Edmund Lester

Okay, if you read this blog (hey, someone might) you may hvae noticed a distinct lack of any activity whatsoever in recent times. Sorry! I'm afraid I've been a little unwell of late and really haven't been in the mood to type in blog entries - or to do much of anything to be totally honest. I finally gave in to the fact I was feeling like crap and went to see someone about it. Result is I was diagnosed with severe depressive disorder - clinical depression in old money. It's fun let me tell you. (Yes, I'm lying) So I was put on pills to alleviate the symptoms. First citalopram and then fluoxetine. Neither of which seemed to do me much positive good and both of which came with a whole host of side effects that made me feel crappier. I'm now off meds and trying to deal with things (unless doc advises I go on other meds - we'll see). I'm hoping to find enough strength to start getting my life back - and hopefully developing some new coping strategies for the...

After putting up with me and my writing attempts over the last four years my wife wrote a short story (to be fair she has planned out a novel and written the first few chapters but this is her first short). Anyway, it surprised me by being a little surreal. It was good though, so I submitted it to Eschatology Journal for her - the market that accepted my short story Chicken last week. And today they accepted it. So on the 12th of May this year her story, entitled "The Dance" willl be published on their site. Wow, eh. I feel really chuffed, I have to say Anyway if you want to go check their site out, obviously without the story live yet but still well worth a visit, here's the link - http://eschatologyjournal.org/ Oh, and her pen name is Carey Lester. I'm freaked and very chuffed. I may have said that before

My story Chicken will be posted to Eschatology on April 6th

Just received the email that my short story Chicken (1000 words) will be appearing in online zine Eschatology Journal this spring. More details to follow In the meantime, here's the web address - http://eschatologyjournal.org/

Thought before I log this machine off for the evening it might be an idea to post the ful contents list for the DemonMinds antho I mentioned in the last post. So here it is Daniel Robichaud - Jacket Ne Saie Quoe (Poem) Suzanne Sykora - Dandelion Seed (Poem) Jenna M. Pitman - A Girl and a Dog Walk Into A Bar (Story) Gustavo Bondoni - Happy Hour at Lilu's (Story) Kenneth Whitfield - Addictions (Story) April Grey - At the End of Day (Story) Chris Morey - Schism (Poem) Joyce Frohn - Little Coffins (Poem) Bernard J. Schaffer - The Kyoshi Scrolls (Story) MZ Hoosen - The Sleeper (Story) Bruce Memblatt - Bottle in Bordeaux (Story) C. S. Johnson - Seven Circles (Story) Gary McCluskey - Patches (Art) Zac Mauer - Good Grief (Art) David Pickering - Elegance (Story) KC Wilder - an unsuccessful writer relaxing at home (Poem) Tom Thornton - Dow Jones (Poem) I. E. Lester - Acting's A Hell of A Job (Story) John Grey - It's Not Like the Old Days (Poem) Michael Shell - I Have Seen A Gargoyle...

I wanted to end the long weekend having done something positive writing wise and fortunately something presented itself in the form of page proofs from Demon Minds for my short story "Acting's a Hell of a Job" in their upcoming Halloween edition. That and I found new potential homes for the two short stories rejected this weekend.

The last weekend in August in the UK means a three day weekend with a national holiday on the Monday. So it seems all the ingredients for a good time. Didn't quite happen that way though. Not writing wise in any case. Firstly the weekend statrs with a rejection from Drabblecast and today it has ended with another rejection, this time from Neo-opsisfor a story I still feel is one of the best I've written. Although now that it has received six rejections maybe I should re-assess that belief. Mind you it has taught me not to write stories in second person narrative. Which is a great shame as I rather like second person tales. They make me feel as though I'm in the middle of the action. And running all through the three days was the fact I had a lot of extracurriculur from the day job. I spent nearly all this weekend, including until 4am yesterday (on a Sunday) updating our software system. And sitting here now at 9pm Monday I have more yet to do. I don't dislike my day job...

Demon Minds have posted the table of contents for their 2010 edition - out around Halloween. You can find it at the link below http://www.demonminds.com/accepted.html But it's posted in full below Daniel Robichaud - Poem - Jacket Ne Saie Quoe Suzanne Sykora - Poem - Dandelion Seed Jenna Pitman - Story - A Girl and a Dog Walk Into A Bar Gustavo Bondoni - Story - Happy Hour at Lilu's Kenneth Whitfield - Story - Addictions April Grey - Story - At the End of Day Chris Morey - Poem - Schism Joyce Frohn - Poem - Little Coffins Bernard J. Schaffer - Story - The Kyoshi Scrolls MZ Hoosen - Story - The Sleeper Bruce Memblatt - Story - Bottle in Bordeaux C. S. Johnson - Story - Seven Circles Gary McCluskey - Art - Patches Zac Mauer - Art - Good Grief David Pickering - Story - Elegance KC Wilder - Poem - an unsuccessful writer relaxing at home Tom Thornton - Poem - Dow Jones I. E. Lester - Story - Acting's A Hell of A Job John Grey - Poem - It's Not Like the Old Days Michael Shell...

Everyday Weirdness just rejected my short story Chicken. Makes my batting average with them .500 (and yes I know being English I shouldn't probably use American sporting idioms but what the hell). Now to try to find it a new potential home

Encounters Magazine just returned my short story "What Do I Do Now". Never mind, eh?

Demon Minds have just sent an acceptance for my short story "Acting's a Hell of a Job". It will be appearing in their Halloween issue. If you want to check out their site you can find it at - http://www.demonminds.com/

My short story Chicken has been rejected by DF Underground. Ah well, such is life. Time to try, try, try again (or whatever those old clichéd phrases would have us do). In any case I like the story so I've resubmitted it someplace else. Hopefully it will find kinder eyes this time.

The title of the blog entry comes from a favourite author of mine (Mike Resnick). He always described a second (or third etc) sale of the same piece as a "No Heavy Sale" meaning that he'd not had to do any actual work for the sale. Well I've just had one. Last year a short story of mine (Waiting Room) appeared on UK horror site House of Horror. Well now it's going to appear in print in an American anthology called Dreams and Screams being published by Liquid Imagination. I could get used to this - but I suppose I'll have to write more stories and get them sold the first time before these events are likely to be common.

New Myths ( http://www.newmyths.com ) has bought another two of my book reviews - for Harry Turtledove's Hitler's War and Tim Waggoner's Dead Streets. I think this makes it to eight that I've sold to them - in addition to the three articles. But on the short story side I've had two rejections - from Daily Science Fiction and Black Ink Horror. Ah well, I'll keep trying.

Daily ezine Everyday Weirdness has bought my sf short story New Start. It's a bit dark - somehow everything I seem to write has a dark edge to it - unless it's silly. Anyway, they will be posting it to their site tomorrow. So go check it out http://everydayweirdness.com/

Today's rejection came from online sf zine New Myths. Because they have previous accepted a number of my reviews and articles I thought I would try them with a short story call The Screen. Didn't maintain my non-ficiton hit rate though. Bounced back today, rejected.

About a week ago I sent a story of mine (What Do I Do Now?) to a new sf market called Daily Science Fiction. Well today I got it back - rejected! Still it's quite a high paying market so I pretty much expected that. Time to find it somewhere new to go...

Sunday comes and I decide to dedicate a reasonable amount of it to doing some actual writing. It couldn't be all of the day as there was a Grand Prix on and I've regained my interest for Formula 1 in the last year - so three hours of the day was written off. More if you count the fact I have to be sociable with the family for some of the day. Oh, and the fact that part one the adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Gong Postal was on Sky One this evening. So another two hours was booked up. But I did do some. A review of Tim Waggoner's Dead Streets and finishing a sf short story called The Screen. The story's submitted already - to New Myths, a market I've had considerable success submitting articles and reviews to but not yet sent in a story. Given my lack of success with fiction I'm rather suspecting this might lower my hit rate with this zine but it's worth a try. Haven't managed to find a home for the review yet. Spent an hour or so researching various...

I have to admit one thing. Since I took up writing for payment a little while ago I've wondered at what stage I might get to before I see a review. I thought that maybe I would have to wait until I (if ever) wrote, and had published, a novel. Or maybe if I was lucky if I managed to place a story in a pretty major anthology - something from DAW or the like. What I didn't expect was for a story of mine featuring in Outer Reaches to get a review. Nothing against the mag. I think it's a well put together publication and I'm more than happy to see my name in it, I just didn't expect to see it reviewed. Well it has been. Which then leads me to my second issue with the concept of reviewing. I've been writing reviews for more than a decade now. And whereas I can say that the majority of my reviews have been positive - or at least mostly positive - I have read some books I thought were awful. And I've said so in a review. I'm not vindictive. I don't hold grud...

Life's been trying everything to get in the way of me actually writing this year. And before you worry I'm not going to go into the reasons here - although I will say my own instinctive procrastination is part of the cause. Well today I determined to get on with it and do something. Well ok most of the day wasn't actually spent writing, but trying to find places to send any writing I did do. And the end result - four reviews written and submitted (all to Murky Depths - I do like seeing my name in that mag so I wanted to give it a good go for their next issue) and one article and another review part done. In addition to that I got my records up to date and found there were three completed stories not currently under submission anywhere (having been rejected elsewhere). So I got down to it and found them all (potential) homes. I'm not holding out all that much hope from them - my batting average for stories is rather low - but they don;t stand any chance if they're on...