It seems that the folks at Beam Me Up have enjoyed another pair of my stories and will be podcasting them in the next weeks (one of them over this weekend, probably). I will, of course, let everyone know when they come online, and that kind of thing.
I also managed 150 words into the alternate history, which is not a huge count, but is much better than the alternative, which was zero. I need to finish the first draft ASAP, polish it and get it subbed.
As I prepare to order a pizza and watch the Super Bowl (fortunately, I can get the US audio in English, as the Mexican Spanish announcers are completely unbearable), I'd like to show you all the ToC for Belong, a speculative antho about migration from Ticonderoga Publications:
- "Prisoner of the Faceless", Kurt Bachard
- "Namug", Gustavo Bondoni
- "Speaking English", Stephanie Burgis
- "Norumbega", Linda Donahue
- "Ice", Zdravka Evtimova
- "A Friendly Gesture", Chet Gottfried
- "Green Green Grass", Donna Hanson
- "I Belong to this Red Land", Edwina Harvey
- "Initiation", Sonia Helbig
- "Feather-light", George Ivanoff
- "Trassi Udang", Patty Jansen
- "Border Crossing", Penelope Love
- "Rekindle the Sun", Mary E Lowd
- "United", Jennifer Moore
- "All Tales Must End", Michelle Muenzler
- "The Ballad of Ptoresk", Simon Petrie
- "Slow Cookin'", Angela Rega
- "The Gift", Barry Rosenberg
- "Deeper than Flesh and Closer", Carol Ryles
- "The Hollow Ones", Kylie Seluka
- "Song of the Blackbird", Sarah Totton
- "Merpeople", Gwen Veazey.
A lovely little ToC which I'm proud to be a part of!
I'd also advise everyone to steer clear of Myth-Chief, the latest of the Myth books by the late Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye. This one is just plain bad, and I sincerely hope the last one Asprin wrote before he died is better!
So, as I've said elsewhere, I'll be rooting for the Colts in the Super Bowl, because I think they just deserve it more. I promise that if the Saints make it back next year, I'll be in their corner!
So, a bit of a catch-all today. No actual news, but, as always, I enjoy reading the work of undead bloggers, especially their new year's resolutions. If this one doesn't make you snicker, you need help.
Stuff that's actually related to me has also been happening, as the ToC for the Multiethnic issue of the Innsmouth Free Press has been announced. Some familiar names there, especially Ekaterina Sedia, whose work I've always admired. This issue will contain my story "Eyes in the Vastness of Forever", and it also has a tale from
The people at the Marooned blog keep giving me nice mentions, and make me wish I'd written more stories set on Mars. A nw note in theTo-do list. Anyone who hasn't heard that podcast yet (and I've blogged it so often that there's really no excuse) will be interested t know that yes, it is me reading the story.
And despite what I said yesterday right here, I got some writing done. 500 words between an alt-history story and The Malakiad.
Well, as most of you are already well aware, this Livejournal is mainly about writing (and, once again, I apologize to all my non-writing friends who are bombarded with it daily on their Facebook news feeds). Nevertheless, I sometimes admit, sotto voce, that the 22 hours of the day in which I am NOT writing are also important.
To see just how important they are, I have come up with a little list that shows how the things that go on around me (including a couple of writing-related bits that I threw in for comparison) affect my writing productivity.
Here's how it works. Take your normal daily writing input (in my case 1000 words a day or so) and add or subtract words as explained by the following list. I'll start with a couple of linear ones and work my way to the less obvious stuff.
- Receiving a rejection. 100 word loss of productivity due to general despondency.
- Making a sale. Writing binge. 2000 extra words driven by the feeling that yes, you'll never get another rejection as long as you live and that the writing world has finally recognized your genius. Generally lasts one day (or less, if the next rejection arrives on the same day).
- Day job stress. 500 word loss.
- Quitting or losing your day job. Normally followed by a couple of days of zero writing and then a phase of organized determination (I WILL write now that I have the time) of double the output. If this goes on for more than a week, you will eventually return to your original writing level, whatever that was.
- Breakup / divorce. Lose all capacity to write for a fewdays or weeks or months (this depends on whether a) you're one of those people who believe that writing is more important than human contact or b) you are a lazy slacker), followed by a gradual return to regular wordcounts.
- Two of your friends break up the same week. Lose all wordcount for the weekend as you accompany them to the beach to make sure they don't drown themselves.
- Meeting someone new. Lose 2000 words a day. In my case, this leads to negative wordcounts, so I actually should be deleting things I wrote earlier. In reality, when this happens, it's probably better just to shelve the writing for a couple of days, because, and trust me on this, you're not going to be thinking about the words.
- Why isn't she returning my calls? All right, this is like the one above mixed with the rejection one. When you are in this state, you are a danger to yourself and to poor slush readers who usually aren't to blame for your unfortunate mental condition. Do yourself and the civilized word a favor and uninstall your word processor.
- Meeting another new person. Well, the wordcount effect will be the same as the first new person, but maybe you're trying too hard. Don't you think that many new people in three days is a bit much? Maybe you should stay at home and relax a little. Build a huge jigsaw puzzle or something.
- Building a huge jigsaw puzzle. 1000 word loss of daily wordcount due to tired eyes.
- Earthquakes, government collapse, war, famine, death in the family or the great Chicago fire. No change in wordount output. Are we mice or are we writers? (all right, if you get shot in the civil unrest that follows, I'll give you a 500 word breather for one day)
- Why is she still not returning my calls? Maybe she died in the fire. Get over her and start writing, you lazy bum!
- Well, at least there's the new one I met last week. I mean it, get your fingers on the keyboard or we'll throw you out of the writing group!
I haven't written a single word since Friday. I leave it as an excercise to the reader to try to mix and match the above reasons and see if they can piece together the last two weeks of my life! Have fun!
I haven't been talking about the state of my forthcoming books recently, for a variety of reasons, most having to do wih the fact that I always seem to have something else to post about (and others having to do with my forgetting to do so). I've decided to do a little roundup here.
- Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (SF, mostly reprint, but with original stories leading off each section) should be coming out in print form during the first half of 2010 from Cyberwizard productions. The editor assigned to this one sent me the first story edits on Friday, and I found them nearly perfect, so I'm truly chuffed about this one.
- The Curse of El Bastardo is also advancing, as the book itself is in the copy-editing phase and creative work has begun on the cover art. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to seeing this artwork! This one is coming from Daverana Enterprises, and the contract is for both ebooks and print (though the focus at thee moment is on ebooks). It looks like another 2010 release.
There are also two more collections in the works. One is a fantasy collection of adventure-driven S&S which has been accepted, but which I have to be mysterious about because the contract hasn't been signed yet. At the moment, it has no title. The second collection is a mix of reprint and original SF work under consideration by a different publisher.
Finally, I also have two novels complete. Outside is currently under consideration by a publisher I'd really love to be published by. The query was deemed intriguing enough to merit the request of the first three chapters. Seige, OTOH, is sitting in my hard drive, polished and ready to go while I get the query letter up to snuff.
In completely unrelated news, I watched another Buster Keaton flick from the 1001 Movies - Steamboat Bill, Jr. doesn't add all that much to what I'd already seen from him except for yet another brilliant stunt sequence, and the famous falling facade scene.
Not much writing done over the weekend, although I dig get some done on Friday (a little over 1100 words among a couple of WiPs). But the weekend itself was outstanding. Friends (and not-exactly-friends) old and new over a three-day spree which left me feeling a lot more optimistic about life in general... Good stuff.
Also, the racing season got under way with the 24 Hours of Daytona. A fun race, in which the right manufacturer won (any time a Porsche-powered car wins a major endurance event, it makes me feel like all is right in the world, even if this one had the wrong number of cylinders). But, running the first few laps under yellow because it was raining was absolutely disgusting. Sports car racing isn't NASCAR. There are real drivers there, people who are paid to race in the rain. Hell, if we're going to run around behind the pace car, I could have done it. Pedro Rodriguez is probably spinning in his grave.
Finally, an interesting little site which seems to be aiming at collecting all the online reviews by every reviewer (the link is to my reviews page). I'm not really certain what they hopt to gain from this, but it does make it easier to find reviews...
Every once in a while the 1001 movies you must see before you die list comes through with a movie that absolutely blows your mind. The Passion of Joan of Arc was one such film. The plot, of course, is pretty much routine - excerpts of her trial, and we all know how THAT ends -and the backdrops and scenery pretty lame, especially for 1928 but the acting by Renée Jeanne Falconetti is simply incredible. It is a silent movie in which her face appears in close-up more than half the time, and her face is what tells most of the story. Amazing.
Also managed some writing: 650 words into the alternate history story and a further 500 into The Malakiad.
In other news related to my own writing, we go back to a review site that I've linked to before, but this time with a new review of Dead Science. The first of the spotlight customer reviews was new to me - he didn't enjoy my story ("Thanks for the Memories") particularly, but he did refer to it as "competently done", so not too bad. The true visionary, of course, is the second of the spotlight reviewers, who chose my tale as one of his favorites!
Third tidbit of the day might be particularly relevant to all the writers on my flist. There's a new site up called Find a Writing Group, whose name, I believe, is pretty self-explanatory. It's a tool for writers looking for writing groups in different geographical locations and is the brainchild of my friend and fellow writer
Finally, the obligatory word count report. Last night was pretty productive. I managed 1050 words into a short alternate history story and a further 650 into The Malakiad. Definitely happy with the wordcounts.
To celebrate, I would like to do a link swap. Anyone interested in posting writing-related links to my website in exchange for a link to yours, please leave me a note in the comments section or email me at gbondoni (at) hotmail (dot) com .
On the writing front, I rewrote a dark fantasy story yesterday, and have received an edited version from the publication back already (some editors are a HUGE pleasure to work with), so I need to have a look at that one sometime today.
As for my reading, I have finished the Jeeves Omnibus 5, which holds Much Obliged Jeeves and Aunts Aren't Gentlemen as well as three shorter pieces. The problem with having a writing career as long as Wodehouse's is that, sometimes, you will write novels when in your late eighties and early nineties (yes, you read that right). These will likely not be as good as some of the earlier work. That is precisely the case with the two novels in this volume; although they are still better than nearly everything else out there (and much better than anything you could pick up at an airport), they are still not representative of Wodehouse in md-season for. Still recommended, but not the first choice in the series.
The good folks at Beam Me Up have podcasted my Marooned Award-winning story "The ELcano Syndrome" on their 193rd transmission. You can listen to it here. This one was also broadcast live on WRFR radio, which, needless to say marks my first ever live appearance! It is also my second podcast, and the first in my own voice!
In other news, I wrote 1100 words split between a couple of stories about Etruscans: one a straight fantasy and the other is an alternative history story.
I also received a rewrite request - so now I have two rewrites in progress. Hope to do them honor!
In writing news, I split yesterday's 1500 words among a couple of projects: my comic fantasy novel Malakiad got 1000 while my fantasy short got the other 500.
Also watched another pair of the 1001 Movies: The Docks of New York and Un Chien Andalou,. The first is a classic story of love and redemption from 1928, one of the last great silent films from Hollywood, while the second is a surrealist piece from 1929 only 16 minutes long created by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. This little piece of strangeness is highlighted (if that's the word I want) by a scene in which a woman's eye is sliced open, and a guy drags a couple of interestingly loaded grand pianos. Pretty strange stuff.
Now, it's my turn to give a maxim founded on my own opinion and nothing else: a submission is worth four thousand words.
What?
All right, I'll explain. It's a bit pedestrian, but it's logical. An average short story is about 4K words, so whenever you have one sitting in your hard drive going nowhere, it represents 4000 words of fiction which you sweated, cursed and suffered over. I don't know about you, but I try to write a thousand words a day, so that represents four days work just sitting there, going nowhere. So whenever I send out a sub (or send a rejected piece back out), I feel like I'm doing much more than just complying with the writer's bible - I feel like I'm getting a huge amount of work done with a single email.
So now you have another reason to have quicck turnaround times on rejected stories: they're worth 4K of daily wordcount!
In other news, I watched The Crowd (1928), another of the 1001 movies to see before you die. This one is an experimental piece about the realities of day to day life in the big city and was both boring and dreary - I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but students of cinema (it was significant for a number of reasons, none of which made it any better as a film).
I just saw a great review of the Shadows and Light anthology which includes my story "Sword of the Rasna". Seems the reviewer was VERY impressed, which makes the fact that they specifically mentioned my story even more special. You can see the review here. Hats off to Christopher Heath and Bill Ward, friends from SF Reader, who scooped the plaudits for writing the reviewer's favorite pair of stories.
I also continue to clean up my backlog of contributor's copies (the objective is to reach the point in which I'm less than a couple of months behind). I read Jupiter XXIV (containing my story "Sides of the Coin) this time. As always, Jupiter is a pure SF mag with a great selection of tales. I never tire of the style that editor Ian Redman selects - I usually enjoy this one more than many bigger names. The lead story in this issue, "Black Water" by David Conyers is absolutely brilliant. Why is it that well-written stories set in future Africa are so compelling? Anyhow, this issue is highly recommended (can be purchased here).
No new writing over the weekend, but a good tan has been achieved!
The movie itself was good enough. I liked this better than the Chaplin stuff I'd seen, but my vote still goes to Keaton. A fun little romp, though, with a certain amount of emotional depth as well.
I am currently taking a weekend on the beach, and my last writing was on Thursday - 1100 words among two novels and a story.
What you've forgotten, of course, is that those copies aren't just going out to contributors. They are also being read by reviewers, and if you're doing your job right, high-profile reviewers.
A few weeks ago I shared a very nice German review of Albedo #37, which chose my story as the best of the issue. Truth in blogging forces me to show the other side of this story: Lois Tilton's review of this issue can be found here (scroll down to the "zines reviewed" list and click on Albedo). Let's just say she didn't agree with my worldbuilding... I'm always interested in how the same story can affect different readers in suchh diametrically opposite ways - which is one of the joys of writing, of course.
In other news, you still have time to vote for my story "Dangerous Skies" on the P&E poll (I'm especially looking at the people who read this on Facebook - you don't have a hundred writer friends, you have ONE. Get in there, read the story and, if you enjoy it, vote! It takes a minute!). Link is here.
Years later, I encountered the name again, this time raved about by Douglas Adams, and I just had to find out what the hype meant, so I went and bought a book called Leave it to Psmith. I was hooked forever.
Not only does Wodehouse create a world that we'd all want to live in, with his genteel English country house settings, but his sentences are so well crafted that I truly believe that Asimov's original comparison is deeply unfair... to Wodehouse. Plus, when you have the added benefit of the fact that his work is often laugh-out-loud funny, you have a winner.
All of this is my roundabout way of getting to the fact that I finished reading The Jeeves Omnibus Volume 4 (available at Amazon UK, but not Amazon US), which contains the novels Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Jeeves in the Offing and Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves. This is Wodehouse at near mid-season form, and should be read by every writer who wishes to learn how to craft a perfect sentence. Plus, you will enjoy it. A lot.
Anyhow, life goes on and while I wrote no new words yesterday I did something just as important: I composed the query letter for Siege. I need to rework it a little, but I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out.
Other interesting news is that I have reason to believe that the Read Raw Antho has been released. This one contains my story "Aulus Fabius Ambustus" - and I'll let everyone know where you can pick up a copy when they go on sale somewhere linkable.
Last, but certainly not least, I wrote 1100 words last night. 500 into a new alternate history story and 600 into Timeless. I also cleared some of my backlog as to editing, organizing collections for pitches and putting my music into some kind of order.

