I’ve just finished off the first draft of Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet (working title). The final word count is 65,228 – significantly more than the 10,000 words I’d originally planned. As always, there’s still plenty to do, including naming most of the characters. I wanted to put some extra thought into all of the names for this one so I ended up just putting [surname] or [mole-man] in place of actual names. When I start the revision process I’ll come up with a set of appropriate names. Before then, the story needs to sit and fester for a few weeks. In the meantime I’m going to wrap up the handful of unfinished stories I have sitting on my hard drive and start revising The Ghost Smuggler. I’m also going to try my hand at a script for a play based on The Z Word. [Feeling Drafty by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 28th December 2013]
So This is Christmas…
I have mixed feelings about Christmas. I’m a big fan of the whole goodwill to all men, peace on Earth thing, not as big a fan of the incessant commercialisation. And the perfume adverts…don’t get me started on those. In fact, don’t get me started on any Christmas ads. I’m lucky in that the office shuts down from Christmas Day to New Years Day. That doesn’t always mean everyone gets that time off because it’s not unusual for us to have a project in the final stages of development which means a few people are in the office fixing bugs, testing, coming up with last minute design changes etc. But at the very least the constant stream of email and meetings eases up for a week. Normally, I just stick to the one week of vacation at Christmas but this year I wanted to get some extra writing done so I took Friday, Monday and Tuesday off which means I’m on the third day of my Christmas break already. As usual I’ve got a whole string of things I’d like to get done. Finish off the first draft of Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet. Write the first draft of a play … Read More
Out Now – So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains [Kindle]
So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains is now available on Kindle. In it you’ll find my story – The Z Word – plus fifty other tales of the undead. Here’s the full table of contents: Remembering Human – Bint Arab Necropolis Burning – Robert Forrester Blissfully Ignorant – Michael C. Dick An Undead Night to Remember – K. A. Masters Quality of Life – T. Fox Dunham Remember Me – Kenneth E. Olson Undead Surveillance – Jason Papke Oh, the Dreadful Wind & Rain – Richard Jay Goldstein The Secret to Survival – T. L. Barrett Mikey – Theresa Derwin The Beginning of the End – Jack Bantry Old Louisville – Bruce L. Priddy The Return of Dale Corby – Jonathan Wood For Audrey – Nicky Peacock The Army of Al-Din – Douglas Moore Zombies are Dead – Iain Rob Wright Fractions – Dale Elster Complete Ignorance – Michael C. Dick Diary of Gerhard Koblenz – Trevor Smith The Z Word – Philip Harris A Quiet Night, a Perfect End – Annie Neugebauer The Day Danny McAllister Decided to be a Hero – Matt Nord Dry Rot – Jamal K. Luckett The Food of Love – Marc-Anthony Taylor Behind … Read More
Out Now – So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains
The new anthology – So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains is now available on Amazon. In it you’ll find my story – The Z Word – plus fifty other tales of the undead. Here’s the full table of contents: Remembering Human – Bint Arab Necropolis Burning – Robert Forrester Blissfully Ignorant – Michael C. Dick An Undead Night to Remember – K. A. Masters Quality of Life – T. Fox Dunham Remember Me – Kenneth E. Olson Undead Surveillance – Jason Papke Oh, the Dreadful Wind & Rain – Richard Jay Goldstein The Secret to Survival – T. L. Barrett Mikey – Theresa Derwin The Beginning of the End – Jack Bantry Old Louisville – Bruce L. Priddy The Return of Dale Corby – Jonathan Wood For Audrey – Nicky Peacock The Army of Al-Din – Douglas Moore Zombies are Dead – Iain Rob Wright Fractions – Dale Elster Complete Ignorance – Michael C. Dick Diary of Gerhard Koblenz – Trevor Smith The Z Word – Philip Harris A Quiet Night, a Perfect End – Annie Neugebauer The Day Danny McAllister Decided to be a Hero – Matt Nord Dry Rot – Jamal K. Luckett The Food of Love … Read More
Penny Plain
Last night Ann and I spent a very entertaining evening at a puppet show. Yes…a puppet show. I know that doesn’t sound very rock n roll but these are post-apocalyptic puppets so it’s okay. Ronnie Burket controls and voices all the marionettes in this one man show featuring a blind woman – Penny Plain – and a bizarre mix of survivalists, a serial killer, a cross-dressing banker, talking dogs and mysterious strangers seeking sanctuary from the apocalypse. The marionettes are incredible, and it’s a wildly entertaining show – funny, strange and sad. If you get the chance to see it, I highly recommend it. For Vancouverites it’s on at the Cultch for a few more days and you can order tickets here. I also got the corrections to The Z Word and a new bio off to the editor of So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains. Today, I want to finish F Bomb. Definitely. No excuses. Honest.
F Bomb Continued
Mostly day job and shopping yesterday but I did manage to scrape together a surprisingly productive hour of creativity and add another 727 words to F Bomb. That brings the total word count to 1693 and the end clearly into view. My plan is to finish it tonight and although I do want to go back and fill in a bit more detail in a couple of places, I’m still very happy with the story. That’s unusual for me so we’ll see if that’s still the case when I’ve written the ending. Weird Fiction Review posted a great story yesterday. Originally published in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a wonderfully disturbing tale and it’s well worth a read. Of course, if you like your fiction weird then Weird Fiction Review should already be on the list of sites you visit regularly. In other news, the proofs for So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains arrived yesterday and it’s looking very good indeed. Matt Nord has put together a monster collection (over 420 pages of Zombie fiction plus the first five chapters of the upcoming Collaboration of the Dead novel). And I still love the cover. Cover for So … Read More
The Z Word
Very little writing so far this week (apart from the blog) and by that I mean no writing done so far this week (apart from the blog) but that’s about to change, at least that’s the theory. However, I did send off the contract for The Z Word – my contribution to Matt Nord’s So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains anthology. Cover for So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains I’m not a huge consumer of zombie books (although I did recently enjoy reading Ex-Patriots and Domain of the Dead) and The Z Word is the first real zombie story I’ve written. Even then it’s a lighthearted tale rather than a post-apocalyptic nightmare. I’m pleased with the story though and looking forward to seeing it in what looks like a very promising collection. You can find the official Table of Contents for the anthology on Matt Nord’s blog.