Got confirmation that my story being edited has been accepted (this is the one that I didn't give many details about before) by the Things Are Not What They Seem anthology!

In other news, Demon Minds has confirmed that my story "Basement Days" has been selected for their Fall print edition - so it will be appearing both online and in print - coolness.  Will let everyone know when it's available.

Writing yesterday was slow - had an exhausting day of death by Keynote / Powerpoint, and by evening I was only good for 300 words.  Still, I'm happy that I was able to sit down and actually get some work done.  And nothing helps anyone feel more like a writer than learning that two stories will see the light of day. 

August is being good to me, both from the viewpoint of successes from already written stories, to the producing of wwordage in the novel and new stories.  

This morning's good news was that Abandoned Towers magazine has purchased reprint rights to my story "As Advertised", which originally appeared in Jupiter SF in 2007.  It will be appearing in the March 2009 issue of the print magazine.  The venue looks like a fun mix of SF, Fantasy and unclassifiable, and needs both stories and poetry...  And they're actively looking for quality writing.

Also, since I was last here, I put 600 words into the SF novel and also wrote a complete story: 2100 words for the Malpractice antho.  I was truly happy with last week's output of two stories.

The next project is to write a story for Cinema Spec, which is coming from Raven Electrick.  Nice premise, for which I have a fun idea.  I need to think about the plot a little bit, since they're looking for really short work, and I want to make certain I send them something nice and tight.  

In a burst of productivity last night, I finished the draft of the World is Dead story - 1800 words yesterday, to close out at 3600.  I'm quite happy with the result.  I aim to have it subbed on monday, well before the deadline.

In addition to this, I plotted and began my story for the "Malpractice" antho (65 words so far), which is my next project with a deadline, although there aree still a couple of months before it closes.

Other writerly things ocurred, as SF scope published the reults of the Return to Luna antho that had already been announced by Hadley Rille Boooks over the weekend.  This is a good thing, since all publicity is positive - and it also appears that I have won a year's membership in the NSS...  Very cool list of judges there, as well!

Finally, I finished reading Ken Follet's The Key to Rebecca a couple of days ago.  A thriller set during the Second World War, it delivers what you'd expect: action, suspense and sex.  A fun book which I can recommend to fans of the genre. A fun book, if not world-shaking.

A Review of Flashing Swords 11  can be found here, at The Fix.  They say nice things about my story "Promised Land", and have joined my list of favorite people (at least until they whack me in a future review!!).  Thanks to 

shade53

Finished Intruder in the Dust, by William Faulkner (I promised to give him one more try, and now I have!).  This is another infuriating Faulkner entry in which the style contributes to, but at the same time complicates, the mood and the story.  It is written in what has been described as a "Stream of consciousness" style, and by this I have to assume they mean disjointed, ungrammatical and repetitive.  It's frustrating because what Faulkner is trying to do is create a mood, a feeling - and he does this very well.  But I also feel that the extremes to which he takes the narrative style in this particular book actually hinders the effect more than it helps.  Eternal sentences do not create mood, no matter how hard the literati applaud.  But this time, I knew what to expect (in essence the polar opposite of Hemingway's terse, effective prose), so was less  disappointed and actually managed to enjoy the mood that Faulkner creates, even while cursing the threee word sentences.  Time and opportunity allowing, he might get a third chance.

As to my own writing, I got 500 words into the sci fi story / novella (I don't know how long it will be in the end) and an additional 400 into the zombie story I'm writing for the "the World is Dead" antho.

I know that most of the people reading this are writers or editors of some sort - and most of you write at least some speculative fiction.  So here's some news that will interest you and maybe help you find a home for that MS you've put together.

Daverana Enterprises is actively looking for quality novel-length genre work (I trust you guys to send the best), with a separate editor for fantasy, horror, etc .   Unlike a lot of small presses, this one is run by people who have done it all and seen it all, and have either written for or edited (or both!) top-line publications.  It's a writer-friendly, professional place to send your work with PR and marketing people to take care of the evil side of things.

I do some writing for them (and am part of the team, doing "general writing tasks"), and have been very impressed by what I've seen so far, and the extremely professional appproach to putting books out there.  Go have a look.


Meanwhile, following all the positive news of the past few days, progress has resumed on my own writing - more than a thousand words since we laast met:  800 on a new story for the "The World is Dead" Antho and 300 on the SF novel.  I also finished typing the corrections to the neurotic vampire story and subbed it.  Will post a WIP update soon.

How did you spend Christmas?  I got up at 4:45 in the morning, caught a cab to the airport and flew to Argentina.  Ten hours later, I was surrounded by loved ones, which is pretty cool.

Air travel always plays havoc with any books I might be reading.  I invariably finish them on airplanes (yes, I know that superstition says that you're not supposed to finish books on airplanes, but I always do it and have yet to meet my end in a fiery crash - and I travel on airplanes A LOT).

This flight allowed me to finish reading "The Doom that Came to Sarnath", my first ever collection of Lovecraft stories.  How can a published author of both science fiction and fantasy not have read any Lovecraft before his 32nd birthday?  Weeeelll....  Truth is, I got hooked on Specfic through Asimov and Heinlein on the Sci fi side and light Fantasy (Asprin, Gardner) on the Fantasy side.  I eventually read Tolkien and moved to heroic and epic fantasy, but never realy went for the darker stuff or horror, excet the "must read" classics such as Dracula, Poe and Phantom of the Opera.  So no Lovecraft, even though I've been aware of his work since I was a teenager.

The edition of "Sarnath" that I read is a Del Rey reprint of the Ballantine "Adult Fantasy" paperback from 1971 (it's obviously not a new thing - anything referred to as "adult fantasy" today would get banned by church and state before reaching the shelves - and then it would immediately sell a million copies on the interent).  It's complete, including Lin Carter's introduction and comments, which add a lot to the reading, placing each story in context and telling you quite a bit about the author - which, in this case was invluabe.

The stories themselves are not part of the Cthulhu mythos, except peripherally, and come before the classic Lovecraft.  So this might not be the best selection of his work (even Carter admits that some of the stories in the collection are "uninspired").  Nevertheless, this is definitely a great place to start if you intend, as I do, to read more of Lovecraft's work.  It allows you to observe the eveolution of the writer and the genesis of the ideas that spawned the mythos, which makes for fascinating reading.  Now, I have to read the rest, of course.

As to the stories themselves, they seem to follow Poe's style (probably intentionally) a little too closely for easy reading, and don't break much new ground.  The horors are pretty much a rehash of Victorian ideas in most cases, told in the first person.  Entertaining and well-written, just not very original.  Of these, the best are probably "The Tomb" and "The Festival".  More original are the title story and "The Nameless City", which are dark fantasy of a little wider scope.  Finally a couple of oddites: "In the Walls of Eryx" is a space opera ocurring on venus, somehting not normally associated with this author, and there's also a collaboration with Houdini.

All in all, an enjoyable place to start the Lovecraftian adventure, especially when one knows that this is the appetizer and the main course is supposed to be unbelievable...  Will tell you what I think once I've read the rest!