30 Jan 2010

GUD Cover Preview & update...

So that, friends, is a preview of GUD Magazine's Issue #5 cover, included here with the permission of the issue's editor, kaolin fire. If you like what you see, past issues are still available in print and pdf at their site. Within #5's pages you will find my dark literary horror, Lost Lying on Your Back. My short fiction, Unzipped, appeared in Issue #1 and received an Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2008. Other GUD stories have likewise been nominated or better still won awards. Lost Lying on Your Back was written around the same time as Unzipped for a writing workshop-within-a-workshop called Alice's Restaurant and it deals with a similar if darker subject than the tortured protagonist of Unzipped. We all, even the worst, live in hope.

Moving on, I began a rather silly incentive scheme this month/year to get me writing seriously again, and so far – touch wood – it is working. I've reached my reading and writing goals (that is, output-wise) for the month and I'm collecting my (small) reward. The aim, he says half-seriously, is to infuse in me a kind of Pavlovian response so that in the future if my muse utters the words, "write, fool," I will immediately and without question pick up a pen or head to the nearest laptop and start doing just that. As I said, we all live in hope.

3 comments:

Rich said...

Lost Lying on Your Back! My all time favourite SJD story. I'm going to make a point of getting this mag, as it's one I'd like to aim for.

I too have started 2010 seriously. I have managed near 7,000 edited words for January (I only write at work, so snow hampered my output). I'm notoriously rubbish at sticking with writing, but touch wood, I'm on a bit of a role.

Hope we both stay on track.

Cheers
Rich

Steven J. Dines said...

Rich,

Yeah, yeah, I know it's your favourite. The challenge is can I write something you think is better? :)

7000 words at work? Impressive. Wish I had a job like that!

As for staying on track...I'm setting myself ambitious but attainable goals in both writing and reading. If I reach them, I give myself a small reward - a book I've always wanted, something like that. I've been finding that I'm putting in the effort when I might otherwise go off and do something else. I'm gonna push myself a little harder next month and increase the incentives. Sounds a little stupid and obvious, I know, but if it works, who cares, right?

Best
Steven

Rich said...

Definitely!

I would just like to point out that it's on my lunchbreaks, lol :)

Rich