Words and Coffee

The StarShipSofa, that is, where I’ve done a narration of James L. Sutter’s Faithful Servants. Feel free to stop by and take a listen or, even better yet, subscribe to the Sofa’s podcast on itunes.

Mr. Sutter has a new book out from Paizo Publishing called Death’s Heretic. Check out the cover spread.

StarShipSofa 180 featuring Christopher Kastensmidt’s Nebula nominated story, The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara, is live. And I’m proud to say that I am the narrator of said story.

I know you're as excited as I am.

Although I’ve blogged about StarShipSofa, this is my first narration.

Go ahead and take a listen, but not just because of me. Featuring fact articles, commentary and reviews related to science fiction and fantasy, StarShipSofa is much more than just one story. It’s the perfect way to pass the long commute, dog walking, lawn mowing, a quiet evening and so on.

Enjoy.

There are a host of Science Fiction and Fantasy podcasts out there, but I’ve become enamored with one in particular: The Hugo Award winning StarShipSofa.

Starship Sofa publishes "best of" anthologies via Lulu.com as well

There are three reasons why (besides the obvious sweetness of the retro cover art):

1. The interviews with authors are fantastic. Perhaps that has to do with the fact that Tony asks questions that I want answers to, specifically about how writers write. Also, its a conversation more than an interview. The authors I’ve heard seem so at ease talking about their frailties as writers. Tony’s interviews with Jeff Carlson and Charles Yu are quite enjoyable.
2. The fiction is professionally read and the readers are appropriate to the stories.
3. I love Tony C. Smith’s conversational tone and aw shucks persona (I don’t know if Scotsmen can be described as having an aw shucks persona, but I’m sticking with it). The Scottish accent is fun, too. Makes me want to quaff one of these (or more):

Photo by Steve Kocino

Who’s thirsty?

I finished a second revision (rewrite is more accurate) of The River Lords last night. I’m pleased with the effort. I went from 10k+ to under half that at 4848 words. I’ll give it the once over to cut a little more fat and tighten up story elements. After that, I’ll begin to submit it. We’ll see how it goes.

This story has been a great exercise for me for three reasons:

1. I had to home in on the crux of the first draft and trim away much of it;
2. I changed the whole flavor of the story, discarding the original arc; and
3. I tend towards wordiness, so I focused on writing lean and truthful.

It’s fun to see the fruits of this exercise. Whether it gets accepted or not is another story. At the very least, I’m a better writer for it.

Once the final revisions are done, I’ll probably do a podcast of it just for fun. I’ll post it here.