Under the Spotlight

Strange Worlds of Lunacy (the anthology containing my story 'The Shoes, the Giant, and the Wizard of...') is today under the spotlight at An Alternative Read, a yahoo group for both writers and readers. Group messages are popping in and out of my inbox by the seconds as the group is very, very active. Hopefully it will be good promotion for the anthology.

And talking of promotion, the people over at Permuted Press know what they are about. They asked anyone interested in buying Brave Men Run by Matthew Wayne Selznick to wait until Sunday 13th July so that they could push the book up the Amazon charts and did they ever!!! Amazing result. I checked in at one point and the sales rank was in the thousands and then a couple of hours later it was in the hundreds and at one point (according to the Permuted Forum) it got to #53.

A couple of weeks ago the guys at Permuted advised anyone wanting to buy John Dies at the End by David Wong to do so now - which I did - as Mr. Wong had a big announcement. Well, we are (or at least I am) still in the dark as to what the announcement is but I'm glad I ordered my copy as it has now gone up to $126 on Amazon.com and on the UK site it is now at £190 (roughly $370). Oh, and I started reading it yesterday - HILARIOUS!

It's a Strange World

Yay! My comp copy of Strange Worlds of Lunacy arrived today and it looks like this:-

Crawling out of the graveyard...

Woo-Hoo! According to a posting on the SF Reader Forum, the anthology Strange Worlds of Lunacy is 100% finished and should be available to buy on Amazon really, really soon. I'm so excited. I feel as if this is my first publication. I stopped submitting/writing short stories about 7 years ago to concentrate on writing novels and then about two/three years ago my writing came to an almost stop (with no more than 20,000 words a year, written in half-hearted dribs and drabs). All these years later I feel like a different (hopefully improved) writer and hence the feeling as if this is publication number one. Wow, how long winded can one person be to simply say - WOO-HOO, I'm excited.

In other news. Did a little tidying up of 'The Poisoned Apple' (for the uninitated - my children's novel) over the weekend and added about 2,500 words. All I need to do now is finish that darn synopsis, write the query letter and send it out there... Wherever there may be.

I have completed the first draft of my story, The Graveyard of Dead Vehicles, which I intend to submit to the Wolfsong Anthology. It needs the usual tidying up and the reference to 'blood' toned down. A note of what the publisher doesn't want from their submission guidelines: "Really bloody horror. Violence is ok if it is necessary for the plot, but splatter and gore isn’t." I need to find a way to reference the death of the MC's wolf without smearing it's blood all over the manuscript.

And that was February...

Okay, this is my regular 2008 what I achieved last month post.

1. Finished my children's novel THE POISONED APPLE - woo-hoo! And to cap it off, have almost finished the synopsis - currently at draft number six or seven.

2. Sent Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium back off on its travels to two publishers this time.

3. Signed the contract for and proof-read 'The Shoes, the Giant, and the Wizard of...' which will appear in the Strange Worlds of Lunacy anthology. The picture at top left is the artwork for the cover - excited, some.

4. Completed four short stories:-

The Collectors - Submitted to Doorways Magazine.

Yee-Haw! - Submitted to OMG! The Book of Awesome Stuff anthology.

The Old Hubert Place - Has amassed the grand total of one rejection from the Bloody October Anthology and is now sitting on the desk of, or hiding in the computer of, Afterburn SF.

Science Fiction - A bit of fun written on 'Black Tuesday', when everything that could go wrong went wrong. Will probably post on my blog sometime this decade.

5. Begun work on my next project, a novella titled 'The Eurydice Satellite', which is a blend of horror & sci-fi.

And that as they say, was February... Hope yours was as productive.