Getting
Published --- War Stories |
 |
For
absolutely no known reason, my best friend said to me
"why don't you write a story about a tree which gives
gifts?"
Huh?
But the idea took hold and a short called "The Tree of
the Harvest Moon" was born. It made the rounds
and finally landed on the desk of a friend-of-a-friend who
had successfully edited a very nice book published by
Sam Weiser. |
| The editor accepted my story, along with
others, and went looking for publishers. Unfortunately,
it had never occurred to me he might publish through a
vanity press. The result is a slick looking anthology
with virtually no distribution, no royalties, and no credit
toward a SFWA active status. |
|
 My
agent called. Her client, Robert Adams, had
hooked up with Andre Norton on an anthology
series. Would I like to write something for them?
Huh?
They told me I could have
an astrologer for a character. I made one
up. He took over my life.
I wrote "SunDark in
Ithkar" in one long, psychotic week.
Andre liked it. Bob's wife, Pam, liked it.
And
so it appears in Magic in Ithkar 3, which came out from TOR just as
Tom Doherty was selling the house
to St. Martins. The book got, well, not long shrift,
surely. But on a good day,
you can still buy it from someone at Amazon.com. |
|
Learned in the field of battle?
- Don't give an anthology
editor a story until you know exactly where it's
headed.
- Even publishing with a
major house doesn't guarantee a book's success.
- Probably your agent knows
more about publishing than your friends.
|
|
( I've also learned that having your
story optioned for TV does not mean you should move to
Hollywood. But that's another tale altogether.)
|
|
|
|
 |
Silent Reading
have a look at some
Works
in Progress
|
|
 |
The
Post Office Box in Poughkeepsie |
|
Good story ideas often come from turning things around.
Such-and-so is true? Well, suppose it weren't?
Fritz Leiber was a big fan of supposin'. He explained
that he'd gotten one idea by thinking about how people
believe that
keeping the lights on will discourage
ghosts. But suppose, he wondered, there was a light
which actually attracted ghosts. Thus was born his story
"Ghost Light."
The following area will display a fact (which will change
daily - if today's fact doesn't hit you, try again tomorrow). What kind of a story could you weave if the fact
were not true? |
|
|
|
(Next time they ask you where you get your story ideas, you
can tell them, "from a PO box in Poughkeepsie." You
won't be the first.) |
|
|
NaNoWriMo |
November is National Novel
Writing Month.
 Participants
write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Yours truly participated and learned a
lot from
it. |
Want to join the fray?
NaNoWriMo
|
|
|
