Wonderful Wonderwaan

Wonderwaan is an imprint of a Netherlands Science Fiction and Fantasy magazine see their website. They have accepted an odd little story of mine called The Witch’s Alien, and are translating it into Dutch. As far as I know this is the first of my stories to be translated into another language. Many thanks to Gareth D. Jones, who suggested submitting to foreign markets, as he has done with great success.

The idea for Witch’s Alien came from a computerized random title generator. There are many on the web and as a break from writing my novels, I wanted to write a horror short story. Random title generators are great for ideas even if I have to discard hundreds before one strikes me as intriguing.

The first draft was read out loud to the Chester Writers’ group. An elderly lady spoke to me afterwards to complain that it was too horrific to be read to the group. It made her feel ill. That told me the horror element was working well!

Publishing history of The Witch’s Alien: Via the UK Authors online writing group, the story was critiqued and revised during the 2008 UKAway stay in Bellapais, Northern Cyprus in 2008, and published in their chapbook. Later, Witch’s Alien, was awarded third place in the winter competition at The Grail, a forum for literary writers.

Ironic that my relationship with one Dutch publisher, Wuacademia, has just ended, as this one with Wonderwaan is starting!

The Last Olympiad

John Goodwin is a writer friend of mine living in Cyprus. I met him in 2008 while on a UK Author’s Away Week writing holiday in Bellapais, Northern Cyprus. John lives in Paphos but was good enough to taxi me over to the north of the island. He was similarly generous with other writers in the group. While there we critiqued each others work and John quickly established himself with his wit and passion for writing. Later he bought my editing services to content-edit an early draft of a clever thriller based on the upcoming Olympics in London in 2012. His premise is based on a terrorist caught up with a group plotting to sabotage the event to publicise their cause. The protagonist is out of his depth with the group and the story cunningly follows his attempts to avoid trouble yet right wrongs. John is the CEO of a construction company that was involved in scaffolding for the Olympic Stadium and was able to use his inside information to provide engaging insights for the story.  The Last Olympiad by John Goodwin is my recommended book of the month. Go for it folks!

Cycling to UKAway

The last week or so has been a time of brain-stretching writers’ workshops, entertaining conversation and rotating legs. I’d cycled the 150 miles via drovers’ roads and minor roads from Chester to Carmarthenshire to attend the UKAuthors Away week at PenyBanc Farm, Ceridwen Centre near Llandysul. Now in my 60s I take my time with the cycling and stayed at Crewgreen near Oswestry and the next night at Lloyd’s Hotel in Llanidloes. I would have stayed at youth hostels but there are none on my route. That route included almost all of the National Cycle Network 81 and 82 from Shrewsbury to Fishguard. A feel for some of the marvellous scenery en route is presented in the two photographs. The first is from the Welsh Marches Heldre Hill (364m above sea level) looking south. The second is from the highest point of the route 81 (530m) looking west towards Devil’s Bridge over the horizon. As you can see from the skies, the weather on the way down was showery. On the way back – same route in reverse – the weather was diabolical. I now know how it is to cycle in a waterfall for 7 hours. (I am the world’s slowest cyclist).

PenyBanc Farm is part of the Ceridwen Centre  but our writing group was too small to justify the larger building. So we stayed at the Farmhouse. Wonderful ecological-friendly environment where Roger and Simone did a splendid job looking after my vegan diet and more than satisfied the non-veggies too. I was obliged to learn some forms of poetry and here is a sample of a Cinquain from non-poet me:

A Cinquain Sinking Feeling

Comfort

Zone is within

These words as long as I

Try not to outwit myself or

Others

There will be a chapbook produced of our combined efforts of short stories, poems and photographs. I went for lots of short walks, which were as healthy as longer walks in other parts of the country because of the steep gradients everywhere. David Gardiner of the marvellous Rainbow Man hiked with me along the River Teifi for inspiration and to admire the scenery. When the chapbook is published I’ll put the link here.

A highlight of the week was an open mike session in a Carmarthen pub organised by Scribes R Us. I didn’t sell many of my own books to the writers I met during the week. In fact I bought from them just one book short of the books I sold. Hey ho. Few writers make a living from our craft but we glow from the creativity.

Here’s David Gardiner being inspired by the River Teifi:

UKAway 09

I’m off to Cyprus soon for a residential writers’ workshop and relaxation. I normally work from home and frequently distracted by seeing chores to do, answering the phone and door, and preparing meals. Being away  allows us to focus more on writing and reading. (I’ll still be distracted but by more pleasurable pursuits. It is organized through UKAuthors.com and I’m helping to run it this year with John Goodwin (our Cyprus member) and David Gardiner. That’s no big deal because apart from daily get togethers in the evening for an hour or so reading and critting each others’ work, we are free to spend the day writing or sight seeing. I’m hoping to finish the last two chapters of Xaghra’s Revenge; write a couple of shorts; and rent a bike to explore western Cyprus. Some of the latter will go into a contribution to Cycling World. While we’re there we are visiting the local writers’ group in Paphos. I’m taking a handful of my books and Escape Velocity mag to sell.

For writers of the Whittaker Prize competition that is currently running, I’ll be picking up the entries while on Cyprus. Just think that I’ll be in a good mood grading your stories while basking in the warm.

Back to packing.

I had a weird moment in Cyprus. In Kyrenia Castle I found the tomb of Sinan Pasha. The others hadn’t heard of him but he features in my Xaghra’s Revenge novel! He was the sadistic Admiral (though a Jew) of the Barbary Corsairs that pillaged Gozo in 1551 & abducted the population. I’d forgotten that later he was the governor of Kyrenia. I patted his tomb and said – Got you! During the day I tapped my laptop to add to Xaghra’s Revenge, but I couldn’t resist walking the scenery most of the time. Evenings I added more words and spent time with the other writers – inspirational.  I’ve added photos of the Northern Cyprus Bellapais location here for the UK Authors writers week. Thanks again to David Gardiner for organising it. Hey John Goodwin, you still have my best Cyprus map!

Sorry about that; I just sneaked away for a couple of weeks to Cyprus. My daughter, Eleanor married Gareth Monk while there, and then instead of returning with my wife, I hid in my rucksack and instructed it to go north to the Turkish Northern lands where I met up with writers on a residential. Cyprus is a marvelous spot for a wedding, for archeological nosing around, for Scuba diving (son and daughter), mountain walking and writing. Brilliant.

I logged  on at the odd internet cafe in Cyprus but with connection speeds slower than a snail crawling up a wet window, I waited until I reached home. I promise not to complain about BT Broadband ever again… In amongst the spam was a welcome contract from Double Dragon Publishing to include my short story Abandoned in an anthology. I found I’d had a conversation and it was taken down by Cheryl at Book Connections and used here

http://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2008/03/inside-scoop-on-geoff-nelder.html

Thanks for the plugs, Cheryl – come in handy for sinks.

I also found that I had to do some agency work for my agent. He’s in Chile or some exotic place south of his usual Chicago-ish abode and had neglected to take all my Left Luggage files with him. So when a publisher finally asks for more juicy chunks of my scifi it was passed to me to provide them. That’s Okay, it will be reflected in my remuneration and accounts, mate!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to LES FlOYD for 8th April. He’s up to his elbows in fine eating ware in Exeter.