Category Archives: magazines

New Story Time: “On the Banks of the River of Heaven”

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3rd Story CollectionThis has long been a favorite of mine. It was originally published back in April 2008 in Realms of Fantasy magazine and was the title story of my third collection, On the Banks of the River of Heaven (Prime Books, 2010).

The story is based on the Japanese Star Festival (Tanabata) of July 7th, which in turn was based on an older Chinese legend. Once a year, the Divine Weaver and the Divine Herdsman (Vega and Altair)  would meet across the Milky Way (the River of Heaven) to renew their love. The legend goes that their intense affection for each other caused them to neglect their duties, the Weaver to make clothes for the gods, the Herdsman to keep the Celestial Ox out of the gods’ gardens. So they were separated and only allowed to meet once a year after that.

Naturally, in my version things were a little more complicated. But nothing that couldn’t be sorted out with good will and a little help from friends in unlikely places.

Story Time.

 

 

Edited to Add: Note and Disclaimer: The Story Time link will always point to the current story, whatever it happens to be. As soon as a new one goes up, the previous one goes away. There is no archive, I’m afraid, so get them while they’re here.

Waiting For the Eclipse

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In fact, I’m taking a break from painting the living room this morning in preparation, also getting my blog on. I did the pinhole camera thing during the last partial solar eclipse, and probably will do the same this time, weather permitting. We’re nowhere near totality, but we were supposed to have clear skies here in central NY. Now clouds are moving in. At worst we’ll just enjoy the light changing.

Speaking of enjoying things (Notice what I did there? It’s called a segue. Ask for it by name), my contributor’s copy of Tales of the Sunrise Lands: Anthology of Fantasy Japan arrived today. It’s a nicely put together book and I’m glad to be in it with “The Cat of Five Virtues,” a sort of made-up fairytale, except the title creature (and all the others) come from real traditions. I like doing fairytales; too bad there aren’t many outlets for them these days. A fault of the times, I think. Regardless, the ebook edition is still on track for September. I’ll post when I have a confirmed date.

By my count I’ve had stories in over forty anthologies, counting reprints and “Bests of the Year,” and a lot more magazines, print and online, easily in the hundreds. I’m here to tell you that it never gets old. I remember reading, years ago, where L. Sprague de Camp (google him if you’re too young to remember) said, paraphrase, “A little bit of stardust accompanies each publication.” This from a guy who’d been doing it for over forty years at that point, but I believe it. If I make it that long, I’ll report in.

 

 

 

 

LeVar Burton Reads

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I’ve told this story before, but in the current circumstance it bears repeating:

In an earlier version of the Writer’s Group With No Name we had a member who was working hard on a romance novel. We’d read excerpts and thought it promising, but the story wasn’t coming quickly or easily for her. In the meantime, most of the other members of the group were working on short fiction, getting stuff finished, and a few of us were selling. At times the meetings would turn into gripe sessions about slow markets, slower payments, incomprehensible editorial decisions, the usual. All true and the bane of working writers for practically ever, but our romance writer, working but still with nothing in shape to show an editor, was not impressed with the bitching. Continue reading →

“In Memory of Jianhong, Snake-Devil”

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I’ve been dropping annoyingly vague hints here and there, but now it’s all out in the open—I’ve apparently started a new fantasy series. I didn’t really plan to do it and I certainly didn’t think I was ready, but then I’m not always in charge. I know writers who strongly disagree with that perspective. “I’m in charge and my characters do what I say.” And that’s often true even with me, as in sometimes I am and sometimes they do. But for me it usually works out better when the characters do what they want and I just follow closely and mark it all down, then cut out the bit where they stared at the horizon for an hour just for the hell of it and add the bit where one of them tripped and fell into the icy stream. Just for the hell of it. Or maybe because they deserved it…ahem. Where was I?

Right, the new series. The first one, “In Memory of Jianhong, Snake-Devil” is now up in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #226. I’ve already written and sold the second one and started blocking scenes for the third. As I said, after Yamada I wanted to do some stand-alone stories, since some of my favorites of my own work have been books or stories with no befores or afters, except what was implied in the story itself. I once attempted a few befores and afters in the case of Jin from All the Gates of Hell, because I liked the character so much, but none of them worked out. She was done, and thus so was I.

Pan Bao and Jing were different. I’ve had them in my head for a while, wondering what they were about. I first had him pictured as a bumbling Taoist priest kept successful (and alive) by his far more competent daughter, and there are still echoes of that, but the man himself turned out to be quite different. Then Mei Li showed up, and well, that was that. So it’s a series. I hope you like it. If you don’t I’ll write it anyway.

It’s not like I’m in charge.

The Joys of Revision

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WRITING 02In the olden days—maybe no further back than the sixties and seventies—writers used to brag about never having to revise. “First drafts are final” was the saying. Which made sense only a little further back in time during the pulp era when you were trying to make a living writing for 50+ different pulp magazines at a penny a word. Spend too much time revising and you’d spend the rest starving. I imagine a lot of that attitude was a holdover from those halcyon days but, as a more recent wisdom has it “Writing is revising.” Also not completely true on the face of it. Without a first draft, there is no revising. It’s more accurate to say writing begins with the first draft, it just doesn’t end there. It’s called “first draft” for a reason. Continue reading →