A Month of Love
You thought that was February but, eh, April is the true month of love. Since the tide is slowly and finally turning from romantasy, I bring to you a new subgenre: HORRANCE!
(I jest, kinda. I do actually think I write fantasy that contains both horror and romance elements, and that horror is deeply driven by strong emotions - not just fear, but also love, and how the two become entwined, obsessive, even.)
In the spirit of this new and terrible genre, April's writing prompt is PARASITES, A LOVE STORY! Bonus points if you write it as a musical.
Ferreals though, what is behind the drive of parasitic creatures? They just want to make sure their hosts enable them to continue their species -- all the weird gross mind control and body horror is done in the name of love ;)
My story Sea Gifts will be out in the next issue of ParSec magazine. More details when that's up, but for now, it's a story about loneliness, friendship, love, and krakens. And yanno, the destruction of your world and people.
It's something of a sister-story to Godskin as it's set in the same universe of the Scatter, but both are stand-alones.
As the days are getting longer and very slightly warmer (it's Scotland -- we get three days of summer...), I'm gearing up for the festivals and cons coming up.
I'll be at Dundee's DeeCon Anime convention on the 6th, doing some writing panels with the very excellent writers Justin Lee Anderson, Cameron Johnston, Shona Kinsella, Robin C. M. Duncan, Ioanna Papadopoulou, Lorraine Wilson and MK Hardy.
In writing progress news I finished the March prompt with 7700 words of....stuff.
It's got a vague shape, but it needs time to ferment and untangle itself and grow an intestine and some missing bones. Maybe a heart but never a brain.
This is the current opening, which may or may not change:
The belly of the lake was heavy with partly-digested bones. It was used to death buried in its black mud; to the constant tumble of fuck-fight-spawn-die that seethed at every strata of its sprawl. The lake had seen monsters fall and cities rise, watched its margins ebb and shift with the changing world. Armies had bled into its waters, lovers had coupled, lost souls drowned.
There was no reason for this death to interest it any more than that of a mayfly falling to drift on its surface.
I'm currently reading a Very Secret Book (it's an as yet unpublished Lorraine Wilson) and it is glorious. It's taking me for ever because every few lines I need to go weep from the beauty and also stab my little wax mannikin of her.
(I'm not jealous sob)
(I AM VERY JEALOUS)
Next up on my queue is Ioanna Papadopoulou's Winter Harvest:
What have you been reading -- share the good things!