Guest Blogger: Nick Wilford

Thanks for hosting me on the final day of my tour, Jean. Today, in contrary fashion, I’m going back to the beginning to bring your readers the opening from my novella, A Change of Mind.

“Hey Reuben, my main man, pass me that stapler, will you?”

The loud, abrasive voice of Guy Borderman jackknifed into me as I blew on my hot milky tea, causing me to spill some on my trousers. I cursed silently, not wanting to bring further attention to myself, and rested the mug on my desk before picking up the stapler and making the journey to Borderman’s desk as nonchalantly as I could.

As it was getting on towards five o’clock, I had hoped Borderman would give me a break today. No such luck. It wasn’t so much the humiliation, but the hit to my pocket that really grated.

I dropped the stapler on Borderman’s desk, not looking the hulking brute in the eyes, and quickly turned to leave, praying the next part would be left out.

“Got any plans tonight, Rubes?” barked that faux-jovial voice as I was halfway back to my desk. I turned, looked at Borderman’s self-satisfied grin, and raised my shoulders slightly in a shrug that felt more like a gesture of surrender. I wasn’t sure why Borderman still made the effort. Everyone already knew I was a massive loser, and most barely looked up from their work.

It was too late today, but tomorrow I would have to request a new stapler, essential for my work, at a cost of £4.99, consuming both my time and money. And at some point, this new item would be “borrowed” by Borderman before disappearing forever into a black hole. This had happened nearly every day I was at work for the past two years.

At five o’clock, I put on my jacket, checking the pockets to find that thankfully there was no glue or other unsavoury items today, and left the office to walk to the bus stop. It started to rain in a torrential downpour that felt like some sort of water-based apocalypse. The bus approached, headlights like hazy red suns glimpsed through the rain. Then I noticed the “Full” sign.

Rather than wait half an hour and take a chance on the next bus having a seat, I started to squelch in my sodden shoes towards home. On the way I passed the Rose and Crown, as I had many times before, always wondering what it was like inside. Rather than continue wading through what felt like a sea with holes in it, I decided this might be an appropriate time to find out.

After all, it was my birthday.

* * *

Title: A Change of Mind and Other Stories

Page/word count: 107 pages, approx. 32,000 words

Publisher: Superstar Peanut Publishing

Author: Nick Wilford

Genre: Speculative fiction

Format: Ebook only

Release date: 25th May 2015

A Change of Mind and Other Stories consists of a novella, four short stories and one flash fiction piece. This collection puts the extremes of human behaviour under the microscope with the help of lashings of dark humour, and includes four pieces previously published in Writer’s Muse magazine.

In A Change of Mind, Reuben is an office worker so meek and mild he puts up with daily bullying from his boorish male colleagues as if it’s just a normal part of his day. But when a stranger points him in the direction of a surgeon offering a revolutionary new procedure, he can’t pass up the chance to turn his life around.

But this isn’t your average surgeon. For a start, he operates alone in a small room above a mechanic’s. And he promises to alter his patients’ personality so they can be anything they want to be…

In Marissa, a man who is determined to find evidence of his girlfriend’s infidelity ends up wondering if he should have left well alone.

The Dog God finds a chink in the armour of a man with a megalomaniacal desire to take over the world.

In The Insomniac, a man who leads an obsessively regimented lifestyle on one hour’s sleep a night finds a disruption to his routine doesn’t work for him.

Hole In One sees a dedicated golfer achieving a lifelong ambition.

The Loner ends the collection on a note of hope as two family members try to rebuild their lives after they are torn apart by jealousy.

Purchase Links:
Amazon US / Amazon UK / Smashwords
B&N
Kobo
Add it on Goodreads

Meet the author:

Nick Wilford is a writer and stay-at-home dad. Once a journalist, he now makes use of those rare times when the house is quiet to explore the realms of fiction, with a little freelance editing and formatting thrown in. When not working he can usually be found spending time with his family or cleaning something. He has four short stories published in Writer’s Muse magazine. Nick is also the editor of Overcoming Adversity: An Anthology for Andrew. Visit him at his blog or connect with him on Twitter or Goodreads.

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What better way to spend a long weekend

...than reading! It's been quite awhile, but I finally managed most of three days of downtime to read. This wasn't for lack of other things I should have been doing, but fate decided to smack me upside the sinuses with a major cold, thereby giving me a valid pass to hang out on the couch. And hang out I did. I can't remember the last time I sat in one place for so long.

My congested head required lite reading, so I went for my usual (lately, it seems) romance-related fare. In three days I devoured Sherrilyn Kenyon's Born of Fire and Bad Moon Rising. Got to love a writer that really knows how to put her characters through hell, literally and figuratively.

That's over 1000 pages between critiquing a short for a friend, spending half a day moving the last of our stuff from the garage and shed of our previous home, and several hours at two home improvement stores ordering everything we need for the deck that needs to be built in order to finish out our building permit.

Good thing I had to go that other stuff or I probably wouldn't have picked up my head from a third book long enough to spend time with the rest of my sick (we all got the cold) family. I was even a good little citizen and attended our local memorial day parade...because I had to transport my son there to play in the school band. Several people I've run into since have commented on seeing me there, but not stopping over to say hi "because it looked like you were really into reading your book." I did put it down once the parade started, honest. I was doing them a favor, warding them away from my cold germs.  

Now, with my sci-fi and were-creature fixes sated, I can get back to trying to figure out this short I've been fighting with. Yes, that means I still don't have that darn thing finished and I'm running out of time.

No Thanks

I seem to be a slump lately, which may seem odd being that I've been announcing published stories for the last few months. Most of those were also sold months ago. In fact, one was sold over a year ago that has yet to actually make it into print. This slump means that I'll have nothing lined up to announce for a while and that's a bit depressing given how well things were going.

Not that rejections are a bad thing. It just means I haven't found the right market for the story yet. The  five shorts currently in my submission juggling routine are good. Not that I'm trying to sound over confident, but I do believe in them. They're good stories. I've pulled a couple others that I feel were rejected with merit and need some further tweaking before they return to submissions. They'll return soon.

Sitting here in my slump, it seems fitting that I revisit a few thoughts on rejection.

Don't take them personally. Yes, they can be depressing. Someone didn't find your baby as cute as you think it is. Writing is subjective and there are a lot of markets out there. As long as you still believe in your story, keep looking for the right one. 

Some of rejections are a long time coming. Don't spend your time watching your inbox for a response. Spend your time writing your next story. And then submit that. And write something else. It's not uncommon for responses to take three months and playing that 'I made it to the three month mark' doesn't mean a darn thing. I've found that submissions that significantly go over the expected response date are more often than not for a reason and it's not good. It's either A - the submission has been lost or B - the market died. And yes, that last one happens more often that I expected, so it's not a bad idea to check up on the market and to send out an email to check the status of the submission, especially if it's not a sim sub market. No need to have your story sitting out there in the cold doing nothing.

Find sim sub markets when possible so your story can be multitasking while it's out there in the big wide world. If none of those are a good fit, look for markets with good turn around times, such as weeks rather than months. If my story isn't a good fit, I'd much rather know sooner than later. 

Don't over think the form rejection. It's a form rejection. It's not a secret code. It's simply a no thanks. Send the story somewhere else. 

Appreciate personal rejections but don't fixate on them. Remember, this is all subjective. Like any critique, read it, digest it and apply the tweaks your gut agrees with. 

Most importantly: a rejection will only become an acceptance when you find the right market. Keep submitting. 

This week's goal

Now that A to Z is over and I've taken a little time to catch my blogging breath, it's time to get back into the weekly routine. Weekly should be easier to manage that daily, right? Right. In theory.

Let's start with where things are in my writing world... because that's what I need to cover for some self accountability this week.

Waiting on developmental edits on A Broken Race. Meeting on these has been pushed to early June, which works for me because I still have to...

Finish The Unmaking of Dennis Gilroy for an anthology submission that is due by the end of May. I'd meant to have it done two weeks ago, but time keeps slipping through my fingers. And I'm not even talking about procrastinating or having fun rather than writing. I'm talking days like yesterday when I worked from 8:30am to 10pm with breaks for running kids to appointments and to school. At least I got to watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones before collapsing into bed.

I spent what little writing time I did have last week editing Sipper down from 5,900 words to 5,000 words for another anthology that asked for a tighter version to fit their word limit. The first 600 words weren't that bad, but the second pass to find those last 300 was tough. Talk about making the remaining words work hard to hold everything together. Whew! We'll see how the story works at the shorter length when that fateful email comes in.

Goal for this week: Finish the Dennis story.
Extra credit: Edit and submit it.

Pretty things

Never have I considered myself a girly girl, but I do enjoy a few pretty things. Sometime around my late twenties I gave up my love for wild earrings, sparkly necklaces and multiple bracelets. That sometime probably coincided with having kids. Since then, you can find me wearing the same necklace for months in a row and the same earrings for years. Bracelets are an on occasion only because they really get in the way for typing and working. The one things that truly remains constant are my rings.

I've always been a little hard on rings, but I love them, and through children, gardening, messy jobs and all life throws at me, I refuse to give them up. I've worn this collection for the past seventeen or so years. Then, within a month, this all happened: 

Not only did building a house take it's toll on my legs and back, my rings suffered. Other than when I was working with mortar or grout, which was really messy stuff, I wore my usual rings. As of this morning, I'm down to two undamaged rings and both of those are simple bands, though, one is hematite -which I've shattered several of in the past- and I wouldn't put it past this one to shatter at any moment. 

I wore a hole in my pearl. I smashed my hand loading heavy stock onto equipment for work and ripped the sapphire out of the second ring. (My hand is fine, thanks for asking, and I found the stone.) I smashed my hand arranging tables in my new work space and lost the diamond from my wedding ring. Searches have not turned up the diamond. Please join me in a rousing chorus of "Doh!"  The last one I caught on a table while setting up for my hopefully last ever annual garage sale and bent it so far out of shape that it now looks like a potato chip. 

Someone has to keep the jewelry repair people busy.

If it's heavy, awkward or large, I'll lift it and I'll move it. I'll do it myself thank you very much. I hate asking for help and even more, I hate waiting for help. 

And this is why I have a hard time writing female characters of the gentle, soft, and proper persuasion.