Edmund Lester

Well, another week is already more than halfways done (work wise anyway). Time goes far too quick for my liking (I guess for anyone's). More worryingly this is the last week in January. Come Sunday night and we will be at the end of the first month of 2016. Now I know time is a constant (unless you start moving really fast or get too close to a black hole but that's a different matter) but still this seems fast. It's a perception thing. The older I get (and hence the less time I have left) the more time seems to speed up. I'm not after sympathy by the way. I know I'm not alone in this feeling and to be honest I don't fret about it. What's the point, I can't do much about it. Well let's move on to something other than a morbid fascination with time. Writing seems the best place to go. I have had a bit of a stop/start writing month. Since starting of the month by finishing the first draft of my third Ben Williamson weird novella with a reasonably ...

Okay, it's been a while since my last post. I could claim one excuse or another for not posting to this blog more often. And in reality the reasons I would give are not just excuses but true. I mentioned in an earlier post my mother dying over Christmas. This has left a lot of processing - sorting out her house, funerals, cancelling paper deliveries, chaning utilities etc. And then there's the emptying of her house... On top of all this there is the flu that has been plaguing my life since Christmas Day, one week of feeling really ill then lurking in the background with occasional ickiness repeats. And then there's the fact I've been trying to concentrate on writing a novel, which isn't going too badly - up to 14,500 words and an aim to get over 80,000 by the end of March - yeah I know it's tight but I need to set deadlines so I will get on with it. But some things have been happening I wanted to post. Firstly there's some news on my reviews being released/p...

In amongst a few weeks of assorted craziness (I might blog about it later) I have had a couple of nice writing related moments. I received a copy of DemonMinds Halloween 2010 anthology magazine. It's a whopper - I think the format size is US Letter although being a Brit I might be wrong about that. And much more importantly to my writing ego, it contains a story of mine - Acting's a Hell of a Game. As well as lots of other short stories and poems from authors like Jeffrey Scott Sims, Daniel Robichaud and loads more. And I also received a copy of Murky Depths issue 14 which contains three of my short reviews - for Lavie Tidhar's Cloud Permutations, W. D. Gagliani's Wolf's Bluff and the film Defendor. And I have started writing again - sent in another review to Murky Depths this afternoon and will hopefully get some more done later...

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...

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.

My office is almost sauna like. I can't believe it after last week when I was freezing in here (despite it being May) and wearing a jumper to keep warm. Heck at the end of April I actually had to grab a small blanket to put over my knees to stop my legs getting a chill. Enough griping about the usual fickle nature of English weather. The main point is I've been in this room. And I've not just been procrastinating. I've been writing. This evening I finished a 2200 word films article for Shroud Magazine. I figured I might have a chance as their last two issues have featured articles of mine on the Saw movies and comedy zombies. Fingers crossed I can make it three in a row. I was thinking of maybe starting a book review but it's just hit midnight so I might just let it wait until tomorrow. Unfortunately have a fair bit to do for the day job tomorrow (yeah, even though it's Sunday) so I might not get all that much done. I will get a review done but I'm not sure ...

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...

I received word today that my review of Jeff Strand's book Dweller has been accepted by Dark Scibe Magazine. I'm definitely going to have to get some more writing done this weekend.

I just got word that issue 9 of Shroud Magazine will feature an article of mine called "I Laughed 'Til the Zombies Ate My Brains". It's a summary of comedy zombies movies other than Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, with reviews etc. Issue 9 should be out sometime soon. You want to check Shroud out go to their website. I'm pleased to say most of their issues have featured something of mine. I missed issue 6 but I think I'm in all the others. I'll have to go get writing an article for submission to issue 10. Wish me luck Anyway their site is at http://www.shroudmagazine.com/ Go pay a visit, maybe buy an issue or two - or check out their books. I've read a couple of their release - been of a good standard.

Just received word that sf webzine New Myths will be featuring another two of my pieces - 1 book review of Beth Bernobich's Ars Memoriae and an article entitled "Charles Babbage and the Difference Engine" No idea which issue they will appear in but they should be live later this year. I think the article will even be available as an audio file - wow, eh? That'll be my second audio file - one of my sf stories got the similar treatment last year. Grin currently stretching from ear to ear

Two of my reviews went live at Dark Scribe Magazine (a horror ezine) recently. You can find their site (specifically their reviews section) at http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/reviews/ I have another review submitted to them - so fingers crossed

Nossa Morte will be featuring two of my reviews in their next issue - for John Everson's the 13th and the film Cabin Fever 2. Unfortunately this email came along with some really bad news - Nossa Morte is to close. Darn, I've enjoyed being featured in every single issue of this ezine and it's galling to know there won't be another issue. It's a great zine - you should go along and read it - http://nossamorte.com/

A little while ago I sent off a short story called "Have a Nice Day!" to horror website Night Chills. And yes they turned it down. Such is life. Still at least the acceptances from New Myths made me feel better.

Website New Myths has bought a couple of pieces from me (huzzah!). First couple of sales I've had for a while. Ok, maybe a bit of this is because I have not written all that much of late. Still hope it will make me get back on with it. I need to get a number of book reviews sorted in the next week or so. But enough of that - the sales. First was a review of Patrick Moore's Legends of the Stars - a book describing the stories behind the constellations named by the ancient Greeks. Second was a hopefully humorous piece called "Ten Science Fiction Novels to Give your Father-in-Law" which details ten books that I felt could prove to my non-sf inclined father in law. It's a bit of a true article, this actually happened. My father-in-law is not a sf fan. He's never going to be one. But I did manage to persuade him to give he genre a try a while back and started selecting books for him. As for whether he liked them, well you'll have to read the article. I will pos...

The last week has seen three rejections - boo, hiss! New magazine Bastards and Whores has rejected my double-drabble (two connected 100 word stories) "Soup / Eat Up!". I don;t think I'm going to try that anywhere else. Crossed Genres has declined my article on Charles Babbage and the Difference Engine. And to round out the set, my run at House of Horror has come to an end. After accepting the first two stories I sent in to them they've rejected my third Jeff the Demon story "Let's Have Fun with Them". I had hoped they'd take this (obviously, you might say but for a reason). They published the previous Jeff the Demon tale "I Want to Stay" in the January issue of the zine and so they know the character. Selling it somewhere else might be tricky. Ah well at least I have a couple of new mags who want reviews. Not that it's a guarantee of acceptances but they will at least take them. Now all I have to do is write them.

I've just seen the latest issue of Nossa Morte has been posted. It includes two of my reviews  - Sarah Pinborough's Feeding Ground  - The Hills Run Red But what I really want to say is that they've redesigned their site and I think it looks fantastic. Go check it out http://nossamorte.com/magazine/

Joy V. Smith, a writing  friend of mine (through the internet only, we've never met) just emailed to let me know her interview with Hal Colebatch in Sam's Dot Publishing's Expressions magazine finished fourth in the Preditors and Editors poll for 2009. Here's a link to the e-zine where it was published http://samsdotpublishing.com/expressions.htm

I started keeping this blog a while back when I invented this pseudonym and decided to have a go at writing. It had a plain and simple purpose - promote the writing. Well I guess I do do that - at least to some degree. I do tend to post notices of any sales, rejections, publications etc. But I have to admit I've not proven all that good at writing. I've sold a number of reviews, a handful of articles and eight short stories.  Now some people might say I've been reasonable successful, but I'm not on about sales. The reason I've not been successful in my own eyes is I'm not very good at the actual writing. I go through days of thinking about writing but not actually doing any. Well apart from this blog. Now it's not necessarily a bad thing. You could say it's because I don't actually have a hunger for it. My day job is one I enjoy and one that pays reasonable well. So writing is something I don't actually need. I dare say I'll carry on doing it...