An Experimental Life

Finally working on the much-requested sequel to the bird story ("Are You There? Are You Safe? Is The Flock Safe?")

I honestly didn't think I had anything more to say in that world until I started explaining to fans who had written asking for a sequel that, "Well, there's nothing much more to say there, except maybe... Wait, that could work... And hey, wow, what would happen if... Or for that matter..."

So yeah. The tentative "Maria-approved" title for the sequel is "The Man Who Loved the Birds That Science Made." I'll keep you posted, and those of you who have agreed to be beta readers will be seeing it as soon as it's done.

By the way, if you write science fiction or fantasy, especially flash, I strongly suggest submitting to Daily Science Fiction. They're an official SFWA market, and pay significantly more than average. They pay upon publication instead of on acceptance, though, so you may end up waiting a few months to get paid. (Speaking of which, damn it, I need a paycheck NOW, but ah, well... Such is life.) Read more about Of unplanned sequels and stuff

Another story sale! The first Alex story, "Alex and the OCD Oracle" comes out in the "Sidekicks!" anthology (edited by multi-talented author/editor Sarah Hans) next month. The Alex stories are funny urban/contemporary fantasy tales based around Alex Bayne, who refers to himself as the least supernatural person he knows, but to whom pretty much the entire local supernatural community bring their problems, despite his fecklessness. More about "Sidekicks!" coming soon, including the table of contents, the awesome cover art, and an excerpt from my story.

Also, I need to make some long overdue changes to this site. I've been doing most of my blogging at http://anexperimentallife.tumblr.com/ lately, but while I'll certainly keep that going, and most content from elsewhere will still be posted there as well, I'm looking at switching from Drupal to Wordpress simply because as much as I love Drupal, it's totally overkill for what I'm doing, and although I enjoy working with it, it does require a bit more fussing than Wordpress. (By the way, if you follow me on Tumblr, drop me a line over there in my Ask box and let me know, eh?)

See, it's not that I haven't been blogging--Just that I haven't been doing it here.

On a personal note, I have recently relocated to the East Coast, and acquired the most perfect girlfriend in the history of everything. You will be hearing more about this development, because I simply can't shut up about her. :-) Read more about Story sale and upcoming changes and stuff

Once again, I find myself in a position of killing darlings I created in a moment of passion. Every writer does it, and it does get easier, but there's always at least a little bit of an "ouch" involved. In case you're not familiar with the expression, to kill one's darlings means to take out things you've written that you personally love, but that for one reason or another don't pull their weight in the story. Like the 615 word bit of scene-setting below, which I'm including to give an example of a perfectly good darling that nonetheless had to die, and to gratify my desire to have someone other than my writing group see it. (You'd also never know to read this snippet that most of what I write is more "fun.")

There are lots of reasons why a darling might have to die. Maybe it screws up your pacing, or contains a jarring shift in style or perspective (either of which is fine if that's what you're going for). Maybe it doesn't really have much to do with the rest of the story, and is only there because you personally found it interesting to write. Maybe there are just too damn many words for the length of the thing you're trying to write, and the story needs other words more than it needs that scene, or that chunk of exposition, or that subplot. For whatever reason, sometimes you have to kill your darlings to make your story stronger.

In the equation above, solve for "Fuck you."

Despite my childhood ambition of becoming a physicist, this is, indeed, how math looks to me. Rather than explain my mathematical ineptitude, I decided a while back that it would be simpler to make a graphic to which I could refer people. As geeky as I am, I did base it on a famous equation--Schrodinger's Equation, in fact--although I didn't know what most of the symbols meant. (And had I thought about it, I would have put a cat in there somewhere.) The way the nonsense gets thicker toward the end sort of symbolizes the way I start out thinking, "Yeah, I can do this," and then end up sobbing into my calculator... Read more about This is why I'm a writer, not a physicist

(Note: I can do this because I'm home most of the time. And I'm not saying that cages are bad. A cage that a 'tiel sees as a safe spot can be a great place for a them to sleep and, if it's big enough and contains enough of interest to them, spend time when they can't be supervised. Sachi loved her cage, and although the door was open most of the time, she voluntarily spent part of her time there even though she had the run of the house. In fact, she would demand to be taken back to it when she got tired or hungry or thirsty. I may start having the X-Birds birds sleep in a more confined area that can be covered, just so I'm not disturbing them so much when I'm up at all hours.)

To people who've had birds for a long time, all of this is probably old news, but for a guy who has owned large canines for most of his life and is used to the rough-and-tumble playfulness and affection of Big Furry Carnivores With Very Sharp Teeth, owning non-predators has been a series of revelations and moments of wonder. Read more about Having uncaged cockatiels as pets has made me a better person

'Kay... Normal 'keet background chatter and mostly quiet 'tiels. Then I start watching Supernatural, and the 'tiels (Logan and Jubilee, the X-birds) start flying around the living room like Ritalin kids who've been mainlining quintuple espressos, the 'keets flit around their cage ricocheting off of bars and toys like Dick Grayson on cocaine and high-fructose corn syrup, and ALL the birds are like... Read more about My birds love Supernatural more than you do

The deadline for The Crimson Pact anthology, volume 3 is coming up at the end of the month. I've been planning to do an indirect sequel to Karma, my Quiet World story from volume 2--but from Kai Traeger's point of view as he and Halloween Jack (aka Jaqueline Hallow) investigate how the demons got there to begin with. Read more about Projects and deadlines and demons, oh my!

First, a blatant plug: My bird story comes out tomorrow (Dec. 20th) in the email edition of Daily Science Fiction! Sign up for Daily Science Fiction tonight, and you'll have it in your inbox by morning. DSF publishes one story a day, M-F, with email subscribers getting each story a week ahead of time, so if you don't sign up in time, you can still read the story on their site on, I believe, the 27th. Either way you go, it's free, and they don't spam you. (And writers, take note; they are one of the higher-paying markets for short F&SF.)

About this site, the comic, and everything else: From now on, this is where everything public goes first--before because as much of a tinkerer as I am, the site will never meet my standard of "ready." And although I still plan to migrate the things I want to keep from the legacy site, I'm not going to hold myself hostage to that process.

Blue Crash Kit--as in the relaunch and continuation of--is still coming along, just at a slower pace than any of us would like, and as I announced earlier, I'm waiting until we have a big buffer before I post a single comic. I'm giving Amee more of a free hand than I did when she initially took over art duties from Shan, and she's doing some awesome things with it. It's more of a collaboration this time around, even on how we tell the stories, and instead of trying to do "Rob and Shan's BCK (with Amee playing the part of Shan)," we're doing "Rob and Amee's BCK." And so far, it feels good.

Scrivener: Still building .deb installers for the unofficial Linux beta of Scrivener, with Lit&Lat providing the files, and me packaging them up, but I have some tasks I need to pay more attention to. The most recent Linux beta doesn't expire until March of 2012, though.

Excuses for delays on everything: Read more about The somewhat-adequately-laid plans of rodents and hominids

I'm pretty excited about my urban fantasy, Karma, being included in The Crimson Pact volume 2, alongside stories by so many other talented writers. In keeping with a long tradition of authors posting story teasers, here are roughly the first 2,700 words (out of a little over 15,000) of Karma.

You'll also find a few notes on writing the story at the bottom of the post, along with the video trailer they made for it.

Karma

by D. Robert Hamm

We hit the interstate like an unguided missile.