Oh Captain, My Captain
September 6
Oh. Oh, oh, oh. So cool.
I sold another story to Realms of Fantasy. Not just any story -- my longtime favorite, my superhero homage, one of the best things I've ever written (in my own opinion): "Captain Fantasy and the Secret Masters". It's another long one, too. Whee! For a long time, this was my very best story -- until I wrote "Little Gods", probably, and even then, it's a very different story. "Captain" is about superheroes, Nazis, sociopathology, love, ass-kicking, and neurological disorders (Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat had a big influence on me, and that shows in this story). It features the same protagonist as "Dr. Nefarious and the Lazarus Project", though "Captain" is a stand-alone story; it comes after "Dr. Nefarious" sequentially, but you needn't have read one to enjoy the other. "Captain" is a far more ambitious, complex story, but I'm fond of "Dr. Nefarious", too.
Best of all, because it's a Realms story, it will be published with a color illustration! What better fate can there be for a superhero story?
The turnaround time, from putting this story in the mail to getting the acceptance, was 11 days (not three weeks, as I erroneously posted on the Rumor Mill, on account of not being able to remember properly), which is pretty amazing, yo.
So. Three sales to Realms this year. Wow. I'm, like, a regular contributor to one of the field's major magazines. That's so crazy. And it's happened so quickly! Shawna also asked for a rewrite on another story I sent her, saying she loved it, but felt the relationship between the protagonists sort of trailed-off. So after I finish Rangergirl, I'll take another hard look at that story and figure out if it can be revised.
Hee. Hee hee hee. I am so happy. Life is so cool. In one 18-hour period, I sold a story to a hip little slipstream 'zine, and another story to a major slick fantasy magazine. One for enough money to buy some good beer, the other for enough money to finance a trip to World Fantasy Con in 2003.
This is, exactly, the sort of balance I want in my life. At this moment, I couldn't be happier.
Mmm.
***
In other happy news, you can order the anthology Songs from Dead Singers at Amazon. It includes my story, "Melancholy Shore", and lots of other good stuff. Go get it!
Words written since February 1, 2002: 143,800
Words written since last entry: None, but it's early yet.
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Tim Pratt Read about my current publications.
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