Night Shift by Stephen King

Photo: First edition hardcover, from the book's Wikipedia site.


Very successful collection of short stories that spawned some (really bad) movies.  I'd read this book as a much younger guy, but had forgotten most of the stories, so I went back to it and appreciated it all over again.  I've lost somewhere my original copy--the one shown here--and so I've had to make do with the "Children of the Corn," movie tie-in version I have here now.  Somebody, probably me, had switched copies over the years, and I can't tell you why.  Odd.  And I want the original one back.

The ones I remembered from (literally) my youth were: "The Last Rung on the Ladder" (still my favorite here), "Jerusalem's Lot," "Graveyard Shift," "Strawberry Spring," "The Bogeyman," "Gray Matter," and, because of the incredibly bad movies, "Children of the Corn" and "Lawnmower Man."

"The Last Rung on the Ladder" and "The Woman in the Room" work especially well because there's nothing supernatural in them.  Both stories--especially the former--read well because they are of the "Nothing's More Scary than Real Life" genre--which should be a genre if it isn't.

All of the stories are either good or very good, but I was pleased to discover a couple more.  "One for the Road" works really well, and is one of the scarier ones here.  If "Jerusalem's Lot" was originally a chapter in Salem's Lot--I think I got this right from King, who said it opened his book and was taken out just like Stoker's "Dracula's Guest" opened up Dracula and was taken out--then "One for the Road" takes place after Salem's Lot ends.  It's mentioned in the story that Ben Mears had burned the town down.  I would've put this story last in the collection, rather than second-to-last.  "Jerusalem's Lot" opens it up, so it would've been nice book-ending to have "One for the Road" end it.  Or perhaps that's too-slick serendipity, like the similar paths taken by Stoker's and King's vampire stories.

"One for the Road," "Strawberry Spring" and "The Last Rung on the Ladder" are the best-written stories here.  Almost all of these stories, by the way, were originally published in Cavalier magazine, a now-defunct magazine of a certain sort, if you know what I mean.  I wonder what men of the 70s made out of these well-written, and sometimes philosophically-bent, ruminations next to those explicitly explicit pictures of...well, you know.  It'd be a little jolting, I'd imagine.  He also got paid a few hundred bucks, per story, by that magazine, which is really good money for short stories, especially in the 70s.  My guess is that the magazine was trying to become the next glossy picture and literary high-end magazine of one of its bunny-themed competitors, and failing miserably.  (That bunny magazine, by the way, still pays a few thousand dollars for a short story, and always has.  So the lie could also be "I was reading the stories!" instead of "I buy it for the articles!")

Anyway, what I've learned here is that King has an idea and he writes it.  The simplicity of that is sort of shocking to me.  So here we have a story about a possessed laundry-pressing machine; a story about monstrous and blind rats; a story about trucks taking over the world; a story of a company that hurts those you love to help you quit smoking; a story about a hitman done in by the toys sent by the mother of his latest victim...and they all work, in varying degrees.

Think it, write it; think it, write it; think it, write it.  And why not?

Do Not Write Like This!!! A List of Tired Plots.

Photo: One of the banners from www.strangehorizons.com.


This is a partial list of plot elements seen way too often in the business, from Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine.  Click the link to see the whole list, which I'll blog in partials.  (Strange Horizons allows this list to be published, in case you were wondering about copyrights.) 

After every story of this genre I write, I check out this list (of 51 things, most of them sub-headed, which will, as I said, be blogged about later as separate blog entries) and make sure that none of my stories in any way comes close to matching any of these.  You would think that this would be difficult, right?  Surely there's something in my story that has to match one of these.  Actually, no.  And stop calling me Shirley.  Sorry.  Anyway, upon a close inspection, I see that time and again, my stories do not match any of these main plot elements.  This doesn't mean my story is any good, of course, but it at least means that it won't get rejected solely for being one of these things.

If you've read as much of this genre as I have, or if you've watched as many movies or shows in this genre as I have, a few of these may remind you of one of the stories, books, shows or movies that you already think of as one of the worst you've ever come across.  I've read a lot of amateurish stuff--much of it self-published--that fit quite a few of these.  And they were all very, very bad.

And so I offer these to you, should you ever want to write and publish in this genre.  How many of them do you recognize in something truly awful?  (Not that you would ever do this, but comparisons to my published writing will earn an immediate delete when I moderate the comments!)

P.S.--2a sounds familiar, especially in lots of Stephen King's works, but I would argue that it's not the main plot element.  Jack Torrance in The Shining, for example, definitely has writer's block, but it's due to the evil of the Overlook messing with him, plus a healthy dose of the recovering man's blues.  Besides that, he was able to type "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" several thousands of times, sometimes in poetic form.

1. Person is (metaphorically) at point A, wants to be at point B. Looks at point B, says "I want to be at point B." Walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.)
2. Creative person is having trouble creating.
   1. Writer has writer's block.
   2. Painter can't seem to paint anything good.
   3. Sculptor can't seem to sculpt anything good.
   4. Creative person's work is reviled by critics who don't understand how brilliant it is.
   5. Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.
3. Visitor to alien planet ignores information about local rules, inadvertantly violates them, is punished.
   1. New diplomat arrives on alien planet, ignores anthropologist's attempts to explain local rules, is punished.
4. Weird things happen, but it turns out they're not real.
   1. In the end, it turns out it was all a dream.
   2. In the end, it turns out it was all in virtual reality.
   3. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is insane.
   4. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is writing a novel and the events we've seen are part of the novel.
5. An AI gets loose on the Net, but the author doesn't have a clear concept of what it means for software to be "loose on the Net." (For example, the computer it was on may not be connected to the Net.)
6. Technology and/or modern life turn out to be soulless.
   1. Office life turns out to be soul-deadening, literally or metaphorically.
   2. All technology is shown to be soulless; in contrast, anything "natural" is by definition good. For example, living in a weather-controlled environment is bad, because it's artificial, while dying of pneumonia is good, because it's natural.
   3. The future is utopian and is considered by some or many to be perfect, but perfection turns out to be boring and stagnant and soul-deadening; it turns out that only through imperfection, pain, misery, and nature can life actually be good.
   4. In the future, all learning is soulless and electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a book.
   5. In the future, everything is soulless and electronic, until protagonist (usually a kid) is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a wise old person who's lived a non-electronic life.
7. Protagonist is a bad person. [We don't object to this in a story; we merely object to it being the main point of the plot.]
   1. Bad person is told they'll get the reward that they "deserve," which ends up being something bad.
   2. Terrorists (especially Osama bin Laden) discover that horrible things happen to them in the afterlife (or otherwise get their comeuppance).
   3. Protagonist is portrayed as really awful, but that portrayal is merely a setup for the ending, in which they see the error of their ways and are redeemed. (But reading about the awfulness is so awful that we never get to the end to see the redemption.)
8. A place is described, with no plot or characters.
9. A "surprise" twist ending occurs. [Note that we do like endings that we didn't expect, as long as they derive naturally from character action. But note, too, that we've seen a lot of twist endings, and we find most of them to be pretty predictable, even the ones not on this list.]
   1. The characters' actions are described in a way meant to fool the reader into thinking they're humans, but in the end it turns out they're not humans, as would have been obvious to anyone looking at them.
   2. Creatures are described as "vermin" or "pests" or "monsters," but in the end it turns out they're humans.
   3. The author conceals some essential piece of information from the reader that would be obvious if the reader were present at the scene, and then suddenly reveals that information at the end of the story. [This can be done well, but rarely is.]
   4. Person is floating in a formless void; in the end, they're born.
   5. Person uses time travel to achieve some particular result, but in the end something unexpected happens that thwarts their plan.
   6. The main point of the story is for the author to metaphorically tell the reader, "Ha, ha, I tricked you! You thought one thing was going on, but it was really something else! You sure are dumb!"
   7. A mysteriously-named Event is about to happen ("Today was the day Jimmy would have to report for The Procedure"), but the nature of the Event isn't revealed until the end of the story, when it turns out to involve death or other unpleasantness. [Several classic sf stories use this approach, which is one reason we're tired of seeing it. Another reason is that we can usually guess the twist well ahead of time, which makes the mysteriousness annoying.]
   8. In the future, an official government permit is required in order to do some particular ordinary thing, but the specific thing a permit is required for isn't (usually) revealed until the end of the story.
   9. Characters speculate (usually jokingly): "What if X were true of the universe?" (For example: "What if the universe is a simulation?") At the end, something happens that implies that X is true.
   10. Characters in the story (usually in the far future and/or on an alien planet) use phrases that are phonetic respellings or variations of modern English words or phrases, such as "Hyoo Manz" or "Pleja Legions," which the reader isn't intended to notice; in the end, a surprise twist reveals that there's a connection to 20th/21st-century English speakers.
10. Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue.
    1. Someone calls technical support for a magical item.
    2. Someone calls technical support for a piece of advanced technology.
    3. The title of the story is 1-800-SOMETHING-CUTE.

Contest Winner!

Photo: Cover of Spring 2012's Space and Time Magazine, with my first sold story, "Hide the Weird."

And the winner of the contest, of all the comments on the entry announcing the publication of my last story, is......

Jonathan N.!!!

Jonathan, you've won the issue of Space and Time Magazine.  I've emailed you via the one you gave me.

Thanks to everyone, from Rhode Island to Australia, who commented and participated.

And thanks for reading!

Please stay tuned for more contests and prizes to come.  Prizes will be different, too.

Speaking of that, on my blog Steve's Baseball Blog--Cards and Commentary, I mentioned in my last blog entry today that I will be having contests over there as well, giving away one free 1909-1911 T206 card. These cards are extras of my collection, and are not professionally graded by SGC, PSA or anyone else. But they're cool cards, worth at least ten bucks or more, even in bad condition.

Do you have any collections of anything?  If so, what's your specific favorite in that collection?

Free Contest! My Story, "Everything's Connected," Now Free at Overmydeadbody.com

Photo: The icon of Overmydeadbody.com.

Hello, readers from overmydeadbody.com--or: Hello, my loyal blog readers!

Another story purchased and published!

If you haven't already read it, please, for free, read my newest story, "Everything's Connected" at Overmydeadbody.com.  (Story's description below.)  Just click the address above.  (Firefox is having trouble with it, so please use another.  I'm using Google Chrome.)  You don't even have to download it--it just appears on the screen.  Thanks!  And I'm holding a free contest about it--so if you've already read the story, please see the bottom of this post.

If you haven't, just click this link or the one above and click on the story.  And enjoy.  The story is very short.

What it's about (feel free to skip this if you've already read it):

"Everything's Connected," is about a detective who catches a cheating spouse in the act (sort of), solves a kid's disappearance, and proves a little theoretical quantum physics--all in just a few minutes!

Reading it won't take more than a few minutes, and I'd be greatly appreciative of any comments about it that you can give.  For example, you could consider:

--Do you believe that "Everything's Connected" like Foster does?  Or that they're not, like Colleen does?

--Do you believe that the story shows that "Everything's Connected?"  Or that it shows they're not?

--Consider: If Colleen hadn't been having problems with the virus software, would Foster have figured out where his landlady's kid was?

--Was that connection, or just plain luck?

--Overall comments about Foster, Colleen, or anyone else in the story.

--Overall comments about the story itself.

--Anything else you had in mind.  I've already had a comment conversation about Chaos Theory and String Theory (and Jurassic Park), for example.

Anyway, getting this story published is very cool because Brad Foster, the main character of this short piece, is also the main character of my soon-to-be-finished novel manuscript.  He's in a different psychological space in this story than he is in the novel--this story is supposed to take place after the novel--but he's clearly the same guy.

Colleen, his assistant, makes an appearance in both as well.  She's as feisty as usual.

And now the contest.

If you haven't already, just read the story via the links in this blog, and click the blog link at the end of the story (or just come back here) and leave a comment about what you thought of the story.  Good or bad, just be pleasant and appropriate!  Everyone who leaves a comment is entered into a contest to win a free copy of Space and Time Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction, Spring 2012, Issue #116.  This issue contains many fine stories, plus my short story "Hide the Weird."  (Here's a link so you can see what it looks like.)  A description of "Hide the Weird":

A young man has the ability to see short-term into the future--just enough to see that the woman he loves is about to die in a horrible fire.  How does he save her, without letting her know that he has this curse / ability?

A number / comment will be drawn at random.  I'll contact that person (or create a blog entry announcing the winner, so check back to this blog on September 1st, especially if you didn't leave any contact info.), who needs to send me an email with a mailing address to send the magazine.  And that's it! The contest ends August 31st at midnight, EST. 

Foreign entries are welcome!  No previous winners allowed--but please comment anyway!  :-)

And please let me know if I can read a short story for you, or comment for you, or enter a contest--or all 3!

So please and thank you.  As always, readers, I appreciate you reading my stuff.

Short Story Sale--"Everything's Connected" to Over My Dead Body! The Mystery Magazine Online

Just a quick self-serving note:

The rights to my short story, "Everything's Connected"--about a detective who catches a cheating spouse in the act, solves a kid's disappearance, and proves a little theoretical quantum physics--all in fewer than 2,000 words!--has been purchased by Over My Dead Body! The Mystery Magazine Online.  There are some pretty cool stories there now--lots and lots of them, in fact.  And they're all free!  So if you like quick and easy (and short) mystery stories, or stories of murder and mayhem, check them out at overmydeadbody.com.

This is awesome for me personally for two reasons.  The first thing is that Brad Foster, the main character of this story, is also the main character of a novel manuscript, Cursing the Darkness (Working Title), that is maybe 90% completed.  So Brad Foster will see the light of day.  Though it should be noted that the short story is very light, while the novel is very, very, very (many more veries) dark, gritty and brutal.  But his character is essentially the same.

The second reason this sale is awesome is because it's a mystery story in a mystery magazine: yet another different genre for me to be published in.  So far, the stories I've published, their location (and link), and their genre:

--"Everything's Connected," in Over My Dead Body! The Mystery Magazine Online.  Mystery.  Publication date TBA.
--"The Zombie's Lament" by Big Pulp.  Anthology due April 2015.  Horror.
--"So Many Reasons to Celebrate the Season," in onthepremises.com.  March 2012.  Contemporary / literary.
--"An Old Man."  Poem.
--"Someone To Come Home To."  Short nonfiction article about the benefits of adopting a greyhound.
--"Hide the Weird," in Space and Time Magazine, Issue #116 of Fall 2012.

It ain't Stephen King, but it ain't nuthin', either, I guess.

Look for a publication date soon for "Everything's Connected."

Click on the Published Work link above for more details.

As always, thanks for reading my blog, my stories, everything.  I always appreciate (and need) your support. 

"The Zombie's Lament" Purchased by Big Pulp Magazine

Photo: from Big Pulp's Facebook page

Mr. Bill Olver and all of the other good folks at Big Pulp have purchased the rights to my short story "The Zombie's Lament" for its anthology series.  Volume One of this anthology will hit the stores, online and physical, in June 2014.  Volume Two will be published in April 2015.  That one will have my story.

It's about a guy who loses the love of his life, gets bitten in the face by a zombie, and tries to apologize to his beloved before he turns--or dies. 

So if you like zombies--and who doesn't?!?--save your pennies and buy Volume One from Big Pulp in June.  And, it goes without saying, but if you know me, you know I'll say it anyway: Mark April 2015 on your calendar to buy the volume with my story in it.  No, seriously, go mark it right now.  Please?


What is Big Pulp?  Well, here it is, straight from the editor, Bill Olver, from Big Pulp's website:

______

On March 3, 2008, we debuted with Simon Petrie's "Dragonsick", the opening story in our first quarterly online journal. At the time, I had no idea what kind of response we'd get from writers or readers. I worried that no one would submit to an unknown market and that readers wouldn't find us on the web. I also didn't know much about putting together a website, designing a publication, working with writers and artists, writing contracts, or selling anything. 

In retrospect, there was a lot I didn't know. 

But I did know good stories when I read them. I knew what I liked and I knew I wanted to create something I didn't see on the newsstand - a venue that mixed and crossed genres, was open to new writers, and pushed against the envelope of what's considered genre fiction. 

Did we succeed? Some days more than others, but over the past six years, we've refined and redefined our offerings, with each iteration getting closer to the vision I set out to achieve. We've published hundreds of stories and poems, which in combination have created a brand alongside of genre - the Big Pulp story.

At best, a Big Pulp story is smart, literate, and thought-provoking. It's got attitude, rarely takes itself too seriously, and isn't afraid to poke where it doesn't belong. It defies expectations and tropes. It hits you where you live and sometimes in the nuts. A Big Pulp story is sci-fi, it's fantasy, it might be a mystery or horror or romance, but it's rarely what you expect. 

In December 2010, Big Pulp moved into print. In 2013, we branched out into themed anthologies with Clones, Fairies & Monsters in the Closet  [...] and The Kennedy Curse. And now in 2014, we're launching a new line of publications that will continue to mix and match conventions and stretch the boundaries of what genre can do. 

Six years! I can't believe how quickly the time has passed or how far we've come as a small press. I'm proud of what we've accomplished and the writers we've published. 

Happy anniversary to us, our writers and artists, and all our readers! We couldn't have done it without you, and we hope you'll stick with us for our seventh year and beyond! 

Bill Olver

Editor

______ 

So there you have it.  It's good stuff, so check it out, and look for mine in 15 months.  Yeah, I know, but that's publishing.

With All Due Respect--My JOYLAND Book Review, Out Now

Photo: Magazine cover of All Due Respect, where you'll find my review of Stephen King's Joyland.

The good people at With All Due Respect Magazine have published my review of Stephen King's Joyland.  It's available right now at this link, and soon in print as well.

126 pages of original hard-boiled crime noir, it's only $2.99 on Kindle.

From its Amazon page:

All Due Respect is back with thriller author Owen Laukkanen, whose latest book, Kill Fee, is due out in March. We've got some seriously dark stories from CS DeWildt, David Siddall, Joseph Rubas, Eric Beetner, Liam Sweeny, and Scott Adlerberg. And we continue our quest to review every Hard Case Crime book. If you like your fiction hardboiled/noir, this is your magazine.

Praise for All Due Respect:

"All Due Respect... is full of bars and beatings, guns and grifters, not necessarily the kind of crime to cozy up with by the fire, unless it's one of those burning cars on the side of the road." -- David James Keaton, author of Fish Bites Cop

"This is perhaps the best collection of noir and crime short stories I’ve come across." -- Big Al's Books and Pals.

So there you are.  This is good stuff.  For just $2.99, please give it a shot.  Leave a comment, let me know what you thought.   

Advice Needed: Putting Together My Sold Pieces

Two quick questions.  Any advice offered would be appreciated:

The owner of a local boutique has offered me the chance to have a book signing at her shop.  I've had a few pieces published, and the rights have reverted back to me by now.  I've already requested 25 copies of a snazzy-looking magazine that one of my stories appeared in (Spring 2012 Issue #116; please go to the link here to see it), so I'll have those to sign.  But I wanted something else, too: A collection of my other works that have sold to a) online fiction mags; b) a British (and, especially with the shipping costs, not cheap) book; c) a collection of essays.

So, I thought about putting these pieces together into one little book--nothing as official as something with an ISBN or anything like that, but also not something that looks amateurish or cheap.  I thought I'd get something with a cover, a back, a photo of me on the back in a lower corner, and an image to present each of the five or so disparate pieces in the book.  Therein lies a problem: I've got a piece of speculative fiction that sold to Space and Time Magazine, the one with the cool cover; a contemporary, literary piece that sold to OnThePremises.com; a poem that sold to the British publisher; an essay that sold to a specialized collection.  That's four completely different works (I'd add a fifth, previously unpublished story), so they'd need four completely different images to represent them (they are not closely related at all, in either content, theme or style), plus a cover image that somehow did represent the tone of them all, or the theme, or the...I don't know.

There's question #1: How do I work with these images?  Any ideas?

The other conundrum was, of course, cost-related.  My friend is too swamped to do the work (which she sounded honestly interested in and excited about, as this is exactly what she does for a living, and is currently doing a few extra jobs that pay the bills, but isn't what she likes to do best), and I would never ask her to do all this for free, anyway, as I know it's a lot of work and time, and I don't believe in asking professionals to do work for free, even if they are my friends.  But, of course, I can't afford to pay someone to do all this for a normal fee, either.  My friend said this would cost about $1,000 to do, and that's unfortunately out of the question at this point.

So that's question #2: How do I do this myself, for minimum cost, without it looking amatuerish or cheap?  Is this something I can go to OfficeMax, Staples or Kinko's for?

I was thinking of having book labels available for me to sign, and maybe one copy of the book I'm suggesting, and keeping a list of names so people can pre-order that, rather than making a lot of books that don't sell.  But I'd rather have a lot on hand, too.  And maybe I can sell the unsold ones later...Confusing.

Of course, it's possible I'm severely over-thinking things, and nobody will want anything, and I'll sob openly.

But if you're going to plan something, and dream something, why not go for it?

And, well, that's it.  Please, any ideas at all would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you, readers.

I hope the new year is treating everyone well.

Quick Jots--Rolling Stone, Self-publishing, etc.

More ideas that didn't find a way into their own blog entry:

--In a country of Freedom of Speech, Rolling Stone had the right to put the Marathon Bomber on its cover.  Stores like Walgreen's and CVS have the right not to sell it.  And the consumer has the right not to buy it.

But I wonder if any of the above has read the article, or even the headline and the sub-headline.  The point of the article--and the reason why the cover shows the bomber in, apparently, one of his most cute shots--is how a cute-looking, gym-going, college-attending and popular guy can turn into the Devil.  True evil, it seems to me, will look attractive, in its many guises.  That's what Rolling Stone was trying to say in its article, and the controversy about how cute the bomber looks on the cover proves Rolling Stone's point.

And for the record, Rolling Stone is not, and never has been, just a music magazine.  It's also a news magazine, and a cultural magazine, and a magazine of the same age demographic that the bomber himself was.  After all, even at the end of Stephen King's Firestarter, Charlie McGee, who could have gone to the New York Times or Newsweek, told her story of government control and murder--to Rolling Stone.  Again, it's not just about music.

It was then, and still is, a magazine of our times.  This recent controversy goes further to showcase that than the magazine itself, or any one article in it, ever could have.

--A quick thanks to all my readers who continue to read my blog despite my recent disappearance as a commenter on your blogs.  It's no excuse, perhaps, but my novel-writing and my blog-writing, as well as the house and yard renovations, are taking all my time.  I appreciate your readership.  I'm reading yours, too--just not commenting much right now.  Thanks for not leaving my blog due to that.

--I just sold my above-ground pool, thinking that if I didn't have the dying need to go into it this summer, than I never will, and therefore the upkeep of it seemed like a waste of time and money.  I have central air, too, and the country club, literally down the street, has really inexpensive seasonal pool passes.

--Sometimes I think that I can become rich and famous going the self-publishing route, and other times I think I'm crazy and I hope to God that an agent and a publisher love my soon-to-be-finished novel.  I could make a go of the self-publishing thing, as I'm a decent salesman and, hopefully, a decent writer.  But I don't have the time to do so, and I'm not exactly computer- or internet-savvy.

--I feel old when I realize how much I enjoy sitting in my backyard, or on my deck overlooking the cove.  Luckily, I also feel that I'm too old to care that I feel old, or to care that others think I'm old.

--I'm thinner than I was five years ago.  Then again, I'm sleeping a lot less, too, and not eating or drinking the same things, and in the same quantity, that I used to.  But, like, whatever.

--Vitamins and antibiotics make me lightheaded.  It's when I remember this that I truly do not understand how addicts and alcoholics can consume what they do, without disliking the side-effects so much that they alone make them not want to consume those things anymore.

--Considering a Congressman's recent hateful language about Latin Americans, legal or not, it occurs to me that every generation has to have someone to hate.  We're ending the time, hopefully, of politicians' hatred toward homosexuals, so who's next?  The immigrants, of course.  And which ones?  The ones who speak Spanish; the ones the pols think are making English the second language.

I wonder: After that wave crashes ashore, who will we hate next?

On the Premises--So Many Reasons to Celebrate the Season

Just a quick note to say that On the Premises (OTP) has purchased my short story, "So Many Reasons to Celebrate the Season" and will publish it in its next issue, #19, online at www.onthepremises.com.  I think it's available in .pdf as well.  And it's free to read (I think)!  It'll be available starting March 10th, or thereabouts, so look for it at that site every now and then.  And while, with breathless anticipation, you're waiting for my story (fourth in the issue, I think), why not click the links of other issues and read some good, free stuff?  I just did.  I read the third and fourth stories of Issue #18, an unusual ghost story and a good time-travel piece.  I wouldn't recommend it if I didn't like it myself.

I'll soon set up another blog entry with more concrete information about this publication and about my piece.  After reading that next entry, please feel free to comment about my story once it becomes available.

As always, thank you for reading this blog, and for reading my other pieces.  I appreciate your support.

P.S.--I actually received notification in February from the magazine that they would publish my story, but I wanted to go through the process of seeing edits, and proof sheets, and signing the contract, before I announced it here.  Since I sold the poem, "An Old Man," in January, that means I've been fortunate enough to sell two pieces within four or five weeks of each other.  I'm on a little bit of a roll.  (I just knocked on the wooden table my laptop rests upon, after hoping I also sell something in March.)  I really do believe that this recent wave of good luck is due in part to the support I get from my friends, colleagues, and people like you, my blog readers, who are nice enough to congratulate me, or to pick me up, when I need it.  So, again, thanks very much for doing that, and I mean that sincerely.

And the Winner Is....Plus, I'm Interviewed!!! And My Sixth-Grade Teacher

And the winner is...Namzola!

Thanks to everyone who entered the free magazine contest, either by email or by comment.  (There were a ton more emails.  Why is that?  Don't be bashful!!!)  There'll be another contest soon to win a free issue of Space and Time Magazine with my story, "Hide the Weird," inside, on page twenty-five.  Sorry it took so long to announce the winner, as well.  Been taking care of some weighty things over here.

And it's hard for me to believe that someone wanted to interview me about being a newly-published author, but that happened recently.  Ms. Raychelle Muhammed at http://www.Raychelle-Writes.blogspot.com was awesome enough to ask me to introduce myself, my writing, my upcoming works, my journey to publication, and lots of other cool things.  Look for that interview on her website on April 11th.  (I'll post another reminder closer to that day.)  It was a pleasure to answer those questions--and I learned a few things doing so!  Like, I've got a couple of drafts, about 100 pages in, each, of two WIPs that I'd completely forgotten about!  I actually forgot that I'm in the process of writing so many things!  ::writer slaps himself upside the head::

How can someone write so much and then completely forget about them???  I have to better organize my time, get more stuff out there.  In fact, I have three or four more works that need to be sent out, pronto.

So I've been signing copies of the magazine for co-workers, for a fundraiser, and for immediate family and friends--and I'm excited to be able to give one to my sixth-grade teacher.  I won't mention her name, because I have a feeling that might embarrass her a little, but she was--and still is--this awesome woman who was the first person ever to tell me that I had some writing talent, and that I was actually a worthwhile person in general.  (Even my family at the time didn't tell me I had any writing talent; though, in fairness, what family knows that about their kid when he's in the sixth grade?)  Well, anyway, she did, and she was a wonderful person at a very traumatic time in my life.

So the lesson today, people: Remember your good teachers, whether they were literally teachers or not.  Try to contact one, and tell them how awesome he/she was for you back in the day.  Feel free to comment below about an awesome teacher, or teacher-like person, who made a positive impression upon you.