Writers On Writing Volume 2...

Crystal Lake's Writers On Writing is a series of ebooks where "authors share their secrets in the ultimate guide to becoming – and being – an author". And I'm proud to say that that the second volume, which is out today, features a piece by me called Embracing Your Inner Shitness. 

It's more positive than it sounds... honest. It features Hemingway, Spiderman, and a paragraph where I imagine readers of it calling me a wanker. More seriously, it's about how I approach my first drafts of a story.

Writers On Writing 2 also features articles by Brian Hodge, Mark Allan Gunnells, Lucy A. Snyder, Daniel I. Russell, Theresa Derwin, Paul Kane & Jonathan Winn and is edited by Joe Mynhardt. Take a look (UK | US)

Edge-Lit 3...

This year's Edge-Lit was a convention of firsts for me for a number of reasons, the main one being that I was actually on the bill, albeit in a small way - Worms from Knightwatch Press was being launched at the convention, and I was scheduled to read from my story The Place Where It Always Rains. Of which more later.

It was also the first convention where I'd specifically arranged to meet people there - indeed within 2 seconds of walking through the door I'd bumped into Phil Ambler. After signing in and getting our goody bags we went to the cafe at The Quad where we briefly caught up with Paul Holmes from The Eloquent Page. 

Phil and I then headed up to the first panel we liked the sound of - Ghost Stories Today with Andrew Barker, Johnny Mains, Marie O'Regan and Niki Valentine. This was certainly interesting, with the conversation referencing many of my favourite stories and authors, including The Turn Of The Screw, Dark Matter, The Willows and Afterwards. For me, those was a slightly awkward part where members of the audience were invited to share whether they had ever seen a ghost in real life, and one lady told a story about her child dying, but moderator Johnny Mains handled it really well.

After that, we finally meet up with Mark West and Steve Harris/Byrne, who introduced us to Alison Davies, John Travis, and Christopher Teague. Phil, Mark, Steve, John and I headed down for a few drinks, and we exchanged stories about the worst rejection letters/emails we'd received in the same manner as that scene in Jaws when they're talking about shark bites.

Mark West, Alison Davies, me, and Phil Ambler.

Then back upstairs for a slightly unusual event - Theresa Derwin (who runs Knightwatch) was having her head completely shaved to raise money for a cancer charity, as well as auctioning off a few books.The fact that she had the guts to do this, not even getting in too much of a flap when the cutters ran out of power, certainly put any nerves I was feeling about having to do my first ever reading into perspective.

Then a few of us went out for a quick lunch, our gang now including Richard Farren Barber and Ross Warren. Somehow we ended up in a cafe that did pensioner specials and cheap liver & onions. Myself and Phil then had to hoof it back to The Quad in order to be in time for our reading - it was also Phil's first time, reading from his story in the Potatoes anthology. The Worms launch and my own reading seemed to go really well, at least as far as I could tell. Phil did a good job too, although I think we both felt upstaged by KT Davies (who it was lovely to meet again) and her excellent reading from Worms; she did different voices and funny swearing and everything. Now the reading was done I helped myself to the free launch wine and olives, as well as signing a few copies of worms. My handwriting is truly shit, so I drew a little worm cartoon character in each copy too.

Then it was back down to the bar again for more drinks and chatting - we met up with Paul M Feeney, and I also had a nice talk with Andrew Barker about his book The Electric. Then it was time for the raffle - we didn't win as many prizes as at Andromeda One, but on the plus side that meant we weren't scared of being lynched on the way out this time.

Phil had to leave at this point, which left the rest of ready for 'Operation Curry' - we found somewhere that had been recommended and had a lovely, if slightly pricey meal. It was a nice end to the day, talking about books and drinking beer and eating nice food, with friends both old and new.

'Operation Curry'

Despite not having superhuman luck in the raffle this time, I still came back with a fair few books, including The Electric by Andrew Barker, Best British Horror 2014, Potatoes, a Gary McMahon novella The Harm, and of course Worms.

A Day Out At Andromeda One...

So, on Saturday I made my way to Birmingham for the Andromeda One convention; this is the con’s first year and as such it felt like a small, friendly gathering of like-minded genre fiction fans. The venue was the Custard Factory, an interesting space with a statue of the Green Man, dragons on the walls, and members of the public randomly shopping in the middle of things. To be honest, for a small convention like this the various rooms seemed a bit to spread out, and there was no kind of central ‘hub’ (like a bar...) where people naturally congregated. But the pub round the corner did a decent pint of bitter, and as I said there was such a friendly atmosphere it didn't really matter.

 

The Panels: 

I went to three of the panels: one discussing genre boundaries (really interesting stuff, especially from Adam Nevill and Adrian Tchaikovsky), one about zombies (plus Scooby Doo, bizarrely) and one around the role of the small press (in a word, vital). All were lively and informative, although I did miss some of the genre one because I was laughing so much when Steve Harris (who was sitting next to me) attempted to re-enter the room ‘quietly’ and ended up destroying his seat somehow.

 

The Books – Part 1:

During the zombie panel I was chuffed with myself for answering a spot-question to win a copy of Dave Jeffery’s Necropolis Rising and in the (somewhat sparse) Dealer’s Room I picked up a copy of a book I've wanted to read for ages: Whitstable by  Stephen Volk. Along with the book I received in my goody-bag on arrival (where I bought three strips of raffle tickets with my usual convention pessimism) I thought this would be a good haul to take home. Little did I realise the tsunami of books yet to come…

 

The People: 

It was great to finally meet up with Mark West, who I've mentioned on here many times before, Phil Ambler (who I appeared alongside in City Of Hell: Trifecta), and Spectral Press head honcho Simon Marshall-Jones. And lovely to see KT Davies and Alex Davis again, however briefly. A nice writerly chat in the pub at lunch with Mark and Phil as well as Steve Harris/Byrne, Ian Whates and Dave Jeffery where we put the publishing world to rights over a pint and a Cumberland sausage pizza. We also spoke about one of the con’s star-guests Adam Nevill (who we all admired) - later on I had a nice chat with Adam about Robert Aickman – always brilliant to meet another Aickman fan. I'm sure there’s people I've missed, to whom I say hello and sorry. 

Oh, and then there’s all the many people who were heckling us by the end of the raffle…

 

The Books – Part 2: 

The raffle. So, myself, Phil Ambler, Mark West and Steve Harris went to raffle, with typical low expectations from previous cons. These expectations seemed to be accurate when the ‘star’ prizes (mainly signed Raymond E. Feist limited editions) were being raffled or auctioned off. But by about midway all four of us had won a prize, which felt pretty nice. And then… well, the four of us just kept winning. And winning. And winning. It actually got pretty embarrassing and we all ended up pretending we’d not got tickets we had, or giving prizes away. Even with this we still must have had fifty books between us by the time the raffle ended – fortunately I think most people in the room ended up with something, if only one of our cast-offs, so we weren't stoned to death Lottery style outside…

So all in all a great day out, with friends old and new. Congratulations and well done to the organiser Theresa Derwin, and here’s to next year’s Andromeda Two(?).