Read My Mind!

Reading Empire Time today in Second Life

I will be reading my short story Empire Time today at the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Portal in Second Life. Come give a listen and be sure to have your voice chat turned on so you can hear. We'll have Q&A after, and there are rumors of cake.

It took work to put this together, so I want to thank Cath Munro for arranging the reading and to Selina Greene for sending out the word even though this wasn't a Book Island event. Special thanks to Vertigo Paris for mentioning the reading on her weekly show at Radio Radio. And, of course, thank you Beth for doing absolutely everything.

Reading in SL at 12:00 SLT

Come join me in Second Life for a reading at 12:00 SLT on Book Island. I'll be reading my short story A Dangerous Occupation. This is my first time to read this story in public, and my very first time to read at Book Island, so it's a special event for me. Thanks to Alexandra Bleriot for having me in to read and Cath Monro for setting everything up. As always thank you Beth for being the best personal assistant in the history of the trade.

click here for the limo.

Scene Outlines and Talking to Folks

I've been playing with the idea of doing something more with the world from "A Dangerous Occupation" for awhile now. I got a start on the flight down for ETech and did a bit more over the weekend. I've been too busy to do much more during the conference, but I expect to get a bit more done on the flight back and over the weekend. I can settle into a regular schedule next week and hopefully get into actually writing some pages before the end of the week.

Progress: Morning Star

Yay! I just made it through the first pass and reworked things to center on the new main plot. Now I just need to work back in some exposition I've had to cut and polish a bit. I'm not sure measuring progress by wordcount really makes sense for this kind of edit, but I can't think of a better way just now.

Morning Star: Progress

The new plot structure is working very well. It's a much tighter story now. One of the side-benefits of this approach is it lets me cut a huge amount of distracting exposition and focus on the conflicts and characters. I'm now 36% of the way through on this pass and feel much better about the overall story, so I shouldn't have much trouble making another 1000 or more tomorrow morning. (I'm just editing, not writing very much new material, so that's not as crazy as it sounds).

As a nice bonus my impatient muse threw another couple fun ideas for other stories at me as a distraction while I worked. There's a great and reasonably light-hearted fantasy idea there that may just be my next project.

Morning Star: Plot Inversion

Well it happened. You fiddle around with a story sometimes, getting the bones down, adding on where you think it needs a bit, trimming other bits away, but when it wakes up and stands, the joints bend the wrong way and the ears are eyes. It takes a moment to accept what you're seeing at moments like that, see that the thing you didn't expect... is so much better than what you set out to do. It's a wonderful, scary feeling. One of the subplots in Morning Star just took over from the main plot, and that is a very good thing now that I see how it will work. The ears are eyes, but they have a spark of feisty intelligence. Taming this thing is going to be fun!

Morning Star: More Changes

After finishing making a pass through the whole manuscript and especially the conflicts, I think this makes a better short story. I'm going to set the target at 10,000 words and finish it out that way. I may go for a novel or novella in the same setting later, but it won't be this story.

Morning Star Progress

I've kept the counter frozen at one word for Morning Star because I'm not writing new material for it yet. That's partially because I had a great weekend and partially because I'm going through it and making notes on what I want to do. I'm not sure how to show that as a word count, so I'll just say that I'm about two-thirds of the way through that process.

Fighting Comment Spam

I apologize if you've posted a comment and it's taken awhile to show up. I have to wade through mounds of comment spam to get to the few actual comments. Recently, some of the spam is slipping through and approving itself somehow as well, so I'm going to have to change the site around a bit to counter.

With that said, I had great response both here and in email for the Necrotic Tissue story. I appeciate hearing from the folks who enjoyed it. I'm thinking of trying my hand at a horror novel after Morning Star is out the door. I'll definitely be doing more short shorts and flash fiction.

Morning Star Off to a Great Start

I heard back from the 3-day novel contest and didn't make the short list with my entry. It might have been cool to win, but I'm pretty excited about the manuscript. Now I can expand it into a longer book and really get into the story. I've added a word count tracker up there to the left and plan to move it along steadily as I go through the rewrite. The working title is "Morning Star." It's an SF novel set on Venus.

Anticipation In Boston Literary Magazine

My story Anticipation is out this month in Boston Literary Magazine. Check it out here.

My Story "Necrotic Tissue" in Inaugural Issue of Necrotic Tissue Magazine

This must be my week. I just heard back from R. Scott McCoy at Necrotic Tissue Magazine, and my story also titled “Necrotic Tissue” will be in their first issue, due out January 1st. I can't wait to see where this magazine goes. The gang over there has attitude, humor and and even minions. You have to respect a horror magazine with minions.

My Story "Anticipation" in Winter Edition of Boston Literary Magazine

Living up to their reputation as the most decisive editors east of the Mississippi Boston Literary Magazine just responded to a submission I sent them, elapsed time, fourteen hours! My story "Anticipation" will be in the winter issue, coming out in early December. It's an honor to be accepted. They publish good stuff.

Duotrope is a Great Free Tool for Fiction Writers

I used to keep track of story submissions with a PlamOS database on my old workpad. When I upgraded to Treo it trashed the database, and I had the memorable experience of submitting the same story twice to the same magazine -- oops.

I thought about putting the same sort of tool online and using it there, but I figured the number of people interested in that sort of thing was probably small. It turns out I was wrong. I found an online service called Duotrope which seems to be thriving. Duotrope provides a submission tracker for users (registration is free) and also provides statistics for market response time based on the information provided by users in their trackers. The statistics are similar to the sort of thing Blackhole has done for years, but Duotrope also offers a market search engine to find just the right magazine or contest for your next SASE.

This is a great example of how the right mix of features can make something more than the sum of its parts. I found it hard to bring myself to update Blackhole because it was just an extra step after a rejection (or the rare acceptance). With Duotrope, I enter the submission when I send it out, and then use the site to track what I have out at any given moment. When I get an answer back, I update the tracker as part of the process of resubmitting to another market. That's a much better incentive for me to provide information. The information, in turn, helps me and the rest of the users to track which markets respond quickly, and which respond slowly or not at all. the list of all available markets gets the benefit of constant attention and feedback from users as well, and the results are impressive. I take Novel and Short Story Writer's Market each year, but Duotrope has already clued me in on markets I didn't know existed.

The 3-day Novel Writing Contest

I thought I should probably post a public notice to explain why I'm going to drop off the face of the Earth for three days in September. I will be participating the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest this year. It's like a marathon for writers. I plan to stock up on food, turn off my cellphone and write straight through. Wish me luck!

Unruly Muse

Well I was minding my own business working on scenes for the new book when my muse wandered in, obviously tipsy and smelling just a bit like sunblock and old scrolls. By the time I got her sobered up, I had written an adventure fantasy short story. I submitted it right away just in case she thought I was ungrateful. Now if we could get back to the book please?

Starting Another Novel

Well I'm starting off in earnest on an novel again. I say again because I have the usual collection of false starts some of them running up to seventy-five thousand words. What makes me think I have a better shot at making something at least readable this time is the approach I'm taking to the outline. I read a great article by Holly Lisle on notecarding and have been spending my morning writing time for the last two days writing out one line scenes. It's fun and really makes the book come alive. So expect to start seeing wordcount goals here again soon. It's been way too long. I recommend her entire site by the way, she's an inspiration and not just to my writing.

Amazon Has Reinvented Crack

The New Amazon Shorts online market is a threat to global productivity and should be outlawed immediately! I bought and read two stories over lunch and had to be forcibly restrained or risk buying more, missing work and ending up a happy, literate bum. Stay away while you still can!

From the site:

Amazon Shorts are never-before-seen short works from a wide variety of well-known authors, available only on Amazon.com. Try a new genre or a new author--there's something for everyone. Amazon Shorts are:

* New short-form literature from top authors for only 49 cents
* Delivered electronically; there are no printed editions
* Yours forever after purchase; save or print and read at your convenience

(link)

Klingon Music Covers!

ter'eS Home Page - Klingon Songs
A collection of cover songs in Klingon, including the above

Here we have a very rare live recording of Elvis Presley singing his signature song Blue Suede Shoes during his last tour of Kronos.

The best, hands down is "A translation of the song "Without Me" by Eminem, translated and sung by Quvar." listen

For more on the amazing phenomenon that is the Klingon language read this: Klingon as Linguistic Capital. There are now twenty or thirty people in the world who can be considered "fluent" in Klingon with many more considered "competent." The language has grown to the point where even people with no particular interest in Star Trek are learning and speaking the language. Wouldn't it be fun if Klingon became the default technical language? I know many is the time I've needed to express this sentiment when troubleshooting a system at 3:00am:

DaH maSuv, chaq tugh maHegh,
'a batlh maHeghmeH
jagh DISuvchu'taH 'ej yo' qIjDaq
tlhIngan SuvwI'pu' qan tu'lu'be'

or just

ghuy'cha'

Star Wars

Yes, I went to the premier and I saw a cow mascot for a fast-food chain battle several very solemn-looking Sith bearing lightsabers until, finally, the bovine brawler was driven from the theater by an ewok with a stick. The movie itself was somewhat less imaginative.

Meatbot Massacre Succesfully Ransomed!

Meatbot Massacre
I just heard from Greg Stolze and Meatbot Massacre has been ransomed five months ahead of the deadline. Meatbot Massacre is a self-published tactical dice game with the cool "ransom" distribution model blogged previously here.

You're receiving this email because you've contributed to the ransom of
Meatbot Massacre. Congratulations. You did it. The full amount has
been
paid and the game is now free to all. You can download it from the
link at
the end of this message. Thank you very much for your trust, and I
hope
the game is worth it.

-G.

Way to go!

New "Nightmares of Lovecraft" Toy Collection

SOTA Toys

Some amazing stuff from SOTA, the folks that make the Alien vs. Predator toys. I've never seen a more disturbing Cthulhu, but you should see Dagon!

"I wanted this line to be about taking the classic stories of Lovecraft and combining them with an original take by our artists," says SOTA Toys president Jerry Macaluso. "I want these to be beautiful and terrifying all at once."

The first three figures in the line include Cthulhu from "The Call of Cthulhu", the Ghoul from "Pickman's Model" and Dagon from "Shadow Over Insmouth."

Look for the "Nightmares of Lovecraft" in late 2005

Pay the Ransom or the Meatbot Gets It

Meatbot Massacre

The game concept sounds hilarious, but the amazing idea here is not the game itself but the distribution model. Get a load of this.

If you're interested in buying Meatbot Massacre, I'm afraid you can't:

You can, however, make it free for yourself and everyone else by contributing to the ransom.

When the donations total $600.00 the .pdf file for Meatbot Massacre will be made available for free download. When that happens, you can post it anywhere you desire, print as many copies as you wish and share it with anyone you like.

Wow. I donated just to support the idea. Imagine doing this with a whole album or a book.

"On The Road" on tour

NPR : Kerouac's 'On the Road' Manuscript Unfurled

The legend behind the writing of Jack Kerouac's On the Road is well known, if not entirely accurate. Fueled by inspiration, coffee and Benzedrine, Kerouac sat down at his typewriter and -- in one burst of creative energy -- wrote the novel that would make him the voice of his generation in just 20 days, typing it out on a single, 120-foot-long scroll.

Kerouac actually spent much more time laying the groundwork for his novel than that creation myth suggests, but the part about the giant scroll manuscript is true. Now for the first time, the unfurled scroll has gone on display at the University of Iowa Museum of Art in Iowa City. It will travel next to the Las Vegas Public Library.

New B5 Movie "The Memory of Shadows" Filming in April

According to: Coming Soon! - Latest News

Steven Beck will direct a big screen adaptation of the popular sci-fi TV series Babylon 5. The movie, titled The Memory of Shadows, is intended for theatrical release and was written by series creator J. Michael Straczynski. Production Weekly reports that the project starts filming this April in the UK.

This will be a story including Galen the technomage. Let's just hope this will be solid B5 movie and not a another sadly lacking installment of "Cusade."

Empire Time Published on Revolution SF

Empire Time is up at RevolutonSF with some great illustrations by Erin Merlino.

Empire Time in Revolution SF August 20th

The beautifully designed RevolutionSF is an online Science Fiction magazine which does some great classic reprints, has published original fiction by Michael Moorcock and is current serializing the excellent "Uncle Ovid's Exercise Book" by John Picacio. I mentioned back in June that my Orion's Arm story "Empire Time" will be in the magazine in August. I've just learned that the story will appear in the August 20th release. (Even the release schedule at RevolutionSF follows an alternative calendar). I'll add a link from this post when it comes out.

My Story in the August 2004 Anniversary Edition of AlienSkin Magazine

My story Intellectual Property is in the 2004 Anniversary Edition of AlienSkin Magazine so go read it already.

Lightning Strikes Twice!

Lightning struck twice in the same place for me today, and ironically, it saved me from getting zapped. AlienSkin Magazine is a monthly online 'zine which is very friendly to new writers. One public service they offer is the voluntary "Zap Room" where stories receive uncensored public criticism. I had submitted a recent story, Intellectual Property, to get zapped and was lucky enough to be found unzappable! (This doesn't mean my story is perfect, just that it was good enough to be published instead of zapped.) Intellectual Property will be featured in the anniversary issue in August. I'm proud to be published by them because they publish good stuff, and the magazine has a fun, pulpy sort of style. I highly recommend adding AlienSkin to your submission list if your a new writer. Having a note like this in your email to temper the usual flood of rejections is a very nice thing. (pardon the formatting, that's an artifact of my ongoing wrestling match with my stylesheets).

... we all read the story, found the original with the notes and votes all over it and we are relieved to say it was indeed unzappable! It was nicely done and quite suspenseful. Worthy of a good scriptwriter and the Sci-fi channel...
If you would still like to have us publish this wonderful gem, we would be honored to feature it in our 2004 August/Anniversary issue.

Sincerely,
Katherine Patterson
Senior Editor

Towels, Guts and Soap

For a $.75 bitpass you can enjoy some trippin' DRM-free spoken word sport. This guy's stuff is like Douglas Adams met Chuck Palahniuk and they decided to write a Tom Robbins story. ph34r Tom Gerencer, h3s l33t
Telltale Weekly - MP3 and Ogg Vorbis Audiobooks

"Empire Time" To Be In Revolution SF

My Orion's Arm inspired story Empire Time will be in an upcoming issue of Revolution SF. It's a cool 'zine which has previously published Gene Wolfe, and Michael Moorcock. RevSF is also currently serializing the immensely fun Uncle Ovid's Exercise Book by Don Webb. Webb's collection of metamorphoses reminds me of Michael Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction in that he pours as much creativity into each tiny short short as you're likely to find in may novels.

Nice Rejection from Strange Horizons

Had a really nice, personal rejection today from Strange Horizons with good things to say about my story. Turned the story around to the Glimmer Train very short story contest. I'll hear how I did in November. It's just that sort of story that you can call fantasy or literary depending on which way you hold your polarizing filter.

Nice Rejection from F&SF

A nicely worded rejection from F&SF. For those keeping score for geekish behavior, I am keeping a pilot-db database for this on my palm. One of these days, I need to add a scoreboard to the site. I'm also planning on a big mass dump to blackhole of what have been without exception prompt and professional responses from all markets. Hmm. Maybe I should post my pilot-db "markets" table. Anyone interested?

Rejected By Sci Fiction

Another rejection, Sci Fiction this time... manuscript overnight... sending right back out... blah, blah. Another nifty rejection for my collection! :)
I'm thinking that I may add a scoreboard up with blinkenlights and such showing rejections vs. sales.

Rejected by Fantasy and Science Fiction

One more rejection from F&SF sending it on to the next market on my list. As they say, never let a manuscript sleep over.

My Story in Alienskin Magazine This Month

"My! It is ripe tonight," Phoenicia said to me as we were rolling out of the garage. She lit up one of her fat, tapered Belicos cigars to cut the stench. "Yeah." I nodded and tried not to pinch my nose. I didn't ask for a smoke. She had been on the truck for years, and I didn't want her telling the gang I was too green to hang.

My flash fiction story Cleaning Up is in the latest issue [Vol. II No. 9] of Alienskin Magazine, so head over there and read more. I really like what they did with the illustrations.

That issue is gone, and AlienSkin doesn't keep back-issues, but you can read the story here under "Short Shorts."

If You've Ever Loved a Book

Stone Reader

I just finished watching this documentary by Mark Moskowitz, and If You've ever loved a book, you should watch this film. Moskowitz read a book, loved it, then went looking for more by the same author. The author, and the book had vanished. He spends two years searching to find out what happened. Along the way we meet some interesting people, learn some sobering things about being a writer today and hear some interesting things about some great books. This is one DVD where you'll want to check out the extras. There is a set of reading lists that will give you plenty do for the next forty years. Moskowitz's search lead to the founding of lostbooks.org which is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to getting lost books back in print.

Alan Dean Foster on Ideas

Eric LaForest has printed (with permission) the text to Alan Dean Foster's poem
A Beach 10,000 Miles Long.

You ask me where do I get my ideas and I tell you I don't know
But
It doesn't matter because if I could explain it I wouldn't get
Them and therein lies a devastating paradox
Because
(Are you listening?)

My Story will be in the Red Writing Hood Anthology

My flash fiction story Library Card will be in the next Red Writing Hood Flash Fiction Anthology. It's a small story in a small press, but I'm dancin' big time! As with most small press, I get paid in contributor's copies. But what the heck? Money I can get at the day job; it will be very cool to have my work tattoed on the flesh of a dead tree.

Eric James Stone Sold One to Writer's of the Future!

More good news as Eric James Stone, a previous poster here, makes his first hit with a sale
to the Writer's of the Future volume XX! So this means we both sold our first story in the same month. I should point out that his is in one of the biggest science fiction contests, and mine was in an online magazine for new writers. Which means I made $5.00 and he'll be likely to make somewhat more than that. ;) When he's number one on the New York Times Bestseller list, I'll be able to say I was there to congratulate him on his first sale! (not to imply we've actually met, but hey, I'll take my vicarious fame where I can get it).

Rejected by SciFi.COM

SciFi.COM: SCI FICTION

SciFi.COM just rejected another short of mine, Intellectual Property. In general, you shouldn't have anything to add or fix after you send off a story, but this one deserves a second draft. It's a good idea, but I don't think I really did it justice in this draft.

So, back to rewrites before I send it off again. I'm thinking Asimov's, next.

Ancient Sumerian Horn of Plenty

Sumerian Dictionary to Decipher Ancient Texts
If you're like me, and the surveillance team tells me you are, you get all tingly at the thought of deciphering ancient tablets coverd in golf-tee imprints and drinking cold cofee into the wee hours in a museum storeroom lit only by a magnifying desklamp. These links are for you, oh spiritual sibling. We start off with two great links for the Epic of Gilgamesh. From there, we unearth some great fiction and fact from James W. Bell. Further exploration reveals a racy creation story, a collection of goodies, some technology straight out of Snowcrash, and with our archeological metaphor exhausted, we enjoy the world's most interesting unicode project. Wicked cool stuff.
As you have probably guessed, I'm about 13,000 words into the rough draft of a new book which I expect will be full of Sumerian gods, necromancers, zombies, government conspiracies, secret fraternal orders, the Akashic Record and supermarket customer service clerks with exceptional compiler design skills.

I Sold a Story!

The wise and insightful editors at Alien Skin Magazine just bought my flash fiction story "Cleaning Up." So be sure and read the free April 2004 issue and donate lots of cash to this great (and did I mention their excellent taste?) online magazine!

Dear Bill,

We have all read, reviewed, and discussed your story, Cleaning Up, and really liked it! We would like to use your story in our April 2004 issue of AlienSkin Magazine.

Poem About Publishing

Read 'em and Weep is a great poem about writing, publishing and rejection. It's especially appropriate as my own stack of rejection slips grows ever closer to the ceiling.

Thank you Neil Gaiman for the link.

"Empire Time" is Finally -- A Finalist

So, I did receive a note on the final disposition on my story for the "Writer's of the Future" contest. "Empire Time" was a finalist, and I should have a certificate to that effect soon. The story won't be in Volume XX, however, so if you would like to read it, look over at Orion's Arm. They accepted the story, and it is currently available there. The best news is that this makes more room for Eric Stone's. story. Good luck, Eric!

Two More Rejections

Two more rejections in today: from Weird Tales and Argosy, for "Tags" and "Mother Maggot" respectively. I'm flying out for training tomorrow (presentation skills?!?) for a week, so I won't get these turned around until I get back. Another discouraging note. My printer is dead again (three in a row) again with a printhead that failed the first time it needed cleaning. In each case the printer was a Canon photo printer from Best Buy. My wife is a photographer, so she needs a photoprinter. I really just need a laser printer. I'm thinking HP looks better and better in either case.

Rejected by Weird Tales

Well, got my latest rejection from Weird Tales.
It's a nicely personal, typed rejection:

Another story from you: "Cleaning Up." We like the bit about checking the safety -- one of us was an instructor on pistol handling in the Army... [part of the note where they point out embarrassing typos. OOPS!]... As for the story itself -- it has, we think, too little plot complication for its length. Every detail needs to move the plot along.

They noticed me! woohoo! You learn to appreciate a good rejection in this business. So I'm taking the advice as a gift and getting this one ready to go out to the next magazine.

UPDATE: After a thorough scrub, "Cleaning Up" is off to Alien Skin Magazine. Wish me luck!

I'm a Finalist in Writers of the Future.

I had just erased the Writers of the Future Contest from my submissions white board thinking no news was a late rejection when ten minutes later this email came.

Dear Writer,
Congratulations! Your entry to the 4th quarter 2003 (July 1 - September 30) L. Ron Hubbard Writers of The Future Contest is in the Finals! Judging results which will determine the winners have, however, been delayed in the Christmas mails. While I was hoping to have the winners contacted before the end of the year, I really doubt it will happen. So, if you have another entry to send in for the 1st quarter 2004 (October 1 - December 31), feel free to do so. Put a big note on it that says your entry for the last quarter is in the Finals. I'll then hold your entry aside until the winners have been selected and contacted. Best of luck to each of you! Rachel, Contest Administrator.

There's still no guarantee that I'll be in with the winners or be published, but this is nice to know anyway, and I think it's more than just a pleasant put-off. This is one of the biggest Science Fiction and Fantasy contests for an unpublished writer. It was founded by L. Ron Hubbard (yes the same one, but the church isn't involved with the contest) and is respected amongst the Science Fiction and Fantasy set. The judges are people like Larry Niven, Orson Scott Card, Gregory Benford, Ann McCaffrey, you get the idea... There's plenty of competition, so I'm going to take what good news as it comes and celebrate making it to the finals. Woohoo!

They have now posted the winners and published finalists from the contest online. I'm not among that company so I'm pretty sure I've been rejected. I sent off an email just to make sure I'm free to move on with the story. Glad I celebrated while I could. ;)

But then today I received a snail mail "Congratulations... holding your story for possible inclusion in Writer's of the Future Vol. XX." So I'm doing the happy dance again. Anthologies do this in case they need to fill some pages at the last minute, so my chances for publication are still slim, but I'm gonna get a certificate for sure. That's a whole lot better than a #2 pencil in the eye! So I'm taking my happiness where I can.