More stuff pertaining to the mail

Yes, another grand post about...mail! Settle down, settle down!

• Received my contributor copy and check (mmm money) for the beach-themed anthology Strange Stories of Sand and Sea, which contains my short story "Birds, Gods, and the Naming of Things"...and boy is it a big book. Over 300 pages. Lots of stories in here and I'm looking forward to sitting down with it and checking the others out. I don't re-read my work. But if I was to I'd probably describe the piece as an in-and-out hallucination trip under the boards of Atlantic City where an angry boy learns a mighty lesson from a talking seagull. Yup.
  
• Received my review copy of the latest issue of the urban horror magazine City Slab, #12, which I'll be handling for The Fix Online sometime in the near future.
• I mailed out my latest entry into the Writers of the Future contest this weekend. Go, little story, go! Shine on you crazy diamond! Er, I'll keep my fingers crossed that it makes it to California safely.

And that's that for now. I suspect I'll be getting a few more interesting items this week, but most of them will be bills. Ah, the bane of my existence! Bills! And CVS ads!

Black Box has arrived

Click the above image to head over to the Brimstone Press website where you can learn more about the 2-disk Black Box e-anthology edited by Shane Jiraiya Cummings, which features my horror piece "Something" as well as some 99 other stories from a whomping gathering of 80 kickass writers like Lucy Sussex, Mikal Trimm, Jay Caselberg, Lee Battersby, Jason Sizemore, and more! (I feel like a tiny speck in the presence of some of these people, yo.)

This isn't just some run-of-the-mill e-anthology though; it's a complete multimedia experience. There's art galleries provided, and the second CD contains music from the best of Australian alternative, gothic opera, metal, and hip hop artists. The box is selling for $12.95, and all the proceeds will be donated to the Australian Horror Writers Association.

So do yourself a favor...and open up the box. Don't you want to know what's inside?

I gots mail

Look at what arrived in the mail today:



What's that? You can't read that really long Italian name on the cover? Oh, here let me help:



::pets::

::looks at some more::

::keeps on petting it::

An authorly post

Hmm, I don't get to make too many of these so I'll revel in them while I can.

Let's see...Strange Stories of Sand & Sea, which has my short story "Birds, Gods, and the Naming of Things" in it, is almost out. The ISBN is 978-0-9794770-5-8. The book will be distributed exclusively by Ingram to bookstores, both online and brick and board. It will be available online at www.amazon.com and Barnes & Noble's www.bn.com by the end of March. It will be searchable there by the title and the editor's name (Esther Schrader).

Here's the final cover, I believe:



Also, as it is March that means the latest issue of Aoife's Kiss is available. The March issue has my story "After Effects" in it, and I'm very eager to see the printed product. You can order an issue here, and the TOC looks like so:

Josh English: The Simple Life
Lee Clark Zumpe: Babel
David C. Kopaska-Merkel & Kendall Evans: Serial Salvage
Michael A. Pignatella: The Book of Sherman
Sheri Fresonke Harper: Knees
Matthew Keville: Killing Time
Howard Cincotta: Eat the Flow
P. E. Vogel: The Fox and the Wizard
JA Howe: A Tale that Tells Songs
Kajsa Wiberg: The Cali Roll
Paul Abbamondi: After Effects
Lawrence R. Dagstine: A Soul to the Stars
Ron Savage: That Tabloid Life
Gordon A. Graves: Witness
John Bowker: Apron Strings
poems
Dorine Ratulangie: 0559
Andrea Fakete: Fireworks
Marcie Lynn Tentchoff: The Changeling's Song
Andrea Fakete: Outside
L. A. Story Houry: Secret Love
Jennifer Jerome: Telling
Linda Herring: When Things Go Wrong
Phillip A. Ellis: The Immortal
Terrie Leigh Relf & Marcie Lynn Tentchoff: Sea Ball
Melissa Sihan Mütlu: Scarlet Walls
Kyle Heger: Message to a Guard Dog
L. N. Allen: Merwoman
Melissa Sihan Mütlu: Butterfly Forest
E. P. Fisher: Countdown Begins at Ten
Jennifer Crow: Forsaken
William R. Ford Jr.: Land of the Broken Cities, Land of the Nuclear Sun
Julie Shiel: Visions
Kathy Kubik: Android Blue
Aurelio Rico Lopez III: Wizard's Betrayal

Okay, that's all from me for now. Back to writing the next WOTF story...

All things published in 2007

So, everyone seems to be doing this. Here's what I had published in 2007:

Fiction

• "The Feet Eaters" - Aberrant Dreams (January 2007)
• "Sonorous" - Apex Digest, #9
• "67442" - Murky Depths, #1
• "The Sport of Kings" - Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic (November 2007)

Nonfiction

• Way too many book reviews and short fiction reviews at FantasyBookSpot, Tangent Online, and The Fix

I'm pleased with the year, and there's some leftovers that have sold and should hopefully be published in 2008. Onward like a thing that moves on...

Some metrics

Yesterday for NaWriMo: 1,046 words

Today for NaWriMo: 533 words

Aiming for 500 words a day has been very effective so far. Except for today, I find myself crossing that line rather quickly and then not wanting to stop. So, yeah, that's good and all. I'd write more today, but I've got other plans. Also, I'm not in the right headspace to kill off a certain character...which is coming up real soon. Yeah, that'll be a good time. Luckily, in my world, not all dead things stay dead for long.

In other news, Karen A. Romanko announces the good news that Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic has been published! W00t! It's available at the moment at LuLu.com, but will eventually be seen on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the other usual suspects. This one has my piece "The Sport of Kings" in it. That should be enough incentive for all you readers out there to pick this anthology up! I kid, I kid. Or do I?

ASIM: Best of SF review

Check out my review for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine: Best of Science Fiction! Some good stories, and some not-that-great tales. I'm slowly getting turned off by silly stories, especially in science fiction. Fantasy I'm more prone to accepting (I blame it on all those years reading Piers Anthony and Terry Pratchett). But if the premise of an entire story set in outer space is for the protag to scrounge up a cup of coffee then that story annoys me. Give me plot! Give me conflict! Give me dilemma!

In other news, there's this post from Nathan Ballingrud. In it he talks about writing less, and paying more attention to the words one is writing so that they are ten steps above just being pumped out. I'm a fairly fast writer and I seem to never run out of story starters. I save my slowness for re-writing and the proofreading stage, where, to me, it matters most. Writing fast doesn't necessarily equal a bunch of dribble. Writing fast helps me stay focused, helps me stay in the scenes with my characters, helps me get everything down all at once before I lose momentum. But everyone has their own process, and mine is just this. At the moment, it works for me. Maybe later on I'll stop producing so much and devote more time to perfecting what I'm currently working on.

Also, this:

The word amateur comes from the Latin amator, or lover; its root is amare: to love.

I agree with wholeheartedly. I'm an amateur, and that's how I've stuck with writing and how I'll continue to stick with it for as long as possible.

Artwork preview

Head on over to Murky Depths to check out a .PDF file of the Table of Contents for their first issue. You can see snippets of the artwork that accompanies each story, and I'm really diggin' the one for my piece of flash fiction "67442." This is the first time I've ever had commissioned artwork to go along with my story. I'm very excited to see the final piece. Issues are going out to contributors and subscribers some time during the first week of August. Eep! Yay artwork!

You don't want to miss out on this one, folks.

ASIM Best of Horror - Review

My review for the Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine: Best of Horror e-anthology has just gone live over at Tangent Online. But FYI, I really only had to read and review one story in it. Oh, the workload drownith me. Heh.



I'm also reviewing a bunch of stories in the Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine: Best of Science Fiction e-anthology, which is still being worked on.

In other news, I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows over the weekend in a span of 24 hours. I suspect I slept about six of those hours, but you get the point. Not ready to talk about it, still digesting. I know some things really didn't click with me, and now I just have to determine why.

At least now I can get back to the fun that is Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Apex #9 now out!

Looks like Apex #9, containing my piece of flash fiction "Sonorous," is out. Isn't it pretty? ::pets computer screen:: Yes, it's pretty. Buy an issue or two or three. Check out the wonderful lineup:

Fiction
"The Sum of His Parts" – Kevin J. Anderson
"The End of Crazy" – Katherine Sparrow
"The Gunslinger of Chelem" – Lavie Tidhar
"Locked In" – Mary Robinette Kowal
"Projector" – Daniel LeMoal
"At the 24-Hour" – William F. Nolan
"Pyramus and Thisbe" – Jeremy Adam Smith
"Sufficently Advanced" – Bev Vincent
"Don’t Show Your Teeth" – Rob D. Smith
"Cain XP11: The Voice of Thy Brother’s Blood (Part 1)” – Geoffrey Girard
"Poppet’s Left Impression" – Brandy Schwan

Parting Shot: "Sonorous" – Paul Abbamondi

Nonfiction
"Unspeakable Horrors: The Legacy of Darkness in the Visual Arts of Western Culture" – Deb Taber
"Kill Me Then" – Alethea Kontis

Interviews
Kevin J. Anderson

"The Feet Eaters"

My story "The Feet Eaters" has just gone live over at Aberrant Dreams.

Check it out!

Back Roads, #1

Well, the first issue of Back Roads is out. This contains my short story "Never Order the Midnight Special" along with T.L. Morganfield's "The Wonder Tower." Toss in a Lovecraft reprint and you've got a zine of moody rural horror. So order a copy and enjoy!

P.S. I absolutely love this cover.

Shameless promotion!

My horror story "Curling Tendrils of Love," which won second place in a contest a couple months back and will be appearing in an anthology to debut in 2007, has been published on the new blog of Apex Publications. Check it out!

Night Fairies

My piece of flash fiction entitled "Night Fairies" is now up at AlienSkin Magazine for their August/September 2006 issue. I enjoy the accompanying piece of artwork, if only for how much it doesn't match up with the story. So check it out!

Shimmery Summer!

The latest issue of Shimmer is out and you all should buy, buy, buy, buy it. My story "Always Greener" is in it. Here's the gorgeous cover:

"Chance on Catella"

My science fiction short story "Chance on Catella" is now live on AlienSkin Magazine's site. It's part of their June/July 2006 issue. Here's the link to it:

http://www.alienskinmag.com/ficsf2.htm

Enjoy! It'll be up for two months! Also, if you search around the Interrogation Room link, you'll find my answer to the question of "What makes a good story title?"

Dead Letters, 2.2

The newest issue of Dead Letters is now available. This issue contains my zombie story titled "With the Dead, Change is Inevitable."



Check it out!

Shimmer Spring 2006!

The newest issue of Shimmer is out now, and contains my very first fiction sale, "The Dealer's Hands," which you all should check out!

Very excited for my contrib. copy to arrive!

ED SF Project

With the closing of SCI FICTION, many authors/readers/writers/whoevers are hoping to show how much the online zine was worth. My appreciation for A.M. Dellamonica's The Spear Carrier is now available here.

In NaNo news, chugging along toward the 37K mark. I know I'll have a couple of full days off before the 30th hits so hopefully I can get a lot of writing done during then. I know that once I'm finished with this novel that I won't look at it again until after the new year hits.

On a side note, I'm coming to dislike Stephen King's usage of the parenthesis in his writings.