Well, I got rejected by F&SF for The Envoy already. I have to say, their swiftness is nice. I don't suppose I'll recieve the same sort of speed when I send off to Azimov's. Speaking of which, I have to decide if I want to keep The Envoy and send it into WoTF at the end of December, or if I want to shoot it off to Azimov's or another magazine. I don't think that Azimov's will publish it. It's not literary enough for their stuff.

I'm working on a short story based upon my Dragonborn world. I'm purposefully writing it in a Steven Erikson/ George RR Martin style. Because, well, I've been reading Erikson, and I want to see what military fantasy is like to write.

Every story I write, I can tell that I'm getting a little better. It seems that I'm still not good enough for F&SF and frankly, I don't know what I'm good enough for, but I'm getting better. That's a lie. I know that all three stories I've finished could make it in Leading Edge easy, but that's because I know the quality of stuff we publish. I'm not putting down our stories, we always have some very good ones. But we tend to have a couple crumby ones in each issue as well.

Steven Erikson

I just finished Deadhouse Gates, the second Malaz Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. It was incredible.

I mean, wow.

I thought that Goerge R.R. Martin had created something vast and bloody and amazing in scope. His stuff is child's play next to Erikson's, and more than a little dissapointing.

For one, Erikson manages to keep the action going without killing a major character every few chapters (though he does manage to knock off some good ones). Secondly, well, it's just so broad in scope. The first book (Gardens of the Moon), which I finished two weeks ago, is one of building momentum. It's really good, but it takes one a while to realize it. It's a slow addiction.

The second book is an all out whammo. Erikson does something fascinating-- he splits the cast, taking about a third of the characters of Gardens of the Moon and then adding a whole new bunch of riveting individuals to follow the advance of a growing jihad on one continent. There's hardly a mention of what's going on with the other two thirds of the characters from Gardens of the Moon until the very end of Deadhouse Gates.

I'm really looking forward to diving into the third book. I think there are seven out so far.

I'm going to go with Bookstore Guy Steve's recommendation on this one: if you want to read Stephen Erikson, read Deadhouse Gates and the third, Memories of Ice, before reading Gardens of the Moon. GotM is already making way more sense now that I finished DG.

I've been utterly useless. I'm finishing the editing on the Envoy tomorrow night with Isaac's consultation and sending it out Thursday morning. Then I'm gonna do something else. What, I haven't the slightest.

Yes, I'm still writing. But my personal life got incredibly more interesting, so blogging is kinda on the back burner.

And The Tale Goes On

I finished "The Envoy. It has gone out to a few people for a review (if you would like to take a crack at it, you would have my appreciation) and I'm getting ready to polish it and send it off to F&SF.

I finally sent "Ballad of Hero Kyros" off. The Interzone website was down the last few days, so I submitted it to IGMS, as you can see to the side. When I get the time, I'll start my next story.

I finished and submitted the grant proposal for A Ballad of Heroes. I'll find out at the end of December/ beginning of January if I made it.

I'm attempting this new thing called "keeping my short stories short." That's why I rewrote "The Envoy." I rewrote it at first with the idea of keeping it under 10,000 words, and about half way through I decided I could keep it under 6,000, but it finally came in around 7,500. Which, as some of you know, if pretty short for something of mine.

I think keeping it short kept me interested in it. I wrote it in less than two weeks, and could always find a few minutes to advance it another scene or two. I'm trying to get down the art of short story writing and I think I'm getting better with my pacing and length. The biggest hurdle to writing any story is keeping yourself at it, which means you have to be interested in every step of the way. Making "The Envoy" much shorter helped me incredibly with that. I don't know what I'll do next, but you better believe it's gonna stay under 10,000 words.