Something new and a list of 'to dos' (worse blog title ever?)

You'll see I've ventured towards the 'add image' button with this blog. I'm still learning.


This dog-eared A5 booklet is my 'Writing Year 2009' diary. I don't seem to manage too well with actual-bought-from-the-shop diaries, so I started making my own in 2007, with a page for each month to record short story deadlines, and a section at the back for 'submissions' made.












Here's the 'Submissions' page
from first few months of 2007:












And, not quite as many, but towards the end of 2008 I was doing okay...




















Now, the whole of 2009 (well, so far) and my submissions page looks like this:


There are a few reasons I haven't been as active with submitting work, the main one is that I don't have as much new work to submit. I mentionned my alter-ego in Blog 1. When I'm writing in that character, she can take over a bit. She's been quite prolific in the gaps, and has been published in one or two places herself.

I'm not being deliberately evasive about the alter-ego stuff, I'm not trying to conjure up a mood of expectancy, I'm still working out whether I should tie us in together - me and her, that is - I believe she's very obviously not real when you read her, but I'm not sure whether she's better standing on her own, without being tied to me.


The thing I started this blog about though, the reason part of its title is 'Something new' is because aside from the more obvious target of the Bridport Prize, I sent a story here just now: darktales and it's not at all my usual target.

But I have a few stories I've written around a theme for a specific publication/competition which were not placed, and the story I just subbed to Dark Tales is one of them.

I wrote 'Tipping Her Hips' a few years ago as an alternative/updated 'Snow White' story for Mslexia. It isn't my usual style, and it felt like a challenge to write. I researched fairy tales and the Snow White story. I read 'Snow, Glass, Apples' by Neil Gaiman and wished I could write something nearly as good.

I've been rejected by Mslexia many times and see being published in there as a big writing goal. It's an excellent magazine.

'Tipping Her Hips' wasn't right for Mslexia, but it might have a place somewhere else. Whether or not Dark Tales is that place, I'm pleased to have sent it somewhere - it's a good feeling having work out there, being considered.


Are the places you sub to wide and varying?

Do you try to always have things out there, being judged?

This is the first one

But I'm not sure what it will be just yet.

So, I'll just say -

I'm a short story writer with leanings towards energetic and experimental prose. I've been published in a few literary journals and anthologies.

I've been blogging with my alter-ego for about a year, so this feels a bit unusual, being 'myself'.

My alter-ego is ofen more productive than me.

(About this alter-ego - she's a work of comedy fiction, but she is a side of me. She's a writer too, one who knows no boundaries.)


It feels sometimes as if I have two sides. The alter ego: unaware, full of enthisiasm and word count; and then the other, 'real' me: struggling between a flurry of words and the halts.


I will introduce the alter ego later, I think. I'm still feeling my way, being hestitant with this blogging world.