Category Archives: Writing

Can of Worms? Meet Can Opener

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There exists, somewhere on the net, a small old-fashioned (seems odd to say it, but it’s true) discussion board. An eddy in the current of the internet, if you will, or rather a backwater. It was designed before blogging was a twinkle in the would-be pundits’ eyes, and hardly anyone goes there anymore. Except me, and  a few other die-hards. We’re a self-selected and dwindling group at this point, but we hang on, and the reason we hang on is that we can talk about things there that no one in his or her right mind would put out on the internet. This place isn’t secret, but it isn’t indexed either, and the discussions there don’t propagate or get linked, and that’s how we like it. All as a preamble to a question that rather threw me. So much so that I’ve decided to consider it here.

The question was simple: “Do you, as a male fantasy writer, ever feel isolated in a field dominated by women?” Continue reading →

Love in the Time of Trunk Stories

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If you follow the field at all, every now and then you’ll hear disparaging remarks about something called a “trunk story.” An editor for a new magazine or anthology (or a new editor for an old magazine) will usually make it part of the submission guidelines: “Send me your best. I don’t want your trunk stories.” For the perhaps two of you at most who don’t know what that means, a trunk story is just one that hasn’t sold, and hasn’t sold in a persistent or dramatic fashion, to the point that the writer either loses confidence in it—if they ever had any—or simply, for want of another suitable market possibility, files it away. Sort of a “time out.” The “trunk” part was probably always metaphorical, unless one had enough manuscripts of that type that they required a physical trunk to contain them. Back in the days of paper subs, I found that a cardboard box worked just fine. Continue reading →

Let it Snow…Within Reason

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At the last writer’s group we got another assignment, but several people had to leave early and there wasn’t time to finish it, so we essentially got the challenge with a week to finish. So what would have been a piece of flash fiction grew into a 3300 word story that I wrote yesterday. I may want to do something else with this one, once I get the tweaks tweaked and the bugs debugged.  Working title is “Have a Good Day,” with a nod to Jerome Bixby. If you don’t get the reference, clearly you haven’t watched enough of the old Twilight Zone tv series. You’re also probably an infant. Continue reading →

Another Such Weekend and I Am Undone

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Bill Eakin at Yuletide Souls Fest

My social and business calendars were pretty much filled this weekend, though on Saturday it was hard to tell where business ended and social began, since it was such a mixture of both. My primary event on Saturday was the Yuletide Souls Fest at the Vicksburg Public Library. Besides the locals, William R.(Bill) Eakin had come down from Arkansas. He’s the author of Redgunk Tales and another frequent contributor to Realms of Fantasy. I hadn’t seen Bill in years and we had to mourn a bit together for magazines past. Continue reading →

Muse and Writer Dialogues #3

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FADE IN

A room that passes for an office. There are bookshelves on one wall, a motley assortment of carvings, signed storyboards, and framed magazine covers on the free wall space. On the far wall is a medieval-style heraldic display of a cockatrice with a motto in bad Latin that reads “Pullus non Est.” Horizontal files sit beneath the window , and on top of those a free-standing rack holds three Japanese swords. The computer desk is on the wall nearest the door, facing away from the window. Beside that is a printer on a stand. In the base of that is a PS3 and an Xbox on a lower shelf. Neither is in use.

Enter the WRITER, who finds the MUSE sitting in a rocking chair staring at what looks like a smartphone. He’s a slob. She looks like a statuesque Greek goddess most of the time, but her appearance keeps changing.

WRITER: What are you doing?
MUSE: What does it look like? I’m playing “Angry Birds.” Not that you care. What do you want?
WRITER: You have to ask, after that stunt you pulled?

Continue reading →