Review: The Price by Alexandra Sokoloff

Shock horror, I've not only read something, I've reviewed it!

And it was good.

The review is over at HorrorScope for your viewing pleasure.

Lots in...Nothing out

Got lots of real mail today, as opposed to email.

My assignments (including Wamphyri) from module 1 have returned - both received an A which allows me to wrap up this module with a distinction (gaining more A's than B's and nothing lower than a B-). I have one outstanding assignment from module 2 (the one I had to resub), if that comes back with a minimum of a B- then I get a distinction for that module as well. Too cool for school.

I also received my next batch of reading for Black magazine and HorrorScope, the covers on two of the books look interesting but the third I received in manuscript form. I wasn't expecting that.

On the email front, I gained a whisper Too Late the Rain is still in the running at the publication I sent it to which is why I never got around to storyboarding Newland yesterday - I was too excited to sit still enough. No, I won't be slitting my wrists if it gets rejected but at least I know I'm getting closer with that one.

My contributors copy of Black also arrived today and looks very swish. This is an excellent magazine. I'm allowed to say that without any bias because I only supply a couple of reviews at the very centre of the mag. Everything else has nothing to do with me which is why I feel guilty getting a contributors copy for nothing, but I'm extremely grateful I do.

If you write dark fiction, or have anything to do with what beige coloured society would call a sub-culture, you owe it to yourself to subscribe to Black, and (if you write) join AHWA.

I've received a little bit of mixed feedback from my writing friends on Idolatry, mainly positive, but there are at least three sentences I need to work on. In one instance, both commented on my stupidity, and the others just need a little tweaking. It seems I may have solved the issues brought to light from the marketplace feedback.

But I'm not working on that tonight. Tonight, I'm storyboarding!

Speak soon.

Good luck with your submissions.

BT

Assignment Results

I've received gradings on my first two assignments for semester 2. An A and a B+, an excellent start with some extremely encouraging comments.

Before the semester began, I contacted administration to find out the names of the lecturers I was submitting to this time round so I didn't make the same mistakes as last time. Somehow I got it wrong again. Very annoying. I addressed the assignments to the lecturer I was told to and they still come back with the name crossed out and a new name penned in, in red ink. Very hard to look like a professional when you're given incorrect information :(

My review books also arrived today. I've already done read one as it came on a CD rather than in print. It was a very different way to read some excellent stories. You'll have to buy the next issue of Black magazine to see my thoughts on it any time soon though.

I have one other book to read and review before next week. I also have four other books to review for HorrorScope. Plenty of reading ahead.

My wife checked over Too Late the Rain and found two typos. I was mortified. I've sent this out and now I know it has two mistakes in it. Not very professional. One should have been picked up by the spell checker but wasn't because the first few words it recognises are misspelled on purpose, part of dialogue. I'm used to this so I just skipped through it, only half paying attention. The second wasn't picked up because it wasn't spelled incorrectly, it was the wrong word. Because I've read this story so many times, my brain automatically inserted what should have been there.

These are two common mistakes, very amateur mistakes, that I won't be making again. Everything now needs to go through a beta reader or crit group. Everything needs to sit for a day or two before being sent anywhere.

Looking at things with a fresh POV, or having others look at your work is invaluable. Skip this step at your peril.

Good luck with your your writing.

BT

Review: On Writing Horror - revised edition

I have posted a review on HorrorScope of this highly recommended publication. Do yourself a favour - if you write in the dark fiction/horror genre, have ever mentioned a ghost or other supernatural creatures in your tales, then this is a must buy.

Read my review here.

I've decided to only post links to reviews on the blog from now on. If I publish it first on HorrorScope then the link will go there. If I publish a review on my website then it will go there. All HorrorScope reviews I do, are published a day or two later on my website as well. So if you'd like to read any or all of my reviews, go here.

For a complete list of all my published work, go here.

Time to Read

Yesterday, I played home-handyman. I managed to get a whole host of jobs done after I'd posted my review to HorrorScope. This morning I've managed to do my outstanding crit for AbD. I'm up to date!!!!!!!!

I can now work on my current batch of shorts, my next due assignment or do some reading.

And the winner is.....I intend to read what's required of my next assignment to formulate a plan of attack and then read my "on writing horror" book that I've been dying to read for the last 6 weeks. I guess the title of the blog probably gave that away.

On the puppy front....BJ didn't whine last night as he slept in our room. He snores -- a lot -- and loud, so in the end I still didn't get a lot of sleep.

In local news.......Today it's raining and cold in Adelaide. I hate both. We need the water but my extremities turn a nasty shade of purple in the cold and my fingers hurt when I type. Time to pull out all the winter clothing I guess.

A nice day, sitting by the fire and reading a good book. Sounds nice, doesn't it? But I'd rather be on the beach reading it ;)

Hope the weather is just what you want in your neck of the woods, and it's allowing you to write wonderful masterpieces. Good luck with those submissions.

BT

Assignment 1 Done - Again

I have resubmitted assignment 1. Fingers crossed I have done it correctly this time. It was a huge disappointment to me when the note came back that I hadn't done things right. I try to ensure everything I do is to the best of my ability and was very shocked when this was judged to be rubbish or done in correctly.

I thought about it and decided it was a wake up call.

So now if it comes back as being sub standard - then I'll be worried.

Been away on conference for work over the last two days so I've done no writing at all. I gained nothing from the conference either so I'm pretty disappointed. If it wasn't for being able to spend some quality time with my wife in the middle of the conference, the two days would have been a total waste of time. :(

Tomorrow I'm playing the last minor round game of cricketof the season. We're chasing 221. We chased down 250 last game so I'm quietly confident. Then we're into the finals. Finals are played over a single weekend - Saturday, Sunday - not looking forward to that so much. At my age, it takes time to recover from a days play. Must remember to take my time on the Sunday this time round. Last year I wasn't warmed up enough and got out because of it which lost us the game. Don't want to feel that way again in my last year.

My assignments for HorrorScope should arrive early next week so keep an eye out for regular reviews starting soon. I'll be reviewing Black Static, Gratia Placenti and possibly Albedo One.

I'll also be reviewing Book of Shadows and Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror 2007 - both from Brimstone Press.

Lastly, I've been accepted into a new critique group run by Authors by Design. This is important to me as it gives me access to other like minded individuals who are willing to critique my work. In return I will try to do my best to help them advance in pursuit of their goals within writing. Alas, this means that any crit group I thought about starting will now be put on hold.

Well that's about it. For now I think that's enough really.

May all your submissions sell and may all your nightmares be memorable.

Assignments, Crit Groups and Synopsis

Been a busy morning.

I have finished critiquing a query letter and a synopsis for a friend in the states for her YA novel. I have sealed up the latest assignment to go off for my diploma, posted a quick news item on HorrorScope and exchanged emails with the moderator for a new critique group I hope to join.

I'm about to start the next assignment to be sent out latter this week. Unfortunately I haven't received any response back from the assignments I've already sent in so I'm still flying blind. Hopefully I'm not doing things terribly wrong and have to resubmit everything. This is definitely a draw back of doing a course of study externally.

Last night my wife critiqued two of my stories, the fifth installment of "Too Late the Rain" and "Drinkers", a new short story I've just written. Her feedback was concise, honest and surprisingly good. I have read everywhere that family and friends do not make good critiquers as they will only give you positive feedback, not wanting to hurt your feelings.

Not so in this case. Her suggestions and questions were very good and allowed me to see things from the readers POV that I hadn't considered. As a rule, family and friends aren't the best to judge your work but give them a chance, they may surprise you.

Oh - my membership has come through for the Australian Horror Writers Association. Payment was made this morning so I should be a fully fledged member before the week is out.

Lastly - thank you to Amy. When I changed the layout to better reflect my writing on both this blog and my web site, I didn't check the documents in the Free Writing Tips section. I checked all the other pages, which looked good, but the type within the documents was in black font which doesn't show up very well on a black background. This has all been fixed.

Time to get back to work on my assignment. Good luck with your submissions and keep on writing.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day everyone. I hope you gain all the love and affection from your significant other that you crave.

The first assignment of the second module is going out the door today. I did two assignments this week because I mistakenly did the second assignment from the first module at the beginning of the week, then realised I was supposed to alternate between modules.

Confusing....
Week one - Assignment one from module one
Week two - Assignment one from module two
Week three - Assignment two from module one
etc, etc.

So assignment one from module two is going out today. Assignment two from module one is ready for final approval but doesn't need to go out until next week - I'm in front - cool!!

Still waiting on work assignments for HorrorScope but the Managing Editor, Shane, has allayed some of my fears. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in.

You can see some of Shane's work in the current issue of Shadowed Realms called "Spin the Witch Bottle" - plenty of other excellent work available fore reading there too. I'm adding Shadowed Realms to my ten best web site list. It's a quality online magazine that freely publishes the story content for all to read and appreciate, and pays it contributors a professional rate of 8 cents per word. Well done to all at Shadowed Realms!

I have additional news but I'll add it in a separate post so the labels wok better.

Time waits for no man....

Just when you think you're on top of things, you run out of time - again! I sent off the first assignment yesterday and fully intended to read through the next section of the course and see what the next assignment was.

I got about half way through.

My lovely wife Jodi mentioned we should rearrange the study this coming weekend to make it more comfortable for me to work in. Then she made the brilliant suggestion that I retrieve an old wing back chair I had stored in the garage so I had somewhere nice to read.

That got me started - I had to get the chair into my study and I had to rearrange the whole study to make it work. So after removing doors, altering the desk, running additional cables, unloading the book case, moving boxes, etc, etc - I finally got it sorted.

I then looked at the clock - the evening had fled and I was pretty tired. The family has to get up at six each morning now to get things done so my days of staying up till 1am are behind me.

I received my instructions from HorrorScope last night and some welcome emails from the other friendly staff members. Nervous and anxious would be good words to describe me at the moment. I want to jump in and impress but don't want to over step the mark or stuff things up at the same time. Time to step back, take a breath and proceed a little slower. None of the other new team have posted anything yet either, those that are currently posting have been doing so for ages and do so more regularly than the others anyway. Chill pill time :)

I need to send out query letters tonight. I have a dozen or so shorts in the market that need to be followed up on this month.

On top of that I also need to follow up my stories that need to be resubmitted or finished editing or etc, etc. - see, no time.

I need a schedule. Many writers sites shout the virtues of making a writing time and guarding it jealously. It's not a silly suggestion. I once wrote for six hours every night and produced large amounts of work, including the first draft of my fantasy novel "Tigers Eye".

As the weather warmed and the days grew longer, my writing time shrank, whittled away to nothing. With a schedule, I'll have something to guard and plan around. My problem now seems to be that I'm finding things I need to do to ensure I have an opportunity to write. I work through all these things and never seem to actually get to writing! :(

So now that I've recognised the problem I will set a schedule, a negotiated schedule (need the bosses stamp of approval) and then stick to it. That schedule will have time allocated for writing and nothing else.

So priority one for today is to get that timetable set in stone and start getting things done!

What excuses are you using to put off writing or submitting??????

Time to write! Good luck.

Assignment 1 Done

Well the free writing assignment has been completed and is ready for posting. It'll be in the mail first thing tomorrow morning.

"Too Late the Rain" has been prep'd for sending out to another market. I've done some serious research into the types of markets out there in the dark fiction arena so I'm hopeful of finding the right place.

I'm going to revamp all the short stories I have and submit them all again. I didn't make my goal of gaining a second fiction publication before the end of 2007 but then if I never have another four months like that again - it will be too soon.

Haven't yet heard what my new duties are for HorrorScope but I'm anxious to get started.

That's it for now....

Good luck with your submissions.

Excellent News

I have just been informed that I have been accepted as the sixth and final new member on the HorrorScope Associate Editors team. It means I get the opportunity to review books, magazines and DVD's in the horror genre - woohoo!!!!!

Make sure you check out the best horror blog on the web :)

HorrorScope

What a great way to start the day!

Important Horror News

I have just heard that Australian Horror Writers Association is launching their own magazine.

For all the details see here:

http://ozhorrorscope.blogspot.com/2008/02/news-ahwa-to-launch-midnight-echo.html

or check out the AHWA web site:

http://www.australianhorror.com/

Excellent news!!

Get cracking on those stories!