My story Under The Stone Bridge appeared in Flashes in the Dark on June 25th. Yes, creepy horror again. Flashes in the Dark is a very cool and dynamic site – a new story every day, plus Lori Titus’s serial; definitely worth a visit and a read.
Shifting sands
It seems there’s a shift going on here as my writing year expands faster than my soundscape year. While this has been a good year for Venus Vulture, I notice that the blog has become more focused on my fiction and writing – it has been my best year for writing by far too. And typing this post will push the most recent music post off the blog’s frontpage and make my header “ambient music yada yada” sit atop a bunch of posts about flash-fiction. That’s kind of weird, so I’ll be re-thinking a little. Should I have separate blogs for each? Next year’s secret project will have its own blog, and probably my focus will be on that anyway. Perhaps I’ll just change the header. If I can figure out how to do that – it must be possible since I put it in there in the first place ….
Zombies ..
New story -“To hold her one last time” – just out on Microhorror now.
Yep, I succumbed and wrote a zombie story.
The goals progress
Earlier this year I was really looking at my goals and what I wanted to achieve. I had this cocky idea of trying to publish 26 stories for the year – that’s one a fortnight. Crazy stuff. Especially considering in my entire publishing list up until the end of last year was a total of 17 stories – since the first in 1986. In the whole of the nineties I only published five (and one of those was a short poem). My best year until 2008 had seen three stories published, and in 2008 there were four. There have been a lot of years with none at all.
26 is pretty crazy. Anyway, I’ve published nine so far this year [will update the bibliography soon – but check posts below for more recent details], with two more coming out later in the year (okay, one of those is three poems, but I’m going to count that as a publishing credit). I’ve got another five submissions out in the world so I feel like I’m nearly halfway there, halfway through the year.
I’m stoked, really, this has been my best year ever, more than twice as many stories published as my previous best (2008) and more than in the whole of the eighties or the whole of the nineties or the whole of the rest of the 00s – very close to the whole of the eighties and nineties combined.
Admittedly I’ve found some friendly editors (thanks especially Aldo and Nathan), but I do think my writing is improving. I’ve just had some amazing feedback on a rejected story, from a very generous editor, that has thrown new light on my approach to writing and revising.
Next year’s goal will be even crazier – I’m planning to create a separate blog about that.
SF story coming out in November in Antipodean SF
My story “Puncture Wound” will appear in the November issue of Antipodean Science Fiction – I’ll post the link later in the year when it comes out. “Puncture Wound” is a kind of prequel to my story “How things fall”, published in the same Antipodean SF last year.
Perma-link for Jerry and Monica’s Falling Out
Here is the permanent link to my flash-fiction science fiction story Jerry and Monica’s Falling out published on on 365Tomorrows
Story online today
Jerry and Monica’s Falling Out on the 365Tomorrows front page today only. Will post the archive link next time.
New Science Fiction story coming out soon
A new Sean Monaghan story – “Jerry and Monica’s Falling Out” – will soon appear on 365Tomorrows. The website has daily flash science fiction from staff writers and through submissions. The story is a fun little science fiction flash. It will appear on the front page for one day (hence the 365), then slip into the archives. I’ll repost with the permanent link later. Lots of other good stories to read there too, if you’re looking for a quick sci-fi fix.
Two stories published now
The June issue of Infinite Windows includes my flash story The Rotated and my short story Skinny Joe.
There’s some other great stuff there too, including The Comedy Lounge by David Landrum and The Door by Joseph DeRepentigny. Check out the whole site here
Stories coming soon
Two new Sean Monaghan stories – one flash fiction, one a standard (3000 word) short story will appear in the respective sections of the June issue of the Science Fiction magazine Infinite Windows. I’ll post links when the issue is out – but check out the site now anyway; there’s some good work going on there.
Triple V Publishing 