By the way, if you are reading for awards this year and want to read something I’ve written, please drop me a line. I put my favorites in bold and also included links to the ones that are available in the SFWA member forums.

Novel

• Shades of Milk and Honey (novel) — Tor (August 3, 2010) – SFWA

Novelette

• Water to Wine – METAtropolis: Cascadia (November, 2010)
• The Bride Replete — Apex Online (March, 2010) — SFWA

Short Story

• Birthright – 2020 Visions (November, 2010)
• Changement d’itinéraire (Changed Itinerary) — Légendes (October, 2010) — French only
• American Changeling – Daily SF (September, 2010)
• Salt of the Earth — Redstone SF (September, 2010)
• For Want of a Nail — Asimov’s (September, 2010) — SFWA
• Typewriter Triptych (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) – Sharable.net (August, 2010)
• Beyond the Garden Close – Apex Online (March, 2010)
• Ring Road — Dark Faith Anthology (January 2010)

Playing Against Type

Harold pressed his hand against his knee to stop it from jiggling. It gave him a chance to wipe the sweat off his palm, too. Never show fear in front of actors. “I thought we had the camera until Friday.”

Conversation around the sound stage had silenced. The cast and crew of Last Dime had all rotated like some automaton the moment the man in front of him had pushed onto the set. Most of them were dressed like laborers from the 1930s, with torn trousers and battered hats. If you ignored the lights and the crew in modern dress, it could be a labor meeting during the Great Depression — not a happy labor meeting at the moment.

Go to Shareable: Playing Against Type to read the whole thing.

Here’s a teaser of the first one.

A Type of Favor

Like most of the co-operatives that sprang up after the Oil Wars, the Broadway co-op had a specialty. While other co-ops might focus on medicine or music, the Broadway members created and exported films to the commercial world. In exchange for pooling their time and resources they were able to have a higher standard of living than any independent artist. But of course, even an economy based on sharing and cooperation demands sacrifices…

Jenn stared at his chin, focusing on the stubble and hoping that her distaste didn’t show. Why had she borrowed Harold’s tools? Now she owed him.

Harold’s request to borrow one of her typewriters for the film he was making was perfectly reasonable, but this did nothing to keep the sour taste out of the back of her mouth. When she’d traded borrowing points, she hadn’t thought the typewriters would be in danger. No one used them anymore. She’d thought she was throwing skills or tools into the communal pot when she immigrated to this co-op. At her old one, no one cared about the typewriters. Was there a way she could say “No,” plausibly?

Read the full story at Sharable.net

Oh, and it has pictures of our actual typewriter collection.

I’ve bolded my favorites. If the story title has a link, you can read the story online.

Short Story

The Conciousness Problem — Asimov’s, August 2009

At the Edge of Dying — Clockwork Phoenix 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness

Jaiden’s Weaver – Diamonds in the Sky (February, 2009)

Ginger Stuyvesant and the Case of the Haunted Nursery — Talebones #38

Prayer at Dark River — Innsmouth Free Press

Novelette

First Flight — Tor.com

Body Language — Intergalactic Medicine Show #15

Let me rephrase that. I’m getting rid of the book forms of most of my fiction. I realized that I moved books out here that I haven’t read since before I moved them to Portland, OR back in 1993 and that some of them probably haven’t been opened since before that.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all books that I loved, but do I need to own them still when I don’t read them? I’m using a barcode scanner and saving a list of them on LibraryThing, so if I ever miss one I can remember that I owned it and then buy a new copy, although that new copy will likely be electronic.

The ones that I’m keeping are the ones where the physical artifact has meaning. The complete collection of Narnia that my grandmother gave me? Stays.  The copy of Small Gods, which was the first book I read aloud to Rob? Likewise, that’s a keeper.

I’ve sort of been doing this for awhile with new books. I finish reading them, then mail them to my niece or nephew.*  But all the older books? Iif I haven’t opened it since I moved here, I’m shedding it and not because I don’t love them.

My question is, since I want them to go to a good home, how should I go about it?

*By the way, if you see one of your books on the list, please don’t be offended.

Hey come down to the KGB bar tonight at 7:00 pm for the KGB Fantastic Fiction reading series to hear Brian Francis Slattery and me read.

As an added enticement, I’m including a very short monologue with a puppet.  Brian is bringing a bass, a violinist and fiction! Should be fun tonight.

Sans, twitter. The con is great fun and I’m happy to see people. I’m also so tired I could weep, yet somehow I managed to moderate a 10:30 pm panel without any major mind melts. Thank heavens for the theater instinct which kicks adrenalin in to focus the mind just long enough to get through the “show.” 

And I’m even more thankful that I had very smart panelists in Carrie L. Ferguson, M. J. Hardman and Deepa D. so I didn’t have to do more than ask the occasional question. What was the panel?

Many of us can point to something which we read that changed our lives. Some of us view writing fiction as a political act. This panel will explore the relationship of SF/F to society and culture. Can SF/F change the world in a practical and political way? Is there any occasion when writers of SF/F can justifiably claim it is only entertainment and has no responsibility for commenting on popular culture.

Oh, I also managed to catch up with Erin Cashier, who was in the writing workshop I didn’t get to this morning, and go over her story with her. A hearty thank you to K. Tempest Bradford who stepped in to cover the workshop for me.

We kept our god under the sink, in an old aquarium, so it wouldn’t spill its web all over the house. We didn’t tell you because you were so curious. Our daughter: you are like an otter, or a hummingbird. How would you stand against such a monster as our god?

Read The Spider in You, by Sean E. Markey.

Puppets can do things that actors can’t as well as having limitations that actors don’t.  In the course of the conversation, I talked about the importance of finding a playwright who understands, or is willing to learn, about writing for puppet theater.

Frequently, a show is largely non-verbal.  The question came up: How do you script a non-verbal show?

In response, I wrote:

Heh.

Okay, so that thing I said earlier about that I don’t write for stage?  My one play was non-verbal and was awarded an UNIMA Citation.  The reason I bring it up now is that several years ago, we did an experiment with MUM Puppet Theater and shipped them our script and puppets.  By all accounts, the show had the same impact on the audience as our original play did.

The way I did it was that I scripted the characters’ intentions AND their actions. My feeling is that body language is a non-verbal expression of what a character is thinking and feeling. So writing, “Character picks up rock” tells you what happens, but the way you pick up a rock if you’re planning on killing someone is different from if you think it’s pretty. It might be body language, but it is still language.

Since I can’t attach things to posts on puptcrit, I told everyone that I’d post it here.  Sorry non-puppet folks, for dropping you into the middle of a larger conversation.

Here is the 1993 script for “Old Man Who Made Trees Blossom.”

My story, “For Solo Cello, op. 12″ is in there.

Um.  Whoa.

The science fiction and fantasy community likes to honour the writers in its ranks, and no honour comes higher for new writers than the John W Campbell award. Previous winners include Orson Scott Card, Stephen Donaldson and Cory Doctorow, so it’s certainly worth watching. This year, Mary Robinette Kowal beat a strong shortlist to scoop the award on the basis of a clutch of well-crafted short stories that showcase her emotional deftness while still telling strange and exhilarating stories in the SF tradition.

Thanks Mr. Walter!  This is an excellent pre-birthday present.

Here, let me offer a party favor!   This is an audio version of “Evil Robot Monkey” from the 2008 edition of the Solaris New Book of Science Fiction.

via Damien Walter on exciting new SF and fantasy writers | Books | guardian.co.uk.

The teaser:

Mary Elois Jackson stood inside the plain steel box of the time machine. It was about the size of an outhouse, but without a bench or windows. She clutched her cane with one hand and her handbag with the other.

Her corset creaked with every breath. She’d expected to hate wearing a corset again but there was a certain comfort from having something to support her back and give her a shape more like a woman than a sack of potatoes.

A gust of air puffed all around her and the steel box was gone. She stood in a patch of tall grass under an early morning October sky. The caravan of scientists, technicians and reporters had vanished from the field where they’d set up camp. Elois inhaled with wonder that the time machine had worked. Assuming that this was 1905, of course.

Even if you don’t have time to read it, I’ve got a title question.  My working title was “Time-travelling Grandma” which I’m sort of tempted to go back to.  Thoughts?

There’s not any real way to do a teaser of fiction that’s only 140 characters long. So… This story from Christmas Eve is not safe for family. And the story from Christmas day is.

“Evil Robot Monkey” will be appearing in Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction. You know, there were anthologies that I regularly bought before I started writing seriously. This is one of them, because the selections were always thought-provoking and that’s what I loved about SF. And to have one of my stories in there… I’m stunned.

And not using nearly enough exclamation points for the occasion.

The first issue also has an interview with Scalzi and fiction by Kenneth Newquist.

Oh, I’m particularly proud to be in the first issue because of this bit from the About page:

The idea for Thaumatrope formed when @nelilly asked @MaryRobinette, what use is Twitter? while on the Websites for Writers panel at Philcon.

With his back to me, he began to speak. “Miss Vanhese. I’ve come to apologize for my behavior. I realize I put you in a compromising position and I want you to know I had no intention of doing so.”

He turned to regard me, and I noticed for the first time that his eyes were a steely, piercing blue. “Will you forgive me?”

I nodded, momentarily overcome.

He took a step forward, looking at the page in his hands. “I hope this will make things easier for you.”

He laid it upon my desk, and turned without a word. I glanced down and the first words made my blood pause as if all caffeine had drained from my heart.

#

REQUEST FOR TRANSFER:

Employee: Keith Purvis

Reason for request: Personal

#

The sound of the lock opening pulled my attention away from the paper, the import only beginning to make its way through my distracted senses.

“Wait!” I cried, stretching out my hand. “Have you done this for me?”

His back to me, he nodded.

I trembled to think he could display such sensitivity. Yet, I must unburden myself and display my guilt, guilt as vile and dark as reheated coffee. “Mr. Purvis, I must tell you I did not present myself honestly to you.”

“Nor did I.”

“When you needed help, the solution I offered was not mine. It was from tech support.”

“Miss Vanhese, you know barista’s salaries are not enough to live on.”

“Of, of course, that is why tips are so important.” I stuttered, confused by this sudden, unmerited change in subject.

“My dear Sophia, don’t you recognize my voice?”

I gasped. With his back to me, I was able to separate his voice from his figure and realized that he was my tech support liaison. For a second time that day, I cried, “You?”

“After the first call, I deliberately asked a question that had no answer, hoping you would call again. I should have told you then. I planned to tell you today, to tell you I would be leaving the store. I know I don’t have the right to ask you this, but,” he half-turned his head, displaying his fine profile, with its high, noble forehead, “once I transfer, is there any hope…?”

I pressed my hands to my lips too overcome to form words, but my soft cry must have signaled my acceptance. He turned and seemed about to come to me, then stopped himself and simply nodded. “I will keep my staff list then.”

“Oh, yes.”

He unlocked the door and let in the customers who waited, wondering, on the street.

“Mr. Purvis?”

He paused and turned to face me.

“Will I see you on the Web?”

He smiled then, and I caught a glimpse of a spirit as wild and untamed as organic Kona beans. “Of course.”

I watched his retreating back, ignoring the clamor that filled the internet café, content with the knowledge my Ducky was only a mouseclick away.

THE END

Gardner Dozois namechecks me in his list, along with some truly fantastic writers.

At any rate, new or newISH writers to keep an eye on would include: Ted Kosmatka, Vandana Singh, Justin Stanchfield, Jason Stoddard, Lavie Tidhar, Carrie Vaughn, Andrea Kail, Daniel Abraham, Ysabeau S. Wilce, Jamie Barras, Una McCormack, Aliette de Boddard, Beth Bernobich, Jeste de Vries, James L. Cambias, Laird Barron, Sarah K. Castle, C.W. Johnson, Daryl Gregory, Peter Friend, Theodora Goss, Sarah Monette, Mary Robinette Kowal, Cat Sparks, Brendon DuBois, and a LITTLE further down the road, David Moles, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Elizabeth Bear, David D. Levine, Alex Irvine, Greg Van Eekhout, Ruth Nestvold, Jay Lake, Charles Coleman Finlay, Paolo Bacigalupi, Chris Roberson, Paul Melko, and Tim Pratt.

All of the lists include people that make me think, “Huh? Really? [x] isn’t firmly established?” and other people that I’ve never heard of. I’ll definitely be looking for more fiction from all of these folks.

At the 1:34 mark, the male dance did a move that I specifically teach new puppeteers to avoid because it is physically impossible. Let me repeat that. Physically impossible. He stands up, rolling over his toe, in a way that makes it look like he’s being pulled up and back by a string.

He does it three times during the course of the video — which also includes a fantastic dance and is worth watching on its own — each time, I backed the film up and watched it over and over.

Now, the thing is, that clearly, he’s a very strong man and that he’s getting a little boost from his partner, but STILL if I did that with a puppet I’d be accused of breaking every rule about Muscle and gravity in the books. Granted, there are times when we break the rules on purpose, but if one is aiming for realistic movement, what this man is doing would be avoided because it looks impossible.

The funny thing is, that it’s like fiction. There are all sorts of things that happen in real life I could never get away with in fiction because because it defies belief. It fascinates me that the issues involved in creating verisimilitude on the page and on the stage are same. It doesn’t matter if it’s true if it doesn’t look real.

One hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago, the average reader did not travel widely and did not have access to full-color photographs or television. They had never seen pyramids, or elephants, or tropical rain forests. Many people had also never seen a prairie, a pine forest, a stretch of English farmland, or an industrial city. This means that the reader’s repetoire of pre-conceived images was not as vast as the modern reader’s.

I think much of her post is also true for dialects in fiction. Once upon a time, not only was it possible for someone to have never heard a German accent, but it was also likely that they would be called upon to read that passage aloud. So writing dialects phonetically helped the reader. Fashions and readers’ expectations change.

I spent a lot of time on the back of the bike doing “headwork” and trying to sort out character motivations and worldbuilding. The moment we stopped, I pulled out my keyboard and started writing. Not story, but jotting down what I’d been thinking about during the headwork.

In fact, the term is misleading because, while I spend some time just thinking, like yesterday, I usually write a lot of this stuff down in the form of a dialog with myself. Sometimes this happens at the beginning and sometimes in the middle when I discover a plot problem.

The key is writing it down, because that makes the ideas less slippery. I can see when I’m covering the same territory because I have a log of my thought process.

I was going to use yesterday’s session as an example, but it’s sort of too in the middle of the project, to be useful to anyone except me. But, while working on “American Changeling,” I found my characters stalling a lot, which is a sign to me that I don’t know what they want. Now, I knew that my main character needed a Key to open a magically shut gate. But what was that key? I had no clue. Here’s my log of the headwork I did to sort that out.

What does Kim want?
To fit in.

What do her parents want? Love her, but loyal to the Faerie Queen

How does she unlock the gate?.
First of all… Who locked it? Queen Elizabeth? To protect her borders because the Fae were going to make a deal with the Scots or the Irish. Research that.

OR did the Faerie Queen lock it herself to keep out the mortals who were corrupting her people OR to stop a threat from the Unseelie Court.

Let’s go with Queen E or no… the catholics but for similar reasons. ((Eventually wound up with Queen Mary)) Now. Where did the key wind up?

Ah… The Portland Art Museum as part of the Britannia exhibit. Make something up there that makes sense. Clearly the key is iron. ((Because then fairies can’t touch it, which was important to the story)) Is it necessarily key shaped? No. What else could it be…

A chalice. A mirror. An ink pot. A vase. A… What’s a reliquary. Now that’s an interesting idea. Yes. If the — oh, not the Art museum. A catholic church — reliquaries hold the bones of a saint, preferably a woman or child, but is actually the bones of a Fae. Yes. That makes sense.

All of which led me to a clearer understanding of my backstory and once I knew who my bad guys, I could make smarter choices about their actions. The thing about writing it down is that it makes it less ethereal. It gets it out of my head and lets me look at it without the sort of idealized Ah-ha! moment that vanishes when actually examined.

I won’t pretend that I made this idea up. I know a lot of writers who do it. I picked it up in Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp and, boy, has it made my life easier since.

How about you? What’s your favorite trick?

1) I recorded a story (not mine and I promise it’s good) and I need to listen to it to make sure that we didn’t leave any of my stumbles in it. I’m tuning out my own voice. The story is two and a half hours long, but the section in question is just in the first half hour.

2) I have to turn in a list of books that one of my novel length manuscripts resembles. I’ve got one name to offer and then I blank. Is anyone willing to read this puppy and offer suggestions? You don’t even have to read the whole thing! Just enough to say, “This reminds me of [blank].” The only catch is that I’d like to turn in the list on Monday. It’s Urban Fantasy.

Edited to Add: Many thanks to Julia and Scott for responding so quickly!

And now, I’ll go back to doing the layout which is paying the bills.

Then Tor solved my problem by releasing it as a free ebook. I downloaded that sucker faster than you can say download and have to wonder why I waited so long to read it. Granted, my family is from Chattanooga, so there’s an immediate connection there, but more importantly, the story and characters are compelling.

How compelling you might ask? When Eden was — no spoilers, suffice to say she was in deep, I went an extra stop on the train and then walked back READING. You think walking while reading a book makes you look nerdy? Walking while reading a palm pilot… now that’s dedication.

If you haven’t read it, and the idea of Southern Gothic horror sounds appealing, let me recommend Four and Twenty Blackbirds. I’ve got a copy of the next book on order. I just wish I could get it as an ebook.

Second, specificity of word choice buys me a lot of room. You always hear that one specific word can replace a dozen vague ones, but until you are fighting for space you don’t realize exactly how much that gets you.

Third. SMS sucks for formatting dialogue.

Here is the first installment, sent in three texts, for those of you who are curious. You can also follow along on twitter, BUT twitter only allows 140 characters, so you have to click through to see the remaining 20. Deeply annoying, but what’s a girl to do?

Virginia leaned across the white tablecloth. “When I said the ninjas were no match for us, I meant it. Lou will have the White Phoenix Feather by dessert.”

She polished her fish knife. “Quit gaping and finish your soup.”

Parker stirred his habanero spinach bisque. “I don’t doubt your skills.”

“With our fees, we’d better be good.” A dark shape scuttled past the wall of tinted glass. “Crap,” she said. “More ninjas. Give me your soup.”

Rob, by the way, finds the whole experiment offensive because of its inefficiency. I can tell you now that I am unlikely to do this again, but I am interested in how function influences form. This will become quite telegraphic, I suspect.

The teaser:

The clockwork chickadee was not as pretty as the nightingale. But she did not mind. She pecked the floor when she was wound, looking for invisible bugs. And when she was not wound, she cocked her head and glared at the sparrow, whom she loathed with every tooth on every gear in her pressed-tin body.

The sparrow could fly.

The story is available in two flavors, written or read aloud. Clarkesworld is offering audio fiction now, and my story kicks that off.

They’ve got a comment thread, so do let them know what you think.

So, I pulled the phone out and started writing. I use the word loosely, you understand. ¹ Anyway, if you are interested in being part of my experiment, drop me a line with your cell number and I will periodically text you an installment in “The Case of the White Phoenix Feather.”

I have to warn you that these will be extremely sporadic installments and that all of them will end with a cliff-hanger. I’ll start sending them randomly, next week. You may get one a week, or one a day. I should also warn you that I’m writing with no idea of where this is going.

Here’s the first line.

Without preamble, Virginia leaned across the spotless white tablecloth and smiled. “When I said the ninjas were no match for us, I meant it. Lou will be back with the White Phoenix Feather before the dessert course. Now quit gaping and finish your soup.”

Edited to add: This will be a short story, not a novel. I’m not that crazy.

Indeed. My seatmate was Ron Serdiuk from Pulp Fiction Press out of Australia. We knew so many people in common that it was almost comic that we hadn’t met before. The flight seemed almost too short, so we shared a cab into the city.

I must say, I was not expecting the flight home to be one of the highlights of the trip, but it was.

The next highlight happened at home. My beloved husband had picked up season three of Battlestar Galactica. And Chinese food. Mmm…

It’s in a password protected post, but it’s the usual password. Don’t know what that is? Drop me a line and I’ll tell ya.

And here’s the teaser.

Half-consciously, Kim put a hand up to cover her new nose ring. She knew it pissed her parents off no end that she could tolerate cold iron and they couldn’t, not like there was that much iron in a nose ring.

It still made her break out sometimes, but didn’t burn her like it did them. “Kimberly Anne Smith,” Mom’s voice caught her in the foyer as surely as if she’d been called by her true name. “I’ve been worried sick. Do you know what time it is?”

“11:49.” Kim dropped her hand and turned to face Mom, her Doc Martens making a satisfactory clomping sound on the hardwood floor. “I’m here. Home before midnight. No one with me.” Sometimes she thought about bringing friends home to show them what her parents really looked like after their glamour dropped.

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I turned, in some surprise. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t immediately place her so I cleverly said, “Um… yes!”

“I’m [editor]. I just had lunch with your agent.”

My jaw dropped. She’d spotted my name on my luggage tag as we were standing in line. And this, my friends, is a good reason to have a distinctive name.

We realize that we’d actually met at World Fantasy last year and ridden back on the same train. This time we did not have the same destination, so running into her was totally random. She was on her way with her boyfriend to spend the weekend with his family. And then she said, “Your manuscript is one of the ones in my bag. It’s sort of Jane Austeny, isn’t it?”

“Jane Austen with magic!” I said.

“What could go wrong with that combination?”

“Well, lots of things go wrong. Chaos ensues. And then matrimony.”

She laughed.

So the lessons learned today are:

1. Volunteer to be bumped
2. Distinctive name is good.
3. Have the elevator pitch ready.

I mean, now I’ve got a free round-trip ticket from the airline and had the bonus of making a connection with an editor right before she reads my manuscript. I think that’s worth the price of being late to WisCon.

IAFAuctions.com is part of the fundraising arm of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, a not–for–profit organization dedicated to the study, support, and promotion of interstitial art.
Currently, we’re auctioning off jewelry based on stories from the first Interfictions anthology.

The story is, in turn, playful and charming, well thought out and deliberate, and Kowal appears to have written her own version of an O Henry story.

It works.

O’Henry was really my first love in the world of short stories. Sure, I’d read others and enjoyed them. Really, my first love should have been Ray Bradbury, but I think O’Henry captured me because his stories were deceptively simple. There were no elements of wonder, like Martians or rocket ships, just people living ordinary lives. And then, with one turn of phrase, he could change the entire meaning of everything you’ve read. When people want to write twist endings, what they really want is to write an O. Henry story.

Take a moment and go read “The Skylight Room.”

Subscriptions are a measly $20 for 4 issues in the US. $24 for Canada/Mexico. $34 for the rest of the world.

We’ve re-initiated the APEX FOR LIFE subscription option that gives you Apex until you die. This goes for $100.

If you’re interested in the magazine, but want to check it out before taking out a subscription, then take a look through our ample back catalog.

Or, heck, if you’re wanting to show your support but not necessarily want a subscription, check out our ample back catalog.

Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Evil Robot Monkey” is an affecting snapshot in the life of a chimp with an implant in his head that increases his intelligence. Unfortunately for him, that lands him in the “hellish limbo” of being “too smart to be with other chimps, but too much of an animal to be with humans.” He becomes the subject of ridicule of children in what is presumably a school where he spends his time behind a pottery wheel. The interesting premise is delicately overlaid with emotion by having a single human show the chimp some compassion, resulting in a quick-and-dirty sf short story that is both charming and memorable.

One of the many perennial arguments in the science fiction blogosphere centers on the health of the short fiction market, so we turned the Mind Meld microphone to people in the field and asked them:

Q: Nobody questions the relevance of genre short fiction, but there is some debate about the health of the market itself. From your perspective, is the short fiction market in trouble? If not, why the debate? If so, what is the cause?

I’m one of the writers they asked to pontificate.

On the other hand, Elizabeth Bear introduced me to Jay Lake, who in turn set up a meeting with Ken Scholes, and he recommended Mary Robinette Kowal, who became a new client of mine last month. (That makes it Mary’s turn….) So, it certainly has its advantages. They still all had to write really, really, really, really ridiculously good books.

Which set me thinking… See, the thing is, that Ken’s introduction let me jump the slush pile. BUT if I’d sent in my first novel, Jennifer would have rejected me. The novel I signed with is the fourth that I’ve written.

The evolution goes like this:

• Novel 0: Took ten years, starting from high school, to write. It is well and firmly trunked. (Shape-shifting cat/human aliens with wings anyone? Did I mention my D&D character has the same name? Yeah… trunk. TRUNK.)
• Novel 1: Middle-grade Fantasy – Six months. I think this has potential, but there’s a flaw in the first three chapters that I can’t seem to fix. I sent this out to publishers on my own for a while, and always got requests for partials but no requests for fulls. Now. This is book one in a series. Did I write the second book in the series next? No.
• Novel 2: Science Fiction/Murder Mystery – Four months. Better. It needed revisions, so I set it aside to think about before diving into it. Meanwhile, I wrote:
• Novel 3: Urban Fantasy/Chick Lit – Three months. Good. Needs revisions… Meanwhile:
• Novel 4: Regency romance/Fantasy – Three months. Good! This immediately felt stronger than the others and I had a clear view of what changes needed to happen. So I didn’t wait on the revisions. This is the one I signed with.

The point being, that it took a while for me to learn to write something salable and that if I’d sent in any of the others, I think I would still be without an agent because those books aren’t there yet. I do think they can be, but the course I chose to take — and mileage varies — was to write novels in several different genres to see which one stuck. I have sequel ideas for all of them, but until I knew that I had a book one that worked, it didn’t make sense to invest time in a string of books in the same world.

At the moment, I’m doing revisions on Novel 2 and continuing to work on short stories. Right now, I’m at a point in my career where I have the luxury of taking a year off from a novel before doing revisions. Since I’m a better writer now than I was a year ago, waiting to revise the novels is like earning interest on my skills. Seriously. I re-read Novel 2 and it was dead easy to see where it had gone astray. The revision process is like swimming downstream.

Now, let’s say that Ken offered to introduce me before I’d written Novel 4. I knew Novel 1 was flawed, so sending it in would have been wasting that opportunity. What’s more, it would have been embarrassing to Ken.

I’m sure that someday I’ll introduce a writer to Jennifer, but I can almost guarantee that it won’t be with their first novel.

Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Evil Robot Monkey,” the shortest piece in this anthology, is a smart tale about monkeys with implants and a cautionary tale of how intelligence can sometimes be very lonely.

My first three sales were to The First Line so I have a very soft spot for them. The magazine has a simple premise. The first line of a story is so important, but if you asked Mark Twain to write a story starting with, “Call me Ishmael,” you would not get Moby Dick. Every story in an issue of the First Line has the same opening line and the stories differ wildly.

So, when the editors contacted me and said that they’d like to use my story, “The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland,” in their anthology The Best of the First Line I was thrilled. My contributor copy just arrived in the mail. It’s a handsome thing. I’ve just started reading the stories and so far they are good across a wide spectrum of styles.

It’s in a password protected post, but it’s the usual password. Don’t know what that is? Drop me a line and I’ll tell ya.

And here’s the teaser.

The clockwork chickadee was not as pretty as the nightingale. But she did not mind. She pecked the floor when she was wound, looking for invisible bugs. And when she was not wound, she cocked her head and glared at the sparrow, whom she loathed with every tooth on every gear in her pressed-tin body.

The sparrow could fly.

He took no pains to conceal his contempt for those who could not. When his mechanism spun him around and around overhead, he twittered — not even a proper song — to call attention to his flight. Chickadee kept her head down when she could so as not to give him the satisfaction of her notice. It was clear to her that any bird could fly if only they were attached to a string like him. The flight, of which he was so proud, was not even an integral part of his clockwork. A wind-up engine hanging from the chandelier spun him in circles while he merely flapped his wings. Chickadee could do as much. And so she thought until she hatched an idea to show that Sparrow was not so very special.

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If you are a voting member of WorldCon and would like to read more, visit the bibliography on my website. See a story that isn’t available? Drop me a line and I’ll send it to you.

You can download the .zip directory of stories. This collection includes
For Solo Cello, op. 12 — Originally published in Cosmos
Bound Man — Originally published in Twenty Epics
Death Comes But Twice — Originally published in Talebones
This Little Pig — originally published in Cicada
Cerbo en Vitra ujo — originally published in Apex Digest [Warning: explicit sex and violence]

Early in 2007 the science-fiction imprint Solaris marked its launch with The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction. A year later, editor George Mann returns with a follow-up, this time featuring strong stories from Kay Kenyon, Michael Moorcock, Mary Robinette Kowal, Eric Brown and others.

I’m so stunned that all I can see is “stories from celebrity, celebrity, me, celebrity…”

I got the email a little over a week ago and couldn’t even hint that I’d been told. That’s probably where the fever came from, all the pent-up excitement. Today though, they announced the full nomination list for the Hugos.

The Cambell nominees are:

Joe Abercrombie (2nd year of eligibility)
Jon Armstrong (1st year of eligibility)
David Anthony Durham (1st year of eligibility)
David Louis Edelman (2nd year of eligibility)
Mary Robinette Kowal (2nd year of eligibility)
Scott Lynch (2nd year of eligibility)

As far as I can tell, I’m the only short story writer on the list, the rest are all novelists. I’m pleased as all get out to see David Louis Edelman on there with me. Besides being one of my favorite people, I think his nomination is well-deserved. I’ll admit that besides David, Scott Lynch is the only one of my fellow nominees that I’ve read, but then I’ll bet the other guys are wondering about who I am too… heh. Funny. I only just now realized that I’m the sole woman on the list.

Anyway, I was going to say that I plan on picking up copies of each of the other fellow’s novels and encourage you to do the same. One of the best things a nomination like this can do is to raise the visibility of the author, so darn it, get out there and read these guys. A puppeteer friend of mine said, “The only competition is a bad puppet show.” I firmly believe that’s true in science-fiction, too. I won’t be at all upset if one of the other nominees wins it, because a new good writer will just draw more people into the field and that’s good for me.

All of that said– There is one very simple reason you should vote for me which can be summed up in two words. Campbell Tiara.

I am the only girl on the list and I come with my own ballgown.

It contained my contributor copies The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, volume two. Keen!

I want to give a shout out Mike Munsil, who created Liberty Hall Writers, an online group that does weekly flash challenges. My story, “Evil Robot Monkey” came out of one of those. Each weekend, you get a trigger and then have an hour and a half to write a story.

The story itself is sort of the product of two triggers. See, at Shimmer we have a running gag which stemmed from when we were testing the submission system. Beth sent in a trial submission called “Harry Potter and the Evil Robt Monkeys!” ((The misspelling is intentional. You’d be amazed by how many people send in stories with misspellings within the first five lines.)) Brilliant. I decided that whatever the trigger was, my story would have that title. The trigger itself was a piece of clockwork art.

Here’s the first bit of the story.

Sliding his hands over the clay, Sly relished the moisture oozing around his fingers. The clay matted down the hair on the back of his hands making them look almost human. He turned the potter’s wheel with his prehensile feet as he shaped the vase. Pinching the clay between his fingers he lifted the wall of the vase, spinning it higher.

You can see that I kept the hairy potter.