TV Interview? What TV Interview?

A friend of mine who is friends with one of the local morning news TV personalities gave her a copy of my novel, Dreaming Creek. That's the way of the world, right? A little ‘friend-of-a-friend’ networking. She reads enough of the book to decide that she likes it (you know they never read the whole thing) and then invites me to come on TV to talk about it. Cool beans. I’ve done plenty of print interviews, and maybe a half-dozen podcasts, but this is my first time with a major media outlet.

So... I get to the TV station this morning, get buzzed in the door, and am greeted by a producer whose first words are "Who are you and why are you here?" She honestly has no idea.

Much scurrying and scrambling ensues. Computers and logbooks are consulted. Finally the news anchor who invited me is pulled off the set during a commercial break. "I swear I wrote it in the book," she says three or four times, all the while poring over a book that clearly doesn't have my name written down anywhere in the schedule for this week (or next, or the week after that). Numerous apologies are made on their part; I smile and just keep saying "It's no big deal." What else is there to say?

An hour later I’m at home, working on various magazine stuff, when I get an email from the TV producer saying they finally figured out what happened. Apparently my friendly neighborhood news anchor wrote me in for March 19th, when she meant to write it in for February 19th. Oops. These things happen. (Though I’d like to know why I’m such a magnet for them; they may happen, but they seem to happen to me with disproportionate frequency.)

I'm scheduled to try again next week, Wednesday morning. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

Oh well, could have been a whole lot worse…

Assuming it comes off this time, I’ll post a link to the interview when the station adds it to their website.

*

Achieving Publishing Success

The subject of success in the publishing industry is one that is always under discussion. There are lots of writers, all of whom would love to achieve J. Rowling-like success, so it's natural that they're talking about this subject. And a good deal of what I've been reading lately on blogs related to this has been about self-publishing, podcasting novels, and other, alternate means of getting noticed. There was an article in Time (Podcasting Your Novel: Publishing's Next Wave?) that recently generated a lot of conversation.

I've been thinking about this issue, and here's where I've come down on the subject. A lot of times you hear people talking about how they circumvented the traditional system (by choice or by necessity), and then they trumpet their success, all the while mistaking its cause. They say, "I self-published and succeeded. Self-publishing is the path to success." Or, "I podcast my novel and succeeded. Podcasting in the path to success." Or, "I published my novel as an e-book and succeeded. Digital publishing is the path to success." Or whatever.

There are a problems with that logic, though, specifically in that there are some things it fails to recognize. And I think the main thing it fails to recognize is that the means of distribution is not the key to the success. For every success story that can be found in the realms of self-publishing, podcasting, etc. etc., there are thousands upon thousands of people who have tried the exact same path and failed. And failed miserably. Failed spectacularly.

The reason for the successes is because of three main things, two of which the author controls, one of which the author does not, and none of which are the means of distribution.

The first controllable factor is that the author wrote a good (or great) book to begin with. Just because an agent or editor rejects a book, does not mean it isn't a good one; sometimes editors (or agents) just get it wrong. The publishing industry is rife with stories that bear that fact out. But if an author has done their best work and believes in that work, they'll keep trying.

That brings us to the second controllable factor: that the authors of these books worked their assess off to promote them. There are so many books out there that it takes a tremendous amount of effort to get noticed, much less succeed. This is not news to anyone; you hear it all the time. But if you look at the story of the people who made it, you always hear them talk about how hard they worked, how many events they appeared at, how many signings and reading they set up, how many blogs they guest-posted on, etc. etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum. That effort, more than anything else, is the single biggest key to their success. I firmly believe that if an author who enjoyed success with podcasting their novel had put equal effort into self-publishing that same novel or releasing that same novel as an e-book (or whatever other means of distribution you care to name), they would have enjoyed comparable success. It's about the level of effort put into the book's promotion.

And for better or for worse, the third factor in determining success (or failure) is luck. Being in the right place at the right time has made or broken more careers than there is time to list. Of course, you increase your odds of being in the right place at the right time by being in as many places as possible as many times as possible (see previous paragraph on the subject of working your ass off), but in the end a little luck goes a long way. You can't control it, though, so stick with items one and two.

The last thing I want to mention is somewhat related to this topic and somewhat not. I've been hearing a lot of chatter about the potential demise of the traditional means of publishing and the revolution that's imminent. But before you dismiss traditional publishing, bear this in mind: The "success" of people who tried their hand at self-publishing or podcasting their novels is usually success in the very traditional medium they started out circumventing. They may not have arrived by conventional means, but they still arrived at the same place everyone else is angling for, for the same reason everyone is angling to get there: a good contract with a major publisher. Why? Because that's how you get you book into as many hands as possible. And because that's where the money is. And at the risk of having my membership revoked by the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Fine Artists, that is still the kind of "success" we are all looking for. We want as many people to read and enjoy our books as possible, and we want to be paid well enough for it that we can afford to stay home (instead of going to a regular job) so we can do it again.

Anyway... I didn't mean for this to turn into a PhD dissertation, I just wanted to say that getting as many people as possible to read your book is a good way to get noticed by a major publisher, but I think it is a mistake to confuse the means of distribution (podcasting, self publishing, whatever) for the cause of success in achieving wide distribution.

Locus Online: 2008 Recommneded Reading List

Yesterday Locus Online released their recommended reading list of books, stories, etc., published in 2008. Congratulations to everyone who made the list, especially the authors of the two novelettes that first appeared in InterGalactic Medicine Show:

"The Tale of Junko and Sayuri", by Peter Beagle (InterGalactic Medicine Show July, '08)

and

"From the Clay of His Heart", by John Brown (InterGalactic Medicine Show April, '08)

ROF R.I.P.

I suspect everyone has heard the news by now, but in case you haven't, I am sad to report that after fifteen years of publication, the venerable Realms of Fantasy is ceasing publication with their April 2009 issue, which is currently at the printers.

For a more detailed look at the situation, see the article on SFScope.

If you have a subscription with them, you have a few options.

My condolences to all their wonderful staff, writers, and artists.

Guest Post - Lon Prater

Lon Prater (www.lonprater.com, http://lonfiction.livejournal.com) is an active duty Naval officer by day, writer of odd little tales by night. His short fiction has appeared in the Stoker-winning anthology Borderlands 5, Writers of the Future XXI, and the Origins Award finalist Frontier Cthulhu. His most recent publications include "A Road Like This, At Night" just out in latest issue of Talebones (#37) www.talebones.com and "Prelude to a Theme by Dougie Franz" in www.spacesuitsandsixguns.com.

I’ve met and hung out with (translation: consumed alcohol with) Lon at a few conventions and enjoyed his company tremendously, and we also haunt a few common forums. It was on one of these forums that a conversation developed on the subject of Plot, Character, and Structure, and I thought his post on the subject was one of the most articulately succinct musings on the topic that I had seen in a long time, so I asked his permission to reprint here in Side Show Freaks. If you are interested in understanding (and constructing) what makes for a good story, read on. -- Edmund

Lon:

“Plot is tied to structure as muscle is connected to bone. In fiction that works really well for me, character is the nervous system telling those muscles where to take that skeleton. If any one of those is out of whack your story is out of whack, diseased, or disabled. Or at least achy with a head cold and acid reflux.

So IMHO it is most helpful to look at plot holistically in conjunction with the other two. A story is the intersection of plot, character, and structure. If you are better by far at one aspect than others, use that aspect to build and design and determine the other two. (I think all writers are better in one area at first and then grow stronger in the others as they develop.)

Character determines what a protagonist or any other agent within your story wants AND how they will try to get it.

Plot is what happens to the character to bring that need to the surface AND what happens when the protagonist takes those actions.

Structure is where the story starts, climaxes and ends; what order these and other bits of story information are presented to the reader; what happens to whom in each scene; whose POV we get that scene from; and the manner in which the story is told. (a.k.a. style)

Most writers come to a story inspired by one of these aspects. The idea is just there naturally, and it is this flash of inspiration that gets them interested in writing the story in the first place. The other two aspects must be either designed with significant work and forethought or fixed once the story is far enough along that they are discovered. (Or some mélange of both.)

If you are strong on plot, you need to go the extra mile to make sure that you have built characters who will be challenged in the most interesting and surprising ways by it.

If you are best at character, the trick is figuring out the sorts of things that need to happen to reveal and transform that character on the crucible of conflict. Knowing the character means knowing how to make them motivated to change their situation over and over until they finally realize they must change themselves to succeed.”

New Novel from David B. Coe

David B. Coe (www.davidbcoe.com) is the Crawford Award-winning author of ten fantasy novels and several short stories (including one that was published in issue 9 of InterGalactic Medicine Show). A refugee from academia, David has a Ph.D. in history and has taught at the university level. In a life prior to that prior life, he was a political consultant. The Horsemen's Gambit is the second book in his Blood of the Southlands trilogy. It was published on January 20, 2009, which is good because there was nothing else of importance happening that day to draw attention away from the book's release....

That's the (semi)official introduction anyway. The behind-the-scenes reality is that although I only met David a few years ago, he very quickly became one of my favorite people, not just in this business, but out of it as well. He's fun, funny, and smart, and a heck of a writer. If you enjoy fantasy at all, you really owe it to yourself to go find one of his many novels and wallow in it. They are rich and complex worlds, and you will quickly discover why he already has the immense fan-base he has. --- Edmund

Q) Can you tell us a bit about The Horseman's Gambit and the Blood of the Southlands series?

DBC) Blood of the Southlands begins with The Sorcerers' Plague as a sort of medieval medical thriller. An old woman named Lici has set out to avenge a injury done her decades before by conjuring a plague. Before long though, the plague spirals far beyond her control, and in The Horsemen's Gambit, the damage done by the plague to the Qirsi, the sorcerers of the Southlands, convinces their enemies, the Eandi, to attack Qirsi lands in the hopes of winning back territory lost during the Blood Wars. Along the way there's political intrigue, some romance, and a web of personal interactions tinged with all this ethnic baggage.

Those are the basic plot points. In a larger sense this series, like my five-book Winds of the Forelands sequence [Rules of Ascension, Seeds of Betrayal, Bonds of Vengeance, Shapers of Darkness, Weavers of War], which is set in the same world, deals with issues of race, ethnic identity, and prejudice. My characters, particularly those who seek to control the chaos unleashed by Lici's curse, are constantly fighting against the destructive power of ancient hatreds. Ultimately this newest book -- like those that came before it and the one that remains -- is about overcoming history and transcending bigotry.

Q) Race, prejudice, ethnic identity -- That all sounds pretty familiar. Is Blood of the Southlands set in a created world or our own?

DBC) It's definitely a created world, but as with all my work, Blood of the Southlands touches on issues of great importance in what we call, for lack of a better term, the "real" world. My LonTobyn series [Children of Amarid, The Outlanders, Eagle-Sage] touched on ecological themes. Winds of the Forelands and Blood of the Southlands deal with race. I have another project that I'm working on that focuses on drug addiction. I write books that I hope will entertain. I strive to make them fun -- as I said, there's lots of action and intrigue, romance and even humor. But they also deal with serious issues that resonate with social concerns in our own lives. I do this because I find it more interesting to write books that grapple with big questions. And if some of my readers come away from the books thinking about race or ecology or substance issues in a new way, all the better.

Q) What is it about fantasy that attracts you?

DBC) Well, in part I'm drawn to fantasy precisely because I can create worlds that then serve as mirrors for our own world. Admittedly, these are imperfect mirrors, but they're mirrors nevertheless. I can make the Forelands/Southlands universe and create racial tensions that are complex and compelling, and yet different enough from the racial problems in our own world that no one will be offended by the books. Speculative fiction offers us a unique opportunity to look at ourselves through a lens that both distorts and magnifies. The distortions allow us to distance ourselves and perhaps examine an emotionally fraught issue without so much emotional heat. The magnification can make us see things that we might otherwise miss.

I'm also drawn to fantasy, as well as science fiction, and dark fantasy, and horror, and all the other subgenres in our field, for the simple reason that they're so much fun to read. I love magic. As a friend of mine wrote elsewhere just the other day, I believe in magic on some level. And being able to write magic into the lives of my characters, giving them the ability to shape their world in ways that I can only dream of doing myself, is enormously entertaining.

Q) Why did you decide to make Besh, one of the protagonists of Blood of the Southlands, an old man?

DBC) Well, let me start by saying that I'm not certain I "make" any of my characters, any more than I'm certain that I control their actions. My characters present themselves to me. They clamor for my attention, and when I finally turn my mind's eye on any one of them, he or she tells me his or her story. When I first started conceiving of the Blood of the Southlands trilogy, Besh was the first character I met. I didn't know at the time why it was important that he tell so much of the story, but I trusted him and also my instincts as a writer, which told me that he was crucial to the entire series. I think I was drawn to him, at least in part, because he was so different from other protagonists I'd written and other heroes I'd encountered as a reader. Yes, he's old. He's also got that stubborn sense of "I know myself, and I know the world, and by God you're going to listen to me," that we sometimes find in our elderly friends. He's not particularly strong physically, and he wields little influence or political power. But he's clever and wise and uncommonly brave. He has a profound moral sense and is intensely loyal to his people and his family. Over the course of writing the three books of the Southlands series he became just about my favorite of all the characters I've ever written.

Q) You've been a historian, you've worked in politics -- it seems you came to writing relatively late in life. How did it happen?

DBC) I suppose I did come to it a bit late, but the irony is that I've wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. I wrote and illustrated my first books in first and second grade -- and given the quality of my illustrations, it's a good thing I can write. I went to college with every intention of majoring in creative writing, but got sidetracked by concerns with practical considerations, like making a living. I tried political consulting, but found it disillusioning. So I went to grad school, got my degree in history, and applied for a bunch of teaching positions. But the summer after I completed my degree I found myself with lots of free time on my hands. My grad work was done, but the academic jobs hadn't been listed yet. And my wife said to me, "You know, since the day we met you've been talking about writing a book. You have some time now. Why don't you spend the summer writing?"

I did, and by the end of the summer I had several short stories written (none of them has ever seen the light of day, and none of them ever will) as well as the first five chapters of what would eventually be Children of Amarid, my first novel. A friend of mine agreed to act as my agent and he shopped the book around while I applied for teaching jobs. I got the perfect academic job offer -- teaching environmental history in Colorado -- and my first nibble from Tor Books within 24 hours of each other. I chose writing and have never looked back.

Q) Aside from writing, what do you do for fun?

DBC) Well, I'm a husband and a dad, which are the two things that mean the most to me. My daughters are 13 and 9, and a lot of my non-work time is taken up with stuff I do for or with them. I've been a Soccer Dad, a Swim Dad, a Dance Dad, a Music Dad, and a Theater Dad. And because my wife is a full-time college professor, I do most of the grocery shopping, a fair amount of laundry and house stuff, etc. In addition, I'm active in my community -- I run a local food cooperative, I'm on the parents' council of my older daughter's school, and I'm on the town council here in our little village. But when I'm not doing any of that I have quite a few outside interests. I like to hike and birdwatch. I'm a dedicated amateur photographer and actually had my first one-man exhibit in 2008. Nature and landscape photography mostly. I play guitar and sing -- folk, rock, a bit of bluegrass. I listen to music all the time. I look at butterflies and run a local butterfly census here in my home town. I'm a bit of a political junkie, and I'm confident that my professional output will be greater in 2009 than it was last year, simply because I won't be checking political web sites every 3 minutes.

Q) What's a typical day like for you?

DBC) A typical day? I'm not sure there's any such thing -- did I mention that I'm the father of a teenager? My routine looks something like this: We're up at 6:30 am. I make lunch for my younger daughter and do what I can to get the girls moving. After my wife and I get the girls to their schools, I go to the gym for an hour or so. Exercise is crucial for me; without my morning workout I'm not sure I could function. I get back, have a light breakfast, check my email, and begin the day's writing. I shoot for 6-8 manuscript pages a day, which translates to about 1500-2000 words. I'm not a particularly fast writer, but if I can write 35 to 40 pages a week, that's a book every 6 months or so, which isn't too bad a pace. I might have to pick up one of the girls from school or take them to dance or sports practice, but I can usually get back to work for a while longer. I knock off around 5:00 or 5:30 and the rest of the evening is family time. I don't work on weekends, and I don't work many nights. I work at home, so it would be very easy to be sucked into working all the time. To prevent this, I set strict boundaries. I have work time and family time. I'd probably get more written if I was less strict about this, but that's a choice I'm comfortable making.

Q) What are you working on now?

DBC) The third and final Blood of the Southlands book is finished and handed in to my editor (it's scheduled for release in January 2010). I'll have revisions to do eventually, but for now I'm working on a new project that is completely separate from anything I've done before. It's alternate world fantasy set in a place that's roughly analogous to early Renaissance Europe. There's a magical element and each book is a stand alone mystery with recurring characters. I don't generally like to talk too much about works in progress until I'm further along than I am with this series. Suffice it to say that I'm very excited about this one. I hope to see the first book in print sometime in 2010.

David B. Coe's personal website can be found at www.davidbcoe.com. He blogs with some regularity on both LiveJournal and WordPress, and he is part of the MagicalWords.net writing blog with fellow fantasy authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C.E. Murphy. The Horsemen's Gambit, book II of his Blood of the Southlands trilogy, can be purchased through Amazon.com. (Release date: January 20, 2009)

Letting Go

I got an email today from someone who is nearing completion of her first novel. I thought she asked a very pertinent question, because anyone who has ever gotten near the end of their first novel has, in one form or another, asked themselves this kind of question. And my answer is not particularly profound; it's just what a writer needs to do.

Dear Edmund

Please tell me that somewhere, all of this ends. The playing with the story, the revisions, the internal logic ... that all of it eventually gets onto the page and is published, and you let it go.

Did you find it difficult to let go of Dreaming Creek?

Linda

Dear Linda,

I didn't find it difficult to let go of Dreaming Creek; if anything it was a relief. I spent SO many hours and days and weeks and months and years on it that I was ready to move on. Very ready. However, in order to do so, I had to accept the fact that it would live with certain flaws.

I think there was a tipping point where I was satisfied that it was good enough, even if it wasn't as good as it could possibly be. Because every month that goes by, I learn things about the book, the characters, and about writing in general, that could be used to make the book better. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life 'perfecting' the same book, I want to write new ones. So I've let go of the last one; I hardly think about it all. I'm focused on the next one. Of course, that’s a lot easier to do once the book has been published… but eventually you have to decide it's good enough -- and move on.

Edmund

Free Story at IGMS

News from the IGMS Homepage:

In July of 2008 IGMS published a story by Alethea Kontis titled "Blood and Water," an outstanding dark retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's "Little Mermaid." "Blood and Water" has received numerous recommendations for the HWA's Bram Stoker Award for Best Short Story of 2008, and in order to both celebrate this recognition, and to make it easier for HWA members to read this story and continue to recommend it, IGMS is making the story free for everyone to read until the end of March of 2009. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

If you're an HWA member who hasn't made a recommendation yet, this is a wonderful story, wonderfully told, and deserves the recognition. If you're not, it's still a great read. Enjoy.

He's Baaaaack...

Took a week off from the computer for Christmas. No big deal. But right after Christmas a situation arose that required my computer to be, shall we say, disassembled, and in more pieces than usual, with those pieces separated by more space than usual. On the one hand it was a very peaceful experience. I discovered, among other things, that I actually can get through a day without checking my five different email accounts thirteen times each. On the other hand, I found out -- well, confirmed, really; I've learned this before, always the hard way -- that just because I'm not checking email doesn't mean that people aren't sending them. So you can imagine what the backlog looks like.

One of the things that was uncovered today was an email about a review of my novel, Dreaming Creek. I don't know how long it's been up, but it's dated January 2009, so it can't be too terribly old. If you want to read the whole thing, it's on SFRevu.com:

http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=8485

Overall the reviewer enjoyed the book, though it's not all sunshine and daisies; he does point out several thing he considers to be flaws. But I forgive him for his transgressions, if only because of this paragraph:

"Schubert's writing style is almost thriller-like in its clarity and the short chapters make for quick reading. [He] has a very clear, very concise writing style. He does not bog down with detail, nor does he attempt to hammer the reader over the head with his own social observations. It appears, in fact, that he quite simply put the characters on the page and let them do their thing, allowing the reader to draw what conclusions they might. I imagine that's a hard thing to do, but Schubert does it quite well. If I hadn't researched and found out that this was his first novel I would have thought him an old pro. He certainly writes like one."

There's also an interview (in case you're not tired of those yet)(actually this interview was more interesting than many of the previous ones, if only because someone finally asked different questions; a lot of the previous ones covered a lot of the same territory, but not this one):

http://sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=8486

IGMS presents: "The Absence of Stars" by Greg Siewert

***

Notes on “The Absence of Stars”

I’m not sure if I remember having the initial idea for “The Absence of Stars.” I definitely remember being fascinated by Stephen Hawking’s notion of microscopic black holes and the idea that a black hole is a function of the density of matter, not its total mass. I was also interested in black holes because although they have properties that border on the fringes of known physics, they can also be viewed as simple, massive objects and therefore, they can move around and orbit just like any other planet or asteroid.

As a relatively new writer, I’ve been doing my own versions of some familiar sub-genres. I’ve got a “demon escapes from hell” story, a “futuristic war-scape” story, and “The Absence of Stars” was my version of the well-tread “big thing is heading toward the earth” story. I have a laymen’s interest in relativistic physics and this novelette allowed me to air out some of my pet opinions and theories (yeah, they’re probably wrong—I’m a winemaker). It also allowed me to create a version of this scenario without some of the irritating clichés that I always see presented in films. You know that part of the movie where humanity has to struggle with the weighty decision of who should be evacuated to create a new society and who should remain on Earth? I don’t know why, but I find that really irritating. I took great joy in sidestepping the issue completely.

Another thing that bothers me in such movies is how unrealistic the technology always is. The government always has seems to have some secret rocket program that nobody knew about. Although my story is set in the future, it’s meant to exist in roughly the present day from a technology standpoint. As a fan of the US space program in general, and the International Space Station in particular, I was really excited to set a story on the ISS. I think the station became a character of its own. Speaking of characters, it was also very satisfying to craft the personalities of the astronauts as serious-minded scientists, and not the cartoonish super-heroes that I see in the movies. I’m sure that someone more knowledgeable then myself could poke all sorts of holes in my depiction of the station and the events of the story, but I can assure you that I tried to make it accurate and plausible wherever I could.

Since I mentioned plausibility: The speed of light is infinitely fast. If you’re looking for a fistfight, say that in front of a physics student. Light has been measured many times traveling at 300,000 Km per second. Say you’re standing under the night sky and you turn on your flashlight at the same time you start a stopwatch. Your flashlight is pointed at a planet ten light years away, where the light bounces off a mirror and comes back to you 20 years later. You stop your stopwatch, get out your calculator and figure the speed to be 300,000 Km per second. What’s the problem? Well, here’s the thing: My understanding of relativity is that if you repeated this experiment with the stopwatch riding on the beam of light (go with me on this) and waited for it to come back to you 20 years later, the stopwatch would still say zero; special relativity, being what it is. If velocity is distance over time then if you travel 20 light years (or any other distance) in zero seconds then your speed is infinite. Right? So how fast does light travel? Is it 300,000 Km/sec or is it infinitely fast? I suppose it depends on your point of view. At least I think it does, one day maybe I’ll get a real physics education and know for sure.

Enjoy the story,

Greg Siewert

***

Part One of Greg's story, "The Absence of Stars," is in issue 10 of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, available now. Part Two will appear in issue 11, due out in February.

Cue Twilight-Zone Music Here...

I don't know what dark forces are at work in the universe to cause things to work out this way, but about a year or two ago I realized that good things always happened to me in the publishing world right after bad things happened to my poor wife in the real world. It's uncanny.

In 2003 she got laid off from her job, and within mere days I sold my first short story. Then right after she found out she was going to get laid off a second time (in 2006), I had my first novel, Dreaming Creek, accepted for publication.

Well, as I was writing our family Christmas newsletter tonight, I realized it had happened again. This summer my poor, suffering wife had major reconstructive surgery on her shoulder -- they actually did two different procedures while they had her under anesthesia -- and in the space of fewer than of ninety days this autumn I had two books published.

It would appear that my wife is suffering for my art.

As I said, cue Twilight-Zone music here...

Revenge of the Penguins

A few months ago I did an interview where I admitted to having a taste for fire-roasted penguins (read the full monstrosity here), and that certain authors had had stories published in the IGMS anthology by virtue of having bribed me with said fire-roasted penguins.

The problem is that apparently people actually read that stupid interview, and now the whole penguin thing has taken on a life of its own. And it would appear that the penguins are having the last laugh, because the following list is only of the most recent cases of penguinalia (whatever the heck that means). In the space of about a week, I received:

1) a story submitted to the magazine wherein the author admitted in the cover letter that the scene in Antarctica with Satan kicking a bunch of penguins was written specifically because of the aforementioned interview,

2) an email from an author whose story I had just accepted, whose first words were not "Cool!" or even "Thanks," but "Where do I send the penguin?" and,

3) This, handed to me by writer just the other day:


Even now, from thousands of miles away, I can hear the penguins, laughing...

*

"The Tile Setters" - by Ami Chopine

The Tiles Setters was born in a car dealership. I’d been given the assignment to go out and search: find ideas for stories. Learn about
something you’ve no interest in. Meet people. Observe.

I wandered into the dealership with my partner from the class, and we
decided to pretend to be interested in a car. The somewhat lecherous
salesman turned out to be uninteresting, except for the fact that he was the perfect representation of the cliché. So I looked around. The tile caught my attention. It wasn’t magnificent, being a simple cream and white ceramic with gray grout. But it started me off on a route I’ve found myself taking many times since.

How did this tile get here? Who laid it? What were their lives like? How was it made?

That last question lead to visions of clay being kneaded and rolled out and cut. I knew that clay sometimes benefits from different things being added. What would happen if this process were magic? What if the additives imbued some kind of power to the tile? I imagined that the magic artist might use snippits of themselves. Some of the things in those jars are dead skin cells and even dried blood, as well as other plant, animal, and mineral materials with certain properties.

Initially, my idea was that the tile makers worked for a prince of long ago. But someone suggested I bring it to the modern age. It was brilliant idea and I wish I remembered who it was to thank them. My husband had worked in an advertising agency. These places really do spend lots of money on their own image and their office décor.

I wrote the story in about seven hours. Then, I couldn’t get my laptop hooked up to a printer so I retyped it in an hour onto the school computer so I could print it out. Good times.

***

Ami's story, "The Tile Setters," is in issue 10 of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, available now.

Book Signing with Orson Scott Card, Edmund Schubert, Scott Roberts, and James Maxey

Last Friday (Dec. 5) we held a joint signing at the Barnes & Noble in Greensboro, NC to promote the InterGalactic Medicine Show anthology, as well as new novels by three of the four people involved in the anthology.

Orson Scott Card (far left) is, of course, the linchpin of the anthology, serving as the magazine's publisher, and contributing stories set in the Ender Universe to each issue.

The unimaginably handsome devil next to OSC is the editor of the magazine (that would be me, Ed Schubert).

Next in line is Scott Roberts, a Writer's of the Future winner and contributor to the magazine and the anthology, and at the far right is James Maxey, also a contributor to the magazine and anthology. James' most recent contribution, "Silent As Dust" was recently selected to appear in The Year's Best Fantasy 2009, edited by Rich Horton, so a big congratulations to him.

Orson was also signing his newest novel, Ender In Exile, while I was signing copies of Dreaming Creek, and James was signing copies of Dragonforge, which came out last August. We just about sold out of the IGMS anthology, and sold about three-quarters of the case of Dreaming Creek my publisher sent, so I was pleased with that. I have no idea how many of the other books were sold, but judging by the line in front of Orson (which lasted over ninety minutes after the rest of us were done), he had to have sold two or three hundred thousand copies.

I was very happy with my part of the sales, largely because the bookstore was happy. They said I could come back any time and do a solo signing, and they also asked me to autograph the remaining copies of Dreaming Creek and then they put them out in the store, not on a shelf, spine out, but on a table, face up, where everyone could see them. That was very gratifying.

So thanks to everyone who came out, and thanks to everyone who bought all of our books, whereever you may have purchased them.

"Sweetly The Dragon Dreams" by Dave Farland (and a few tidbits)

A few notes: First -- Tomorrow I'm doing a joint book signing with Orson Scott Card, James Maxey, and Scott Roberts at the Barnes & Noble in Greensboro, NC. All four of us have the InterGalactic Medicine Show anthology in common, with OSC being the publisher, me being the editor, and James and Scott having stories in it. Plus James had a novel published a few months ago (DragonForge), OSC has his new Ender novel out (Ender In Exile), and of course I'm still flogging Dreaming Creek. So we're all going to be at Barnes & Noble, autographing our respective tomes. The event starts at 7 pm and runs until we run out of books or customers. If you're in the neighborhood, please stop by and say hello.

Second -- I did an interview with the fine folks at Novelists Inc., which is now posted on their website. Read and take notes; there will be a quiz next Tuesday.

And now for our regularly scheduled Story Behind The Stories:

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"Sweetly The Dragon Dreams" by Dave Farland

When I was asked to write a story for this issue of IGMS, I immediately thought back to an early anthology of short stories that I read which was edited by Orson Scott Card called Dragons of Light. The anthology was published in 1980 and had a number of great writers in it—from Card himself to George R.R Martin and a dear friend, Val Lakey.

At the time that I read it, I was 23, had recently returned from being a missionary, and I was struggling to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I was in college studying medicine, but I’d always wanted to be a writer. Man, I wished that I had been able to write a story for that anthology!

So I wrote a long poem about dragons, and showed it to some family members. My brother-in-law liked it so much that he asked if he could frame a copy to put on his wall. I think that that gave me a good kick-start into writing. A line from the poem gave rise to the title of the story. The line goes, “But truth is the theme of the dragon’s dreams. . . .”

Somehow in the past 28 years, having written dozens of novels and short stories, I’ve never actually written anything with a dragon in it. After all, they’re pretty cliché. So I decided to write a dragon story for this magazine, though my dragons aren’t quite like the dragons you might find in other tales.

Yet this isn’t much of a dragon story. We never even really get to see one of them alive.

Beyond that, I’ve been hankering to write a science fiction story lately, and I realized recently that it has been twenty years since I’ve written a novella length tale. Originally, I thought about keeping this much shorter, but that subconscious desire to write something longer kept pulling at me.

So I wrote a long story, the beginning of a larger tale, similar in tone and style to my Golden Queen series. I don’t know if this will be the start of a novel yet, but probably not. Right now I have too many other stories that I want to write.

Best Wishes

David Farland

***

Dave's story, "Sweetly The Dragon Dreams," is in issue 10 of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, available now.

"A Heretic By Degrees" - by Marie Brennan

Creating a Heretic

Driftwood is, hands-down, the weirdest setting I have ever invented. It started from the idea of borders: a place that is nothing but borders, where worlds come together so closely that you are constantly crossing from one to another. In other words, Driftwood started with the Shreds, the region Qoress traverses in his quest to heal his king. The Edge, where his world currently resides, came later -- when my subconscious told me that Driftwood is where worlds go to die.

So that established two things about the setting. The first is that it's kind of inherently nihilistic: everything comes to an end there, and there's nothing anybody can do to stop it. Your world has its apocalypse, its Ragnarok or whatever, and the last surviving fragments come to Driftwood to finish collapsing into nothingness. Cheerful, huh? This is the first story I've published in the setting, but I have others I'm playing around with, and it would be easy for them to all be grindingly depressing. But there's a whole wealth of stories to tell about how people choose to face that end: some despair, some adapt, some live in denial.

(And then there's Last. When I said everything comes to an end, I lied. You'll see more of him in future stories.)

The setting may be nihilistic, then, and all the stories in it will have to deal with that in one way or another. But really, it's just an exploration of entropy. I realized after I had created the setting that there were two concepts at the heart of Driftwood, those being liminality and entropy. Borders, and the eventual breakdown of any closed system. I'm glad I didn't think of that until after I had the world in mind -- if I had created it with that in mind, I'd probably have something much stiffer and less interesting -- but as an after-the-fact observation, it's one with near-endless potential for exploration.

The second thing my idea established is that this is my world-building playground. I was trained as an anthropologist, and I try to build detailed, coherent worlds, where all the elements fit together. But you know, that's a lot of work, and sometimes you just have random wacky ideas that don't fit with much of anything. Driftwood lets me fling those around at will. It's a place of fragments; if I come up with some weird religious custom or clothing style or type of dance, I can toss it in there and not worry about what it means, or how it relates to anything else. I can't tell you anything about the magic of the place where Qoress meets Last except for the thing with the spit, and I don't have to; heck, that might be the only functional piece of magic they have left. Who knows?

Writing in this setting, I often feel like I'm getting to indulge much more than usual in one of the features of our genre: I can make up weird and colorful things, anything that sparks my sensawunda. (Or amuses me. Which is sometimes the same thing.)

As I said, this is the first Driftwood story I've published, but I have several others half-started, and I hope to do more. After all, there's always more worlds to destroy . . .

***

Marie's story, "A Heretic By Degrees," is in issue 10 of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, available now.

"The Fort in Vermont" - by David Simons

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During a work lunch some time ago, my co-workers and I were discussing the true value of wealth. No, this was not some sappy discussion of happiness versus bank accounts, family time versus promotions. We're lawyers. Rather, we were discussing what types of wealth would be most secure in the future.

Being the sole science fiction reader in the group, I suggested that if the proverbial subpoena ever hit the fan, bank accounts and stocks would become worthless, and the truly wealthy man would be the one who owned fenced land, canned goods, guns, and solar panels.

So I began constructing a story around a wealthy man who did plan for societal collapse--indeed, obsessed over it--diversifying accordingly. I gave him a past and a family, and decided to tell the story from the perspective of his teenage daughter, Rachel.

As I began writing though, it became Rachel's story. The father became less interesting to me than Rachel's own struggle to understand the risk of loss. So I went with that, and let the story take the tragic turns it needed to take.

For those interested in process, I wrote the first draft during a Clarion West workshop a couple years ago. I got some helpful feedback from classmates and that week's instructor (Nalo Hopkinson), and went through several revisions before reaching the version that Edmund bought. The biggest changes were switching from epistolary (journal) format to present tense, and eliminating several minor characters. Like most successful revisions, the story got shorter.

Thanks to all who read The Fort in Vermont. I'll have another (much lighter) story in IGMS sometime next year.

***

David's story, "The Fort In Vermont," is in issue 10 of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, available now.

"The Robot Sorcerer" - by Eric James Stone

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One day a few years ago, as I was driving home, I was thinking about the concept of titles that juxtaposed two things that do not seem to belong together. I decided to take something science-fictionish and match it with something fantasyish and came up with "The Robot Wizard." (Later I decided "Sorcerer" sounded better.)

So I had a title and nothing else. I let that title bang around in my brain for a year or two, and then -- while driving home again -- I thought, What if an exploratory robot with AI goes through a wormhole portal and ends up in a magical world? I recorded a voice memo on my PDA so I wouldn't forget that idea.

In 2007, I had the opportunity to go to the Odyssey Workshop (http://www.sff.net/odyssey/), an intensive six-week program focused on writing science fiction and fantasy. Since I would have several stories critiqued at the workshop, I decided to get a head start on writing a new story and that "The Robot Sorcerer" would be a good one to write. So, in the week before the workshop, I came up with the very basics of a plot and wrote 750 words to begin the story.

While at Odyssey, I met with Jeanne Cavelos, director of the program and writing teacher extraordinaire, to talk about trends in my writing she had noticed in my first few stories she had read. She suggested that I needed to focus more on developing characters who were integral to the plot, and that one way to do that was to figure out a character's greatest desire and greatest fear, and then have those two things in opposition at the climax of the story.

Until that discussion with Jean, I had never thought about the integration of plot and character in a systematic way. Generally, I came up with a plot and then came up with characters to plug into the plot. While I had written stories where the character and the plot fit together perfectly (such as "Tabloid Reporter to the Stars"), that was more accidental than purposeful.

In discussing what I planned to do with "The Robot Sorcerer," Jean told me I needed to figure out what the robot most desired and most feared. I realized that I would have to throw out the 750 words I had already written and start over. (If you want to see the original beginning, go here: http://ericjamesstone.com/writing/RobotSorcererOriginalBeginning.htm).

I decided what the robot feared most was losing its sentience. Because the robot's personhood was now a key component of the story, I decided I needed to tell the story in first person, rather than the omniscient narrator I had originally chosen. I also realized the story needed to start before the robot went through the wormhole and became sentient, in order to show the contrast. And that meant writing the first section in zeroth person -- from the point of view of an inanimate object that was not (yet) a person. (Yes, there actually is a zeroth person in some languages.)

I decided that the robot's greatest desire would be to save Bump. So I came up with a plot that would provide a climax in which the robot would have to choose between saving Bump and keeping its sentience. And then I wrote that story.

I want to give special thanks to Jeanne Cavelos, without whose advice the story would never have developed along the lines it did. I also want to thank Elizabeth Hand, an Odyssey guest lecturer who critiqued the first complete draft, and all my Odyssey classmates who gave me such great feedback on the story. And a final thank-you to my writing groups for their critiques.

***

Eric's story, "The Robot Sorcerer," is in issue 10 of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, available now.

Eric's bio:

One of Eric James Stone's earliest memories is of seeing an Apollo moon-shot launch on television. That might explain his life-long fascination with astronomy and space travel. His father's collection of old science fiction ensured that Eric grew up on a full diet of Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke.

Despite taking creative writing classes in the 1980s, Eric did not begin seriously writing fiction until 2002. In 2003 he attended Orson Scott Card's Literary Boot Camp. Since then, he has sold stories to the Writers of the Future Contest, Analog, and Intergalactic Medicine Show.

Eric lives in Utah. His website can be found at www.ericjamesstone.com

"Pi" - by Mette Ivie Harrison

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In March of this year, I taught a workshop on revision with Orson Scott Card at Southern Virginia Univeristy (Edmund Schubert and Jacob Black were also there). I gave out a handout that had a list of “before” and “after” paragraphs from novels I had published. I was determined to show the embarrassing truth about how bad my first drafts are, and how an editor’s suggestions could make them better. I expected everyone to wince along with me when I read the first drafts and then to feel immense relief when I read the revised versions.

Strangely enough, there was occasionally argument about which of the two drafts was actually better. Scott stepped in at one point and insisted that he thought either draft could work; it was just a question of what effect the author (me) wanted on the reader. In fact, after reading one particular first draft paragraph, Scott suggested he would be glad to read any “first drafts” of stories I might write, for IGMS.

In the spirit of a challenge, I wrote up twelve short story ideas in the airport on the way home. I wrote only the first line at first, and then, as time stretched on and on, a couple of paragraphs. I was trying to figure out which ones would be appropriate to send to IGMS. In the end, I went home and that month wrote up 15 different short stories, most of them based around the premise of “12 Magical Apprentices,” for a possible book idea that I might one day sell to someone somewhere, because I write for YA and the whole idea of a magical apprentice seemed like one that might sell there.

I sent off the first of these stories, one that had been inspired by my twelve year old daughter’s obsessive memorization of digits of pi, to Edmund for IGMS. Some of the elements of this obsession include her printing out thousands of digits of pi and then hanging the printed papers in her bedroom, her volunteering to recite digits of pi to anyone who is willing to listen for several minutes, and having a “pi” party when my youngest son turned “pi” years old (my husband calculated this exactly) where we served, of course, pie: chocolate and coconut cream. My daughter is also very musically talented, and I once had a math teacher who was an incredible violinist and who claimed that the skills involved in making music were essentially the same as those in math: patterns repeated and twisted over and over again. I thought that this might become part of the story, but I was wrong.

After all the stories were written, I was surprised at myself, that I had been able to write so many coherent stories in what was essentially one draft. I did not plan out any of the stories in advance. For “Pi,” I knew that the magic would be about pi, and that there would be a young protagonist involved, and that perfect circles would be better than imperfect ones for magic. Other than that, I didn’t have any preconceived notions about the shape of the story. It seemed to shape itself. Some of the others did the same; some did not and these last I am not sure that I know how to fix. Maybe more of this “cycle” of stories about magical apprentices will appear in IGMS in coming issues.

But I will admit that “Pi” was not sold on a first draft. In fact, it needed a good edit, which Edmund helped me to do. He pointed out a problem in the ending of the story, and when I reread it, I saw that I actually had to fix it by subtly changing the whole story, not just the ending. Then he bought it.

***

Mette's story, "Pi," is in issue 10 of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, available now.

Mette Ivie Harrison is the author of several novels, including Mira Mirror, The Princess and The Hound, and the forthcoming sequel, The Princess and The Bear. She is also a new columnist for IGMS; her column, "Chopsticks" is chock full of great advice for writers.

IGMS Issue 10 is Live

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What more is there to say. Check it out...

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Good News

Actually, two bits of good news:

1) The publisher of Dreaming Creek was already listing my novel on their website for $1 less than cover price ($14.95 instead of $15.95). Now they are also having a sale, with all books (e-book and print books) being offered during the month of November at 35% off. That makes DC only $9.72 + S&H! Details at the publisher's website.

2) We're just about ready to publish the next issue of InterGalactic Medicine Show. That means I can start running essays by the authors in issue ten instead of running my mouth about my novel. The upcoming authors and their stories are:

Dave Farland - How Sweetly The Dragon Dreams

Mette Ivie Harrison - Pi

Ami Chopine - The Tile Setters

Marie Brennan - A Heretic by Degrees

Eric James Stone - The Robot Sorcerer

David Simons - The Fort In Vermont

and part one of Greg Siewert's novelette - The Absence of Stars

You'll also find new stories by David Lubar, and an interview with Harry Turtledove by Darrell Schweitzer

So tune in here soon for the Story Behind the Stories, and to InterGalactic Medicine Show for, well... the stories

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Dreaming Creek Book Launch Party

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And a good time was had by all (especially me)...

...at my first official reading and signing of Dreaming Creek.

Over 30 people showed up for my reading. No one fell asleep (despite my best efforts). Some of them even bought the book afterward.

;-)

I did my best to forge my own signature (is that possible?). Well, I did my best to make it legible, anyway...
















My thanks to the fine folks at Givens Books in Lynchburg, VA, for their help making this great night possible. Also, many thanks to everyone who came out and made me feel like the king of the world (at least for a few hours).

And last but not least, a super-sized thanks to Dena Harris, who drove over two hours to help me with the workshop before the signing. They don't make friends much better than that...