Flash Fiction challenge story published

Powder Burn Flash posed and interesting challenge: write a story that involves a wedding cake in the middle of the road – however you pursue that idea. It’s both invigourating and challenging to write with a distinct and especially weird constraint, and I really wanted to make the challenge idea critical to the story, rather than just adjunct (say by shoe-horning the wedding cake into an existing story).

I’m pleased with my story – Crossing County Lines – it’s very stripped back with lots for the reader to fill in, but I do think that the wedding cake in the middle of the road remains integral to the piece. If it was taken out, would the story work?

Venus Vulture track on NTNS best of- compilation

The Venus Vulture track Distant Rainfall part 2 from the Heavy Skies EP has been included on Stroll, one of the four best of NTNS radio – AprMayJune 2009 compilations, which also includes tracks from Resting Bell and TestTube labelmates, Phillip Wilkerson, Sylvie Walder & entia non and d’incise. Mark of NTNS has been a great supporter, as well a playing tracks on the radio show, he also included a track from Signal Artifacts on the end of year compilation Sun in 2008.

Under The Stone Bridge

My story Under The Stone Bridge appeared in Flashes in the Dark on June 25th. Yes, creepy horror again. Flashes in the Dark is a very cool and dynamic site – a new story every day, plus Lori Titus’s serial; definitely worth a visit and a read.

Shifting sands

It seems there’s a shift going on here as my writing year expands faster than my soundscape year. While this has been a good year for Venus Vulture, I notice that the blog has become more focused on my fiction and writing – it has been my best year for writing by far too. And typing this post will push the most recent music post off the blog’s frontpage and make my header “ambient music yada yada” sit atop a bunch of posts about flash-fiction. That’s kind of weird, so I’ll be re-thinking a little. Should I have separate blogs for each? Next year’s secret project will have its own blog, and probably my focus will be on that anyway. Perhaps I’ll just change the header. If I can figure out how to do that – it must be possible since I put it in there in the first place ….

Zombies ..

New story -”To hold her one last time” – just out on Microhorror now.
Yep, I succumbed and wrote a zombie story.

The goals progress

Earlier this year I was really looking at my goals and what I wanted to achieve. I had this cocky idea of trying to publish 26 stories for the year – that’s one a fortnight. Crazy stuff. Especially considering in my entire publishing list up until the end of last year was a total of 17 stories – since the first in 1986. In the whole of the nineties I only published five (and one of those was a short poem). My best year until 2008 had seen three stories published, and in 2008 there were four. There have been a lot of years with none at all.

26 is pretty crazy. Anyway, I’ve published nine so far this year [will update the bibliography soon - but check posts below for more recent details], with two more coming out later in the year (okay, one of those is three poems, but I’m going to count that as a publishing credit). I’ve got another five submissions out in the world so I feel like I’m nearly halfway there, halfway through the year.

I’m stoked, really, this has been my best year ever, more than twice as many stories published as my previous best (2008) and more than in the whole of the eighties or the whole of the nineties or the whole of the rest of the 00s – very close to the whole of the eighties and nineties combined.

Admittedly I’ve found some friendly editors (thanks especially Aldo and Nathan), but I do think my writing is improving. I’ve just had some amazing feedback on a rejected story, from a very generous editor, that has thrown new light on my approach to writing and revising.

Next year’s goal will be even crazier – I’m planning to create a separate blog about that.

SF story coming out in November in Antipodean SF

My story “Puncture Wound” will appear in the November issue of Antipodean Science Fiction – I’ll post the link later in the year when it comes out. “Puncture Wound” is a kind of prequel to my story “How things fall”, published in the same Antipodean SF last year.

Perma-link for Jerry and Monica’s Falling Out

Here is the permanent link to my flash-fiction science fiction story Jerry and Monica’s Falling out published on on 365Tomorrows

Story online today

Jerry and Monica’s Falling Out on the 365Tomorrows front page today only. Will post the archive link next time.

New Science Fiction story coming out soon

A new Sean Monaghan story – “Jerry and Monica’s Falling Out” – will soon appear on 365Tomorrows. The website has daily flash science fiction from staff writers and through submissions. The story is a fun little science fiction flash. It will appear on the front page for one day (hence the 365), then slip into the archives. I’ll repost with the permanent link later. Lots of other good stories to read there too, if you’re looking for a quick sci-fi fix.