The New Issue is here.
Alienskin moves with the times, and as it's time for a new issue, here it is.
There is more to writing than tapping out random words and jiggling them around until they sort-of fit together. That sort of activity never results in a novel although it seems to often result in government policy. We are not writing government policy here, we are writing lines that have to make sense, and that involves some actual thought and planning. Lady Blade's article looks at what our readers expect of us and how we can deliver. It's not just a matter of the number of words, you know. Getting them in the right order is just as important. Just ask Thomas Hardy.
My own humble offering deals with the scariness of plants. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I'd submitted it, a newspaper comes up with a report on the carnivorous qualities of tomatoes. If only they'd published that a few days earlier.
The Sergeant has been worked very hard this issue. As well as his article on steampunk SF, he's been held in the dungeons until he read and reviewed a horror anthology, then beaten soundly with leprous axolotls (which, believe me, is very messy indeed) until he interviewed Joshua Sikora, producer of the Black Dawn TV series. Even that was not enough. The poor Sergeant then had his eyelids pinned back with Victorian brass upholstery tacks so he wouldn't miss a second of the Black Dawn programmes, which he was then required to review also, under pain of being dressed as a bluebottle and dipped into a vat of demented toads.
I don't know what he did to annoy the Alien Queen Mother, but I'll bet he won't do it again.
There are also 26 new stories this issue, plus 8 Fibonacci sequence poems tucked into the sidebars. All are short enough to read while fending off your offspring, and there's time between each one to reheat the poker while holding the child back with tongs.
Dumelets develop quickly, and mine is no different. He can crawl now and is already on his third set of teeth. Senga has decided not to breastfeed which, I think, is sensible. If you put raw meat in a Dumelet's mouth, you're not likely to get it back. It's not as if she's over-endowed in that department, either. She only has three.
I have to find a suitable name for him, and soon. Otherwise he'll kill me before he gets a name and suffer the embarrassment that dogged Great-Great-Grandfather Nameless Dume throughout his life. It was his own fault, really, because he was remarkably adept in the use of explosives from an early age. The West Tower is still unsafe.
Perhaps it's time to check Dumelet's particular skills. With luck, the social services health visitor will call soon.
