The Land Of Wind And Ghosts

Spam targeting fantasy fans?

2008-07-04T14:38:27Z

I just got invited to "Become the unicorn in your neighbourhood!".

I think you can all guess what the actual spam content was...

Talking of a). fantasy and b). sex - am I the only one out here who remembers Seamus Cullen's "Astra and Flondrix"?

Why We Write

2008-07-03T12:31:15Z

(and no, this post does not include major flashbacks to odd events on a WW2 US submarine transporting a bunch of authors)
(and no, if you haven't watched series 5 of Angel, that won't make any sense whatsoever)

Following on from my "Faithless" post earlier this week, and my mention of possibly "abandoning" attempts to write stories in an unsuccessful sub-genre, will_couvillierand rhfayremarked on the different purposes of why we write.   Do we write to sell, or do we write becaue we have stories inside us that need to be told?

I am 47 years old.   I have been writing for nearly 40 of those years - I distinctly remember writing stories when I was in primary school, and putting together horrendously bad SF "novels" in my early teenage years once I had discovered E E 'Doc' Smith (for whose Lensman series I will alwys have a soft spot).   I write because writing is how I create: I have never been able to play (let alone write) music, nor can I draw or paint or make pots or anything that involves manual dexterity.

But I can make words do things.   I like making words do things.

I also like the idea of people paying me money to do something I like.

The trick is to find the balance between what you want to write, and what people will pay to read.   If you want to draw a Venn diagram, you can.   One set of "what I like to write", one set of "what I can sell".   If there's a decent overlap, then all is looking good.   If there's only a small common set, then things are going to be a good bit more difficult.

Of course, this is predicated upon knowledge.   Only after more than a hundred subs am I even beginning to be able to define the "what I can sell" set.   There are still stories that surprise me by NOT selling, so I clearly haven't got it all worked out yet.   There are stories I see published that I could never write and don't want to, and I don't have a problem with that.   There are stories I see published that I wish I could write but can't yet, and that reminds me that I still have huge amounts to learn about the craft, despite the progress I've made ove the past few years (writing is an infinite ladder; you can always see more rungs up ahead of you, even when you've reached a stage that has plenty of rungs beneath you: this is a good thing, as it helps to maintain perspective.   If you feel depressed, look back and see the progress you have made; if your ego is running away with itself, look upwards at all the things you haven't yet achieved).

As I've commented before; I want to succeed in this business.   I want to make money.   So far, I've sold about $1500-worth of stories.   It's hardly a massive amount, but neither is it completely negligible (well, not until you calculate how many hours I've spent on writing, but that's a side point).   I want to sell more.   So though I won't abandon "writing what I like to write", I will certainly try and concentrate, ever more closely, on the overlap area between "what I like to write" and "what I can sell".

And who knows; in the long term, doing that may end up changing the dynamic of both those sets.

Codex

2008-07-03T10:55:27Z

I've sent an application email.

There's a few of you on my flist who I know hang there, so hopefully I'll see you there shortly.

Faithless

2008-07-01T15:51:56Z

Some of my stories sell pretty quickly.

In fact, a fair chunk sell to the first market they hit.   Both my sales to A&A did this, both my sales to Black Gate, my sale to IGMS, my sale to ASIM, and both sales to EDF.   That's 8 of my 18 sales (not counting the reprint sale here).   Two others have sold on second market (the Paper Blossoms,Sharpened Steel sale and one Flashing Swords sale).

Other stories don't do quite so well.   The most for any story is ten rejections, and a couple of others have had eight.   Only a couple of stories have racked up numerous rejections and then sold.

Now selling a story is difficult to analyse because at a bare minimum you are looking at two functions; the story, and the market.   Put the wrong story to the wrong market and you stand no chance of a sale - but it's not always obvious what the wrong (and right) market is.   Learning that is the secret to improving the sales ratio, and the "efficiency" of writing.   So, are the stories that aren't selling bad stories, or am I just not finding the right market?

There are certainly some stories I have faith in, even if editors don't.   I like "Forget Me" a lot, and at least  one of my regularly-rejected-by markets, it got closer than any of the almost-a-dozen other stories I've pushed their way.   But it hasn't sold.   I'll keep trying until I run out of paying markets, and then I'll trunk it, and wait for new markets to appear.

But other stories I lose faith in, quite quickly.   Sometimes I do think it's because I don't have a great deal of faith in the story, and that may well be a sign that it isn't a good story.   If I can only find a few "fringe" markets (i.e. not ones that I regularly churn at) then it's a sign that my story is on the fringe of my comfort zone.   Now I am trying to extend that comfort zone (In This City, my sale to Fantasy Magazine, is very very different from my normal Yi Qin adventure-themed stuff) - but only in certain directions.   Humour, for instance, is NOT my forte and the couple of semi-humourous stories I have tried haven't sold and have effectively been retired from the treadmill.

Perhaps the area that saddens me most, though, is a whole sub-genre that I like to write in, but which doesn't seem inclined to sell well.   I like to write human stories, about human people, that are set in fantasy milieux but without "overt" fantasy elements - i.e. magic or monsters are not integral to the story.   These are mainstream/borderline literary pieces, but with an other-worldly setting.

I like them.   Pieces like "The Man His Father Was", or "When the Men Returned", for those who've read them over at LH.   But they don't sell.   And if they don't sell, then I shouldn't be spending time writing them, because I don't have enough writing time as it is.   I need to make it work for me.   It means that "Fragile Swan" drops off my "stories I need to rework" list, and that others go into the vault, only to be picked up once more in the radically unlikely event that I become famous enough to trot out the "back catalogue".

Am I wrong, to lose faith in those stories, and turn away from them?   Or am I being ruthlessly - and necessarily - practical?   Do other people find themselves faced with the same issues, the same concerns?

Half-Year Progress Report

2008-06-30T11:11:31Z

Yes, it's that time.

In some respects, things are going OK this year.   I've subbed 60 stories out, and received 54 responses.   47 of those are rejections, 7 are acceptances.   That's a decent percentage (though I'd like to be doing better), but there's only one pro-rate sale in there, though there's also a sale to Fantasy Magazine, which I'm very pleased about.   There's sort of an Orwellian thing going with sales - all sales are good, but some are gooder than others.

I wanted to write "1 story per month plus 1 per sale".   That would mean 13 stories to date.   I'm not actually far from that; I've written 13 stories, but four of them are incomplete.   That's something that worries me a little - four of the last six stories I've started aren't finished, and that's backsliding somewhat.   I'll talk about that in another post, though.

On wordcount targets, though, I'm well short of where I hoped to be.   Now it has been a hectic year so far (familiy illness issues, work pressures, and the whole intercontinental move in prospect), but I hoped I'd factored that in.   I should have hit about 90k, and in fact I'm a little below 60k.   Not good.

And it's all been short stories.   Nothing on a novel (with the possible exceptino that one of the incomplete short stories, Catching The Tiger, may well end up becoming part of When Fourth Moon Dances).   I really need to stop using short stories as an excuse for not doing novels.   Sure, I'm learning about writing, but ultimately it's the novels that are going to make it for me (if anything does).   I need to be less hung up on short stories (probably writing more quality and less quantity), and more focussed on novels.

Still.   I've actually made 15 sales inside the last 10 months (8 of my sales last year were in an autumn flurry).   I think that means I must be establishing myself to some extent.

OK, gallery is up

2008-06-27T16:27:57Z

So you can see the view:

(Click on the picture, then the tag below it will let you see the other shots in the gallery).

"Now, who lives in a house like THIS?"

2008-06-27T13:13:25Z

The answer - IF all goes well in terms of sorting out finance - is, of course,

aliveandcooking and me.

Keep your fingers crossed...

Phoenix

2008-06-27T10:54:05Z

What is it doing there?

What makes millions of people go and live somewhere the temperatures hit 118 (that's 47 in Celsius)? Where it's still well over 100 at nine o'clock in the evening? Where it will do this for day after day?

Still, the heat and the city's name has inspired a story (about 5000 words in so far). And I did get the most fantastic birding experience; sitting in the pool watching a roadrunner come within eight feet, foraging on the lawn (and later, a little further away, hunting - and they really are just as fast as the cartoon. Though not as blue).

And I' m back!

2008-06-26T20:55:26Z

And no way am I going to trawl through a fortnight of lj flisting, sorry.

Update me in comments with anything you thiink I need to know or need to read.

I'll be posting various remarks and observations over the next few days.

But the important (writing-related) news - a total of three rejections (two of the "serious consideration" variety) and one sale while I was away. The sale was "If We Were Briar Roses", to Every Day Fiction. Some MS subs (to F&SF, RoF and WOTF) posted while I was out there, all of which I expect to get nowhere. Got two stories earmarked to go striahgt out and can probably manage at least 1 more which will be 20 subs in June - busiest month evar, and catching me exactly back up to target...

Just checking in...

2008-06-18T21:40:35Z

New Mexico is being hot.   Though not as hot as Palm Springs or Tucson were.

Minor melting is occurring.   But I did swim 75 lengths of the pool in Tucson (OK, it was only a 30' pool, but hey, I was initially intending on a sedate 20 so I'm happy with that).

Oh, and I think I saw both Tropical Kingbird and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher this morning (I definitely saw Summer Tanager, which is glorious).

And there are more very tempting houses than we'd originally anticipated.   Photos, maybe, when we're back in the real world (or "England", as it's sometimes called).

No sales, only one rejection so far in my inbox.

Carry on.

Dropping off the face of the earth...

2008-06-12T13:08:16Z

...well, no, not unless someone tinkers with gravity in an alarming way.

Tomorrow aliveandcooking and I jet off to LA and thence take a road trip to New Mexico (Silver City area). I expect to be completely out of communication for two weeks in total.

Play nice while I'm gone, don't break the Internet, and remember - Oi, editors! Buy my stories! :)

Breaking through?

2008-06-11T16:52:03Z

I see that Elizabeth Bear (matociquala's) post of today is already getting references.   And rightly so; it is a good post, and as with her good posts, will doubtless generate a long and interesting comment thread, so it's worth watching.

But I have to admit I'm not convinced there's really one definable "beraking through" moment.   What are you breaking through from, and to?   There certainly aren't just two classes of writer - those who have and have not "broken through" something (and I don't believe she's suggesting that there is).   Two years ago, this very day, I made my first sale, which also happened to be my first pro sale.   It was, for good measure, from my first ever submission.   There is no doubt that that was a momentous day in my progression from being an aspiring writer to being a writer.   But what it certainly wasn't was me "breaking through" - I am still, to borrow the memorable words of mariness, an "almost completely unknown writer".   I have achieved many things of which I am proud - stories sold to markets I respect highly, stories selected for anthologies, stories nominated for awards or given "honorable mention" in Year's Best anthologies.   But I am still very much a beginning writer.   I don't qualify for SFWA. I don't even have a novel doing the rounds (let alone a contract).   I've shared TOCs with people who are far further up the infinite ladder than I am (Tim Pratt, James Maxey, Sarah Monette), and yet none of those are names that I could mention to people browsing the SFF shelves in Waterstones and expect to be recognised.

It is, indeed, a ladder, and it is infinite, and all we writers can do is try and ensure that every step we take is upwards.   Some steps will be small, and some will not.   But no matter where we are, we will always be able to look back at where we were, and feel that we are making progress; and we will always be able to lok upwards, and see that there is still so much more we have yet to achieve.

Which is exactly as it should be.

A touchy subject

2008-06-09T17:06:50Z

Money.

Let's talk, briefly, about money.   I make no bones that I want to write "professionally" and, as yet, have never subbed a story to a non-paying market (and 90+% of my subs are to semi-pro and up).   Now, I'm not expecting to make huge amounts of money; but if I sub to a magazine that pays, I expect to get that money.

There are a couple of magazines (no names, no pack-drill) who have bought my stories, published my stories... and not paid for my stories.   Now, I know editors are busy people.   And I really don't like appearing remotely pushy (I'm a Brit, I'm contractually obliged to be diffident).   But if they don't want to pay, they shouldn't offer themselves as a paying market.   So I'm within my rights to ask for my money.   And yet, and yet...

How long should I wait?   Not all contracts specify payment terms.   How should I word my gentle "reminder"?   I was thinking of something along the lines of: "I was just updating my records and I noticed that I don't seem to have received payment for X, which you published in issue Y/on date Z.", but then I have problems with the "So where's my money?" (Cue the Stewie and Brian sketch from Family Guy - "Gimme my money!   Gimme the money, man!   I want the money!").

Any comments, thoughts and suggestions gratefully accepted...

Some progress made:

2008-06-08T12:12:11Z

Remember that list a couple of weeks back?

Re-polish "St. Saviour And The Devil's Dandy" for Flashing Swords
Submit "Atacama" to market
Submit "Weaving Fancies For The Children" to market
Submit "How The Rainbow Came To Be" to market
Submit "If We Were Briar Roses" to market
Submit "The First League Out From Land" to market
Submit "The Demands Of Duty" to market
Submit "The Man His Father Was" to market
Submit "Forget Me" to market
Submit "The Burning Touch Of Water, The Soothing Balm Of Flame" to market
Finish "The House Of Seven Strings" (probably about 3000 more words) and submit to market
Finish "The Ghosts In The Graveyard" (probably around 100 more words) and submit to market
Finish "Catching The Tiger", or decide whether it's actually part of "When Fourth Moon Dances" and not a standalone story at all
~~Re-polish "The Sirens Of New York" and submit to market~~
Polish "The Smoke That Rises From The Mountain" and submit to market
Re-polish "Sorrowful Songs" and submit to market
Rewrite (and retitle) "Fragile Swan" and submit to market
Rewrite "The Carpet Of Dreams" and submit to market
Rewrite "The Vulkodlaki" and submit to market
Finish "The God In The Jar" and submit to market
Finish "The Truth About Tsu Chia" and submit to market

I've also done the check of the edits for "Cold Fire" (Age of Blood and Snow version), and added story notes and a bio for that, and sent out a couple of pieces that weren't on the above list (Before Twilight, Il Mystera Del Tempo) as they've come back in. Some have even gone out and come back with rejects already.

Still lots to keep me busy, though, while I'm on vacation...

TOC for "Age of Blood and Snow" announced...

2008-06-04T13:34:59Z

Mercy Hathaway Is A Witch - Ken Goldman

Your Duty To Your Lord - James R. Stratton

The Price Of Peace - Anna M. Lowther

Be Ye Silent, Sons Of Man - Brad C. Hodson

Eckbert & Mortimer - David Ripley

The Collector - Bernie Mojzes

Licwiglunga - Tammy Moore

Poseidon’s Claw - Michael Colangelo

The Unbedreamed - Chris Johnstone

The Waiting - Aliya Whiteley

When The Cloak Falls - Catherine J Gardner

Tricksters - Jeff Parish

Immortal Beloved - Lisa Kessler

Into The Demon Cosmos - William Blake Vogel III

Cold Fire - Brian Dolton

Goldenthread - Elizabeth Barrette

Thorvold’s Tale - Jason Thummel

Black Tiger - Brendan Connell

Dry Places - Tom English

When They Come To Murder Me - Bill Ward

Enclosure - Ayne Terceira

Begin With Water - Sharon Irwin

In The Name - Robert Holt

She Burned With God-Breath; Burned Within - Skadi meic Beorh

The Pagans -Ben Thomas

The Lords of Chickamauga - Ron Yungul

There are some names there that I know (mostly from the SFreader/Flashing Swords crowd - Jim Stratton, Jeff Parish, Jason Thummel, Bill Ward...), and plenty I don't (because I'm an ingenue and not terribly well-read in genre).

Due to be released in December 2008. So that's two "real books" I should appear in this year.

Cool. More steps on the long road to ~~world domination~~ professional writerhood.

No, wait, I was right the first time - world domination it is!

Hey, they snuck up on me!

2008-06-01T09:30:00Z

"The Gray World" is published today at Every Day Fiction. I was expecting to have advance warning, since they always publish the complete list of a month's material at a time - but mine is the first of the month!

So for those who want to meet Yi Qin, and for those who've already met her and want to see what a Yi Qin story in a thousand words looks like... go check it out. And feel free to comment, here or there.

My first reprint sale

2008-05-29T15:42:53Z

Well, if you don't count that IGMS anthology, which I don't. I've just been informed that "Cold Fire", which was published in Flashing Sworsd #9, will also be in the forthcoming "Age of Blood and Snow" anthology (which it is ideally suited to, given that blood on snow is an important plot feature).

I like reprint sales; there is a lot less work involved...

For the stats buffs; that's my sixth sale this year out of 40 responses. That's 15%, and if I can keep up THAT kind of percentage return I will be a very very happy man indeed. I suspect, however, it will slip back down again.

Some things I need to do

2008-05-29T12:53:26Z

in no particular order...

Re-polish "St. Saviour And The Devil's Dandy" for Flashing Swords
Submit "Atacama" to market
Submit "Weaving Fancies For The Children" to market
Submit "How The Rainbow Came To Be" to market
Submit "If We Were Briar Roses" to market
Submit "The First League Out From Land" to market
Submit "The Demands Of Duty" to market
Submit "The Man His Father Was" to market
Submit "Forget Me" to market
Submit "The Burning Touch Of Water, The Soothing Balm Of Flame" to market
Finish "The House Of Seven Strings" (probably about 3000 more words) and submit to market
Finish "The Ghosts In The Graveyard" (probably around 100 more words) and submit to market
Finish "Catching The Tiger", or decide whether it's actually part of "When Fourth Moon Dances" and not a standalone story at all
Re-polish "The Sirens Of New York" and submit to market
Polish "The Smoke That Rises From The Mountain" and submit to market
Re-polish "Sorrowful Songs" and submit to market
Rewrite (and retitle) "Fragile Swan" and submit to market
Rewrite "The Carpet Of Dreams" and submit to market
Rewrite "The Vulkodlaki" and submit to market
Finish "The God In The Jar" and submit to market
Finish "The Truth About Tsu Chia" and submit to market

And then I can concentrate on some of those novels I was talking about yesterday...

Death in the garden

2008-05-29T12:06:47Z

I was woken at 6.20 this morning by a bunch of blackbirds squawking angrily right outside the window. They were, it turned out, mobbing a magpie which had atacked a chick. Though they drove the magpie away, the chick was unfortunately already dead. It was interesting that at least half a dozen blackbirds were acting together, and the chick was (I am sure) a firt brood - so some of the blackbirds had no direct "involvement". Just instinct because of the chick's distress calls and the alarm calls of the other blackbirds? Possibly, but it's behaviour I've never seen before.

And sadly, that wasn't this morning's only corpse removal duty. On Tuesday evening Robin found a hedgehog on the drive, apparently with an injured leg. She brought it into our garden (which is walled and thus safe) and put some food down for it, but it didn't touch the food and just went into curled-up mode. It was still breathing next morning, but didn't stir, and sadly this morning was definitely dead and rigor-mortised.

Novels

2008-05-28T17:44:31Z

I suspect I am, by nature, a novelist.   When I write short stories, it's not uncommon for me to start thinking of the ramifications of the events I'm writing about; what happened to lead people to this place, what they'll do afterwards, unfolding outwards like a flower opening.   Only with really tightly contained short stories (under about 2000 words) can I really avoid doing this.

For years , before I started writing with discipline, and finishing what I wrote (I finish probably 80+% of what I start, now, and tend not to try and work on more than a couple of things at a time; there was a time when I finished almost nothing and "worked" on dozens of stories) I tended to write novels.   Or series of novels.   Scenes and sequences here and there, which would slowly build into a more-or-less coherent whole.

I have a lot of thes and many of them are still projects that I intend to finish.   Here - under the cut for the squeamish - is a list of what I've got, in theory "on the back burner"

First, there are the Julietta novels.   An initial cycle of five of these (it was four for a long time, then some stuff cropped up to do with pregnancy and marriage and dealing with the unexpected acquisition of nobility that was way too much fun not to cover in detail).   Julietta is the illegitimate daughter of a mid-range merchant in a pseudo-Renaissance world, who happens to fall in with an exiled prince.   As you do.   These five books cover her slow rise from being a tavern barmaid to being the wife of a man trying to reclaim his "rightful" throne.   Wordcounts?   In current form, 60k, 12k, 30k, 8k and nothing, but earlier forms exist that are significantly larger and still need stuff drawing out and reworking.

Then there are the Angelaki and Yvane novels.   Angelaki is a soldier, who fought for the aforementioned exiled prince; Yvane is a half-Tsigani cartomancer.   They're my Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; a mismatched team, one caustic and cynical, the other stoic and compassionate, and the intention was to get them into various scrapes.   Most of these will be shorter stories, but there is definitely one novel (Truth's Lantern), which covers their meeting, and which currently has about 40k in it.   There are probably enough story ideas for two or three more, until we get to...

The Angelaki solo novel.   This is where our exiled prince comes back to reclaim his "rightful" throne, and she joins up again, and the war is followed from her perspective throughout, though Julietta and Yvane get to be important supporting characters.   The first draft of this is over 200,000 words, so it's a bit of a monster, really.   I need to rewrite it, but I still love this book and always will.   The problem is that it doesn't work nearly as effectively without seeing what led up to the war - so I need to finish and pubilsh at least half-a-dozen other novels before this sees the light of day.

And as if that wasn't enough... what happens after the war?   I have material enough for three novels at least, and one of those is so broad in scope that it would probably be two or three volumes.   Currently, though, thre's a mere 50k, 8k and 13k written on those.

That's the totality of that cycle.   Just as well.   Set in the same world, however, there are a few other pieces.   there's The Heretic's Apprentice, for example, following a young man torn between his seminary training and his heritage as a scion of magic.   Yes, it's another standard fantasy trope, but I try and twist it in interesting directions, with unexpected family ties that lead to real tough moral crises.   35k on that one.

Also in theory on the same world, there's the Raven trilogy.   This is my Robin Hood with magic series, and the only one that is chock full of elves and the like.   That probably means it'll never see print, because I don't actually want to write fantasy with elves.   Well, sort of.   ANyway; three books, though only about 12k in current wordage.

A character from the first Julietta novel is so interesting that he demanded his own spin-off, so I also have The Rovani Restoration, another bit of renaissance intrigue and skulduggery.   25k on that one.   Also in the skulduggery line, but with a plot to change the world, is This Changing Light.   11k on that one.   And finally, way up in the north amongst my viking-y people, there's The Song Of Summer's Fading; another one that's got far too many fantasy cliches and will almost certainly never see the light of day, even though there's 30k of that.

That's everything, I think, on that world.   That's what, 17 novels right there.

Then there's Yi Qin.   At least three novels currently planned - one dealing with her early life and origin, one dealing with her working for the Emperor, and one set later in semi-exile in a remote border town, but there's the possibility of several more - at least a couple between those latter two, and probably more after.   Currently 13k on When Fourth Moon Dances, and 57k on The Emperor's Conjuror.   In the same world (probably) there's The Lord Of The Red Hall (the novel-length prequel to Cold Fire, my Flashing Swords story), which has 30k, and at least one sequel to come though with only 2k of intro.

Then there's Laith, another world entirely, with two novels - The Accidental Witch and The Reluctant Goddess.   75k and 22k respectively.

And then there's the miscellanea.   Seagrave, my Verne-meets-Lovecraft mock-Victoriana romp, and its sequel, Seagrave's Heir.   Only about 5k here, lots to research which I'm not very good at.   There's a Finnish myth novel I want to do, currently unnamed, but with 7k of fun stuff in it.   There's Cold Gods, my retelling of Norse myth in first person present POV (definitely Odin an Loki as narrators, possibly others).   13k on elements of that.   There's The Eagle's Son, the novel I started for NaNo last year, 13k of stuff currently utterly unrelated to anything else, though it may well just get plundered for other things.   There's the Gatekeeper trilogy (or cycle), the world seen in When Winter Came, with a mere 10k of stuff currently in it (mostly, the climax).   And there's some very tentative skiffy stuff in my skiffy universe, none of which is even close to the light of day.

Somewhere around 35 novels.

I am, clearly, quite, quite mad.

OK, back to ta lking about writing....

2008-05-27T09:57:37Z

...after two or three weeks of very little, I churned out 5500 words on a new Yi Qin story yesterday.   Oddly, it wasn't the story I'd intended to write.

However, it probably needs another 3000 or more and has a couple of plot/motivation issues to resolve.   I really need to finish off a bunch of half-written things; for a long time I've been reptty good about finishing what I start, but I think I have three unfinished Yi Qin stories from the past couple of months, and another needing a fairly significant polish.

Rejections have been dribbling slowly in and I'm down to only 12 stories at market, as well - my lowest figure for ages.   Time for a flurry of submissions (I realised when checking my spreadsheet I haven't subbed a single story yet this month).

Minor rantage...

2008-05-27T09:52:01Z

Eight or nine years back, we had some fuel protests in the UK.   Refineries and distribution centres were blockaded and panic buying ensued, leading to much chaos and misery.   The reason was that the price of fuel had risen quite steeply, a significant component of which was tax hikes (and the Labour government was being roundly blamed - even though they were following a policy implemented during the Conservative regime; there's no doubt that many of the people behind the protest were really "Countryside Alliance" activistsusing it as a stick to try and beat the government with, in response to the plans in place at that time to ban hunting).

Today, we have fuel protests again, because of the price of fuel.   The protests actually seem to be fairly minor -  a convoy of forty lorries heading to London, fifty heading to Cardiff (if any other "national protest" involved fewer than ahundred people, it wouldn't rate a mention in the news).   But the demands are much the same - the government is unfairly taxing drivers, affecting the road haulage industry and all those people in mythical "middle Britain" who need their cars for commuting, the school run, shopping at the supermarket, etc.

Well, yes.   We all DO need our cars.   I live in a rural area, work 20 miles from where I live, and have no realistic alternative option (I did actually TRY using the train for the first three months of working here, but the service failed to turn up at least 10% of the time, and that's simply absurd - any other service that did that, you'd be entitled to compensation, but the only compensation available was a slight reduction on buying the next season ticket - a bit like buying something, discovering it's faulty, and being given a discount on buynig a replacement).

But we also do need to loko at how we can reduce our fuel consumption.   The price may come down at some point in the future; it may not.   Supplies ARE limited (unless you're one of those people who believe that new oil is actually being created, deep down in the earth, the whole time; there are such people but they dno't have a lot of evidence to support their theories).   Ultimately, we need to re-evaluate our love affair with the motor car and the idea that national - even global - distribution of goods must be as cheap as possible.   The road haulage industry in the UK barely existed forty years ago; goods were transported in bulk primarily by rail, and then locally from railheads.   Far more products were sourced locally, rather than going through a chain of "distribution centres" that vastly increase the length of the supply chain.

And the sooner we start the painful process of change, the better.   We have to reappraise our energy use.   Everyone takls about generating power in a greener way.   Nobody talks about lokoing at ways we can reduce our power usage.   It's seen as some divine right of a civilised society to USE things.   Well, sorry, but it's not.   Get used to it now, because teh longer we deny that changes are needed, the harder those changes will be.

So, even speaking as someone who drives 40 miles a day - I do NOT support the fuel protests.   And I hope they fail.

Sometimes, the universe gets its timing right.

2008-05-22T15:56:44Z

I have just discovered that the forthcoming Tor anthology, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, featuring stories from the first two years of IGMS and including "The Box Of Beautiful Things", has been scheduled for release. "The Box Of Beautiful Things" is the story that was my first ever submission, my first ever sale, my first ever pro sale, and my first story to be included in a print anthology and thus get paid for at pro rates a second time.

The release date is August 5th.

So?, you say. And?, you say. Your point?, you say.

Anyone wanna guess what my birthday is?

It's quiet... too quiet...

2008-05-20T11:06:03Z

No more rejections, or acceptances, or, well, anything on the editorial front lately.

Duotrope records my fifteen pending sub times, against average response times, as follows:

497 (124)
190 (56)
154 (56)
89 (44)
89 (54)
88 (315)
88 (72)
82 (81)
82 (78)
71 (0) (but I've had a sort of hold notice on this one)
69 (54)
20 (20)
20 (26)

I could always take the "well if they're holding on to my piece they must still be interested" optimistic approach, but I'm not convinced.

A bunch more should go out of the door this coming weekend - I've got feedback to come on three flash pieces and there are a couple of others to go out., oplus a couple of stories are effectively "sidelined" as they are due to go out as postal subs in June (when I'm in the US and it's cheaper to send things out).

But the world seems to have gotten distinctly slower. Average reject time so far this year is a lot higher than last. Anyone else keep appropriate stats on this, and finding the same thing?

Not about writing at all.

2008-05-19T09:49:49Z

Just a minor vent.

There is a bill going through the UK parliamentary process at the moment that is predominantly about human-animal hybrid embryology.   This is an important subject for debate.

However various amendments have been tacked on so that the bill also addresses abortion issues - also an important, but completely separate, topic.   On eof the main amendments is a call for a reduction of the time limit on abortions, from 24 down to 20 weeks.   This amendment was actually written by a fundamentalist Christian pressure group who lobbied MPs until they found ones who would put it forwards.   They freely admit that they want this amendment as "the thin end of the wedge", in that their ultimate aim is to make abortion illegal but they know that the political will isn't there so they want to push back the edges, bit by bit.

They have every right to do this, but they have not been doing so openly (i.e. they are not publicly announcing this as "the thin end of the wedge" - it has taken a bit of snooping around and putting different press reports together to come up with this).   meanwhile they are also pushing out to the press some very selective survey information that shows that (for example), "many" women have had "four or more" abortions.

I don't like abortion.   I'd prefer people to be responsible before rather than after the act.   But I fail to see that if someone is so irresponsible that they will have repeated abortions, it would be a good idea in ANY way to make them have the children instead.   Yes, let's punish them by making them give birth and bring up a child they didn't want!   The child will certainly benefit SO much from that, too...

Removing legal abortion will probably reduce the amount of casual unprotected sex by some small degree.   It will certainly increase the number of illegal abortions (with attendant medical and psychological issues) as well as ensure a higher number of unwanted children on the planet.

I'd like to know why people would thinks that's a good thing.