Sunday, March 14, 2010

Public Declaration of Intent

I just joined a gym. There's a 24-Hour Fitness in the shopping center right across the street from our new place. It's like a three minute walk away, so I have no excuse for not going. I plan to go at least four times a week. [determined look] We'll see how this goes.

Our new place really isn't big enough for working out, though; it has more square footage than our old place, but the footprint is much smaller (the whole three-story thing) so there's not much room in any one room/area for walking around, which was most of what I was doing last year. I'm past the point where my joints seize up in the middle of walking, though; if I keep the speed down, that doesn't happen anymore, so I'm not restricted to just walking back and forth inside like I was before last year, when I never knew when I was going to need to sit down Right Now. I've also progressed beyond my five-pound hand weights; they still work, in that enough reps of pretty much anything will get you aching, but it'll be more efficient to have access to a wider variety equipment.

We signed up for three personal training sessions, where someone who knows what they're doing will take us around and have us try various things, figure out what we should do, how many and at what weight/setting/whatever, and kind of set things up. I haven't had a weights class in ages, and they have different equipment than my college did anyway, so that'll be handy.

[Yes, I said "we" -- Jim signed up too. I'm only committing for myself, though, and I expect I'll go more often than he will just because I have more time. Jim can blog about it on his own if he wants. [grin]]

The 24-hour part means I can go whenever I want, which is great. I'm often at my freshest and most energetic in the middle of the night, so being able to go work out then will be good.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this, and hopefully posting about it will keep me from slacking off, LOL!

Angie

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Anthology Markets

I've been getting a lot of hits on these posts, so if you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month, so if this post isn't dated in the same month you're in, click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guildelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.

Non-erotica/romance writers: check out Way of the Wizard, Triangulation, Music for Another World, and Sword and Sorceress.

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31 March 2010 -- The Way of the Wizard -- Prime Books

(a) The story should be about a wizard, witch, sorcerer, sorceress, of some kind (basically, any sort of user of magic).

(b) The fact that the story has wizards in it should be vital to the story, i.e., magic should be an important factor in the resolution of the plot.

(c) The wizards should be literal, in that they do actual magic, not like a pinball wizard or something like that.

(d) I’m interested in all types of wizard tales, but am especially interested in seeing some stories that explore the idea of wizardry from a non-traditional viewpoint–i.e., something based on the Chilean Kalku or on the supernatural practices of other cultures.

(e) The story may be set in a secondary world, the real world, the present, or in a historical time period…let your imagination run wild.
Genres: Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror. Obviously wizard stories tend to be fantasy, but some sort of SFnal take on the theme would be acceptable.

Payment: 5 cents per word ($250 max), plus a pro-rata share of 50% of the anthology’s earnings and 1 contributor copy.

Word limit: 5000 words. (Stories may exceed 5000 words, but $250 is the maximum payment per story, and stories 5000 words or less are strongly preferred.)

Rights: First world English rights, non-exclusive world anthology rights, and non-exclusive audio anthology rights. See my boilerplate author-anthologist contract, which spells out the rights in detail.

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31 March 2010 -- Ghost Stories -- Drollerie Press

Who doesn’t love a good ghost? Drollerie Press is seeking short stories and poetry for an anthology of ghost stories. They may be set in any location and at any time. The stories should be between 5 and 20k in length, but longer or shorter may be considered. Poetry should not be longer than three pages, double-spaced.

Your story may contain cross-genre elements, such as romance, or science, but should definitely include strong horror elements. This is an anthology intended for an adult audience, but each work will be chosen based on its own merit and how well it will fit with the rest. In other words, avoid extremely violent and/or erotic or gentle and/or sweetly romantic tales.

Each author may submit up to 3 stories, but only one will be accepted per author. In this anthology, as in all Drollerie Press works, inclusive representation is important to us. Authors may be from, and stories may be set, anywhere in the world. Characters of any race, creed, or sexual orientation are encouraged.

Compensation is an equitable distribution of royalties based on word count. Publication will be in ebook, with trade paperback to follow if warranted by sales.

Submissions for this anthology may be sent by email to submissions @ drolleriepress.com and should contain “GHOST” in the subject line. Review and response will occur after submissions are closed.

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31 March 2010 -- Triangulation: End of the Rainbow -- PARSEC Ink

We define "short fiction" as "up to about 5,000 words or so." If you have an awesome story that exceeds 5K then by all means send it; but be warned that we have yet to accept anything for publication much longer than 5000 words.

We dig flash; there is no minimum word count.

We have no interest in getting more specific about the term "speculative fiction." Science fiction, horror, fantasy, magic realism, alternate history, whatever -- if there's a speculative element vital to your story, we'll gladly give it a read.

We love creative interpretations of our theme, "End of the Rainbow". Don't ask us what it means -- tell us what it means with a story that convinces us you're right.

We will run mature content if we like the story. So make sure there's an actual story in that mature content.

We will gladly consider reprints. If the story ran someplace obscure, then it's probably new to our readers; and if it ran someplace high-profile, it's probably really good. Either way, we win!

Compensation: We pay two cents per word (USA funds, rounded to the nearest 100 words, US$10 minimum payment) on publication and one contributor's copy. The anthology will be published in late July of 2010. We purchase North American Serial Rights, and Electronic Rights for the PDF downloadable version; since we're cool with reprints, we really don't care whether we have firsties. All subsidiary rights released upon publication. Contributors will also have the option of purchasing additional copies of the anthology at-cost, exact price TBD.

How To Submit: Electronic submissions make our lives easier. Please send your story to editor@parsecink.org. Please put your subject line in the format of "SUBMISSION: Story Title" so we can tell you apart from the spam.

We'll consider stories ONLY in the following formats:

* .odt (OpenDocument Text -- format used by the OpenOffice.org suite) -- preferred format
* .rtf (Rich Text Format -- generic document format that most word processors can create)
* .doc or .docx (MS Word -- we're not crazy about it, but let's face it, it's the one most people actually use)

[This has been ruthlessly edited for space, but there's a lot more; definitely check their web page for more details.]

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1 April 2010 -- Not My First Rodeo -- Torquere Press
[No link -- this was announced on the Yahoo list, but isn't posted on the web site yet.]

Two guys, one girl, and a western theme. Cowgirls, cowboys, ranches and rodeos and maybe a little history. That's the idea behind Not My First Rodeo. We want loving relationships and happy endings, though all sensual heat levels are welcome. Preferred length is 8,000 to 12,000 words. Payment is a flat fee of $75.00 for first time print and electronic rights. Deadline for submission is April 1, 2010. Please submit the story, along with a synopsis, your contact information, and author biography to submissions@torquerepress.com with "Not My First Rodeo" in the subject line.

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1 April 2010 -- Cherry on Top -- Torquere Press
[No link -- this was announced on the Yahoo list, but isn't posted on the web site yet.]

Following up Cherry, one of our most popular anthologies, Cherry on Top is all about first times, with an extra special twist. Imagine the first time a studly top dominates someone. Or get all revved up by a first-time bottom, giving it up for someone who rocks his world. Funny or sweet, smoking hot or tender, make it all about what happens when the boys try something brand new. Stories for Cherry on Top should be sexy, romantic male/male tales, and may include light BDSM. Stories should be between 3000 and 8000 words long, and should be submitted in full with a synopsis and author biography. Send submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with "Cherry on Top" in the subject line. Payment is a $35.00 flat fee for first time electronic rights. No reprints, please.

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15 April 2010 -- Cock Cage -- Torquere Press

Three-story mini-anthology of short, sexy stories on the theme, 3-8K words, 35%/25% of cover price from publisher's site/vendors, divided among the three authors.

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30 April 2010 -- Steampunk Romance Anthology -- Samhain Press

Welcome to the world of clockwork pendants and steam locomotives, corsets and lace, dirigibles and difference engines. Yes, we’re talking about steampunk, where fantasy, history, technology and romance mix to create a glorious genre that looks at Victorian and Edwardian Era England and the American wild west through brass goggles.

I’m open to M/F, M/M, or multiples thereof, any sexual heat level, and the romance must end happily ever after or happy for now.

The novellas must range between 25,000 to 30,000 words in length, no more, no less—please note, only manuscripts that fall in this word count will be considered for this anthology—and will be released individually as ebooks in November 2010.

To submit a manuscript for consideration, please include:

The full manuscript (of 25,000 to 30,000 words) with a comprehensive 2-5 page synopsis. Please include a letter of introduction/query letter. Full manuscripts are required for this as it is a special project.

As well, when you send your manuscript, please be sure to use the naming convention Steampunk_Title_MS and Steampunk_Title_Synopsis. This will ensure that your submission doesn’t get missed in the many submissions we receive, and makes it easy for me to find in my ebook reader.

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30 April 2010 -- Music for Another World -- Mark Harding

I'm looking for Fantasy and Science Fiction Stories. I am quite broad with definitions, but a fantasy story must have an element of fantasy, and a science fiction story must contain an element of science/technology and speculation about science. I like merged-genre stories, but be warned that I don't want the anthology dominated by 'slipstream' stories.

Story length is ideally between 2000 and 6000 words. However, I will consider stories outside of this range.

The unique points:
Music must be integral to the story: for example, the story might be about music, or the life of musicians, or the effect of a musical instrument, or perhaps a piece of music -- or anything else that I haven't thought of!

This next requirement is equally important. I'm not only looking for great characters, great plot, great entertainment and great prose, but I'm also looking for stories that are intellectually exciting. This is something Science Fiction and Fantasy is best equipped to deliver, so I am going to be explicit about wanting this in the anthology.

What I'm NOT looking for:
A story where the author has changed the lead character from a schoolteacher to a musician, or where the magical object has been changed from a cursed handbag to a cursed violin. Music MUST be integral to the story. If the musical element can obviously be exchanged for something or someone else -- brilliant though the story may be -- it won't fit my anthology.

I'm also NOT looking for:
Gore-fests
Sword and Sorcery
Fan fiction
Mozart fighting zombies

Electronic submissions only, in RTF format. Email to mark.musicanthology'@'gmail.com

Payment: One free copy of the paperback plus £80 per author selected. Payment by Paypal only.

***

14 May 2010 -- Sword and Sorceress 25 -- Ed. Elizabeth Waters, Norilana Books

Reading period: Saturday, April 17 to Friday, May 14, 2010. Stories received before or after this period will be deleted unread.

Response time is expected to follow MZB's traditional standards: you should hear within a week if we're holding your story for the final line-up or rejecting it.

Deadline: May 14, 2010.

Length: up to 9,000 words, with preference given to shorter stories. The longer a story is, the better it has to be. Long stories should be submitted early in the reading period.

Formatting and Submission:

Format with one-inch margins on all four sides of page.

Please do not use a header or footer.

Your name, full mailing address, and email address must be in the upper left corner, single spaced.

Skip two lines, center the text, then put the title, with your name (or byline) on the next line. We're not going to be as rigid as MZB was about pen names, but we expect them to be reasonable, rather than cute.

The rest of the manuscript should be single-spaced, with the first line of each paragraph indented 1/2 inch.

If you need to indicate a break, put "#" on a line by itself, centered.

Do not underline; use italics instead. Do not use bold face. We prefer Courier New font, size 12.

Word count will be determined by our word processor; that way it will be the same for everyone.

Save your document as an .rtf file (rich text format or interchange format, depending on what your computer calls it). E-mail as it as an attachment to mzbworks at yahoo dot com. The subject line should be "SS25, your last name, story title" (e.g.: SS25, Bradley, Dark Intruder) -- we don't want submissions caught in our spam filter.

Rights purchased: first rights, non-exclusive eBook rights.

Payment: 5 cents per word as an advance against a pro rata share of royalties and foreign or other sales.

***

15 May 2010 -- Blood Play -- Torquere Press

Three-story mini-anthology of short, sexy stories on the theme, 3-8K words, 35%/25% of cover price from publisher's site/vendors, divided among the three authors.

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1 June 2010 -- Working Stiffs -- Amber Allure

Series Type: Gay (M/M) -- Blue-Collar Love Affairs
Novella Length: 18,000 to 39,999 words
Heat Level: 3+ (Love scenes should be extremely explicit and contain graphic language. Stories may also contain sexual situations or storylines that push the envelope -- heavy bondage, spanking, as well as menage, domination and submission, multiple sexual partners, etc.)

Specific Guidelines: Each novella for this "picture/series" should feature at least one blue-collar hero (regardless of industry), who's a hard-working laborer considered "good with his hands" both at work and at play, and tell the tale of his love affair with a man of his own social class/standing (or maybe not�that's entirely up to you). Although stories should have a contemporary setting only, they may also be sub-categorized as romantic comedy, suspense or thriller, action and adventure, as well as BDSM. But once again, please keep in mind that at least one of your heroes must be "blue-collar" worker, just the sort of hero depicted in the above photograph. Moreover, all stories should have a "happily ever after" ending, or at least what is considered a "happily for now" conclusion.

Email Address: After preparing your documents according to the "General Submission/Formatting Info" listed above, please submit the full manuscript, synopsis, and query letter to: submissions_workingstiffs@amberquill.com

[Heavily edited for space -- definitely click through for specific guidelines, and take note of the peculiarities in manuscript formatting.]

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UNTIL FILLED -- MM and Menage Steampunk Antho -- Phaze

Call: M/M and Menage Steampunk Anthology, Title TBA
Edited by: Leigh Ellwood
Projected release date: late 2010
Format: eBook (with possible print release)
Publisher: Phaze Books
Payment: $50 for one-time electronic and print rights, plus copies

Hey, all you steampunk enthusiasts, grab your goggles and get to writing! Phaze Books is planning an M/M (and bi-M menage) steampunk collection for eBook publication in 2010. If you have a yen for 19th century history with a touch of good humor and technological innovation (and a whole lot of manlove!), we hope you’ll send us your hottest steampunk erotic romance of 10K - 20K words. If you’re not sure about the genre, check out this Wikipedia entry for steampunk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk) to get an idea of the style of stories we’re looking for. Think H.G. Wells or Wild Wild West, then turn up the steam factor with an incredible M/M or MMF/MMM match-up!

This call is open indefinitely until the spots are filled. Contributors will offer one-time electronic and print rights to their works and receive a one-time payment of $50 and contributors copies (eBook and/or print, if the book goes to print).

To submit to this anthology, please follow the Phaze Books structural guidelines at http://www.phaze.com/submissions.html and attach your RTF submission to Leigh Ellwood, c/o Phaze Books at submissions @ phaze (dot) com. Please use STEAMPUNK ANTHOLOGY is your subject header.

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UNTIL FILLED -- Panverse Three -- Ed. Dario Ciriello, Panverse Publishing

The anthology will be open to submissions until we have enough good stories.

Looking for pro-level novellas of between 17,500 and 40,000 words. Stories should be Science Fiction (except Military) or Fantasy (except Heroic/High/Superhero/S&S). We'll also look at Magic Realism, Alternate History, and Slipstream (whatever that is). The story should be original and unpublished in any medium (this includes web publication).

Depth of characterization will count for a lot – however clever the idea, if we don't care for the protagonist, we'll bounce it. We like stories that instill wonder. Subject matter is pretty wide open. If we care, can't put the story down, and find no big holes in the plot or worldbuilding, you've got a good shot.

What we don't want:

Military SF, High Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, Horror, RPG, superhero, or shared-universe stuff, etc. Vampires and Cthulhu-mythos stories are strongly discouraged unless you've done something absolutely original with either theme. No gratuitous or wildly excessive sex or violence: what this means is that sex or violence which serves the plot is okay, within limits; the same goes for language. Think R-rated rather than XXX-rated.

[NOTE: there are some unusual bits in their formatting and cover letter requirements. Nothing ridiculous, but definitely click the link and read the full guidelines before submitting.]

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

We're Here

So the move went as well as these things do. We managed to cram four suitcases, two laptop cases, my husband's other kit bag, the three boxes of books and stuff we'd mailed to the hotel, the five bags of stuff leftover from the kitchen (our hotel room had a kitchen, 'cause we didn't want to have to pay for restaurant food for that many weeks), plus other miscellaneous stuff we'd accumulated in the thirty-one days we were at the Seattle Alexis, all into a town car at one time so we only had to make one trip, yay. I had a heavy box on my lap the whole way, but luckily it was only about fifteen minutes.

We got there a little after 8am, and the movers arrived at around 9:15 or so, which wasn't bad. I spent the next five hours or so at the kitchen counter with a bunch of inventory sheets in front of me, checking off numbered items while the four movers called said numbers to me. There were 362 items in the inventory. Less six or eight voids, that's still over 350 items. Most of them were boxes. Most of the boxes have books in them.

According to the movers, most people have like one or two boxes of books, max. I can't imagine living like that, but there you go; I always knew we weren't normal.

Oh, and have I mentioned the room we're using as a library (the master bedroom, 'cause really, do you need more room for your bed or your books?) is on the third floor? The guys really earned their pay that day. :) Hey, one of the models we looked at had four stories, so the guys lucked out. I was sure to tell them that. [innocent humming]

But seriously, Seattle's a fairly old (meaning developed) city, built on extremely uneven ground. There are slopes and ravines and various other non-horizontal stretches of ground pretty much everywhere. It doesn't look full because there's so much land with just trees on it, but it really is, and there are houses built in places which require like fifty stair-steps just to get from the sidewalk to the front door. (The movers charge extra for this, understandably.) But what this means is that new construction tends to be on very small chunks of land spotted here and there around town, and it tends to go vertical. Every condo and townhouse we looked at was at least three stories tall. That's just how it is up here, with builders trying to max out the number of units per plot of land; they're minimizing the footprint of each unit, and building up. I guess that means the movers up here are used to it. I'm just glad we weren't doing this with a rental truck and a bunch of friends. :P

So they hauled all our stuff in, wrapped up around 2:30 or so, and took off. I hadn't had any sleep the night before, so I crashed, and woke up about fifteen hours later. That felt really good.

That night, I'd planned to unpack the kitchen, since it'd be nice to be able to start cooking again, with my own stuff.

[Hint for folks planning hotel stays who are thinking this kitchen thing sounds cool: I've now stayed in kitchen-rooms at three hotels, and the tools provided universally suck. There aren't many, and the quality of what's there is incredibly low. The Alexis doesn't even provide bowls (cereal? soup? what's that?) nor plastic containers for leftovers. If you're going to be there longish-term, bring some of your own favorites, and/or be ready to go out and buy a few things.]

[Hint for hotel management: you have a standard inventory for your in-room kitchens, right? Post it on your web site, so guests know what to bring.]

Anyway, I started unpacking and discovered that we actually have less cupboard and drawer space than we did in Long Beach. :/ The pantry has a bit more space than our old pantry, so I can put some things which were in cupboards before into the pantry, but that's still not enough. I'm thinking we're going to have to get some (more) shelving units and/or one of those metal standing cupboard-things to go in the garage, for kitchen things I don't use regularly. Right now, I'm sorting out things that can go in the garage, and figuring out where I want the things that have to live in the kitchen.

I also still need to sync my main computer (this one) with my laptop (which I was using for the last month and a half). When we arrived here from the hotel, I was carrying the laptop cases and such, so I put them in the closet in the computer room. There are some shelves in there, and I figured they'd be out of the way. Well, they were. They were also buried behind approximately three hundred pounds of boxes, which were back-filled into the closet as stuff was moved into the computer room. [headdesk] The spousal unit was nice enough to dig my laptop out for me last night, so I can transfer stuff across and start writing and cetera again, yay!

We have a new couch, and the washer and drier came, but the TV isn't coming until Friday. It'll be great to have it, though; Jim's legally blind and has to be really close to see the TV. The one on order should be big enough for him to see while sitting on the couch with me, rather than sitting in a kitchen-type chair right up next to the set, which was what he was doing before. [crossed fingers]

Someone's coming on Thursday from 3-Day Blinds [waves to neighbors] so we can get something up on the windows eventually. And we're going to get like twenty bookcases (plus the overflow-kitchen-stuff cabinet/thingy for the garage) but haven't actually ordered them yet.

And through it all we'll be unpacking. I'm sure we'll be doing that for a very long time. Heck, there are things we still had in boxes from our move to the condo, which just lived in their boxes because we never had space to unpack them and put them anywhere else. I'm sure it'll be the same here with at least some things. When Jim retires and we move again O_O we're going to need like 4000 square feet or something, LOL! We're determined eventually to be able to put everything away, though, darnit!

In the eleven years we lived in the condo, I'd forgotten just how much work unpacking is. I can only do it for short periods of time before I get tired and my back starts getting really insistent about stopping and sitting for a while. I think it's one of those things the subconscious deliberately buries, so people will be willing to move again some day. Hopefully I'll have forgotten again by the time retirement rolls around. :)

Angie, heading back up to the kitchen to unpack another box