My writing updates

26 October 2012

That has to be one of the happiest headlines a writer can type (apart, of course, from such titles as “Book is NYT Best Seller”, or “book’s sales pass a million.”) But as both are unlikely to ever apply to me, I’ll settle for Sold a Book! Yes, I was offered contracts for my standalone Young Adult book, FLYING FREE , and signed them the other day. It’s been accepted by Sky Warrior Books in the USA, and I’m delighted. It’ll be out next year in POD and DL, and I look forward to its appearance. So far this year things look likely to be in threes. Three books out this year – WHERE THERE’S SMOKE:The Fire That Changed the Law, AUTUMN OF THE WILD PONY, and QUEEN OF IRON YEARS. And, demonstrating how I get about, each is from a different publisher, in a different genre, and out in a different country. I’ve also written three new books, and so far, sold two. One more and I can claim to be very well balanced…

16 October 2012

The mail car stopped at my gate about half an hour ago, I strolled out and collected that which had been delivered, and on opening a large flat envelope find that I’ve received the Certificate of Excellence from the (International) Cat Writer’s Association, for my story – The Domen – in the May issue of UK’s Penumbra ezine. Receiving this is also a nomination for the Muse Medallion,which is announced in November after further evaluation of the nominee stories.
(The Certificate is judged by a panel of three judges. In order to receive it all three must assess the work quality as 90% or higher, so receiving the Certificate is something of an accolade.)

7 October 2012

Yes, this morning I had an email confirmation that my story, Arafel, will be appearing in the Strange Christmas anthology. That makes about 14 of my stories sold and scheduled to be out this year. Not a bad year to date.

 

27 September 2012

This is Strange Halloween from Whortleberry Press. It’s a nice production with twenty-two stories, great cover, and solid editing. I had one of my “Detective Luisa Garcia” stories in this one, (The Mailman,) which I wrote specifically for the anthology although, as I’ve also sold the collection of ‘Luisa Garcia’ stories to Cyberwizard, which collection will appear in 2015, (baring Acts of Ghod) this story will be added to that too. The anthology arrived a couple of days ago and was immediately passed to a friend for review. (I prefer not to review anthologies in which I have work.) You’ll find Steve’s comments in the ‘review’ section under the same date as this.

20 September 2012

To me, writing isn’t something you do by finding one tiny narrow niche and sticking to it forever more. That is something that produces burnout, boredom, and a strong desire to move on – sooner rather than later. But then sticking to that tiny niche has never been my forte, even if many in the business think it should be how writers operate. Years back Andre Norton told me a joke commonly heard in USA writer circles.

A woman sits down to write her first fiction book. It’s brilliant, insightful, and becomes a best seller overnight. About a year later the publisher comes to her. “Your book was wonderful, but we think that you need to do a second book to keep the momentum. We want another novel from you that’s exciting, fresh, completely new – and exactly the same as the other one.”

Which, as she said, is why, increasingly, American publishers want a series, and not a line of standalone books.

I don’t operate that way, which is why I’m far less likely to burn out, become discouraged, or bored and quit writing. Yes, I do write series, but aside from my usual short stories and books, I also write (and often see published) the occasional poem, ordinary articles, a series of articles on ‘making savings’ for our local small newspaper, my blog with five sections, and assorted other items that are often written for fun with no great expectation of selling or winning.

That’s been typical this past few weeks when I’ve been a competitor in the karaoke poetry competition in town (and won the Pam Ayres section – mmm, lots of chocolate.) Written a poem for entry into a specialized poetry competition in Napier, completed a piece of ‘art writing’ for a competition in Wellington, and sent our local paper an article on dealing with hangovers – Xmas is coming. During the period and as actual writing work I’ve been revising my latest Daze book, revising a new book not yet sold, and putting together a short story collection I hope to sell. I write to sell my work, yes. But about half the time selling what I wrote is a byproduct of having had fun doing something. And the outcome is a lack of boredom, burnout, or bafflement as to what I should do next. There’s always something to do. Oh, and retirement? What’s that? No writer who has a working brain and the ability to produce words has to retire, and personally I intend to write just so long as those criteria apply.

 

3 September 2012

and, happily, the end result has been that The Book has sold to the Crooked Cat Press anthology Fear, which will be out this year in two volumes. (Also for anyone who buys Lucky Break magazine, yes, that was my story on the letter page of the September 3rd issue. And it’s quite true. Yet another reason to stay smiling.)

26 August 2012

This one isn’t fictional, it’s quite true. It’s out in the SPCA’s latest issue of Animals” Voice and is titled Hare-Raising. One of the advantages of having a small farm and working from home is that I get to see the activities, not only of my farm animals, but also of some of the wildlife that exists on and around my farmlet.  This was one of those occasions when I watched the interaction of wildlife here and found it interesting at the time and something to ponder later on.

21 August 2012

As I reported a few weeks back my publisher agreed to the next Daze book at Continuum 8, while we were both there. Since I returned from the convention I’ve been working on that and this morning I turned in the results. The artist has a list of possible chapter illustrations, the cover is in discussion, and we’re on the way. IF all goes well, the book should be out sometime in the first half of next year and I’ll have copies available at Au Contraire II for those interested.

14 August 2012

Delighted to announce that my story, a ‘weird western’ titled, I shall Do Nothing, has just been accepted by Hadrosaur Press’s Tales of the Talisman. The story is to appear in volume 8, issue 4 of the magazine scheduled for publication in Spring 2013.

 

31 July 2012

If nothing goes wrong, AGRICULTURAL DAZE will be appearing early next year. This was after discussion with the publisher during the Australian national SF Convention (Continuum 8) which I attended, and the book was agreed for early 2013. The DAZE series has always been huge fun to write and it certainly has hung in there. The original, Farming Daze, was my first published book and appeared in 1993. It continues to sell, as have its five successors. Not in best seller numbers, but in a steady trickle that rarely varies from year to year but does mount up. I guess animals and humour don’t date much. So next week I sit down to start collating the material for this new one, and discussing its possible cover with the excellent local artist (Judy Giddens) who’s done the last several DAZE covers. The nice thing about the timing will be that I should have copies in time to bring them to Au Contraire II, the NZ SF Natcon in mid-2013 which I am booked to attend.

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