A reason for completing ATHOTMiWF (not the most useful of acronyms I grant you) has been to include it as part of my application for the Stegner Fellowship. I sent the application a few hours ago. At odds of 140 to 1 I will now forget all about it until sllghtly before 1st April.

And the story has also made a late entrance into the Clarkesworld queue before their Xmas hiatus on 1st December. It started at 32nd, and by the end of the day had made it to 15th. At that rate I expect my rejection by midday tommorow.

So it was timely to run into Clarkesworld magazine’s call for Citizens. You might call this a creative and original way to raise funds, which of course it is. But it is also an acknowledgement of the role that a online magazine like Clarkesworld plays in forming and maintaining a community of people. Like any community, Citizenship comes with both rights and responsibilities, and those who take on the later get more of the former. I could imagine Citizenship becoming the defacto method of generating support for many online communities.

Last week I put a call out for suggestions of magazines that as an SF fan I should be reading. My subscriptions have lapsed recently (its been a busy year) so this week I wanted to renew some subscriptions and start a few new ones. I wanted to do this because I get a huge amount of joy from reading and listening to good stories, and want to contribute to keeping the publications I like going. I think a lot of people feel the same. So why don’t more of us subscribe and donate to our favourite publications?

More on that idea in a moment. But first, where am I choosing to invest my hard earned £ / $ ?

Over the last few years I have had subscriptions with most of the major print publications. Interzone two years running, Asimov’s and also Fantasy & Science Fiction. For the last year however I’ve been reading the e-edition of Weird Tales, so decided to take this opportunity to take out a subscription to the much prettier dead-tree-edition. I’ll still continue to purchase e-editions of Interzone and the others through Fictionwise, but Ann Vandermeer has made Weird Tales a must read for me.

In the world of the small press ‘zine, I’ll admit to some partisan loyalties. Electric Velocipede is for my money not just the best ‘zine, but the most influential SF publication currently on the market. I might have considered Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Sybil’s Garage or Shimmer, but really EV was always going to win. John Klima consistently spots excellent stories and interesting new writers, which is exactly what I want from a ‘zine.

Online ‘zines have established themselves as some of the most fertile grounds for exciting new SF stories. Alongside the first on the block Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld and Fantasy magazine have also established themselves as first tier publications by any estimation. I’ve also found great reading pleasure in Faragos Wainscott and Serendipity among others. But for this year my donated  $ is going to Clarkesworld, which manages a consistent excellence that none other is quite managing to match.

I listen to an increasing amount of fiction in wonderful audio via my iPod. There are now some truly excellent SF podcasts to choose from, not least the wonderful Drabblecast where Norm Sherman reigns supreme as the worlds top narrator and singer of bardles. I might commision a song somewhere down the line for a special occaision, but for this year I’ve stretched my budget to manage monthly donations to Star Ship Sofa and Escape Artists, producers of Escape Pod, Podcastle and Psedopod. Escape Pod in particular has been a source of massive inspiration to me over the years. It was my real introduction to SF short fiction, as I’m sure it was for many people. With the news that Escape Artists is constituting as a Non-Profit to take its business forward, now seems like the time to give them as much support as possible.

So why didn’t I do this all before today? And why don’t more people subscribe and donate to their favourite publications? I’m going to suggest that its simply because we don’t think about it. We pick up magazines at cons and elsewhere, we read online and we download our podcasts. We are all happy to subscribe and donate where we can (no one expects anyone to pay or give anything more than they can afford). But the actual chore of filling out the form is too easy to overlook in the daily rush of life.

So. I think we need to do something to remind ourselves how much we love our ‘zines of all kinds and want to support them. I think we need a ‘Support our ‘Zines Day’. (SOZD) A day when everyone who has enjoyed reading and listening to them all year puts down cash and subscribes / donates to their favourite publications. I think we should support it through the blog and Twitter-sphere and everywhere else we can. And, unless anyone else has a suggestion, I think it should be on 1st October.

SUPPORT OUR ‘ZINES DAY. 1st OCTOBER

What do you think?

I will come back to ‘Spook Country’ when time allows. I am so busy with work, new freelance projects and my own writing at the moment that my reading has fallen behind, at least of books.

I have however found a new taste for short fiction in recent months. This began with a spate of excellent stories read in online magazines including Serendipity, Strange Horizons and Clarkesworld among others. I really believe e-publishing has come into its own in the last few years. E-books may still be emerging but for short fiction online outlets are now as strong if not stronger than their cousins in print. I’ve also been thrown into new realms of reading through The Fix. Their reviews are so good they have lead me to take out subscriptions for at least one more publication in addition to the four I already get.

Another revelation in the last few weeks have been audiobook’s. Realising I had less and less ‘quality time’ for full novels I decided to try out audiobooks as a way of squeezing reading into times and places it might not otherwise fit. I’ve become instantly converted, and currently have stories by Garth Nix, George R R Martin and Ursula K LeGuin loaded on to my Ipod. I think audio will become an increasingly vibrant area iver the next few years as its so well adapted for the internet and peoples bust, commuting lifestyles.

I am determined to get bakc to reading entire books though. I have a wonderful holiday to Egypt booked December, so between excursions to The Valley of the Kings I intend to get in some good quality reading time. The only problem is what to take with me. How about you well read lot help me out with some suggestions?

So how is my life as a writer for hire going? Well since going PT at work I have installed myself as unoffical writer in residence at Leicester University Library where the studious atmosphere and lack of internet mean I have no option but to focus on the task at hand…writing. Its also occured to me that when I make the New York Times bestseller list for my fantasy epic they might give me an honorary degree or something. I’m doing two or three full days a week there, and its the most productive writing period I’ve had in my life. I’ve found that if I can dedicate a whole day to writing, I can manage three two sessions which produce about 2000 words. I’m going to find it very hard to give up this dedicated writing time if / when I return to the world of full-time employment so I’m intent on enjoying it while it lasts.

On the literature development front I am keeping myself busy. 2008 is the National Year of Reading around which I have big plans.

I have taken on a couple of freelance projects as well, most notably organising the Writing Industries Conference for the Literature Network. The conference is scheduled for early next year, more details here when they are available.

I completed my mentoring last week, which had stretched from a six month to an almost year long project. It has been tremendously valuable for me and provided a real focus for my development. I really doubt I would have taken the plunge in to the world of part tijme work and freelancing otherwise, or managed the progress I’ve made with writing.

I have also recently started reviewing work for The Fix. My first assignment was the retrospective short story collection Viewpoints Critical by L E Moddesitt. It turns out my mentor has met Modesitt which gave me a different insight into why I might have struggled through his stories. My next assignment is Cabinet des Fees: A Fairy Tale Journal by Prime Books. I’ve barely scratched the surface yet but it seems like an intriguing publication. The Fix is proving to be a really vibrant hub for the SF community so I strongly suggest taking a good look of that kind of thing interests you.

Transmission #9 and Electric Velocipede #13 have now hit the streets so I have no other confirmed publications ahead of me. I do have a story under serious consideration for an online zine, and I have stories submitted to BBC Radio 7, Realms of Fantasy, Clarkesworld and Elastic Press. My priority is to finish more work though, because I’m runing out of stuff to send out!

I have another 1000 words to bang out this evening. Good luck to any of you doing NaNoWriMo BTW.