Subscriptions and a new opening

Money comes on my birthdays. Back in September, I chose to spend it on, among other things, subscriptions to Asimov's and Locus (the sf review and interview magazine). Asimov's took perhaps six weeks to kick in. Locus still hasn't shown; I'm told it mailed Oct. 18. I do believe one could have thrown the magazine from the moon and had it reach here sooner.

I had a lovely opening for "Unearthed." But then it took much too long for anything to happen, since a lot had to be explained after my two protagonists meet at the beginning. Realizing that that was boring and a poor structure, I broke into my talk-filled intro with some action, bringing in much sooner another plot element that I hadn't meant to have intrude until nearly the end. So now I had a nicely time barrage of gunfire. Still, there remained too much to explain, too much information to share between my two main figures (one being "the old man"--though since it's 1925, he ain't old yet--and the other, Qwerty, a Mohawk somewhat out of place at a South American mine). The solution was to back up somewhat, providing the mysterious precipitating event rather than simply referring to it in retrospect. I wrote some of that new opening tonight, and I like it quite a bit. It kicks off the story well; afterwards will come some of the other pieces I've written. I hope to get some work done on this over Thanksgiving break, and I would love (though it's only faintly possible, given how much I revise) to have a solid draft in place by year's end. Schoolwork makes this difficult.

If you've read one of my stories . . .

This is especially for the folks who've visited via Coming Attractions or All Pulp: Let me know what you thought about what you downloaded. (I know I've probably missed a lot of people who've already blown through, judging by the blog stats, but perhaps I'll catch some.)

I hope you enjoy the work. More is on the way.

Galley-ho!

I received the galleys for "Clockworks" this evening. Like their contracts, Asimov's now sends these as PDFs; though I had to print out (in order to sign) and mail back the contract, the story itself will remain in e-form. I've been reading it aloud, certainly the best way to catch mistakes or simply moments that might be improved. All I've noted in the first five pages is my using the word "before" in two sentences in a row, which I'll fix.

I'm quite enjoying this tale. It's been long enough since I wrote it that I remember almost nothing.

In the next entry, I'll talk about what I've been reading.