Status Update

As I’m sure surprises no one, I didn’t get through the rest of the queue by dawn this morning.  The amount of time I spend with each story made that an impossible goal as soon as I set it out, but impossible isn’t always a bad thing.

And I did read four stories thoroughly in the past 48 hours, shortlisting three of them.  Yes, I know that’s going to make the second round harder, but I’m okay with that.  There are three stories left in the first round and I hope to manage one each night for the next three.

Thank you everyone for your continued patience.

Distant Worlds Update

So, the blog has been pretty quiet lately.  No one to blame but me.

I’ve let my creative time get pretty fractured over the last month (not to mention having less of it than I originally thought I would), trying to devote myself to too many different projects.  Most of those projects have self-imposed deadlines that affect no one but me.  Distant Worlds and Distant Realms, on the other hand, affect more than just me.  If I can’t carve out a big enough block of time for each story then I keep people dangling, authors who have taken the time to submit waiting to see if they’ve made the shortlist and the ones who are already on the shortlist waiting to see if they make the final line up.

I spend a lot of time with each story.  20-30,000 words of detailed reading takes me a couple of hours, at least.  For reasons that probably make sense to the psychologist I haven’t seen yet, while I can write in very short bursts, as little as five minutes sometimes, I need larger blocks of time to read critically.  It’s the way my mind works.  And I’ve committed to myself to read every story from beginning to end.

But it’s time to minimize the waiting.  As of right now, I’ve got 6 stories left to give a first read before I’ve made it through all of the submissions.  I’ve got until about dawn before I need to sleep, and then five or six hours of quiet tomorrow night to work with.  I do have some audio I’ve committed to deliver, but I’m going to try to finish the first round of readings by the time I turn out the light tomorrow morning.  I don’t know if it’s possible, but I’m going to give Distant Worlds all the time I can squeeze out of the clock tonight and tomorrow night.

If I haven’t responded to your story yet, expect to hear from me soon.

Wish me luck.

Essential Writers Interview

Yesterday afternoon, the e-mail interview I did with Judy Darley of Essential Writers went up.

In the interview I answer questions about the Library of SF&F, the submissions process I’ve worked out, my philosophy as an editor, and a couple of things less directly about Distant Worlds/Realms.  I both stressed and obsessed about my answers for far too long, so I hope the final product reads okay.

Here’s the direct link to my interview, but browse around Essential Writers when you’re done.  I always find a bunch of interesting articles to read while I’m there.  Judy and company produce some excellent content with a lot of value for writers and editors.  Perhaps I’m biased being part of that content now, but I’m okay with that and with letting everyone else decide for themselves.

Distant Realms Now Listed at Ralan & Duotrope

If you’ve found your way here from either of these sites, welcome.  Submissions for Distant Realms, an anthology of novella-length Fantasy (at 20-30k), are now open and close at the end of March.  Things are starting off a bit slow as I haven’t quite finished the reading for Distant Worlds, but there’s lots of time yet to get stories in.

Thanks to both Ralan and Duotrope for listing us.  If novellas aren’t your thing, I’d encourage you to check out both sites for other places to send your work.

Submissions Closed and Open

Today is January 16th, which means that submissions for Distant Worlds are closed.  If you missed the deadline, please don’t give up on your story.  Novellas are hard to sell, but that doesn’t mean you should stop trying.

Today is also the day that submissions open for Distant Realms, the Fantasy volume of the pair.  It will probably be a couple of weeks before I’ve finished the first round reads of the remaining submissions for Distant Worlds, and I’ve set the close date for the end of March, so you’ve got plenty of time here.

Thank you to everyone who submitted to Distant Worlds.  While I’ve got no idea what the final lineup might look like at this point, I know it’s going to be a great volume.

Crunch Time

Not to add stress to anyone’s day, but submissions for Distant Worlds close at midnight.  On a less stressful note, submissions for Distant Realms open at the same time.  Look for continuing updates on the Progress page over the next little while, though the count on DR is only going to show received until I’m finished with all submissions for DW.  No pressure.

Guidelines for Distant Realms

We’re inside the last 60 hours of the submission period for Distant Worlds and by WordPress’ stats page, there are some people eager to see the guidelines for the companion volume, Distant Realms.  Well, they’re up and, as promised, they’re very similar to those for Distant Worlds – 20-30k, $100 + 2 copies, standard manuscript format, 2-stage reading process.  Go ahead and check the link up top.

Because I’ll still be working on the latter stages of Distant Realms as the submissions start coming in, you can expect my initial response times to be longer.  Two weeks wasn’t always possible leading up to Christmas and even with the holidays out of the way, I don’t think that will always be an easy turn around.  I’ll still try for two weeks, but don’t be alarmed if it takes me three or four.

I will be continuing the Editor’s Journey posts as I move through the whole process and hope to explore some other thoughts and ideas along the way.

Looking forward to what comes next.

SF Sub-Genres: Space Opera

Well, sort of.

I had a blog post written and ready to go.  Catchy title (“What Ever Happened to Space Opera?”), passionate writing, definitions, fantastic supporting examples.

And I’m not going to post it.

Why not?  Because it wasn’t what I wanted to say, or at least it wasn’t how I wanted to say it.  I don’t want to rant, I want to talk, and that post was definitely a rant.

Space Opera is a term that’s meant different things to different people at different times.  A few decades back, it commonly meant the worst written pulp SF had to offer, making a convenient target for the rest of the literary world to look down on (no, that hasn’t entirely gone away).  The definition shifted over time, evolving in stages to become almost anything set in the far future involving technology that might as well be magic, with ideas and civilizations spanning galaxies.  But somewhere in the middle it was what I mean when I say Space Opera: an adventure story that takes place in space or on a planet other than Earth.

An off-planet adventure story.  The stakes don’t have to be high for the universe (although they should be for the main character(s) at least), but the word “adventure” is important in my admittedly vague definition.  A Jedi may not crave adventure and excitement, but a Space Opera (which Star Wars certainly is) definitely needs both.

And it’s something I don’t think we have enough of any more.

Not every story, and not every SF story, needs to be action driven, but what’s wrong with having a few that are?  They are out there, but they’re getting harder to find in written form, and I think the genre might be poorer for it.  Variety is critical to the health of any art form, even, or maybe especially SF.

Less rant and more quiet contemplation, I hope.

The Editor’s Journey, Part 6: Last Minute Panic

I know.  This is not a post on some other sub-genre of SF.  I still haven’t finished writing it yet, but it’s about Space Opera if anyone’s curious.

Just before I started writing this post, I updated the Progress page to reflect the current state of the Submission Queue and I tacked a little message on the end saying that the deadline is coming up fast.  I thought about that for a couple of minutes, and thought about it some more while I took the garbage out.  The deadline is coming up fast.  Just a touch over five days.

This is real.  In five days I’ll have all the submissions I’m going to have.  Sometime after that, I’m going to have to pick the final line up from my shortlist.  That’s hardly the end of the process, but this has suddenly become a lot more concrete.  I’m going to put together an anthology of really good SF novellas.  I might even say great.  No, I will say great.

Panic might be stretching things a little, but the pressure is on and there’s a lot of work ahead.  I can see the top of that first hill on the roller coaster, the one that’s drops you a couple of hundred feet into the corkscrew.  The anticipation is building in the pit of my stomach, but it’s going to be a hell of a ride.

Quick Notes

I’ve got several updates to take care of over the next day or two, especially a progress report and posting the Guidelines for Distant Realms (expect them to be pretty similar to those for Distant Worlds), and another Sub-Genre post that’s half written.

But I wanted to post that Distant Worlds got a nice write up on Essential Writers, a site collecting articles about writers and writing, by writers.  The direct link to the Distant Worlds post: http://essentialwriters.com/distant-worlds-anthology-5061.htm, but browse around a little and you’ll find some interesting stuff.  I don’t just say that because they wrote about my anthology; I have been there before.

We also got a mention in the December edition of Rocket Kapre and on Asweibe’s Market List back in November and I’d like to say thank you to both.  And someone read my recent ramble on what genre Steampunk belongs in over at Fantasy Magazine, adding it to their Steampunk Links for January, which is very cool.  If anyone has seen any other links to us, I’d love to know about them.

More to come in the next, say, 24-72 hours.  I’m trying hard to get caught up between now and the end of my work week on Monday.  Six days and a little more than 8.5 hours remain in the submission periods for DW.  Still figuring on opening DR the next day.