For those few of you following this unmaintained blog...I'm now moving to a new blog "Richard Barnes - Writer" which I'll use to plug my work and provide links to other writers etc.
http://richardbarneswriter.blogspot.com/
There's not a lot there right now, but it will all be up and running properly soon.
Now, go and buy a copy of "A Foreign Country" featuring my story "Miramar is Possum Free". And while you're at it, go and buy a copy of "Masters of Horror" with my story "Something Unpleasant".
Many thanks...
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Time to get off my lazy butt..
Rico writes...
Dark Fantasy story is slowly getting edited and re-written. A friend sent me feedback on my horror story (Something unpleasant - available in the "Masters of Horror" Anthology) and pointed out exactly how it could be made better. The idea that the story oozed out of was not really the main story by the time it was finished. In hindsight it seems obvious, but I should have re-jiggled the scenes to give it more emphasis. Having said that, I'm was still pleased with the final story, and my friend did say it gave him the worst nightmare of his life, which has to be a compliment about a horror story.
But, with that bit of feedback I'm re-cutting my dark fantasy story to put the real star of the show a bit more centre stage. Which means far more than just copying and pasting that paragraph from there to there - I'm having to re-write whole chunks and cut out some bits and come up with brand new bits.
Why is it a constant surprise to me that stories have to get written first, then re-written, then mucked about with, then put away and matured, then re-read and re-written again because by that stage, you might just have figured out what the story should be...
Rico reads...
The Algebraist continues to be fascinating, exciting and occasionally sick stuff. I'm also reading the original Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I love the sheer pace and passion that comes out of a lot of the "classic" pulp writing - Howard's Conan is another good example. Mind you, I've got to the bit where Jane turns up and it seems to be getting a bit soppy.
Also, thanks to Birthday money, I got a copy of the second volume of Michael Palin's Diaries. As a Python fan, its great reading - as well as being an interesting series of snapshots of the Eighties.
Rico doesn't run....
Okay, enough excuses. My cold/ virus has more or less subsided so I need to get back out on the roads and hills of Wellington. I won't be fit enough for a good go at the Half in June, so I'm aiming for a half-marathon in September. So, time to take my kit back to work and get some lunchtime running in.
Rico reviews...
Watched "The Invention of lying" last night - co-written/ directed and starring Ricky Gervais. In many ways a sweet love story but with Gervais biting sense of embarrasment and a fairly sharp piece of satire.
Missions for the coming week - finish that Dark Fantasy story, have a long hard think about a Twisted fairy tale submission, have another think and plan about another sci-fi submission and maybe decide what novel I am going to try to write:
Carrie Black is Dead OR
Tales from the Edge OR
Darness Rides
And take running kit to work and boot up and down the Botanical Gardens a couple of times.
AND - keep an eye on the European volcano situation and hope my good pal Gavin will make it to New Zealand.
Dark Fantasy story is slowly getting edited and re-written. A friend sent me feedback on my horror story (Something unpleasant - available in the "Masters of Horror" Anthology) and pointed out exactly how it could be made better. The idea that the story oozed out of was not really the main story by the time it was finished. In hindsight it seems obvious, but I should have re-jiggled the scenes to give it more emphasis. Having said that, I'm was still pleased with the final story, and my friend did say it gave him the worst nightmare of his life, which has to be a compliment about a horror story.
But, with that bit of feedback I'm re-cutting my dark fantasy story to put the real star of the show a bit more centre stage. Which means far more than just copying and pasting that paragraph from there to there - I'm having to re-write whole chunks and cut out some bits and come up with brand new bits.
Why is it a constant surprise to me that stories have to get written first, then re-written, then mucked about with, then put away and matured, then re-read and re-written again because by that stage, you might just have figured out what the story should be...
Rico reads...
The Algebraist continues to be fascinating, exciting and occasionally sick stuff. I'm also reading the original Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I love the sheer pace and passion that comes out of a lot of the "classic" pulp writing - Howard's Conan is another good example. Mind you, I've got to the bit where Jane turns up and it seems to be getting a bit soppy.
Also, thanks to Birthday money, I got a copy of the second volume of Michael Palin's Diaries. As a Python fan, its great reading - as well as being an interesting series of snapshots of the Eighties.
Rico doesn't run....
Okay, enough excuses. My cold/ virus has more or less subsided so I need to get back out on the roads and hills of Wellington. I won't be fit enough for a good go at the Half in June, so I'm aiming for a half-marathon in September. So, time to take my kit back to work and get some lunchtime running in.
Rico reviews...
Watched "The Invention of lying" last night - co-written/ directed and starring Ricky Gervais. In many ways a sweet love story but with Gervais biting sense of embarrasment and a fairly sharp piece of satire.
Missions for the coming week - finish that Dark Fantasy story, have a long hard think about a Twisted fairy tale submission, have another think and plan about another sci-fi submission and maybe decide what novel I am going to try to write:
Carrie Black is Dead OR
Tales from the Edge OR
Darness Rides
And take running kit to work and boot up and down the Botanical Gardens a couple of times.
AND - keep an eye on the European volcano situation and hope my good pal Gavin will make it to New Zealand.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Would anyone like to use a Dark Fantasy short story?
Rico writes....
I finished the 1000 words of flash fiction and got it sent off on time. Not sure how succesful this little story is - the story was inspired by the Rwandan genocide, and I think I may have been trying a bit too hard to cram issues into it. Especially as there was only 1000 words to work with.
I have to say "inspire" in this context seems an odd word. Surely "inspire" should denote something positive and uplifting, but in reading about some of the horrifying details of the Rwandan story, it seems a little wrong to be getting material from such an awful tragedy.
In my defence, I kept the story free of gratuitous gory details, and the story is about how peoples who have lived side by side for years can be turned into murderers and victims.
In the past week I also finished the first draft of a dark fantasy story that I've been slowly getting to the end of. While it certainly doesn't have the weighty source of my flash fiction story, it had no kind of humour whatsoever in it, just miserable circumstances and miserable events, although hopefully told in an exciting, action-packed and engaging way.
I like to think I'm a fairly positive person and I love good comedy and, to be honest, frequently laugh at bad comedy too. So where does all this grimness in my writing come from?
A small problem with the dark fantasy story is that I had planned to submit it to a certain online publisher, who has just recently closed their submissions for short stories. If anyone knows of any others publishers or anthologies that are looking for dark fantasy, please let me know.
Rico reads...
I've finally got round to picking up a copy of Iain M Banks "The Algebraist". Its the first Banks novel I've read for quite a while and I'm very glad I picked it up. Iain Banks' imagination is just enormous - and if I worry about what's going on in my head, then Lord knows what's going on inside his brilliant mind.
The way he leaps between locations and characters and viewpoints is just superb. The Algebraist starts with an idyllic scene in a beautiful garden. The following scene is seemingly unrelated and describes "a psychopathic sadist with an imagination" - then it finishes with the revelation that the psycho will be on his way to the idyllic place. Clearly its all going to go horrifyingly wrong, but who knows how or why or what?
Way back I started writing what I thought was going to be a cracking piece of space opera then read my first Iain M Banks book - I quickly dumped my poor-man's Star Wars and decided that I needed to raise my game considerably. Inspiring stuff (in the positive sense).
I finished the 1000 words of flash fiction and got it sent off on time. Not sure how succesful this little story is - the story was inspired by the Rwandan genocide, and I think I may have been trying a bit too hard to cram issues into it. Especially as there was only 1000 words to work with.
I have to say "inspire" in this context seems an odd word. Surely "inspire" should denote something positive and uplifting, but in reading about some of the horrifying details of the Rwandan story, it seems a little wrong to be getting material from such an awful tragedy.
In my defence, I kept the story free of gratuitous gory details, and the story is about how peoples who have lived side by side for years can be turned into murderers and victims.
In the past week I also finished the first draft of a dark fantasy story that I've been slowly getting to the end of. While it certainly doesn't have the weighty source of my flash fiction story, it had no kind of humour whatsoever in it, just miserable circumstances and miserable events, although hopefully told in an exciting, action-packed and engaging way.
I like to think I'm a fairly positive person and I love good comedy and, to be honest, frequently laugh at bad comedy too. So where does all this grimness in my writing come from?
A small problem with the dark fantasy story is that I had planned to submit it to a certain online publisher, who has just recently closed their submissions for short stories. If anyone knows of any others publishers or anthologies that are looking for dark fantasy, please let me know.
Rico reads...
I've finally got round to picking up a copy of Iain M Banks "The Algebraist". Its the first Banks novel I've read for quite a while and I'm very glad I picked it up. Iain Banks' imagination is just enormous - and if I worry about what's going on in my head, then Lord knows what's going on inside his brilliant mind.
The way he leaps between locations and characters and viewpoints is just superb. The Algebraist starts with an idyllic scene in a beautiful garden. The following scene is seemingly unrelated and describes "a psychopathic sadist with an imagination" - then it finishes with the revelation that the psycho will be on his way to the idyllic place. Clearly its all going to go horrifyingly wrong, but who knows how or why or what?
Way back I started writing what I thought was going to be a cracking piece of space opera then read my first Iain M Banks book - I quickly dumped my poor-man's Star Wars and decided that I needed to raise my game considerably. Inspiring stuff (in the positive sense).
Friday, March 26, 2010
A furious couple of weeks in late January...
Rico Writes.....
First up, thanks to the hard work of Editor Supreme, Lee Pletzers, "Master of Horror: The Anthology" is now available for a mere US1.99 for downloading from Smashwords. Click on the link below...
"Master of Horror: The Anthology."
Secondly, last week I was very pleased to get an email telling me that my story "Miramar is Possum Free" has been selected for a New Zealand Speculative Fiction anthology that is being published by Random Static as part of the "Au Contraire" New Zealand Science Fiction Convention, being held in August 2010.
It was a long and strange gestation and birth for the story. The competition was announced at least 6 months before the deadline (end of Jan) so I went to work in plenty of time.
The first effort was about a New Zealand laid waste by a monster that had been woken as part of an experiment to predict the future. It all got a bit too heavy and frankly, I got bored writing it, which can only mean the reader would lose interest even earlier.
After watching Blade Runner, I had a complete change of heart - how about a sort of parody based in a futuristic New Zealand, which is the wealthiest country on Earth as it is the only clean and green place left, so it feeds the whole, polluted and war-torn world. Our hero would be a hard-boiled detective that has to track down a genetically modified super-cow....I did finish it, all 7000 odd words but realised that the whole thing was far too serious and po-faced. After all, it is about a mutant cow - you have to have a certain amount of tongue in cheek to get away with that...
By now, the deadline was looming - I think I had about two weeks to to finish it. As indeed was the Master of Horror deadline. And the AUT Short Fiction competition deadline.
It was two weeks of rare productivity. My Blade Runner parody at least gave me a setting to work with, and a sub-plot suddenly seemed to have the right sort of ludicrous potential. What if Miramar (the Wellington suburb I live in, which displays proud signs about its possum-free status) was NOT so Possum free. And what if those possums were....ah, that would be telling.
So I managed to finish it, review it, swear at it, re-write it, cut bits, add bits, swear because it was too long, cut more bits and finally get it into some kind of shape and email it away.
I'm quite proud of the story (especially since someone else has decided that its worth publishing) - perhaps I'm boasting a little too much but I'd claim that its possibly the best mutant possum/ Amazonian spider monkey story ever written - but I'm happy to be contradicted.
Obviously, the Masters of Horror story got bashed out too, and, as luck would have it, I managed to resurrect an older (and more down to earth) tale for the AUT Competition. Its a rarity in my writing - a story without a single mutant, tentacled monster or psychopathic dead girl in it. Winners are announced at the end of April, but I fear that lightning won't be striking a third time..
Douglas Adams said he loved deadlines - especially the whooshing noise they made as they rushed by. Unfortunately, unlike Adams, I don't have a million dollar advance in my back pocket, nor do I have a track record of genius and millions of loyal fans - so deadlines are things I have to make or nobody will be looking at anything I churn out.
Deadlines to me are thundering great trains roaring towards me while I'm stuck on the tracks. But I still seem to like playing chicken with them.
For example, I've known for about two months now about a deadline for a flash fiction submission (31st March) - ONLY 1000 words (which takes about one solitary hour), and I still haven't finished it. Maybe this evening....
First up, thanks to the hard work of Editor Supreme, Lee Pletzers, "Master of Horror: The Anthology" is now available for a mere US1.99 for downloading from Smashwords. Click on the link below...
"Master of Horror: The Anthology."
Secondly, last week I was very pleased to get an email telling me that my story "Miramar is Possum Free" has been selected for a New Zealand Speculative Fiction anthology that is being published by Random Static as part of the "Au Contraire" New Zealand Science Fiction Convention, being held in August 2010.
It was a long and strange gestation and birth for the story. The competition was announced at least 6 months before the deadline (end of Jan) so I went to work in plenty of time.
The first effort was about a New Zealand laid waste by a monster that had been woken as part of an experiment to predict the future. It all got a bit too heavy and frankly, I got bored writing it, which can only mean the reader would lose interest even earlier.
After watching Blade Runner, I had a complete change of heart - how about a sort of parody based in a futuristic New Zealand, which is the wealthiest country on Earth as it is the only clean and green place left, so it feeds the whole, polluted and war-torn world. Our hero would be a hard-boiled detective that has to track down a genetically modified super-cow....I did finish it, all 7000 odd words but realised that the whole thing was far too serious and po-faced. After all, it is about a mutant cow - you have to have a certain amount of tongue in cheek to get away with that...
By now, the deadline was looming - I think I had about two weeks to to finish it. As indeed was the Master of Horror deadline. And the AUT Short Fiction competition deadline.
It was two weeks of rare productivity. My Blade Runner parody at least gave me a setting to work with, and a sub-plot suddenly seemed to have the right sort of ludicrous potential. What if Miramar (the Wellington suburb I live in, which displays proud signs about its possum-free status) was NOT so Possum free. And what if those possums were....ah, that would be telling.
So I managed to finish it, review it, swear at it, re-write it, cut bits, add bits, swear because it was too long, cut more bits and finally get it into some kind of shape and email it away.
I'm quite proud of the story (especially since someone else has decided that its worth publishing) - perhaps I'm boasting a little too much but I'd claim that its possibly the best mutant possum/ Amazonian spider monkey story ever written - but I'm happy to be contradicted.
Obviously, the Masters of Horror story got bashed out too, and, as luck would have it, I managed to resurrect an older (and more down to earth) tale for the AUT Competition. Its a rarity in my writing - a story without a single mutant, tentacled monster or psychopathic dead girl in it. Winners are announced at the end of April, but I fear that lightning won't be striking a third time..
Douglas Adams said he loved deadlines - especially the whooshing noise they made as they rushed by. Unfortunately, unlike Adams, I don't have a million dollar advance in my back pocket, nor do I have a track record of genius and millions of loyal fans - so deadlines are things I have to make or nobody will be looking at anything I churn out.
Deadlines to me are thundering great trains roaring towards me while I'm stuck on the tracks. But I still seem to like playing chicken with them.
For example, I've known for about two months now about a deadline for a flash fiction submission (31st March) - ONLY 1000 words (which takes about one solitary hour), and I still haven't finished it. Maybe this evening....
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Neil Gaiman took my Gold Pen!!!
Rico reviews....
Yes, Neil Gaiman, big selling and highly acclaimed author, took the gold pen I had bought for $7 that day while he was signing books at Wellington Town Hall. To be fair, I let him have it after he asked. He didn't just steal it. All this happened last week when Neil gave a talk as part of the New Zealand Arts Festival's Writers and Writers week.
Neil Gaiman is the popular and critically acclaimed author of Coraline, Stardust and American Gods (amongst other things). He first hit the big time writing the superb "Sandman" comic for DC.
Way back, a mere 22 years ago, the Sandman hit the shelves for the first time. I was 16 and had read books like the Dark Knight and Watchmen, but was looking for a monthly title to pick up. The Sandman advert looked like it had the right stuff - "I will show you terror in a handful of dust" (a TS Eliot quote).
As luck would have it, when the Sandman was about to come out, Neil Gaiman and artist, Dave McKean had also released the excellent Black Orchid mini-series a couple of weeks before and the pair were doing a tour promoting it.
When the tour arrived at The Comic Zone in Reading, UK, it was the weekend that the Sandman came out.
So I bought my copy of the first issue of the Sandman, queued up for about 15 minutes, marvelled at the stunning, 5ft tall actual painiting of the Sandman's first cover and then handed the book over for Dave and Neil to sign.
8 years and 76 issues later, Neil brought the Sandman to a finish, and DC, in a moment of corporate wisdom, let their biggest selling title finish and didn't hand it to a new writer.
And, 22 years later, (and around 10,000 miles) Neil Gaiman appears at the Town Hall in Wellington, New Zealand.
My friend Dianne, who is a fan of his later works, gets a couple of tickets and I have a plan to get him to sign my 75th issue of the Sandman to book-end my collection (I figure it would have been a bit cheeky to take the other 74 issues with me).
Neil gives an excellent talk, several readings, a great question and answer session and then we all rush out to get in the queue.
Luckily we were sitting near the door, so were able to get to a good place in the line. We queue for ten minutes or so and I pass over issue 75 and show him issue no1. Neil greets his old signature like an old friend, confirms that the signing in Reading was the very first Sandman signing, and then cheerfully signs my issue no1 for a second time. Then, impressed by the gold pen I'd brought for signing (he'd been signing other books with a black pen up to that point) he asks if he can keep it.
How could I say no? He's just turned my copy of the Sandman's first issue into what surely must be the most unique copy on Earth.
I read the Sandman from the age of 16 to about 24/25. It is one of the most important things I've ever read.
I've sometimes thought about selling my collection, and making more than enough to buy the trade paperback editions. But they wouldn't be the same.
Those aren't just a bunch of comics - they were part of my life. I'm working my way through them again right now, and its like sitting down with a group of old friends - occasionally strange, twisted and weird, but friends who were there during the formative years.
Yes, Neil Gaiman, big selling and highly acclaimed author, took the gold pen I had bought for $7 that day while he was signing books at Wellington Town Hall. To be fair, I let him have it after he asked. He didn't just steal it. All this happened last week when Neil gave a talk as part of the New Zealand Arts Festival's Writers and Writers week.
Neil Gaiman is the popular and critically acclaimed author of Coraline, Stardust and American Gods (amongst other things). He first hit the big time writing the superb "Sandman" comic for DC.
Way back, a mere 22 years ago, the Sandman hit the shelves for the first time. I was 16 and had read books like the Dark Knight and Watchmen, but was looking for a monthly title to pick up. The Sandman advert looked like it had the right stuff - "I will show you terror in a handful of dust" (a TS Eliot quote).
As luck would have it, when the Sandman was about to come out, Neil Gaiman and artist, Dave McKean had also released the excellent Black Orchid mini-series a couple of weeks before and the pair were doing a tour promoting it.
When the tour arrived at The Comic Zone in Reading, UK, it was the weekend that the Sandman came out.
So I bought my copy of the first issue of the Sandman, queued up for about 15 minutes, marvelled at the stunning, 5ft tall actual painiting of the Sandman's first cover and then handed the book over for Dave and Neil to sign.
8 years and 76 issues later, Neil brought the Sandman to a finish, and DC, in a moment of corporate wisdom, let their biggest selling title finish and didn't hand it to a new writer.
And, 22 years later, (and around 10,000 miles) Neil Gaiman appears at the Town Hall in Wellington, New Zealand.
My friend Dianne, who is a fan of his later works, gets a couple of tickets and I have a plan to get him to sign my 75th issue of the Sandman to book-end my collection (I figure it would have been a bit cheeky to take the other 74 issues with me).
Neil gives an excellent talk, several readings, a great question and answer session and then we all rush out to get in the queue.
Luckily we were sitting near the door, so were able to get to a good place in the line. We queue for ten minutes or so and I pass over issue 75 and show him issue no1. Neil greets his old signature like an old friend, confirms that the signing in Reading was the very first Sandman signing, and then cheerfully signs my issue no1 for a second time. Then, impressed by the gold pen I'd brought for signing (he'd been signing other books with a black pen up to that point) he asks if he can keep it.
How could I say no? He's just turned my copy of the Sandman's first issue into what surely must be the most unique copy on Earth.
I read the Sandman from the age of 16 to about 24/25. It is one of the most important things I've ever read.
I've sometimes thought about selling my collection, and making more than enough to buy the trade paperback editions. But they wouldn't be the same.
Those aren't just a bunch of comics - they were part of my life. I'm working my way through them again right now, and its like sitting down with a group of old friends - occasionally strange, twisted and weird, but friends who were there during the formative years.
So all in all, a pretty inspiring experience, especially as I'm about to get my first out and out horror story published (Masters of Horror Anthology - more details soon).
Now, if only someone could persuade Alan Moore to leave Northampton for a talk and signing in New Zealand....
Friday, March 5, 2010
At last my very own Blog!!!!
So I have a blog now. Having just had my short story "Something Unpleasant" accepted for the "Masters of Horror" Anthology, I need to start plugging this stuff.
All of the other contributers seem to be far more clued up on this stuff than me, so I think I'm playing catch-up.
Anyhoo - we'll use this blog to ramble about my writing (and try to form some kind of habit), my running (5km in 22:07...but can we go faster?), I may throw up the occasional review (Contact by Carl Sagan is very good so far, and Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby was just tops), and very possibly the occasional rant (KFC is just never as good as the smell that wafts over the car when we drive by...).
Once I figure out how, I'll put links up to the MoH Anthology and help plug my fellow contributers.
And - right now I'm watching Aliens Special Edition (again) - and hell, it really is a very, very good movie.
All of the other contributers seem to be far more clued up on this stuff than me, so I think I'm playing catch-up.
Anyhoo - we'll use this blog to ramble about my writing (and try to form some kind of habit), my running (5km in 22:07...but can we go faster?), I may throw up the occasional review (Contact by Carl Sagan is very good so far, and Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby was just tops), and very possibly the occasional rant (KFC is just never as good as the smell that wafts over the car when we drive by...).
Once I figure out how, I'll put links up to the MoH Anthology and help plug my fellow contributers.
And - right now I'm watching Aliens Special Edition (again) - and hell, it really is a very, very good movie.
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