Other reviews mention how eclectic the stories are and how some are too quirky or SF for their taste.  I have a feeling “Excuse Me” may be one they are referring to.  That’s fine; to each their own.  That’s the advantage of an open-themed flash anthology — there’s something for everybody.  It’s also the disadvantage — most people won’t like all of it.  I look forward to parking a copy next to my throne when it comes.

I did want to go ahead and document the issue I’ve been having with some angry birds.  Not the iPad variety, the poop-on-my-truck variety.  I don’t know why my truck offends them so.  A little research suggests it’s their own reflection(s) in the glass.  Regardless of the cause, they’re been attacking my ride like well-fibered fiends.  It must stop.

After a fair bit of research and some genuine Southern advice, I have spent a grand total of three dollars on toy snakes to drape over the hood, roof, and the wall I ark beside.  The idea is that bluebirds are afraid of snakes and will thus leave my truck alone.  It’s night 1 of this experiment; I will report on the success/failure of this venture in later posts.

If the snake gambit fails, there are plans to try a fake owl and/or shiny eyeball balloons to deter the featered pests.  If all else fails, I’ll borrow a cat.

Before you leave, be sure you’ve retweeted my April 5th tweet regarding the release of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader: Flush Fiction.  Retweeting enters you to win a free copy of the book!  Not a Tweeter? Just copy the message on your website/blog/Facebook/whatever with a link back to my Flush Fiction giveaway post and I’ll enter you anyway!  Only retweets/entries posted by 11:59 PM (central daylight time) on April 20th will be considered for the free book!

Find "Excuse Me" in the new Flush Fiction anthology from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

You can win a free copy of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader‘s first fiction compilation: Flush Fiction.

Flush Fiction includes 88 single-sitting stories including some by friends  of mine.  Oh yeah, my own infamous tale of time-traveling flatulence, “Excuse Me”. I you like flash fiction, you’ll love Flush Fiction.  Go buy it!

All you have to do is retweet the key message to be entered to win a free copy of the book.  I’ll pick one lucky retweeter around the end of the month.  Also accepting Facebook re-postings and links to this post, as long as I can track them and get in touch with you if you win.

Winner to be announced April 20th (or thereabouts).

You can find my recent tweets in the right margin or just click here to go to My Twitter Feed.

Thanks, good luck, and happy retweeting!

I enjoyed spending time with the writers there: Chris Berman, Bennie Grezlik, Gregg Overman, and Marina Sergeyeva.  I did panels with all of them.  Good folks with a lot of knowledge, all of them.  We had some fantastic discussions with crowds of varying sizes.  None were huge, but most were of comfortable size.  I heard more than one of them mention a desire to return next year.  I am inclined to share the desire.

The most popular panel of the weekend (which I was not a part of) was the “My Little Pony” panel.  I don’t get it.  A whole bunch of people were really into it, though.  Bronies?  Really?  To each their own, I guess.

The costume contest had a good number of participants with some good quality.  The vendors had some nice stuff — particularly the art — but nothing really for me.  Gaming?  Not in years and no one plays Rifts anymore anyway.  But this was a very nice homecoming for me.

I intend to help out with OmniCon 2013.  There was a lot to like about this year’s con, but I think it could be better and bigger next year, and I’m hoping I can contribute to that.

The Books

1. How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (Card): It’s actually about time for me to reread this one.  I like to do so sometimes to remind myself just what the genre expects of me (and vice versa).  Orson Scott Card is a master in the field and does a great job communicating the ins and outs of sci-fi and fantasy.  A must read for all aspiring speculative fiction writers.
2. The Elements of Style (Strunk and White): Okay, I confess; I’ve never read it.  Not once.  That doesn’t change the fact that it’s the armchair book of choice for basic grammatical technique.  If not EoS, then have something: The Chicago Manual of Style, Harbrace College Handbook, a recent grammar text.  I don’t care how good you are, you’ll need to look stuff up.  (If you never need to, you’re not varying your prose enough.)
3. Elements of Writing Fiction Series (Card, Kress, Noble, Bickham, and others): I cheated a bit here.  I had trouble selecting one book from this series, so I put the whole thing.  I found Character and Viewpoint very useful early on while Beginnings, Middles, and Ends was a bit more advanced and Plot fell pretty well in the middle.  Each book in the series was good, though Description was a little to poetic for my taste.
4. Creating Short Fiction (Knight): If you want to write (and sell) short fiction, this book is a must read.  Damon Knight was a master at short stories and taught a lot of people who also went on the be masterful.  Short stories aren’t book chapters or under-developed novels; they have their own tempos, their own expectations.  This book demonstrates the ins and outs of a widely overlooked medium.
5. Writing the Breakout Novel (Maass):  This is a book by a literary agent about what literary agents need to see in novels.  Yes, this is a how-to book for writing novels.  No, it is not a step-by-step, paint-by-numbers method.  Maass helps you pick which idea in your head to develop (because, face it, you have dozens) and walks you through the necessities to have a novel that doesn’t just pop but erupts.
6. The First Five Pages (Lukeman): Ever pick up a book in a bookstore and read a few pages to see if it’s worth anything?  You aren’t alone.If you want an editor/agent/reader to reach page six of your novel/story, you first need to get the job done on the first five pages.  (See what I did there?)  This book really helps get the all important beginning right so the rest of the work gets a chance.

The Links

1. SFWA:  The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America is the professional organization for speculative fiction writers.  No, you can’t join right out of the starting blocks.  You need to make 3 qualifying professional short fiction sales or one qualifying professional novel sale  to become a full member.  But its the resource link you should be familiar with, like Writer Beware.  Several of the other links here are SFWA pages.
2. Workshops: From Critters to Clarion, there’s a workshop to benefit every writer at every level.  This links to my website’s workshop page with a lot of resources.  (Email me if you find any links outdated or broken.)
3. Turkey City Lexicon: Funny name, invaluable terminology.  Infodump, squid on the mantelpiece, smeerps…whatever’s wrong (or right) with your story, it might already have a name.  Naming a thing makes it easier to identify.
4. Standard Manuscript Format: You must know this.  You must use this.  To do otherwise is to mark yourself an amateur.
5. Heinlein’s Rules of Writing: This is Beginning Writing 101.  I don’t follow all of these rules perfectly, but I know them.  You should, too.
6. Duotrope: Okay, I wrote a story.  Where do I send it?  I use Duotrope to target markets, track submissions, and predict response times.
7. I Should Be Writing: This podcast helps writers maintain sanity as they write and experience things like doubt, writer’s block, deadlines, etc.

That’s a Baker’s dozen to keep you busy.  But don’t forget to do some writing, too.  That’s what this is all about anyway, right?

Daily Science Fiction: (SF & F) They run flash (loosely defined) Monday through Thursday and a longer story on Friday o get you through the weekend.  And they pay 8 cents a word, good money for fiction, but it’s free to get the stories emailed to you and/or read them online.

Analog: (hard SF) Their “Probability Zero” section is flash fiction.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies: (F) A very well respected fantasy zine that buys flash.

Every Day Fiction: (SF/F/H) This is run by a friend of mine and has bought a few stories from me.  Low pay but a lot of readers.  Read it online for free.

Flash Fiction Online: (SF/F/H) All flash, all the time.

10Flash: (check issue themes) 10 themed flash stories per quarter.

Abyss & Apex: (SF & F) A well respected semi-pro zine that buys flash.

Untied Shoelaces of the Mind: (SF/F/H) Buys stories 2000-words or less.  They bought my Pied Piper/zombie story “Not Rats” for their anthology, so I wanted to include them.

There are lots more out there, and new ones seem to pop up regularly.

Sat Mar 17, 2012

• 11am   Flash Fiction w/ Bennie Grezlik
  • Programming 1
• 12pm  Lunch at Spankies (not a panel, but a must!)
• 2pm   History of Zombies w/ Marina Sergeyeva
  • Programming 1
• 3pm   Colonizing Space w/ Marina Sergeyeva, Chris Berman, & Gregg Overman
  • Programming 1
• 5pm   Meet the Authors w/ all the author guests
  • Main Programming

Sun Mar 18, 2012

• 12pm   Women Warriors w/ Chris Berman
  •  Programming 1
• 3pm   Beginning Writers w/ Bennie Grezlik
  • Programming 1
• 5pm   Science in Science Fiction w/ Gregg R. Overman & Bennie Grezlik
  • Programming 1

10) Admission is only about 10 bucks.

9) Cosplay.  If you know what that is, you’ll probably want to go.  If you don’t know, you should go to find out.

8) The Bradford Pears are blooming, so Tennessee Tech campus should be gorgeous.

7) Voice Actors.  The featured guest Jason C. Miller and the special guest Lauren Landa are both voice actors (among other talents).  There’s a good chance you’ve heard them somewhere before.  If voice acting seems interesting (and who doesn’t want to get paid to come to work in pajamas and talk into a microphone), this could be your opportunity to learn more.Voice Actors.  The featured guest and the special guest are both voice actors (among other talents).  There’s a good chance you’ve heard them somewhere before.  If voice acting seems interesting (and who doesn’t want to get paid to come to work in pajamas and talk into a microphone), this could be your opportunity to learn more.

6) Spankies for lunch.  I made sure my Saturday schedule allowed me to get my garlic bread fix and a Reuben.  And…maybe a beer?  The best in campus dining just a short walk from the University Center (where the con is held).

5) Bands.  Do I know these bands?  No, but they are definitely bands.

4) No booze in the University Center.  Wait, weren’t these supposed to be reasons I SHOULD go?  Yes.  The 21+ crowd can still partake at local bars like Spankies (see #7 above), but the underage bunch and a lot of other people don’t need to be exposed to it, do they?  Do the ladies deserve to have some drunken oaf slobbering on them all weekend?  Of course they don’t.  OmniCon is a reasonable place for people of all ages to come and share their love of science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal, gaming, etc.

3) The panels.  History of Zombies, My Little Pony, NaNoWriMo, Finding Bigfoot, So You Want to Be a Ghost Hunter, Learning Japanese from J-Pop Culture, LARPing 101, and lots more.  There’s a big Meet the Authors panel too that appears to be sufficiently unscripted to be quite amusing.

2) Small cons are more intimate than big cons.  Can you really get face time with anyone at DragonCon?  Heck no.  Besides, every viable connection I’ve made has come from small cons.

1) Isn’t it obvious?  ME!  I’ll be doing somewhere between 3 and six panels.  For sure there’s the Flash Fiction panel, the Beginning Writers panel, and the big Meet the Authors panel.  I will either participate in or attend the History of Zombies, Science in Fiction, and Colonizing Space panels.  And who’s more interesting (and humble) than me?

So come to OmniCon!  It’ll be fun.  And what better reason is there than that?

It was…odd.  Some of the stuff was neat.  A lot of it was just weird and I didn’t get it.  Which brings me to the point: how do you know when a format that is great in your head works inside other people’s heads?

The story I just finished is written as a series of audio logs recorded by a guy who survives his space ship’s destruction.  In the beginning, the recording has a purpose and he has some recorded dialog with a shipmate.  Then his ship blows up and he’s got no one to talk to, so he just talks into the recorder. He ends up having two-way conversations with a satellite, but of course we only hear his side.

Sound tough to pull off?  It does to me.  I think it works, but I’m not sure.  I could just as easily (and more confidently) pull the story off with a 3rd person telling.  Why risk it?

I risk it because it (hopefully) makes the story memorable, unique, and brings the reader into the character’s situation more completely than a standard narrative, and in this story, sympathy is pretty much key.  The style just makes sense to me.

Messing around with narrative form is about as artsy as I usually get.  I don’t usually resort to bizarre imagery or creative dialect or subtle literary devices (all wonderful things, but not really what I do.)  Nor do I diverge from mainstream storytelling techniques often.  I like to play in this medium.

• “ZFL” is 100% dialog, no attributions or anything. (Every Day Fiction)
• “Leech Run” steps out of Titan’s PoV for only a few seconds in the entire story, but the scene refused to be written any other way.  (Zero Gravity anthology and Escape Pod)
• S.R. alternates between first person perspective and an instant messenger style. (Perpetually unsold despite being what I consider one of my best.)
• H.P. alternates between third person narrative and tweets. (Not sent out; needs new ending but I haven’t gotten back to it.)
• The narrator in T.W.H.D.o.t.G.M.P. erases the fourth wall and talks directly to the reader for (allegedly) comedic effect.  (unsold)

Those are a few examples off the top of my head.  Nothing earth shattering, but a definite trend to tinker with delivery.  It’s good to experiment.  How else will you know what doesn’t work?

Don’t get me wrong, this was as polished a story as I send out to any other market.  When it’s finished, you send it.  But why so close to the foul line?

At least I’ve now written on a deadline that wasn’t self-imposed, so I can do it.  That’s something.  And now I’m on another deadline, this one a space sci-fi story due at the end of this month.  I’ve been itching to write this one, probably because I needed to be working on the steampunk story so of course this one wouldn’t stay out of my head.  I’ve started it, getting a good 900+ words today, plus a full outline.  (You wrote an outline?)  Yes, I did.  Thank you, Scrivener!  I’m hoping to have this one done early, say this time next week.  It’s a shorter story, so it could happen.

I should mention that I violated one of the guidelines for accomplishing a deadline write.  “They” say you should write forward, push the story ahead so you have a story to edit later.  I tried and completely stalled out on it.  I had to go back to the beginning and read what I had to figure out why things weren’t working.  As it turned out, I forgot some key details and had to change a few others that weren’t working.  If the problem with a story is continuity-related, sometimes backtracking is useful for getting the story moving ahead again. 

History in other life roles suggests I can work well on a deadline, but right now my school schedule is a bit too confining to make that a regular reality for my writing.  But that doesn’t mean I’ll be turning down invitations with deadlines attached.  Keep ‘em coming, editors!