Monday, January 23, 2006

Running out of Time

This year's Open University coursework has arrived, meaning there's only three weeks to the start of the course. Realising that I won't have much time for writing again until October, I forged ahead with another story that's been floating round my head for a while. It's about bats and chickens and was inspired by Asimov's classic story Nightfall and an episode of Noddy.

I still have another 7 story ideas waiting for inspiration to strike them. They may have to wait some time.

Friday, January 20, 2006

It's All Greek To Me

I received my second foreign language acceptance today. Artefact Nouveau has been accepted by the Greek magazine Universe Pathways and is scheduled to appear in October. They do both Greek and English editions, but mine is due to appear in the Greek version.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

A Sequel

I've just finished writing a sequel to last year's The Grey Hole, entitled The Grey Void. It's the first time I've written a sequel and it's been interesting to compare the improvement in my own writing from 11 years ago when the original was written. Hopefully the editor of Aphelion will agree when I send it off to him!

Friday, January 06, 2006

Too Late the Hero

The new edition of Aphelion is out today, bringing an end to the two months that Too Late the Hero has been featured. Here are a few of the comments I received:

'I greatly enjoyed the flow of dialogue.' - Marianne Kirby, Editor, Cyber Age Adventures

'Very cool idea, very ironic.'

'A very dark future indeed for superheroes: relegated to the funny pages by the endless march of technology…'

'Another winner from Gareth. Tightly written with a good premise and a main character you could empathise with. I enjoyed it.' - Gareth Lyn Powell, Author

'I enjoyed this one very much. Short, and to the point, it simply explores what happens when superheroes become redundant due to technological breakthroughs.'

'I liked this simple but resonant piece.'

'Very short but entertaining.'

'I love it. The idea is so compelling.'

The great thing about Aphelion is that a lot of its readers are also aspiring writers, so you get some good feedback via their lettercol. You might not agree with all of it, but these are the comments I liked!

 

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Don't Panic!

The Hebrew translation of Devotion has been completed, so it should be appearing in Bli Panika (Don't Panic) in a couple of weeks time. Meanwhile I've submitted another two stories this week, so that's now four I'm waiting to hear back from.

Work on the novel has slowed down as I keep inconveniently thinking of ideas for short stories that need to be written!