Free Fiction

A bit of a disagreement within SFWA has lead to Monday, 23 April, being dubbed International Pixel-Stained Tehnopeasant Day. It stems from a disagreement about posting work in the internet for free. I'll not go into the sordid details. If you really want to know, you can google it.

What does this mean for you? Many writers will be posting free work online. If you'd like to read mine, click the link at right to go to my home page. You'll find my story What a Difference a Day Makes there.

Two More Sales

Heard friday that the new online magazine "Darker Matter" wants my story "Chaos Theory" for issue 4. Heard today that online magazine "The Martian Wave" wants my story "Oh, Mallary!" I'll post when they are available as both are free publications.

Story Live at Alien Skin

My flash parody went live this evening at Alien Skin magazine.

http://www.alienskinmag.com/flash5.htm

Sigh

Aargh! I've been infected with a virus that emails spam. Norton detects a dozen emails at a time, most of them caught either by Norton or my ISP. Still being stuck on dial-up probably saved me from hundreds of Japanese spam filter lists. That seems to be where most of the spam is headed.

Still, randomly it happens with my email software closed. Norton can't catch it. Windows detects something on startup, but the Microsoft virus software can't find it. I'm looking at having to format my hard drive.

There are advantages to that option. I have trouble with my CD-Rom drive also. Can't install any software. Fortunately, I have a laptop. Unfortunately, it has no anti-virus software. This may be a long-term project with convincing yet again all the software manufacturers that I'm reinstalling, not pirating. Oi.

New Feature on Web Site

I just added a feature to the bibliography page on my web site. After each fiction listing, there is now a hyperlink called Info. Click on the link and you will be taken to a page that provides the details fo the story, an excerpt, quotes from any reviews, and a little bit of the story behind the story.

Sale - Kfzhrbfl

Alien Skin magazine accepted my story "Kfzhrbfl" for their April/May 2007 issue. It's a goofy little flash fiction piece that probably found the right home. It's also the goofiest title I've ever used.

The story is something of a parody on neophyte science fiction writers, who tend to give aliens unpronoucable names. I'll post the link when the issue is out.

Two more shorts out

Finished two of the three short stories I had been working on. One went to Analog, the other went to Asimov's.

The interesting thing I tried this time was writing inside the universe where my novels take place. One story involves Ike Mudge, the Neanderthal clone. In fact, it's a novel excerpt, except I haven't written that chapter yet. Hopefully, the short stands on its own. The other story is an action story about Ike's son, Kinji.

The other short I have in progres is a modern horror story. It's my first real attempt at writing a pure horror story, and so far, I'm pleased with it.

I just started a sequel to The Adjoa Gambit, my story that appeared in Intergalactic Medicine Show back in October. Between the two when-I-have-time shorts and the novel, I'm keeping busy. Added another 2000 words to the novel this evening. I'm up to 46,000 words. Considering the original version of this novel only hit 74,000 words, I'm definitely adding word count this draft. I still expect to hit 120,000 by the time it's finished.

Finally reviewed

Tangent Online finally reviewed issue #3 of Intergalactic Medicine Show. You can find it here. It's not a bad review, it's not a good review. It's a book report. Still, it's nice to have good things said about the characters.

Little Adjoa has a grasp of "headology" that Terry Pratchett’s Granny Weatherwax would approve of. I think the Procs are in for a rough time.

Seems like the reviewer, Janice Clark, is expecting more Adjoa. I have considered writing a sequel and will probably do it eventually. The story I have in mind will be considerably different than The Adjoa Gambit, darker and perhaps less certain in the outcome. Definitely more dangerous.

We'll see when I get to it. I have three short stories in progress at the moment, in addition to the novel in progress.

Challenge - Preamble

My friend and fellow Codexian writer James Maxey tagged me in a chain cascade to post five things few people know about me. I need to put some thought into this one, so while I do that, I thought I'd participate in something that some other Codexians are doing. Alliette de Bodard started things, but I discovered this on Mary Robinette Kowal's blog (linked at right). We're posting the first line of our last five stories.

"It is incredible how one person can have so much influence over the success or failure of an organization." from The Mysterious Marcus Sedrik

"Costanze Mozart looked out the carriage window at the fireball racing through the twilight sky." - from K.622

"Transmissions from Earth took forever to get to the asteroid belt." - Oh! Mallary!

"Ted Barlow pulled into one of the few cleared spots in the plowed area near the main observatory building on top of Mount Hamilton." - from Flare: Lick Observatory

"It's funny how everything seemed so peaceful as the timer counted down to flip-over." - from A Nice Day for a Walk

Fiction Sale

I just sold my short story "Magnetic Monopoly" to David Lee Summers at Tales of the Talisman. The story should appear in the September '07 issue.

The story was a Writers of the Future quarter finalist, and was written as part of a captive contest for the writers group Codex.

I met David Lee Summers at Coppercon 26 (fall of '06) and we got along pretty well. Networking is essential in this business, but DLS wouldn't have purchased the story if he didn't like it.