Maybe not literally, but as far as visibility and career are concerned. I’ve been thinking about the question of career survival because it finally occurred to me that I’ve been shifting gears a bit lately when it comes to my own writing, in that I’m doing more novels these days, and fewer short stories. Now, for many cases that’s just considered par for the course, and was once considered the only course—you started off writing short stories, with the intention of getting good enough to sell them to the major magazines, of which there were several. If you were planning any sort of career, then part of the plan was to build up your name recognition through short fiction and then use that visibility to transition to novels. Short stories were never considered to be an end in themselves in that scenario. Sure there were probably as many exceptions as not, and writers who started with novels from day one and were either barely or sometimes not at all aware that the magazines even existed. I wasn’t one of those. I discovered the magazines at about the same time that I started to write in the first place, and I began with short stories, and the first novel I ever wrote I thought was going to be another short story, until an editor took pity on me and informed me that what I had submitted was not a short story, but the opening chapter to a novel, and so it later proved. Regardless, the short story was my go-to form. Continue reading
Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Interludes
Time for a blog post in which a lot is going on but almost nothing is, you know, actually happening. First Reader still has the manuscript for The War God’s Son and probably will for another week or two. Once she’s done I’ll be ready to look at the book again and possibly get the submission draft together. I would really like to get that done before the end of November, though realistically even if I do, that’s very close to the time that publishing shuts down for December, so it’s unlikely I’ll get a decision on the book until January at the earliest. The only reason I think it may be that soon is that the publisher knows the book’s on its way and might be able to expedite things. We’ll see.
Since it turns out my brain is still too fried from TWGS to write anything else for a bit, I’ve used the time to try and get the print version files of All the Gates of Hell ready instead, though I’ve hit a couple of snags with the formatting. That is, the template I’ve used twice before with no issues is now getting reported with errors that I don’t believe are errors. Computers are great, except when they aren’t. I’ll get it sorted out and put up a notice when the physical book is available, since I know not everyone is a big fan of ebooks. I am, but I also acknowledge that there’s just something special about a “real” book, and I don’t think they’re going away anytime soon, if ever. Provided the coming apocalypse leaves us with at least a Gutenberg-era level of technology. If we’re back to the stone age, all bets are off.
P.S. Yes, I know I misspelled “lama” in my last post. Or rather used the homonym rather than the proper word. Or was confusing the Dalai Lama with Wally Llama. My mind works that way sometimes.
Off to See the Lama
I’ve been scarce this week because First Reader and I took a trip to Atlanta to hear the Dalai Lama give a talk at Emory University. He was there because there is a co-operative initiative between his monastery and the school in, of all things, the science department. Tibetan monks are being trained as science teachers at the university so they can go back to the monastery and teach classes in modern science within the Tibetan curriculum (said monastic program takes a mere twenty years to complete. And I thought Grad Students had it rough).
I don’t have a lot to say about the talk. You sort of had to be there. But I will note two things. 1) The Dalai Lama is an incredibly smart guy. You only had to hear him question one of the scientists present on a fine point of experimental methodology to pick up on that. 2) It was nice to hear someone who ought to know holding the opinion that a) religion isn’t enough for a full understanding of the universe and b) science and spirituality are not and should not be in conflict. Which has always been my own opinion on the subject.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies #131, Fifth Anniversary
Partly for selfish reasons, but also because sometimes people get annoyed when they aren’t told these things, I’m proud to announce that my own “Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls” is the lead story in Issue #131, the Fifth Anniversary Double Issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies. The remainder of the issue’s contents, featuring stories by Adam Callaway, Alberto Yáñez, Rebecca Gomez Farrell, and Naim Kabir, plus a special audio fiction broadcast, will go live on October 10th.
“Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls” you can read now. If you want.
Time Mis-Management
I finished the second draft of The War God’s Son late Friday night. Sometimes projects need a third or more drafts before I dare show them to First Reader, but in this case I can’t think of anything else the book needs, so once I have it printed out the manuscript goes to First Reader for one of the more perilous phases of the project. Yes, I know, but First Reader is Old School, and wants a physical object to tear into. You can’t scribble or hack through paragraphs in phosphors…well, actually you can, but it’s just not as satisfying. So there will be a paper copy, which I will—hopefully—convert back into a finished book once she’s had her way with it. This, naturally, will not happen overnight. So right now I’ve got a little free time–by which I mean writing time not already spoken for–and thus my next problem.
I need to decide how to spend that time. I left the sequel to Black Kath’s Daughter hanging fire because the above project got its priority upgraded. But, to be clear, BKD+ is a personal project and so there are no actual deadlines on it. There are a few people waiting on it, and I do hate to keep them waiting, so I could get back to that while First Reader has her say on TWGS. On the other hand I haven’t written a short story in over six months while I was drafting TWGS. I think I’m getting withdrawal twinges, and I wouldn’t mind using the time to satisfy my short fiction jones.
Must think about this, but not too long since I don’t have all the time in the world and I could end up doing neither. If anyone reading this has an opinion, I’d like to hear it.
