Jumping the Gun

I wonder if I should have waited before setting up this fake blog? The publishing world is so slow that this blog might be discovered before my story is published. I haven't even written my story yet, let alone submitted it to the editor, and there's no guarantee it will be accepted even when I do submit it, and after that there's the customary long wait before it appears in print...

So: to anyone who discovers this blog before my story is published, leave a comment and I'll get back to you with some sort of prize, probably a free copy of the anthology that my story will appear in...

As for 'Rommel Cobra's Swimming Carnival' -- it is progressing slowly but promisingly. I am enjoying the process of writing far more than I normally enjoy the act of writing stories. It has a Jack Vance flavour, but is dafter than Vance, more extremely absurd. But I have just finished reading Vance's Showboat World and doubtless that excellent novel is having a direct influence on the style of my story. I certainly think that my dialogue has become very 'Vancian'.

I have recently read, or am about to read, or plan eventually to read, various other stories and novels that have pirates as major or minor protagonists, all the better to flavour my own story. Lord Dunsany's tales 'The Loot of Bombasharna' and 'A Tale of Land and Sea' are classic examples; I also hope to obtain (for free) James Branch Cabell's There Were Two Pirates, as one of my publishers in the USA has recently taken to reissuing many of Cabell's novels. Pirates are fun to read about and even more fun to write about; but not much fun to meet for real, I suppose!

Do You Feel Lucky Albatross?

This spoof blog has been set up to enhance the reader's enjoyment of a story by absurdist writer Rhys Hughes (that's me!)

The story in question is called 'Rommel Cobra's Swimming Carnival' (an allusion to 'Monty Python's Flying Circus') and is narrated by a professional blogger known only as The Postmodern Mariner.

The motto of the Postmodern Mariner is:
"Do you feel lucky albatross? Well do you, punk?"

Near the beginning of the story, The Postmodern Mariner gives the address of his blog, and it occurred to the real author that it might be a nice touch to set up a real blog in case a reader decides to check the validity of the address.

If you are such a reader, well done! I guess you deserve some sort of prize. I don't know what yet!

The story is only in the early stages of being written. It is being written specifically for a pirate anthology that Jeff VanderMeer is planning to compile and that may be issued by Night Shade Books in 2007.