Jared Millet Blogs

Summer Gothic, and other bits

2012-01-24T09:06:00.002-06:00

Quick Summer Gothic update: I sent all the story critiques out over a week ago, and half of the revised, pretty-much-final drafts are in. Specifically, I've got 11 of the twenty-ish stories I want to publish now sitting in my Master Document, and I'm just waiting on the others. I've given people until February 15 to do the rewrites, but that doesn't stop me from being antsy.

This weekend: the cover shoot! I'll be sticking with the stock "overgrown graveyard" photo I've been using in the promotional material so far, but I've got a friend's daughter who's agreed to be the obligatory Dead Person who I plan to "ghost" into the image (assuming I can make it look professional and not half-assed).

In other news:

Flash Fiction Night 2012 is set for March 20, 7:00 p.m., at the Hoover Public Library. There are still plenty of slots for participants, so let me know or call the Hoover fiction department at (205) 444-7800 if you have a story you'd like to present.
Kerlak has opened a story call for Dreams of Steam III, so I get to do another of my "Perrilloux" stories. Hopefully I'll be able to get into the collection again; the first two have been so successful that the competition to be in Vol.3 will probably be pretty fierce.

Summer Gothic: Let's Do This Thing

2011-12-16T08:51:00.001-06:00

Okay, now I'm worried. Yesterday was the deadline for submissions to Summer Gothic, the anthology of Alabama ghost stories that I'm editing. The stories are in, and on the whole they're good. This thing that so far has been nothing but a daydream in the back of my head is really going to happen.

Nervous? You bet'cha.

Of course, there's a lot still to come: Cover art, interior design, contracts, deciding for sure on which P.O.D. service to use - but most importantly, sending each story back to the author with notes for revision. The best experiences I've had with my own short stories is when editors have returned them with comments and requested another draft. Since Summer Gothic is as much a teaching exercise for the various writers' groups I'm involved with as it is an opportunity for publication, I'm going to "pay it forward" and do the same for this collection. I've had a committee looking at each story that came in (anonymous for now, I think of them as Ryan, Randy, Paula, and Simon) and I'm going to condense all their praise and criticism into a packet for each contributor who makes it to the next round. The story call website will shortly switch to a production blog so everyone can keep track of our progress.

So that's where things stand in the exciting country of "What the Hell Have I Gotten Myself Into?" If all goes swimmingly, this thing should see print in the spring of 2012.

And every one of you will buy a copy. Right?

NaNoWriMo 2011 - One for the Books

2011-12-01T10:21:00.005-06:00

My gods, is it over? Can I come out now? May I actually watch TV without feeling guilty about it? Gee, whiz.

This was actually a pretty productive month. I didn't struggle as much to keep my head above water as I did last year, but I never got very far ahead on my daily word count either. At least the universe didn't conspire against me more than normal this time. Final word count: 52,135. This was a continuation of the novel I began last year, so I just pasted my new work onto the end of my previous installment, which brings draft 1 of The Ghost Cauldron (formerly The Wolves of Majadan) up to 103,926 words... and counting. I can comfort myself with the knowledge that I don't have another 50K to go until this thing is done - but there might be as much as 40K left to the end. After that, I can leave Majadan behind for a while and get on with something new.

My first year as Birmingham's Nano ML was exciting. We had a huge turnout for our kick-off party and a lively crowd for our write-ins, at least at the beginning at the month. Attendance at these things always dies off as November moves along, people develop plans, and the majority of writers fall gasping by the wayside. Nevertheless, Birmingham writers produced over 7.3 million words of fiction this year, which is quite an achievement.

Next November: (see, I'm thinking ahead) The Whisper - the love child of Clark Kent and Hunter S. Thompson meets a Fifties beatnik version of the Shadow to thwart the plans of a dastardly time-travel cartel to destroy the world for fun and profit.

Meanwhile the deadline is fast approaching for Summer Gothic submissions. Stories have been trickling in, but I've heard promises of many more to come in the next few weeks. Get those in by December 15!

Also, if you're in the Birmingham area this weekend, drop by the Birmingham Public Library for our annual Local Authors Expo. I'll be selling and signing copies of Dreams of Steam vol. 1 & 2 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Welcome, NaNoWriMos!

2011-10-10T18:50:00.006-05:00

The annual month of noveling is nigh. If you cruise on over to the NaNoWriMo website, look me up under my nom de guerre, Tycho Brahe. This year the plan is to finish the first draft of The Ghost Cauldron, book three of the Majadan trilogy. I did the first half last year and made it across the 50,000 word finish line, then the chaos of my day job intruded and I never went any further. But hey, at least I don't have to worry about what to write this year. For next year I've got several ideas lined up. I'll just have to see which one strikes my fancy.

Anyway, since I'm also serving as Birmingham's municipal liaison, I'm going to be spending all my Internet time cruising the discussion boards and monitoring the Birmingham forum, so there won't be much updating of ye olde blog. However, since the stats show that I get a lot of traffic on this site during NaNoWriMo, I'll post a little present to help all you visiting WriMos procrastinate - a free story!

Also: Check out an excellent review of Dreams of Steam II over at The Horror Zine.

Tag

2011-10-10T18:35:00.003-05:00

by Jared Millet

A wall of thunder slammed through the lecture hall.

“Vhat…”

The aftershock knocked Professor Weiss off his feet before he could finish. As he rolled to his knees and pulled himself up to his podium, his students stared back with eyes like ash on water. Seconds later, Weiss’s assistant burst through the classroom door.

“Professor, it’s the Khendaar. They’re here!”

Weiss closed a textbook that had fallen open and steadied himself. “Vhere are they, Brad?”

“One came down Mali. The other took out Topeka.”

Weiss excused his students, most of whom were already packing to leave or openly weeping, and made for the exit. Once outside, he dropped all decorum and ran for his lab. His T.A. reached it first. Brad had the build of an athlete, and Weiss often wondered why the young man was wasting his time in science.

Inside the lab, on an old television with a “Don’t Panic” sticker blocking the lower part of the screen, a cable newsman was holding back tears. There was no sound, the set’s speaker having blown a decade before. The scene cut to a shaky aerial video of an enormous glass crater that had once been Saharan sand.

“Vhere is it?” Weiss asked.

“Heading for the Atlantic. The other one’s going northeast. They’re both moving at twice the speed of sound.”

“I meant the translator, dummkopf.” He didn’t mean to bite Brad’s head off, but it just came out. “Ve should at least try to talk to them, jah?”

“Most of it’s in the storeroom, but the software is all on the server.”

“Vell, vhy isn’t it on the laptop? Get the equipment; I’ll transfer the files.”

***
Weiss’s colleagues in SETI had received their first extraterrestrial transmission over a year earlier. The signal from nearby Tau Ceti carried a cornucopia of technical data. It also gave a description of the Khendaar and a warning to evacuate the planet. Once the details of the message leaked to the press, however, the following societal meltdown made large-scale preparations impossible. Only a handful of institutions, such as Weiss’s university, were able to develop a fraction of the alien technology needed for survival.

Brad wheeled a device that looked like part of a rock band’s sound system toward the lab’s loading dock while Weiss drummed his nails on his laptop and waited for the last of the software to install. The translator had yet to be tested to his satisfaction, but it would simply have to work. There was no more room for error.

On the silent television, a prominent media personality shouted at an unseen audience. Behind the pundit’s pudgy face, a satellite photo displayed a chain of giant footprints across the Midwest, each half a mile from the next.

A VTOL jet collected Weiss, Brad, and the device from the university commons and rocketed into the air as soon as they’d shut the hatch. Brad held a radio to his ear.

“My God,” he said. “The African target is swimming the Atlantic. It’s moving so fast it’s plowed a furrow to the sea floor.”

“And the American one?”

“Ran right through Chicago and knocked over half of downtown,” said their pilot. “Now it’s wading up the Great Lakes. It looks like the aliens will meet up somewhere in Maine or Quebec.”

“Not any more,” announced Brad in a dead voice. He set the radio down. “The western Khendaar just flattened Toronto. Now it’s heading for New York.”

***
The alien crouched over the ruins of Jersey City. Its clustered heads swirled through the clouds like a mass of gargantuan snakes, and its twin tails cracked the air with repeated sonic booms. Weiss asked the pilot to land, but he declined.

A hundred-foot wall of water approached from the east in advance of the second Khendaar. The wave rolled over Manhattan and up the Hudson, tearing bridges apart like reeds. Half of the city collapsed into pillars of smoke and rubble; the few skyscrapers remaining leaned and groaned like drunkards. The inevitable back spill down the river would wash the rest away, but for the moment there was stillness.

Weiss demanded that their pilot put them down somewhere, and after consulting with his superiors he set down in the wasteland of debris that was Central Park. Weiss and Brad had just unloaded their equipment when the quake hit. Tremors rocked the earth with the rhythm of footfalls and a shadow blocked the morning sun.

To the east, a Khendaar rose on its hind legs. Sheets of Atlantic seawater slid off of its body in localized downpours. The other alien had crossed the Hudson, but was partially concealed behind the ruined skyline.

Weiss activated his machine and spoke through a microphone. “Please! You must stop this! Ve are intelligent beings! You are destroying our cities, our homes! Vhy are you doing this? Please, vill you listen?”

As he spoke, thunderous sounds in an alien tongue poured from the translator. Brad staggered to his knees from the force of the shockwave. Weiss gripped the edge of his device to keep his legs from buckling.

The alien to the east leaped into the sky and soared overhead, thunder crashing behind it like the voice of God. The other Khendaar tried to dodge, but its doppelganger tackled it, flattening a huge swath of steel and concrete. Giant words spilled from its maw as they wrestled, and a translation appeared on Weiss’s monitor:

>TAG / YOU’RE IT

“Professor!” shouted the pilot. “The radar station in Australia just spotted twenty more Khendaar out past the moon. They’re heading this way!”

Weiss didn’t hear. He stared dumbfounded at the translator, even as the battling titans rolled in his direction. Numb to the world, he never felt the foot that squashed him.

This story is copyright 2011 Jared Millet.

See also: Fire and Witch's Cross.

Now I've Done It

2011-09-29T20:56:00.002-05:00

As of today, I've taken over the job of NanoWrimo Municipal Liaison for Birmingham, Alabama. No time for cold feet now. May as well mention the NanoWrimo Boot Camp to be held by Southern Magic on October 22 at the Homewood Library. I'll be one of the speakers, and I expect that I'll go over how to use Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method of plot outlining, which I absolutely swear by.

In other news, I finished and polished that psychological suspense story in twenty days - a new record for me. Now I'm just waiting for the rejection letter, and since I've never done non-SF before, I'm not sure where I'll send it next. I guess I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Right now, I've got three weeks or less to do another story, then on to getting ready for Part 2 of the nano-novel I started last year. Somewhere in all this, I need to revise yet another chapter of The Blood Prayer.

This would be so much easier if I could quit my day job. O Winning Lottery Ticket, where are you when I need you?

Story Call for Alabama Writers

2011-09-16T19:08:00.004-05:00

So here I am, sticking my neck out.

If you're an Alabama writer (or just a writer who happens to live in Alabama at the moment) head on over to Summer Gothic for an open story call. What I'm looking for are ghost stories - specifically, ones set in hot, sticky, wet, Southern summers. The call is open until December 15, 2011 and the story length range is 2,500-7,500 words.

Why am I doing this?

Shoot on over to the website for the full spiel, but the short version is that I've got to know many, many writers in the Birmingham area over the last few years, mostly through Write Club but also through several other organizations, and the question inevitably comes up: "Why don't we put together an anthology?" Since I'm more often than not the ringleader (or at least co-conspirator) at most of the writing meetings I go to, the question is usually directed at me. Write Club cannot do an anthology, however, since Write Club is a program of the Hoover Public Library, and the library isn't in the publishing business.

However, I says to myself, why couldn't I do it on my own? Not completely on my own, mind you: I've recruited a panel of willing participants to help me put this thing together, but for the moment they're remaining safely anonymous while I stick my literary unmentionables out in the wind.

In summary: If you're a writer, if you live in Alabama, and if you feel like you've got a ghost story in you, pop on over to Summer Gothic and see if you want to play along.

Challenge: Accepted

2011-09-08T18:28:00.004-05:00

So here's the question I ask myself: How fast can I write a story, from idea to end of draft 1? My earlier attempt this year to get a story done in a timely manner failed miserably, partially because I tried to "wing it," part because I lacked real deadline pressure, but mostly because I'm a lazy bastard.

Today, a friend of mine pointed me to a story call for an anthology to raise funds for the Edgar Allen Poe museum in Baltimore. The deadline is only weeks away, so if I'm going to have a shot at this I've got mere days to get draft 1 on (electronic) paper. I've got most of an outline and 1,000 words already in the bank, but still no idea how the damn thing ends.

Here we go.

Update: September 23 - Apparently, a first draft takes two weeks. An improvement, but I still have to work on speeding that up. One week to the deadline, but rewrites are so much easier. Let the polishing begin!

Dreams of Steam II: Brass and Bolts

2011-08-30T08:23:00.009-05:00

It's officially for sale! Go out and get thee a copy. You can buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or at the Kerlak Publishing booth at Dragon*Con if you're lucky enough to be going this year.

P.S. I may have lost my mind.

For a while I've been toying with the idea of editing and publishing an anthology of stories by the many writers in the Birmingham area (and Alabama at large) that I've met over the last few years through my activities with NaNoWriMo, Write Club, Southern Magic, and the BPL Local Author Expo. Well, as of last night, those plans reached the no-turning-back stage. I'll be updating this blog with the official Story Call soon.

Stay posted.

Sudden Update

My story "The Unwinding House," which started life as a flash fiction piece performed at the Hoover Library a year and a half ago, will appear in an online issue of Kaleidotrope in 2012.

I'm so excited I can barely keep from using exclamation marks.

Oh, what the hell. Woohoo!!

Dreams of Steam II: Cover and Contents!

2011-08-22T10:09:00.004-05:00

It looks like Kerlak is about to unleash its next steampunk anthology, Brass and Bolts, into the wild. Apparently the original Dreams of Steam was so successful that this one's coming out in hardback, trade paper, and ebook formats, available for ordering soon!

Once again, the host of this party is the esteemed Kimberly Richardson. My own contribution is a semi-sequel to last year's "Dead Man's Hand." That piece was essentially a haunted house story (with robots), but "Jumping the Rails" is more of a straight out adventure in the turn-of-the-century West.

Here's hoping that this collection is even more fun than the last one!

Contents:

Of Heroes and Airships - Victor Lorthos
Death With A Glint Of Bronze - Sean Taylor
For The Fear Of Steam - Missa Dixon
Dreams Of Freedom - Len Berry
The Real Magic - H. David Blalock
The Third Eye - Alexander S. Brown
In Tesla's Court - Robert Cerio
Commander Tesla Versus The Holy Roman Empire - Phillip R. Cox
Protege - Dwayne DeBardelaben
The Perfect Woman - Kara Ferguson
The Tale Of Lady Helvetica - Christopher Friesen
The Locked Door - Allan Gilbreath
Great Minds - Jeff Ollen Harris
Grass Elephant - M. Keaton
Cicada Summer - Jon Klement
The Big Golden Apple - Cindy MacLeod
The Automated Man - Alli Martin
Jumping The Rails - Jared Millet
Chilled Meat - J. L. Mulvihill
Steam Race - Herika R. Raymer
Winnet's Octavian - Laura H. Smith
The Devil's Children - Angelia Sparrow and Joy Coop
The Boys In The Boiler Room - David Tabb
Bedeviled - Nick Valentino
The Island Sojourn - Stephen Zimmer

Another Year, Another Sale

2011-07-01T10:18:00.002-05:00

Doing a happy dance, since my story "Jumping the Rails" has been accepted for the anthology Dreams of Steam II: Of Brass and Bolts. The story is a follow-up to "Dead Man's Hand" but with new characters, so it's not exactly a sequel. As soon as I know more about the anthology, so will you. Congrats to everyone else who made it into the collection!

Status of Other Stories: My time travel story and my stupid, stupid cat story are currently floating out there in the wild; I eagerly await rejections. My kayaking story is still festering in its first draft compost heap - maybe I'll polish it off this month and fire it into the submission gauntlet. I'm finally back into The Blood Prayer - draft 10, I think - and it's going slowly, but well.

That's all for now. Have fun blowing shit up on the 4th!

Finito!

2011-04-22T18:21:00.002-05:00

Ooookay. If you remember, a couple months ago I posted here that I was going to start writing a new short story, and that I would finish the damn thing. I think I said something like "1,000 words per day, death before dishonor." Well, the title of the story is "River's End" and it's finally done. So how'd I do?

Feb 24 - Apr 22 = 58 days
Final word count: 6,675

Words per day: 115

Yeah. Not so much.

In my defense, I attempted a different writing style than I'm used to. In the past, I've always been an outliner, and this time I decided just to wing it. That didn't work out so well, and I ended up abandoning the story for a better part of a month and a half. Then, finally, when I was printing an excerpt to share with my writers' group, inspiration struck and I knew how to make it work.

It's kind of like when you look at a piece of art and can't tell what it is, then you turn your head sideways and suddenly see how it goes together? That's kind of what writing this story was like. Still, I'm happy with the end product. I'll set it aside for a couple of days, then polish it up and set it loose in the wild.

What's next? Well, Kerlak has a story call for Dreams of Steam II, for which submissions are due May 31. I have an earlier deadline than that, though, because I swore to another writing group I'm involved with that on May 5 I would present them with either a finished first draft or my own severed head.

That gives me just under two weeks. Better get cracking.

Flash Fiction Night - The Movie!

2011-04-06T09:18:00.002-05:00

Flash Fiction - Open Mike Night 2011 from Hoover Library on Vimeo.

Featured Stories

"The Fourth" by Anne Breen

"The Button" by Sean DeArmond

"Freedom" by Phil Fishman

"The Road" by Emily Cutler

"Aiko, My Little Loved One" by Lisa Dolensky

"Bad Timing" by Denise Dupree

Poems: "Kay-as" & "Magus" by Carly Koenig

"The Tree of Many Leaves" by Larry Hensley

"Momma Said" by Carol Jolley

"Clara's Tail" by David Oser

"Fire" by Jared Millet

"Imaginary Stepmother" by Mary Rees

A few observations: The program went very well this year. (Last year it ran a little long.) All the presenters did a wonderful job.

We actually had two mikes on stage - one for the readers and one for the MCs. The MC mike doesn't show up in the shot, which is why it appears on video as if each author is being introduced by a disembodied voice.

I wish the mike had been able to pick up more of the audience noise. There were laughs and chuckles throughout (at appropriate moments, of course) that don't quite come across in the video. Also, I had no idea that the stage lighting would turn my green shirt brown. Next year I'll stick with red.

While I don't expect anyone who doesn't already know me to stumble across this video, in case that happens: That little grimace/choke/cough thing I do occasionally? Tourette Syndrome. Trust me, it used to be a lot worse.

Fire

2011-03-23T07:27:00.002-05:00

by Jared Millet

Quickly, everyone, come inside. Someone bar the door behind us. This old city may be empty of people, but I think I saw a wolf scouting us out a few blocks back. Where there’s one, there’s bound to be more.

Sweet Judas on a stick, but it's cold in here. Still, it looks safe to build a fire. That marble floor won't catch, and if we break that upper window it will act as a chimney. Let’s just hope some of the furniture is wood and not plastic.

But wait. Oh my god, look where we are. Forget the furniture, kids, we just hit the jackpot. Just look at all those shelves. All those dusty volumes. Row after row after row. I tell you what, we're not going to freeze tonight.

Did you know that paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit? Says so in this book right here. Who's got the matches? We should only need one. Run it across the pages. Get the kindling going, then bring some more, quick. Places like this used to hand these out for free, you know.

Start with the skinny ones with all those bright pictures. Fan them open on the pile. If you’re quick, you can read them while the pages start to curl. Hey look, it's a banquet. Green eggs and ham. Piles of roast beast. Who's got the cat food? Open a can. Hey, let's celebrate. Go ahead and open two.

What's next? Ah, textbooks. May as well, no one ever read them anyway. You might think the world wouldn’t have gone downhill if people had, but who are we kidding? People are people. All the history in the world couldn't change that, much less the algebra. What's that... trigonometry? Oh please, burn it all.

Now this one's funny. The Perfect Resume for Dummies. Just imagine: somebody somewhere was the last person ever to read this. What was he thinking? I guess people still had dreams, right up to the end. I wonder if he picked the “work-based resume” or the curriculum vitae. Whatever. They both burn just as well.

Now we get to the good stuff. What'll it be, kids? Thrillers or romance? Adventures or mysteries? Comical pastoral or pastoral historical? Sorry. Shakespeare joke. We'll get to him later, just you wait. Oh, I know. Bring me the science fiction. You know, those books with the bright shiny futures on the cover. Burn the whole lot before it makes me sick. The fantasy too, why not. After all, there’s no wizard going to sweep down on a broom and save us, is there? May as well do us some good.

That reminds me. As long as we're on the subject, there's another fantasy department somewhere over in nonfiction. See if you can find it. Some of the books will have people with wings on the cover. They called those guardian angels, if you can believe it. I wonder if one of them will protect us the next time a storm hits, or a bear steals all our food. Throw them on the fire; maybe that will wake them up.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'm getting cranky in my old age. We should stay positive if we're going to keep strong and make it all the way south to where it's warm. But I'm saying, you don't know. You were too young. You don't remember the stupidity of it all. No one cared what was going wrong in the world, not even the ones who said they did. Everything was always someone else's problem. And you know what? I’m just as much to blame as anyone else.

Where were we? What's next? Home Repair and Improvement. Yeah, may as well. That won't be useful where we're going, not unless you think we’ll find construction equipment and power tools that work. Once we settle down, we'll have to invent the wheel all over again. If you find a book on that, you can save it. Just make sure it has lots of pictures.

It's finally getting warm in here. That's good. There's a lot of night left to go. What else have you got for me? Travelogues. Distant shores and foreign lands. 50 Best Diners on Route 66. Torch 'em. Antiques and Collectibles? Definitive Price Guide to Depression Era Glass. Light her up.

Politics. Oh, please, bring me politics. Anything with a picture of some screaming guy on the cover, those should burn the best. The writers should all be in Hell now; maybe the books will burn hotter. Sports almanacs? Burn 'em. Biographies? Burn. Poetry? Science? History? Burn.

Oh, here they are. The Philosophers. The Thinkers. The greatest minds in history, the ones who taught us how to be human. The ones who showed us how to live with purpose, with responsibility. How to not let the whole human race slide into ruin. Fat lot of good they did. Bring 'em on.

Plato. Socrates. Nietzche. Decartes.

Franklin. Jefferson. Einstein. Nobel.

Clemens. Faulkner . Dante. Angelou.

Homer. Aquinas. Luther. King.

That's enough. Keep it stoked and that blaze will go on until morning. We'll be out in the wild again soon, and we’ve a long, cold trek ahead of us. Let's take our rest while we can. If it doesn’t attract any wolves, we’ll remain as long as the fuel lasts. With luck, there'll be a break in the weather. But for a while, we can stay here, in the warm, cozy light of history.

Until the last

of the fire

goes out.

This story is copyright 2011 Jared Millet.

It was performed on March 22, 2011, at the Hoover Public Library Flash Fiction Night, sponsored by the Hoover Library Write Club.

See also: Witch's Cross, Flash Fiction Night 2010.

Flash Fiction Night 2.0, and a Review

2011-03-17T13:15:00.004-05:00

It's that time again - time for my writing group, the Hoover Library Write Club, to put on another Flash Fiction Night at the Library Theatre. We've got about a dozen writers presenting this year, and it's always great to get your material out there in front of a living, breathing audience.

Last year I read two stories: a time-travel piece that I'm currently shopping around in a much longer version, and "Witch's Cross," which I posted online here. This year I'll be presenting a story called "Fire," which is either the most pessimistic or the most pretentious thing I've ever written. Probably both.

If you're anywhere near the greater Birmingham area, please drop by the Hoover Public Library (200 Municipal Drive, Hoover AL 35216) on Tuesday, March 22, at 7:00 p.m. You won't be disappointed, or your money back.

Also, it's free.

This just in: a good review of Dreams of Steam over at Steampunk Chronicle. Read it on their site. I'll be honest: it makes me feel a little bubbly inside that my own "Dead Man's Hand" is the first story singled out by name.

"So, Jared," you may ask, "how's that whole 'I'm going to wing a brand new short story, 1000 words per day, and damn the torpedos' thing going for you?"

*sigh*

It's coming. That word count goal didn't seem that ambitious, but apparently the 'wing it' approach doesn't work so well for me. I finished Act One of the story only to realize that it's really Act Three, and now I have to go back to the beginning and put a lot more stuff in so that The End is actually The End.

After that, I'll be tooling up a submission for Dreams of Steam II and getting back to work on The Blood Prayer.

Carry on!

Apparently, Writing is like Dieting

2011-02-24T09:44:00.002-06:00

As in, once you fall off the wagon, it's hard as hell to climb back on.

It's been a long dry spell since the end of NanoWrimo, broken only by a one-night flurry of writing that produced the first draft of "Fire," the story I'm going to read at the next Hoover Library Flash Fiction Night.

Excuse #1: My day job has become a joyless, draining, soul-sucking slog.

So What #1: Tolkien worked on his Book of Lost Tales in the Allied trenches while fighting in WWI. Man up, Jared!

Excuse #2: Sitting on my writing to-do list are the N^∞th rewrites of "The Orbit of Mercury" and The Blood Prayer, both of which make my eyes bleed when I look at them.

So What #2: Get a wet wipe. The Work Must Be Done!

So here's the plan: I think I need to work on something new, so something new it is. I've been holding on to the characters from my aborted 2009 Nano in case a story came along that I could throw them into. Well, one has. I'm not sure where it's going, and I'm not sure how it's going to end. I've never done seat-of-the-pants writing before, but this time I'm just going to wing this bastard and see how it comes out.

The ingredients: Space travel documentarians. An impending supernova. An order of monks who won't evacuate. A liquid life form. Stalagmites of "glass coral." Rivers that run upstream. Shooting the rapids uphill by means of magnetic induction. 1,000 words per day. Death before dishonor.

Here we go.

No time to blog, Dr. Jones

2010-12-05T14:39:00.004-06:00

I meant to stop by earlier for the post-Nano wrap up, but life has been a tornado for the last couple of weeks. The universe kept getting in the way of my writing this month, but by the Power of Grayskull and sheer bloody-mindedness, I was able to hammer through to the end. For the last week or more, I was clocking a good 2,200 - 2,500 words per day, and I still barely made the finish for a final tally of 50,211 individual words of prose.

So am I done? Not on the life of your mother.

I haven't had a chance to work on it at all for the last few days - that adventure resumes tomorrow. When it does, however, I'm still looking down the barrel of at least 80K to go before the first draft of this puppy is put to bed. Then, off to write some other things and back later next year for Draft 2.

The big question to ponder here is: does Nano still work for me? I'd have to say yes. I've done more actual writing this last month in in the rest of the preceding year combined, despite my delusional New Year resolution of "one story per month." That delusion might return next year; we'll have to see. Up on deck after the current novel is done: go back and finish "The Century War," keep my other unsold stories in circulation, do draft #9 of The Blood Prayer, and get that puppy out to market. Speaking of markets...

2010 Local Author Expo

Yesterday I attended my first ever Author Event! The Local Author Expo is an event put on by the Friends of the Birmingham Public Library to give all of our self-published and indie-press writers a place to get their books out in front of the public, at least for the day. The fact that it was the same day as the SEC Championship didn't deter anyone; this was our biggest year yet, despite the fact that we had to cut the program down from two days to only one. And, most importantly of all, I actually sold books! A big thanks to everyone who attended, especially those who shopped at my booth.

And we're off!

2010-10-31T22:10:00.003-05:00

National Novel Writing Month begins in less than two hours for those of us on Central Daylight Time. I'm telling you now, because there won't be much time for blogging in the next thirty days, at least until I'm comfortably ahead on my word count. I've added a nifty Word Count Widget to my blog so that if I fail to maintain my daily word count goal, my shame will be broadcast across the intertubes... and no one will notice.

I've been Snowflaking as usual, and this year I've got further in the process than ever before. Good thing, too, because this book is going to be one complicated bugger and I need to stay as organized as possible. Right now I've got full character summaries for six principal characters, a five-page detailed synopsis of the plot, and a chapter-by-chapter breakdown that tells me what to write every day.

My outline has an even 50 chapters, which has to be a good sign. If you guess 2000 words per chapter, then I've got about a 100K book here, or about twice what's required for a Nano win. I imagine I'll actually get done around New Year's.

So wish me luck. If you want to pray for me, I'd suggest you pray to Crom, but he doesn't listen.

A week to go...

2010-10-26T08:41:00.004-05:00

until National Novel Writing Month. This will be Year Four for me, and the third in which I head back to the world of Majadan. You can find me here on the NaNoWriMo site masquerading as a 16th Century Danish astronomer. The working title of this year's book is The Wolves of Majadan, but I suspect that should I ever market it to a publisher, I'll probably call it The Ghost Cauldron.

Meanwhile, "The Century War" is stuck like a duck. (No celebratory pizza for me, dammit.) I did quite a bit more work on it since my last post, but the whole thing has stalled out. It's not writer's block - I know where I mean for the story to go, but I don't feel that what I've written so far can support my ending. I've been reading Writing Fiction for Dummies by the great Randy Ingermanson, and it's really helping me analyze exactly why my story is flawed. I know you're supposed to do a first draft, then rewrite, but I think I've got to rework everything that's come so far before I can push through to the end, and with November and the final assault on the Ghost Lords looming on the horizon, I just haven't got the time.

I'll come back after burning Majadan to the ground and finish the "War." I still have confidence in the underlying story; I just need to approach it better. Besides, I'll need something to do in the break between drafts 1 and 2 of Wolves.

Now: back to outlining my novel and plotting the murder of one of my characters.

Deadline: Did I make it?

2010-10-01T07:34:00.002-05:00

Nope. Not even close.

To be fair, my current story is turning out to be over twice as long as any of my previous shorts. If it were only as long as "Dead Man's Hand" or "Rougarou" I would have been done for days. (Current word count: 8,263) Since this critter is turning out to be a novella, I'm still not there yet.

So will I renege on my deal with myself? Nope. I knew this was a longer piece going into it, and if I had been working at the pace that I manage during NanoWrimo, I would have been done with it anyway.

(Of course, the argument could be made that writing a novel is like driving on the interstate, and writing a short story is like driving through an urban area on surface streets.)

So: here's the deal. I told myself I would give up soft drinks for a week. This, I will do. However, I want to be able to finish this story and it might be a little difficult to write through a caffeine withdrawal headache, I will allow myself one (1) Diet Coke (which I hate) a day, but I must write at least 1000 words on any day that I do so.

Here we go.

Self-Imposed Deadline

2010-09-14T10:24:00.003-05:00

Stalled out on The Blood Prayer for the moment, and it's been too long since I created something new. Therefore, since I apparently can't work without a deadline, I'm going to dive into the oil rig story that's been bubbling in my subconscious since early March. It's called The Century War, and I've got a preliminary scene list worked out and some leftover bits from my first (aborted) stab at it from before the summer.

Randy Ingermanson suggests that when setting measurable mileposts for yourself, you should reward yourself for meeting them and/or punish yourself if you don't (even a small, token fine of $5.00) In that vein--

Deadline for the first draft: September 30.
Upon completion on (or prior to) that date, I will order a Funky Q Chicken pizza from Mellow Mushroom.
Upon failure to meet the deadline, I will forego all soft drinks for a week.

I feel more motivated already.

Dragon*Con Wrap Up

2010-09-12T14:46:00.007-05:00

Well, it's been a week and at last I can move again without a caffeine I.V. Time for some pics!

Thursday, about 9:00 p.m. This is the badge pickup line that greeted me once I got into the Sheraton after waiting for three hours outside.

Allan Gilbreath, me, and Kimberly Richardson, editor of Dreams of Steam, Saturday afternoon at the Kerlak Publishing booth in the Exhibitor's Hall.

My sensei Ann Crispin and I, Sunday night, at the Pacific Rim Bistro on Peachtree Center Ave.

I spent the rest of the Con stalking former cast members of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (or anyone dressed like them) and telling people to shop at the Kerlak booth, especially those who were steampunk-inclined.

Dragon*Con: Post Two

2010-09-05T11:29:00.002-05:00

Okay, where was I?

Saturday A.C. Crispin's Master Class for Novelists! Met with all the students to go over issues we had in common: pacing, foreshadowing vs. predictability, the importance of query letters. Will meet one-on-one later for a personal novel critique.

Stood in line next to an Ozzy Osbourne lookalike for the DragonCon After Dark costume contest - a lot of waiting for too short a show. Saw Stan Lee walking by. Stayed up for a midnight screening of Zombieland, possibly the cutest zombie movie ever made, but not the same caliber as Shaun of the Dead.

Sunday Dropped a lot of money in the dealers' room. Hope to track down Kevin J. Anderson and Kevin Murphy later and get autographs. Going to dinner tonight with some friends & writers. Also, just got an email from an editor about my Time Travel Story saying it's passed the first elimination round but needs some revisions. I can handle revisions. Tonight: a late, late Cruxshadows concert, unless I really am too old to rock and roll, but too young to die.

Dragon*Con: Post One

2010-09-03T17:02:00.002-05:00

Thursday A.C. Crispin's Basic Writing Workshop, bright and early. Lots of good information, starting from the basics (just like it says on the tin). Characterization. Plot. Show-don't-tell. Story Logic. Setting and description. Point of view. Lots of handouts, lots to share with my writers group in Hoover. Bunch of websites to check out, such as the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL), Caveat Scriptor, and (of course) Absolute Write. Looking forward to tomorrow. Strangely compelled to write in sentence fragments.

Then, got in line to get my badge. Let me just say, for the official record, "Oh my fucking God!" Four and a half hours in line. Four and a half hours. First, I had to completely circumnavigate the Sheraton, winding through part of the parking deck along the way. Once I got inside the hotel, they sent us to a ballroom where we had to navigate the endless rope-maze from hell. Once we got to the front, they broke us up into lines alphabetically by our last name. What never occurred to anyone organizing the check-in process was that names are not evenly distributed in the alphabet. Apparently, the biggest cluster is L-O, so while the H-K's and the T-Z's were zipping through, anyone with a name of French, Scottish, or Irish descent was stuck in eternal purgatory. For four and a half hours.

Gasp. Pant. Wheeze.

Cold pizza for dinner. Then to bed. (Or foldaway cot, as the case may be.)

Friday Writing workshop part II. A word on copyright. Writing alien aliens. The importance of research. Marketing & Networking.

Special guest Nebula Award Winner and former Writing Workshop student Eugie Foster dropped in to talk about marketing short fiction. She's sold about 100BZillion stories of her own in the last few years, including "Sinner, Baker, Fablist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast." Her new story collection is Returning My Sister's Face.

Then, ran over to the Exhibitors Hall to find the Kerlak booth and met the awesome Kimberly Richardson and Allan Gilbreath. Pictures will follow in a later post.

Chillin' for a while, then off to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reunion / Cinematic Titanic show.

To be or not to be continued...

Tick-tock, tick-tock

2010-08-26T15:09:00.002-05:00

A week from today, I'll be at Dragon*Con for the first time in three years, and my head's about to explode from the waiting. I'll be attending A.C. Crispin's writing workshop, which looks like it's going to be a blast. In the interim, I really ought to be working on the rewrite of The Blood Prayer.

Problem is, I can't stand to look at the thing. Therefore, I'm blogging instead.

I know, I know. I'll get back to it tonight, I swear. I really, really want it to be over and done with, so I can get to work on the sequel rewrite that I've been putting off for a year now. I'm aching to get busy on something new, but now it looks like that'll have to wait for November, when I dive into book III of my Majadan trilogy.

*sigh* If only it wasn't for that pesky day job.

Hey! As long as you're hanging around, why don't you slip over to Barnes & Noble and grab a copy of Dreams of Steam.

Dreams of Steam is now for sale!

2010-07-18T19:04:00.003-05:00

It's officially gone from "coming soon" to "get yours today."

Read about it at Kerlak's website and order your copy online at
Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Get to it!

Table of Contents:
Flight of the Dragon - Rachel Pixie
Dead Man's Hand - Jared Millet
The Bunker - Stephanie Osborn
Black Rhino - M. Keaton
The Ballad of Angelina Calamity - Angelia Sparrow
Endeavour of the Rose - Sidney M. Reese
Blood and Brass - Kimberly Richardson
Five Copper Bowls - Dale Carothers
For the Love of Steam - Missa Dixon
In the Mountain Skies - Stephen Zimmer
Harry Was One of Us - Sara M. Harvey
Engine 316 - Nick Valentino
An Odd Demise - Allan Gilbreath
Artificial Love - Dwayne DeBardelaben
Phoenix - H. David Blalock
Ultimate Weapon - Jeff Harris
Long Shots - Kirk Hardesty

Dreams of Steam!

2010-07-13T13:15:00.004-05:00

Well, well, well! Kerlak Publishing's Dreams of Steam has a cover and a book trailer! It also includes a story called "Dead Man's Hand," by some guy whose name looks almost exactly like mine.

Where Was I?

2010-07-13T12:45:00.002-05:00

Oh, yeah... Finished "The Merlin House" and set it loose into the wild (cross fingers). In a way, it's a riff on the same ideas as the "backwards" episode of Red Dwarf, only done with horror instead of humor. Also, I repolished last year's flash fiction piece "Tag" and sent it off as well.

I'd like to trim down "Venera" again before I send her back out into the slush pile jungle. It did okay at Writers of the Future, but I'm learning that I'm sending stories off to that contest before they're really ready. I'll have to make sure I take a little more time on the next one.

Also, I'm taking one last slog through The Blood Prayer. It's been long enough since the last time I swam through it that I'm finding lots and lots of stuff to fix, plus coming up with more and more ways to flesh it out. Goal: 95,000 words, more or less. Then on to the sequel, then Book III for Nano.

On another front, it looks like I've been accepted to A.C. Crispin's master class for novelists at Dragon*Con this year, which I'll be taking in addition to her two-day basic writing course. Can't wait!

Quick Note

2010-06-28T07:31:00.002-05:00

Just got Honorable Mentioned again at Writers of the Future, so I guess I better get serious on queueing up another story.

WotF's honorable mentions are nice - they're the nicest form rejection letter you can receive - but they still don't tell much except that you're in the upper few percent of the marginally competent. What I find myself wondering, though, is if a story doesn't even make the semi-finals, is it even worth sending out to other pro markets? Logic would say "Of course" because you never know what another editor will think. Impatience says to go ahead and get it out there to the semi-pros, just so you can put it behind you.

Right now, a more polished draft of my first Wotf HM story is sitting in the slush pile at one of the "Big Three" scifi digests, so I guess I'll see how that one fares before making any rash decisions.

Statement of Intent

2010-06-25T12:12:00.002-05:00

Now that I'm past the 100-page mark on my 7th or 8th draft (I've lost count) of Nightfall in Majadan/The Blood Prayer, I'm going to take a break for a week and start over on my time travel story, "The Merlin House." The deadline for a certain anthology I'd like to send it to is July 4, so I've got that much time to wrestle this sucker into existence.

As you were.

A bit of news:

2010-05-28T07:24:00.002-05:00

"Dead Man's Hand" just got picked up for that Steampunk anthology. More details when it comes out. Of my short stories, this is the one that's turned out the best so far, I think. Can't wait to see it in print!

Status Update

2010-05-21T13:52:00.002-05:00

Not much to report. Both my in-process short stories are stalled out at the moment, but it'll be easier to get the momentum going on the Oil Rig Story. Unfortunately, the Time Travel Story is the one with something of a deadline. Hopefully that'll help. Work is sucking all my energy at the moment, but that's no excuse. Jack London managed to write while working as crew on a Pacific schooner, for crying out loud.

ImagiCon is this weekend; in fact, I'm heading there in half an hour. They've got bigger names on the ticket than they did last year, but no writing workshops (that I know of). Looking forward to DragonCon in the fall. Write Club meets tomorrow, which unfortunately means I have to miss the first Lou Anders panel, dammit.

On a positive note, my research is really coming along on my 1927 project. Ideas are bursting, but right now The Facts are crowding out any fantastical story elements I have and the project is in danger of turning into a historical novel. I'll turn all that around before writing begins. Right now I'm just getting comfortable with the setting - prohibition era Vieux Carre - and I'm still at the "learning how much I really don't know" stage.

Still waiting for WTF Mysteries to come out; still waiting to hear about my Steampunk Story, still waiting to see if I get mentioned w/ honor by Writers of the Future. Until then, buy a copy of Shelter of Daylight Vol. 3, why don't you?

Much obliged. Party on!

Photographic Evidence

2010-05-02T20:03:00.003-05:00

It exists. Shelter of Daylight #3, April 2010. "The Rendezvous" starts on page 98. Buy your copy at Genre Mall.

It's Official

2010-04-01T10:20:00.004-05:00

I'm in print! The April 2010 issue of Shelter of Daylight is now up for sale at GenreMall (and pretty much nowhere else) for $10.60+S/H. It features, among many other fine pieces of fiction by a variety of up and coming writers, my story "The Rendezvous".

It still doesn't feel real - but I'm sure it will when my copy comes in the mail and I order a bunch of others to give and/or sell to people.

And I'm off work, and it's a clear blue sunny day, and not too hot outside, and I'm about to go have lunch. It just keeps getting better!

Of course, it's all going to turn out to be an April Fool's joke.

My Schtick

2010-03-31T13:53:00.003-05:00

Schtick (n.) Yiddish slang meaning "gimmick" that has come to mean "someone's signature behavior." - Urban Dictionary

I can clearly remember wanting to write since I was seven: comics, sci-fi, fantasy, and what have you. I've always thought of myself as an aspiring writer of Speculative Fiction. It never occurred to me that I'd turn into a "Louisiana Writer" but apparently I have.

The mystery story that I recently sold, "Rougarou," is set in the contemporary, albeit fictional, town of Whatley, LA (which I imagine to be somewhere in the Florida Parishes) and makes use of the Cajun werewolf myth.

The Steampunk Story that I just mailed off today takes place on the grounds of Knockwood Plantation, which I put somewhere on the Mississippi upriver from New Orleans but not as far as Donaldsonville. "Knockwood" was cobbled together from my vague recollections of visiting Nottoway and Rosedown on various school field trips, and of other old houses along the Mississippi that I've been to.

And just yesterday, while I was tightening the final screws in Knockwood's army of robots, I came across a story call for Urban Fantasy set in the Roaring Twenties. Naturally, my mind went straight back to New Orleans and the burgeoning Jazz scene. I'm committed to the story now, but I don't know if I'll send it to that particular call or do something else with it.

For one thing, the anthology they're putting together will only be published in Australia. For another, I've got this skinny little kid in the back of my head named Cleveland Cooper, and he's trying to talk me into making his story a full-length novel, not a short. See, he's stolen an angel's trumpet (Gabriel was getting hammered on Bourbon St.) and, being Cleveland, he wants the biggest venue possible. I've only known the kid for 24 hours, but I already know that he doesn't think small.

Status Update:For the first quarter of 2010, my story-a-month pledge has held. My Venus Story is currently in the running at the Writers of the Future contest, my two shorts "The Merlin House" and "Witch's Cross" were ready in time for Flash Fiction Night at the Hoover Library (they were so short, they only count as one story for the purpose of my goal), and my Steampunk Story got finished just in time for its March 31 deadline.

On tap for the next three months: an expanded version of "The Merlin House" that I'd like to shop around, the Oil Rig Story, and my Jazz Story that may or may not turn into a novel. I also need to find 15,000 more words for my first novel, Nightfall in Majadan (now The Blood Prayer) and finish the 4th draft on the sequel so I can let more people read it.

That other flash story I mentioned, "Witch's Cross", was written specifically for Flash Fiction Night. It's actually a scene from a novel that never got very far past Chapter One the first twelve times I tried to write it. I changed the context of the story so that it would stand by itself, and though I really like it I don't think it has any kind of future out in the publishing world so I'm posting it here for free:

Witch's Cross

2010-03-31T13:41:00.004-05:00

by Jared Millet

Triss stood shaking amidst the hubbub of the Vanji encampment and felt that she was about to lose her mind. She couldn’t see past the crush of wagons and the brightly-colored pavilions, yet she felt certain that at any moment Baron Galcek’s mercenaries would crest the southern hills and sweep her back into captivity. A troop of Vanji had smuggled her away, but upon reaching the east-west road at the edge of the Baron’s fiefdom the caravan had pulled to a halt and thrown her out.

“But can’t you take me any further?” she asked Eujin, the caravan-master. He only shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

“Please,” she begged. “Arvella is only a day to the north.” She wasn't sure that her family would take her back, but it seemed her only hope.

Eujin spread his hands. “I don’t know if we’re going north. We might go east or west, or we might turn around and go back toward your Baron. You’re safe here for now. Tonight we have a dance. Tomorrow, we’ll decide.”

“Please,” she asked again. “If it’s a matter of money –”

Eujin raised his fist, but stopped himself. He pointed a finger at her nose and spoke through clenched teeth. “No money. We’re not bandits. Tonight: dance. Tomorrow, decide.”

The man walked away in a huff and Triss stood aghast, her heart racing. What had she said wrong? And why wouldn’t Eujin give her a straight answer? She looked around at the other Vanji clans that had stopped at the crossroad. Maybe one of them would be more reasonable.

“Don’t bother,” said a voice behind her. “No one will agree to anything, at least not until morning. It’s forbidden.”

She turned to see Eujin’s son, Van, leaning against a wagon-wheel. His eyes sparkled under a mop of hair that was unusually blond for one of his people. His shirt was unbuttoned to the waist and he wore the easy smile of a young man playing hooky from his chores.

“It’s forbidden for the Vanji to plan ahead?”

“No,” he said. “Usually it’s a good idea, but in this place it’s taboo. Here, let me show you.”

He took her hand and pulled her through the mob of wandering families and their animals. There was a carnival air all around, so much that she half-expected to see clowns and tumblers crossing their path. At last they came to a wide clearing in the middle of the camp. In the center of the clearing, the great eastern highway that bisected the kingdom met the road north to her home in Arvella.

“Once upon a time,” said Van, “a witch lived here. She would stop travelers who came to the crossing and predict which road they were going to take. They say she put on a good show. Once she’d convinced her victims of her ability to see the future, she would predict that some horrible fate would befall them if they went down their chosen path. Then her marks would always say, ‘But I don’t have a choice. I have to get these sheep to market,’ or ‘I have to deliver this message,’ or ‘I have to see my sick, dying mother.’ Then the witch would offer to use her powers to ward off whatever evil future she’d foreseen. She made a big deal out of it, of course, and she charged an awful lot of money for her 'services.' They say it was pretty funny to watch, actually.

“As long as she was only going after city-rubes, no one cared. But then she started pulling her act on Vanji. The Elders didn’t like seeing their kinsmen scammed, but they were afraid to make a move against her in case she really was a witch and not just a fraud. Then a boy named Jack came up with a solution.

“‘Let me go to the crossroad,’ he said, ‘and I’ll hear which road this witch says I’m going to take. When she does, I’ll just walk down a different one. That’ll prove she doesn’t have any power.’

“No one had a better idea, so they let Jack try it. He went to the crossroad ahead of his caravan and the witch came out to meet him.

“‘Well, old woman?’ he said. ‘Which way will my journey take me?’

“‘You’ll take whichever road you choose,’ the witch said, ‘but probably not the one I tell you.’

“Jack was trapped, see. No matter which road he chose, he would be fulfilling her prophecy. But then he figured a way out and smiled.

“‘You’re wrong,’ said Jack. ‘I’m not taking a road at all, and you have no power over me.’ To prove it, he stepped off the highway and marched into the wilderness. After that, the Elders drove the witch away and no one ever heard from her again.”

“What happened to Jack?” asked Triss.

“That,” said Van, “is another story. But to this day, no Vanji who comes to this crossroad will make any commitments as to where he’s going next. And every now and then someone will leave his clan, head off into the wild, and follow after Jack.”

Van stared at the hills as if he might do it himself. Triss felt the same urge. None of her options seemed good. To the south lay the Baron. To the north was her family, but would they take her back or turn her away in disgrace? She didn’t know what going east or west might bring, but poverty and starvation were as likely as any other adventure. A drop of water tickled her cheek.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s good,” said Van. “That means you’re free. Hold on to that feeling. Tomorrow, decide whatever is right. Tonight there’s time to dance.”

This story is copyright 2010 Jared Millet.

It was performed on March 23, 2010, at the Hoover Public Library as part of the first Flash Fiction Night put on by the Hoover Library Write Club.

First Day Back from Vacation

2010-03-18T17:32:00.002-05:00

1. Woke up several times as a big fat cat barfed in the bedroom. You know, to welcome us home.

2. Went to work and walked face-first into the spinning fan blades of a budget crisis.

3. Checked personal email before heading home, beaten and bruised.

4. Discovered that I sold another story!

"Rougarou" is my Cajun werewolf piece that I reported "vanished into the small press ether" in a previous blog entry. Well, the small press ether finally spat it back out, and it will appear in a forthcoming anthology from Kerlak Publishing. No release date yet, but I'll post more details as they emerge.

If you'll excuse me now, I think I'll go pass out with a silly grin on my face.

The New Story Experience

2010-03-03T07:35:00.002-06:00

So I wake up this morning with a brand new story idea sprouting out of my head. No idea where it came from. My new story will be set on an oil rig, so it may have been inspired tangentially by the fact that I watched Moon last night, but only in the detail that both are set around mining operations. Other than that, they've got nothing in common.

So anyway, my story starts forming buds before I even leave for work. I'm churning the whole thing around in my head so much that I forget to stop at Mom's and drop off her vegetables. (D'oh!) By the time I'm walking across Lynn Park downtown, I've got several levels of conflict started, and by the time I ride the elevator up to my office, I've got a piece of the resolution, some ideas about my protagonist, and a whole page worth of notes I need to jot down right this fucking minute before I lose them. I've got a story idea file for all the random thoughts that occur to me, but most of those kernels are just a sentence or two that might grow into something or might not. It's really rare that this much of a story comes to me all at once.

And it's pretty exhilirating. I've got myself all excited about it, and I can't wait for more ideas to come. I'm not nearly ready to start writing things down, though. Like Harlan Ellison recommends, I'm going to take all these ideas, toss them back into the swamp of my subconscious, and see what kind of lumpy, misshapen monster arises. As of right now, the story is a little more political than what I've written before, and runs the risk of becoming preachy. I'll have to wait and see what other concepts latch on to it. Besides, I have other things to finish first.

This is fun!

Status update: My Mercury Story has been rewritten again and submitted to the annual Jim Baen contest. My Venus Story is just about ready to send to Writers of the Future. With luck, I'll have the Oil Rig Story ready to send to them next quarter (though at the moment, it feels more like an Analog story than any other idea I've had so far). I'm about 1/4 the way through the first draft of my Steampunk Robots in Louisiana story, which is due by the end of the month. My short-short piece "Witch's Cross" is ready for the Write Club Flash Fiction Night, but I still haven't put "The Merlin House" on paper. It's all there, lock safe in my brain, I swear! It'll just take a few hours to get it down, once I escape from the mechanical men of Knockwood Plantation.

Plus there's that pesky day job, dammit. Oh, well.

Status Update

2010-02-04T12:00:00.002-06:00

One of my goals this year is to write a short story a month unless I'm actively working on a novel. That goal served me well for the four months it lasted last summer, producing: a mystery story that has vanished into the small press ether, the science fiction piece that got honorable mentioned at Writers of the Future, my first sale (yay, me!) and a flash fiction short that I'm currently not sure what to do with.

I made my deadline (barely) and finished the short story I was working on in January. I'm really happy about that, since it's the first story I've actually finished in a while. Now it's in for a polish before I set it adrift in the Great Slush Pile in the Sky. On tap for this month: two flash fiction shorts to share at the Hoover Library Write Club's Flash Fiction Night in March. (I hate using that many proper nouns in a row, by the way.) Also, I'm going to crank out draft 4 of Daughters of Majadan even though I know it'll probably never see the light of day. It's the one thing I've written that I'm most proud of, so I want to see it sanded down properly before I set it on the shelf.

Up on deck for the following month: a steampunk short that's creeping around in the dungeons of my mind and prep-work for a second stab at my once-again-untitled Hector Crade novel that I abandoned after NanoWrimo.

I may not be a pro, but at least I feel like a serious amateur. In the "neat crap on the Web" department, I just added a widget to the left hand column that shows you my most recent Goodreads reviews.

Okay, then. Back to work.

Honorable Mention

2010-01-14T09:03:00.005-06:00

A story of mine just got Honorable Mentioned at the Writers of the Future Contest.

What does this mean? Well, for one thing it means I'm not moving on to the next round, but at least I made it past the first ring of the elimination process. It also means it's time to do another polish and rewrite on that piece and send it off to some other markets.

Writers of the Future is well respected in the SciFi community and is one of the largest paychecks possible for short fiction in SciFi and Fantasy. Hence, the competition is pretty fierce. My friend Teresa Howard (Hi, Teresa!) has been Honorable Mentioned every time she's entered, but she's had quite a bit of success publishing stories elsewhere in the semi-pro markets.

Ah, well. I've got another story I'm working on that I plan to enter in the contest, which you're allowed to do once every quarter. I expect I'll keep trying as long as I'm eligible. The only way you become ineligible is to make three professional-level short stories sales or publish a novel, so if that ever happens I won't be bitching about it.

That's all for now. Carry on!

It's dead, Jim.

2010-01-05T15:17:00.005-06:00

Time for an update, I guess. My NanoNovel this year, Waking the Sky, is dead. As in shredded to pieces and fertilizing the compost in my mind. I knew there was a chance this would happen going into it, but I promised myself I'd stick it out... at least until I saw Avatar and it confirmed my fears.

I still like my characters, and I still like parts of my basic scenario, but there are too many points of similarity between what I was writing and a certain popular movie by James frickin' Cameron and they're too embedded into the plot for me to extract them and not kill the patient.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board. I'll bring Hector Crade and his crew of kamikaze filmmakers back for another try later this year, and I've already started stirring a few ideas around on how to do it. My main goal this year is to write something marketable, moreso than my two unpublished and probably unpublishable Majadan novels. While I get that back up to speed, I'll spend the time on some short fiction.

I've got a story now that seems to be turning into a novella (or at least a novelette) set in the same post-apocalyptic solar system as the short story I currently have sitting with the judges at the Writers of the Future contest. I'll be sure and let you know how that goes to.

Ah well. The book is dead. Now that I admit that, I can admit that I never really liked it much anyway. Love the characters, though. They'll be back.

GOOOOOOOOOOAL!

2009-11-30T14:25:00.004-06:00

I'm trying really, really hard right now not to sing anything by Queen.

Oh, hell. Why not?

We are the champions, my friend,
And we'll keep on fighting to the end!

There, now it's stuck in your head too.

Of course, I'm only halfway done with the actual first draft but now I'm in the groove and back in the habit of writing 1500-2000 words per day so as long as I keep it rolling, I'll be finished in no time.

No time meaning "before the end of January."

Half There

2009-11-17T08:28:00.003-06:00

Been a while since I posted here, so here's a Nano update. Just passed the halfway point for the 50K challenge, but I still haven't got to the end of Act One yet. Judging by my past efforts, this book smells like a 90-100K critter, and I'll probably be working on it until Christmas.

I have a "no one reads my first draft" rule, but I make an exception for the rough excerpt I post on my Nano profile. The current title of the book is Waking the Sky. When I came up with the original concept back in grad school, I called it Gods of Air but between then and now the original titular characters are no longer in the story at all. After I chunked them, I wanted to call the book The Daylight War, but apparently that's already taken. I'm hoping that before the end I'll come up with a better handle for the story. I'm open to suggestions.

Oh well. Back to work!

It Has Begun!

2009-10-02T08:37:00.002-05:00

Signup for NaNoWriMo begins today! Dare you enter the 50,000 word challenge? Many will enter. Few will survive!

If you're crazy enough to join the battle, look me up under the name "Tycho Brahe."

It's on, bitches.

You know you're a writer when...

2009-09-18T12:30:00.002-05:00

You're sitting there, minding your own business, and a story just starts pushing itself out of your head and you've got to start typing right away or you'll lose it. This happened to me yesterday afternoon, and now I'm going to be a little busy for a while...

Steamed Up

2009-09-15T14:22:00.002-05:00

So... "Rougarou" is over and done with - until it gets rejected again and I have to figure out if it's worth rewriting another time or if I should let it die. However... I see today that Kerlak has put out a story call and they're looking for Steampunk shorts. The due date isn't until March of next year, but now I've got steampunkery ideas spinning in my head when I should be working on the outline of my Nano Novel for the fall. Oh well...

The Fear

2009-09-11T07:59:00.003-05:00

From a much better writer than me:

"I hate to say this," said my attorney, "but this place is getting to me. I think I'm getting the Fear."

"Nonsense," I said. "We came out hear to find the American Dream, and now that we're right in the main vortex you want to quit." I grabbed his bicep and squeezed. "You must realize," I said, "that we've found the main nerve."

"I know," he said. "That's what gives me the Fear."

-Hunter S. Thompson, of course

Down to the final stretch of the "Rougarou" revisions. So far so good, and I think it's much stronger this time, but all my little story-chess pieces are in different places on the board and The Fear has set in. Stories are like little Gordian knots sometimes, and even if what I've written so far is passingly competent, the possibility of a total literary faceplant remains. I felt this same way toward the end of my last novel, so it's not an entirely new experience.

Oh, well. Back to work. Enough dicking around, Jared. This won't hurt...

Going Into Surgery

2009-09-05T09:44:00.002-05:00

Last month I got an editorial response to my short story "Rougarou" with requests for revisions. (Which surprised me, since I expected an outright rejection.) While helpful in general, the editor's comments weren't much on specifics. They just highlighted my strengths and weaknesses, with a very nice request to address those issues and resubmit by Sep. 15.

Yes, I've been procrastinating, and now it's time for that story to go under the knife. Step one: a total dissection. Step two: reassembly and reanimation. We'll just have to see if it starts breathing again once I hook up the electrodes to its nipples and yell "Clear!" Otherwise, I'll just have to hose off the table and bury all the bloody bits in the backyard.

Wish me luck!

(Apologies to Bill Everett - the above image is from Sub-Mariner #35, Aug. 1954.)

Let there be blog...

2009-09-03T14:04:00.000-05:00

Well guys, on the occasion of my first short story sale (Yay Me!) I guess it's time to get a presence on the Web. You know, one of those generic blogs that I'll forget to post to and no one will ever read. I mean geez, look at it, it's just a generic template and everything. Maybe there will be more, should the need arise.

So about that sale? The story's called "The Rendezvous" and I'll have more details closer to actual publication. See, if I declare where it'll appear to the general universe, I'll practically guarantee that the publisher will go out of business before it ever sees print.

Still, hello Internet! I blog, therefore I am.