Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Cobweb Arrives at Forever

Meet Cobweb.

She arrived last night in a box my wife had carried on a train all the way from Paddington.

She was pretty scared when she arrived at our house, especially with two wild and excited boys running around the place, but she seems to be settling in quite well already. She slept in the drawer of Kylie's wardrobe last night, despite having a beautiful basket of her own. She has spent most of today curled up in my lap, asleep, while I work. She's very warm, and her claws are very sharp. Posted by Picasa

Monday, November 28, 2005

A Nice Rejection

Aurealis passed on my short story The Memory of Water today. I thought the reader's comments in the rejection were okay though;

"A nice urban fantasy with a mythic feel. I think the description is overdone in places and it has more of a literary edge - perhaps not quite fantastic enough for us?"
Apart from the "overdone description" (which I, Mr.Purple prose, would never do) this is a pretty heartening rejection. Urban Fantasy, mythic feel, a literary edge! I'm happy with that.

I think I just need to find the right market for this one. So I'm gonna get rid of some of the description and send it out again... but to where? I have no idea as yet.

Calliope: A Steam Romance, one of my other recently completed short stories, is a steampunk story set in Sydney circa an alternate 1910. It seems that in this case my purple prose has come in handy. These comments recently came from a writer's group I'm part of:

"Where did you find the energy to write in this style? It suits the period of the piece perfectly, but it must have been like trying to write in Shakespearean English. Any longer and I would have been too exhausted just reading it. How many times did you have to read Martin Eden to master it?"
Well, I have no idea who Martin Eden is, and the story is supposed to be exhausting... it is for the narrator at least, so I'm happy with that too :)

Thursday, November 10, 2005

A Quick Update

Been too busy to post lately, with multiple stimulating and creative projects occupying my time. Thought I'd pop in and post a quick update, just so everyone knows I'm still kickin'.
  1. I resigned from my position with a web design agency [whom I will not name] due to too many differences in opinion on; Project Scoping, Technical Specs, getting a client to sign off before starting work on a project, and continually changing a project once it started. Whew!
  2. I'm now freelancing web development, graphic design and illustration through my own business Kephra Design, and having a bit of success at it too :)
  3. Issue #36 of Aurealis is finally done and on its way to the printers! It is a damn good issue too. New editors Robert Hoge and Ben Payne have done an excellent job with the stories and the illustrators came through with some of the best artwork I've seen in an issue of Aurealis. Shane Parker's cover is great, a real old-style Analog/Asimov type cover... exactly what I wanted! Hopefully I can get an image of the new cover up in a day or two.
  4. I'm now an Associate Editor over at HorrorScope, the new Australian Horror and Dark Fantasy news and reviews site, founded by Shane Jiraiya Cummings. This is a great gig, working with some really astute reviewers. My job is to review Ticonderoga Online, when each issue is released (I've already reviewed two issues), as well as any HarperCollins Voyager releases that fit into the Dark Fantasy area.
  5. I interviewed Karen Miller, author of Innocent Mage the other week for HorrorScope and have just finished transcribing the interview (Geez we can talk!). I hope to have it edited into a readable form by the beginning of next week. I'll let you know when the interview, and my review of Innocent Mage, is posted. It's a really great book too :)
  6. I'm doing some illustrations for Jonathan Maberry's new book on monsters on mythology. Jonathan is the author of the highly successful Vampire Slayer's Field Guide to the Undead. So far he's accepted a black and white version of my Gryphon, and I've got a Goblin, an Ogre, a lake-monster, a Yeti and a were-spider still to finish off.
  7. I finished "Henrietta the Tropical Dragon", a mascot for Tropical Dragon Editing & Proof-reading Services. You can see Henrietta here or, seen here relaxing under a palm tree.
  8. I've just completed reworking the website of Digital Experience Solutions to be HTML compliant. This should be the first step on getting them noticed by Google, who couldn't read the site at all previously because of its reliance on Frames and JavaScript.
  9. I've been doing some work for the wonderful Fiona over at Speculate. This has included some web development work, but more exciting is that there is also some design work to be had. The first piece was a simple banner for author Jennifer Fallon's new webstore. Nothing much, but it is good to be designing something again :)

On top of all this my Muse has seen fit to return! Why does she always feel the need to visit when I've got lots of work on but never during the dull periods?

I haven't completed any of the stories I was writing previously but three brand new stories popped out of the blue! Each was inspired by "Story Challenge" posts on the the Voyageronline site.

1st came "Sealed With a Kiss": A 2,800 word horror story. I'd had the idea for many years, all it needed was a little push from the PurpleZone Challenge! I've sent it off to Dark Animus, but it has been a couple of months now and I've yet to hear anything. James is normally quick with rejections, so I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad one.

Next, the most interesting one. The challenge was to write a Steampunk story, no other restrictions. I had one idea and was just about to start... when another idea popped into my head. And thus "Calliope: A Steam Romance" was born. At almost 10,000 words it is a whopper, but I'm really happy with how it came out. Maybe it doesn't have to be that long, but it works the way it is (even after multiple edits) and I'm happy to leave it. I'm thinking of sending this one off to Shadowplays first and see how it goes. If it doesn't pass muster there I think Cat Sparks' Agog! Ripping Reads anthology might be a logical place... or maybe Borderlands, who knows.

The latest was inspired by a "Fractured Fairy Tale" challenge. It's still in progress so I won't say much about it except the title; "Trip, Trap". So far having fun :)

So, that's it. Lot's of things happening, so I'd better get back to it! Bye'd Bye!