My story “Shark’s Teeth”, a Marla Mason story which immediately follows the events of Broken Mirrors (but stands alone), will appear in a future edition of Daily Science Fiction. Yay! (I did a chapbook version of this story for some people who donated to the Broken Mirrors serial, but I wanted more than 75 people to read it, so I’m glad it will be made generally available.) Subscribe to DSF (it’s free) so you can read it right there in your very own e-mail.
My story “From Around Here” will, I’m told, be translated for publication in major Japanese SF magazine Hayakawa SF in the future. (Interestingly, the main character of that story has a role to play in my 6th Marla Mason novel, which I’m hoping to write next year.)
I’m now about 17,000 words into the new kid’s fantasy novel I started last weekend. I’m having such a wonderful time. I’ve written so much death and tragedy and misery in recent months, it’s nice to write a fun adventure. (Though bad stuff still happens — in fact, my characters are about to suffer a particularly devastating setback, which will set up for the back half of the book.) But mostly the book is dedicated to winning by running and thinking faster than the people out to hurt you, and that’s what life is all about.
I’m also having lots of those wonderful writerly experiences, where a throwaway line near the beginning turns out to be the perfect solution to an unexpected problem later in the book. And I keep stumbling over things in my research that are absolutely perfect for stuff I want to do in the book. Like, spooky perfect. Stephen King says sometimes writing can be less like creating and more like excavating something that already exists — that’s how I feel now. Like I’m meant to be writing this book. (And those who know me know I don’t believe I was meant to do anything; there is no fate or destiny — hell, some days I’m dubious about the existence of cause-and-effect, too.) Seems like a good sign. Then again, I felt the same way about The Nex, and nobody wanted to publish that, so who knows?
In life news: It’s nearly Hallowe’en! (Or “Pumpkin Halloween!” as my son calls it.) Pumpkins will be carved. We’ll take the kid trick-or-treating in his monkey costume. I’ll read my wife a scary story. (I usually read Glen Hirshberg’s “Mr. Dark’s Carnival”, but this year I’m thinking maybe “The Crawl” by Stephen Laws — not strictly a Hallowe’en story, but it does have a scarecrow in it, sort of.) Should be great fun.
Seems to me someone did publish The Nex – you did! And you were right and they were wrong – it is an awesome story and needed to be published. I hope your fans have rewarded you for having the balls to put it out there for us.
How has the Nex performed vs your self published Marla books?
Well, no, they were right — I’ve made less money off the Nex than I make from most short stories. No one seems terribly interested — but I still like the book, so I’m happy to have it out there for those who might enjoy it.