October 2012 Recap

October 28, 2012

 

Earlier this month I got to attend the Viable Paradise writing workshop on Martha’s Vineyard. It was an amazing experience, and I will write a much more detailed post about it soon — but it was so formulative and overwhelming that I couldn’t bring myself to blog intelligently about it right away.  It is on my (very long) to do list for November.

Although I’ve only written one new story this month, I’ve had a number of very exciting sales and publications in October.

Publications:

“The tell-tale ear” was published by The Journal of Nature. This is a 21st-century retelling of “The tell-tale heart” told entirely through e-mails. I wrote the story for a Shock Totem contest and was thrilled to have it sell to Nature mere days after I submitted it there, by far my fastest pro-level acceptance.  You can read this story here.

Smoke & Mirrors, an outstanding podcast by Dennis R. Miller, produced my 100-word humorous fantasy story Chill, which originally appeared in The Drabbler a year ago.  Dennis was also kind enough to plug Unidentified Funny Objects. Listen to this week’s episode here.

Combined with my Bards & Sages story mentioned in the previous post this has been quite a month for my humor stories. And, to top it off, yet another humor story will appear on ufopub.com — but I will make a separate post about it when it goes live.

Sales:

Stupefying Stories will publish “Number Station” in their November issue, edited by M. David Blake. The story was accepted by Stupefying Stories back in January and has been waiting for the right issue ever since. So technically this isn’t a new sale, but I’m pleased to share this story with the world.

Weird Tales accepted “A Gnomish Gift” for their Fairy Tales themed issue, which is likely to appear around December.

Daily Science Fiction accepted “Things We Leave Behind” — this is my fourth sale to my favorite SF ‘zine, and the first longer Friday story (at 2500 words).

So what’s on tap for November? It’s novel time! Beginning November 1st I will tackle a novel. I’ve been busy outlining and planning and generally thinking about the themes and motifs I would like to feature in the book. Although I expected my first novel to be a Conrad Brent story, I decided to start with something else instead. This will be a space opera tentatively titled “World Burner” and based on the short story “The Dragon Ships of Tycho” which I wrote last year and which was published in the Galactic Creatures anthology in Spring of 2012. I wrote the sequel story to “Dragon Ships” titled “The Sgovari Stratagem” while at Viable Paradise and the world and characters just can’t get out of my head. So I’m going to expand on these two stories and try to produce the first draft of a novel in a few months’ time.

I don’t want to abandon short stories though. I still intend to write at least one new short story per month to meet my Write1Sub1 goals. Speaking of Write1Sub1, the fine folks behind this motivational program are gearing up for its third year and they recruited several new moderators to help usher it along. I’m one of those new moderators. Which means I will be in charge of posting the weekly content on the Write1Sub1 web site for at least one month next summer, among other things. Because, you know, there wasn’t enough on my plate already. But I love the W1S1 initiative and how it helps lazy writers like myself to produce more words and helps the more timid writers among us to kick their stories out the door and into submission queues, so when they asked, it was an easy “yes” for me.

I’m looking forward to November. I will attend Phil Con and send ARCs (Advance Review Copies) of Unidentified Funny Objects to reviewers. And, with any luck, have more exciting story sales to report.

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

September Recap

October 5, 2012

I keep telling myself (and all of you) about how I will be updating this blog more regularly. So far it has been a big fat lie. But then, what do you expect from someone who writes down lies for fun?
Seriously, it has been a crazy couple of months. Putting together an anthology is an infinite amount of work. It cut deep into my writing time, let alone blog time, reading time, and any other -time that doesn’t involve work or family. So here’s a brief recap of what’s been going on in my writerly life in September and early October:
* I’m pleased to announce that Unidentified Funny Objects has been copy-edited and is off to the interior designer. We should have galleys within a few days and an ARC to send out to authors and reviewers in a week or so.

* Monthly humor stories on ufopub.com have been  launched. First up was “The Ogre King and the Piemaker” by Tarl Kudrick. Do yourself a favor and check it out, it’s as funny as anything in the book!

* My flash fiction story “Manna From Heaven” opens the October issue of Bards and Sages Quarterly.  “Manna from Heaven” opens the issue, which is very neat.  You can pick up a copy on Amazon.

 

 

* I sold “The Miracle on Tau Prime” to Daily Science Fiction. It’s a story of the Vatican miracle investigators… in space! There’s no publication date, but I would expect it to appear either really late in 2012 or in early 2013.

* The FISH anthology from Dagan Books which includes my story “Life on the Lake’s Shore” among work from many other fine authors will be coming out this month.

* My story “The Tell-Tale Ear” will be coming out in the October 18 issue of Nature and will be available to read for free online.

* I’ve been invited to submit a story to the “Beyond the Sun” anthology. If accepted, it’d share the table of contents with such juggernauts as Silverberg, Resnick and Kress! Of course, this project needs to be funded first, and it could use all the help it can get. They’re currently on Kickstarter, so do me (and yourself) a favor and pre-order a copy over here.

* I will be attending PhilCon as a guest this year, participating on panels and possibly doing a reading. This convention will take place in Cherry Hill, NJ (15 minute drive from downtown Philadelphia) on the weekend of November 9 through 11. There will be lots of awesome people I know there, and I encourage anyone who can make the trip to attend.

 

 

* Saving the best for last: Tomorrow I’m heading to Viable Paradise. This highly prestigious writing workshop takes place annually on Martha’s Vineyard. It is now in its 16th year. 24 newer writers like myself will learn from instructors Elizabeth Bear, Debra Doyle, Steven Gould, James D. Macdonald, Patrick and Theresa Nielsen-Hayden, Steven Brust and Sherwood Smith. I’m super excited about this workshop and hope it will help me take my writing to the next level (preferably bypassing the tough boss monster at the end of the current level).

I apologize to my non-video game playing readers for that reference. (OK, I’m not really sorry. Deal with it.)

And when I get back, I will be updating the blog more regularly. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Unidentified Funny Objects Table of Contents Revealed

September 21, 2012

 

Table of Contents for the book is now posted at the UFO Publishing web site!

Also announced are the FREE stories we’ll post on UFO Web Site every month for the next six months.  It’s very exciting! Click on the above link and check it out.

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

A Quick Anthology Update

September 9, 2012

I’ve been very quiet in the last week and that’s because I’ve been working very hard on finalizing the TOC. I know all the writers who are still waiting for an answer are very anxious to hear back and I’m fairly sure I should be able to make final decisions and contact everyone on Monday.

Next week I will also send out Kickstarter surveys to collect everyone’s information and begin preparing the rewards as well as put up a Thank You page on ufopub.com

I’m a few days behind where I had hoped to be at this stage but we’re still on track for a mid-November release of the book.

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Kickstarter Update #4 – Unidentified Funny Objects

August 29, 2012

 

Remember my last blog post? It was all about how the UFO Kickstarter was a little bit behind its curve, and how we were still $1000 short of our funding goal? That was yesterday.

Today, we are fully funded. We broke $5000, then broke $5100 and on our way up, up, up.  I’m thrilled and thankful to nearly 200 people who believed in the project enough to support it at this early stage. I still can’t believe we managed to raise over $1000 in less than 36 hours.

I’m planning on spending some of the money to do Really Cool Things ™ that will benefit both our Kickstarter supporters and the SF/F community in general. These Really Cool Things ™ will most certainly include publishing some fiction on the UFO web site, for the whole world to read for free. What better way to give back to the community than that?

There are other Really Cool Things I can think of as well. It all depends on how much money we end up raising, in the end. Do expect me to aggressively look for ways to reward our Kickstarter supporters with all kinds of additional content beyond what was promised. So please, continue to spread the word and encourage anyone who is interested in humorous SF/F to explore this anthology and add their pledge on Kickstarter in the next few days.

And while on the subject of Kickstarter, I’d like to mention that Smoke & Mirrors podcast just launched their own campaign. Dennis Miller, the host of Smoke & Mirrors is also the voice actor in the UFO promo video. He needs and deserves support. I pledged to his campaign personally and hope you will check it out and consider doing the same.

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Kickstarter Update #3 – Unidentified Funny Objects

August 27, 2012

 

We’re down to the wire, with just over 4 days to go and still $1000 short of the funding goal.

I’m doing my best to raise awareness about this project. Recently I’ve had interviews about it posted on the blogs of Luc Reid and D.M. Bonanno. But I’ve also been incredibly busy tackling the ever-increasing volume of submissions as we get nearer to the deadline. Which leaves a lot less time for fundraising.  So if you were planning on pre-ordering the book via Kickstarter, please consider doing so today so we can generate some extra momentum going into the final stretch. Thank you!

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Anthology Submission Update – August 22

August 22, 2012

I’m woefully behind on posting the Anthology Updates and updating the blog in general. That’s because submissions have been pouring in now that we’re getting closer to the end of the sub period, and there are many many many other things that need doing that have been demanding my time.
So I must apologize that this update isn’t quite as detailed on the statistics as the previous ones have been. But I did want to let everyone (and especially authors in round 3) know where things stand at the moment. So here we go:
As of 11am EST on August 22 we read and responded to a total of 745 stories. Lately I sent out a larger percentage of form rejections (for the reasons stated above), but I still managed to get back to everyone within 48 hours (and most people far faster than that).
At the moment there are 18 accepted stories totaling approximately 55,600 words.  There are 19 stories in round 3 totaling 35,000 words.  So I’m already 10-15k over what I can buy, and that’s with over a week to go. I’m hoping to begin making final decisions as early as September 3-4, or whenever everything that’s submitted by August 31 is read.
I will post an update on or around September 1 and probably a more details one later on, with more detailed submission statistics.
The Kickstarter campaign is in full swing. It’s at 66% with just over 9 days to go.  I hope that it can reach its goal and indeed raise more than the $5000 I’m shooting for. Extra money will mean the ability to fit more stories into the book and possibly even buy a few extras to post for free on ufopub.com

So if you intend to purchase this book when it’s released, please consider pre-ordering it via Kickstarter instead. That would really help me out!

 

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Lying For Fun and Profit

August 14, 2012

I recently wrote a guest post on Anaea Lay’s blog. She had an ingenious idea to interview authors with the same, boring questions you get everywhere BUT expecting the authors to embellish, exaggerate and outright lie in their responses! I had a great time writing this up and then goofing off with the questions. Check it out and make sure you don’t miss the comments!

http://anaealay.com/2012/08/13/lies-for-fun-and-profit-unidentified-funny-objects/

 

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Kickstarter Update #2 – Unidentified Funny Objects

August 13, 2012

The response to the Kickstarter campaign has been tremendous. It raised over $1900 in the first 11 days, with over 70 people choosing to back this project so far.

Of course, it has to get to $5000 by the end of the month or we get nothing. I think we can get there and to help entice further pledges I added several new exciting rewards to the campaign:

1) Become a character is a SF/F story! Five of the authors agreed to “write in” whoever pledges funds to this project into one of their future stories. You can become immortalized by Ken Liu, Anatoly Belilovsky, Nathaniel Lee, James Beamon or Matt Mikalatos! This is a cool reward and it’s unique – we’re offering only one such opportunity per author.

2) Retailer reward. You can now pre-order 10 copies of the trade paperback at wholesale. This is perfect for independent stores and convention book vendors who might want to support the project.

Help spread the word please!

 

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Anthology Submissions Update – The Sixth Hundred

August 11, 2012

Space Chicken is satisfied with all the success the most recent batch of submission brings.

We read and voted on stories #501-600 over the course of 11 days (longer if you count the time it took to vote on them, which is why I’m only posting this update now).

16 stories made it past the first reading and onto being read anonymously by the board.  And of those sixteen I bought two and advanced three into the third round. A great crop for an 11 day span! There’s also one that has a requested rewrite but is promising as well.

61 of the stories received personal rejections, leaving only a third as form Rs. However, a form rejection doesn’t mean we especially hated the story. There are a lot of factors that go into it — sometimes the first reader just didn’t have a particularly useful comment to pass along, sometimes I’m crazy busy and trying to handle the slush pile, and *need* that extra minute or two per story (whereas the same story would get a comment if I read it at a less-hectic moment).

Duotrope is showing 186 submissions out of 633 actually received to date. If you’re not using Duotrope to track and report your submissions, you should really consider it. It helps you and it helps other writers keep tabs on submission statistics from markets, especially markets that don’t post detailed reports on their submissions 🙂

There are presently 16 stories purchased for the book totaling 51,500 words.  16 stories in round 3 total 30,000 words. We’re now officially in the territory where round 3 cuts will become necessary, and we aren’t nearly done yet, with over 2 weeks of submissions to go.

Our Kickstarter campaign has been chugging along and, as of this writing, stands at about $1850. Still a very long way to go, and we have to hit $5000 to get anything at all. So if you plan on buying the book when it comes out, please consider pre-ordering it via Kickstarter so we can reach our goal.

 

 

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