Global domination Step 1: Giving stuff away for free!

I've been very keen to harness the power of the web for my fiction, and in that vein, the generous yet mysterious Brothers Gunther have published my story "Itch" as part of the LegumeMan Books free series.

"Itch", I say?

It begins as an idle rub. A calloused palm. Friction and hair. A lingering heat like a Chinese burn ... Scratching an itch can be like a bad high: the satisfaction comes at a price; the itch is appeased but the damage is done. Sometimes, scratching a persistent itch can make people go to bloody extremes and lead to nasty surprises.

(Itch was first published in Horror Literature Quarterly #1 in the US and recently featured in Shards, but thanks to LegumeMan Books, is now available free for the first time in Australia, via the magic of the interwebs!).

The story is thirteen pages of subtly horrific fun, so if you have a spare five minutes, feel free to scratch that itch.

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If that dose of free fiction isn't enough, you can download my free chapbook Shards: Damned and Burning (click on the Shards thumbnail for download info) or visit my website (and click on the Free Fiction link).

And if those free stories appeal, you can purchase many more in Shards for a measly $17.95 from the Brimstone Press website. The collection features disturbing fun for the whole family!

A bittersweet decision

At the beginning of September, I made the difficult decision to resign from my day job. The reason? My writing career is really picking up (as many will note from my frequent bombardings on Facebook) and even though my employers have been absolutely fantastic about flexible hours and whatnot, I ultimately realised that I could no longer do justice to both my employers and my dream of a full time writing career.

I'm a [magazine] editor by trade (yes, I do this both professionally and in my spare time!) and my head was filled with day job stuff most of the time, even after hours when trying to write or edit fiction. It is the great dilemma of doing what you love day and night. The projects blur and the creative spaces get muddled.

So after close to four fantastic years as Managing Editor of Medical Forum, the trade magazine for WA's doctors, I finish on Monday. There have been highs and lows as with any job, but the magazine (and associated businesses) is (are) run by a small, close-knit team, which has become like a second family. Leaving to pursue full time novel writing should have been an easy decision, but my attachment to the quirks of my colleagues made it surprisingly difficult.

I leave Medical Forum with a pretty respectable track record. I'd interviewed and profiled all the big players in health in WA: Health Ministers Dr Kim Hames and Jim McGinty, Mental Health Minister Dr Graham Jacobs, Health Director-Generals Dr Neil Fong and Dr Peter Flett, WA Australian of the Year Dr Penny Flett, and even some celebs such as comedian Tim Minchin (did you know he's the son of a well-known WA surgeon?), Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan, iiNet's CEO and founder Michael Malone, and West Coast Eagle David Wirrpanda.

Now, I move onto completing several projects that should have been finished earlier in the year. I have money enough saved to see me writing novels full time for at least the next 3-6 months, and hopefully, longer if I strike success. I'm planning an ambitious writing schedule each day, with a goal of 10k-15k words (minimum) every week.

My works in progress are:

The Adventures of Yamabushi Kaidan (Japanese fantasy series)

• Circle of Tears (Book 1) - almost complete!
• The Clockwork Legion (Book 2) and Blight of the Underworld (Book 3) - plots planned and synopses written. I expect to have Book 2 completed within 3-6 months.

In the Heart of Midnight (collection) - one new story ("Hunting the Angel of Midnight") needs to be completed and the ms given a final edit, but otherwise, this is ready to be submitted to an Australian publisher that has expressed interest in reading the ms.

Tales from the Sunburnt Realms (anthology) - featuring 12 of the biggest names in Australian SF, this anthology of colonial SF/fantasy stories has been a long time coming, but with a bit more editing, will be submitted to an interested publisher.

Phoenix and the Darkness of Wolves (novella) - working through final edits! Expected to be published as a standalone book by Damnation Books in December 2009.

Chasing Jormungand (novella) - contracted by LegumeMan Books to expand the short story (published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #38) into a standalone novella. Expected publication: 2011.

Paranormal fiction trilogy - synopses have been written, plots plotted, and book 1 has been started (and a particularly dark, non-vampirey story it is, too!), but I'm hoping to complete it somewhere between Yamabushi Kaidan Book 2 and Chasing Jormungand (hopefully, before the paranormal boom goes bust!).

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As a magnificent gift to send me on my way as a full time author, my very generous employers and friends commissioned this caricature from Rod Cameron, a cartoonist who has done some work for Medical Forum. I have a giant, framed version sitting over my computer in the study, which will hopefully inspire me as I write. Here it is:

© Rod Cameron

13 reasons to buy Shards

Have you bought Shards yet? It's available at most bookstores and book chains (although not in the abundance of, say, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight), but it should be there nonetheless. If it isn't, get the salesperson to order it in (Shards is distributed by Scribo Group/Tower books and is available on Titlepage, the bookstore ordering system).

Another option is to order directly from Brimstone Press. If you do order through Brimstone and you want a signed copy, just drop me an email (shane@jiraiya.com.au) or leave a comment on this post! I'm happy to scribble a message!

For those who need convincing, here are 13 good reasons to buy Shards:

1. Great bang for your buck. It's only $17.95 (plus postage) for close to forty stories and many, many excellent illustrations from Andrew J. McKiernan.
2. Try before you buy! Download the free e-chapbook Shards: Damned and Burning. If you like it, you'll love Shards!
3. The standard of writing is considerably higher than in Twilight!
4. Like a quick and compelling read while you're on the loo or catching 10 mins of downtime? What better book than Shards?
5. Curious about flash fiction? Jeff Ritchie from ScaryMinds reckons "Shane Jiraiya Cummings with Shards shows he is not only a master of the flash fiction style of writing but has pretty much written the definitive statement on how it should work. The collection is a strong statement on the validity of an internet-driven writing style and is a must have for any collector of Australian Dark Fiction." So there ya go.
6. Shards features no less than four versions of the apocalypse. One has zombies, another hints at a plague of celluloid serial killers (Freddy, Jason, Leatherface...). Another apocalypse results in the world completely unravelling.
7. You don't need to be a gorehound to like Shards. In fact, quite the opposite. Richard Harland said in his intro, "In Shards, there are a few pieces of out-and-out horror, but mostly the horror is delicate, the kind to make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck."
8. The stories aren't just plucked out of my arse, unproven and unedited. There are stories in there first published in Shadowed Realms, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Horror Literature Quarterly, Borderlands, and Shorthorror.com, amongst others. Several stories were nominated for Tin Ducks or honourably mentioned in Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Fantasy & Horror or the Aurealis Awards.
9. There are eight originals, too, so you're not just retreading old ground.
10. Curious about my writing? Heard my name but have no idea what I've written? Shards is the perfect sampler!
11. The character death count in Shards is remarkably low. The fun is in finding out what happens to the characters who survive the stories and how they've changed (for better, or more often, for worse). How are you gonna discover this Schadenfreude unless you buy a copy of the book?
12. Every copy of Shards sold will convince booksellers to stock more actual horror/dark fiction rather than the parade of endless Twilight wannabes. You don't want to support those books, do you? All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing! Buy Shards and prevent the spread of (the non-fun kind of) evil!
13. I heard a rumour that Chuck Norris read Shards and it made his eyes bleed. That's a hell of a lot of awesome for just $17.95.

ScaryMinds interview

The ever industrious Jeff Ritchie has posted an in-depth interview with me on ScaryMinds. If you're even vaguely interesting in my writing or various Brimstone Press projects, it's worth dropping by. The interview is here.

While you're there, be sure to check out the feature Jeff published on flash fiction (which also includes some comments from me). Some very detailed and exuberant reviews are on ScaryMinds, too! It's an Aussie horror lovers paradise!

In completely unrelated news, my dark fantasy novella Phoenix and the Darkness of Wolves has had its publication date brought forward to December 1. Woot! More on this will no doubt follow soon.

Copycat alert!

Tonight I've discovered something of a buzz on the blogosphere about a plagiarist by the name of Richard Ridyard rather brazenly copying some well-known horror stories and passing then off to markets (paying or otherwise) as his own. The most notorious example so far is Ridyard's attempt to pass off Stephen King's "The Boogeyman" as his own to Shock Totem magazine. US horror writer Angel Zapata did some detective work to uncover what could turn out to be the tip of a nasty iceberg.

Ridyard has also chosen to plagiarise our own Deborah Biancotti's award-winning story "The First and Final Game". She discusses the incident here.

It turns out Ridyard is involved in an editorial capacity with new UK publisher Valentine Publications. This caught my attention as Valentine proclaims itself to be the "Home of British Flash Fiction". The astute observer will be aware that flash fiction is something of an interest of mine (Shards, Black Box, Shadow Box, Shadowed Realms...).

The Valentine Publications front page is temporarily down, but I was able to view the back end pages through a cache (if it still works, the link is here). Given the involvement of a pretty arsey plagiarist, should it come as any surprise that the Valentine Publication's 'About Us' page would draw 'inspiration' from elsewhere? Possibly a well-known flash fiction publisher from Down Under?

Here is the Valentine Publications 'About Us' blurb:

"Valentine Publications is an English independent publisher of short fiction. Established in 2009, Valentine Publications are already developing a strong track record of publishing short fiction through Fragments, England's professional short fiction magazine. Along side the magazine Valentine Publications also runs Escape Realm: The English Short Fiction Web Log and Blog which is home to all 4 of the creators of Valentine Publications."

Here is the Brimstone Press 'About Us' blurb (only recently changed on the website, but this original is still viewable on the Google cache).

"Brimstone Press is a Western Australian independent publisher of dark fiction (horror and dark fantasy). Established in 2004, Brimstone Press has a strong track record of publishing short fiction through Shadowed Realms, Australia’s professional dark fiction magazine. In 2005, Brimstone expanded into non-fiction with the publication of HorrorScope: The Australian Dark Fiction Web Log, an online review and criticism zine."

Intriguingly, it appears that Valentine's 'Fragments' and 'Escape Realm' don't yet exist (or maybe they do, but they're not linked on the VP site). Angela and I are always happy to inspire new talent but not really in this kind of way. At least it's just a promotional blurb and not someone's fiction, but it paints an interesting picture, eh?

Phoenix and the Darkness of Wolves

Chalk up one more for the good news column: my novella Phoenix and the Darkness of Wolves has been sold to US independent press Damnation Books. The novella will sell as a standalone e-book and trade paperback in early 2010.

What's it about, you ask?

Think of it as an Australian version of Stephen King's The Gunslinger (Dark Tower 1):

Australia has been devastated by a supernatural inferno. Damon believes he is the last ash-covered survivor, a man's whose past - and future - is inextricably tied to the magick that caused the conflagration. Trudging through this apocalyptic wasteland, he hunts a phoenix in the hopes of using its magick to restore his lost family to humanity. His family, in turn, have been condemned to limbo as shadow wolves, emerging for a few fleeting moments every sunset to hunt Damon in the hope his death will free them from their torment. The hunt is on!

It's probably the best story I've written to date.

Expect more in the coming months, but in the meantime, here's a sample:

The sun had finally set in Northam.

The Fire was vaguely humanoid and had grown to skyscraper proportions. It had completely consumed its pyre and the bodies around it, and was expanding itself outward, throwing off walls of fire to incinerate priests as they attempted to flee. It spread further and further out, burning the very earth itself, gouging a crater as it took root. With each moment, the screams diminished and the roar of Fire consuming everything in its path grew.

"Sweet Gaia," Damon murmured as the heat and the roar intensified, as two white hot pits in the centre of its being turned to regard him. "What have I done?"
Flames exploded all around him, and as the full force of the unleashed Elemental cascaded toward him, his thoughts fumbled for the cornerstones of his life. His family. His desire to protect them. His failures.

As the flame surged and engulfed him, slammed him against the car, and he threw his arms up in a futile gesture, his totem animal filled his mind. The spirit that sealed the protection runes cut into his flesh and gouged into his very soul. A spirit born of fire.

The Phoenix.

Wedged between legends

The Anthology of Dark Wisdom editor William Jones has published the list of contributors in the order as they appear. Click here for a list of awesome authors.

Much to my delight, my story "Hear No Evil" is wedged between stories from legends Alan Dean Foster and Peter Straub*.

Awesome!


* Speaking of awesome, how long has that photo of Peter Straub standing with Aussie horror legend and good mate Rob Hood been there on Wikipedia? Awesome squared!

Free downloads of awesomeness

Have you downloaded my free chapbook, Shards: Damned and Burning?

What about Brimstone's new e-zine Eye of Fire?

If not, then where the bloody hell are ya ... err, I mean, why the bloody hell not? They're FREE!

Note: Future Eye of Fire issues won't be available online, so subscribe today via eye_of_fire@brimstonepress.com.au