For you, Tommy, the war is over

Well, my war story came back rejected, which is a shame as I thought it a decent piece of writing. Still, such is life. Perhaps they did want Rambo after all. I'll be interested to read the published anthology to see what kind of 'different protagonists' they were looking for.

I'm doing some decorating, so if you want me I'm the one up the ladder.

If at first you don't succeed...

I also submitted another short story to an anthology today, a story that's been bounced back to me more times than a very bouncy thing. And I can't quite put my finger on why—the story itself is a personal favourite, with lots of hidden depth and character development, and an ending I think refreshingly real for a fantasy tale. But do editors like it? Not yet. :-)

It's worked its way down all the appropriate pro markets until now I'm almost giving it away to the 'token payment' Johns.

I suppose all writers have at least one story that bemuses them in their ability to place it somewhere. This is submission number twenty-five for this story. Twenty-fifth time lucky, perhaps?

There may be eye strain ahead...

I submitted a short story today. Nothing unusual in that, you might say, but in actual fact I haven't submitted much of late. Why? I don't know, really, I just seem to go through such lean patches where not much takes my fancy.

I like writing stuff fresh for a particular project rather than merely recycling old stories hoping to hit an acceptance. This story was written for the Weird War anthology.

Weird War Anthology

I liked their comment about wanting stories featuring unusual protagonists. It inspired me to write a story pretty much with no obvious protagonist. Instead it centres around a British street in world war II, and brings the war to the inhabitants of that street, sometimes brutally, sometimes subtly, but always dispassionately. The result is a story with no heroes but lots of victims, and mirrors how I tend to see warfare anyway. I'm gambling this will elevate it from the slush pile. Of course, the gamble, as always, is that it might run totally flat with the editors. If they want Rambo characters then I'm done for. Time will tell.

I'm also psyching myself up to review an anthology which came to me as a PDF file. Had I paid more attention at the time I'd have not taken the review on, as the thought of reading 240 or so PDF pages on a screen fills me with dread. Coming fresh from reading 30k words or so from Shock Totem's bi-monthly flash competition, I anticipate eye strain ahead.

All out of love

I think I've fallen out of love with blogging. I mean, does anybody actually read the thing anyway? And if not, then surely it's just a load of old blather.