Hey, I’m totally stoked to see that Superstitious, the latest Fiction River anthology is out. As fate would have it, this one has stories by both me and Lisa Silverthorne (my Dare-mate) in it, too–as well as several other great writers. In an additional twist of fate, my story, “The Robin Club,” is also a baseball-oriented bit, and is loosely written in or around the same multi-verse as the book I’m working on now. Lisa’s story is “Three Breaths,” a bit of historical fantasy set in the civil war. As usual, her work here is more than a bit powerful. There is a reason she is among my favorite short story writers of all time.
I’ve read all these stories before but, given the vagaries of publication schedules, it’s been awhile. Scanning the Table of Contents, I see several stories that leap out at me by title alone–which is always a great sign. Bottom line, this one is edited by Mark Leslie, which always means it’s going to be a fun and interesting volume.
Pick it up. I don’t think you’ll be sorry.
AS far as the Dare goes…
I picked up about two thousand words today so far, and given that I’ve got an appointment to get to this afternoon, it looks like that’ll probably be it.
I spent a good chunk of time working on lingo and voice, or perhaps “authenticity” is a better phrase here. I’ve often said that it’s best to enter a draft with the idea that the words you choose don’t really matter. I say it this way mostly to give myself authority to not sweat the specifics, and instead focus on progress. But today in particular I was working with a side character or two who are supposed to be experts in their areas, and it was worth it to spend some time making sure they actually sounded like they knew what they were doing.
Right now I feel pretty good about them, so there’s that.
All total, I’m sitting at about 27,000 words for the month.