More stuff from Tangent!

Recently, I've had two more items published at Tangent Online.

The first is an article called SF by Starlight about Tanith Lee's wonderful tale “En Forêt Noire” found here.

The second item is a short review of story "The Four Hundred and Twenty-three" for The Sword Review, my first of hopefully many to come. You can find it here.

And that's all for now. Hope to do some more outlining tonight while the Trick-or-Treaters constantly ring the doorbell.

NaNoWriMo

First off, Happy Hallowe'en everyone!

Second off, National Novel Writing Month begins tomorrow (November 1, 2005) and ends at the end of the month (November 30, 2005). In just thirty days, the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel.



So for November, most of my short stories will be put aside for a bit until I can finish this project. For those curious, here is what I'm writing:

Novel title: The Periwinkle Prince
Genre: Fantasy
Main character: Evan
Synopsis: A queen gives birth to a blue baby and the king is outraged. Both mother and pup are banished from the land, and the baby is forced to live in recluse with an adopted family. Only when he reaches the age of 15 does he learn about his true heritage...and the magic coursing through his body. But can he overcome the difficulties of what he looks like and truly go against his father, the king of Tambre?

Third off, I'm going to be writing a review soon of Battlestar Galactica: Rebellion which is quite possibly the worst book ever to be written. I'm not even sure how it got published. Well, you'll just have to wait and read more about it later.

Now a reviewer for Tangent! Woo!

I believe I'm now a reviewer for Tangent which is a great step forward in advancing my career with short fiction and publications in general.

I recently, as in today, reviewed Aeon #4 for them. Check out my review here.

And I've also received my second nice rejection from Shimmer. It is now a goal of mine to get published there; they are such a nice magazine and they treat their submitters so politely.

New fantasy review up!

Just posted my review of Lawrence Watt-Evans's The Dragon Society over at www.fantasybookspot.com. You can find the review here.

Check it out, thanks!

Critters

I've recently joined an online writing workshop at Critters.

So far all I've done is critiqued one really creative sci-fi story. I have also tried to submit a story of my own to be reviewed. Unfortunately, the submission process is pretty confusing and I got it sent back due to some errors. Hopefully I'll have this figured out soon because it looks to be a really cool workshop.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Lists and their disappointments

TIME's 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to present list, found here, has stirred up some debates and questions all over the Internet.

I found several of the books on their list to be in the correct place: William Golding's Lord of the Flies, William Burroughs's Naked Lunch, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

Others I found out of place: George Orwell's Animal Farm (just not as wonderful as 1984 was), Richard Wright's Native Son, and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (overated in my opinion).

You can find an interesting discussion here about what should and what shouldn't have made the list.

The Morning News has posted Amazon 1-Star reviews from their own site about several of the books from the list. Reading someone trashing Toni Morrison's Beloved for its graffic nature boggles my mind; that's what made the story so good. Another reviewer compared George Orwell's 1984 to Harry Potter, trashing the story harshly.

Well, I'll let you make your own opinions on the matter.

RavenCon 2006

RavenCon 2006 is coming soon. All further information can be found on its website. Terry Brooks is the GOH which makes me seriously consider attending.

Check it out and let me know if you're going to go as well!

Nicest rejection yet

Yesterday, I received a rejection letter in my email for the story "Helen Goes Shopping" that I submitted to Shimmer. Editor J.L. Radley sent me the nicest rejection I have gotten so far.

It's a weird feeling -- I'm quite happy with this rejection. Sure, I'm dying to get a story published, but you have to take everything in this business with a grain of salt. Just getting a personal response is a high point in an author's career. I'm sure my story could have easily been skimmed, and replied to with a "Sorry, but we're going to have to pass."

But it wasn't just skimmed. It was read.

I wonder if the big namers ever got this way in the beginning? I can hardly imagine Terry Brooks or R.A. Salvatore smiling gleefully as they read that their story was rejected. But for me, it's almost good enough that he said he liked my opening and took his time to thoroughly critique the story for me. He raised many red flags about what I had done wrong concerning P.O.V. and wished me good luck with it in the future.

I plan on editing "Helen Goes Shopping" a lot, but when it's finished again, I'm sending it right back out into the world.

Current submissions

Since May 2005 hit, I've been hard at work producing several short stories. At the moment there are seven of my stories out in the United States--hopefully being reviewed by nice slush readers, and even more hopefully being picked for their magazines.

1. "Dragon-elves" is a 10,000 word fantasy novelette about a young boy hiding in the woods after his village is attacked by a trible of cruel elves. It's up to him and another escapee to rescue those still alive from his village. It is currently under review at Leading Edge.
2. "Drinking of Ales" is a humorous short story about a trio of trolls that come to a local village in hopes of tasty their fine collection of ales. It is currently being queried at SFFH.com.
3. "Escape" is a 10,000 word fantasy novelette about a former Royal Guard of the king who wakes up inside a prison cell in the middle of the words. Her only chance of survival is in her escape. It is currently under review at Aberrant Dreams.
4. "Chance on Catella" is a science fiction short story about a world where taking chances can cost you your life. It is currently under review at Terra Incognita.
5. "Some Things Just Don't Sell" is a horror short story about how in order to keep one's hope and sanity, they have to hold on to what they've known all along. It is currently under review at HP Lovecraft's Weird Mysteries.
6. "When It Burns, It Burns Like a Star" is a science fiction short story about having faith even when all points to not. A priest must decide what is truly right; help an escaped criminal destroy an entire prison, or pray for the best. It is currently under review at Glimmer Train.
7. "Helen Goes Shopping" is a quirky science fiction short story about a young woman by the title's name who, unfortunately, discovers the exact date of her death. It's a shame that she has only a week to live, and what's a girl to do without a coffin? It is currently under review at Shimmer.
   

A few of these stories have all ready been returned with nicely written rejections, but as the saying goes, "a story generally won't be published until you've hit 50 or more rejections."

Here's to a few more then!

The Beginning of a Blog

Welcome, welcome, welcome!

As I begin my hopeful career into the publication world, I've seen it wise to have a place where I can direct readers to things that I've done and to places I find important in any writer's career.

To start this blog off, I've compiled a short list of really great writing sites:

• Science fiction author Jeffrey A. Carver has put together a helpful how-to-write-and-stay-focused website here.
  
• A host of articles dealing with manuscript preparation, self-critiquing, basic mistakes in writing, and much more can be found here.
  
• The Bible of writing ethics and technique, The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr., is available online completely free here.
  
• While not completely up-to-date on the current market scene, a slew of interesting articles dealing with the writing process can be found on The Market List's website here.
  

This blog will be home to a variety of other mediums and topics so I hope you check back in frequently to see what I've done with the place.

Happy reading!