Jan

1

Happy New Year!

Filed Under Acceptances, Publications, The Hit Count | 2 Comments

So, Happy New 2009 to all this blog’s readers. And, specially for you, here’s a link to a download of the inaugural issue of TheRightEyedDeer, which contains my story “Somewhat Less Than Thirty Pieces”, which was accepted on December 28th and thus becomes my 42nd and last hit of 2008 (up from - er - 4 in 2007). TheRightEyedDeer is (as you can probably guess) the brainchild of Donna’n'Doug, the team who took over The Write Idea earlier this year and who seem to possess inexhaustible amounts of energy and ideas for new projects. Good on ‘em - can’t wait to see what they come up with in 2009.

“Somewhat Less Than Thirty Pieces” was longlisted in Cadenza’s March 2008 competition, and is a free-wheeling piece of meta-fiction that has got a bit more meta with every new version. I’m particularly pleased with the footnotes, which is why I’m really glad that it’s finally been published in a PDF format magazine rather than HTML.

Dec

31

Back at Every Day Poets

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A couple of days before Christmas, I heard that my first-ever Fibonacci poem, “Grey Goo”, had been accepted by Every Day Poets, and I now see that it is scheduled for January 18th. So that’s my fourth poetry hit for 2008! It’s only a matter of time before my family disown me now.

Dec

5

Two More Stitches

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Just when I was wondering if there was anyone out there at all, I got a rejection from Eyeshot (well, no surprises there) and an acceptance of two more for Fifty-Two Stitches, just sneaking in under the wire as submissions close. So that’s a hit for “The Greatest Disciple” and “What Today’s Well-Dressed Mind Parasite is Wearing”. Nice to see a home for my favourite title to date there. And that’s two more successful graduates from the Café Doom weekly flash challenge,  which reminds me that I haven’t actually gone in for that for some time. If I’m not careful, the supply’s going to dry up. Anyway, that brings the hit count for the year up to 39, with 25 subs currently outstanding. Hmmm. I wonder …

Nov

9

Flashshot

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Just heard that “Internal Affairs” has just been accepted by Flashshot. All 87 words of it. I think the author bio accompanying it is slightly longer than the actual piece.

Nov

4

Fifty-Two Stitches

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People sometimes ask me where I find out about all these weird and wonderful markets. Obviously, Duotrope is an excellent resource for this, but in the short time that I’ve been submitting stuff, I’ve found that the most useful technique is reading other writers’ blogs, or to put it another way, stalking. And it was by stalking Catherine J. Gardner (sorry, Cate!) that I found out that Fifty-Two Stitches was opening for business on November 1st. So on Saturday I duly sent them a couple of my favourite flashes, one of which, “Anniversary Feast”, they accepted today. Fifty-Two Stitches is an interesting concept: a new horror flash will be posted there every week for the whole of 2009, at the end of which an anthology is published. (Oh, do I need to add that “Anniversary Feast” is another graduate of the Café Doom weekly flash challenge? But you’ve probably guessed that.)

Nov

3

The Whittaker Prize Anthology

Filed Under Acceptances | 2 Comments

Just heard that Donna’n'Doug, the lovely people who run The Write Idea, have decided to expand the Whittaker Prize anthology to include all the pieces that came second in each round. Which means that my story “Dislocation” (which came second in the first round) has found a publisher. This is probably the nearest I’ve got to writing a conventional love story, and I’m rather proud of it. It’ll be nice to see it in something with an ISBN on the cover.

Oct

19

The Oddville Press

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After a flurry of rejections and competition failures over the last few days, it was something of a relief to get an acceptance today for my flash “The Truth About Uncle Joe” from The OddVille Press. This was actually one of the pieces that I pulled from the Fish One Page Story competition when it was transferred there after the Criminally-Short Short History competition folded. I have to say that this is one of the daftest pieces I’ve ever written, and I thought I might have trouble finding a market for it. Fortunately, Oddville seem to share my sense of humour, so good for them.

And that brings this year’s hit count up to 29, with 38 submissions currently outstanding. It’s also the sixth piece of mine that has been published this year or is scheduled for publication that has originated in the Café Doom Weekly Flash Challenge.

Oct

13

Tuesday Shorts

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After going through several metamorphoses (which I’ll share when it finally gets published), my short piece “Misunderstandings” has been accepted by Tuesday Shorts. I think I’m right in saying that, at exactly 100 words, this is the shortest prose piece that anyone’s taken from me. I guess one of those 55 word sites is the next target, although I’ve still got my eye on txtlit. Which reminds me: I haven’t done one for the October comp yet.

Oct

7

Every Day Poets

Filed Under Acceptances | 1 Comment

Well, there’s a thing. I’ve just had my third poetry acceptance, courtesy of the bright new shiny Every Day Poets site. If this carries on, I’ll need to separate out the poetry into a separate page. It’s for a piece called School Uniform, which was shortlisted in a Writers’ News humorous poetry competition back in (good grief) 1996. As far as I’m aware, this is the only time that my name has ever appeared in Writers’ News. The moral is, I guess, never throw anything away, even if it takes twelve years before you finally make use of it.

I think I like EDP as much as I like EDF. They responded to my initial submission quickly, inviting me to try again after I’d fixed some of the inconsistencies in the metre. Funny how you don’t spot those when you read it yourself. So, having invited criticism from my colleagues in the VWC (and received some very helpful suggestions from Ian Cundell - who is also, incidentally, responsible for Toby’s excellent promo video below), I resubmitted and this time I got a “yes”.

No idea when it’s appearing, though. The site doesn’t even go live until next month!

Sep

25

Another Day at Every Day Fiction

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Yesterday afternoon, the French company EDF agreed to buy what’s left of the British nuclear industry for around £12.5bn. Overnight, the American Canadian website EDF (or Every Day Fiction) agreed to buy my flash “Visiting Time” for a slightly lower price.

“Visiting Time” is another graduate of the Café Doom Flash Challenge, and one which went on to be shortlisted in this year’s Fish One Page Story competition. It’s a little more like my usual style than my previous foray into EDF, “Cock Up”, which I still have my doubts about.

I really like EDF. They seem to have managed to create a lively showcase for fiction that transcends the usual artificial boundaries between literary and genre, and judging by the number of comments they get for each piece, they are also gathering an audience. Their sister site, Every Day Poets, is starting up in November, and it will be interesting to see how that one develops. In the light of my recent unexpected new career as a poet, I have sent them something myself, although I fully expect it to be given the thumbs down.

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