Spinning the plates

For someone who is only a casual writer, and who only writes short stories, I'm amazed how busy I get sometimes. Yesterday I was dealing with four different editors and publications.

As previously noted, I finished "Riders of the Red Shift" and sent it to an anthology that deadlines Dec. 1.

I still have to proof the short story I wrote in collaboration with Edward Morris, "Uncle Gumball Saves the World," which Shelby Vick is planning to publish in his mag "Pulp Spirit".

I had to review and approve some terms for an kickstarter agreement with the anthology, "Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera For A New Age" which is being edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. It is a collection of best of stories from Ray Gun Revival’s multi-year run combined with new stories from headliners who include Mike Resnick, Ann Crispin, Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Sarah A. Hoyt, Robin Wayne Bailey, Brenda Cooper, Allen Steele, and Seanan McGuire.

It will also include reprints by Milo James Fowler, Michael S. Roberts, Michael Merriam, TM Hunter, Robert Mancebo, Alice M. Roelke, Paula R. Stiles, Jenny Schwartz, A.M. Stickel, Shaun Farrell
and Jennifer Campbell-Hicks.

I'm part of it because it will include a reprint of my story "The Silver Dollar Saucer" that was published by Ray Gun Revival in 2009.

"Raygun Chronicles" will be having a Kickstarter campaign January 14 through February 22 to fund the anthology. It will be published November 2013 by Every Day Publishing with a launch at OryCon in Portland, Oregon.

Finally, I got an email from Bruce Bethke at Stupefying Stories. He said that, as they are preparing the December edition, they can't figure out where to place my story, "The Relic", in the TOC.

He said he came up with a "crazy idea" - since the story has four vignettes (which are widely separated in time) - to space them at the beginning, early middle, late middle, and end of this edition as "The Relic (Part One)" (Part Two, Three, etc.)

"I think it would put a really cool arc on the book as a whole," he wrote.

I told him I love crazy ideas and I loved his idea, go right ahead.

Like I said, I'm amazed how busy I get sometimes.