As I’ve done in the past, I’ve tallied up all the "honorable mentions" in the 26th annual Year’s Best Science Fiction, and reported the ones attributed to periodicals below. This is sort of my "state of the markets" survey. Asimovs 55 F&SF 53 Postscripts 38 Jim Baen’s Universe 25 Interzone […]
For anyone who wants to see all the posts I made about Clarion, here’s an easy index: Announcement that I got into Clarion. Choosing first story to crit at Clarion. Week One Report (Holly Black) Week Two Report (Larissa Lai) Week Three Report (Robert Crias) Week Four Report (Kim Stanley Robinson) Weeks Five & Six […]
My report from the Clarion Writers Workshop, Weeks Five and Six
Here are my monthly stats for July. 24,000 new words of fiction written this month. 1 AND: 30,000 words of workshop critique written this month 2 19 first drafts currently in progress (some untouched for a long time) 3 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft. […]
My report from the Clarion Writers Workshop, Week 4
Clarion Report, Week Three
My report from the Clarion Writers Workshop, Week Two.
I’m happy to announce that Odyssey Magazine has bought my flash fiction story, "The First Day of Spring." Odyssey: Adventures in Science is a magazine for "young adventurers" aged 10-16. Each monthly issue has a theme. My story, which concerns the beginnings of prehistoric agriculture, will appear in the October issue, whose theme […]
This is long, so it’s under the cut for those who aren’t interested.
A quick post in the middle of crit-work at Clarion. Here are my monthly stats for June: 6,200 new words of fiction written this month. 1 BUT: 5,000 words of workshop critique written this month (in the last three days, actually) 19 first drafts currently in progress (some […]
I’m packing right now. At 4:15 EDT tomorrow morining, I take the cab to the airport for Clarion. I’ll try to post periodically (maybe once a week or so) concerning the Clarion experience. Feel free to comment, but I doubt that I’ll be able to post replies to comments. Similarly, […]
So, to keep my mind off Clarion (and because it’s one of the things I promised The Ritual Artist I’d do) I’m trying to lay out our vacation in Montreal, second week in August. Does anyone have any advice about Montreal? We’re driving up with two kids (girl 15, boy 9); […]
I hope to post periodic updates on my Clarion experience here, although not every day. What I’d most like to do is share the best writing advice that I hear from the instructors, and the insights that arise from the crit process. I’ll parallel-post on my other LJ, and if […]
Okay: Possibly the best result I could have had. I am all smiles. Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?… Ursula K Le Guin (b. 1929) 29 High-Brow, -9 Violent, -1 Experimental and 11 Cynical! Congratulations! You are High-Brow, Peaceful, Traditional and Cynical! These concepts are defined below. Ursula […]
Here are my monthly stats for May: 6,200 new words of fiction written this month. 1 19 first drafts currently in progress (some untouched for a long time) 2 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft. 2 second drafts currently in progress 1 second draft currently in […]
Issue #8 of Niteblade (June, 2009) is now up and available for public reading. My story "The Never Fair" is in it, together with Marge Simon’s nifty illustration. You can also purchase the whole issue as a PDF for $3.50, or make a donation to the zine.
This evening The Ritual Artist and I saw Laura Schellhardt’s new play, Shapeshifter, at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence. I have not been this blown away, this moved by a theatre piece for a long time. I was utterly rivited from the first line to the last, and I was in […]
My twitterfic is up on Nanoism and Twitter. That is all.
Thaumatrope is going to publish a twitterfic of mine on December 5, 2009. Save the date. Buy popcorn.
Everybody should pop over to Strange Horizons and read ‘s splendid little fantasy flash story, "If Wishes Were Horses". Oh, and make a donation to SH while you’re at it. Good going, Tiffani!
The twitterzine Nanoism is going to publish (and pay me for) a twitterfic that I call "Without Sentimentality" (although officially it has no title). It’ll appear on May 29th. I’d love it if you’d all take the twenty seconds to read it. (Hey, the cents-per-word rate for Nanoism are higher […]
Samuel Johnson said, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."
I have a lot more ideas for stories than I have stories. The ideas come all the time, and they’re all "interesting" in the sense that they present a new twist on an old idea, or exploration of a new one. I keep a running list of them. From an […]
I have this terrible habit of reading series in the wrong order. It started with Robertson Davies. I picked up a copy of The Lyre of Orpheus and was halfway through it before I understood that there were earlier books. So I read the trilogy backwards, moving next to What’s […]
I’ve just learned that my story, "The Never Fair" (3,100 words) will appear in the June issue of Niteblade. Nice for a dad to get a gift on Mother’s Day…
As a son of Wesleyan, I grieve with the students, the faculty, and the family of Johanna Justin-Jinich. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iSGJvuWvlpCL3tC4WtgEE590iRrQD981MH500 Yit’gadal v’yit’kadash sh’mei raba b’al’ma di v’ra khir’utei v’yam’likh mal’khutei b’chayeikhon uv’yomeikhon uv’chayei d’khol beit yis’ra’eil ba’agala uviz’man kariv v’im’ru: Amein. Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varakh l’alam ul’al’mei al’maya Yit’barakh v’yish’tabach v’yit’pa’ar […]
In fiction, the problem with the hot-button topics — politics, religion, sex — is that they have a higher resting volume level. The reader will hear what you say about any one of those things much more loudly and clearly than what you say about beauty, sorrow, the exploration of […]
Here are my monthly stats for April: 9,100 new words of fiction written this month. 1 17 first drafts currently in progress (some untouched for a long time) 2 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft. 2 second drafts currently in progress 1 second draft currently […]
I like to start debates, when I can get people to play. I’ve been thinking about the issue of "quality" in literature, or heck, even in SFF by itself.
, in her lecture on the Odyssey Podcast, says that people (especially Americans) love to read details about how things work. So, if you know somethin’ about somethin’, and can work it into a story, you’ll make it more interesting to many readers. The things I know somethin’ about (apart […]
I don’t normally get to pore over Nebula or Hugo Award nominees before the awards are given, but this year Starship Sofa put audio recordings of all seven Nebula short story nominees on podcast. So I listened to them during my commute. What a pleasure! If I were in the […]
Like most members of my Clarion class, I’m reading some books by the 2009 instructors. The first one I finished was Elizabeth Hand’s Generation Loss.
Here are my monthly stats for March: 6,500 new words of fiction written this month. 1 15 first drafts currently in progress. 2 1 first draft currently "ripening" before second draft. 3 1 second draft currently in progress 0 second draft currently in the hands of […]
I am delighted (and astonished) to announce that I will be attending the next Clarion Writers Workshop in San Diego this summer, from June 28 to August 8. I knew about this a while ago, but we weren’t supposed to tell anyone until our names appeared on the Web site […]
Joni Labaqui just phoned to say that I’m a semi-finalist in the Writers of the Future Competition for the First Quarter. It isn’t on the WotF blog yet, but I presume she’s waiting until she’s notified everyone. Very pleased, especially as it’s only my second submission, and the third submission is already […]
Here are my monthly stats for February: 6,300 new words of fiction written this month. 1 14 first drafts currently in progress. 2 1 first draft currently "ripening" before second draft. 3 0 second drafts currently in progress 1 second draft currently in the hands of […]
Upcoming in the next few days, the birthdays of my fellow February kidstinaconnolly and mmerriam! (There are a lot of us; May is a wonderful month, isn’t it? 😉 ) Tina and Michael have both been more than generous with their experience and wisdom when this comparative newbie has asked […]
Here are my statistics for January: 6,200 new words of fiction written this month. 1 13 first drafts currently in progress. 2 1 first draft currently "ripening" before second draft. 3 0 second drafts currently in progress 1 second draft currently in the hands of "trusted readers." 3 third drafts […]
Here’s an odd one for you: For a fantasy story I’ve recently been circulating to magazines, I made up some terminology for people who have certain abilities. They were simple, generic terms, but I’d never heard anyone use them in this particular way before, and neither, apparently, had my friends and beta-readers. Last […]
I finally bought my copy of GUD #3, and I’ve just read tinaconnolly‘s wonderful "Facts of Bone." Nowadays all the SFF mags say they want "character-driven" stories, or stories with "compelling characters," but it’s disappointing how many published stories are, in essence, permutations of clever ideas; or else the character […]
Neither December nor 2008 is over yet, but I don’t realistically expect to get anything done in the next 36 hours, so I’m posting my report now. I’ve got the regular monthly report first, followed by some year-long figures. First, December: 3,400 new words of fiction written this month. 1 […]
Here are my monthly stats for November: 9,900 new words of fiction written this month. 1 17 first drafts currently in progress. 2 0 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft. 3 2 second drafts currently in progress. 0 second drafts currently in the hands of […]
In a previous post we had a discussion of simultaneous submissions. One issue that came up was the relationship between simultaneous submissions and long review periods. Recently I took a look at my own submission-review history.
Here are my monthly stats for October 4,400 new words of fiction written this month. 1 15 first drafts currently in progress. 2 1 first draft currently "ripening" before second draft. 3 0 second drafts currently in progress 1 second draft currently in the hands of […]
One of my stories just made the first "Honorable Mention" list on the Writers of the Future contest. This is the first time I’ve submitted to WOTF. Am I correct in believing that receiving "Honorable Mention" means that I’m not going to be selected as a finalist or semi-finalist? I ask because […]
Today you can read my drabble "Too Much Sense" on Flashshot. (This one has enough "genre" in it to satisfy even kaolinfire . 🙂 Meanwhile, I have a question for y’all to ponder. Many markets, both electronic and print, indicate that they "do not accept" simultaneous submissions — meaning that they […]
HowManyOfMe.com There are1or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name? I always said so.
I’m the featured drabble on Flashshot today. http://www.gwthomas.org/flashshotindex.htm
In my obsessive record-keeping that keeps me from writing, one of the things I do is track the number of honorable mentions various magazines’ stories get in the big "Year’s Best" anthologies. I just got my hands on the 2008 Datlow-Link-Grant Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and did my tabulations. […]
Here are my monthly stats for September 2,705 new words of fiction written this month. 1 16 first drafts currently in progress. 2 1 first draft currently "ripening" before second draft. 3 0 second drafts currently in progress 0 second drafts currently in the hands of […]
Kenneth Schneyer 