Been away for a while

I left on Wednesday, August 24, to the East Coast and a respite visit with my mother while my sister took a few vacation days. I got back to Texas Monday, August 29, and had to hit the ground running at work because of the time I was away from the office. My time is also being eaten up as my wife and I work on the closing for a new home in the city where I work, which would end the 46-mile (one way) commute I have been making since January of last year.

Since my last post here, I sold two stories. I received word the day I arrived in Virginia that Silver Pen will publish my tail-biting time travel story "Time Like a Rope", and The Gallery of Curiosities podcast on Wednesday bought "If You Were a Dinah Shore, My Love".

Meanwhile The Siren's Call ezine has published "And He Threw His Hands Up in the Sky".

Speaking of "If You Were a Dinah Shore, My Love", it may seem a little strange, but you'd be surprised how often stories start with the title first.

Snappy or catchy titles have a way of prodding a good writer's creativity.

Back in 2003, when I was just starting out, I tried coming up with phrases that I could hang a story on. It often was as simple as flipping randomly through a dictionary.

One phrase that stuck to the wall was "Cast Iron Dybbuk" and I successfully wrote a story to go with the title. I sold it to Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine and it was published in the Summer of 2005.

In 2004, the first time I ever met Joe Lansdale, he told me he does the same thing, and in fact one of his bigger successes in short stories came when he wrote a story to match the title "Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back".

I bring this up to say that while many people have held forth about Rachel Swirsky's story "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love" during the past few years, all that talk led me to come up with the abysmal pun "If You Were a Dinah Shore, My Love" - but then I was able to write a story to match it, and you know what - It turned out pretty good.

So as the saying goes, "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good."

Dearth of markets

Over the past few years, the number of markets for short science fiction has dwindled. Every time I get a rejection and look to send the story out again, I see a few more markets either going out of business or closed to submissions.

I suppose the subject is on my mind because of the news that the next issue of the quality semi-prozine Electric Velocipede will be its last. I've tried to sell them a story for years, without luck; I only met Publisher John Klima a few months ago at WorldCon. He's published it since 2001; it won a Hugo award in 2009.

Since the Recession kicked in, I've seen a steady stream of magazines fold because either they ran out of money, or the people involved ran out of time and money. These publications, especially the smaller ones, are a labor of love for dedicated fans, and it must be gut-wrenching to fold a magazine because of job constraints.

Since I don't write hard s-f, my pool of markets is smaller than it might be for some others, and when you take into consideration that I can write very fast, I end up dropping some very good stories into very small markets. Over the long run, through, I feel spreading my stories far and wide has helped my reputation as a writer.

And even if a story is originally published in a small venue, it may still have a good second life in an collection or anthology. This is a little trick I stole from Joe Lansdale.

George, Joe and Me

I was checking Facebook this morning when I noticed a post from Joe Lansdale saying that a book by one of his favorite authors, George V. Higgins, has been made into a movie. The movie is called "Killing Them Softly" and it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May. It will be released in the U.S. in October.

I didn't know that Joe was a George V. Higgins fan, and I picked up the phone and told Joe that - it's a small world - George V. Higgins and I are from the same town, Rockand, Mass. Higgins graduated from Rockland High School in 1957, the year I was born. I graduated in 1975.

George Higgins' father, John T. Higgins, was high school principal when he was a student, and something about having his dad in the principal's office during his time in school gave George a real attitude about Rockland. Maybe he was picked on; maybe he resented the time his father accidentally stepped off the stage in the school auditorium, and he fell to the floor, breaking his leg - and the little bastards laughed at him.

In any case, after he graduated, Higgins never would admit he was from Rockland, and often claimed Brockton as his birthplace - which was true, that is where the hospital was.

John T. Higgins left the Rockland schools and was treasurer of the Massachusetts Teachers Association when he died suddenly in 1966; he was 60. George was in law school at the time.

I always thought it was fascinating that the principal who succeeded John. T. Higgins at Rockland High School was named Joe Cogan, and in 1974 - when I was a junior in high school - Higgins' third novel (following "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" in 1970 and "The Digger's Game" in 1973) was named "Cogan's Trade". That's the first time it occurred to me that novelists even scores by naming villains after nemeses.

By the time I was in high school, John T. Higgins was dead, Joe Cogan had left as principal in 1969, and George was keeping as great a distance as he could. But Mrs. Higgins - John T.'s wife and George V.'s mother - lived in Rockland until she died in 2007, age 98 (she outlived her husband by 41 years, and her son by eight - George died in 1999.)

I wouldn't say Doris Higgins was reclusive, but she didn't seem to socialize much. From what I heard, there was lingering resentment in the Higgins family over the way her husband had been treated. Reading between the lines, I assumed John T. Higgins had been a no-nonsense educator, and that would have put him in conflict with the other strain in public education, which is to use school jobs as patronage. In Massachusetts, where the Irish Democrat glad-handing policy of handing out jobs to insure political loyalty was very strong then - and probably still is today - I'm sure that caused problems.

Doris Higgins was a member of a historical committee when I was in high school (the city celebrated the centennial of its incorporation in 1974) and I served as a student rep. Higgins was 65 at the time, grey-haired, stern and like I said, no-nonsense. We met a couple of times at her home. What I remember the most was that she has two large Dobermans and was very concerned to keep them away from the guests. That was back when Dobermans had a much worse reputation than they do now, and I think she thought some people would be scared of them.

Anyone who knows me well knows I've always been a big dog lover, and I wanted to play with the pooches, and she wouldn't let me!

I regaled Joe with all this trivia this morning. It was a good excuse to visit. He and Karen are heading overseas for a tour in Italy and Germany starting on Tuesday (I've never traveled overseas and have never owned a passport). Keith and Kasey will be joining them later. It's nice to see Joe is doing well, he's certainly earned it.

Like I said, it's a small world.