Free Shorts – March update, plans for the next anthology

I’m about to send out the March story in my Free Shorts project – a free short story sent to a selected list of my readers each month in 2024. The March story is rather experimental in form, so let’s see what the readers think.

I’ve had terrific feedback from the January and February stories, along with comments on how I might fine tune them – although when the advice is contradictory, it’s hard to know what to do! Just to remind you, I’ve copied the year’s story titles below.

I’m starting to plan the book of the stories, to be published at the end of 2024. I’ll certainly use the shorts image somewhere in the cover, but I guess that ‘Free’ shorts will be somewhat redundant when the book goes up for sale. I’ve set myself a dilemma here with the ‘shorts’ pun, but I’ve got ten months to figure it out.

The project has had great side benefits: One is that it has forced me to keep in touch with old friends, some of whom I’ve neglected over the years. Another great bonus is that people have latched onto my other work. It’s really pleasing to glowing feedback in the last few weeks for The True History of Jude (fantastic!) and The Sunset Assassin (couldn’t put it down!). Those who know me would be aware that I’m too lazy to go out looking for an agent and publisher (I once had both). But I get a huge sense of validation (yes, that’s what insecure fiction authors crave) from somebody I respect enjoying my work. And lastly, the project has unbunged the massive creative blockage I suffered during COVID.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’m entering stories in competitions this year, with a couple of successes in the UK and Australia so far. Right now I have a few awaiting results, and several more cooking. One of the Free Shorts stories is being expanded for a prestigious Australian competition, with the characters modified to meet the competition criteria. And I’m working on a brand new story for a local comp. This one falls into what I’ve realised is a consistent theme in my work – men constrained by their innate flaws. Maybe I need help! And lastly, I’ve been working on a story in the style of Doris Lessing, a British writer who I admire enormously. It’s a dark story with what I hope is an uplifting ending, starring – guess what – a man constrained by his innate flaws!

Looking further ahead, I’m musing over a collection of stories based on a cruise ship. I recently took the Queen Elizabeth from Sydney to Tasmania, confirming my suspicion that a cruise ship is an incredibly rich environment for a writer: Thousands of people crammed into a floating hotel marooned from their daily routines of work and shopping and cooking; guests stiff in gala outfits fresh out of mothballs; the curious relationship between the holidaymakers and the toiling staff. I spent the time between vast silver service meals alternating between reading Keith Thomas’s monumental Religion and The Decline of Magic and making notes on the micro-dramas (as I imagined them) being enacted in every corner of the ship.

I have the vague outline of a circular collection, with each story linked through a character from the previous story, and an overall plot arc that links the end back to the beginning. (My writing buddy Sarah Bourne used this structure very elegantly in The Train.) For more inspiration I should find out who’s streaming Ship of Fools, an almost flawless 1965 film I’ve seen many times (its only flaw is that Vladek Sheybal wasn’t in it). I could drone on and on about Ship of Fools, but I’ll finish by mentioning a dismal building that I photographed in Burnie, Tasmania that will definitely be a setting for one of the stories.

If you want to join the Free Shorts project, email me at stuartcampbellauthor@gmail.com . You’ll get a personal email each month with your story, not the packet rubbish from an automated email list.

January 2024	2861	Your Own Luck: A man with a past stows away on a cruise ship to Brisbane.
February 2024	1498	An Afternoon Under the Paperbark: A hidden observer witnesses a family drama on a hot afternoon in Sydney.
March 2024	3753	The Unmasking of Mr French: A new neighbour in a luxury apartment block is not what he seems.
April 2024	2220	Ninety-nine Names for Rain: A nineteenth century scholar discovers a deadly Shangri-La.
May 2024	2508	The Afternoon of the Jackal: Uncle Christopher’s Boxing Day BBQ doesn’t go to plan.
June 2024	1941	Birdbrain: A lonely woman prefers to be a bird.
July 2024	2801	Thanks Dad: The Vice Chancellor of a university struggles with Imposter Syndrome.
August 2024	2010	Belfast: When an Australian searches for his roots in Belfast, things get complicated.
September 2024	3690	Fireworks: A man loses his memory in an accident, so his wife tries to redesign him.
October 2024	2879	Lawrence of Arabia’s Box: An update on the fate of the lost manuscript of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
November 2024	2987	Happy Days: History is rewritten at a school reunion.
December 2024	2048	Balti Lamb: A dinner date at a Heathrow Airport restaurant goes pear-shaped.