For those of you who are comic book fans, you’ll probably remember Stan’s Soapbox, the collection of musings from Stan Lee that ended every Marvel Comic during the 70’s and 80’s.   The Hero Initiative (which supports out-of-work, or out-of-retirement-savings comic book artists and writers) is soon to release a collection of all of Stan’s Soapboxes.  They asked a variety of folks to respond to the Soapbox essays, and I was one of the respondents (I think, I haven’t actually seen the final copy).  Either way, it’s worth buying the collection to support your local starving comic book artist.  Here’s a youtube of Stan the Man hawking the book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfakOpuE31U

Excelsior, True Believers

Sent “And Zeppelins” off to Warrior Wisewoman yesterday.  It seems like a good fit, but we’ll see.

Good news all around for this post.  For the moment, Victoria and I are over the horrible stomach infection that has plagued us for the past two months (I’ll spare you the details).  Now we just wait and hope that it doesn’t come back.

Also, Darwin’s Evolutions #2 just released with my story “The Angels of St. Ambrose” as the headliner.  You can download the e-version here.  This is one of my favorite stories, although it’s a bit longer than it probably should be.  Enjoy.

So…to make it short.  Shoulder surgery = not much typing.  Computer hard drive crash = omfg.  Lost and forgotten passwords = could not access own blog.

But I’m back.  I’m alive.  My pen is quivering to write (yes, that does sound gross).  More updates soon.

Darwin’s Evolutions, a new e-zine, went live yesterday.  The editor is keeping it simple, clean, and focused on high-quality fiction.  Darwin’s breaks away from other e-zines with a collection of interviews, features, and knick knacks that one typically sees only in bigger mags.  I also like that he is committed to multiple delivery formats (something I believe he is working on for the future).  One of my stories is headlining issue 2, but don’t wait for that.  Check it out now.  It’s reader supported, so if you like what you see, donate.

I don’t blog much about my daughter.  That’s because I try to keep this focused on my writing.  But I had to post these.  Here’s a pic taken about four days after she was born:

Here’s one taken just a few days ago.

So…my daughter is a little chubby.  Okay, she’s REALLLL chubby.  But the doctors are happy, and the nurses say this is what healthy breast-fed babies look like, and you’ve gotta love any baby that can actually eat another baby.  I’m not kidding.  She eats babies.  That’s my girl.

Just found out that my story, “And Zeppelins” got no love from Writers of the Future.  I’ve been a WotF semifinalist, and an honorable mention in different quarters.  I was honestly surprised that Zepps got nothing.  It’s a well-written story (I believe), and thanks to some good feedback from folks, I hammered out the plot problems that it had before.  It might be too slipstream for WotF, or it might have other problems I don’t see.  I’m going to make some minor word edits I noticed, but otherwise leave the story as is.  Gotta have a little faith in yourself or you won’t last two minutes in this gig.

Haven’t posted in a while for a variety of reasons.  Baby (of course).  Kitchen do-it-myself remodel (dumb, dumb, dumb idea).  Imminent shoulder surgery (oh joy).

Only have a couple stories out, one at WoTF, and two at various mags.  Fiddling aimlessly with a comic book script that seemed so doable at the start and has devolved into my usual over-complication of plot.  Old habits die hard.

Shout-outs to Ian, Jeff, and all my other peers who are getting stuff in mags.  Rock on you monsters of the pen.

I’ve been reading again, in some degree of volume. Jeff Parish turned me onto Waterborn, by Greg Keyes. I’d call it high fantasy, but others might not. It’s fun, but I’m moving pretty slowly through it. Ian Roger’s mention of a favorite Canadian short story writer sent me off to reread a collection of shorts by Andre Dubus. His stories are dark, taut, philosophic, and uncommonly good. On this third or fourth reread they hit me harder than in the past. Perhaps this is because everything he writes centers on families and loss, and I’ve only recently fleshed out my own family. I finally finished Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. I liked it. I didn’t love it. It ended as I knew it inevitably must, on a saccharin epiphany that love heals all, be it broken hearts or broken multi-verses. I’m a romantic guy, in every sense of the word, but does love always have to be the answer? I’m as guilty as the next hack, but just once I’d like a writer to end a fantasy epic with “and then they rutted, and realized in the course of this that they cared for each other very little, but because they were only two little people in a world of many people, the universe managed to pull itself together anyway. And the evil king died of a septic tooth.”

Now reading Slant by Greg Bear.  Only 20 pages in, but awfully good so far…

I made a sale today. First sale in a loooong time. And it’s a real money sale. As in meaningful money (for short fiction). Does it feel good? Hell yeah. It feels so good. Am I going to party like it’s 1999? Hell no. I’m so sick that I’m going to take this shit-eating grin right to bed and celebrate this little coup when I’m not bringing up something that looks like the ectoplasm from Ghostbusters.

Oh yeah. What story, and who was the sale to?  The story is The Angels of St. Ambrose, and the market is Darwin’s Evolutions, a new market that I really like the looks of. Yeah, it’s going to face all the challenges that new markets face, but the editor Darwin Garrison has some new ideas on making the venture work, and he writes a damn funny acceptance letter.  Plus, he liked Angels so much that he’s going to make it the anchor story for the June issue.  You can’t blame me if I like the guy…