"An Alien Named Tim" Live at Nature

My science fiction short story "An Alien Named Tim" is live now at Nature. This is my second time appearing in Nature. I originally wrote this story for one of Liberty Hall's weekly flash fiction competitions; it's my first sale from the stories I've written there.

If you read "Private Memories" earlier this week and want something a bit lighter, this should fit the bill.

Award Season Begins

There are two major groups of awards in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres: the Hugos and the Nebulas. The Hugos are given out every year at Worldcon (in late-Summer) and voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Society (or, put more in other words, by people who are either attendees or supporting members of that Worldcon). The Nebulas are voted on by Active members of the Science Fiction Writers of America and given out at a SFWA banquet in mid-Spring.

I don't know if I'll be attending Worldcon this coming year and I'm unlikely to buy a supporting membership to vote on the Hugos. Since I'm not currently an Active member of SFWA (having only two of the three required qualifying sales of short fiction) I don't know if I'll be voting on the Nebulas or not.

What I can definitely do for this years awards, as an Associate member of SFWA, is submit nominations for the Nebulas. I am actively interested in reading short fiction which qualifies for nomination for the 2012 Nebula Awards. If you would like to propose titles which I should look into reading between now and when nominations close, please feel free to put them in a comment below. Depending on how many suggestions I get, I may or may not get to read absolutely all of them. Short stories and novelettes will be more likely to get my time than novellas. If the story was published in a free-to-read manner online, providing the address of the story will definitely make it easier for me to access the story and make me happy. I will be maintaining a page listing stories I found notable as I go through my reading.

Finally, there is a single story of my own which I would like to point readers toward as they consider their nominations for Short Story awards. "Scraps" was published in October at Daily Science Fiction. It is both my personal favorite of my short stories and the one which has received the most praise from others.

"Kelly signs for possession of the fireproof box and wonders what her mother had felt the need to protect. No jewelry, that all would have been hocked years ago--cigarette money. Back when they still talked, Kelly always told her mom the cigarettes would kill her.

She hadn't imagined it happening so suddenly.

She is tired from the overnight drive and stares at the only legacy left to her. Of course there's no key. It seems a perfect coda to her mother's life, until the helpful officer tells her how easy it is to pop the lock.

She thanks him and leaves the station, carrying what had been transformed from a little mystery into something mundane. Just another problem with a half-assed solution."

Those are the opening four paragraphs of Scraps. It is relatively-short, approximately 1600 words, so I hope you will consider going to Daily Science Fiction and reading the rest, whether you are reading for short story nominations for awards or not. Thank you!

Sunday Links: October 21st, 2012 Edition

Are we really two-thirds of the way through October? Apparently we must be, but how that happened, I certainly couldn't tell you!

If you're gearing up for NaNoWriMo, you might like to look through my posts related to that topic before the first of the month rolls around. I don't plan to do NaNo this year, though I am planning on tackling a novella-length project during the month of November if all goes well.

Below are this week's writing-related links as well as links to my own blog posts from this week.

Story Publication: "ReFormed" at Buzzy Mag

"Marshall churned away on an elliptical machine at his gym. His attention wandered from the news during a commercial and he noticed a woman running on a treadmill across the room. He only saw her in profile, but she looked like Carol. Not Carol right before she died, lying in a hospital bed. Carol when they first met, several years ago. Carol when she said 'Yes' to his proposal and accepted the ring he offered."

- From "ReFormed"

My science fiction story about a man who finds a woman who has the same face as his dead fiancee is live today on Buzzy Mag. "ReFormed" is one of my favorites of my stories.

I need to give special thanks here to Brenda Stokes Barron. She read several versions of this story and kept encouraging me to make it a fuller story as I took it through revisions. I'm sure it's a much better story than it would have been without her help.

This is, as far as I know, the last story I'll have published for a little while. I'm sure you'll all be glad for the break. :)

If you read this story, I hope that you enjoy it!

"Out with the Crowd" Live at Interstellar Fiction

My baseball science fiction short story "Out with the Crowd" is live today at Interstellar Fiction. It's a very timely publication, with the Major League Baseball playoffs starting later this week.

I don't tend to write a lot of "hard" science fiction, but that's an apt descriptor for this story. Its basis is the very real biomechanical principles which state that pitchers are bumping right up against the limits of what the human arm can do in terms of speed on their pitches. While average speed has increased over time and there is some dispute about the reliability of various types of speed guns for measuring the speed of pitches, there has simply not been a dramatic increase in the top speed pitchers have reached in the past 50 years. (One list of "fastest pitches" is at this link.)

The reason that this record isn't constantly falling as other sports-related records (such as the sprint times in track and field, marathon times, swimming times, etc.) is because the human arm just can't throw a baseball any harder than it already is. As the article notes:

"Shoulder rotation in baseball pitching is the fastest motion of any joint in any athlete," Fleisig says; moving faster than hip joints in sprinters or shoulders in elite tennis players.

My story starts from that science and wonders what would happen if something gave batters -- who are currently limited by their ability to process information about the incoming pitch and react to it -- an insurmountable edge against pitchers.

I hope you enjoy reading this story.

Podcast of "An Unsuitable Job for a Human"

I woke up to a little surprise today. Nature podcasts one of their Futures stories from each month; Geoff Ryan chooses his favorite of the stories published that month and reads it. He did a really nice job with "An Unsuitable Job for a Human" and -- as before -- it was a lot of fun hearing someone else read my story aloud.

It's short -- under 10 minutes -- so if you have time, go ahead and check it out!

"Sequence" is Live on the Grand Science Fiction site

My story "Sequence" is up today on the Grand Science Fiction site. It's a flash story, exactly 1000 words (per the market's guidelines -- they only run stories of exactly 100 or exactly 1000 words). I wrote this one earlier this year and am pleased that it is available for others to read now.

I hope you enjoy reading it!

Short Story Sale: "ReFormed" to Buzzy Mag

My science fiction short story "ReFormed" has sold to Buzzy Mag. This is the longest story I've sold to date, coming in at about 4200 words. It also represents my fourth pro-rate sale. For the moment, it won't add to my list of SFWA-qualifying sales since markets have to publish regularly for a year before they can be added to the SFWA list. From what I've seen of this market, I'd say they have a better than average chance of making it to that point, but only time will tell.

Either way, I'm very pleased to have this story coming to "print" and I'm looking forward to when it's available for others to read.

I have to give lots of thanks to Brenda Stokes Barron for her input on this story as I took it through several iterations. She urged me to keep going back and deepening the emotional aspects of the story. It ended up a much better story for the effort.

"Special Ops" is Live on the Ray Gun Revival Site

My short story "Special Ops" was posted today on the Ray Gun Revival website. This was one of the first stories I wrote when I returned to writing fiction last summer. As I recall, it was inspired in part by having listened to a collection of Ian Fleming's James Bond short stories on audiobook and thinking about how a Bond-esque story might play out in science fiction.

Earlier this year RGR sent me a response to the version of the story I had sent to them saying that they liked certain aspects of the story but didn't like certain other aspects as well. If I'd give it a rewrite, they would take a second look at it.

The rewrite ended up being fairly involved but (as I so often say about my stories) I have a fondness for this story and I was more than happy to take another crack at it. The revised version struck me as being better and, fortunately, the editorial staff of RGR agreed.

I hope you enjoy reading "Special Ops." If you read it, you can comment on their site and/or here -- either way, I'll make sure to check out your comments.

While I'm here, since it's getting close to mid-month, I'm going to do a quick June Goal status check.

Sunday Links & the Week in #storyeachnight: May 6th, 2012 Edition

What an exciting writing week it's been! I've blogged about all this already (and the links are below) but I've got to say that it's a really good week when it includes a publication of a very well-received story, two short story sales, my first time trading guest posts with another writer, and my first-ever review.

I've been reading at least one story each day recently and tweeting about them under the hashtag #storyeachnight. Here are this week's entries:

4/29 - "Possible Monsters" by Will McIntosh from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. A didn't-quite-make-it ball player gets a jolt when he comes back home & finds out an alien had taken up residence. Maybe a bit long on prelims but very good. Great ending.
4/30 - "Bad Moon Risen" by Eric Del Carlo from SHIMMER #14. A well-done werewolf short story with a small town under siege.
5/1 - "Through Bleached Bone" from by Cate Gardner from GOLDFISH GRIMM'S SPICY FICTION SUSHI Issue 3.
5/2 - "Duck Hunt" by Joe R. Lansdale from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. Didn't go where I was expecting, though I can't say that where it did go left me that impressed. I really enjoyed the imagery of her story, especially the Ghost Beast and the cityscape setting.
5/3 - "Repairmen" by Tim Sullivan from the 3/4-12 F&SF. Didn't really do a lot for me but I could imagine it making a decent one-act play or short film. Almost all dialogue in one room.
5/4 - "The Shadowcrafter" by Ken Liu from NINE Issue #1. I enjoyed this historical fantasy.

5/5 - "Tomorrow's Dictator" by Rahul Kanakia from the 5/12 APEX. Life in a world with personality adjustment.

Now, on to this week's writing-related links:

Short Story Sale: "Special Ops" to Ray Gun Revival

I woke up today to an acceptance from Ray Gun Revival for my short story "Special Ops." I'm looking forward to seeing this story on their site; they said it should be released sometime over the next few months, probably in June or July.

"Special Ops" represents the first rewrite request I received from a publication. They liked the premise and character but had some concerns about the execution. Given that this was one of the first stories I wrote when I dove back into fiction last summer, I wasn't surprised when I opened it up to tackle the rewrite and saw exactly what they meant.

The rewrite itself was surprisingly fun -- I had enjoyed writing the story and working with this character the first time around and a chance to take a second crack at it with some more experience under my belt was enjoyable. I'm pleased with the outcome; their suggestions definitely helped lead to a better story. And of course I'm very pleased that they agreed that the story was improved and elected to buy it for an upcoming issue of RGR.

I'll post a link to the story this summer when it's live on the Ray Gun Revival site.

Dissecting the Short Story: "Memories of My Mother" by Ken Liu

As discussed recently, this is the first post in the reboot of my Dissecting the Short Story series. Remember that I won't be shy about including spoiler material in this analysis, so if you haven't read this story it might be worth your time to read it first before reading the bulk of this post.

Story:
"Memories of My Mother" by Ken Liu
Published in:
March 19th, Daily Science Fiction
Approximate Length:
1000 words
Presentation:
First Person, Chronological, Mixed Past and Present Tense
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

"Gravity's Pull" eBook Live on Amazon

I have been thinking for months about starting to do some self-published eBooks through Amazon and/or other sites. Recently, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge.

"Gravity's Pull" is one of the first short stories I wrote last summer. It's a hard science fiction "problem" story of the kind that I associate with Analog. The blurb I wrote for it on Amazon reads as follows:

Camilla is beginning her first tour of duty as a crew leader and is expecting a routine three months on the GT Donald Ademu, a gravity tractor ship assigned to change the trajectory of an asteroid. An unexpected development jeopardizes the lives of her and her crew as well as many other people. Camilla and the two others on-board race to find a solution in "Gravity's Pull."

I plan to post several blog entries in upcoming weeks talking in more detail about the ePublishing process. For now, I just wanted to share the news that the story is out there to be read and also share the cover art that I developed for the book.

Dissecting the Short Story: "Observations on a Clock" by D. Thomas Minton

As mentioned on Wednesday, this will be the final post for now in my Dissecting the Short Story series. Remember that I won't be shy about including spoiler material in this analysis, so if you have a copy of this magazine, it might be worth your time to read it first before reading the bulk of this post.

Story:
"Observations on a Clock" by D. Thomas Minton
Published in:
February, 2012 Asimov's Science Ficton
Approximate Length:
2200 words
Presentation:
Third Person, Chronological
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

Dissecting the Short Story: "Maiden Voyage" by Jack McDevitt

It's been a while, hasn't it? With the Christmas weekend hiatus, I haven't run a post from my Dissecting the Short Story series in nearly a month. For anyone new to the series, the goal here is to look at a story which was sold to a pro-rate fiction market, generally one of the large digest magazines, and see what we -- as writers -- can learn from it.

As always, I won't be shy about including spoiler material in this analysis, so if you have a copy of this magazine and would be planning to read this story, it might be worth your time to read it first before reading the bulk of this post.

Story:
"Maiden Voyage" by Jack McDevitt
Published in:
January, 2012 Asimov's Science Ficton
Approximate Length:
words
Presentation:
Third Person, Chronological
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

Dissecting the Short Story: "Call Center Blues" by Carrie Cuinn

Welcome to the new installment of my Dissecting the Short Story series where every other Friday I look at a recently-published short story from a major genre fiction publication. This time, I'm doing something a little different. The story being examined this week is one published by Daily Science Fiction, a pro-rate publication whose stories are all made available to read on-line for free.

Story:
"Call Center Blues" by Carrie Cuinn
Published in:
November 2nd, 2011 Daily Science Fiction
Approximate Length:
900 words
Presentation:
First Person, Chronological
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

Dissecting the Short Story: "Turning It Off" by Susan Forest

This is the fifth entry in my Dissecting the Short Story series. If you're not familiar with the series, every other Friday I examine a short story from a recent major fiction digest magazine to see what we can learn about how the author approached creating the story.

Story:
"Turning it Off" by Susan Forest
Published in:
December 2011 Analog
Approximate Length:
4000 words
Presentation:
Third Person, Chronological
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

Dissecting the Short Story: "Aisle 1047" by Jon Armstrong

This is the third of a series of posts (introduced here) which will appear once every two weeks on the blog. In this series, a short story from a recent major digest will be analyzed in detail, to see what we can learn about how the author approached creating the story.

Story:
"Aisle 1047" by Jon Armstrong
Published in:
September/October 2011 Fantasy and Science Fiction
Approximate Length:
5000 words
Presentation:
Third Person, Essentially Chronological
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

Dissecting the Short Story: "Less Stately Mansions" by Rob Chilson

This is the second of a series of posts (introduced here) which will appear once every two weeks on the blog. In this series, a short story from a recent major digest will be analyzed in detail, to see what we can learn about how the author approached creating the story.

Story:
"Less Stately Mansions" by Rob Chilson
Published in: 
July/August 2011 Fantasy and Science Fiction
Approximate Length:
6000 words
Presentation:
Chronological Narrative, Third-Person Limited
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:
An older man, Jacob Mannheim, lives as a farmer on Earth of the distant future. Many people on Earth have emigrated to colonies; there are generous buyout offers for people who own land on Earth and will emigrate. An impending ecological disaster -- a great freeze -- will lead to his land eventually being worthless. However, Jacob has no interest in abandoning his farm and his younger relatives are distraught that he won't accept the buyout which would enrich their eventual inheritance.