Deep Black Sea
March 7
Long day. Work went pretty quickly, and after that I came home and got stories ready to go out, and mailed them. Then BARTed to Berkeley to work out with Heather. Did exercise, then she left to do other stuff and I went to Au Coquelet, spending some of my tiny bit of money on some sweet indulgences; coffee, a club sandwich. It was a good decision; the coffee was delicious, the sandwich most satisfying. And I wrote.
I'd intended to write a short-short, based on Greg's lovely typo, that he mentioned in his journal a few days back: "Hey, mister, wanna buy a god?" I figured I'd write a few hundred words, get the idea out of my head, and later send it to Greg as a little homage. But the story got longer and more substantial than I'd expected; it's like a real story, about the sea and fire and dogs and naked, middle-aged men. So now I suppose I'll revise it and try to sell it. It's called "The Sea a Deeper Black" and it came in at around 2500 words. La. Thanks, Greg.
I was up late last night, thinking about my Frog story, and I came up with so many cool ideas... I'm excited. I was going to work on that tonight, but then the other idea intervened, so I didn't. But tomorrow I will.
I'm reading Hartwell's The Year's Best Fantasy; I've had the book for ages, but had only read a few of the stories. I actually liked Storm Constantine's story (surprising, as I would not identify myself as a Constantine fan), "The Face of Sekt"; nice, rarely-used myth-system, and the story surprised me a couple of times. Kritzer's "The Golem" was predictable, but very nicely written, and had some nice scenes. Stableford's "Chantarelle" was good, especially in that it didn't go for any of the easy resolutions or sentimentalism; very true to the spirit of the old folk tales from which it drew so much inspiration. "The Devil Disinvests" by Scott Bradfield was entertaining enough, though very slight. Sheckley's story was typical Sheckley; engagingly written meringue, quite forgettable. Singleton's "Ebb Tide" wasn't bad, it had some nice images, and "Serpent in the Garden" was kinda cool. Overall pretty entertaining stuff, but none of the stories I read tonight impressed me as much as Swanwick's "Raggle Taggle Gypsy-O". (Greg tells me I should read Jack Faust and The Iron Dragon's Daughter, and Jed says I should read Vacuum Flowers, so I s'pose I'll give Swanwick's novels a chance. Bones of the Earth looks interesting, too.) I've got another ten stories to read in this antho, so maybe there are some great treasures still remaining. (I read John Sullivan's and Nalo Hopkinson's and Nicola Griffith's and de Lint's stories back when I first got the antho) It's kinda cold that Kathryn Cramer's name doesn't get on the cover or back of the book at all, even though she co-edited it; at least she's on the title page, but man, I'd be feeling spurned if I were her.
Yesterday I queried on a story I sent to Pedestal last August; I would've queried earlier, but I'm slack, and I never got around to it. Anyway, they have no record of the story, and assume it was lost when they had a server crash in October. So they asked me to re-submit, and told me they'd respond within 7 days. Nice. Class act. (Assuming they actually do respond within 7 days).
Owl Goingback rules (quite apart from the fact that he has the best name in sf, he rules). His book Evil Whispers is on the Stoker preliminary ballot, and he offered to send it to HWA members who wanted to read it. So, like, two days ago I asked him to send it, and I got it in the mail today, which is pretty amazing. Free book! I'm gonna read it this weekend... if I like it, maybe try to review it...
Mike also rules, in that he sent me many links related to Buddha Frogs. The best of the lot is here.
And that's all the news that's fit to post.
Words written since February 1, 2002: 25,500
Words written today: 2,500
Send me your favorite sf anthology.
Tim Pratt Read about my current publications.
Join my notify list
Post on my newsgroup
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222