Why Yes, I WOULD Cut Off My Nose to Spite My Face, Why Do You Ask?

Posted on by

 Anyone can be a published writer if all you want to do is make ebook versions of your stories/novels and put them up on Kindle/Nook/iBook/Whatever. I’m not slagging on the idea. I’ll grant you, there’s a time I would have, but times change and it’s adapt or die. Now I do it myself when doing so makes sense to me. However, if you still want to sell stories to professional  science fiction and fantasy (SF/F) markets in the traditional way, deciding between Garamond vs Bookman Old Style is no longer your concern. It’s also no longer about whether your stories please you. Before you see print/online publication, you’ve got to please someone else–the editor.

The traditional SF/F short fiction market is a buyer’s market. Always has been and probably always will be. Even with the explosion of online venues, there are more good stories than there are decent homes for them, for varying values of “decent” and, let’s be honest, varying values of “good.” Fortunately there are enough variances in editorial taste that eventually things usually work out. “Eventually” meaning just that–it can take years to place some stories. “Usually” meaning, sigh, not always. But I’m not here to lament this sad fact, merely to state it, to place what follows in context–The Sh*tlist  Continue reading →

Scenes From a Marriage

Posted on by

At the last writer’s group I scribbled a note to myself on the back on a manuscript I was working on. First reader saw it lying face down on the printer with the note clearly visible.

She: “What’s this? ‘VooDoo Christmas’? Is this what this story’s about?”

Me: “No, that one’s not ready to show yet. The note is my assignment for next week. 500 words on the theme ‘VooDoo Christmas.’”

 She: “You mean like Papa Legba meets Papa Noel?”

Me (Having that flash of RECOGNITION in mid sentence): “No…I mean YES! That’s it exactly!”

And it was. “Cold Christmas,” finished this morning. Only it was 1300 words, not 500. Whatever the story wants, the story gets, but still pretty short for a story from me. But all kudos to First Reader. My story, but her idea.

Do-Over

Posted on by

I was never happy with the original cover of A Warrior of Dreams. It had the right surreal quality, but the presentation made it look a little too much like an afterlife fantasy, which it emphatically was not. So I’ve done…well, not tweaking. More of a makeover.

Edited to Add: As part of my general glee over fixing the cover, I should mention that the Kindle edition is available as a free download today and tomorrow only (2-13-2012 and 2-14-2012). There won’t be any more free promotions for this title, so now’s the time.

In Which I Refuse to Share

Posted on by

 Some time ago it was announced that Eoin Colfer was going to continue the Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. I had an immediate, gut-level reaction that made me pause. I realized that it was the same reaction I have any time that I hear that another writer is going to continue a now-deceased or otherwise incapacitated writer’s series, or set a book in the same universe with the same characters that made the original writer famous, well-loved, or extremely profitable to his or her publisher. It doesn’t even have to be a series I know and love, like HHGTTG. Even if I’ve never read that writer before,  my reaction is always the same: 

“No, s/he isn’t.” Continue reading →

So Where DO You Get Your story Ideas? – Part 2

Posted on by

Back in So Where DO You Get Your Story Ideas? I was making the point that “ideas” as such really weren’t the issue most of the time. The trick was to recognize a story when you saw one. I don’t take back any of that, but it occurred to me that it wouldn’t hurt to clarify a bit. Some people, especially in the beginning of their development, tend to confuse “story idea” with the story itself, as in, boom, you get the idea, and the story immediately springs to mind, fully grown, like Athena sprouting from the brow of Zeus, and that’s not happening, therefore you’re just not getting story ideas, and What’s Wrong With Me!!?? If you find yourself in that particular panicky death spiral, take a breath, relax, and try to understand that, odds are, there’s nothing at all wrong with you. What you lack isn’t brains, or imagination, but experience. Brains and imagination, so far as I know, you either have or you don’t. Experience is something you have to earn.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that stories don’t sometimes appear fully grown and ready to be written down. It does happen, and it’s a grade A rush. But it’s not a story idea, it’s the story. Not the same thing at all. If it was, then recognizing a story idea would never be a problem. In truth, you’d have to be pretty dense, tired, or distracted to miss one. Usually, they’re a bit more subtle. I tend to think of story ideas like a light switch in a dark room. You fumble around a bit, find the switch and recognize it for what it is, flip it on and bang! Illumination. Now you can see what you need to see to do what you have to do. If what you’ve found really is a story idea, then that flash of illumination will always follow. That’s how you know you were right, but the initial recognition is the crucial step, and we’re back to that. How do you recognize a story? I said some things last time that I think were true enough, but when you boil them all down to essence, there’s only one way to learn how to recognize a story.

Continue reading →