Apr
19

Reset

It’s been a while since I recapped. For the uninitiated…

I’m Neil Beynon, a Welsh born writer working in English and primarily – but not exclusively – across the fantasy, horror and science fiction genres. My work has appeared in Murky Depths, Dark Fiction and Ballista amongst others.

I blog on a range of subjects including writing, things I’ve read, things I’ve watched, stuff that’s going on with me and the joys of London life, amongst other things. I’m also on twitter under the imaginitive handle @neilbeynon and facebook under the wild moniker neilbeynon.

In order to keep body and soul together on my road to more regular publication I work in digital marketing for a FTSE 100 publishing company in one of their pure play digital divisions. While I don’t blog about my dayjob I do discuss the wider topic of digital marketing, from time to time, and in relation to authors and artists.

I hope you enjoy the content already here and stick around for the ride.

Jul
25

Fiction

Neil is a published writer whose stories have appeared in several venues over the last few years. This section provides information on all Neil’s published work including links to free sample pieces from Flash up to short story length. It also includes a brief section on his longer, novel length, projects.

Published Works

- Stone (2010) – Murky Depths Issue 14
- The Room (2010) – Tales from the Moonlit Path
- Crunch (2009) – Ballista (2009) – Buy (specify issue 7)
- The Mine (2008) Jupiter SF
- Various stories (2008) Illuminations: The Friday Flash Fiction anthology – Buy
- The House (2007) Aphelion Webzine

Friday Flash Fiction

This was an Internet Meme that Neil participated in from July 2007 through to May 2009, participants posted a piece of flash fiction (stories no longer than 1000 words) on their blogs, on a Friday. During that time Neil produced some 80 odd flash stories, some good, some OK, some he feels he should probably take down. The following are links to some of his favourites:

- Cliché – (3/8/2007)
- Life is a wheel – (4/9/2007)
- When I was Bad – (28/9/2007)
- After the Rain – (08/02/2008)
- Tinman – (15/02/2008) NB: hyperlink story
- Faraway – (04/04/2008)
- Pixies – (11/04/2008)
- Descent – (27/06/2008)
- Duckling – (09/01/2009)

Novel Length Projects

Periodically Neil works at novel length. He has written one completed novel, a traditional heroic fantasy: The Scarred God, and is currently working on a contemporary fantasy set in London involving an advertising executive, a purple haired post punk physicist, fusion reactors, the nature of reality and many other things besides. This section is intended to grow as he completes more projects (most of Neil’s ideas are now novel length) and a bit more information on each existing project follows.

The Scarred God (word count: 146k) – A traditional 2nd world heroic fantasy, central themes deal with belief, religion, ethical philosophy (why be good?) and redemption. It also features a strong female protagonist, a belligerent woodsman, a fair few gods, an invading army and a great deal of sword play. (Status: written).

Untitled Urban Fantasy (Target word count: 120k)- A London based urban fantasy exploring life, love and the nature of reality. Features an advertising exec, a purple haired post punk physicist, fusion reactors and a war that’s thousands of years old. NO VAMPIRES. (Status: 1st draft in progress).

Mar
29

About

About Neil:

Neil is a fiction writer and aspiring author.

He writes across most genres but tends towards fantasy, science fiction and horror where most of his publishing credits to date have been based. These include:

- The Room (2010) – Tales from the Moonlit Path
- Crunch (2009) – Ballista (2009) – Buy (specify issue 7)
- The Mine (2008) Jupiter SF
- Various stories (2008) Illuminations: The Friday Flash Fiction anthology – Buy
- The House (2007) Aphelion Webzine

Occasionally he writes bad poetry.

In order to pay the bills, and provide him with the means to travel, Neil works for one of the world’s largest publishing groups as a digital marketing specialist.

And yes: that is his real hair.

About this blog:

Neil ran a blog from 2007-2010 called The Other Side of The River.

It started as a way of keeping family and friends, scattered all over the world, up to date with what was happening with him. Over time the site started to carry reviews, small pieces of fiction, satire and pretty much anything Neil felt like talking about.

The decision to move to a self-hosted platform was largely technical and to allow more freedom and control over the site. He still blogs about whatever he wants but finds that, more often than not, he touches most on:

-       Literature
-       Writing
-       Film
-       Digital
-       Travel

Moderation policy:

Comments, debate and contact is encouraged but abuse, spam and generally being an arse are not. All first time commentators go for moderation at first, this is more about preventing spam, there after I trust you to behave but obviously I can, and do, revoke comment privileges when people go too far – generally you get a warning first. There is no right to recall.

Copyright:

Unless stated otherwise, all content on this blog is offered on an Attribution-No commercial-No derivative Creative Commons license. This means you are:

-       Free to re-post (although it’s generally polite to only take a section of content due to SEO best practice around duplicate content)
-       You do not make money from the re-posted material.
-       You attribute the content to its rightful owner (me unless stated otherwise)

I’d prefer it if you let me know as I generally find out anyway.

Nov
27

Popping in…

To point out that David Tallerman lists Crunch amongst his favourites from the recent issue of Ballista.

You can read David’s story, Feeler, and my story, Crunch, in the current and final issue of Ballista.

Nov
27

Painful

Sometimes lessons can be painful.

I’m not sure exactly what I was thinking when I decided to engage in NaNoWriMo under the ballsy criteria I set myself in late October. I suspect that the growing dissatisfaction with how things had gone this year, and my realisation that my current approach has not proven effective on any level, culminated in the desire to do something huge. I didn’t really think about logistics. Project management is for techies not for creatives.

Yeah, right.

What I should have done is calculate my average word speed ( a maximum of 2k per normal working day rising to 3k at the weekend if I have nothing else on) and the average time to edit a thirty minute piece of audio (around four hours). I should then have divided that by the number of days and factored in the already scheduled Other Things I had to do in November. Roll in all the other tasks such as marketing the podcast etc. and it…well:

It was never going to work.

In many ways this is a really hard blog to write because I don’t like admitting failure and without wanting to sound melodramatic this has taken a great deal of reflection. I’m at about 25,000 words of Eleutheria and I really like the story concept and some of what I’ve written and I’m pretty sure its got legs – if done properly. However, the podcasting is extremely time consuming, I have done little to push it and so very few people have listened. In the last week I’ve found myself increasingly padding the story in order to hit word count and more often not enjoying the process. This is not why I write.

In short I am ending the experiment early.

I am very sorry to anyone who has listened to the podcast and is waiting for subsequent parts. If you contact me via the blog I will be happy to share the complete story with you at some point next year, when I finish it. In terms of the charity, I will make up the rest of the target amount as a means of reminding myself in the future about not thinking things through properly and assuaging my guilt.

What now?

I usually wait until year end to reflect but, in truth, I have become increasingly dissatisfied with where I’ve got to and think most of the blame for that rests squarely with yours truly. I’m going to be a bit quiet for a week or so while I work through some of this stuff and come up with a more systematic plan to get where I want to be. If you really want some Neil written prose, please do check out Ballista and my story Crunch. In the meantime, I hope you will bear with me.

Have fun and see you in a couple of weeks.

Nov
10

Crunch

I’m pleased to point out that Ballista issue 7 is now available to pre-order and contains my short story Crunch.

This is Ballista’s final issue and, while I am naturally biased, it would be nice to send them off in style so please buy one. Hell, buy lots.

You can order them here: http://www.flapjackpress.co.uk/page2.htm

Enjoy.

Oct
02

Story Acceptance

I am delighted to shamelessly plug myself by letting you know that my story “The Room” will appear in the Valentine’s Day issue of Tales Of the Moonlit Path. This story was written some time ago and given a final tweak at last year’s Arvon course and I am thrilled it’s found a home.

While I’m at it: a quick reminder that my story “Crunch” will be appearing this year in the Autumn (and final) issue of Ballista.

Jan
05

News: Crunch Sold

I am delighted to report that my short story Crunch has sold to Ballista (Flapjack Press) and is scheduled for their September 09 issue. You can subscribe here for the UK and here for International.

Crunch is a dark SF story I wrote last year and set in a world where no one is quite sure what’s going on. It marks the first in a series of conscious efforts to “open a vein” into the story and is one of my most heavily revised pieces to date. I believe it’s a significant improvement on my previously published stories and I hope you like it.

Thanks to those who took a look at it in progress – you know who you are.

Go back to top