Fool

Today's story was Fool by John Morressy from the February issue of F&SF and it totally kicked ass. Great narrative voice, interesting story, wicked ending.

In fact, wicked is a good description of this story. It reminded me a bit of Hopfrog by Poe, but the deformed narrator of Fool is more calculating than crazy. The structure was a little odd, beginning with the fool entering a crowded banquet hall to much applause and then launching into the story, much of which was "backstory" but it was interesting and different enough to overcome the loss of momentum from such flashbacks.

Rules were made to be broken, but you have to do it with so much style that the reader forgets the rules.

Catching Up

Okay, I want to follow up on the old posts and document how some of those projects and readings have gone.

First off, my story Cold Snap did sell, but then Pitch-Black Books folded. Luckily the project was picked up by Carnifex Press. The artwork is done. Major revisions are done and I am just praying that Armand at Carnifex will still publish the story. He was extremely critical and unsympathetic to the character.

The revision process was very illuminating. Most of the edits were very good and I realized that I had started the story in the wrong place, since so much of it was a flashback. So I restructured the whole thing. It still feels a bit choppy, like a middle draft again, but at some point you just have to shrug and send it. A deadline is a deadline.

I have not returned to On the Black Wings of Night yet. The redline is still sitting there. I know I want to expand it to 80k words and at least submit it to Leisure books. That is my October project. Of course, August is almost over and The Zombie King story is not edited....

Demons of the Neverwoods, my long dreamt of fantasy novel is languishing at 30k. I plan to resume work on it in the new year with the goal of 100k by my birthday in March.

Here is the writing plan for the foreseeable future:
August - finish The Zombie King and Mr. Cook
September - edit my star-crossed horror novel On the Black Wings of Night
October - continue editing and prepare for Nanowrimo. My anniversary is on Halloween =)
November - National Novel Writing Month. This will be my second year. I have no idea what the new novel will be but, I am looking forward to it.
December - pretty much do what I want, including finishing the Hobbit game on the PS2, lots of WoW and good holiday cheer.
2008 - the year of the Neverwoods.

Escape Pod 121

Today's reading (listening) was an Escape Pod story, The Snow Woman's Daughter by Eugie Foster. It was a good story, but nothing really exciting. The tone and diction reminded me of Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn, one of my recent favorites. The story was beautifully written and the narration was pitch-perfect, but the story did not really offer any surprises.

Steve announced the new Escape Artists podcast, the fantasy themed Podcastle. Great title. I can't wait for this one.

Seventh Son

This is my one-person-who-nobody-reads online standing ovation for Father Thomas, a character in JC Hutchins awesome podiobook Seventh Son.

Today's episode was fan-freaking-tastic. I won't post a spoiler here, but if you're a Seventh Son listener, you know what I am talking about. Great writing takes something that is inevitable and makes the reader feel it anyway. Today was one of those days.

So, cheers to an awesome heroic character.

That Kilroy guy though. I've known for a while that he is up to no good. The end is near, so I guess we will see what his deal is soon enough.

ciao

Reading Challenge

Okay, so no posts in a while, but I have been writing and reading... a lot.

I have this challenge for myself, to read or listen to a short story every day. I try to do this even if I am also enjoying a novel, but if 45 minutes or a chapter is all I can do, I count that as a victory.

Today I read the story Red Card by SL Gilbow from the February F&SF. Just a little behind... It was an interesting read, though I wish there was just a bit more background about why the Red Card program was started and what the purpose was, really. But the story was well written with little details that forshadowed later details. Love that stuff.

Yesterday's story was The Sundial Brigade on Escape Pod (www.escapepod.org). That was an excellent story with a very anti-authoritarian theme. Not a happy story, but an interesting one nonetheless. I seem to like things with Italian settings and language, maybe I should learn Italian. Every week, Escape Pod provides an audio version of a short story and I almost always enjoy them, especially when they are challenging to the status quo, though I fear sometimes that Steve will drive away listeners. It keeps me coming back, though.

Anyway, I want to keep this blog up to date now and make an entry for the stories I read. My current subscriptions are F&SF, Realms of Fantasy and Baen's Universe.

ciao

Legends

So far February is a big zippo for word count. Hoping to write a bit this weekend.

I am finally reading I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. I loved the movies made from this story. I just started it and it is great.

Back to reading....

Good News and Bad News

Well, as they say, there's good news and there's bad news.

The good news is that I have written 20,001 words of my fantasy novel Demons of the Neverwoods. Not quite my 1k per day goal, but I am satisfied for now. Also, I've written at least a chapter for each of the main characters. It was like starting the book four times in a way. The goal is to create a fantasy thriller which introduces some seemingly untrelated characters and brings them together in a storm of conflict and danger.

And the bad news. Pich-Black Books has folded. They were to publish my first pro sale, the super hero story Cold Snap, in their anthology Lords of Justice. But alas, it is not to be. Now to figure out what to do with a kick ass super hero story that's 17k words long.... They wanted novelettes for the anthology. No one else really does.

Thems the breaks. =(

Peace.

The Red Pen

I have completed redlining of On the Black Wings of Night, my Nanowrimo novel. This is the stage where I take a printed version and read it from start to finish with a red pen in hand. Anything that looks funny or doesn't make sense gets a big red line through it and usually sarcastic notes in the margins.

The next step is going back to the novel and fixing the problems.

Cold Snap... Sold!

W00T!

Last night I got an email from Dan Blackston at Pitch-Black Books. My story "Cold Snap" was accepted for the Lords of Justice anthology. Only four stories made the cut. I really felt strongly about this one. Writing it changed me for the better and I learned alot while I worked on it. I am very proud of this story whether it made it to publication or not. Obviously, this is a thrill, though. Now I have a credit i can put in my cover letters.

Now I can't wait to download my own copy and start hyping the hell out of this book.

Victory!

So, on November 29 I finished my 50,000 word NaNoWriMo novel.

What the heck is NaNoWriMo you ask? Well it is National Novel Writing Month. Every year thousands of people from all over the world spend the month of November writing their own 50,000 word novel for the heck of it. It is a month of pure literary abandon where we throw our internal editors out for a month and just push the word count.

I am pursuing writing as a career, but I am still testing the waters, so to speak. This month I learned alot about how much free time I actually have and how much I can get done in one month. The biggest thing was that it really was fun and I know this is something I can do on my own and have success.

To find out more about National Novel Writing Month and how we help build libraries for poor children in southeast Asia, click the link on the right or just go to www.nanowrimo.org.

Cheers,
Bryan