Art, to me, is something concrete, even if it's virtual in nature. 

Perhaps that seems an odd statement on my part but, as the cover art has been defined for Evolutions and our contracted interior illustrations filter in through Kevin's diligence and the artist's hard work, I am struck at how the all of our efforts are coalescing the reality of the first issue.  The fiction has been there for a while, obviously.  Only now, though, with pictures arriving to accompany those words, does it hit me that I've inadvertantly created something greater than the mere sum of its parts.

Case in point, Gustavo's excellent near-future piece "Defending Fjordland" now has its illustration art by Jennifer Miller.  Jennifer did an excellent job of capturing the intent in Gustavo's story using a wonderfully rendered kakapo with a shadowy menace lurking below.  I don't want to ruin it for everyone, but I am sincerely pleased with the work and very happy that Jennifer plans on coloring it and selling prints to support kakapo preservation efforts in New Zealand.  My dearest hope is that the "tip jar" system we're working to adopt will reward her and Gustavo both beyond the meager amount I'm able to offer them up front, as I do for all my contributing artists and authors.

What the meshing of Gustavo and Jennifer's talents showed me was that I'm not wrong.  When you couple great words and wonderful art, you get something more than just mere prose.  Stories by themselves can entertain but, just like with a meal, the presentation counts.  How something is shared can increase or decrease the enjoyment of consumption.

As I take a deep breath in preparation for the final copyediting, writing, and assembly of the first issue, I'm recognizing how much my friends and contributors have done to create something far more impressive than I ever could have imagined back in Syracuse last November.



 

I've been trying to get back in touch with my inner photographer ever since I picked up a Canon EOS 30D on closeout at Best Buy.  Of course, it seems like I never have time to do much scamming around for coolness to photograph except when I'm running to the post office.


However, that being said, there's a bit of graffitti on the old Fleener building in downtown Bloomington near the post office that I always tell myself "I need to take a picture of that before it gets ruined.  Last week, I finally did:




Yeah, the composition sucks.  Sue me.  The point I wanted to capture, though, was that someone had a sense of style about their art, even if it is a copy instead of an original (I've got no idea on that score).  Since the brain-dead defacement ganger tag is intruding on the left, it makes a kind of statement to me that contrasts the destructive and stupid tendencies of human societies against the creative and beautiful. 

It's really easy for kids to not bother thinking and fall into the lazy and infantile mold of ganger tags and following other human trash bent on ripping things apart and spitting on that which makes them realize that they're not living any kind of worthwhile life.  However, making something of yourself and creating rather than destroying takes effort and no small amount of courage.  The person who painted the girl gets my respect for taking ugly wafer board as a canvas for creativity and uplifting the world a little bit.  The idiotic taggers who marred that canvas would best be served by being knocked on the ground, repeatedly tazed in the genitals, and made to swallow their Wal-Mart Krylon whole cans at a time.  They wouldn't be missed or mourned after the inevitable poisoning took effect.

Remember me talking about getting back into the swing of submitting things to the short fiction markets?  This just arrived in my e-mail:

"Darwin,
 
"Your story "Skipping Stones" was the second place winner in the Jim
Baen Memorial Writing Contest.  You will be receiving a prize package made up of various Baen Books, Jim Bane's Universe and National Space Society merchandise. And a one year membership to the National Space Society.
 
"Of course your name and the title of the story will be announced in Jim Baen's Universe and the program book for this years International Space Development Conference.
 
"Please make sure I have your current mailing address.
 
"Congratulations!"
 
Well.  Hush my mouth. 

 Technically, introductions or prefaces are something writers should avoid.  Mention of the topic in the presence of editors at cons will elicit rolled eyes and groans of pain.

That said, some stories do benefit from the presence of a short -- SHORT -- lead in.  Especially if the lead is not paragraph after paragraph of exposition.

Because the structure of The Legend of Pup is that of a series of short stories representing personal reminiscences, I realized that a bit of hooked scene setting would help ground the reader and set up expectations that would smooth the narrative entry.  I think it does that job admirably but then, I'm biased.

From "The Legend of Pup":

( Read the snippet... )

Just to let everyone know:

Stories in Issue 2:

The Angels of St. Ambrose by C. Mitchell O'Neal
Professional Choice by Lazette Gifford
Ghost Chimes by Nancy Fulda
Contamination by Karen C. Evans (Odd End)

Stories in Issue 3:

Twenty Thousand Light Years to Lilliput by William Ward
Epilogue by Jane Chirgwin
Doggy Paddling by Casey Fiesler
Strange Day by Lorne Kates 
 

Today's topic is brought to you courtesy of Darwin filling out forms for the ISSN numbers that will allow people to find the various forms of Evolutions courtesy of the Library of Congress.  Yea, verily, as I walk through the shadow of the valley of bureaucracy, I shall stop for a moment -- dumbfounded -- as I try to categorize what I'm doing with my spare time (and not so spare dollars).

Back at WFC last November, in the company of various friends representing differing aspects of genre fiction, the mission was fairly straightforward if vaguely defined: run a monthly webzine that offers good stories in as many different end-formats as possible.  The truth is, though, that actually undoing the "vague" part of those definitions has proven to be where the work lives.

I shouldn't have been surprised.  Engineering works the same way.  The devil Murphy lives in the details, after all.

 

Lars Walker, who blogs at Brandywine Books, has obtained an offer of publication for the third book in his Erling series.  I consider this to be great news since I love the tales of Erling and Father Ailil and have been waiting far too long for the story to continue. 

It's not a common occurrence but every so often I wish there was a "SMITE" key on my keyboard. 

John Scalzi made a post on his blog recently in response to a poll or something that SFSignal was running on the state of the short fiction market by asking a counter question of: "Does a market that generally pays its authors so little deserve to live?"

While I'm in no big rush to give John another chance to come in here and up his controversy click-throughs by playing big dog and pissing on my karma (whatever the hell that is), I think the question does a better job of illustrating his focus rather than querying the actual state of the market itself.  That having been said, the question of the state of the short fiction market -- and genre fiction's economic potential in general -- really does need a deeper look than what, on the surface, appears to be an issue of pay.


 

One of my many "concepts" that I keep shelved in the back of my mind is a mil-SF novel idea I call "The Legend of Pup".  The concept has been "shelved" because: a) I have way too friggin' many things to do right now and b) A decision needed to be made as to how to tell this story.  Frankly, it could have stayed there in the back of my mind and listed on my "Idea Tracking Sheet" until I croaked and I never would have lost any sleep over it.

Then yesterday, between Fort Wayne and Anderson on southbound I-69, it all gelled.  I knew how I wanted to tell the story.  The view of the novel as a series of individual shorts that would sequentially build up a whole picture of the main character's life and achievements linked together by interstitial narrative involving an after-action debriefing team was right there. 

Epiphanel moments like that are both exciting and a bit creepy.  Sometimes knowing that we have an active sub-conscious grinding away at data where we can't see can throw our feelings of solidity about reality into question.  Still, when a solution like this just seems to "pop" into being, you can't help but think, "Whoa.  Cool."

( How does this tie into craft and editing?... )