Well, I'm here...
It's a bit of a conundrum, figuring out what to put in your first post...
The reason for doing this: I have wanted to be a professional writer for ages, for probably as long as I can remember. At school, Creative Writing (as it was known in those far-away times) was always my favourite subject, and the one I got the best marks in. Since I left school, I've continued writing - sporadically, admittedly - and have built up a back catalogue of short stories, novellas and even a full-blown novel, all of which I have done nothing with.
Ok, I tell a lie. All of which no one else has wanted to do anything with.
I've sent off short stories to all the usual suspects (I tend to write Dark Fantasy / horror, so there aren't too many outlets anyway) and each has come back with a standard rejection. Undaunted, I have continued to write and to try to find outlets for it. I came very close once when a well-known small press kept one of my novellas for a whole year while they ummed and ahhed over whether to publish it. In the end, however, it was decided that the theme 'wasn't quite for us' and back it came (The same piece was praised by a Literary Agent but also dropped because of the 'non-existent market' for novellas - it's becoming my boomerang book).
All that changed, though, on 13th October this year when a novellette of mine - The Red House - was actually accepted, by Pendragon Press for one of their future Triquorum anthologies (I'll add links in to their various pages as soon as I figure out how). So it's happened: I will see print. And now I want more.
So, this blog is here to do two things - to chronicle my attempts to get published further (and to follow the Pendragon trail) and to push me into actually doing something when the twin distractions of work and home life conspire to stop me. I've no doubt that it will metamorphose into something totally different as time goes by but in the meantime I start with high hopes and good intentions.
Come follow me, dear reader, if you dare...
The reason for doing this: I have wanted to be a professional writer for ages, for probably as long as I can remember. At school, Creative Writing (as it was known in those far-away times) was always my favourite subject, and the one I got the best marks in. Since I left school, I've continued writing - sporadically, admittedly - and have built up a back catalogue of short stories, novellas and even a full-blown novel, all of which I have done nothing with.
Ok, I tell a lie. All of which no one else has wanted to do anything with.
I've sent off short stories to all the usual suspects (I tend to write Dark Fantasy / horror, so there aren't too many outlets anyway) and each has come back with a standard rejection. Undaunted, I have continued to write and to try to find outlets for it. I came very close once when a well-known small press kept one of my novellas for a whole year while they ummed and ahhed over whether to publish it. In the end, however, it was decided that the theme 'wasn't quite for us' and back it came (The same piece was praised by a Literary Agent but also dropped because of the 'non-existent market' for novellas - it's becoming my boomerang book).
All that changed, though, on 13th October this year when a novellette of mine - The Red House - was actually accepted, by Pendragon Press for one of their future Triquorum anthologies (I'll add links in to their various pages as soon as I figure out how). So it's happened: I will see print. And now I want more.
So, this blog is here to do two things - to chronicle my attempts to get published further (and to follow the Pendragon trail) and to push me into actually doing something when the twin distractions of work and home life conspire to stop me. I've no doubt that it will metamorphose into something totally different as time goes by but in the meantime I start with high hopes and good intentions.
Come follow me, dear reader, if you dare...
posted by David J Thacker at 7:09 AM
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