Edmund Lester

My story "Acting's a Hell of a Job" just got another rejection, this time from "Short-Story.Me!" It's not doing too well this one, I think that's it's fifth rejection. Still I've decided to try it again - off to Writing Shift.

Okay, okay - you're going to tell me I'm behind the times again. And once again you'd be right if you did so. I do occasionally let films get passed me, so that I end up watching them months or, as in this case, years after they came out. Hey get over it, I did. Anyway - the film. Would you believe I actually read the novelisation of this film when the film had yet to be released. And before you wonder why I would read a novelisation, well it was a review book I'd been sent and I got paid for the review. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. I do remember it wasn't a bad read. Quick and fun but throwaway. Anyway I digress the movie. As I expected pretty much. High on action, really good if a little far fetched effects and a paper thin plot. Well, what else do you want from a film like this? And to the absolute highlight of the movie. Kate Beckinsale in a vinyl catsuit. Oh yes, remember I am male. I do notice these things. And even if she is a little short...

Over the last few days I've been following this Iraq Enquiry. It's worrying in one sense. Over the last few decades you can scarcely get through a week (if you watch the news) without hearing an article mentioning the UK/US "Special Relationship". Well it seems it might be unravelling. I guess it wouldn't be that surprising in a way. Relations between our two countries have not always been so amicable. But for the UK, very much the junior party in this relationship, it could be difficult if things soured now. That is unless we get real and realise that we are not alone on this side of the Atlantic. Twenty two miles across a thin strip of sea lies France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Malta (ok more sea involved here), Cyprus (more sea again), Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and going the other way Ireland. It could soo...

The story I mentioned earlier (it's called "Chicken " BTW). Having received the rejection from Ruthless Peoples Magazine I decided to send it in to Short-Story.Me! They only kept it for four hours, smashing the previous record, earlier in the day of seven. I am kind of hoping though that it's not a bad story. I'm off to try to find it another potential home.

A little while back I posted news of the first half of an article I'd written on the Marquis de Sade - origin of the word sadism. It appeared on the adult website Lucrezia. Since then they've published the second part of the piece - on Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, the man behind the word Masochism. Okay they posted it nearly two weeks ago I just forgot to update this site. Anyway, apologies for being late, here's the link in case you want to read it. As before I want to remind you that the site has a lot of sexual content if you choose to go exploring. If you do I hope you enjoy it, they've certainly got a fair amount of content. To do that you'll just need to remove all after the dot com in the address. The link I'm posting is stright to my article as a pdf. So no links back. http://www.lucreziamagazine.com/index.php/editorial/articles/542-the-original-sado-masochists-leopold-ritter-von-sacher-masoch.pdf

Ho hum. Friday night, wife abroad on a business trip until next weekend. Sounded like a good time to put on another horror movie. I picked Warwolves. In just about every way imaginable this is a 1980s straight-to-video B-Movie horror. Plot, direction, effects and even cast. Main names on the box are John Saxon, Tim Thomerson (from Trancers, one of my favourite 80s B-Movie SF flicks) and Adrienne Barbeau (Escape from New York). It has a whole bunch of younger types in it too - including many attractive young women who's role is pure titillation - even though they are the bad guys (girls?). But to be honest I don't recognise any of them. I liked 80s B-Movie, straight-to-video stuff. And so a large part of me rather likes this. The acting is hammy, the story fairly predictable, some of the scenes almost cringeable. But it also stars an actor I have always liked - Art LaFleur. He's not a name many will recognise but I can almost 100% guarantee you will have seen him in somethin...

Last night I sat down with a new story idea in my head. I wrote it out in one sitting - not that it was hard as it only came to 1300 words. Printed it, left it for half an hour. Re-read it. Edited it to 1100 words and submitted it to Ruthless Peoples Magazine. Got home from work this afternoon, logged on, checked the email. And they'd rejected it. Nicely though, despite the magazine's title. Still from when I had the idea to it being returned was eleven hours. Impressive. Would have been nicer if they'd wanted it obviously, but you've got to admire their speed. They only had it secen hours. Unfortunately they also rejected the other tale I sent them a little earlier. They were nice about that too though. And I've already sent them off to other potential markets. I'm not expecting the same time turnaround from them though.