Scream has a home

Static Movement has accepted The Scream for its August issue, which has me jumping up and down with glee. I'm back on the horse. Now to brush the rust off the armour and think about submitting some new material.

Image by kind permission of http://www.foxtrotters.tripod.com/

Back on the horse

After a long, long break I'm writing and submitting again. I'm having fun, although that will probably change when I get my first rejection back. I plan to start with the flash stories and ignore the full length projects that buried me last time. That way lies despair and blank pages that laugh at me and my pencil until we both sag like chocolate teapots.

The owners of the magazine that folded before The Scream saw the light of day have released it, so I'm starting there.

Wish me luck.

Permission to comment?

A friend recently asked a question on her blog about why people look down on romance. I planned to give my opinion as a comment on her blog but, as sometimes happens with me, it turned into a long ramble that really needed its own space.

So, permission requested to (affectionately) state an alternative position, complete with weak analogies and personal preferences.

I think a disclaimer is called for here before I begin. Everybody should be allowed to read what they enjoy without judgement. Bottom line: peeps is peeps and there are no wrong answers. However, that said, I have my opinions.

First of all, I put my hand on my heart and state that I'm a genre person. After a long period reading sci-fi and fantasy, where I started to feel I'd already read the same story several times whenever I picked up something new, I branched out into chick-lit comedies, mysteries and thrillers and enjoyed them. In the same vein I tried to branch out into romance and literary fiction. With both I found myself unsatisfied.

In the case of the literary fiction I couldn't quite believe that I'd got to the end and still nothing had happened. I felt like I'd wasted x hundred pages waiting for them to get interesting and they never did. After a few experiences like that I shrugged my shoulders and moved on, having decided that clearly it went over my head and I would just stick with the populist stuff.

I was more surprised that I couldn't enjoy romances. In most of the books I had read in other genres, the romance and human interaction was what made the book for me. Yes, I wanted to know whether they saved the world or found the killer, but whether they got together was equally, if not more important to me. So why couldn't I enjoy a book where the getting together was the main theme and not the side plot?

The best way I can put it is to compare it to food. To me, eggs on hot buttered toast is delicious comfort food; one of those magic combinations. In an ill-considered flirtation with the South Beach diet a few years ago I tried to give up the toast and just eat the eggs. Within a week I was ready to kill someone if I saw another egg without bread. It just lacked everything that made the combination so appealing.

Romance is my egg; it just doesn't work on its own. That is not to say that it is impossible for me to enjoy a romance, ever, but I need more. Give me suspense, some action and adventure, or mystery, and I'll lap it up. Snuggle that romance up with a comedy, the way Jennifer Crusie does, and I'll beg for more. Combine it with fantasy or sci-fi? Well first of all, you'll have to be a superb writer because they are uneasy bedfellows. A bad sci-fi romance can set a new definition for bad, but do it well and I'll worship you. I have yet to see it, so if somebody can point me in the right direction that would be wonderful. Paranormal romance isn't it. That's just romance with added fangs, fur or ectoplasm (delete as necessary).

It occurs to me as I scribble that perhaps our problem is the labels. Why do stories have to be one thing or the other? Why does so much romance lack other content to make it interesting? I'd like to read more stories that challenge genre and open my reading experience up.

And just because snark is my nature and I can only suppress it for so long, I will say that good romance is my egg waiting for bread. In my dabbling in the genre I have read some terrible ones where both hero and heroine failed my 'do you want to push them both under a bus' test with honours. Please protect me from sappiness, plotless potboilers and TSTL (too stupid to live) protagonists, because even bread can't save some things.

Thought you'd quit writing, huh?

Alas, not fiction, but an article about LED lighting to submit to a trade journal.

The moral of the story is never let your boss know you write as a hobby. It will come back to haunt you in unexpected ways.

Coming soon to an island near you

Treasure Tim is back!

Nobody knows where he's been, but now he has stubble and a wicked smile as he digs his way across the archipelago fighting angry natives and ravenous crocodiles.

Will his supply of Splish last out? What is he thinking about as he grinds his hips next to his conquered chests?

But Treasure Tim is not the only thing that has changed. Treasure Isla has arrived and has her own tropical islands to conquer. Will Treasure Tim find her and her tiny corner of paradise? Are the Treasure Islands big enough to hold two treasure hunters, or is the only question whether her hammock is? And can he overcome the treasure madness of chancer Burt Savage?

Two sets of stubble, one beach babe and a heap of treasures to find. Who will win Isla's hammock rights and who will end up as long pig?

Coming soon to a facebook page near you.

You called it what?

The Old Git is a whiz at plumbing, electrics and getting under site manager's skins while managing to never do anything they can punish him for. He is often the most irritating man on any given building site; convinced that he knows better than anybody else and not slow to tell them. The most irritating thing of all is that he's usually right when challenged, and it would take more reading time to prove him wrong than anybody has to spend.

What a shame his talents don't extend to spelling and emails.

I had to interrupt the hour before school when everything is rushed to show him how to attach an invoice to an email.  While he was searching for the email, I spotted an invoice titled 'Vaginia' in his work folder.

He refused to tell me what Virginia thought when she received her invoice. He also claimed that my horrified laughter was putting him off finding his document.

Still, at least it was sent months ago. The time for angry phone calls is probably past. Maybe he gave her a paper copy and she never saw the document title.

I really, really hope so.

The great British general election

I know somebody has to run the country, but it feels like looking into a tub of rats and having to decide which one you're going to put down your trousers.

And judging from his blog, my brother in law feels similar about it.