DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

I'm pleased to announce that I'm part of an exciting new ebook bundle of great stories all of which feature some sort of monster. Just in time for you to get your scare fix for Halloween!

Best-selling author, Kevin J. Anderson, has curated the MONSTERS ebook bundle for Storybundle, and he's put together a great lineup. You can read more on Kevin's blog here or go right to the Monster ebook bundle on the Storybundle site to check out this excellent set of titles.

Here's how the bundle works:

• Pay whatever you feel the books are worth.
• You decide how much of the money goes to the authors, to a charity (the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, in this case), or to administration costs to keep storybundle.com running.
• Pay a minimum of $5.00 and get the basic set of six books 
• For $15.00 or more, you get all twelve books (a dozen monsters!)
• Your ebooks are delivered immediately, in whichever ebook format you prefer, DRM free.

Storybundles are great deals. Buy this for yourself or get some early holiday presents for friends and family, all at an incredibly low price. Great books, great price. What's not to like? This bundle is available for three weeks only, from October 15 until November 6 at midnight, so don't delay.

Thanks for the support! 

A new interview with me is up at Festivale, an online arts and entertainment magazine created in Melbourne, Australia. The magazine has a long-running interview series called "The Usual Questions" that they've been asking of writers and other artists since they began the concept at the 1999 WorldCon in Melbourne, Australia.

The questions are always the same:

• Has your interaction with fans, for example, at conventions, affected your work?
• Is there any particular incident (a letter, a meeting, a comment that stands out?
• Do you have a favourite author or book (or writer or film or series) that has influenced you or that you return to?
• Who is the person you would most like to be trapped in a lift (elevator) with? or a spaceship?
• Who is the person you would most DISlike to be trapped in a lift with? Or a spaceship?
• What would you pack for space? (Is there a food, beverage, book, teddy bear, etc that you couldn't do without?)
• What is the most important thing you would like to get/achieve from your work?
• What is the special satisfaction of your work?

Check out my answers here on the Festivale site. 

I'd posted earlier that my Aurora Award winning story, "Scream Angel," was to be translated and reprinted in the Austrian magazine, Visionarium.

That issue (#6) is out, and my SF tale can now be read in German, alongside stories by Justin Isis, which received praise from none other than Thomas Ligotti, and a graphic novel adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's "The Music of Erich Zann." Very cool to be sharing a Table of Contents with the likes of those writers.

The issue 6 cover is shown here. 

Filip Wiltgren, writer and game designer, has just posted a great review of my writer's guide PLAYING THE SHORT GAME: HOW TO MARKET & SELL SHORT FICTION. You can read it yourself here, but I'll include one of his comments about the book:

"I can’t tell you what you should write. That’s entirely up to you. But if you are the least bit interested in having a career as a fiction writer then I can tell you what to read: Douglas Smith’s “Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction”. From now on this is my go-to book for all things related to starting and maintaining my fiction writing career." --Filip WIltgren

Thanks for the shout-out, Filip.

And if you're a short story writer, I'm not even going to try to be humble. I have put all of my knowledge and experience of how to leverage your short stories to build a writing career into this book. If you write short fiction or would like to, you need to read it. More info on the book is available here.

My SF novelette "Scream Angel" will be translated into German and published in the Austrian magazine, Visionarium. "Scream Angel" won the Aurora Award in 2004, and is one of the stories that fans often tell me is their favourite tale of mine. The story first appeared in the anthology Low Port (editors Steve Miller and Sharon Lee).

Visionarium editor / publisher Bernhard Reicher kindly provided me with a preview of the beautiful and haunting illustration that will accompany the story, pictured here at the right.

This is the fifth time I've been published in German, and Austria brings my country total to thirty-one. But who's counting? Oh, yeah. Right. I am.

My short SF story, "Jigsaw," has just been reprinted in the online magazine, Issues in Earth Science. IES is "dedicated to raising awareness of the science of our world and our place in it.  It provides essays, challenges, a forum for discussion, and fictional stories related to the Earth and Space Sciences."

"Jigsaw" incorporates plate tectonics in a deep space adventure where Cassie Morant, our young geologist protagonist, races the clock to solve a planet-sized puzzle before time runs out for her crewmates. You can read the story at IES here. The very cool illustration that accompanies the story, pictured here at the left, is by Erin Colson of IES.

"Jigsaw" first appeared in the anthology Odyssey (edited by Julie Czerneda) in 2004 and was a finalist for the Aurora Award. I hope the story makes studying geology a little more fun for some students out there. Not that I'm saying that geology is boring — Cassie would never forgive me.

I posted a while back that my science fiction short story "Symphony" would be appearing in the upcoming anthology Le Variazioni Gernsback (The Gernsback Variations) in Italy. The anthology is now out, and you can check out the cover at the left and the full contents here (if you read Italian).

"Symphony" first appeared in the Canadian literary magazine, Prairie Fire, in 1999, where it won second prize in the magazine's SF contest to commemorate Canadian SF writer, A. E. van Vogt. The story was a finalist for the Aurora Award in 2000. I'm thrilled to have it translated into Italian and to have it appear with a host of fine Italian writers, as well as Michael Bishop and Robert Silverberg. Even better, "Symphony" is the closing story, one of the special slots for stories when editors put together an anthology.

If you haven't read "Symphony," you can pick up an ebook edition in all formats here. It's also included in my collection Chimerascope.

Simon Rose is a Calgary-based author of science fiction and fantasy for children and young adults. Simon's most recent book is Flashback, shown here.

Simon kindly interviewed me recently via Google Hangouts and has posted the video to YouTube here. I hope you'll take some time to check it out (the whole interview is about 25 minutes long). 

And you can check out Simon's books at his website at http://simon-rose.com/.

Are you a writer? Or do you know someone who is? If so, how would you like to pick up eleven books at once that contain everything you need to know to be a writer and to build a writing career? Books written by established pros, best sellers, and award-winners. Sound good? What if you could also get a 40% discount on the best software available today for producing professional quality ebooks, the tool used by the top indie authors?

Well, you can (yeah, you knew that was coming). For a limited time, StoryBundle is offering "The Write Stuff" ebook bundle that gives you all of the above. This bundle was curated by the award-winning, multi-genre author and editor, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Here's what Kris says about how she put the bundle together:

"So many people who write books on writing have never published fiction or had a real writing career.

But not here. We have worldwide bestsellers, award-winners, and career writers of longstanding. Every single writer here has lived the writing life—and has much to say about it.

We have four craft books in the bundle, provided by Dean Wesley Smith, Jerrold Mundis, Vonda McIntyre, and Judith Tarr. Dean wrote Writing Into The Dark for all the writers who don't like outlining before they start a project. That book goes hand in hand with Jerry's book, Break Writer's Block Now! If writing into the dark won't stop you from freezing before blank screen, then Jerry's book will. Vonda's book, Pitfalls of Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy, has excellent craft advice even if you don't want to write in those two genres. And finally, Judy's book, Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting It Right is a godsend for those of us who write fantasy, historical, or western fiction.

We have books that focus on the form your writing can take, be they short stories, novels, or audio books. Douglas Smith wrote the definitive book on all aspects of a short story writer's career, from completion to publication and republication. You can find all that wisdom in Playing the Short Game. Bob Mayer gives you everything you need to know about writing novels to selling them in The Novel Writer's Toolkit. J. Daniel Sawyer teaches you how to turn those prose pieces into podcasts and audio books in Making Tracks.

We have a book that focuses on business as well. Leah Cutter's Business for Breakfast divides the writing business into bite-sized pieces for easy digestion.

And then there are the books on the writing life. Chuck Wendig's 30 Days in the Word Mines gives you a peek into a writer's day-to-day existence, with lots of writing tips to help you through. Laura Resnick's classic Rejection, Romance, & Royalties shows, as the subtitle puts it, "the wacky world of a working writer." My own, The Write Attitude, helps writers pick themselves up and dust themselves off when the writing world becomes wacky—as it so often does.

Plus, we have a marvelous bonus item. The kind folks who developed Jutoh have contributed a 40% off coupon for their product. If you're doing your own publishing, you want Jutoh. … You can be completely confident that you have a top-of-the-line epub that will pass even the strictest e-retailer demands.

So here it is: Everything you need to know to write what you want, how you want to write it, what to do with it when you're done, and how to survive the perils and pitfalls of a writing career."

Sounds great, right? It gets better. You only need to pay a minimum of $5 to get the initial set of six titles in The Write Stuff bundle.

That's less than a dollar a book! And, if you pay at least $15, you'll get another five books, plus a very special code for 40% off Jutoh, an indispensable ebook creation tool for all ebook platforms, including epub and Kindle.

And don't worry about what kind of ebook reader you need--you get multiple DRM-free formats (both .epub and .mobi) for all books.

You can also give this bundle as a gift to that writer you know. StoryBundle has gift cards that allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle – and with timed delivery so you control exactly when your recipient will get the Write Stuff bundle.

But don't wait to decide! The Write Stuff bundle is available for a very limited time only. This offer expires at midnight on June 4, 2015. So go to http://storybundle.com/writing right now to get this bundle and kick start your writing career.

(More on StoryBundle: StoryBundle was created to give a platform for independent authors to showcase their work, and a source of quality titles for thirsty readers. StoryBundle works with authors to create bundles of ebooks that can be purchased by readers at their desired price. Learn more here.)

[Note: SFWA (the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and as part of their celebrations, they have asked a number of members to participate in a SFWA 50th Anniversary Blog Tour. I offered up the post below. The first post went up on Monday, and mine is featured today. You can check out the ongoing series by going to this page. I've also included my post below in this blog.

In case you don't know, here's some info on SFWA from their website:

SFWA is a professional organization for authors of science fiction, fantasy and related genres. ... SFWA informs, supports, promotes, defends and advocates for its members. We host the prestigious Nebula Awards, assist members in legal disputes with publishers, and administer benevolent funds for authors facing medical or legal expenses.  Novice authors benefit from our Information Center and the well-known Writer Beware site. SFWA members look out for each other and provide assistance, mentorship, and camaraderie. ... SFWA is a source of information, education, support, and fellowship for its authors. SFWA Membership is open to authors, artists, editors, and other industry professionals who meet our eligibility requirements.

My blog post follows. #SFWApro]