Stories in the next issue...

[Calenture]

What I did yesterday:

I completed entering the first two stories into the new magazine (title still pending). One of these was Episode 2 of David A Riley's Sendings. The short story I entered will be named when we've established all the story entries.

Sorry, but I'm keeping a lot quiet lately.

Craig, I've just sent you a detailed PM to keep you abreast of things, and other authors will be contacted soon.

I gave up trying with both Scribus and PagePlus DTP programs because life is just too short, and finally opted for using Word - which, yes, has an option for publishing a folded magazine! I remembered that a certain Editor of a well-known series of horror anthologies told me he'd formatted his very black anthologies (oh what a giveaway!) in Word for Lightning Source.

So far, fingers crossed, it's working.

I tried out the upgrade to this site:
filthycreations.freemessageboards.com/

I added a Shout Box (like the one at TLO) which I hope you can see at the foot of that page (I've seen no comments on the upgrade either for or against yet).

Confusingly that new forum still bears a message saying it's 'A temporary copy which will be deleted at the end of the testing period'. Not sure why that is!

Has anyone else tried logging into it?

After that I carried on working on two illustrations.

I read short stories in collections from two magazine contributors. I need to write those up as reviews.

After evening shift I had a go at another lengthy comment to a story in the workshop but half-way through realised I was losing the plot through simple tiredness and decided to abort that post. I think that was wise.

After posting this I'll be getting an early lunch and getting back to the sketchpad, illustrating - but I'll be taking an occasional look back here.

[Craig Herbertson]

Not sure about any of these - make me feel uneasy

[Calenture]

Jan 30, 2013 16:25:25 GMT Craig Herbertson said:

Not sure about any of these - make me feel uneasy

Oh go on Craig, live dangerously! ;D

Sorry!

Not quite sure whether you're uneasy about new magazine names, the option to switch to an upgraded workshop...

Well, taking things bit-by-bit, we've agreed on using the old magazine name ghosted behind a new name, necessary for continuity. We haven't yet agreed on a new name.

As for the forum upgrade, I was hesitant and figured there'd be problems, possibly also resistance. I remember the difficulty Demonik had when forced to change to a new Vault. This change isn't being forced on us, but the option is there if we want it.

So far - in the upgraded workshop's favour - I've noted improved navigation (moving between thread pages here is crap as we know).

A Shout Box (bottom of site) is useful for sending short, non-private messages, links, etc. - instantly.

Clicking the 'Participated' button (at top right) immediately provides a set of links of threads you personally have posted to (you need to log in there to see and use this feature).

Hovering your mouse pointer above 'The Workshop of Filthy Creation' tab (top left) brings up a menu showing boards and sub-folders - useful for finding stuff.

ProBoards says there are 'hundreds' of improvements like this, but those are all I've noticed so far. It's up to you. Can't and wouldn't dream of pushing it. You can log in there to try it out if you want.

Here's the link again

[Craig Herbertson]

I like more and quicker facilities but I think the font is too difficult to read - someone once grumped about black background and orange text on my website and this seems far more difficult
.

[Calenture]

Feb 1, 2013 9:53:23 GMT Craig Herbertson said:

I like more and quicker facilities but I think the font is too difficult to read - someone once grumped about black background and orange text on my website and this seems far more difficult
.

The different shades of green background/blue text did seem hard on the eyes, I agree. They seemed paler than this site's.

But it is fully customizable. I've just changed the colours. I opted for a 'high contrast' theme. (Maybe I should have done the same here!)

the link again

Urk!

What have I done now!

The new version is definitely prettier than this one now, anyway!

Edit:

Those early nights paid off. Woke up 6:30 and both old and new forums now have more readable colour schemes, I hope. Anyone having problems? (Monitors differ with colour-handling) let me know.

Note: This forum took a lot more time to change as you have to work out all the different parts one at a time. The new one took less than a minute.

[Craig Herbertson]

Nice ;D

[Calenture]

Just a brief apology for a long silence here. People seem to like the illustrations (thanks) but actually doing them provides zero interest for this board. Likewise putting stuff into DTP, emailing, PMs, etc.

The main reason for not coming out with a final list of titles for entries in the magazine isn't secrecy for its own sake, but I need to see what will actually "fit".

[Calenture]

Right, PM dealt with, Ligotti review posted (it seemed at home here), continued with one of the drawings (working on two sketches, one for Sendings, another for Shapeshifter. Now I've a dentist's appointment... ho hum.

Fairly safe to assume that Penni McLaren Walker's story will be in. But it hasn't provided such a strong visual cue as her first one, so not sure of any illustration for that one yet.

I did begin a sketch for characters from TheDeath Tableaux last time, but had to abandon it. More luck this time hopefully.

Almost finished reading David A Riley's His Own Mad Demons: Dark Tales and that review to write.

Two stories from D F Lewis and Stuart Hughes collection of combo stories Busy Blood written up but want to add another before posting.

Time to dash!

[Craig Herbertson]

There's a lot of good stories rushing at us in a short space of time

[Calenture]

Earlier in this thread (and yes, I've just changed another thread title again) - I was saying that naming other stories appearing in the next magazine, could be difficult because we might just run out of pages.

On the other hand, those that don't get into this issue, if they're liked, will get into the next one.

We've been very fortunate to get so many good stories here recently.

Now that Penni McLaren Walker's Architect's Table has a revised ending, that one heads the list if only by dint of seniority; the original version appeared here quite a long time back.

Robert Mammone felt that maybe another dimension could be added to his story Mycelium, but as far as I can see it's already a perfectly good professional-quality story, so I guess it's up to Rob whether we use that one as-is or whatever. The only other issue might be whether the story ends at a slightly earlier point, which as Craig noted was the point where the horror peaks.

Charles H Galloway's Shapeshifter will be in this issue. Craig and I both like this one and I've been working on the illustration for some days.

Colin Leslie's Melting is almost a defining 'Weird Tale'. It needs a bit of work (technical details mainly) and I hope the ending's been decided to everyone's satisfaction.

Franklin Marsh's The Wicket Man doesn't need editing and has to appear somewhere or there's no justice. I think I've illustrated more stories by Franklin Marsh than any other author.

Something the above two stories have in common is their brevity, and that has to be D F Lewis's unspoken middle name. As Des's stories tend to be so short, and so different, I sometimes try to include a couple of them, one of them fairly accessible (like Rage in FC 6), and another one possibly more puzzling.

Looking through the workshops to see if I missed anyone, I'm amazed how much work there is that I still haven't read.

Now and again I get this crazy idea about putting together an illustrated anthology. But that way surely lies madness.

[Craig Herbertson]

We still haven't got a name. before anyone falls for what i'm about to say remember I am the worlds worst for thinking of names and almost always regret it.

I still favour Filthy Creations for the foreseeable future. Part of me selfishly thinks we serialized Death Tableaux and Sendings in this format and it seem wrong to break that pattern. Also we appear to be on wiki and I've always been obsessed with magazine runs and numbers and all the little fellow things that go with that. FC has a history. I personally think its a crap name and now has a certain amount of negative associations. I would like to see it run to about ten issues and then change as in the grand Des type plan.

On the other hand if we do change

Something like

BLA BLA
From the workshop of filthy creation (ghosted).

Essentially this is dangerous because we end up confusing people with two names - this can have stupid repercussions in various cataloguing things. Then again the website proboard is the workshop and the magazine is something else.

We could call it something obvious like New Horror and Alternative Fiction - dull and obvious but it was the alternate title before. This could be made big and FC continued in a sort of swap around of emphasis rather than title.

[Calenture]

Feb 12, 2013 11:14:17 GMT Craig Herbertson said:

I still favour Filthy Creations for the foreseeable future. Part of me selfishly thinks we serialized Death Tableaux and Sendings in this format and it seem wrong to break that pattern. Also we appear to be on wiki and I've always been obsessed with magazine runs and numbers and all the little fellow things that go with that. FC has a history. I personally think its a crap name and now has a certain amount of negative associations. I would like to see it run to about ten issues and then change as in the grand Des type plan.

.....

Essentially this is dangerous because we end up confusing people with two names - this can have stupid repercussions in various cataloguing things. Then again the website proboard is the workshop and the magazine is something else.

We could call it something obvious like New Horror and Alternative Fiction - dull and obvious but it was the alternate title before. This could be made big and FC continued in a sort of swap around of emphasis rather than title.

Does get confusing, don't it? I can see the additional problem if we have two names (one ghosted) on the cover. I can also see the possibility of completely losing our way if we get too hung up with the name issue. I've just been rooting through PMs to remind me how we got onto this.

Making up new names is something I found so much fun once I started that I suppose I should use some self-control!

Grim Creations, Genius Filthii...

Sorry. It is addictive.

I'm hoping (going back to your comments) that we actually go way beyond ten issues. Now and again I pick up the early issues and they remind me how much fun we managed to pack into relatively few pages.

Getting back to my own comments at the very start of this thread, I've sometimes wondered if the negative connotations of the name have as much to do with my being involved with it as anything else. No, not feeling paranoid, just objective, and nothing to do about that but shrug and carry on.

Ideally what I'd like to see would be that FC would become bigger than its negative connotations, whatever they are. I do have a feeling that we're going to be stuck with the name if only because - as Des said - it's so DREADful. It really has to be the nastiest name of any magazine, and whatever sub-title it gets, that's got to be worth something.

By the way, I've no idea who put up that Filthy Creations Wiki thing: Publisher: Filthy Creations Press. I donated a fiver to Wikipedia recently (hell, I use it every day) and I have an account, but never had the time to use it. I remember someone put up a Wiki page for Vault once, and possibly Dem knew who did it, but it weren't me!

[Craig Herbertson]

'Crap' was probably a bit sweeping. It's just sort of connotations. I was only thinking of a ten issue run or so and maybe a name change then

[Calenture]

If we had two people to actually express a liking for an alternative name without opposition, I'd say we had a majority and we could go with it. So far, I don't think we have that - correct me if I'm wrong - which leaves us more or less with an impassel.

Only three of us have actually felt moved to discuss it at all.

I wonder if it would help if we had more promotional material which actually drew on what we've done with FC in the past?

FC 1, for instance, had 6 writers contributing a story each, with 8 illustrations by 3 artists. I'm not sure if any of the past promotions gave more than a very narrow view of what was in each magazine. Getting a bit too tired to explain this farther tonight, but I think we need to find a way to show what we're building on. I think maybe that's possible.

[David A. Riley]

I've been mulling the name over, Rog, and, though I am rubbish at thing up names for magazines, etc (I'm bad enough at thinking up names for my own stories!). I have a couple of suggestions, probably no good.

How about "Mary Shelley's House of Filthy Creations"

or "Frankenstein's House of Filthy Creations"

or some permutation on those lines?

Apologies if someone has already suggested either of these two sometime earlier.

David