Entries tagged with writing

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: The Decemberists - [The Crane Wife #01] The Crane Wife 3

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Midnight Echoes Issue 2 - The Message

Issue 2 of Midnight Echoes, the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writers' Association, is on the way and I'm very happy to say I have a story appearing therein.

My tale, "The Message" will be appearing alongside other stories by Kurt Newton, Bob Franklin, David Conyers, Joanne Anderton, Shaun Jeffrey and Felicity Dowker.

For more information, check out the website:

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Bat For Lashes - [Two Suns #09] Two Planets

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A Masques review - and it's a good one!

It's been a while, and I've got a lot of catching up to do with you all since our big move (which is still going wonderfully), but for now I'm just popping in to smug about a review.

The latest issue of Specusphere includes a review of the new CSFG anthology "Masques". Overall it is an extremely positive review, but I am especially happy with the mention for my story "The Dumbshow":

"The Dumbshow is a noir carnival that shows off Andrew McKiernan’s considerable prowess, effectively conveying the mute character’s emotions and dialogue through the unlikely medium of written mime. King Al’s troupe takes a wrong turn travelling toward Clowntown, and miscommunication, imprisonment and brushes with death follow, culminating in harmony and even romance. The story is action packed, well paced, and could easily be expanded into a satisfying novella. McKiernan’s take on the masques theme works well, and his characters are crystal clear and throbbing with life."

Big thanks to Felicity Dowker for such a wonderful review!

Read the entire Masques review at Specusphere.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: The Church - [The Blurred Crusade #07] A Fire Burns

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The Dumbshow - More clowns find their way into print

I'm a happy little chappy this morning!

I just received an email from the CSFG 'Masques' anthology editors to tell me that my story 'The Dumbshow' has been accepted for inclusion!

I'm over the moon about this as I think it is a really fun story. I know it was lots of fun to write, as all my 'Clowntown' stories are, but this one also isn't quite as dark as I'd normally write either. It's not even set in Clowntown, but more 'Mimes do Shakespeare's The Tempest in Hicksville USA'.

I do know that the story wouldn't have been anywhere near as good as I think it is if it wasn't for the new Australian Horror Writers Association online crit-group, and the guiding editorial hand of Gillian Polack [

gillpolack]. The AHWA crit group tore into the story like there was no tomorrow, and it is definitely all the better for it. Gillian offered various suggestions on the tales's depth and characterisation and really made me think about the story in some very different ways.

So, that's made me so happy I don't feel like doing any more work today. Think I'll just enjoy myself, read a book, play a PC game, or watch a DVD... at least until the boys get home, and then its good-bye quiet time. I might as well enjoy those last 2 1/2 hours while I can!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: home
Current Music: Kings of Leon - [Because Of The Times #03] On Call

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Help Yourself wordcount - No Quotes!

Definitely a slow writing week, but I finally found some time tonight to get some words on the page.

As an exercise I decided when I started to write this one that I'd attempt everything in a much more fluid style. I'd let the words flow and not worry so much about comma placement and punctuation - the sort of things that, for me, disrupt the words from reaching the page. One of the parts of this exercise was to totally dispense with quotation marks for dialogue. Normally, I find this affectation pretentious - when reading Cormac McCarthy it distracts me greatly. But, Tim Winton has always done it and I've never noticed until I was 'examining' his latest novel "Breath". I enjoyed the novel thoroughly, just as I've enjoyed 'Cloud Street' and 'Dirt Music', so I wanted to go back and see some of the things that made it tick.

One of the things I've found amazing about Winton's storytelling is the way everything flows and builds up rhythms within the narrative. In fact, everything flows so well that he doesn't need quotation marks for the dialogue! You just know, from reading the words and feeling the cadence of the sentences, exactly who is speaking what. So, I thought I'd see how I went.

And, losing the quotation marks is so strangely liberating! It is amazing what shackles little things like this become to your mind when you're writing. Always thinking about starting a new paragraph, making sure the comma is inside the quotation marks (or outside as the occasional exception requires), avoiding pointless dialogue attribution and clichéd verb modifying adverbs. We might not think that we think about these things, but we do. And NOT thinking about them, not worrying about them, has led me into what I feel is a much more natural writing style.

It helps a lot that I'm writing in first person. I also don't think it would work for every book or story and maybe I'll have to go back when I'm finished and add them all back in. But for now, it is helping me write this story in a voice that I think really works for it, and a style that really works for me.

I probably also won't be so sceptical about these sort of 'non-quotation mark' books as being pretentious literary twaddle any more. I can definitely see a point, for some story to be written this way for both the benefit of the author and the reader.

Help Yourself - Wordcount

2,428 / 100,000
(2.4%)

Current Mood: restless
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Murder by Death - [Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them #07] The Desert is On Fire

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Help Yourself - novel progress

Whenever I set myself to a task I can be sure that disaster will surely ensue. Since I posted that I was starting this novel project I had received a flurry of urgent client requests to fix and update websites. My mum's knee has become infected and she's had to go back to hospital for an antibiotic drip. I've been wiped out with a pulled neck muscle and a cold (not a flu, luckily!). And, today, the teachers had a stop work meeting so the boys were here all morning making noise and asking for things.

Nevertheless, I finally sat down last night and got things started. First chapter is done and chapter two is coming fine so far. I'm looking at getting a few more words written this afternoon. The current word count?

Help Yourself - wordcount

1,000 / 100,000
(1.0%)

Current Location: Bookshop
Current Music: Never Know More - Patsy Cline

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Help Yourself

I'm definitely not committing myself to NaNoWriMo this month - I might be crazy, but I'm not insane - but today is the day I'll be starting a new novel project.

First, I have to finish some final edits on a story that has been longlisted for the CSFG 'Masques' anthology. The story is another Clowntown story (of sorts) called "The Dumbshow" [Mimes do Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' in Hicksville USA]. The editors have made some suggestions for changes and I've been working pretty steadily for the past few days in tightening, smoothing and cutting the story back to perfection... or as close to it as I can get anyway. The hard part is now done and I only have tidying up and a final read through to do before posting it back to the editors tomorrow.

Once I've finished "The Dumbshow" I have decided it is time for me to start my next brainwave. A novel, a short one I think, that won't even be Spec-Fic or Horror. I'm guessing it will all get a little weird and freaky towards the end, but probably Palahnuik or Pynchon weird rather than my usual SF/Horror weird. In the end, I'm guessing it will be more of a 'mainstream' novel than anything I've attempted before.

The novel is to be called "Help Yourself" and is going to be based somewhat on the article I posted a couple of months ago here on my LJ (Self-Help: The New Sunday Tabernacle). I haven't got a full synopsis yet - I don't write that way and probably won't have a synopsis until it is all done - but it will be contemporary, told in first person, and based largely on life experience.

It will only be a short one - about 120,000 words at the most - but it 's something I'm very much looking forward to writing. In tone it will probably be more like the mentioned LJ post, or my 'Black Roads, Dark Highways' articles for Black: Australian Dark Culture magazine. Bascially, it is a 'Novel of Anti-Self-Help' and I'm hoping to have lots of fun with the entire 'Self-help' movement in all its religio-pseudoscientific-health-fad glory.

I'll try and keep LJ updated on word counts with this one. First time I've done that, but I'm determined to keep this one rolling forward to having a first draft completed before the beginning of February.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Sophia - [The infinite circle #05] Woman

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Time to see what's in the Box

WHAT'S INSIDE THE BOX?

BLACK BOX

100 of the darkest, most surreal flash fiction stories from 80 of the hottest horror and fantasy authors, including my own story 'Sleep'.

Dark music from the best Australian alternative, gothic opera, metal, and hip hop artists.

Electronic galleries of dark art from the finest Australian and emerging international artists, including a gallery of my own work and a preview of the illustrations included in the forthcoming 'Shards' collection from Ticonderoga publications.

Plus all the multimedia nastiness and surprises you loved from Shadow Box.

Here's what I said about the original Shadow Box CD, which I wasn't in, back when it was released last year:

"I think Shadow Box is one of the most original concepts I have ever come across, not just in Horror and Dark Fantasy, but in any genre! Many publications have tried electronic delivery via PDF before, but they're still just print magazines. Shadow Box is something new and entirely different in a great way. I hope many people in the publishing industry see this as an example of how Fiction Publishing and E-books can really evolve. [Shadow Box is] a new way for people to enjoy Fiction in the Digital Age. This is what E-Books will become." - Shadowed Realms Readers Forum

Black Box is even more ambitous, and I'm really looking forward to throwing this collection into the CD-drive.

At only $12.95, and with all profits going to the Australian Horror Writers Association, this collection is probably the scariest, freakiest bargain you'll find all year.

You can find out more, and order yourself a copy over at Brimstone Press. Or, if you're at SwanCon on the weekend I know there will be plenty of copies there.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: David Bowie - [The Man Who Sold the World [Ryko] #04] After All

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Off the rails

I'm a bit annoyed with myself at the moment. The story I was writing for the IBD2 anthology (www.eneitpress.com) "Daivadana" has sort of gone off the rails and I don't know what to do with it at the moment.

What started out as a story about ancient evils being dug up in a fast growing city built on the remains of 7000 years of villages and towns, has become more a story of politics! I'm 4500 words in and I haven't even made it to the 'Ancient Evil' yet. There have been lots of hints, but I thought I'd be there a lot sooner than this.

My main character started out (in my mind) as an archeologist, but I couldn't think of any great (and realistic) reasons for him to be doing what he was doing. Once I started writing though, this character revealed himself within the first three paragraphs as someone very different. He is obviously not an archeologist, but some sort of Contractor working for unnamed Governments, whose agenda is ultimately assassination.

The story now seems to have become more about parallels between the evils in the World as it is now (in the Central Asian areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan especially), and the evils of the past. I can see how the trajectories of these two strands will eventually collide. This is where things will (hopefully) get truly nasty.

But it seems now that I'm taking too long getting there. If I try and rush towards the ending now, the story will be unbalanced. If I maintain the pace I have been building from the start, the story might be too long to find a home.

On one hand, I'm happy that I'm writing a story that is actually trying to 'say something' about the world around us rather than just telling a straight story without a point. There are some pretty overt political thoughts and observations, as well as a lot of subtle sub-texts that have crept in for those who know anything of the history of the region. But, I'm also thinking it might be too much.

The story I had in mind wasn't going to be about the 'War on Terror', or Western financial backing of internal militant factions, or drug-running and biological warfare. It was just going to be a 'monster story'! A 'dig up ancient evil and pay the price' story. Now it is much more than that. It scares me a little.

I think I'm just going to try and keep writing. See where it goes. I might have a better idea of things once it is all done. Maybe then I can go back and (if it isn't the story I want) chop away until it becomes something more resembling the original idea.

How often does this happen to others? Do you find the story you start out writing can sometimes get away from you?

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Farghona - Jurabek Murodov [http://music.download.com/3612-5_32-0.html]

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Diavadana

The first paragraph from a short story I have only just started writing:

On his first night in Dushanbe, Mark got drunk on arak and was beaten repeatedly at chess by an old Russian named Anatoly. The gristle-faced Russian had stayed in Tajikistan through the collapse of communism and six years of civil war, only to fill every moment with stories regaling the glory days of soviet occupation. His moves, when he did make them, where fast and deadly. Mark nodded at the man's broken English and tried to concentrate on the board; on the pieces that moved and danced across its chequered surface; on the interplay of opposing forces, and how the tide always shifted in favour of one or the other. He thought of what he'd been sent there to do and drank every glass of cloudy liquor that was passed his way.