Three removes equals one fire

Once upon a time I had electronic and paper copies of all my early sales (as well as a great many stories that never sold).  Over time, old files got packed away and, in the course of various moves, lost.  Computers which held the electronic copies died and backup disks and tapes either turned up missing (one Zip disk of a set that had a computer backup as a spanned zip file–bad move on my part) or proved unreadable.

The result is that a lot of that early stuff, including all my published fiction from before 2005, is g. o. n. e. gone.

A writer friend of mine recently suggested that I might want to gather together my published fiction and put it together as an anthology.  Self publishing or small press is a lot easier now than it was when I started and if I can do it it’s basically found money.  But since I don’t have readable electronic copies of any of this stuff I basically have to type them all in again (I do have copies of the various magazines).

But aside from the published stuff, a lot of my early stuff is completely gone.  Much of it is probably better off that way but some of it may still have had possibilities or could at least have been mined for ideas.

So my advice to writers is to back up your work.  Make backups of backups.  Have “off site” storage of backups.  Have multiple off site storage locations for backups.  Back up in more than one form.

Killing your characters

Sarah Hoyt has a good piece on killing characters in fiction.  Go read it:

http://accordingtohoyt.com/2012/01/25/professional-killing/

No.  Seriously.  Go read it.

I haven’t done a lot of killing of characters in my published fiction.

I’ve killed, oh, I think three people in my published fiction (well, four if you count . . . but that was a Heroes in Hell story and he was already dead so I don’t know if that counts. ;) )
The first one was in the opening scene of a story and was basically intended to set the stakes for the plot: If they don’t solve the problem people die. The other two were in “Time for Tears” (Sword & Sorceress XXVI–available now from Amazon and other fine booksellers ;) ). In that one the deaths were the climax of the story, were heavily foreshadowed and, frankly the story may have gotten a little maudlin (but the check cleared so I can’t complain too much). ;) 

Free sample

Janet and Chris Morris write the “Framing stories,” the lead and trailing stories, for the Heroes in Hell series.  These provide the setup for each volumes theme and overall story arc.  For Lawyers in Hell the lead story is “Interview with the Devil”.  The Morris’s have made it available as an individual ebook on Amazon.  Now available for free for a limited time.

Go and check it out!

Dealing with bad reviews

I’ve had a couple over the years.  Not many because, frankly, I’m not big enough to come to the attention of most reviewers.  Still, the question sometimes arises “what do I do when I get a bad review.”  The usual advice is to ignore it or even be grateful for a review (a number of writer friends of mine report getting about the same bump in sales from a bad review as they get for a good one).

Still, sometimes that’s not enough and one feels the need to do something more.

Isaac Asimov had a method of dealing with bad reviews.

  • Write a clever, witty, rebuttal to the review that discusses the reviewers lack of intelligence and breeding in the most scathing of terms.
  • Read over your rebuttal.  Chortle over the best bits.
  • Share the rebuttal with your significant other.  Laugh together over how thoroughly you skewered the reviewer.
  • Print it on 100% rag paper.  Fold it neatly into thirds.
  • Put the rebuttal into a #10 business envelope.  Address it to the reviewer.  Put a stamp on it.
  • Tear it up and throw it away because you’ve gotten all the benefit you’re ever going to get out of it.

I heartily endorse this method.

Create a character for the Hell Universe

Perseid Publishing and Zauberspiegel Announce a Contest to Submit a Character for a Story in the Heroes in Hell Series:

Submit a Character to be written into Hell

In the next volume of the Heroes in Hell series, the winning character will be included in either a new Janet and Chris Morris story, if the winning character is of sufficient depth and importance, or it will be included in an existing story.

Starting Dec 1st 2011, you will have the chance to contribute to the next volume of the Heroes in Hell series – “Adventurers in Hell.” The contest ends Dec 23rd 2011, 23:59 central european time.

CONTEST RULES:

Write a text of 200-400 words describing the character you are nominating: Why should this particular character be included in a story in Hell? What errors did the character make in life that will be punished in Hell? Extra credit for appropriate (and innovative) punishment in line with the character’s life on earth.

The number of words is not the determinative criteria for winning; rather, it is the character itself and your description of the character’s personality and behavior while living; your personal reasons why the character should be included in a hell story. All prospective characters must have been real living people and they must have died before 1950.

Only one story per person.

There will be three prizes awarded as follows:

1st prize: Janet and Chris Morris write a story featuring the chosen character, or the character will be included in a story, already in process, for the next volume of the Heroes in Hell series and an autographed copy of the book containing the Winner’s character when released.

2nd prize: an autographed copy of the most recently published book in the Heroes in Hell series and the appearance of the 2nd place character in the next book in the series.

3rd prize: an autographed copy of the most recently published book.

The jury is: Janet Morris, editor/author, Chris Morris, editor/author, and the Muse of Hell: Sarah Snyder Gray Hulcy.

Attention: No author who has ever been published in the Heroes in Hell series may submit a character. No present or former employees of Perseid Publishing, Kerlak Publishing or Zauberspeigel is eligible to participate.

Submit entries to the following email address: Hell@zauberspiegel-online.de and please include your full name, address, email address, phone number, website, etc.

Texts are accepted in English and German.

Windycon 38

I got back from Windycon 38 last night.  Windycon is a moderate sized science fiction convention in the Chicago area and is one of my “regular” conventions.

When I go to a convention I have three basic purposes.  First is being there as a science fiction fan:  buy stuff, listen to filk, appreciate the costuming, attend panels discussing favorite books and series, that sort of thing.  From this perspective Windycon was a rousing success.

The other two purposes are from my perspective as a professional writer:  meet other professionals in the field with an eye to doing business.  It could be getting to know other authors who might remember you and recommend you to an anthology editor (it was that kind of personal contact that got me a chance at the Heroes in Hell series) or it might be a simple “here’s the editor you need to send your story to” or it could be a “send the story to my attention and I’ll take a look” from an editor or agent. (I can dream can’t I.) The final purpose is to get your name in front of fans with the idea of selling books and stories.  Since I now have stories in anthologies (Lawyers in Hell currently and Sword & Sorceress XXVI and Adventurers in Hell forthcoming) this is a part of getting “word of mouth” started to help sell these books.

From a professional perspective my visit to Windycon was, shall we say, less than successful.  I had one programming item, a reading, but without other programming items to introduce me to congoers and my decided lack of fame in science fiction there wasn’t anything to draw people to that reading.  Result being that nobody showed up.  Well, one person did–the individual whose job it was to go around and count how many people were attending various panels and other programming items.  He hung around and we ended up adjourning to the con suite to chat.

Oh, well, you can’t win them all.