Finally finished

Well, the wonderful RASP anthology I have been editing has been passed on for the next stage of its development. It didn’t feel like a big deal until I began mentioning it to other people, and they got excited and asked me what it would be called, and when it would be out.

This surprised me, because my family aren’t excited about it at all. Other people getting excited gave me permission to get excited myself, not just for me, but for all the writers who will be included.

It’s going to be called Everything is Spherical, which is a change from the original title (and theme) of disobedience. This simply ended up fitting better, and provided a wider scope. It’s going to be published, uh…soon.

All of us at RASP work on a voluntary basis from home, so it’s hard to give an exact date right now. When I know, I’ll be shouting about it to anyone who will listen.

In addition to being a first time editor I’ve also got the strange experience of having one of my own short stories included in the anthology. It felt too cheeky to simply slip it in, and I wasn’t sure it fit the previous theme, so I passed it on to my fellow editor Nim to vet.

She put it in.

What that means, and it’s taken a while for me to realise this, is that I’ll be published.

Oh, that hair, that T-shirt...Why did no one step in to save me from myself?

Me, the dyslexic girl they said would never be able to read or write, or do anything much.

It’s going to take a while for me to believe it’s really going to happen. That this moment I have been working towards for so much of my life might not be that far away.

Me, outside the flat I lived in during my last year of university. 

My story is called Webs, and it’s about connections, and dyslexia, in part. It’s also about me; trying to make sense of myself and my own narrative after a really rough set of experiences in my last year of university.

It’s only semi-biographical, because I’ve simplified things here and there, made a few alterations to make it a better story, but it’s is different to what I normally write. I prefer to write about other people, and mystical, magical, otherworldly things.

Some stories, however, just need to be told. I remember grabbing a pen and some old note paper and it all just poured out of me and onto the page.

I’ve been hanging onto this story for ages, and I only put it forward as an afterthought. A friend of mine thought I should, and he passed away earlier this year. I was thinking about him, and this gave me the guts to do it.

My friend.

His name is David Stimson, and he was a very kind, and very geeky bookseller. He was included in the acknowledgments for helping with the research for a book once, which he was so proud of, but they spelt his name wrong. That always felt so sad to me, that they didn’t get his name right, and he didn’t get to publish anything of his own. I’ve made sure to spell it properly here.

It’s funny, the things that stay with you when you lose someone.

I suppose this is my acknowledgment to him, in a way. A thank you for encouraging me, and for introducing me to so many brilliant fantasy books.

I think he’d be really happy for me, and for the other writer’s, too. They each have their own story behind the ones in the anthology. Their own troubles and triumphs that have lead them to this point.

I’m excited for all of us.

This is a big deal, and maybe that’s why I can’t totally let myself believe it yet? That in a short while each of us will be able to hold this longed for book in our hands.