Gearing Up For NaNoWriMo

Posted on October 27, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

If you’ve been following this site for a while, you know I’m an avid participant in National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo.  This year I feel particularly driven to take part because I’ve written so little over the past few months.  I think it will be a great motivational tool to help me get back to writing on a schedule.

For those of you not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s an annual event that encourages participants to write 50,000 words in thirty days.  That’s basically a short novel.  Yet the word count isn’t the real goal of NaNoWriMo.  The real goal is simply to get people to write.  Sure, most of what is written during that month will be unpublishable, but that’s not the purpose of the event.  NaNoWriMo encourages people, whether they have ever written a novel or not, simply to do it.  In past years, I’ve used it as a way to “up my game,” so for the month of November I more than double my writing output. I’ve managed to complete my target each of the past six years, so I consider myself a bit of a NaNoWriMo veteran.

This year my goal is to write the second novella in my tentatively titled “Calypso Tryptych.”  I wrote the first novella in January (it clocked in at about 45,000 words), and I’m working on revisions.  This trilogy of stories will be my initial foray into self-publishing, with hopefully several more novella trilogies to follow.  As a newbie to self-publishing, I don’t have high expectations, but I figure I have nothing to lose by giving it a try.  At best it could make me some money; at worst, it’ll be a good learning experience.

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“Servant of Sea” Goes to Purple Sun Press

Posted on October 21, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

My story sales often come in bunches, so it should be no surprise to me that Purple Sun Press has accepted my story “Servant of the Sea” for an upcoming (and apparently as yet untitled) fantasy anthology.

“Servant of the Sea” is one of my few forays into the fantasy genre.  While I used to enjoy fantasy a lot when I was younger, I find it often doesn’t hold my interest these days.  I also find it difficult to sell.  Hmmm . . . I’m not sure if that says something about the market or my fantasy stories themselves.

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Old Story, New Home

Posted on October 18, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

Since I haven’t written much over the past few months, I haven’t produced any new stories.  No new stories, then nothing to submit, right?  Well, no.  I know several writers who actively keep their previously published work circulating as reprints, so I thought I’d submit a few of my already published pieces and see what happens.  Guess what, good things happen.  One of my favorite small publications, Kasma SF, has accepted my story “Hoodoo.”

“Hoodoo” has a fascinating history (at least I think it’s interesting): multiple acceptances, long waits, disappointments, eventual publication, a good review by Lois Tilton, and I suspect very, very few readers.  I originally wrote “Hoodoo” for an anthology and got it accepted, but after numerous lengthy delays in publication, I withdrew it, and found it a home with a new publication, Specutopia.  Unfortunately, Specutopia lasted one issue, which is too bad because it was a nice looking publication that got a decent review from Lois Tilton at Locus—no small feat, that.  Needless to say, with only one issue for sale and being a new publication, I don’t think it sold many copies.

All that happened several years ago, and I still like the story a lot, so I thought it was a good candidate for reprinting (no online archive, small readership, good reviews, etc.).  I felt it was a good fit at Kasma SF, so I sent it to them, and I got word yesterday from editor Alex Korovessis that they wanted to publish it.

For those not familiar with Kasma SF, they’re one of the best small market publications out there.  The editor is great to work with.  They commission artwork for their stories.  They’re responsive.  They’ve published some really good fiction.  Of course, as someone who’s had several stories published in Kasma SF—shameless plug, but check here and here—I may be a tad bit biased, but I still think you’ll be hard pressed to find a better small science fiction publication.  But don’t take my word for it, go check them out.

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Going International

Posted on October 17, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

In the span of about ten days in October (yeah, this is more recent news) I officially became an international author when translations of two of my stories were published.

At the beginning of the month, Nova Fantasia published “Ladrón de Futuros” which is the Galician translation of “Thief of Futures.”  Be honest, have you ever heard of Galician?  I hadn’t until I actually started submitting stories to foreign markets, but that lovely region of Spain now holds a special place in heart as being the first non-English speaking region to see enough “value” in my writing to actually translate it.

And to follow that up, a couple of weeks ago, Estonia’s premier science fiction publication (I think it might be their only, but that’s beside the point) Algernon published “Schrödingeri sõda” or for English speakers “The Schrödinger War.”  The editor dropped me a note and told me it was being well-received: one of their readers whose a big fan of military science fiction gave it five out of five stars, even though he couldn’t quite follow some parts.  That left me wondering if parts of that story might have gotten lost in the translation.  Given some of its nuances (and its slightly ‘literary” bent at times), that wouldn’t surprise me, but even so, the reader seemed to enjoy it so that’s rewarding to hear.  This translation is particularly rewarding to me because I have a good friend who’s Estonian so now I can claim a few bragging rights.

Seeing my words in translation has been quite an experience.  I didn’t know what to expect, but in some respects it was similar to seeing my first story in print.  I kept the Nova Fantasia translation open in web browser for several days and would periodically flipped back to it.  A little vain, I guess, but it was inspiring to see “Ladrón de Futuros” with my name under it.  Especially given the past few months I’ve had, having these two stories come out was just what my writing ego needed (only another sale to one of the big magazines could have topped it).  Given the relatively minor effort needed to submit work internationally, I’ll continue to send things out.  Most places don’t respond, but the couple of hits I’ve gotten have made it worthwhile.  And if I can build some readership elsewhere, it certainly can’t hurt—I noticed an uptick in visitors from Estonia on this site after “The Schrödinger War” was published in Algernon, so someone over there noticed it.

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Late to the Hugo Award Party

Posted on October 12, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

I may have been away from the writing world for the past few months, but that doesn’t mean the writing world stopped.  The Hugo Awards were announced in August at Loncon 3.  The Hugo Awards have always been one of my favorites. When I started to take my science fiction reading seriously, I read every Hugo Award winner I could get my hands on (I’ve read every winner from 1953 through 2007), and I was seldom disappointed.  This year’s Hugos had some additional intrigue as some of the categories wound up “politically” charged and generated a lot of debate about judging stories versus judging the author of those stories.  I don’t know what actually came of it in the end, and to be honest, I don’t really care because I prefer to stay out those types of discussion.  That said, on to the awards.

Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice grabbed the prize for Best Novel, giving her the double win with both the Hugo and Nebula.  Like most of the other recent winners in the novel category, I haven’t read Ms. Leckie’s book yet, but it is on my to-read list, and when I get around to catching up on my Hugo reading, this one might be at the top of my list.

In the short fiction categories, Tor.com swept up the awards, which is interesting because it might be the first time an online publication took home everything (I haven’t looked it up, but that’s my recollection), and it’s another sign of the change times in the speculative fiction publishing industry.

The Hugo for Best Novella went “Equoid” by Charles Stross.  I haven’t read much of Mr. Stross’ short fiction, but he’s an excellent novelist, and I’ve heard his novellas are also fantastic.  I’ll likely not get around to this one (I don’t read many novellas), but I might have to find the time to read it.  Mary Robinette Kowal won the Hugo for Best Novelette with her story “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” and John Chu’s “The Water that Falls on You from Nowhere” took home the Best Short Story honor.   All of these stories are available for free reading online at Tor.com.

The award that I was most pleased to hear, however, was Lightspeed Magazine winning the Hugo for Best Semiprozine.  As anyone whose spent time around here knows, I’ve published several stories in Lightspeed and with its editor John Joseph Adams, so I may be a little biased when I say this was a well-deserved recognition.  It’s an honor to have had my work published in Lightspeed, and I’d like to think that maybe my stories—”Thief of Futures” (2011), “Dreams in Dust” (2012), and “The Schrödinger War” (2013)—helped Lightspeed finally take home the rocket ship.

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Alive and Well

Posted on October 8, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

There’s a wonderful science fiction book by Bradley Denton called Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede.  It came to mind when I was thinking about what to write in my first post in a very long time.  Some of you—well maybe one or two of you—might have been wondering what happened to me.  I sort of dropped off the face of the Earth without much warning a few months back.  Well, I am alive and well . . . even if I’m not on Ganymede.

My writing life went hold back in June as my non-writing life sort of exploded.  I wound up with the equivalent of two full-time jobs (more or less), traveling for both of those jobs, and a family emergency on top of it all.  Needless to say, that left little time and almost no motivation to do anything writerly, including but not limited to writing itself.  I missed it on occasion, but mostly I was just too busy to even think about it.

Just because a writer isn’t thinking about writing, doesn’t mean the writing world stops, however.  While I was offline, the Hugos were awarded, I made a sale or two, and I even became an international author—”Hello!” everyone in Galicia and Estonia.

But enough for now.  This post shakes off some of the rust, and I’ll be back around here again soon.

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Characters: Easy as One, Two, Three

Posted on July 13, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

Characters are the staple of fiction.  A story doesn’t exist without something that resembles characters (human or otherwise), and the more interesting the characters, generally the better the work.  If I’m not interested in the characters, then a story seldom holds my attention, and I might as well be reading a dry piece of scientific literature.

As a writer, coming up with complex characters that interest readers (not mention me) can sometimes be a challenge.  While I often find character generation a relatively fun exercise, I sometimes get stuck.  I’ll have a solid story idea, but no character to fit into it.

A fellow writer recently pointed out to me a character creation approach that caught my eye.  That it came from Samuel R. Delany—one of my favorite science fiction writers—makes it even cooler.  (If you haven’t read any of Delany’s work, run, don’t walk, to the nearest online or brick-and-mortar bookstore or library and pick up one of his novels—I recommend Nova—you won’t be disappointed.)

According to Delany, any two facts linked to a pronoun will begin to generate a character in the reader’s mind.  But it’s the addition of a third fact, that in some ways goes against what the first two suggest and requires the author to generate a reason to explain it, that creates a complex and interesting character.

I’ve never thought about it much, but this is genius; it’s concise and simple to visualize and put into practice.  Most importantly, I find it gets at the heart of internal character conflict, which is important as a driving mechanism in stories (at least in western literature).

Hmmm . . . let me see . . . (1) she loves her daughter, (2) she’s a historian specializing in 18th century architecture, and (3) she collects souls for the Angel of Darkness.   I can already see the character’s internal conflict: why does a loving, historian collect souls for the Angel of Darkness?  There are a bunch of possibilities that jump to mind, all of which generate potentially interesting story ideas.   Oooo , I think I like this.

I’ll have to play with this one a little more, but before I do that, I want to get a copy Delany’s book “About Writing” and check it out—I didn’t even know it existed until recently!  Apparently that’s where I can find out more about his observations on characters, along with many of his other insights on writing.

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“The Schrödinger War” Gets Some Recognition

Posted on July 2, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

If you’ve spent anytime reading science fiction, you’ve probably heard of Gardner Dozois.  He edited Asimov’s Science Fiction for many years (before giving way to current editor Sheila Williams), writes reviews for Locus, and puts out a little book every year known as The Year’s Best Science Fiction, which is probably the best known of the annual “year’s best” anthologies that come out.  He’s a highly respected editor, anthologist, and writer.

Every writer would like to make it into the The Year’s Best, but of course, there are only a few slots available.  In addition to selecting two dozen or so stories, Mr. Dozois also assembles an Honorable Mention list of maybe 400-500 titles that are a sort of short list that were considered for inclusion, but didn’t make the final cut.  Getting onto the short list is considering a worthy achievement, and I’m proud to announce that one of my stories “The Schrödinger War” made the Honorable Mention list for 2013 (I’m right there on page 700, just above Eugene Mirabelli).  Ya for me!

While this doesn’t mean much in the grand picture, it is an accomplishment to be proud of—and I am proud of it.  So far, this has been a hit-and-miss year for writing, so this news is a nice kick in the rear to keep me going.  Not that I need validation, but it is gratifying when a “big name” in the field recognizes my work.  Who knows, maybe one of these years I’ll wind up with a story selected to actually appear in one of Mr. Dozois’ anthologies.

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Watching World Cup or Posting . . . Hmmmm

Posted on June 27, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

That title sounds suspiciously like an excuse for not posting here more often over the past few weeks, but it’s not supposed to be.  Given the writing goals I have, you’ll get no excuses (or apologies) from me when it comes to writing.  That said, it’s not like I haven’t been writing.  I have been writing and editing, just not here on this increasingly neglected patch of internet space—was my last post really two weeks ago?  I haven’t been posting more because I haven’t had enough hours in my day to write, keep up with the day job, play in the summer sun, and, yes, watch the World Cup.

Yeah, I’m one of those “Yanks” that comes out of the woodwork every four years to watch soccer (which I believe should be called football, even in the USA, but that’s another story).  I’d like to think I’m not one of those “Yanks” who then turns his attention back to other things as soon as his team is eliminated, but I do to some extent, primarily because the league I prefer to follow, the English Premier League, is a bit hard to keep up with from the other side of the world.  But World Cup soccer is still tops in my book (Robin van Persie’s header goal against Spain was absolutely stunning, internet virality aside), and I’ve watched every World Cup since 1986, even those on the “wrong” side of the globe <grin> which resulted in games in the middle of the night for me.

I have a bunch of post ideas waiting to be written, but they’ll probably have to wait until after the World Cup final is over.  In terms of my writing time, posts here are my lowest priority—that’s just the harsh reality of my writing hierarchy—but never fear, I haven’t forgotten this place, and I will return soon.

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The Cost of Being Pro Is Going Up

Posted on June 11, 2014 by D. Thomas Minton

It’s old news that the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) have raised the payment rate for its qualifying markets (e.g., the markets it considers “professional”), but that day of reckoning is now less than a month away.  On July 1st, SFWA will consider US$0.06 per word pro-rate (up from US$0.05).  Most of the current SFWA-qualifying markets have already agreed to raise their rates (if necessary), but some probably will not, and SFWA will no longer treat sales to these publications as qualifying for its membership.

I have mixed feelings on the rate increase.  It’s good for writers, at least on the surface.  The last rate increase was nearly a decade ago, so it’s long overdue.  But is a US$0.01 increase really going to make much difference (that equals US$10 more per 1,000 words), especially considering it’s nearly impossible to make a decent living selling short fiction under either rate.

Yet the rate increase will affect the bottom line of genre magazines, making an already tough business even tougher (for example, see here).  There are distinct advantages to being an SFWA-qualifying market—these markets usually get first shot at stories and thus scoop up the top names and best stories (theoretically speaking)—but I wonder how many publications will be able to maintain that status,  and instead of paying less (and becoming semi-pro), simply close shop because they will no longer be able to compete as effectively.  Will the rate increase lead to fewer markets, and thus fewer opportunities for writers?  Hmm . . . . That’s a good question, and no one will know the answer until the dust settles in the coming years.

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