Writing

Well, if you didn't see the May 1 broadcast of Modern Family, with Jay struggling to create a page of his spy thriller, well, I found it hysterical.

--Brian.

I've just been sucked under by a work-nami.

That and the current piece I'm working on is not going well. I'm encountering some kind of personal resistance to the topic, I guess. Call it Horror-block.

--Brian.

Well, to quote Douglas Adams, "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

While I always meet deadlines at work, I am not so successful at writing. This time the issue was I spend too much time doing nothing in the story. I realized this was a problem and came up with a different approach angle, but just ran out of time.

--Brian.

I took another look at the duotrope deadline calendar and it's like the whole year has three to five times more deadlines than the last time I looked. Tons of horror/scifi/fantasy deadlines.

Aie.

And it looks like I can give "Heartbreaker" another polish, provided I ever finish "Bitter End" for that revenge anthology on the 15th of June.

Right now, "Bitter End" has all the appeal of a week-old bowl of oatmeal. I'm at 1,200 ...

This is preliminary notice that I know a publisher that will be running a kind of "submit a cover" art contest. More details coming soon, but those of you interested, please take note. Exposure only, no actual pay (these are for token pay anthologies, after all...), but your work will be "out there" on the various sites as the cover.

--Brian.

Well, given I haven't posted Books in October, November, or December, or for that matter, January, it's pretty obvious I've fallen behind on what I plan to do with this blog.

End of January is turning into a surprise sprint at the end of a marathon, so I'm going to try to do a little catch up in February.

What can I say? I closed on a house in December and moved in. Then there were all the window treatments, and every day off to work on those turned into a half day ...

My story "Industrial Disease" is in the Live and Let Undead anthology edited by Hollie Snider.

Live and Let Undead Anthology.

If you're interested, give it a try.

(While the cover may imply some kind of.... well... adult relationship between zombie and the living, my story is not like that.....)

--Brian.

Here's a concept question: Do readers care that much about typos?

I got into this discussion once (poorly) over on some random "I hate self-published books" type of blog. All the reviewer did was accept free copies and quit reading after reaching a set number of typos (which was always before the end of the book, mind).

But is it the story that a normal reader is looking for, or excellent proofreading?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting ...

Rymfire eBooks: State of Horror: Massachusetts Horror Stories set in Massachusetts 14 Jul 2011

Leap Books: Spirited Anthology Ghostly stories for young adults 15 Jul 2011

C. P. Anthologies: Memory Eater Anthology, The The Memory Eater 15 Jul 2011

Machine of Death Anthology (Vol. 2) A machine that tells you how you're going to die 15 Jul 2011

Glasschord Future Shock 15 Jul 2011

Anthropomorphic Dreams: Human/Furry Fiction Anthology ...

I have a second story accepted in a zombie anthology.

We'll see if I can get all the revisions done in time. See, I was the 19th choice in a field of 18, then someone dropped out. Which means my story needs the most work and I have the least time to revise it.

Stay tuned.

Great advice from the editor, and it's really jarred me out of my previous "all that needs to be fixed are the typos" style of revisions--shuffling sentence order around ...

These are all 2,500 - 7,500 word stories. I haven't seen all of these on duotrope (the folks at duotrope are pretty overwhelmed), so I figured I'd mention them here and everyone watching could get advance notice.

State of Horror: Massachusetts - Opens June 1 - closes July 14. (rymfireebooks.com)

Post-Apocalyptic Raids. Opens June 15th 2011 - closes August 1st 2011. (special note: No zombies). Future zombie anthologies are planned so I'll try to keep you zombie fans, ...

Got the first royalty statement for State of Horror: Texas today. It's just out and sales are starting to come in, we'll see if things pick up and in the meantime, keeping at work. For an anthology with five stories it's doing pretty well, I think. (Trying to keep my expectations low based on intimations from Bird by Bird, among others. Hope I can think of something else to promote the story and anthology but for now that's in the germinating stage.

I got comments on a rejected ...

Well, it's no secret I send things out based on the theme calendars on duotrope and the condensed list based on it that I post here.

But one of the anthologies I submitted to had a great email from the editor that was sent to all the submitters at the close of the submissions period.

I asked Hollie if I could share it here and with her permission, here it is:

(Edit: This isn't the whole email, just the good bits about editing).

Originally Posted by Hollie Snider

A FEW QUESTIONS

...

Reposted material culled from duotrope.com

(these are the one's specifically on my personal deadline calendar. There are others I will try to post this month, but later.)

Wily Writers Speculative Fiction Dystopian or Apocalyptic or Post-apoc 5/31/2011
Night Terrors Anthology (Vol. II) Horror 5/31/2011
Children of the Moon: A Werewolf Anthology Werewolves 5/31/2011
Wily Writers Speculative Fiction Masters of Horror Story Contest 5/31/2011
...

"Her expression was curious, and not unsympathetic." (p. 145 in my version of Men and Cartoons, Jonathan Lethem, in "Super Goat Man".)

Don't get me wrong, I typically like Lethem, but this is a linguistic tic I notice more and more these days. From hearing something similar during a reading on KFAI, to another one somewhere in Stephen King's Duma Key, it's one thing I'm resolved not to do..

King himself makes a similar comment about "Zestfully" ...