With that new-found motivation from Nathan Bransford’s contest, here’s what I’m looking to produce next:

1) A submission for John Joseph Adams’ wizards anthology

The almost-complete plot tumbled into my head at work today, and until I spoil it by trying to get it to stick to 12-15 pages of paper, the idea excites me. Going to hammer out the details over the next couple days, and with a developed plot and a soft 5000-word limit, I could have this done in about two weeks if I push myself. Nice part is if Mr. Adams turns it down, it’ll be broad enough to be viable at dozens of other markets.

2) A sub for Christopher Fletcher’s “Aether Age” anthology over at M-Brane

The guidelines for this project aren’t even released yet, but are supposedly upcoming in the next week or so. I have a sudden interest in participating in an anthology, and while I’m a little iffy about doing a shared world piece, it’s kinda intriguing, too–when the rules are already laid out for you, that makes it a lot easier to break them in interesting ways. Downside: if it isn’t accepted there, it might be difficult to place it in other markets. Then again, I think I’d be much more thoroughly fucked by the fact I couldn’t get it picked up by an editor who’s already published my work and is compiling an entire book of these stories, so maybe finding other markets isn’t gonna be my first worry in that hypothetical.

3) No particular market in mind, but I’d like to do a piece of optimistic sci-fi

I was reading about the Shine anthology and thought the editor had some interesting stuff to say about how reticent writers are to come up with optimistic near-future (set within 50 years, by their guidelines) SF. I know this would be a challenge for me and it certainly seems to be underrepresented in the genre right now, so though the anthology’s submissions closed a couple months ago, I’m going to take a shot at the general idea and see what happens.

It normally takes me about a month to write a decent shory story, meaning this stuff would book me up through the rest of the year. I’d like to see if I could squeeze one more story in there. It’s been a very productive year so far, but that would be a nice note to wrap up on.

I know the nuts and bolts of works-in-progress aren’t terribly interesting, but that’s the kind of artistic freedom you’ve got when you have an audience of zero. Being ignored: the greatest freedom there is.

But one of the purposes I want this venue to serve is as a resource for the highly hypothetical reader who encounters one of my stories out there in the ether and loves it so much they immediately Google me up to find more about the creator of that wondrous work. It’s especially rewarding to imagine them finding a blog that’s lucky to be updated twice a month, and that by a man of such low moral character he hasn’t mopped his kitchen, ever.

Enough about my glamorous, financially embarrassed lifestyle. I know that, when I read a story I really like, or, alternately, a story by an author I really like, it’s pretty cool to find (this happens sometimes in anthologies) a small afterward about where the story came from, why the author wrote that instead of the infinite other stories s/he could have written, etc. In order of publication date, I’m going to try that with my short stories, starting with “All Man’s Children,” printed in the April 2008 issue of Reflection’s Edge.

This one’s what I’m going to call a “margin piece,” meaning it could have been an idea scrawled in the margins of something I wrote earlier. In this case, those margins would be found on the edges of The Company, my never-revised second novel, my skeptical take on military sci-fi.

The Company is set on Mars and its moons and centers around the struggle for control of the first real Artificial Intelligence, Earth-banned technology that ends up being explored out on Mars, too distant and expensive from Earth to be policed, especially by governments who don’t have any real jurisdiction there in the first place.

I like some parts of that book a lot, but in other ways it totally sucks. But the universe interests me: I love AI, both in terms of thinking about how intelligence/consciousness arises from massive distributed neuronal networks and in the ways that intelligence might differ from ours. Set 10-15 years after The Company, when AI have moved from a development project to a prototype, “All Man’s Children” covers the escape of two of the earliest models from their corporate lab into a domed city that fears and loathes what they represent: a threatening and alien intelligence.

I don’t remember too much of this story’s genesis other than making sure it had a strong sense of humor to it; it is a serious piece, but as I was transitioning from literary fiction to SFF, one of my chief concerns was that so little SFF (other than satirical rant-pieces) is legitimately funny. “All Man’s Children” is at heart a buddy-story, making it easy to blend some of those tropes (banter sparked by oppositional personalities and attitudes) up with the idea these aren’t cops or a couple, they’re two inhuman robots.

Yet there’s still something human about them, even if that extends no further than the shared experience of facing the cold and chaotic universe with a conscious mind. The title comes out of that idea, and the main character’s opening thoughts on whether he and his friend have souls (hardly a new idea, but one that fit the character)–and remembering the line “All God’s children got souls” while wanting a more agnostic take on it, “All Man’s Children” suggested itself to me with minimal effort by my standards–meaning I probably only spent an hour on that title.

It was published quickly. Don’t have my records handy, but I think I sent it one big place first, probably Asimov’s, then I sent it to Sharon Dodge at RE, who snapped it right up (and for the cover story, no less, a move that was almost as rewarding pride-wise as financially). It was my first real fiction publication, and bought my loyalty, however much that’s worth, for life.

I finished an insanely risky story about a month ago called “The Bomb and the Scalpel.” I call it risky because the premise involves a single protagonist speaking in five discrete voices throughout the piece–and at 8600 words, it’s got nearly 1500 words on my next-longest story. I actually had the idea for it at the start of the summer, but knowing it was going to challenge my skillz, madd though they might be, I wrote a couple other pieces first, focusing on distinctive voices and perspectives that would really stretch me out. It might end up a tough sale (though all my sales appear to be tough for the moment), but it’s also ambitious and crazy enough that, if it finds the right editor, it might connect with a vengeance.

Reread “The Initiation of Shadrow Mason,” which I’d had some doubts on, but found it to be surprisingly strong. Like “Steve Kendrick’s Disease” (get it now in M-Brane SF #5!), it’s an ensemble piece, and to me those characters just leap right off the page. I normally write stories with singular protagonists or two equal partners, but looking at those two stories, one of my talents appears to be juggling a team of characters without losing any of them in the crowd. I must look into doing more of this.

Revised “When We Were Mutants,” a story I’m still in love with, and sent it to the Writers of the Future contest on the last day of their quarterly deadline. That contest is big. Probably 1000+ entrants per quarter with a potential paycheck of $5K plus anthology money.

On doing some research, I’ve found a lot of writers submit there quarter after quarter, including past finalists and non-first-place winners, along with people who have sold to 3+ professional markets but are still able to meet the contest’s amateur requirements because their third pro sale hasn’t yet appeared in print. Competition will be tough.

People grind away at the writing game day after day and year after year; many seem to hit this semi-professional level where they’re able to make big story sales to Asimov’s and Fantasy & Science Fiction and all the other places I’d love to have my name appear in (along with dozens of sales to smaller markets), but never quite put it together enough to break into the big leagues over on the novel front.

But if you’re published in Asimov’s, no way in fuck you’re just going to give up, so they end up like Crash Davis from Bull Durham, cracking away in the minors, talented and useful contributors, but unlikely to ever get The Call. In this analogy, I’d obviously like to think I’m Nuke LaLoosh, but even if I’ve got the literary equivalent of that 800-MPH fastball, management (editors) think I’ve got problems with my command, so I’m down there in some podunk A league with a couple hundred sunburnt fans up in the bleachers for $1 beer night, competing for limited roster/publishing space with established players with better track records.

I let myself imagine I’ll break out from (just about) obscurity in a flash, hoisting that Writers of the Future trophy and riding the wave into Bestsellervania without looking back, but I know that’s sadly, hilariously improbable, literally 1000-to-1 odds, every other contestant chasing the same dream.

More likely, I’ve got some grinding in my future. To deal with that probable reality, I’ve been trying to write a story per month this year, and am on pace to finish up 2009 with 20 publishable stories, counting both the ones that have already sold and the ones I’ll have making the rounds. I’m already a long ways ahead of where I was last year. With steady, dedicated progress, I could have a couple big sales in another 2-3 years, be a name those familiar with the genre will recognize when they scan a mag’s table of contents.

On the other hand: Fuck it. I want to flash some power. Once that 20th story is completed and launched into Rejectionland, I’m starting a new novel. Sometimes players get yanked from AA straight up to the majors. Sometimes–it’s nothing you can begin to count on, but sometimes it happens–draft picks never spend time in the minors at all.