New Romance Mag

Well, I was AWOL all February, but now I have news too good to keep silent. DEP is starting up a new magazine with the focus on romance short fiction. We're still working out the details, but the launch date will be in the fall. In the meantime, I'll still be at Haruah.

Novelists' Income Survey

I stumbled across this survey on Tobias Buckell's site. He received information from more than a hundred sf and fantasy novelists about their advances and how many books they've written and how many years they've been writing. He then organized the data (keeping the authors anonymous) so that we could get an idea of how much a novelist makes. Interesting, to me, is the fact that a first-time novelist can expect an advance around $5000. After five to seven years and as many books, a novelist can expect $12,500. Not bad. Not enough to live on, but it doesn't take every second of every day to write a novel, either.

Haruah Is Now A Paying Market

As of the first of January 2007, Haruah will pay for all its stories, poetry, illustrations, and editorials. Stop by and see what we're about.

Snark Infested Waters

One of my fellow editors at Haruah, RL Copple, has been interviewed in this week's issue of Snark Infested Waters. Issue 99 contains nearly an hour of Rick talking about writing, editing, Haruah, and the Double-Edged Publishing empire.

Haruah Funding Campaign Nearly At An End

The funding campaign for Haruah is nearly over and we're a bit short of funds. We had hoped to become a paying market in 2007, starting in January, but it looks like we may need to push that back some. All donations will go to paying authors and illustrators, with a tiny amount needed to maintain the site itself. The editors (including me) are all volunteer.

If you haven't been by the magazine, it's online here. The stories are appropriate for all ages, although I think the young 'uns would probably rather read something else. Also, the stories reflect a Christian worldview--some explicitly, some implicitly. We've had a lot of top-notch submissions this year and we hope to keep attracting quality writers and artists.

If you can donate even a little, that would be great. Thanks.

Counting Constellations

This is an excellent story. "Counting Constellations" took third place in the Haruah contest.

Sword Review Fiction Contest

The Sword Review is having their annual fiction contest. The theme is "hope" and entries are accepted until 01 Dec 2006.

NaNoWriMo

The forums at the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) site opened today. With only thirty days until the start of NaNoWriMo, I'm flexing my typing fingers. I'll be hanging out in the Former Orphans topic under NaNoWriMo Alumni Lounge. The fun has begun.

Writing Contests Revisited

Haruah's writing contest is still ongoing. We're accepting fiction (no minimum or maximum word count) or poetry. Only a few days left to get your entries in. Did I mention there is a prize for the winners?

The Avon FanLit competition started. I've been over there voting today. Lots of really good entries. I can't believe how much fun this is. Get over there and check it out (after you enter your fiction at Haruah), even if you only read the entries and vote on them.

Avon Fanlit

Well, wow! There's some great stuff over at the Avon Fanlit forums. I've been reading some sample chapters and they are fantastic.

Avon Fanlit

Here's another writing contest. Avon, an imprint of Harper Collins, is sponsoring an online writing contest. Each week, the contest sponsors provide a direction and the participants write a chapter of a novel. Everyone votes and the best one is selected. Check it out if you have time.

Writing Contests

The writing contest at Haruah is still going on. The deadline is 10 Sep 2006. Prose or poetry.

As long as I'm talking about contests, I might as well let you know about the poetry contest over at Dragons, Knights, and Angels, an online fantasy magazine where every story contains at least a dragon, a knight, or an angel. You have a little over a month to become poetically inspired. The deadline is 30 Sep 2006.

How about a flash fiction writing contest at Ray Gun Revival, an online magazine devoted to the revival of that classic of science fiction, the space opera? The deadline there is 01 Sep 2006, so get writing!

Contest at Haruah

Did I mention there's a writing contest at Haruah? No fee to enter. Prizes. Accepting poetry and prose. Get the details here. The deadline for entry is 10 Sep 2006. Hope to see you there.

Disburse/Disperse

I see this often. The innocent villagers see the evil overlord's ruthless soldiers coming to destroy their peaceful existence. The villagers, untrained in weaponry, have no choice but to disburse.

What? They're throwing money at the problem? Well, perhaps they are, but the next scene often shows our hapless villagers in many separate and distinct locations. This leads me to believe the author intended the characters to flee for their lives, rather than worry about their wallets. And besides, if the villagers had enough money to stop an army of bloodthirsty mercenaries in their tracks, why wouldn't they just hire their own band of mercenaries?

Definitions from Merriam-Webster online

Disburse -- transitive verb
1 a : to pay out : expend especially from a fund b : to make a payment in settlement of
2 : DISTRIBUTE

Disperse -- transitive verb
1 a : to cause to break up b : to cause to become spread widely c : to cause to evaporate or vanish
2 : to spread or distribute from a fixed or constant source: as a archaic : DISSEMINATE b : to subject (as light) to dispersion c : to distribute (as fine particles) more or less evenly throughout a medium
intransitive verb
1 : to break up in random fashion
2 a : to become dispersed b : DISSIPATE, VANISH
synonym see SCATTER

Television

I watch entirely too much television. But in the summer, when it's well over 100 degrees (Fahrenheit, 38 Celsius) in the shade every day, what else is there? Last week, the temperature dropped to 95, the whole town rushed outside and played, worked in the yard, whatever, just to get outside and breathe unrecycled air-conditioned air again. It felt so refreshing to have that cold front go through.

One thing television is good for is ideas. The best aliens in fiction have their basis in real creatures living on earth now or in the past. National Geographic Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and several others are almost entirely documentaries. Writing believable battle scenes requires research into historical battles. The History Channel has shows on individual battles, as well as series on generals and wars.

I don't think it's enough to watch the show, then write, but it sure does work as a shortcut. I see an animal behavior that would be nifty and I have to go to the library to find out how that behavior affects the animal in the wild. What are the advantages to the animal (usually food or love) and what are the disadvantages? Every good trait has its flipside. Both sides get worked into the story.

If there's nothing good for ideas on the tube, there's always the Food Network. Ina Garten's menus are dee-lish.