The Next Novel

I now have a 1500 word outline of my next novel, having taken note of various pieces of advice on actually making some proper plans this time. This is great save for one question:

When am I ever going to get time to write it?

Listen to This

My first story to be podcast is now available from ClonePod. It was a strange but enjoyable experience hearing somebody else reading my work aloud.



Listen along to Inside Every Succesful Man, which will also be appearing in Italian on Intercom SF later this year.

Superheroes

Some good news today to help me recover from the 2 rejections earlier this week. I’m very pleased that my flash fiction piece The Ironic Man has been accepted by Peryton Publishing for inclusion in their POW!erful Tales anthology of superhero stories due out in February 2009.

That's my first publication scheduled for next year, though I'm still expecting another eight this year.

Magazine Musings

Having recently read and thoroughly enjoyed Chris Beckett’s collection The Turing Test (review pending), I was very please to discover that Interzone #218 contains not one but three new Beckett stories. There’s also an in-depth interview with him as well as an interview with Founding Flash Fictioneer Gareth L Powell.

Coming up next month will be Jupiter XXII, containing the last of my Roadmaker tales: Roadbuilder.

Three Nays in Three Days

Like the proverbial Number 9 bus, three rejections arrived in quick succession. Two were form rejections, which are bad enough, and both of them were from postal submissions, which somehow makes it even worse after the extra effort compared to email subs.

The third was much more cheering though. It was from a small-press anthology and wasn’t just the usual ’didn’t fit current editorial needs’. Here are a few of the comments that dragged me back from the doldrums:

...it was a very good story, and this was the most difficult editorial call I've had to make so far...

I really enjoyed your writing and I think the anthology would benefit if I could find a way to include some of your work.

That made everything seem more positive again.

I need to adjust my expectations somewhat now. I’ve decided to set myself higher goals in terms of the markets I’m going to submit to. This may mean in the short term that there’ll be more rejections, but I’ll know that anything that gets accepted has met more stringent editorial requirements. I’ll either improve as a result, or never have any more stories accepted. I’m hoping for the former.

New Domain

In another bold technological step, I've transferred this blog to my new domain: www.garethdjones.co.uk. The old blogger adress will still redirect here, but any new bookmarks, RSS feeds etc should be to the new address.

Sharing the Glory

I'm very proud to be have been part of the Whispers of Wickedness Review Team, who collectively, under the guidance of Peter Tennant, have won the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Non-Fiction.



I can't claim too much credit for this as I only wrote six reviews on the site, but I can still share some of the glory.

Friday Flash Fiction: Grammar

As predicted, inspiration struck last week so that I have a little tale to share with you for the first time in several weeks:



Grammar will be appearing in the 2011 Daily Flash anthology from Pill Hill Press.

Double Roadmaker Review

A new review has appeared at SF Site dealing with Jupiter XX and XXI:

A continuing series of stories that I've enjoyed is by Gareth D. Jones, about the effect of an automated road-building machine that was accidentally (it seems) activated in an apparent post-holocaust type of world. The third and fourth stories appear in these two issues: "Roadrider" and "Roadruler." In "Roadrider" some adventurous men discover the source of the machine, as the links between various cities are enhanced. And in "Roadruler" a political dimension is introduced, as the potential abuses of the road use system are lightly touched on; as well as the stresses of uniting several villages under a single ruler. These remain enjoyable, but they have become a bit sketchy, and not quite unified enough as stories.

There is a danger that the stories are becoming a bit unweildy due to their huge scope, but this will all be tidied up nicely in Roadbuilder, due in Jupiter XXII next month.

Weekly Report

Well, I call it weekly, but actually it’s no such thing. Just a random selection of what I’ve been up to recently.

I’ve finished Chris Beckett’s collection ‘The Turing Test’ in the past week. This was launched at the same time as the ‘other’ Gareth’s collection from Elastic Press last month. I couldn’t make the launch as I was at a wedding, but now I would have liked to have talked to Chris too. Though of course, had I been there I would still have yet to have read his book and therefore wouldn’t have had much to say about it.

You see why time travel would be so useful?

So now I’m on to Paul McCauley’s ‘The Quiet War’, having sandwiched Concept Sci Fi #2 in between.

I started work on the penultimate section of the Roadmaker novel this weekend, after a fortnight off for editing and catching up with reviews. The previous section has gone off to my Orbiter writing group to be mauled.

I even wrote a 300 word story that will appear this Friday after inspiration struck unaccountably.

Who knows what else may occur?