I can't do them. I mean how do you take a novel and make it one page long... One page! And that is double spaced, 12pt Times New Roman... It's hardly anything! BUT (an it is a huge but), I have just been on a course about how to find an agent/publisher. Now I knew… Continue reading The synopsis – bain of my writing…
Month: September 2014
Darkness
Darkness is crawling toward Bitsy… Can she escape it?
“Shit,” Max’s voice rings around the small room.
I can feel my chest tightening and my heart beating too fast, it sounds like a whooshing in my ears. I don’t have many fears but the dark is one, and it has got worse since I found those things.
“You okay?” Max asks.
“No,” I whisper, crouching in a ball on the floor and hugging my knees to my chest.
“What’s wrong?” I can hear him moving around and searching for something on the shelves.
“The dark,” I whisper, and to my ears it sounds lame. I know there are only the two of us here, yet I’m petrified of what is going to happen, that something is going to reach out and grab me.
Max doesn’t say anything, but I can hear him moving away from me and pushing things around the shelves. Finally he gives a small shout and…
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Agents and things that go bump in the night.
I know agents aren't scary. I really do. But still they are the one thing I dread about writing. On one hand I want to get one, to be able to hand a book over and say find a publisher would be bliss, but I have also heard some horror stories about them changing your… Continue reading Agents and things that go bump in the night.
Kate Murray – Artist Spotlight – Twisted Tales 2014
My interview for the cover of Twisted Tales 2014, being published by Raging Aardvark Press. 🙂
Kate Murray is an artist and illustrator who specialises in figures and pencil work. She graduated from Derby University as a medical illustrator but has left that side of the business to pursue her work with figurative and children’s illustration.
Kates’s work features as the cover an frontcentrepiece in the upcoming Twisted Tales Anthology, Published by Raging Aardvark Publishing.
She has kindly agreed to be interviewed about her inspiration and work.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am currently working a set of picture books for children. They range from the moon losing the stars to a story about a little boy on a monster hunt. I write the picture books as well as illustrating them, and I love telling the story with both words and pictures. I am also working on the illustrations for the short story anthology, ‘Shadows Close’, which is due to be published…
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Twisted Tales 2014
I have been busy – look! I have created the artwork for Twisted Tales 2014… 🙂
Twisted Tales is an annual flash fiction competition celebrating (Inter)National Flash Fiction Day, published by Raging Aardvark Publications. Judged by a panel of experienced short story writers and editors, submissions over the last three years have been extremely high quality; making the job of the judge a difficult one. Authors are drawn from around the globe and stories ranging from lighthearted tales of childhood memories, to gruesome stories to make the reader shiver.
The Twisted Tales collection of flash fiction explores the twisted existence of love, family and relationships as characters seek a sense of self and identity. Flash Fiction as a form, requires the writer to choose each word with the intention to portray dozens of emotions and images. Whilst twisted doesn’t necessarily mean morbid, its edginess can be whimsical, playful or disturbing. Our selection of twisted tales explodes out of the page and drags the reader…
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Emmaleene Leahy – Author Spotlight – Twisted Tales 2014
An interview with a flash fiction writer. She is really good and worth a read. 🙂
Emmaleene Leahy is from Ireland. Her fiction has been published in FlashFlood the National Flash-Fiction Day journal, 2012, 2013, 2014, Cake.shortandsweet issue 5, Wordlegs: Post-Tiger Stories,Three Broken Ribs, Eating my Words, 2014 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, The Scum Gentry and Boyne Berries (Forthcoming).
Emmaleene’s flash fiction, Jake’s Kite, is one of the 13 chosen by a panel of judges to be included in the upcoming Twisted Tales Anthology, Published by Raging Aardvark Publishing.
She has kindly agreed to be interviewed about her story and of her writing.
Title of Flash – Jake’s Kite
What was your initial motivation or prompt to write this story?
I wrote this in response to a prompt with cake.shortandsweet where five prompts appeared on a Wednesday and participants posted their story within 24 hours.
The five words that appeared that week were:
hideout :: transitory :: share :: full bodied :: …
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Trust
Can Bitsy trust anyone? Can any of them trust each other?
The next part of ‘The Gone’.
“I’m not the monster,” Dee says, and for a moment I know what she is talking about. I mean the real monsters are outside or even the man in front of me. He was part of this, but still I can’t trust her.
Maybe it is the desperate look or the fact she finds it difficult to look at me, her gaze sliding over mine as if she has something to hide. Fully dressed I look behind her at the lengthening shadows.
“What did you find?” Max asks, looking at me, but not turning his back on Dee.
“Well, they are there.”
“What?” Dee shouts, shocked. “You talked to them?”
I nod. “And a guy who offered us help.”
“Who?” Max asks, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Well,” I say. “That’s the problem. His friends are at the Tate Modern and he said they would escort us to the WHO. He…
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Botanical illustration
Yesterday it rained so my thought of sitting outside in the sun was smashed, but when I arrived (late - what can I say, I'm a writer and getting up early isn't usually an issue) I found that the class was looking at little things. Botanical illustration is about the small over the large, and it… Continue reading Botanical illustration
Ill-health and a writerly struggle
I have a deadline coming up for an anthology of short stories. It is going to be tight, but it is still do-able. Except I did something silly. For the last four months I've been on iron tablets. I go anaemic easily and this time it was enough to worry to doctors. But after the… Continue reading Ill-health and a writerly struggle
Home?
Is there anywhere that is safe? The next part of ‘The Gone’. #writing #novel #thegone
After the computer screen goes blank I sit for a moment. I am trying to gather myself. Honestly, I am so scared I don’t know if I can go back. But then do I have a choice. As I sit I can hear a scream in the distance. It is identical to the one I heard in the hospital.
“Oh no,” I whisper and flinch because I hadn’t realised I was going to say it out loud. Now fear has me in her grasp, but I am more scared about waiting here than moving. I wonder if I ought to go quietly and sneak or if an all-out run would be better.
Another scream echoes through the building. It is getting closer. I glance out of the window and see the rapidly retreating light. I’m going to make a run for it. Pushing back the chair I barrel out of…
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