Only a Day Away

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

The weather is reflecting my psyche.  Orangish-brown clouds rolling in against the wind; the air is dark but the sky is bright.  Something ominous is coming.  Oh no, it’s…another school year!

By this point in the summer, I’m usually eager to go back.  This year is no exception.  I’m probably more ready this year than ever.  But there is always a dark side to it.  Waking up before dawn, the stress of a hundred simultaneous demands, papers to grade, students to train teach.  The ominous beauty outside is a lovely metaphor for what I am feeling.  It’s easy to see why writers lean on this device as heavily as they do.

My writing production has been about zero the last week or two, so going back to school may pump it back up for once.  I have a few stories that need submitting that will go out during my first inservice tomorrow (gotta do something).  And ideas always bubble up around this time, too.  So it’s time to saddle both horses — school and writing — and start riding for the horizon.  (Yeah, saw Cowboys & Aliens tonight.)  Hopefully I won’t get any saddle sores.

Hi-ho Laptop, and away!

Story up at Escape Pod

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 5 Comments

If you don’t listen to the Escape Pod podcast, you should.  I love audio fiction, and audio short fiction has the feel of a television episode on the radio.  They used to do that, back when radio was a thing people sat around and listened to in their homes.

So why am I advocating Escape Pod today?  Because my story “Leech Run” is their latest audio offering!  Go have a listen.  It runs about half an hour.

Alasdair Stuart reads it and does a great job.  I love the accent.  It’s my first story to get the audio treatment and I’m psyched at how it turned out.

“Leech Run” first appeared in Pill Hill Press‘s anthology Zero Gravity: Adventures in Deep Space.  If you like the story, buy a copy.  Lots of good space adventure between those covers.

Has anyone seen a month lying around? I think I lost one.

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Time flies for teachers in the summer.  I can’t believe I haven’t posted here in a whole month.  I’ve been camping and fireworking and more camping and generally trying to enjoy the hiatus from that pesky real job.  It’s about time to get things in line for school again.  Yay?  Well, time waits for no man, so yay it is I guess.

Not a lot of action on the writing front, I regret to admit.  I’ve been putting a fair amount of focus on a slow long-shot project and I’ve allowed it to get in the way of more immediate enterprises.  I’ve lost steam on my most recent WIP, but at least I think I know why; I have an extraneous character and it’s making the conflict feel forced.  And the timeline is all wrong.  Sad to say it, but I need to approach this thing from a more Hollywood angle.  (I could see this being adapted as an episode of Eureka.  Hmmm…)  Perhaps I should bring another project to the front of the queue while my subconscious tinkers with the idea a bit more, since we’re looking at a total rewrite and  length change.

I have even less excuse for allowing my submission cycle collapse.  I have between 10 and 12 stories that are submission-ready, yet at one point I only had three out.  That’s up to six now (camping hindered the recovery effort) and that should hit double digits by August.  Yes, that’s still a couple weeks, but there are several slush piles that are closed until then and I’ve exhausted most of my quick-turn options, so it’s wait two weeks or risk missing the window.  Neither choice is great.

In happier news, I spent today at LibertyCon in Chattanooga.  As cons go, this was pretty low key; a Relax-a-con, if you will.  It was nice seeing some old friends and making a couple new ones.  It was just a day trip, alas.  I doubt I even pulled my money’s worth since I spent a lot more time jawing in the lobby than participating in con events.  I tried to eat my value from the nicely-managed ConSuite, but I doubt I pulled it off.  I may show next year, I may not.  We’ll see.  It’s a lot of the same folks as ChattaCon, which I enjoyed more, though that is biased since I stayed for all of that one and merited “guest” status.

So I guess posting’s been slow because writer-Scott has been slow.  Reader-Scott, on the other hand, has had a strong week, finishing GRRM’s A Clash of Kings and the audiobook of Gaiman’s American Gods in close proximity.  What to attack next?  The keyboard, that’s what!

Happily ever after

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

Let’s talk fairy tales. (Or faerie tales, but I think those might actually differ.) 

The draft I just finished was a retelling of a fairy tale and I’m scratching my head over one thing: does a fairy tale need a happy ending?  Grimm’s tales were not all happy. But when you say “fairy tale”, people seem to want the happily ever after. On this story, the down ending came naturally. I had to do some research to find a happy version.  I suspect I can work off of it.

I think I’ll leave it to the editor to make the call on this one, offering a happy ending rewrite if he prefers (more leeway for that with an invitation than say a cold slush sub). But I still want your opinion: does a fairy tale need a happy ending?

That finished-a-draft feeling

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

Ahh, that feels good. It’s only a short story, one I’ll likely trim even further, but man does it feel good to type “the end”. Or rather [end] as I tend to prefer. I suspect this story needs more post-production help than any I’ve written in a long time, but at least it exists in completion.

I’d love to go on about this, but I’m in a pop-up camper with a sleeping wife and daughter and poking this all into a smartphone keypad, so I’ll digress. I intend to spend the next couple days pursuing a crazy idea some friends and I have been kicking around, then to edit this story and get it ready for an editor who explicitly told me not to work on it yet. (I don’t always listen so good.)  Id like to have this one ready by the time I get back home. Right now I’m just happy this cold and rainy camping day turned out to at least be a productive one.

Did you just call me a Twit?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

It has happened.  I am now Twitterpated.  Yes, I know…I know.  I fought it as long as I could.  If Twitter can survive the uncoolness of me joining, then the behemoth will not die and I for one welcome our new social media overlords.

So tweet with me: @SWBakerSF  I’m too new to know if it’s case sensitive or not.  I’m trying to tweet a couple times a day until I get the hang of it.  I so seldom visit my Facebook page, I don’t want to see the same fate befall my Twitter.  For hat matter, I don’t want it to happen to my Facebook and am slowly attempting to improve my visitation without becoming a heroin social media addict.

Oh, and let me know where to find your twitterpation!

First Foray into Steampunk

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

For reasons that have been hinted at previously and are still too underdeveloped to divulge, I have recently dipped my toe into the steampunk swimming pool.  For those that have never bathed in steampunk (yeah,I’ve already worn that metaphor out), you can get a crash course at the Wikipedia steampunk page.  I won’t overwhelm you with details here.  Just imagine that the Victorian Era (roughly 1840-1900; on this side of the pond, think a couple decades on each side of the Civil War) just kept progressing rather than being diverted by WWI.  Not helping?  Picure steam and clockwork-style machinery being responsible for a lot of what electricity and electronics do now.  (Not that steampunk is devoid of electricity; Tesla is a very important steampunk figure…but I digress.)  Got it?  Good.

Steampunk is very hot right now, particularly in the aesthetic world.  Interior design, con costuming, that one episode of Castle…but that’s all a very visual thing.  I am not a visual artist.  I do my painting with words on the mind’s canvas and all the blah-blah-blah we writers say about that.  Bottom line, I find myself doing a lot of describing of visuals.  I end up visualizing everything in brass and mahogany.  Fortunately, there are a LOT of steampunk images on the internet for me to scour before I decide on what to describe.  Lamps, tables, beds, lots of “computers” (which hasn’t come up for me, but they’re there), bathtubs, and clothes clothes clothes.  I keep looking for pictures for everything I want to describe, which slows the writing down, but I also keep finding the pictures.  I seldom use any single image I find, rather merging several.

So if I can find things so readily, what’s the problem?  Okay, there isn’t a problem per se, just a tricky balance.  As in any story, I don’t want to put in any details that aren’t useful.  I could give a character a steam powered artificial limb or a clockwork cat, but why?  Things need to have reasons to be steampunky.  As was mentioned on the steampunk panel at ConCarolinas, it’s not just “sci-fi in sepia” (that domain name is available if you want to buy it).  Things are falling together pretty well in the story, but I know the edit-fairy will be clocking overtime once I finish my draft.

Here’s the real problem: I am not a steampunk reader.  (Pauses for the gasps of horror and threats referencing the circles of hell reserved for those that write what they do not read.)  I’ve read some.  Gra Linnea’s story “Life in Steam” in WotF 25 was as steampunk as it gets.  And I’ve read Michael Moorecock to great enjoyment, particularly the Hawkmoon series, and steampunk discussions are not officially licensed as such until his name comes up at least twice.  Airships, gyrocopters, electricity guns, gears, steam…I know the basics.  I’ve also gotten a recent crash course in the importance of both social class and intellect in steampunk storytelling.  I just bought a steampunk novel on my Kindle (oxymoron?).  I am doing my homework, but it isn’t natural to me.  Maybe that’s why I feel like the story is shaping up so nicely: the construction is all very deliberate.  I just hope that won’t get in the way of flow and storytelling.

Anyway, it’s fun exploring this new (to me) subgenre and navigating its twists and turns.  I feel like it’s bringing some old fashioned spark back into my technique.  I’m probably half done with the first draft already (not a very long story) and I may have reason to follow up with another similar one.  I understand how people can get immersed into steampunk; it’s so visually striking.  I just hope I end up doing it justice.

ConCarolinas: Day 3 (the final chapter)

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It’s tough for a day 3 to live up to a day 2 at any Con.  For me, this day three was no exception.  Everything was pleasant enough, but not special.  Some very nice panels that have inspired me to do posts on a few different topics that are of great interest to me: rejectomancy, advertising, and YA, to name a few.  I bought a book, got talked into Kindle-buying another.  And, against my better judgment, I left a few hours early.  It’s fun to be one of the last ones out the door because it increases recognition and conversation among the other late-stayers, but I was tired and missed the rugrat.

The best part of day 3 had nothing to do with the con.  (Not THIS can, anyway.)  I’m not 100% sure how vocal I should be bout it (he decided after flapping his gums to a few friends) so I won’t spell anything out.  Let’s just say that, thanks to a friend, I have a new reason to explore steampunk.  This was good news and made me a happy writer.

As a whole, it was a good weekend.  I made some new friends.  Some pros recognized me and struck up conversations on their own.  I got to know some pros (see day 2): develop a tiny crush on Faith Hunter and refueled a pre-existing tiny crush on Carrie Ryan.  (Nothing tazer-worthy, just a harmless smirking fanboy kind of thing.)  Expanded horizons.  Had fun.

Did attending this Con further my career?  Not per say.  What I did was build up my people network.  I turned strangers into acquaintances and acquaintances into friends.  You’ve heard the expression, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”  I always thought that was kind of a sinister saying.  In this case, it’s more about having a friendly faces along the road.  When my career gets off of blocks in the front yard, it will go somewhere.  Wouldn’t it be nice to get there and know someone?  Even better to know ten people?  If I feel like I belong a that stop, it will make it that much easier to move on to the next.  Okay, I’ve retyped this metaphor six ways and it’s still not working, so I’m leaving it.  If a decent metaphor comes to me, I’ll make a whole post about it.

It’s late.  Brain…failing.  Must sleep.  ____________

ConCarolinas: Day 2

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This day can be summarized in a single word: Magical. In two words: Magical Words.

Most of the writers involved in the Magical Words blog are here and I spent most of the day stalking hanging out with them. They are all such great people to talk with and they get along with each other wonderfully. They made up an entire panel about creating a web presence as an author that was informative and really fun. Then they skittered off to lunch with 25 of us tagging along. The restaurant was less than thrilled to see us, but service was good and company was great. There was also a party in their honor that night which reminded me fondly of the Locus party at WotF. I’ll do a full post on the Magical Words crew when I get back home.

I also managed to partake in a guilty pleasure: a Dr. Horrible’ Sing-along Blog sing-along.  I LOVE Dr. Horrible! Neil Patrick Harris is brilliant. It was cool (and a bit scary) to have a room full of people singing the songs and spewing lines at the top of their lungs, not unlike a viewing of Rocky Horror (only less lingerie). It was a moment with “my people”.  Fun fun fun, even if I did have to endure the musical episode of Buffy before hand.

It’s Sunday morning now and I just finished my Rooty Tooty at IHOP. Time to wrap this con up. See you on the flipside.

ConCarolinas: Day 1

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I’m here. Arrived very shortly before the very first panel as oppsed to the “comfortably early” I had planned, but I made it. The few panels I attended were good (one was fairly spirited) and the opening ceremonies were, while not particularly ceremonious, quite entertaining.

I left around 7 to meet an old friend and missed the evening’s festivities. Glad to catch up and gladder that I won’t have to miss any more.

In trivial news, I got to ride in the elevator with Emilie Ullerup (Battlestar Gallactica, Sanctuary) and it was in this elevator that I realized what a knockout she really is. (Almost as attractive as my wife.)  I hope to have more close encounters with the guests tomorrow. For now, it’s way past bedtime. I need sleep if I’m to get my ihop breakfast and make it to a 9:00 am panel. (Okay, maybe 10:00.)