The September issue of Nightmare Magazine is just out, and it includes my newest story, “Halfway Home,” a dark fantasy with a here-and-now setting…or maybe it’s magic realism?

At any rate, it’s a story that wouldn’t have been written without the encouragement of one of my readers. Here’s a blog post on how it came to be.

You can purchase the September issue of Nightmare Magazine in ebook form for only $2.99 — I encourage you to do so, in support of short fiction!

But you can also read the story online at Nightmare Magazine‘s website. Find it here.

Maybe because writers are enamored of words, we’re always seeking definitions. Yesterday on twitter I didn’t quite avoid reading a diatribe about what those of us who publish our own work should call ourselves. My choice is on display at the top of this blog. Ask me, and I’ll tell you that my last three novels have all been indie published. This is the same thing as self published, but the synonym I prefer is “indie.” It sounds better to my ears, and is entirely accurate in that I have — independently — pursued, overseen, contracted for, or done myself, every aspect of the publishing process. But the comments on twitter passionately rejected my terminology, to the point of name calling.

To which I can only say, suit yourself and I’ll do the same. In the end, it’s not about the publisher or the publication process, it’s about the book.

Another twitter post referred to an article with a title something like “Ten Indie Writers You Should Be Reading” … as if the fact of being an indie writer was recommendation enough. But wouldn’t an article on “Ten Novels Worth Your Time And Money” be more useful? I know, I know—not as catchy, but again, it’s the book that matters, right?

In recent years I’ve changed the process that I use to get published, but my goal with each novel is the same as it’s always been: I want to write the sort of story I would love to read, and I want to make a living doing it. I don’t see any need to define my novels as either traditional or indie. They’re all books that I wrote because I wanted to write them — and that’s a huge privilege, and I’m grateful for it.

I’ve just received the good news that my story “Light and Shadow” will be included in the anthology War Stories, edited by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak. Here’s the official announcement.

“Light and Shadow” is set in the story world of The Red, though it’s otherwise independent, with its own characters and a different writing style.

War Stories will soon be starting a Kickstarter campaign to fund the initial publication. I hope you’ll participate!

Twitter led me to a terrific post today by Sophia McDougall on the meme of “strong female characters” in fiction. It has the provocative title “I hate Strong Female Characters” but read on — there is an explanation for this, and Ms. McDougall has a lot of wise things to say. For example:

Part of the patronising promise of the Strong Female Character is that she’s anomalous. “Don’t worry!” that puff piece or interview is saying when it boasts the hero’s love interest is an SFC. “Of course, normal women are weak and boring and can’t do anything worthwhile. But this one is different. She is strong! See, she roundhouses people in the face.”

She also reverses the meme, asking “Are our best-loved male heroes Strong Male Characters?”

Is Sherlock Holmes strong? It’s not just that the answer is “of course”, it’s that it’s the wrong question.

What happens when one tries to fit other iconic male heroes into an imaginary “Strong Male Character” box? A few fit reasonably well, but many look cramped and bewildered in there. They’re not used to this kind of confinement, poor things. They’re used to being interesting across more than one axis and in more than two dimensions.

The idea that “strength” translates to ass-kicking ability has always annoyed me. I’m not really interested in superheroes. I’m interested in people who don’t always have the answers, who face moral quandaries, who do the best they can, and who — even among my antiheroes — have a moral core. Physical prowess is fine — I’m an athletic person, I love physical strength and endurance — and violence can serve a plot. I certainly engage in violence-in-plot, especially in my most recent books, but to me, “strength” is interesting when it’s strength-of-character.

So when the talk turns to “strong women characters” I like to point to Jubilee in Memory — along with her mother Tola, and Udondi, and Elek — because we’re allowed to have more than one. Or Clemantine, Deneb, and Hailey in Vast, or Katie, Roxanne, Ilene, and Nikki in Tech-Heaven, or Ketty, Takis, and Tayval in The Dread Hammer.

“Strong” comes in so many forms, because it takes all kinds of people — men and women both — to make a world.

Over a year ago I wrote my own post on “strong female characters” but never quite finished it. Maybe it’s time to finalize that one.

(This post is part of a series at Book View Café, and is cross-posted there.)

Gather round children, and let me tell you a frightening truth: I got through four years of college without a personal computer.

Everyone did in those days, but within a year of graduating, the personal computer revolution had taken off. This was 1983. I was getting married. The husband-to-be wondered if I wanted an engagement ring. I considered it for about a second-and-a-half and said, “Get me a computer instead.” Because by this time I’d decided I was going to be a writer.

So we decided on a Columbia VP Portable, mostly, as I recall, because it was significantly cheaper than the “IBM Clone” desktops of the time. “Portable” is a slight exaggeration on the part of the manufacturer. It’s really a crushingly heavy 35-pounds, not something you’d want to carry with you while commuting on a bus, but it served my purposes. (more…)

This year I’m participating for the first time in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, which runs from June 23 through August 2. The goal of the Write-a-thon is to raise awareness of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, along with money that will go toward funding next year’s workshop. Participating writers set their own writing goals and strive to meet them; supporters provide moral support and a donation if they can. If you’d like to donate, please visit my participant page.

Writing Goal 1: add 20,000 words to the “The Red: Trials,” my novel-in-progress. DONE!

Writing Goal 2: Have two (one remaining) short stories in solid draft. Short is a keyword. Novelettes don’t count.

Week 5 Result
(Disclaimer: I’m composing this a day early, on Friday, since I’ll be away over the weekend.)

Five weeks in, and one week to go!

This was a tough week, with a lot of hours spent in front of the computer. Many of those hours were frustrating and unproductive, but on most days, by late afternoon, I had a decent word count.

Goal 1:
To my surprise I not only completed Goal 1 this week, I roared right past it. I’ve added 23,000 words to the manuscript since the start of the write-a-thon, with 8600+ over the past week.

Goal 2:
As of late Friday afternoon, I have done no work on my second short story. I’ve got eight days left to produce a draft. I’m not confident, but I’m going to give it a shot.

This has been an amazing year for my story “Nahiku West” which has been included in a few best-of-the-year anthologies and was the second place finisher for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. But for his 30th iteration of the annual collection The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Gardner Dozois chose my other science fiction story published in 2012 — “Nightside On Callisto” — which originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine.

Gardner has been successfully presenting his collection for a full three decades, and the 30th brings together many stories by diverse authors. If you’re behind on your short fiction, here’s a chance to make it all up at once! Stories included in this volume are:

“Weep For Day” by Indrapramit Das
“The Man” by Paul Mcauley
“The Memcordist” by Lavie Tidhar
“The Girl-thing Who Went Out For Sushi” by Pat Cadigan
“Holmes Sherlock” by Eleanor Arnason
“Nightfall On The Peak Of Eternal Light” by Richard A. Lovett And William Gleson
“Close Encounters” by Andy Duncan
“The Finite Canvas” by Brit Mandelo
“Steamgothic” by Sean Mcmullen
“In The House Of Aryaman” by A Lonely Signal Burns” by Elizabeth Bear
“Macy Minot’s Last Christmas On Dione, Ring Racing, Fiddler’s Green, The Potter’s Garden” by Paul Mcauley
“Twenty Lights To “the Land Of Snow,” Michael Bishop
“Astrophilia” by Carrie Vaughn
“What Did Tessimond Tell You?” by Adam Roberts
“Old Paint” by Megan Lindholm
“Chitai Heiki Koronbin” by David Moles
“Gods Of Risk” by James S. A. Corey
“The Water Thief” by Alastair Reynolds
“Nightside On Callisto” by Linda Nagata
“Under The Eaves” by Lavie Tidhar
“Sudden” by Broken And Unexpected” by Steven Popkes
“Fireborn” by Robert Charles Wilson
“Ruminations In An Alien Tongue” by Vandana Singh
“Tyche And The Ants” by Hannu Rajaniemi
“The Wreck Of The Charles Dexter Ward” by Sarah Monette And Elizabeth Bear
“Invisible Men” by Christopher Barzak
“Ship’s Brother” by Aliette De Bodared
“Eater-of-bone” by Robert Reed

This year I’m participating for the first time in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, which runs from June 23 through August 2. The goal of the Write-a-thon is to raise awareness of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, along with money that will go toward funding next year’s workshop. Participating writers set their own writing goals and strive to meet them; supporters provide moral support and a donation if they can. If you’d like to donate, please visit my participant page.

Writing Goal 1: add 20,000 words to the “The Red: Trials,” my novel-in-progress.

Writing Goal 2: Have two (one remaining) short stories in solid draft. Short is a keyword. Novelettes don’t count.

Week 4 Result
Four weeks in, and progress has slowed to a crawl. I have one small excuse. A couple days were devoted to revising a short story, which subsequently sold to Lightspeed Magazine. But mostly, I’ve been trying to get the novel moving, with mixed success.

Goal 1:
Very limited progress this week in actual word count. Being very generous with myself by counting a section which is almost entirely dialog at the moment, without any scene or mood-setting, I have now added 14,733 words out of my 20,000 word goal.That’s 74% with two weeks left, so there’s still a realistic chance I’ll make it. Despite the paltry increase in word count since last week, I made real progress on the novel by replotting. I figured out how to do without a whole, long tedious section, and move on almost directly into action–and that’s always a good thing.

Goal 2:
The best I can say is, I thought briefly about a story that I need to write, but I got nowhere with it. Drafting another short story in the time remaining is starting to feel very intimidating. It’s not going to happen if I don’t make it a priority. Hopefully I’ll have better news to report next week.

“Codename: Delphi” is the first — and so far only — short story I’ve completed as part of the the Clarion West Write-a-thon. It’s part of The Red: First Light‘s story world, and has just sold to Lightspeed Magazine!

This is my second short story sale of 2013.

The first story sold this year, “Halfway Home,” will be published online in the September issue of Nightmare Magazine.

This year I’m participating for the first time in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, which runs from June 23 through August 2. The goal of the Write-a-thon is to raise awareness of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, along with money that will go toward funding next year’s workshop. Participating writers set their own writing goals and strive to meet them; supporters provide moral support and a donation if they can. If you’d like to donate, please visit my participant page.

Writing Goal 1: add 20,000 words to the “The Red: Trials,” my novel-in-progress.

Writing Goal 2: Have two (one remaining) short stories in solid draft. Short is a keyword. Novelettes don’t count.

Week 3 Result
Nothing to brag about this week. There is a persistent “romantic” myth that the best art is made by suffering artists. In my own experience and in discussion with others I’ve found this to be utterly untrue. For myself, when confidence flags, so does my work, both in quality and quantity. This was not a week filled with confidence, and my productivity reflects that. So it goes.

Goal 1:
The bright point this week was that after quite a bit of struggle, a scene took an unexpected turn giving me fresh insight on what-is-going-on. In other words, a minor breakthrough. Even so, my feeling as I sat down to write this progress post was that I had added very little to the manuscript. As it turns out, my progress was better than I thought. I have now added 13,640 words to the manuscript out of my 20,000 word goal. That’s 68%, and time-wise I’m at the halfway point, so there is still hope.

Goal 2:
Nothing accomplished here! I was determined to make progress on the novel before tackling a new short story…and I got stuck on the novel. I’ll try to do better in Week 4.