Jim Bish

@dougk if you’d like an alternative to a sedative, you can read the exhaustive cautionary tale of my small press experience here https://airandseastories.com/2019/01/30/my-publishing-nightmare-the-story-of-a-book-deal-gone-bad-part-1/

Good article @dougk.

For anyone looking to submit to Indie Presses in the UK and Ireland, the Indie Press Guide produced by Mslexia is a good place to start. Also, if you don’t have an agent to check a contract for you, the Society of Authors in the UK will check it at no charge. I’ve found them VERY thorough!

You’re quite right Richard. Although the lack of hoovering and the pile of christmas cards still waiting to be written might point to a different conclusion!

They do have that sort of instant hit of relateable truth don’t they? Ironic, or perhaps not, that Roche’s career might apply to the principle of ‘Connections’, even though it’s clearly about something much more personal. A missed connection here or there is the difference between national treasure status and obscurity.

Also interesting for me to…[Read more]

I’ve just wasted an hour, thanks to you Richard, trawling through the internet searching for Brian Patten who was my particular favourite and ordered a copy of Little Johnny’s Confession which I am sure is the book of his I used to have. Fingers crossed.

Weirdly enough it helps my way of working which is to do intensive bursts of writing and then let myself be distracted for a brief while before I attack again!

@sandradavies thanks, I will look that up. I’m a fan of keeping speech tags/descriptions to a minimum and I often write scenes with dialogue first and then build the other stuff around it, so this is very much up my street

Great competition Sandra, am really intrigued to read the story that inspired it now. Well done Ath, and everyone else, good set of stories

“I dreamt about you last night. No, don’t look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s a line or… like I’m being…?”
“What?”
“I dunno. Overly sentimental.”
“OK. I won’t then.

…Well you can’t leave it hanging like that. What was I doing in this dream?”
“That’s the thing. I can’t actually remember. You know what dreams are like.”
“I know what my…[Read more]

The Sanctum of Dreams

“I dreamt about you last night. You were in the sanctum.”
“Well, that’s hardly surprising, is it? Given what’s about to happen.”
“No. I suppose not. It was just so…”
“So…what? Are you going to share? Or just sit there looking worried? I’m not a mind reader.”
“Yet.”
“Ha! True. Well, tell me about it. I don’t like to see y…[Read more]

There’s a monster inside of me.

It was born when Noellia moved into number 14.

The car started it. A shiny new Fiat 500. Electric. In powder blue. Parked on the drive. I looked at my own clapped out Fiesta and felt the first stirrings of new life, deep in my chest.

She fed the monster well, did Noellia.

Had an open house, she did. Invited…[Read more]