Go see!
Be warned. Judge this book by its cover.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Terminal Earth
The editors are making progress. I'm in there, with 20 some odd (most odd) authors. It will come out as an ebook 12/10, on Smashwords, Amazon, others. It will be a paperback next year. Further evidence the future of small press will be virtual. What I'd like to see is the cover!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
MasterMind
Got my copy of Nova SciFi with my story and the biggest check for a story yet! Non-writers would laugh at the amount so I'll convert to Biblical sheckels, about three and a half. Their website has been down for a while, so maybe they're in trouble. Pay your bills, Wesley! I better cash that check while it's still good.
Leafed through the adventures of Janet, who went up against mind control aliens with nothing but pluck and her inner strength gained from years shut away in mental institutions. Editor made so many edits, some to make the language simpler, some more what he thought the meaning was, not mine. Ah well, he bought it, he can do what he wants.
Everyone else takes my stuff and does practically nothing to it. I guess the ideal for me would be small changes, done mutually and interactively.
It is nice to see my words in print on paper though. When a story is just on a website it still doesn't feel as real to me.
Three years, 10 stories published, and starting to get slightly into semi-pro publications. Happy with progress.
Leafed through the adventures of Janet, who went up against mind control aliens with nothing but pluck and her inner strength gained from years shut away in mental institutions. Editor made so many edits, some to make the language simpler, some more what he thought the meaning was, not mine. Ah well, he bought it, he can do what he wants.
Everyone else takes my stuff and does practically nothing to it. I guess the ideal for me would be small changes, done mutually and interactively.
It is nice to see my words in print on paper though. When a story is just on a website it still doesn't feel as real to me.
Three years, 10 stories published, and starting to get slightly into semi-pro publications. Happy with progress.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
52 Stitches
Got my first galley proof. It's for a flash piece going in 52 Stitches. Aaron has a unique arrangement. He publishes a new horror flash each week on his site, then at the end of the year, compiles them in a trade paperback. I think this is his second year, this was his first one. Mine isn't on the site until 12/13.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Something Felt like Sky
Something Felt like Sky has sold. Yes, minor market but a very nice one. The editor was the first to give me a personal reject, an uncommon courtesy. His criticisms made me a better writer.
This time when I submitted to Residential Aliens, the editor responded within hours. He said: "I like it, but still can't figure the cloven hoof."
I replied "Tradition says the devil has cloven hooves, like a goat. It might come from Mosaic law where such meat is forbidden. Or, it may have been to discredit belief in satyrs. The whole story came to me when I really did see that kind of print in the snow and could not imagine how, what kind of shoe could make such a print."
I'll let you know when it's published.
This time when I submitted to Residential Aliens, the editor responded within hours. He said: "I like it, but still can't figure the cloven hoof."
I replied "Tradition says the devil has cloven hooves, like a goat. It might come from Mosaic law where such meat is forbidden. Or, it may have been to discredit belief in satyrs. The whole story came to me when I really did see that kind of print in the snow and could not imagine how, what kind of shoe could make such a print."
I'll let you know when it's published.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Irrepressible has Sold
Necrotic Tissue took it. They had said that it was in second round. A good win, since duotrope says they take 6% and are technically semi-pro though barely.
First color cover mag! Out in January, 2011.
Irrepressible is The Great Divorce turned on its head. Instead of the damned having holidays, the saved do. Another inspiration was the Sarah that burst on the national scene September 3rd, 2008. Resemblance to any person living or dead is of course, purely coincidental. Sarah is a quite common name. Like Pilgrim's Progress Irrepressible has its own Slough of Despond, and it nearly claims a victim.
Ah, well, the more conventional of my Christian friends may take offense, but it was in good fun. Of course, how many of those would read Necrotic Tissue?
First color cover mag! Out in January, 2011.
Irrepressible is The Great Divorce turned on its head. Instead of the damned having holidays, the saved do. Another inspiration was the Sarah that burst on the national scene September 3rd, 2008. Resemblance to any person living or dead is of course, purely coincidental. Sarah is a quite common name. Like Pilgrim's Progress Irrepressible has its own Slough of Despond, and it nearly claims a victim.
Ah, well, the more conventional of my Christian friends may take offense, but it was in good fun. Of course, how many of those would read Necrotic Tissue?
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Table of Contents out for Terminal Earth
http://poundlitpress.weebly.com/index.html
They list mine first. Don't know why. I bet it's more optimistic than most, probably best at the end. It wasn't selected first. Neil John Buchanan blogged about his acceptance before I heard, and there were stats on the page of even earlier acceptances. Not alphabetical by name or story. Twenty three? Their standards were 3 to 6 thousand and if you take 4,500 as an average, that's just over 100,000 words. One's a poem, so maybe I'm off. Still, it's going to be one fat anthology.
They list mine first. Don't know why. I bet it's more optimistic than most, probably best at the end. It wasn't selected first. Neil John Buchanan blogged about his acceptance before I heard, and there were stats on the page of even earlier acceptances. Not alphabetical by name or story. Twenty three? Their standards were 3 to 6 thousand and if you take 4,500 as an average, that's just over 100,000 words. One's a poem, so maybe I'm off. Still, it's going to be one fat anthology.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
The Cooling Sun Sold
The Cooling Sun sold to Terminal Earth anthology. Second anthology sale, and this time a 6k story, not a flash. The idea came to me when I learned that for the last couple of years, the sun's output has been a bit off, so the general warming trend has been momentarily stopped. So, in the story the sun's output drops so that Venus will get about as much light as we do now.
Another experience that was grist. Last time to Ukraine, We tried to save money by going Aerosvit, rather than Austrian Air. They listed modern Boeing aircraft, so we tried. Big mistake. Out there on the tarmac in Kiev was a surprise. A Yakolev with one engine making a grinding racket, not like a modern jet at all. We took the bus there, and got on. The overhead bins didn't have doors, anything could have flown around, hit people. The noise? In the story and in reality, like dinosaur sized bees.
On the way back Odessa was fogged in so we couldn't leave and they wouldn't transfer us to another airline, so we have two more days in Odessa before we could go. It was their only flight. It went one way one day, and the other day back. Last time on that airline. Great material for fiction, though.
So, I'm told it will come out toward the end of the year. In print!
Another experience that was grist. Last time to Ukraine, We tried to save money by going Aerosvit, rather than Austrian Air. They listed modern Boeing aircraft, so we tried. Big mistake. Out there on the tarmac in Kiev was a surprise. A Yakolev with one engine making a grinding racket, not like a modern jet at all. We took the bus there, and got on. The overhead bins didn't have doors, anything could have flown around, hit people. The noise? In the story and in reality, like dinosaur sized bees.
On the way back Odessa was fogged in so we couldn't leave and they wouldn't transfer us to another airline, so we have two more days in Odessa before we could go. It was their only flight. It went one way one day, and the other day back. Last time on that airline. Great material for fiction, though.
So, I'm told it will come out toward the end of the year. In print!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
A bit of recognition
Just a lil bit. Fictiondaily.org found Mandala, I know not how. The teaser they used to entice people to the site was:
"For all I knew, she was a bug-eyed wallaby with a taste for gallium arsenide: the stuff my brains are made of."
It comes early, but really, is that the best sentence in it? Authors are supposed to be bad judges of their work, so I'm not going to question that judgment. I can wonder, though...
In the nine thousand words of the story, they chose those 23? Just asking. Not: "She blinked, and I mourned for them in the moment they were hidden." Not, "It was never the eunuchs who led in battle, monks who won the West, or placid women who strode across the rockseas of Cleopatra's World." not, "Sky of ink, falling tiny round laces of snow, and in the center of it all, us together, the still point on the spinning world, in the twirling galaxy."
Who am I to say?
"For all I knew, she was a bug-eyed wallaby with a taste for gallium arsenide: the stuff my brains are made of."
It comes early, but really, is that the best sentence in it? Authors are supposed to be bad judges of their work, so I'm not going to question that judgment. I can wonder, though...
In the nine thousand words of the story, they chose those 23? Just asking. Not: "She blinked, and I mourned for them in the moment they were hidden." Not, "It was never the eunuchs who led in battle, monks who won the West, or placid women who strode across the rockseas of Cleopatra's World." not, "Sky of ink, falling tiny round laces of snow, and in the center of it all, us together, the still point on the spinning world, in the twirling galaxy."
Who am I to say?
Monday, June 21, 2010
Master Mind has sold
Master Mind will have a place in Nova SciFi, probably in the Fall issue I'm told. David Gerrold is still stuck, as far as I know, in his War Against the Chtorr series because he tried for first person psychotic. It has been 17 years. Lotsa promises. All hat no cattle. I attempted a hallucinating protagonist, shelved it for a year, and rewrote in cold third, strong narrator. Only way not to daze the reader. You can only ask so much.
It came out of a rather anti-idyllic start to my college sophomore year, in the Mesozoic, when the best editing tool available was corasable paper, plumbers did more than fix pipes, and women traded secrets about better back alleys. One sophomore drank himself to death and was discovered by the smell. Another lost her battle for normalcy, succumbing to schizophrenia.
I imagined her life after dropping out and wondered if her disease might, under the right circumstances, be beneficial. What if her past were wiped out in an EMP, she walked out of the institution where she had been committed, and tried to help with the war effort? And the attackers were mind control aliens?
It came out of a rather anti-idyllic start to my college sophomore year, in the Mesozoic, when the best editing tool available was corasable paper, plumbers did more than fix pipes, and women traded secrets about better back alleys. One sophomore drank himself to death and was discovered by the smell. Another lost her battle for normalcy, succumbing to schizophrenia.
I imagined her life after dropping out and wondered if her disease might, under the right circumstances, be beneficial. What if her past were wiped out in an EMP, she walked out of the institution where she had been committed, and tried to help with the war effort? And the attackers were mind control aliens?
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Redirects
Ray Gun Revival is going to be revived, hopefully.
There is a change of status.
Read more about it here.
So, two of my stories will live on only on the scribd site. The RGR website will go down soon. The affected stories are:
The Third Shadoc War
and
Bff.jov
Click to read them on scibd. I must not have progressed too much, because I still think they're fun. Not embarrassed by them yet.
There is a change of status.
Read more about it here.
So, two of my stories will live on only on the scribd site. The RGR website will go down soon. The affected stories are:
The Third Shadoc War
and
Bff.jov
Click to read them on scibd. I must not have progressed too much, because I still think they're fun. Not embarrassed by them yet.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Mandala sold
A Fly in Amber
VERY happy about this one. First Novelette. I really love this story, as immodest as that sounds. Sometimes characters become so alive that it doesn't really seem that you own them any more. The bird flies from the nest where it will. Is it a first contact story, a love story, a road story? Echoes of the Odyssey, Jungian psychology and of Niven's World out of Time. If you've never been on a New England winter sleighride, sung Palestrina, or walked a labyrinth, you can. Out in May. Link when I get it.
VERY happy about this one. First Novelette. I really love this story, as immodest as that sounds. Sometimes characters become so alive that it doesn't really seem that you own them any more. The bird flies from the nest where it will. Is it a first contact story, a love story, a road story? Echoes of the Odyssey, Jungian psychology and of Niven's World out of Time. If you've never been on a New England winter sleighride, sung Palestrina, or walked a labyrinth, you can. Out in May. Link when I get it.
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