mariness

1. I missed this yesterday what with various Other Things, but my little flash story Seaweed is up on the web.

2. Over at Tor.com, the Lloyd Alexander reread finally gets going with Time Cat Warning: a certain black and white cat had Issues With the Book, which I faithfully added to the post.

3. I love rain. Love it. I do not love it when a heavy, dark cloud bursting with rain continues to hover just north, shutting off light and making it all dark and gloomy, raining up there, but not here. Which it's been doing for the past couple of hours or so, leaving it dark and humid without a drop. I'm waiting, heavy rains. I'm waiting.

1. I chat about Sprig Muslin over at Tor.com. Spoiler=highwayman, yay, end of the book, not so ya.

2. Daily Science Fiction has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the zine for another couple of years. The Kickstarter rewards include anthologies, the chance to have your story critiqued by a Daily Science Fiction author, and excellent karma.

Obviously, I'm a bit biased here -- DSF published my story The Princess and Her Tale back in May, and will be publishing a little flash piece of mine, "Seaweed," next month. But it's not just me, really! They also publish several other amazing authors. If you can help out, it's an excellent zine.

Rather a busy day for publications around here. Let's see.

1. First up, Apex Magazine published its December issue today. In it appears my short story, Labyrinth. You can read it for free at that link, or buy a copy for your Kindle, Nook or Ipad using any of the links on the sideline.

2. And last week's Daily Science Fiction flash piece, Shattered Amber is also now up on the web.

Assuming all continues to go well, you will be seeing short stories from me in future issues of both publications sometime next year.

3. And the Georgette Heyer reread continues with Death in the Stocks, the first of the three Heyer mysteries I'll be reviewing.

Blog posts with – gasp – actual content, not just links, coming soon, I promise, but for now, I'm pretty wiped.

This has been a surprisingly busy and eventful week, including out of town visitors, the brief loss of a a friend's child at Disney which created a bit of drama (kid has been safely found), the hopefully not brief finding of a new obsession, blackberry wine (why oh internet did you not tell me about this before), the exciting discovery that I had not, after all, tossed out my boots, and more, which means I am now pretty much out of it, but, interrupting that state and a rather alarming amount of laundry for a few quick announcements:

1. Barring any potential weather delays from Hurricane Sandy, aka Frankenstorm, which OH NOES MAY BE KILLING FLIGHTS EVERYWHERE if you believe the media, I should be departing next Monday for World Fantasy Con.

(Don't worry, everyone; I have found my boots, which means that Toronto should be snow free. You can thank me – or curse me – later. I'm thinking curse because I was kinda looking forward to seeing some snow. Which would have certainly happened if my boots had remained hidden. On the other hand if snow does make an appearance Karen Lord will probably kill me, so, all just as well, and wow, could I possibly have mixed up verb tenses any more in this paragraph? I did say that I'm a bit out of it.)

Because my illness is incredibly unpredictable and can strike at any time, and I usually only make it to about half of the con at best, I have not planned any events – readings, panels, dinners, whatever. I'll just be going with the flow. Chances are good, however, that when I am up and about I will be near coffee, at the bar, or in the dealer's room, or have an interest in food in general. (Food!) I also tentatively plan to make my usual graceful and delightful appearance just outside the Tor party which may or may not turn into a graceful appearance inside the Tor party depending upon the state of the door and the crowds.

2. On a writing note, I have another tiny piece forthcoming from Daily Science Fiction squashed there in a month with writers such as Ken Liu and Nina Kiriki Hoffman, so, if you haven't signed up to have these short stories show up in your inbox each morning, and why not, it's free, now seems like a good time.

3. The Edward Eager reread continues over at Tor.com with The Well-Wishers. One more Eager book to go, and then we start a reread that I have been singing about. No, really.

4. And possibly one more announcement coming later today in its own little post.

My two short recent short stories for Daily Science Fiction, Nameless and A Different Rain, are now up at the main Daily Science Fiction site.

Like many of my flash fiction stories, "A Different Rain" was written in a flash of irritation, this time at the very happy and very loud next door neighbor children who appear to believe that play is best interspersed with screaming. I was beginning to feel miserable, and it rained, which initially caused more screams, and then blessed, blessed silence, except for the rain. That did not take too long to write up.

"Nameless" is a bit different. That story initially began as a flash fiction piece, a joke about my inability to name characters. Slowly I realized it was turning into something more. It took me forever to find the end of the story, however; this was a piece that came together in bits and pieces.

"Nameless" is set in the same Stoneverse (my new name for it) as Trickster and In the Pits of Isfhan, although in a different time and place than either. I'm hoping to continue to add tales in this world, bit by bit.

Since we've been talking the highlights of modern culture, a quick note that Daily Science Fiction just emailed out my little flash fiction piece, "A Different Rain," this morning. This is not actually the Daily Science Fiction story I mentioned selling some time ago – that story is apparently popping up in April – but it's as good an excuse as any to remind you all that subscribing to Daily Science Fiction is totally free, and includes Good Stuff, and the chance to read a longer story from me in a couple weeks.

More blogging in a bit; I am setting up new computer between bouts of dizziness and fatigue, so reports on fun stuff are going to be a bit slow.

For those who didn't read this in their inboxes (and why not?) Daily Science Fiction now has Sparks up at their website.

A few of you asked what I was thinking with this, and the answer is, I'm not sure. The first sentence was originally part of something else, very unrelated (an unrelated that is slowly pushing its way into a novel that has nothing to do with sparks or wands or anything in this tale). I pulled it (and the original, completely different paragraph) from that something else, and then realized that I rather liked the sentence, so cut and pasted that into a new Word document, let it sit there for a few days, and then decided to see where it would go. This is kinda where it went. Sometimes stories are like that - not based on any particular idea, but something where the words just build, and the stories follow, creeping along, word by word.