Daniel Ausema's Blog, page 16

Story sold to Myriad Lands

Excellent news! My story "Untouched by Fire" has sold to the Myriad Lands anthology to be published this summer by Guardbridge Books. I first wrote this story...quite a while ago. Even ten years, I believe. I was in the middle of getting ready to write a novel set in a caste-based society strongly influenced by the history and peoples of India (working hard to immerse myself in a variety of aspects of the cultural dynamics there, so I didn't come across as some rampaging pillager). So, as I've often done when getting ready to dive into a new world and a new novel, I decided to write a short story set there. The full world was still fairly vague in my mind, but the story helped bring it to light. In fact, the character I created for the story--Jaritta, whose scar from a fire has caused her to be outcast--became such a strong character in my mind that she ended up being one of the central characters of the novel, which is set some fifteen years after this story. The story had a variety of close-but-not-quite rejections from pro markets over the years, but never could seem to find a home even as I continued to tweak and strengthen this or that part of it (much like the novel got a number of close-but-not-quite reactions from agents over that same time...), so I'm very thrilled to finally have some aspect* of the land of Eghsal see the light of day.

*Technically, in my mind anyway, this story of mine written even a few months earlier--"The Ship of Silk on the Calmest Sea"--was always meant to be a sort of folk tale told by the people of Eghsal. So in that sense a bit of the cultural heritage of the land has been published before...but its connection to the rest was never made explicit.

And it's here

Get your copy of the complete Spire City, Season Two: Pursued today. Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, CreateSpace, Kobo (and others)

Targeted by a mad scientist's deadly serum, these outcasts band together to uncover the truth and to fight back. 

Spire City is home to mighty machines of steam power and clockwork, and giant beetles pull picturesque carriages over cobbled streets, but there is a darker secret behind these wonders. A deadly infection, created by a mad scientist, is spreading through the city, targeting the poor and powerless, turning them slowly into animals. A group of those infected by the serum join together to survive, to trick the wealthy out of their money, and to fight back. 

Months have passed since the confrontation with the sleepless Mint, and now Orgood is becoming more aggressive again in infecting the people on the streets and pursuing those who have already been infected. Can those in the Weave answer in kind, or will the attempt wipe them all out? Find out in Season Two: Pursued. 

This sequel to Spire City, Season One: Infected includes all thirteen episodes of the second season of this steampunk-fantasy series. The series will conclude with Spire City, Season Three: Unwoven.

You can get Season One: Infected at the same bookstores as well: Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, CreateSpace, Kobo (and others)

Season Two Bundle, cover art and pre-order!

Here's the cover art for Season Two: Pursued! Once again, love the work done by KMD Web Designs.

But wait, that's not all...

The book is available for pre-order from the various Smashwords' affiliates, including Smashwords itself and Barnes & Noble. And it appears that it may have even been released early from CreateSpace, so if you're looking for the print version, you might be able to get a physical copy even before the book is officially released.

While I like the serial nature of this project, I hear from many readers who say they'd rather wait until the whole season is out and read it in a more traditional way. And that's fine with me, if it's what you prefer. So now is the time to put in your pre-order or even order a physical copy and (potentially) get started on reading it sooner.

Spire City review

Google Alerts notified me to this in-depth review of Season One: http://galleywampus.com/review-spire-city-season-one-infected-by-daniel-ausema/

It has some caveats. Is the series a slow burn? An unconventional approach in some ways, that might take getting used to? Yeah, that's a fair statement, and I'm perfectly OK with that. But the reviewer ultimately found it highly rewarding, and one he's going to recommend to others. So I'm quite thrilled with the review.

Chels is our main character, she is an immigrant orphan girl whose only real family is a bunch of misfits that are brought together by the fact they have all been touched by a virus that turns a regular human into an actual animal. She lives in a world where the rich and the powerful do not care about the poor and the weak and this brings me to an interesting observation about this book. I cannot help, but feel that Daniel Ausema was making some sort of social commentary on our world and society within his fictional world as a lot of elements he touches upon are very relevant in modern society.

[...]

Daniel Ausema has crafted a really interesting tale that is both amazing and terrifying all at once; I can’t help, but be excited by it.

[...]

...then you’re left with a memorable story that will leave you, wanting more. I’m definitely going to recommend this one to my friends. If you enjoyed the book, as much as, I have you really want to read the follow-ups Season Two: Pursued and the upcoming Season Three: Unwoven.

Most excellent.

2015 in Review

This year veered rather suddenly away from what I was expecting at this point a year ago. So hanging over it, especially over the early part of the year, was Musa's sudden closing. I was caught flat-footed by that, and it took a bit to figure out how best to proceed.

The other big change this year was that I took a part-time teaching job. I hadn't had any plans to do so at this point, at least not until my youngest was a little older, but decided to toss my name in when my kids' school said they needed a Spanish teacher. So that took up a significant portion of my writing time this fall.
Even so, it was a productive year. Here are my publications from the year:
Poetry"Orthography in the Lands of Yahm" in Strange Horizons (also in audio)"Seasons in a Moon Ocean" in Dreams & Nightmares #100"The Alien Ruins" in The Pedestal (also in audio)"The Exiles Pine for Home" sent exclusively to Spire City subscribers"A Poem Sent Back Across Space-Time, a Ghazal" in Grievous Angel
Stories"Among the Sighs of the Violoncellos" in Strange Horizons (also in audio)"Apprentice in the Library of Steam" in Steampunk: the Other Worlds"Seeds by a Hurricane Torn" in Ecotones Anthology
Spire CityAnd of course this was the year for (re)releasing Spire City as a self-published venture, once Musa closed down. So, Spire City, Season One: Infected was re-released in its entirety, first as individual episodes and then as a full season bundle, in both print and ebook formats.
Spire City, Season Two: Pursued, which had reached episode 4 with Musa, wrapped up all thirteen episodes of its individual episode release this week (with the end of January as the goal for releasing the bundled version).
And also I released the Spire City novelette, "The Spire Singers," as an Amazon exclusive. Technically both "The Exiles Pine for Home" and "Apprentice in the Library of Steam" fit here as well as Spire City-related releases this year.
So there you have it, 2015 in summary. Now go out and read some great writing, would you? (Doesn't have to be mine, either...but if it is, maybe consider reviewing it as well...) And get ready to read or write or otherwise create your own masterpiece in 2016.

Spire City, Season Two finale!

Just under three months ago, Season Two began. And in that whirlwind span, thirteen episodes have all come out on time, without any glitches. Hurray! Have you been reading along, keeping up as they release? Or are you waiting until the whole thing is out? Well, it's all there, now, with a climactic ending that sets us up for Season Three: Unwoven in just a few months.

Either way, subscribers now have all episodes, and you can get each one separately from Amazon or B&N, as you prefer. And if you want to cut out the Amazon intermediary, why not just sign up directly here? Subscribe now at paypal.me/DanielAusema, and I'll simply send you each of the episodes immediately.

In fact, I'll even drop the price for this week: receive all the Season Two episodes right away for only $5 US, or for $8 US get the complete Season One bundle plus all the Season Two episodes. Check out the Spire City tab for more details.

Updates on two projects

In the midst of the season's festivities and assorted chaoses, just a quick note on some things that I've mentioned here:
First, my thanks to the Wyrm's Gauntlet folks for running an excellent event. I ended up in second place in the contest, which is cool itself, plus I'm very pleased with the two short stories I ended up writing for it and will definitely be taking them back out in another month or two to revise and submit.
Second, the Ecotones anthology with stories by Ken Liu, Lauren Beukes, Tobias Buckell, and many others not only met its Kickstarter goal but is now available to non-backers. So if you missed the whole campaign, you can order from Amazon (among other sites). And if you have read the anthology (whether you were a backer or not), don't forget to leave a review at Goodreads (and elsewhere, if you wish).

Wyrm's Gauntlet

Note: I wrote this up a couple of days ago, hit publish, and walked away assuming it had done so. Turns out some glitch meant it hadn't. So now the deadline is this evening, but my thoughts on the contest remain the same. Do keep your eye out for it next September/October and think about signing up. You have to sign up before the first round is announced if you want to join in.

***
Original post:

Last year and this year I've had fun participating in an online contest called Wyrm's Gauntlet. It's a four-round, elimination contest that spans roughly two months (if you make it all the way to the end). Last year I did the first three rounds but missed out on the fourth--the winnowing is pretty intense, so by the time you get to round three, there are only five or so participating, and only three of those five make the final round.

They've hosted some fun, unconventional tasks for the contest. All writing related, but some are more focused on critiquing or reviewing works (by others or even by yourself), showing that you're able to think critically about writing. So it creates and odd but well balanced competition, which was a good way to push myself.

This year I made it to the final round and am really pleased with the story I turned in the other day. Can't wait to hear the results after Saturday's deadline (not sure exactly when they'll be announced, but probably a couple days after that). Wish me luck. But mostly I'm just glad to have been able to participate in all the rounds.

Ecotour guest blog: Inundated

As the month of November winds down, there is still time to participate in our Kickstarter campaign for the Ecotones anthology. One of the cool things we've been doing is giving each of the participating authors a chance to talk a bit about where their story came from and what drew them to write for the anthology. You can check out all the posts that have already been posted (including mine about place in fiction) at the bottom of this essay. And be sure to stick around to the very end for info on how to win a free gift card!

Today, I am happy to introduce Jon Laidlow, contributing author in Ecotones. He’s here to tell us why he submitted a story of place to SFFWorld.com’s fourth anthology.
When the theme for the forum anthology was announced, I was still stuck writing fragments and ‘flash’-length fiction of about 1000 words or more for the forum challenges. I found constructing longer stories quite difficult, though I’d made a few half-hearted attempts.
I’d written a thousand words of a story, “Inundated,” about a man confronted by an apocalyptic flood, and his search for his wife and daughter while the world ended. I thought it was quite neat, but the story didn’t really hang together properly: it opened well, then faded a little.
The theme was announced, and then I had to shamefacedly Google what an “ecotone” was! I was a bit scared that it meant pure eco-SF/fantasy, which I’m just not knowledgeable enough to write well.
(Wikipedia: An ecotone is a transition area between two biomes. It is where two communities meet and integrate.)
But the quickie definition from Wikipedia gave me something to go on. My protagonist, Yuri, in that story, lived on the land, but had worked the sea. I had established that the land and the sea had been in an equilibrium, but now something had changed, something had broken an old pact, and the waters were rising.
But still, I’d never written a successful story at this length, and the forum is full of writers, like Daniel, who can do this in their sleep, so I twiddled my thumbs a bit, then toyed with an idea for a story that I called “Avocado Blue” which I still haven’t written.
Finally Andrew got in touch and said “Inundated” was pretty good. Can you make it longer?Five times longer.
Gulp!
I decided to give it a go, and struggled through August to draft and then edit a new version of the story. I learned a lot while writing the longer version of “Inundated”. I then learned even more when Andrew pointed out to me that I had used flashbacks (I like to call it in media res) and a convoluted narrative scheme. He gently suggested telling the story, which was by this point seven thousand words - the upper limit for the anthology, but by no means a novel - in chronological order. Oh. Right. Yeah….
I acquiesced, and saw that it improved the story almost immediately.
Even then I didn’t expect the story to make it past the reading team. They had a lot of submissions and only a limited number of slots, and there are some good writers on the SFFworld forums. When they accepted the story (subject to fixing the timeline!), it felt like I’d crossed a threshold in my writing, I’d “levelled up” into someone who could write more than a thousand words. And now I’ve got several longer stories either finished or on the go.
Finally, this is how the new version of “Inundated” opens:
“Yuri woke up to the sound of waves breaking at the end of the street, and knew that the undines had breached the final defences.“
Thank you to Jon for his thoughts. I'm looking forward to reading it!

Want to read Jon’s story and find out what undines are? Want 13 other great, ecotoned stories from professional and amatuer writers from around the globe?
Then look no further and go back our Kickstarter campaign!
In fact our campaign has recently been chosen by Kickstarter as one of its coveted Staff Picks.

We’re over 70% funded! Can we reach 80% today? We can if you'll help us. You’ll get Jon’s story and much more.
Enter to win a $10 Amazon gift card by posting a link to this post on Twitter or Facebook. Remember to use the hashtag #Ecotone and come back here to let us know you promoted our anthology (provide link). The winner will be contacted via the email address used to comment. And we’ll announce the winner at the end of the blog tour (December 2nd, 2015).
If you are curious, check out what other contributors have to say on this Ecotour:
Ecotones - A Guest Post - Victor EspinosaThe Meaning of Place in Fiction - Rebecca SchwarzWhy Ecotones? - Jon LaidlowEcotour - N. E. WhiteEcotones Anthology - The Mary SueEcotones Pro-Am Anthology - Cli-Fi.netClimate Fiction Update, It’s now Eco-Fiction - Claude NougatEco-Fiction
Thanks for reading!

Strangers and refugees...and a superhero

Out of all the stories I've written, I have exactly one that features a superhero. The story itself is in that limbo of having been accepted for publication but not yet released, so I won't get into the plot. I will mention, though, that his name is The Stranger, and his superpower involves changing his appearance so he always looks like a foreigner to those he meets, always matches whatever people group the locals currently fear.

The Stranger's mythos, such as it is in just a single short story, is that he was once a god of some sort (even he doesn't know) who cursed villages and encampments that refused to welcome him. Now he does that (on-the-surface) typical superhero thing of seeking out injustice and fighting it.

***

If there's one theme that goes through a lot of my writing, it's the idea of immigrants, exiles, and refugees. Some day some graduate student will go through my works and my life and come up with theories of why and places where that plays out even more than I'm aware. For now, though, I'll just say that I grew up very aware of the immigrant stories of my grandparents and great-grandparents and many others in the tight-knit Dutch-immigrant communities of West Michigan. The religious ideals of that community play into it as well, the idea that they as Christians were strangers in this land, these Shadowlands as C. S. Lewis called them. And certainly the many interactions I've had with immigrants from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries (I was working side-by-side with immigrants in the fields from a very early age, well before I decided to major in Spanish or worked at a Spanish-language newspaper or any of those later experiences) have had a huge role in shaping my views and interests.

It is no anomaly that the central character in the Spire City serial is a second generation immigrant. Nor that her circle of support has such a high concentration of immigrants. At this point in the series, the members of the Weave include not only Chels, whose mother immigrated, but Sairen, who is younger than Chels but immigrated himself a few years earlier. It also has two members who immigrated from a completely different city as adults. And really once you look at it, even those whose ancestry lies in the city, by the nature of their infection, they are exiles.

It is no anomaly that the novel I'm currently preparing to query (and/or submit to a publisher) is called Fugitives of the Avocet Road.

Even a look at my poems reveals "The Immigrant Looks Back" and "Exile, Self-selected" (which I see now is no longer available online, and even the Wayback Machine didn't find an archived copy, alas—I may have to do something about that... It is apparently still available in POD format).

And just over a month ago, I won a flash fiction contest with a rather surreal story of refugees boarding a train. I could go on, but it would mean little to anyone except those who've beta read my other novels and stories. Suffice it to say that this idea of being away from home in one way or another may well be more central to my writing than even I realize.

***

This is not meant to be a partisan, political post. I try to maintain contact with people from all over the political spectrum and never block people on Facebook, etc. for their views. Many of my friends who self identify as conservative (understandably given my upbringing) fit comfortably in the religious right label. (Though note that many even who shared that upbringing most definitely do not.) Many of my writing friends self identify as liberal, which is not surprising in an artistic field, but also doesn't encompass all of them.

What I'm seeing is that for the most part, these friends from all over the political spectrum are uncomfortable with the anti-refugee rhetoric going around. Certainly a month ago, few if any seemed to support the glimmers of anti-refugee rhetoric that were floating around. They either weren't commenting or were speaking out (often forcefully) for compassion. Post Paris...I'm seeing a bit more caving to that, as ethics become subordinate to fright, but for the most part the call remains strong to welcome the stranger, to put those religious ideals (for those that ascribe to them) into practice and not react out of hatred or misguided fear.

I'm heartened by this.

I'm disheartened by governors clamoring to shut their borders to refugees. I'm disheartened by presidential candidates threatening to send 'em all back. I'm disheartened that they haven't been called on this forcefully enough by those they might listen to.

But I'm especially heartened to see the glimmers of pushback that are there. And the many voices of friends and acquaintances from all kinds of backgrounds, religions, politics saying "Wait. This isn't right." Thank you.