Taking stock

After completing "Double Exposure" on Monday and sending it off, I spent the rest of the week resubbing other stories. I have a dozen in various places, which is relatively high - when I was just starting out there were times I had as many as many as 18 at one time - but I slowed down my pace a bit and tried to write a little better. I think I can be considered "broken in" at this point.

Just for grins, these are the slushpiles: F&SF, Daily Science Fiction, The New Yorker, CICADA, Bull Spec, Albedo One, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Shimmer, 3-Lobed Burning Eye, White Cat Publishing, Flash Fiction Online, Stupefying Stories.

Zombie Writing

I received a proof copy in my email of "Zombie Writing!", a non-fiction original anthology being put out Armand Rosamilia at Rymfire Books, a horror and heavy metal publishing outfit.

It has 44 authors (including me) in 160 pages. It will published on Amazon Kindle and Createspace. My contribution is an essay based on my short story "Good News for the Dead", entitled "The Z Word". Cover art will be by Nic Burgess.

I looked over my entry - no problems - and returned it to Armand.

A milestone

I just reached a milestone in my fiction career - I finished my 100th story. I didn't realize that milestone was coming up until I entered it in my log book. That's 99 stories since Sept. 2002 - I wrote one story in the 1980s. I've had 60 published.

This most recent is a flash, 991 words, called "Double Exposure". It starts with a man who's just bought a gun and is getting ready to commit suicide to avoid going to prison, when he looks across the parking lot and sees a Kodak Fotomat booth...

In other developments (yes, pun intended), author Jennifer Wylie has honored me with an interview on her blog, "Welcome to My Mind". You can read it here.

World S-F Blog publications for 2011

The World S-F Blog has made a note of the stories it published in 2011, 18 in all. Six of them were original, including my story "Irredenta" which was published May 15. To check out the listing, go thisaway:

"Journalism & Prophecy"

While I was at the Reston Used Book Store (RUBS) in Virginia a week ago, dropping off copies of my collections, I found a first edition of "H.G. Wells - Journalism & Prophecy 1893-1946" an anthology compiled by W. Warren Wagar.

I'd never seen the book before. I took it with me on Amtrak to read on the two-day trip back to Texas.

It didn't last that long. I started reading it Saturday afternoon and finished it Sunday afternoon, in just under 24 hours. That's the closest I've come to reading a book in one sitting since I went straight through "Old Man's War" in 2006.

I didn't fully appreciate what a good journalist Wells was. If anything, he may have been a better journalist than a fiction writer.

Wagar organized Wells' articles in three major sections: Forecasts and Impressions, Portraits, and Visions.

It's fascinating to read how some predictions made by Wells were so accurate, and others were proven wrong by time. For example, relating to World War II, he was totally on target in predicting Italy's role in the war and its relation to Germany. On the other hand, he missed Hitler and Mussolini's demise completely - he wanted them put on trial for war crimes.

His observations on contemporary events are extremely interesting. Some of his economic statements, especially during the Great Depression, remain as pertinent today as ever.

Wells obviously had a fine mind. It's sad that he got so depressed at the end of his life, and he supposed we would blow ourselves all up with atomic bombs (which he predicted and named). But he was old and sick, and we probably shouldn't take the last way we saw him as representative of a mind which was brilliant, creative, and insightful for so many years.

One last note: The 1964 book is surprisingly fragile, the dust cover and pages are trying to crumble on me. It is a Houghton Mifflin book, approximately 450 pages long.

Zombie Writing Release Coming Soon

I'm reprinting this from the web site of horror writer Armand Rosamilia:

"I was going to wait closer to the official release date (January 20th 2012) but… well, I can’t…

"Zombie Writing! is a non-fiction idea I am putting together, and I wanted it to be special… but I had no idea just how special it was going to be until I started reading through the submissions and editing it…

"The idea was simple: put together the best zombie authors I could find, have them submit varied pieces about their own writing, advice about writing zombie fiction, and their own take on the genre…

"I don’t have everyone involved finished submitting, but so far the book will include:

"Neil Kloster, Mark Clodi, Richard Lee Beyers, Joe McKinney, Jason S. Hornsby, Rie Sheridan Rose, Christian Jensen, Mainak Dhar, JD Gillam, Mark Justice, Michael D. Griffiths, Dane Hatchell, T.S. Charles, David Moody, Todd Brown, Craig DiLouie, Lee Pletzers, Andy Taylor, Kevin Coryell, Brent Abell, Sharon M. White, Kelly M. Hudson, Chantal Boudreau, Carole Gill, Marissa Farrar, Tim Waggoner, W.D. Gagliani, David Lee Summers, Lou Antonelli, Shawn M. Riddle, Keith Gouveia, and so many more…

"Stay tuned for further details, and a killer cover from Nic Burgess as well!"

I emailed Armand my biography yesterday evening. My whole participation is based on "Good News for the Dead", which is the only zombie story I have ever written. I contributed an essay called "The Z Word"

First contract for 2012

Just signed a contract with Wesley Kawato of Nova SF to publish a story this year. I found it in the mail I picked up when I got back today. It will be going out in tomorrow's mail.

Patricia and I returned home today after a holiday trip that began Christmas Eve. We took the train back, a two-day trip that went from Washington D.C. to Dallas via Chicago.