Author: Scott William Carter

Friday Links

Two minor things for a cold and damp Friday afternoon here in the Willamette Valley:

  • If you’re into the social networks, check out my Myspace and Facebook pages.  And add me as a friend, if you like.  I doubt I’ll ever be as into these things as some people are, but with a book coming out down the road, I’ve been trying to put a little more effort into my Internet presence.  And it can never hurt to have a few more friends, can it?  Well, unless you’re someone like this guy.
  • Check out the First Book Blog:  the focus is on James Van Pelt, and his book Summer of the Apocalypse.  Van Pelt’s a great example of someone who used a quality small press — rather than a big NY publisher — to great effect.

On the First Book Blog: Misty Massey and MAD KESTREL

Up this week on The First Book:  Misty Massey and her debut from Tor, MAD KESTREL, a tale of magic on the high seas.

A snippet:  “Dennis Wong of Tor was interested, but he wanted to see a rewrite, with another subplot woven in.  I cried for about half a day, then took a deep breath and got busy.”

Read the rest of the interview here:  http://thefirstbook.wordpress.com

Running the First Book blog has been fun.  Not only have I got to interact with lots of fascinating writers, in the process of searching for these writers I’m forced to keep up to date with what books publishers are putting out these days.  Traffic on the site has been steadily increasing, too.  That’s the great thing about the site — the interviews are permanently archived, so hopefully they’ll keep helping the authors even down the road.

Dispatches from the Frontlines of Fatherhood: Cubby Overload

Me: Why did you tape that piece of paper over your cubby?

Kat: (exasperated, hands on hips) That’s because too many kids were putting notes in my cubby. Too many notes!

Me: Oh. You mean, you don’t like it when kids put notes in your cubby?

Kat: (silence)

Me: What if someone really likes you and wants to put something there? Like a gift or something? You don’t want them to do that?

Kat: (big sigh of the precocious four year-old) Daaad, they can always lift up the paper and put it in there.

An Internet Fast and Other Sundry Things

A few minor things:

  • I’ve decided to do an Internet Fast for three weeks, which is basically limiting my personal Internet time to less than fifteen minutes a day. Some mental toxins have crept into my system, and this is my way of clearing them out. The fifteen minutes will mostly be spent checking email and keeping up with writing-related business, but it will also be a challenge to see how much I can keep up on with those fifteen minutes. I’ve been doing it for a few days already, and it’s been good, but it is a challenge even dealing with all my email in that time.
  • I turned in the mini-collection to PS Publishing: A Web of Black Widows and Other Stories of Love and Loss. Thirty thousand words. Six stories — four or which are original to the collection. Right now it’s scheduled for an early 2009 release, but we’ll see. I’ll be posting a page with more information about the collection in the coming months.
  • Check out the First Book blog: Jennifer E. Smith and The Comeback Season.
  • Read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Hugo-nominated novella, “Recovering Apollo 8,” for free over at Asimov’s. Wonderful story. Plus if you want to see how a great writer can break the rules (not that there is such a thing in fiction), this is a good one to study. There’s only a few scenes and much of it is told in narrative summary, with the first third almost entirely exposition, but it works beautifully.  It works because it gives you a sense of a small story within the larger scope of history, which was the right tone and approach.