How to kill your (imaginary) friends

After discovering this blog, I knew I had to pass it on for anyone who hasn't heard of it yet. How To Kill Your Imaginary Friends is run by Dr. Grasshopper, who is a med student finishing his residency, and also a sci-fi/fantasy author. He got tired of seeing all the inaccurate ways injuries, death and medical procedures are misrepresented in books and movies and decided to do something about it--post the proper details and show how they can be best used in story scenes.

So far, he discusses why not to shock a flatlining patient, proper ways of tapping spinal fluid, and how to starve the bloodstream of oxygen.

He won't write your story for you, or create some detailed disease or murder process to fit your plot, but he's more than willing to (potentially) post some facts that might help you do research on your own.

Enjoy!

Sci-fi flash fiction contest

For anyone who has read this blog for a bit, you'll notice my participation in the Clarity of Night short-short fiction contest (taking an honorable mention in the last round) which comes around every so often. I find flash fiction a great challenge, plus it's way faster than writing a novel, so the sense of accomplishment isn't as much of a time investment.

Anyways, now there's another flash fiction contest that's been announced lately, geared towards science fiction. Hilobrow magazine wants submissions that are no longer than 250 words and center on a troubled superhuman. Below are the guidelines and details as found on their website.

CONTEST: Hilobrow.com readers are INVITED TO SUBMIT a short-short (250 words maximum) story about a troubled/troubling superman or -woman.

JUDGES: The stories will be judged by Hilobrow.com editors Matthew Battles, author of several SF stories published on this website, and Joshua Glenn, who writes about pre-Golden Age SF for io9.com; and Hilobrow.com contributor Matthew De Abaitua, whose 2009 novel The Red Men was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke award.

PRIZES: The author of the winning story will receive a Hilobrow t-shirt, and his or her story will be recorded as part of our podcast (see below) and also published on this site. A few honorable mentions will be awarded; those stories will also be published.

PODCAST: Next month, Hilobrow.com will record the 2nd episode of our pre-Golden Age science fiction podcast, “Parallel Universe: Pazzo.” (Click here to listen to excerpts from the 1st episode; theme: ROBOTS.) The 2nd episode will be devoted to fiction about SUPERMEN, from Olaf Stapledon’s Odd John to Hugo Gernsback’s Ralph 124C41+ to Philip Wylie’s Gladiator.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR STORY: Publish it to the comments section of this post, no later than 5 pm EST on Monday, February 15th. Don’t include any personal info besides your name (i.e., no phone number, mailing address, website, etc). You must enter your actual email address when posting, but only the editors of this website will be able to see it. The author retains all rights to his or her story; but Hilobrow.com retains the right to publish/record the story as described above.

WHO’S ELIGIBLE: anyone, including Hilobrow.com contributors and friends.

GUIDELINES: No more than 250 words, and only one story per author. NB: The superman or -woman should not be a caped crusader type. Many of the first fictional supermen were portrayed by their creators as homo superior, an evolved human whose superiority was mental, physical, or both. Stapledon, Wylie, and many other authors of the time agreed the superman — whose values and worldview the rest of us can’t share, or even comprehend — would seem cold, inhuman, alien, or worse. Even, or especially when, he or she is trying to help us. However, a few authors took a rosier view of the superman; Gernsback’s Ralph 124C41+, for example, is a scientist whose inventions help ordinary mortals. Read more about troubled & troubling superhumans here.

How to give advice to a writer

Hat tip to Colleen Lindsay for this hilarious video of how to work as a literary agent and provide feedback for your author.

IGMS new episode is up!

Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show has published its latest issue, containing my short story, Odd Jobs.

There's a snippet of the story available here, along with this great illustration. Excited to see this story released. Thanks to everyone from OWW and otherwise whose feedback contributed to a stronger final version.

The Clarity of Night short fiction contest

The contest ended last Wednesday, with more than 230 entries submitted this time. Seems like whenever the contest comes around again, the number of participants shoots up far higher than before.

Here was my entry: #72, Furs and Ice

Thanks to all for the kind and encouraging comments. Even though the time to submit entries is done with, you can still cast votes for Reader's Choice by Jan. 19th, and then keep an eye on the blog for the final winners announcement.

Upcoming short story

I just received word that my short story, Odd Jobs, should be showing up sometime next week in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Issue 16. They just had me write up a brief about my inspiration for the story, which will be posted on the blog once the main issue is out. Further updates once it all goes live!

First Page Contest from WeBooks

WeBook, a website which also provides a literary agent query service (that seems to be working pretty well so far--Colleen Lindsay seems a big proponent of it), is now running a first page contest based on reader voting.

Called PageToFame, it focuses on the quality of your novel's first page, plus a synopsis. Readers vote and rate that first page, and if you received enough positive ratings, you move to the second round, where you can submit your first chapter to be rated. Get enough positive ratings there, and you can submit the first 50 pages, all the way up to the entire manuscript.

Also, at each advancing step, your work is reviewed by a literary agent (though they don't specify exactly which agents, so far as I can see). There is a $4.95 introductory fee per submission, but if your work is rated well enough, that might be all you'd have to pay to see your work get all the way to the top. Of course, if it stalls in one of the stages and you want to submit another piece, then that'll be another fee. Still, if you have faith that your story will be highly approved by readers, then perhaps this might be an interesting alternative to the usual query method.

I will probably submit at least one or two pieces here and see how it goes. Let me know if you do the same and what your results are.

Shaking off the dust

*Cough!*

Welcome to a new year all. Hope your resolutions have been thoroughly pondered, noted down, charted on spreadsheets, printed out, and promptly burned. Helps skip a few steps, no?

Anyways, we now have a shiny, sparkling 2010 handed to us--ready to be battered into submission. You'd think the people handing out these years would learn from the condition we leave the old ones in.

Some new articles and reviews up at my Examiner.com site. I'm also trying to take some steps to revitalize my writing methods and goals, setting up some smaller achievements to shoot for over the next few months, rather than just holding onto the general "get published someday" goal. Perhaps that will make things a bit more satisfying when I hit those little short story, word count and revision guideposts along the way.

In a bit of news to perk everyone up, I just got the notice that the Clarity of Night blog is holding another short fiction contest! This one is titled Silhouette, and looks like it's going to prompt a lot of gothic, Poe-ish entries, no doubt. I hope to see your entries there, and I'll let you know when mine is up. Deadline is 11:00pm, Jan.13th, so don't be late.

What has the new year brought you?

Zombie power plants?

In this edition of "Where do writers get their ideas?", through this article, we learn that a crematorium over in the UK is looking into "technology to reclaim some of the energy lost in the cremation process."

To quote: "Although the technology is still in its proving stages, the crematorium hopes to have new generators that will capture and reuse the excess heat created by the cremation process to heat and eventually power the facility."

Yeah. Can't see any way that this could go wrong. Not like ghosts are going to start pouring out of electrical sockets, or a bunch of zombies are going to rise up to hunt down their stolen life force. Nah.

How else do you envision this destroying the world? Or at least reducing the population by 75%.