In a weird almost trance-like state, what writers or athletes alike call The Flow, I knocked out a sci-fi short a few days ago and submitted it. It was as though the narrative was dictated to me by angels, and I received some praise from otherwise critical first readers for it. The odds of a good story being chosen from the over flowing queues of this org is probably, literally one in a hundred. Plus this is raw, hard SF from an unknown author, with plenty of controversial political themes sure to turn off the average conservative reader embedded in it — none of that wussy fantasy soft sci-fi with unicorns or other magic baby! Which is, sad to say, not always real marketable.
If it does sell, I will have made about $300 USD for a few hours of fun, easy work. In the strong likelihood they pass, and I can’t get traction anywhere else, maybe I’ll have an artist friend cook up some images and publish it here. It’s not terrible and it’s short, about 3000 words.
Sweet! If it doesn’t get picked up, don’t be in a huge rush to make it public here before shopping it around. As You Know Bob, lots of websites especially will publish new SF shorts. Break a pen.
Nice! I’ll be thinking of you! Let us know when you find out what happens (and where we can get the opportunity to read it, if not here.)
What Pteryxx said. I truly hope reading it here is a last resort.
Bona fortuna!
Good luck Stephen.
There are some places to publish e-editions of even short fiction. I’d gladly kick in a buck or something of the sort to read a short story….I bought Roy’s book over at alicublog when he came out with it just based on reading his blog (quick fun read by the way).
There is no luck, and wishing for it won’t help.
I will trust that it shall succeed on your talents.
Haha! PZ’s comment showed up in my filter and required approval. Ahh WordPress, we love you so.
If there were no such thing, you would have commented before I did and then I would have snarkily chided you for your scientismistic response to a common human expression of hope and doubt, but as luck would have it you didn’t and so I won’t, lucky you.
It would make me happy to see you succeed.
It’s been my experience that there is no luck, and it’s all bad.
May your experience differ from mine. :)
Sweet, indeed!
If they take a pass on it (I’m taking a wild guess at Analog, just based on hard SF and the payment sounds right for them), consider finding an editor or “beta reader” to go over it for things OTHER than wild ideas and controversy — things like conflict/motivation mapping and viewpoint consistency and such. If it’s good and they give it a pass, there may be a (fixable!!) reason.
You’re a great blog writer; I won’t be at all surprised to learn that you have it in you to be a great fiction writer, as well!
Yeah, I checked Analog out, they have a usable online submission system.
Awesome! By my standards, putting yourself out like that is a gutsy thing to do. Good luck, or as PZ might put it, good talent-based success!
OK dude, enough of that.
The greatest art contains moral ambiguity. So I think it would be better if you could more even-handedly present things. You could still have the good guys win in the end, but you should at least be able to let the bad guys present a solid case. I don’t think you can do that with current conservative political arguments, they are just too obviously deficient.
Anyway, best wishes.
Omni, reboot: an iconic sci-fi magazine goes back to the future
Merely a turn of phrase Reg, it doesn’t mean I have converted.