Conversations with reticent documents

I knew formatting a document for publication was tough. Hours spent getting just one of 11 stories read for the anthology and I find myself having a conversation with myself, with the computer, with, it turns out, the offending document. “So, we’ve decided that you’re going to be in Garamond. All the way through, from […]

Joys of the Shared Universe

I’ve been in a Cobalt City state of mind recently. Seeing as how I’m deep in edits on the new Dark Carnival anthology for this fall, writing new podcast scripts, and formatting one of the novels, it makes sense that the city would be on my mind. But the fun thing is that Cobalt City […]

Lessons From an Over-worked Author: The Two-Fold Path

Let me start by saying that if you know an editor, I’d like you to take a moment right now and go give them a hug. I mean it. Chances are, they could use it. A glass containing hard alcohol might also be appreciated. Before this summer, I had edited one anthology: Cobalt City Christmas. […]

Editing Update: Cobalt City Dark Carnival

Submissions closed a little over two weeks ago. I have over half the edits out to authors and I’m hoping I can get the last of them off my desk tonight. Rewrites are already starting to flow back in. I’m also learning what a fascinating challenge it is to weave all these separate stories together […]

June 2011 – State of the Nate

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Sounds like the perfect time for an update! Writing: I took the initiative to re-prioritize a few projects, so that bought me a bit of breathing room. I have two stories out making the rounds and one I need to revise and resubmit. I have […]

Soundtrack for Writing – Nirvana

If you’ve ready my other, somewhat irregular Soundtrack for Writing posts (all conveniently located in the Music category on the right), you know the drill. I talk about writing, and how music from the mentioned artist has inspired various stories or writing breakthroughs. That’s not entirely the case with Nirvana. It’s not that I don’t […]

Back to the future, sort of

It’s not that I don’t write much science fiction. It’s more that I write across a wide swath of genre, so the love is spread pretty randomly. Looking back at the past year, it’s been mostly horror and urban fantasy. The last pure sci-fi story I wrote was “Deacon Carter’s Last Dime,” for Crossed Genres. […]

My Easter Tradition – Norwescon

First off, I just realized that my blog acts like a cold-war dead-letter drop! Since I screen comments, anything someone posts sits invisibly for me to read at my leisure, after which I can just delete it and no one is the wiser. If only I knew how to turn this weird tidbit into a […]

Mile markers and the road ahead

For short stories, I have two finished drafts due by the 15th. Just under two weeks to go, and the first draft of one is finished, while the first draft of the other is about 1/3 done. The deadline for those stories doesn’t seem as daunting as it did a week ago. More importantly, the […]

Amazing company!

I just received news from the always brilliant and charming Richard Baron that my story “Frames of Reference” made Ellen Datlow’s Honorable Mention list for 2010. I have two, very different thoughts on this, the first being if you’re unfamiliar with Richard Baron, go read his stuff. Seriously. His story “The Cry in the Darkness” […]