A few days ago, I made the following comment on Twitter:

Just as you climb a mountain one step at a time, you have to keep putting one word after another if you want to write a book.

Now author Colin Harvey has used it as the jumping off point to discuss his method for staying focussed while working on a novel.

A novel is like a picture made up of 100,000 pixels, with each representing a pixel. Miss out a thousand words, and you have a picture with a hole in its whole … When you feel that awful sense that you’re going to fall and/or fail, stare hard at the detail and fill those pixels in.

Read Colin’s full article here.

This morning, I found a link to a website offering free downloads of the audio version of my book, The Last Reef and Other Stories. It claims the audio book has so far been downloaded 2590 times.

Since being published just under two years ago, the book has sold out in hardback and paperback. Electronic copies are available, but it’s a shame it’s no longer in print, as these download figures show there’s obviously a market for it.

Mark Watson reviews the Shine anthology on the revamped Best SF website. He writes:

Gareth L. Powell and Aliette de Bodard – The Church Of Accelerated Redemption.
One of the things I’m liking about this anthology is that the stories have a much more international flavour than most SF, and here Powell and de Bodard set their story in France. There’s a background of a wave of labour strikes (a very old French tradition which I heartily endorse), and the protagonist is a woman working for an IT company who has a bugger of a boss who certainly isn’t into liberte, equalite and fraternite. She’s working for a new church, as per the title, who are using IT to offer redemption – and the story works well with the solid setting, exploring issues around AI and sentience, impact on society and on individuals. The cyber-terrorist she meets, and his two hench-emos add a bit of colour. My recommendation to the authors would be to tweak it a bit and to get a script written and get it touted around Hollywood.

Read the full review here.

Last week John DeNardo, the editor of SF Signal, asked me to write about the books that changed my life. The resulting article is now available to read on the website..

Click here to read ‘Five Books That Changed My World’.

This an excerpt from my short story ‘Fallout’, published in the NewCon Press anthology Conflicts.

FALLOUT (Excerpt)
By Gareth L Powell

Despite what was to come, the day started well. An hour before sunrise they landed the rented jet at a decommissioned RAF base in Wiltshire, near Swindon. It was a cold morning and frost glittered on the grass at the edge of the runway.

Leaving the pilot and cabin crew to look after the plane, they pulled four motorbikes from its hold and clipped dosimeters to their lapels. Then they donned helmets and drove their bikes downhill, through dark and empty villages, to the army check point at the M4 motorway junction. Rusty, concrete-filled oil drums blocked the westbound slip road and a tired sergeant blew into his hands. He wore a long coat and a fur hat with khaki earflaps. The men behind him cradled standard-issue SA80 assault rifles.

Continue reading “Fallout Excerpt”

I now have a dedicated author page on Amazon.co.uk, featuring links to the books I have written or contributed to.

Link to Gareth’s Amazon page.

There should be a photo and bio on there, but I’m still waiting for Amazon to update the page.

I often listen to music while working on stories and novels. Listening to music can mask distracting noises from the outside world. It can also help propel the rythmn of a piece of writing. But the music has to be carefully chosen.

Continue reading “Do You Listen To Music While You Write?”

In this week’s guest post, Louise Baker looks at the options available for writers hoping to publish their first science fiction story.

How To Get Your First Sci-Fi Story Published
By Louise Baker

If you have written a science fiction story, you might be wondering if you should try to get it published. Some talented writers worry that they will never get published because they do not even know how to get started. Although navigating the publishing industry can be a challenge, with the right story and the right amount of patience, you can become a published writer.

Continue reading “Guest Post: Louise Baker on Publishing Your First Sci-fi Story”

Today has been a day of good news and bad news. On the negative side, I received two rejections for stories I’d sent out to magazines. But on the positive side, I mowed the lawns, attended my daughters’ school sports day, and landed a part-time job with a non-profit organisation offering specialist services to pre-school children with additional needs. The part-time job sounds like it will be interesting and rewarding, and it will give me the financial breathing space I need to keep writing and freelancing. And as for the two rejected stories? Don’t worry about them – tomorrow I will submit them to new markets.

In this week’s guest post, Angry Robot author Colin Harvey talks about the necessity of making yourself attractive to an editor.

Generating Heat
By Colin Harvey

A few weeks before the end of last term, our script lecturer gave a talk on The Business of Scriptwriting. Much of his lecture could be applied just as easily to SF as to the film business, so with some slight amendments I’ve adapted it for this blog.

Continue reading “Guest Post: Colin Harvey On Generating Heat”