This is good news, because if it goes ahead, this anthology will include two flash fiction stories by me (a 500 worder and a 1000 worder) that were accepted back in December 2010 (aaah, those were the days!) just after I'd decided to have a serious go at being professional about getting my short stories out and about. Ever optimistic, I had them listed as 'forthcoming' for about 18 months before I decided to remove them until I had real evidence that the publication was actually going to happen, and as said, I'd pretty much given up on it and moved on. If this collection does see print, it'll be great - flash fiction doesn't get much respect, and an anthology like this might help to showcase that micro fiction isn't all obtuse shortcuts and airy-fairy wankery. You can tell a layered tale in under a thousand words. I'm not sure why some people so vehemently contest that. They have a right to their personal preferences, of course. I'm just saying that like everything, there's good flash and bad flash. Some stories are born tiny and poignant rather than sprawling and analytical. That doesn't make them better or worse, just different.
Anyway, onwards into the day. I'm definitely going to fiddle around with some words today. And tonight - yay! - I'll start on season two of The Walking Dead. I love this series. It's a nice throwback to my favourite survivors-journeying-though-apocalyptic-landscapes-whilst-arguing-every-step-of-the-way television viewing of yore. Threads (it gutted me!), Survivors (the original 1970s series, thank you very much, devised by no less a stalwart of the genre than Terry Nation), and the 1981 version of Day of the Triffids (I was soooo in love with John Duttine!) all shaped my thinking, filled my imagination and haunted my dreams. Alien nasties invading our world, or homegrown viruses, nuclear holocaust or zombies, whatever - I love 'em! They all boil down to a band of people demonstrating why we humans thoroughly deserve to be wiped out by our own stupidity (it's not always our fault though - sometimes the [fill in the relevant cause] apocalypse does go on for a tad too long, the writers lose the plot, the characters get petty, and you start barracking for the agent of our destruction...), whilst presenting arguments that plead for a more clement view of our basic natures.
2 comments:
The Day of the Triffids was the very first sf I ever read! It was on the required reading list when I was at teachers' college (in ancient times) and I cried, 'I'll never read that sort of rubbish'. But they made me do it, and the rest, as they say, is history.
SF - a whole new way of seeing life!
They forced you to read SF? Usually I'd be opposed to such an assault on your intellectual freedom, but in this case, the teacher's college was absolutley correct - you needed to learn the truth. It was rough for you, I'm sure, but in the end, the happy outcome of converting you to the genre thoroughly justified their cruel means.
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