She’s All Light on the Million Writers Notable Stories of 2010 List, and Guest Post at Tor.com. I am not making this up.

Wow.

So, right after the post I made about Future Perfect being on Escape Pod, two other publishing news happened one right after another. May as well combine them in one post.

Okay…so…Sunday night, I said goodbye to the last of the guests who came up to celebrate my 40th birthday. This week, I had planned to ease back into the short story I’m working on and getting ready for the Easter weekend. I took a look at my Twitter feed, and saw some congratulation emails. I thought they were for Future Perfect, but they mentioned other writers too, like Charlie Jane Anders, editor of I09, who I met at Wiscon last year. So I was confused.

Finally, someone sent me a link, which took me to the The storySouth Million Writers Notable Stories of 2010. And guess what? She’s All Light made the list!

So what does this mean? Well, first of all, I get to put the nifty tagline “listed as a storySouth Million Writers Notable Story of 2010” on my published works page. But this also means that if it is listed among the top 10 stories on May 20, then “She’s All Light” is eligible for the storySouth Million Writers Award. To be truly honest, I don’t think it will make it that far, because there are so many awesome stories on the list, the fact that “She’s All Light” made it on the list in the first place makes my head spin.

The cool thing is, some of these stories I have already read and can absolutely vouch for their inclusion. “Memories in Bronze, Feathers, and Blood” by Aliette de Bodard. Nearly all the nominated stories from Clarkesworld, including “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time” by Catherynne M. Valente, which deserves first prize because I loved, loved, loved, the bits about the science fiction writer. “The Notebook of My Favourite Skin-Trees” by Alex Dally MacFarlane, which also appeared in Daybreak Magazine. “Standard Loneliness Package” by Charles Yu. (And speaking of Lightspeed, they won Million Writers Award for best new online magazine! How cool is that?), “The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model” by Charlie Jane Anders, John Scalzi’s “The President’s Brain is Missing”…

But there are other stories on the list that I haven’t read, stories by Amal El-Mohtar and Mishell Baker and An Owomoyela and Sandra McDonald and Mari Ness and Yoon Ha Lee and Rachel Swirsky…so many that I’ve decided to actually go and read all the stories on the list, because they look awesome!

Congratulations to everyone who made the list. I feel awfully humble and proud to be listed among these great stories.

+++

So, that was all I was going to post, but as I was writing this, I got an email with news I’ve been wanting to post forever.

Last year, I put in a bid at the Carl Brandon Society’s Con or Bust Auctionfor a guest post on Tor.com. I was quite surprised, therefore, to learn I won.

Yesterday, my guest blog was put up. It’s a joint post with Kate Nepveu in her reread of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. In addition to the books, she also watched the movies, so my contribution was a review of the last movie, Return of the King. The extended version, of course. That was a lot of fun.

So head on over to Tor.com to check it out and post in the comments section what you think. Some good conversation happening there. And while you’re at it, check out the forums at Escape Pod and check out the conversation happening there on Future Perfect. It’s been really cool to see what things people are seeing in the story, stuff that not even I considered.

And finally, I swear, I don’t think I have anything else in the publishing hopper coming out. The fact this is all happening around my birthday makes me think, yeesh, what would happen when I turn 50…

(Hopefully Willow comes out much more sooner than that…)

"Future Perfect" is now up at Escape Pod!

It has been an incredibly eventful week at the Café. Wednesday marked my 40th year of walking on this earth. Today, I got a belated birthday surprise: “Future Perfect“, my first science fiction short story, is now up at Escape Pod! And boy oh boy, is it ever yummy listening goodness! So what are you waiting for? Go listen! Go now! Enjoy!

New Short Story: "Future Perfect" up at March 2010 issue of Ideomancer

Fresh on the heels of ““She’s All Light“, my short story “Future Perfect“, has been published by Ideomancer, making it the second story I’ve published with them. While “She’s All Light” was my first professional sale, “Future Perfect” has the privilege of being the first science fiction story I ever wrote.

It’s also the first story that is dedicated to someone: my husband Jon, who helped me nail down the technical terms. “Future Perfect” is a love letter to him of sorts. It may not look like it–in fact, you’re probably thinking, “Um….how does this qualify as a love letter and not, oh, I don’t know, stalking?“

Well, you just have to read the story to see.

Enjoy the story! And Jon, you are my best friend and my partner in crime. Thank you for accepting me for who I am, what I am, and what I can be. Thank you for loving all the parts of me: the confused oreo, the giddy Japanese school girl, and the Black Queen. Most of all, thank you for asking me to always be by your side. Twelve years later, I am still saying, “Yes.”

Oh, and by the way, you rock so much harder than that other dude who shall remain nameless.

Edit: And now you can hear it too! Hop on over to Escape Pod to hear Future Perfect narrated by Dani Cutler. It’s futuriffic!

LaShawn’s Writing Project Status Update for February 2010

I missed the boat on creating my new year resolutions at the start of 2010. That’s because I was busy writing. Can’t come up with a better excuse than that.

So, Willow-wise, what have I been up to? I feel like I’m finally starting to pick up speed on the revision. Currently, I’m on Chapter 12. At first glance, it looks disheartening. Seeing that I started rewriting Willow in March, it almost looks like I did only a chapter a month–and with about 60 chapters planned, if I keep at that pace, it will be a long time before Willow is finished. The thing is, I don’t feel so bad.

I’ve said before in my Willow updates that I knew the first opening chapters were going to be hard. I would be basically establishing everything that would be coming after, and this included fine-tuning the world to be consistent and in some cases, starting a new chapter over from scratch. I believe I’m getting past that stage…the last chapter I worked on went much faster since the story was now established and things were finally moving.

I’m also perfecting my revision method. At the beginning, I just rewrote and rewrote the passage I was working on until I felt like I got it right. Now, I’ve been utelizing the comment feature in Word 2007 and highlighting areas that I feel needs more work to come back to later. I’m finding that instead of wracking my brain to come up with something right away, highlighting it give me a chance to continue working on the passage without losing my flow. And chances are, the right words will come to me later and I can easily plug them in. Now it’s just figuring out when’s the best time to do that.

So basically, I’m 20% into the second revision of my book. If I finish my short story for WOTF on time, then I plan to make April an "all-Willow" month, meaning that the only project I’ll work on will be Willow. I don’t have a set end date planned, but if I can finish by the end of the year, I’ll be happy. We’ll see.

And with that, I’ll lead into my short story status update. Back in September, I ran out of short stories out there on the markets. At the time, I decided to quick edit 5 stories and get them out on the market by October 9; I was only about to get four out: two poems and two short stories (I also promised to put up a progress meter; that didn’t happen.) At least I do have stuff out there now. I’m also hard at work with my next WOTF entry, which I have dubbed "Cotton Picker". I’m hoping to get it done by the March 31st deadline—and that’s coming up pretty fast.

The good news is that "She’s All Light" had been published and received rave comments and a good review. And I have another story coming up in the March issue of Ideomancer called "Future Perfect", which is actually the first science fiction story I ever wrote. This will be my second story published with Ideomancer, and I’m quite pleased this one made it in.

One final thought: I’ve been feeling a little burnt out on the creative side of things. So when Mur Lafferty announced on her I Should Be Writing podcast that she was starting a Facebook group on The Artist’s Way, I immediately jumped on board. I’ve always wanted to do The Artist’s Way, specifically the morning pages. I tried to to do a version of them on my own, but that didn’t last long. I’m hoping with the actual book and a community, I’d be able to get back into it. Feel free to join if you’re a writer or any kind of artist. Or even if you’re not an artist. From what I read so far, The Artist’s Waycan be used for anyone wanting to bring more creativity into their life.

While I’ll participate in the Facebook group, I’ll also post most of my thoughts on Twitter (my handle is @TboneJenkins). Feel free to follow along and let me know what you think.

Story Sale: "She’s All Light" to be published by Daybreak Magazine

I’ve been waiting to do this announcement for a long, long time.

I am thrilled and elated to announce that “She’s All Light”, the short story I’ve worked on for three years, has been sold to Daybreak Magazine and will be up  for reading on January 8, 2010. “She’s All Light” has been chosen along with several other stories to promote Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF, which will be out in paperback in April 2010.  It is the first science fiction story I’ve ever got published, and—even better—it is my first professional sale ever!

This had been a long time in the works. I had originally submitted the story for the anthology. It didn’t make it, but the editor liked it so much, he asked to publish it on his website. The stories on the site so far have been quite impressive—David Levine, K.D. Wentworth, Amanda Clark, to name a few. I’ve also been extremely impressed by the diversity of cultures, and I’m humbled that my little story will be among them.

I’ll say more once “She’s All Light” is published. In the meantime, why not head over to Daybreak Magazine and check out the stories that are there so far (my favorite is “The Branding of Shu Mei Fen” by Amanda Clark). They are fun reads, and hopefully, they’ll be spots of brightness in a dark, dark world.

Edit: And it’s now up! Read it at http://daybreakmagazine.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/daybreak-fiction-shes-all-light/ or if you want a widescreen format: http://daybreakmagazine2.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/daybreak-fiction-shes-all-light-v2/.

New Short Story: "Lavender and Chamomile" up at Big Pulp

Took a little while, but I finally got this short story sold. It’s up and running at Big Pulp Magazine.

The foundation to this story came back when Daniel was still a baby. One of the many toys he got was the quintessential teddy bear, complete with glassy eyes and button nose. One day, I was picking up toys in his room, and the teddy bear was lying face-down on the floor. I picked it up to put it back on a shelf and –boom– instant storyline.

I think this was the second story I ever wrote, so I’m not surprised that it took me this long to find a market for it. I submitted it to several fantasy markets, and most of them came back with “interesting story, but not sure it fits us”.  I really didn’t want to shelve it or rewrite it, so when I found Big Pulp, I figured “Lavender and Chamomile” would be a good fit, and started to send it to them under their “Fantasy” genre.

Then I thought, wait a second. I’m not having much looking submitting it as a fantasy story. What if I submitted it as ‘horror’?

What constitutes a horror story? For a long time, I thought it was monsters. Demons. Things that go bump in the night. When I was a kid, I read a lot Stephen King and Dean Koontz. When I grew older and started writing seriously, I shied away from horror, mainly because I felt it too dark. But really, what constitutes a horror story? It’s the strong emotion of fear, yes, but where does that fear come from? Can it come from monsters, or can it come other things? Fear of aliens? Fear of life?

Or the fear of a mother trying to protect her child?

So there you have it. I submitted it under horror and it got accepted—in their fantasy section. So aha! It is a fantasy story! Just as I thought! I shall thumb my nose at all those other markets who thought otherwise. Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!

Actually, in all honesty, I’m just glad it’s published now. Maybe one day, I’ll write a horror story for real. But if I’m going to do that, I’ll have to start reading more horror stories. Looks like I’ll have to take a trip to Pseudopod…

So have fun reading “Lavender and Chamomile“. It’s rated PG—though if little kids love their teddy bears, you might not want to let them read this.

By the way, for his preschool graduation present this year, Daniel got a Build-A-Bear from the Build-A-Bear workshop. Its fur is soft, its eyes are glassy. I know it’s just a stuffed bear.

But I still make the boy pick it up off the floor just the same.

Book Review: Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

I am growing to become a huge fan of Kelly Link. When I first read her story “Lull” in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror #16, it prompted me to send her an email, begging her how exactly she came up with her weird, surrealistic ideas to have a palindromic story that consisted of a poker game, a cheerleader playing spin the bottle with the Devil in a backwards-time world, and a man who lived with different clones of his wife.

Link never responded. Which is a good thing, I guess. I imagine if she had responded, it probably would’ve been something along the lines of: “I prick my finger at two in the morning, squeeze red droplets into a glass of sand, then go down to Menards where I dance in the parking lot, vocalizing whale songs until the ideas come to me and I write them down on a flat sheet of styrofoam with a toothbrush made out of ferret fur.”

Actually, it’s probably as as mundane as: “Well, I read a lot and I write a lot.” But where’s the fun in that?

Link’s website is a fascinating smorgasbord of all she’s involved with: Small Beer Press, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. But best of all, all three of her short story collections can be found there for free under the Creative Commons license. At the time I went there, only “Stranger Things Happen” were available, but now I see that all three collections: Magic for Beginnings (which includes the awesome Lull story) and Pretty Monsters are also available.

“Stranger Things Happen” is a good introduction to Link’s style, starting with “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose” a story about a man who wakes up alone in the afterlife disguised as a hotel, writing letters to a wife whose name he cant recall. Link’s use of language is poetic and serene, with just enough surrealness thrown in to make things interesting.

Most of the stories in the book have a dash of fairy tale. “Travels With the Snow Queen” retells Hans Christian Andersen’s story from a world-weary, love point of view. “Shoe and Marriage” starts off with the Prince of the Cinderella story still looking for a lost mate. The Girl Detective stalks the 12 Dancing Princesses to find where they go at night (an existential Asian club, it appears).

But there are original stories too. Strange, surreal, and dreamlike. “Survival’s Ball, or, the Donner Party” mingles a toothache with a strange love affair that ends at a questionable party. “Water Off a Black Dog’s Back” has a young man dealing with his girlfriend and her odd parents. “Flying Lessons” has a girl falling in love with a demigod. And “Louise’s Ghost” tells the story of two women named Louise who are best friends…I think…

Sometimes, Link’s stories tend to switch plots in the middle. What starts off as one story ends in another. “Shoe and Marriage” was like that, the Cinderella story suddenly turning into a a couple watching a bizarre pageant show on TV.  There are also some stories that get downright confusing. Louise Ghost”, never gives the last name of the two Louises, so it’s hard to differentiate who’s who. Oddly enough, it is my favorite story in the book.

And there are stories which are poignant. In “Most of my Friends are Two-Thirds Water”, the narrator, a woman dealing with unrequited love and lived in her father’s garage, resonated with me. Or maybe it was her feeling that she was competing with a bunch of blonds for the guy she loved. Or maybe it was that all the blonds look like Sandy Duncan and smelled like Lemon Fresh Joy. Probably the least surreal of the whole bunch is “The Vanishing Act”, (not that there isn’t surrealness there), the story of a girl and her cousin who comes to stay with her temporarily, and “The Specialist’s Hat”, the story of two twin girls who live with their absent-minded father in a strange house.

This isn’t a book I suggest reading beginning to end in one sitting. Reading it in bits and pieces works wonderfully though, and I can’t wait to dive into her other two books. This ranks Four Louises out of five.  One of them is in love with the cellist. You just have to read carefully to figure out which one.

Finally! I’m done with my short story (now I just have to proofread it and re-edit it and market it…)

I did it. After nine whole months, I finished my fourth (and hopefully final) draft of my sci-fi short story “She’s All Light”.

Whew.

Of course, as you can tell by the title, there’s still a whole lot of work to be done to it. Now that I got the storyline down the way I want it, I need to get readers so that they can tell me if what I wrote was the best thing they’ve ever seen or that I basically wasted six months working on crap. Then I need to process their comments, perhaps fling myself on the floor in a bit of rage, or perhaps stare dully at a wall for a couple of hours, then somehow work up the courage to go over the story again to incorporate their suggestions…or just trash the whole thing and go work full-time as a secretary. Then there’s the finding of a market to send it to, and formatting it so that I can send it to that market, and spell-checking and grammar-checking and fact-checking…

But really, I am done with the story.

I think this is the first time I worked so long on a story. Normally, it would take me at the most three, maybe four months to do a story from first scribblings to final draft. But that was when I had oodles of time at my leisure. When I started working on the fourth draft way back in September, I figured it would take a couple of months…December at the latest. Boy was I wrong.

Part of the reason why it to so long was that the story itself is picking long–almost 13,000 words. I might be able to get away with cutting out some words during the final grammar/spell check, but when I worked on this fourth draft, I intended on making it as tight as it could. So it will probably stay at it’s high word count. Another reason was that this was a deeper story than I realized. I needed to go slowly just to make sure the story stayed in line.

And the real reason? My life exploded.

Between October and May, my writing slowed to a crawl. There were days when I could only work on SAL for 10 minutes. The days when we worked on the house to get it ready for sale…I’d do some painting, go revise a sentence, do some more painting, revise another sentence. Ugh. Not that it wasn’t a good thing. The slow going helped me to focus, making sure each sentence, each word contributed to the story as a whole. (And it helped that I started reading Francine Prose’s book on reading slowly).

But revising that story felt like pulling out a mouthful of teeth. One molar at a time.

I’m pondering now if I should focus exclusively on re-reading Willow to get it ready for its editing. But part of me is crying to work on something new. Some poetry, maybe or another short story, one that is more light-hearted than SAL. I want to work on something cute and fluffy.

Guh. I really have been writing drama too long.

“Christmas Eve at the Petite Bouchette” up at Poor Mojo’s Almanac((k)!

And another story is up!

“Christmas Eve at the Petite Bouchette” is my first literary story to be published. I got the idea for it when on our way to a relative’s house for Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, we drove by an adult bookstore that had its “OPEN” sign lit up. I wondered, “who would visit such a shop on Thanksgiving Day? Why would the owners have it open?” This story came out of those questions.

Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k) will have the story on their front page for one week, then it will be moved towards the archived section. I’ll put a link there when it does. In the meantime, enjoy!

“Crowntree” is up at Ideomancer!

And yet another story of mine is up to read! Yippee! And it’s at Ideomancer, of all places!

This one has a special place in my heart. It’s based off an actual tree and stone ring I saw in someone’s backyard. Seeing the tree took me back to the days of when I was a kid, and our own backyard.

We lived in a cul-de-sac, and our backyard was adjacent to a trainyard that had a slice of forest serve as a barrier of sorts. Several feet of this forest protruded into our own backyard, so basically we had a lawn with a couple of trees, then a wooded area that had a path going through it, so in a way, it was like our own forest preserve. And in the city of Chicago, that’s pretty special.

Towards the back of our backyard, there was a tree we could climb. It had a space where two or three kids could stand up, and there was even an odd stump that served as a makeshift chair. My sisters and I, and our friends, would go to the backyard and play ‘king of the castle’ and sometimes tell stories (I was doing that even way back then).

Thinking about it now, our backyard was a kid’s paradise.

So fast forward a couple of decades, I’m at a friend’s house for the first time, stuffing Easter eggs. I happen to look into their backyard, and lo and behold, there’s the tree. They also have a strange concrete ring that we couldn’t really figure out what it was used for. My imagination kicked in and “Crowntree” was born.

What’s also cool about this story is that this is the first story that got into the exact place I wanted it to go to. I’ve always been a fan of Ideomancer and their stories, so I made it one of my goals to get a story in to them. It’s quite a prestigious market, and I’m very happy that they chose my story (and the other stories in this quarter’s issue are wonderful too).

Go read “Crowntree” at Ideomancer!