Reading break

I've read more short stories in the last few days than I have in the last year, I think. But no, it was not simply for pleasure. That was just a welcome side benefit.

In a couple of weeks, I'm giving a presentation on writing speculative fiction, to a group of writers who don't write specfic as a usual thing. Some of them have likely never written anything in the speculative genres, and possibly never read anything in those genres, either.

For that reason, I thought I'd like to assign them a few stories to read before the workshop, just so that we would have a few more talking points and all be on the same page (no pun intended). I had a few criteria--the stories had to be of short-to-moderate length, available online, accessible to readers outside the genre, and had to exemplify a couple of the things I'm planning to talk about. For example, the importance of good writing regardless of genre, the difference between story and mere anecdote, a certain depth of characterization.

I found that "accessibility" was the most difficult criterion to fill. For readers who are unfamiliar with standard genre tropes, I felt that stories with a minimum of SF jargon and a setting that was at least somewhat Earthlike might be best. However, it becomes obvious that we speculative fiction writers expect a lot from our readers--or is it that our readers expect a lot from us? I begin to think that specfic writers tend to start invoking the "sensawunda" as soon as possible at the beginning of many stories, dangling a tempting hook for our readers so that we can quickly reel them in. For readers coming to specfic for the first time, however, I think many of these stories would be too unfamiliar, offering too much "difference" too soon, for non-genre readers to stay with them long enough to become invested in the story. To get their specfic legs under them, so to speak.

And of course, personal taste enters into it and can't be separated from the selection process, so the stories I chose would not necessarily be the ones someone else would choose. Still, it was an interesting exercise. I've asked the workshop participants, if they begin reading one of the stories and don't finish it, to make a note of where they stopped and why. Could be some interesting comments there.

Anyway, after a few days of (mostly) enjoyable reading, I settled on four stories to recommend. Three are science fiction, and one is fantasy. Since I'm recommending them in my workshop, I thought I'd recommend them here, too. They are:

SF Short story - "Jimmy's Roadside Cafe" by Ramsey Shehadeh http://www.strangehorizons.com/2008/20080630/roadside-f.shtml

Fantasy Short story - "Sun Magic, Earth Magic" by David D. Levine http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/story.php?s=9

SF Short story - "Ghosts and Simulations" by Ruthanna Emrys http://www.strangehorizons.com/2007/20071112/ghosts-f.shtml

The last piece is a novella, but since it won a Hugo award at WorldCon in Montreal this summer (and I was there to see it!), it is definitely worth the time investment:

SF Novella - "The Erdmann Nexus" by Nancy Kress http://www.asimovs.com/hugos_2009/ErdmannNexus.shtml

If you read any of the stories, please tell me what you think of them. Happy reading!

*Magazine cover art from http://www.bigmeathammer.com/gallery.htm

But when is it ready?

Yesterday morning I opened an email from a publisher I'd queried about The Seventh Crow. To my delight, they were requesting a look at the full manuscript.

Now, this manuscript has been pretty thoroughly edited, revised, redrafted, read by three trusted readers, run through the trusty Cliche Cleaner, etc. I made sure it was ready before I even thought about sending out queries.

Or so I thought. To make the submission, I had to convert the file to MS Word, so I thought, "might as well run it through Word's spell/grammar check, too." Two days later, I have just now sent the file out.

Now, much of this is due to the fact that Word's grammar checker is...weird. I know, I know, this is one of the most difficult things to program because of context issues, style issues, usage variations--but still. Of everything it flagged, I would guess I changed less than one-eighth. Don't get me wrong--I am not saying I know better than the program when it comes to strict right-or-wrong questions. It was useful to me in pointing out a number of things I'd missed along the way. But the vast majority of issues it flagged were non-issues. Hence the two days it took to go through 324 pages (and not counting kids, puppies, husband, laundry, meals, and sundry assorted other distractions, of course).

At any rate, the real point of this post is in the title...how does a writer know when a piece of writing is ready? Really ready to go out into the world and stand on its own?

Two answers spring to mind for me: feedback and critiquing. I think it's extremely important to have some trusted readers (or at least one!) who will provide honest feedback on a story at various stages, and who have some facility with the technical end of writing--who can tell you that you're using too many passive sentences, or semicolons, or that you've used the word "recalibration" three times in two paragraphs. And of course, you have to be willing to listen to them.

Conversely, you need to develop your own critiquing skills by reading and commenting on the work of other developing writers. It's the best way I know to become a good self-editor, which is one of the most difficult skills to master; and in today's publishing world, one of the most important. It is crucial to be able to bring your own work to a highly polished level before submitting it. By critiquing stories for other writers, you learn to view the work with a detached eye, and in time will be able to apply a similar level of detachment (although never quite the same) to your own stories.

But still...when is it ready?

Honestly--I don't know. Some say, if you're changing less than 10% of the words, send it out. Some say, when you feel like you can't improve it any more on your own, send it out. Some say, when you can't stand to read the damn thing one more time, send it out.

All good advice. I think the main thing to take away from this post is that you make the work the best you can, and then you send it out. And then...you cross your fingers and wait.

Less than 46 cents per story!

Last year I was pleased to have my short story, "Summer of the Widows," appear in an anthology titled Speculative Realms: Where There's a Will, There's a Way. It's a wonderfully eclectic mix of fantasy, science fiction, and horror stories from a global collection of writers.

In "Summer of the Widows," one of my recurring characters (a young female wizard's apprentice with a knack for attracting trouble) is suspected of murder, and must find the real killer AND save her master from an even more dangerous threat--marriage!

Right now, I see that Amazon.com is offering the anthology for a sweet $5.88. That's less than forty-six cents per story for the thirteen stories in the book. At that price, I'd suggest you get it while it's hot!

The afternoon so far

I almost bought a new sewing machine this afternoon. I mean, I was *this* close, I'd done the haggling, and the deal was practically sealed. But I came home empty-handed.

It was one of those "inventory clearance"-type things at a local trade and convention center, huge overstocks, great deals, etc. The place was busy and people were walking out with machines in droves. And there were some half-decent machines, although most of them were a generic name that I didn't recognize or know anything about. My mom and I strolled around and saw demonstrations on a number of machines that were very nice.

But there was one sewing/embroidery machine that I sort of fell in love with. It was a Brother, so a good name, and had nice lines and great features. Over the past few years, when my mom and sister have both bought new machines and I've looked at a few myself, I've come to the conclusion that buying one is a lot like buying a car. You can look at all kinds, test-drive them, compare features, but in the end there'll be one that just speaks to you, and that's the one you want.

So this one spoke to me, and it was fairly pricey, but not completely out of the range of what I'm willing to spend. My current machine is quite ancient, and although it still sews beautifully, I suspect and fear that one day it's just going to stop.

Now, I'm not a haggler. I like to think I will haggle, but when it comes right down to it, it's not really in me to do it. With my mother egging me on (she's not a haggler either, but she can encourage others to haggle) I got the price down to a point where I could live with it. At THAT point, I found out that this particular machine was not available on-site (except for the demo) and I had to pay for it and have it delivered next week.

That's when alarm bells went off in my head and I walked away from the deal. Most likely there was nothing to worry about and all was on the up-and-up, but--I didn't want to chance it.

So I almost had a beautiful new machine, but decided to err on the side of caution. *Sigh* It was awfully nice...