Ramblings on Writing
Reviews, Rants, and Observations on SF/F/H

I am a thirty-something speculative fiction writer. More importantly to this blog, I am a reader of science fiction, horror, and science fiction. Recently it came to my attention that there are very few places reviewing short stories in the genres that I love. I also had the epiphany that I had not been reading enough of these stories. So, an idea was born to address both of these issues.

So, starting in September 2012, this silly little blog of mine that has more or less been gathering dust will be dedicated to looking at and reviewing short form works published both in print magazines and in on-line formats.

Reviews will be posted at least once a month, hopefully more, and stories will be selected completely at my whim. However, if you have read something amazing, thought-provoking, or interesting, please feel free to drop me a recommendation.

Because a big part of the point of this exercise is to improve my own writing by looking at people doing it successfully, I will only be selecting stories to look at from professional or semi-professional markets.

Please note, however, because a big part of the point of this exercise is to improve my own writing by looking at people doing it successfully, I will only be selecting stories to look at from professional or semi-professional markets.

I intend to write honest, and hopefully interesting, reviews to let people know more about the wide variety of fantastic (both in subject and quality) stories out there. There will be no personal attacks on authors and no excoriating hatchet jobs. There is nothing to be learned from reviewing truly bad work and nothing to be gained by being mean. I will not do it and, should I be so lucky as to get readers and commentators, I would ask that they not do so either. Be respectful and everyone gets to have a more interesting conversation.

What I will do is to give my honest and reasoned reactions to stories and try to determine why or why not particular elements worked. I will try to acknowledge my personal biases and to become more open-minded about those things that are not in the realm of my personal preference.

Also, because this is my blog and I can, there may be occasional entries on my own writing process, things I find interesting, or whatever else I feel inclined to add. This may all crash and burn spectacularly, but it's going to be a heck of a lot of fun in the meantime.

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CLARION: "The Pin was Never Down"

So, today was Howard's last day. I know I will miss him very much, and I suspect that most everyone else will too. I hope that he liked the going away presents we gave. I think he did. For the curious they were a pocket watch with a bass on it and a stuffed deer that had been summarily shot thanks to some black and red markers. The latter was to establish the deer was, in fact, dead. (A play on some of the wisdom Howard imparted.

I was supposed to play racquetball today, but it got cancelled for a trip to the health center. I was still having some chest pains and trouble breathing from the allergic reaction last night. Jonathan, possibly the nicest person ever, walked me over and waited to walk me back. They gave me a breathing treatment and an emergency inhaler in case of another reaction.

A lot of people just kind of crashed after class today. However, a number of us went out to dinner. Oddly, the group got separated into two groups and ended up at the same restaurant anyway.

After that the larger group split into a number of smaller ones, and Matt, Tammy, Ryan, Sean, and I all ended up going bowling. It was a tremendous amount of fun, and I got a personal all-time high score of 99. This actually put me in second place for the whole game, right behind Matt who bowled a 100. It was interesting because I was one point behind matt the entire game, and he and I were in last place until the ninth frame. Then that frame each of us got a strike, followed by another strike the next frame, and to finish scoring for that strike each got nine pins. Tammy accused us of making a deal with the devil to pull it off. Or perhaps I should say Bubbles. Each of us was using a special "bowling name". I was Gigi.

Part of what made bowling so great was that we critiqued the game. Things such as "Bowling is hard" and "For me, the pin was never down" or "You're bowling around the edge of your game" were just hilarious. These people are just incredible to be around and phenomenal writers to boot.

When we got back a bunch of us: Ryan, Matt, Sean, Jonathan, myself, and later Tammy, played a really deranged game of Apples to Apples. We went through the deck of red cards (the ones played, not the ones played on) twice. For those not familiar that was 324 cards. I won the second time through where winning is defined as having the most green cards when everyone was out of red ones.

Anyway, that was a blast. I also got about 261 words written. I know it's not a lot, but this damn story just does not want to be told. It's dribbling out in monosyllabic grunts. I may have to put it aside and start another one, but this is the idea tat really sticks with me. I don't know; I'll figure it out in the morning. For now it's sleepy time.

Night, all!


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