Attack!!!! 13 Is Out Now - only £2 including postage!

Issue 13 of Attack!!!!, inspired by Gethan Dick's piece "Mouth", was launched by Wes White at the Attack!!!!tacular event on July 4th and is now available to buy online.

http://www.ecartilage.co.uk/attack1301.htm

'Mouth' - a spell for fixing broken heads - is reprinted at the start of this issue, and Gethan also designed the cover.

Ruth Moog Baker, Lawrence Bradby, Johanna van Fessem, Sophie Hanson, Jared Konopitski, Steve Leighton, Myriam G.S. Mestiaen, Alastair McInnes, Chris Murray, Erica Viola and Wes White all feature with original writing and artwork inspired by Gethan.

Click the link above for more details or go straight to the relevant shop page here -

http://www.ecartilage.co.uk/shopuk.htm (in the UK)

http://www.ecartilage.co.uk/shop_eu.htm (in the EU)

http://www.ecartilage.co.uk/shop_row.htm (outside the EU)

- to order it.

Back issues also available there.

Time to go back to the novel

I'm working on several stories at a time, but this burst of story writing started as a distraction from writing a novel which I started in August 2008, and put aside on (checks diary) Friday May 1st, nearly three months ago. I was bored with seeing it each day after nine months and I've had two stories published as a boost to confidence as a result of the lay-off.

So the novel should all be horribly fresh when I see it again. Hopefully, it will be great, but more likely it will need another year's work. Never mind. 18 months is the minimum to write a novel, and summer is when everyone writes their blockbusters (6000000 pages of how a boy wizard called Harry Trotter took on the might of the British boarding school). There's no point rushing to get into the already heaving slush piles.

I want to submit it to an indie publisher in December, and for that I need the first three chapters. The first three chapters are greatly affected by how the whole novel feels, so I like to complete the whole thing and then redo the beginning. It's like running 1o0 metres, and then going back to the start to run the first 10 again. In writing you can do this. In running if you get the start wrong, the race is over, but not in writing. Not until the printer whirrs.

Yet Another Rejection

No names mentioned by me this time because it was a standard, polite no thank you, and thank you for thinking of us. I have lots of stories rejected, and it's very unusual to have a rejector that doesn't at least thank me for the effort.

Rejections remind me that nothing comes easily with fiction. Intense work is always needed to lift a story into the limelight, and then what?

A Tongue Lashing Rejection

Bards and Sages.com ... a comprehensive slagging off by editor Julie Ann Dawson that leaves me in no doubt she didn't like it. The story was well-received by another mag, although also rejected. "The conclusion is completely out in left field," she rants. Sorry, folks. I must try harder.

Attack!! Issue 12

Attack!! issue 12 is now out.

Attack is a series of collections of works on the same theme by invited contributors..

I'm a contributor to issues 2, 5, 7 -12 and it really is a great magazine.

Stories that will lead you along strange ways

Rainy City Stories: Sofa Sorbet @http://tinyurl.com/l43wlt

The Front View (aka The View From Here) (ISSN 1758-2903): Telescopes @ http://tinyurl.com/q88dqv

Transmission 6 (ISSN 1752-3729): Nobody Knows a Damned Thing @ http://tinyurl.com/dnmkzd

Transmission 4: The North is So Much Better for Youngsters Today @ http://tinyurl.com/c35e83

Nobody Told the Horse, I Hadn’t Even Started and Not Your Problem (Surprising Stories) @ http://tinyurl.com/qnnf5x

Think of a Name For It (Verbsap) @ http://tinyurl.com/c4utyy

The Day I Asked Blake Morrison If He Raced Pigeons (Eclectica) @ http://tiny.cc/uZSuM

Swing Naked, How They Looked at the Sun and Roads That Go On and On (Eclectica Spotlight Author) @ http://tinyurl.com/c5mn5g

There Has to Be a Better Balance (Eclectica) @ http://tinyurl.com/dm892t