Author: Angeline Trevena

As I write this, I’m halfway through writing a short story for a submission deadline in 3 days. Lie. Actually, I’m only a 3rd of the way through it.

It’s a theme I’ve returned to a few times (so far without success); it’s a changeling story. What I’ve written so far hasn’t been difficult to write in itself (although it has prompted some creepy dreams), actually finding time to write has been difficult. With demanding family commitments and the cold weather, it’s been slow going.

The UK has had its coldest March in 50 years; a cold snap that’s expected to continue for the foreseeable future. And when you live in a period property with 9 foot ceilings, it can be difficult to keep the place warm. I often find myself typing in fingerless gloves.

With the cold weather comes the resurgence of old typing pains picked up when I worked in data input. It’s not repetitive strain injury yet, I’m trying to avoid it becoming that. But it does mean that writing time is sporadic, slow, and totally dependent on the health of my poor hands.

But slow-going isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Many people talk about ‘plot bunnies’; a metaphor for those times when one idea quickly gives birth to others, multiplying into a busy warren of story ideas. I don’t get ‘plot bunnies’, I get ‘story worms’.

Story worms start wriggling somewhere deep in your brain, barely noticeable at first, but then they burrow further, getting into all the different parts of your head. They niggle. They tickle. They become an annoyance.

And worms don’t bound up to the surface and bounce about for you. Worms need charming out. They require a little patience. I’m a story worm charmer; dressed in my wellies and armed with my garden fork. It may not be particularly cool, but it works well for me. Most of the time.

Right now I honestly don’t know if I’ll manage to hit this deadline. I’ll let you know.

I’m Angeline Trevena, a horror writer, and I’ll be popping up here every month with my latest successes and failures, hints and tips, nightmares and monsters.

I’ve been writing stories ever since I was old enough to hold a pen and, for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved all things horror. I don’t know why; I can’t offer you some clever psychoanalysis on my childhood, and I can’t claim to be an adrenaline junkie, or even particularly brave. The truth is: I’m a wimp. Ghost stories scare me. Darkness scares me. I’m terrified of spiders, mirrors at night and Freddy Krueger. I once had a nightmare after watching the Eddie Murphy movie ‘Coming to America’ (and my husband has never let me forget it!)

I only started writing short stories a couple of years ago; I had always automatically fixated on writing novels. So far, I’m yet to find the commitment and remain excited about a story long enough to write a novel. Short stories have become the perfect compromise.

I still have a novel on the slow-burn, but while I’m writing short stories and getting them published, I’m not in any rush. It’s a good thing; my novel will get written when I’m ready, and that’s the best time to do anything.

My first short story was published in an anthology in January 2011, and it was only when I held that book in my hands, that I realised I could make a go of it. That short story had been more of an experiment; a story taken from the context of a stage play I wrote. And there it was, in print, chosen from among hundreds of stories.

From therein, there was no stopping me.

I have a spreadsheet of all my submitted stories; the boxes coloured green for an acceptance and red for a rejection. I still have more red boxes than green, but those red stories just need to keep knocking on doors until they find a home.

Everyone you ever ask for writing advice will tell you: never give up. What they don’t always tell you is how easy it is to give up. How easy it is to watch TV instead of write, to let deadlines pass you by, to blame your absentee muse, or lose all motivation after a rejection. And I’ve given up so many times. But the times I have soldiered on; submitted a story with just a few minutes to spare, begged a beta reader to return their comments urgently, given a dying story mouth-to-mouth; those times have been worth it. Sometimes you just have to do it without your muse in tow.

I’ve just had a story accepted that fits into the ‘soldiering on’ box. I thought it was beyond hope – the characters were good, the premise was good, but it just wasn’t coming together.

I’ve been writing long enough to know what stops my stories working. Nine times out of ten it can be fixed by one of two things; changing the point of view (either changing the POV character, or changing from 3rd person to 1st), or starting the story in a different place. A story that had been stalled for weeks was rescued in under an hour. Emergency surgery. And it will be unleashed in an anthology this summer.

Soldiering on.