11:29am, 29th December 2022
I usually have complicated feelings about awards season, but they're much easier this year:
I didn't have anything published this year. Nothing. Not a thing.
That's the first year since I was published that I haven't been published.
I guess I should dig into that, as self-forgiveness if nothing else.
TAGS: roundup
12:34pm, 3rd January 2022
The lag in publishing is a funny old thing. To wit: I've not done any new writing since about Easter 2019, thanks to real life, and yet in 2021 I had four new originals come out, which were--in my estimation--probably my best work.
TAGS: roundup
2:34pm, 3rd January 2021
Well. I'm glad to see the back of those twelve months, how about you?
I don't do awards eligibility posts anyway, but even if I did 2020 was basically a pause year for my writing for multiple real life reasons, of which a once-in-a-century global pandemic was only one. In all honesty I've hardly written anything new for going on two years now. Which is to say: about the amount of time we've been fighting our local education authority to get an appropriate school placement for our youngest child and his autistic needs. Funny how dealing with the bureaucracy required to secure your child's entire future and current happiness leaves you without the time or emotional energy to write.
But some stuff still happened this year! To wit:
Matt Dovey is a writer of short speculative fiction. He is very tall, very British, and probably drinking a cup of tea right now. His surname rhymes with “Dopey”, but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. More →
So now they lounged in the forward pilotchair, looking through the clear orb of the piscine eye at silvery-clouds of water vapour, and pretended a light, airy tone. "Jean, my beloved, are you well and ready to go?"
”“You know we don’t care?”
“Yes. You’ve said.”
It wasn’t much of a beach. Estuary mud, littered with debris from both river and sea. A hulking, concrete sewage outlet, that only discharged at the minimum recommended distance from land when measured at high tide. Betwixt and between, neither ocean nor shore, even the seabirds avoided the area, as Samuel Pelsey trudged through the boot-sucking sludge, half-heartedly poking a stick.
No more than a giant step behind, the Great Old One lurked.
”Anatomy of a Golden Pen apology appearance award Dublin2019 fermi paradox free Glasgow2024 harm homebrew interview lessons new story news nonsense podcast politics responsibilities retrospective roundup science science fiction waffle wotf32 writing
Sure enough, a white light exploded into the room, extinguishing the fire trap and bursting every cursed weasel, pop, pop, pop, like potatoes on the fire when you hadn't pierced their skins.
”