The truth about publishing

This might be old but it made me laugh.

Short Story Challenge Day 157-164

This week (21st July - 29th July) of the challenge I dipped into the following:

The Love Theme Of Sybil & William by Chuck Palahniuk

Great short from early in the career of the man himself, features a few key Chuck tropes and ‘odd’ dialogue. Interesting look at a writer finding his feet before going on to greatness, not least because it is one of the few things I have read of his that you could describe as tender.

Also Known As- Tom Fillon (metazen)

A cool story on one my favourite sites. Unreliable narrator and some tongue in cheek stuff about writers and the WIP made me smile. Liked it.

Interzone issue #228

Favourite stories this issue have to be Iron Monkey by Melissa Yuan-Innes and The Untied States of America by Milo Milosevic, both stories with strong central ideas and even stronger characters. Though the stage is big sci-fi both writers have remembered that story is character. The other three stories in this issue, while entertaining enough are not ones I would feel the urge to reread.

Amplified Distance - Sian Harris (100 Stories for Haiti)

I am dipping into random stories in 100 Stories for Haiti, catching up on those I have yet to read. This story by Sian Harris definitely fits the submission requirement of being a story with heart. Great tale of twins separated by thousands of miles.

Other than that, the Friday of this week (23rd July) I spent reading the #fridayflash offerings being tweeted under the hashtag. Some great stuff there every week.

Started Aimee Bender’s ‘The Girl In The Flammable Skirt’ yesterday. Will post a full review of what is a superb collection (judging from the excellent first two stories) in my next SSC post.

Me @ Chinese Whisperings

I'm over on the Chinese Whisperings site today giving my take on the process of writing a collaborative collection of short fiction with nine other writers, nineteen if you count both the Yin and the Yang books coming out later this year.

For those of you not already in the know, Chinese Whisperings is a series of conceptual short fiction collections published by eMergent publishing. The brainchild of editors Paul Anderson and Jodi Cleghorn, Chinese Whisperings will release not one, but two collections this year, the Yang book featuring stories written by ten male authors and the Yin book featuring stories written by ten female authors.

My as yet to be titled story is practically complete, with just a final polish necessary to smooth out a few edges. Oh and I need to find a title. I think I have one or two ideas but at least one might be a bit too sweary. I'll let you know once the title is decided.

Weekend Access - #fridayflash

This piece of flash fiction was written in response to Monday's Write Anything Writing Prompt audioboo.

Short Story Challenge Day 126 - 156

Etgar Keret - The Nimrod Flipout (20th June - 20th July)

As I have mentioned before, the throughly nice, thoroughly talented flash fiction author Nik Perring is a massive fan of Etgar Keret and it is his recommendation that lead me to pickup Keret’s ‘Four Stories’ collection recently. I was impressed enough with what I read there to slap down some more money for Keret’s 2004 collection. ‘The Nimrod Flipout’ contains 32 stories of varying lengths and I have to admit, was ideal reading for the first few weeks with our new baby Hanna. Reading time has been thin on the ground, so a collection of (largely) flash fiction slotted in nicely without demanding too much time to ensure I stayed on track with the challenge.

With such a large number of stories within its covers, it should be no surprise that I found some more enjoyable than others. Many of Keret’s tales feature wonderfully imaginative ideas and it just such stories that are my favourites. ‘Pride and Joy’ with the delightful conceit of parents shrinking as their child grows is a sparky, touching look at how parents give of themselves so their children can flourish and is easily the best thing of Keret’s I have read. ‘Bottle,’ ‘Fatso,’ ‘Second Chance,’ ‘Your Man,’ and ‘For only 9.99 (Inc. Tax and Postage)’ all benefit from a similar playfulness with realism.

I enjoyed every story in this collection, while about half of them stood out as truly exceptional. Etgar Keret is hailed as a major force in this particular genre and ‘The Nimrod Flipout’ shows quite clearly why; each of the stories here have something to show writers about how to tackle the flash fiction/short short fiction form. A great read and a writer I will be returning to soon.

100 Stories, six months on

It’s been just over six months since the Haiti earthquake. Just six weeks after the event, 100 Stories for Haiti was published, the result of many hours of editing by Greg McQueen’s team of volunteers. Over 400 stories were submitted and whittled down to the hundred presented in the print and electronic volume. Proceeds go to helping the victims of the Haiti earthquake.

I am proud to have my story ‘Impact’ included in 100 Stories for Haiti. Since publication in March this year, sales of the book have raised over £3,000 for the Red Cross relief effort in Haiti. While this is a great achievement, it would of course be brilliant if the book could raise even more money to help those still in need in Haiti.

100 Stories for Haiti is a wonderful collection that includes all sorts of stories by all sorts of writers. If you like flash fiction and haven’t yet bought a copy, I urge you to buy a copy of this book. The professionally produced audiobook, Stories for Haiti, is available on iTunes and audible.com

If you want to find out more about how this amazing book came into being, check out the 100 Stories Podcast, which includes interviews with the writers, editors and publishers involved. Episode 2 features an interview with my good(?) self in which Greg McQueen’s sympathetic interview style manages to make me sound like I know what I am talking about.

It really would fantastic to see the total funds raised by this great collection continue to rise over the next six months. In order to see that happen, please, buy this book.

So much for that.

So much for getting some writing time for #WAG and #fridayflash last week. Another blur of nappies and night feeds and taking care of two other bundles of energy aged 7 and 3 respectively means writing time has been short. I have managed to get some reading done for the Short Story Challenge though, and will be posting a review of Etgar Keret’s ‘The Nimrod Flipout’ once I have enjoyed the final handful of stories.

Mrs P bought me a great present today; a Book Journal from Moleskine.

This satisfies both my notebook addiction and my nerdy need to keep records of what I read and enjoy, something the Short Story Challenge has served to highlight. I am looking forward to filling the pages with notes and dates and general ramblings about what I am reading and favourite books I have already read.

Tomorrow should be the first morning I get to myself in the last six weeks or so. Guess what I will be doing. Writing. Drafting. Editing. And if things go well, submitting the list of almost complete stories I have. Plan is to clear the decks so I can finish the story I have half done. Only then, can I move on to my list of new ideas, which are steadily filling up my nifty, leather bound A4 notebook with detachable pages. See.....notebook addict.

'Breaking Distance' in print

The July edition of The View From Here is now available, featuring my story ‘Breaking Distance.' ‘Gorgeous, Eye Catching, Coffee Table Worthy! The View From Here - The Best of the Best in the new and emerging literary scene! Issue 25 features interviews with Jean Kwok and Isabel Allende, original fiction by Joshua Rapp Learn, Dan Powell, Michael Spring, original poetry by Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa, Philip Leslie, Sarah Faith Ethridge , Joseph Farley. This month’s guest writer is Literary Agent Annette Green. Issue 25 also includes book reviews of The Hundred Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais, The Maestro’s Voice by Roland Vernon, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.’

Busy, busy, busy

Been a bit mad here. Hanna is settling in nicely and the last couple of weeks have been a lovely blur of feeds, nappy changes and cuddles, lots and lots of cuddles. One cool thing has been my writing four flash fictions based on baby type stuff, three of them forming a themed trilogy. Plan is to sub these as soon as they are able to stand on their own.

Metazen have accepted a piece of flash I subbed a while back. Really pleased about this as Metazen is a site I really enjoy reading and to be featured on their flash fiction page is ‘way past cool.’ So, with the September publication of ‘What Precise Moment’ in Eclectic Flash, I have two pieces of flash forthcoming in the next month or two.

Planning a submission frenzy in the next week or so as I have three short stories and five or six flash fictions nearly ready to go. I’ll let you know how that goes. Also planning to get back into the #WAG and #fridayflash swing this week. Fingers crossed I get the time.

Hadestown

Every now and then, or every once in a while, or sometimes quite by accident an LP, or cassette album, or CD, or digital download will enter my life and I will have to stop everything I am doing and just sit and listen.

In 1994 it was a taped copy of Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ sent to me by my then-girlfriend’s brother which halted my walk along the canal to Uni lectures. I sat and listened, then blew off the lecture and went into town to buy the CD. In 2000 it was Unbelievable Truth’s ‘sorrythankyou’ which had me sitting in the car park of a motorway services, waiting for the last track to finish before I headed in for a coffee. In 2005 it was Calexico and Iron & Wine’s ‘In The Reins’ with the heartbreaking ‘Dead Man’s Will’ forcing me to grab a coffee while out in Birmingham, sitting and listening to the rest of the album. In 2008 it was Bon Iver’s haunting debut that looped as I avoided writing up my first OU assessments.

In 2010 it is Anais Mitchell’s ‘Hadestown.’ I picked the CD up with our post yesterday and slipped the CD into the car stereo straight away. I had to do a bit of shopping on the way home, but found myself sitting in the supermarket car park listening to just one more track before I set about my chores. I did manage to drag myself away as the shopping was needed back home, but the album has been on rotation on my iPod since then.

‘Hadestown is a ‘folk-opera’ that retells the Ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where Orpheus must embark on a quest to rescue his wife Eurydice from the underworld, with Mitchell composing all the songs and performing the role of Eurydice. A whole host of alt country/folk vocalists have also contributed , with Justin Vernon (better known as Bon Iver) playing Orpheus, Greg Brown as Hades, Ben Knox Miller (of The Low Anthem) as Hermes, Ani DiFranco as Persephone, and Tanya, Petra and Rachel Haden ('The Haden Triplets') as The Fates.

The score moves through the complete spectrum of Americana, moving from folk to country to ragtime, exploring the heritage of american music while managing to sound timeless and contemporary, all set against the backdrop of Mitchell’s version of the Underworld, Hadestown and the plot of Orpheus and Eurydice’s story. The songs work as individual pieces but listening to the complete piece you can appreciate the tapestry of style and vocals that Mitchell and producer Todd Sickafoose have achieved. Each of the contributers are well fitted to their role, particularly Justin Vernon, whose delicate emotional style is perfect for the poet Orpheus, while Greg Brown’s growl adds the right amount of gravitas to the pronouncement of Hades. It is a remarkable recording.

As I listen I imagine an animated movie made to accompany the ‘opera,’ in the style of the fabulous sleeve artwork. I’d pay to see something like that, be it in a cinema or played out above a live show featuring the musicians. I am confident in saying that I have found my album of 2010. Hell, as album of the last ten years for me it’s only serious contenders would be Bon Iver’s debut or anything by The Felice Brothers. If you like alt country, folk, opera, Greek mythology or any of the contributing artists I mentioned you simply have to buy this. You heart will thank you for it.