sinanju:

Just a short post before I head off to bed. I'm suffering from sinus issues, so I'm not getting quite enough air which leaves me, as you might surmise, tired. But otherwise life is pretty damn good, so no complaints.

I've been having my illusions shattered. I've known for decades that the sun would eventually blow up into a red giant and toast the earth. But somehow I'd gotten impression (or maybe the scientists didn't know this either when I was learning this stuff) that the sun isn't completely stable during its life. It's been getting--and will continue to get--about ten percent hotter and brighter every billion years. Which means that the habitable zone is slowly but inexorably moving farther outward.

None of this really makes a difference in MY life. Or yours. But still, it means that the solar system isn't nearly as static as I'd always imagined. Nor is any other solar system, since they presumably all work the same way. Which just goes to show that NO solar system is safe in the long term. Out there in interstellar space is the place to be.

Then all you have to worry about is supernovae and getting fried by x-ray or gamma ray beams from pulsars and other deathrays. But don't worry, at least they're 100% natural!

Anyhow, got a new story out by email Sunday. Brings my total in circulation up to eleven. (It goes to 11!)

Stories in Circulation: 11
Rejections: 24
Stories Accepted: FIVE

sinanju:

I got an emailed notice from Livejournal today that my paid extra userpics would be expiring soon. Rather than buy another year's worth of extra pics, I deleted 70 out of 100 pics.

Why?

I'm not playing in any livejournal RPGs any more. I bought the extra pics specifically for the ability to use additional icons to identify my RPG character posts with an image. In the case of my favorite characters, I had a variety of icons to represent different moods or attitudes, depending on the content of the post.

I spent several years having a great deal of fun writing characters in a number of games. crossing_lostrp (and the sequel, fandom_isle), primarily. That game was incredibly entertaining, at least for those of us playing it. Take a random but ever-growing assortment of characters from various fandoms and dump them on the island from LOST, throw an endless parade of increasingly bizarre adventures at them--and then sit back and watch the fireworks. It was a blast!

But I also played a number of other games as well. Some didn't last long. Some barely got started before folding. Role-playing game campaigns are notoriously short-lived, especially online. They're ephemeral to begin with, and when life gets difficult, when you have more things to worry about than you can manage all at once, they're often the first thing you give up--and rightly so. But it means that a game is always at risk of having key participants vanish (with or without warning), either temporarily or permanently.

When they work, though, they're great fun. I spent countless hours reading and writing in these games. I got plenty of practice at writing dialogue, action (violence and sex, both), crafting characters--everything but plotting, really. (It's hard to practice plotting a story when the tale you're telling is open-ended and other people are involved as well.) I can look back on a lot of what I wrote and feel pleased with the result.

And it reinforces what Dean Wesley Smith has told me about writing. We...no, I won't speak for anyone else. I wasn't writing for posterity. I was writing to entertain myself first, and my fellow players second, and any lurkers third. I wrote fast, I wrote without editing (much), and as a result I wrote voluminously and for the most part, I think I wrote pretty well. And I enjoyed the hell out of it.

But that's all behind me now. Not just because I'm spending my creative energies on my original fiction, though that's a part of it. It's also because, well, as I said, these things are ephemeral. My favorite games eventually ran down. As have all the others. I'm sure there are many, many other games going on out there and lots of people are having fun with them. But I'm never going to find the same mix of inventive fellow players again. I can't capture that lightning in a bottle a second time.

In fact, it's the loss of that outlet that was probably partially responsible for my getting back into writing original fiction. I really missed writing so much when my games began to fall by the wayside. To some extent, I could carry the ball all by myself. I was writing two or three (or more) regular PCs of my own in most games. I could (and did) often carry on whole threads among my own characters. Sometimes I'd borrow other characters, sometimes background NPCs available to everyone, sometimes other peoples' PCs, either with permission or because they'd been abandoned in mid-scene.

But after a while that began to chafe. If I'm writing all the parts anyway, what do I need other people for? I could just as easily write solo all the time. Then I don't need to worry about whether I'm writing "Fred" the way his owner would like. I can do what I like with him, including killing him off if it suits my purposes. So I began thinking about writing original fiction again.

And so I have. And I'm enjoying it. That doesn't mean I don't sometimes miss those games. But they're a part of my past now. Which means I don't need all those icons. So I deleted them.

sinanju:

I haven't posted the stats in a while, so I thought I'd do it now. I took my lovely and talented wife (snippy/snippy) to a dental appointment this morning, then dropped her off at work. After that I went out to buy her Hannukah gift at the mall and get some lunch. Now I'm back and will start writing shortly.

But first I had to respond to another rejection. *le sigh*

Ah well. I found another market and sent the story right back out again. Now, I should say up front that I'm not going to let my feelings interfere with my actions, but--I've sold five stories to Cobblestone Press and none elsewhere. Makes me feel like a one-note wonder. Makes me wonder when/if I'll be able to fool convince anyone else to buy my stuff.

But that's one those Voices they talk about, the ones that will stop you if you listen to them. Which is why, as I said, I won't let it deter me from continuing to write and circulate stories. But occasionally it does wear on me. It helps to wander through the vast, VAST selection of books in the science fiction/fantasy and romance sections of the bookstore at the mall. The sheer volume of fiction being published week after week after month after year is staggering. I gotta get me a piece of that action, and I think I can eventually.

I have two more stories in the works, partially completed. I hope to get them both done in the next few days. I have another idea fermenting, but not quite ready to start writing. And a couple of ideas I'm poking and prodding while I try to figure out what story I can spin out to novel length for my next stab at a novel.

In the mean time, my occasional, not-on-a-regular-schedule list of works in circulation or sold:

IN CIRCULATION
"Clean Up Detail"
"Hotel Party"
"Man-Ape"
"Watching Jennifer"
"Home Invasion"
"Making Friends"
"Surprise Party"
"Ink"
"Drowned"
"Reunion"

SOLD
"Flying High" available from Cobblestone Press
"Bound by Convention" available from Cobblestone Press
"Queen Bee" will be published December 16, 2009 (Cobblestone)
"Three On A Rooftop" sold, being edited (Cobblestone)
"One Knight Stand" just sold (Cobblestone)

RESTING
"Unconventional" (pulled from circulation temporarily to rework for different markets)

UNDER CONSTRUCTION (Working Titles)
"Fast Friends"
"The Wild One"

Stories in Circulation: 10
Rejections: 24
Stories Accepted: FIVE