Climbing Aboard the Dragon: Homework Every Day
Being a writer is like having homework every day for the rest of your life.
— Lawrence Kasdan
When John from Black Gate suggested I do a guest blog about writing for short fiction markets, I had to check to make sure he hadn’t intended his email for someone else. Surely he meant to send that email to my co-writer for the story “Devil on the Wind,” from Black Gate 14. That would be Jay Lake, who has over 200 story publications and counting.
But nope, the email was correct.
And a quick look at my list of stories over on my website seems to confirm the fact that I may indeed have figured how to sell a short story — fifty story publications thus far. And I have thirty more stories out to various publishers (fingers crosssed!).
Here’s the thing, though. You never figure out the trick to this writing gig. Soon as you think you’ve got it understood, you’re sunk.
Because you can’t rest on your laurels. Trust me on this — even though I’ve sold stories to great places like Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Interzone, and to this fine magazine as well, I still get rejections aplenty. And while my focus has moved from short stories to novels, with the occasional comic script, I always have fun writing stories.
But I still have more to learn. Much more. And I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned along the way.
I bought my first copy of Dhalgren in the late 70s. If memory serves, I accidently dropped it in the sink shortly thereafter. It swelled up and got sorta lumpy, even after it dried.
It’s hard to add much about RE Howard to what’s been said here, but I’ll try.
To write something on the occasion of Robert E. Howard’s birthday is a bit, well, intimidating. As imposing a presence as the Texan was in life, his reputation a century on has approached the status of myth. Not only that, but his work is the subject of formidable scholarship of the sort seen over at 
In the age of fat fantasy series, doorstop thrillers, and historical epics it’s often impossible to find a short, satisfying read. Gone are the days of the 60,000 word science fiction novel, or even the novella doubles series Ace once put out. Long a standard of genre fiction — both the worlds of SF and of fantasy having a host of renowned novellas and short novels considered classics in their respective fields — these short, sharp stories are increasingly ignored for multi-book works of massive length. But, sometimes, it’s nice to get a book done in a day or two, it’s nice to explore an idea, premise, or setting without committing to dozens or hundreds of hours with it.
When people ask me what I like to read I usually answer with a simple ‘everything,’ but of course that’s not strictly true. I don’t read trigonometry textbooks or Romance novels, celebrity memoirs or cookbooks, monographs on the evolution of sheep shearing or anything by Dan Brown (in fact, just give me that thing on sheep first). But when I say ‘everything’ I’m being figuratively if not literally honest, because my tastes — especially when compared to the average reader — are very broad. I don’t read only one kind of thing. I’m a generalist.
James Enge’s Morlock stories have been some of the most popular fiction we’ve published in Black Gate. His first Morlock novel, Blood of Ambrose, published by Pyr in April, was very warmly received, and described as “A future classic… this novel succeeds beautifully” (The Great Geek Manual) and “Like Conan as written by Raymond Chandler” (Paul Cornell).