13/4/2023 0 Comments 1 out of 3 - Writing entriesG'day folks, hard to believe it's the middle of April already.
I started 2023 with 3 submissions to a mix of competitions and was lucky enough to be published by Nightmare Fuel (still a kick arse moment for me). I was running at 50% success rate and just waiting on was the NYC Midnight short story challenge. A paid event that had over 6,000 writers in the first round. It was a competition with 4 rounds in total. The top 5 from each group advanced through to the next round, where the timeframe and word count reduced. Another twist being you had to write using the 3 prompts provided. I was in the Horror, Lawyer and Telepathy group for the first round (2,500 word limit). I had zero experience writing horror, but I had a couple of story ideas I started to flesh out. My biggest problem was that I wasn't sure if I should write straight horror or a horror humour. I liked my horror humour story better but went with the straight horror thinking it may increase my chance to advance. I battled this story submission for most of the week until I had something I was (mostly) happy with. One of the positives to the NYC Midnight challenge was that they provided feedback at each round of the competition, so I figured at worst I was paying for feedback on 1 story. I may not have advanced but I feel like I got some great feedback (good and things I have to work on). Below is the story for your reading pleasure. It's violent, gory and maybe somewhat disturbing... maybe. (Judge feedback - "It made my stomach flip, and I felt queasy by the end of the story.") (Wife feedback - "How do you think this shit up..... It's slightly concerning.") (My feedback - "Please don't look at my google search history. I'm not a bad person.") Anyway if you get a chance to read it, any and all commentary are welcome on my story. At the end I've also shared what the judges said. Let me know if you agree or disagree with their views.
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15/2/2023 0 Comments I GOT PUBLISHED!G'day everyone, How about that post title, hey? I wanted to not only share my good news but also put some context around my thoughts and feelings throughout the process. Side note: How awesome is that picture that Nightmare Fuel Magazine used for it? Before I go on though, here's a link to the story https://nightmarefuelmagazine.com/2023/02/15/baby-love-by-mark-dray/ I hope you got over to have a read of it. Any readers of my previous post, will know that I've set myself some goals this year in regards to pushing my work out there into the universe. I followed Nightmare Fuel on twitter and when I saw that they were asking for submissions (word limit of 666 words) with the theme of 'Love Has Teeth' I was keen to enter. I didn't really have an idea to start with but I'd just completed a straight horror story for the NYC midnight competition and I wanted to explore writing a horror/humour story. I had a ton of fun writing 'Baby Love' and was happy with the result. I did like I'm assuming all good writers do, I hit submit and crossed my fingers. It wasn't long before I received an email saying the magazine was going to accept my submission but there were some edits to do to my story. Let me say this, any time I get feedback on my writing I more then welcome it. So I dove into the edits and returned my story within 24 hours. They were happy, I was happy and I got the contributors contract and signed away. I was over the moon that they were willing to publish 'Baby Love' and shared the news with family and friends. BUT, then something changed for me. The schedule for releasing stories was about 2-3 per week and mine didn't get released until the 2nd week. I eagerly read my fellow contributors and with each story I became more and more anxious about my story. Why? Truthfully, I thought the other authors stories kicked the shit out of mine. I really contemplated asking mine not to be published because I didn't think it was even in the same universe as what was getting released. I probably would have gone through with trying to get it pulled if I hadn't voiced my concerns to Emma and got the following reply. I laughed at the bluntness of the opening line but I wouldn't want it any other way (good or bad really). I won't share the rest of the email but it was the encouragement that I needed so I kept any further doubts to myself.
Overall, my first publishing experience kicked arse and now I can even update my website with a Published! page. Thanks to Emma and Nightmare Fuel Magazine I'll definitely be keen to work with them again in the future. 25/1/2023 0 Comments January updateWell! A busy start to 2023 in my writing world. Had a couple weeks off from the job that pays my bills and I finally settled on an editor to have a look at my novella through Fivver. Seems like a nice guy with some experience and I should get my manuscript back on 31st January with a release date, hopefully not too long after that. My biggest issue at the moment is trying to decide on a title for the book.
I really got stuck into some competition writing. First up, I just submitted my entry to the GenreCon 2023 short story competition. It's an event that is run by the Queensland Writers Centre and free to enter for members, so I thought I'd give it a crack. The theme was 'Forbidden Doors' and automatically my mind went all sci fi/fantasy, but I gave it a little more thought and came up with something else. I loved it! The wife and eldest.... not so much (as the message below shows). After some tidying and editing, she came around and was a fan of the story in the end. They announce the winner in the middle of February, so fingers crossed, but it's the year of putting my work out there, so whatever the rest I'll learn from. 4/1/2023 0 Comments Welcome to 2023G'day from sunny, hot and humid Townsville.
I wouldn't be the supreme procrastinator if I didn't post this blog 4 days into the new year. Although the delay wasn't because of laziness, but because I wanted to make sure that I set myself some clear goals for 2023 that I'd like to keep if possible. Have a read below for my 2023 goals. It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a recent read.
So I had to go back and read this one after finishing Brandon Sanderson short story Mitosis (Read my review here). I didn’t realise at the time that it was a story between two books but I enjoyed it enough to give the series a go. I’d already read his Mistborne series and really enjoyed it. I wasn’t disappointed in this first book either. I enjoy his world building and learn a lot about it through his book (I went back many times and had a look at how he crafts it). This book is a story of superheroes but not as you know them. Brandon seemed to transfer his use of magic building to great use when building a superhero system. I’m looking forward to getting into the 2nd book. Read on below to the book description or get a copy for yourself through the affiliate link below. G’day everyone,
I was lucky enough to participate in the Printable workshop on Saturday that was run through the Queensland Writers Centre. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend in person but with the power of Zoom still met a number of people from across Australia. It was a full day on author branding and selling through social media and the 2 authors that presented were excellent. 6/10/2022 0 Comments WIP update - Short storyG’day everyone,
Well I did it! I’ve completed a first draft on a new short story. My previous post I’d mentioned reading an article that releasing short stories was a great way to assist in increasing an authors reach so I thought I’d dive in and give it a go. A was lucky enough to have a week off work after the kids went back to school so I thought it was a great opportunity to dive in, with a view to put something together around 10,000 words which I could release as a short read. I had a very basic idea (about 10 bullet points really) of a story which I was nervous about seeings I always viewed myself as more a plotter then a pantser but I got stuck in anyway. To be 100% transparent…. I may be a pantser. The craft of writing is interesting in itself to me. I came across an article this week which spoke about writing short stories and how it’s an important vessel for authors to help in creating and increase their presence. The example offered was Author A writes an 80,000 word novel while Author B writes 8 x 10,000 word short reads. Author B can produce and publish these short reads at a quicker rate which starts building an audience with each release while Author A has to rely on one release. It was also outlined that Author B has the ability to tap into a greater number of keywords and and categories they can target. It was a really useful article and I’m glad I read it. I’ve only ever used short stories as writing prompts (up to 1,000 words in most instances) but this article spoke about an area in Amazon that I wasn’t aware of which is Kindle Short reads. I’ve been waiting for Kindle Vella to be released in Australia which is where authors write serialised pieces but this was different again (and available to me now!). So I went searching for some short reads and I began with some authors I was already familiar with. I started reading Brandon Sanderson this year and really enjoyed his Mistborn Series. Unbeknownst to me the book I selected was a short story between full length novels. It was a good taster of the series though and I’ve subsequently started reading the first book (Steelheart) which has been awesome so far. I got into some of the Jack Reacher books after seeing the TV series which I think is far superior to the Tom Cruise movies. Alan Ritchson is great and I’ve been a fan of his since Blue Mountain State. It has me rethinking my approach and I’m starting to lean towards maybe working on one or two short stories while still developing my novel. The links below to buy now are affiliate links to Amazon Australia.
30/9/2022 0 Comments Musings - All Genre writing groupG’day everyone,
Thought I’d start doing some regular updates to my blog websites. I’ll be using this news section for a number of things like the book reviews, updates to my WIP and anything else that comes to me. This post is mainly about some feedback I got from a recent All Genre writing group that I received. Now this feedback was amazing really but I felt conflicted about receiving it. What a fun little adventure this book provided.
I was searching for another Aussie author, this time in the action/adventure genre and Matt’s name popped up. As soon as I read the description on this book I knew it would be right up my alley. I wasn’t disappointed either. It was a great story of good vs evil and while easy reading, it captured the violent confrontations with in-depth detail. I not only enjoyed this book but I learnt a lot from it too. The narrative of the book which utilised flashbacks regularly wasn’t something that I’d come across before and it gave each character time to shine through the eyes of the main character. I’ll definitely be checking out a few more of Matt’s books. |
NewsA place to update about my works in progress and to share which books I’m reading from the Bookshelf
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April 2023
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