And in other news, my flash fantasy piece, “The Box That Eats Memories,” has been sold to Daily Science Fiction. This is my first sale to DSF, and I’m really pleased.
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“Altogether Elsewhere” out in F&SF
Here’s the cover for the May/June issue of F&SF. My story, “Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer” is in it. It started out as a flash post-Singularity piece written in response to Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us
In Situ Cover
Dagan Books has unveiled the cover art for their alien archaeology anthology IN SITU. The cover is done by artist Oliver Wetter, who also produced the cover for Dagan Books’s previous anthology, Cthulhurotica. My story, “You’ll Always Have the Burden With You” is in it, and it is the story on which the art is based.
I love this cover.
Too Much Planning
I’ve been suffering from writer’s block on my latest project. For a whole month I couldn’t make any progress on it.
Turns out the problem was that I was trying something new for me: to not write a single word of the actual story until I’ve got the whole thing outlined so that all the beat work and all the character arcs make sense.
It was a miserable failure. Staring at the blank screen, I couldn’t think at all. I didn’t know the characters or the plot. I couldn’t see what they wanted or how they would go about getting it. I missed one self-imposed deadline after another.
For me, ideas have to come once I start writing. I have to get to know the characters and the story as I write them, not plot them out ahead of time.
As soon as I decided that I was okay with going off without a clear plan all in my head, ideas started to come. I guess I’m just not an outliner. I prefer writing a story without knowing exactly what the story is.
Covers in Translation
Translations for a few of my stories are out / will be out soon. I love the cover art on foreign magazines.
Catalan translation for “The Literomancer” (El literomàntic) appears in Issue 27 of La Lluna en un Cove.
Chinese translation for “Tying Knots” (《结绳记事》) and “The Visit” (《访客》) will be out in the 300th issue of Science Fiction World (科幻世界).
Science Fiction World’s 300th Issue
Science Fiction World (科幻世界) just released the TOC for their 300th issue, to be published in May 2011. “Tying Knots” (《结绳记事》) and “The Visit” (《访客》) will be in it.
