time_shark has released the final table of contents for Clockwork Phoenix 3. My story "Lineage" is in position 12, between realthog's "Where Shadows Go at Low Midnight" and johncwright's "Murder in Metachronopolis". (I love these titles!)

Also he's added stories by catrambo and wirewalking to the list, making the total fifteen.

Still really, really excited.

The recent fracas about the lousy pay rates in some short fiction markets has led to a discussion of what constitutes a "good" market to which to apply, or a "good" credit to put on a cover letter.

If you've been following my compulsive numerical analysis of things like honorable mentions in various Year's Best anthologies, then you might be forgiven for expecting me to endorse a similarly quantitative guideline of a "good" market.

I won't, though. My convoluted number crunching is a way of orienting myself and beginning my research of markets; but I frequently -- usually! -- submit to several markets that are nowhere near the top of that hierarchy.

It seems to me that there is only one useful criterion in deciding whether to submit to a certain market: Does that market publish stories you admire? Full stop.

There are markets that were only names on Duotrope to me until I bought and read an issue -- and then became a devoted booster and fanboy, badly wanting to be published in that mag just so that I could be counted among the wonderful writers I found there.

I suppose that pay rates and audience size are also valid criteria, but nobody expects to make a living at 5 cents/word, and the audiences for novels are orders of magnitude bigger than for short stories. I want to be paid something, yes, but mostly in order to know that somebody liked my work that much. A miniscule payment that is coming out of the editor's own pocket is an honor, or so I think of it. I want an audience, sure, but that's because I want to reach other people's hearts & minds. Small audiences are a blessing when they read the work carefully and tell you how much it meant to them. Once upon a time, when I was writing for a tiny audience, zero pay and possibly negative prestige, a reader sent me an e-mail saying that one of my stories had helped her through a difficult time in her life. Seems to me that that's the best thing a writer can hope for.

And I'm proud of all my publications, even the non-paying ones, and consequently I list nearly all the markets in the cover letters. If a venue wasn't ashamed to list me among its authors, then I'm certainly not ashamed to list it among my achievements.

You can read my latest 140-character twitterfic on Thaumatrope and Twitter today.

I call it "Same Day Service".

time_shark just told me that he's buying my story "Lineage" for Clockwork Phoenix 3.

Any of you who haven't already read the previous CP anthologies, go out right now and get them, and you'll know why I'm so thrilled.

Thanks, Mike!

The 2010 Clarion Writers Workshop is now open for applications, which will be accepted until March 1st. I can't recommend it strongly enough.

The instructors this year are names to be conjured with:

1. Delia Sherman
   
2. George R.R. Martin
   
3. Dale Bailey
   
4. Samuel R. Delaney
   
5. Jeff VanderMeer
   
6. Ann VanderMeer
   

Delia strikes me as an excellent person for the "Becoming A Tribe" process in Week One. Chip Delaney, in addition to being possibly the most famous literary SF writer and theorist alive, has been associated with Clarion forever; back in 1975 he taught both Stan Robinson and Bob Crais, who were my teachers at Clarion 2009. The Week 5-6 "Anchor Team" is often a couple or a pair of best friends (in honor of Damon & Kate), and it seems to me that you couldn't do better than the VanderMeers in that role.

If you've followed my reports on my own Clarion experience, you know that I found it an overwhelming, exhausting, exhilerating, life-changing time. I am confident that I'm a better writer now -- I came out of Clarion with four new stories, two of which were probably better first drafts than anything I've written before. It's the internal editor-voice, the one that comes from writing so many critiques (I logged more than 30,000 words of critique alone during Clarion) and listening to so much instructor-wisdom, that really makes the difference, I think. And I know that I've made seventeen friends for life who are also writers, and who make my life brighter every day.

And while we're at it, I've heard nothing but good things about Clarion West and Odyssey, too; some really hot writers have come out of them. CW 2010 has a line-up that includes Bishop, McHugh, Datlow and McDonald, while Odyssey's guest lecturers next year will include my beloved teacher lizhand, Greg Frost (a classmate of Stan and Bob's in '75), the wise David Hartwell and Alexander Jablokov (an author I worship).

So get to it! Apply!

Monthly stats for November:

• 4,800 new words of fiction written this month. ¹
  
• 21 first drafts currently in progress (some untouched for a long time)
  
• 4 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft. ²
  
• 3 second drafts currently in progress
  
• 1 second draft currently in the hands of "trusted readers."
  
• 4 third drafts currently in progress (again, some untouched for a while).
  
• 0 third drafts currently awaiting polishing.
  
• 1 fourth draft in currently in progress.
  
• 1 rewrite in progress of stories previously sent out, based on comments from friends.
  
• 2 rewrites (at request of editors) currently in progress.
  
• 10 stories currently submitted to markets³
  
• 2,400 words in shortest story currently submitted.
  
• 8,700 words in longest story currently submitted.
  
• 0 offers of publication received this month.
  
• Longest current wait without response: 165 days.⁴
  

¹ Worst month all year. Bleh. Part of it is the holidays, but part of it is that I revised several story drafts this month, which often cuts the word-production count to chicken feed.

²Only completed one new first draft this month, a fantasy flash fic piece.

³This number should increase soon, as there are two new markets to which I want to submit this month (if I can finish stories in time to do it), and another that I want to attempt next month.

⁴ An anthology.

For those who didn't already know, one more after-effect of Clarion:

For those who haven't seen it yet, John Joseph Adams new online SF magazine Lightspeed will begin taking submissions on January 1st.

Submission guidelines are here.

Monthly stats for October:

• 10,182 new words of fiction written this month. ¹
   
• 20 first drafts currently in progress (some untouched for a long time)
   
• 3 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft. ²
   
• 4 second drafts currently in progress
   
• 2 second drafts currently in the hands of "trusted readers."
   
• 4 third drafts currently in progress (again, some untouched for a while).
   
• 0 third drafts currently awaiting polishing.
   
• 0 fourth drafts in currently in progress.
   
• 3 rewrites in progress of stories previously sent out, based on comments from friends. ³
   
• 1 rewrite (at request of editor) currently in progress.
   
• 10 stories currently submitted to markets
   
• 130 words in shortest story currently submitted. ⁴
   
• 8,700 words in longest story currently submitted.
   
• 1 offer of publication received this month.⁵
   
• Longest current wait without response: 134 days.⁶
   

¹ Best I've done since Clarion -- and, not counting Clarion, the best I've done since July of '08. Pleased.

²If September was Rewrite Month, October was First Draft Month. A 900-word SF story, an 1,800-word political specfic story, a 3,700-word love story, not to mention some twitterfics. Pleased again.

³I showed three of my already-submitted stories to friends from Clarion, and their comments are causing me to do some serious rewrites.

⁴This is a collection of twitterfics.

⁵GUD.

⁶ An anthology.

Nanoism's holding a contest (deadline Saturday, yikes!):  Submit five twitterfics (140-character storis) that make a complete, larger tale.

Here's the URL:

http://nanoism.net/meta/december-serial-contest/

I've broken down the 531 honorable mentions in this year's Year's Best Horror by market.  You've seen me do this before with Year's Best SF and the late lamented Year's Best Fantasy & Horror.  I think it's probably the most accurate way of guaging the relative "status" and "quality" of different markets.

A few caveats:

1. Obviously a market that publishes more stories per year has a higher likelihood of receiving more honorable mentions.
2. HMs necessarily reflect the taste of the editor of the YBH anthology.   I don't know whether Ellen has any built-in bias in favor of one editorial style over another (as Gardner admits he does).
3. This list actually includes both the stories that actually made it into the book and those that didn't.  I actually track those lists separately.  (If you're interested, F&SF had the largest number of stories (5) in the volume itself.)
4. This list includes only periodicals and repeating anthologies.  I didn't include the one-time anthologies.

( Below the Cut (for length) )

The October 2009 issue of Odyssey: Adventures in Science now appears to be available for purchase. The theme of the issue is "Cast of Humans."  It contains my 290-word flash story, "The First Day of Spring."

Odyssey is a science magazine for children in grades 5-10. I think my story is more on the upper half of that spectrum (I didn't originally intend it for kids), but who knows?

I had great fun at Albacon, really my first con in decades. (I've attended a few specialty cons over the last few years, and I was at ComicCon, which is like visiting the Emerald City, but no straight SFF cons.) For me, the big deal was seeing five of my Clarion buddies, including enggirl, as well as both Paul Park and lizhand, both of whom were our teachers.

I've heard that Clarion grads have a reputation for being a bit cliquish, i.e., not talking to anyone else at cons but each other. In our case it was probably more true than it should have been. Observers probably put this phenomenon down to a misplaced sense of superiority, but it isn't that. We just miss each other. You spend six weeks living, working and suffering with someone, it's like they're family. So when we get back together, which (I gather) is mostly at cons, we're desperate to catch up, to stay up all night talking, to touch each other to make sure we're really there.

Having said that, I met a number of nifty new people at Albacon, including both parttimedriverand ianrandalstrock. If life at cons is anything like life at academic conferences (of which I have attended 'way too many), it will be joyous to meet these people again at other cons, and the circle of friends will grow...

GUD (Greatest Uncommon Denominator) has bought "Liza's Home", which was one my submission stories for Clarion.  It's slated for Issue #5 (Fall, 2009).  I shall be shamelessly urging you all to buy it.

I've previously commented on what a nifty magazine GUD is, so you can imagine how delighted I am. It has introduced me to many splended new writers, including some of you. ;)

I'm late in posting my tally for September, so here it is:

• 5,024 new words of fiction written this month. ¹
   
• 21 first drafts currently in progress (some untouched for a long time)
   
• 5 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft.
   
• 0 second drafts currently in progress
   
• 3 second drafts currently in the hands of "trusted readers."
   
• 3 third drafts currently in progress.
   
• 0 third drafts currently awaiting polishing.
   
• 0 fourth drafts in currently in progress.
   
• 1 rewrite (at request of editor) currently in progress.
   
• 9 stories currently submitted to markets
   
• 100 words in shortest story currently submitted.
   
• 8,700 words in longest story currently submitted.
   
• 0 offers of publication received this month.²
   
• Longest current wait without response: 111 days.
   

¹ Meh. I spent a lot of time in September revising stories, but the start of a new term always throws me off. I seem to be doing better in October, though. Just finished one flash story and started two other stories.

² I didn't count the GUD sale, because it came in October. ;)

I was considering submitting a story to a new anthology, but wasn't 100% sure about whether the story suited the theme or word limit. Also, it had already been submitted elsewhere, and I wasn't sure on the new anthology's policy on simsubs. So I sent an e-mail inquiring.

Very soon a reply arrived from the editor. The thematic question he dealt with easily. What interests me here are his replies to the other two questions:

Word limit is pretty strict. I have yet to see a 3200 word story that could not be cut down to 3000 with a little effort.

Simultaneous submissions are not permitted and is enforced. I wish your story well that you sent to the other market, but you have nearly thirty days to write a new story.

Of course his policies are whatever they are. What interests me is the way he put them.

Take that second sentence: "I have yet to see a 3200 word story that could not be cut down to 3000 with a little effort." I'm sure that's true -- of first drafts. But after six weeks of polishing, cutting and revisions? After the story is cut from its (let's say) original 3,500 or 3,700 words down to 3,200? My first thought was, "This guy normally deals with writers who send him early drafts."

Then there's the word "enforced" in the second paragraph. Enforced by whom, I wonder? Does he report the submissions to the SimSub Police? (Oooh, there's a plot bunny...) So my second thought was "This guy normally deals with young, new writers who need to be told more than 'these are my wishes.'"

And then there's the telltale last sentence: "[Y]ou have thirty days to write a new story." So my third thought was, "I know for sure that he mostly deals with rookies."  You may have thirty days for your first draft, but I've never produced something I'd dare send out to anyone in anything less than two months; I have a four-draft process, which often winds up being a six-draft process, and my impression is that the more experienced writers have a longer process yet.

So I came away from this e-mail thinking that, if I were published in this anthology, I'd find myself in the company of newbies who'd sent this guy first drafts for extensive revision by him. This turned me off from submitting at all.

But of course, I may have it all wrong. He may simply have been writing carelessly. Ah, but we're in the language business, ain't we?

Hooray! Shauna Roberts's new novel, Like Mayflies in the Stream, has just become available for pre-order on Amazon.

The first of the Clarion 2009 graduates to publish a novel has done herself proud. I've read it. I love it. Go out and get it.

Shauna's novel is part of a Hadley Rille Books series of "archeologically-accurate novels about the daily lives of ancient people living and coping with significant crises." This one is based on the tale of Gilgamesh.

A word of confession, here: I've never read the Epic of Gilgamesh, except in summary form, and I had to look up the summaries to get an idea of how much Roberts has deviated from the original. Not much, it turns out. Like Marion Zimmer Bradley in The Mists of Avalon and The Firebrand, or LeGuin in Lavinia, Roberts takes the essentials of the legend as a starting point, and goes from there. It's a wonderful question: what real events in the lives of real people could have inspired a story like this one? The result is stranger, sadder and sexier than the myth itself. I especially like how Roberts imagines Enkidu -- how he became who he is, why he behaves as he does.

Although we get glimpses into the minds of Gilgamesh and Enkidu themselves, the story is told primarily from the point of view of Shamhat, the woman sent to "tame" the wild man Enkidu. While various translations of the original suggest that Shamhat was a temple prostitute, Robert's archeological analysis suggests that that belief is an anachronism from the much later time when the Epic was composed. In Uruk at the time of the legend, Shamhat is more likely to have been a priestess of Inanna, and so she is in this novel.

It's fun to read stories told from alternative points of view. From Stoppard's Rozencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead to Bradley's two books mentioned above, we love to think that we're getting the "inside scoop," the part the party-line didn't tell us, and that's one of the joys of this book.

Another is the archeological project itself. The Mesopotamian world of this novel is so real you can taste it.

The characters are well-drawn and compelling, especially Shamhat, Gilgamesh, Enkidu and Zaidu, the hunter Shamhat meets on the way.

I knew that Shauna was a medical writer as well as an anthropologist before I read the novel, but it hadn't occurred to me how useful her medical knowledge would be in interpreting the Gilgamesh myth. I'll leave out explanations because they'd be spoilers, but suffice it to say that several things came into sharp focus because of physiological truths, never stated explicitly but clear as day.

All in all, this novel is a terrific read. I started it on the plane home from California, and couldn't put it down after I got home.

Not sure this is a great idea, but I've resolved to begin each class session this term with a poem read aloud.  Since I teach business law, this is rather a strange thing (you should have seen the looks I got on the first day), but my instincts say it's good for them.  I've brought all my poetry books to the office (was pretty amazed by how many I had), and  I'm taking other poems off the Web as necessary.

I only have a few minutes at the start of class to do this, so I can't be goin' into epics or Four Quartets or anything like that.  Each class meets 20 times during the term.  The first day I gave 'em "Ozymandias," which I can recite from memory. The second day it was Edgar Lee Masters's "Herman Altman," which wasn't ideal, but I wanted to read something about "truth."

So: anyone have any suggestions for poems to read aloud? Sad, insirational, moody, optimistic, whatever.  (But not sexy, please -- I'm a male professor, and we can't be giving people opportunities to claim harrassment...)  No fair nominating your own stuff, but if you want to nominate your friends' (and I can get their permission), great!

Some of you already know that my wife is a "ritual" artist who creates and performs custom rituals. Really neat. You can check out her Web site at www.ritualworks.com.

She's begun putting out an e-mail newsletter about ritual. If you'd like to be on the mailing list, send me a message with your e-mail address and I"ll pass it along.

Here are my monthly stats for August:

• 7,600 new words of fiction written this month. ¹
   
• 19 first drafts currently in progress (some untouched for a long time)
   
• 4 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft.
   
• 3 second drafts currently in progress
   
• 1 second draft currently in the hands of "trusted readers."
   
• 4 third drafts currently in progress.
   
• 1 third draft currently awaiting polishing. ²
   
• 0 fourth drafts in currently in progress.
   
• 1 rewrite (at request of editor) currently in progress.
   
• 10 stories currently submitted to markets
   
• 1,400 words in shortest story currently submitted.
   
• 8,700 words in longest story currently submitted.
   
• 0 offers of publication received this month.
   
• Longest current wait without response: 298 days.³
   

¹ Not spectacular, but when you consider that I wrote nothing at all between August 7 and August 27, it looks better. The first week I was writing my last story for Clarion. The last week I was revising my first story for our new crit group.

²This story is also "in the hands of trusted readers," but it's definitely a third (or even fourth?) draft, rather than a second.

³ You'll note that the previous winner, the story that was out for more than 460 days, is off the list. That was the Heinlein Centennial Short Story Contest, which I didn't win. Bless them, they had three times as many entries as they expected, and all their judges were squeezing in the work in their spare time.