IS Blog Tour 1

Hi guys, just a quickie because I'm sick in bed.

Lovely Hannah, the editor of Impossible Spaces has posted the first of four (yes the number has now doubled as part of my plan for global domination) guest posts I will be writing as part of the Impossible Spaces blog tour.

You can read it here (I made the link nice and big so you have no excuses for missing it lol).

Remember when I wrote about how to plan a story? Well my post for Hannah is an expansion explaining how I personally go from the planning stage to the finished article. Enjoy and expect more soon!

Friday Feature - Margret Helgadottir

This Friday is another guest post by an author, this time Margret Helgadottir. It is about writing her character Iselin from her short story Shadow, self-harm and The Moomins and is part of the Impossible Spaces Blog Tour (if you click on the button you can read all the other posts in the tour - I shall be contributing two guest posts very soon too, though I'll tell you more about those as they happen).

Margret is an Icelandic-Norwegian writer who has travelled all over the world and has just started to write fiction in English. She mainly writes speculative fiction and is very much inspired by Nordic culture, climate and folklore. Shadow is about a young woman called Islelin who thanks to both nature and nurture has always felt isolated and different.When she meets freedom fighter of sorts, Berge, she is flung into an alternate, desolate world where lizard creatures, not humans, are the apex predators but could it be that in this hopeless future is where her salvation lies?

Margret with her copy of Impossible Spaces, one of the many publications she has stories printed in.

"I’ve had the image of Iselin in my head for a long time. Iselin is an old Norwegian female name that means dream or vision. Originally I wanted it to be more a chaotic and confusing horror story that travelled through visions and dimensions, with Iselin as the key factor. Then, as I started to write, a different narrative wanted to be told. This often happens in my writing. I’ve started to spend less time on the planning of my stories, because they often seem to have a life on their own. You asked me to take pictures of my notes. For this story I only had five small sentences, in Norwegian, and the only thing that I used was that Iselin entered an elevator on her way home late one night.

 

 

I’ve had the image of a scarred young woman who hides from the world, too scared to pop her head up, for a long time, and I’ve also played with ideas of how an outsider would react if suddenly almost all the people were gone and the person had no society to avoid. Would this encourage the person to take up more space in the world, and no longer fear being visible? You know, like plants do when you give them a larger pot and more earth. Their roots will stretch and they will grow larger and blossom. But if they’re forced to stay in the same tiny pot forever, they will remain the same size until they die, and maybe never blossom fully.

 

In hindsight, I see that the story about Iselin is a sad story about self-preservation. Iselin is a young woman scarred mentally and physically by her childhood. She’s been raised to not be a burden to her parents and has always managed on her own. As an adult, she’s been sucked into a vicious spiral: she shuns contact with people and they in return avoid her, leading to her feeling even more isolated and misunderstood so that she redoubles her efforts to stay away from people, and so on. Getting stuck in such a self-reinforcing spiral is much easier than people think.

Street art by C215 in Oslo that inspired Margret.

Iselin learned to keep all her emotions on the inside early on, so she wouldn’t provoke or disturb her parents. This has stuck with her. The emotions are locked up inside her and someone seems to have thrown the key far away. She suffers, but she doesn’t know how to deal with it. She tries to ease her pain with substitutes, like many people do when life gets unbearable or they want to escape their heavy thoughts. However, she does not resort to starving herself, drinking large quantities of alcohol, losing herself in drug-induced highs, or throwing herself from cliffs. No, Iselin works until she drops, and when that doesn’t help, she cuts herself with razor blades. Numb and exhausted, she drags herself from day to day, hoping no one will notice her, yet secretly longing to be seen.

 

The world sees only a stone face. Iselin has not only become a shadow of herself, she’s also a shadow in the world. She is like the shy, scared little girl in Finnish author Tove Jansson’s story The Invisible Child, from her book Tales from Moominvalley (1962). Because an adult made sarcastic comments about her, this girl became totally invisible. Under the kind care of the Moomin family, she became secure enough to act spontaneously on her emotions and this led to her gradually becoming visible again. The story about Iselin spins around the same ideas of invisibility. The guerrilla soldier Berge is Iselin’s tolerant, accepting and generous Moomin family. Berge is an old Norwegian name that means “to save”.

Ninny and Moomin play hide and seek in the 1990 Moomin animated series.

But Berge has his own scars and is in many ways a shadow too. Rachel, you pointed out that the idea of fate is very strong in the story. You said that when Berge rubs the glove he wears to hide his scales over Iselin’s scars, it feels as if they were meant to save each other from themselves. Thanks for this. You’re right. Berge and Iselin are both miserable and lonely lost souls who live in the shadows of their own worlds. It’s only when they follow their instincts—Berge when he goes to the office building, Iselin when she chooses to follow Berge—that they find the solution. Shadow is all about Iselin and Berge helping each other to come out of the shadows, but on a macro level, the story is about something else: lost souls and a mysterious helping hand from another dimension that responds to their unvoiced cries for help. At least I hope it became such a story. I’ll leave it to the readers to decide whether I have succeeded in this or not.

Street art in Oslo by AliCe Pasquini

So, Shadow evolved from an idea for a horror story to a tale about hope, about how it can be possible to spot the light at the end of the tunnel, regardless of how hopeless the situation is, regardless of how lost you feel. Follow your instincts; follow the good guys; be brave enough to step out of the shadows. There are many kind-hearted lost souls walking the streets, scarred from their own battles, who’d like to meet you."

Send Margret your love via her blog http://margrethelgadottir.wordpress.com and also on twitter @MaHelgad.

Also if you are a goodreads user / reviewer you can win a copy of Impossible Spaces here!

Impossible Spaces Launch

Hi guys!

Just a quickie to let you know that Impossible Spaces is now available to buy in a physical format / e-book format (which is very cheap when bought via Amazon) so please do buy it and let me know what you think!

Also there are now photos of the launch party which I read at.

Here is a very unflattering photo of me mid sentence:



And here are the other photos (isn't Jessica George cute?)

Impossible Spaces Trailer

Hehe the trailer has even got me excited to read all the different stories now! Dark fantasy and surrealism is just the kind of subject I love! If you love it too then here is all the information on where to buy Impossible Spaces! I hope you will all enjoy it! The great thing about anthologies is that if you don't like one story there are twenty more you may like!

We really need people to host guest posts for a blog tour (like Toby Stone's fantastic Aimee and the Bear post on my blog). Please be wonderful and allow one of the writers to write a post for your blog! To join in click here!

Impossible Spaces Update II

Hi guys! The Impossible Spaces launch party will be held on the 19th of July (which is also when the book launches) in Manchester! It's free to attend. There will be readings (including one by me and one by Ramsey Campbell), competitions and free booze. Here is a form to register you interest in attending:

Online event registration for Impossible Spaces Launch Party powered by Eventbrite

And even more exciting (maybe) is that you can now read an excerpt from my story I'd Lock it with a Zipper on my website!

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Clockwork,” she said, tugging me to my feet. “Come on—we have to go.”

“Where are all the people?”

“Gone. The robots took them.”

I stopped. “The robots? Like you?”

“No, like Brother but not like Brother.”

I held my position. “I don’t understand.”

She froze and looked beyond me...

...Click here to read more!

 

 

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There will also be a blog tour. I will be hosting a post by an Impossible Spaces writer and if you would also be willing to host a post that would be more than wonderful! You can find out how to take part here: http://www.hic-dragones.co.uk/impossible-spaces-blog-tour/

Impossible Spaces Update

Hi guys!

As you may or may not know, my short story 'I'd Lock it with a Zipper' will be appearing in Hic Dragones' anthology Impossible Spaces. I'm pleased to share with you some exciting updates!

Firstly here is the cover:

Secondly it will be available to buy in hard copy and digital from Friday 19th July (put it in your diary!) It should be easily available to get online from places like Amazon but also feel free to ask your local book shops if they would be interested in / able to stock it.

More to follow!

2013 Prestwick Book Festival

Hi guys, I'm back from Japan! How have you been?

This is just a quick post (whilst I prepare some cool Japanese posts for you) about the 2013 Prestwick Book Festival. Many of the writers of Impossible Spaces - the anthology my short story 'I'd Lock it with a Zipper' will be in - will be reading excerpts from their stories there (as well as other really cool stuff). I won't be there personally but I know everyone at Hic Dragones and Impossible Spaces would love it if you came and supported the event!

http://www.prestwichbookfestival.net/hic-dragones.html

Here Be Impossible Spaces

I'm very pleased to announce that my short story, 'I'd Lock it with a Zipper' will be appearing in Hic Dragones' anthology 'Impossible Spaces'. I'll keep you all updated on how it goes and where you can get a copy via this blog and also my website http://enchantedviolin.com (check it out if you haven't ever yet - it has lots of fun stuff on it too).

For the time being here is the list of featured writers for you to be curious / excited about.

And for something equally impossible...

Here is the moment Pyramid Head makes his appearance in Silent Hill: Homecoming:

And here is animator LambentFox's hilarious re-imagining of it!