I am not on programming this year (somehow I forgot to put in any requests), but I am doing this.
Please come by for the Fairwood signings. I’m paired up with James Patrick Kelly. With luck, I’ll be a line wrangler for him.
My very first convention of any kind was WorldCon in Anaheim in 1996. This feels like a fitting return. A lot has happened in my writing life (and life in general) in the last 30 years.
The new blog for Western Colorado Writers Forum is up. I blog about a bunch, but this one I think is strongly out of my experience. It’s “Writing a Story a Week for 52 Weeks,” and what it taught me.
Of the 52 stories, 50 of them have sold now (eleven years after they were finished). I started submitting them during the year I was writing, so some sold before I’d written the last one.
The challenge was profound enough for me that I’ve talked about it before. Two of my Rainforest Writers Retreat talks were about it. The first was basically this post. The second involved marketing the stories.
Like many writing thoughts for me, it all starts with Ray Bradbury. He suggested the story-a-week challenge.
As often is the case in my experience, Uncle Ray was right.
I reported a couple days ago that Asimov’s bought a story from me. If I count an early story in Analog that was reprinted in the Greek edition of Asimov’s (and I do), that’s my 20th appearance in the magazine since 1997.
I tried a different technique in composing the story. I knew my characters, and I knew what the conflict was, but I had no plot in mind. I focussed on writing fully fleshed out scenes in their lives. They’re childhood friends, so each scene is a key moment, but I didn’t have a plan where I was going.
However, I have an idea about constructing stories that I call the “ascending pearls theory.”
Because of how we read, the first scene starts the reader from scratch: all info is new. The next scene, even though it presents additional information, carries with it the info from the first scene. The knowledge accretes for the reader, just like a pearl that starts with a grain of sand and then coats it over and over until a pearl is built from the layers.
Knowing that as I write is a powerful tool. Each new scene pulls on that background to create increasing complexity and nuance. The weight of the story is carried in the accumulated mass of story material.
So I don’t have to have a plot in mind, necessarily. The information is making connections and building a path organically. Eventually a culmination of the combined dynamic of knowing what the characters want, the actions that they take or the world takes that impact their progress toward their goal, and the tension that creates, take me to a final moment.
After that, a story is like that old model of how the world balances on the back of a turtle. “Yeah, but what’s under that turtle?” a skeptical audience member asks. “It’s turtles all the way down,” is the answer.
The climax rests on the back of the second to last scene. What’s under that? It’s scenes all the way down. The advantage of writing this way for this story is I really worked on making each scene a whole and interesting moment. I didn’t have any skip-through-this-because-I-want-to-get-to-the-end writing.
The disadvantage was that I slowed down. I couldn’t write the story this way by sketching my way to an end. There were days in between scenes while I decided what would be most interesting to tackle next. Despite the slow progress, I’m very happy with the result.
I have a rough draft of a writing book I started for Fairwood Press from years ago that is tentatively titled, PLOT AS METAPHOR. You can see I’ve used some metaphors here. It’s the only way I have for talking about the inexplicable workings of creating a story for me. I suspect other teachers/writers face the same challenge when describing how story happens.
I’ve always liked this quote from Joseph Conrad. I think he was talking about writing. It’s from HEART OF DARKNESS:
“No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence–that which makes its truth, its meaning–its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream–alone.”
STORY SALE!
I offer this as a tale of perseverance.
Neil Clarke at Clarkesworld has accepted a story from me, which is my first original sale to them. They previously reprinted a piece that Gardner Dozois chose when he was working as their reprint editor (it was a story Gardner also included in his YEAR’S BEST anthology in 2010).
They have been using an online submission system since at least 2010 where I can view my submissions. I see that the story Neil is taking now is the 55th piece I’ve submitted to them. Many pieces made it to “round two” before being bounced.
I like to think of the submissions process as being a kind of pen pal arrangement. I’ve sent Neil 55 long, self-revelatory letters in the last 13 years. While his responses have been somewhat shorter, and a little repetitive 
, I have enjoyed our continued correspondence.
Almost all the other bounced stories found homes in other magazines. My submissions records at the major magazines who have taken pieces from me also contain WAY more “no” than “yes” replies.
That’s the case for most authors . . . except the late Mike Resnick who claimed during a panel at a WorldCon that he didn’t know what a rejection from ASIMOV’S looked like, so he couldn’t comment on its tone when asked.
This is my 190th short story sale since 1989.
I have stories in the July/August Asimov’s and the August issue of Lightspeed. The titles are “Have You Seen Bitsy” and “The United Systems Goodwill Concert Series and the Greatest Performance of All Time” respectively.
If you’re interested in a larger dose of my fiction, my collections and novels are available in paperback and e-format at Amazon James Van Pelt author page and Fairwood Press James Van Pelt Collection page.
Publishers Weekly said in their starred review of my latest collection, The Best of James Van Pelt, “Van Pelt showcases his mastery of short-form fiction in these 62 stories, all published between 1993 and 2018 and ranging from apocalyptic fiction to subtle daylight horror, Lovecraftian riffs, and speculation about future social policy initiatives. . . .Van Pelt’s superior combination of imaginative concepts with recognizable human emotions makes him a talent deserving of a wide readership.”
The paperback and e-book version of THE BEST OF JAMES VAN PELT are available now.
Many thanks to those who bought the hardbound, signed and numbered limited edition. If you are interested in that version of the book, a few are still available through Fairwood Press.
If you were waiting for the less-expensive release, now is your chance. The $5.99 Kindle book I think is a real bargain: 300,000 words contained in 63 of my best stories from 30 years (so far) of publishing. The paperback features the same glorious cover art as the collector’s edition.
Remember that reviews matter. If you leave a review at Amazon, or mention the book on social media, that’s how other possibly interested readers will discover the book.
Fairly frequently someone will ask where I get my ideas, and like most authors I am at a bit of a loss for a good answer. However, a couple days ago, an FB writer friend asked for reasons a teenager might be laid up for weeks but not cause long term damage.
Their question question made me think this at first:”Not totally related, but an anecdote about how medical research can be fraught. For story purposes, I wanted to know if a teenager with bone cancer might have to have both legs amputated. I called my doctor, and he immediately went into a diagnostic mode. “What symptoms do you have? When did you start experiencing discomfort? How long have you been ignoring this condition?” It took quite a bit of talking to convince him that I wasn’t sick myself. I’m pretty sure he worried about me for years after.”
I added, “I have written three stories with bed-ridden young people: “The Radio Magician,” about a boy with polio in the 30s, also the story about a boy who had his legs amputated because of bone cancer, “Roller Derby Dan'” and the piece I’m working on now with a boy in the 60s who has both legs in external fixators after surgery to correct severe bow leggedness. I think the antecedent to my interest in this trope is Ray Bradbury’s “The Emissary” from THE OCTOBER COUNTRY.”
The FB friend asked why that situation interested me, and I realized I had a partial answer to where I get ideas, at least this idea.”Besides the awesomeness of the Bradbury story, a friend of mine when I was 12 had both legs broken to correct for extreme pigeon toed alignment of his feet. His legs were casted from ankle to hip. He was miserable but suffered gamely. We pushed him in his wheelchair everywhere we went that summer. I’ve often thought since what his experience must have been like. Also, of interest in this situation, H.G. Wells broke his leg when he was eight. He was bedridden while it healed (they were much less into getting patients on their feet at that time). He spent his convalescence reading. He said that’s what made him H.G. Wells. He became devoted to books and writing.”
That’s where the idea came from.
So here’s what’s happening lately:
In the meantime, I continue my 200-word minimum a day writing streak that started in November of 1999. Right now I’m working on a near-future science fiction about a retiring high school English teacher directing her class through Hamlet for the last time.
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