Category Archives: Writing

Occasional Status Update

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I started to call this “Periodic Status Update,” but that would apply that there was some sort of regular schedule to things happening that make a status update appropriate, and I’m here to tell you that ain’t the case. Feast or famine is the only schedule I’m aware of, and it’s more of a binary condition than a discreet event…

Ahem. Where was I? Right. Status update. Yesterday I got not one, but two contracts in the mail. Famine is the general condition, but yesterday was more of a feast day. First, I sold the latest Lord Yamada story, “Three Little Foxes,” to Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I think it’ll be online sometime later this year, but I don’t know for sure. I’ll post when I know more. If anyone’s curious, that’s the story that came to me when I was looking at a Gmail background image, so you just never know which direction one of these things is going to arrive from. Continue reading →

Just What the (Bleep) Do I think I’m Doing?

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The story opening I hated yesteraday maybe now looks like it still has some life. Or maybe I’m kidding myself now. Maybe I just didn’t want to face the effort I knew this story is going to require. Maybe…

This is not really a proper post, it’s more of a footnote. A bit of errata for whatever cumulative inertia this blog is responsible for, and it is a simple statement of fact to you to use or discard–I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

There. I said it. I have no clue about writing. Not one. I like to speculate and ponder and take this position or that, and it’s all good fun but none of it changes the basic fact that every story is different, every book is different. Every one of them is its own thing and not the thing you worked on last time. It can’t necessarily be conquered by the weapons you used last. Necessarily? I’d bet on it. Those tools may be comfortable to your hand now, their workings and purpose comfortably familiar. Of course you want to use them again, but they just don’t work. Why not? Because last time you needed a hammer but now you need a chisel. And a hammer, no matter how hard you pound, is not now and never will be a chisel. Just as simple and just as diabolically difficult as that.

People wonder why some writers drink so much, but I never do wonder that.

What’s astonishing to me is that we all don’t.

“…Any Club That Would Have Me for a Member…”

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The subject came up in another context but it got me thinking about it. New magazines have always popped up fairly frequently in the field. Most don’t last long. This was true back in the mimeograph days and it’s even more true now, when web publishing basically means anyone with a little time and the notion can put up a web page and call it a magazine. This in turn will spawn the writer on the make’s natural prey–the market listing.

I don’t know about you all, but when I’m scanning the list of new markets at Ralan’s or wherever, the number of potential markets I find worth bothering with is very small. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I’m picky. It’s probably some deep character flaw that makes me think I have the right to be picky. I mean, who the hell do I think I am anyway? But there it is. Actually, it’s even worse than that–I think every writer should be picky. Value what you do, or no one else will. Aim higher, even if you think the target is out of range. Maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t. So all that said, I’ve been thinking about what separates a venue worth considering and one that, well, just isn’t. Continue reading →

Time for Some Name-Calling

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Literary movements come and go. “New Wave” was a little before my time, but I can remember Cyberpunk, Splatterpunk… I was associated briefly with “Crackerpunk” by virtue of 1) being a Southerner and 2) writing sf/f, but no one (including especially its proponents) took it very seriously and it went away quicker than most. Now we are within a period with a feast of Movements: Slipstream, New Weird, Interstitial, New Romantic Underground, New Space Opera, Mundane Science Fiction, Mannerpunk, and I’m sure I’m missing some. It is a time for Manifestos and Movements because, as China Mieville once pointed out, “Manifestos are fun.” Seems like the right attitude to me, from the pov of someone invariably on the outside looking in where these things are concerned. Continue reading →

Barking at Nothing

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I sent out a couple of stories yesterday. There used to be something eternally optimistic about sending a manuscript out. Now it’s that plus the culmination of far too much research and poking about. Good markets — like this is news — are scarce.

I’ve had this same conversation numerous times before with some of my gloomier colleagues. The few really good markets have their pick and, if they sometimes don’t choose wisely, that’s their own fault. It’s not that the material isn’t being handed to them by the shovelful. Unless your name is of such magnitude that it alone will sell magazines or pull pageviews (or at least the editors think so) you take your chances with the hundreds or so others who sent in stories that month. Then you manage to get through anyway, and your story is bought and published in a good venue. Many happies and much joy.

Then what? Continue reading →