Life intrudes

My fiction writing for 2013 hit an enormous bump almost two months ago when the real world intruded, in the form of a server crash where I work. Unfortunately, you can't just borrow or copy another server when the business is a local newspaper. All the files are local.

We limped along for ten business days as the server was repaired and restored. We didn't have any internal connectivity and had to carry files between departments on thumb drives. I essentially spent all my waking hours at the office; not only was it a personal strain, it was a strain on my marriage, and it started to look like I would be faced with having to make an abrupt changes in jobs to preserve marital harmony.

The problem eventually was solved, but the time lost in my personal life was enormous and has created a wave that is just subsiding after two months. It took me weeks to get caught up on the most basic of chores and tasks at home, for example.

There were also some other strange things along the way. Despite the crisis, we let an employee take a previously scheduled week-long vacation. This was a case where she joined her spouse on his vacation. I felt it would be unfair to keep her on the job when her husband was off someplace.

But she came back, worked one day, and quit without giving notice.

I've also been pinned down the past two weekends. I had family members as guests the last weekend in April, and I kept my commitment to give a pair of classes at the DFW writers conference last weekend. Today is the first Saturday I had to myself since April 20, and honestly, that day I was just getting caught up with the chores an errands that had accumulated because of the server crash crisis. I had to haul an old sofa to the dump because it was bulky trash day, and I spent the rest of the day burning an enormous brush pile in the back yard, much of which was the result of the Christmas Day snowstorm.

During the past month I did the edits for my next collection, "The Clock Struck None", which Ian Strock at Fantastic Books is publishing, and I spent most of last week editing "The Witch of Waxahachie" because I had a chance to make a formal pitch to Lou Anders at the conference.

In case it was ready to be submitted, I wanted it to be ready, but after visiting with Lou I know it isn't. But it was a very useful meeting, and he specifically suggested I attend his class called ScripTips, using character-based screen writing techniques to enhance the characaters, plot and themes in novels.

I know now what has be edited and rearranged. One thing that struck me - once Lou's class cleared away the cobwebs - is that "The Witch of Waxahachie" is unusual in that the antagonist and the relationship character are the alternate versions of the SAME character - Penny Pennoyer.

I've been struggling with allergies all spring, and a touch of the con crud didn't seem to help. By Friday I was coughing and choking so bad at work bystanders were telling me to go home.

All of this whining is to explain why I haven't written much lately, but things are on the upswing.

Great White Ship

The Elite Eight in the Daily Science Fiction Spring Bracket Madness has started, and in the first round my story "Great White Ship" advanced, so I'm in the Final Four. Hooray.

I haven't posted here in a week. With the DFW Writers Conference coming up, I spent last week editing my book-length version of "The Witch of Waxahachie" because I had a chance to pitch it to an editor.

Saturday morning I got ten minutes to pitch it to Lou Anders, who made a lot of helpful observations and basically set me on the right path. Although I have been writing short stories for ten years now, this was my first time to ever formally pitch a book to an editor.

Anders suggested I needed to attend his Sunday morning class on "Screen Writing for Authors" and he was right; I see I have most of the pieces already for a good book, but it needs a better structure and some reorganization. I know what I have to do now.

Bears repeating

I will be at the DFW Writers Conference next weekend, teaching a class on science fiction on Saturday and short story telling on Sunday. Here's a reap from their web site:

Every want to write a short story? Or wonder if shorts are viable in literature? From Aesop’s fables to the modern fables of O. Henry, as well as modern masters of the literary form such as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut and Joyce Carol Oates, short does not equal simple or forgettable. We have invited short story and science-fiction author Lou Antonelli this year to talk about the short stories. In his class The Short and the Short Of It, Lou will discuss why short stories are popular as literature. He will also explain what it takes to write a tight, memorable short story, and how to hook an editor as well as the reader.

But we can’t leave Lou with just doing short stories. In The Future As We Know It Lou will diving into the world of the unknown. The Italians call it Science Fantasy. The German term translates as Future Fiction. In English-speaking nations we call it Science Fiction. What does Cyberpunk, Space Opera and Hard Science Fiction mean? What is the difference between Steampunk, Alternate History and Secret History? From the visions of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to the images of Rod Serling and George Lucas, Lou will explore about the various facets of these related sub-genres, and what it takes to write in them.

A life-long science fiction reader, Lou Antonelli turned his hand to writing fiction in middle age; his first story was published in 2003 when he was 46. Since then he has had 76 short stories published in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, in venues such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jim Baen’s Universe, Dark Recesses, Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine, Greatest Uncommon Denominator (GUD), and Daily Science Fiction, among many others. He has received eleven honorable mentions in annual anthology The Year’s Best Science Fiction published by St. Martin’s Press for 2010, 2008, 2006, 2005 and 2004. In September 2005 his steampunk short story, “A Rocket for the Republic”, was published in Asimov’s and placed third in the annual Reader’s Poll.  His collections include “Fantastic Texas” published in 2009 and “Texas & Other Planets” published in 2010.  A collection of collaborative short stories co-authored with Oregon-based author Edward Morris, “Music for Four Hands”, was published in 2011.

He is a professional journalist and the managing editor of The Daily Tribune in Mount Pleasant, Texas. A Massachusetts native, he moved to Texas in 1985 and is married to Dallas native Patricia (Randolph) Antonelli. They have two adopted furbaby children, Millie and Sugar Antonelli. You can read more from Lou Antonelli at http://louantonelli.blogspot.com.

The Lost Wizard

Two of the organizations I belong to - American Mensa and the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) - both call their membership periodicals "Bulletin". This past week I got the Mensa Bulletin in the mail, and the cover is by an artist who works mostly in s-f and fantasy, Craig Paton, for the cover story on Nikola Tesla.

This is a great illustration and I think the Mensa Bulletin and Paton hit it out of the ballpark with this one. Congratulations all around!

Standout?

Back starting around April 14, I noticed site visits appearing in the blog stats from someplace I had never seen before. I went and checked and saw that an author who goes by Vox Day added a link on his web site.

Vox Day's real name is Theodore Beale. He ran as the dissident candidate for the Science Fiction Writers of America presidency this year. He's not PC and seems to delight in sticking his thumb in the eye of the PC Nazis that run the outfit. Although he's been very antagonistic, quite frankly, playing nice with these PC types accrues no benefit. Snobs think if you're nice you're stupid, and if you're a nice Christian you're double-plus stupid. Beale seems to have a special animus for the outgoing SFWA presdent John Scalzi, and that has provided a lot of the sideshow.

Of course, Beale has as much chance of winning the SFWA post than president of Zimbabwe (actually, probably more - there's been small reforms in Zimbabwe). I checked out how these God-hating snobs treated dissent last year, and promptly went off and did my own thing. I pay my dues to SFWA so I can claim the professional status, but there is no place at the table in the group if you believe in God or America.

His blog is called Vox Populi, and in a post on April 14, "The Ideology War in Science Fiction", he wrote:

"I've put a list of standout authors on the right sidebar.  Authors like Sarah and Orson Scott Card, genre writers who have been willing, in some manner of speaking, to stand up against the fascists of science fiction and tell them, no, you don't own science fiction, you don't own fantasy, you are interlopers and intellectual parasites, and you have polluted the very literature you claimed to love.  I encourage those fans of the genre who are of the right themselves to support those writers who don't insult you, who don't despise you, who don't hate you for your religious faith or your political beliefs."

I'm honored that he includes me in his list of Standout Authors, along with Card, Hoyt, Larry Correia, Tom Kratman, John C. Wright, Jerry Pournelle, Michael Flynn, Kerry Nietz, and Mike Williamson.

Taking stock

A typical fiction slush pile

Right now, I have ten stories sitting in various piles, and two stories waiting to be published. My last short story was finished a month ago; since then I have been working on a rewrite of the book based on my short story "The Witch of Waxahachie".

I'm looking forward to teaching a couple of classes at the DFW Writers Conference May 4-5.

"Riders of the Red Shift"

Just got word that Bruce Bethke and Stupefyng Stories has accepted my short story "Riders of the Red Shift". Ironic, in light of the previous post - because this is the story I wrote for the anthology that Rick Klaw rejected.

Stupefying Stories published my flash "The Relic" in December, but "Riders" is a regular short story, just under 4,000 words. Depending on when it is published, it will be be my fifth or sixth story this year, and my 80th or 81st overall.