Because You Can Never Have Too Many Punks

Every now and then, scooting around the internet looking for writing markets, one bumps into a project that immediately appeals to something deep within one's psyche. Most themed anthologies are slow burners that sit in the back of my head until a eureka moment hits, or I already have a half-done story that seems to fit the bill so I get back to work on it, but occasionally one makes me sit up and want to get started on it from scratch right away. Like now! 

This submission call for original fiction for The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk is just such a one.

As it proclaims: If you need to know what dieselpunk is, it's a subcategory of steampunk, essentially, covering the 1920s through to the 1950s, including the Roaring Twenties, the Depression, World War II, and even a little beyond that.

I like this site for its classy pictures and atmosphere. I really need to give this project a go, I think, if only for the sheer fun of it.

 I see trench coats and smart little hats, a wintry night, dark Northern climes, mountains, trains... I do love trains. Maybe an explosion or two. Or not. A Depression Era tale maybe? And both World Wars always make interesting settings for weirdness set amidst global chaos. Not sure yet, but my brain is on it.

Go brain.

And after that?  Check out all the punks here.

Elfpunk maybe?

Hmmmm.  

Aliens Favourably Received

Lazily scooting around the blogs before I sit down for my first session of serious 2014 writing, I discovered over at Alex Dally MacFarlane's blog that Aliens: Recent Encounters, the anthology she edited (which includes my short story Nullipara) is on io9's list of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2013.  

io9 writes:

There were a lot of anthologies this year, including several with ambitious themes — but this one blew us away more than any other.

Mostly because of the sheer volume of greatness contained in these 32 stories, ranging from Ken Liu's "Bookmaking Habits of Select Species" to Ursula K. Le Guin's "Seasons of the Ansarac." These are classic stories of alien encounters, from some of the best science fiction writers working today.

 Nice. Very nice. I'm loving 2014 already.

Quicksteps

I'm usually a one speed person when walking - zip, zip, zip with an invisible, soundless horn that I mentally honk at the sloooooow people who always seem to be blocking my path. This is still my default setting the moment I step off the train and hit the pavements of Melbourne, and the one I ratchet up when doing medicinal laps of the local botanical gardens, but I noticed about six months ago that I'd finally developed a second speed for living in the country. It only took four years, but now, when I head off for local doings, I positively amble.

I'm very conscious of the change and quite enjoying it. I schedule more time to accommodate this more relaxed state. I used to stress out getting to the train in the mornings, but now I mosey along thinking things and admiring the gardens that line the streets. I used to step off the train at night and rush home so I'd have an extra five minutes for doing domestic whatevers, but now I potter along enjoying the stars, moon, creek sounds, trees in the darkness and whatever wildlife decides to jump out and scare me. Now, when I head off for a bills paying and shopping trip, I simply cannot make myself pour on the gas. This is good, as it also helps me blend in - I once met a local woman in Melbourne who, though a stranger to me, said she recognised me because she'd seen me speeding between shops as I went about my business in town.

So yes, I did some local ambling today, and thought about that ambling and what it meant, and also did much chatting with the girl in the fruit shop. I'm a Wednesday regular now. I did writerly stuff too - writing, of course, subbed 3 stories (one was a recent rejection which an upcoming antho held for close to seven months, almost took, but in the end decided it didn't fit the tone. I'm really starting to dislike that phrase. What's so untoney about my stories? Ah well, onwards...) and wrangled content for the great, individual contributor pages Carrie Cuin is busily setting up over at Lakeside Circus. For now, my page reads: This performer is still getting ready for the show. While you wait, try your luck at a game of chance. We hear the ring toss is not quite as rigged as some of the other booths. Issue One is out on Friday, so you can view my efforts then.

After an Officey Day...

 

 

...full of weariful intrigues and much uphill struggling, it was lovely to come home to a package from Prime Books, rip it open, pull out books that include one's own name in the TOC, and fondle said books.

Yes, I've received my contributor copies of Aliens: Recent Encounters. Guess what I'll be dipping into this weekend?

Nice.

A Most Satisfactory Sunday

After some token housework and zealously obliterating another papery stack (into the recycle bin it mostly went) to clear more space in my study, I spent a few happy hours sorting through my published SF short stories, picking three for a reprint anthology, checking the manuscripts and subbing them. Ah, the trio of  memory lanes I traversed in the process. I remembered the sweat and time and tears and effort I put into each of them, recalled the sadness of their initial rejections, and relived the joy I felt when I finally sold them. Okay, perhaps I'm being a little melodramatic, but you get the gist of it :)

Then I submitted another SF story for a publication that has cut back on its reading periods and is now only accepting submissions for the first week of each quarter. You have to be quick, you have to be organised these days - I'd jotted a note in my diary to make sure I caught this window, and held certain story for a month so it could have a shot at this market. Most publications are inundated with stories, and often hang up their 'closed to submissions' shingles for months on end, and even the ones with regular reading periods often beg off for six months or so while they catch up.

Anyway, I also wrote a bit, so I feel I've accomplished useful writerly things this fine Sunday. All in all, 'twas a good day - peaceful, productive, and full of potential.

Alien Thrills (or This Never Ever Ever Gets Old)

Killing a little time between finishing off my Saturday of going to the movies, washing clothes etc and getting ready to make yummy klatkager for a night of slovenly TV watching (last two episodes of The Walking Dead Season 3 here I come) I did a spot of writerly ego-Googling to see how the anthology Aliens: Recent Encounters is faring out in the wide world, and found that reviews are starting to trickle in.

You know where this is going, of course :)

And here it is. This Goodreads reader sums up her review with   :

Personal favourites in the collection include:

"The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species" by Ken Lui
"The Tetrahedon" by Vandana Singh
"Knapsack Poems" by Eleanor Arnason
"Nullipara" by Gitte Christensen
"Jagannath" by Karin Tidbeck
"A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel" by Yoon Ha Lee

Can you believe it? Me, one of the and others in this collection, making it as a favourite along with illustrious names like that in an antho choc bloc with BIG writers, at the very least with this one reader? Because that's what it's all about - connecting with readers. Writing is great, and you love your own stories because otherwise why would you bother to wrangle them into existence? but it never ceases to amaze me when something I've produced actually resonates with another person enough for them to kindly comment on it.

That is just so cool. Anyway, I'm grinning, and hoping others out there in the world enjoy Nullipara too.

Now for some zombie violence.

No-Brainer

I love archaeology.

I love writing.

I've just discovered that Hadley Rille Books is calling for submissions for an archaeology themed, multi-genre anthology called Ruins Excavation, the fourth book in their series of Ruins anthologies.

As the title, and the series, implies, the story must feature ruins, real or otherwise, on Earth. Ruins! I love ruins! And I love stories with and/or about ruins!

You can read about the antho here.

Will I give it a shot?

Are you kidding? It's raining down hard outside, this is my wonderful Wednesday, catch-up day off, and there's already a WIP in my head wanting out.

This'll be fun.

End of the Month Report: June 2013

Submissions: 8
Rejections: 5
Acceptances: 0 (but there's a very nice maybe...)
Published: 1 (Nullipara in 'Aliens: Recent Encounters')
Stories out in the wild: 10
New stories completed: 1 (I just sent it off.)
Mood: I'm writing much and feeling good about it. Also, I'm in anthology sharing a TOC with names that make my head spin. What's not to grin about?

Note From Editor: Aliens Spotted in Dallas

Even though the official release day for Aliens: Recent Encounters is 17 June 2013,  editor Alex Dally MacFarlane reports here on her blog that she saw, and actually fondled, copies of the anthology  in a Barnes & Nobles in Dallas. She even provides a cool shelf photo.
  
Sooooo, things are hotting up. It's sooooo exciting. I sooooo still can't believe I somehow squeezed into that amazing TOC!

There's also an interview with Alex about the anthology and her own writing over at SF Signal.

Now to get some writing done in between loads of washing. Here in Australia, this is the Queen's Birthday long weekend, so I'm eager to get the domestic stuff out of the way so I can catch up with my muses, a few movies, some rest, and hopefully a day of socialising with the good folk down at Continuum tomorrow.

Bad Idea

I just clicked the link provided by a certain anthology to check the status of one's submission and discovered my story is number 973 in the queue. Given that the deadline has passed and they've already been reading for a while, and that most places will be going to commissioned writers, well, wow, I'm not sure even my dreamiest optimism can sustain the hope of a sale there. I should have let it be and simply wandered about in blissful ignorance thinking that maybe, just maybe I'd come home one night to an email...

No matter. It's June! That means that the Aliens:Recent Encounters anthology will be out in 2 weeks (hurrah!), and that the Bram Stoker Awards will soon be announced (go, Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations, go!). Who knows what other good things might happen? Well, not another ASIM sale, not this month anyway - I just got a bounceback there.

Anyway, onwards and upwards.

973. Wow.

End of the Month Report: March 2013

Submissions: 1
Rejections: 5  (a.k.a. stories I can submit again)
Acceptances: 0
Published: 0
Stories out in the wild: 8
New stories completed: 0. I was doing well until I got distracted by Real World stuff. Am back on the writing wagon again, but not in time to salvage a credible '1' in this category.
Mood: I feel an overwhelming need to complete a couple of half finished stories I put many hours into last year - my JD workshop dragon story and my harpy story (I hear the antho I originally wrote the harpy story for might have a sequel...). This can only be a good thing. I'm very fond of both of these tales and their characters, and at the very least, it's always personally satisfying to finish stories. And one always should! I got my dragon story moving again today by going back, killing off a major darling, and continuing down a different road to the one that was going nowhere. A tried and true technique.

*Just corrected the March 20103 I initially , and obviously hurriedly, wrote as the month/year for this post. What a Methuselah I'll be if I ever do get to write that as the date :) Not that there'll be blogs around then. No, I'll be beaming my "interesting" updates straight into your brains. Hah, there's a scary thought. I'd better stop now...

Starry, Starry Right

Apropos four posts ago, my stars this weekend read:

 Much of March may have seemed like Groundhog Day, with reps of recurring behaviour, replays of all too familiar scenarios, déjà-vu communications, blasts from the past...

Spooky. It's almost enough to make me a believer.

On a more annoying front, there's a UK spec-fic anthology with Western star signs as the theme for which I suddenly had a great story idea two days ago. I'd given up on it and moved on, but obviously the old subconscious was still playing around with concepts. The problem? The deadline is today, and since I've been running around all over the place this Easter (must do out-and-about stuff while I still can) and have barely written a sentence, it ain't gonna happen. The stars, it would seem, in this particular case were not aligned in my favour.

No Happily Ever Afters

Strike Princess Number Two from the race - she was rejected this morning. So, one anthology, four princesses, and not one of my girls made it. Ah, the shame! They were not Gothic enough, methinks. Still, it was worth a shot or two or four, and it was good for my royal layabouts to get out of their hard drive palaces and loiter in the Real World for a while. Now I'll tuck two of them away again (sssh, into the bottom drawer they go) and the other two - I haven't given up on them yet, especially not my steampunk princess - will have to face the multiple glares of a few more editors before I question their worthiness.

Princessly Update

As of this morning, we're three down (warrior-dissing-her-Emperor-dad princess just got booted), with one princess to go. The stories I've sent for the princess antho have been rejected in the sequence I sent them chronologically, but they've skipped my second submission. Possibly the princess behind Door Number Two is in with a chance? Stand by for the thrilling conclusion to this ongoing plethora of princesses saga :)

It's Official Now

Suddenly remembering the date, I popped across to the HWA site and have a quick look at the 2012 Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot before hitting the sack, and in a must-share-right-now moment, to my delight I discovered that Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations, edited by Eric J. Guignard, is now officially a Bram Stoker Award Nominee in the Superior Achievement in Anthology category. How cool is that?


A huge congratulations to Eric J. Guignard for pulling it all together.

Good luck, DToLC.

Now, where's my bed?

So I Finally Dared Do It

Today I gave the big SF no-humans-just-aliens story I wrote over the Xmas break a final polish and a pat on the head, and then sent it off out into the big wide world. Not just to any publication, mind you, but one of the Big Three. Might as well aim insanely high.

I haven't sent anything off to pro publications for a while, but I'm gearing up for more assaults on those divine heights this year. I'm still weeping over the near misses last year - so close, so close - but moping about what might have been ain't gonna get those mountains scaled, so off we go again.

In other news, as if to counterbalance the new story going out, one of my princess stories for the bad princesses anthology has just been knocked out of the royal race (I have to admit, this particular princess's royalty credentials are pretty tenuous, and of an alien nature, so fair enough). Anyway, that's one princess down, with three (sexy-evil princess, morally-ambiguous-ending princess and rebellious, steampunk warrior-princess) still in the competition. It still amazes me that I had so many princess stories tucked away on my hard drive. And I have one that's still a WIP, although technically the protagonist is a queen, and as we all know, queens are a different kettle of fish altogether.

Whale of a Week

Some weeks are dull affairs, just a matter of ploughing onwards through Real World crap and waiting for things to improve. Other weeks are so full of writerly good stuff that you want to frame them and hang them on the wall so they can cheer you up when you're having one of the aforementioned weeks.

Anyway, close on the heels of the stunning TOC bulletin of a few days ago comes the news (thank you, Steve, for pointing it out) that the 2012 Bram Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot has been posted here by the Horror Writers Association, and if you scroll down to the anthology section, you'll see a certain book that includes a certain short story of mine.

I'll say no more for now, except "Go, you good book, go!". Let's wait patiently for the Final Ballot to be announced on February 23.

Still, it's pretty exciting.

I'd Like To Thank My Cats, My Chook, My Computer.

I'd like to send very big, individual thank yous to everyone who, by one means of communication or another, sent lovely congratses about my getting into Aliens:Recent Encounters. They're much appreciated. I feel like a rock/pop/movie star :) Well, almost.

And a HUGE thank you to Steve Cameron for posting about my good fortune on his blog.

I have to say that personally it's been an inspiring thing. I've been typing away for many hours this weekend - confidence tends to oil the writing machinery - and I almost feel brave enough to send my shiny new SF story off to one of the Big Three. Well, maybe after another edit or two.

Still, one must always bear in mind that like any of the arts, writing is an wilful and unpredictable business. Who knows when the next sale will occur, if at all, and whether one will be able to keep up with the market's zeitgeist, or even defy it and turn the world in a new direction! One that it didn't even know it wanted to go in before! Or not :) Underscoring the uncertainty of an artistic life, we went to see the movie Hitchcock yesterday, and I couldn't help but be amazed that a such an iconic director with so many hits under his belt still had such a hard time raising funds for a movie just because he wanted to do something different. Where is the trust, people? Conformity, alas, is the default setting of most money-people, be they filmmakers, gallery owners or publishers. That Psycho eventually became a classic is neither here nor there - it only hit the big screen because Hitch believed in it so much he financed it himself. Self publishing anyone?

And by the by, I read this morning that Sense and Sensibility was published at the author's own expense, so the late, great Jane Austen actually forked out all of her savings to get her first book published. I didn't know that. Or I'd forgotten. Anyway, it was only after sales of S&S went well (read by royalty etc) that a publisher finally, after many years (from 1797 until 1811 as far as I can ascertain from the article) of the manuscript sitting in the bottom drawer of an elegant escritoire, purchased the copyright to Pride and Prejudice for a scandalously small amount and, thanks entirely to her own belief in her own work, Jane Austen was well on her way to literary immortality.

So, the more things change...

Alien Encounters of the Thrilling Kind

I'll admit it - I've been popping over to Prime Books about twice a day ever since my story Nullipara was accepted for one of their upcoming anthologies just to see if they'd announced the TOC for Aliens: Recent Encounters yet. I was, naturally enough, curious about the company I would be keeping. Tonight I came home to an email from Thoraiya Dyer kindly pointing me towards editor Alex Dally MacFarlane's announcement of said TOC and cover reveal.

OMG. WOW. Unbelievable! Just feast your eyes upon the following very cool cover :

 And the TOC, just look at it!!!!:

An Owomoyela - Frozen Voice
Ken Liu - The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species
Catherynne M. Valente - Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy
Zen Cho - The Four Generations of Chang E
Vandana Singh - The Tetrahedon
Paul McAuley - The Man
Ursula K. Le Guin - Seasons of the Ansarac
Molly Gloss - Lambing Season
Desirina Boskovich - Celadon
Genevieve Valentine - Carthago Delenda Est
Caitlín R. Kiernan - I Am the Abyss and I Am the Light
Jamie Barras - The Beekeeper
Robert Reed - Noumenon
Elizabeth Bear - The Death of Terrestial Radio
Sofia Samatar - Honey Bear
Karin Lowachee - The Forgotten Ones
Jeremiah Tolbert - The Godfall's Chemsong
Alastair Reynolds - For the Ages
Brooke Bolander - Sun Dogs
Nisi Shawl - Honorary Earthling
Samantha Henderson - Shallot
Sonya Taaffe - The Boy Who Learned How to Shudder
Eleanor Arnason - Knacksack Poems
Gitte Christensen - Nullipara
Indrapramit Das - muo-ka's Child
Jeffrey Ford - The Dismantled Invention of Fate
Karin Tidbeck - Jagannath
Pervin Saket - Test of Fire
Nancy Kress - My Mother, Dancing
Greg van Eekhout - Native Aliens
Lavie Tidhar - Covenant
Yoon Ha Lee - A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel

Now I have to go sit down and fan myself. I mean, I'm going to be in an anthology with Ursula K. Le Guin! And all those other fantastic and prominent and clever writers I've read and admired for years. This is heady stuff for me. Looking at this list, I'm wondering how the heck I snuck in. Not that Nullipara isn't a good story, mind you... :)

OMG. WOW. Unbelievable!

Princess Palooza

So I'm back, in more ways than one, after a series of shopping sprees, cooking sprees, eating sprees, laughing sprees, unwrapping sprees, aaahing sprees, recovering sprees, reading sprees, spreeing sprees. Consider Christmas 2012 done and dusted!

 After limbering up my writing brain by spending most of of yesterday, when I wasn't napping and digesting the last remnants of my rich Danish Christmas, on reading my new Connie Willis book (my cats give the best presents!) I hit the keyboard today and got in 4 hours of solid work and a few more of tinkering. I spent the first couple of hours on a zombie story, even though I was seriously put off the antho in question that I've hitherto been so excited about when I discovered a recent addition to the guidelines specifying that the editor wasn't accepting any more stories set after a certain historical date. That smacks of my pet hate, the 'until filled' anthology. I pity the poor souls who were happily planning to polish over Xmas the great works they'd laboured long and hard on, and now can't submit them because they'd committed to the "wrong" era. As I've mentioned, I had two ideas for the antho, and had to angstily choose which one to focus on. The one I was really tempted to go with, but guessed I wouldn't have enough time to do properly, would now have been deemed ineligible. Thank goodness I went with the shorter one set further back in history, otherwise I'd be RANTING and GRRRRing and THROWING FURNITURE now instead of just grumbling about the injustice of it all.

I then spent the rest of my writing day scouting around for, looking over and editing/rewriting princess stories for an upcoming anthology that accepts multiple submissions. I love editors who accept multiple subs. That way, if I have more than one story that fits the theme, I don't have to agonise over which one might be the best fit. I was surprised to discover I actually have four stories that tick the key criteria, which are, loosely,  'must feature a princess, and be dark, twisty, sinister, Gothic etc, or combinations thereof'.

So no, they're not looking for passive gals who live happily ever after, thank goodness, because none of my princesses are that psychologically flaccid, or that fortunate. Only one of these four stories is out at the moment, so I'll have to wait for it to be rejected before it can join the other three, which I'll send off tomorrow. Or possibly the one already out singing for its supper will be accepted. And so will one of the others. All of these stories have garnered good comments and/or been shortlisted for publication, but never quite made it into print. Maybe one of them will score this time. Maybe I'll end up with a slew of princess stories (well, two) hitting the market at the same time, and people will roll their eyes and mutter about my limited range :) Hah! I should be so lucky.

Anyway, the upshot of this princesserly prattle is that it looks like these holidays will be reasonably productive and full of positive writerly doings.