Archive for category Fiction

A few years ago, on a lark, I sent a short story of mine to the Writers of the Future contest.  I wasn’t new to writing stories — I’d been screwing around with fiction on my own since I was a lad — but I was certainly new at trying to publish them. I knew nothing about how to do it.  One night at a pub (The Old Toad in Rochester, NY), a more informed friend of mine told me about Ralan.com, a website that aggregates market information for speculative fiction stories, and poring over it the next day I found an entry for this Writers of the Future contest that had no entry fee but thousands of dollars in awards.

I was a little uncertain at first due to the contest’s association with L. Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology), but the tiniest bit of looking at the contest website revealed that it was judged by some of the greatest living writers of fantasy and science fiction. Hubbard’s interest in supporting young writers struck me as an issue entirely independent from any religious issues. And with that kind of prize money …

Well, for the cost of postage, I didn’t see much of a downside.  So I sent in my story, a 14,000-word beastie that was eventually reviewed thus on Amazon (this still gives me goosebumps):

Michael Livingston provides what I thought was the best story of all in “The Keeper Alone.” In a story reminiscent of Robert Heinlein’s “Orphans of the Sky,” what happens when the sole keeper of a space ark saves someone whose pod has malfunctioned? It is stories such as these that keep me reading science fiction. . . . This book is worth purchasing. There are a few stories that I was less enthused about, but the winners in this book, particularly the last story, ["The Keeper Alone,"] will make you feel good about the purchase. — amazon.com

To say I was shocked to win would be an understatement. And I was even more shocked to find out I also got an all-expenses paid trip to a week-long workshop with those famous judges, culminating in a black-tie awards ceremony and book signing. (Most folks know these things, but I was writing in a total vacuum.) Our year the Big Event was held in Seattle, and it was an incredible experience.

It was also meticulously filmed.  The contest folks had hired a video crew to follow us around, documenting the whole thing Survivor-style.  Crazy.

That documentary — at last we get to the point of this post — is now on YouTube, along with a video of the “highlights” of the black-tie extravaganza itself.  It’s an awesome walk down memory lane for me. The video is in three parts, with yours truly appearing first in the second one at around the 1:08 mark (though I show up a quite a bit for the rest of it).

Documentary Part 1:

Documentary Part 2:

Documentary Part 3:

Awards ceremony highlight reel:

Quite a walk down memory lane. And awesome to see so many old friends again via YouTube!

I had no pressing work to do yesterday, so at long last I had the opportunity to read over my completed draft of Shards of Heaven. I wanted to give it another once-over before making a big agent push this year. I meant to do it months ago, but I’ve been tied up with Brunanburh.

You know what, though? I think the novel is pretty good. I was actually moved a couple of times, which is a darn fine feeling. On the other hand, I’ve scribbled corrections throughout the manuscript, including a mighty mark through the Prologue. ‘Tis going the way of the dodo.

After that, though, I’m moving on. Time to start querying this one — something I intended to have done long before now.

So I decided, somewhere on the long trip out West, that Shards of Heaven needed a glossary. Nothing on a Tolkien scale, mind you, but at least a basic historical who’s who, since the majority of the novel’s characters — even bit players — are based on real people.

The glossary, I’m pleased to say, is complete.

While I’m tempted now to immerse myself in Gate of Hell, the sequel to Shards — yes, some significant work was done on it while I was away — I’m finding myself more interested in two other novel projects: one the heavy revision of a completed fantasy novel and one the significant expansion of my award-winning science fiction story, “The Keeper Alone.”

Which one will I settle into, I wonder?

I thought today, for no good reason at all, about the Novel-writing sketch by Monty Python.  The “video” below is audio only, but it still gets the point across:

I recently received a rejection from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, for my deliberate deus ex machina tale, “At the End of Babel.”  A bummer, of course, since I still think it’s a very fine piece, and I’d like to see it in print.

That said, there is a small victory here.  F&SF is a fast-rejection market, often with response times measured in single-digit days.  This speed, as writers know, is largely due to the efficiency of the mag’s chief slush reader, John Joseph Adams — known hereabouts as the Tri-Lettered One, since he signs his alas-o-gram rejects “JJA.”  My small victory in this rejection, therefore, is that my rejection came not from JJA but from the Editor/Publisher of F&SF, Gordon Van Gelder.  Even more, it took 52 days.

In the absence of anything from me, why don’t you go read Mary Robinette Kowal’s Hugo-nominated short story, “Evil Robot Monkey”? Better yet, why don’t you listen to it, read by the author herself?

…and I’m revising the opening chapters of Shards of Heaven. Yippee!

Glenn’s recent comment on another thread reminds me that I’m overdue not only in posting new material but also in explaining the state of things on the fiction front.

Gate of Hell, the sequel to the completed Shards of Heaven, is in rather fine outline, and I had started writing it.

Only, well, I’ve stopped.

There are several reasons for this. One, of course, is the press of the semester. Another is the academic side of my life, which has seen me dealing with quite a few little things in addition to the big one of the Battle of Brunanburh book.

A bigger issue, though, has been my hesitancy to devote a great deal of time to writing a sequel to an unpublished book. I’m currently seeking representation to alleviate that lack of publication, but thus far no attempts have struck gold. The first agent I queried requested a hefty partial of the MS, held it, held it, held it, then said “no.” The second agent declined the partial. The third agent has the query right now.

I also wonder — and recent events with a now-novelist friend of mine bears this out — that it might be a good idea if I have multiple novels at hand when it comes time for shopping my services. As Mary Robinette Kowal puts the matter, it would be a good idea to have an answer if an agent or an editor rejects one novel but is interested to know if I have something else I can show them.

So the work spread out on my desk at the moment is my dusty half-novel Odalisk and Basilisk, retrieved from oblivion for consideration as my next fictive mistress. It’s interesting to see old material like this after a long time apart from it. It’s… intriguing.