ChattaCon

I went to ChattaCon in Chattanooga TN this weekend and had a great weekend. Ironically, it was great because the writer's track was, to be blunt, kind of lame. But that just made it the perfect opportunity to spend time with the TWO guests of honor, Kevin Anderson and Rob Sawyer. I'm still trying to figure out how a con can have two guests of honor of that caliber and not draw more fans. I guess ChattaCon just one of those cons that primarily draws the gaming people. But I'm not complaining; the lack of competition for their time made it that much easier to hang out with the GOHs and I'm not too proud to admit that I'm a big fan of both of these guys' accomplishments and relished every moment of their time.

For purposes of clarity, when I say "we" in this blog entry, I mean: Kevin Anderson and his wife (and frequent collaborator) Rebecca Moesta, Rob Sawyer and his wife Carol, my friend Alethea (who works at Ingram), Alethea's friend Eddie, and myself). Anyway... we hung out all weekend. We had a late night pizza Friday night, we had lunch together in the hotel Saturday, we went out to a Greek restaurant for dinner Sat. night (minus Rob and his wife), and we all went back to that Greek restaurant again for a late lunch on Sunday. Great guys, Rob and Kevin. Open and helpful, willing to answer just about any questions. We laughed, we talked about old movies and comic books and politcs and anything else you can think of. We even talked about the writing biz.

Kevin was particularly impressive to see in action. Whenever he didn't have a panel (or wasn't being dragged off to another meal), he was prowling around the parking lot with his micro-recorder dictating chapters of the novel he's currently working (the final installment of his Seven Suns Saga). What a work ethic that man has! Sunday morning Alethea and I were standing in front of a table in the dealer's room (Apex Digest's table - a magazine worth checking out) and I said to Alethea, "You know, if either one of us were Kevin Anderson we'd be off somewhere writing right now." And that's what it takes to succeed as a writer: discipline to write, every day, no matter what. Kevin has tremendous discipline and that's probably one of the biggest factors behind his tremendous success.

If there's a moral to this story it this: don't write off the small cons. Big cons like Dragon Con and WorldCon and World Fantasy have a mystique all their own, but the little cons give you access to all sorts of people that you'd have a much harder time getting with at the big ones.

New Rejection Letter

In an effort to improve communication and relations with writers who submit stories to IGMS, I have written a new rejection letter. This letter is succinct and, I think, has a certain elegance, so I wanted to share it with you.

Dear Writer,

Thank you for submitting your story for consideration at IGMS. Unfortunately it sucked like a remora on a shark. Like a vacuum cleaner. Like a 20 dollar whore. Like a black hole in a bad science fiction movie. Like a kid with a straw and a McDonald's milkshake. Like a cowboy whose best buddy just got bit by a rattlesnake. Like an actor trying out for a role as a cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain." Well, okay, maybe it didn't suck that bad, but dear Lord, it wasn't any good...

We encourage you to submit more stories in the future. Just be sure you send them to some one else.

The Editors

Nits and Bits and Nibbles

Nothing major to report, just nits and bits and (well, you know the rest).

The dental/oral surgery went reasonably well and the stitches are supposed to come out of my gums tomorrow. Made the mistake of not taking my meds before I went to bed last night and woke up in a lot of pain. I'm guess not done with the drugs yet, but forward progres is being made.

Putting the last touches on the new issue of the business magazine this week. Since I'm leaving for ChattaCon on Thursday and won't be coming home until late Monday (and the files have to be downloaded to the printer by Monday), I have today and tomorrow to wrap up NCCNM. (Minus, of course, the time I'm at the periodontists getting the stitches removed.) (What in the word am I doing writing here then?)

Issue four of IGMS is now targeted for a release date of Feb. 19th. That's four and half months since the last issue came out. Not quite quarterly, but progress in the right direction. I've got issue five just about finalized (I need one more great SF piece to round out the content), and my goal is to have issue five done (at least as far as my part is concerned) before issue four goes live. In a perfect world issue four would have "Coming Attractions" listd with the next issue's content. Stay tuned to see if I make it...

It Must Be The Drugs

Maybe it's just the drugs they gave me after my surgery (which went as well as can be expected from four hours of a dentist slicing up your gums) and normally I make a point of avoiding this kind of thing. But I got this from a writer friend of mine named Julie Wright and for some reason decided to do it. Julie wrote, "Okay, you’ve been tagged on my blog. The deal is you have to write your next post about five things no one (or very few) people know about you. Go to it guys . . . no flaking on me. Jules" (http://www.juliewright.com/blog.html)


So, here goes:

1. During my senior year in college I published an small underground/alternative newspaper. Only about a half dozen close friends who were involved with my little venture knew I was responsible for it; all anyone else knew was that that it appeared around campus about twice a month. One night I was in a bar shooting pool with a buddy of mine and these two girls came in. We bought them beers and invited them to join us and somewhere along the line the conversation turned to the 'mysterious' underground newspaper that was showing up around campus. The girls said that they had had a class that day where the professor spent the entire lecture period discussing things related to the 'mystery' newspaper. Naturally I was tickled. Cool, I thought, my work is actually being studied in a college class. Then I asked the girls what class it was. Their answer? Abnormal psychology.

2. My first job after college was as an assistant editor for a publisher in New York and they fired me after about a month. When I asked why they were letting me go, they said that my productivity was great, but that I was having too much fun while doing my job.

3. My second job after college was in the human resources department of a big company in New York in the fashion industry. One day they needed a last minute-replacement for a model for a photoshoot and decided to use me. My modeling career only lasted about half and hour, but it was fun while it lasted.

4. I'm a big hockey fan and I once lived next door to a professional hockey player whose team won the Stanley Cup. At a party at his house afterwards I got to drink champagne from the Stanley Cup.

5. I ran a nursery and garden center for several years. A couple of times during the summer when it was hot and there were no customers around, my wife and I would grab a blanket, climb up on top of the main building (the side facing away from the road) and make love on the roof.

Or is that last one too much information?

Nothing To Do With Writing or Editing

But it's all I can think about right now, so you're stuck with it. Tomorrow I go in for a dental proceedure called crown lengthening, which is a misnomer, I think, because what they'll do is surgically trim my gums so that there is more tooth exposed to attach a crown to. I had an old filling break and when I went in to my regular dentist, she told me there was decay beneath the filling and I would have to have a root canal. Not fun, but I've had root canals before and they're not as bad as some folks make them out to be. (Maybe I'm just amazingly tough...)

But once the root canal was done, she then told me I needed this crown lengthening procedure, which turns out to involve three to four hours worth of open-mouth surgery. It was originally scheduled for about two weeks ago, but the day I was supposed to go in I woke up incredibly sick to my stomach and had to reschedule. That rescheduled appointment is tomorrow morning and my stomach is doing unpleasant things - again. Is it protesting? Trying to give me an excuse not to go again? Maybe I'm not so tough after all.

Pray for me...

A Good Question

At least I thought so, so I decided to post it here. Jeff P. recently wrote to me, "I have a production question for Mr. Schubert...Since IGMS is an online publication, why is there a delay until February now that you have the lineup? To a non-geek like me, it seems like you'd just post the new material, and poof!

I realize this sounds kind of snotty, and I don't mean it that way. I'm actually curious about how the online system works (comes from years of being a journalist; [we're] nosey about everything)."

This struck me as the kind of thing more than just ol' Jeff might be wondering about, so here is my answer here.

"It's not a snooty question, it's just based on an incomplete understanding of everything that's involved.

You see, picking out the stories is only one piece of the equation. Once those stories are selected, they are sent to different illustrators for the accompanying artwork. One illustration is specifically commissioned for each story, and it takes time for those to be produced. Then the stories and artwork need to be properly formatted and laid out by our web-master, who is not only responsibile for IGMS, but all of the web-sites published by Orson Scott Card (which I think is seven, at last count). And speaking of Mr. Card, sometimes he is busy with other projects and I have to wait a bit for him to write his Ender Universe story. We've put other issues up before his story was ready, but frankly I have found that everyone (myself included) prefers having his story available as soon as the issue is published.

So as I said in the beginning, the question is a good one; it just doesn't take all the details into account. I'm glad you asked."

Coming Soon To A Computer Near You

Coming in February: Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Issue Four, featuring -

Tabloid Reporter To The Stars by Eric James Stone
Call Me Mr. Positive by Tom Barlow
Wisteria by Ada Milenkovic Brown
Beats Of Seven By Peter Orullian
Moon-Eyed Stud by Justin Stanchfield
Miniature by Peter Friend
Approaching Zero by Kelly Parks
new YA stories by David Lubar
and, as always, a new Ender's Universe Story

Tune in to this blog for essays by the authors - The Story Behind The Stories

Return of That Darn Business Magazine

Yes, kiddies, it's that time again - grinding out the next issue of NCCNM (which, for all my teasing and griping, I really do enjoy working on). NCCNM hosts an annual women's business symposium and luncheon and this year's event is scheduled for Feb. 14th - Valentine's Day. I'm not sure what to make of the decision to hold it on Valentine's Day, but it was the publisher's call, not mine.

Last year I ended up on the podium introducing one of the speakers at the luncheon. There I was, in front of about 160 women, with maybe five other men in the room. I don't think I've ever been so frightened in all my life.

Anyway... back in the present... In order to get the next issue back from the printer's in time for the event, we have to have it to the printers within the next few weeks, so it's nose-to-the-grindstone time. Frankly, I kind of like working with a compressed schedule; it keeps everybody focused and motivated and moving, moving, moving. I wonder sometimes if I shouldn't have been a fireman, because I think I work best with alarm bells ringing and things burning all around me. Good times, eh?

On other fronts, I'm working with OSC on a really cool IGMS project that I'm very excited about. Problem is I can't tell you about it yet. I will as soon as I can though. Really. Pinky promise.

ChattaCon

Just a quick note that I've been invited as a last-minute guest to ChattaCon (http://www.chattacon.org/Joomla/) in Chattanooga, TN, the weekend of January 26 - 28, 2007. Dual writing guests of honor are Kevin Anderson and Robert Sawyer. If you're in the neighborhood, pop in and say hi.

The End Is Nigh

As 2006 draws to close, it's inevitable to look back and see where we've been and where we're heading. 2005 saw the first and only issue of IGMS, and much attendant excitement. 2006 saw only two issues released, one in March - the final one edited personally by Orson Scott Card - and one in October, my first as editor. I have to admit that I was immensely gratified to see issue three received so well by the readers.

2007 will see all four issues of IGMS that a quarterly schedule promises. Issue four is already together and just waiitng for art and one or two other finishing touches. We're looking to release #4 some time during the first week of February. Issue five is also nearly complete. This magazine will get onto a regular schedule and stay there. Period. That's what Scott hired me to do and I'll make it happen.

There are still a handful of authors waitng for final replies, but we've largely dug out from under the backlog of submissions. Of the several thousand stories that came in between June of 2005 and Dec. 2006, there are perhaps a hundred left that need a reply. So if you haven't heard yet, my apologies for the wait. On the other hand, realize that if you haven't heard back, that puts you in the top 5% of subs. For me that's the trickiest part because there's only room for about 1%. That means I'll have to reject(and already have rejected) some pretty darn good stories. I wish it were otherwise, but that's reality.

Right now I'm about to head out the door; we're visiting some family in the Baltimore area. And yes, I'm taking stories with me to read while we drive. I don't leave the house any more without a pile of stories printed out and ready to go with. In the mean time, happy reading and writing to you all. Thank you, every one of you, for your support, your encouragement, and your patience. I'll see you next year.

The True Meaning of Boxing Day

Happy Boxing Day to all. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate that holiday, and a great (_______ insert holiday of your choice here) if you don't. Christmas here was a pleasure, with extended family visiting just long enough for it to be fun and not a minute longer. The kids were, as always, what Christmas is all about, and I had a great time watching them tear into the entire day with gusto.

I also got a few nice toys myself. Near the top of the list was a boxed DVD set of Firefly , which I am looking forward to seeing for the first time, and the first season of the old, animated TV series, The Tick, which I look forward to revisiting from days long ago. Everybody say, "Roof pig! Most unexpected!"

I am also enjoying a book my wife gave me called Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies, the basic sentiment of which I whole-heartedly agree with. If you're a reader or a writer then you've got a leg up on many folks when it comes to grammar, spelling, and vocabulary, and - especially if you are a writer - you do want to do everything you can to get these things right. On the other hand, if you're fond out pointing out that someone used "who" when "whom" would have been the proper usage, or if you tell people they just used "laid" when they should have used "lain" I'm going to tell you to get a life. When the government decides to form the Punctuation Police and the Grammar Gestapo we'll give you a call; in the mean time, give it a rest before the rest of us decide to come find you and teach you the true meaning of Boxing Day.

Absolutlely Nothing

Yup, that's what I have to report (or I'd have reported it sooner). Working on web-site content for a landscape architect (yawn), the new issue of NCCNM (aka that darn business magazine) is out and I don't have to think about that until January. I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet.

Bought a few stories in the past few weeks for IGMS and have a couple rewrites in the works with some other authors. The good news, I guess, is that we are 100% caught up on the first reads (meaning everything submitted before Dec. 1 has been read at least once). There are still about 100 + stories that are in the 'read again' pile (and some of those folks still have to be notified that they are in the 'read again' pile), and about 25 people in the old 'read again' pile. But we are getting more and more up-to-date on the submissions with each passing month. This is taking longer than I thought it would, but then you don't get caught up on a year's worth of backlog (with new stuff continuing to pour in every week) overnight either.

On a vaguely related note, I have a few conventions that I am now officially scheduled to attend. RavenCon is late April in Richmond, VA, and ConCarolinas is mid-June in Charlotte NC. I'll mention them again when it gets closer to time to go.

Less Good Titles

I'm not saying they're bad titles, but they are, in my humble (but accurate) opionion, less good...

He Likes Dead Things
Vita Nova Ex Stellis Veniet
To Dream Of Hungry Elephants
Come To Me My Love, The Fireman Cried
Healing Pain(t)
Girl With One Green Eye and Cat

'nuff said.

Titles n' Personal Tidbit

Been reading a lot of slush this weekend (as you can see from my rant in the last post). Came across a couple of titles that I liked enough to share with you. Some stories made the cut and moved on to a second reading, some did not. But I thought these were all good titles.

Rhymes With Ihotep
Bed and Basalisk
The Bone Truck
An Alien Warmth
The Perils of Government Cheese
Dreaming of Mercy

The personal news is that I just an e-mail from Bruce Gehweiler, who is editing a cryptozoology-themed anthology (say that ten times fast) called Crypto-Critters II. The first Crypto anthology was successful enough that the publisher (Padwolf Publishing) asked him to do another, and Bruce's e-mail was to say that my story "Lair of the Ice Rat" will be in it. I don't know when the book is due out (some time in 2007, I'm pretty sure), so I'll have to get back to you with specifics when I have them.

Verification Rant

"My spam filter requires verification of your email address"

I am now officially sick of getting this message when trying to repsond to submissions. If you have submitted a story to IGMS, or plan to submit a story to IGMS in the future, or plan to contact me about anything IGMS-related, add igmseditor(at)yahoo(dot)com and igmstwo(at)yahoo(dot)com (symbols have been replaced with words for the obvious reasons; I know you know how to fix that) to your e-mail address book. I am not filling out any more verifications just for the privilege of contacting you about something you sent to me.

End of rant. You may now resume your regularly scheduled surfing.

Old News, But News To Me

This has to be an old review, but a friend just pointed it out to me today, so it's news to me. It's a review of a story that was published a year or two ago in Fusing Horizons, a British magazine edited by Gary Fry.

"Jeannie in a Bottle is apparently one of Edmund Schubert’s first ever stories, and if so is remarkably good. Jeanne is a nurse working in a centre for the mentally retarded. But then a new patient arrives… and turns out to be a [psychic] idiot savant with a vengeance! ... The ending is particularly well written, as Jeanne learns (but with no time to digest the thought) why you cannot ‘hold an ocean in a thimble’."

The reviewer (Steve Redwood) closed by saying this about the magazine in general:

"When Fusing Horizons was first announced, I thought ‘Oh no, here we go again, yet another horror mag, can’t someone come up with something different just for once?’ – so I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, both by this and earlier issues. OK, there are a few typical ‘horror’ scenarios here, but even they are often handled with a satisfying freshness, and other stories completely transcend the genre – or, to be more accurate, what many people think of as the genre. Highly recommended."

A Rare and Beautiful Thing

I've commented in the past how I knew that I was lucky to have assistant editors weeding out the really bad stuff before passing the rest on to me. I am now, however, beginning to question that logic. You see, even as we brought in another assistant editor to help wrestle the pile of submissions into manageable size, I have also thrown myself hip-deep into the submission pile and been reading some of the first-round subs, too. And, oh, the joy I have deprived myself of. You see, there are not that many truly great stories. I wish it were otherwise, but anyone who reads or writes will tell you that truly great stories are just not common. Nor, it turns out, are truly dreadful one. Which does not stop me from enjoying them, mind you - the great and the dreadful?. Who knew reading slush could bring such wicked glee...

General News

I got my first look at the next issue of NCCNM and must say that the new graphic designer has definitely moved it forward in terms of the look and feel of the magazine. There were any number of little things I wanted tweaked and adjusted, but overall it looks very good and I am quite pleased. Optimistic, even.

In IGMS news, I've just about got the line up for issues four and five set (just about) and Kathleen (managing editor) and I are looking at having issue four out around the first of February. That date isn't set in stone, but it's the target we're shooting for. It's four months from the release date of the last issue and to be truly quarterly we'll need to get it down to three, but it's good progress in the right direction.

I also just found out that the December issue of Locus magazine is going to have a review of issue three. I have no idea what the overall review will be, but I did get an e-mail from the reviewer, Rich Horton, a little while back, saying how much he enjoyed the cover story (Tim Pratt's "Dream Engine"). We shall see, shan't we?

Why I Love Being A Writer

Well, there are a lot of reasons, really... but in the past couple days I've gotten to take advantage of one of the best of them. Being a writer, you see, is a great reason (okay, excuse) to start conversations with people you would otherwise have next to no chance of getting time with. Specifically, in this case, I have, in the name of research, begun e-mail correspondence with the only two people to ever trek to the North Pole during the summer. It's research for the new novel I've just started, and I have to tell you when these guys answered my e-mails and said they'd be happy to help me out, I was as excited a ten year old at Christmas who just found out that the biggest present under the tree had his name on it.

I get to talk with guys who have been to the North Pole. Why? Because I'm a writer. I'm still pinching myself.

Have a happy Thanksgiving. (I know what I'm thankful for...)

Paper vs. Electronic (and a diatribe about style)

I was trading e-mails the other day with Doug Cohen, assistant editor over at Realms of Fantasy, about preferences for reading submissions on a computer screen vs. printing them out. It’s a very different kind of reading experience, paper vs. electronic, and even though the stories I’m reading (the ones I buy anyway) are going to be published on-line, I still have a major preference for judging them the old fashioned way. I believe I get a better feel for the flow of the story when reading it on paper, and flow is a big thing with me. I want everything about a story – from plot, character, and word choice, to seemingly little things like punctuation – to flow in a way that keeps me lost in the story. Anything that pulls me up and reminds me that I am reading a story is bad. Frankly, that’s why I hate pretentious, writerly writing. It tells me the author thinks he or she is more important than the story they are telling. A lot of people misinterpret me when I say this, thinking I don’t appreciate a fine writing style. Nothing could be further form the truth: I love a great writing style. I also see a tremendous difference between writing that has style, and writing that is about style. It’s the second I have no patience for.

(Now look what you’ve done; you’ve got me up on my soap box, preaching again.) (Get back to the point, Edmund…) (What was the point?) (Right, paper vs. electronic submissions...)

But anyway…

I have to admit that I had not anticipated the time, ink, and paper that would be required for this job. I'm beginning to understand why so many publishers won't accept e-subs: it shifts the burden from the writer to the editor. When you ask 500 writers to each print their own story out, it's not that big a deal. One editor printing out 500 stories is a very different cup of tea. But IGMS’s policy is and will remain: electronic subs. It does have some advantages, such as transferring them and editing them. C'est la vie. You can’t have it all. You really can’t even have most if it; where would you keep it?

Have a good Thanksgiving.