Hits, With Purpose

Posted on December 21, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

This post is about the power of Mr. T and Steve Urkel.  Call it an experiment in their pop culture power, and I want to see just how much juice they bring to the Thunderdome.  Hmm….this make me wonder if would they would win a tag-team, toe-to-toe with Mad Max and Master Blaster?  Would Urkel’s gift of disaster (“Did I do that?”) overcome the sheer brute force of Blaster?  Would Mr. T pity to fools into saying uncle?  Is this even a fair fight, considering it’s really a three-on-two (or does Mr. T count for two)?

Those of you who read my site regularly may be wondering what this has to do with writing?  Whether we want to recognize it or not, all writing has a purpose—and believe it or not, so does this post, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.  With everything I write, I want to achieve something.  With my fiction, I want readers to be entertained (purpose #1); I want them to understand my theme or get my point (purpose #2); and I want them buy it, both my point and my story (purpose #3).  By understanding what I want my story to do, I can better achieve that purpose.  Sometimes it takes a lot of trial and error to get it right (commonly called critiquing and rewriting, for those who know the lingo), but with practice, I think I’ve gotten better at distilling my ramblings into a form that achieves whatever my purpose may be.  I still have a ways to go, but if I can get better; anyone can get better.

So, coming back to Mr. T, Urkel, and Mad Max….  Asking such heady, pop-culture questions must serve a purpose beyond the idle speculatory fantasies of a overgrown tween, and in this case it does.  On the advice of fellow writer Marc Schuster, I’m curious to see if pop-culture references attract more people to this site.  As Marc and some of his commenters have pointed out, pop-culture references, especially Mr. T and Steve Urkel, along with links to other pages with similar pop-culture references (like here), can increase the number of hits to a site.  Whether I succeed in achieving the purpose of this post or not will play out in the hits I get over the coming days and weeks.  Thank you for taking part in this experiment.

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“No Better Yesterday for Tomorrow” Finds a Home

Posted on December 21, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

December continues to be kind.  Mystic Signals has bought my story “No Better Yesterday for Tomorrow.”  It’s been accepted as a featured story for their print-only version (they publish some stories both online and in print).  It will appear in issue #14, which, if I’ve counted the months right, will hit bookstores in May 2012.

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A Quick-as-Flash Update (part deux)

Posted on December 20, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

I guess I jumped the clichéd gun yesterday with my update, because I awoke this morning to find “page” proofs for my story “Still Life Through Water Droplets” in my email inbox.  Daily Science Fiction has scheduled it to be mailed to subscribers on January 3rd, and for posting online a week later.  It’s free to subscribe to DSF if you don’t think you can wait until the tenth; they publish a story a day—most of it flash or very short—so you can read it in those little slivers of time between the scheduled things in your day.

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A Quick-as-Flash Update

Posted on December 19, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

The next few months will be busy for me on the publishing front (and hopefully for readers on the reading front).  I have several stories hitting bookstores and the ether, and I thought I’d give a quick summary of what’s coming:

• “Observations on a Clock,” appearing in the February issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, arrives in bookstores near you on Dec 20th;

• My flash fiction piece, “Clownspace” will be in the January issue of 10Flash Quarterly.  I approved the “page” proofs over the weekend, and I expect it to be available the first week of the year—Happy New Year!;

• “The Sea Shall Have Them” is due out in the February issue of Liquid Imagination.  I don’t know the exact release date yet, but I will keep everyone posted.  I expect it will be available early February, in time to read to your loved one on St. Valentine’s Day…or maybe not.

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“Thief of Futures” Podcast Concludes

Posted on December 18, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

The conclusion of the podcast of “Thief of Futures” is now available online.  Paul Cole at Beam Me Up! did nice job with it—I felt each part got stronger.  Paul had originally planned to run it in four parts, but decided to finish it in three, so this final episode runs about ten minutes longer than the previous two.  If you don’t have time to listen to all of Paul’s show, skip forward to the 28:10 minute mark to hear the conclusion of my story.

Along with Paul’s usual news and commentary and some amusing music, I share the episode with another story, Erin Bassett’s “Clockwork.”  This is “episode two” of an ongoing urban fantasy series.  It’s a slick production that really grabbed my attention, and I recommend you check it out.  It starts at the 13:30 mark.

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“Observations on a Clock” Available December 20th

Posted on December 16, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

I had a spike in the number of visitors to my site today, so I figured something was up.  A little looking around and a timely Google Alert lead me to SFScope.  They’ve posted the contents and release date for the February issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, which will contain my story “Observations on a Clock.”  I’m excited to finally see this one in print and to share space with stories by Eileen Gunn, Ken Liu, Barry Malzberg, Bruce McAllister, Robert Reed, Rudy Rucker, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch.  According to SFScope, the February issue will hit bookstores on December 20th.

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Rich and Versatile, Indeed

Posted on December 15, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

Last week, I published a post about “Rules for Writing.”  In that post I said that I particularly like P. D. James five rules, one of which was:

Increase your word power.  Words are the raw material of our craft.  The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing.  We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world.  Respect it.

The English language is indeed rich and versatile.  It’s idiosyncrasies aside, it is truly an incredible language full of wonderful words—a quarter million of them, if you believe the folks at Oxford (you know, of the dictionary fame).

If I had to choose only one favorite word, it’d be crepuscular, which means “of, resembling, or relating to twilight.”  It has a great feel on the tongue.  Other great words to me: masticate (to chew), pusillanimous (showing a lack of courage; timid), and susurrus (whispering; murmuring).  If only there were more opportunities during my daily discourse to use these words.

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Liquid Imagination Will Have “The Sea Shall Have Them”

Posted on December 12, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

Liquid Imagination has accepted my story “The Sea Shall Have Them” for their February 2012 issue (Issue #12).  This is one of those stories I mentioned a while ago that has a strong nautical influence, something that is generally—and you might think somewhat oddly, considering my day job—missing from my fiction. 

I’m excited to find a home for this story.  “The Sea Shall Have Them” was a trunk story I wrote twenty-some years ago, rediscovered earlier this year, revamped, and entirely re-wrote.

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Part Two of “Thief of Futures” Podcast Now Available

Posted on December 11, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

Last week, Paul Cole at Beam Me Up! posted the first part of his podcast of “Thief of Futures.”  Part two is now available for listening.  If you don’t have time to enjoy Paul’s entire show, my story starts, or rather continues, at the 39:30 minute mark.

As with part one, I share the episode with a flash piece originally published in the Australian magazine Antipodean.  Bart Meehan’s “Love and Perpetual Motion” starts at the 6:30 minute mark of the episode.

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Is Originality All It’s Cracked Up to Be?

Posted on December 10, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

In a review of the William de Kooning exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), I came across an interesting quote attributed to the artist:  “In art one idea is as good as another.”  This seems to run contrary to what we always hear about originality.  Everyone seems to prize originality, and artists seem to seek it like the grail, but is originality an over-rated concept intended to mystify what artists, including writers, do? 

I’ve heard it said that every story can be classified into one of a few basic plots (this number seems to vary for one to more than thirty).  What makes stories different from each other are the details and the execution.  If this is true, it would support de Kooning’s thesis: ideas doesn’t necessarily make it art; it’s the execution of the idea that does.

Everyone can tell a story, but only a few people will ever be professional story tellers.  Are my stories any different from anyone else’s stories?  At their most basic level, probably not.  Where my stories differ—hopefully—is in the construction of the plot, the development of the characters, the building of suspense, the deliver of a satisfying climax, and the beauty of the prose.  In essence, being a writer is ultimately about the craft.

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