Inspiration: “Forget the Rain”

Posted on January 7, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

My story “Forget the Rain” appeared this month at Kasma SF.  I wrote it shortly after joining the Codex writing group early in 2011.  Codex is a large community of predominantly new writers who share information about the publishing business and encourage its members to write.  Shortly after joining, they held a writing “contest” in which a series of prompts were given and anyone who wanted to take part could write a story and submit it for comment.  I wrote “Forget the Rain” based one of the provided prompts, in this case a visual prompt:

Elephant

It’s a neat picture of a real mechanical elephant with a howdah on top and chambers in the side, and it really appealed to my sense of the bizarre and exotic.  For my story,  I decided to make it a real elephant, and then brainstormed from there:  What are the chambers for?—Who would live with such creatures?—Where would they live?—How would they live?  Eventually a story of genocide and war and one man’s desperate effort to saved his tribe and his family emerged, and I wrote a decent first draft of “Forget the Rain” in a single weekend.

If you haven’t yet, head over to Kasma SF and read “Forget the Rain.”  While there, be sure to check out the other fine stories published by some of the best names in speculative fiction.

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Are We All Middle-Aged White Guys?

Posted on January 4, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

There has always been the assumption that the stereotypical reader of science fiction is a fairly well to do, middle-aged, white man.  While this might be true to some extent (stereotypes are often rooted in some historical “truth,” real or perceived), assumptions are dangerous things to make.  The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of American (SFWA) website recently published the results of a marketing survey conducted by author Mark Niemann-Ross.  His results present an interesting look at the demographics of science fiction readers.

In Mr. Niemann-Ross’, survey, about 20% of respondents self-identified themselves as science fiction readers.  This percentage was consistent across all age groups except the 45-65 age group, in which only 15% of respondents were science fiction readers.  Of his respondents who were science fiction readers, 57% were male, and had an average income greater than US$80,000 (wow!).  Race was not identified.

So what does all this mean?  It’s a little hard to draw concrete conclusions without seeing the raw data or the groups used in the analysis (e.g., what are the age groups and their sample sizes?), but we can draw some insights, I think.  The genre appears to have readers in all age groups, but this could be misleading because the values are presented as percentages.  I would be interested in the absolute numbers if I wanted to project what this might mean for the future market.  The genre readership is male-slanted (57%), especially when considering the sample population has a male:female ratio of 48:52.  Mr. Niemann-Ross raises an interesting caveat for the gender distribution, however, noting that women on average spend more on books than men, and so while the readership may be more male, book sales may be a more even split between the genders.

Mr. Niemann-Ross’ data don’t entirely dispel the stereotype of the typical science fiction reader.  While it suggest that well-to-do and male might be accurate, middle-aged might not (and says nothing about race).  If nothing, it’s encouraging to see younger genre readers, which are important to the long-term viability of the genre.

Posted in Science Fiction, Writing | 4 Comments

A Good Way to Start the New Year

Posted on January 2, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

I received some good news on New Year’s eve.  My story “Forget the Rain” went live at Kasma SF yesterday, and it has a wonderful illustration by José Baetas.  Mr. Baetas did an amazing job capturing the power and majesty of the elephant like creatures that play a key role in my story.  “Forget the Rain” is a science fiction story that I think reads more like a fantasy, so you’re looking for something a little different to start the new year, check it out.  While your there, stop by the archives, too; Kasma has published good stories from some of the top writers in the field.

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A New Interview Posted

Posted on December 31, 2013 by D. Thomas Minton

Several weeks ago, I did an interview with obsolescent.info press, the publishers of Suction Cup Dreams: An Octopus Anthology, which contains my story “The Octopus Garden.”  I didn’t know it, but they published the interview online about two weeks ago.  It was a fun interview; we talked about inspiration, the creative process, and the correct plural form of octopus.  If you have time, check out the interview, and then pick up a copy of Suction Cup Dreams and enjoy these octopus-inspired stories.

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Catching Up on November

Posted on December 23, 2013 by D. Thomas Minton

With the end of December nearly upon me, I figured I needed to revisit November.  I never had a chance to close out my NaNoWriMo month because I hopped on plane December 1st, and immediately things got very busy.

So how did I do?  I had planned to write a novella during NaNoWriMo, but another trip, this time in early November, threw a wrench into the gears.  I forgot to bring my novella notes and outline with me, so for the first ten days of November, I couldn’t work on it.  Instead I decided to finish the novel I had started during the previous NaNoWriMo (2012), but which went astray in the third part and was stuck in the mud.  I’m happy to say that I found my way and finished the first draft, while at the same time continuing to make progress, albeit slowly, on revising my other novel.  I hit my word target on top of that, so November was a good month, even if I didn’t use it to meet some of my other goals (e.g., write a novella) as  I had planned.

For those keeping track, here’s what I accomplished over the last ten days of the month:

Nov 21—1,836 words
Nov 22—1,868 words
Nov 23—856 words
Nov 24—1,738 words
Nov 25—2,289 words
Nov 26—990 words
Nov 27—1,769 words
Nov 28—1,1467 words
Nov 29—1,981 words
Nov 30—1,802 words

Last Third—16,596 words
Total words—50,674 words

Whew!  It would have been nice to get 326 more words for an even 51K, but I’m not going to quibble.  That’s a lot of words no matter how you look at it, and more importantly I finished the novel and feel good about the first draft.  It needs a lot of editing, but the hardest part for me is done.

I feel good about what I’ve accomplished.

I hope others who did NaNoWriMo met their goal.  If not, don’t worry; NaNoWriMo isn’t a measure of anything, really.  As long as you put butt-in-chair and wrote, you succeeded.  Now the trick is to keep it up.  Good luck to all for the rest of this year and into the next.

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Schlock Talks to Me

Posted on December 19, 2013 by D. Thomas Minton

Schlock Magazine, a pretty good small press publication, runs a monthly author interview called “Schlock Talks,” and they asked me a while ago if I’d be interested in answering a few questions.  I accepted, and they did an interview a few weeks ago that will run in their January issue (yah!).  I got to talk about my writing, my favorite characters, recurring themes, and my process of putting words on to the screen.  Fun stuff to think about and talk about, and hopefully interesting stuff to read.

If you’re not familiar with Schlock, check it out.  They run some solid fiction, and have already interviewed writers like Jeffery Ford and Angela Slatter as well as artists like Sharm Murugiah, and have forthcoming talks with Laird Barron and multi-award winner Ken Liu.  That’s some nice company to keep, and I’m looking forward to the January issue of this small publication that is showing the best of what a small press can be.

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Catching Up on My Housekeeping

Posted on December 17, 2013 by D. Thomas Minton

It’s been an unproductive December.  It pains me to write those words because overall it’s been a decent year.  Sure I’ve been traveling since December 1, but that’s a hollow excuse considering I was traveling for ten days in November and still managed to meet my NaNoWriMo writing target (which was twice that of my usual monthly target).

Since getting back this weekend, I’ve not written anything.  I’m not burned out; I have ideas.  I’ve even scratched some outlines on paper.  I’ve simply been unable to put butt in chair and make progress.  In an effort to get going today, I decided to do some writing housekeeping.  I resubmitted several stories that had come back from markets (rejected) over the past few days.  I’ve also had one story languishing on my hard drive for several weeks because I couldn’t figure out how to submit it to the market I wanted, so I spent about an hour sorting that out (I really wanted to submit it to that market, so it’s good I solved my problem—it required using a different browser; I wish I knew why).

With all that done, I decided to write this post.  Writing posts is an easy way to get the fingers and mind working.  As soon as I post this, I’m going to set the timer for thirty minutes, shut everything else off, and work on novel edits.  I’m not going to let myself off the hook, either.  Once I get started again, I know I’ll get back into the flow.  So here goes….

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Stupefying Stories to Publish “Future Legal”

Posted on December 10, 2013 by D. Thomas Minton

It seems like my submissions have been languishing in slush piles recently, so I was particularly happy to get news today from Bruce Bethke at Stupefying Stories that he wants my flash piece “Future Legal.”  After many failed attempts to sell Mr. Bethke anything, I’ve now managed to sell him two stories this year (he also bought “Another Universe” this summer).  “Future Legal” is a humorous—at least I think it’s humorous—look at “freezer-boomers” and the problems they present for future societies.  Look for it sometime in 2014.

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“Forget the Rain” Cued Up at Kasma SF

Posted on December 8, 2013 by D. Thomas Minton

Just a quick update today:  I’ve received confirmation that my story “Forget the Rain” will be in the January issue of Kasma SF.  I hope you’ll ring in the new year with my story, and while you’re there, be sure to peruse the Kasma SF archives for fiction by some of the field’s biggest names—not mention my story “The Transmigration of Herakles Duncan,” which appeared in Kasma‘s inaugural issue.

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“The Schrödinger War” to Kick Back on the Starship Sofa

Posted on December 5, 2013 by D. Thomas Minton

I received a surprising email last week from an editor at Starship Sofa asking if the audio rights to my story “The Schrödinger War” were available.  For those not familiar, Starship Sofa is the Hugo Award winning podcast that has featured stories by some of the best known names in speculative fiction, including Joe Haldeman, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Bear, Gene Wolfe, David Brin and many others.  They’re the real deal, so to speak.

So when they contacted me, how could I say no?  I’m especially pleased to announce that “The Schrödinger War” will appear in an upcoming podcast of Starship Sofa, likely mid- to late 2014.  I’m looking forward to hearing what they do with my story.

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