Blogging the blog fantastic

How often should you blog to keep readers interested and the search engines buzzing? I’ve been reading advice on this from the LL-Publication blog here and I should be posting new pages twice or three times a week. Once a week is usually all I can manage because I am a writer, grandpappy, hiker, cyclist, and house-husband. I don’t want to scribble blogs for their one sake. This month is exciting blogwise, because I am traveling on a blog tour for my ARIA: Left Luggage book.

At the beginning of the month I was on the delectable Suzanne McLeod’s blog here, with a piece on coincidences. I note she has around 2 or 3 blog posts per week. This week should have been the turn of Les Floyd on his Lesism blog. Sadly, Les is ill in hospital after a spontaneous pneumothorax resulting in a collapsed lung. Hope you are getting better, Les. He said he’ll post my blog piece when he gets out and finds it in his three million or so emails!

Meanwhile the superb award-winning writer, Jonathan Pinnock hosts a blog piece of mine at http://www.jonathanpinnock.com/ later today. BTW Jonathan has been shortlisted AGAIN for the prestigious Bridport Prize for short stories. Congrats, Jon. I like that he says he doesn’t quite understand his stoy (if I understood it correctly). Haha, how many of my critiquers at the BSFA Orbiters complain that I haven’t explained everything? Well, not many but yahoo anyway. Ah, now I can tag the words Bridport Prize and attract thousands of hits to this blog, although it’s Jonathan’s blog that is more deserving. Haha.

My piece on Jonathan’s blog is The Lure of Bridges. I have a cartoon there of wind blowing me around on top of the Grosvenor Bridge in Chester. Last night that bridge was closed because an attempted suicide chap was being talked down. By chance I’d forgotten my blog piece was about bridges when I posted about Grosvenor Bridge this morning on facebook. Lo and behold there is my cartoon! To think my blog piece for Suzanne McLeod was on Coincidences! You can’t make it up.

I went for a cycle ride this morning and didn’t like it – shock! The sun was out – hooray, but too low and in my eyes – boo. My prescription sunshades from Optilabs (come on send me a free pair for the plug) are great, filtering out the harsh glare but I worried about drivers coming up behind me. Are they wearing shades? Can they see me? It reminded me why I like booking a week in the Mediterranean for a cycling hol as I did last autumn. I was wondering whether to celebrate my upcoming birthday on Guy Fawkes, cycling the TT race circuit on the Isle of Man, but it would either be raining or the sun would be low. Grrr. Also I can’t find an IOM cycle dealer who can rent me a carbon fibre road bike. I could take my own Dawes Super Galaxy but it takes away some of the pleasure of riding a superlight bike for a few days. An alternative celebration is do something related to my other interest of hiking AND ARIA: Left Luggage. Much of the book is set in the Anafon valley in North Wales. I have a yearning to catch a train to Llanfairfechan (love saying that to the ticket office) and walk, via Anafon and a Roman road, back home to Chester. 60+ miles over hilly terrain. About four days at my pace, especially if I took tent, sleeping bag and food. I might cheat and use guest houses – there’s only one youth hostel en route. Here’s a pic of that Anafon valley. Read ARIA: Left Luggage if you want to see how I use that valley! You’ve not seen this photo of this ‘hidden’ valley before. It’s taken by me from near the summit of Drum. To the right – East- is the Roman road, Anglesey is in the distance. Anafon lake is visible only visited by me and a few fishermen … until they had amnesia and forgot it…

FantasyCon 2011 – hot, hot hot

I’m suffering jet lag. Okay, the distance between Brighton and Chester is only a handful of hundreds of miles and four hours by train, but the distance in terms of literary milieu I am on the other side of the planet. A day ago I was shaking hands with Brian Aldiss. Brian Aldiss! And Christopher Priest, Ramsey Campbell, and other writer friends such as Jonathan Pinnock, Ian Whates, Robert Harkess, Raven Dane and Sam Stone. My experience became enhanced with the artists too – Steve Upham, Vincent Chong and Andy Bigwood. Then the publishers – most of whom are also fine writers but are these days mostly producing exquisite publications – Terry Martin, Lee Harris, Christopher Teague, Simon Marshal-Jones and others. My hand hasn’t been so excited for years. Loved the hugs too… thanks Sam.

Copies of my Exit, Pursued by a Bee and the Escape Velocity anthology were among other items in the FantasyCon raffle. My SF mystery might have gone unnoticed but the Mistress of Ceremonies, Sarah Pinborough was ‘tired’ by the time she had to read the title and so fumbled it. Luckily, a helper said. “Exit, Pursued by a Bee, and it is a good book!”. Yeay, Sarah can be a Mistress again!

Link to FantasyCon 2011 >>> here

Speaking of the Escape Velocity anthology, I met several of the contributors during the weekend – besides Bec Zugor (I travelled up the railtrack to Chichesterto have lunch with her and her family – excellent day). EV contributors at FantasyCon included Jonathan Pinnock, Robert Harkess, Roy Gray, Mark Lewis and Ian Whates. I also met the charming Carmelo Rafala of Immersion Press, who wrote the Mother Tongue story in Escape Velocity issue one. Jonathan Pinnock was there to launch his amazing Mrs Darcy Versus the Aliens – see the link here. I’ve known Jonathan for years on various forums and admired his writing style but I had no idea he was soooo tall. I had to stand on a box of his books to shake his hand.

I attended several literary panels including one in which graphic artists discussed cover art issues and I learned why you rarely see turquoise in digital-art covers. Thanks, Vincent, who explained it to me in detail in the bar later. Also, in a panel on the future of SF Brian Aldiss said how single-word titles work best for promotion, then quoted his own Hot House as an example. Ian Whates pointed out to him that it was two words… ha ha. But in fact it really is one word – Hothouse as it was published in 1962. Ian could have quoted his No Time Like Tomorrow title back at him. Nevertheless, a one word title does have appeal. I tend to go for two or more.

Xaghra’s Revenge is a case in point. I managed to have a quick word with the Angry Robot publisher, Lee Harris, who have had the synopsis and samples in his inbox since May. They’ve been very busy this year including having an unagented submission window with the resulting flood of novels to consider. I bought Peter Crowther’s latest book, Darkness Falling, from them. A fantasy thriller with people disappearing – unnerving when that includes the pilot of a plane you are in. Hopefully, there will be good news about XR in due course.

Besides the exuberance I went through meeting all these folk – all good people in spite of their chosen genre of unspeakable horror! – there were other moments of excitement. A burlesque show was laid on: all based on fantasy themes we were treated to playlets and delightful striptease. Of course being based inBrightonin the British heatwave (28 C shade temp in October), there was plenty of bare flesh of all sexes on display on the beach and even bikinis in the town. I thought I was inAmsterdamin some of the narrow lanes with their windows wide open and an interesting sweet aroma wafting along. I was distinctly light-headed by the time I reached the end of the lane. With that, the hot sun, the ocean, the marvellously friendly gay communities, the cosmopolitan eateries (many many veggie cafes) and the runners along the promenades, Brighton was a combo ofAmsterdam and Sliema in Malta. I hope to go back soon.

books and friends

It is time for FantasyCon again this month. The British Fantasy Society has its annual bash in Brighton at the end of the month and hanging over to October. I am there again where I look forward to meeting many SFF friends.

One of them, Jonathan Pinnock, is having a coruscating success with his unique novel, Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens. It started as a piece of fun on his blog and grew. We, at Cafe Doom, thirsted for each instalment and are delighted with his success. It is available in WH Smith in the UK and on Amazon here.You have to get one- the funniest book using a kind of fan fiction element of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. Watch out Jasper Fforde, Jonathan Pinnock is coming.

I’ll be seeing Jon at FantasyCon. They are having a raffle and have accepted my science fiction mystery – Exit, Pursued by a Bee (web page) - and the Escape Velocity anthology (see here) for prizes.