I've moved

to http://laura-wilkinson.co.uk/

please follow my adventures (ahem!) there.

Baking bread and other arts

Well, well, it feels like yonks since I was here, at my little blog, rambling about writing, living, creating and other nonsense.

And indeed it has been a goodly time. They’ve been odd months: busy, unsettled, flitting from one project to the next without feeling like I’m getting my teeth into any one in particular, with the exception of BloodMining.

So…February I made a tentative start on novel #3, interrupted periodically by minor fiddling with the third draft of novel #2 and considering submitting it. Praise be, I decided against.

March I spent redrafting BloodMining for my editor, Gill, and deluded though I may be it feels like a better book. I’ve yet to hear back from her, so let’s wait and see, eh? During March I was also busy submitting some shorts to exciting places like Ether books, and I even had a go at a piece of flash. To my surprise and delight ABCtales editor Tony selected it as a story of the day. God love ‘im.

April began with a strong desire to get back to novel #3 and I’ve managed to squeeze out another chapter. However, novel #2 – once again unnamed having decided that my second title was as rubbish as my first – has pulled me back big time. A character from novel #3 – one whose company I’m enjoying tremendously but don’t yet know intimately – likes to bake, especially bread. She enjoys kneading and pulling and stretching a stodgy, indigestible lump of dough and turning it into something delicious and satisfying. I feel that this is what novel #2 needs. The raw ingredients are there; I need to bash it around some more and bake it in a pre-heated oven for just the right amount of time. So novel #3 is on the back burner again (ouch). Also, it’s holiday time and almost all of my time is absorbed with the kids. When I begin something, like this, I’m interrupted constantly and frustrating though this can be I’m very aware that I ignore the little blighters more than I should, so I’m considering not even trying to write any fiction this week and giving myself over to the Gingers. Perhaps they deserve it.

thank you ABCtales (again)

Another short of mine has been chosen as the ABCtales Story of the Week. A joint honour this time, but having read the other story, I'm humbled. Editor Tony Cook says, 'it's sexy, witty and wise.' If you're an ABCtales member you can read it here: http://www.abctales.com/story/lwilkinson/buried
If not, you could join this dynamic community, or read it here on the stories page (there'll be more to follow...)

Sunday morning distraction

Sunday morning’s a great time for pootling. GingerOne and Two are playing on the Xbox and PS2 respectively and I’m catching up with fellow bloggers. I’ve just read writer Sarah Tanburn’s latest and I’ve generated a word cloud via Wordle for my WIP. Here it is (below). Fun, huh?
On a different note another of my short stories has found a home in Scribble. I received a letter from editor David Howarth yesterday. Scribble was a Best Short Fiction Magazine Winner a couple of years ago, ‘For consistent quality of content and production.’ Oo, erh, missus.

New Year, New Book

2010... Year of the Tiger, and so it should be a good one for me. Let's hope so, eh? Now that the big thaw has started I can move around in less than six layers and, more importantly, I can feel the tips of my fingers, so I aim to bash away at the old laptop and get on with the next book. Working title Transformers.
Nice start to the year - two stories are to be published this month. The first, The Deepest Cut, here in Telling Tales magazine. The Long Mile Home is out soon in Beautiful Scruffiness magazine, edited by poet Katie Metcalfe. Details to follow...

The Whispering Wall

A short story of mine, The Whispering Wall, is published this month, November Issue 09, in First Edition Magazine. You can find copies at all good bookshops. Well, WHSmith and Borders at least...

You'll find the website here - http://www.firsteditionpublishing.co.uk/

A review of The Loudest Sound and Nothing by Clare Wigfall

There is something of the fairy tale around the publication of Clare Wigfall’s collection of short stories – you can read about it on her MySpace site http://www.myspace.com/clarewigfall - and so it is gratifying to report that indeed there is magic in her words. If not happy-ever-after endings.

‘Safe’ is a haunting, menacing tale set in present day Britain about the mysterious disappearances of newborn babies and a plague of malevolent rodents, seen from a new mother’s point of view. There are overtures of The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Wigfall cleverly ensures that we are never certain how much of it is the product of a disturbed, or chronically sleep deprived, mind.In ‘The Party’s Just Getting Started’ Wigfall brings Adam, Eve and Adam’s first wife, Lilith, to modern day LA. ‘Night after Night’ transports us to shabby, post-war Bethnal Green where Joycie’s husband is arrested for a heinous crime. And in ‘The Ocularist’s Wife’ we are taken to a besieged nineteenth century Paris.

The sheer breadth of variety and style on display in The Loudest Sound and Nothing is enough to impress. On top of this striking diversity, you can add plaudits like beautifully crafted, an original voice, erudite and fresh. And this is a debut collection.All seventeen tales are meritorious, and deliciously surprising. Wigfall packs a mean punch into the shortest of stories - there is no excess flab in her work and she proves beyond any doubt (if you were ever in need of any) that less is most definitely more.

If you like resolution in your tales you won’t find it here. These stories are laced with ambiguity, and their depth and power lies in the silences, the ‘nothings’, which Wigfall leaves to her reader's imagination.Unforgettable, dark stories covering the prosaic and the extraordinary, often in the same breath. Wigfall is a talent to watch.

The Loudest Sound and Nothing by Clare Wigfall, published in paperback by Faber and Faber, £12.99