Submissions for Volume 9 are now open

Dark Lane Anthology Vol.7 got a special mention in Nicholas Royle's introduction to 'Best British Short Stories 2019'.

An interview with Bill Davidson

Bill Davidson's writing first appeared in Dark Lane Anthology Vol.5.  His short story A Brief Moment of Rage will be reprinted in Ellen Datlow's forthcoming 'The Best Horror of the Year Volume Eleven'.  Visit his website www.billdavidsonwriting.com.

Q: What are your working methods?  Do you sit down every day to write?  Do you have a designated place to work?

A: I maintain a high degree inconsistency, most of the time anyway. I write most days- sometimes only a few hundred words, other times it can be several thousands. I get an idea and then wander about the place falling over dogs and mumbling to myself about elves or something until I have enough to start my story. Once I’m going, I’ve got to get it out there and write for many hours in a day, although seldom in a single sitting. I have to get up and do something else, before I can figure out what I’ve just done wrong, or what should happen next. I’m not much of a plotter.

I write mainly at home, but do enjoy occasionally sitting in the library or a café. 

Q:Tell us about one of your favourite short stories and why you like it (not one of your own).

A: I recently read 20^th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill and one story has really stayed with me. It’s called Pop Art. This sounds absurd, but it’s about a boy, Arthur, who is inflatable (and very puncturable) living in the same dangerous world as the rest of us. I read the whole story fretting over someone who is, in effect, a balloon, and his friend, who isn’t. It’s a fantastic tale about friendship and humanity.

Q: Tell us about one of your favourite short stories (done by you).

A: Bugger, this is difficult. I’m going to go for Childe Abbas, alternatively titled The Little Town in England that Forgot all of its Children, published by Hell Bound Books. It’s written from the point of view of a little girl, Tilly, who is taken to live in the idyllic fictional English town of Childe Abbas. Tilly soon realises something is badly wrong with this town, but struggles to tell her parents, as they are slowly forgetting about her.

Q: Where do your ideas come from?  Do you go looking for ideas – for example by brainstorming, or do you wait for inspiration?

A: I’m lucky in that things constantly occur to me without having to purposefully do something to form an idea. I’m a naturally dreamy person and I’m always seeing things, or hearing things, and thinking, what if? I write down the initial idea and sometimes it turns into something worth pursuing - other times I have to admit it’s crap.  Or already written.

Q: Are you a full-time writer? If you have another job, what is it and would you like to become a full-time writer if you could?

A: I didn’t start writing in earnest until I took early retirement from local government just under three years ago, managing everything from waste to housing. Before that, I kind of dabbled, but what I produced wasn’t too good, and I went into decade-long sulks when my work wasn’t published instantly. I simply didn’t have the head space to do a demanding job and produce good writing, so I take my hat off to the many people who can manage that.

For the past year, I’ve been home schooling my daughter and, maybe it’s because I’d already built up some momentum as a writer, that didn’t slow me up.

Q: What is the most difficult part of your creative process?

A: My stories can lose their way for a while because I get distracted by another possible plotline or because my characters get ideas above their station. For instance, I’m writing a story at the moment that started as a fantasy but the domestic drama that is emerging could lead me to drop the fantastical element altogether and write it as a straight ahead drama.

A writer friend tells me that’s because I’m ill-disciplined and don’t plot it out well enough before I start, but to hell with that shit. When things you don’t expect start appearing on the page, that’s where the good stuff is.

Q: If you could go back in time, what would you say to your younger self about becoming a writer?

A: I’m that annoyed with my younger self I’d probably just sneak up behind him and give him a good kick up the arse, with no explanation.

If he demanded a reason for this well-deserved kick up the arse, I might say, for God’s sake write, you daft bastard! And don’t go into decade-long sulks when the publishing world doesn’t fall over itself for you, either.

Table of contents for Dark Lane Anthology: Volume Eight

Decisions have been made.  Thanks to everyone who submitted a story.  22 stories have been selected for Volume Eight.

Duplex by C.M. Muller
The Ringers by Rebecca Lloyd
The Wet Knot by Marvin Brown
Junior by John Ord
The Awful Rowing Towards the End by Mike O'Driscoll
Water Vein by Carolyn Stockdale
Shadow Work by Nici West
Los Ninos by Bill Davidson
Madness is the Nexus of All Reality by Arthur Davis
The Festival of Conformity by Charles Wilkinson
Mr Webster by Michael Button
Costello's Cell by Gregory Wolos
Secondhand by Timothy Delizza
Serve and Protect by Ed Ahern
Charlotte by Robert Pope
The Calling by Ariel Dodson
The Poacher by Michael Packman
The Exhibit by Mark Keane
The Orgy at the Edge of the Galaxy by Robert Guthrie
Sing Ho! Stout Cortez by Michael W. Thomas
Letter to a Budding Entomologist by Tim W. Boiteau
No One Driving by Mark Andresen

An interview with Rebecca Lloyd

We were lucky enough to have Rebecca Lloyd open Volume Two with her story 'Hagbound'.  Rebecca's books include two collections of short stories published by Tartarus Press, one of which 'Mercy' was nominated for a World Fantasy Award.  Her latest work is the novella The Bellboy, published by Zagava.

Q: What are your working methods?  Do you sit down every day to write?  Do you have a designated place to work?

A: I certainly have a designated place to write and it is my small writing room with a big window overlooking my garden, just a strip of a room, too small for a bedroom and fairly roughly painted. And there was a time when I would’ve been writing every day when I had to work for a living in the outside world and so by necessity, I wrote in the early mornings every day. These days, I tend to write novellas and novels that need extensive research, and so I make a list of research topics around the story I am hoping to conjure up, and address them systematically before I begin to write. There comes a point in time when I feel that I’ve read enough and that writing should start, then I launch off.

Q: Tell us about one of your favourite short stories and why you like it (not one of your own).

A: I have always liked ‘Puddle’ by Arthur Porges because it is written in a very unpretentious manner and yet the story idea is so terrific that after reading it, I felt slightly jealous that I hadn’t thought of it myself because it was very much up my street.

Q: Tell us about one of your favourite short stories (done by you).

A: ‘Shuck’ is a story I hold dear, and it’s probably one of my most chilling stories. But as the writer, I’m not sure that having a favourite story really fits in with how it is to be a writer. Some stories are moving for different reasons, The River has a lot of resonance, for example, and some stories are more accomplished than others, but the trickier stories if pulled off feel good to acknowledge. So, you can see that I can’t honestly answer the question, and really after so very many years of writing, and not going back to read them, I’m a bit stuck with remembering tone, mood and detail anyway.

Q: Where do your ideas come from?  Do you go looking for ideas – for example by brainstorming, or do you wait for inspiration?

A: I guess if a writer did know where her ideas were coming from, she could catch them in a pan and keep them on the go. I think a writer might well know what he or she is moved by, but even then, not be able to know why a particular incident was captivating enough to produce an idea for a story. In general, I think that I become interested in some human oddity I stumble across and, I am anyway very interested in superstition, and so there is a wealth of ideas arounds that… so I’m not sure that that is either brainstorming or inspiration.

Q: Are you a full-time writer? If you have another job, what is it and would you like to become a full-time writer if you could?

A: Not sure what ‘full-time writer’ actually means, does it mean someone who writes from 9 to 5, or does it mean someone who lives of the proceeds of her writing? I now longer work in the outside world for money, but even when I did, I wrote for three or four hours a day, and so would consider that full-time anyway. I’m probably being deliberately obtuse, but that’s what writers are like sometimes. I would say though, that it’s mentally healthier not to just write all day, it’s much better to have a working job and write as well.

Q: What is the most difficult part of your creative process?

A: That depends upon the story that I’m tackling. As each story is different, the part of the creative process that is difficult might also be different.

Q: If you could go back in time, what would you say to your younger self about becoming a writer?

A: Just go on exactly as you are, be generous in your support for other writers, and be true to what really excites you to write irrespective of how the industry attempts to mould you into a writing shape that better suits them and brings them profit.

An interview with Gregory Wolos

Gregory Wolos made his first Dark Lane appearance in Volume 6 with 'Out of the Basil Pot'.  His short story collection, 'Women of Consequence' will be published in March this year by Regal House Publishing.

What are your working methods?  Do you sit down every day to write?  Do you have a designated place to work?

I try to write every day. I work best in the morning, generally for about three hours before the creative juices tap out. If I’m deep into a piece and can’t get it out of my mind—especially if I’m close to having something submission-ready, I often will get back to work in the late evening and continue into the wee hours of the morning. The physical process of composing has changed over time with advancing technology; these days most of my writing is done on my laptop stretched out on my recliner in my study. In regard to process, I usually begin a new story by consulting my notebooks (my little Moleskin never leaves my side). I like to juxtapose different ideas to see what happens—like when I was a child and would stick different species of insects together in a jar to watch them fight. First drafts are usually at least twice the size of final versions of stories. After the first draft I rewrite the entire story over and over, cutting ruthlessly as I seek out the story’s heart. When I find that heart, I rewrite again, slashing everything that no longer fits—scenes, characters, favourite metaphors. It’s rare for any single sentence to survive from first draft to final draft. The entire process, from beginning to end takes from one to two months of what I consider full time work.

  

Tell us about one of your favourite short stories and why you like it (not one of your own).

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” affected me viscerally the first time I read it and then intellectually as I took a close look at the “how” and “why” of the story’s impact. From what at first seems to be a family situation comedy, O’Connor turns the story of “The Misfit” into a frighteningly realistic parable on the nature of “goodness.” It’s one of the stories that made me excited about trying to be a writer.

Tell us about one of your favourite short stories (done by you).

As I suspect is true of many writers, usually the last story I’ve written is my favourite—until I begin something new. But I have a special affection for “Queen of the Waves,” the lead story of my soon-to-be released collection Women of Consequence. The title comes from a poem that recounts the true story of an orphanage devastated by a hurricane in coastal Texas around the year 1900. The nuns running the orphanage tied the children together to try to keep them safe, but the ropes intended to save them tangled, ultimately contributing to the drowning deaths of virtually the entire group. My story is about a criminally overprotective single mother who tries to “save” her son by keeping him homebound. Through slow but intense psychological manipulation, she convinces him that he is unfit for the outside world. She literally steals his senses, demonstrating to him over and over that none of his perceptions—smell, sight, hearing, etc— are fully developed enough for him to survive outside of her care.

Where do your ideas come from?  Do you go looking for ideas – for example by brainstorming, or do you wait for inspiration?

Perpetual vigilance—I’m always on the lookout for something interesting—not so much a “fully formed” story, but anything that seems interesting finds its way into my notebooks. (I write down everything, trusting my memory to nothing). At this point, being an observer is not so much a part of my life as it is a way of living, if that makes sense. I mull over the stuff I collect, juxtaposing things or holding them up like prisms to see what happens when the light of inspiration passes through them (whew!).

Are you a full-time writer? If you have another job, what is it and would you like to become a full-time writer if you could?

For the last ten years, I’ve been a full time writer, which frees me up for full time observation.

  

What is the most difficult part of your creative process?

Probably the most difficult thing is moving from an early draft, where I’m not very critical about what I’m putting down, to the middle drafts, where I’m searching for what I referred to earlier as the “heart” of the story. Once I’ve found that “heart,” I actually enjoy my brutal treatment of every subsequent draft as I chisel a story down to its final version.

  

If you could go back in time, what would you say to your younger self about becoming a writer?

Here’s the contradiction most writers have to deal with: we have to be super-sensitive to everything in the world for the sake of the “truth” of our craft, but, simultaneously, we must be hard as nails. We must be hard in two different ways: first, we must be able to turn an objective eye on our work so that we can revise and edit without sentimentality; second we must be tough enough to face daily rejection and criticism. I know too many would-be writers who gave up after a single rejection. So—the trick is to keep an open eye to the world while covering oneself with a protective shield—easy, right?

Another thing new writers need to learn is how much time it takes to do the work. I find the process addictive and thrilling, but anyone watching from the outside would see only a person alone for hours, thinking and typing. Movies about writers usually focus on a writer’s life outside of the actual process. At least movies about painters can depict the artist vigorously splashing colour around.

I guess a final thing young writers need to remember is to trust themselves and their visions, even if—maybe especially if—they seem to be wandering out of the mainstream.

Submissions for Volume 8 now open

Submissions for Dark Lane Anthology Vol.8 have opened.  We're looking forward to reading some amazingly strange tales.
See the guidelines here.