Really struggling for a title for this posting, so a play on brace being two of something - although have you ever heard it used outside the context of bloodied animals held in the mouths of gundogs as they trot back to pink-faced men in tweeds with Purdeys under their armpits?
Well, you have now, because this posting is just to make you aware of a brace of stories that I'll have in circulation later this spring. Atthisarts will have 'Five Minutes at Hotel Stormcove' out by May, and nestled in amongst 58 (yes, 58!) other stories will be my tale, 'A Room with a View'. Not sure where I got that title from. Looks great, even as a jpeg, I'm sure you'll agree. Get your hands on one by clicking here.
Before that, 'How Did They Get You?', a tale of androids and Canadian whiskey on a Martian mining colony, will, hopefully, be appearing in issue number 7 - free, gratis and for nothing - of James Gunn's Ad Astra. That'll hit your browser next month, I understand.
Both these tales are alike but very differing in that they went through a rewriting process in the light of editorial comments. 'How Did They Get You?' didn't just go through a process, but a wringer, being pitched in November 2017, chased in June 2018, with rewrites submitted in July and October 2018, and a final tweak last month.
Each redrafting was in response to detailed editorial comments questioning the science, the motives and actions of characters, the plot, everything. Let's just say I don't think the good burghers of Ad Astra would have let Cervantes get away with Sancho Panza's donkey disappearing and reappearing in Don Quixote. I doubt I thought as much about the story when I first wrote it as they did in reading it. In contrast, my preference is always to keep the action moving along at a sufficient clip that you don't consider the bits that don't quite fit, hence my view of the process flip-flopped between 'oh my God, what now?' and 'good point, well made'. To their credit, the rewrites improved the story without changing it.
Meanwhile, the edits for Hotel Stormcove were dealt with by an exchange of emails in a day. I hope you enjoy them both, or this longer one...
Well, you have now, because this posting is just to make you aware of a brace of stories that I'll have in circulation later this spring. Atthisarts will have 'Five Minutes at Hotel Stormcove' out by May, and nestled in amongst 58 (yes, 58!) other stories will be my tale, 'A Room with a View'. Not sure where I got that title from. Looks great, even as a jpeg, I'm sure you'll agree. Get your hands on one by clicking here.
Both these tales are alike but very differing in that they went through a rewriting process in the light of editorial comments. 'How Did They Get You?' didn't just go through a process, but a wringer, being pitched in November 2017, chased in June 2018, with rewrites submitted in July and October 2018, and a final tweak last month.
Each redrafting was in response to detailed editorial comments questioning the science, the motives and actions of characters, the plot, everything. Let's just say I don't think the good burghers of Ad Astra would have let Cervantes get away with Sancho Panza's donkey disappearing and reappearing in Don Quixote. I doubt I thought as much about the story when I first wrote it as they did in reading it. In contrast, my preference is always to keep the action moving along at a sufficient clip that you don't consider the bits that don't quite fit, hence my view of the process flip-flopped between 'oh my God, what now?' and 'good point, well made'. To their credit, the rewrites improved the story without changing it.
Meanwhile, the edits for Hotel Stormcove were dealt with by an exchange of emails in a day. I hope you enjoy them both, or this longer one...
love it Robert Bagnall (A human resources practitioner by profession, property developer by inclination and science-fiction writer by vocation, Robert Bagnall has recently relocated to the English Riviera to renovate a Victorian villa and to see where life takes him.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't like dogs and is allergic to cats.), good luck with the villa m8