As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I stopped writing short fiction at the end of the last century, but last fall I took it up again. The second story I wrote, “Nightside on Callisto,” has now become my first original short fiction to reach publication since my 2000 Nebula-award winner.

This feels like a very significant milestone for me.

Look for “Nightside on Callisto” in the May issue of Lightspeed magazine, now available here as an ebook. Lightspeed is an innovative short fiction market. Please support them by purchasing a copy of the magazine!

The short story I talked about a few days ago has undergone some revision. It’s crept up in length (of course) and is now 5,900 words. I would have liked it shorter, but I’m not going to complain too much. It’s “done” to the extent that if I don’t rustle up a good beta reader in the next day or two, I’ll probably give in to the temptation to just send it off un-vetted.

The protagonist of this story is proving rather troublesome. He’s in my head, lobbying for his own novel now that I’ve messed up his nice life — and I have to admit I’m tempted, despite all the other projects I’m supposed to be working on.

Last night I finally put together a complete draft of a new short story, finishing around 1am–and given that I can almost never sleep past 6am, I’m tired!

The story has a very near-future setting. I won’t make any judgments yet on its quality–it’s much too soon for that–but I did enjoy working on it, and I’m pleased to have a first draft.

Since last fall I’ve written four stories. Two were set in preexisting story worlds, and they were fun, and fast to write. The other two, including this one, are set in original worlds with characters that I’m making up as I go, and writing them has been a battle.

So I guess I should write more stories set in the worlds I already know?

And on the second subject of this post, I’m still looking for reader reviews! If you missed my prior post, I’m trying to get to twenty Amazon reader reviews on both the Puzzle Lands books, The Dread Hammer and Hepen the Watcher. The review count is creeping up. As of this morning The Dread Hammer has six reviews and Hepen the Watcher has three, but I’ve still got a long way to go. If you do review the books, check in here and post a comment to let me know, and you could win more books!

Thanks for stopping by.

I’m very pleased to announce the sale of a second short story to Lightspeed Magazine. It’s called “A Moment Before It Struck” and is a prequel story set in the world of my Stories of the Puzzle Lands novels.

One thing that particularly pleases me about this story is that it’s only 4,300 words! Yes, I know that sounds shallow and trivial, but my typical length for short fiction runs between 7,000 and 9,500 words, so it’s a personal victory to come up with a solid story at a much shorter length.

The other aspect of this story that I especially like is its structure, which is more formal and less linear than what I generally do. It’s very gratifying to try a new approach and have it work out.

The publication date for “A Moment Before It Struck” hasn’t been set yet, but my first Lightspeed story, “Nightside On Callisto” will be in the May issue.

In The Tide is an older story of mine, and the first short that I put out in ebook form. The idea was to sell it for the minimum price allowed at Amazon: 99-cents, which would earn me 35%, or 35-cents on every sale. I note that John Locke managed to get rich on that same margin! Unfortunately, I can’t yet say the same.

I would have priced the story at “free” if it were an easy thing to do. It’s not. Various backdoor machinations are required to accomplish it, and I don’t want to play. So I’ve taken the story down from Amazon and am now offering it free on my website, in both epub and mobi versions. The package includes a five-chapter sample from my novel The Bohr Maker. So if you’ve never read a short story of mine, or want an easy, no-commitment way to sample The Bohr Maker, please snag a copy. And if you know anyone else who might be interested, I urge you, please, PLEASE send them over to MythicIsland.com.

Find the link to the free story in the upper right of the landing page, in that box that says “Free Fiction” 😉

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve made another short story sale, my second since I started writing short fiction again last fall. This one, titled Nightside on Callisto, has gone to Lightspeed Magazine, and is tentatively scheduled for the May issue.

This sale was a completely new experience for me. I’m used to waiting weeks for a response on a story, but this round took roughly 22 hours from submission to acceptance, thanks to editor John Joseph Adams’ policy of acting fast on all submissions. That’s a policy I could easily get used to!

The first short fiction I’ve written in years has sold to Analog Science Fiction & Fact! (Yes, there is a big grin on my face.)

I wrote the story last September. This was a milestone for me, because the last original story of less-than-novel length that I ever wrote was published in 2000–so it had been a while.

The new story was a little bit too long to be called a short story–at 8,900 words it’s technically a novelette, but fortunately, Analog is okay with that length, and Analog was also the home of my first four pro sales, way back when, so I decided to send it there first. Just after New Year’s the very welcome news arrived that editor Stanley Schmidt is buying the story.

No publication date yet, but I’ll post when I know.

If you’d like to read more about the story and the process of writing it, check out this blog post.