Hurrah!  I arrived home tonight to find a contract from Hub magazine waiting for me for 'Unplugged', my first short story submission to that market.  I've only recently restarted submitting and writing short stories, having spent the past two years or so writing a novel, so it's nice to have some good news so soon.
Hub is a great magazine, Lee Harris and his team work hard to make sure it keeps to its weekly schedule.  67 issues so far, with #68 due out later this week.  With around 8,000 subscribers it's my biggest sale in terms of readership, which makes it even more exciting.

John Jarrold has just posted this on his web site:
John Jarrold has concluded a three-book World Rights deal for Scottish-based Finnish SF writer Hannu Rajaniemi. Hannu's debut novel (presently untitled) plus two further books were pre-empted by Simon Spanton of Gollancz for a high five-figure sum, on the basis of one chapter.
"I received this chapter from Hannu by e-mail in the morning (and loved it), mentioned it to Simon when we were talking about other matters, and three hours later I had a very strong pre-empt offer," said John Jarrold.

This is great news, not only for Hannu and John but for everyone like Hannu.  It shows these things can still happen and that means one day it might happen to you - or me.

Meanwhile - congratulations, Hannu!

So my novel's been with an agent for three months and the queries I was invited to send have gone unanswered.  Although I'm disappointed I'm not too surprised.  Agents have clients, clients have books and books are either going into print or need to be presented to publishers.  I know I'm somewhere towards the bottom of the list of priorities but you know how it is!  For one thing I want to know, one way or another.  For another he should jolly well read it anyway because it's really, really good!  He'd love it, honest!

It was nice to see my first book review published in Hub magazine - Robert Buettner's 'Orphanage'.  I've another one I need to write, and then have Charles Stross's 'Halted State' to follow.  Watch this space - or  rather Hub's space.

This year I achieved another first - having a single story rejected twice by one magazine.  I submitted the story back in October last year, queried early this year to no effect, queried the query and got a rather terse response saying they no longer had the story and I should therefore assume rejection.  Author retreats, mildly miffed, only to receive a mailed rejection in August for the same story, using my pre-paid and addressed envelope enclosed with the original submission.  Author responds with a gay heart  thanking the editors and commenting they must have really hated it to reject it twice, though in fact more than a little disappointed by this behaviour from a pro-rate market.
My next submission is rejected within seven days.  Result!

I'm delighted to say that I'll be joining the team of reviewers at Hub Magazine, and am eagerly awaiting my first two books fro review.  I'm really quite excited about this, and looking forwards to making a start.
Hub is a great, free online magazine, published weekly (yes, weekly), currently on issue 62,  with genre news and reviews, and short stories.

It's been a long wait to hear from the agent and it's still going on!  Meanwhile I've plotted a new novel and created all the main characters, submitted some unpublished short stories to some magazine and competition markets, and have spent the last couple of weeks turning an old idea into a story.

I've also written a web site for the finished novel.  At the moment it's secret, it's out there and published on the web so you might stumble across it, but there's no 'official launch' for now.

We were talking about  what skills are needed for writing synopses after last night's writing session at  Million Monkeys We concluded the main one was the ability to précis, something you're unlikely to have been taught unless you have studied literature or language at school or college.

On the back of this we're now thinking about how to better educate ourselves in the T Party and may run a workshop.  And those of us already with the skill have realised it could be useful in other ways too.

This link looked useful to me, though a synopsis will need to be much shorter.

I really like what Tom said at the end of all this, half joking that novels include all the unnecessary words, scenes and characters.  That's what make them novels, and makes them entertaining.  It's the difference between a story and a synopsis.

Back in March at Eastercon the T Party ran a writers workshop - 16 writers, 5,000 words each, divided into groups of four with 2 T Party members mediating each group.  It was pretty successful, we had some good writers, and some of them have stayed in touch. 

One of the writers in my group was David Wake, who alos wrote a play for the Con.  I really liked his story, a tale of revenge set in medieval Japan, and have recently just finished reading the full ms.  David's a great writer and I really hope this novel finds a home and a good audience. - it deserves to.

Meanwhile - back to the synopsis for Ace Timewaster.