Jonathan Pinnock's Write Stuff

Longlisted at Cadenza Again

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:23:11 +0000

So … for the second time running, I’ve been longlisted at Cadenza, this time with my story “Piss and Patchouli”. Whoo hoo! And for the second time running, I’ve failed to make the shortlist. Boo hoo! Clearly I’m doing something right, but not quite right enough. Still, I guess that’s my first hit of 2009. Now where else can I send it?

Internal Affairs

admin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:35:37 +0000

My 87-worder “Internal Affairs” is today’s story at Flashshot, so for the next 24 hours or less it can be viewed here, and then for another nine days here. Believe it or not, this piece, short as it is, was actually changed as a result of critiquing by my fellow members of the VWC. The original punchline was:

My doctor withdrew his fingers, took off the latex gloves and looked at me.

“Have you been hanging out with those magicians again?” he said.

which isn’t anywhere near as good. So many thanks to the very talented Dave Weaver for the new, improved version. Dave is another of those members of the VWC who insists on keeping his light under a bushell, and should be submitting a lot more stuff. However, you can find one of his stories, “Finding Uncle”, here. It’s rather good.

Happy New Year!

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:44:31 +0000

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.

Back at Every Day Poets

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:29:29 +0000

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.

A Winter’s Chill Strikes Hampstead

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:10:12 +0000

On Sunday I took the family along to the New End Theatre in Hampstead for an evening of chilling stories expertly told by Miles Barden and Joshua Dickinson (including a new version of my own piece, “After Michelangelo”), and we all had a great time. I’ll leave the review to the far more eloquent Oscar Windsor-Smith here, noting in passing that the show turned a profit, and that the team are actively looking for a venue for a further presentation prior to taking it to the Edinburgh Fringe. An excellent result all round, I’d say.

Fishermen’s Tales

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:02:45 +0000

The judge’s report on the Milton Keynes Speakeasy Competition is now up on their site, as is my piece, “Fishermen’s Tales”. I’ve wanted to write a story with a protagonist called Milo ever since I read “The Phantom Tollbooth”. Which is quite a long time ago, now I come to think of it.

Now, Where Was I?

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:18:44 +0000

Well, I never did get around to doing that “Merry Christmas” post, like you’re supposed to do in this kind of blog. Things suddenly got terribly complicated in the week leading up to Christmas, with my father being admitted to hospital suffering from an infection that left him in a very poorly state. Fortunately, he is now much better, but it did mean that our plans were somewhat thrown into disarray, and things like this piece of self-indulgence took a bit of a back seat.

Anyway, loads of things have been happening, so watch this space over the next day or so …

The Truth About Uncle Joe

admin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:26:37 +0000

Volume One, Issue Two of The Oddville Press was published today, containing my flash “The Truth About Uncle Joe”, an everyday story of Communism, five-year plans and tentacles. It’s quite probably the daftest thing I’ve ever written. But not quite as daft as the project I’ve got planned for next year, although that will sadly remain top secret for a while yet.

Best Blog Post Ever

admin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:49:26 +0000

I was just about to put together one of those reflective posts that discuss the various wonderful things I’ve done this year and the even more wonderful things that I’m really going to do next year (win the Bridport, publish best-selling novel, that kind of thing), when I came across this, from Paul Klugman’s blog. Paul Klugman recently won the Nobel prize for economics. Now that is class.

What is slightly disconcerting about this is that when I saw it, I immediately got the joke. I described it to my daughter, who did not. She had not heard of lolcats. She is 20. I am somewhat older than that. I need to get out more.

Scratching at Cardboard

admin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:05:33 +0000

You wait all year to get into an anthology and then two come along at once. But doesn’t this look cool? This is “Scratching at Cardboard“, the anthology containing the best of this year’s Whittaker Prize, and it contains my story “Dislocation”, which came second in Round One (and that was about as high as I got throughout the entire competition, but never mind). “Dislocation” is a kind of homage to “The Time Traveller’s Wife”, and it’s a rather sweet love story. I’m really looking forward to getting my copy and reading all the other stories again.