Drinkers - aka Dark Rose

It's done. Dark Rose (as Drinkers is now called) is ready for market. A couple of subtle changes from the last revision and she is now ready to be unleashed onto the Australian market. Cool.

I've also written the first draft of a new short story. I know I said I wouldn't be writing anymore new ones for a while but this didn't start out specifically as a new short story. A couple of assignments ago, I had to write the first 600 words of a descriptive short story. A day or two ago, I received information for entering into a local short story competition. My next assignment requires me to use a 600-800 word, dialogue rich, fragment of a story.

For the last few days I've been pondering what to write for the short story. I'd already decided I would use an 800 word fragment of another story I wrote, sometime ago called "Confused Love". In this assignment I need to provide a draft and a good copy. I figured my old story would suit that bill as I'd only written two versions and it definitely needed further revision to be useful for the assignment.

Then I had an idea. I took the first 600 words of my assignment from a couple of weeks ago and expanded the story that my lecturer thought I may not be able to expand upon. True, I changed the focus and the direction a little - well, a lot actually. In the end, I came up with a dialogue rich story that also fits into the word limit of the local competition. So, in writing this story, I've achieved two things - 1) I have an entry for the competition, or will have once it's been polished and 2) I have a piece to work with for my assignment.

Sweet!

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In response to a comment I received from Karen, whose first line of the comment goes like this: "It would be interesting to read some of your stuff on-line."

Firstly, thank you for the interest Karen. Now, I currently have a number of examples of my work available. To view pieces I've had published electronically please visit my bibliography. You will find links to everything I've currently got floating around the net in there. None of it is dark fiction however. I also have a couple of examples of my early work listed here. One is my very first effort at writing a short story. The second is my first effort at entering a contest. The contest piece is dark fiction.

They are early efforts though and I've improved somewhat since then. I have put them there as reminders to myself of where I came from.

So why don't I post some of the later work I keep writing about? Because I want to get paid for it. If I post it onto my website or this blog, I'm giving away my first publication rights. Why would an editor want to pay me for a story everyone can read for free? I won't do it. Everything I write will one day turn up on my website - promise! But if I can sell it a few times first and make some money for the effort I've put into it - I should be entitled to do so.

So, if anybody wants to see examples of my stuff, have a hunt around my website. There's plenty there; from a drabble published by AntipodeanSF - to my 600-word start to a story included in my application for enrolment into my diploma. I'm yet to expand on that one. One day...

Thank you everybody for reading. It's nice to get the occasional comment, too. It's also nice to see little red dots popping up all over my counter map. People from all over the world now visit this blog to partake of my ramblings and occasionally to visit the website. Although the website doesn't get updated as often as this blog, it does contain a lot of stuff writers of any form of fiction will want to know about. I encourage all of you to visit at least every now and then.

Well, that's it for Mother's Day, 2008. I hope every mum out there received wonderful presents and had a great day - like I said before, you all deserve it!

Good luck with your submissions.

BT