12

Dialogue and Sales and Publications, Oh My!

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larry-balticon-2022smI wonder if I’m the only writer who tends to write snippets of dialogue before starting on a story? I find it helps in developing the characters and setting the tone of the story. For example, in my novel “Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions,” there were four main characters. One of them was Feodora Zubkov, a general from Russia who was being recruited to run for vice president of Earth. When she is first introduced she has just come out of a negotiating meeting. Long before I wrote the scene, I wrote:

“Hello, dahlings,” Feodora said.
“How go the Korean non-destruction talks?” Toby asked.
“Like igloo in a room full of hot air,” Feodora said.

From that, I realized she was dryly sarcastic and impatient with bureaucracy and politics. And from there on, her character came alive. When she orders brandied corn cabbage for lunch, everyone copies her and orders the same thing.

“We figured that if you ordered it, it must be good,” Toby said.
“I hate brandied corn cabbage,” she said. “Tastes like rotting tomatoes. But rest of menu taste like wet dog.”

Her whole character came alive from these snippets of dialog – and they were written literally months before the rest of the scene was written. But I then wrote the scene knowing exactly what Feodora was like and had great fun coming up with the rest of her dialogue – which, once I put myself into her character, she was surprisingly easy to write throughout the novel. She became the breakout character.

I’ve had a bunch of recent sales and publications, including an incredible sequence of three (or four?) days in a row with a sale. (The streak ended yesterday. But that makes 205 sales, including 53 to “Pro” markets that pay at least 8 cents/word.)

  • May 30: I sold “The Annual Albert Einstein Race to the End of Time” to Flash Fiction Magazine.
  • May 31: I sold “The Heist of Humanity” to Flame Tree (a “Pro” market), which should come out any day now in the Flame Tree June Newsletter. They’re a pro-paying publication.
  • June 1: I sold “Tooth Apocalypse” to Dragon Soul Press for their upcoming Apocalypse anthology.
  • June 2: a “Pro” market requested a partial rewrite of “The Bloody Shooting War on the Purple Senate Floor.” This usually means a sale, pending the successful rewrite. (Alas, I can’t give out the name of the publication at this time.)

I’ve also had a slew of stories published recently or upcoming, including:

  • June 1: The anthology Madam President came out from B-Cubed Press, which includes my story, “You Are President, Madam President.”
  • June 15: “First Galactic Table Tennis Championships,” from New Myths, a 10,000-word novelette.
  • Thank You Miss Kittykat!”, Amazing Stories, scheduled June, 2024
  • Don’t Look!”, Sci-Phi Journal, scheduled June, 2024.
  • Small Step,” Abyss & Apex, scheduled July 1, 2024.
  • Seven other sold stories without publication dates yet. This includes the long-titled “Two Democratic Civilizations Passing in the Twilight of the Boondocks of the Galaxy” to Ahoy Comics (a pro-paying publication), and the even longer titled but gimmicky story I have in the upcoming “Alternate Leadership” anthology from B-Cubed Press, which is a three-word story with a 630-word title!

I had four stories published in March, including three that are online so you can read immediately.

  • Confederate Cavalry on a Plane,” Metastellar, 4400 words.
    A physics professor and his student on a passenger plane argue about the possibility of infinite alternate universes, while being robbed blind by a bratty kid. The professor bets the student that even the most unlikely event possible must happen, leading to three very confused Confederate Cavalry charging down the aisle of the plane.
  • The Personary,” New Myths, a quick 500-word read.
    If a person goes to the library to read books, where does a book go to get a person to read it? Why, the Personary! And what if adventurous books have to avoid bullying books to get to the Personary?
  • A Tale of One City,” Flash Fiction Magazine, 1000 words.
    It’s sort of a takeoff of “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens and the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut. A developing writer starts a mass movement that worships averageness, and condemns all that is great or poor – but runs into the problem of how to grow a mass movement that condemns your very success in doing so.
  • Eternity and the Devil,” The Devil You Know anthology, 5300 words.
    A physicist sells his soul he can solve the Grand Unified Theory, which he uses to greatly benefit mankind – he’s a good guy. When the Devil shows up and takes him to Hell, the scientist escapes into the future in a time machine – and with numerous stops, goes a trillion years into the future, pursued by the Devil. At each stop, he is surrounded by billions of systematically tortured souls in Hell – including his long-suffering girlfriend, who he is determined to save.

And now it’s off to read and critique stories for the upcoming nine-day “The Never-Ending Odyssey” writing workshop for Odyssey grads, which I’ll be attending for the 15th time (along with the initial six-week workshop in 2006) in Manchester, NH, July 19-27 – I’ll write more about that next time.

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10

Writing and Selling and Panera’s, Oh My!

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It’s been a busy year so far, between writing, rewriting, submitting stories, and the nine-day “The Never-Ending Odyssey” science fiction writing workshop (TNEO, July 21-29).

I have this strange routine where I go to Panera’s almost every day for lunch and spend the afternoon there writing and sipping Dr Pepper. Sometimes I stay for dinner. But the routine works – I get a lot of writing done, both science fiction & fantasy, and my other writing topic, the Olympic sport of table tennis. (I’m currently alternating between writing SF and writing, “Table Tennis Doubles for Champions.” I’m in the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame as a coach and writer.)

I’ve had an even ten stories sold or published so far this year. (I have five others that are currently “finalists” – in fact, I’d have written this blog a while ago except I’ve been anxiously awaiting the final word on some of them – but decided I couldn’t wait any longer. But two of them are big markets!!!) The ones sold or published this year are:

  • “First Galactic Table Tennis Championships” (10,000 words!) to New Myths
  • War Around the Clock” to Bullet Points, published in August
  • “Spiders Under My Skin” to October Screams anthology, published in September
  • “Drip” to Ahoy Comics, published in August
  • Consecutive Terms” to Martian Magazine, published in September
  • “The Whaler and the Whale” to Shacklebound Short Horror Stories
  • “Battle in the Ballot Box” to Sci-Phi Journal
  • “A God of One and Zeroes” to Storia
  • “Super Rex” to Storia
  • “You Are President, Madam President” to Madam President anthology, coming in October

Since January I’ve written over twenty stories. Three of my favorites were critiqued at TNEO, and are all now making the rounds:

  • Two Dreams: Dr. King and the Alien. An upbeat alien makes first contact during the 1963 March on Washington, during King’s “I have a dream” speech.
  • Bullet Time. You’re a bank teller, there’s a robbery, and the robber shoots you – but time slows down, and it takes five days for the bullet to reach you. Except you are trapped in your body, which is also slowed down, and so you can’t get out of the way! And then something shows up…
  • Connoisseur of Cambrian Cooking. A woman travels 500 million years into the past to the Cambrian – but her time machine’s battery is dead and she’s stuck there. There’s no edible food, and yet she survives – how?

I often work on multiple stories at the same time, going from one to another. I currently have five in various stages. My favorite is probably “Mathball,” a satirical future where mathematicians on the field have completely taken over baseball!

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5

Latest Happenings

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larry-balticon-2022smHere are the latest updates!

I just finished my 13th “The Never-Ending Odyssey” science fiction & fantasy writing workshop, July 22-30. It’s for graduates of the six-week Odyssey science fiction & fantasy writing workshop. I’m class of ’06. During the workshop we critiqued each other’s work, ran “master” classes, did readings, and had various problem-solving and plotting meetings. I’m finalizing three new stories that were critiqued there.

My novel, “Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions,” will be reprinted this fall by Phoenix Pick, the Science Fiction and Fantasy imprint of Arc Manor Publishers. More on that as the publication date approaches!

Here I am at Balticon in May during a book signing. Yes, I’m wearing a “Baby Yoda playing table tennis” shirt. I was on several panels.

From Aug. 4-7, I’ll be in Houston doing coverage (and playing in!) the 2022 World Hardbat Table Tennis Championships. (Here’s my article on it.) Then I have three weeks of vacation. From Aug. 8-11 I’ll be touring Houston (NASA Spaceflight Center) and San Antonio (The Alamo, Riverwalk) in Texas. Then I fly to Mexico City for a 15-day guided tour of Mexico, Aug. 13-27, that focuses on historical sites. It’s going to be fun and exhausting, and I will almost certainly come back with all sorts of story ideas, probably featuring Aztecs.

I keep close track of my writing stats. As of Aug. 1, I have 17 books and 2110 published articles in 177 different publications, including 133 short story sales. (175 if you include 42 resales.) My books are roughly evenly spit between science fiction/fantasy and the Olympic Sport of Table Tennis. But the great bulk of my published articles are table tennis – 1853 to be exact. I also have over 1900 blog entries, mostly in my table tennis blog. I’m a member of the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame, and as I like to brag, I’m the best table tennis player in Science Fiction Writers of America (membership ~2000), and the best science fiction writer in USA Table Tennis (membership ~10,000)!!! If you think about this, it doesn’t mean much.

I’ve had five science fiction & fantasy stories published so far this year.

  1. Four Score and Seven Years of the End of America: A Bibliography,” Daily Science Fiction, June 9, 2022
  2. Prototype Solar System with Strings Attached,” Galaxy’s Edge, May/June 2022
  3. Madam Hitler,” New Myths, March 15, 2022
  4. Releasing Hitler,” Metastellar, July 11, 2022 (reprint)
  5. Death Message,” Martian Magazine, March 7, 2022 (drabble)

I’ve sold eleven science fiction & fantasy stories so far this year. That makes a total of 14 forthcoming stories, I think a new record! 🙂

  1. “Soul Testing in Major League Baseball” to Daily Science Fiction
  2. “Packing List for the Invasion” to Daily Science Fiction
  3. “The Vampire on the Tesserect Wall” to Dark Matter Magazine
  4. “Rationalized” to the Flame Tree Compelling SF anthology
  5. “Christmas Interrupted” to the Flame Tree Christmas Gothic anthology
  6. “Interview with Mister Plub” to Post Roe Alternatives
  7. “Ten Songs of Halloween” to  the Alternative Holidays anthology
  8. “New Year’s Skeleton” to Dire Dark
  9. “Small Step” to Abyss & Apex
  10. “A Grand Canyon of Lions” to Martian Magazine
  11. “Death Message” to Martian Magazine

Are you a wannabe writer? This is from a while ago, but here’s 50 Writing Quotes by Larry Hodges – funny and inspirational!

11,103 total views, 51 views today

16

2021: SF Writing Year in Review

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larry-capclave2021-lgBut for me, it was a pretty good year. I sold 15 stories and had ten published. Strange thing about the ten published is that two were in November and five in December, so it was a bottom-heavy year. (Altogether, I’ve sold 124 short stories, including an even 40 at SFWA “pro” markets, six of them last year.) One nice breakthrough – for some reason, I’d never been able to sell anything to Daily Science Fiction. But I ended the year with two consecutive sales to them, in Nov. and Dec., which should come out sometime this year. Here are the stories I sold or published 2021, with the word count in parenthesis:

  1. Global Warming is a Hoax Said the Alien in the Spare Bedroom (3200) to Galaxy’s Edge
  2. Prototype Solar System with Strings Attached (1100) to Galaxy’s Edge
  3. Soul Testing in Major League Baseball (1300) to Daily Science Fiction
  4. Four Score and Seven Years of the End of America: A Bibliography (350) to Daily Science Fiction
  5. Madam Hitler (6900) to New Myths
  6. Love Drops (1100) New Myths; published Dec 2021
  7. The Annual Times Square Paint Dry (150) to Stupefying Stories; published Dec 2021
  8. The Devil’s Backbone (7000) to Alternative Deathiness; published Dec 2021
  9. Space Force: First Victory (900) to Alternative Space Forces; published Dec 2021
  10. Space Force: The Poem (300) to Alternative Space Forces; published Dec 2021
  11. The Purple Rose of Retribution (5500) to Utopia Science Fiction; published Nov 2021
  12. Ninety-Nine Sextillion Souls in a Ball (3600) to Dark Matter; published Nov 2021
  13. Nanogod (4600) to Dark Matter; published May 2021
  14. Galactic He-Men and Cheating Camels (100) to Martian Magazine; published May 2021
  15. The Pushovers of Galactic Baseball Fame (1000) to Paper Butterfly Flash Fiction; published Feb 2021

I had another story coming out in 2021, “The Vampire on the Tesseract Wall (3900), at Amazing Stories, but they went into limbo. They paid me a $116 “kill” fee, and the story is back on the market. (What happens when 4-D beings import living creatures from Earth as decorations for their wall – but mistakenly take a vampire? It’s a mixture of SF and fantasy.)

I am pretty prolific. On Jan. 1, when a number of markets opened, I submitted a bunch of stories. My current count is 42 stories in submission (some markets allow multiple submissions); 45 stories on hold waiting for markets; ten stories that are “finalized” but waiting to be critiqued at critters.org and/or TNEO (which I’ll be attending this summer for the 14th time, including eleven years in a row); and 16 stories that I’ve started, some almost done, some I might not get back to.

But I spend a LOT of time on each of these stories. Each goes through multiple drafts. I’ll spend a lot of time writing it, then put it aside. Later, I’ll go over it again with a fresh mind, and do major rewriting. Then I put it aside again, and come back to it later with a fresh mind, and then “finalize” it. Then I send it in for critiquing at critters.org, along with three that go to TNEO.

I attended one workshop and only two SF conventions in 2021, the least I’ve been to since 2005.

  • Balticon (May 28-30)
  • Capclave (Oct. 1-3)
  • TNEO workshop (July 23-31)

It’s been a busy year outside SF as well. As some may know, I’m also a professional table tennis coach and writer. (Of my 17 books, nine are on table tennis, one is a travel book, the rest F&SF. As I often jokingly tell people, I’m the best table tennis player in SFWA, and the best SF writer in USATT!) I did a lot of traveling for table tennis last year, including coaching USA Junior Teams in major events in Ecuador and Jordan:

  • 29-30: Coached Maryland Junior Team at the Ohio Open.
  • 12-14: Coached Maryland Junior Team at the Wasserman Ohio Junior Championships.
  • 16-18: Coached Maryland Junior Team at the Cary Open in Cary, NC.
  • June 3-6: Coached Maryland Junior Team at the USA Under 15 and Under 19 Junior Team Trials in Milpitas, CA.
  • June 18-20: Coached Maryland Junior Team at the USA Under 11, Under 13, and Under 17 Junior Team Trials in Westchester, NY.
  • July 4-9: Coached Maryland Junior Team at the USA Nationals in Las Vegas.
  • 5: Coached Maryland Junior Team at the Westchester Teams in NY.
  • 10-28: Coached USA Junior Team in Cuenca, Ecuador, at an international camp and three tournaments in 19 days. The first event was the Pan Am Hopes Championships, for the best players in North and Latin America under age 12. The player I coached, Ryan Lin, was seeded sixth but came in second! This qualified him for the World Hopes in Jordan. I also coached the Under 13 Boys’ team at the Pan Am Youth Championships and the ITTF Contender Open, where they won a bunch of medals.
  • 26-28: Coached the Maryland Junior Team at the North American Team Championships in Washington DC.
  • 8-15: Coached USA Junior Team in Amman, Jordan, at the World Hopes Camp and Tournament (for the best players in the world under age 12). The player I coached, Ryan Lin, finished 7th – in the world – and is now on the World Hopes Team (top ten in the world).
  • 17-22: Coached Maryland Team at the US Open in Las Vegas. Also played in Hardbat Singles, where (shockingly for my age) I made the final (I’ve won it twice), and winning Hardbat Doubles for the 14th time. (Most events are with “sponge” rackets; hardbat is a separate event where players use old-style pimpled rubber without sponge. I normally play and coach with sponge but do hardbat as well.)

The most irritating to happen to me in 2021 (besides the obvious) was that the World Science Fiction Convention was held right next door to me in Washington DC (30 min away), Dec. 15-19, but I had to miss it as I was coaching, back to back, in Amman, Jordan and then Las Vegas – and trying to adjust to the ten-hour time difference!!!

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13

New Sales and Publications, and an Online Workshops

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Some news on story sales and publications…
 
On Feb. 1, 2021, my SF story “The Pushovers of Galactic Baseball Fame” was published in Paper Butterfly Flash Fiction. What happens if baseball spreads to the galaxy – but instead of great baseball players that make spectators feel inferior, what’s in great demand are really bad players so spectators can feel good about themselves?
 
On Feb. 3, 2021 I sold my SF story “Love Drops” to New Myths Magazine. (This was my 117th short story sale.) It starts out, “The greatest and most tragic love story began with a bomb exploding on a packed plane, six miles in the air.” But what happens to this elderly, loving couple after the bomb goes off and they are falling to the ground is the real story. It is tentatively scheduled to come out in September.
 
The cover for the May/June issue of Dark Matter Magazine just came out, with my SF story, “Nanogod,” and my name on the cover! What happens when a nanobot – i.e. a microscopic robot – has its processing system damaged, becomes an egomaniac, and travels the galaxy in a huge ship, enslaving entire civilizations and forcing them to build huge monuments to honor it? (Hint – now we know why the Great Pyramids were really built!) I’ve sold them two stories – I have another SF story coming out with them in November, “Ninety-Nine Sextillion Souls in a Ball.”
 
Meanwhile, I (and 14 others) just finished a one-month online writing workshop with Scott Andrews with the Odyssey Writing Workshop, “Emotional Truth: Making Characters Emotions Real, Powerful, and Immediate to Readers.”
(For my fellow table tennis players, it’s like a table tennis training camp, but for writers.)

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28

2020 Writing Review

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2020 – It was the worst of times, it was the . . . worst of times. Let’s leave it at that. As to writing, I focused on short stories, and wrote a plethora of stories. Or was that a surfeit or superfluity of stories?

I read 67 books in 2020. By category, Fiction 31, Politics & History 16, Science 9, Writing 5, and Table Tennis 6.

I’m attending the Odyssey Online Workshop, “Emotional Truth: Making Character Emotions Real, Powerful, and Immediate to Readers,” with Scott Andrews. We’ll be doing a lot of reading and analyzing (eight stories or articles as part of the pre-workshop assignment), with two-hour online sessions on Jan. 6, Jan. 20, and Feb. 3. I’m already well into my reading and analysis – I’ve already picked up on some interesting things in one of the assigned readings, “Carnival Nine” by Caroline Yoachim, where she treats emotions like, well, a ping-pong ball. 🙂 I found another fascinating method she uses to re-enforce emotions which I may elaborate on later, and may bring up in the online sessions.

I had 16 stories sold or published in 2020.

  • “Releasing Hitler” was published by Galaxy’s Edge, Jan/Feb 2020
  • “Blood Wars” was published by Galaxy’s Edge, Mar/Apr 2020
  • “Tooth Theology” was published by Galaxy’s Edge, May/June 2020
  • “The Untold Christmas Carol” was published by Galaxy’s Edge, Nov/Dec 2020
  • “Prototype Solar System with Strings Attached” sold to Galaxy’s Edge
  • “Journey to Perfection” sold to and was published by Unidentified Funny Objects #8 Anthology, Sept 2020
  • “Philosopher Rex” sold to and was published by Zooscape, Sept. 2020
  • “Pinning the Egg” sold to and was published by the Sci-Fi Journal, Dec 2020
  • “High Plains Centaur” was published by New Myths, Mar 2020
  • “The Vampire on the Tesseract Wall” sold to Amazing Stories
  • “Ninety-Nine Sextillion Souls in a Ball” sold to Dark Matter Magazine
  • “Nanogod” sold to Dark Matter Magazine
  • “Defeating Death” sold to Parliament of Wizards
  • “Space Force: First Victory” sold to Alternative Space Forces anthology
  • “Space Force: The Poem” sold to Alternative Space Forces anthology
  • “The Pushovers of Galactic Baseball Fame” sold to Paper Butterfly Flash Fiction

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17

Three Sales!

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I’ve had a good three weeks, with three “pro” sales. Earlier this week I sold “Nanogod,” 4600 words, to Dark Matter Magazine, which pays 8 cents/word. What happens when a microscopic nanobot, designed for brain surgery, is damaged and becomes an egomaniac that travels the galaxy, conquering civilizations and forcing them to build huge monuments in its honor? It forced us to build the Great Pyramids 4600 years ago . . . and now it’s back and wants more! The story (then titled “A Monument for ME”) was critiqued at the 2016 Never-Ending Odyssey by Jeanne Cavelos, Chip Houser, Lauren O’Donnell, Chris Kenworthy, Kat Kohler, Michael Main, and Terry Edge. Special thanks for their help! Side note – the editor asked if I could do a sequel! I’ll get to that soon.

In late May I had two sales. “Journey to Perfection,” 3700 words, went to Unidentified Funny Objects #8, the annual SF and fantasy humor anthology by Alex Shvartsman, at 10 cents/word. A wealthy, snooty “doctor” buys the newest car model, and with a few misunderstandings, they’re off to see and meet some rather strange places and people, including Jimmy Hoffa’s burial site, Jesus on Mars, and the “Perfect” place!!! It’s my second sale to them.

The other was “Philosopher Rex,” 900 words, which sold to Zooscape, which pays 8 cents/word for flash. It’s about a philosophizing T-Rex that meets our earliest ancestors – lemur-like creatures – during the final days of the dinosaurs, and how their attitudes toward each other change after this pivotal meeting. (No talking animals, but we get the T-Rex’s thoughts.)

Now I’m focused on getting ready for “The Never-Ending Odyssey,” the annual nine-day writing workshop set up and run by graduates of the six-week Odyssey writing workshop. (I went in 2006.) This will be my 11th! I’ve done the critiques for all three rounds. I’m debating which story to read in the “Slam Reading” – I could use “Philosopher Rex,” but I’ve got about ten other possibilities, and for this I usually go with something humorous. I’m leaning toward “Prototype Solar System with Strings Attached,” a humorous flash story I sold to Galaxy’s Edge in January – another “pro” sale at 8 cents/word. Alas, it’s a sad and sort of an historic sale – it was the last story bought by Editor Mike Resnick before he died about an hour later. (Lezli Robyn is their new editor – she, Mike, and I co-wrote the novel “When Parallel Lines Meet” three years ago.)

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25

“Still More Pings and Pongs” and “Trump Tales: A Taunting”

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I have two new short story collections, both coming out today! This coronavirus thing left me nothing to do but get these two done! Both are on sale at Amazon in both print ($10) and kindle ($6) format. They are:

  • Still More Pings and Pongs
    The third volume in my “Pings and Pongs” short stories series. This includes the 25 best short stories I’ve sold from 2016-2020.
  • Trump Tales: A Taunting
    A collection of eleven Trump satires I’ve written. Seven were previously published, four are new. Also includes two cartoons! Why a taunting, you might ask? Well, isn’t that what Trump’s whole political career is based on, [falsely] taunting others? If you are a Trump fan, say away from this!!!

still-more-pings-and-pongs-front-cover-sm2Here’s a listing of some of the stories.

Still More Pings and Pongs
(the third volume, after Pings and Pongs and More Pings and Pongs)

  • …An alien census taker has been going door-to-door for 83,000 years – but now must battle with hostile aliens and an even more hostile doberman.
  • …How did three Confederate Cavalryman find themselves charging down the aisle of a jumbo jet?
  • …A billionaire declares war on a 4D civilization.
  • …What if Satan sells his soul to a higher-dimensional being so that he’ll win at Armaggeddon?
  • …A hypocritical American Christian meets up with Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.
  • …A young, dead Charles Darwin lives in a graveyard and wants to learn the origin . . . of the “Ded.”
  • …A human becomes the plaything of a 4-D child.
  • …A bat that thinks it’s a superhero.
  • …How did penguins make it to Noah’s Ark?
  • …What happens when a mathematician dies and becomes a zombie, but loses his moral compass?
  • …If Death hates cancer, what would she do?
  • …What if, one million years from
  • now, Hitler is paroled from Hell?
  • …And many more!

Trump-Tales-front-cover-sm2Trump Tales: A Taunting

  • …Sing the ballad of Cadet Bone Spurs (to the tune of “The Beverly Hillbillies”)
  • …A superhero confronts Trump
  • …Learn about the
  • …Five Horses of the Trump Apocalypse
  • …Read three stories about the new Space Force
  • …Meet the Plucky Billionaires Squad – Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, and Alice Walton take on President Trump!
  • …A dream turns out to be too real
  • …Meet the alien that’s been waiting for the president
  • …Can Trump’s cabinet Bell the President?
  • …See the humorous future of Trump’s Great Wall
  • …Plus two cartoons!

9,875 total views, 9 views today

21

Sci-Fi Thoughts Podcast and Recent Sales and Publications

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larry1_sm2Lancer Kind did a four-part podcast interview of me at Sci-Fi Thoughts. In the interviews I talk about the importance of IDEAs in science fiction, and argue that, while many say “Character is king,” I think they should be at least equal.They range from about 6-10 minutes long.

On a side note, I’ve had some recent sales and publications.

  • In August I sold “Blood Wars” to Galaxy’s Edge. (I have another story coming out in their Sept/Oct issue, “Death for the Cure: A Comedy about Cancer.”)
  • In July I sold “High Plains Centaur” to New Myths.
  • In June I sold “Back to Reality” to Alternative Apocalypses. That anthology comes out at the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland, Aug. 15-19 – I’ll be there! (B Cubed Press also created the anthology “Alternative Truths: Endgame,” which came out in late May with two stories by me, “The Ballad of Cadet Bone Spurs” and “The Great White Wall” – yeah, Trump satires!)

7,312 total views, 4 views today

17

Interview at Analog SF Magazine

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larry1_sm2Wow! Not only did I get a story in the current issue of Analog, but they also interviewed me! I got to talk about how the story came about, my writing process, and pretty much everything else about my science fiction writing.

I’ve been watching all the news on TV with growing disgust. I might have to write a sequel to “Captain Exasperation Woman Meets President Trump“!

It’s been a wild month. I had three new stories published:

  • Analog: “The Plaything on the Tesseract Wall.” What happens when a 4-D child bullies a 3-D child?
  • Galaxy’s Edge: “Death, the Devil, and the President’s Ghost.” The president has died, and he’s on the elevator with Death and the Devil. Which way will they go?
  • Alternative Theologies: “An American Christian at the Pearly Gates.” What happens when a hypocritical Christian meets St. Peter? Not what you’d think!!!

Better still, I sold five stories! (I also have two stories that are “finalists,” at Apex and at Abyss & Apex. If both sell, it could be the Apex of my career!)

  • “Releasing Hitler” to Galaxy’s Edge. What happens if Hitler is paroled from Hell one million years from now?
  • “Ded Society” (9900 words) to Tales From the Old Black Ambulance. What happens if Charles Darwin died at age 12 (he almost did), and lived in a graveyard with the other “Ded,” who have no memory of their past – and he decided to learn about their origins?
  • Three stories to DrabbleDark 2: “Nobody Would Believe You,” It’s Too Damn Hot and Cold,” and “The Stork, the Baby, and the Witch.” These are 100-word drabbles.

Better still, I wrote three new stories:

  • “The Bullied Werewolf Boy.” An nerdy adolescent werewolf is constantly bullied, but settles all business with those bullies once a year on Halloween – but faces a big problem this time out.
  • “Just One of the Gods.” Every galaxy has a God, so there are about 100 billion of them in our universe, all of them working out of cubicles in a huge office. But one intelligent lifeform has grown too technologically advanced and challenges the Gods.
  • “The Fat Old Tortoise and the Hard-Working Hare.” What really happened during that tortoise and hare race!

Last weekend, Sept. 28-30, I was at the Capclave SF Convention. I had two author signings, and was on three panels, moderating two of them:

  • “Science Fiction of Resistance” – Using politics in your writing.
  • “Political Dynamite” (moderator) – “Writers and editors talk about how they address current events in their work and in social media.”
  • “Flash Fiction: Writing for the Short Attention Span Generation” (moderator)

37,985 total views, 6 views today

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