Trade You

Bon soir, my darlings.

I have a story online at Speculon now-- "Straight Trade." Of all the stories I've sold recently, this one is the newest-- I wrote it just a few months ago. "Straight Trade" is something of an anomalous story for me. (Some small spoilers may follow, but nothing big) The story is very quiet, with lots of talking, but I think it's good. The story involves my fascination with objects, and with the idea that stuff can make people happy. In a way, it's my "Little Magic Shop" story, and contains at least a kernel of the central idea present in my failed novella "Antiquities and Tangibles," which I'd still love to finish, if I can ever conceive of an appropriate ending. I guess maybe it's a "dark fantasy" (though recent email from a Lovely Correspondent is leading me to re-evaluate such self-labeling), but I prefer to think of it as an ambiguous piece. It's not so much a matter of good guys/bad guys as better guys/worse guys.

Hmm. That's clear as mud. The truth is, this story's new enough that I haven't really decided what I think it's about, so it's silly for me to presume to tell you. Just go read it, and tell me what you think, 'kay? I fear that people who liked "Werewolves" and "Dog Boys" and "The Fallen" will be annoyed with the less-than-action-packed plot of this one, but this is one of my facets, you know? This is another kind of story I like to tell.

Many, many thanks to Tim Cooper for buying this one (and incidentally leading to the beginning of what may well become a beautiful friendship).

I bought Declare by Powers tonight, and that's pretty well shotgunned any intention I had of getting any of my own writing done. I only tore myself away from the book long enough to write this entry because I wanted to shamelessly self-promote. Powers is so awesome. This book kicks ass-- I'm only about fifty pages in, and I think I like it even better than Last Call.

Elsewise, I had a good talk with Meg about our onrushing future-- figuring out what kind of apartments to look for, and so on. Pretty exciting stuff.

Work was work was work. Should have been appallingly stressful, but I've internalized my desire to be stress-free deeply enough to stave off the worst of the tension. I got on my co-workers' nerves by singing as I packed, which is indicative of a healthy turn of mind.

There it is, your daily dose of my daily grind.

Oh, due to several people asking for it, I'm starting a little informal mailing list to notify people when my fiction appears in the big wide world. If any of you want to be added to that list, just drop me a line.

Then again, if you're a devoted reader of my journal, you have no need of such notification-- heaven knows I talk enough about my publications here.