So tonight I passed 250 pages.  I'm a little upset that it took me as long as it did to get from 200 to 250, but I'm pleased to say that I've regained whatever creative momentum I'd lost during that time I spent going back and fixing those glaring plot holes.  I see lots of little things cropping up in the previous chapters as I create the new material, but nothing I'm not comfortable with fixing after the first draft is done.  Also, I think things are starting to click a little more now that I'm getting deeper in the story.  Not to say I'm displeased with what I have at this point, but I have a strong feeling the words are going to start coming faster.  Considering how long this book promises to be, that's definitely a good thing.

In terms of reading, I finished Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  That story struck me as flimsy, but I got what I needed from this text so it was a worthwhile read.  There are a couple of critical essays at the end of the book, so I'll probably take the time to read these as well.  After this I may take a brief break from Arthuriana literature to read up in some areas of non-fiction that should prove helpful down the line.  We'll see.

The next update will come when I hit either 75,000 words or page 300.

That's it for now.  Onward! 

I just wrote the sickest thing I've ever written.  By far.  I didn't even know  I was going to write this until it came out of me.   And  it's sick people.  I suppose it could be sicker, because rather than showing this (and trust me, no one should want to be shown this), one of my characters is relating something that happened years ago.  But it's still sick.  We're talking Gary Jennings at his worst in Aztec sick.  George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy at its darkest kind of sick.

I'm completely baffled where this came form.  I mean, I like dark fantasy.  Love it, actually.  And I've written some dark stuff in the past, but the idea I came up with ...shudder.   It's my imagination at its darkest.  It's not very long, but it packs a punch.  And there's no deleting this, because it absolutely belongs.

So there it is. 

I'm suddenly reminded of a quote I love by Dan Simmons: "All great art contains strangeness."  Half that equation has just been answered.

Oh doctor.


 

So last night I went over 60,000 words.  Sheesh.  I read these blogs where people have 60,000 words to their novels and this means they're done or almost done with the draft.  I'm not even halfway! (profuse apologies to the agent, but I've been giving her fair warning from the jump).   The good news is I've recovered from that  nasty hiccup that forced me to go back and fix stuff, which interrupted some of my momentum.  It's all new material I'm writing.  The words were coming slow for a little while, but steady.  Now I'm like a streak shooter in the NBA, meaning some days I'm managing nothing but minor output, but other days I get hot and the words start flowing.

I'm at interesting point in the story.  I'm juggling a lot of plot threads here, and for a while most of the characters were sharing the same setting.  But the chapters I'm writing now are causing many of characters to start drifting from each other, geographically speaking that is.  The geographical drift is leading  to diverging plots and subplots as well.  Makes for a lot of interesting (and sometimes difficult) juggling, but it also shows me the story is evolving into its next phase.  That's exciting, watching the story evolve, writing chapters that have been hanging out in my head for months.

So there's still a lot left to write, but I'm getting there.  It'll take a few more sessions of writing but page 250 is in my sights, which will definitely be nice when I reach it.

In terms of Arthurian material, I finished Merlin and the Grail by Robert de Boron.  Some interesting stuff, and definitely one of the more accessible texts I've read as far as the old-school material goes.  These days I'm reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (not the Tolkien translation).  There are other texts I need to read that are more important/fundamental in terms of Arthurian literature, but I want to delve into Sir Gawain's character a little more, and the text is already proving useful.  And I also happened to already have this one in "the stacks," meaning I didn't have to order it, like I've been doing with these other texts.  It's not a terribly long book, so sparse as my reading time has once again become, I imagine it'll be done come the next time I provide an update.

That's everything for now.  Onward! 

Page 200 ...again. :)

Again, it's been a while since I've posted one of these.  Last time I posted here, I was up to page 200.  Now I'm up to page 195.

???

That requires some explanation, I think.  Two "Arthurian Updates" ago I mentioned the need for some revisions, things like splitting one chapter in two, and making Merlin more proactive instead of reactive.  Seemed simple enough.  But then later on I realized that two other characters were also being entirely too passive/reactive.  If you've ever seen the movie THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT (love, love, LOVE that movie), you may recall the idea presented of "change one thing, change everything."

Well, here it was a case of change three things and change a whole crapload of other stuff.  Barring three chapters, because of the changes made, every chapter required anything from tweaking to complete overhauls.  Now, I could have kept writing new chapters, pushing forward.  Some would argue I should have (perhaps many).  But here's the thing.  This is going to be a long book.  And it's the first book of what I imagine to be a five book series, all long books (I must keep it to five, because if it gets any longer I'm quite certain I'll give my poor agent a heart attack).  So I'm working with a very large scope.  And these first 200 pages are very much the foundation of the story.  While I don't need every word to be perfect, I needed to feel as if all the basic story bricks were in the right place.  Otherwise as I continued writing I was absolutely certain I'd get farther and farther off the beaten path.  With such a big story, I wasn't comfortable with that at all.

Unfortunately, I usually write & rewrite slow, so this took longer than I would've liked.  At one point I had as many as 211 pages, but yesterday I finally finished this round of corrections, and it brought me down to page 195.  Next time I sit down to write "the Monster" it'll be brand-spanking new material I'm creating, and I'm at a very interesting point in the story, so I'm pretty excited about this.

Oh, and here's the kicker.  Yesterday, on page 195 of 195, with just a few sentences left to the "finish line," I had a new revelation about a different character.  Damn!  Thankfully, it was something the character has kept a total secret from everyone.  So it didn't require as many adjustments as I feared.  I went back and made all the necessary tweaks in about an hour.

And now finally, FINALLY, it's back to plunging ahead.  I feel like it's a much stronger story now.  I know that some of the chapters I've written still require work, but the difference now is that I'm comfortable pushing ahead.  I also find it interesting how all the biggest problems traced back to characterization issues.  It was not strictly a case of reactionary characters, but this was the most predominant problem by far.  I shall forever after be wary of making this mistake again, and I'm going to have to be more attentive concerning my characterization in general.  Live and learn.

As to the classic reading, I've finished The Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes.  Easily one of the driest works of fiction I've ever encountered.  It's funny, but as stilted as Thomas Mallory's Le Morte D' Arthur is in terms of its language, it blows the other classic works I've read out of the proverbial water.  I guess there's a reason it's the most popular work of the old Arthurian literature.  As to de Troyes, I'm still glad I read it, because it's so fundamental in the evolution of Arthuriana.  De Troyes introduces a plethora of Arthurian characters into the mythos, most notably Lancelot and Percival, and he also gave us Camelot and the the Quest for the Grail.  Oh, and he also invented the courtly romance.  Quite the contribution, even if every page was like sand in my eyes. 

The sacrifices we make for our writing.

These days I'm reading  Merlin and the Grail, a trilogy of prose romances attributed to the French writer, Robert de Boron.  In the introduction, the translator notes that Bobby's chief contributions to Arthuriana are combining a series of narratives to create the first cycle of Arthurian tales, and also for telling the history of the Grail in Biblical terms.  In The Arthurian Romances, De Troyes made the Grail part of a chivalric quest, but didn't touch upon the Christian aspects of this artifact.  These two contributions make this volume worth reading, IMO.

Thankfully, the prose in this is rather accessible.  So far I like it.  Currently I'm reading "Joseph of Arimathea," which skillfully reinvents the Biblical figure's history, tying it into Arthurian Britain immediately before and after the death of Christ.  Good stuff.

Anyway, that it's for now.  Onward!

         

200 pages written.  Lots left to go but that's a certifiable chunk!

So it took a little longer than expected, but last night I hit 50K words for my Arthurian novel.  Lots of interesting (to me) developments are taking shape.  As I mentioned in my last update, I was close to writing my first classic scene from Arthurian literature.  I've now done that.  I was uncertain what attempting this would be like.  I mean, I'm writing something that has existed for centuries.  No pressure. :)  Actually, it was a lot of fun to write.  It was a battle scene, which are always tricky, so I know I'm going to have to clean it up later, but I had a lot of fun writing it.  And I'm relatively pleased how it turned out.  Plus, I'm that statistical oddity who seems to enjoy writing battle scenes.  I hear a lot of writers complain about how difficult action scenes are to write.  Sure, they're difficult, but I cut my speculative teeth on Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan.  So I'm all about the action scenes.  Love 'em.  My first story coming out in Interzone has three separate action scenes.  Of course, it took countless revisions to get those scenes right. But I still love writing them.

What else?  I'm deep enough into the story where the unexpected is happening as I write.  About a week ago I was writing a certain scene, spooling out some background.  After about a page, I stopped, looked at what I had and decided it was completely wrong.  So rather than write more drek I deleted what I had and started over.  It's one thing to struggle through writing a tough scene, and it's quite another to keep writing something that is just plunging you deeper in the wrong direction.  So I went back, and without thinking about it I started creating a different background.  And what came out took me by complete surprise.  By changing this one piece of background an entirely new subplot suggested itself to me, one that I believe adds another layer of richness  to the tale.  I can't speak for other writers, but I love these moments of surprise when I'm writing.  They let me know I'm falling into the rabbit hole that much more, and that gets me all the more excited about what I'm writing.  Before this point, there were little surprises happening here and there.  "Oh, I can do this instead."  Or: "What if X happens as opposed to Y?"  Or: "Of course!  Why didn't I realize this sooner?"  But this was the first idea that came completely out of left field.  To me, this sort of milestone is every bit as important as reaching 50K words.  Perhaps more.

Also, I'm loving my internal editor.  Once upon a time he jabbered in my ear with every sentence I wrote, like a damn monkey strung out on crack.  He made writing awfully difficult at times.  Then I started working at Realms of Fantasy.  Suddenly my internal editor got to indulge himself through another outlet.  Because of this, over these last two years he's learned to relax.  To work with me.  These days, he even knows to shut up when I'm writing new material.  Whenever I sit down to write, I always like to start by looking over/tweaking the material written from the last session, so this does let the editorial monkey have some say, which keeps him happy.

Another reason the editor no longer bothers me  I write is because he's learned to jabber when I'm not writing.  For example, I have some early chapters through Merlin's viewpoint.  Somewhere along the way I realized Merlin was being entirely too reactive to events, as opposed to being proactive.  But the writer in me had no idea how to fix this.  So Jabber (yes, I've named my internal editor "Jabber") chewed on this for a while, until one day he said, "Stupid, look.  All you have to do is make Merlin do X.  You already have it set up because you did Y.  See?"

And Jabber was 100% RIGHT.  Now I'm not big on the idea of going back and endlessly tinkering when fresh material is in need of writing.  In the past Jabber made me go this route, and it led to some unfinished stories as a result.  But this time, Jabber made a very eloquent case.  Not only is tinkering involved, but entire chapters of fresh material need to be written.  And since this promises to be a thick book juggling multiple plot lines, it made sense to have my working model right early on, so I don't go take any storyline too far in the wrong direction.  So when my current chapter is finished I will be going back, but at the same time I'll be adding new essential material.  It's more like writing out of sequence with some revisions thrown in as opposed to true rewriting.

And meanwhile, Jabber continues to prove himself invaluable.  In the current chapter I'm writing, it struck me that I'm putting entirely too much material into this unit.  But I couldn't see how to fix it.

Then Jabber started screaming like the primate he is.  "Split it in half," he told me.

"I can't do that," I said.  The very notion was ridiculous.

And Jabber had the audacity to smirk.  "Why not?" he said.

And I found myself struck speechless.  So Jabber pressed his advantage.  "Look," he said.  "Finish the chapter.  Then make the break right here.  You can even shave a few lines around the break point, because you can fast forward the starting point of this second half to right here.  Then you can take the first half of  this chapter and stick it right here in the manuscript.  See?"

"I love you, Jabber."

So all in all things are progressing nicely.   As to the classic literature,  not too much time for reading lately, although I did finish another tale in Chretien's Arthurian Romances, this one being Cliges.  In terms of creative story fuel the first two tales (the other being Erec and Enide) have provided me precious little, but Chretien uses all sorts of mundane world-building details that are proving rather invaluable.   And the next  tale I'm up to is The Knight of the Cart, which marks the first Lancelot tale in Arthurian literature.  Reading this should prove useful indeed.

Well, that's everything for now.  Onward!

Once again it's been a while since I've provided one of these updates.  Progress on the novel continues.  Tonight I passed 40K for my word count, and also passed page 150.  I still have a lot left to write, because this promises to be a thick book, but little milestones like these are nice, because I can look at what I have and say "Progress!"  It helps me push on.

Also interesting is the point in the story at which I find myself.  The scene I'm up to will be the first one I write that comes from the classic tales.  Everything to this point has been new material bringing my own slant to things and/or filling in spaces between some of the classic scenes.  But now I'm actually up to one of those classic scenes.  It's pretty exciting to tackle it, and it's also another reminder that the story is moving along.

Only 10K away from 50K words.  Cool.

I'm also still reading the classic literature.  I finished History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth.  Very interesting stuff, and it sparked more than a few ideas.  These days I'm reading The Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes.  These tales are also rather essential in the evolution of Arthuriana.  Troyes introduced several key Arthurian characters, most notably Lancelot.  He also created the whole courtly romance aspect of Arthuriana, and contributed lots of other fun stuff to the mythos.  In many ways he's done as much for Arthuriana as Geoffrey of Monmouth has.  He has a real eye for detail, which is really imparting to me some choice tidbits to use to capture the flavor of the time I'm writing in.

So I guess that's everything for now.  Onward!


      

A lot of time always seems to pass between these updates. Let's see. Shortly after my last update about the research for the novel, I got a bit fed up, realizing that if you're not careful this is the sort of topic one can keep researching forever. So I said enough is enough, and I started writing. Yesterday I finished page 100. The agent person (Jenny Rappaport) has read through about page 70 so far, and she seems relatively pleased with what I've come up with (more than I expected in some respects). Some thoughts to make stuff better concerning the female pov characters, which was great, because that was why I asked her to take a look at what I had in the first place.

I'm enjoying writing this (although it's a bloody BLOODY challenge), but unfortunately I haven't had the time to write as much as I want lately. I blame it on the new job. They always manage to suck out a lot of your energy early on, even when you like them (as I do this one--the people at McIntosh & Otis are great). But even though I've been tired every day this week, I've still been writing. The problem has been balancing the schedule. There have been a million things to do each night when I come home, and by the time I start writing, it's almost bedtime. But the good news is that with each night I've been able to start writing a little earlier. Same goes for tonight. I'll be starting the earliest I have all week. And there's still room for improvement. I'm definitely learning to balance my schedule, so the future here looks good.

In the meantime I continue to provide fuel for the novel by reading more Arthuriana. The morning job--not the agency!--has lots of downtime where I'm actually allowed to read. Usually I'll slush and then read the book-of-the-moment. So I finished the non-fiction book, ARTHUR'S BRITAIN, which deals with the time period of the historical Arthur. Dry, but certainly helpful. These days, I'm about halfway through HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN by Geoffrey of Monmouth. For those unaware, this was written during the 1100's, and it started the Arthur craze over the next few centuries that created the mythological Arthur most of us are familiar with. There were stories around before this, but in many ways HISTORY can be considered seminal, even if Arthur is only one king among many in this psuedo-history.

So that's it for now. Hopefully the schedule will continue to balance out and more writing will open up. I think it will.

The speculative industry is great.  I love it.  But it's also a harsh mistress.  Trying to climb the ladder of the speculative world is like climbing a mountain.  It can be exhilerating, but more often it's downright frustrating, exhausting, and on occasion it's even depressing.  But I stick with it, as do many.  Why?  When you consider the odds we're up against insanity certainly factors into the equation.  But mostly we keep fighting because of the love.  Love knows no percentages.  Right?

Right.  But love can certainly use a little reinforcement every so often.  So I'm doing a Year's Summary for me to provide a little fuel for next year's fire.  So let's have at it.

This was actually my most successful year to date in terms of speculative accomplishments.  On the editorial front, I saw stories I fished out of the slush reach print for the first time, 9 of them all told.  A lot of these stories went on to receive praise or notice, and one of them, Sarah Totton's "A Fish Story," was purchased for Rich Horton's FANTASY: BEST OF THE YEAR anthology for 2006.  The year 2006 also saw me fish out 5 stories from our slush piles (although I started working at Realms of Fantasy in May 05, so I'll be more curious to see how many stories I discover between June 06-May 07, another full calendar year if you will).  This year also saw me discover two stories by two previously unpublished writers, David Pinault & Elizabeth Glover.  In addition to my duties as assistant editor with the magazine, I also snagged a promotion of sorts as one of the magazine's web editors for our web site (and stay tuned for more news regarding this position in 2007!)

On the convention front, I went to five conventions this year, a personal record, and sat on panels for the first time.  I also taught at a writer's workshop for the first time and on a separate occasion I lectured on the craft of writing to a college class with a couple of my fellow editors.  I also did my first appearance on a speculative radio station, host Jim Freund's "Hour of the Wolf," where, with John Joseph Adams, I discussed my work as an editor.  All this has been great for networking purposes and just plain getting my name out there.  Blogs are good for this too, and I also started my blog this year, which tends to focus on my speculative wheelings and dealings.  Quite honestly, I had no idea what to expect when I started blogging.  It's great having you guys tune in and read my ramblings.  I plan to keep this up for a while yet.

Then we come to the writing.  Not much to write about, but the good news is that there is something to write about.  In the non-fiction department, I wrote my first review of a fantasy novel and saw it published in Paradox Magazine, run by Publisher/Editor, Christopher Cevasco.  I also had my first story accepted for publication this year, a dark fantasy novelette called "Feelings of the Flesh."  Not only is it gratifying to know my work will be printed (yup, still waiting at this point), but it's a great feeling to know my first sale is coming with Interzone Magazine, which is a very respectable venue.  Nice way to break in.  Short term, this is the most gratifying accomplishment of 2006.  Long term, however, I anticipate my most gratifying accomplishment being that I landed myself an agent, one Jenny Rappaport of the L. Perkins Agency.  Considering that my credentials aren't quite impressive as some (although the editorial accomplishments certainly help), I consider this a testament to networking and hard work.  Also doesn't hurt that Jenny likes my writing. ;)

So that's pretty much it.  There's other stuff that I'm still waiting to learn about--some of it potentially big stuff--but if it hasn't happened yet then it doesn't count.  Same thing goes for rewrite requests, etc.  All well and good, but I just wanted to focus on real tangible progress, stuff I could point to and say, "I did this and here are the results." 

And you know what?  There may be a lot of mountain left to climb, but 2006 wasn't half bad.  Onward to 2007.  I hope everyone else had a productive 2006, writing, editing, and otherwise.

Happy New Year guys.        

It's been ages since I've provided any sort of update about the research for my Arthurian novel(s). Previously I was e-rambling about reading TRISTAN. Well, that book is finished. Very boring, and out of the whole book I think I squeezed out about five pages of useful material. So it goes.

I've also been reading the story of King Arthur in BULLFINCH'S MYTHOLOGY. It basically follows the story as it's presented in LE MORTE D'ARTHUR, but this is a condensed retelling and it does draw on some other sources. It's a good refresher and it's also provided some really useful nuggets.

I still have a lot of reading left--some non-fiction reseach & a few more reinterpretations--but I did reach a major point in my preparation today. A few minutes ago I just finished putting together a rough timeline for my version of Arthuriana.

It traces the mythical foundings of the isles of Britain (or Samothea, as it was called way back when) and Ireland (Ireland is done in broadstrokes, while Britain's is rather detailed) all the way to when my story starts, around twenty years into Arthur's reign. There are some variances as to when and how these isles started and how their histories unfolded, but based on my research + the versions of pseudo-history I most relied upon + whatever tweaks I found necessary to make everything to fit together, the timeline stretches from 2375 BC - 517 AD.

Putting this together was difficult. In many respects Irish & British pseudohistory don't compliment each other. Not to mention that based on the existing materials I've read to date, Arthuriana doesn't really integrate smoothly with the Tristan mythos. Obviously "concessions" had to be made on all sides in order to make the timeline work for my purposes. And since the focus of this story is Arthuriana, the Irish pseudohistory definitely took the biggest hit.

So it goes. But I tried to integrate as much of the richness of Eriu as possible, and did my best to literary tapdance around the spots where many of the strongest contradictions between pseudohistories occur.

Overall I'm very happy with the initial result . . .and thanks God it's done. The damn thing runs 20 pages, much of it single-spaced. While putting it together I was amazed how much Arthurian information I had retained, and also how much I had forgotten. The timeline will definitely make things easier.

So, next on the agenda: finish the Bullfinch version of Arthur and start putting together some character sketches. I'm not a big fan of the latter, but for something this complex (not to mention these characters aren't mine), I think some brief sketches will prove awfully helpful.

Onward!

I received a lot of responses when I posted about LE MORTE D'ARTHUR, so I thought I'd update everyone about the latest tidbits concerning my research. LE MORTE is finished. Slow at points, tedious at others, but overall the story carries some wonderful resonance. Those of you familiar with LE MORTE know that Tristan's tale (or Tristram, as he's referred to in LE MORTE) is basically left unfinished, with only a brief summation of how the Tristan/Isolde/Mark triangle ultimately plays out. So currently I'm reading TRISTAN by Gottfried Von Strassburg in an effort to fill in the blanks/enhance my knowledge. This book also includes the Tristan of Thomas sections, written by one of Von Strassburg's predecessors. I'm about 115 pages into a 375 book, but the tale is considerably different. Not complaining though, as reading this tale has so far helped me fill in some of the blanks for my Tristan's history. The language is far more accessible in this too (even if it was written centuries earlier), but it lacks the flare of Mallory, thus making it a drier read. This version also isn't a part of Arthuriana. The original versions were independent of Arthur & co., although there is a brief reference to Arthur in here.

It's absolutely amazing how much research is required to write an Arthurian novel. The good news is that my schedule has settled down. No more cons or radio interviews or workshop appearances in the forseeable future. And no more Yankee baseball. I'm kicking butt on my slush. So hopefully I can take some serious chunks out of this book in the next days so that I can get to the next one.

Okay,

So last night was the monthly speculative reading at at the KGB Bar in NYC.  This month's readers featured Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner.  Both of them gave wonderful performances, and Ellen showed off a really nice voice as she sang the myriad songs that cropped up while reading her excerpt.  Afterward I went to dinner with the crowd to the usual Chinese food spot, and as per usual, the crowd grew imperceptibly bigger.  They were barely able to fit us all in at the restaurant this time.  While there, I learned that my friend, Chris Cevesco, publisher & editor of Paradox Magazine, is going to be a proud papa in February 2007.  Andrea Kail put it best when she said, "That's so adult."  Too adult for me.  Congrats, Chris!

It also seems my critique group, the 8th of February, is undergoing some radical changes.  Bill Shunn & Bob Howe, the founders of this wonderful group, are leaving.  I understand their reasons: lack of time & a multitude of projects are enough to overwhelm anyone.  They've done a wonderful job with this group, and I'm really appeciative that I had a chance to get to know these gents and to work with the group.  But when I learned that they're leaving, I took the opportunity to announce that I also would be leaving.  As I mentioned recently, I've shifted my focus to the novel, and while the critique group does help to an extent with novels, it's more geared toward critiquing shorter fiction.  So knowing that I wouldn't be contributing any new fiction to the group for a good long while, I thought it best to step aside while they undergo these changes.  Best to give my slot to someone that can contribute fresh fiction on a more regular basis.  I wish the whole group nothing but success, and I'm sure they'll achieve it, just as I'm sure I'll be bumping into most of them on a fairly regular basis.

And I must admit, there is another reason I'm leaving the group.  While I was already committed to working on my novel, after last night I now have another good reason to do this.  Cue drumroll:

Cue drumroll again:

I now have an agent!  Woo hoo!  With all the paperwork completed and in the appropriate hands, as of last night I am now represented by Jenny Rae Rappaport of the L. Perkins Agency.  Jenny will be representing me in my editorial endeavors as well as my authorial ones.  I've known Jenny for a while now (over a year, I think), and she was already represening me for an editorial project being shopped around, but this was more of a freelance arrangement.  During this time she read the story I have coming out in Interzone and she really liked it.  So when she made the shift to the L. Perkins Agency, once her affairs were settled, she gave me an e-poke and said, "I want to represent you."  And I said, "Um . . .yeah."  And here we are!  The L. Perkins Agency is a highly respected agency, and I'm thrilled to be with them.  I also love the fact that Jeanne Cavelos, my teacher at the Odyssey Workshop and one of my chief mentors, is represented by this same agency (different agent).

Normally this would be the part were I direct you all to the agency's website for a peek.  Alas, the website is temporarily down.  But until it's back up and running, Jenny has told me that her blog is functioning as the de facto website, so do feel free to check it out: http://litsoup.blogspot.com/

Anyway, that's it for now . . .and "it" was plenty! 

Okay,

These days I don't get excited over rejection letters. If it's a quality market and they invite to send more, that's cool, but at this phase of the game I want sales.

But the rejection I received today is different. The Slush God finally passed a story of mine along to Gordon Van Gelder, the editor at F&SF. He rejected it, slipping in an infamous "alas" into the letter. And when I saw this it made my day. Getting the Van Gelder "alas" is like a rite of passage in the short story world. It's like I've been made.

Thanks, Gordon. :) Of course, next time I won't be quite so happy . . .

So I came up with this idea a while back for a King Arthur novella. But I figured it would be a good idea to read Thomas Mallory's Le Mort D'Arthur before I try to blindly reinvent the wheel. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And it was and is. But . . .

Dear God, the language! Thee this. Thou that. He brast his spear. Me soar repenteth. Methinks the language be killing me! And the damn thing is a slightly oversized hardcover weighing in at 900 pages. Sob. But I kept reading, telling myself that fighting through this edition would help enrich my own version, because I would be able to pick out useful details.

And I was right. I've been jotting down notes as I go along and I'm now up to page 350 or so (of the book, not my notes). I've even gotten used to the language. And then it happened. I came up with so many cool little ideas from reading this murdeous book that I started wondering how I could possibly fit it all into a novella. "Uh-oh," says I. "Methinks a volume of considerble heft be thrust upon me to compose."

So suddenly I find myself with a novel of an idea. But that struck me as fine, because I'm more of a novel boy anyway (said the assistant editor of a short story magazine). So all of the short stories percolating in my head get put to the side in one fell swoop. Keep my inventory out on the market, sure, but other than that it was TIME TO FOCUS ON THE NOVEL. If I was going to do this I wanted to immerse myself in the world of Arthuriana.

And so far so good. Many of the ideas for the novel are becoming clearer as I read further into Le Mort, which is as I expected it to be. But oh my dear God, as interesting as many parts of this book are, this thing is driving me crazy. And it has nothing to do with the language anymore.

Mallory's edition of King Arthur is like a precursor to today's soap oprah . . .people falling in love with their soul mates only to marry someone else 50 pages later . . .knights trying to kill each other only to become best friends 25 pages later . . .knights sleeping with earl's wives only to be friends with such earls later and make them lords of islands . . .and the redundancies! How many goddamn mythical swords are there? But this is like a soap oprah also, as the same ideas become rehashed over and over.

So this is a bit frustrating. But the book is also quite eye opening. I've read my share of Arthurian literature . . .none of it is like this. The majority of the characters are terrible TERRIBLE people. Many of the Knights of the Round Table were or are murderers and thieves. When he was young King Arthur slept with almost any woman he came across. And he had a son besides Mordred! (say what?) Many of the women in the courts are very promiscuous, which goes against how they're normally portrayed. And don't even get me started on Tristam, who is absent in most of the retellings of the Arthurian legend.

But as I kept reading I came to realize something. If you tried to portray THIS Camelot the reader would never believe you. He'd roll his eyes and say "Yeah right. This guy doesn't know what the hell he's doing." Because the behaviors of many of these people with their warped mixture of barbarism and chivalry is so different from today's norm. Sometimes I feel like I'm reading about chickens running around with their heads cut off, because their logic makes so sense by today's standards. And yet people were eating this up with a spoon back in the day!

It's really quite fascinating . . .and the level of detail becomes frightening when you start taking notes. So now I find myself faced with the challenge of reinventing the Arthurian legend, but not in the manner of one of those dime-a-dozen garbage paperbacks. I've too much respect for the genre to go that route. It becomes a very delicate balancing act. And I'm loving the challenge! I love how the plot threads are snaking out in countless directions only to come together as I keep reading, only to snake out again because I've read further along. And I still have more than half the book left to read!

But I don't think I'll ever be able to look at the King Arthur mythos the same way again. All the warped and twisted stuff we know about--Mordred, Lancelot/Gwenevere--is really just the tip of the iceberg. These people are SCREWED UP.

Writing this book should prove lots of fun. :)

So as one might imagine, I've struck up some e-relationships with many of my slush survivors that have been published in RoF (along with a few that haven't). One of the ones I communicate with fairly regularly is Ken Scholes, author of "Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing With the Sunrise." His piece was a brilliant science-fantasy, with a story set in the kind of world that made me start (and keeps me) reading this brain candy in the first place.

So it came as no surprise that during the course of our emails I learned that we share a love for many of the same fantasy authors. What did come as a surprise was when Mr. Scholes (whose career is really taking off by leaps and bounds these days) casually mentioned the possibility of the two of us collaborating on a piece together at some point down the road.

Needless to say, I was hugely flattered. And based on tastes, we both had reason to believe our two warped minds working as one could put forth a killer story. But, IMO, there was a major snag. I had read Ken's work and loved it. He had yet to read anything of mine, though, and I just didn't feel comfortable with us agreeing to work together on anything until he read a sample of my writing and got a proper feel for the kind of tales I like to write. So I emailed him a copy of my story, "Feelings of the Flesh," which is due to appear in a future issue of INTERZONE as my first published story.

Today I head back from Ken, and I received what I consider my first real blurb:

"You are a fine writer, Doug. The REH - CAS influences are very cool to see. This read like what might've happened if Solomon Kane had visited Zothique."

REH & CAS refer to Robert E. Howard & Clark Ashton Smith, two of my favorite fantasy writers. Solomon Kane is one of REH's more memorable characters, and Zothique is perhaps CAS' most memorable world. To be mentioned in the same e-breath as these two writers by someone as hugely talented as Ken has just made my week. And it's only Wednesday! It was also a really interesting experience to know that one of my published slush survivors was reading my story, and to actually catch myself fretting, wondering what he'd think about it.

But I couldn't have asked for kinder praise. So thank you, Ken, and I look forward to the day we hit upon a story that shall make everyone's jaws suitably drop when they read it.

So tomorrow I go to a Yankee game, which means I get to see our new acquisition, Bobby Abreu, in action. Thursday I meet with my friend in NYC for one of our monthly drinking bouts, and after this I must (and will!) sober up in time to meet with my critique group. Then from Friday-Sunday I'll be Atlantic City, celebrating the 30th birthday of one of my best friends.

But wait. There's more. I received a rejection today from Edmund Schubert, the new editor at IGMS. Some of you may remember him as my last interview victim for my monthly Editorial Musings column. And while a rejection is always a rejection, the brilliant bastard did mention that he's willing to take another look at "The Song That Binds" if I tried to develop it more fully. Gee, I wonder what I'll do? Oh, I don't know. Maybe, just maybe I'll try to get this piece up to snuff, so I'll have a shot at being published in a magazine started by one of my favorite authors.

Yeah, I think I'll do that . . .but it doesn't look as though I'll be able to get started until Monday. Then the REAL ACTION JACKSON starts! :)

Finished putting the last touches on a rewrite today. Sent it off to Farthing a few minutes ago, and just in time. They close to submissions again after the 31st. It's been a very productive month, definitely the best one this year (to date). Now to keep the momentum going . . .