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.

The leaves on the virginia creeper covering the fence have turned an amazing mixture of rose and cream, and leaves are starting to fall from the big sycamore.
Quite a few leaves have ended up in the crown of my big Dicksonia tree fern, just where they need to be.  They will be a great frost cover through the winter.
Last year strong winter winds dried out the Dicksonia fronds badly, I'm hoping this year it won't be so bad, but to be honest the plant recovered vigorously, although the new fronds aren't quite as big as last years.
All the tree ferns are still growing, if slowly, taking advantage of the late sun, rain and occasional warm day.  Fronds are emerging one at a time now, instead of the triple sets the plants like to throw mid summer.

And talking of throws, my little cycad is midway through its annual throw of leaves and apart from flowering, for cycads this is about as exciting as it gets.  These are funny little plants, obstinately sitting in the sun all summer and resolutely doing absolutely nothing.  then, at the end of the season they throw out a cluster of leaves and that's it for the year.  I do wonder what they are doing with all that sunlight.  The tree ferns in exactly the same position grow like mad.   The new cycad leaves are softa and easily damaged.  They like long, green caterpillars, each segment uncurling like a little clenched fist.  Fully grown they are tough, spiny, almost woody, and can last for years.

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!

Jetse De Vries has resigned as co-Editor at Interzone, saying he is 'unhappy with the direction and tone the fiction in Interzone will be taking.'
As one of the great survivors Interzone has been through various incarnations and reading between the lines seems to be heading for another one.  I've been told Jetse was the hard SF man at Interzone, so it looks like we'll be seeing a style change away from that genre.  Whatever happens, I'm sure Interzone will survive, and thrive.

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.

Cittie of York, Holborn, Saturday 9th August
Gareth Powell - 'The Last Reef'
Chris Beckett - 'The Turing Test'

This was a great afternoon, with readings from both authors from their books.  It's great to see short story collections being published and I made sure I had my copies.  Thank you Elastic Press.

I'm an infrequent attender of these events but this one was a lot of fun, well attended by many friendly people, including Molly Brown, fellow T-Party members Gary Couzens, Gaie Sebold & Rosanne Rabinowitz, the author Eric Brown, and Ian Whate, of NewCon Press, who managed to sell me one of his books too, and of coursde Andrew Hook from EP.  I'm going to make sure I go to more.

Molly's partner took some pictures.  You can see them here.

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.

Last night I sent off my first submission pack to my first agent - John Jarrold.  John replied within a few minutes, saying he hoped to be able to respond in a couple of weeks.
John's a nice guy, he's taken the time to come and talk to my writing group, and he has a huge amount of experience and reputation.  I really hope this works out as he's long been the agent I hoped to have.
Still, I'm also trying to be realistic - it's not an easy process, but you can't help but hope, can you?