Good Things
I got an email the other day from Geoff Landis over our Clarion list saying that
"Drowned Men Can't Have Kids" was reviewed "briefly but favorably" in the November issue of Locus. And though the review is only one sentence long, I now must find myself a copy. (Besides, it's the Torcon issue, so I would have had to buy it sometime anyway.) So it looks like I'm going to be making a trip to Bakka sometime in the near future, maybe Wednesday or Friday from the looks of my schedule. We'll see.
I've also just discovered that
"Loving the Bomb" is now a Fictionwise Recent SF eBooks Bestseller. (Which is a way of saying that I'm a bestseller in a really, really small category.) It's currently number 12. But, small category or no, there is a cool little Bestseller icon on the Loving the Bomb page, and this makes me happy. Lord only knows how people are finding the book, though, because every time I check Farsector is still showing the October issue. It's a mystery.
In new story-related news, I've come to the realization that this story is not very likely to be what the editor is wanting for this anthology. At all. I am, however, very glad that I wrote it. This story, hereafter known by its title, "Peak of the Ocean," is a background story for a novel (or, more likely, a series of three novels) that I've been toying with off and on for a while now and may have told some of you about. It was delightful to let myself finally dive into this culture and landscape that I've created--and that's what it felt like, diving. I knew this place and these people already; the worldbuilding is mostly done, and entering the world feels like playing.
It was also fantastic to discover that yes, I really can get some serious writing done if I don't let my lazy-ass self spend all my free time checking my email, blogging (oops) or watching pointless TV. And while I'm rushing right now to catch up on my reading for class tomorrow, there is no need for me to write this quickly most of the time. After all, this tight deadline is a sort of one-time deal.
Plus, if I keep my momentum and get back to work on the short story that I was writing (temporarily known as "Doors") and rewrite the final scene of "I Breathe" so that it fits the rest of the story, I'll have three stories to submit to this year's Asimov Award. That'd be a first.
