Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Fairy Hunting

My story chronicling the very misguided life of fairy hunter extraordinar, Dr. Morgan Z. Vile, has inspired landscape and portrait artist Mitch Cudney to produce this, probably not Disney approved, image of Tinker Bell. The Dunesteef audio fiction magazine is using Cudney's image as the cover for their fall issue Vol. 1 No. 2.

Like the story, its a bit twisted, but based on the feedback I'm getting, it would seem that's what people like about the story.

So a little dark humor for the holidays seems a nice counterbalance with the sugary sweet warm fuzziness we're joyfully bombarded with this time of year.

Speaking of this time of year, its time to reflect a bit. I finished a novel, nearly completed a novella, had six stories published, had four stories produced in audio and got an editor interested in looking at a collection. Not bad, but as I glance at my goals for 2008 (yes I actually write them out) I'm guessing I achieved about 65-75% of them. Still unattained, is getting something published in Children's, MG or YA. It would be nice to get something published that I could let my kids read. Thus far my writing consists of material I don't ever want my kids to read, as they already think I'm odd enough as a dad. I can't imagine what my 6-year old daughter would think of me if she knew I penned a tale about capturing, killing, and framing the little creatures she has decorating her pink and purple bedroom. So more child friendly goals and stories for 2009. Happy New Year.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Framing and Mounting Fairies

The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine released my short story Framing and Mounting Fairies, yesterday. They did an amazing job with this experimental piece that reads like a How-to guide. Using my bug collecting experience as a kid and my background in How-To manuals to flesh out this twisted piece, I never really realized until listening to it how dark and sinister the tale is. Probably because my original intent was to be funny, I never really fully grasp the underlying darkness of the piece. I'm not really sure if that says something about me or just my writing, either way its an enjoyable piece employing a nice use of sound effects and really well thought out background music. If you enjoyed it let me know.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Dunesteef - The October Scary Story Event

During the month of October, the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine held a writing contest / promotion. I'm not sure if it was a contest or a promotion, but the idea was to write a scary story in the month of October, submit it, and they would pick several to read at a later date. Not sure how many were submitted, but one of the four stories they chose, "Halloween in July," was mine. I wrote it in a rush, and it needs some tweaking, but the Dunesteef editors said it will run next year sometime, so I have some time to edit. It was an interesting writing process. I don't usually write with deadlines, but with a submission cut off of Halloween, I really buckled down - something I should do more often.

I'm currently working on a novella and I've made a goal of having draft one done this year. So with 11,00 words in the can and 10,000 to go, its time to buckle down again. I hope self imposed deadlines will be as effective. We'll see.