Here I go again ...

For those of you who would like to read my work in another proper magazine ... secure in the knowledge that I have paid by the publisher and am not just indulging in vanity, you can order a copy of issue 5 of Bete Noir magazine here https://www.createspace.com/3724614 the editors have chosen Create Space as the on demand publishing solution ... but we, the writers, get paid up front when our stories are chosen to appear. Would seem to be the best solution all round!

Sex , death and chocolate perhaps?

Another of my longer short stories has been accepted for Horrotica magazine. Erotic horror certainly seems a major direction for me at the moment. Fascination with sex and death is with from the moment we recognise our own mortality and our deepest urges ... what’s not to write about? Of course with me, I have to go to extremes ... finding humour in what others find disgusting or disturbing.

R.I.P Necrotic Tissue

Sadly my story Of Mycelium and Men published in the April Edition of Necrotic Tissue was one of the last tales to feature in that venerable publication. Decent paying markets for horror short fiction are quite thin on the ground and NT will be mourned.

Back in ... er black (ish)

At last I’m back writing again ... since Christmas life has been so hectic I have had to watch my sold material get published without having any new material to submit to keep things rolling. I just completed my first new short story in six months and feel suitably chuffed. I have a whole raft of partly completed tales to get to grips with now ... striking while the iron’s hot!

The bloody National

Yet again two beautiful, intelligent animals died in the national disgrace of the ‘Grand National.’ This gratuitously dangerous and extreme ... so called ... race barely ever goes a year without previously healthy animals dying in agony behind the ‘green screens’ that protect the delicate sensibilities of the punters. I’m not against horse racing ... I jump horses myself and accept the risk to them and me in what I do ... it’s simply that the National’s fences are so extreme and the pack so huge and crammed together that it has become more akin to a blood sport.

If you bet on this race you participated in the pointless death of Ornais and Dooneys Gate (broken neck and broken back respectively) ... this author hopes you are proud of yourselves and never have to hear a screaming horse in person.

Birth pains ...

Loads of half written stories litter my 'work in progress' folder at the moment. With the spring with us ... just about ... I have so many other thing competing for my time. Work needs doing on the Land Rovers, decorating needs attended to, never mind photographic work that is gradually building up to seasonal levels. Please oh great deity (in whom obviously I don't believe ... but to the abstract concept of which it just might be worth having a grovel) give me thirty hours in each poxy day ... with at least twenty five hours of light!

Sadly this happens online

There is a nasty, vindictive, failed actor – possibly still married to a benefits cheat who abused horses – who is/has been abusive to me on facebook. If anyone knows this ‘pond slime’ tell him to desist and crawl back under his stone!

Let's get dirty!

What is the role of sex in horror? Well in my own twisted little mind it underpins ... along with death ... most classic tales of the macabre. Sex is the greatest driving force in our tiny, insignificant lives: the source of perhaps the greatest pleasure and the bleakest pain and disappointment.

It is as an adventurer into the darker realms of the sexual psyche that I wrote my tale Face Scream. At what point does a voyeur become a participant? How far are we prepared to justify pleasuring ourselves if we know in our hearts we are succumbing to evil? What will you do to fit in with your peers? Oh yes, laughter is part of sex too (well it is when I do it) so my erotic horror is shot through with humour...

Anyway, Horrotica Magazine has bravely taken on Face Scream and will be publishing it online in their February issue. It will also be available in their new paper issue later in the year. I hope you will help support these brave online publishers like Horrotica and Necrotic Tissue, who give chances to writers like me. They gamble with tiny budgets and virtually no margins, to create proper paper magazines that carry on the traditions of pulp horror. Long may they continue and prosper.

My tale Interface, written for 'State Of Imagination' is now viewable on line here http://stateofimagination.com/interface-by-ash-scott-lockyer/