Burp!

 A couple of links for this Monday afternoon post...

Daily Science Fiction has posted its forthcoming stories for July and my story, The Mechanical Heart of Him, will be emailed to subscribers on July 18th. It's a tale of woe.

Sam Tomaino has reviewed The Journal of Entomology for SFRevu and has good things to say about the stories. I'm incognito in the review.

I feel I should have a third link because good things usually come in threes. Someone should send me awesome news like now...waiting...waiting....waiting. Ah man, best finish the post then. Most of the time I'm convinced that Gmail is eating my emails. Plus, I'm nervously biting my fingers (there are no nails left) waiting to hear if a story has made it into one of the most awesome magazines in the universe and I'm sure Gmail is laughing at me and thinking, 'I so ate that one last week.' In fact, I think Gmail just burped.

Currently working on a short story that is hopefully unsettling and definitely has a dose of woe. It's the same story I mentioned last week (false love, tattoos and the Devil) with an extra dose of awesome tattooness. In my opinion. My opinion is often wrong. I am (or will be when I've posted this blog) finishing off the second draft before I slice and dice with a pen sharper than the knife I left in my protagonist's hand.

WIP Wednesday - Tick Tock, Tick Tock

Miss Pleasance swirled up through a hole in the sky for the fifth time today,  and she's getting a little time-travel sick.

Her story has to be finished by Sunday latest and she wants to know why it isn't done already. If she has to whirl around another helter skelter or fall in another damn pit, she's going to burn the headmaster's carpet slippers and hand in her resignation.

Time is catching up with my WIP - A World of Cardboard Houses - it has to be prettied up and sent out by Sunday latest. Gnaws fingers (there are no nails left). We're on day fourteen and draft five. I'm sure I've written first drafts of novels quicker.

Surreal Snow Globes.

You type in something simple in Google and the next thing you're lusting over the most surreal, gorgeous, hideous snow globes. No hideous, is such a wrong word as the work of Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz is disturbingly beautiful. I was only looking for a picture of a snow globe for the blog post announcing the new title of my WIP and the next I'm in full-on lust mode.

Anyhow, this is how the original post should have read, and still does for the most part...

I retitled my WIP YA (welcome to acronymn city), Horrifiques, about a week ago. At first I was sitting with Snow Glass Globe, which I still adore but an Amazon search revealed it was too close to 'Snow Glass, Apples' by Neil Gaiman. I know titles aren't copyrighted and it's not even the same title but horror upon horror you don't want your story compared to Gaiman, it's a lose-lose situation. so I've played with words, swapped them around and finally settled on, Grim Glass Vein. I hope you approve and if you don't - :/) I work better with a title I love.

WIP Wednesday - Dead End

I've left Horrifiques at the worst possible place - the end of a chapter - and won't be returning to it until tomorrow because the wondrous 'net has captured me. I've guaranteed myself a good long stare at an empty white page. Current word count is 16,369 (36%), and we stand at this point in time...

The woman with the blue-grey hair was all smiles, charm, and of course she could have the things back. Translation: teenagers weren't to be trusted. And through it all, Florence Hart was almost normal. Perhaps she had broken the spell.

Things are moving along now at a brisk pace - possibly too brisk a pace as my poor Sydney hasn't had time for a cup of tea or a pee. Must fix that, must fix many things, must not think about fixing things for at least six weeks.

WIP Wednesday - Drawing Dolls

Well, surprise surprise, I haven't done any work on 'The Horrifiques' in a fortnight. Work on two books at once - did you really fall for that old line?

Draft no. 789 of 'The Drawing of Dolls' is progressing. Storming towards the end (and feeling very happy with myself), I decided to have a quick look through the early pages, figured I'd change the odd word, delete the odd adverb. Ahem! Check out exhibit A. I am officially announcing that WIP Wednesday will involve editing Dolls for the next twenty-seven years.

Exhibit A


The Drawing of Dolls
23,649 / 30,000 (78.83%)

Day 6

A quick run through of where I am up to at the beginning of 'day 6', and adding another market I'd like to get something done for while I'm off.

The Book of Tentacles - 'A Strange Artificial Light' - 2311 words - submitted
Cinema Spec - 'Ugly Duckling' - 1434 words - submitted
Dark Jesters - 'Uncle Eric's Leather Bound Tale' - 1803 words - submitted
Footprints
Mother Goose is Dead - this antho is now full - I was too late!!!!
Clockwork Phoenix 2
Infradead
Catastrophia
Hotel Guignol - cheated & sent 'Frog & The Mail Order Bride'
Potter's Field - 'Hand Scratched Note' - 2052 words - submitted
The Morrigan Ezine - 'Curious Robot' - 854 words - submitted
Apex Digest Election Horror Competition

I really need to get started on a long short story so that I can get at least one of those subbed before I have to return to work. That will have to be my project for today - looks like it's going to be another wet one.

So far it's a toss up between 'Curious Robot' and 'Hand Scratched Note' for my favourite story, with Uncle Eric's Leather Bound Tale being the one I expect to be rejected hyper fast - I'm hoping it's funny but as hard as I tried to make it dark it just wouldn't co-operate.

Bought a collection of DVDs yesterday (some oldies - Flatliners (with the ever gorgeous Kiefer Sutherland), Twelve Monkeys (ranked in the top 10 of my favourite films), The Amityville Horror (both the original and the new); some newbies - The Astronaut Farmer and The Messengers).