A Birthday Gift from Thuglit

I got a nice birthday gift yesterday - an email saying my short story THE LAST DANCE will appear in issue 24 of Thuglit, out at the end of February.

I wrote this story last summer in between drafts of FOLLOWERS because I wanted to revisit the novel's protagonist. I posted it on Elektra's Crapometer where it got a mixed response ranging from the negative to the very positive. So it languished for a few months before I decided to dust it off just before Christmas and give it a quick spit and polish. I went back to the original critiques and the comments of three blogging friends (SSatS, McKoala and Chris) helped me knock it into shape. And lo and behold, it got accepted, so thanks guys. I'm excited to have a story in Thuglit because it's one of my favourite zines out there. I'll give a heads up when it appears.

Where I've been

I haven't been blogging, or doing much of anything, recently. This is because of an exceptionally busy time at work that has had me at my desk late most evenings and during weekends. I hope to get on top of things soon and see you folks on the other side. :)

Opening Time at Every Day Fiction

My flash fiction piece is online at EveryDayFiction.com, all 500 words of it. It may be small, but I hope it packs a bit of a punch. Not the cheeriest piece, actually...

Happy New Year (and other stuff)

First of all, Happy New Year to all my blogging friends. As I get older, I'm finding the Christmas season is as much about learning for me as anything else. The kicker is that usually they're things I should have known all along. Here are three things I learned this Christmas (a.k.a. Conduit states the bleedin' obvious...)

• A small gesture for you can mean the world to someone else.
• A kind word can mean the difference between quitting and going on.
• A little romance goes a long way.

What I'm Reading

I have once again put down a huge bestseller half-finished because, frankly, it's rubbish. I find this happening more and more often. Josephine Damian has been blogging about this very thing. I'm not a fast reader, and have little spare time to devote to it, so that time is precious. I'm gettting sick of realising too late that I've wasted a significant amount of that time on a lazy author going through the motions, providing me with two dimensional characters, plotting for plot's sake, twists for twist's sake, and trite cliches.

It was a very pleasant surprise to then pick up a book by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr called Bust, as recommended to me by Chris Holm, and find it to be the most fun, entertaining, surprising, joyously trashy, wickedly nasty novel I have read in a very long time. I believe it's part of a series so I'll be hitting Amazon for the rest.

Every Day Fiction

For anyone that's interested, my flash fiction piece Opening Time will appear in the January 3rd edition of Every Day Fiction. I'll post a link when it's out there.