THE WHISPERING DEATH Finds a Home

I am pleased to be able to announce that my new horror novel, THE WHISPERING DEATH, has sold to British small press horror publisher Kensington Gore. There's an exciting announcement about it over on their website.

THE WHISPERING DEATH is about a group of live action role-players who unwittingly release an ancient evil loose upon the world during a game. I am particularly fond of this novel because it is effectively about a group of geeks, and I was able to incorporate all the geeky things I love into the novel. LRP. Dungeons & Dragons. Video games. Zombie films. And it's got a kick-ass heroine who's also a geek girl. I had such a good time writing about her.

And it's a novel that at one point I lost faith in. It had gone through several rewrites when I first started subbing it, last year. After getting fairly consistent feedback along with the rejections I decided it needed rewriting. But the rewrite took it to a place where the ending I wanted wasn't going to work and I got quite depressed about it.

But it just goes to show you should never give up. Have faith and keep collecting those rejections. Eventually, acceptance will come. And sometimes you have to believe in your own writing, even when it seems no one else does.

THE WHISPERING DEATH is scheduled for release later this year, which means I am expecting edits to come my way very soon. And this one will be out in paperback as well as electronic format. Yay!

One Day to Sci Fi Weekender

Tomorrow I'm off to my first convention of the year - the fifth Sci Fi Weekender, in North Wales.

It's the third year I've attended this Con, and I always look forward to it.  It's a Con to celebrate all things geeky in TV, film and books, and it actively encourages Cosplay.  Seeing all the incredible costumes is always a highlight of the Con.

This year I'm looking forward to it all the more as I am on several panels.  As it happens they are all on Saturday afternoon - at least I get them all out of the way at once.  At 2pm I am on a panel called 'Does Crime Pay', exploring the concept that 'crime is the new black'.  Then I've got a bit of a break, but can't go too far as at 3pm I'm moderating the 'Blurred Lines' panel discussing cross-genre.  And I still haven't come up with questions for the panel yet.  So I know what I shall be doing tonight.

And following that I'm on the next panel too, which is exploring what makes science fiction - 'from Space Opera to Dystopian Futures', the panel description says.  I suspect it was my public declaration of love for Star Wars that got me on that one.

With only a day to go, the usual dilemma has reared its head - what to wear for a Con?  I'm not organised enough to put a costume together.  The usual fall-back Con wear is jeans and a Geek t-shirt.  However, I have recently realised that I literally have a drawer full of Geek t-shirts, reflecting an array of geeky interests - Star Wars; Buffy; Dr Who.  I've even got a Resident Evil 4 t-shirt.  So which ones do I pack?  My favourite Con t-shirt is the girlie pink one with the cartoon grim reaper on that says 'Horror Writer'.  But I wore that at the last Con.  Can a self-respecting geek be seen in public wearing the same t-shirt at every Con?

If you're going to be at the convention, do stop by and say hello.  And if you're not - well, I'll catch up with you when I return to normal life. 

In the meantime, I'm off to go ransack my t-shirt drawer and think up intelligent questions for my panel.

   

Geekfest 2013 - The Lowdown

This past weekend saw the first ever Nineworld Geekfest Con, held in London.

The Con was billed as a celebration of all things geeky, and an excuse to have a really big party, and it was held in two hotels at London Heathrow airport - the Renaissance and the Radisson.  I was impressed by the fact that a Con without a track record was able to secure not one but two major airport hotels.

Though I was looking forward to the Con, with it being new I was expecting a few hiccups.  I have to say I was impressed with the level of organisation.  And the amount of choice.  There were so many tracks running, we were all spoilt for choice.  There was a creative writing track, a Tolkien track, a Dr Who track, a Geek Feminism track, a video games track, an LRP track, a board games track - to name just a few.  it was impossible to do everything.

There were some comments about the cost.  I think possibly this is relative - I'm used to London prices, where everything is more expensive anyway.  Although the Con itself wasn't that expensive - depending on when you booked, £75 could get you a weekend ticket to just about everything, which I thought was reasonable.  The hotel cost no more than I paid for my hotel room at the Brighton Cons I have attended the last few years.  The room was decent, the air conditioning worked, the bed was comfortable.  Yes we had to pay for parking, but £10 for 24 hours didn't seem overly expensive considering we pay £6 or more to park the car in Croydon for an afternoon of shopping.  Yes, the hotel bar was expensive.  But £5 for a glass of wine is not uncommon in a London hotel bar.  Sometimes bars are subsidised at Con hotels.  Genre Con-goers seem to have the ability to imbibe a lot more alcohol and yet still remain well behaved and less aggressive than your average non-geek after a few pints.  If the hotel manages to figure this out, maybe a deal will be struck for next year.

My writing group had arranged to do a critiquing workshop on manuscripts that had been submitted in advance, and this was scheduled for 1:30 on Saturday afternoon.  Since we drove up to the Con on Saturday and hit traffic, we didn't have much time to do anything else before this was on.  So hubby went off to the "In Conversation with Chris Barrie" programme item and I sought out the workshop.

We'd had seven submitted manuscripts split into two crit groups - one group dealing with historical and other-world fantasy and the other group (my group) critting the stories with more contemporary settings.  The crit session went quite well and no one ran off screaming after their crit, which is always a relief.

We finished earlier than expected and I was hoping to catch the second half of the panel on women in the Whedon universe.  But sadly this panel was so full they were letting no one else in, so I went off to take a look around the dealer room instead.  I caught up with Hubby here, who spent a happy half an hour spending money on the stall with all the old D&D modules.  I was distracted by many geeky t-shirts and jewellery, in the end deciding to spend my money on a pretty dragon pendant from the Pagan jewellery dealer I see at pretty much every Con I go to these days.

We left around noon on Sunday, and I left wishing I could have caught a few more panels.  But with so much going on, I think everyone came away wishing they could have seen more.

Buffy singalong. Photo credit:  London Nineworlds Geekfest

The highlight of my Con experience was the Buffy sing-along in the Saturday night, where we all gathered round a chap playing piano and went through every song featured in "Once More With Feeling".  And because we finished faster than expected, when he got to the end of the music book, he started again from the beginning.  You can see me singing away in this picture - I'm there near the front in the pink t-shirt.  The t-shirt actually says 'horror writer' on it and has an image of a cartoon grim reaper on it, but sadly you can't see it in the photo.  I let down my Buffy fangirl credentials by having to refer to the lyrics at some point for most of the songs.  There were some die-hard fans that knew every word.

There was a lot of Cosplay at this Con, and even if you don't participate in this yourself, it's fascinating to see the array of costumes, and see if you can correctly guess the geek reference.  Some of them were obvious to me - Dr Who characters; Marvel characters; the Alien.  Others I suspected were Manga characters, and these I am not as familiar with.

GeekFest made a point of making this Con accessible to everyone - regardless of gender, creed, orientation, physical ability, or anything else.  Children were welcome - there were many families at the Con.  Any item that was deemed to be for adults only was clearly labelled as such in the programme.  It was a Con where you could be who you wanted to be, not necessarily who you were born as.  The name labels were blank so you could fill in whatever name you wanted to be that particular weekend.  Many people stayed in costume - and in character - all weekend.  There was an LGBT track running all weekend.  There were even gender neutral toilets.  I have a lot of respect for the organisers for this.  This was a Con where everyone was welcome.  You could wear whatever you wanted, be  whoever you chose to be, and be accepted and welcomed, without the labels of 'geek', 'freak', 'weirdo' that so many of us have to deal with for being in some way different from what society perceives as 'normal'.

In summary, this is a Con I thoroughly recommend for anyone who has any remotely geeky tendencies.  Next year's Con has already been confirmed at the same venue, 8-10 August 2014.  Tickets are available, so book up now before the price goes up.

Fellow geeks, I shall see you there...

If I Were Famous...

Occasionally I fantasise about what I'd do if I became a rich and famous writer.  And I'm not talking rich enough to give up the day job and pay off the mortgage.  I'm talking about rich beyond the realms of reasonable possibility.  JK-Rowling-sort-of rich and famous.

The first thing I'd do is buy a house with an indoor swimming pool, so I could do daily laps without having the general public get in my way.  And the pool must be heated to 35c all the time. I'm a wimp - I hate getting into cold water.  Of course I would also need to hire a Pool Boy - heated swimming pools require a lot of maintenance.

In this fantasy house there would be at least two gaming rooms, each with a couple of types of consoles and a 50" flat screen TV.  This is so at least two multi-player games could be going on at the same time.  There would also be a retro games room, full of old arcade machines, including the original Space Invaders.  There will also be a juke box in there, belting out 80s hits.  In fact, I'll just recreate Flynn's arcade from TRON, and I'll be set.

There will be a bar, of course.  Stocked with plenty of bottles of Cloudy Bay.  And a bartender to make cocktails.

While we're on the subject of staff, I'll need to have a housekeeper who will do all the chores, including the ironing, making the bed and changing the sheets weekly.  And there'll be a chef.  I like to eat nice food, but I'm rubbish at cooking.

Sigh.  Guess it's time to stop daydreaming.

What things do you fantasise about buying, if money were no object?

Two Sides to an Author

How many authors have dual natures?

As creative types, we're encouraged to nurture the right brain, that part responsible for helping us create the stories we write. When I was in school, there was a divide between the "smart" students and the "creative" ones. The former excelled at math and science. The latter impressed with drawing, writing, any endeavor that required the imagination.

Since I was terrible at math, I thought this was the way it was. For years. Until I attended aviation ground school and fell in love with physics. (No, I don't fly planes. I studied aviation briefly but had to give it up. Poor depth perception.)

For the first time, I found a science (besides biology) I could relate to and understand (to a certain point). I could apply physics to daily life, even if I didn't understand the more complex aspects of it.

But I wasn't a scientist. I didn't have the propensity for analytical thought. Or did I?

I don't know if it's still done, but when I was in school, our English assignments often included essays on argument and persuasion. In other words, we needed to convince an audience over to our side. We presented the argument (premise) then backed up our POV with facts, quotes, anything that would help our cause.

This may have been the reason I initially considered going into journalism. And I was a freelance magazine writer for a couple of local publications for a short time. Then I decided to return to creative writing.

I've also learned something over these last few years. Science and technology aren't to be feared. I love technology and would rather spend more time in a computer store than shop for clothes. (Okay, I'm still not a big fan of math.) Since a lot of my writing requires research, I use the analytical part of my mind to focus on that aspect then switch to my right brain to write the story. Not saying I use both sides of my brain successfully, but I have found a pretty good compromise.



  

Geek Excitement: Resident Evil 6

This week's post is not about writing, but if you will indulge me I want to burble on about one of my other obsessions - computer games. More specifically, one particular game.

If you've been following my blog Imaginary Friends, you will know I have something of an obsession with playing 'Resident Evil 4'.

We have 'Resident Evil 5' as well, but in my view it's just not as good. Sure, the graphics are better - RE4 is only available on the Nintendo Wii, and it was never really designed to be a superior graphics machine. But I prefer the Wii controls to the PS3 controls. I am a hopeless shot. The Wii controls are gentler on those who are crap shots.

But the game itself just has more atmosphere than its sequel. In RE4, Leon spends a lot of time runing around alone (apart from occasional cut scene interactions with NPCs, and of course the interactions with the very annoying Ashley) in a lonely and creepy part of rural Spain, being attacked by zombies and other unnatural beasties, on a dark rainy night. RE5, set in the daytime under the baking sun of Africa, just doesn't have the same atmosphere.

And then, of course, the game has Leon. Leon is hot. I have a solid faction of female friends who all drool over Leon. The main character in RE5 is Chris Redfield, who doesn't have the same lust factor.

'Resident Evil' as a series has been around for years. Not being familiar with the game before RE4, I can't say anything about what earlier games were like, but I gather that the same characters have been popping up periodically throughout the series - Chris and his sister Claire; Leon; Krauser; Jill Valentine; Ada Wong. Each game progresses the plot along, with points from the previous series occasionally referred to. The films follow through with this. I hear rumour there's a new film in development - live action this time - that will feature all of the series' characters. Including Leon. Can't wait for that one.

Anyway, more exciting than that is the news that 'Resident Evil 6' is being released later this year. It's on the PS3, not the Wii, so I will have to get a handle on the awkward controls. But the graphics will be great. And, more relevant, this game features Leon. In full PS3 CGI glory. Woohoo!

For a taster, here's the trailer:

Buffy vs Edward

I'm going back to Buffy for this week's post. It must be no secret by now, even to those new to this blog, that I'm a sad geeky Buffy fan.

Non-geeks, however, sometimes make the mistake of assuming if I like Buffy, I also like Twilight. After all, they're both about teenage girls who fall in love with sexy vampires, aren't they?

To a Buffy geek, this is a sacrilege. I could go on at length about why Buffy is miles away from Twilight, without even touching the quality of the writing.

Buffy is an independent minded young woman who kicks vampire butt. One of the main themes of at least the first few seasons is that she's not only the Chosen One, she's also an ordinary teenage girl dealing with the demons of High School. For most people, the demons of High School are metaphorical. Hers happen to be literal.

Yes, Buffy loves a vampire. But in the end she realises that the relationship is going nowhere and she has to leave him (and I am talking about Angel here - I never really believed Buffy was in love with Spike, but we'll leave that argument for another time). On the other hand, I believe Bella ends up marrying her vampire, even though a human/vampire relationship is problematic at best (and I've discussed that on this blog before).

But really, I think the best argument for proving why Buffy is better than Twilight can be found in the wonderful YouTube video 'Buffy vs Edward'.

I present Exhibit A.

Why Vampires Make Bad Boyfriends

Writers of any genre involving paranormal creatures are united in their fondness for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". And sooner or later, amongst Buffy fans (at least the female ones), the question invariably arises: which of Buffy's boyfriends is best?

Fans of Spike and Angel seem fairly evenly divided. I, however, have always gone for Riley. Yes, I know, he's usually considered boring. I rather like 'boring'. Riley was solid, dependable, reliable, trustworthy (well most of the time, anyway). And he had a healthy respect for independent-minded women. And, most importantly, he was human.

I do understand what the whole 'sexy vampire' thing is all about. Vampires are the ultimate Bad Boys, and a lot of women are attracted to bad boys. For some reason, I never have been. The only 'bad boy' I ever had a thing for was Han Solo, and when I wrote my Star Wars fan fiction, at age 14, the alter ego I created to put myself in the Star Wars universe was Han Solo's half sister - even at that age, I had worked out that dating someone like him would lead to trouble.

But let's look at why vampires make bad boyfriends. First of all, there's the whole 'immortality' thing. If you want someone to grow old with, don't choose a vampire because they don't. He's still going to be looking young and sexy when you're old and wrinkly and drawing your pension.

Then there's the issue of not being able to go out in sunlight. You won't be able to go on beach holidays with your beloved. Or for picnics in the park. Or anywhere, in fact, that requires going out in daylight. That's going to be problematic in any relationship.

Another thing that occurs to me is that actually, it shouldn't technically be possible for a vampire - a male one, anyway - to have sex. Vampires don't have heart beats, and without a beating heart the blood does not flow through the body, and...well, let's just point out that blood flow is a key factor in being able to have sex, at least for men. But OK, vampires aren't real, we are talking fantasy, and the act of sucking blood has been equated with sex since Bram Stoker wrote "Dracula". So I am prepared to suspend my belief for this one, at least.

But ultimately, human/vampire relationships are doomed to failure, and even Buffy realised this in the end - it's why she accepted her relationship with Angel was over.

Maybe I'm far too sensible for my own good, and that's why I've never gone for the 'bad boy' idea. But I'm happy to let all the other Buffy girls fight over Angel and Spike. I'll take Riley. I prefer 'boring and dependable' over 'exciting and dangerous' even when it comes to fantasy men.

I accept I'm in the minority here. Maybe I'm just weird. I'll take a geek over a bad boy any day. In the long term, they'll cause less heartache.