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. 

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.

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.

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!