Aaron Polson's Blog, page 63

Doing "It" Well

I received an interesting bit in the mail on Friday. At first, from the shape and size, I thought it was another Christmas card. (don't get me wrong, I love Christmas cards...but they are about all I've received of late)

No, it was a glossy press-release type page and note from Robert Dunbar (author of The Pines , The Shore , and Martyrs and Monsters ). The handwritten note mentioned my blog (this blog). I wrote about Martyrs and Monsters a few months ago...here.

Oh, I thought, through this...

One Up

Two men lock stares across a worn table; both of their faces mottled with stubble and sweat, one wearing a green Pioneer cap. A buck knife sticks from the pocked table top. The crowd circling them, most with sewn-on name tags, grease stains, and breath to kill Satan, press closer to the cone of light offered by a single naked bulb above the table.

"What you got now, Jeb?" The man in the Pioneer hat says.

Jeb let's his left hand drop below the table. His mouth curls open. "Jus' this."

He pulls th...

Another Way to Help Your Small Press Friends

...and this one won't cost a cent.

Reviews of products at Amazon.com are great, but tagging those products can be more productive in driving traffic. Each product page should have a section that looks like this:

(yeah, it's from Fifty-Two Stitches, not that I'm suggesting you tag that particular book)

Simply click the little box next to each term to add your vote. You can also add new tags (there's a little box below the list). The more tags (i.e., number of instances of a particular...

WIP Wednesday: The OUCH! Edition

Why I don't submit to many "literary" markets anymore:

This story requires a suspension of disbelief of epic proportions. The title is not great. The story is not original. Again, thanks so much for your submission.
No, thank you for reminding me.

So I am knocking out the first draft of a piece for The Harrow's forthcoming Day Terrors Anthology. I haven't written anything for a specific anthology in a while...quite a while. Yeah, it only pays $10, but I see it as a challenge--plus, I had this d...

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...

Okay, aside from the obvious (or should be obvious)...my family, job, etc.

1. Even though my beloved Chiefs suck this year (um, for the last four years), I'm taking Owen to his first game on Sunday. I guess I should say "because" they suck this year, I'm taking him to the game. When your team is 3-10, playing another squad at 2-11 (the Cleveland Browns), you can pick up pretty good seats for 10 bucks on eBay. Just sayin'.

2. Running a small potatoes publishing outfit is a boat-load of wor...

Here's to the Word of Mouth

Last Monday, I posted about the "power" of the internet. That post, in part, was a response to all the brouhaha surrounding John Scalzi vs. Black Matrix Publishing.

One commenter, Diana Lyles of Scribblers and Ink Spillers, LLC, suggested:

If you, the short story writers, want paying markets for your work, then support those magazines and journals that do pay.

That happened to be pretty darn close to one of my resolutions last year (buy something small press at least once a month). How'd I do?

We...

Armour-Plated Rooftops

Ralphie peered from a tiny chink in the boarded window with the shotgun in his right hand.

"What'er they doin'?" Nichole asked. Hunkered behind an overturned table across the room, she clutched a Berreta like a lover.

"Dunno. They're all milling around some kind of contraption. Gettin' smart, I guess." His knuckles whitened around the gun. "Wait...oh..." Ralphie crouched and scampered away from the window. "Brace yourself."

A distant, muted thump sounded, followed by a moment of silence, then a ...

Steampunk Non-Fiction

I'm not completely sold on Steampunk, a niche at best (even though Loathsome, Dark, and Deep has some Steampunkish elements to it), but a story on NPR this morning about Charles Babbage's Difference Engine piqued my interest.

(Fully operational Difference Engine at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA)

From the article:

The story goes that Babbage was inspired to create the Difference Engine one day when he came across multiple errors in a book of astronomical calculations. "I...

WIP Wednesday: Other Schtuff

Yeah. Another "snow day" (I'm bracing for another barb from our friends on the east coast...). Hey man, we have drifts. Big drifts. ;)

Anyway. Here's what I have to offer on this WIP Wednesday: Ed's departure from our publishing venture has left me in solely in charge at Strange Publications (evil laugh). So Sand is morphing, evolving if you will, into a chapbook line. Because chapbooks are cool and so indie. Because I can. I've been toying with this idea since Ed bowed out. Guideli...

Commission vs. Submission

No school today (yippee!). More below.

I'm a geek for word origins (etymology). In follow up to yesterday's post, I started thinking about the words commission and submission. As a writer, I've had exactly one commission. It was nice, my highest per word rate to date (a whopping 2 cents a word). Granted, as a piece of flash, it was only 1000 words (so I earned 20 bucks). Whoot.

Everything else has been via submission. Different world...and more competition.

Basically, the difference lies...