When I settled down to write my novel, the Aztec noir fantasy Servant of the Underworld, I had only the vaguest idea it might turn into a series. My first thought was to finish the darn thing, and not really to map out what might be happening to my characters after the plot was over.

That was 2007; now we’re in 2010. I’ve sold Servant and two more books in the Obsidian and Blood trilogy to Angry Robot; I’ve turned the sequel, Harbinger of the Storm, to my publisher; and I’ve just completed a tentative synopsis for the as-yet-untitled book 3. Looking back to how I wrote the series, there are a few things I did right, and a few things I should have paid more attention to. Read the rest of this entry »

How many guidance offices and English classrooms have the Thoreau quote about castles in the air on their walls? Maybe you know the one: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” Part of me likes the quote—it not only has castles in the air; it validates them. It’s okay to put them there. There’s just that minor part about foundations, but no problem, right? Go air castles! Read the rest of this entry »

1. You’ll meet some like-minded people.

Writing is by nature a solitary pursuit, but that doesn’t mean we have to go it alone.  I treasure the online friendships I’ve made, but there’s no substitute for regular, in-person meetings with other writers. 

2. You’ll get news and information which you may not have got otherwise.

At the very least, a writing group will provide you with news and information about local writing groups, conferences, speakers and workshops which you might otherwise never have heard about. Read the rest of this entry »

I never met James P. Hogan, and I’m glad I didn’t.

Hogan died two weeks ago, on July 12, and when I heard of his death I had a mixed reaction. As a teenager, I had been a fan of Hogan’s work. I enjoy reading hard science fiction about time travel, alternate history, and parallel universes, and as it so happened, Hogan enjoyed writing about them. I can still recall reading The Proteus Operation when it came out in 1985, with its premise that our own history was caused by multiple changes in an original timeline. Hogan’s earlier novel, Thrice Upon a Time, published in 1980, concerned the consequences of being able to send messages from the future into the past (something Gregory Benford also explored in his novel Timescape). Both of Hogan’s books blew my mind (in a good way). He was one of those writers who hit the sweet spot for me. For many years, I kept Hogan on my list of favorite writers whose works I wanted to track down and keep reading. And I did so, throughout the 1980s and the 1990s.

And then around the year 2000 I found out something about Hogan that gave me pause. Apparently, Hogan held the personal belief that the Holocaust was a hoax. Read the rest of this entry »

“. . . your ancestor did not believe in a uniform, absolute time. He believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time.” – Jorge Luis Borges, “The Garden of Forking Paths”

It happened at Readercon, just a few weekends ago, as we reckon time.   I was at Samuel R. Delany’s kaffeeklatsch, sitting away from the table because I had been a microsecond late.   The conversation waxed and waned, yet ticked on relentlessly, ranging from questions about his favorite book to requests for writing advice.  He answered every question slowly, thoughtfully,  in his mannered, yet animated style.  When pressed to discuss his forthcoming novel, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, he did not want to give much away, but he characterized it as a book in which “not much of anything happens” and that is consciously set in a small, rather isolated town where one hears echoes of the outside world (in  newspapers, etc), but where 60 years in the future, little occurs.   Despite an almost complete lack of the usual tropes and stylistics, its forward temporal progression from the early 21st-century to a point in the future made it, he told us warmly, science fiction.

I thought about this after the session.  Honestly, it sounded more like a fantasy novel, of characters living long, uneventful lives in a bubble where time passes but escapes notice.  But its setting and its temporal spanof the current century, placed it in the realm of science fiction.  And oddly enough, I agreed with this, with misgivings. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviews:

The Undead Rat Review ”Maurice [Broaddus] and Jerry Gordon show how faith and horror can not only co-exist but illuminate each other in this collection of faith and horror short stories.”

The Horror Fiction Review – July 2010 Reviews “At times surprising, scary, humorous and almost always thought provoking, DARK FAITH is a must read for fans of religious horror and those seeking some chills of a deeper nature.”

SF Signal GUEST REVIEW: Dark Faith edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon reviewed by Jason Sanford ”For this anthology, Broaddus and Gordon asked horror, science fiction and fantasy writers to explore that something. The result is an amazing collection of insightful stories.”

The PC Challenges of Being an Editor is a guest post written by Co-Editor Maurice Broaddus over on Jeff Vandermeer’s Ecstatic Days Website.

Check out www.darkfaithanthology.com for more information.

Click on the cover to purchase your copy of Dark Faith!

The Undeadrat Reviews Taste of Tenderlion. Go check it out.

Apex is pleased to announce that the first print run of BJ Burrow’s zombie novel The Changed has sold out. We’ve decided to do a second run, with the book sporting a sharp new cover and a nice blurb from Christopher Pike.

Artwork by Axel Torvenius

We’ve got a handful of copies with the original smoking skull cover. Get your copy of The Changed today as a trade paperback or an eBook (PDF/ePub/PDB/LRF/mobi).

“Burrow’s debut is a swift-moving, pathos-free, creatively amusing riff on zombies from the zombie perspective. On a day like any other, the newly dead just stop dying, and the world learns that zombie movies have gotten everything wrong. Christian Scott and his fiancée, Erin, have uncomfortable run-ins with the zombies, who call themselves “changed”; then Christian joins their ranks, as does Erin’s favorite shock jock, Nicholas Buckman. Disturbed that the living can call the military in to flambé any of the changed for any reason, Christian and Nicholas decide to start their own political party. While running for senator, Christian must constantly duck his gun-toting father’s attempts to put him down. In hilarious interludes, Paula Dean cooks a zombie fish and Elmo reconciles with a zombie Zoë on Sesame Street. The prose styling is nonexistent, but there’s plenty of charm.” (Dec.)
Publishers Weekly

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

                                                            – Asian proverb 

Much to the lament of slush pile readers, no one needs a license to write fiction. 

For that matter, you don’t need an M.F.A. or even a Bachelors degree in English.  Phillip K. Dick dropped out of college.  Lovecraft never even went.

But you do need skill.  Everyone who aspires to write has the same tools at their disposal – point of view, dialogue, conflict, character, not to mention language itself.  But not everyone knows how to use them.  Those who take the time to learn how the tools are best used are the ones who sell stories and build an audience.

No matter how much talent, ambition, drive, and confidence a writer has, it is inevitable that he or she is going to need time and patience to refine their craft.   And, in my career, the first of many things I had to learn was that there were many things I had to learn. 

I had to become – in a word – teachable. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever played those old FRPGs (fantasy role playing games) like the Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy, or the newer versions in the MMORPGs (massively multi-player online role playing games), WOW or Everquest?

Remember all the time that would be spent leveling up so that your avatar would be stronger, healthier, and get the most powerful gear?

Leveling up in writing requires much the same persistence, dedication, and effort. Here are some of the ways you can power boost your writing to the next level. Read the rest of this entry »