Author copies!

IMG_2324.JPG

Aren’t they shiny? They showed up the end of last week. Official release day is (I believe) July 14, at which point you, too, can read my story “Blood and Gold,” featuring the dragon Rashall.

Also last week, SpeckLit accepted four more drabbles, which will be published sometime next quarter.

Also also, we have yellow crocus buds! (No pics yet.)

What are you grateful for this week?

Story sale news

I’m happy to announce that my story “Blood and Gold” has been accepted for publication in The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk (table of contents). Publication date is July 14, 2015; I’ll mention it again next summer!

Also, my story “Matchmaker” (originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine) has been translated into Galician and is up at Nova Fantasia: A casamenteira. (Galician is a Romance language, one of three spoken in Spain, the other two being Spanish [obviously] and Catalan.)

Aiming high and making progress

I’ve got lots of thing in progress. Recently, in fact, I remembered a couple of series I started plotting out but hadn’t started writing. Things are moving along, not quite glacially, but certainly slower this year than in previous years.

So this month, I’m taking a break. Maybe it seems counter-intuitive: if I’m going slowly, won’t things be even worse if I turn my back on my current projects? Well, frankly, it won’t make a lot of difference to most of them. However, I think I need a change of pace, doing something different.

Forward Motion (the writing forum I’ve been hanging out at since 2003) runs a challenge every May called Story-A-Day, or SAD. I’ve never gotten more than ten stories in the month, and some years, I haven’t even gotten one. This year, though, I’m going for full-out insanity. I may not actually complete a story each day — on days that I do flash, I might finish two; other stories might take me a few days to draft. I would like to finish the month with 31 new stories, of whatever length. Some of those will go up as Friday flash, fresh and new and straight to you, my readers. Others will get spell-checked, read to make sure they make sense, edited if necessary, and submitted to varying markets.

I may not get all 31. I’d like to get between 25 and 31, but the truth is, even if I “only” finish the month with five new shorts plus the Friday flash pieces, I’ll be ahead of where I am now.

That’s my current project.

What are you up to this month?


Today’s post was inspired by the topic “Current projects”– May’s topic in the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour — an ongoing tour where you, the reader, travel around the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. We have all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s something for everyone to enjoy. Be sure to check out the next posts in the series, by Sandra Barret and D. M. Bonanno.

If you want to get to know nearly twenty other writers and find out their thoughts on first stories, check out the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour. You can find links to all of the posts on the tour by checking out the group site. Read and enjoy!

New contributor’s copies!

Cover of Spells & SwashbucklersThe other day, I received my printed copy of Spells & Swashbucklers. It’s a lovely book. I handed it to my son to look at, and he got as far as “anthology” before putting it down. I pointed out my name on the back cover as one of the contributors to the anthology, and that was when he decided it was worth another look — even started reading my story!

That wasn’t the only arrival this week, however.

Cover of Fall 2012 issue of Space and TimeToday, I received copies of the Fall 2012 issue of Space & Time, which has my story “A Pretty Bauble,” a lovely mother-daughter story with sword fights and cats.

There’s something very satisfying about seeing something I’ve written in print. (Don’t get me wrong; I’m happy with electronic publication, too.) In that vein, I’d like to point out that Clarkesworld Magazine is reviving its anthologies (although it’ll be a while before 2011 — Year Five — is available) and Daily Science Fiction is also planning compilations of stories. Don’t worry — I’ll let you know when they’re ready!

Random Friday

Did I tell you I have a new flash story coming out? “The Call” will be the e-mailed story for Daily Science Fiction on Monday, May 14. If you’re not signed up to get their e-mailed stories, this is a good time to do it. Or you can wait a week, and they’ll have it posted on their site.

Spells & Swashbucklers, an anthology of pirates and magic from Dragon Moon Press, has my short story, “Maskèd Panama.” The official launch party will be over Memorial Day weekend at Balticon, but it’s available for purchase now (paperback at Amazon) (Kindle).

I did pick a winner for the Live and Let Fly giveaway contest and e-mailed to find out what format of e-book was preferred. Nutschell, if you’re reading this, check your e-mail. If I don’t have a response by next week, I’ll pick another winner.

It’s been a month since I’ve done a post on genres, and I do intend to get back to them. Life’s just been hectic — to keep those up while doing the A to Z posts would have required a lot more pre-planning (which I’m noting for next year). I will start those again next Friday. I’ve actually been pleased to see people find my blog in search engines by looking for things like the definition of urban fantasy or what makes cozy mysteries different from hard-boiled ones. Clearly, these posts are filling a need.

The A to Z challenge was a lot of fun, and the hosts of the challenge encouraged everyone to do a reflections post. They said, “You can put up your Reflections post anytime between now and Saturday May 12th.” Mine will go up tomorrow. If you’re interested in my thoughts, what I liked, what I’d do differently, come check it out. Otherwise, feel free to go enjoy the weekend. It’s supposed to warm up about 10 degrees here and be sunny (which still leaves it cooler than California and Nevada — springlike weather here generally is for the most part in the 60s and 70s). I may even get outside to plant the flowers I bought from the fundraiser at my daughter’s daycare (begonia, portulaca, impatiens, and geranium).

Winter White for sale

cover for Winter White short storyHvinde’s stepmother truly is the fairest of them all, goddess of beauty and ruler of the kingdom. Her priests, however, think it’s time to give somebody else a chance at the title of fairest, and at least one thinks Hvinde has a shot. What’s a girl to do when she’d much rather play bridge with the guards than primp for others?

As is probably obvious from the blurb above, this is my retelling of the Snow White tale, without hearts cut out, poison, or wicked stepmothers being forced to dance in red hot shoes made of iron. Read an excerpt below. Continue reading

New short for sale: Rise of Kencha

I uploaded another short story for sale on Friday. “Rise of Kencha” first appeared in Spacesuits and Sixguns, an online magazine that is no longer available. (The Website currently says something’s coming 4th quarter of 2011, in a rebirth of the site, so I check back every now and again to see if there’s anything there yet.) Dave Duggins, the editor, liked my story so much he made it the cover story and commissioned art for it. Happily, Krzysztof Biernacki gave me permission to use the art with the story once again. Below is an excerpt from the opening of the story, as well as the links to buy it, should you be so inclined.

Jani’s been working night shift since she broke up with the commander of her station, Lev Ren, but even with her grief, she notices the problems with engines and airflow on the station. What she doesn’t notice at first is the crew who have altered their bodies, giving up limbs and exoskeleton for machined parts. These crew are playing a game, a deadly game called Kencha. Jani can’t go to her commander, but she can’t let the station be corrupted, either. How she responds will affect everyone on the station.

Continue reading

“Blood Brother” for sale

As promised, this is the other story I’ve put up for sale recently. It’s what’s technically known as a novelette — about 13,000 words — longer than a short story, shorter than a novella. The cover is by Jade E. Zivanovic (her Facebook profile). The first two scenes follow the break. If you’re interested in buying it, those links are provided, too. Continue reading

Short story “Spiders” for sale

Last week, I put up a couple more short stories for sale. I’m going to tell you about one of them today and one next week — I’m still waiting for it to go live on the Kindle store.

Lenny and Steven are best friends in a society where everyone lives forever — except for those who die on their fiftieth birthday. No one knows whether they’ll be one of those to die until they start showing symptoms, and by then it’s too late. Lenny, however, is convinced he’s going to die, and that colors everything in their friendship.

Continue reading

A New Start, live

My short story, “A New Start,” is now available to purchase at the usual e-book stores for 99 cents. (Note that you do not need an e-reader to read this or my other stories. Kindle has free software available for PC, Mac, iPhone/iPod, and I think Android. Nook also has their program available for those who don’t own a Nook. And Smashwords has HTML, plain text, RTF, PDF, Java, and other formats. So if you’re interested, don’t let the lack of an e-reader stop you!)

When Fainche gets out of her family’s car at a rest stop, she doesn’t expect to come back and find her husband and daughter left without her. Imagine her surprise when she calls on her cell phone and another Fainche answers! She follows them, intent on discovering who the impostor is and how her family was fooled.

Continue reading