Esteem Esteemed

How do you top inclusion in a Year's Best?

With an inclusion in a Best Of!

And the icing on the cake is that it's my first paid publication!
Elf Esteem is going to be re-published in the Andromeda Spaceways Best of Fantasy anthology!

It'll get the usual caning by the toffee noses. It's written to entertain, after all, and who wants to read that? One review even said that it was written "largely for its punchline". Well guess what? I wrote the bloody thing, and I didn't think of the last line until I was at -wait for it- the last line.

I have a soft spot for Elf Esteem. It's a skewed James Bond, a fact overlooked by most reviewers in spite of the riffs on Aston Martins, Moonraker, "Goodbye, Mr Bond" and a few others. It also has a pinch of Stainless Steel Rat, mainly in the style.

It's about elves and other fantasy tropes, which people see as a downside. Back then I didn't know it was a no-no to "the scene". I just wrote a story I thought would be fun. Many thanks to ASIM for including it, I'm humbled and honoured.

ASIM is producing three best of anthologies (go on, guess what the other two are). They'll be available on CD at Convergence, and will be downloaded from the ASIM site thereafter.

ZineWest finalist

I've just been notified that my story World of Hurt is in ZineWest! That means it's in the top 30 of 140 entries, will be published in the magazine (launched at the HomeWord festival) and is in the running for the cash and prizes.

By the way, I've been net dead for a couple of weeks because I've been starting my new job in Parramatta. I think I've ironed out some of the wrinkles in my life now.

Double sale!

So Miss Apostrophication herself mentioned to me that Farthing magazine was in search of a good drabble.

I greeted this news just like I did when informed of the Daikaiju anthology. Smiled and nodded knowingly, and then went and found out what the word meant. Turns out a drabble is a story of exactly 100 words (Daikaiju is a giant monster, a la Kong of Godzilla). So I wrote one, wasn't entirely happy with it, wrote another, sent them in and sold them BOTH! They'll be in Farthing issue #6.

Year's Best!!

Since people are starting to mention it, I thought I'd throw in that I'm in the year's best 'dark fiction omnibus', Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror 2007 by Brimstone Press!

The story is Finding the Words. I'm sure getting some mileage out of it. A year's best! Wow!

Dit Dit Dit Dash Dash Dash Dit Dit Dit

The Ditmar Awards are coming up. For those who came in late, there are two types of Awards in Aussie Spec Fic. The Aurealis Awards are judged by the genre In Crowd, and therefore showcase the works that have the greatest literary merit. The Ditmars are determined by readers, thus highlighting stories that lots of people seem to like.

I've never thought of either as particularly relevant to my writing. I don't reach for literary greatness (that would involve knowing what it is), and I'm not popular in the writing scene. I can't afford to go to conventions and the job and kids keep me too busy to even do the literary recluse thing.

But then, over at the blog of Shane Jiraiya Cummings, Shane has recommended to his readers that they vote for Finding the Words for best short story, and for me as best new talent! Shane *is* a well known, finger-on-the-pulse guy. He also writes some slick horror and is a badass real-not-just-the-gym Ninjutsu artist, so why argue with the guy? Go and get yourself a nomination form, and you can transform me into something I've never been before... a guy who got one nomination in the Ditmars.

Okay, time for a story. Last night my wife (in second trimester of pregnancy) couldn't sleep. She tried a hot milo. She tried sleeping on the lounge. She tried having something to eat. She turned on the air con. At last she read a little of Matthew Reilly's Area 7. Zzzzzzzz....

Nothing like gunfire and explosions to relax one.

Shot anyone lately?

I'm currently reading the thriller Remote Control by Andy McNab. He's ex-SAS, and writes from experience. All the little matter-of fact details really make it, the things you'd only know to write because you've been there and done that.
Brilliant stuff, but a little discouraging. How can an Australian ex-cattle farming computer programmer hope to ever compete with a guy who really has done black ops around the world?

My other blog

Just thought I'd mention the launch of Cute, Comic, Crazy (http://awsocute.blogspot.com/). I've seen so many cute and funny things from my own kids and others, I thought I'd start writing them down. Check it out for a corker that occurred recently at the house of a close relative.

Book of Shadows

I received my contributor copy of the Book of Shadows Volume 1 yesterday. Dang, it's good.

You know it's not your usual Aussie Spec Fic Ghetto piece before you even open the package. It's the right frigging size. I'm sure there are some good reasons for the small press to print books in the bigger size (cost being a major one, I imagine), and the quality of many of those works is still top-notch, but nothing screams SMALL PRESS like that bigger size of book. This baby presents itself with the best (well, paperback anyway). The cover art is appropriately ominous, and not distinct. It just gives you a feeling, not an object to focus on. That works for me. I'm the type of guy that reads through an antho wondering which story includes that chainsaw wielding cow I saw on the cover.

The stories? Well, you read Shadowed Realms don't you? Almost all of the stories are taken from SR's first year(it includes my little story Moving Dad from SR #6). The difference here is that you can read them all in one sitting, and what amazed me was that no recurring themes or styles came up. No editorial obsession with one topic, no underlying "If it ain't new wierd, it ain't fiction" bigotry, just damned good stories. Some are creepy some are poignant, all are dark.

The future is looking good for Aussie Dark Fic. Onward and upward, Brimstone.

ptang!

For the last week or so I've been writing every day! Okay, so it's only been a couple of hundred words or so, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a drop in the bucket, or something.

What I've written is utter crap, but I've given myself permission to write an awful first draft (thus, hopefully, enabling it to actually happen).

I'm writing my thriller, Ante Body, and I'm up to my very first gun fight! The protag, a mystery man and a host of unknown bad guys are exchanging steel jackety death in a shopping mall. Just for fun I might go Matthew Reilly on them, where the bad guy is right there and things just miss and action happens in italics!

Oh yeah, and I got another rejection from a professional market. Oh well, out it goes again.

Hoooowwwl

So I thought I'd have a look at how some of my upcoming publications were progressing. I went to the Coyote Moon Publications web site to see how ShadowSword mag was getting along- and I found a note to say the publisher has folded! They cancelled publishing my story (and all others, obviously) and didn't tell me.

It also had this note:
Additional apologies to anyone who has not received a personal e-mail from me about this matter. Some of the addresses I had on file were apparently out of date or non-responsive, and my ongoing troubles have included internet connectivity problems.

The contact addy I gave them has been in use for a good 10 years, and is still my main one. I wonder how long it's been cancelled for.

So now I have to find another market for Girl Power. Which isn't easy, as it's humour. That means most of the Aussie SF community, for example, write it off a priori as having 'nothing to offer the reader' (apart from ASIM, of course, who accepted it into their round 3 but it wasn't picked up by an editor).

Anyone know any good humor markets?

Yes, it's been a while. My work has moved from Parramatta to the city, taking a large chunk out of my day in travel time (I hope to convert this to writing time, but it's hard to write a novel with a stylus). The new work environment is trendy, corporate, and cold. Not in the temperature sense, either. I can't write in lunchtimes any more. Or critique. Or anything except listen to the trendy Nova radio station play their eight frigging songs over and over.

What else has happened/is happening? Let's see:
-I turned 35. That's about halfway to death, best case. It also isn't anywhere near as old as it was when I was in my mid 20's. In fact, the younger ages just appear to be much younger.
-We're expecting our third child, due in July. No it wasn't a bloody accident, thanks for asking.
-Ben is about to turn four. He's maturing by the day. One minute he'll surprise me with his selflessness and servitude, the next by his ability to lie.
-Matty (1 1/2) is becoming a mischievous little prankster. It's so hard to keep a straight face when he comes running up to you, does something he knows is wrong and runs off cackling insanely.
-The Aurealis Award shortlist has been released. I found it a bit of a yawner, with all the usual suspects. The exception is Steph Campisi with her great story Why The Balloon Man Floats Away (heh heh- eat over-capitalisation!).

Who knows when I'll be able to post again? Maybe when I get another job.

Wow! TangentOnline.com has reviewed Shadowed Realms Issue 11 and this is how they described my story:

Steven Cavanagh's “Finding the Words” took first place in the 2006 Australian Horror Writer Association's Flash Fiction Competition and is easily the most powerful piece in issue 11 of Shadowed Realms. While technically horror, it’s a touching story of a man laying his daughter to rest. Cavanagh’s style is fluid and uses sense imagery to ground the reader in reality. It’s touching and it's tender and it's heartfelt, something I’m not used to seeing in horror.

This should get my motivation back. Something a writer MUST do is disconnect themselves from reviews of their work, but I have a lot of trouble with it.

Zombies multiply

Permuted Press has made the official announcement that they will be releasing BOTH and Undead 2 and Undead 3 anthology (have these guys been chatting to Robert Hood?)

While this is exciting news for undead fic fans, my story has been moved to book 3, tentatively entitled Flesh Feast. Being in a book 3 doesn't look quite as good on a biblio, IMHO, but they're publishing my story so no complaints :)

Hit the announcement link for squishy, runny cover art and a full list of contributors.

Finding the Words is Published

After an extended delay, the overworked folks at Brimstone Press have released the special double issue of Shadowed Relams, featuring my award winning story Finding the Words!

BTW, Brimstone have updated their site and included sub guidelines for Black Box! I'm already in it, having won Shane Jiraiya Cummings' Snakes on a Plane comp (see last post). It's only 120 words, so I don't want to hear your lame excuse for not finding the time to write. Send your creepy, lice-infested words to Shane now!

(now for my lame excuse for not finding the time to write)
I haven't written for weeks, due to that danged Real Life (and that pesky motivation leech, the Terrible Review). I *will* write today, even if it's utter crap and only a sentence.
I *will* write tomorrow, too. And the day after that...

Oh, and if you haven't read Nicole's RSI-inducing Australian Speculative Fiction Carnival, go have a look. Our community is vibrant, wise, bitchy, insightful and a whole host of adjectives I don't understand but am willing to learn.

Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror 2006 edition and Book of Shadows volume one are now available for pre-order at Brimstone Press! The latter includes my story from Shadowed Realms issue 6, Moving Dad (second place winner in the 2005 AHWA flash fiction competition).

Speaking of pre-orders, someone contacted the Infinitas Bookshop recently, asking for a copy of my novel.

Trouble is, I don't have one!

They'd read one of the stories I'd written for the Infinitas newsletter, By the Numbers, and assumed it was extracted from a novel.
I've been asked a few times if I'm going to extend or serialise that story. Maybe I should find out what happens next.
Still, that's what I call a pre-order :)

Snuck onto the plane.

Cool! As Steph added in the comments below, I won the Snakes on a Plane comp!

That's the third writing competition I've won this year!

I'm slooowly creeping along on my novel. I'm currently working out how to blow the windows out of a shopping center in Seattle and jump onto the monorail roof.

Hmm, I wonder if that last sentence will register me in some kind of homeland security database.

Worms on a Helicopter!

Over at the blog of Shane Jiraiya Cummings, he's put up a simple writing comp. The winner will be published in Black Box, the sequel to Shadow Box.

120 word horror story, with the theme of the tackiest movie title of all time: "Snakes on a Plane". Check out my entry while you're there. I tried to get some depth of character in, and snuck in references to Samuel L MoFoJackson, Black Box itself, and what I hope is an innovative take on the snakes.

Still Moving

Another review of Moving Dad just popped up at Australian Specfic In Focus (scroll down to it), by Talie Helene. She writes:

“Moving Dad” is Steven Cavanagh’s Second Place winning story – beginning with whimsical familiarity, moving to poignancy. A lovely slow reveal, blurring the line between the infirmity of advanced age, and the shambling corruption of undeath. An exploration of a universal horror – the realisation of the mortality of the father – I won’t spoil the ending, but Cavanagh kicks off beautifully into an even deeper horror in the last line. Fantastic dialogue in this one too.

It's good to see someone who really got the central concept (the similarity between how we treat the old and how we treat the dead). Very nice of Talie to say such kind words. Poignant? Hell, wait till she sees Finding The Words! Pop them tear ducts right open, it will.

Hmm, speaking like Yoda, I was.
Digressing, I am.

Fastest rejection in the west

I got word of new market Clarkesworld Magazine from the Horrorscope Blog, and thought I'd send 'em a story.
A rejection was back in my Inbox, with quotations and detailed reasons for the rejection within an hour! For those who read this and don't write, the normal procedure is to wait a year and then nag them.

The rejection was polite, professional, and made me feel like I'm a kindergarten kid going for the Pulitzer. The further I go as a writer, the further I have to go.

Just got an interior art sample for Street Smarts. The artist wanted to know what I thought, and some pointers on fitting the characters with how I pictured them. This is the second time an artist has brought my characters to live, and it's such a buzz. It's great art, too.

Things to do before I die: con someone into making a movie of something I've written. Even if it involves a Jedi, a Sith and a forest.

By the Numbers published.

The August Infinitas newsletter has just been released. It includes my story By the Numbers. Click here for a free read!