Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

I have a question that may be dumb: would it be unethical to write a blog that was completely fictional, using fictional characters, based in a real place, but not tell anyone it was a work of fiction? I know there’s been some flack lately over phony memoirs (which is clearly unethical, unlike what I’m proposing), but I’m not wanting to write a memoir. This isn’t a story of my own past, but an ongoing story written in blog format. And I’d rather not reveal right away that it’s a work of fiction because in my mind that would minimize interest. I can see someone reading a few blog posts and thinking, “Hey, this is pretty cool,” but then clicking the site disclaimer link to see the big “This is a work of fiction” banner, click out never to return. I’m genuinely in the dark on this, and would appreciate any opinion I can get…

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

I love the Big Idea series John Scalzi is doing. I like reading about the genesis of an idea, how it came to be written. If I had an opportunity to show John Scalzi my Big Idea–which I don’t, since the book is not published–I might tell him that my idea has a lot to do with bringing science to fantasy. It might look something like this:

I love stories where there are invisible worlds set within the world we live in. The idea that someone is right there, standing next to you, but you can’t see them because they’re in this other place. The first time I remember thinking about that was in high school, when we were talking about the Mayan culture that just disappeared off the face of the Earth, without a trace. While everyone else was thinking drought or war or famine, I was thinking that they must have evolved into a higher state, and then transitioned into a separate reality from the physical one we can see.

Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint…there are a lot of writers who utilize the “world within a world” plot to great effect, but they always seemed to miss one important detail that I always wanted to see expounded upon: how did the invisible world come to be in the first place? Once I began wondering in that direction, the book Modern-Day Mythica wrote itself.

The story evolved from the concept of an energy mass that encircles the globe, that flows across the surface of the Earth like a river, from north to south. That energy is called the Wash. And everywhere that the Wash touches ground it forms pockets of reality within reality, some large and some small, attainable by certain doorways which are difficult to find and even more difficult to access, unless you really know what you’re doing. But to simply go that far with the idea still wouldn’t have satisfied my curiosity of how the Wash itself came to be, in order to form these pockets of reality. And that was the point where the idea became my Big Idea. The complexity of the concept is vast, but it fits perfectly within the scientific laws of the universe, if you can accept that there is one ingredient in the universal stew that remains undetected and unaccounted for: the energy of the Wash itself, which originates from a celestial body once in orbit around the Earth, when the Earth had two moons in the sky.

The implications of this are much more far-reaching than might initially be thought of: the presence of a moon that is unaccounted for, that disappeared some ten thousand years ago and is unrecorded except perhaps in some arcane hieroglyphs drawn on cave walls, could have a devastating impact on how science looks at history. With two moons, Earth’s time line could shorten considerably. Things that might take millions of years today, such as the formation of mountain ranges, might have only taken thousands of years in an environment where there was so much more gravitational pull on the planet’s surface. The tides would have been greater, earthquakes and volcanoes much more frequent…essentially, everything that science has applied to a timeline would have to be compressed into a much tighter margin, because things would have been happening so much faster than we can account for today. This is important because it enables the scenario where the ages of mammals and dinosaurs could have overlapped, and it is entirely feasible in the real world. Indeed, this is a scenario which is entirely possible, one which I do not believe can be proven incorrect. That was the essential Big Idea of the book.

But what happened to the moon, one might ask. Well, this is the point where the story leaves the plane of the real world and delves into fantasy or science fiction. The moon, a crusty, charred satellite with a surface composed primarily of slate, is the source of the energy of the Wash. Some combination of minerals and exotic materials, in an environment of intense heat (such as the core of the moon, which happens to be molten), releases the energy, which is copious enough to encompass both moons as well as Earth. This shared energy is a fuel for magic, making the impossible possible in many ways. For instance, the cocktail of energies allow for the existence of creatures on the moon in question, which could not exist in any world where magic is not possible. And furthermore, the influence of the energies allows for those creatures to migrate to Earth, lending credence to the ancient myth of dragons.

In Modern-Day Mythica, dragons are pivotal characters, striving to reach the cool blue comfort of Earth once again. But they were banished long ago, by means of a spell woven by a man, using the inherent energies of their home moon itself. For thousands of years the dragons have been seeking to undo what was done, and once were able to expose a rift between Earth and the realm to which their moon had been banished. This rift allowed the energies of the moon to once again enter Earth’s atmosphere, forming the Wash, and enabling magic within its borders.

This work is unpublished and unagented, although it is under consideration at this time. Read the first five chapters here.
Crappy cover art was contrived by myself, with a ganked photograph from here (the cover art is crappy, but the photo is pretty cool).

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Save vs. Death has this to say about Henry Miller, and writers in general:

Writing used to be a scholarly manly art, but is now reserved for disposable milquetoast bores and effete vacuous chumps whose bathrooms hold no ephemera from a long vanished world. Men like Miller have forceful opinions and fifth and final wives.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

There’s a sad state of affairs in the world today, and it has to do with language. Words like terrible and great and awesome don’t seem to pack the wallop they should any more. The problem arises when someone wants to describe a profound sensation they’ve experienced, whether it’s the flavor of a particular ice cream or the color of a new car, and the same old words just don’t seem to have enough impact any more. Maybe it’s because we use them so much.

Awesome, for instance. Awesome has devolved into slang term now describing things that are simply impressive, not necessarily something that inspires awe. Awesome is a word that should be reserved for things of such magnificence that your breath catches as you stare at it; this is what a sensation of awe is. Your friend’s new laptop, impressive as it might be, isn’t “awesome.” But to say that something is good or even great just doesn’t carry the weight it used to, and, needing some way to express extreme liking or fondness, awesome has become the go-to word. Often awesome is used when a lesser term would have worked just fine. Great, for instance, is a word describing something that’s tremendous, monumental…transcendent. That new laptop, if it’s really top of the line and elite, might be considered great. But “great” just doesn’t have the impact that it should, being an over-used word itself. Sadly, your friend’s laptop might simply be good, which in itself describes something that is “of high quality; excellent.” But if I told my friend his new laptop was simply good, he’d think I didn’t like it at all. In order to keep from hurting his feelings, I would have to gesticulate and give praise. And not be brief about it, either. No, I’ve got to remain in my excited state for a considerable length of time. I can’t just say it’s awesome, I have to over-enunciate it with a voice full of emotion: “Dude, that is so AWE-some.” Otherwise, he might be deflated. He might think his good laptop is actually inadequate.

Tucked in between good and great is another word that I could use to elevate the laptop’s status without going so far as to say awesome: Terrific; a word used to describe something marvelous, something extremely good. Of course, terrific is a versatile word that also means extraordinarily great, which gives it more weight than even great could.

If I had to rank describers from mildest to wildest, it would be thus:

1. Agreeable
2. Nice
3. Good
4. Exceptional (or excellent)
5. Delightful
6. Terrific
7. Great (or grand)
8. Spectacular (or amazing)
9. Magnificent
10. Sensational (or phenomenal)
11. Awesome

So now when your spouse brings home a new purse, you’ll have a reference to look to so you can come up with the proper descriptive adjective. Of course, that new purse had better be something better than grand or you’ll be in the doghouse. I’m shooting for spectacular, myself (even though it’s probably only exceptional). But not awesome; not unless I can reach into it like a shaman’s pouch and pull out anything I might imagine. Then it would be awesome. Or maybe if it was constructed of nanobots and could transform into an invisibility cloak. That would also be awesome.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

While I’m thinking about it, I’ve had dreams before that have ended up being incorporated into various stories I’ve written. For instance, one morning I woke up with a clear line in my head, which may not make any sense to you (it didn’t to my wife), but nevertheless I liked it and I thought it was funny so I adapted it. The line was this:

“Being the first ith, he was Irmth. His name was Irmth the Eleventh.”

As it happened I was embroiled in the writing of a scifi comedy about a space-traveling zydeco accordion player named Joe Remeleaux Redmill. Irmth became the bad guy for that story, and it’s one of those humorous SciFic pieces I told you I’d really like to find a home for.

The way it finally worked out was: Irmth belonged to a race that was the result of a genome abnormality in an entirely other race, the name of which is inconsequential at this point. Irmth and his kind were called “Shifts” by those they were spun off from, and were shunned despite their evident superior evolutionary state. Irmth was the eleventh Shift to have evolved, though there are many thousands in the universe now. Shifts were art-loving Methuselahs who lived millions of years. They were born with duplex personalities and referred to themselves using 1st person plural pronouns (we, us, our). They speak with two voices and, in the bulbous, gelatinous, transparent midriff of their bodies, which is usually tinted green or blue or brown and inside of which can be seen their organs and various floating detritus, had a second face, though their physiology was otherwise more or less human in appearance. They were usually phenomenally rich, intelligent, and deviant (though not sexually, not having the necessary equipment). Irmth himself was the first Shift of a separate branch called Ith. The only difference between a normal Shift and an Ith was that an Ith was much taller. Irmth specifically enjoys cocktails, sometimes delivered intravenously, technology and information, and music. He has organized numerous events throughout the Universe, some of which were so successful that they never stopped. Irmth scours the Galaxy, looking for musical talent to feature at his events, and is currently organizing and promoting an event in the Hypersholean system called “Music Horizon,” which promises to be a never-ending event and boasts five generation seven Posi-Tek SubSpaceWoofter Platforms, release 5ZR11.32.99, AKA the GalactiBlaster, which essentially turns a moon or planet into a speaker. When Irmth hears music he likes, he usually leaves his card, which is the model of simplicity:

Being the first ith, he was Irmth.
His name was Irmth the Eleventh.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Queries suck. At least writing them does. The entire novel-writing process has never made me feel so futile as penning these two vexing paragraphs. I could fill this page with links to query-writing suggestions and formats and information I’ve read from various outlets all over the web, all of it very helpful in its own context, but essentially worthless in applying to my own book. Why am I re-confronting my greatest fear? Because la Gringa wants to know where all the adult fiction subs are. And I have one. And I want to send it to her. I fear her rejection, yes, but this is more than some short story that I’ve labored over for a week and a half. This manuscript represents five years of my collective creative output. It represents potential success in publishing. It represents the hopes and dreams of a writer who wants to be. It represents potential for disposable income. I’ve been well aware of la Gringa’s advent into the agenting business, and I’ve had my manuscript ready for a good while now, I just don’t have the query letter right yet. If my book represents five years of creative output, this query letter represents another six months at least. No, it’s not all I’ve been working on, but I return to it regularly, and I suffer for its potential. I tweak it, and then I scrap it and start over, and then I agonize for a little while before I toil some more. But to dedicate so much time to something that can be the realization of all the dreams of a lifetime of writing is so daunting to me that I convince myself that the query must be better than the story itself, that my story depends on this little 100-word document to be successful, that if the story doesn’t get published it will be because I didn’t write the query letter well enough. And the worst of it is that great bit of advice I keep pinned to the wall by my desk:

…the writer never gets any better than the writing you see in the pitch letter.

Ack! Such pressure! To prove I’m worthy, that my story doesn’t suck, that I’m…well, you know how it is, don’t you, Mr. Query Letter. And I’ll bet you’re the most successful and wonderful story pitch there ever was–You. Sick. Bastard. You’re enjoying my pain, aren’t you? You see this blog and you look at me and think, “Heh, he’s in the gutter now!” Well, I’m done eating your scraps, Mr. Query. I’m jumping off this bus and catching a…a train. Or a hang glider.

Or a noose.

Oh, well. On to ver. 15.9…

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

I am really loving io9. If you don’t read it, get on over there because they are consistently putting out great content. Today, for instance, they’ve posted a little space porn, some comics industry opinion, and this bit of writing advice, on “how to bring the weird” in your near-future SciFi stories. This is another one of those posts I want to print and paste to the wall by my desk, one of those I wish I’d written. Apologies for posting this word for word, but it is really all excellent and I want it filed away in my little internet brain for future reference:

Extrapolate from current trends…

Certain things happening now will probably carry on, and even accelerate, over the next two decades. The icecaps will keep melting, natural disasters will probably come more often, and droughts may affect more regions. Rich countries will become fortresses of the elderly, with fewer young people who aren’t immigrants. Corporations will probably keep becoming more powerful and diversified, unless the next economic meltdown actually weakens their power somehow. There will be less oil, and more fighting over oil. Food prices will keep going up for third-world countries. China and India will be economically resurgent, unless they fuck up. Some forms of social deviance will be marginally more accepted, within wealthy societies at least.

…but don’t be their bitch.

Don’t assume that every current trend will continue in a straight line — it’s never worked that way in the past, and it’s unlikely to start now. New technologies will help stem some of the negative trends we’re dealing with right now. And unimaginable disasters will spark new cycles of misery that will sweep us all down. Nobody in 1988 could have predicted 9/11 or the girl who hanged herself because her MySpace friends turned out to be mean grownups. (How would you even explain the “MySpace hoax” to someone in 1988?)

The technologies of tomorrow already exist.

Nanotechnology is already turning up in socks and medical devices, and everyone’s predicting it’ll replace basic circuitry and lead to miracle cures within a few years. People are already chuffed about home robotics, and robots are already helping us fight our wars. There’s a lot of talk about amazing replacement limbs that will use nanotech, and even be able to interpret signals from your brain. And there’s a lot of reason to be optimistic about gene therapy.

Don’t just pick one technology to update.

One of my pet peeves is the near-ish future story where everything’s more or less the same, except that there’s one miraculous new technology that is transforming the world. It’s way more likely that there’ll be half a dozen semi-miraculous technologies that will be nudging the world in different directions. (And we can’t discount the possibility that things will go to shit so badly that none of those amazing new technologies will come to fruition.)

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Photo by thorinside

There are a couple of new writer’s websites I’m keeping my eye on.

Write to Done
This is an interesting website, attractively designed, with nice color pictures heading all their articles (much as I’ve begun doing of late). It has a very professional look, but that’s actually my main concern with the blog. It’s too pretty, and after a cursory glance at some of the articles–some of use and some, as you would expect, filler–I can tell that this blog is designed by a person who understands very well what it takes to make a blog attractive to readers, but is there really any meat at all? It’s maintained by the same guy who runs the Zen Habits blog, which is a Technorati Top 100 blog. So his writing is readable and definitely attractive, but it remains to be seen how useful Write to Done will be for a writer like me.

Write, write, write
Steven Brust and a couple of other writers are collaborating on this blog. It’s much less pretty than WtD, but at the same time there does seem to be some meat in some of their posts. There’s filler here, too, as the blog is run a bit more blog-like, with asides and commentary. And it’s written by writers, not bloggers; Steven Brust himself is an accomplished author who could have some good advice for us up-and-comers.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been very busy at work the past few days. I’m thinking of giving up Warcraft altogether. I just don’t have time for it as I thought I would. It’s a fun game, but I can’t understand some of the fascination; every time I bring it up with acquaintances I hear stories of people losing their jobs or getting divorced because of the game. It’s kind of put a stigma on the whole experience for me. I generally don’t get so caught up in things as that, but at the same time I don’t want to. I found out yesterday that WoW has gone over ten million subscribers. At fifteen bucks a pop per month, that’s $150 million per month. Holy crap. I might keep it if not for the subscription fee, but I’m not ready to pay monthly for something I’m only playing a little bit, so.

I have found a chance to do a little writing in the past week. I’ve been working on the second rewrite of a story tentatively titled “The Adventures of Trader Gahn and Redbeard.” As you can imagine by the title, a bit of an adventure. Modern-day pirates with a dose of fantasy thrown in to keep me honest and in genre. And because that’s who I am, and what I write. The previous title was Relics, based on a number of magical items someone’s stockpiling, but I’ve whittled some of the excess storyline out (from 60k words down to about 40 so far, and am fleshing out the characters, changing a little here and a little there). I’m not one of those writers who’ll try to get a 100k word book written, I’ll just write until I feel it’s done and let it be. So. It’s a fun thing to write.

I’ve also been working a bit on the first book I ever wrote… more of a novella, now that I look at it again, but when I wrote it and finished it it felt like I’d finished a magnum opus. Now that I go back, it really wasn’t so good at all. The story is good, I think, it’s just that I didn’t tell it very well. It’s a children’s story, tentatively titled “Way of the Wolf” with talking animals (think Lion King, but with wolves). Anyway, I hope to flesh out its characters some more now, too, especially now that I’ve got children growing up. I’d like to give them a copy of it when they can read it for themselves.

Lots of writing to do, not enough hands or heads to do it all. It’s a good problem to have, as someone who likes to write. At least I’ve never suffered writer’s block… at this rate I never will.

G’night.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Whatever happened to the novella as a form of prose? Many of the greatest stories of all time were written in the 20k - 50k word range. Stories like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and A River Runs Through It. There are countless others, but it seems the publishing world in general is intent on not publishing any novelettes or novellas. And this is particularly frustrating to me because all of my best work seems to be in novella word-count range.

I know: there’s no money in novellas for the publishing houses. If they can’t get 90k words or more they don’t want it. And short fiction had best not be written any longer than 5k if you want any decent shot at getting it out there. But there’s something about a thin book that I can carry comfortably in my back pocket and read in a couple of days that’s immensely appealing to me. But then the whole publishing industry seems to have veered starkly away from the middle class: there are the haves, of course, and the have nots, but there are rarely any have a littles or comfortably just getting bys. And of course this goes right back to the root of the publishing problem today: fewer and fewer people read any more. More and more it seems the only folks who read are those who are also either writers or who want to be. It seems to me a grand idea to put a wire rack back in the quick stop and stock it with pulp novellas, but then, I guess those would just sit there until the one or two of us who actually like to read them would buy them. Same goes for comic books. More and more, if you want a book, you have to visit Amazon or one of the huge booksellers, because the little bookstores are out of business now, and the selection at the drugstores and grocers are simply awful if you’re into anything other than romance.

I wish the novella format would make a return; just put them out there in pulp paperbacks and see if people won’t give them a try. I would, and that’s not just because I write them. Some of the best reads I’ve ever had were in novella format.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Generally, I like to refer to things that I write as “Speculative” fiction, because I often utilize rules of SciFi and fantasy in the same piece, that is, I write fiction with fantastic elements but I expound on the details as if it were SciFi. Is that a bad thing? There was a time when it would be looked down upon, maybe even be considered heretical, as Michael Crichton pointed out a long, long time ago:

“As a category, the borders of science fiction have always been poorly defined, and they are getting worse. The old distinction between science fiction and fantasy - that science fiction went from the known to the probable, and fantasy dealt with the impossible - is now wholly ignored. The new writing is heavily and unabashedly fantastical.”

“The breakdown is also seen in the authors themselves, who now cross the border, back and forth, with impunity. At one time this was dangerous and heretical; the only person who could consistently get away with it was Ray Bradbury. Science fiction addicts politely looked the other way when he did books such as Dandelion Wine and the screenplay for John Huston’s Moby Dick. It was assumed he needed the money.”

Consider a movie like Jurassic Park, where the concept of bringing back dinosaurs is perfectly believable. You believe it, don’t you? We believe it because we want to believe fantastic things are possible, and this is especially the case with readers of SciFi. One advantage SciFi has over fantasy, however, is that SciFi generally resounds with possibility. Even though its ideas may be impossible now, one who has the foresight to dream of tomorrow can see the inherent potential in virtually any work of SciFic.

There are two basic ways to write fantasy, and neither of them have to be believable in the least:

1. Real world, whether it be historical or modern-day.
2. Other world, in which another universe is created specifically for the story.

Sure, fantasy can take place in the future, but generally if it does, it’s called science fiction, and it’d better stick to the laws of physics as we understand them. On that same note, present-day fantasy is often called horror, therefore it should really be classified as a sub-genre of fantasy. It’s difficult to make a sweeping epic of orcs and dragons set in our present day, unless you create an alternate reality, which is generally how it’s handled. The teen is swept into a book, goes down a rabbit hole, whirled away in a tornado, or opens a door that allows them to enter a fantastic realm. Rarely do we get an insight as to how the portal works. We just get a stock line of explanation stating that the door or book was magical, if we get any explanation at all. In SciFi, this would hardly ever do. Readers of SciFi want the exposition of how things work:

• Why did the wormhole appear?
• How does it work?
• To where does it lead?
• How long is the travel time through it?
• What happens when you travel through it? Do you get sick?

This, to me, is one of the great dividing differences between the genres.

When the science of something is explained plausibly, within the laws of physics it is SciFi.
When the science of something is not explained, it is fantasy.

For SciFi, you can’t simply talk about a world of orcs and dragons, you have to give the planet a name, talk a bit about the history of it, how it evolved, and it wouldn’t hurt to have them flying a spaceship. But with fantasy, if it’s a good enough story the hows and the whys aren’t really all that important.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Suspension of disbelief is a useful tool for writers, especially to writers of speculative fiction. But how much artistic license are readers willing to allow a writer? Like most authors, I read quite a bit about the craft of writing, and I read an article sometime last year concerning the suspension of disbelief. I don’t remember where the article was from, one of the writer’s magazines, I’m sure, but in it the author stated specifically that it would be ludicrous to imagine people accepting a piece of fiction that involved humans and dinosaurs cohabitating the planet. Now, the novel I was writing at that time, Modern-Day Mythica, does not take place in the past, but some of the principles that are described in the book, things that make the amazing part feasible, depend a little bit upon the reader’s willingness to accept that humans and dinosaurs might have cohabitated the planet. So it should come as no surprise that since I read that article I’ve basically worried myself sick over it. Will the reader be able to forgive me this transgression? Ah, but there is a caveat, one which I hope will explain the how in a way that will be completely believable.

One thing to keep in mind here is the difference between fantasy and science fiction. For fantasy, especially when written in the Real World, the one in which we live, there’s usually a doorway into Another World, and that doorway is magical, it doesn’t require any exposition as to how it works, it simply is what it is, whether it just appeared, or it was created by a magician, whatever. The difference (to me) is that in SciFi, we want to know how the door works, explained as scientifically as possible.

For Mythica, as with most of my writing, my writing borrows from both genres: I like the fantasy to be explained by science, that’s why I prefer the tag “Speculative” when referring to my work. Also: when I’m writing something I want it to ring true, or possible, much as SciFi might read. For that reason I like to use modern-day (or near future) Earth for most of my settings. There are some more successful authors than me of fantasy who use modern-day settings. Authors like Stephen King, who, along with Peter Straub, wrote The Talisman, a story about a boy who travels to the “Territories,” a reality connected with ours somehow, but separate enough to be invisible unless you are among the duly initiated. But the vast majority of fantasy fiction writers write more like Tolkien, who shucked it all and created his own world to set his fantastic epic in. Nothing wrong with that, I’m just saying. Of course, those are just two examples from the many, but they are two of the most notable works of fantasy in the world. Either method, obviously, works well enough to sell piles of books. But at what point is the suspension of disbelief overpowered by the impossibility of an idea? And is it harder to write fantasy fiction based in the real world than in a fictional world? Well, uh, yeah, probably, that is, if you want it to ring true or even possible.

In my story Mythica I utilize a similar concept as King/Straub used for the Territories in The Talisman. But in Mythica, the reason for the alternate reality–the science of it–is explained. But it’s the exposition of that theme that’s got me concerned.

As science has given, modern humanity evolved into its current state about 200k years ago and didn’t populate North America until about 10k to 20k years ago. Dinosaurs, of course, were long gone by millions of years by then (unless you count the turtle and the alligator and the shark and the many other holdovers who lived through the supposed meteor strike that spelled doom for dino-nation). But me, I grew up a fan of Conan of Cimmeria and Hyboria and one of the elements I loved most was that, if you looked at the map of Hyboria that Robert E. Howard drew up for the character’s homeland, it bears a striking resemblance to our own world before the continents drifted apart, when the world’s oceans framed a single super continent we now call Pangaea:

“between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas” ~Robert E. Howard, “The Phoenix on the Sword,” The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (2003)

That little map made the stories ring true for me, even though science tells me it was impossible, that humans didn’t arrive for millions of years after Pangaea split into separate land masses. It made me see possibility that civilization was older than we believe, and filled with magic and monsters and even swords and steel.

One of my challenges while writing Mythica was to make its unbelievable part somewhat believable, much the same as Howard did with Hyboria. I wanted you to be able to read it and believe that it might have been possible, and I believe I have, except for that one small point: dinosaurs. People can’t live alongside something that died out 65 million years ago. Can they? Can intelligent people–and people who read speculative fiction are, generally–suspend their disbelief long enough to accept that it’s possible?

My only defense for this is to say that, in my story, real-world science is inexact because of a number influential events that science doesn’t account for. For instance, the storyline in Mythica involves a once and second moon orbiting Earth. The second moon is smaller than the first moon, but it’s half as distant, so it appears to be larger in the sky. This single entity justifies so many things in the story:

1. There is no scientific proof that the moon ever existed, since it disappeared over 200,000 years ago.
2. While the second moon was in orbit, Earth was not a very happy place to live. Two satellites tugging at the Earth’s surface would have caused Earth’s plates to shift much faster than is currently believed. Mountains would have formed much more quickly, continental drift would have happened much more quickly. Volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, tidal waves, etc, would have ravaged the planet’s surface. Not to mention the fact that the planet might have been slower in its own orbit; days might have been longer, years, longer.

It is conceivable, in my mind, to believe that the second moon could have accounted for a sort of speeding up of time, even though its orbit was slower. If a geologist looks at the rate of continental drift today, she might say that it took millions of years for Pangaea to split apart. But if there was a second moon, it could have happened in thousands. Hundreds? I’m no geologist, but in my very basic understanding of geology, a second moon would have had a monumental impact on Earth’s surface. So, if our history involves an unaccounted-for outside influence, isn’t it conceivable that the dates we’ve assigned to certain events are erroneous? That billions of years of history, based on one single missing moon, could now be thought of as millions instead? It might not affect how we view the 15 billion-year history of the universe, but it might change the history of planet Earth considerably.

Furthermore, by allowing for this shortening of time (periods, epochs, eras), it would mean that that the age of dinosaurs and the age of man were a lot closer than we now believe. And it would allow that those ages might even overlap. We have no proof that a giant meteor struck the Earth to end the age of dinosaurs, all we have are theories and hypotheses. And I (of course) have no proof that a second moon ever orbited Earth. But, in theory, is that any less possible? As for the disappearance of the dinosaurs, my hypothesis on this is forthcoming…

So what happened to the second moon? Well, for my story, which is a work of fantasy, a magician banished the moon because he believed it to be the source of a specific scourge upon the planet. But there are other, scientific, explanations that we could consider. Perhaps the would-be meteor that supposedly hit the Earth struck the second moon instead and sent it hurtling out of orbit. There are other theories of a second moon, one with a distant, 770-year orbit, perhaps this moon was once in a much closer orbit. But while science has accepted the possibility, if not the probability or downright fact, of the presence of a second moon, as far as I can tell no one has investigated any possible ramifications it.

So, for my story, the ramifications (and the science world can feel free to adopt this theory :-) of the disappearance of the second moon is this: Time sped up. Yes, time, real time. Without two moons dragging it down, Earth’s orbit sped up allowing it to encircle the sun in the 24-hour timeframe we’re used to. At the same time, Earth’s tectonic plates slowed their constant grinding, causing the planet’s surface to change much more slowly. While the moon was in orbit it’s possible that a person could watch the formation of a mountain range in their lifetime.

1. Time sped up.
2. Planetary changes slowed down.

With those two factors in mind, it is conceivable that our comprehension of the passing of ages prior to the disappearance of the second moon might be very, very wrong, and that the ages of dinosaurs and people may have overlapped.

Now, have the history books been rewritten yet? Can you suspend your disbelief long enough to swallow that load of garbage? I’d be interested to know.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

One rejection received today, from Ann VanderMeer of Weird Tales, who had this to say:

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your manuscript. This is a well-written tale but is not quite right for me. Very gruesome and creepy, but I’m not sure it worked for me in the end. Please try me again with something else.

That’s the second story I’ve had rejected from WT in the last few months. In both rejections she called my stories “well-written” and asked me to try again with something else. It’s about as positive a rejection as I’ve received, and it makes me think that she liked the stories, but they just didn’t fit with what she’s trying to do with the magazine. Unfortunately for me, WT is one of the few markets where a story of 7k words will even be looked at, especially one that’s “gruesome and creepy.”

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

There aren’t many success stories out there, that’s for sure. John Scalzi, Cherie Priest and David Wellington are the few that pop to mind who’ve put their work on a website and then sold the work(s) for print. I know there are others, but they are few and far between, and the numbers of writers getting published in the traditional manner is still the steady king as far as sheer numbers are concerned.

But it’s just so hard, and I’m just so lazy, and hey, I’m 38. If I have to wait six months to get my rejection from Tor and then another six to get my rejection from (publisher #2) and then a year to get one from (publisher C) then I’ll be 40 and still sitting on my book. Worse, unagented works rarely get a fair shake, so the really real route to ramble through would be to shoot for an agent and hope she’ll sell the book. I just don’t know if I have it in me. The patience, I mean. We all know rejections are a part of the writing life; I don’t fear rejections, I just don’t want to get bored in the waiting.

It might be different if I was doing this for a living, but this is my hobby. Sure, I want to be a published author–and I am, in short stories–but it’s not like I won’t be able to feed my kids if I don’t sell this book. Having sold a few short I at least have enough confidence to say “I do not suck” with some authority. At least three editors have liked my stories enough to publish them, and one of them did so three times. Some considerations:

• The positive: Publishers will and do buy books that have been posted online. They may ask you to remove it immediately, but if they like it, and if it has any kind of readership, they’ll buy it. It’s proven.
• The negative: I’ll be missing out on the valuable editing process. Sure, some writers churn out work that doesn’t need any editing, but I’m not those writers. For a publisher to take me on she’d almost certainly have to refine my writing. I’ve got style, oh yes, but I’ve got some bad habits too, that have been hard for me to kick. I know I wrote a story that I’m proud of, and it’s something I would read myself, but then I’m invested in it. It’s my baby. You, though, you are the ones who would–or wouldn’t–read it. An editor could ease me through that process, help me fashion it to suit the market. But. But.
• The other negative: People don’t respect web-published authors. I’ve seen sites myself and sneered at my screen for having the audacity to show me a web-published author.
• The what if: I found David Wellington’s books through a BoingBoing post. David is a good writer who sold his books, which are still posted on his website. Linkage from a site like BB would be huge. Huge. But very unlikely. Their safety net intelligently requires that they read any fiction before posting a link to it, and as you can imagine, Cory is swamped with requests and isn’t accepting any new ones for the foreseeable future.

So I’ve got a positive, two negatives, and a what if. In dealing with the first negative I can only say that I would have to really focus on editing it down myself, and that if it’s a good enough story it’ll sell itself. Right? And I can edit; of the five shorts I’ve sold every one was posted/printed in the shape I submitted them in. I’m just not particularly good at it and, again, I’m basically lazy.

For the second negative I can say that when I saw David Wellington’s site I didn’t sneer. Why is that? Why does he automatically garner special attention as a web-published writer? And this was before I’d read the first word of any of his stories. Was it because I’d found it through the BoingBoing link, and therefore it was automatically presumed to be a “qualified” read? Or maybe it was because it was presented very well, with a cool dedicated graphic header. I don’t know, but something about the site said “writer” all over it, and therefore I bookmarked the link and referred back to it later. After reading some of his stuff, I found it to be very good and I gladly recommend it. So.

To self-publish or not to self-publish. All I know is I’m building the website now, and I’m dreading the prospect of querying this thing till I’m on the shady side of 90. The Down in the Cellar story will appear March 1st, so that should draw a lurker or ten, and maybe one of them would have liked The Ghost of Tom Johns enough to give my book a go. Plus, this blog is beginning to get noticed a bit more. Most of the hits bounce almost immediately away, but some of them stick around and read a page or two.

Any thoughts? Comments? Would you read it, or at least give it a try? Note: The excerpt I posted the other day was very gory; I should note here that that was one of the few examples of graphic violence in the book. I just particularly liked that scene, so I shared it with you.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

My book is written. Well, it’s actually my third book, but the first one is not good and neither is the second, although with the second I believe its a good story, it just needs major rewrites. So, anyway, the book is done. It’s called Modern-Day Mythica, it’s around 120k words, and the premise is this:

200,000 years ago, Earth’s second moon disappeared. The rest of the story is about the effects of that missing satellite on one Joe Copeland, modern-day regular guy. Oh, and the moon that disappeared was an enormous, black, magical energy-generating rock that was inhabited by dragons.

Once every blue moon (heh, it was actually a black moon) dragons could travel to Earth (the details on how they did this are worked out, but I won’t get into here right now) and basically terrorize everything that lived–including humans. But then this really old guy shows up and makes the black moon disappear. Of course, since the black moon was the magic generator and this old guy had been using magic to keep himself alive far beyond a normal life span, he died. And the dragons, who depended on magic for flight, fire-breathing, communication–basically everything that separated them from big, crawling lizards–were all killed off. At least the ones on Earth were. The ones still on the moon–now banished to a different reality altogether–were mighty pissed, and began working on a way to get the moon back into orbit.

They never figured it out, but they did find a way to open a portal, a rift, between the realities, and they sent one dragon back to see if they could figure out a way to get the moon back into orbit from here. Joe, of course, is the guy who’s supposed to stop this from happening.

The story, which I’ve tentatively entitled Modern-Day Mythica, incorporates a good deal more than just dragons in its mythos: there are werewolves, ghosts, magicians, an alligator that turns into a motorcycle, etc.

Now, as you may know, I’ve been populating a wiki over at Wetpaint.com with details of the mythos involved. It’s not complete yet, but there is a lot of detail already there. Whether this book ever sees the light of day or not I have no idea, but I’m hoping that if this blog can build a little following, gain a few more readers (this is Unabashed honesty for ya, folks–yes, I’m using you, but I sincerely love you, too), that, coupled with the already-built companion wiki might make an editor give me at least a second glance before he/she shoves me into the trash can and sends me the dreadful form letter rejection.

Here’s an excerpt, if you’re interested (disclaimer: This is gory).

Edgar Billies had owned the Duck ‘n’ Dolphin for twelve years when the stranger came through the door. The fellow looked ordinary enough, about six two, brownish blond hair, dark green eyes. He was dressed kind of funny, his clothes didn’t seem to fit, and he was barefoot, wet, and dirty. He was wearing a fag bag that actually said “FAG BAG” on the front of it. That didn’t speak well for folks in Ed’s mind. But then Ed thought the guy might be homeless. He almost threw him out on the spot but decided against it if the guy didn’t have any money, then he’d throw him out. But the guy just didn’t seem like a homeless person; he carried himself upright and proud, like a damn king or something. And he was smiling, like he was just coming in to shake everyone’s hand and get a vote. The rest of the guys, Dan, Bull, Todd, and Legs, all turned to look at him, but they didn’t pay him any mind. Edgar poured up a beer for Legs and asked the stranger what he could get for him.

“How about some whiskey,” the guy said, sitting down at one of the front tables.

The guy kicked his dirty feet up on the table. Before Edgar took him the whiskey he hollered, “Fellah, you wanna get your feet off the table?”

The men at the bar looked at the stranger, and the stranger complied with a wink. He was still smiling.

Edgar set the drink on the table and said, “That’ll be six fifty.” He’d jacked the price up special for this joker.

The stranger reached out to take the drink and Edgar, in his classic way, grabbed at the stranger’s wrist to tell him to pay up first. Only the stranger caught Edgar’s wrist instead, and the next thing Edgar knew his arm was twisted up behind his back painfully and the stranger downed the shot. The four men at the bar hopped to their feet.

The stranger threw the shot glass and hit Bull in the forehead, which just served to piss Bull off, and all four of them were an inch away from charging straight in and kicking the shit out of the monkey that was holding Ed’s arm. They backed off a step when they heard Ed’s arm crack, though. Then, through his grin that never wavered, the stranger jerked Ed’s arm straight up over his head, then kicked him toward the others. The arm was broken and out of socket and it flopped around like an empty shirt sleeve when he fell forward and cracked his head on the bar. Todd tried to catch him, but Edgar was too fat and went into the bar anyway, then he hit the floor like a rotten log.

Dan and Bull charged with a loud, human growl coming from each of them. But the stranger picked up the chair he’d been sitting on and right before their eyes it changed into a two-handed ax. The handle and head were both deep, dark green, metal or stone, they couldn’t tell, the color and texture were otherworldly, precious, like a rare, gigantic gem, something you’d actually want your head cut off with if it came to that, like something an archeologist would pull from a horde of treasure in a tomb in China that was as old as mankind itself. The head of the ax was inlaid with delicate lines of engraving, as fine as spider’s silk, which curled and swept like waves back from the sharpened edge. Near that edge, the head of the ax, the color of dark, luxurious jade, became paler and paler until it was almost white at the sharpened edge. It looked like it would be hot to the touch. Amazed though they were, they were already committed, and men like Dan and Bull commit to things only as a final option. The final option had been crossed when this faggot had come in here and broke Ed’s arm, as far as they were concerned. But the stranger brought the ax back with both hands and swung it hard and full, right through Bull’s left knee and into Dan’s right shin. Both big men fell in opposite directions, screaming. The stranger never stopped smiling, though; he drew up the ax like he was splitting wood and began making kindling out of Bull’s left arm. Then he turned on Dan, who was trying to get to his feet, and planted that ax right on his collar, between his neck and his shoulder. It sheered clean through the collarbone and into his breast, and Dan looked down at it with wonder as a stream of crimson blood shot up into his nostrils from his own chest wound.

Todd ran around to the other side of the bar and ran along the bar bent over, trying to find Ed’s shotgun. When he saw it he laid his hands on it, but then he felt an odd pain in his lower back and from that moment on, all he knew was that he was on his back, conscious, but unable to move anything but his eyes. He couldn’t talk, lick his lips, wiggle his toes or anything. He figured that when he bent over to get the shotgun the stranger whacked him with that ax right at the base of his spine and he was right. Gregg had sheared his lower spinal column cleanly in two, and then he left Todd to lay and think about what was coming next, as he set about chopping Dead Ed into edible-sized bites.

Todd heard every plunge of the ax; he heard Ed moan when the ax went into him, sounding like a softball hitting a catcher’s mitt in fast-pitch, or like a sack of flour when dropped onto a wooden floor. Todd heard every blow, and with mounting terror, knew his time was soon to come. Maybe he’ll forget about me, he thought, or maybe he’ll just not worry about me any more, seeing as how I’m incapacitated any way. He began to wonder if doctors could reattach a severed spine, or if he would have to spend the rest of his life unable to move, flinch or even blink his eyes. But then the stranger looked over the bar and Todd knew that he wasn’t going to be left alive. Tears began to flow from his eyes.

The stranger’s head was covered with bright red gore. Thick droplets were spattering down onto the bar Todd could see them almost as if in slow motion. The stranger spit and bloody spittle spattered the wall beside Todd. He walked slowly down to the end of the bar and then walked up to Todd, the ax up on his shoulder. He was standing over Todd’s feet, a bloody, gory mess from head to toe. And he was smiling; grinning like a maniac. He set the ax head on the floor and spit in both his hands, rubbed them together, and then hoisted the ax with both hands, bringing it back over his shoulder big smile still in place and then he brought it down in a swift, singing arc. Todd heard his thigh crunch and the ax struck the hardwood floor beneath it, pinning the leg down. The stranger had to pry the ax free, shifting the handle up and down to wrench it out of the wood floor and Todd’s leg. There was a sucking sound as the ax head finally came free of the leg. Todd’s eyes were running with tears he wasn’t feeling the pain of the blows, not exactly; he could feel each blow like a thud like when a dentist pulls a tooth when the jaw is full of novacane but there was no sharp pain as there should have been, only the bone-jarring thud that caused his vision to blur for a second and his head to rock from side to side slightly. All the worse, because without the pain to tell his mind to shut down he had to endure every swing of that ax, every sucking sound as it pulled free of every wound it inflicted, and he had to watch every time the stranger wrenched the ax free of the floor, with each thunderous blow. When the stranger cut off his left arm at the shoulder, Todd could hear the ax whistle by his ear, and he began to grow cold. When the stranger cut off his right arm at the elbow, and his stump flew up in front of his eyes, spattering blood across his face, his hearing went out and he could no longer hear the meaty thwacks of his dismemberment. When the stranger finally struck him in the belly, Todd saw a jet of blood spray up into the stranger’s face, right before his eyesight faded slowly to gray, and then he was blind. All he had left at that point was the feeling of each blow rocking his body, as if he was underwater and someone was swatting the surface above his head with a boat paddle. He could feel the reverberations, he could feel the thud, and in his mind he could hear the dull thump, but it was distant, echoing, and then he was gone.

As Gregg walked out of the Duck ‘n’ Dolphin Saloon, there was a chair extending from the chest cavity of the owner, Edgar Billies, as if it had just sprouted and grown there.

End exerpt.

So what do ya think? Do you like it (and are you willing to spread the good word about Unabashed so I can gain fame and fortune :-)? Or do you hate it and think my plan will fail and I’ll suffer the pain of self-publishing?

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

I finished my submission packet today. I’m sending my novel “Modern-Day Mythica” to Tor in the hopes that it’ll be that one of ten thousand Tor accepts. Is it good enough? Who knows. The friends and relations who’ve read it thought it was good, or at least they were nice enough to tell me it was. I have a certain degree of confirmation, at least, that my writing does not suck, as evidenced by the recent acceptances of short stories I’ve written for publication. I have no idea how much sway that might lend to their decision, if any, but it’s got to be better than having no publishing credits at all. The publishing credits I do have are via paid markets, but not professional-level, so, again, I have no idea. The only thing I know is that Tor accepts unagented submissions and the kinds of work they publish suit me and my writing.

So the great wait begins. Tor gives a timeframe of 4 - 6 months before they’ll let you know, so I can sit on this manuscript that long to see if I have mud in my eye or if I’m golden. At that point, if it’s unsuccessful, I may just opt to self publish it through CreateSpace or serialize it here on my website. If successful, let the celebration begin.

This is me waiting:

This is me if they accept it:

And now that I’ve fully embarrassed myself, I bid you adieu.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Goals are very important. I believe that, and I’ve lived a lot of my life in pursuit of goals that I’ve set for myself. For the past few years, when it comes to writing, my single goal has been, simply, to get published. Well, this grand summer of 2007 that goal finally came to fruition. I have received affirmation (”Hey! Your writing doesn’t suck!”) not only once, but three times within six months. So what’s next?

Well, for starters, I really want to be published in Chiaroscuro. Not only do they pay a lot better for shorts than most markets, but they’re also an SFWA market, meaning a publication through them would move me one step closer to applying for and receiving membership into that elite society. Also, take a look at their guidelines. A lot of publications will make a vain attempt to reduce the size of their slush piles by incorporating a huge set of rules and bylaws to follow for submitters. I can’t imagine this tactic actually works, because a slush pile is what it is, and if the material is unacceptable then that’s just what it is. By complicating the submission process, forcing me to rewrite my story (for the twenty-sixth time) just to remove paragraph indents and add a line between paragraphs and remove formatting such as italics and add those little _italics specifying lines_ it just makes the writer more frustrated. Don’t get me wrong, I do adhere religiously to those guidelines when submitting, but that doesn’t make it any less of a hassle. Chiaroscuro’s guidelines are refreshingly simple. In case you haven’t seen them and don’t want to click over there, here they are:

• Dark.
• Well-written.
• 4,000 words or less.
• Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) attachments.
• No reprints.
• A simultaneous submission is okay, as long as you tell us it’s simultaneous.
• No multiple submissions.
• Be sure to write your name and the story’s title in the Subject line of the email.

That’s it. Simplicity at its finest. Bravo Mr. Editor (Brett Alexander Savory, if you’re interested). But the most important reason I want to be published in Chiaroscuro is because I like the fiction they publish. I read the magazine regularly on my Palm TX. There are others that I like a lot too (Down in the Cellar is great also, and is publishing a story of mine in May, The Ghost of Tom Johns, but it is sadly not a SFWA-qualifying professional market), but Chiaroscuro is my favorite right now, so if they do accept a story of mine it would be transcendent.
So my short term goals are:

1. To be published by Chiaroscuro
2. To have three SFWA-qualifying professional markets accept material from me.
3. To gain admittance to the SFWA.
4. To get my novel published, therefore launching my novel-writing career.

And once that career begins rolling, what next? Well, I’m not foolish enough to believe I’m the next J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, I would just like to have a small, dedicated readership who like my writing and will buy enough books to keep me in publication. I have a good job, so I’m not dependent on the income for survival, and I’m not counting on making enough money with my writing to get me to quit my day job. The simple fact is this: the stories will get written anyway, because that’s what I do. In my free time I write. I always have, since I was twelve years old. It’s only in the past five years that I’ve really made an effort to get anything published, but I’ve always been a writer, and I guess I always will be. So for me, a fruitful, successful career would mean that the stories that would have been written anyway are being read by someone, and hopefully some of those readers will like what I’ve written.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Recently I had a story accepted for publication by the Mount Zion Review. This was my first acceptance, and I’ve been asked a few times how it came to be published, so here it is, in very short order:

I wrote the story, which is about 4700 words, in 2002. It is a dark fiction piece, but couldn’t really be classified as horror or even as speculative fiction. There is some graphic violence in it, and the main character (the one the title refers to as having no soul) is almost pure evil. The story sat on my hard drive for a while because I had no idea who to try to sell it to. I pushed around some other stories that I’d written in the mean time, hoping to find a suitable market for AMSS. In ‘03 I did submit it twice, and then once more in ‘05, but those were just stabs in the dark really. The mags I submitted to were either horror or mainstream lit and, although I thought it would look good in any of them, the editors passed. The fourth time I submitted it was early in ‘07 and I thought I had a winner. MZR publishes dark fiction, preferably with Appalachian themes. Nothing specifying that the story had to incorporate some fantastic or supernatural element, just dark. Well, this story has dark to spare, so I sent it in thinking that it had a chance.

In April I got that fantastic first acceptance letter, and since then I’ve had another story accepted to be published in an anthology called “Southern Fried Weirdness.” The story for SFW is one that is not particularly horror, although it does bear a fantastic element, which made it seem a bit easier to sell to me if only because there are more markets looking for that type material. I submitted that story, A Scent of Rain a total of four times as well before landing the big sale.

It should be noted that I have another story that I’ve submitted a total of 13 times so far. A story which I (evidently erroneously) felt would be easier to sell than some of my other works. In all, over the past five years, I have submitted 17 stories 58 times and received two acceptances, 49 rejections and have 9 awaiting a response.

Do I have a plan? Of course: I live in Alabama and there aren’t any publishers or literary agents around here that I can attempt to woo or even stalk, so I don’t see getting published any way but from the ground up, AKA the hard way. So I’m submitting. I have a handful of shorts that I believe are good (validation received on two of them) and I’m going to push them until they sell. I’m hoping it’ll be a bit easier now that I can add to my cover letter that I have two stories which have recently been published, but I’m not holding my breath. Some of my recent rejections (including a few from some professional markets) have had positive remarks about the story I submitted but gone on to say it didn’t fit what they were looking for at the time. Three in the past two months have gone on to say they would welcome my submitting work to them in the future. Things are looking up. So, the plan is: get these shorts published, preferably at least a few of them to professional markets, thereby allowing for my admission into the SFWA, at which point I will begin attempting to pimp my novel, already written and awaiting glory. (I’ve actually written three novels so far and have a few others in various stages of completion. I’m more of a novel writer than a short story writer, but I feel to succeed I must get shorts published first. Agents and book publishers will instantaneously toss your baby into the slush pile if you don’t have at least a few credits to your name. This is one of the gospels in which I believe.

Anyway, that’s my story so far. Updates hopefully will be coming with more rapidity now that the snowball with my name on it is rolling, picking up debris, packing on mass and aimed directly at the publishing industry as a whole.

I am Matt Mitchell.