INTERACTION

Well - we've got a currently reading thread in the Books section, and I'm guessing that a lot of forum members are also writers - maybe a thread like this would be interesting (or possibly even encouraging to know that there are other lunatics spending warm summer days hiding indoors hunched over their keyboards?)

I'm currently revising a very short story (2,500 words) tentatively entitled 'A Matter of Balance'. Psychological contemporary horror, nothing supernatural, lots of first person and present tense, which I haven't done much of before. I'm also trying desperately to keep the writing as simple as possible, as I am terribly aware that my main failing is terribly over-extended sentences and overly ornate prose. I'd started writing it with a specific anthology in mind, but ended up submitting something else to that instead, so God knows what I'll do with it when it's finished. I'm sure I'll think of something!

Anyway - what are the rest of you up to?

_________________
My fiction

Well, due to a rather screwed up twitter conversation, I am working on a flash zombie erotica piece for a wee anthology. should be a laugh, the full sub guidlines are going up next week, I'll post them if anyone is interested.

Cool - zombie erotica sounds fun!
I am worried about zombie overkill in horror fiction, but there seem to be so many anhtology opportunities right now I think I'm going to have to try my hand soon...

_________________
My fiction

Well, I'm working with a really good cover artist at the moment on a wraparound to my second collection for next year (not Sam's Dot), but 15 gripping tales --- roughly 5 repros and 10 brand new short stories and novelettes, which, by 2011, will take me just as long to finish. All original concepts/stories.

Not quite sure if I'm going to do the "CreateSpace" route; I'd rather not, as half of the stories are already in place and this was the collection I'd wished Sam's Dot came out with, as almost all the repros/new stories so far were either shortlisted or made second readings and got compliments from editors of semi-pro and pro mags: Apex Digest, Clarkesworld, Andromeda Spaceways, Weird Tales, Withersin, Dark Discoveries, Shock Totem and Necrotic Tissue, to name a few.

So I may shop for a publisher with my own cover when the time comes. The cover absolutely sells the book. Horror and Speculative Fiction, naturally.

At the moment, I put the finishing touches on a Derrek Lee western novel, only this time more gothic, much darker. I'll let it sit for a while, then go back to it in a month perhaps. Call it third draft for now.

And as for short stories, working on a tale at the moment about witches and vicarages and dragonflies (nymphs) during the Roaring Twenties.

Cheers,
Lawrence

_________________
HOMEPAGE: www.lawrencedagstine.com

FRESH BLOOD (print): http://www.genremall.com/anthologiesr.htm#freshblood

FRESH BLOOD (pdf): http://www.wargamevault.com/product_inf ... s_id=78120

Oh yeah, almost forgot... I'll be writing three stories about Pompeii (all with vampires or geological/archeological slants) later in the year. I hope I have the time to finish three different-themed Pompeii tales in 2010.

1 is Horror
1 is Speculative Fiction
1 is Alternate History or Historical Weird Tale

Then there's my ORPHAN'S PREY serial - First Draft and 4500 to 5000 words for FREE every two months on my Blog Homepage. Next installment (part 2) is due in three weeks. Read Part One here:

http://lawrencedagstine.com/2010/04/20/ ... -dagstine/

Then prepare yourselves for a story I've sitting on for quite some time. 10,000 word or more novelette. Science Fiction & Science Fact.

THE WATERS OF EUROPA or THE BANKS OF EUROPA - title yet to be decided upon. But a soluble, living environment two hundred years into the future has been created from the water beneath the ice on Jupiter's cracked moon. Only a plague-like disaster erupts from beneath the waters, something out of the microscopic organisms and bacteria.

Cheers,
Lawrence

_________________
HOMEPAGE: www.lawrencedagstine.com

FRESH BLOOD (print): http://www.genremall.com/anthologiesr.htm#freshblood

FRESH BLOOD (pdf): http://www.wargamevault.com/product_inf ... s_id=78120

Sadly, my writing is on hold until I finish my exams (5th June). After which I want to edit a few stories based on feedback I got with rejections (including one complete rewrite), and I'm going to try and churn something out for the Northern Frights demon anthology.

_________________
Blogarific!

Twitterific!

Zombie erotica sounds like an oxymoron to me, but then I remembered my stories "Romero and Juliet" and "Night of the Loving Dead" and reconsidered. Oh dear.

Just finished writing the latest batch of Black Static reviews, and now off to do some blogging.

I don't talk about fiction works in progress on public forums any more, not since the whole thing went down with the Rowling woman and my story about boy magician Henry Porter.

_________________
http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

My writing is pretty much on hold while I finish putting together the Dark Minds anthology. Which will feature stories by Gary McMahon, Stephen Bacon, Carole Johnstone and some talentless hack by the name of Ross Warren amongst others.

When that's done it's on with my novel set at the Svalbard International Seed Vault.

_________________
www.rosswarren.co.uk

Oh that Rowling...

Almost everyone's first thought seems to be no quickly followed by "that could work". It'll be a laugh no money involved, flash fiction in a wee ebook. Ask Journeymouse what her second thought was and I thought I was bad.

Yeah, I saw Jo's comment on facebook, and my reaction was, well most of the dead coming back to life are going to be old people, so if you remove their false teeth, no problem, unless you're worried about being gummed to death that is

_________________
http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

but that skirts her question about the gag reflex

I thought you'd already bypassed that by going for an eye socket.

_________________
http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

oh yeah. I forgot you could read my comments too lol

I'm innocent, I tell you. But while we're on the subject: "Is that supposed to come off like that?"

I try to avoid talking too much about what I'm working on (a combination of boring people to tears and never getting round to actually writing) but I always need people to bounce ideas off. I currently use Foxie as my sounding board for everything But as they've come up in conversation with other people and I do mention them on the website occasionally so I might as well admit to them. I have the following working titles in various stages of being written or redrafted:

City of Dreams A fantasy novella about recycling. Sort of. OK, there's more to it than that, but think Venice floating on more solid shit.

In The Shadow Of The Wall A fantasy thriller short on a set that looks suspiciously like Hadrian's Wall.

The Three Guineveres Hadrian's Wall makes another showing in this science-fantasy rehash of Arthur. One novel with three different worlds and three iterations of the struggle between Arthur and Medraut. I think I'm managing to fit some steampunk in there, too. I'm about to start the second battle of thirteen in the first iteration - when I get back to it.

25 Ways to Kill a Werewolf A novel, I hope. And the people who are suppposed to be helping me come up with 25 methods for murder (hint!) aren't doing their job. If anyone else wants to play, let me know and you can also join the suspiciously quiet Facebook group. Maybe they're all out on the field research? I've so far staked through the heart and electrocuted. On paper, anyway.

Cubus Mk I An SF short where AIs get involved in sexual reproduction. I think I managed to get the erotica thrown out for bad behaviour - I don't write it that well, after all. Lack of practice, mumble, mumble.

I'm also playing with a Mills & Boon idea - working on my weaknesses so to speak. The furthest I've got with that is to decide I quite like the idea of "Anne Aspey" as my pen-name. Seeing as I'm an aspie, and all

But I'm not actually doing that much writing at the moment with the brand spanking new job, buying a house and entertaining the Hellhound who is not feeling very muse-like at the moment.

_________________
Jo Thomas
http://www.journeymouse.net/

Ross, anymore room in there for another hack, except one with too many magazines to count... ***wink wink***

_________________
HOMEPAGE: www.lawrencedagstine.com

FRESH BLOOD (print): http://www.genremall.com/anthologiesr.htm#freshblood

FRESH BLOOD (pdf): http://www.wargamevault.com/product_inf ... s_id=78120