The Good, the Bad, the—Let’s Just Do the Good

Posted on January 8, 2016 by D. Thomas Minton

I’ve said several times now that 2015 was a bad writing year for me, and by all my usual measures, it was probably my worst year since I started publishing professionally.  I sold only a few stories, finished probably even fewer than I sold, and wrote almost no fiction over the last half of the year.  But looking back, I realize that even my rough writing year wasn’t as bad as I first thought.  Funny how that happens—indeed, we are worst critics.

So what good, writerly things did happen for me in 2015?

bulletpoint2I made five sales, although three were reprints.  I sold every story I submitted in 2015, including “Last Night at the Café Renaissance” to Intergalactic Medicine Show, a quality pro-rate market.  This happens to be one of my favorite stories, too.

bulletpoint2I had quite a few stories appear both in print and online, including one that had been sitting in the publishing queue at Space and Time magazine since 2012 (“From the Darkness Beneath”).

Wastelands in Powells2bulletpoint2I had a story come out in a major anthology (Wasteland 2—that’s it on the shelf next to Terry Pratchett in Portland’s Powell’s Books!), where I shared the table of contents with folks like George R.R. Martin, Cory Doctrow, Bruce Sterling, Nancy Kress, and Seanan McGuire (not bad company).  I also had stories come out in two small press anthology’s (In the Trenches: The Psychological Impacts of War and Coven).

bulletpoint2I garnered a few nice reviews for the stories I did sell, and “Last Night at the Café Renaissance” landed on Tangent’s Recommended Reading List for 2015.  It’s my fourth story to land such an honor from on the major science fiction review magazines.

bulletpoint2I finished a novella that I plan to self-publish as the first in a series.  I also found a copy editor for it and got the manuscript all spiffed up.  All that’s left is commissioning some cover art and getting the layout done (no small tasks, those).

bulletpoint2While I sold my story “Now and Forever” in 2014, I had to keep it all hush-hush until Simon and Schuster formally announced the What the #@&% Is That? anthology.  That one also has a table of contents that puts fanboy swirls in my eyes.

bulletpoint2And finally, I got interviewed by the magazine produced by the non-profit I work for in my day job (did you follow that?).  That might not sound like much, but my non-profit doesn’t produce a small newsletter; it’s actually something sent out the public and people read.  Our communications team thought my personal story and “side” career as a published writer would be of interest to those who support our organization.  I have to admit, that was kind of cool.

Certainly not as bad a year as I thought, but I know deep down that it could have been better.  That said, if 2015 turns out to be the worst year of my writing career, then I’ll be in pretty good shape.

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The Year of Getting Back on Track

Posted on January 5, 2016 by D. Thomas Minton

It’s 2016.  It’s the Year of the Monkey (or will be in another month).  For me it’s the year I get back on track with my writing.

One of my failures last year was that I set no writing goals for myself.  I’m not entirely sure why, but I think that was a big mistake on my part.  Having tangible and achievable goals isn’t for everyone, but they’re important for me.  I’m a goal-oriented person.  Goals motivate me and drive me to keep working (especially when I put them out there for the world to see).  They require me to track my progress, and give me a lift when I see my progress, and a kick in the butt when I see I’m lagging.  I need goals, and that’s one of things I learned from 2015.

So here goes, my writing goals for 2016:

  1. Write and/or edit at least 500 words per day.  I’ve always had a word target and I find it really motivates me on a day-to-day basis.  I was trying to write more words in my previous goals (2014), but for 2016, I’ve decided to scale it back to take some of the pressure off.  As with previous years, I will credit myself 500 words for every hour spent editing/revising my work.  I will also give myself credit for writing up to six story critiques a month because these directly contribute to improving my craft by forcing me to critically read and analyze fiction.
  2. Finish at least six short stories.  I consider a story “finished” if I write, edit and submit it for publication.  Anything less is unfinished.  I had set a higher target number for stories finished in previous years, but I’ve decided to dial it back year.  This goal is key, because finishing stories is the key to success.
  3. Make at least 30 story submissions or two sales.  I’ve had this conditional goal for the past several iterations of my goals, and I like it.  Goals should be things over which I have complete control, e.g., writing, editing and submitting stories.  Whether a story is accepted or not is, to some extent, out of my hands.  I don’t have many stories on submission now, so I’ve lowered my target number of story submissions from previous years.  I’ve got a lot of work to do to meet this goal.  I might not make this goal of 30 story submissions, but two sales would make me very, very happy this year.
  4. Self-publish my first novella.  I previously had a goal to develop and self-publish a novella series.  One of my successes last year was actually finishing and getting copyedited the first novella in series.  I also finished the draft of the second and got part of the way into the third before things went awry for me.  This is actually a two-part goal, because to publish the novella, I will need to teach myself some of the ins-and-outs of self-publishing.  I know this one will be a challenge to complete, but fortunately, I know some writers who already have experience doing this.
  5. Complete NaNoWriMo (50,000 words in November).  I’ve used NaNoWriMo as a challenge to increase my writing productivity (and not necessarily to write a novel), and I’ve found it’s a great way to stimulate story ideas.  Until last November, I had successfully completed NaNoWriMo for six consecutive years.  Not even trying in 2016 was a big disappointment for me, and I want to change that this year.

So those are my 2016 writing goals, for the world to see.  It’s up to me now to make them happen.  As I have in past years, I’ll periodically revisit these to assess my progress (self-assessment is critical).  I better get to work; I’ve got a lot of writing to do if I’m going to make it.

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What are those steps again?

Posted on January 3, 2016 by D. Thomas Minton

escada-em-espiral4I feel a little like I’m in a 12-step program today.  What’s that first step?  Oh, yeah, admitting you have a problem.  The second?  Accepting it?  Hmmm . . . I don’t know.  Maybe this is a lousy analogy.  I attribute it to that rust I mentioned in my last post (at least, that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it).  Anyway, I got thinking about 12-step programs because they are supposed to be about self-exploration as a way to get to the root of a problem.

So what’s the problem I want to explore here?  That’s an easy one.  I didn’t have a great writing year in 2015.  Not a single measure I track—words written, stories finished number of submissions, webpage posts, sales—shows I had a good year.  Even the writing successes I did have (some sales, some good reviews) were the products of earlier efforts.  I have to face it, 2015 was a dud of year in terms of my writing.

On the personal and professional front, a lot happened in 2015.  At the start of the year, I had a parent who was sick and needed a lot of tough love—it’s hard telling a parent they can no longer take care of themselves.  After that, I was essentially working two full-time jobs for while (especially during the middle of the year).  Add to that a busy travel schedule for my day job, various family responsibilities, etc., and I found myself mentally drained.

All this contributed to a distinct lack of story ideas, or rather, a lack of story endings.  I started a lot of stories, but they all seemed to stall.  I seemed to have no endings, or at least I developed an inability to write the endings I had.  After a while, it became easier to not try, then to do.

But you know what, writing fiction is hard; if it wasn’t, everyone would write a bestseller.

Yes, 2015 was a tough year, but in the end, I think I forgot my number one rule for writing: butt in chair and words on the screen.  Writing isn’t glamorous  and sometimes it isn’t fun, but if I want to reach my writing goal (writing and publishing), I need to put my butt in my chair and pound out stories—one word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time.  I know it will be tough for a while, and I know I can’t always write my way out of a story tangle, but if past experience is any predictor, it will get easier with time because I’ve found that the more I write, the more ideas I get and the easier it is to find and craft those endings.

So here’s to a better 2016.  I’m already more confident that this year will be a better one for my writing.

Posted in Inspiration, Writing | 3 Comments

[TAP] [TAP] [TAP] . . . Is this thing on?

Posted on January 1, 2016 by D. Thomas Minton

microphone-933057_960_720 (cropped)Can anyone hear me?

Likely not, given the room has been empty for the better part of eight months.  I didn’t expect anyone to sit around waiting for someone to come back to the microphone.  I wouldn’t have.

Although looking at my visitation stats, a few people do occasionally pass through here of their own accord.  Maybe with a regularly scheduled show, they will linger a few seconds longer.  Catch a little of the action.  Stay a while.  Explore some of the dark and (currently) dusty corners of this old theater, and maybe even find a doorway to something they like.

How’s that for an intriguing metaphor.  Yeah, not so great.  But after eight months, I’m a little rusty.

I’m hoping to rectify that, however.  To shake off the rust by coming here more frequently and posting something that might be of interest to those who read and enjoy my fiction, and maybe even for those who have never heard my name or read my work.  [Shameless plug: visit my fiction page to see what I’ve written—there’s some good stuff there.]

So if you’ve been lurking in this dark theater the past eight months, or perhaps you have just stopped by for the first time, or maybe you’re wandering through here entirely by mistake, please pop your head in periodically and see what’s up.  I’ll be back soon to post some writing updates—things happen even in quiet months—”talk story” and generally get this place hopping again.

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Inspiration: Sinking Holes

Posted on April 12, 2015 by D. Thomas Minton

It’s been a while since a new story of my has been published, so I haven’t had much opportunity to continue my series of inspiration posts.  I often get asked what inspired a particular story.  Sometimes I don’t know the answer—it’s like I simply channeled the story out of the void—but usually I can trace the germ of a story to a particular thing, be it something I saw or did or heard or read.  “Sinking Holes” is no exception, except in this case, I can trace it to two different things.

“Sinking Holes” traces its origin back to 2013 (yes, that long ago) and a contest run through my Codex writing group called “Setting the Stage.”  For that writing contest, I was sent a couple of paragraphs describing a setting, and from that I was to write a story.  I received a few paragraphs that included this:

Silver threads snake through the murky water, some separate, some entangled with each other but still managing some form of movement as a group, and some wound around and through the wilting dull green and pale beige reeds that cluster in forlorn clumps along the mucky bank, chaining the reeds to each other but also to themselves, at once jailer and jailed.  There should be clouds of insects buzzing about, but there are not.

There was more, but this is really the part that caught my eye, and with a little modification, it gave me the bog setting for “Sinking Holes.”

With the setting in hand, the next piece of inspiration actually came from my day job, which for me is unusual.  As part of my day job, I had spent some time on Palmyra Atoll, a remote and uninhabited Pacific Island.  Part of the reason I was there was to help develop a treatment method for an invasive animal that was overgrowing and killing Palmyra’s coral reefs.   That animal was something called a corallimorph, which looks like a fleshy teacup saucer with a ring of stinging tentacles.  It’s a relative of corals, jellyfish, and sea anemones.  You can see it in the accompanying picture—those fleshy looking donuts that Corallimorph (large)cover the entire bottom where coral and other things should be living.  If you’ve read “Sinking Holes” already, you can see how the story’s mysterious “creep” came from what is actually a real-life “creep,” and it goes to show that truth can be as strange as (and often stranger than) fiction.  You can learn more about this corallimorph at Palmyra, and the extraordinary efforts being used to combat it here.

“Sinking Holes” is now available in Perihelion.  I hope you’ll take the time to check it out—it’s free, so you have no excuse.

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Editors Should Be Your Writing Ally

Posted on April 8, 2015 by D. Thomas Minton

An editor should be your ally in writing, not your adversary.

We’ve all heard stories of nightmare editors–folks who make substantial change without consulting writers (then say they were only minor tweaks), not being communicative, not upholding contractual obligations (of which payment is only one), taking a my-way-or-the-highway approach.

I’ve been fortunate to never encounter such an editor in my publishing career.  Every editor I’ve worked with has been professional and pleasant.  Some have certainly been better than others, but none have been what I would remotely call a bad experience.  Now that I’ve made it sound like I’m about to delve off into a rant about a recent bad editorial experience. . . .

I just finished a great back and forth discussion with Sam Bellotto, the editor of Perihelion, about my story “Sinking Holes.”  He had some great suggestions, wasn’t afraid to keep pushing, but was always respectful and supportive.  The perfect interaction, in my opinion, between writer and editor, and my story is much stronger for it.  I’d work with him again in an instant.

Mr. Bellotto also gave me the great news that my story has been moved up to the April issue of Perihelion, so look for “Sinking Holes” on April 12th.

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For Me, A Sad Hugo Day

Posted on April 6, 2015 by D. Thomas Minton

So the Hugo Award nominations were announced this weekend.  Yeah. . .um. . .hmm.

That’s a distressing response.

If you haven’t been following the award nominations—and you’re forgiven if you haven’t because I haven’t either—then you’re probably unaware of what has happened with this venerable award over the past few years.

The Hugo Awards have always had an element of “popularity contest” associated with them, but having read nearly every Hugo Award winning novel and many of the Hugo winning short stories, too, I would say it hasn’t affected the quality of the winning works.  I’ve rarely read a Hugo Award winner and thought: “This was the best story of the year?”

Recently however, the awards have taken on a more political overtone; last year, questions about several nominees were raised because it appeared they got nominated through a coordinated effort by a small group of people (likely lead by one of the nominated authors) primarily to push their own political agenda.  By most accounts, the stories nominated through that effort weren’t all that good (this is the opinions of others—I haven’t read them), and didn’t win, thus the system “corrected” itself, in a sense.  I don’t profess to know all the details because frankly I’m not that interested, and I already think the science fiction field has become much too politicized, polarized and many other -ized, but that’s another story.

Now campaigning isn’t against the rules, and I would be naive to think it hasn’t been done in the past, but I’m not aware of such a coordinated effort to get an entire “slate” of works nominated, and to do it primarily to stick it some other people or ideologies in the field.  While last year it resulted in only a couple of nominations (all of which were beaten out in the actually voting process), the effort was more organized this year and appears to have succeeded in getting almost an entire slate of nominations nominated.  Now to be perfectly clear, I don’t care about the politics involved here; what bugs me is the process which potentially leads to the exclusion of worthy stories that don’t have the coordinated campaign behind them, and thus get lost in the number games of a crowded nomination field.

How can this happen, you ask?  The way the Hugo Awards are set up, only a small number of people actually nominate and vote for the wards—attendees of WorldCon.  The total nominating ballots is usually only a few thousand, so a relatively small coordinated effort by only a few hundred people can have a significant impact on the nominations.  That appears to be what happened here, as the entire slate of nominees for novella, novelette and short story appear to have come from the coordinated effort.  In addition, the coordinated effort got three of their five novels, all of their short form and long form editors, three of their best semi-pro publication (they only had three), and three of the Campbell Award nominees for best new writer (again they only pushed for three) onto the ballot.  Interestingly, in past years, there has always been some overlap between the Nebula and Hugo nominations, but this year, not a single Nebula-nominated novella, novelette or short story got a Hugo nod.  Not one.

All this makes me sad.

So be it, one side of me says, no Hugo rules were broken.  But the other side of me wonders if this approach is going to bring the best work to the forefront?  I don’t think it will because the coordinated effort has taken the entire slate of nominations in nearly every category, leaving no other options for consideration (other than voting “No Award,” which is possible if the voter deems the nominations to be unworthy), and I find it hard to believe that ever single story that has been nominated truly represent the best in the speculative fiction field—yeah, that’s my opinion, and other opinions obviously differ.

I must admit my confidence in the Hugo Awards has been incredibly shaken, so much so, I don’t have much interest in this year’s award, and any winners will forever carry an asterisk for me.  That’s unfortunate because some of the nominees might actually deserve to be there, but because of the process, they all have become, for me at least, tainted.

I’m not going to bother to list the nominations—they feel like a sham to me–but if you’re interested, you can find them here.

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Perihelion to Publish “Sinking Holes”

Posted on April 3, 2015 by D. Thomas Minton

I’ve sold some reprints and translations recently, but new story sales have been slow, so I’m particularly pleased to announce that Perihelion has bought my story “Sinking Holes.”

It’s scheduled to appear in the May issue, but the editor has told me it could appear sooner—that would be April 12th, as in a few days from now.  Regardless of which issue it shows up in, you’ve got to like that kind fast turnaround time (a rarity in the publishing business).  I’ll keep you posted.

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Impressions of the Nebula-nominated Novelettes

Posted on March 31, 2015 by D. Thomas Minton

Whew!  I barely made it, but I finished the last of the 2014 Nebula nominees for best novelette with a few hours to spare, and got my votes in before last night’s deadline.  So what did I think of the novelettes? Hmmm . . . a real mixed bag, in my opinion.

I enjoyed two of them quite a lot.  One I liked, but not as much as the first two.  Two others I didn’t care much for, but I could appreciate the craft—they just weren’t my kind of story.  And the last one?  Well . . . I simply couldn’t finish it, no matter how hard I tried to slog through it—believe me I tried several times.  But as time wound down, I realized that if I disliked the story that much, I certainly wasn’t going to vote for it, so it didn’t matter if I finished it.  That says something, too, because I hate to leave a story unfinished, even if I don’t care much for it.

I don’t tend to be a big fan of Richard Bowes’ work, but I thoroughly enjoyed his “Sleepwalking Now and Then.”  Sort of a ghost story, sort of a mystery, this story was sumptuously written with an engaging premise and a neat narrative voice.  Nicely done.  The other story that I really liked was Alaya Dawn Johnson’s “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i.”  This is a vampire story on the surface, but really it’s a tale about wartime collaborators.  It’s set in Hawai’i, so perhaps I liked it so much because I lived in the islands long enough to fully appreciate the way Ms. Johnson thoroughly captured Hawai’i in her subtle descriptions.  The story was moving and the ending powerful (even if a bit ambiguous).  If you haven’t already guessed, one of these two stories got my vote.

I also enjoyed “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado, mainly for the way she constructed and told the tale.  Unfortunately, the “secret” of the main character’s ribbon was supposed to be shocking (I think), but I wasn’t surprise at all.  I’ve seen the idea before in a book of “scary” stories for kids, no less.  The story lost points there, but the writing was exceptional so I could mostly overlook that and enjoy the tale.

If you haven’t had a chance to read the Nebula nominated novelettes, I suggest you check them out.  You likely won’t like them all—you might not even finish them all—but you might find a great story among them.

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Thoughts on the Nebula-nominated Short Stories

Posted on March 18, 2015 by D. Thomas Minton

March is Nebula month for me.  The Nebula award nominees are announced at the end of February and voting for the awards closes on March 31st, and as a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, I get to vote.  That means I have lots of stories to read.

I’ve been reading slowly this year, but I’ve finished all the short stories and have started into the novelettes.  There were more short story nominees this year than last, and I found them to be a real mixed bag.  Unlike a couple of years ago when one story just jumped out at me, none of this year’s nominees screamed for my vote.  A few screamed the other way, however—I must admit I didn’t care for several of the stories and at least one left me wondering why it got nominated at all, but to each their own.

All of the stories were well-written, but three of them jumped out for me.  Sarah Pinsker’s “A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes” is a subtle but haunting story about a Canadian farmer who loses his arm in a combine accident, only to have an artificial one that thinks it’s a desolate highway in Colorado grafted on.  If it sounds bizarre, it is, but the story is really about loss and finding a sense of place in the world, and it worked for me.  Aliette de Bodard delivered a nice tale with “The Breath of War” but I didn’t find it nearly as strong or compelling as her Nebula winner “Immersion.”  A decent read, nonetheless.  Usman T. Malik’s “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” also provided an interesting character study of a Pakistani woman with an unusual heritage who has lost her family in the war on terror.  A mysterious but moving story that I recommend to readers looking for something a little different.

I think I know which story will get my vote this year, but I’m going to let the nominees stew for a while as I continue to read the novelettes.  I have about two weeks until the ballot deadline, and a lot of reading to finish (and I hope some writing, too).

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