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This blog is also available (with commenting) at LiveJournal. May 12, 2008LEGO: WaterslideThis MOC came about because I had frustratingly few of these 1x4 offset bricks for a previous project, so I placed an order on Bricklink for more than I could ever need. Stacked them all together for storage, and found I could give them an interesting bend. I've never seen this used as a building technique, so I thought I'd give it a shot with a Lego Waterslide. Click on any of 'em for larger view.       And the individual 1x4 offset bricks (I got the name from Peeron, but there's gotta be another way to identify them) look like this:  Filed Under: Journal, Lego May 6, 2008In Which William S Burroughs Calls Me a PussyIt occurs to me that I talk about caffeine in the same way that real writers talk about heroin. I've seen a neurologist. I have post-concussion syndrome. What a relief, just having a name for it. No consensus on prognosis, because the brain's such a crazy place and no head injury is exactly alike. I've definitely shown improvement since December (yay!) but most people show more or complete improvement by now (boo! I mean: good for them, but boo on my own progress). "It takes as long as it takes," is both the general and the Alex-specific prediction, which is exactly as much as I knew before seeing the neurologist, which makes the neurologist bill that much more of a joy to pay. Studies vary, but it looks like I have a 90%+ chance of fully recovering by the end of the year, and there isn't anything I can do to increase those chances or hurry it up. I'm assuming they've considered heroin. Had some dental surgery in the meantime. As long as I'm useless/recovering, might as well be entirely useless/recovering all at once. Among the problems with my teeth: I've had two baby teeth in my mouth with no adults ever growing underneath to usurp them, so those babies have been ready to go for a few decades now. I have had them pulled and have begun the 16-week implants process. I should probably figure out whether pudding qualifies as a liquid before I get on my plane to WisCon, huh? Probably should've waited until the post-surgery drugs wore off before this unaffiliated citizen early-voted in his first ever Democratic primary, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do... Filed Under: Brain Injury, Journal April 25, 20082008 Submission Log Weeks 13-17A bit behind, but only a bit to report... Submissions 511-514 Writers of the Future (my 19th sub there) Fantasy (5th) Cabinet de Fees (1st) Apex (3rd) Rejections 371-375 Clarkesworld (82 days) Polyphony (83 days) Mineshaft (101 days on 3 poems) Of Interest Still couldn't close the deal on the story I was writing for Writers of the Future at the end of December, so again I send them a slightly older story last quarter. High hopes that I'll be well enough to complete it (and a few other things) by June. Twenty-six pieces currently in circulation. Been a few weeks now of nothing in, nothing out. A few submissions have been pending for longer than the average bear, which can be a good sign (held a bit for rereads/consideration, etc) or a bad sign (post office taken over by Visigoths so the subs/rejections never arrived, etc). Or it could mean nothing. And I'm saying nothing. This has been a good use of your time. Filed Under: Happy Fun Log, Journal April 21, 2008LEGO: Steam DartReasonably Clever hosted a Lego challenge last month: create a Steampunk "impulse buy" set, 50 pieces or fewer, just like they used to have in hobby shops and toy stores near the chashier. I made myself a Steam Dart (click for larger):   Loose homage to my favorite impulse set of all time (says a lot coming from a classic castle gentleman like myself), set 6824 : Space Dart (1984).  Filed Under: Journal, Lego, Pretty Pictures April 16, 2008Algernon for AlexI liked this better when it was written by Daniel Keyes. Yeah, I was doing better for a while there, huh? If any of my previous journal entries or emails or conversations have been coherent, gotta give props to medicinal amounts of caffeine. Phasing that out again has been like watching my IQ drop to day-after-head-injury levels again. With less-to-no caffeine, doing this whole listening-to-my-body song and dance, my brain gets taxed very quickly, so things like working on my taxes (there's a pun there, but I can't make the words go where they should go) for half an hour or conversations with insurance providers have exhausted me for most of the rest of the day. I've sent out emails, called people back, when I can, but I'm still pretty far behind there. Monday I bumped my head in the shower. I've bumped my head half a dozen times on the small doorframe of the Prius since February, and even with caffeine it always makes me useless and nauseated for the rest of the day. This was a worse bump, but I managed to get taxes and Telltale contributor payments out at least. Still not feeling so good. Something fun tomorrow or Friday, we'll see how I'm feeling. Seeing a neurologist next week, so let's talk about other things until then. Filed Under: Brain Injury, Journal March 20, 20082008 Submission Log Weeks 10-12Submissions 508-510 ChiZine (my 6th sub there) Interzone (4th) Strange Horizons (17th) Rejection 370 Eclipse Two (16 days) Pulled/No Reply/Publication Folded 61 Noctem Aeternus (1st sub) Of Interest Among my three subs this period is my first real work completed (from conception to submission-ready draft) entirely after my head injury. Reeeeally needed that. A personal note about the Noctem Aeternus closing, which was a pleasant way to get the unpleasant news. The first issue showed a lot of promise, I thought. Filed Under: Happy Fun Log, Journal March 18, 2008Eras EndSpeculations/The Rumor Mill 1995-2008 I was still in college, didn't know a thing but thought I knew everything when I started my Speculations subscription with the print issues. Told me of Clarion, among other things. The forum/community introduced me to some of my first writer-friends. I let my subscription to the magazine lapse a few years after they stopped publishing articles (leaving only the market reports) and the signal-to-noise ratio of the forum wasn't what it used to be, but this was my introduction to the world of science fiction writing. I was so lucky to have it as a guide. Any mistakes I failed to make, I owe to Kent Brewster & co. Thank you. Gary Gygax 1938-2008 If some of my first exposures to fantastic fiction hadn't been participatory--creating characters for Dungeons & Dragons adventures--I don't know that I ever would have thought to write the stuff. For a long time my biggest sale was an AD&D game supplement in Dragon Magazine. Why hasn't anyone ported the old Strategic Simulations (SSI?) games to the Palm platform? Seems ideal, and I doubt my PDA will crap out of me just before I save game like my Commodore 64 did all. the. time. Focus, Alex. I've held on to more D&D books than I will ever possibly use. Thank you. Arthur C Clarke 1917-2008 In high school, I got into science fiction through the short stories. There was Vonnegut. There was Bradbury. And there was Clarke. Thank you. Eras end. Filed Under: Journal, Peers & Peerless, Prose and Poetry March 9, 2008Incremental SoldieringObligatory head injury tag. My friend Steve turned me on to Jimmy Amadie, a jazz pianist with tendinitis and nerve damage so severe that he's "unable to play for more than five or six minutes at a time, on a piano whose keys are specially weighted to cushion his touch" (from a review of Amadie's Savoring Every Note). It'll take two years of working in these increments before he'll compose, record, and finish his album. With considerably less talent and with large concentrations of caffeine, I can manufacture (almost consistently) a similarly short period of relative lucidity/productivity each day, so I can steal back my productivity from the twin gods of STFU and Convalesce. This is how I've technically written something every day this year with unbelievably little to show for it. This is because the same rules apply as before the head injury: some writing days are (relative) winners, most aren't. It's just that now the writing windows are smaller and foggier. I'm never near my peak performance. And for the most part, words and thoughts still just won't do what I want them to do. Stupid words and thoughts. Would I be the first to write with colors? Not entirely convinced these last ten (!) weeks wouldn't have been just as well served had I purchased a video game console in December, but I have trouble seeing the difference between that and giving up. I owe too much of my sanity and identity to reading and writing. And if I understand correctly (and ha! that's unlikely these days), the athlete who fully rests after an injury comes back nowhere nearly as strong as the one who works at rehabilitation, pushes herself, and exercises those stubborn muscles. Which brings up the big assumption: that I'll come back from this. Except for those caffeine-grabbed moments (which hell can't be good for me in the long run), my ability to think clearly is worse even than it was last month. Now, that could be a perceptual issue; of course normal seems worse compared to the caffeine high. But even if I'm not getting worse, it's become pretty hard to believe I'm still getting better. Even assuming I could be good at something else... it's only because I've put nine years into it that I'm on cusp of being good at writing. My father died at 53 (and his father at 52), so that doesn't give me a lot of time to practice a second calling. On the other hand? If I'm ten years away from making headway on my next big pursuit? I should probably get started on that ASAP, huh? Filed Under: Brain Injury, Journal, Prose and Poetry, Vanity Smurf March 6, 2008Bias Wars: Headline vs CopyThat's what I call balanced reporting!  (click to enlarge image) http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/06/clinton-leads-obama-in-texas-caucuses-count/ Filed Under: Journal, Pretty Pictures, World of Importance March 4, 2008"Contents" in The Rambler (out now) My flash fiction (non-genre) piece "Contents" appears in the March-April 2008 issue of the literary magazine The Rambler, and I've just seen the first copies at Weaver Street Market, the local food co-op. "Contents" appears on page 48, but, ironically enough, not in the issue's table of contents. Available in many independent bookshops, campus bookstores, and Barnes & Noble chains. Where to Buy. Filed Under: Journal, News, Prose and Poetry March 3, 20082008 Submission Log Weeks 7-9Submissions 498-507 Fantasy (my 4th sub there) McSweeney's (Quarterly) (6th) McSweeney's (Books) (1st) Zombie Inside (1st) One Story (1st) Weird Tales (8th) Silly Fantasy (1st) Glimmer Train (4th) ChiZine (5th) Eclipse Two (2nd) Apex (2nd) Rejections 356-368 Tin House (68 days) Pseudopod (2 months) F&SF 9 days) Zombie Inside (1 day) The First Line (18 days) F&SF (9 days) Writers of the Future (48 days) Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (Semifinalist, 134 days) SFReader Contest (50 days) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (74 days) Fantasy (20 days) Mythic Delirium (55 days) ChiZine (2 days) Eclipse Two (22 days) Of Interest My 500th sub was to One Story. Here's my Zombie Inside thing, with more info. Looks like I won't be able to vote in yet another SFWA election. Even if I made my third SFWA-qualifying sale today, I doubt I'd get the contracts in in time. Still having a lot of trouble with the head injury thing, but I'll talk about some ways I've been able to adjust this week. I have a bad feeling this is gonna be with me for some time, so... Since I get new emails about it with every mention (and keeping up with email is difficult for me, even if the emails are absolutely appreciated), let's just make a brain injury tag. February was almost entirely spent on a story for Shimmer's "Clockwork Jungle" issue. I wasn't able to get it to a nice enough draft to submit, but that could've been the case even if I was at peak performance and actually could read the entire 2-2.5k word drafts in three sittings or fewer. Filed Under: Brain Injury, Happy Fun Log, Journal February 20, 2008ABNA: Pinocchio Punched in That Dirty Liar Nose of His As suspected, my little novelette that could did not make it to the finals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award thing. But I'm quite pleased with how well it did. Instead of collecting digital dust on my hard drive for the last few months (setting it aside while I worked on other stuff, so I could come back to it fresh for revisions), it collected a quite generous Publishers Weekly review.And I think the good the PW review will do in my cover letter outweighs the negative of telling agents or editors that they aren't the first place I've sent a work. Besides, that damage is pretty much already done with the title of the work so easily available online (try "Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award" in Google; I'm like number 4, after Amazon, Penguin, and The New York Times. Had no idea my blog was that popular, though I don't suspect that search placement'll last as they gear up the publicity machine/the contest reaches its climax, and as I start shutting up about it). I knew that'd be a risk, and that's why it's the only unsold work (I think) I've ever named in my Submission Log. Congrats and good luck to the three finalists I kinda know: online friends Ruth Nestvold and Tom Pendergrass, and fellow Carrborian (Carrboro-ite? Carrborean?) Erica Eisdorfer. Of course I'm incredibly grateful to everyone thoughtful enough to give the excerpt a read and/or to write up comments (though I'm quite glad I erred on the side of minimal publicity this time and didn't beg friends and family for reviews or anything, thus saving most of my Annoying Publicity Tokens for another day/project). You'll hear about Pinocchio again, and more annoyingly, when I place it with a publisher. Hmm. Carrborean, definitely. Carr-BOAR-ee-uhn. It ain't no "Cimmeria, Land of Darkness and the Night," but Alexander the Carrborean coulda been one of Robert E Howard's unpublished tales, dontcha think? Filed Under: ABNA, Journal, Prose and Poetry February 18, 2008Head Still AttachedI'm doing better gradually, and I'm mostways able to function like a normal person in spite of my focus issues. Reading and writing are the last holdouts. I've been reading Raymond Carver's intro to John Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist over and over, and I'm able to get to the end without forgetting what I've read only when I tackle it in two and three paragraph chunks over the course of several days. Went for my first brief run since the accident. I haven't been in this out of shape since the days after Clarion (when my pathetic ten runs and minimal pushups/situps over six weeks conspired with the quality of campus protein and veggies to sacrifice to the Clarion gods any muscle mass I pretended to have). I'm hoping the current 24-hour headache, worst in at least a few weeks, is unrelated to the workout; my body can't take much more inactivity, and walking just isn't scratching that itch anymore. One of the things I can do: Clean out my junk mail folder for the first time in a while. Best find: "Turn $2400 into $1000!" It's like they're not even trying anymore... Oh and memory. Memory's another holdout and, no, I'm not just being cute. I thought of memory only after checking and rechecking this entry for grammatical errors. Guess I could have inserted it in the first paragraph, but okay maybe I am being cute. Maybe I can't help being cute. It's a burden, really. Filed Under: Brain Injury, Journal February 15, 2008Balcony Scream from Romeo and Julienned BrainstuffIn my ongoing hunt for bitty projects I can actually work on while still dealing with my head injury (focus problems, mostly), I sent this little piece of reanimated iambic pentameter to Zombie Idol yesterday. Didn't make the cut, so here's the only other thing I can think of doing with it... Balcony Scream from Romeo and Julienned Brainstuff by Wild Bill Shakespeare and Alex Wilson (glorified typist) But crunch! What scent through yonder cranium wafts? It is fresh meat! And Juliet, the meatbox! Arise, ye mostly dead, and cleave the skull Whose cup o'erflows with that electric food Which sparks our own undeadly minds to move. O be not gentle with that pretty flesh Or vestal liver tempting freshly greens Away from grayer matters. Spit it out! We seek the brainstuff! O, the one true meat! O, all she's ever known must wet our teeth! She screams, her tongue insipid and distracting. (I'll yet bite, though tongue's a waste of gnashing.) FWIW, they're still looking for entries for "round two." Alls you do is insert a zombie into a good text and try and make it gooder. Filed Under: Brain Injury, Journal, Prose and Poetry February 9, 20082008 Submission Log Weeks 5 and 6Submissions 493-497 Clockwork Phoenix (my 1st sub there) Noctem Aeternus (1st) F&SF (21st) Fantasy (4th) Eclipse Two (1st) Rejections 346-355 Clockwork Phoenix (6 days) Strange Horizons (27 days) SXSW Film Festival (89 days) McSweeney's (121 days) Shadowline/Image Comics (multiple pitches) First Page Challenge Thing Of Interest: Should hit my 500th sub this month, even if I'm unable to write another word. The McSweeney's rejection at 121 days was the shortest response time I've ever gotten from them, and it included an apology for the delayed reply. So it goes. Filed Under: Happy Fun Log, Journal February 5, 2008Yes We CanFor anyone interested: Chords are G Bm Em C. Bridge is Am C G. Just sayin. Google video version (which includes Quicktime/iPod video download if, like me, you don't play well with Flash Video AND if, like me, you're more interested in the song than the music video because it's easier to extract the audio that way): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6626015481685587523 Lyrics, etc: www.yeswecansong.com Filed Under: Journal, World of Importance January 31, 2008ABNA: Love Theme from Pinocchio is Punching You (MP3)
Am I the only person who thinks every book should have a theme song? I've almost changed my own mind after hearing the results of this one. Love Theme from Pinocchio is Punching You MP3. Other formats (Ogg Vorbis, AAC) here. (It so wants to be "You are the last dragon/you possess the power of the glow..." Let's not let the novelette get any further or else I'll be forced to create a music video.)Okay, last blog about Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for a while, likely until ABNA announces the next cut. Obligatory links to Pinocchio is Punching You (free excerpt at Amazon) and all my PIPY/ABNA journal entries. Filed Under: ABNA, Audio Projects, Journal, Prose and Poetry January 30, 20082008 Submission Log Weeks 3 and 4Submissions 482-492 Clarkesworld (my 5th sub there) Shadowline/Image (1st few subs) Apex (1st) Highlights for Children (2nd) OSC's IGMS (4th) Nathan Bransford's Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge (1st) The First Line (1st) Rejections 340-345 Aeon (51 days) Helix (just a few hours) Space & Time (exactly 2 months) Apex (8 days) OSC's IGMS (exactly 3 months, as usual IIRC) Fantasy (26 days) Of Interest: From Cat Rambo @ Fantasy: "This was close, but in the end we've decided to pass." Noooo! Found out about this contest too late to do much damage myself, but for those interested: Shadowline/Image is looking for pitches until the end of the month for a 3-issue miniseries. Found out about it by happy accident as I'm preparing a regular sub to Shadowline presently. A pox upon my fellow aspiring comics writers who were being so tightlipped about it! Not very sporting, is it? Not that I'm any better help, a day before the deadline... Link to the Nathan Bransford contest. I entered the first page of Pinocchio is Punching You. And, yes, if most of my other journal entries this month haven't made it clear, Pinocchio's a current semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA). Not too unproductive a month for a guy who has trouble reading his own journal entries once they get this long. I pushed myself a little too hard in the last few days working on the above comic book pitches and a musical treat which I hope to release tomorrow. I'm hoping that's the reason I'm so exhausted, and it's not that my head's getting worse. Filed Under: Brain Injury, Happy Fun Log, Journal January 24, 2008ABNA: Publishers Weekly Reviews Pinocchio is Punching You "In this funny sendup of the classic fairy tale, Pinocchio, having been made a boy, wants one more thing: to be made a ninja. Pinocchio hangs out at the mall, where a bully convinces him that ninja mastery can be had-at a price. The story sharply outlines the oddity of pre-pubescent boys' fixations (ninjas, zombies, petty theft and bra straps), and its playful blend of realism and fantasy is just right. The author has a sharp ear for dialogue and for the unusual highways and byways that adolescent conversations take. It's a clever idea executed ably; lots of laugh-out-loud moments and off-beat humor pepper this fun, inventive romp." --Publishers Weekly Pinocchio is Punching You! Cool, I might be able to sell this. (The above review is based on the entire novelette, not just the posted excerpt.) Filed Under: ABNA, Journal, News, Prose and Poetry, Vanity Smurf January 23, 2008Three Things I Woulda Done Differently......had I known I'd still be recovering from this head injury a month later.
(There are times when I feel like I'm myself again, and I feel like my mind should be able to do everything it used to do... but I'm quickly proven wrong, and I think that's the most frustrating thing. Recovery is gradual, but it's happening. Most importantly: focus is starting to improve. I'm able to read up to a page at a time before--usually--needing to start over. And if I can write an entire story in under 300 words, I can often keep all the threads in my head at one time. So... outlining and writing up pitches, mostly. A journal entry like this one will now take me less than half an hour, and I'll catch more typos now. So watch out, world! Alex'll be back in the game before you ooooh look a shiny penny!) Filed Under: Brain Injury, Journal, Prose and Poetry, Vanity Smurf January 22, 2008ABNA: Carolina Semi-Finalists Unite!(Press Release by entrant Matt Musson. Thanks, Matt! And congrats to friend and fellow entrant Mike Jasper, whose novel The Wannoshay Cycle comes out today!)Several Carolina authors have been chosen among the contestants moving on to the semi-final round for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Amazon.com's first writing competition in search of the next great novel. Each semi-finalist has a dedicated web page for their submission on Amazon.com, where customers can now download a 5000 word excerpt of the entry to rate and review. The Carolina semi-finalists are: Mike Jasper of Wake Forest Alex Wilson of Carrboro Erica Eisdorfer of Carrboro Betty Cloer Wallace of Asheville Lockie Hunter of Asheville Douglas A. Sanburn of Asheville Matt Musson of Charlotte K.F. Jones of Charlotte Mai Christy Thao of Charlotte Lena Joy Rose of Matthews Nicole R. Dickson of Greensboro Lou Dischler of Spartanburg, SC Katherine Guckenberger of Charleston, SC Susan Sloate of Mt. Pleasant, SC These Carolina writers are hoping to survive to the next round when the 100 Top Semi-Finalists will be chosen from the regular semi-finalists. The top 100 will be selected by Penguin Publishing taking into consideration Publishers Weekly's ratings of the author’s works along with customer evalutions and ratings of their excerpts posted online. Additionally, customers who rate and review at least 25 semi-finalist excerpts will be entered in the ABNA Customer Review Contest for the chance to win an Amazon Kindle. The three Customer Review Contest winners will each receive an Amazon Kindle, a $2,000 Amazon gift certificate and a Hewlett-Packard. From these top 100 Semi-Finalists – 10 finalists will be selected by Penguin. Excerpts from the 10 finalists will be posted online and Amazon.Com customers will vote to select the Grand Prize winner who will receive a publishing contract and a $25,000 royalty advance. Continue reading "ABNA: Carolina Semi-Finalists Unite!" Filed Under: ABNA, Journal, Peers & Peerless, Prose and Poetry January 21, 2008And We Got a Little Red Prius As soon as I'm driving again, this is what I'll drive. (And as soon as I get my camera back, I'll take a real picture.) Filed Under: Brain Injury, Journal, Vanity Smurf January 18, 2008Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award: SemifinalistMy novelette Pinocchio is Punching You is a current semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which puts it in the top 17% or so, and in the running for the next step: Top 100, to be chosen about four weeks from now.You can read and review the first 5,000 words of Pinocchio, and your comments/rating (along with a to-be-posted, likely-weighted review from Publisher's Weekly!) will determine whether it makes it any further in the contest. ABNA is offering some reviewer incentives, and has posted general guidelines about "what makes a good review." To these I'll just add: Don't assume negative reviews are all from shills for other entrants who want their competition to look bad, nor that all positive reviews were written by members of the author's cult. Both will happen, neither are worth anybody's time. Let Amazon sort it out. Much obliged for any reading and/or reviewing you feel like doing, and I think these fine friends o'mine would be, too: Ruth Nestvold, Michael Jasper, Bradley P Beaulieu, Tom Pendergrass, and Laurel Amberdine (whose note on a forum tipped me off to the contest in the first place).  Filed Under: ABNA, Journal, News, Peers & Peerless, Prose and Poetry January 16, 2008The Dumb Man as MachinimaA few years back I narrated Sherwood Anderson's The Dumb Man, released it free with a Creative Commons License. I did it because it was interesting, because I was never sure what to make of something so strange and elusive, complete with a mysterious form (riddle? prose poem?). Of course I got a bunch of emails asking what the hell it was, and I never knew what to say... Except that if I ever thought it was a silly exercise, then today I'm reeeaally glad I did it anyway. Multimedia artist Lainy Voom contacted me last week with what she was working on: she's used it in a Second Life machinima, and it's astounding (and I'd agree with Cory Doctorow's comment: "the most beautiful machinima I've seen to date"). Love, love, love that I could be a small part of something like this, and that a seemingly incidental CCL-licensed work could have such a life beyond what I did with it. Thanks, Lainy! Filed Under: Audio Projects, Journal, Peers & Peerless, Pretty Pictures January 15, 20082008 Submission Log Weeks 1 and 2Submissions 476-481 Fantasy (my 3rd sub there) Helix (1st) Mythic Delirium (4th) Polyphony (2nd) Strange Horizons (16th) Talebones (6th) Rejections 335-339 Fantasy Magazine (33 days) Interzone (74 days) LCRW (35 days on an illustration) The Sun (110 days) Talebones (93 days) Acceptance 72 "Contents" to The Rambler (70 days) Of Interest Finally learning how to do Track Changes in Word for the Shimmer story copy-edit. I'm such a luddite! The no from Fantasy included editor Cat Rambo's note: "mainly because I've got something that's a little too similar in the pipeline," which tells me I'm getting closer there. Should find out today or so whether my entry into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest (ABNA for the Google-watchers) made the first cut. Odds are in my favor (taking up to 20% of the entries) compared with most slush piles I end up in, but I've got no expectations. As mentioned here, I mainly submitted it because I needed to set it aside for a few months before the next revision... and always better to let something wait in a slush pile than on my hard drive. Still dealing with the head injury so I'm still happy to let it sit. A few weeks back, during my Christmas convalescence, Amazon.com uploaded a handful of excerpts including mine.... and then took them down quickly. It's as likely that these were used as test entries as it is an indicator that they've made it on some preliminary list, but I wouldn't put money behind either guess. Filed Under: ABNA, Happy Fun Log, Journal January 11, 2008SALE! "Contents" to The Rambler"Contents" is a 500-word non-genre story based on a photograph published in a previous issue. It'll will run in the March/April 2008 "Your Stories" section of The Rambler. It's a tiny thing (the story), but The Rambler just might have the largest news stand circulation of any periodical I've appeared in to date. (Locally: Weaver Street Market, Internationalist Books, McIntyre's, the Regulator, and Quail Ridge Books, for starters. Nationally: many Barnes & Nobles and university bookstores) Followed only 4 rejections into the new year, which is a great start to 2008! Filed Under: Happy Fun Log, Journal, News, Prose and Poetry January 10, 20082007 Submission Log: Week 52! The Year is Dead! Long Live the Year!Submissions 469-475 Murky Depths (my 3rd and 4th subs there) SFReader.com Contest (2nd) Mineshaft (1-3rd) Writers of the Future (18th, yes, 18th) Rejection 334 Weird Tales (my 6th) Of Interest: I put out 148* submissions in 2007, a personal record but nothing to be admired. As I talked about here, it's been more an act of desperation than one of dedication. Glad to have gotten through it with what little progress I was able to make. Feels unreal to still be talking about 2007, when the whole year is (literally) fuzzy in my mind. I'm already into the first submissions, rejections and acceptance (I'll share tomorrow) of 2008, and I'm dizzy just writing what I've written so far for this entry (recovering slowly, but recovering; again, more later). I spent about three hours trying to focus on an interview questions yesterday for the Shimmer story and almost gave up. But then I thought: the first interviews I ever read were with 80s musicians coked out of their skulls; how unintelligible could I possibly be? Mineshaft's in Durham! How come nobody told me? Due to a clerical error on my part, my Writers of the Future entry count is up by two this quarter instead of one. The entry went MIA when I switched tracking methods a few years back, and I was all "this is my sixth or seventh" entry and I went ahead and marked it as a sixth. So my new tally.... Pending: 1 Nonplacers: 7 Honorable Quarterfinalists: 8 Semifinalists: 2 Finalists: 0 Superfinalists: 0 What's a superfinalist? How the hell should I know, with crappy numbers like these? In the interesting-to-nobody-else-but-me department, this does mean I've entered an average of twice per year for nine years. That's once a year at first, eventually upping to quarterly as my eligible days start to number. I have some hopes for 2008, the year my writing/submitting life turns ten (November) and my submission count will likely hit 500. Not a lot of hopes. But some. Don't ask me how long it took to write this. Gonna go lie down now. * Corrected from 147. Two lines in my tracking file got combined. I know nobody cares but me, but if it's worth tracking, it's worth tracking correctly. Filed Under: Brain Injury, Happy Fun Log, Journal, Prose and Poetry January 2, 2008OUTGOING at Fictionwise, Kindle, and AnthologyBuilder My sf/fantasy novelette "Outgoing" (Preview)--which originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2007--is suddenly available all over the place: Nebula Awards Website - (SFWA Members Only) "Outgoing" has been recommended for a Nebula Award! SFWA people can find the full text at the NAR site (or email me) through the end of the month. I believe it has until January 31 to gather enough recommendations from active members to make the preliminary ballot for next year. Fictionwise - Multiple  ebook formats for a variety of electronic readers (PDF, Palm, Sony eBook, etc.) for 99 cents.Amazon Kindle - DRMed sadly, but availabe on the Kindle "Whispernet" for 99 cents. (Please feel free to rate/review it if you read it in Asimov's.) AnthologyBuilder - Custom-assembled, print-on-demand anthologies starting at $14.95. Fill the book up with a variety of available texts, up to 350 pages total. ("Outgoing" takes up 54 pages). Yes, I intend to be a bit aggressive about making sure my previously published material is available. And I'm pretty excited about the AnthologyBuilder project, enough so that I supplied a few of the initial cover designs. Note to interested parties: wonderful-but-closed bookseller Clarkesworld Books has reopened its online store through January 12, but it looks like they've sold out of the Feb 2007 Asimov's (I might have purchased the last happy few). If anybody steps up to more-permanantly fill that CB void, I'd love to hear about it. Filed Under: Journal, News, Prose and Poetry January 1, 2008Not Brain Damage Yet(From the literature:) Following this type of head injury, headaches, nausea, inability to concentrate/focus, etc. may linger for a few days, weeks, or longer... Most of it's dealable, but it's been a week+ and the last one is killing me. A big part of writing, especially storytelling, is keeping multiple trains of thought going at once, both on a sentence level and and on a greater story-construction level. It's at the point where by the end of a paragraph I've lost everything I set out to do with the first word. Last journal entry took me over an hour. Had to give up on multiple stories that were so close to being done for a few Dec 31 deadlines, self-imposed and otherwise. Sending an older story to Writers of the Future, even a strong one, always feels like a defeat to me. Unproductive is the hardest feeling to deal with. ...but the brain damage is rarely permanent. The FUCK did you just say? I currently have brain damage but it's probably only temporary? And this is how you break it to a guy who constantly feels he's missing something: as an aside, like it's already been established, like we've been talking about brain damage all along, so he has to re-read all this passive-aggressive literature just to know he's not also suffering from memory loss? If only I'da known I had temporary brain damage a week ago. I've seen Law & Order. I could've gotten away with so much stuff over the holidays. I hear bank robbing does wonders for headaches and nausea. Filed Under: Brain Injury, Journal, Vanity Smurf December 27, 2007Almost Made ItSo black ice is real. I lived most of my life on northern Ohio roads. When it comes to ice and similar hazards, I'm an annoyingly cautious driver. Sure, I've pulled myself out of fishtails, and I've pushed myself out of snowy ditches. But black ice? Where the first sign of anything slippery is a complete loss of traction? I've only hit black ice exactly once now: it was Sunday night, coming up 77 from Carrboro, North Carolina to Akron, Ohio, in the last half hour of a nine-hour solo drive.  But once is enough, eh? The driver who stopped and called an ambulance for me said I rolled twice, but I blacked out too soon to corroborate that. Walked away with nothing more than bruises and a mild head injury, if any head injury can be mild. Head's still swollen. Still can't focus for long periods, or stay awake for the better part of the day. But that'll get better. The Honda CR-V's finished after taking the worst of it (2000-2007 with just under 160K miles on it; airbag never deflated, but it saved my life regardless). Got sick of picking broken glass out of my beard, so that's gone, too. My glasses were torn off me in the crash, but better torn outward than inward, I guess. So the year ends the same way it begins, with an ambulance ride to the emergency room. Wheeee! I'm thinking 2008 must have something pretty wild in store, if 2007 is that adamant about keeping us from seeing it. But we're alive. We're happy. We're blessed. Drive safely, all! Filed Under: Brain Injury, Journal, Pretty Pictures, Vanity Smurf December 23, 20072007 Submission Log: Weeks 49-51Acceptance 71 (46th by slush) "Spoils of Springfield" to Shimmer, 71 days (coincidence?). My 4th submission there. Submissions 463-468 Sent stories to.... Ploughshares (my 4th submission there) GUD (1st, reprint) Pseudopod (1st, reprint) Ellery Queen (2nd) Plus a comic to LCRW Rejections 329-333 Atlantic Monthly (48 days on some poems) Murky Depths (83 days on a comic script) GUD (3 days on a story reprint) Of interest: Got an invite to do another comic script for an anthology, based on previous work. More about it later, I hope. Way too much stuff to finish by the end of the year. Filed Under: Happy Fun Log, Journal December 21, 2007SALE - "Spoils of Springfield" to ShimmerIt's a Christmas miracle! Very happy about this. Shimmer's one of my favorite SF publications these days, if this post (LJ mirror) didn't already make that clear (and, incidentally, they're running their own subscription drive through January 10).  No, Loki, we don't have to do something every time someone holds a subscription drive. 
That's right. Back to bed. "Spoils" is another pre-Clarion humor piece. With zombies. Or class warfare. Or my attempt to write a manga fight sequence as prose. Something. More about it later; I wanna save some stuff for the "reader bonus content" Shimmer runs for each issue. Filed Under: Cats, Happy Fun Log, Journal, News, Pretty Pictures, Prose and Poetry December 20, 2007Murky Depths #2 Now Available My story-poem "Church of Saturn" is in the current issue of Murky Depths, a quarterly stories-comics-poetry anthology from across the pond. "Church of Saturn" is a science fiction update of probably the oldest missionary joke in the world, told in the twelve-line structure of "Stock Car Relativity" from Inconsequential Art #1. The issue (MD #2) also includes work by writer-editors Jason Sizemore (of Apex) and Katherine Patterson (of AlienSkin), among other recognizable names. MD's ("Graphically Dark Speculative Fiction") art and text combo makes for a beautiful, glossy book (this in spite of the occassional 4+ fonts per page, heh) packed with stories. And shipping from Great Britain to North Carolina is surprisingly fast. Wish all British publications were this easy to order. Filed Under: Journal, News, Prose and Poetry December 6, 2007I Am Such a Mendicant
My favorite artist-scripter team ever: Aragones and Evanier.My favorite comic book of all time: Groo. My first publication in a Dark Horse comic book: Groo: Hell on Earth #1 (letters page). Shut up. It counts. Must've written a dozen letters for the old Groo-Grams back when I was a kid and Epic/Marvel published the series for so long but not long enough. Never got around to mailing a'one of those letters. Some twenty years later, it appears I've gotten slightly less lazy. And by less lazy I mean email was invented. Don't look at me like that. It counts. My journal, my rules. EDIT: And, by gumbo, lest you doubt me... let's not forget George R R Martin's first publication (Fantastic Four #20). Filed Under: Comic Stripping, Journal, Peers & Peerless December 4, 20072007 Submission Log: Weeks 47-48Submissions 459-462 Sent stories to.... Aeon (my 1st submission there) Fantasy Magazine (2nd) Tin House (7th) Weird Tales (7th) Rejections 321-328 All-Story (Zoetrope) (60 days) Orange County/Durham Emerging Artists Grant (116 days) Paizo (RPG Superstar) Realms of Fantasy (27 days, YFOP from Doug) Strange Horizons (23 days) Sundance Film Festival (127 days) Tin House (48 days) Weird Tales (63 days) Of interest: More than half of the above rejections arrived on the same day. Wheeeee! Lessee... some queries answered (all either "no" or "still pending"), many more queries ignored, and a submission package to Image Comics almost complete... Comments on the Strange Horizons story, first time in a while, and on the story I would have least expected it (of my last five or so subs there). Also comments on the YFOP, and on the Weird Tales rejection The likely reasons my Paizo submission (a Wondrous item using SRD 3.5) failed to make the top 32 (of 850+ submissions) are because either: (a) It was auto-disqualified because the judges viewed it as a Weapon rather than as a Wondrous item, There could be precedent for such items (it was a Wondrous item that looked--but didn't behave--like a Weapon) to be categorized as a Weapon. Or if it dodged that auto-declassifcation-bullet: (b) It was more character-oriented than quest-oriented (most of the winning items are quite good, and most are much more directly helpful in typical adventure scenarios rather than in the less-hack-and-slashy games I liked to play). Should have anticipated that, especially since the move away from that sort of thing in 3rd Edition (which didn't discount the characters-stuff, but definitely de-emphasized it) was a big reason I didn't bother to "upgrade." The other reason was because I was too old to be able to pull all-nighters anymore. But it was fun working on this type of thing again, enough so that I'm putting some of my old RPG stuff (from ye old Long Knights website) back online with the site redesign, and I'm thinking about querying the Kobold Quarterly early next year with something... Filed Under: Journal November 29, 2007SF Small Press Arrival Day
Guess what day it is!
 It's SF Small Press Arrival Day! * 
(*Not a real day.) How do you feel about that? 
Okay. Loki gets Shimmer, because he called it and there are rules, people! 
Thor takes LCRW because she is mighty and demands it to be so! 
And I'll start with Apex! 
But wait! Just what the hell is going on here? 
Two copies of Apex #11? 
D'oh! 
I only have two cats, people! 
Excess copies should be going to new subscribers, not me! Because they only need seven more subscribers this month and they can raise their payrates! Hmm. Don't know what made me think of that just now. Anyway, what am I going to do with two copies (FWIW I did offer to send one back)? 
If only I could give one away! Oh, wait a minute! 
I can! Sweet nectar of being able to do things, I drink thee! Take a bow, Thor! 
Or a bath. Baths are cool, too. Whatever. To get my extra copy of Apex # 11 (which, incidentally, goes up to... naah, too obvious), go read about their Subscription Drive and come back here and be the first to post a comment on LiveJournal. Thassit. No purchase/subscription necessary or test to make sure you've read it or anything. This is the honor system, people, and I'm not going to send my extra copy to a cheater, except on accident. Like how they sent it to me. No animals were hurt during the making of this journal entry. 
Loki and Thor dismiss all rumors about sharing a trailer on the set. They're just good friends and would appreciate it if you respected their privacy. Thanks! Filed Under: Cats, Journal, Peers & Peerless, Pretty Pictures November 26, 2007Telltale Audio - November 2007 This month in Telltale audiobooks:Bulfinch's Mythology, podcasted free, continues. (Browse all free Telltale audio and/or subscribe to the podcast.) And The Boarding House by James Joyce, one of the funner stories from Dubliners--and, if I do say so myself, probably my best performance from the collection so far. (Browse all Joyce at Telltale.) Filed Under: Audio Projects, Journal, News November 23, 20072007 Submission Log: Weeks 45-46Practically nothing to report. Submissions 456-458 Poetry submissions to Space and Time and the M&SF Haiku contest. An RPG resoure (magical item) to a Paizo promotional contest. First submissions, all. Rejection 320 Strange Horizons (23 days on a poem) Pulled/No Reply 59 Grave Tales, after about a year. Of Interest I have some issues with the copyright policies of the Paizo thing, but I'm looking at this as my last try-and-see in the RPG-writing department, which for a while was a dream of mine. A lot of strikes against me here: I haven't been an active gamer since D&D 2nd edition, and my entry to this first round may not qualify as a "wondrous item" since it has the form (but not function) of an item in another category. I'll talk more about this if I don't qualify (and talk a lot more about it if I do). Got a qualification letter from the Amazon Breakthough Novel Award (ABNA) thing, but that doesn't mean they've made a judgment whether or not my wordcount meets their definition for novel: "if it becomes clear in the future that your entry violates our eligibility requirements..." So a good chance I won't know for sure until mid-January when the semifinalists are announced, and even then I might not know whether a failure to move on is because of quality or ineligibility. The contest is a longshot, especially for a story like this one, but it's not like I've got an endless number of places to send it next. Happy to let it sit, though I can't say that for every submission out there. Things are happening "behind the scenes." Should be back online at full speed with a site revamp, that promised Clarion podcast, and more fun by the end of the year. Got just over a month to make 2007 a net-positive experience. Filed Under: ABNA, Happy Fun Log, Journal November 14, 2007Scott Pilgrim is in my PantsAh, so this is why Harry Potter fans did the whole midnight-waiting-in-line thing. Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim, volume 4 was in the store this morning and is now is in my pants:  (Great thing about these jeans is if someone asks me about SC on my walk home, I not only know they're cool, but also that they've been checking out my ass. One of those means they've got taste.) Andrew and Vanessa, owners of Chapel Hill Comics had placed bets on whether it'd be me or one other customer first in the store today to pick said comic up. Strangely I'm bothered neither by this nor for the fact that I was second. Thanks for having, err, faith in me anyway, Andrew. I'll try to read it over lunch. But no spoilers, please. Loki's still on vol 2:  Filed Under: Carrboro Area, Cats, Journal, Peers & Peerless, Pretty Pictures November 11, 20072007 Submission Log Weeks 43-44Submissions 449-455 Sent stories to... Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (my 3rd sub there) Strange Horizons (my 15th sub there) The Rambler (1st) Interzone (3rd) Realms of Fantasy (10th) and sent a short film to the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX (my 1st), and a short play to the Actor's Theater of Louisville (my 6th). Rejections 314-319 A Public Space (14 days, my 2nd rejection there ) Light (8 days; multiple rejections) Writers of the Future (honorable mention; 31 days; my 16th). Of interest: Fastest rejection ever (honorable mention, formerly known as quarterfinalist) from Writers of the Future, at 31 days. The stink of my stink must have become recognizable from the paper itself. I'll try and use plastic gloves next time. Current tally: 6 washes, 8 honorable quarterfinalists, 2 semifinalists. The Light rejection was an oddly-cut scrap of pink paper with the typed words "Not Quite." I'd thought this was my first sub there, but this looks familiar. Maybe I subbed there in college and lost the record of it. But what are the chances they haven't changed their M.O. in eight years? Should figure out this week whether my submission to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest was too short (a big old probably, but they didn't specify a minimum wordcount). I even padded it with fun-but-unnecessary tangents by a good 500 words prior to submission, so I'll have to cut those out again before I determine which of the few novelette markets might be interested in it. My plays have been getting suckier and suckier, with the latest one unable to hold its own against the worst SNL skit. Comes from only writing one or two a year, I suppose. Maybe it's time to cut that cord. Filed Under: Happy Fun Log, Journal October 29, 20072007 Submission Log: Weeks 41-42Submissions 440-448 I've got new poetry, and plenty of old verse collecting dust, so I made a concerted effort to get as much of it (back) out there as possible with poem submission to... The Atlantic Monthly (my 5th-7th subs there) Strange Horizons (14th) A Public Space (2nd) Light (1st-4th) Rejections 310-313 MAD Magazine (77 days, snail mail) Strange Horizons (23 days) Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (3 months on the nose) Realms of Fantasy (45 days from DC, YFOP) Acceptance 70 (total)/45 (via slush) "Church of Saturn" (poem) to Murky Depths. Of Interest I seem to have a record number of unsold stories and other items that I still feel are publishable. It used to be I'd retire a submission after so many rejections not because the editors didn't like them, but because time and growth let me know that the stories no longer represented my best work (or even decent work). Now I seem to be amassing an unpublished library of work that's a cut above the stuff I've sold. For a while it's been at the point where the effort it's taking to keep so many submissions alive and in the slush (including finding and reading new markets, etc) has been overwhelming--and interfering more and more with the writing time. Just when I think I've got a handle on this time management thing... Filed Under: Happy Fun Log, Journal October 26, 2007Telltale Audio - October 2007This month in Telltale audiobooks:Bulfinch's Mythology, podcasted free, beginning with The Age of Fable, Chapter One. Now, I know a narrator isn't supposed to have favorites, but this project is one of the reasons I started Telltale in the first place. (Browse all free Telltale audio and/or subscribe to the podcast.) And When the World Was Young, a classic horror tale by Jack London, narrated by William Coon. (Browse all horror at Telltale.) Filed Under: Audio Projects, Journal, News |
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Alex Wilson writes fiction and comics in Carrboro, NC. His work has appeared/will appear in Asimov's Science Fiction, The Rambler, Weird Tales, The Florida Review, Shimmer, ChiZine, FutureQuake, Pif, and Dragon. Locus Magazine has called him a "promising new writer," and Publishers Weekly also has nice things to say. Alex runs the audiobook project/podcast Telltale Weekly and the writer wiki Guidevines. He publishes the minicomic/zine Inconsequential Art. He is a 2006 Clarion graduate. Blog Archives 2008 - Clever Label TBA 2007 - BadYearNoCookie 2006 - Clarion! 1st Pro Sale! 2005 - Peers and Peerless 2004 - Telltale Launch 2003 - Dog bites, acting out 2002 - In my mind, I'm going... 2001 - Marriage, Macs, 1st Cons 2000 - Setback, Milestones 1999 - Engaged, Graduated 1998 - Creative Independence   Latest Audiobooks An Encounter with an Interviewer Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable 03: Apollo and Daphne, Etc Dubliners: The Boarding House Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable 02: Prometheus and Pandora Latest Guidevines Clarion 2006 Roster Submission Log (as of October 27, 2007)
Blog Topics Clarion Submission Log Prose and Poetry Comic Stripping Audio Projects Carrboro NC Area Kittens/Cats Pretty Pictures Acting Peers & Peerless World of Importance Vanity Smurf Peer & Peerless Journals Codex Megablog! Clarion 2006 OC Local Blogroll Triangle Blog-roll Tar Heel Tavern John Joseph Adams John Allore Adam Baker Jamie Bishop Mario Boon Tobias S. Buckell Michael A. Burstein Ron Collins Warren Ellis Mark Evanier Neil Gaiman Ted Hobgood Nalo Hopkinson Raina Leon Raechel Henderson Moon Michael Jasper Samantha Ling Jason Lundberg Scott McCloud Maureen McHugh Jenn Reese Scott Reilly John Rogers Brian K Vaughan Wil Wheaton
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