2019: The Year of Distractions

Anyway, now that I’ve got that important public service message out of the way, hello and welcome to my annual blog post on how this writing shenanigans is going. And the answer is, better than I’d thought.

A lot of this year has seen me distracted by many things in life and the world and I’ve felt that my writing has suffered for that. But, if I think on it, the following has happened:

• Two stories sold – Back in the summer I sold a story to Shoreline of Infinity and, just yesterday, I sold one to Cirsova. Not got an ETA on either as yet but look out in 2020 for stories on intelligent alien starfish paying for their crimes and mad scientists undone by their hubris, as is right.
• Went to Worldcon – I’m a con nerd, been going to them since the mid-Nineties and am first and foremost a fan, excited to see the guests and talk bobbins about books, TV and films I love. But, as time goes on I’m also getting a chance to hang out with the writing community at these things and Worldcon in Dublin this year was particularly good for that. Many an insight into the business (as much as that bothers hobbyist me) and a great opportunity to share annoyances with a huge number of lovely people.  
• Also went to Eastercon and Fantasycon – As above, but smaller, and cheaper, but no less fun. Fantasycon also gave me the first reason to go to Clydebank this decade.
• Novelling – A lot of my writing this year has been taking the critiques I got from the GSFWC over a year previously on my current novel project and working them in. I’ve set myself a target of the end of the year to ‘kill’ this off. Either getting it to a state where I can push it out to agents and the like, or setting fire to it in a ritual as old as time, and then starting something new.
• Podcasting – It was back at the start of the year, and was recorded last year, but I was on a podcast, Speculative Spaces, talking Doctor Who based bobbins and reading a story far too fast. There is a link to it in the Free Fiction menu over yonder.
• Bought too many books, actually read some – Oh how poor I am at reading these days.

Just goes to show it is worth stopping to look back sometimes.

And now to the Christmas present tradition bit where I put up an old story of mine for reading. The last two years I’ve had the joy of linking to fresh, new stories just published on the internet but this year we return to the old ones and, in this case, The Writing Is On The Wall 

This is a story I had published in an anthology called Oomph: A little super goes a long way, which came out in 2013. There are many good stories in that, so if it still exists I’d recommend it. It is my only attempt, so far, to write about superheroes. 

Content Warning; there is a reference to Nitshill Bowling Club.