Cymphonee recovered the old hard drive; that means 25k in the novel saved and six WIP’s recovered. Not to mention all our old photos and videos. Yeehaw! Bards and Sages Publishing picked up “Three Times a Ronin Shouts” and that should be coming out as a stand alone in July I believe. Still watching for negotiations at Manor House for September release of “What’s Done in the Dark,” and have been obsessively playing the Gwent Beta!
More to come.
April was the heaviest reading load I’ve carried so far this year. Got through Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining and am half way done with Night Shift. Picked up Fletcher’s Beyond Redemption again and have been diving back into the basics of craft. The ideas aren’t hard these days, there are plenty of them. It’s the structure and voice I’m struggling with, until a bullfrog whispered in my ear yesterday–yes, a bullfrog. Lets call him Jeremiah, and he’s volunteered to narrate a new piece I’m working on. Saves me a lot of work. If you’re working on a story and a character’s voice just pops out and speaks to you, listen, record, and keep your third eye open.
Got a new flash piece in Speculative 66 (Loverboy Android) coming out tomorrow I believe. Just like “Stay of Execution,” this one began as a 250 word account of a girl desperate for the love of a machine. Again, it was an idea piece and those can be chopped down to the bare essentials sometimes. If you can take an entire novel and chop it down to 66 words you’ve got a pitch that can save you a lot of work when it comes down to summarizing each chapter in a paragraph (this will happen somewhere down the line, best to start now). “Out Here” has made the rounds and returned with a pile of great feedback, yet no takers. Some pieces, the ones you feel you really need to tell, aren’t worth letting go of, and I drew the line with “Out Here.” Set a bar for yourself that you won’t compromise. If I don’t get at least 3 cents a word, it goes in the trunk until a new market pops up.
I hear Cirsova is in the midst of recording an audio-book version of issue #5 and I hope it’s well-received. Grimdark Magazine has some huge projects in the making, along with a new website that looks amazing. Watched episode 1 of American Gods and was blown away by the production value and how they really stuck to the format of the novel. Got through 10 episodes of Vikings season 4 (the rest will have to wait until my amazon account releases them for free) and couldn’t believe the great Ragnar met his end in a pit of snakes. Took a break from Mass Effect Andromeda (a bit disappointing) and am letting the X-Box cool down until another Dark Souls installment becomes available (I doubt it).
Keep reading, and writing, and listen to your inner bullfrog.
Review of Cirsova issue #5 from the folks at Tangent.
…a great article by one of my favorite short form writers T.R. Napper.
Today, I sent the Hugo Voter Packet to Worldcon officials.
For those who are curious, we selected the following representative works:
All total, it adds up to about 63K words, slightly longer than our latest issue.
While a part of me wanted to be able to just send all of the stories, I understand that Hugo voters will have millions of words to…
View original post 91 more words
Congrats Alex
It is incredibly difficult to convey just how hard it’s been to keep this under my hat for the last couple of weeks. I’ve been so excited that I just wanted to scream.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us and made this possible! If I name names, I know I’ll forget folks, so I’ll try to cover everyone as best I can. Thank you to my fellow bloggers at Castalia House, thank you to the Alt-Furry crew for putting us on Sad Pookas, thank you to the folks on Pulp Twitter, thanks to everyone who follows and reads the blog, thanks to the friends and family who’ve supported us, and especially thanks to all of our readers and contributors – without you, we’d be just another WordPress site!
I probably won’t be able to make it up to Finland this year, but if any local Helsinki black metal…
View original post 18 more words
No bills, no advertisements or catalogs, no postman even…..
From somewhere beyond the reach of the USPS, UPS, beyond even the neon glow of FedEx, this thing miraculously…..appeared. I call sorcery, every time. 
Source: There Are Two Kinds of People…
Had a great conversation with Scott Cole over at Castalia House this last week. We talk about Cirsova, writing, genre, science, and bugs, of all things. I really had a great time with the conversation. You can check it out here and also find some rip-roaring fiction put out by Castalia House Publishing.
