Epic Fantasy Competition at Dark Fiction Magazine, and the Art of the Very Very Short Story

Pop on over to Dark Fiction Magazine and you'll see a rather nifty flash fiction competition has just been announced: they’re looking for epic fantasy stories of a thousand words or under, and there are actual cash prizes! So you are cordially invited to dust off your broadswords, polish up those magical artefacts and get your dragon on. Full details (and a rather excellent picture) can be found here.

 

I do love the perversity of fitting an “epic” fantasy tale into less than 1000 words. I was lucky enough to have my flash fiction piece “Milk” selected for DFM’s Twelve Days of Christmas Special. I had to work really hard to get the story down to a very zippy 1000 words and because of this it remains one of my favourites- it’s as tight as it can possibly be, and every small piece of it pleases me. It doesn’t hurt of course that the very lovely Kim Lakin-Smith read it out for me and did a fantastic job. If you’d like to hear it (don’t worry, it isn’t actually that Christmassy) nip over here and press play.

 

Being a big fantasy fan I’d love to give this competition a go myself, but since I’m helping out DFM with their slush reading at the moment, I suspect I’m not really allowed. ;) However, I am very excited to see what people can cram into that neat little word-space, and I think we’re going to see some very interesting stories.

The Twelve Days Anthology from Dark Fiction Magazine

So it's here, on the darkest and spookiest day of the year- twelve stories to captivate, amuse, and give you the shivers. My story "Milk" is the first one on there, narrated by the lovely Kim Lakin-Smith (go find out more about that talented lady here: http://www.kimlakin-smith.com/ ) and I am tremendously proud of it. I've been full of the flu for the last two weeks so I wasn't able to read the story out myself (I sound rather like a bucket full of poorly frogs) but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as Kim's voice suits the story so well I actually fidgitedy about with glee while listening to it. I'm also proud of "Milk" simply because I rather like it myself for once, and I don't often have a lot of affection for my own work.

Go here to listen to some excellent short fiction: http://www.darkfictionmagazine.co.uk/episode/twelve-days-anthology/

I'm working my way through them all now, and it is a marvellous little treat of wintery goodness.

Dark Fiction Magazine's Twelve Days Anthology

So Nanowrimo is over, Dead Zoo Shuffle is half way through, and hopefully I'll be back to blogging again regularly. Phew!

Just a quick note today to do a brief snoopy dance of Christmas joy- not because I've actually done all my Christmas shopping (pressies bought = 2) or because I remembered to buy an advent calendar, but because my short story "Milk" has been chosen as the "maids a milking" section of Dark Fiction Magazine's Twelve Days Anthology.

All the details are here: http://www.darkfictionmagazine.co.uk/blog/twelve-days-anthology-the-winning-stories/

I've also been lucky enough to have another one of my stories included in Dark Fiction Magazine in Episode 2: Dystopian Desires. If you haven't heard it yet, On the Last Wave is here: http://www.darkfictionmagazine.co.uk/episode/issue-2/

Obviously, I'm dead excited about this because it means my name is appearing next to some authors who I really admire- a truly fab christmas present. ;)

Blogging Keeps You Regular

Blogging once a week should be pretty easy, or at least that’s what I thought when I decided recently that my blog needed a good kick up the bum. I had read in various places that writers should blog, and as often as possible, and it sounded like a good plan. Some suggested updating every day, but that seems, quite frankly, a bit unhinged. If you are a jet setting author with a mind-crushingly glamorous and exciting life, and the ability to get more done in one day than any human person, like Neil Gaiman for example, no doubt this makes sense. But I’ve no clue what I’d begin to tell you about if I were writing this every day. I think, to be quite honest, I’d bore myself. However, as it is time for my weekly blog (now sounding like a bowel movement of some kind) and I have absolutely no clue what to talk about, I shall regale you with the sort of inconsequential details I might tell you if I were writing everyday:

Our floorboards are being ripped up. Yes, when I get home, I expect to have to employ some stilts or the Force to propel myself around the flat. The alarmingly manky carpet has gone, along with its red wine and birthing fluid stains (yes, really) and supposedly something else will be taking it’s place. Not sure what.

I’m reading Magician by Raymond E. Feist. I am enjoying it very much, even if it is a dramatic change of tone from the Song of Ice and Fire series. I keep expecting people to be sleeping with their sisters and pushing people out of windows, but everyone in Magician is much too nice.

We finished watching Supernatural series one, alas. I have decided it is a Series Worth Following, and I’m particularly fond of the central relationship between Sam, Dean and Daddy Winchester. It is ever so manly and angsty.

The new book is puttering along, just starting to form into a proper story with a beginning, middle and end; as long as I don’t look at it directly or anything. In fact, I find if I turn my head to one side and squint at it with one eye shut, it appears to have vampires, witches, zombies AND pirates in it. This amuses me.

That’s it for now. Tomorrow I shall update you with whether or not that milk we bought at the weekend will last for the evening’s tea, and if I’ve managed to buy a new pair of jeans.