Sci-Fi, Thrillers, Contemporary
My latest story published on line is here – Bored Out Of My Skull, on the ever-wonderful The New Flesh Magazine. This is quirky weird strange horror, perhaps humour bizarro. I don’t know, but it was a fun story to write.
Yes, it’s Thursday when I usually post about what I’m reading, but truly nothing much has changed since last Thursday – still deep in the heart of reading the tutoring manual and readings. Whew.
A new story – “Bored Out Of My Skull” – is coming out on the The New Flesh Magazine on the 17th (okay, it’s already the 17th here in New Zealand, but I’ll post a proper link tomorrow).
Bored Out Of My Skull seems like a dopey title for a story – a total cliche and I do rail against using cliches. The story, however it is more literal – involving drills and helmets: the kind of thing that naturally finds a home at a place like The New Flesh which publishes flash fiction of the more bizarre and quirky kind. Originally I wrote the story with the cliche as a kicking off point, never thinking the title would stick.
This will be my third publication at The New Flesh, following the more literary “While He Lay Crumpled” and humourous “Submission”. Thanks to the editors Suzie and William for accepting my story.
Food Drive has just come out on Flashes in the Dark – another dark and creepy tale as we’ve come to expect from Angel. Angel has been in hiding for a while – though there are a few upcoming stories – I imagine he is working on something grand and devious.
The soon to be published Lame Goat Press anthology Howl looks to be a stunner. I had an idea for a story, but had so much else on that I put it aside – life is a series of choices about what not to do. Part of the reason for wanting to submit to the anthology was the fabulous cover, but it’s growing and growing. There’s now a fantastic book trailer for the volume, which is also on YouTube, one of the stories has been podcasted on archive.org, and the contributing writer’s list includes lots of my faves (Jodi, Angel, Mark Anthony Crittenden, to mention a few). I’m green. Still, it’s cool to be associated with Lame Goat Press and great to see it going from strength to strength.
(whoops – my bad, and see the comments, Laura’s not in this anthology, but she is in a couple of others – Diamonds in the Rough, and Flash! out soon. Sorry Laura).
Well, it was a busy week – I finally got my story ready and submitted for the Southern Horror Writer’s Horror Club on Flashes In The Dark. This was a story that took a lot of false starts. First it was about a Blight hitting Slope Point (Slope Point is the Southernmost place on New Zealand’s South Island), then a different version of the same premise (Blight rewrite), then a new story with the same characters (House at Bluff), then, finally, Doubtful Sound:
First started back in January, several runs at the story didn’t cut it. Not every file there is a totally new story – ultimately there are variations on each of the four. Finally, with Doubtful Sound I got something that I was happy with. You can see here, too, how I organise my files as I write – date each new version with the day I start it so that I can backtrack, give it a title that makes sense to me. I keep the old versions as I work through edits and redate the file as I make the changes on the screen.
I’ve just finished the very hip book Ghost Radio by Leopoldo Gout. It’s a quirky and challenging novel with a seemingly well-paced story, but hiding a subtle and slow build. By the time I realised what was happening, it was almost done, even though all the clues are sown throughout the story. It’s told in episodic fashion, with snippets of radio interviews, flashbacks and with shifting points of view (at times I did find it tricky to know who the pronouns meant immediately). Each chapter begins with a haunting illustration that hints at what is to come.
There seems to be a little bit of Internet hype about the book (it has been out for a while now), and Gout works with James Patterson developing some of that author’s children’s concepts for for animation so he is probably keyed into that promotion machine (Patterson is quoted in support of the book on the back of my copy). Anyway, I enjoyed it enough to hope that Gout isn’t too busy with media production to be able to put out another novel soon.
ps – just surfing and discovered that Gout has posted a deleted chapter from the novel on his Ghost Radio blog. That’ll give you a taste of the novel, plus something you can’t read in the print version.
In my last post I talked about working on the first-draft manuscripts of ten stories – how some were close to ready, others needed a lot of work and one had been “abandoned entirely”; the ideas were worth revisiting but the manuscript itself wasn’t . I’m keen to write a story for the Southern Horror Writer’s Club, since I’m, technically, from the south, so I really want this story set in New Zealand’s South Island to work. I tried a rewrite from scratch last week – similar ideas, but kept two of the characters together so their conversation can do some of the explaining (“telling”) about the situation. It was much more pacey, action oriented and flat out – the new draft opened like this “Connor pushed the stolen Range Rover up over 160, barely slowing for the corners” (that’s 160 kph, which is about 100 mph, I think). (The original draft had been much more introspective and gazey – “Jeff stepped back off the jetty, cradling his twisted wrist” and so on). The rewrite didn’t work – too much pace, not enough character … I just couldn’t get a feel for it. But I still want to submit to the club, the deadline is approaching. So I sat down with the characters (I like Jeff and Connor and Sandra, naive as they are) and put them in a new scenario. I’ve been writing that story for a couple of days and I’m about 1500 words into it and this one doesn’t work. So the three manuscripts are going in a drawer for probably six months and then I might see what may be salvageable from them – who knows, that stolen Range Rover might make a reappearance sometime.
Meanwhile, still wanting to make that deadline, I’m starting a new story – “Doubtful Sound”, with different characters and a way different scenario. We’ll see how that goes.
Jodi MacArthur’s extraordinary story “Spindled Souls” has won the Worst of Love contest for flash fiction at Flashes in the Dark. Jodi’s story is complex, dark and very multi-layered – absolutely a clear winner. Laura Eno’s wonderful “Ironies” came in second and my own “Fiancees Among Us” made third. Well deserved honorable mentions to Graeme Reynolds and Erin Cole.
Thanks to Lori and Bob for running such a challenging contest. Writers – check out Flashes in the Dark for their next contest: Lycanthropy. That contest closes on March 21st.
My horror story Into the Green Pit came out in issue 369 of Bewildering Stories, last week while I was off the net on retreat.
Another story, more of a thriller, though a little horror, The Cottage Garden has just come out in the February issue of Static Movement. It was cool to write something set in New Zealand.
The retreat was great – more on that in another post.
My story “Into the Green Pit”, after lots of editorial work on the title (whew, titles – I think I’ll do a big post on creating titles sometime), will appear on Bewildering Stories on Monday January 25th. Usually I post on the day, or a little after something comes out, but I’ll be away from the web for a week on writing retreat next week, so here’s the news.
Bewildering Stories is one of the more eclectic sites – publishing a range of speculative genres, and a great range of forms, from poetry and flash through short stories, novellas and serialised novels.
Sean Monaghan - Writer 