able to call my life and though right now I find the redrafting a bit tedious, tiresome etc it's still groundwork that needs to be done and I'm determined to have something at the end of it that will make the past five years make sense.

In this new injection of passion (thank you, Amanda) I gave my new short story Promises, Promises to some people at work who said that they enjoyed it and gave a few pointers and some helpful criticism. I've spent the past week implementing them. Hopefully, it's near completion, I'm putting it aside one last time to see how the changes I've made settle into everything else, make a few changes and then it's off to Weird Tales.

The novel is still going. I've just bought a new printer. This one plugs right into my laptop! Before, I had to save my stuff on the memory stick, go to my old laptop and then print it out as my printer couldn't connect with my current laptop. But this one does! And it prints so fast! How did I survive without it?

My mind is still plagued with doubts about the first chapters of Act Two, I see things I don't quite like and I'm annoyed that there's still changes to be made and then get more annoyed when I don't sit still and make those changes because I want this thing finished. I feel I'm getting to that point where if I edit these parts anymore I'm going to start damaging it. I think they're almost as good as they're going to get. I need to move on to the next part but I'm terrified that they're not good enough.

Man up, boy, I tell myself. Don't be afraid of sending stuff out into the world, you've sent out worse and these days your worst is another person's 'not bad'.

Need to get back to work. 25 is looming and I'm going to use the last of 20-24 as something to look back at, nod and think Almost Something.

Sweet Blessed Relief

Well, it turned out that there was something wrong with Do All Prey Dream, just as I had foreseen. Everything, everything was wrong.

So, I've worked my way through it, gave it the usual third draft treatment of pacing up and down my room, reading it aloud and making changes. I took out long pages and almost halved the bloody thing, changed the ending and changed the entire sentiment. There's a lot there still intact but a lot has changed. And it's now called No Longer Living. I'll start sending it out soon, I haven't yet decided on a first but probably one of the biggies. I'll get started on redrafting Promises, Promises tomorrow.

The novel is sitting on the sidelines, waiting patiently. I look forward to going back to it and enjoying the fresh look time apart will give me. Also, spending time doing a third draft of a story has reminded me how much I'll change in that draft so it's reassuring that though much of the novel's second draft is pants that'll get fixed in the third. Aaaah, sweet blessed relief.

Another rejection this week from Revolution SF:

"There's a lot of good writing here but the story just didn't grab me."

So, standard fair there. I'm going to send it on to Something Wicked next.

Thanks for reading.

On a Break

Me and the novel have decided to see other people for a month.

I've just been struggling with it for so long (the past 3 months!) that I think it's best to put it aside for a month and have another crack at it later. It's quite disappointing to have to do that but hopefully it's for the best and I'll go back and see exactly what needs doing and all will be well.

In the meantime, I've had a look through Do All Prey Dream? One of my short stories that's been sitting on my To Do pile for months. I've always been suspicious of it as it's the one story that came out near perfect in the first draft. Reading it again, I'm worrying if it's not a little bit boring. Really going to have to get some second opinions before I start sending it out to magazines.

Also written the first draft of a new story Promises, Promises. I'm happy with the first third but the rest needs work. It's not just the story it's the feel I really want to nail in this one. I want it bittersweet and I'm not sure as yet if I can achieve that.

Anyway, back to it.

Thanks for reading.

Paperbound

Hello again.

you can now read my short story Paperbound on the Waterstones 'What's Your Story' website. Just type in 'Williams' (my actual surname) under surname and there it shall be. Now I just have to sit and wait and will hopefully get an email beginning of next month telling me I've won. I'm cautiously optimistic about winning, I think it's a fair piece I've entered but it only takes two people to be better than me I suppose. Oh, well, here's hoping.

I'm tired this week. I've put a lot of work in. I tore down the beginning to Act Two (again) and have rewritten about 40 pages from scratch. It seems to be working. The beginning was too complex in its original incarnation, now I've simplified it and suddenly the whole thing seems more streamlined, will hopefully be able to start linking it up to later parts and just get on with the whole thing.

That's it really, not much to report. Stories are still with mags and I'll get some replies soon. I have a good feeling that some things might start going my way. But then that's no different than all the other times.

Got a load of new books to read, so I'd better go and make a start on them. Yan Martel's Life of Pi for starters. Nice.

Thanks for reading.

Back Behind the Laptop

And I'm back from a lovely trip to Singapore. Feel quite strung out at the moment from jetlag but that'll pass and I've had a quiet day to recuperate before I go to the Camden Crawl festival tomorrow.

I saw lots of nice things, enjoyed the nice weather and friendly people and read a couple of nice books. I read Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill on the plane. I really enjoyed it, I found it a good story and thought it a very competent first novel, I'd like to think it was written around the standard I'm writing now, it may be I'm talking arse but it was encouraging and I'll definitely get the second book Twentieth Century Ghosts to see in what ways he's improved between writing the two.

Like I said I did a little work on the plane there and back on some short stories, I got my Mum to read them and tell me what she thought, summarised below [my thoughts in these brackets]:

The Red Samaritan: Interesting, felt sorry for the main character, didn't quite get the world they were in though and didn't quite get the ending.

[I need to change the tense from past to present, the general idea is good, needs a good work through to add details to bring it to life and bring it up to my current standards. I'm glad Mum liked the main character because I wasn't so sure, I need to make the secondary character more interesting. I've been too subtle with the 'plot twist' and need to explain some things a bit more blatantly].

Do All Prey Dream?: [I've been worrying about this one. When I read it through I could barely find a thing wrong with it. This made me very suspicious. it has to be wrong, I said to myself, it has to be. My Mum's thoughts can be put in the following conversation]

Me: So, what did you think?
Mum: It was alright. It was a bit sick in places, like he had a thing for his wife.
Me: He was sick, he did have a thing for his wife, that was the point.
Mum: Oh.

Later she went on to say she liked the way I did one scene and thought the perversion parts needed to be embellished and needed a slower build. I agree with her unreservedly.

Earworm: My Mum loves this one. [I don't think it's my best but I've decided to single this one out for finishing. A few changes to scenes, a few details added and embellished and I could hopefully have it ready within a week. Possibly the first that might get picked up, it certainly appeals to a wider audience, I reckon.].

So that's it. I'll have to go back to the other two at a later date.

Mum and Rob have started reading Act One (so they tell me). I'm glad I've given it to them, since I have I've started to argue with them in my head, thinking on what points they could raise and whether or not I agree with them. It's raised a couple of small issues from my subconscious that I need to work on but nothing big, we'll just have to see what they actually say, hopefully some very useful things.

Right. Back to work. When I got back I was so glad to be properly writing with everything I need to work on these projects I almost cried. It's so, so good to be writing again. The holiday was a good chance to recharge and taught me a couple of important things.

a) I absolutely love writing and couldn't be me without it
b) but it's ok to have a break from it every now and again.

The Week Off Concluded

And what a week it was,

I had my first ever filling at the dentist and experienced my first ever earthquake. Nice.

I decided to have today off from writing.

At the stage that I'm at of the novel the creative part is very much over and it just feels that to get it done is simply a case of time and effort. This being the case I try and work as hard as I can for as long as I can but I do start to get exhausted but it still takes me a couple of days to pry my fingers off the pen.

Well, today I managed it. It really is the right thing to do, I'll go back to it tomorrow or Tuesday feeling refreshed and hopefully get another chunk done, hopefully, wrapping Act One completely. I've decided to rewrite the last two or three chapters of it. I want it to have a small feeling of climax at the end, a small victory for the good guys. Then, once Act Two starts I can start the build again to end in a bigger climax and then end Act Three with the Big Finish. That's the plan anyway.

I was really hoping to have Act One finished by the time I went back to work. There are two sides of me it seems, one wants the thing out the way as soon as possible, done and dusted so I can find out if people like it while another part of me wants everything to be perfect and wants to take its time and really make it something good. I seem to see-saw through them but in the end I think I'm grateful to 'perfectionist Grey' because all my favourite authors and directors and such are the same, they take their time and try to make something the best they can.

If only it didn't take so damn long.