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I'm fortunate enough to have three stories coming out in the next three months (including November). "Sweet as Honey" just came out in Issue 15 of IGMS, "Good Morning Heartache" is coming out next month in Spells of the City, from Daw Books, and "In Memory Of" is coming out in January in the Spells & Chrome anthology from Catalyst Game Labs. As a way to promote these stories and the markets they appear in, and also to share a bit of my early work, I'm going to be putting up one piece of free fiction when each of these stories come out.

The first is "Flotsam", which appeared in Writers of the Future volume 20. Check back next month for another installment. You can also find this page in the Free Fiction Online tab on my home page.

Enjoy!

My story, "Shadows in the Mirrors," (which appeared in DAW’s Dimensions Next Door anthology) was mentioned recently in Ellen Datlow’s list of stories for her Best Horror collection. Pretty snazzy…

Better late than never?

Last year at GenCon, Cathy Johnson, known to some as CathyBoy, gave each of the Writers Symposium writers a water color portrait. I really love how mine turned out. The rest of them are really cool, too. My favorite is probably Pat Rothfuss, the garden gnome. Thanks, Cathy!

Well, I’m finally back from the Starry Heaven novel workshop. It was held in Flagstaff, AZ, and was largely organized by Sarah K. Castle, one of my Clarion classmates from way back in 2006. We had a great group of authors there. Sarah K. Castle, Greg van Eekhout, Sarah Prineas, Deb Coates, Debbie Daughtee, Rob Ziegler, Eugene Myers, Jon Hansen, Sandra McDonald (not MacDonald!), Bill Shunn, Gary Shockley, and, well, me! The basic criterion for inclusion was that you had to have sold at least one story to a professional market, though I think nearly everyone surpassed this by far. The format was stolen from the Blue Heaven workshop, and it roughly goes like this: Days 1, 2, and 3, the writers all critique one another’s first 50 pages. Everyone crits everyone else’s stuff. It’s a brutal, free-for-all bash fest, and many a time the evil incarnation of the nice authors who showed up on Welcome Night appeared and gave wicked reviews. That’s tough, to sit there and get reviews from people that have all earned their stripes. Days 4, 5, and 6 were less demanding. You had to critique two other novels, and two other writers had critique yours. Lots of work to get ready for these few days (reading and preparing comments for two novels), but once they arrived it was fairly smooth sailing. The sessions were alotted two hours, but they lasted more like and hour and a half.

For my part, I learned a lot. As with any workshop, you learn as much about writing from listening to others critique something that you’ve also read and critiqued as you do from people critiquing your own work. It’s always eye opening for me to hear what other people have to say about something I’ve tried really hard to find all the faults in. Invariably there are things that I missed, and it’s in those moments that you can grow as a writer if you internalize those thoughts.

Don’t get me wrong. I got a ton out of my first-50 crits and my novel crits as well. I have an issue with likeable protagonists. I try to paint them as people that need to grow. I show them with weaknesses early on so that the reader can see that they’re not perfect, that they have room to grow. That they’re regular people, basically. But the way I go about doing it is a bit off, I think. First impressions really count in fiction. It’s important to show them with heroic or admirable qualities early so that later, when they do see the bad stuff, they’re already predisposed to like them. The exact same person could be portrayed in an opening scene, but if the bad stuff comes first, then that’s what sticks with the reader. Not that my characterization was exactly on the money, either. I was a bit off the mark with Nikandr, the Prince and windship captain who the story is largely focused on. He came across as infantile, whiny, petty. I certainly wasn’t trying to portray him that way, but that’s certainly the way he came across. So I need to work on that. I think (hope) that those traits begin to fall away as the book progresses, and so the majority of the rework is going to come in the early parts of the novel. But I’m sure those changes will lead to other changes later on.

So I have my work cut out for me. I’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there (at least by my self-assigned schedule), but I’m very hopeful that the end product is in sight now. I’m going to shoot for having Winds done by the time World Fantasy rolls around.

Well, a bit of good news to go along with the not-too-bad-but-certainly-disturbing news. I just got the word from IGMS that they’d like to publish my story, "Sweet as Honey." This is a story I wrote at Clarion back in 2006. It was a cool idea for a story, but a bit raw after Clarion. I rewrote it and sent if off, but it still didn’t quite hit the mark. The editor, Edmund Schubert, was kind enough to work with me to get the story into shape, and today he let me know he’d like to publish it. It will hopefully be out in the December issue.

So, I’m nearing the end of my experiment with Steve Gaskell. We’re writing a novella together, tentatively named “Skimming the Sun.” It was planned as a short story, perhaps a novelette, but it’s grown. We decided not to put any artificial constraints on it, and as it grew, we just let it — no conscious effort to reduce size, other than being open to reducing the size if it seemed warranted. It didn’t. It felt like this was the right size for this story. We’re currently at 32k and it’ll probably end up being about 35 by the time we’re done. It feels, oddly enough, like a tight 32k at the moment. Not much fat (though there is some).

I’ve been thinking about collaborations in general the last few days. This was my first try as a seasoned author. I know that collaborations will be handled in all sorts of different ways. For me and Steve, we divided the story into two parallel tracks, one “past” storyline and one “present”. Those also happen to correspond to the two main characters in the book, each of us focusing one of those characters, though I write about Steve’s character in my thread and he writes about mine in his.

Other than the difficulty of matching our schedules (he lives in Brighton, UK, I live in Racine, WI, USA), it’s gone surprisingly smoothly. I think one reason is that we have similar writing styles (though I will confess that I tend more toward plot-driven story — something I’m constantly working to mitigate — and Steve tends more toward character-driven story). I don’t think I have the right temperament to work with someone whose writing style is wildly different from mine, at least writing in this manner. (More on that in a moment.) I think another reason it’s gone well is that both of us have been very open to change, and I mean that in two ways.

First, we’re both open to allowing changes in the ideas that we’ve come up with or the things we’ve written. This is entirely necessary, I think, to a successful collaboration. You have to be able to give, even if it’s not quite how you would have done it alone. It may not even necessarily be better than what you would have done by yourself, only different, and that’s a different kind of benefit: you expand your horizons by allowing things to enter the story that you coudln’t have thought of on your own. That’s not to say that most of our suggestions don’t make the story better. Many of them do. But there are some where it’s almost a coin toss as to the benefit to the story. It’s more about personal tastes, background, tendencies, etc. And then it’s a matter of negotiating and trying to figure out which stays most true to the story and the characters.

The second way of being open to change is to have the chutzpah to recommend changes. I think we’ve both been very forthcoming about this, not being worried about offending the other. You can’t, assuming you really want to include someone else on a writing project, close yourself off to ideas. There have been a few cases where we’ve both had to just sit on an idea for a few days, mull it over, before coming to a decision. But, of course, you have to be able to stand up for something you believe in as well.

Even worse than recommending changes is actually rewriting certain sections of prose that the other wrote. When you’re reviewing, you’ll often suggest things, give examples of change. But this is out-and-out changing what someone wrote. I don’t mind when Steve does it with my prose, but I feel like I’m walking on eggshells when I do it with his. It’s a constantly changing landscape, doing this. It’s like walking inside one of those bouncy carnival tents: you never quite have your balance, no matter how sure-footed you are on solid ground. It’s a tightrope act. You have to get over your fears while not acting like a bull in a China shop.

I mentioned above about not wanting to work with someone whose style was wildly different than my own. What I mean is that I couldn’t tackle a story in this way: both of us writing, both editing one another’s prose. But I could envision another way of working, and I know collaborations that have worked this way: both writers plot the story and create the characters (see, there I go again — I put plotting first…), but only one person writes. Then both edit, and one person (usually the same person again), incorporates the edits. Lather, rinse, and repeat until the story’s finished. That way, the story comes out with a single voice. Otherwise you might end up with a Frankenstein story that has clearly different writing styles in different sections. (That might be pretty cool for the right kind of story, but those stories are vastly outnumbered by those that would benefit from a single voice. Plus, both writers would have to be really good to pull something like this off. It’s not something I think I’m ready for yet. Maybe someday.)

So far, it’s been a great experience. And I think the story’s going to be a good one. Time will tell…

Last year, I joined the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. I made it past two rounds, as I recall, but didn’t make the quarterfinals. It was a good experience, though I’ll admit I got too wrapped up in trying to get people to review the thing. My belief is that user reviews made very little difference in who made subsequent cuts, so although I entered this year, and although I’ll be posting updates here and there, I’m not going to obsess over anyone actually reviewing my entry. Not that I’m discouraging it, mind you, just that I don’t particularly feel like using up small favors for something that, in the end, will probably not make a difference.

I entered my last novel, The Tears of Tendali. It’s a much more polished book than was Captured by Crystal, last year’s entry, and hopefully it’ll make a splash. We’ll see…

Oh, and for those of you that have a novel that you’d like to enter, they opened submissions this morning and will be accepting them through 2/8/2009. There’s a 10,000 entry limit as well, so if you’re thinking about entering, do it sooner rather than later.

A while back I got hooked up with Catalyst Game Labs, who bought Shadowrun (though I don’t know all the details of that purchase). They’re coming out an anthology of fiction called Spells & Chrome, set in the Shadowrun universe, and I got tagged to write one of them. The story I wrote ended up being pretty cool. It’s about a netrunning Grannie with a Thermite-grenade-packing poodle. Now how can you go wrong with a protagonist like that? I don’t have a release date, but I’ll post more as I have it. Woo hoo!

Rich Horton is a prolific reviewer of speculative fiction. He keeps a blog, and at the end of the year, he posts summaries of the short fiction markets that he’s read. Well, he tagged my story, "Cirque du Lumiere" from the Fellowship Fantastic DAW anthology for special mention. I highly respect Rich’s views, and so I’m excited to be mentioned.

I heard only last night that Realms of Fantasy will soon be defunct. I’m really bummed by this news. For years Realms has been at the top of my list for places I want to break into. The finished product looked great, and the fiction they published was what I liked to read and write. I’ve had a subscription for some years now, five or six. I did manage to publish a story there last year, and for that I’m glad. There’s an upswelling of support for the magazine, a call to save it from what looks like a sure demise. I’ll probably participate however I can, but I’m skeptical that it will do any good. It’s owned by a relatively large company, and I don’t imagine a promise to subscribe from several hundred writers is going to change their mind. And outside of that, I don’t know what can be done. Outside of some tiny uptick in sales, we can’t make newsstand sales any more profitable for them, especially, I fear, in the long run.

It’s a sad day, not only because I liked the magazine personally, but because it is another part of a trend of declining sales in the short fiction market. Hopefully other promising magazines like Fantasy will move in to take up the slack. And hopefully more magazines will begin to crack the code for publishing success in the 21st century. But I fear many more long-standing markets will die before this happens. And that’s too bad.

I’ve been spending most of my writing time over the last few months on short stories. I had a few requests for rewrites from editors, one of which didn’t work out. The other is still out, but I’m crossing my fingers. It’s one of my Clarion stories from back in 2006, a story about a woman who tends bees. She uses the wax to create candles that can help people forget about someone they know by weaving a hair from the person into the wick. But things are turned upside down when she realizes that she used one of her own candles. Now she just has to figure out who it was she forgot. The rewrite really brought out some new aspects of the story that I hadn’t explored before. So I hope it gets picked up in its current form.

I’ve also been working on a collaboration. My second. The first one of my first efforts ever, with a friend who as also interested in writing but similarly new to the craft. Predictably, it didn’t work out. Neither of us were good enough to pull something like that off, so we set it aside.

The new one is a sci-fi story about a solar power transmission platform and a pair of solar flare racers that get caught between a chance to leave their brutal existence on the station for a new life on Earth and a growing movement to overthrow the choke hold the platforms have had on the working populace for decades. I’m working on it with Steve Gaskell, one of my fellow Clarionites. Needless to say, I’m a bit more up to a collaboration than I was back when. It’s been enlightening, as Steve and I have slightly different approaches to story generation. I really admired Steve’s work at Clarion, so it’s been fun batting story ideas back and forth and also editing each other’s drafts. We’re almost done with the first draft, and hopefully we’ll have it ready for review in early Feb.

We’ve been using Skype to talk back and forth about the story (he lives in the U.K., so Skype has been very useful). And we’re using Google docs to collaborate on the actual writing. That’s been … ok. From a collaboration standpoint, it’s great. We can edit one another’s stuff, add comments, etc., without handing a document back and forth via email. I was trying to do the Word doc shuffle in the beginning, and it was a real pain in the ass. But from a pure word processing standpoint, Google docs has a way to go. It’s a beta, so I’m trying to be charitable about it, but there are quite a few quirks (bugs) and quite a few features missing that I’m used to in Word. But it’ll work for this one story, and I’m sure it’ll improve as time goes on.

The Winds of Khalakovo has taken baby steps forward. I’m going to finish up the solar story with Steve and then hit it hard. I’d really like to have the second draft wrapped up in a few months and then send it out for full review.

Ok, I really don’t have an excuse. August was busy with two conventions back-to-back. I went to GenCon in Indianapolis and participated in the writing track there. Then I went to WorldCon in Denver, which was a great time. I was really not enthused about going at the beginning of the trip, but in the end, I’m glad I went. I tackled a few critiques of friends’ novels after that, which, along with all my other writing endeavors, has been keeping me very busy.

Probably the most time consuming activity, however, (other than sleeping and work) has been politics. Hi. I’m Brad, and I’m a political junky. I can’t seem to get enough of this soap opera that has unfolded over the last nine months. And I’ve stumbled across a handful of websites that update many times per day. I’m practically glues at times, switching between them, seeing what the latest scuttlebutt is on McCain or Obama. I don’t like to foist my views on others, but in case you’re wondering, I’m pro Obama.

I’ve been working on my latest novel, The Winds of Khalakovo, quite a bit. I finished rewriting and polishing the first ten chapters so that I could send it off to my agent. That’s done, and I’m working on the rest now. I’m hoping to have a good second draft done by the end of this month. No, I’m committing to it! You heard it here first.

I’ve also had a few nibbles on some short stories, but nothing confirmed yet, so I’ll hold off posting any news for now. More info as I have it, but keep your fingers crossed for me.

This story, which appeared in the June issue of Realms of Fantasy, picked up a Nebula nod. Only nine more to go!

If you’re a member of SFWA, and you’d like to give the story a read, you can do so here.

My story, "No Viviremos Como Presos," is now live over at IGMS, courtesy of Issue 9. For my Clarionite friends out there, this was the Wall story. If that doesn’t help, you can preview a portion of the story even if you don’t buy the issue.

I have a story in this anthology, and it just went officially on sale. I share the TOC with friends and fellow writers Paul Genesse, Anton Strout, and Don Bingle. If you pick up a copy, I’d love to hear what you think of the story.

The Winds of Khalakovo is officially done. First draft, that is. No rest for the weary. I have to get a synopsis and spruce up the first three chapters for my agent, and then it’s off to a short story I started in Stockholm and brainstorming for my next project (a YA science fantasy romp).

Winds clocked in at 160,808 words. I had planned on 120k for this novel, so obviously I overran. But (and this is a bug, erm, but) about midway through I realized that I needed one more point of view to truly tell this story. I had had two already, so I ended up with three POVs, and I think it turned out quite well. There are two warring factions of a Grand Duchy plus a group of downtrodden pacifists, so the three points of view allow the entire story to be told.

It’s really tough to tell at this point, as close as I am to the story, but it feels really good right now. The end is awfully rough. I felt myself wanting to finish really badly. I tried to curb those emotions, knowing that if I rushed it would just create more work on the other end, but I know I still ended up rushing some of the last several chapters. Even so, I’m excited about it. It feels like something I can hang my hat on. Or rather, that I’ll be able to once I get around to the next several drafts.

In other news, my house flooded. I’m in the Midwest, which as you know got positively hammered. Racine and Milwaukee counties got it rough in Wisconsin, though not nearly as bad as Iowa. Our house? Sewer backup. The good thing? It wasn’t as bad as some. The bad thing? No insurance. I would have sworn I had insurance for this, but the insurance guy says no. Still need to check my old insurance statements to see if it was there and was somehow dropped. The good news? It might be covered because of a faulty sump pump. Won’t know until the end of the month when the insurance adjuster gets beyond the fourteen-thousand other claims he has to evaluate.

I  was unfortunately gone for all of this. I got called away to a trip to Sweden. I’m still here, in fact. Writing from my hotel in Stockholm. Joanne called me a few days after I arrived and told me about the water she had found in the basement. It seemed like a small thing at first. Thought it was just rainwater. But over the next few days it became apparent that (A) it was sewer water and (B) even a small sewer backup is a big, big deal. Lots and lots of cleanup to take care of. And our basement was partially finished. So of course the water got just high enough to hit the insulation, and when that happens, it wicks the sewer water right up. They had to rip out the drywall to 16" and tear out all the insulation. Carpeting? Yeah, that too. All gone.

My only consolation is that I hadn’t yet finished everything I was going to finish in the basement. I’m actually glad at this point I didn’t put more money into it, because a certain portion of that would have been washed down the drain, almost completely literally.

Joanne kicked some serious ass while I was gone. I felt like crap not coming home, but the customer I’m visiting, Ericsson, would have needed me to come back in just a few weeks, and by the time I could have arrange to get home, the cleanup crew would have been essentially done with everything. So I would have come home to exactly what I’m coming home to tomorrow: a big gaping hole where my partially finished basement used to be. But that didn’t keep me from feeling like shit for quite some time. I still feel bad, but at least I won’t have to head back to Sweden, and I can just concentrate on recovering from the whole mess.

Again, I’m actually not terribly torn up about this. It’s just stuff, and a lot of people had it way worse than we did. We’ll recover in time. Hopefully the gubment will be able to help the people who lost their homes and/or livelihood.

My latest WIP, The Winds of Khalakovo, is nearly done. I’m thinking I have about 10k left to write. Maybe a touch more. I really want to put a stake in the ground and commit to finishing by the time I leave for WisCon, which is a scant ten days away, but I’m just not sure if something’s going to pop up that will require a bit more time and effort. So, instead, I’ll continue my 1k words per day metric and leave it at that. If it’s done by then, it’s done. If not, it will be shortly thereafter. I’d rather take my time, especially on the ending, than rush it for no good reason.

Still, despite the feeling of pressure and the potential of not quite getting there, I’m very excited to have it almost wrapped up. The story feels good. It’s not nearly as raw as a typical first draft would be because I often go back and revise as I feel the need. Not prose stuff, but plot stuff. In the past I’ve gotten in trouble by simply plowing ahead, either not knowing any better or figuring I can revise on the second draft. Trouble is, at least for me, I could head down a wrong path, and that could lead to all sorts of wrong decisions that would force me to revise much, much more than I would have if I had simply gone back and fixed the offending, ill-advised left turn. At this point in my writing I’m rather sensitive (I prefer to think of it as attuned) to the plot and whether or not its taking the right path. The problem with that is that I could become too safe, so I’m sensitive to that as well. Writing is a constant struggle to keep the story interesting but make it plausible as well – providing twists that are surprising yet believable.

I’ll wrap Winds, Take 1, soon, and I hope I can get it ready for beta readers (including my agent) by mid-summerish.

Also, wish me luck. I’m supposed to hear back relatively soon on my previous novel, The Tears of Tendali, from a couple of editors.

I have been lax (lax, I say!) in promoting my friend’s new book, but that stops now!

Fellow writer, Paul Genesse, has a new book called The Golden Cord. It came out April 16th, and I’ve since helped Paul to create a trailer for it. You can see it on his website (www.paulgenesse.com), where you can also download or view the first chapter. Here’s a short synopsis cut from the VOYA Magazine review.

The Golden Cord: Dragons and Griffins are not the only dangers facing Clifton, a secret village in Ae’leron. The Dwarves enslave humans for their armies, forcing them into hiding. Drake Bloodstone, Clifton’s most vigilant guardian, would do anything to protect his people from Aevians and Dwarves. Ridiculed for choosing to guard instead of hunt, Drake realizes his destiny as a hunter when two Dwarves arrive in Clifton. The Dwarves seek a guide who will lead them on a quest to find their lost kin. Drake feels it is his sacred destiny to escort the Dwarves and volunteers to be their guide. After a few days, Drake discoveres the Dwarves are hiding their true purpose. They reveal that while they are in search of their lost kin, they are also Dragon Hunters and are tracking Draglune, the King of Dragons and the most Ancient Evil, who will bring a great war that will end the world. Drake knows he must do everything in his power to help stop Draglune and save his people. Book one of the Iron Dragon series is a rich and compelling fantasy full of adventure, danger, dragons, battles, revenge, magic, and more.

Here are a few of the reviews Paul has been receiving on The Golden Cord:

Readers will root for Drake, a strong character who struggles both physically and mentally with the sacred duty handed to him. Drake is becoming a man while learning to follow his heart and trust his enemies in order to save everything he loves. The plot is well constructed, the characters are wonderful, and the middle-ages setting creates an ominous feel. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers eager for more of this great recommendation for fans of Lord of the Rings.
VOYA Magazine

…promises to unlock a realm of magic and warfare in a unique world of cloud-bound lands and a mysterious Underworld.
Library Journal

The Golden Cord is indeed a hellishly good read.
The Pedestal Magazine

For those of you in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, Paul is having a book release party on May 10th. So if you’re in the area, stop by. It’s sure to be a great time.

Here’s more info on the release party:

THERE WILL BE DRAGONS!

. . . at Paul’s book release party, Saturday, May 10 from 3-9 PM, the day before I leave for my book tour.

This party is a thank you for all of the wonderful support that I have received over the years, and to celebrate the release of THE GOLDEN CORD, BOOK ONE OF THE IRON DRAGON SERIES, releasing April 16 from Five Star Books.

 

Please bring your friends and family, kids welcome. Check out the art gallery featuring over 70 fantasy art prints, have some food, and be one of the first people to get the book: $20 for one beautiful hardcover and only $15 for each additional. Free posters and bookmarks for everyone!

If you can’t attend please send me your mailing address and I’ll send you a free 11×17 inch poster and a few bookmarks.

RSVP via email: pgenesse(AT)msn.com by April 27 and let me know how many are coming and how many books you want.

WHERE WILL THE DRAGONS BE?

The House of Genesse (Paul and Tam’s house, grin)

9543 South 4240 West

South Jordan, UT 84095 (a suburb of Salt Lake City)

801-282-5393

I have reached a milestone. Winds now stands at 100,000 words. I’m very psyched, not only for the word count, which to me holds a certain significance, but also because I can now, finally, see the end of the novel. I don’t yet know the exact details, but I know pretty well the events that lead up to the climax; I know the outcome of the climax; and I know where this all heads in the next novel. I’ve left the ending a little open ended because I want it to be as organic as possible. That is, I want to reach it and have it sprout directly from the events that lead up to it and the attitude of the characters who have lived through the book up to that point. I didn’t want to shoehorn the characters into a pre-determined ending, which has sometimes given me problems in the past. That’s not to say that I’ll let anything happen – I already confessed that I know what happens in very general terms – but I do want to be as open to new avenues as possible. That, at least for me in the writing of this book, has been my modus operandi, and it has worked incredibly well.

At least, it feels like it’s worked incredibly well. A while back, I read a post on (IIRC) Tobias Buckell’s site. He was talking about how now that he has more books under his belt he is more willing to allow a book to take him where it will. He grew more confident as time went on and he learned his chops and was able with that confidence to let his instincts run and trust that they wouldn’t steer him wrong. I feel like I’m reaching a similar place – not that I’m at the same place in my writing that Toby is, only that I’m feeling more comfortable in my skin, and that I’m able to trust that my sense of direction will guide me back to the right path even when a divergence shows up across my chosen trail.

Here’s something weird. I have had trouble reading other people’s blogs lately – writers in particular. I still scan them, but I do so quickly, and I haven’t commented much where I might have a year ago. It has to do with writing, both mine and others’. Writers talk a lot about their writing – their successes, failures, obstacles, progress. For some reason it creates noise, like if I absorb everything that everyone’s saying, my own writing would suffer. I think it has to do with the novel, and maybe it has to do with reading so many feelings, like if I internalized all that stuff that I would begin to become too conscious of the writing process instead of just writing. I feel sort of like I have to put blinders on; I have to prevent myself from getting distracted.

Anyone ever feel like this during a project? (And I recognize the irony: that if anyone did feel that way that they might not even read this…)