Category: Story Announcements

Sales, publications, awards, or anything else good that could happen to a story.

free stuff from my past

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I dug through a file on my computer called “sold stories” and found some gems that will not likely be sold as reprints unless I make it big or need filler for my own anthology. Not to say they were bad stories — they sold, didn’t they? — but they aree clearly from my past.

I decided to post one of those stories here, despite mixed opinions from my readers.  The story I’m posting (right now) is “Blood of a Soldier”, my 5000-word military-vampire story.  It’s probably more science fiction than it is horror, but it does get a touch graphic.  I am more disturbed by some of the amateur flags I flew throughout the story (watch for my not-too-blatant “said bookisms”).  Still, there are a few well-turned phrases and a lot of my preferred direct style.  Surprisingly there is little in the way of dialog; I feel I’m usually strong with dialog and fill stories with it because of that.

Anyway, this is where I’ve been.  Stories like this got me this far.  Depending on its reception, I mayreplace it sometime in the future, but it’ll be here for a while.  I don’t have a trunk of pieces I’m ready to fling around for free…at least not yet.  Maybe someday.  For now, enjoy.

rejected but not dejected

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I just got the mail and it had a form rejection from Cricket magazine.  So “Brother Goo” is ripe for another market.  Which?  I’m not sure.  I think I need to plan my backup markets a little better to get the stories back out faster.  I’ll figure out the market today and try to get it outby tomorrow.

This will put me another step closer to my twenty-six submission goal for 2009.  I don’t like getting rejections, but a quick no is better than a slow no.

Now I’m going to try to get five stories out for consideration at a time, since I have three out, one almost ready, and one near end of first draft.  I can do it.  I think.

-Oso

Glow Baby update

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I got my rejection from Stange Horizons today.  I expected it from such a tough market.  49 days it took.  Not bad.

This TykeLight from MOBI inspired "Glow Baby".
This TykeLight from MOBI inspired "Glow Baby".

I want to squeeze “Glow Baby” in under the wire for the second quarter WotF contest.  I believe the deadline is Tuesday.  I’m trying to brush it up, maybe hint at the speculative portion earlier in the story than where it currently shows up on page four, solidify the ending.  I’m not sure how it will fare, this being a story for select tastes, moreso than “Leech Run” that pulled my first HM.

I’ll let everyone know if it gets out in time.  It should since it’s no more than a day worth of editing I need.  This was one of my submissions to Clarion SD (and we know how that went with the whole close-but-no-cigar response).  We’ll see.

On a related note, I am leaving “Leech Run” alone for a while.  I can’t remember if I declared that already or not.  Anyway, it’s the only story I subbed to CW and if by some miracle I end up there, it believe it will be critiqued.  I’d hate to spend a lot of time and energy fixing a story before subjecting it to that amount of feedback.  I have modified it a lot based on the comments from Baen’s Bar, but a whole scene needed reworking in the middle.  I plan to adjust it this summer, be it through CW advice (in some parallel universe) or on my own while CW is going on without me.

Okay, enough from me.  I have editing to do.

-Oso

Sent out two

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I went ahead and sent “Brother Goo” to Cricket today.  Duotrope suggests it will be 3-6 months before I hear back.  I’ll miss that story while it’s gone.  If it gets rejected, I’ll have to strongly consider a rewrite.  I haven’t posted my full version (submitted slimmed down version) to Critters for review, but I will.  There seems to be no rush.

I also posted “Leech Run” to the slush mesage board at Jim Baen’s Universe.  It’s a neat idea, posting stories to a password protected page (so there is no technical publication…same as Critters does) to get comments from readers.  Editors also peek at the stories, requesting rtf files from stories they find particularly promising.  I’m running it through the “Introducing” bracket, basically contending with other writers that haven’t breached pro level markets.  If you are a Baen’s Bar member, you can give it a read and post some comments, especially if they are helpful comments.

At any rate, I’m keeping my top-end stuff out there.  Even a blind fisherman gets a nibble or two, right?

-Oso

Story for Young Readers

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

In a response to an open plea from a youth-oriented SF magazine’s editor, I wrote a story about a boy and the alien that possessed his brother.  Not the most original of ideas, but it was for kids.  As I wrote, new twists on old ideas came to me and found their way to the page.  Now I have two problems.

First, the story is too long for the market that inspired it.  The market caps at 2000 words and this story is just over 2300.  I could probably cut a few hundred words if I wanted to, but I’m pretty sure it would weaken the story.  After all, it’s not the plot that’s special, it’s the relationship between the brothers (even though one of them is not technically there).

Then there’s the other problem: I think this story is too good to start with this particular market.  This market offers only token payment and will have minimal exposure value.  I like the market and the people who run it, but I am trying to establish myself as a professional.

I may try the story in some non-genre youth-oriented publications, maybe Boys’ Life or Cricket.  I need to look up their guidelines first.  I may also try Black Gate (though I think they may be closed to submissions right now) or some other zines that insist their demographic begins with preteens.  It might prove a futile endeavor, but it would be a shame to sell a story for pennies when it might have been worth something.

I’ll probably drop it in the Critters queue while I wait for responses.  I’m having some trouble with the title: “Brother Goo or Why I Threw My Brother in the Ocean” is what I have right now.  Old school “or” format.  Unfortunately I feel like the first sounds like mucus and the second gives away too much.  I may just try “Brother Goo” and see how it is received.  Look at that, I made a decision right here in the middle of my blog and you were here to witness it.  Momentous.

-Oso

UPDATE: I checked out some of those guidelines.  Boys’ Life has a 1500-word limit.  Cricket‘s is 2000.  I went back through the story and trimmed it down to 1990 (the last cut I made was a full paragraph).  I probably could have left a little more in there.  I’ll reread the cut version in a few days, after it’s filtered out of my memory some, then maybe send it to Cricket.  It could still make the rounds of the standard genre magazines, but Analog won’t be likely to touch it.  I’ll probably stick to semi-pro markets outside the youth-oriented zines.  Time will tell how it all works out.

Ouch.

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I just received an email from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (a respected semi-pro magazine in Australia) regarding “Leech Run”. It took them an impressively swift five days to reject it. Most zines don’t even see a submission for a couple weeks. ASIM does good work and has a fairly transparent review process with three rounds of reading. I made it past level one but got axed in level two. American Idol fans, that’s like going home the first night of Hollywood week.

Now I need to find a new market for “Leech Run”. I’m afraid I exhausted some good candidates prior to a major rewrite. I probably could send it back to Fantasy & Science Fiction, but it is considered bad form to send a rewrite to an editor who did not request one. So I may try The Leading Edge or…I don’t know, someone else. There is a bit of a limited market for short space opera. Novels? They seem to fly off the shelves.

Today I attended a teacher inservice about poverty, mostly an emphasis on differences between middle-class and lower-class students (and parents’) perceptions of and responses to things. There were some good insights there that I would love to use in a story, particularly how money is spent. I’m already forgetting a lot of it and don’t have a story or character yet. I guess I’m waiting for another idea that can piggyback with this one to make a story.

I’ve worked the last couple days on a piece for middle-grades kids (not to be confused with middle-class kids…I mean 5th to 8th graders). It needs some serious editing, but I got the first draft onto the screen in record time. Now to hack away 20-30% of the length so I can expose the real story and maybe then add a little back for aesthetics.

Hmm, it’s late and I’m yawning up a storm. I’ll ramble more when I have more to say on more sleep. Thanks for reading.

-Oso