Author: Jonathan Cosgrove

New Novel Draft Done!

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As I mentioned on Twitter the other day, I finished a draft of a new novel.

YAY!!!

It’s only a rough draft of what was once a short story that was trying to do too much and now may well be a novel that’s doing *just* enough.

At the beginning of the year, I took part in the Crystal Lake Mentorship programme (which was fantastic!) and I got a lot of great notes on this particular story from none other than Stephanie Wytovich.

The most important of which was slowing way the hell down and exploring the things I was writing.

However, as I was writing another novel at the time it took a few months to gear up to writing this one but — checks notes — around mid May according to my file dates I started trying to flesh out the story in earnest.

Overall, I’m really happy with the result but it’s very different from what I thought I’d have. It began as a retelling of the Pied Piper and then just veered far off the beaten track with new characters, locations, and monsters appearing throughout.

So I have a LOT of rewriting and restructuring to do but I’m suuuper happy with the idea and the characters and world have a lot of fire and energy.

Side note, I haven’t done anything on this site in months, so maybe I need to revamp things a little. New picture maybe.

A Good Year for Good Reads (Aren’t they all?)

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Happy New Years to all.

It’s January 4th and the first working day for many in the good old République d’Irlande so, naturally, I’m thinking about “goals” and specifically for this post, reading goals…

Normally, I use Goodreads to track my books however I find it invigorates a rat race of ‘HOW MANY BOOKS CAN I CRAM INTO MY EYES!!’ rather than cultivate an ongoing love affair with reading.

And that’s really how I feel about reading. I love it. It relaxes me by taking me outside of myself. And, as a writer, I try to read words in the manner Terry Pratchett suggests – like a carpenter eyeing up trees.

Having a goal of 100 books, for a slow reader like myself, completely demotivates me and takes the fun out of reading. So how to read a lot and read meaningfully?

This year I decided alongside an arbitrary goal of 12 books on my Goodreads, to have a couple of supplementary goals. These are:

  • Read the full work* of a chosen author (*or as much as I can. read: slow reader)
  • Read a short story every day

Now I’m terrible with reading every day. Some days I only read for ten minutes and others for hours. So I imagine this will be more of a A Story For Every Day rather than a story a day, if that makes sense. Basically, by the year’s end I should have 365 stories read.

This is a practice very much inspired by Matt Bell; his reading habits and monthly newsletter were really big inspirations and sources of light to me in 2020.

The author I’ve chosen to read all of is Brian Evenson. He’s a writer I’ve really admired and tried to emulate ever since I read Fugue State while hitchhiking around New Zealand several years ago. He’s dark and horrific while also being really funny and tender. I love his work.

Last year I even attended a short class he did on opening sentences and afterwards he even critiqued one of my stories and turned me onto the writing of Anthony Michael Hurley (The Loney was a firm favourite from last year).

Evenson does have quite a few books, though, and I’m debating whether I should include his work as B.K. Evenson. Since one of the works is co-written with Rob Zombie, I’m leaning towards a strong yes.

Hope you have a great year of reading ahead whatever your ‘goal’ is.

Do you have any reading goals for 2021?

New story on Daily Science Fiction

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I’m delighted to announce that my very, very story ‘Little Remarked Upon Vanishings and Disappearances‘ was published over on Daily Science Fiction.

It’s my light hearted attempt at throwing some spotlight on the forgotten women of fairytales. It’s just over a hundred words, too, so it takes no time at all to read.

Despite the brevity I’ve always found flash fiction very hard to get right, but this piece fell together incredibly quickly.

Hope you enjoy!

https://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/fairy-tales/jonathan-cosgrove/little-remarked-upon-vanishings-and-disappearances

Wants // Fears // Obstacles

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Wants

‘Writing updates’ as a genre provide such a dopamine kick. (Particularly on social media but you also enjoy telling your very patient and supportive girlfriend, too.)

You have no “following” but simply writing something about the routine of writing, how it’s going well or badly, dispatches into the vast space of The Net provides a sort of Feel-Good-INC. euphoria. Melancholic but hopeful.

You feel suspicious of it though. It’s self-congratulatory before you’ve even done anything, right? Or is it? Have you done anything by writing for an hour? Twenty minutes? Five? At all? Do you deserve dopamine?

Fears

Sometimes writing doesn’t “go great”. You may feel bad then. Most writing days, you come to realise, are fine to shitty. Making time for it is the achievement then. This is all there is. Being okay with that.

But then you can’t update anyone. You have to stay quiet for a bit. And then people might politely ask, how’s your writing going? And you go, yeahhh, and make a face, maybe laugh it off. But now you hear yourself and how self-regarding you are and you realise that you sound like a baby playing an incredibly low-stakes game.

And then you feel bad again.

Obstacles

It’s a self perpetuating cycle and the repetitive nature of

a) telling yourself “I am enjoying this and feeling good” or “Today was bad I didn’t write (well/ enough/at all)”,

and

b) giving anyone who will listen a State of the Union address on your Writing (with a capital W)

feels like the equivalent of tonguing a particularly malevolent mouth ulcer.

You go to bed marking the days since you started this project. How that will affect how people “see” your work etc etc. The list of these tiny, self-made irritants is long… and annoying to recount.

Resolution

You remind yourself that none of this matters. No one cares. Not a single person is bothered if you finish that story, flesh out that character, study The Great Works or anything else you tell yourself is important. It’s just you.

You are the obstacle. Get out of your way.

forever too many books to read

Jonathan Cosgrove1 Comment

This year–like every year–reading has been a fantastic source of respite from the neverending parade of bad news and tragedy unfolding around us.

Recently I finished THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN’S UNION–a detective novel by Michael Chabon set in alternative history where Jewish people settled in Sitka, Alaska post WW2–and it was one of the best reads I’ve had all year.

At the moment, I’m flying through THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by Stephen Graham Jones.

SGJ is probably my favourite writer of all time and someone I look up to immensely. Needless to say, I think this book is stunningly good. It’s seemingly so simple but yet so complicated and deep and powerful.

SGJ also has another novella coming out next month–NIGHT OF THE MANNEQUINS–which, naturally, I have preordered.

However, after looking over my Reading Log the other day, I decided that for the next half of 2020 I’d like to try and read more female voices.

Whether via marketing or algorithms or personal biases I end up reading about 50% or more cis-male authors and I’d just like to change that up a touch.

So, with that in mind, here are some titles I hope to read before the end of the year in no particular order.

Fiction
Toni Morrison – Beloved
Angela Carter – The Magic Toyshop
Zadie Smith – Swing Time
Octavia Butler – Kindred
Hilary Mantel – Fludd
Ursula K. Le Guin – The Dispossessed
Tasmyn Muir – Gideon the Ninth
Catherynne M. Valente – The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Sarah Read – The Bone Weaver’s Orchard

Non-Fiction
Carmen Maria Machado – Dream House
Rebecca Solnit – A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Camile Paglia – Break, Burn, Blow
Lisa Kröger – Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction

I’m forever making reading lists but this one is composed of people I’ve largely never read before. (Caveats-Zadie Smith was an obsession for most of uni and I read Left Hand of Darkness by LeGuin but I think at the time I didn’t get it, maybe.)

Have you read any books off this list? Anything you could recommend?