Tag Archives: life

Submission – Bandit Fiction

As part of my MA (that’s right, it’s been so long since I updated this blog, I’ve passed my degree and am now studying for my Masters!), we had to write a piece of fiction specifically tailored to a publisher/magazine/whatever of our choice.  Then, we had to actually submit the thing!

Now, I’ve always been very hesitant about submitting my stuff because, well, I’m not a big fan of rejection and I can always manage to convince myself that whatever I submit is going to get rejected.

writersblock

    dealing with rejection like a boss…

So, I don’t submit anything.  See how that dragon eats its own tail?

Anyway, I had to submit something this time, otherwise I would have failed the module, or at the very least would have been marked down for it.  So, as reluctant as I was to do it, I started looking around for somewhere to post to.  That’s how I came across Bandit Fiction.

Bandit Fiction are a new company, specialising in digital publishing. What I like about them, and what drew me to them as a target for my submission, was their emphasis on giving opportunities to writers who are currently studying or have recently graduated from Creative Writing courses.

For the most part, the lecturers and the course content of most Creative Writing degrees show you how to break into the industry and often provide definite ways to do so. It’s not always easy though when you emerge, blinking at the sun, from your safe university eggshell. Newborn baby writers often have no idea where to go once their degree is finished and wander around staring in wonder (and sometimes horror) at the possibilities that lie before them.

That’s why it’s a breath of fresh air to see publishers like Bandit Fiction who want to provide a bridge between education and application. I should point out that they aren’t exclusively for Creative Writing students. Their website makes it very clear that they don’t care about your age, race, gender, disability. All they care about is whether your story is good and suited to them. 

frog

yep, shouldn’t be long now…

That’s pretty refreshing to see too, right?

The long and the short of this blog post then is simply to say that I submitted something to Bandit Fiction!! Hooray for me!

Now I just have to wait for the rejection email…

Be kind to each other, yeah?

Steven.

Bliss

It’s all we can do
To hold the world together.
An explosion of life
An eruption of love
Then fill the void
With anger.

A gunmetal sky hangs
Over restless waters.
A tsunami of need
Of restlessness
Of want
Stirs below the surface.

The maelstrom boils
And we ignore;
Occupy our time
With fripperies
Baubles
Well dressed celebrity.

Where will you be
When it ends?

Force of Nature

Fierce as a maelstrom

locked up in a jar.

Like lightning strikes

upon the sea;

the thunder of a heart.

 

It stirred a storm

Inside the soul.

Spans whirlwinds

through the mind.

 

Shook the foundations,

cracked to the core.

Surged like lava

through quivering vines,

twisted into veins.

 

It stalked like a predator,

hunted prey.

An early bird

who catches the worm;

spirits him away.

Seconds Out

In the red corner,

pensive.

Staring across a ring

a thousand

miles

wide.

Her adversary

only grins.

 

In the black corner,

weighing in

at the totality of life,

the grim reaper

flexes his bones.

A dry, ancient crackle

shivers her spine.

 

She wears

sorrow,

a dark veil,

a tartan skirt.

 

The reaper wears sequined shorts,

brazenly.

Emblazoned with his name.

Hanging

like

rags

from bony hips,

he shadow boxes;

queensbury rules.

 

The seconds are out.

She stands,

Bumps leather gloves

Together.

Wonders idly,

why the reaper

gets to use a scythe?

The Watchmen.

Living in the worst of times,
We’re piling up the dead.
We see it on the TV screens,
in black and white and read.

Facing our extinction
With an apathetic gaze,
Revelling in the chaos
As we face our end of days.

Now the future is the past
And it never stood a chance.
Distorted and aborted,
Without a second glance.

Those who would be kings
Are nailed to their thrones.
Committed to the violence;
Spied upon with drones.

Corporations profit,
From the madness of the show.
Lining oily pockets
With the suffering below.

And politicians sleaze
Through the alleys late at night.
power in their fingers
Gripped around a throat too tight.

And we watch it all unfold
Like a story never told.
And we let it all explode,
wrap up warm against the cold.

And we watch it all unfold,
blame the young or the old.
And we feel it all implode,
A black hole in our soul.

And we watch it all unfold,
We watch it all unfold.
We watch.
But we refuse to break the mould.

Seasoned

So it’s Spring
and we’re running through the park
smiling and laughing
noticing every little thing
like the gleam of morning dew
or the blush of your cheeks
on a warm afternoon.

Summer now
and there’s so much more to do
so much more life
but so much less…new.
Still, the sun shines, so we make hay
we dwell in our company
and wish these summer days
were here to stay.

Autumn comes all too soon,
wide blue skies turn gunmetal grey
and the wind strokes our shoulders
like an old lover remembered
on a gloomy afternoon.
And all the vibrant red and golden leaves
can’t hide the fact
that silver chases the colour from our heads
giving us a glimpse of a precarious thread.

Winter finally arrives
and now I walk alone through the park
where we used to run
wrapped up against the cold
home before it’s dark.
I linger in my company
remember summer days
the way you sighed so beautifully
while bathed in the suns rays.

As faded as the sunlight
I shuffle with the fallen leaves
and close my eyes
one last time
in Winters silent night.

Biting The Bullet

Sitting with the gun,
Staring at its dead black eye,
a cycloptic reaper.
The end of all things,
Just a finger stroke away.
Yet still I linger.

Do I greet the end?
Welcome the darkness gladly?
Stop the sorrow now?
Perhaps I should wait,
Pray for better tomorrow,
A much brighter day.

Can future hope be,
Enough to stay my finger?
A hollow promise.
A decision made,
Barrel against my temple,
I bite the bullet.

Afflicted

Life is an affliction
from which we never recover.
Enter the world screaming
And never stop.

Life seems fit to torment;
a torrent of dark abuses
gilded with a veneer
of calm civility

Smiling assassins;
sheep forced into wolves clothing.
We lash out at each other
to ease our own suffering.

Our oppressive pirouette
is deaths only distraction.
In the end, it equals us all.
from plus to minus:
an inevitable subtraction.