Away We Go

I dropped the contract for Asimov's in the mail Saturday. Actually, they ask you to sign two contracts; they'll send you one back later. I used two special pens for the contracts. One was a Cedar Hill Sentinel advertising pen; the Cedar Hill Sentinel was a newspaper I owned and operated from 1995 to 2001. After it went out of business - and I had to get a real job - I had the time to start writing science fiction in 2002. I saved one last pen for these past few years, and vowed I would use it if I ever got a contract to sign.

The other pen is a Bic medium fine point, the subject of my story "Pen Pal", which ran at RevolutionSF in July. Here's a link:

http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=2303

Lucky Lou and Three on a Match

Well, I mentioned I got a contract for my story from Asimov's on Tuesday. It was my first. Thursday, I checked my e-mail and found a contract from Alienskin. They've bought a flash story. Wow! Two contracts in a week!
Admittedly, the fee from Alienskin is nominal, but it's a nice ego boost. Plus they want to run the story in their December-January bi-monthly issue. That means that, with stories ready to run at RevolutionSF and Astounding Tales, I will have three stories published at the same time.

Thankgiving Thots

Well, it being Thanksgiving, lots of people will post on various boards and/or blogs and discuss what they have to be thankful for.

I could list the usual - health, job, friends - but since this s my blog for my life as a science fiction writer - my public face, as it were - I guess what I should list are the stories that have been published so far.

I mean, back n August 2002, I literally had no idea I was any kind of competent fiction writer. Here I am, just a little over two years later, on Thanksgiving 2004, with a contract from Asimov's on my desk. Boy am I thankful!

So here, as some kind of public record, is a list of the stories that have seen the light of day, so far:

2003

Silvern - RevolutionSF - June.
Silence is Golden - RevolutionSF - August.
Comes the Juju Man - GateWay Science Fiction - December.
S.P.P.A.M. - Bewildering Stories - December.

2004

Rome, If You Want To - Surprising Stories - May.
Pen Pal - RevolutionSF - July.
I Got You - Bewildering Stories - July.
Doppelgangster - Bewildering Stories - September.

I have two stories that should run shortly. "The Rocket-Powered Cat" should be published at RevolutionSF in a week or two, and Astounding Tales is slated to publish "Circe in Vitro" in their December edition.

And I have the two stories already accepted for 2005 at Asimov's and Andromeda Spaceways.

I've opened a "wing" at the web site I run, www.cedarhllsentinel.com, for my news, and I'm also going to start posting reprints of my stories there. Right now, S.P.P.A.M. is up.

That story has some history for me. Back in April 2003, Gardner Dozois sent it back to me, but he wrote that it was better than 99% of the stuff in his slush pile, and he thought I had potential. That was really encouraging, and helped me keep my chin up, because 99% of what you get when submitting stories is rejection.

Almost a year later, I hit paydirt with a story that made the grade with Gardner.

I kept shopping "S.P.P.A.M." around, and in the meantime Jerry Wright at Bewildering Stories had been very encouraging to me and had a lot of nice things to say, so I decided that if the story didn't find a home by the end of the year, I'd let Jerry have it. So that's where it was published.

Its nice and chilly this morning here East Texas. Last night I had to light the Dearborn. Temperature dropped down to 37 overnight - almost a frost. I've been waiting for the cold, to help kill all the mold and crap that's been floating in the air.

It's a crisp, fall day for Thanksgiving. OK, now time to chow down!

Lou's News and Views

Well, got through another Thanksgiving publication schedule. Thanksgiving is always a tough time at weekly papers - which almost all publish on Thursday - because you have to move your press deadline up a full day to get the paper out early (no mail on Thursday, right?)

Plus, I have basketball games to cover both Monday AND Tuesday night - very unusual to have games on consecutive nights, but the coach wanted to get some games in before the Turkey break.

As busy as it was, I got good news Tuesday in the mail - my contract arrived from Dell for my story. I'm going to check it out thoroughly and hopefully get the two signed copies in the mail Friday. My story is 3,900 words, and Asimov's pays 6 cents a word.
I also have to send a copy of the story on disk back with the contract.

When Gardner Dozois accepted the story, he told me to e-mail a copy to Brian Bienowski, but I'm not surprised they want some kind of disk. Can't have too many copies of a future Hugo winner, can we?

(wink, wink)

Go web it takes you...

You know, as a lifelong journalist, I've never been in love with blogs. It seems too much like work. That's what I do for a living. I see a lot of writers like to keep them - I guess it's because they don't have enough places to write, or they don't write often enough. Of course, I write plenty in my "real" job - or eating job, as East Texas writer, Ardath Mahyar would say - and I also wrote a lot on the side (right now, I have 22 stories in about 18 slushpiles around the world).

However, I also know they can be a handy tool to keep information before the public - and yes, fans. So I think I'm going to start posting more regularly.