Current location:	Abidjan
Current mood:	pleased
Entry tags:	writing

Publication - Haunt-Type Experience

What prompts this post are feelings of guilt at a failure to use LJ; the ass-kickingly awesomemthielbar has given me a shout-out regarding my first semi-pro-flavoured publication. I only posted the news on FB. You can line up to slap me, I can take it. So: hurrah, Haunt-Type Experience is in the current issue of Black Static (issue 9). It's reviewed here.
 

H-T E was my 6th and final Clarion West story. It sounds melodramatic but I have never had a more harrowing or more transcendental writing experience. I was hyper-emotional, exhausted, and I had nothing left to give. Getting words out felt as though I was committing hara-kiri and letting my entrails spill onto the page. It dovetailed all the things that mattered most to me; my dying mother, fear of love and so forth, with my long-standing interest in the psychology of the supernatural. It was so personal, I didn't think there was any way the story could actually be any good.  

It turned out to be the last story to be critiqued. Chip Delaney was our tutor that week, and, well, he liked it. And most of the class liked it. And although the ending didn't satisfy, I was gobsmacked to come away with the sense that, with a bit of work, the story could fly.

I had no intention of ever doing that work. It exposed the pain I felt about my mother's illness, and the idea of my family reading it made me feel sick, so while I polished the more banal of my story-stack, H-T E sat at the bottom of the pile. But then, as my flisters will know, my mother died. It took me a few months to pull the story back out - I had a novel to finish - but finally I did. And I loved it, the way you might love a monstrous child that has your eyes. I re-read the crits, cut the fish-head, fixed up the ending and sent it to Andy at Black Static, because he knows both SF and horror and  they have gorgeous artwork.

That was the first time I ever submitted a story to a paying market, ever. Within a week I had an email back from Andy saying he wanted it and would put it in the next issue. I got pretty giddy, despite the 'paying' part of that 'paying market' thing turning out to be a bit overhyped. I sang and danced a bit then decided I should contact the chap who did the science I quoted in the story.

I'd had to edit the excerpts down a bit, and play with them a little so they'd make sense out of context. I explained this in my email. The chap wasn't happy. My heart hit the floor. For a week or so I was convinced I'd have to pull the story. Finally I sent him the story to read (plastered with warnings about the nature of the content) and whaddayaknow, he was OK with it. Heart soars once more.

Then Andy contacted me and said he couldn't fit it into Issue 8.

Limbo limbo limbo for several weeks. I told myself to firm my jaw and learn to wait. Getting a response in a week is not normal, what do you think you are special now, or what? But there it is in Issue 9.

 

I haven't seen it and I won't see it until 5th March, when I get back to Bristol from Cote d'Ivoire. I'm dying to see what artwork I've got.