Category Archives: Writing

My First World Fantasy Convention

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I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into when I signed up a year ago for World Fantasy Convention. I had friends that were going to be there, Neil Gaiman was a guest of honor, so that was all a big selling point. My confidence slackened a bit when my wife told me she didn’t think she could manage the vacation time. But I had the ticket so I figured, “Why not?” Besides, with only 500 people attending, I might actually get to meet Neil Gaiman. I’ll be honest: I didn’t really meet Neil Gaiman, unless you count running into him and getting him to sign a copy of Stardust for my wife. But really what I got out of the convention was much cooler than meeting Neil Gaiman. SRSLY.

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World Fantasy Con and Other Newsly Bits

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I’ve been really busy working on the novel(la) I’m writing for Timid Pirate, so I haven’t been blogging much. I have many blog posts in my head, just no time to work on them. No contract will likely be signed till I have the full first draft done, but I sent what I have to my wife so she can make suggestions before I send it off to my beta readers. With NaNoWriMo coming up, I’ll be taking a break to work on something else for a month.

Today I’m catching a plan to San Diego for World Fantasy Con, with guest of honor Neil Gaiman. I didn’t make it onto any panels, but looking at the list of authors that did I’m not insulted. There’s a metric butt ton of awesome writers there. It’s so outside of my league it’s ridiculous. But I did manage to squeeze my way in as an author for tonights informal meet-and-greet at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore. I’m only a lot intimidated by the notion of being on the same docket of authors as Mary Robinette Kowal, Emma Bull, David Brin and Will Shetterly. I have this small secret fear that they’ll realize I don’t belong.

I’m delighted to see that they listed one of the anthologies I’m in on their site, though. Specifically Crossed Genres Year One. I’ll be stoked if they actually have it on sale at the store. I’ll be even more stoked if they have the Timid Pirate anthologies I’m in.

Speaking of Timid Pirate, Cobalt City Dark Carnival is out soon-ish. I channel my inner angry panda for my story, “Snowflake’s Chance in Hell.” Not sure what the exact release date is, but I know it is pretty damn soon.

Arcane Magazine, which purchased my short story “Kiss of Death,” has changed format to being a yearly anthology. Their Web site now points to Cold Fusion Media. I recall hearing that the anthology would come out January-ish, so hopefully that’s when my story will be there since my new contract gives them a year to publish the story before rights revert to me. Getting information about this has been tough.

My First Clarion West Workshop

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This weekend I attended the first of Clarion West’s one day writing workshops. This first one was titled “Alive in the World” and focused on the interaction between character and setting. It was taught by Molly Gloss, who I hadn’t heard of before, but others in the class were familiar with her work. I think this more a sign of how spotty my SF/F reading experience often is. I felt like the class was pretty good. I offer up my thoughts for you on the subject.

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Writing in Scenes

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My friend and fellow writer, John Worsley, asked me to recap what Nancy Kress taught in her workshop. So this is the very summarized view, recreated from my notes. Since I’m not the best note-taker, this whole post will be kind of rough. I’m trying to recreate the main talking points without me filling in gaps with false details that I’ve confabulated. There were also handouts, which we referred to throughout the course of the talk.

I don’t remember exactly when each page was covered, or what order they were presented in. (I’m mainly vague about #2 and #3 in terms if which came first.) I’ll try to mention them when I think they make the most sense. Part of the delay in this post was that I was waiting for PNWA to post the handouts to their site. I can guarantee the links work now. But I can’t guarantee they’ll be there forever.

For those who would like more information from the source, Nancy Kress has three books on writing that have been published:

Ms. Kress, I’d like to apologize now for any butchering or incorrect statements I make regarding what I learned.

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2011 PNWA Summer Conference: After Action Report

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This year I attended my second conference run by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. This year was a very different experience from last year in many ways. It was at a different hotel, I was able to attend on Thursday and Friday, and I wasn’t pitching to any agents or editors. This led to some good moments, some bad.

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Several weeks ago, while talking about my submission to Cobalt City: Dark Carnival, my friend Torrey pointed out with faint surprise that I actually had fun writing my story about Snowflake. And, I’ll admit, I have had stupid fun writing for all the other Cobalt City stuff I’ve participated in. I can’t say that it’s strictly a matter of the publisher. My entry into Growing Dread was a very difficult thing to write. But I think overall my Cobalt City stories have allowed me the opportunity to cut loose and play with the topic a bit.
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Quick update

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Writing has been coming out in drips and drabs. I finally finished my first stab at the outline for the novella, and now I have the lovely wife reading it over to provide feedback. My next deadline is to get a first draft of the outline plus the first chapter to the publisher by early September.

Submissions are still floating out in limbo. I haven’t had time to ping any of the markets to find out if they had any interest.

The next issue of Arcane Magazine, which might be when my story “Kiss of Death” will appear, has been pushed back from July to October due to poor sales of the first issue. I’m a little surprised that they expected to break even with the first issue, but I also know little of the publishing end of things. All I’ve successfully done as the owner of a small business is run it into the ground.

I’m also considering consolidating my gaming blog into this blog, and mirroring it all into bolthy.com. I’m open to any feedback you might have for this.