Colin Harvey – author

I’ve posted the final part of the blog post about editing over at Suite101. I hope that it’s helpful in understanding the thought processes that accompany assembling an anthology.

And on other news, I passed the two-thirds mark on Ultramassive.

Yesterday’s marathon working on Dark Spires left me with a killer migraine this morning, but also part one of a two-part blog over at Suite101 about editing. I’ll consider the migraine a reasonable price if readers like what comes out of the edits.

This morning has been one of those great mornings when it’s a pleasure to be a writer.

I finished ‘Spindizzy’ my story for Dark Spires over the weekend, or rather, I finished the main part of the narrative. I needed to write some short inserts that are pastiches of Golden Age SF. I started out fairly restrained, but as the morning progressed the battles got ever bigger, the villains more villainous and the women more beautiful. All in the space of a thousand words!

I’d almost forgotten how much fun SF can be.

Meanwhile the other stories have started to come in, and I’m enjoying reading them.

Tomorrow worn’t be quite so enjoyable, as it’s my stepfather’s funeral, so no blog tomorrow, and then it’s back to work on Ultramassive on Wednesday.

Although I’ve dully completed my 1400 words this morning, focusing on the wip has been quite tricky, as a lot of stories seem to be breaking at the same time. I’m not the only one who’s been busy…

First of all, the inaugural Angry Robot podcast is up at their website. It sounds as if Marco and Leeeeeëe are having way too much fun in their padded cell, and Mrs H and I chortled at the note of bemusement that host Mur Lafferty tried -and failed- to keep from her voice as she tried to bring some sanity to the proceedings.  Joking apart, there are some great insights on the state of publishing and some of its possible futures.

Secondly, huge congratulations to fellow author Gareth L Powell, who has been equally busy in a less obtrusive way; yesterday he announced the sale of his novel The Recollection to Solaris Books, who had this to say. The beers are on you on Monday week, Gareth…

And lastly, Cheryl Morgan has also been busy. She’s announced a new venture, Wizard’s Tower Press. The new company will publish a new non-fiction magazine, Salon Futura, as well as a number of out-of-print works, and a small number of new books. The first of those new books will be Dark Spires, edited by Yours Truly. More details are here and will follow as we get a ToC. 

As well as blogging, interviewing and pimping cons like Bristolcon and London 2014, Cheryl does a huge amount of work behind the scenes, and Wizard’s Tower Press deserves to succeed. Good luck, Cheryl.

Since those nice people at Alt.fiction gave us all a copy of The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy, the least I could do was read it. And having enjoyed it a lot, I ought to review it.  So I have.

I’ve sold a short story, ‘Dark’ to the original anthology Fearology: Terrifying Tales of Phobias.

The ToC is:

Stephanie Kincaid  –  Bursting With Nutty Goodness
Colin Harvey  –  Dark
C. C. Blake  –  I Own My Fears
Val Muller  –  Horrible Harry
Mark Souza  –  Relative Undertow
F. J. R. Titchenell  –  Gravity
Robert Guffey  –  Birth Of A Nation
Camille Alexa  –  Things From Things
Jonathan Moon  –  The Fear vs The Need
Merrill Catharine Hodnefield  –  Isobel And The Machine
Ken Goldman  –  Donny Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Joe Nazare  –  Bash
Quinn Hernandez  –  The Hell Behind Her Eyes
J. T. Seat  –  The Cock Collection
Gustavo Bondoni  –  Back In The Fold
Kody Boye  –  DJ Skippy Says Life Goes On

The only writers whose names I’m familiar with are Gustavo Bondoni and Camille Alexa, so I’ll be very interested to read all the other stories in the anthology.

On a very selfish note, it ends a dry spell that runs back to the start of the year. 

More details to follow at a later date.

The clamour of the alarm at 05.30 announced that the Easter holidays are officially over.

Not that it was –the middle week aside– ever a holiday in the proper sense; all writers know that there’s always something that needs to be done, and there were still assessments to be worked on.

So I wrote the first 1100 words of my Creative Writing assessment, which one day may become a Middle-Years novel tentatively titled Brian;  submitted a 1500 word proposal for an anthology to the Arts Council; and wrote a 2500 word article on spec on SF. Plus there are always books and magazines to be reviewed and blog posts to be written.

But I also had a lovely week off with Kate, and last weekend we went down to Poole and Wimborne (in Dorset) for a charity pub quiz (we raised £537 for a bursary in memory of our late nephew), and the next day it was our great-niece’s 1st birthday, which called for a big family party.

But now the alarm’s gone off and it’s back to work…officially.

Is Jestse de Vries’ debut as an editor,  Shine.  One of the drawbacks of reviewing for Suite is that I have to write in third person, which I find mutes what I’m able to write, although I think I’ve made my enthusiasm clear — it’s a bloody marvellous book.

The question is, Jetse, can you do it again if there is a Shine 2?

The clock is headed toward midday as I write this, and I’ve only been in for about half an hour! I was up at 5.30 this morning, which is no earlier than any other day, but it already seems to have gone on forever. It’s all about the travelling. And in about three hours I’ll be heading for my Scriptwriting Seminar at Uni, so I’d better turn my thoughts toward that.

But before I do, I’ve posted more about P-Con over at Suite.

Hurrah! More about it here.