“If you’re always aiming for perfection, you won’t make anything at all.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
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Posts Tagged ‘Fiction’
Make Something, Anything
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, Fiction, perfectionism, Thoughts, Writers, writing on March 25, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Climate Futures Contest
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, cli-fi, climate change, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, sff, Writers, writing, writing contest, yay on March 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »
It’s that time again, when Grist rolls out its annual climate fiction short story contest! Have something to say about the future, and how we might win it? This could be the contest for you!
Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest 2023: Submit your story
We’re looking for stories of 3,000 to 5,000 words that envision the next 180 years of climate progress – roughly seven generations – imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope.
Hopeful doesn’t mean “fatuous” or “unrealistic” or even “easy.” It does mean light at the end of this particular tunnel. If you’re wondering what a winning entry looks like, here are stories from previous iterations of the contest:
- Imagine 2200 Editors’ Picks
- Imagine 2200: The 2022 climate fiction collection
- Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors
Here’s the listing on The Submissions Grinder (best submission tracking platform out there and did I mention it’s free?).
All genres welcome, no cost to enter, submissions close June 13, 2023. Head to the link for more details and the submissions portal.
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We Are Mirrors
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Fiction, free fiction, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on March 15, 2023| 4 Comments »
I found this short in a digital pile of old draft material. If I remember correctly, it was written after seeing a documentary on nature in cities, and the problems that can cause for people and especially animals.
So I won’t lie, it’s a little bit of a downer (unless you are an alien? If so, maybe try talking before breaking out the ray guns?). But there is much more to humanity than the negative, and (oddly) capturing some of the not-great like this helps me remember what’s good.
And since it’s the Ides of March, a day to remember that not everything in life is what it seems, the theme of this story could also apply to AI.
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You and Yours
I came from the stars to meet you. I was happy. Excited, even. First contact with your verdant world. Think of all that we could share with you.
“You” could have meant a lot of things. I started with one of the most populous. An insect.
I remember little of what it was like, a flash of light, a warm wriggle in a puddle after rain. The feel of wind in my wings.
It’s embarrassing to say this now, but I was promptly eaten.
I was a spider next, all cool calculation and advanced engineering. A small corner of a log, beaten down by storm and time, dark with possibilities. I lasted longer there. Ate my former fellow insects and waited, and watched.
A bird came next. Such wondrous flight! I could barely remember what it was to crawl on the ground. I wasn’t as happy, though, too busy searching for more of my kind, for clean water and air, for food that didn’t come in a take-out container. What is it about those golden arches that you like so much, anyway?
The weather turned, and I lost a step. Two, if you count both feet, and I do because the cat got them both along with all the rest of me. Stealth, fear, and longing. The shivers began then, side effects of the sickness building up inside me. Without my equipment I couldn’t tell you the cause, but I felt it deep inside.
The coyote came next, hungry for an earlier time and a better place. I made do with city food, crippled squirrels and bird’s eggs, mice and the occasional half-eaten burger.
It was a hard life, hemmed in by development, but I found someone, as one does. I built a den, raised a family and was almost ready to send them out into the world when you came.
Too much wild near their streets, they said. As if they hadn’t put those streets into the wild in the first place.
I escaped, but my kits did not. Now the twisting in my gut was more than sickness, more than an accumulation of multiple lives.
I waited. I watched. And now I am the officer who shot my kits rather than wait for animal control.
I no longer remember the happiness I felt when I began this journey, this introduction to you and yours.
All I feel now is sorrow, and an aching need for my people to collect me and my data. They will be able to cure the accumulated poisons but they cannot give me back what I’ve lost. Optimism and hope have been replaced by something darker, something sharp and selfish and hard.
We came to meet you, to understand, in the most fundamental ways, who and how you are. We are mirrors. We observe you, absorb what’s yours. Reflect it with intention until we achieve comprehension.
Then we introduce you to me and mine.
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Mysterious Origins Revealed?
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Carol Scheina, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, Nature's Futures, submissions, Writers, writing on March 9, 2023| 1 Comment »
With apologies to turtles. And tortoises. And science.
Today, allow me to refer you to a story from Nature’s Futures, about a put-upon pair of frontline workers and the genetically-modified reptile who captured their hearts.
Clean-up on Planet 9 by Carol Scheina
A giant sea turtle swimming in a building-sized aquarium. Fields of toothy purple flowers. Goddamn dollhouse-sized pine forests. Quite a bit wasn’t the size or shape it was supposed to be.
While I appreciate the author’s discussion of her inspiration for the story, I can’t help but think that it could also be (at least distantly) related to the mysterious origins of the dimension-hopping tortoise* in my own story, “The T-4200.”
Sadly, “The T-4200” is not currently available online, but this story inspired me to send it off to a reprint market. Fingers crossed!
* I know, while a turtle and a tortoise are both members of the Testudine family of reptiles, they are not the same. Still (and with apologies to all right-thinking scientists out there), the story already adds animal-based faster-than-light travel, so I’m just going to go with it.
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Writers of the Future v. 39 Cover Reveal
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Fiction, genre fiction, Writers, Writers of the Future, writing, yay on March 1, 2023| 1 Comment »
I’m very happy to announce that the cover for Volume 39 of Writers of the Future (the one with more me in it;) will be revealed tonight!
If you happen to be reading this on March 1st, there’s a Zoom event tonight 10pm ET/7pm PT. Here are the details:
Join Illustrators of the Future judge Tom Wood, artist for the cover art of L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 39, and Writers of the Future judge Kevin J. Anderson, who wrote a short story inspired by the cover art and written in the Dan Shamble universe, for the reveal of this year’s amazing cover art and resultant new cover.
PLUS, a special bonus to anyone participating in the cover reveal — a free copy of a Dan Shamble: Zombie P.I. Adventure audiobook written and performed by Kevin J. Anderson!
You must register in advance to participate in the live Zoom event.
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Even if you come across this on any day after March 1st, the good news is that the book is now available for pre-order through Amazon or your favorite book outlet.
The anthology includes a great lineup of both new and established authors. Four hundred and eighty-nine pages. One hundred and fifty-one thousand words, in genres from hard sci-fi to magical realism to aliens, dragons, the final exam from hell, time travel and more.
The editing process I’ve been part of for the past couple of months means that I’ve read the full collection already. The work by established writers was good, both the fiction and nonfiction, but I was particularly impressed by the quality and inventiveness of the stories from my fellow awardees. There is some really great stuff here (even that one super scary story!).
Here’s the synopsis:
In the world of speculative fiction…
Your favorite authors…
Have selected the best new voices of the year.
24 Award-winning Authors and Illustrators
3 Bonus Short Stories by Kevin J. Anderson • L. Ron Hubbard • S. M. Stirling
Art and Writing Tips by Lazarus Chernik • L. Ron Hubbard • Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Edited by Dean Wesley Smith • Jody Lynn Nye
16-page color gallery of artwork • Cover art by Tom Wood
Check out the stories Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card, Nnedi Okorafor, Robert J. Sawyer, Kevin J. Anderson, Jody Lynn Nye and others chose as the best of the best.
Be amazed. Be amused. Be transported … by stories that take you by surprise and take you further and deeper into new worlds and new ideas than you’ve ever gone before….
Twelve captivating tales from the most exciting new voices in science fiction and fantasy accompanied by three from masters of the genre.
A miracle? An omen? Or something else? One day, they arrived in droves—the foxes of the desert, the field, the imagination….—“Kitsune” by Devon Bohm
When a vampire, a dragon and a shape-shifting Chihuahua meet on a beach in Key West, fireworks go off! But that’s just the background. —“Moonlight and Funk” by Marianne Xenos
Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I., faces one of his funniest and most perplexing cases ever—an enlightened ogre, a salamander with low self-esteem, and a raging fire dragon terrorizing the Unnatural Quarter! —“Fire in the Hole” by Kevin J. Anderson
The Grim Reaper, trapped in an IRS agent’s dying body, must regain his powers before he dies and faces judgment for his original sin. —“Death and the Taxman” by David Hankins
In a metaverse future, a woman who exposes falseness in others must decide what is real to her—the love she lost or the love she may have found. —“Under My Cypresses” by Jason Palmatier
Vic Harden wasn’t lured by glory on a daring mission into the reaches of outer space—he was ordered out there by his editor.—“The Unwilling Hero” by L. Ron Hubbard
Dangerous opportunities present themselves when an alien ship arrives in the solar system seeking repairs. —“White Elephant” by David K. Henrickson
With her spaceship at the wrong end of a pirate’s guns, a former war hero must face down her enemies and demons to save Earth’s last best chance for peace. —“Piracy for Beginners” by J. R. Johnson
Years after the Second Holocaust, the last surviving Jews on earth attempt to rewrite the past. —“A Trickle in History” by Elaine Midcoh
When I said I’d do anything to pay off my debts and get back home to Earth, I didn’t mean survey a derelict spaceship at the edge of the solar system—but here I am. —“The Withering Sky” by Arthur H. Manner
High-powered telescopes bring galactic life to our TVs, and network tuner Hank Enos figures he’s seen everything—until the day an alien boy stares back. —“The Fall of Crodendra M.” by T. J. Knight
Knights, damsels and dragons, curses and fates foretold—the stuff of legends and stories, but unexpectedly perverse.—“Constant Never” by S. M. Stirling
Determined to save his wife, Tumelo takes an unlikely client through South Africa’s ruins to the heart of the Desolation—a journey that will cost or save everything. —“The Children of Desolation” by Spencer Sekulin
When a terrorist smuggles a nuclear weapon into London, a team regresses in time to AD 1093 to assassinate a knight on the battlefield, thereby eliminating the terrorist a millennia before his birth. —“Timelines and Bloodlines” by L. H. Davis
The Grand Exam, a gateway to power for one, likely death for all others—its entrants include ambitious nobles, desperate peasants, and Quiet Gate, an old woman with nothing left to lose. —“The Last History” by Samuel Parr
You will love this collection of the best new voices because, as Locus magazine puts it, “Excellent writing…extremely varied. There’s a lot of hot new talent.”
Is it exciting to see this book come out, and to join these terrific writers in the wonderful world of authorship? Yes, yes it is.
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I Like Fun
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, Fiction, free fiction, genre fiction, Jessie Mihalik, short stories, Writers, writing on February 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Jessie Mihalik, author of several series I enjoy, is putting out a short new serial called Books & Broadswords. As she says, “It’s strictly just for fun. :)”
Here’s the link to Chapter 1.
I set the royal mark on the counter, and the merchant’s eyes glowed, first with greed, then regret. “I can’t make change for that,” he murmured, his gaze on the gold coin. “You’ll need to go to the bank.”
“I don’t want change,” I replied quietly, trying to keep the barely contained excitement out of my voice. “I want books.”
Well, that seems like a fine start. Follow along online, and enjoy!
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Is Superman Insured? And Other Important Questions
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Fiction, stories in real life, Thoughts, Writers, writing on February 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Have you ever watched a movie and thought, “Phew, the caped crusader stopped the bad guy. It’s too bad he had to wipe out a city block to do it, ’cause that can’t be cheap”?
If you answered yes, or if you’ve ever wanted to know the difference between justifiable and reckless acts of damage (and why Peter Parker would be liable for millions before he’s legally able to drink), then this video is for you!
Insurance Lawyer Reviews Damage in Superhero Movies & TV | VF Reviews | Vanity Fair
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Nonfictional Fiction
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, public policy, science fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on February 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I started multiple posts today (mackerel? Winnie the Pooh? cracking CIA kiddie codes?) but none seemed quite right. I think I’ll go shovel some snow and see if that gets my mind going.
In the meantime, here’s a piece about the usefulness of science fiction in the nonfictional world.
Connecting Science Fiction to Science Policy by Avital Percher
Science fiction can help the science policy community envision both where we end up as well as how we get there. As our social-technological problems grow ever more complex, we need a range of stories that spans the human experience and even beyond. How will we leverage new tools to improve equity and democracy in society? Science fiction can help us imagine future possibilities, opening not just our minds but our hearts as well.
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Hope, Revived
Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, Fiction, free fiction, genre fiction, reprints, Writers, writing, yay on February 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I am pleased to announce that the new edition of Polar Borealis is out, and it includes “A Needle Pulling Thread.”
I wrote the story in 2018 but the themes of humanity and hope still strike a chord. My thanks to editor R. Graeme Cameron, who remains dedicated to furthering the cause of Canadian speculative fiction, and congratulations to all those in the issue.
Find the free PDF online:
POLAR BOREALIS #24 – February 2023
Poems by Roxanne Barbour, Rodolfo Boskovic, Carlyn Clink, Robert Dawson, Catherine Girczyc, Jim Smith, Richard Stevenson, and Dean Wirth.
Stories by Warren Brown, Victoria K. Martin, J.R. Johnson (hey, that’s me), Cathy Smith, Rhea E. Rose, Jacqueline Thorpe, Gerald L. Truscott, and David Wiseman.
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And Over Again
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, Fiction, Thoughts, Writers on February 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I’m trying to deal with an online renewal and it is taking forever.
Click, load, spinning wheel, error.
Click, load, spinning wheel, error.
Click, load, spinning wheel, error.
Over and over again. It’s like it’s Groundhog Day.
I check the calendar. Wait, it actually is Groundhog Day!
Here’s some holiday history (and a little movie-related fun).
Groundhog Day (Pennsylvania German: Grund’sau dåk, Grundsaudaag, Grundsow Dawg, Murmeltiertag; Nova Scotia: Daks Day)[1] is a popular North American tradition observed in the United States and Canada on February 2. It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrows on this day and sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will go on for six more weeks; if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.
While the tradition remains popular in the 21st century, studies have found no consistent association between a groundhog seeing its shadow and the subsequent arrival time of spring-like weather.[2]
Groundhog Day- the perfect comedy, for ever | Groundhog Day | The Guardian
“What’s so remarkable about it,” Jones observes over a pint in a north London pub, “is that normally when you’re writing a screenplay you try to avoid repetition. And that’s the whole thing here, it’s built on repetition. That’s so bold.”
Whatever is happening in your day, I hope it’s a good one!
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