Surviving the Madness #IWSG #authorsky

I’m working on surviving the madness. I try and stay away from television news because its so intrusive. My email newsletters from the Guardian, a trusted paper not owned by any oligarchs, who are therefore allowed the journalistic freedom to tell the fact-checked truth, keep me informed. The radio news give me possibly biased soundbites on the hour, every hour. And I have resorted to writing, to retreat to my own world.

This is my Insecure Writers Support Group post, in which we share our successes and failures as writers, our insecurities, in fact. Anyone can join in, just sign up at the IWSG Sign-up page, write a blog post on the first Wednesday of the month, and go back to that sign up page to link with everyone else–or a goodly sample. Our host is Alex J Cavanaugh, and cohosting this month are:

 Ronel Janse Van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, and Liza @ Middle Passages! 

Surviving

It’s a mental thing, really. There are three ways of coping with it, one is to get out and help your neighbours, help all those in need of it. Another is to look after your physical and mental health, and your family’s as appropriate. I am very scared by the meddling of Trump with Putin, which considering both are in cahoots with Musk, suggests one or more of the dystopian outcomes many of us have written in the past. I am trying to come to terms with the idea that the US and UK are no longer friends. Although I am friends with all of my US friends still. [Note that I prepared this post several days ago, before the appalling bullying of a visiting president to the White House, so anything might have happened since.] I was somewhat less scared by the on-going monitoring of an asteroid (oh, don’t worry, this is from scientists, so TPM won’t believe it).

The third way is to bury your head in the sand. I am almost disappointed that the chances of asteroid 2024 YR4 colliding with Earth have almost vanished according to the calculation updated last week. At the start of January it was around 1 in 39. By the middle of February it was 1 in 32. Earthsky.com. But now it’s down to less than 1 in 20,000. But it might hit the Moon. So in just under eight years time, we can watch it collide with that, and hope that no shards spin off into space to get us too.

I know it’s a slightly bizarre approach to take, but it does seem to be releasing my creative juices.

Beta readers needed

If you have read any of my Viridian System series, would you be interested in a beta copy of the prequel?

I started writing this to take my mind off real world stuff, and to retreat to the world of my asteroid miners. How did it all start? What were their backstories? Various snippets had fed out in the trilogy and in flash fiction on my blog. They’d met at college/university. Pete had been smuggled off his planet to become a ‘sleeper’. How had they learned how to mine asteroids? What about the rumour that Lars killed a man? Were they always successful with women, or is that just a facade?

What I’ve ended up with is something more or less like a novel, but with very little in the way of plot. Just, how did they come to be where they are at the start of The Perihelix? Lots of adventures. Plenty of accidents of one sort or another. Some were no accident. And you know they survive, because it’s a prequel! I suppose the best I can say is there’s a bit of suspense every now and then, quite a few laughs, and a lot of hanging out with two of my favourite characters. Plus other favourite characters.

Drop a note in the comments (with your email if you don’t have it linked to your id) if you’d like me to get back to you with a pdf or word docx (or something else) and my notes for beta readers (I need you to give me feedback in return).

Surviving the Submission process

Woot! I have submitted a short story (2000 words) to the Edinburgh Short Story Awards (closed 28 February)!

I have to bring myself away from scifi and fantasy to get more realistic short stories and flash fiction. Both Edinburgh and the Bridport prize say things like “We welcome stories in all genres: literary, historic, crime, romance, gritty realism, contemporary, humour and more.” Yes, but they don’t say fantasy and scifi, which makes me suspect they don’t really want it. There are other places I can look for that, but nowhere I fancy submitting to at present.

I do have flash fiction I’ve been working on (250 word ones) and a short story (5000 words) for the Bridport prizes, closing date 31st May. Must keep one eye on other things too.

Question of the Month

If for one day you could be anyone or *thing* in the world, what would it be? Describe, tell why, and any themes, goals, or values they/it inspire in you.

IWSG March 2025

My initial response is that I wouldn’t want to be anyone else, even for a day. Then I thought… perhaps if I could be Elon Musk for a day, I could transfer 20 billion dollars each to the heads of 20 environmental, science and humanitarian NGOs for them to distribute as they think fit. And tie it down so it couldn’t be taken back.

The Other Question of the Month

Are you doing the A to Z Challenge this year? Watch out for the Theme Reveal (mine is on 10 March) if you want to blog to a theme through April (these are not compulsory). Sign-ups are late March through to the beginning of April. You can leave it to the last minute, but I find that preparing at least half the posts in advance eases the pressure.

I’ve got the idea, I’ve filled words for each letter, now I have to get to work on the posts. And thank you, Ronel, for the graphics this year!