Something happened...

A story, a story!

So this happened

Yes. Yes. YES! My family members and my wife (yes!) know that my excited face is pretty much the same as my 'its cold' face. So I was happy to discover that the guys at the The Bolthole had decided to publish another anthology after their 1st, a horror anthology was a success. 
Their newest anthology revolved around time travel and this was the editorial quote that I've just sent post-release.

'I'd like to think that writing for the Marching Time anthology changed my rather jaded opinion of time travel entirely.

I was very much of the fixed mindset that sees time travel as either A) A lazy plot device B) An easy-out for script writers C) An over saturated media format. When I see 'time travel' as a movie sub-genre it makes me wince, wishing for someone to look slightly outside of the opportunity simply to get a re-use from that damned period drama set.
Give me linearity and formula any day. Characters rather than character.

And yet, when viewing our editor He2etic's carefully worded recruitment poster that emphatically stated; "we want war stories" I felt the pocket of bile that I'd reserved for said topic dissolve into my intestine with nary a pop nor poke. Perhaps this was how to dissolve my disaffection. Perhaps now that time travel was a far less significant part of the story would I enjoy writing around it, rather than against it.
So I sucked up my own reservations and pitched a story. 

Thanks to the Editors everything went well, and now, my name is a fricking hyperlink!'

More on this tomorrow.

Forum forays and feedback

Hello headspace...

As the wedding looms I've been rather side-tracked with anything other than writing, my own life taking more precedence than my characters, thankfully. However in between some roundabout rambling I’ve managed to join the Black Library Bolthole forums and have attempted to join their *gulp* fan fiction collective and contribute in some way. Initially I realise that this was because I felt like joining a support forum for ‘People who submit to Black Library and then can’t quit.

Before all of this I should admit that I am a vehement loving stickler for canon, to the degree that I tutt like a schoolboys unforgiving mother when something breaches it. The Bolthole can be a real breaker of the canon in some regards, other times it can be very much the equal stickler as I am. Personally, canon adherence can force me to refuse to continue a story if it is so dangerously divergent from the norm. Lord of the Night by Simon Spurrier I had to halt when the Night Lord became slightly too emotional, early Ragnar books fell equally into this trap. The Inquisition War books I dodged too after the protagonist met Mr Emperor in his own chambers. It put me off.

No people...just no.

Closing my own submissions window

Bloods Burden was the book manuscript that had always intended to write.

Short stories that finally formed into a cohesive whole. Admittedly, I’ve already submitted these to BL as separate short stories in the blind hope that quantity over quality would grant me a greater chance of consideration.

A bolter on burst-fire instead of a lascannon so to speak.

The three shorts were independent from one another, always with a link in mind. Rather than worrying about an overreaching story that needed to be padded with descriptive verse or uncharacteristic emotion it was instead liberally quick and racy to just get them OUT. I could describe the individual trajectory of each bullet or blade descent but the sheer block of text that such writing creates is laborious and looks far too heavy for a readers eyes. At best, combat is long when it itself is looooong. A Space Marine doesn’t fight or train or live slow so for the moment I kept things short and hopefully sweet.

One of those three submitted short stories simply didn’t fit, it didn’t even fit into the canon of Forty-Fighty-k itself so it was culled, yoinked gracefully from its sandwiched position to sit back in my ‘Harvest for ideas’ section of my Google drive. The other two meshed nicely, with the final manuscript clocking in at around 15k words in total and I was pleased with their bedding, the proposed arc of the book also looking far more epic than I’d initially thought.

Synopses though, less said the better. The summary to ‘Bloods Burden’ is after the break.

IP for me?

Three shiny and new sample submissions sent in to Black Library since last I posted.

Warhammer submissions, fantasy. Not something I’ve written for about twelve years really, any dabbling has been 40k based, all of my mindset was geared towards one IP and not the other.

Shamelessly I’ll admit it was because I; as others had, labelled the Warhammer fantasy universe as having relatively restrictive borders compared to that of 40k. Whilst there are some very good arguments for both sides having the greater number of possibilities my opinion will always simply be biased towards Space Marines over Dwarves, which personally I think drills down to that ‘first contact’ moment.