charles barrow's writing

"Trashy Tales of Terror : cheesy horror fiction featuring creepy kids, killer animals, mutants and monsters, etc." The above caught my eye when I was perusing the submission guidelines for an anthology called Trash Tales, to be published next summer, but with a submission deadline of midnight on December 31st. Happy New Year. There is also a 5,000  word limit for entries. There were any number of other suggested categories to submit stories in, from Sci-Fi to romance to cosy crime, in fact, as the guidelines state on the website (see link at the end), "Your story can be in any category or genre you like, as long as it's what we might all consider of a trashy nature!" I learned of this opportunity whilst watching a #booktube channel, on Youtube. Alex Unabridged was the channel - you can link to their site here  youtube.com/@alex_unabridged  Alex will be producing/editing the anthology along with Olly from CriminOlly - you can find his #booktube channel here  yout...

Well, happy to report that the short story I wrote about in the February posting entitled Emergence, got chosen for publication in a Sussex Wildlife Trust anthology of writing to celebrate spring. The anthology is called Emergence. If you'd like to read it you can do just that via this link  Sussex Wildlife Trust It was a very quick turnaround. The submission deadline was February 28th and I received the email to say the anthology had been published on Friday 15th April. Very speedy then, as these things go. It's always good news to get something published. Except your own Obituary, maybe. I've been trying to work on building a portfolio of published writing, in a variety of places, and it's been slow going I'll admit. This is the fourth thing I've had accepted for publication, so I'm happy about it. It's done wonders for my confidence, and my state of mind, when I struggle sometimes to believe that I'm any good at writing at all. I intend to focus m...

A short story I had high hopes of getting published just got rejected. It was a kindly rejection, as these things go - I was let down far more lightly than I have been in the past by some people who professed to love me - but it was still 'No thanks. Nah.' Happy to say I'm not crushed this time, which is growth of sorts. I think this is because I have another story nearing completion, for an anthology of writings about Spring. This short story, at its heart, is full of optimism then, like the season itself, so maybe my mood is just aligned with that, and has somewhat bullet proofed me against disappointments. The submission rules dictate a 150 word limit for the story. With some judicious editing (read merciless) of the first couple of drafts I'm currently resting at 149 words. A joyous position to be in because when you have so few words to play with, so few bricks with which to build a three dimensional world, having one to spare is like finding a £20 note in your jac...

Here is the first drabble I wrote. I think I might have mentioned, in an earlier post, that I wrote it to send to a website that was calling for competition entries. They set the gene as SciFi, and the theme as Inventions . I spent a lot of time on this, a new writing form for me, honing and editing until I was happy. I had a lot of fun with it, and when it was finished I emailed it off, meeting the given deadline, and was very pleased with myself for having had the discipline to complete the given task. Listen, I know some people can knock out a great drabble in five minutes flat, but that's not how I work. I write, I edit, I leave well alone for a few days, I return to write, I re-edit, then ignore for a week, then return etc etc. I'd still be working on it now if the deadline hadn't forced me to send it out. Anyway, there was no happy ending to this story. I logged on, on the day following the competition deadline, only to find that the website hadn't changed, the la...