Wow! No posts since November 11th. When I stopped posting five days a week over a year ago, I did not intend to let my blog slide off into history. I haven’t posted because I’ve been busy.

Busy? Doing what, you may ask. Writing fiction. I’ve had some small success.

It all started last June when I received an email from one of the editors of the Grantville Gazette. The Gazette buys fan-fiction based on the world of 1632 by Eric Flint. 1632 is available, free, from Baen’s Free Library. Scroll down on the 1632 website and you can download the book in your favorite e-book format.

Getting back to the event last summer…some ten to twelve years ago, I submitted a short story to the Gazette slush pile. I received some feedback, made changes, resubmitted the story to the 1632 slush, and waited…and waited…and waited until I decided it must have been so bad it wasn’t worth more attention.

The subject of the story arose again last May in the 1632 forum on Baen’s Bar, a subsection of the Baen website. I mentioned that I had submitted a story long ago on that subject and a few days later I received an email asking if I was still interested in selling the story to the Gazette.

Grantville Gazette #68 cover art

Of course, says I! I resubmitted, received some further feedback, made some changes, reviewed it to catch typos, missing punctuation and resubmitted it. The next thing I know, I received a notice, “Send me a .rtf.” The short story was accepted and appeared in the November, 2016, issue #68 of the Grantville Gazette. The title was, Greetings! I’ve included the link but it may be behind a paywall.

That sale was followed by a novelette, The Marshal comes to Suhl, that appeared in the Grantville Gazette #70 in March, 2017. A third sale of a novella, SMC, is appearing as a three-part serial starting in Gazette #71. SMC, Part 1, is up in the current edition of the Gazette. The second and third parts of SMC will appear in the July and September, 2017 issues.

So. Instead of continuing to write a political blog, I’ve been writing fiction. My ego has been kept under control by the submission of three other short stories that are still sitting in the slush-pile without a nibble.

I don’t…yes, I do mind, but they have been a good learning experience. I found that typos are insidious and no matter how many times you read and re-read your text, they will still escape your notice. I’ve learned the difference between ‘telling vs. showing,’ and to avoid the dreaded ‘white-room,’ or writing just pure dialog without any context.

I can’t post the stories here. I’ve sold the rights for five years. But, if you’re interested you can follow the links above and read them on-line. If they are behind a pay-wall, I strongly suggest you subscribe to the Gazette. You may get the writing bug, as have so many others. The Grantville Gazette pays professional rates. Who knows, maybe you too can be a published writer.