My January 2017 update is only eleven days late compared to the thirteen days it took me to get to the January 2016 one so I’m going to call that a win. January was a busy month for me. First up, I got to trade in cold and wet Vancouver for warm and wet San Francisco for a few days (thanks day job). While I was there I got to experience delayed flights (booo), a California storm (wet and windy), San Francisco traffic (ugh), good food (two thumbs up) and Uber (got off to a shaky start but then two thumbs up). The trip ate into my writing time significantly (although I kept my writing streak up and reached 1312 days of writing) which isn’t helping me hit the aggressive schedule I have laid out for the beginning of this year, but I did get both Zombie Book 1 (working title) and Zombie Book Prequel (working title) finished and off to my editor. That was pretty much all the writing I did, apart from a final editing pass on Pod Fifteen, a science fiction short story which will be published in Tales from the Canyons of the Damned later this year. Total word count for the month was a … Read More
UnCommon Minds Q&A: J.D. Harpley
My new story, Sitala, has just been published in the UnCommon Minds anthology. To celebrate, I’m interviewing some of the authors about their stories. Today, I’m talking to J.D. Harpley about Inamorata. What attracted you to the UnCommon Minds project? The anothology hosts are fantastic, as is the UnCommon community, and the stories! It’s a lot to get excited about ^_^ What was the inspiration for the uncommon mind in your story? Partially, the novella I was writing at the time, and partially a really cool album that had just released (Celldweller – End of an Empire) What are you most proud of about the story? One of the underlying themes is about true beauty, what it means to be beautiful, and accepting what you are, as you are. I wish more people could believe that they’re perfect in their imperfections, and that it’s wonderful. If you could merge someone else’s mind with your own, who would you choose and why? I wouldn’t! Upstairs is my personal space, but if I had to pick, probably a stranger from far away who speaks another language, so we could teach each other about our cultures and seamlessly learn another language in an instant. What uncommon … Read More
UnCommon Minds Q&A: Jessica West
The UnCommon Minds anthology was published today. This “Collection of AIs, Dreamwalkers, and other Psychic Mysteries” features 20 stories by some fantastic writers. And me. I’ve been posting interviews with the authors all week but today I’m talking to the project’s editor, Jessica West. What attracted you to the UnCommon Minds project? Magical realism plays really well with speculative fiction, my favorite, so I just knew I’d love whatever stories the authors came up with. I grew up reading brief works, first Goosebumps and then Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. I still read mostly short works because I love getting to know new characters and finding out what happens, and I’m not always a patient reader. Most of the time, I want to know now. Collections like these are perfect. I get to blaze a trail through twenty or so stories with each collection. It’s heaven. On top of that, I love meeting new people and reading new authors. The UnCommon projects were just too tempting in every way. What did you enjoy most about the experience of putting the anthology together? For me, it’s the authors themselves. Editing offers you a chance to see someone at play and work simultaneously. … Read More
Out Now – UnCommon Minds
The UnCommon Minds anthology was released today and is already getting some excellent reviews. This is the third of the UnCommon series of anthologies and it’s a cracking collection. My contribution, Sitala, is about a young girl called Mika. While out scavenging at the edge of a retreating ocean, she discovers the remains of a crashed spacecraft. At first, it’s just an opportunity to find salvage she can trade for food, but deep within the ship she finds unexpected life and a mind with a tale to tell and memories to share. The ebook is available on Amazon right now. Enter into the hidden world of the mind, where the laws of nature don’t apply and nothing is as it seems. Straight from the minds of 20 UnCommon Authors come tales of tragedy, triumph, and bittersweet gratitude. You’ll find augmented realities and mental persuasion that force you to question everything. Stories of military suspense, psychological horror, dream walkers, and psychic mediums await their turn to crawl into your head. “Inamorata” by J.D. Harpley “Chief Canis and the Helpful Locals” by Patrick S. Baker “The Arms of Mother” by Harlow C. Fallon “Trouble Signs” by Jonathan Shipley “Juliet’s Possessions” by Erica Ruhe “Through Dreams She … Read More
Coming Soon – Sitala
My first story of 2017, Sitala, is being released in the UnCommon Minds anthology on 21st January. Sitala is about a young girl called Mika. While out scavenging at the edge of a retreating ocean, she discovers the remains of a crashed spacecraft. At first, it’s just an opportunity to find salvage she can trade for food, but deep within the ship she finds unexpected life and a mind with a tale to tell and memories to share. I really enjoyed writing this story and I was very pleased when Jess and Pavarti accepted it. There are a lot of great authors in this anthology and it’s a real pleasure to appear alongside so many fantastic storytellers. The ebook is available for preorder on Amazon right now. Enter into the hidden world of the mind, where the laws of nature don’t apply and nothing is as it seems. Straight from the minds of 20 UnCommon Authors come tales of tragedy, triumph, and bittersweet gratitude. You’ll find augmented realities and mental persuasion that force you to question everything. Stories of military suspense, psychological horror, dream walkers, and psychic mediums await their turn to crawl into your head. Get UnCommon Minds Sign up for my newsletter and … Read More
Looking Forward, 2017
After posting my belated end of year wrap up, I figured I’d better also look forward to what’s ahead in 2017… I talked about setting goals on New Year’s Day and mentioned my big personal goal – running a marathon in under four hours. That goal has actually been in the back of my mind for a few years but 2017 is the year I’m really going to focus on my speed and fitness (and weight) and try to hit that. My wife and I recently worked out which races we’re going to take part in this year and it’s a fairly long list, but a lot of them will be used as training runs for my main goal of that sub-four hour marathon. Time will tell whether it will pan out but I’m looking forward to trying. I’ll probably make the odd post here about my progress for those who are interested in how a moderately unfit, middle aged guy prepares for a marathon. I also mentioned my eight book publishing schedule. That’s pretty aggressive, even though I have a couple of the books complete and two more in draft form. I’ve laid out the schedule for the first half of the year and this is what it … Read More
Farewell, 2016
Continuing my tradition of posting end of year wrap ups late… 2016 was a mixed year for me, personally. We lost a lot of great people including some of my idols (I’m listening to David Bowie’s new EP right now) and people close to me. The internet seems to be getting more and more toxic by the day, and the less said about Brexit and the US election the better. But there was plenty of ups to offset the downs. I moved into a new apartment that doesn’t turn into an oven in the summer, and a new role on a very exciting project in my day job. It means I’ll be busier than I’ve been recently, but the work will be much more fulfilling. My writing went very well, too. I hit 282,441 words over the whole year which is a new record (I wrote 275,872 words in 2014 and 255,470 in 2015). There was plenty of editing in there as well so I’m happy with that. I’ve got ambitious plans for this year, so I’m hoping to break 300,000 words. We’ll see. I worked on several new projects during that time including the second and third Leah King books, The … Read More
Sold! – Sitala
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’d sold a story to Dark Fuse Magazine (it’ll be available soon). This week I got another acceptance, this time for a science fiction story called Sitala. The sale is to Fighting Monkey Press for the third anthology in their UnCommon series – UnCommon Minds. I appeared in the first in the series – UnCommon Bodies and it was a very varied and interesting collection with lots of excellent stories. The second anthology, UnCommon Origins was even better, and I’ve got no reason to think this one won’t surpass that. As for my story, I was very happy with how it turned out so I was quite nervous about the submission. I’m incredibly pleased Fighting Monkey liked it as much as I do. I can’t wait for you to read it. No idea what the publishing timeline is yet. Sign up for my newsletter and get four free ebooks. CLICK HERE to get started. [Sold! – Sitala by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 12th November 2016]
August Writing Update
I’ve realised I haven’t posted any writing updates for a while so I thought I’d avoid working on my latest short story by giving an update instead. The last few months have been reasonably good from a fiction point of view. My writing-every-day streak continues and sits at 1,147 days. I’ve just broken the 150k mark for words written this year (158,173 to be exact) so I’m pretty much on track to break my personal annual word count record (275,872). At this point, I’m pretty confident I can do that. I have several first drafts I want to get written, and they should drive up that word count pretty quickly. It won’t be obvious to anyone looking at my Amazon author page, but this year I’ve been trying to focus on finishing projects and getting them out into the wide world. That said, the last few months have been spent working on several projects. The Girl in the Wilderness This is the sequel to The Girl in the City that I hadn’t planned on writing. And when I did decide to write it I was expecting it to be another novella but a bit bigger than The Girl in the City. It turned out to be a full length novel … Read More