And So It Ends

I know that there are only a few people following this blog, but I wanted to let you know I have a new home.  http://www.stevenwbooth.com is officially official.  Hopefully you'll find it in your heart to visit me there.

Writing Ideas Come From Somewhere

Writers get asked all the time: Where do your ideas come from?  And most of the time the answer is, "Beat's the heck out of me!"  But once in a while, ideas come from somewhere.

I was walking down the hallway of a large office building going to a dentist appointment.  Each of the office doors had a sign outside.  Law Offices of Elmer J. Fudd, Black Mesa Research, Aperture Labs, etc.  Well, one of the offices said, Space Available.  I thought that was the coolest sign ever.  I imagined they were one of the X-prize competitors, working on commercial travel to the Moon.  It took me about 10 seconds to realize that the office was empty, and that was an advertisement to rent the office.  How mundane!

I checked in at the front desk of the dentist, and sat waiting for my appointment.  And suddenly it hit me.  Space Available!  What a great title for a book.  I could write about a lonely space pilot and his robot sidekick traveling through Earth orbit collecting space junk for salvage, and they discover an alien artifact that holds the secret to Faster Than Light travel and the survival of the polluted Earth.  What a great story!

So in a year or so, when you go to the Sci-Fi shelves and are browsing through the B section (alphabetically by author, of course), look for Space Available, a roller-coaster of an adventure in Earth-orbit.  Or something like that.

-S

Late to the game

It may be odd to write about February in March, but February was a particularly good month for me.

A short story I wrote with Harry Shannon, called Jailbreak, got accepted to two different anthologies. The first one is Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology, edited by Michelle McCrary and Joe McKinney (available for pre-order and shipping in April). The other is A Host of Shadows, a collection of dark short stories by Harry himself (also available for pre-order, and shipping around May).

I also produced two book trailers--oddly enough, one for Dead Set and one for A Host of Shadows.  That was an amazing experience.  Hopefully I can build that into a business.  I always liked the idea of being payed to do things I enjoy.

Also, I've started a new novel. It's called Space Available and 8000 words in, it is coming along very nicely. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that it is an interesting departure from my other attempts at speculative fiction, which has mostly included post-apocalyptic fantasy.

I did get a couple of rejections on some short story submissions this month, but they were some of the nicest rejections I could have hoped for. Overall, February was a successful month.

A good start?

I'm taking the plunge into blogging.  I am about to discover if these are murky, dangerous waters, or bathtub-warm seas that will cradle me on my voyage to blogdom.  There is only one way to find out.  Splash!

The most important advice I've received about blogging is that I should NOT discuss the process of writing a blog, or trivial events in my life, like taking my cat for a walk.  Thus I will try to make this blog as interesting as possible for you, my weary reader.  Having said that, this will be my one and only post about posting.

I am an eclectic guy--a Jack-of-all-trades, as they say--so please do not be surprised if I wander all over the map when it comes to future topics.  I am interested in so many things that it would be impossible for me to accurately list them here.  You'll just have to come back and discover them for yourself.

One last word before I close.  I wish to thank you, dear reader, for visiting my blog.  If you just passing by or are planning on camping out on my doorstep, I appreciate the time you took to get this far into the paragraph.  I hope that it was time well spent.

-S