A few months ago (if you're generous with the definition of 'few') I decided I was going to put all of my previously published stories online so that anyone could read them for free. Well, I'm finally done. Here are the links to all of the stories. I've tried to break them down into categories.
I should add that most of these stories aren't suitable for children!
Enjoy.
Young Adult Fantasy Stories At the Gates Crab Apple Adventure Fantasy Stories Fire Magic (co-written with Stephanie Burgis) Science Fiction Stories A Veil, A Meal, and Dust Modern Fantasy Stories Lavender’s Blue, Lavender’s Green A Field Guide to Ugly Places Dragonfly Summer Love Stories from the Jungle Five Things of Beauty Dawn, by the Light of a Barrow Fire Fantasy Stories about Childhood Uncle Vernon’s Lie When the Dragon Falls History and Fantasy Stories The Western Front The Land of Reeds Darker Fantasy Stories Next Finisterre
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I have a horror of first drafts.
Not writing them. I love writing first drafts. There's a delicious sense of irresponsibility in writing them. It doesn't matter if they aren't perfect or things don't make sense or if the characters are inconsistent, or if everything suddenly and inexplicably changes. Who cares? No one else gets to see it or read it. First drafts are an exploration, and like all good explorers, sometimes you fall off the edge of a cliff or get savaged by lion, and it's all fantastic anecdotes when you're sipping port in front of your fire, explaining to your wide-eyed grandchildren how you lost your leg.
No, what horrifies me about first drafts is having to read them.
I started a novel a while back and got about 1/3 of the way through before I had to stop to rewrite the previous one. What with stuff and stuff, that rewrite took a couple of months. Now I'm re-reading the new novel to try to get back into it and remember what's going on.
And it's painful. All those easy imperfections, the cliff edges, the metaphorical lion attacks, this time, they are far less fun.
Suffice to say, I really, really hate reading my first drafts.
Chances are, of course, that it isn't that bad. It's just that I don't yet have the distance to look at this rationally and without emotion. You write in passion and revise with calm, and I'm not yet in that calm state. I'm having to fight with myself to stop myself fiddling and editing as I read. After all, plenty of this stuff will have to change by the time I've figured out the later parts of the book, so there really is no point. But it's difficult, and painful.
Does anyone out there actually enjoy this process? How do you stop yourself gnawing off your arm when you read your first drafts? Or is armlessness a necessary part of being a writer? I think we should be told.
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My car is filthy.
Personally, I blame this on the volcanic ash, rather than, say, the fact that I haven't washed it for months.
Actually, all the cars do seem to have a thin coating of dust at the moment, but I'm actually rather enjoying the whole experience.
Yes, I know it sucks for people who are stranded with no flights to take them home, for those who had booked holidays or business trips. I'm sure it's also terrible that supplies of Peruvian asparagus may run low (although no signs of that yet).
But nonetheless I'm enjoying it.
There have been no contrails in the sky for days, no sounds of planes. There's a sense of stillness, almost tranquility. Planes are perhaps the most evident symptom of our desire to rush everywhere at high speed, not pausing or stopping, missing everything that we're passing in a desperate need to be somewhere else. Now that that's stopped, temporarily, the world, or this part of it, seems ... calmer.
And, I think, it's good for us to be reminded of the lesson that King Cnut (Canute) apocryphally tried to teach us way back in the 11th century, that we cannot control nature, and that ultimately we are its mercy. We have come to believe that we are not part of nature, that it is subservient to us, for us to use, abuse or conserve at will. Here, now, we have a reminder that it isn't so.
And, it's also good that that reminder this time has come not in the vast deaths of an earthquake or tsunami, but in an event that everyone is forced to notice in terms of its power, rather than the human suffering.
Of course, the lesson seems to have been missed entirely by many people, not least those demanding that the government *does something about it*. Really? What, exactly? Turn back the tide?
No doubt it will all soon be over and forgotten, all we'll all be rushing madly around, but for now, it's good to take the moments of stillness and peace and calm, and enjoy them. I am.
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First up, another chance to win an ARC (Advance Reader's Copy) of Steph's wonderful middle grade novel, A Most Improper Magick. Adventure, humor, romance, magic, and highwaymen in a sparkling, exciting regency setting. What's not to love???
The contest is being hosted by Lisa Mantchev on her blog. Just leave a comment to win!
AND by going there you get to read a little scene starring the characters from Lisa's Eyes Like Stars having a tea party with Kat Stephenson from A Most Improper Magick. Lots of fun!
Secondly, I put another reprint to read for free on my website. This time it's "Dragonfly Summer", which was first published in Interzone. Read it here. A quick warning, though: this story is not suitable for children. Trust me on that one.
And, because it takes three things to make a journal entry, here's a couple of clips from my favourite post-apocalyptic gameshow:
From Mitchell and Webb, of course.
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"The past is a foreign country," L.P. Hartley wrote in The Go-Between, "they do things differently there."
As it turns out, foreign countries are also foreign countries, and they do things differently there too.
The past in a foreign country must therefore be a foreign foreign country, where they do things very, very differently.
Which does beg the question as to why I would choose to write a novel set in 1930s Malaya.
I have never been to Malaysia, and I have certainly never been to the 1930s. I am not by nature particularly keen on research.
My book is currently littered with square brackets of the "[something]" or "[description here]" or "[blah, blah, blah: do some research you lazy fool]" type. I've been wondering if I could get away with leaving it like that and claiming that I was writing experimental fiction.
Some writers seem to delight in writing about foreign foreign countries. Bernard Cornwell, to pick a not even slightly random example, appears to be. I have been watching the entire box set of the adaptations of Cornwell's Sharpe stories. They are fantastic, and the adaptations are brilliant too. But I can't help the odd shudder as I contemplate the amount of research I would have to do to write something like that.
Of course, I find myself actually wanting to write that kind of story, but this (I hope) is simply the side effect of watching 12 Sharpe episodes in quick succession.
What I really should do is write contemporary stories set around where I live. But these rarely fire my imagination in the same way.
So here I am, filling up a text with square brackets and hoping someone else will do all the research for me.
And, why yes, this is my first journal entry of 2010. Wasn't it worth waiting 23 days for this unfocused rambling?
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For one reason or another (mainly another), I've dropped out of contact with an awful lot of people over the last year. I'm tempted to resolve to do much better next year, but that's just setting myself up for failure. I *hope* I'll do a lot better, but that'll only happen if something changes to free up more time (servants! a cure for sleep!). So, sorry to those of you I owed emails to over the course of the year but never sent. I meant to. I really did.
On the plus side, we're going to both Eastercon and Wiscon in 2010, so I'm hoping to catch up with a lot of people there. I love conventions, and these are two of my favourite. Steph is holding her book launch at Wiscon, and we'll be doing a group reading (more on that closer to the date). I shall probably only be a spectator at Eastercon. Entertain me!
Talking about Eastercon, I have to say, that is an impressive lineup of guests of honour: Alastair Reynolds, Iain Banks, Liz Williams, and Mike Carey. Fantastic writers whose books I love. But the one that made me really squee with excitement was the artist guest of honour: Carlos Ezquerra. This is the guy who co-created Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog! *Sniffs smelling salts*.
Yeah, okay, I am still a fan boy at heart.
As for Wiscon, that is probably my single favourite con. I have to say that the prospect of doing a transgalactic--er, transatlantic--flight with a 19-month-old toddler fills me with a nameless, almost Cthuloid dread, but it'll be worth it. At Wiscon, I'll be the one looking like a shell-shocked, sleep-deprived zombie. We'll also be in Michigan for a few weeks, and in New York for about a week. We haven't fixed the dates yet, but we'll probably arrive in the US in mid-to-late April, head to New York in mid May, and then round it off at Wiscon at the end of May.
Being as it's that time of year when the Christmas excess is starting to wear off and the last year's failures-of-will have been forgotten, I've been thinking about new year's resolutions. If I'm not going to resolve to be a more reliable friend (sigh), I'm going to focus on the writing.
So, my new year's resolution for 2010 is to write every single day. I've never done that for a year before. I'm going to count revising, planning, and sketching out ideas as writing, of course, and I intend to excuse myself in the case of big emergencies or horrendous illnesses, but otherwise, I'm going for it. If I succeed, I expect you all to send me little prizes. :)
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I feel I could be a secret agent.
Okay, I’m not quite up to leaping through windows on the end of a rope or concealing parachutes in my pants (they itch; seriously). I don’t suppose I could fight an assassin in my underwear (why is he/she even in my underwear?), and my chances of infiltrating a secret base by guile and gymnastic martial arts are fairly minimal. I can’t speak foreign languages, and I loathe guns.
But I do have one qualification. Under pressure, my brain stalls entirely. For example:
Receptionist at doctors: When’s your son’s birthday?
Me: Um...
R: When’s your wife’s birthday?
Me: Um...
R: When’s your birthday?
Me: Um...
R: When’s Christmas?
Me: Um...
My brain freezes quicker than if I’d dunked my head in a vat of liquid Helium, and I can’t even remember my name.
This is absolutely perfect for a secret agent. When I was captured (and I would be, due to the above deficiencies), I wouldn’t be able to reveal a thing, because my brain would be totally non-functioning. It’s perfect.
So, what’s your qualification to be a secret agent? Non-existent prize for the best answer...
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Rather later in the day than I'd planned, but...
Today is the official unofficial agent appreciation day, begun by that fantastic group of writers, The Tenners.
I'm represented by Jennifer Laughran of Andrea Brown Literary.
What I really love about Jenn is that not only did she get exactly what I was trying to do with my book, she had very focused, very smart and carefully thought-through suggestions for how to revise it. Some of the suggestions looked pretty scary on first glance - but when the revision was finished, it was a better book, and more than that, it really was MY better book.
She's marketing it to editors right now, and although I can't say too much publicly about the process yet, I can say that she's been brilliant about getting it to exactly the people with the right taste for the book. I really like the way she talks about it, to me and to other people in the profession, and I really like her strategy for getting it out there. She's also super at communication, and her emails often make me laugh even when they're not passing on good news, which is a really impressive trick during the fraught submissions process.
She's got great taste in books, and she's incredibly knowledgeable, funny, smart, and hard-working. I'm really glad to be her client.
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It seems to be that time again, for me to post another of my previously published short stories on my website. This time it's "Lavender's Blue, Lavender's Green", which was first published in Realms of Fantasy back in December 2005.
It's a contemporary short story with just a touch of fantasy. And a few wee references to Marillion.
Enjoy it!
Read Lavender's Blue, Lavender's Green here.
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We moved house.
I think I mentioned that.
We liked a lot about Yorkshire (countryside, fantastic Indian/Pakistani/Kashmiri restaurants, friends), where we previously lived, but we were too far away from the kind of things we like being near: cafes, bookstores, shops, family.
We're now in small town in Wales, surrounded by hills and mountains. When I step out the front door I can see a high, forested hill. Often, shreds of clouds are clinging to the trees and the flanks of the hill.
We also have a really good cafe ten minutes walk away, lots of toddler grounds for Mr Darcy, and plenty of places to take Maya. We even have a back yard for the first time.
Of course, being a small town, there's no way I could get a job here. But, luckily, that won't be an issue for at least six months, by which time we may have moved again (although, man, the idea of moving again fills me with an unnameable horror).
Anyway, we're finally sorted out with everything we need here, we're mostly unpacked (except the million boxes of books), and we're set up very nicely to write.
Which means I really should get on with it.
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