Cyberfauna in Wales

So, at about four AM I was blasted awake from heavy sleep by this Waa! Waa! Waa! noise. Something electronic. Something urgent. We're miles from anywhere, in a field, in a caravan. This can only be some hitherto unexperienced alarm from our new 'van.  

But a quick search round showed up nothing amiss. I went back to sleep (eventually) and the alarm went off again. Three blasts, waa, waa, waa. Then quiet. Then again. What the hell was it? It sounded serious. It was certainly close by, in fact seemed to be coming from the caravan roof. Then I heard footsteps - on the caravan roof, followed by waa, waa, waa. It was a bird. Don't know what kind of bird. The kind with big lungs. Some birds mimic human sounds, parrots and the like, but this bird seemed to get his kicks from mimicking electronic sounds, and as far as I know there are no parrots in North Wales. This bird even seemed to posses some form of demonic intelligence, because it knew exactly the right time, just after I'd nodded off each time, to hit me with it's teeth-rattling siren blast.

Here's what I have learned: I know why farmers pack shot guns.

 

Lamplight Magazine

Have you ever wished you could go back to taking photographs the old way? Back to a time when there was an art to taking photographs, when you might take days studying a scene, considering the way the light played across the landscape at different times of the day. Imagine the simple pleasure of doing chemistry and creating your own plates. Imagine taking an exposure with a pocket watch. Might that be a photograph to be truly proud of?

Well, my friend, be careful what you wish for. Perhaps there is more in that photograph than you bargained for. Perhaps there is something... not very nice.

The Photograph. A new story. Out now in Lamplight Magazine. Vol.1 issue 4
Available on Smashwords for all e-reader platforms and at the Kindle store.

http://lamplightmagazine.com/volume-i-issue-iv/

Outlining

Look at this beast. It started on a single sheet of A4 and just grew and grew. It is the outline for my next    novel and it gives me a bit of a headache because it is not very portable. Somehow I need to break this bad boy down into separate scenes before I can do anything with it. For the the opening scenes I'm going to need a ladder and a head for heights. It's good to have connections between the various plots, subplots and layers, but in the end this lot has to be unleashed onto the world in some kind of linear sequence, and therein lies the challenge.

If I can just get each scene into a Scrivener outline I will feel better, but its hard to read and type at the same time when your 8 feet up in the air. I've tried laying it down on the floor and getting myself down in amongst the detail, but the available floor space just isn't up to the job. Neither are my knees.

I'll tell you what, though, it's been great fun so far. Loads of those weird serendipitous moments when something happens that you didn't figure on, but then you have already laid all the ground work and foreshadowing without knowing why. As works in progress go, I'm having a ball with this one.

Change of subject: I'm off to the Hay Festival next week. As usual the day job is being awkward and getting in the way of a full week of Hay goodness, but the weekend will be good and I have lots of events in the diary. I'm also reading a lot more right now and all those book shops are beckoning. Can't wait.

Fish in Print

Ah, so here it is at last, the fish anthology from Dagan Books. It is now available in the UK from Amazon as print or ebook. (I prefer the print version myself because it looks so good in the bookcase.)

Here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fish...

The anthology contains 33 original stories, science fiction and fantasy, retold fairy tales and brand new myth. There are stories from Ken Liu, Cat Rambo, Camille Alexa, Alex Shvartsman, Cate Gardner, Amanda C Davis... the list of excellence goes on and on. Fish is edited by Carrie Cuinn and KV Taylor.

Ship of Fools

As promised, here's the link to Ship of Fools which is now up on Kasma SF magazine.
http://www.kasmamagazine.com/ship-of-fools.html

I'm jumping up and down in delight at the illustration by Jose Baetas, which is just excellent. Exactly how I imagined it to be.

The Third Attractor

Abyss and Apex now have my story, ‘The Third Attractor’, in their January 2013 issue. This is one that I have been especially keen to unleash on the world. It has jazz and maths and religion all thrown into a big old melting pot. And it’s set in Paris. What more could you ask.

Here’s a link

Kasma SF Magazine

Kasma is an excellent free-to-read online SF magazine edited by Alex Korovessis. It features a new story each month by fabulous  writers such as Ken Lui, Anatoly Belilovsky, Nancy Fulda, and, in 2011 there was even a story by Robert J Sawyer, who just happens to be one of my favourite writers.

The January 2013 edition is out now, and features a story by CJ Paget with some fine illustration by José Baetas. (You know how much I love SF and fantasy art – you can see more of José Baetas’ work over at DeviantArt.com.)

I am delighted to announce that my own story, ‘Ship of Fools’, is scheduled to appear in the February edition. I am really pleased to be associated with Kasma SF magazine. I will post a link to the story as soon as it’s up.

Meanwhile, Happy New Year! I hope 2013 is a good one for everyone. Mine is certainly off to a flying start.