Tracking my writing (and flushing my life away on the internet)

Last week I mentioned tracking my writing life. As such, here are my writing times for the second week of 2010:

  • Time spent on new short story writing: 3 hours
  • Time spent revising and editing short stories: 3 hours
  • Time spent on my novel: 3 hours
  • Time spent on communications with editors/fellow writers/others: 2 hours
  • Time spent on Facebook/Twitter/Blog: 4 hours
  • Time spent reading the news and doing other stupid stuff online: 10 hours

Okay, I'm really ticked at wasting so much time on the internet this week. Writing content for my blog and talking with friends on Facebook doesn't bother me. But 10 hours reading news and goofing off online? Crap. Did I really gain anything from those 10 hours I couldn't have learned in 30 minutes? No. Especially when this time took away from sleep, exercise, and reading. This falls back on not wasting your life and is something I'll work hard to fix this week.

In some good news, I received Interzone 226 with my new story in it, finished a rewrite of my novel summary, made good headway on a new SF story, donated blood and money to the Red Cross, and spent time with my family. So I wasn't a total salted garden slug.

Art for "Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas"

Into-the-depths Artist Ben Baldwin has posted the original artwork he created for my story "Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas," which appears in the new issue of Interzone. I love the art and am wondering how my family will react to a print hanging in our house (fingers are crossed for a positive reaction, because I plan to order one). If you want to see a larger version, click on the link above.

I should mention, though, that readers won't find a naked woman standing in ocean waves in the story. Ben used that oft-mentioned "artistic license" technique to great effect, as he aimed at capturing the story's essence instead of illustrating a particular scene.

And while there has been a lot of worthy debate recently about why so many naked women are featured in fantasy magazine art (especially on the covers), in this case I believe the subdued nudity is appropriate. My story deals with a woman cursed to have the names of dying sailors continually flow across her body. Without showing her skin, I don't see how anyone could illustrate this story. If a fantasy magazine plops a naked woman on every cover, yeah, I have major concerns about that. But when an artist illustrates a particular story where you have to see some skin to expose (pun intended) a major plot point, then such an illustration strikes me as appropriate. Especially when it's done as tastefully and artistically as Ben did. It'll be interesting to see what other people think.

Ben is an incredibly talented artist who has illustrated a number of books and magazines. You can check out more of his art on his website at www.benbaldwin.co.uk. For more on my story, please see this recent post.

The Million Writers Award needs genre judges

I'm now laying the groundwork for the 2010 storySouth Million Writers Award for best online short story, which will kick off in late January.  The good news is I have over a dozen preliminary judges lined up to help screen the nominations and select the list of notable stories of the year.  The bad news: I have very few judges familiar with genre writings.

So if you are an experienced writer, reader, or editor in the fields of horror, SF, fantasy, romance, or crime fiction, please apply by e-mailing me at lapthai (circle a sign) yahoo (dot) com.  Be sure to tell me why you'd make a good preliminary judge (i.e., mention your writing, reading and/or editing experience).

Simultaneous submissions: Should you sim sub or not?

My tongue-in-cheek approach the other day on how to kill a writing career generated a great response from readers. In fact, a number of people suggested additional ways to kill your writing career, including the use of cliches, mixed metaphors, and peppering every sentence with gerunds. All great suggestions, and all ones any writer desiring a swift end to their career should embrace.

However, there was one suggestion I disagreed with: The use of simultaneous submissions.

The person who emailed this suggestion was an editor who'd been burned before by sim subs. And as a former editor, I totally agree sim subs are annoying.  Especially when you devote a considerable amount of time to reading a manuscript, only to discover it has already been accepted elsewhere.

But from a writer's point of view--and especially from a new writer's view--sim subs are seen as a way to break through the massive wall supposedly guarding publishing nirvana. If you spend months or years working on a manuscript, you don't want to submit to one place and then wait months or years before hearing a response. Not when you can submit that manuscript to five places at once.

The pros and cons of this approach have been discussed to death (for starters, see here, here, and here). Basically, submitting to multiple places increases the odds of a publishing bite. But you also run the risk of burning your relationship with editors and publishers. Why?  Because while everyone says don't sim sub to places that don't allow the practice, we all know this is exactly what writers do.

So what should a writer do? If you feel you must sim sub, here are my suggestions:

  • If you are a new writer, sim sub to the top magazines and publishers in your genre until you receive either an acceptance or personalized, positive feedback on your work. From then on, submit to that place first. Continue to sim sub to other markets until you either receive positive responses from them, or earn enough publication credits to become a more established writer.
     
  • If you are an established writer (i.e., with a few good publications under your belt), never sim sub. The odds are now against you, and sim subs might end up biting you hard.

The reasoning behind my strategy is simple. The odds of a top magazine or publisher picking up a new writer's manuscript are rather low, so the odds of being burned are also low. By using sim subs you increase the odds of landing that first publishing bite, which is such a career boaster that it's worth the risk.

However, once you are somewhat established, you have built up enough of a relationship with editors and publishers, or enough of a reputation, that sim subbing is a bad risk. So at this point submit one place at a time.

Now comes the big caveat: Sim subbing isn't the best way to get published!

The best way to becoming a published author is to continually improve your writing, seek feedback from other writers, and build relationships in your genre. Everything else, including worrying about sim subs, is mostly a waste of time.

I tried both approaches in my career. Early on, I sim subbed my short stories to every publication that wasn't dead and stinking. I had a few bites--but nothing to write home about--and got burned once--but the burn didn't scar me for life. I was also lucky because the editor I burned wasn't working in the genre I now focus my writing on.

So sim subbing didn't do much for me.  Instead, I started landing decent publications when I no longer worried too much about submitting. When I focused on my stories first, and only worried about submitting after the story was the best it could be. I also began submitting to editors with whom I'd built enough of a relationship that I knew they'd give my work an honest read.

That's my advice. Take it for what it is. I'm far from an established writer, but I have enough experience and publications to have seen what has worked and not worked for me.

For the record, I no longer sim sub, and wouldn't consider doing so again. That said, I also don't think sim subs will destroy your writing career, and they might even help new writers.

But always remember that sim subs can never take the places of improving your writing and building relationships.

My final nominations for the 2009 Nebula Awards

Back in November, I made a few initial nominations for the Nebula Awards because I wanted to bring early attention to deserving stories and novels. But I still had a few spaces left on my nomination ballot--you can nominate up to five stories or novels in each category--so after additional reading I've added more stories to the mix.

Here are my final nominations:

Short story

Novelette

Novella

  • "Arkfall" by Carolyn Ives Gilman, F&SF, September 2008. Read my original review here.
  • "The God Engines" by John Scalzi, Subterranean Press, 2009.

Novel

  • The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. See my review here. If this novel does not make the final ballot, it will be a true shame.
  • Green by Jay Lake.
  • The Walls of the Universe by Paul Melko.
  • Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Bradbury Award

  • Moon, film by Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker.
  • Avatar, film by James Cameron.
  • Coraline, film by Henry Selick.
  • Ponyo, film by Hayao Miyazaki.
  • Up, film by Bob Peterson and Pete Docter.

Andre Norton Award

  • The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente.
  • Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman. Read my original review here. And you should know my son threatened me if I didn't add this book to my list (but I was going to anyway).
  • Fire by Kristin Cashore.

The Nebula Award nominating period runs through Feb. 15. I hope people will check out the stories and novels listed here--I can't recommend them enough--and make their own nominations before the deadline.

My story "Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas" in Interzone 226

IZ226The Jan./Feb. 2010 issue of Interzone (number 226) contains my fantasy novelette "Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas."  Of all the stories I've written, this is one of my favorites. I hope readers enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Which isn't to say the writing was easy. I've worked on this story for at least four years, with an earlier version published last fall in a small press zine edited by Pete S. Allen. But none of these earlier versions matched my original vision for the story.

And yes, this means I spent way, way more than 20 hours on this story. I wrote so many versions that at one point I forget which version I was working on, did a rewrite on a discarded draft, and ended up with two competing versions. Only a painful line-by-line edit was able to condense these two drafts back into a single story.

The version published by Pete came closest to my vision, and I owe him a massive debt of gratitude for preventing a major mistake with the story (without giving too much away, it involved me almost removing the daguerreotypes from the tale). Pete read this daguerreotype-less version and said a polite "hell no," which was the totally right thing to do.

If you read the earlier published version of "Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas," the final reworking in Interzone massively improves the love story and totally changes the ending, among other changes.

In my Interzone author's note I thank both Pete for publishing that earlier version, and Andy Cox and the IZ editors for taking a chance on this reworking. It's not often a previously published story is allowed a second chance at life, and it's not often a writer gets to work with so many talented editors on a single tale. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

How to kill a writing career

This afternoon while slaving away on the novel which will rocket me to the heights of literary superstardom -- maybe even to the level of Paris Hilton superstardom -- insight struck. I realized I was working way too hard at this writing gig. Instead of trying to succeed through hard work, talent, and dedication, there was a much better way to reach my fictional goals.

I simply needed to thin the writing herd.

Think about it. There are thousands of fiction writers and wanna-be authors in the world. As we all know, when one species overpopulates an ecosystem all creatures are at risk of starvation until the population stabilizes. So why not knock off the competition? This way the survivors -- and their fiction -- will naturally float to the top of an empty literary world.

With that in mind, here are some suggestions on how to destroy a writing career. Simply retitle these suggestions as positive advice -- such as "What every successful writer knows!" -- and send them to both budding writers and established pros. Budding writers won't realize the success you refer to is your own until AFTER their buds have been nipped, a la Barney Fife, while established pros are so cocky they won't recognize what's happening until they're knocking on heaven's remainder bin.

So do your part, and dump a little weed killer in the garden of literary delights by passing this "advice" to other fiction writers.

How to kill a writing career
Remember: Before sending this to a writer, retitle it in a positive way, such as "10 sure-fire ways to publishing success" or "What publishing insiders don't want you to know."

  1. Heed the immortal writing advice of Allen Ginsberg: ''First thought, best thought." Revisions and rewriting should be left to those without the talent to be writers in the first place.
  2. Proper spelling and grammar are traps to keep authors down. Dare to reach greatness by following your own linguistic path.
  3. Only writers lacking vision worship coherent plots. So every time you sit down to write, mutter this simple chant: "James Joyce's Ulysses is a great novel. James Joyce's Ulysses is a great novel."
  4. Write only what is popular and trendy. After all, if drunk and horny vampire biker chicks are the hot thing this year, imagine how much hotter they'll be when your book comes out three years from now.
  5. Embrace adjectives. If one adjective is descriptive, why not five or six in a row?
  6. Waste the readers' time. After all, if readers want to drink from the fountain of your literary greatness, it's up to them to pucker up and suck.
  7. Write only when the muse moves you. Only bad writers force themselves to write every day. You answer only to your muse. And don't forget -- the muse loves to drink! Lots and lots of drink!
  8. Guidelines are for writers afraid to push the boundaries. Not only defy every guideline you encounter, when submitting tell the editors you don't accept their limited ideas on what fiction they should publish. Be sure to also address submissions to "Dear Editor" to show these little people their proper place in the literary supernova that is you.
  9. Continually act neurotic, paranoid, angry, annoyed, psychotic, or better yet, all of those at once. And remember, you can't be a great writer unless you are addicted to something obscure and weird. (Like wow man, that dried gnat excrement is nature's only truly righteous high!")
  10. Flame wars are your friend. If you don't post a nasty repartee somewhere on the web at least once a day, how will you succeed as a writer? And be sure to engage in flame wars with other writers, editors, and literary agents. Nothing says you've arrived on the literary scene like a flame war!

Keeping track of my writing life

In the new year I plan to keep better track of my writing times, which I hope will push me to be more productive. So even if it does take me 20 hours to finish a short story, I'm optimistic this tracking will help me be write more fiction in 2010 than in 2009.

As such, here are my writing times for the first week of 2010:

  • Time spent on new short story writing: 4 hours
  • Time spent revising and editing short stories: 4.5 hours
  • Time spent preparing one short story submission: .5 hour
  • Time spent on my novel: 0
  • Time spent on communications with editors/fellow writers: 1 hour
  • Time spent on Facebook/Twitter/Blog: 3 hours
  • Time spent reading the news and doing other stuff online: 5 hours

I'm not satisfied with those numbers, and aim to lower the amount of time reading the news online and increase the amount of time writing. While I work a full-time job in addition to my writing, if I have 8 hours to spend online (not all of which is goofing off, but a good part is) there is definitely more time in my life to devote to writing.

Unfortunately, I didn't keep track of my writing times last year, so I can't make a good comparison to what I want to accomplish this year. However, based on my Duotrope Digest submission tracking numbers, I wrote 8 new short stories in 2009, of which 5 were accepted and published (mostly in Interzone). I also wrote a large chunk of a novel.

My goals for 2010 are to write fewer short stories but to complete my current novel and finish the rough draft of a second. I'll be giving weekly updates on the status of these projects as a way to keep me honest and productive. So feel free to call me nasty names if I slack off over the next 12 months.

The only Avatar analysis worth reading

Okay, maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic with that title because there are a ton of Avatar reviews out there and I can't pretend to have read them all. But Roz Kaveney's examination of the film on Strange Horizons is still the most insightful I've read, and is highly recommended for anyone trying to scratch deeper into the film.

While you should read the entire review, here's one of the many points I totally agree with:

The most important and telling criticism levelled at the film—to the extent of causing some people to boycott it altogether—is that its central plot structure is a standard neo-colonialist one, in which the Pandorans need the help of a superior being, a white American, to survive and the story is about him, not about them. The argument is that, even granted that sometimes members of a privileged group renounce privilege, telling their story inevitably still privileges them above the unprivileged group whose story is not being told. This charge is not, let us be clear, without merit, though it is hard to see how a film with any other plot structure could be scripted, let alone made in Hollywood at vast expense.

As well as being the Great White Saviour, Jake is that most useful of plot devices, the protagonist who has to be told things; he is also the Man Who Learns Better, and discards earlier convictions; he is also someone who cheerfully signs up for complicity with what he comes to realize is atrocity, and has quite a lot of expiation to do. Yes, the story is about him, but all stories have to be about somebody—Jake is somebody who has been part of the most negative aspects of human society and who comes to understand that he has been exploited and spat out. His relationship to privilege is complicated even at the start. It may be fanciful to think his surname a reference to the great French Protestant rebel and statesman, but, given Cameron's form in such matters as embodied elsewhere in the film, possibly not.

It might be superficially appealing to reimagine the story so that it could have been about a Pandoran coming to understand the degradation of human society. This is superficially attractive, save for the fact that we would need to be shown from the film's inception the underlying assumptions from which such a protagonist was operating. We would need to have an entire alien world and society shown us in what would end up being "As you know, Bob" conversations, and with the risk that such a protagonist's naivete about human institutions would end up being portrayed in a way best described as minstrelsy. Moreover, the process of thinking oneself into the mindset of a Na'vi would almost inevitably involve an even greater appropriation of the identities of actually existing forest hunter-gatherer peoples, which would itself be problematic.

This is the best response I've seen to the neo-colonists criticisms, which while raising valid points in my opinion miss the overall message of the film.

And for my final comment about Avatar, I point people to the best explanation I've seen for why James Cameron's films have been so successful: He "made a pact with Satan. How else do you explain Titanic being the highest-grossing film of all time? Seriously, think about it. Someone should look into this."

Thanking people for their kind words

Since the New Year is now well underway, I wanted to point out the kind words reviewers have had for my stories in recent weeks:

  • In a SF Signal Mind Meld on "The Best Genre-Related Books/Films/Shows Consumed in 2009," Colin Harvey praised my novella "Sublimation Angels" and short story "Here We Are, Falling Through Shadows," saying "As I noted with Ted Kosmata last year, good--but very different--stories appearing in quick-fire succession by the same author have a cumulative effect far beyond that achieved by single works." In addition, in Strange Horizons' "2009 in Review," Colin mentioned me as a newcomer publishing "high quality" fiction.
  • At SF Crowsnest, Gareth D Jones called "Here We Are, Falling Through Shadows" "a chilling story of the unknown" while John DeNardo at SF Signal called it a "marvelously engaging story."
  • At SFRevu, Adam Tredowski said my "Shadows" story would make his Hugo short list.
  • At Tangent Online, Bob Blough praises my novella "Sublimation Angels," calling it "SF of the purest quality" and that he eagerly awaits "the sequel to the greater story incumbent in the original idea." Don't worry, I'm already sketching out the sequels to the story.
  • Free SF Reader picked "Sublimation Angels" as one of the best new stories of 2009, as did Gareth D Jones.
  • Finally, Shaun Duke will be mentioning my "unique, spatially disconnected short fiction" in his academic paper "Shaping the Shapeless: New Weird, Bizarro, and Bending Genres," which will be presented at the upcoming "What Happens Now: 21st Century Writing in English--the first decade" conference in Lincoln, England. Wow! And I love that description of my work.

I hope I haven't missed anyone. Thanks to everyone listed for the kind words, and thanks to every reader out there who has enjoyed my stories.

Where I disappear to in Alabama

While I don't currently live in Alabama, I was born and raised there, so trips back home happen once or twice a year. Even though it's a long drive to Alabama from Ohio, the kids manage the trip well and are always excited to see their grandparents.

On our last visit we spent time with my family at Clear Creek Harbor, a small marina and camp area near Birmingham. Unfortunately, this was during November so we couldn't enjoy the swimming, but it was still fun. Most people at Clear Creek Harbor live in permanent trailers and campers at the site, and obviously fishing is a big deal there. In fact, the picture on the harbor's home page is of my father fishing.

Not sure why this would be of interest to anyone outside my family, but figured I'd still put it out there.

The science behind Avatar

My wife and I saw Avatar last night in 3D, and we both totally enjoyed it. Yes, the plot was somewhat simple, and yes, it is a white man's escape fantasy. (I mean, what people would let an outsider lead them into war after only 3 months?) But that doesn't take away from the fact that it is a very good movie, which my non-SF-loving wife loved as much as I did. That last fact speaks to why this film is so successful with audiences.

What really impressed me was that the science behind the movie was so accurate. No Star Trek red matter here. For anyone interested in the science behind the movie, go here. I should note that Cameron's comment about writing science fact instead of science fiction is arrogant and irritating, but in light of how accurate the science behind the film is, I'll give him a pass.

The best stories of the year, as overlooked by the Year's Best anthologies

Yesterday I posted about Gardner Dozois releasing the table of contents for his Year's Best Science Fiction 27. This was preceded by the list for Jonathan Strahan's The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume 4 and Rich Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2010 (the TOC for all of these can be found in this thread on the Asimov's forum). The last of the big 4 anthologies, David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's Year's Best SF, has not yet released a TOC.

There are some great stories listed. For example, "Eros, Philia, Agape" by Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com) and "Before My Last Breath" by Robert Reed (Asimov's) are fighting for my last nominating spot in the Nebula Award short story category. But that said, I'm disappointed so many of the stories I loved the most in 2009 were overlooked by these three anthologies.

For example, "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster, originally published in Interzone and reprinted in Apex Magazine, is without a doubt one of the top SF stories of the year (and according to people like Rusty at BestScienceFictionStories.com, one of the best modern SF stories, a view I'd agree with). I've read this story multiple times because it is so great, and have heard the same from other readers.

Other overlooked stories include "Greetings from Kampala" by Angela Ambroz and "The Shangri-La Affair" by Lavie Tidhar (both from Strange Horizons), "From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7" by Nnedi Okorafor (Clarkesworld), "The Killing Streets" by Colin Harvey and "By Starlight" by Rebecca J. Payne (both from Interzone), and "The Art of the Dragon" by Sean McMullen (F&SF).

Thankfully Lavie will appear in Gardner's anthology with the equally great "The Integrity of the Chain" (from Fantasy), which will be his well-deserved debut in a year's best anthology. And as I mentioned, Hartwell and Cramer have yet to announce their selections, which are always good. But so far, I feel the riskier stories were overlooked precisely because they are not your standard SF tales.

For example, I really liked "Black Swan" by Bruce Sterling when it was originally published in Interzone. This is a solid SF tale of multiple dimensions, alternate history, and quantum mechanics, which is well written (as is everything written by Sterling) with characters the reader instantly relates to. When I read the story, I instantly knew it would make some of the year's best anthologies, and it did.

How did I know this? Because it was a safe choice. The story explores subjects which challenge the reader without ever making them feel uncomfortable. And that is why I believe so many of these overlooked stories were not chosen. They disturb the reader. They diverge too much from accepted SF conventions by mixing personal and social issues with more traditional SF themes. They challenge the frontiers which separate SF from fantasy (as if theoretical science itself isn't also mounting such an assault).

In fact, the biggest complaint SF critics seem to have with stories like Eugie Foster's great "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest..." is that they aren't truly science fiction. Well, I call BS on that. If "The Motorman's Coat" by John Kessel (F&SF) (see update below) is SF enough to be chosen for one of these anthologies, then "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest..." definitely fits the mold. These are SF stories for a world where the frontiers of scientific possibility are almost philosophical in nature.

In the end, I'll still buy these anthologies because they contain a number of stories I haven't had the opportunity to read. It's also always fascinating to read the stories that someone else considers the best of the year. But even as I read these books, it'll be sad to know some of the best stories of 2010 won't be reprinted within.

UPDATE: BlueTyson rightly pointed out "The Motorman's Coat" by John Kessel is in an anthology containing SF & fantasy, so my mistake on that. But other selected stories flirt between fantasy and SF and other genres, or deal with subjects which stretch the bounds of scientific possibility (such as faster than light spaceships or time travel, which in my book are both pure fantasy and in no way SF). So my overall point remains.

TOC for Year's Best Science Fiction 27, edited by Gardner Dozois

Over on the Asimov's forum, Gardner Dozois has posted the table of contents for his Year's Best Science Fiction 27. Here are the stories:

  • UTRIUSQUE COSMI, Robert Charles Wilson--New Space Opera 2.
  • A STORY, WITH BEANS, Steven Gould--Analog.
  • UNDER THE SHOUTING SKY, Karl Bunker--Cosmos.
  • EVENTS PRECEDING THE HELVETICAN REVOLUTION, John Kessel--New Space Opera 2.
  • USELESS THINGS, Maureen F. McHugh--Eclipse Three.
  • BLACK SWAN, Bruce Sterling--Interzone.
  • CRIMES AND GLORY, Paul McAuley--Subterranean
  • SEVENTH FALL, Alexander Irvine--Subterranean
  • BUTTERFLY BOMB, Dominic Green--Interzone.
  • INFINITES, Vandana Singh--The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet.
  • THINGS UNDONE, John Barnes--Jim Baen's Universe.
  • ON THE HUMAN PLAN, Jay Lake--Lone Star Stories.
  • THE ISLAND, Peter Watts--New Space Opera 2.
  • THE INTEGRITY OF THE CHAIN, Lavie Tidhar--Fantasy.
  • LION WALK, Mary Rosenblum--Asimov's.
  • ESCAPE TO OTHER WORLDS WITH SCIENCE FICTION, Jo Walton--Tor.com.
  • THREE LEAVES OF ALOE, Rand B. Lee--F&SF.
  • MONGOOSE, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette--Lovecraft Unbound.
  • PARADISO LOST, Albert E.Cowdrey--F&SF.
  • IT TAKES TWO, Nicola Griffith--Eclipse Three.
  • BLOCKED, Geoff Ryman--F&SF.
  • SOLACE, James Van Pelt--Analog.
  • ACT ONE, Nancy Kress--Asimov's
  • TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, John C. Wright--Federations.
  • BLOOD DAUBER, Ted Kosmatka & Michael Poore--Asimov's.
  • THIS WIND BLOWING, AND THIS TIDE, Damien Broderick--Asimov's.
  • HAIR, Adam Roberts--When It Changed.
  • BEFORE MY LAST BREATH, Robert Reed--Asimov's.
  • ONE OF OUR BASTARDS IS MISSING, Paul Cornell--Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Three.
  • EDISON’S FRANKENSTEIN, Chris Roberson--Postscripts 20/21.
  • EROSION, Ian Creasey--Asimov's
  • VISHNU AT THE CAT CIRCUS, Ian McDonald--Cyberabad Days.

Looks like a good list of stories, and once again original anthologies are well represented. My only disappointment is that only two Interzone stories made the list. There were several great Interzone stories I'd have included, such as "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster. But it's Gardner's book and his choices, and I look forward to reading the stories I've missed.

A Story Worth Reading: Richard McKenna's "The Secret Place"

My local library has a large collection of science fiction anthologies from the 1960s and 70s, and in Nebula Award Stories 2 is an amazing story you maybe haven't read, Richard McKenna's "The Secret Place."

McKenna was a sailor and writer best known for his novel The Sand Pebbles, set on a navy gunboat in 1930's China and made into a 1966 Hollywood film. But McKenna was also a well-respected science fiction author, and "The Secret Place" shows him as a master of the short story form.

The story follows the work of a geology assistant, part of a team searching for uranium in the desert near Barker, Oregon, during World War II. The only reason the team is there is because a local boy was found dead in the desert a decade before holding a sack of gold and a crystal of uranium oxide. But the lead geologist knows this search is a waste of time--the desert here simply doesn't contain either gold or uranium. Still, the team works on because the Army has ordered them to.

Eventually the assistant is left behind to carry on the pretense of a search. At this point he runs head-long into the myths of this desert region. The locals aren't happy with outsiders attempting to find their mythical mine, or to prove it doesn't exist. The dead boy's sister, who played fairy games with him in the desert, knows much more than she is capable of saying. As the assistant geologist flings himself closer to the truth, pursuing his own cruel ideas of what this game means, science and myth spin into worlds he can't possible understand.

"The Secret Place" is amazing, and well deserving of the Nebula Award for Best Short Story it won in 1966. Unfortunately, the story was published posthumously, as McKenna died two years before of a heart attack. This is a shame, as one can't help but wonder what McKenna would have written had he lived. "The Secret Place" could stand with the best literary short stories even if published today, and anticipated by more than 20 years the fusion of psychological myth and literary writing Robert Holdstock used to such great effect in his Mythago Wood series.

Response to "Should SF Die?"

Over on the Shine Anthology's weblog, editor and writer Jetse de Vries has posted the deliberately provocative essay "Should SF Die?" Jetse covers the full range of issues facing the genre, including a lack of racial and ethnic diversity, how international SF is snubbed by a WASP-dominated genre, a general lack of readers, and a lack of imagination among today's SF writers.

I'm really looking forward to Jetse's new anthology of positive SF, and in general I support his calls for more positive SF. I differ with him in some regards (as I mentioned the other day, instead of placing SF's failures on a lack of positive answers to the world's problems, it is more likely the genre's negative outlook on life turns away readers). Still, I can't fault the goal he's pushing toward.

But his "Should SF Die" rant is simply too much. Yes, all of the issues Jetse addresses must be dealt with. But his words remind me of the mundane manifesto from a few years ago, and how that was also the answer to what ails SF. But then the mundane SF issue of Interzone came and went without any love from readers, and that was that.

The reason mundane SF disappeared quietly into the night is because it was merely an intellectual exercise. People debated the issue, threw angst left and right, dangled their philosophical thoughts proudly, and what happened next? Nothing. Because the stories produced under this manifesto failed to stir readers.

Stories are what matter first and foremost in any writing genre, and no amount of intellectual debate can ever change this. No one sits around bemoaning what is wrong with the fantasy genre, or saying that fantasies could be even more successful if only they were more relevant to today's lives and/or provided the answers people need. Instead, fantasy authors produce the best fantasies they can, and readers either embrace the stories or they don't. If SF wants to have a future, it must do the same. The genre must embrace works by writers from all parts of the world, and embrace new types of stories, and embrace new readers by giving them exciting stories they can't find anywhere else.

I agree it's a problem when SF writers avoid writing about today's issues, and that the imaginations of genre writers are often limited. But the answer isn't more talk about the problem. The answer is for authors to write stories which address these concerns. For editors and publishers to publish stories without regard to a narrow WASP outlook on life. And for we as a genre to put up, or shut the hell up!

If we write exciting SF stories relevant to a multi-cultural and ever-changing world, the readers will come. If we don't, then the genre dies. And no amount of intellectual back and forth will ever change this basic fact.

So I look forward to Jetse's anthology. I hope it contains some great stories. Because if it doesn't, all this debate will have mattered for nothing.

How long to write that short story?

In my post the other day about professional rates for short stories, I mentioned taking 20 hours to complete a 5,000 word short story. Now, by complete I meant the entire process--first draft, rewrites, editing, throwing the damn thing on the floor and screaming because I can't make the ending work. You know, the typical short story writing process.

I rarely write those 20 hours in order. Usually I take time off and work on other stories. My process is to write several short stories at the same time. When I tire of one story, or hit a roadblock, I put it aside and work on another.

But a few writers pointed out in the discussion thread that they consider 20 hours for a 5,000 word story to be paint drying, grass growing slow. Nick Mamatas laughed at my estimate, adding "Hey, I like my latte HOT, so step on it!" John Scalzi said that in "20 hours of butt in chair, I wrote and did the initial edit of 'The God Engines,' which is 30,000 words," and that he'd write a 5,000 word story in five hours. I've heard of other writers working like Scalzi, i.e., writing in a near complete final form. Isaac Asimov was famous for doing this. 

Of course, there were also writers much slower than that. Jeff VanderMeer asked, "Why the f*#& would anyone *want* to write a 5k story in five hours? Then you're just churning out product." Rachel Swirsky said, "I'm slower than slow. I'm glacial. The idea of writing a 5,000 word story in 5 hours is amazing to me; the idea of writing a 5,000 word story in 20 hours is sort of amazing to me."

So this set me to thinking: How long does it take most writers to complete a 5,000 word short story?

I kept track of my writing time this weekend, to make sure I wasn't wrong about my story completion rates. After waking up with a great idea for a short story, I wrote 5,500 words in 8 hours. However, this was only the first draft, which predictably had major deficiencies (namely, the language needed to be cleaned up, 2 of the 3 characters were one dimensional, and the ending didn't quite work). After throwing the copy on the ground and screaming, I rewrote the story the next day. Add another 4 hours. At this point, I'm letting the story ferment for a few weeks, but I imagine it will need another 6-8 hours of rewriting and editing before I send it out, so my 20 hour estimate is pretty reasonable for how fast I write. And I should add that several of my stories have taken much longer than that.

So people: How long does it take you to write a typical 5,000 word story?

 

 

New fiction from me

My short story "Cwazy" has been published in OCHO #28, the print companion to the literary and arts magazine MiPOesias. This special issue was edited by editor and writer Kirk Curnutt, and features stories which "leave the reader wanting more." My story is a literary fantasy set along the Alabama interstates, featuring a dead fairy girl and a man shot through the head.

You can access the issue in multiple ways. To read it for free through Issuu (jump to page 71 for my story). But be aware you have to access the story through Issuu's DRM service, which can be frustrating. However, they do let you print the issue, and download if you have an account. Or you can order a very nice copy of this perfect-bound literary magazine from Amazon.

Positively positive that positive SF doesn't have to be positive to be positive

Despite having fun with that headline, I'm talking about a serious subject. Over on his Twitter account, Jetse de Vries--editor of the upcoming Shine anthology of positive SF--says the genre is failing the people of the world, who are suffering from global warming, disease, hurricanes, job losses and so on. These people are looking for answers on how to improve their future, and "SF isn't telling them: SF only tells them how excriciably horrible the next apocalypse will be. Trust me: they *know*!"

Jetse adds: "I'm extremely tired of the argument that projecting the 'if-this-goes-on' future will prevent it from happening: people want *solutions* too. So yes, Paolo (Bacigalupi), make fun of me all you want, but while calling out FIRE, FIRE is one thing (SF is great at that), it's the firefighters who extinguish the fire & the foreseeing planners who try to *prevent* future fires. SF lacks the latter, unfortunately."

In closing, Jetse says that because SF isn't providing these answers, the genre has become marginal.

Since the biggest movie event of the year is a SF film--and people embrace all things SF in video games and Hollywood blockbusters--I wouldn't use the term marginal to describe the genre. Has literary SF become marginal? Yes, that could easily be argued. But even this lesser marginalization isn't due to a lack of positive forecasting of answers.

First off, I'd like to know what "solutions" the Golden Age of SF actually projected, or indeed any age of SF ever successfully projected. The most famous example given for the genre projecting positive answers was dealing with nuclear holocaust, as in Walter M. Miller Jr's classic A Canticle for Leibowitz. But these stories didn't provide answers on how to avoid destroying ourselves with nuclear weapons. Instead, the genre gave a warning. Humanity had to find our own way (and we still are).

Likewise with SF from all ages. Yes, the genre dealt very well with showing us how technology was changing, and how human could adapt and change with our technology. But on all of the major issues of the last century, SF either missed the boat or played catch-up once the issues were already being dealt with. For example, the Golden Age of SF of the 1940s and 50s took place when a lack of equal rights for women and people of color were pressing issues around the globe. But you do not find the classics of Golden Age fiction offering solutions to these issues (or even acknowledging they existed except in a off-handed manner). By the time the genre began to write about environmental and population issues in the 1960s and 70s, our society was already trying to deal with these problems--and again, the genre merely showed the problem, not the solution. Same with the current problem of global warming. While writers dealing with global warming show what could happen, I haven't seen one offer a valid solution that doesn't already exist in some way among the advocates and politicians trying to deal with the problem.

The truth is SF rarely gets in front of human understanding on the problems we create for ourselves. As such, it is difficult for the genre to provide answers for what ails humanity--especially problems created by social issues, which again is where I'd place global warming and most of the other items mentioned here.  We create our own messes, and we must find a way to clean up the mess even as we create ever more messes.

So what is positive about the genre? That's simple: SF's outlook on humanity's future. That humanity is able to always find a solution to the problems we create. That we as a species do not give into despair and give up. I would argue that this positive outlook is what is missing from SF these days, and also explains why the literary SF genre is in such trouble. SF found in video games and on the big screen generally keeps to the classic positive attitude of SF; while this doesn't totally explain their success, I believe it is part of it.

I'm all for positive SF, even as I also see a need for SF with a less positive outlook on life. And if SF can provide some positive answers for our future, even better. But based on the genre's track record, I'm not holding my breath.