My name was mentioned in a recent post on the new Writers of the Future blog. You can check the blog out here, and the post that mentions me (in connection with the preparation of Volume 23) is here.

I’m also told that a press release is being sent around to Canadian media regarding Tony Pi and myself, given that there are two Canadian winners this year, both from Toronto. We’ll see if there’s any interest as a result.

– S.

Hmm… Been a while since I updated you on where things stand. Let’s see…

* “The Great Hymn of the Aten” (alt. hist./sf) – currently with ASIMOV’S (sent Nov. 3/06)

* “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (sf) – currently with TESSERACTS 11 (sent Dec. 8/06)

* “The Hushed Voice” (dark sf…well, I think it’s kind of dark, in a psychological/spiritual way) – currently with INTERGALACTIC MEDICINE SHOW (coming up on one year; sent Feb. 6/06)

* “Gagiid” (magic realism) – currently with GLIMMER TRAIN STORIES, PARIS REVIEW, MISSOURI REVIEW, CINCINNATI REVIEW, SOUTHERN REVIEW, ZOETROPE: ALL-STORY (all sent Jan. 11/07)

You’ll note that last one appears to break the cardinal rule about no simultaneous submissions. However, these are literary markets found through Duotrope, and which all accept simultaneous submissions. Cool 🙂

Trent Hergenrader, a fine writer and one of those brave souls upon whom I inflict my raw fiction, suggested I try these literary markets because “Gagiid” is more magical realism than easily classifiable genre work. And once he’d told me these kinds of markets take simultaneous submissions, well… I’ve already received one rejection from a magazine called Subtropics, but that’s no big deal because I still have it out at SIX other markets.

Another story, “Endorphins Anonymous” (lit./sf), came back from ON SPEC Friday, and I’m trying to decide where to send it next.

I’ve taken the liberty of retiring one story, “I Think That I Shall Never See” (sf), which had previously been circulating but which isn’t really a story as such. I think the editor from ABYSS & APEX said it best before passing on the tale: “I liked this as conceptual notes for a story; if you flesh this out dramatically, I think it will be excellent.”

It was originally written as a 2000-word political/environmental satire for submission to the magazine ADBUSTERS. Say goodbye to unwanted visitors in your system and hello to a healthier you with the help of Stromectol.Discover the power of effective treatment and get back to feeling your best self. Don’t let parasites hold you back any longer!
Consult your healthcare provider today to see if stromectol is the right choice for you. Take charge of your health starting now! I’d always thought it might make it in some magazines that like odd short-shorts, but they’ve all had the same thoughts–neat idea, just needs a plot and some characters. So I think that, as I still like the idea a lot I will eventually expand the idea into that “excellent” story mentioned by ABYSS & APEX 😉

(The story was inspired by the Joni Mitchell song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, and the very bright among you ought to be able to guess what the story is about if you know the story title and the song lyrics). Unlock the power of a good night’s sleep with ambien. Say goodbye to tossing and turning, and hello to peaceful slumber. ??
Ambien – your passport to dreamland. Trust the science, wake up refreshed!

– S.

To bring you up to date, I’m currently working on a story called ‘The Festival of Toxcatl’ for submission to the anthology History is Dead.

The anthology doesn’t pay that much ($25 + contributor’s copy) and I normally wouldn’t put something together for submission to such a low-paying market.*

However, in this case, the theme–historical zombie fiction–appealed to me on too many levels to pass up. In fact, three or four story ideas leapt to mind. But ‘The Festival of Toxcatl’ came to me fully-formed, and that’s a hard inspiration to pass up.

I have about 6000 words now (again, about twice the length I thought it would be) and hope to have the first draft wrapped up this week.

– S.

*Now, you might be thinking: “Who the hell does this guy think he is? Sells a couple of stories to pro markets and wins the Writers of the Future and suddenly he’s too good for small-press anthologies?” But I don’t mean it to sound harsh or judgmental. Permuted Press is a small horror press, and there’s generally not a lot of money in short fiction anyway, so there’s nothing wrong with their rates. In fact, another sale of mine was an original story to a forthcoming small-press Canadian anthology, North of Infinity III, for $100. And I generally really like the stuff I read out of these small presses and small magazines–sometimes, a lot more than stuff I see in the Big Three.

So, lest you get the wrong idea about me, I don’t expect this to be some kind of guaranteed sale, or like I’m deigning to send them a story because of any credentials I might have. I desperately want to sell to this anthology. I think it’s a great anthology idea and one which I’d very much like to read, regardless of whether my story is in it or not. Having a story in the kinds of books I’d want to read is even better 🙂

And I fully expect this story to have to fight for a place in the book like another other submission, which means I need to write the strongest, most compelling story I can. Whatever your sales experience, I think that it always comes down to a given editor liking a given story, so “best story wins” and that’s the great equalizer (unless you’re one of the Grand Masters, who could sell their grocery lists on name recognition alone if they wanted) .

But consider that for the same amount of time and effort it takes to produce something for a $25-a-story anthology, I could be writing something aimed at one of the bigger pro markets. And while pro rates are only around 5-6 c/word, that still means potentially several hundred dollars for a sale–US dollars, which are still worth fractionally more than the Canadian dollar, which means an even bigger pay-out. There’s not much money, but I’m in it for what there is 🙂

Plus, part of this is playing the game of trying to make it as a pro. Consider that my priority needs to be on sales to pro markets, because (besides money) if get a third pro sale I can be a full, voting member of SFWA, and I have to believe sales to pro markets look better to prospective agents and book editors.

For me, if I want to be a professional in this genre, then I feel I need to test myself in the most competitive markets and against the other professionals in the field–and that means the pro markets.

So, in general, I would pass on markets that pay $25…except that the chance of participating in this book was too good to pass up .

When last you’d heard an update about the progress of the Great Christmas Write-a-thon I was, hmmm, underperforming.

I will confess that the plan (getting three stories done over those two weeks) didn’t go quite as I’d hoped. I ended up getting exactly ONE story completed in that time–SHIPBREAKER. The story ended up being far more difficult to get working than I’d anticipated, so a lot of my time was eaten up trying to work through various character issues, plot problems, etc.

My estimate of its ultimate length was around 7500 words, and that it might need some trimming afterward to get it under that threshold (7500 words seems to be where editors stop seeing ‘short story’ and start seeing ‘novella’, and that can create problems for selling to markets–in this case an anthology whose upper-limit is 10 000 words).

However, SHIPBREAKER ended up being 9562 words long, and by printer’s rule that makes it a whopping 10 000 words long (!) Obviously WAY longer than I expected. Here’s how the per day breakdown went:

Dec 19: 26 (yeah, yeah, I know. Shut up)

Dec 20: 208

Dec 21: 927

Dec 22: 534

Dec 23: 633

Dec 24: 791

Dec 25: 476 (fairly respectable, I think, for it being Christmas Day, and me being all logey with turkey and cabbage rolls)

Dec 26: 466

Dec 27: 183 (hmm…I think the logey caught up with me…)

Dec 28: 1631 (booyah!)

Dec 29: 1431 (booyah, uhh, again! Dammit…)

Total Words Written: 7306

Average Daily Total Word Count: 664

So, I’ve sent it off to some readers and received their comments back. While all have offered very useful suggestions that I’ll use during my revisions, crazily enough a couple want me to make a novel out of the thing. Errp! That’s something to maybe consider down the road (I’d not really imagined writing a fantasy novel–I tend to do mostly SF) but my plan now is to finish another story for another anthology first and then turn to revising SHIPBREAKER by the end of February for submission.

I know I need to cut this one down from 10 000. Part of that will be easy–I suffer from a lot of first-draft-itis, which means that in the rush to get something on paper (err, screen) there are parts which tend to flabbiness, or repetitiveness, or repetitiveness, just as a result of me telling myself the story the first time. Later, I go back and produce what my favorite professor used to call “lean, sinewy prose” (that’s what he asked for in our essays, not what he ever said about my writing. I did five years of university and have two degrees, and can honestly say that while it taught me much about how to think and read critically, construct arguments, muster proofs, etc. I didn’t learn how to express my ideas clearly and/or artfully until I started writing fiction every day. So there you go–want to learn how to write? Then start writing.)

What gives me hope that I can actually wrangle this story–that I can break SHIPBREAKER, if you will–is that with ‘Borrowed Time’ I had to trim from 7500 words to 5000. I managed to do it, the story was stronger as a result (a little more breathless, I think), and the tale sold to the Under Cover of Darkness anthology.

Wish me luck.

– S.

Okay, okay. So it’s been a while since last I posted.

More than a while.

But I’ve been prodded by a number of people to get back at it. And of these a special thanks to my friend Darrell, who has always been good at keeping my feet to the fire when it comes to creative endeavors.

So expect a bunch of posts today to update things and then hopefully more frequent posts again after that.

TTFN

– S.

That’s more like it!

Thursday word count: 927

Yeah, yeah. It’s not 1000, but it’s close enough and my brain is clay. So shut up.

– S.

More news on the panel front. According to the latest Ad Astra e-mail update, I’m on (count ’em) THREE panels, not simply the one that I’d thought.

Cool.

Tentatively, the panels (and participants) are:

* Writing for Anthologies vs. Writing for Magazines (Jana Paniccia, Stephen Kotowych, Scott Mackay, Mike Rimar)

* Writers who Edit, Writers who work in Publishing (Jana Paniccia, Stephen Kotowych)

* Writers of the Future Anthology and Contest (Mike Rimar, Robert J. Sawyer, Stephen Kotowych, Tony Pi)

There are lots of panels that I might LIKE to participate in, however, as I’ll have only one story in print by then and only two more on the way I don’t want to overstep my actual expertise and/or importance.

It’s quite a kick to be on panels with Jana Paniccia and Robert J. Sawyer. Jana is co-editor of Under Cover of Darkness, the anthology that includes my first published work of fiction, ‘Borrowed Time’. And Rob is kind of my SF guru–everything I know about writing SF I stole from him 🙂

PLUS, there will be a theme game run throughout the weekend with clues involving UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS. I’m promised this will be uber-cool, but the exact details remain a mystery to even the contributors (or, at least, even to me). The conclusion of the game will coincide with the scheduled book launch with the authors at noon on the Sunday of Ad Astra.

There look to be a LOT of great panels this year. I can’t wait. There are lots I hope to attend–we’ll see how the schedule works out.

Okay–less blog, more fiction.

– S.

It goeth not well…

Wednesday’s word count: 208

Hmmm… In my defense, I did realize that I needed to make a major change in the plot to complicate things and that ate up a lot of time. Plus I’m competing for computer time with two brothers and a father who feel that futzing with Guitar Pro, WarCraft III, and Joytube’s Wordy are more important than helping me meet my daily word count.

Some Christmas spirit, eh? 🙂

– S.

PS: I have no one to blame but myself for my dad’s addiction to Wordy. It’s like Scrabble crack and I was his pusher. Alas.

Well, I’ve arrived safely at my parents’ place on Georgian Bay for an extended two-week Christmas break (the longest extended period off I’ve had, I realized, since I finished my Masters degree in late 2002–yikes!)

And lest you think I plan merely to watch Spike TV’s Star Trek: Voyager and James Bond marathons and drink eggnog until nutmeg oozes from my pores (which is a sorely tempting option for these two weeks, mind you) I plan instead the First Annual Great Christmas Write-a-thon.

As you may know (or more likely not know, and possibly not care) I tend to do much of my writing during lunch hours Monday through Friday. We don’t have a lunch room at the Press, so people just disappear behind closed office doors for an hour or so each day. Rob Sawyer’s advice once upon a time that I use that lunch hour to do something more productive than surf Wikipedia made a lot of sense. So I tend to reread what I wrote the day before, maybe edit a bit, and then bang out the new stuff.

Having done this going on four years now, I’ve got what creative muscles I possess prepared for an all-out one-hour sprint each weekday. I can pretty reliably get 500 words or so in an hour if I know where I’m headed (which isn’t always).

So given that I have two weeks off (and that there ain’t a lot doin’ up here) I’ve decided that I’ll set the bar a bit higher over my Christmas holidays. I’m thinking that I’ll try for 1000 words a day for the next fourteen days and really get some stuff done. Given that my short stories tend to average between 5000 and 7500 words, I could get almost three stories completed.

However, I’m hopeful I might get more than that done.

The first project I’ll be finishing up will be a story called ‘Shipbreaker’, for which I already have about 2500 words done. Then, I will be revising for submission a story called ‘Gagiid’ (of which I’m actually exceptionally proud–partly because it’s the first story of mine that involves no dialog whatsoever). After that, I’d like to work on another partly-written story (1300 words) tentatively called ‘Wordhord’, inspired by my friend and former roommate Patrick, one of the world’s future foremost Anglo-Saxonists.

I’d like to have ‘Shipbreaker’ done not later than Saturday 23 December. ‘Gagiid’ will likely not take longer than one day to revise, so that’s Sunday 24 December (Christmas Eve!) I can start in on ‘Wordhord’ on Christmas Day and have it done not later than Saturday 30 December. That’s assuming that each story ends up being around 7500 words. They may not, meaning I could get them done and start in on a third new story before heading back to Toronto for New Year’s.

We’ll see. I’ll try and post each day’s word count. Wish me luck!

– S.

Was poking around Amazon.com today (well, the .ca version, but they’re essentially the same) looking for the release date of Under Cover of Darkness (it’s 6 February 2007, by the by) and I noticed the promotional copy that’s up for the book:

“FOURTEEN ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES OF SECRET AGENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS THAT HAVE LEFT THEIR MARK ON TIME AND SPACE…

From the true role of the Freemasons to Chronographers who steal pieces of time to an assassin hired by a group that reweaves the threads of history, here are fourteen imaginative tales of time and space and realms beyond our own-all watched over, preserved, or changed by those who work covertly under cover of darkness. “

That’s my story–the bit I put in bold–mentioned on AMAZON.COM! There’s also mention of my story on the back jacket copy. Now, that publisher’s promo copy on Amazon will likely be replaced eventually with a quote from Bookseller, or Publishers Weekely, or Kirkus, or Locus, etc. But for now, having my story mentioned like that–hightlighted in the publisher’s promotional material–is, well, pretty cool.

From what I’ve heard about the other stories in the collection, I think people will be really pleased with the book. I for one can’t wait to read all the other stories.

– S.