At the beginning of each year the Codex Writers’ Group hosts a competition called Weekend Warrior, wherein participants are given five story prompts that must be sculpted into vaguely presentable lumps of story no greater than 750 words.  Naturally, the prompts are delivered on Friday night and the stories due by Sunday, because it wouldn’t be Weekend Warrior if we weren’t all panicking.

I’d say there are no prizes for Weekend Warrior, but that’s not entirely true.  Sure, you won’t win a ribbon, medal or gold-sprinkled victory-donut, but you will end up with all sorts of feedback from the other 30ish writers in your division, which is a prize more valuable than most trophies and baked goods.   Also, Weekend Warrior forces people to write on a deadline, and that’s not a bad thing for a guy whose motivation is often in short supply.

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, this is all leading somewhere:  I’ve sold one of my five Weekend Warrior stories from this year.

Specifically, it was my week-one story, titled “Tomorrow’s Forecast.”  I combined two of the week’s five prompts for this piece:  one that asked me to write a story where weather was relevant to the plot, and one that asked me to write an argument between two people who have known each other a long time.

At the suggestion of my good friend and critique partner Alex Shvartsman, I submitted my story to Mike Resnick at Galaxy’s Edge.  Fifty-three minutes later, there was a contract in my inbox.

So special thanks to Alex, not only for sending me Mike’s way, but for reading an early draft of “Tomorrow’s Forecast” and wisely suggesting I cut a huge chunk out of both the intro and conclusion.  The story is much stronger for it!

Sometime in the past month (or maybe two–time has become difficult to judge lately, thanks to this summer heat melting my brain into something that could pass for expired clam chowder) I heard about an open submission window for a trio of books from Flame Tree Publishing:  one each for horror, ghosts and science fiction.  They said they were open to multiple submissions, so naturally I upended my trunk of unsold stories over their inbox.

Okay, that’s an exaggeration–I only sent five stories.  And, as you’ve probably guessed from this post’s headline, one of them sold.

“Sweet Dreams, Glycerine” will be appearing in Flame Tree’s Science Fiction volume this August, hidden among 480 pages of SF stories new and old.  According to the volume’s description on Flame Tree’s site, I’ll be hanging out with such authors as Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, H.P. Lovecraft and H.G. Wells.  I’m not sure how I ended up in that party, but let’s hope no one comes around checking for invitations.

Now, they say you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but just this once, I’d like everyone to make an exception.

That book should be in an art gallery.  No!  It deserves its own gallery.  Actually, let’s just agree to appoint it as the President’s Adviser to the Arts.  And if you don’t think that’s the best idea ever proposed by a human being, then maybe I should point out that the book will be hardback, printed on silver, matte laminated, gold foil stamped, and embossed.

Mom, if you have to pick between having this book or a photograph of me on your shelf, the decision should be easy. I probably looked dumb in that picture anyway.

-Z

I found out last week that I sold a story to Alex Shvartsman’s Unidentified Funny Objects 4 anthology, which is significant for a number of reasons:

1.  I sold a story.  If you’ve been thinking about buying stock in confetti, now’s the time.

2.  Specifically, I sold a story to Unidentified Funny Objects.  Ever since having “No Silver Lining” published in the first volume of this anthology series, I’ve wanted to weasel my way back in.  Unfortunately, for the past two volumes Alex has managed to catch me breaking into his warehouse before I could glue my napkin-scrawled Buffy fan-fiction into the books.

This time around, however, I took a more conventional route:  tricking Alex into thinking I know what I’m doing.  Somehow, it worked.

3.  It’s no secret that I worship Neil Gaiman.  I mention this because A) it always bears mentioning, even if for no particular reason, and B) it’s relevant to the current topic, because Neil’s got a story appearing in UFO4.

This, of course, means that my name will be appearing in the same book as Neil Gaiman’s.  And this time it’s not just because I’m in a bookstore and have a pen handy.

There are a number of other great names included in the volume as well (you can check the TOC here), but I mention Neil specifically because he’s been a huge influence on me.  (See:  “worship,” above.)

And that’s my news for today.  See you all in 6-12 months!

-Z

Lots of people like science fiction.  They also like days, because days are when all the best stuff happens:  eating waffles, throwing boomerangs, not getting transformed into rampaging were-beasts under the glow of a full moon.  So, with both science fiction and days being so popular, it stands to reason that people should enjoy Daily Science Fiction–which is great, because that’s where I’ve sold my new flash fiction story, “Tunnel Vision.”

This pleases me greatly, because I’ve been a fan of DSF ever since I became a fan of DSF.  (Congratulations, you’ve just witnessed what happens when I realize I can’t remember a specific date halfway through typing a sentence.)  I don’t know exactly when my story will be published yet, but if you’d like to sign up for the DSF mailing list now (it’s free, and all they need is your email address), that’s a decision that could be pretty safely filed under “good ideas.”

In other flash news, “The Crimson Cloak,” which I sold to Weird Tales some time ago, looks like it will soon be seeing publication, after marinating for the 15 months or so that it takes to make a fairy tale truly exceptional.  WT announced the new issue in this post on Facebook, and if the cover art and table of contents are any indication, this will be something worth picking up.

And with that, I have no more news for now.  But please do check for more updates soon, because there should be something new to read every time you return to this site, assuming you hibernate for ten months out of the year.

-Z