The Leading Edge – Page 2 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

“The Class That Wouldn’t Die” is up!

Just a heads up: the latest issue of Mormon Artist magazine is out, and my article about BYU’s “class that wouldn’t die” is in it! What’s more, Orson Scott Card himself commented on it. Squeeeee!!!

If you’d like to read the full article, you can find it here. Mormon Artist is published online for free, so be sure to check out the rest of the issue too.

A huge thanks to all the people who helped me out with the research–and an apology to those I should have gotten to, but ran out of time and space to include them. My goal in writing this was to collect as many oral histories and primary sources as I could find, and put it in a context where the people who were there could tell the story themselves. I hope I’ve done that without making too many factual errors, but if I have, please let me know.

Also, I would like to personally thank everyone who was a part of Xenobia and the class that wouldn’t die–the people who started LTUE, Leading Edge, and Quark, which have become the bedrock of BYU’s thriving sf&f community. Thank you so much–all of this stuff has greatly impacted my life, helping me to connect with like-minded friends and to grow tremendously as a writer. We really do stand on the shoulders of everyone who’s come before, so thank you!

Squeeeeeee!!!!!

Change in direction

Just a quick update on things before I go to bed.

After giving it some thought, I’ve decided to put Into the Nebulous Deep on hold for the time being. The main reason for this is that it’s a direct sequel to Mercenary Savior, and if the first one doesn’t sell…yeah, not the best business decision.

I figure the best way to do it is to have a series of indirectly linked standalone novels set in the same world. That way, a publisher could pick up any one of them after rejecting all the others, but if you want to bundle them into a series and sell them together, you can do that too.

That’s my strategy–I like the universe I built for Mercenary Savior, and I’m going to keep it for the foreseeable future, but for now, the trilogies and duologies will have to wait. In any case, I’ve written down my major ideas for ITND, so I’m sure I’ll be able to pick up where I left off if/when MS sells.

Instead, I’m going to start working through the second draft of Worlds Away from Home. It needs a ton of work, but having finished the rough draft, I know that the story has potential. At this point, I’m actually very enthusiastic about it, so hopefully that will help drive momentum.

Right now, I’m in the outlining stage. I’m taking a page from Dan Wells and using his seven point story structure to draw out all the plot lines and character arcs. When I did this for MS 4.0, I had to outline about fifteen arcs before I felt it was sufficiently tight; it will probably be the same for WAFW 2.0 as well.

Currently, I’m in the middle of outlining chapter six. If all goes well, I’ll finish outlining and start writing by the end of the week.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing a lot of submitting. Sent out another short story to Leading Edge–oh, and by the way, they accepted a poem of mine, so expect to see that in a forthcoming issue. I also submitted the latest draft (5.0) of Genesis Earth to a few agents, so hopefully that will lead to something positive.

In other news, I’m looking for a job again. Oh joy. I’m hoping things will work out with the wilderness job, but if not, I still need something to tide me over for the Christmas season. It’s stressful, but at least I’m not broke yet, which is good. If I can’t find work and have to buy gear for the wilderness training, however, I just might be.

I’m confident things will work out, however. I’ve found that they always do, even if not in the way I wanted or expected. Just keep swimming.

In the meantime, check out this AWESOME 8-bit remix of one of the tracks leaked from Daft Punk’s upcoming album for the movie Tron. Dude…this makes me so incredibly happy. And the 8-bit art! I nabbed it and turned it into my avatar for the Quark forums. In case you want to use it, here’s a copy.

8-bit Daft Punk FTW! The only thing more epic would be if Daft Punk and E.S. Posthumus joined forces–but if that happened, hosts of heavenly angels would descend upon our planet and usher in an era of global peace and universal prosperity. But dude, I would give my firstborn son to acquire that music.

You laugh, but I’m only half joking…

Leading Edge proposal FTW

I witnessed a friend of mine propose to his girlfriend today…at one of the weekly meetings of The leading Edge. It was awesome.

We have this quirky tradition among Leading Edge slushpile readers (well, several actually). On the whiteboard, someone will write “Today is _____ day,” and then that person or someone else will fill in the blank with a different colored marker.

Well, when I showed up around 7:45, the message on the board was “Today is Multiple days,” with an asterisk that said “will be explained later.” Like most of the people there, I shrugged and didn’t think too much of it.

Well, around 8:15, Neal got up and said “I think it’s time to explain what I mean by ‘Multiple days.'” He then went up and started explaining how it’s harvest day, some other day, something else…

To be honest, we all kind of lost interest. Then he wrote down “the twist that no one saw coming,” and I think we cracked some kind of joke at it, but most of us still weren’t paying attention.

Then he wrote “Nyssa will you marry me?” and got down on his knees with a ring.

It was fantastically awesome. She screamed and went crazy, one of the girls got up with Neal’s phone and started taking pictures, and everyone clapped. Some of the editors came over to see what was going on, and when they saw it, their eyes just went wide. It was awesome.

Man, this science fiction and fantasy stuff at BYU leads to so many marriages. I can count at least half a dozen from Quark, and I’m sure there are a ton of others that were before my time. I think the main reason for it is that these sf&f clubs and events bring us together in a low-pressure environment where we can all just be ourselves and have fun. Friendships naturally lead to more-than-friendships when you don’t feel forced to date someone from the group every week (which is why Quark has just as many marriages, if not more, than most BYU singles wards).

Anyhow, congratulations Neal and Nyssa! I wish you both the best of luck! May all your children grow up to be just as geeky as you both!

Wolverton interview and more

The interview with Dave Wolverton was a resounding success! We had a fascinating conversation about science fiction and the gospel, his latest book In The Company of Angels, self-publishing, the English 318 class at BYU and the profound impact it’s had on the LDS writing community, and much, much more.

On that, I suppose I should disclose my full reasons for going down to St George and meeting with Dave. I’m putting together an article for the December 2010 issue of Mormon Artist, where I hope to give a brief history of BYU’s “class that wouldn’t die” and explore the impact that it’s had on both the LDS writing community and on mainstream sf&f.

The “class that wouldn’t die” was the group of students who signed up for the first English 318R science fiction creative writing class at BYU, back in ’78 (I think it was ’78…gotta check that). After the semester was over, the students banded together through forming a writing group, which they called “Xenobia.”

They didn’t stop there, however. As Xenobia grew and matured, the students decided to form other organizations designed to help new writers (especially sf&f writers) improve their craft and build their writing careers. Specifically, they founded Quark, BYU’s science fiction and fantasy club; Leading Edge, a student-run magazine that gives written feedback to every story submitted; and LTUE, an annual science fiction and fantasy symposium (like a convention, only no costumes).

These organizations, as well as the 318 class, led directly to the explosion of LDS writers in science fiction and fantasy. Several bestselling LDS authors, including Stephanie Meyers, Brandon Sanderson, and Dan Wells (among many others) can trace the launch of their careers back to this class. In turn, these authors are having a tremendous impact on mainstream sf&f literature.

The article is slated to come out in next December’s issue of Mormon Artist Magazine, just in time for LTUE 2011 (which I hope to attend). Right now, I’m in the research phase, meeting with some really amazing people and gathering some fascinating stories. This article is going to be awesome.

In parting, let me share one of the more interesting things Dave said in the interview. As we talked about all these amazing resources available for sf&f writers in Utah valley, I asked him why this happened in this community and not elsewhere.

His answer was extremely insightful: for many writers, the mentality is that once you break in, you have to close the gate behind you. It’s something of a zero-sub game, where people horde their ideas, compete with each other to break in, etc.

Not so in the LDS community. As Latter-day Saints, we have a deep-set mentality of helping each other and building each other up. That’s exactly what happened with the “class that wouldn’t die”–they did everything they could to foster other writers. The proliferation of Latter-day Saints in mainstream sf&f is a direct result of this.

That’s Dave’s take on it, anyway. It will be interesting to hear what others think.

Oh, and FYI, Mormon Artist is 100% volunteer run and free, so when the article and interview come out, you won’t have to pay anything to read them. I’ll certainly provide links on this blog–stay tuned!

And as one final note, check out this piece of Xenobia history: the original Quantum Duck, as featured in the first issue of The Leading Edge. Why a quantum duck, you ask? Because that’s where the club’s name came from: a bumper sticker that said: BEWARE THE QUANTUM DUCK THAT GOES ‘QUARK,’ ‘QUARK’!

Cover Letter Fail

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I volunteer as a slushpile reader for The Leading Edge. We see some pretty bad stuff, such as stories written entirely in one-line paragraphs, or self-proclaimed “short stories” over 80 pages and 30 chapters long, or hilariously awkward phrases like “the copious softness of her breasts.”

This, however, takes the cake.

It’s a cover letter from an author who submitted a story to us a few months ago that we rejected. Can you tell? In one and a half pages, I think he does just about everything that you’re not supposed to do. In fact, it was so bad that Chris, the head editor, wrote a special comment sheet critiquing just the cover letter.

Anyways, here’s it is (with names changed and/or completely removed):

Thanks for your very interesting critiques of “Shamelessly Amateur Story.”

It was perhaps too mysterious and weird. Since much of it went past your knowledgeable readers, I have to think it was too subtile. Or just not clear, something like that.

I, myself, may be a bit mysterious and weird.

This is a much clearer sort of story. It’s about an engineer on a starship, and it draws very strongly on my own experience. No, not on a starship. Smile.

I also do some scifi humor, which the best stories I could use as examples are under submission to others. Since statistics say they will puke on them, if you like scifi humor, you might tell me. (In the computer programmer’s world, to puke on something is only to say that you do not understand it. It does not mean someone is throwing up. I say, “I do not know what you want with ‘w/carrot/show’ ” and that does not mean anything is wrong with what you said, just that my program could not process it.

I do not think I can write a simple story. My work is full of twists and turns and implications. What I need to learn, I believe, is not how to write more simply, but how to write so that the simplest level of interpretation is accessible. I have a story in Rosebud this winter, and I don’t know how the editor looked at it, but I imagine he (Rodrick Clark) is smarter than the next Bear.

Why do I have to make it so complicated? I could write a blood and thunder story, and anyone could see it was pretty good. Well, that would make it easy if it was just about writing what you know. I have seen blood. But I do not want to write about negatives. I want to write stories about how good people are not about how bad they could be. Let me see if I can get to you with ‘Yet Another Shamelessly Amateur Story’ and maybe you can tell me something about positive writing froom this. Oh, and sure, I need to see a sample copy, so here is the $6 for that.

If your guidelines say anything unique, I would like to have them, and will refer to them. I do not think of anyone’s guidelines as really mandatory, but as ‘have an effin’ good reason’ to not follow. You might tell me not to touch you, but if a train is about to run you over. I will grab you and thrrow you off the tracks like a sack of sand. If I have a storyteller’s reason to blow off your guidelines, I will do that, too, but I will have to understand that I need to listen closely to the rules. It’s a little bit like grammar. But bad grammar is more easily forgiven.

Well, anyway. I would like you to look at this story, ‘Yet Another Shamelessly Amateur Story’ and I would like a review, or better, I would like you to buy it. 😉

In any event, I want a sample copy, and here is the $6 for it.

Needless to say, “Yet Another Shamelessly Amateur Story” was rejected. Grammar this bad is NOT more easily forgiven, and though “Yet Another” may have been too subtile for us, we resent it when people treat us like bags of sand.

Quick post from Provo

This is going to be quick, because it’s late at night and I want to get some sleep.

I made it to Provo. I’m currently staying with an old roommate, sleeping on his couch. To do: find a job and a place to live. Fortunately, I’ve just about got the second one secured.

I talked with the editors at Leading Edge today, and they told me they’ve been having problems with the buy function on their website. If you tried to buy a copy of issue 58 (the one with my story) before this month, they probably lost your address. Don’t worry, they voided the purchase, but if you want a copy you’ll have to go through the process again. Sorry for the hassle.

Wrote the last academic paper of my undergraduate college career today. The last freaking paper. Hooray!

I dropped in to English 318 tonight, and a couple of Sanderson fans got engaged in front of the whole class. It was pretty cool, not the least because they were cosplaying at the same time. Good luck, Mi’chelle! May you and your future husband have a wonderful life together!

Thanks for all the feedback on the new title. I think I’m going to stick with it. It’s weird to call the book by a different name after working on it for so long under the other title, but I think Mercenary Savior works much better.

Looked up Westercon today and found out it’s only $60. Thinking seriously about going. Should I? Is anyone else planning on going?

To do tomorrow: get cap and gown, complete and file taxes, sign a spring/summer contract, meet up with old supervisors/professors in pursuit of a job, go to a bonfire and have a good time.

My mom always got depressed with to do lists; she always felt daunted when she saw all the tasks she needed to accomplish. To counteract this, she made a “tasks accomplished” list at the end of the day to make her feel better. So, on that note:

Accomplished: finished all Washington Seminar coursework, attended English 318 and obtained leads for Mormon Artist article, attended Leading Edge and caught up with the slushies, got a date for next Friday (totally unrelated), submitted Genesis Earth to an agent, wrote +2.2k in Mercenary Savior.

Not bad. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to crash for the night.

I’m published!

That’s right–my first published story just came out in issue 58 of The Leading Edge. I am happy to say that after three years of formally pursuing my career as a writer, I am now a published author!

The story is titled Decision LZ1527, and it’s about a guy asking a girl out on a date–as told from the point of view of the little men inside his head piloting his body like a starship. I really like the tagline in the table of contents: “A man, a woman, and a whole crew of matchmakers.”

Full disclosure: I submitted this story after I joined the staff as a volunteer slushpile reader. Most of the editors for this issue are pretty good friends of mine (including the Production Director, who’s one of my most trusted alpha readers). I submitted it under a pseudonym, however, so most of the staff didn’t know it was mine until after they’d accepted it.

The Leading Edge is known for the excellent quality of its illustrations, and I’m happy to say that I lucked out with with the artist the editors picked for my story! Josh McGill is a graphic designer and aspiring children’s book illustrator. He’s done art for issues 53 and 55 of The Leading Edge. The picture on the right is the one he did for the front page of my story. I must say, I’m impressed!

The Leading Edge is a semi-professional small press science fiction and fantasy magazine affiliated with BYU. It’s been in publication since the early 80s, when Marion K. “Doc” Smith’s famous “class that wouldn’t die” got together and started it, along with Quark and LTUE. If you would like to support the magazine (and read my story!) you can purchase a copy of issue 58 at the following link:

Issue 58: “Redemption Songs”

Lot’s of people dream about getting published, but it takes a lot of hard work and rejection to actually make it happen. As writers, though, we tend to be harder on ourselves than we ought to be. It took almost four years for Decision LZ1527 to find its way into print, but it did. That’s enough to make the rest of the process worth it.

Let’s hope it’s the first of many!

First personalized rejection!

Okay, I’m taking a quick break from the Final Fantasy 6 Werewolf tribute posts to mention some exciting news.

This might sound counterintuitive, but I got an encouraging rejection letter a couple of days ago from Krista Marino, one of the editors at the BYU Writers and Illustrators for Young Readers conference! This is what she said:

Thanks for giving me a look at Genesis Earth. You’ve got a great concept and storyline worked out. Unfortunately this just doesn’t feel like a book for teen readers. All best, Krista.

In publishing, from what I understand, personalized rejections are a significant step above the standard form rejections. Once you start getting personalized rejections, your writing is generally at or near publishable, and you’re not too far from breaking in.

What’s more, it seems that her reasons for rejecting the ms had more to do with audience, genre, and her personal tastes as an editor than problems with the story or my writing. That’s very encouraging–it tells me that when I find an editor/agent who’s a good fit for this kind of story, I have a decent chance.

Or I could be wrong and it’s generally standard for editors/agents to give personalized rejections to conference attendees; I’m not sure.

Regardless, it’s a step up from a form rejection. I should probably send a thank you postcard to her in the near future.

I also need to start looking for other places to submit Genesis Earth. So far, I’ve only got three partials out right now. I’ve been putting more effort into finishing the 4th draft, but I plan to finish that this week (one way or another, inshallah), so at some point in the near future I need to crack open Writer’s Market and just find a bunch of places to submit.

Also, just tonight I got a peek at the artwork for my story coming out in this month’s issue of Leading Edge. It looks REALLY good! I lucked out with some awesome art! I don’t yet know who did it, but I’ll be sure to post a link to the artist when I find out.

Also, once the issue goes to press, I’ll be sure to post a link where you can buy it. Currently, the only way to buy copies of Leading Edge is through a mail-in form that you print out (lame, I know), but they just got a new volunteer webmaster so that’s probably going to change in the near future.

(Man, somebody read my story and illustrated it! Drew pictures of it! And they’re good! I can’t get over that!)

🙂 🙂 🙂

World Fantasy 2009 — second day

Friday was a long, awesome day at World Fantasy. I feel like I’m floating around on a sea full of big names and interesting people, and it’s surprisingly less intimidating than I thought it would be.

The day started with a number of panels. I attended “Writing human characters, whether or not they’re human” and “VaanderMeer on VanderMeer.”

The VanderMeer panel was very enjoyable–Ann and Jeff are down-to-Earth good people, and it was interesting hearing their stories, especially Ann on her experiences as an editor. At one point, she could have shared any number of slushpile horror stories, but she didn’t.

Took lunch at Lee’s Sandwiches, for no other reasons than price and nostalgia. I used to eat at Lee’s all the time when I lived in San Jose, because it was so cheap. It’s been so long, but it was exactly as I remembered it. Good times.

Met up with Daniel Alonso, another writer friend from LTUE/CONduit. It was good to see him. We wandered around the dealer’s room for a while and struck up conversations with various people, including David Drake. Talked with Drake about the difference between him and Haldeman–apparently, in Haldeman’s novels, nobody trusts anybody, whereas in David Drake’s novels, people mistrust everyone but the comrades in their unit. Interesting.

Let me just say, once again, that I am surprised how many people from the Utah scene are here at World Fantasy. On the “Writing non-conciliatory fantasy” panel, I recognized at least a dozen other Utah writers, and there were probably at least as many there that I didn’t recognize! Surprising, when you consider the panel was about anti-heroes.

Besides the “Writing non-conciliatory fantasy” panel, I attended “Invention vs. tradition” and “The last resort” in the afternoon. Both were very interesting, but unfortunately I was very tired after the last one, so didn’t catch as much from it. That’s what happens for late afternoon / early evening panels, generally.

Went to a book release party for Edge publishing. It was an interesting event. Barbara Galler-Smith and Josh Langston wrote Druids together long-distance, having only met over the internet. They both seem like pretty cool people, just from running into them. From the readings, the book reminded me a bit of David Gemmell.

Had dinner with some other writers from the Utah scene–Josh, Isaac, and Jancy. Talked with Jancy for quite a while–turns out she’s from Santa Clara, got a master’s degree from BYU with John Bennion as her advisor. It also turns out that she recently switched agents; she’s represented by Eddie now, Joshua Bilmes’s old assistant. We talked about my book and whether it’s YA or not, which went on to a very interesting discussion of YA themes. Jancy’s a way cool person.

The evening event was a giant mass autographing party in the ballroom. Everyone was there doing a signing. I hung out at Dan Wells’s booth and met Mary Robinette Kowal. She was way cool, easy to talk with, interesting and humble. Yet another down-to-Earth good person at this convention.

Met a lot more people from the Utah scene in the evening, such as J. Aleta Clegg, who was around when LTUE, The Leading Edge, and Quark were founded. Also talked with Julie Wright, found out that she’s an editor as well as a writer, talked about the blog she co-authors and Leading Edge. Yet more down-to-Earth good people.

After that, drifted from party to party, until everyone was so drunk that my attempts to make useful contacts started to become counterproductive. Had fun at the same time, though. Good people, good times.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow!

World Fantasy 2009 — first day

After four years, I’m back in California! Yay!

Okay, now that I’ve got that out of my system (because California is, without a doubt, the most awesome state in the union), let me just say that the first day of World Fantasy 2009 was most excellent.

For Cavan, Alex and me, the day began at about 4:30 am, when we woke up early to road trip it out to San Jose. The salt flats near Dugway were very beautiful in the early morning light, as were the mountains. Nevada stretched on forever, but a little bit of Ennio Morricone helped it pass enjoyably. After Reno, we descended through the Sierras, passed Sacramento and the Central Valley, crossed over the gorgeous bay area mountains and arrived in San Jose without incident.

Well…there was one incident. We got a little lost finding Alex’s friend’s house, and pulled a U-turn that ticked off one of the local drivers. She honked her horn and shouted out her window: “go back to Utah!”

California, I love you. You haven’t changed at all since I left. 🙂

We’re staying with Alex’s friend, within walking distance of the downtown area where the convention hotel is situated. No, really, we couldn’t have planned it better. Alex’s friend is way chill.

After we registered, we scoped out the hotel. It feels a lot like the hotels in Cairo–big and grand, with lots of marble and large open spaces. We browsed around the dealer’s room, saw lots of small publishers, some of whose books I’ve reviewed for Leading Edge. Everyone was very friendly and easy to talk with.

The only panel tonight was on the Google book settlement, and it was very informative and helpful for someone as clueless on this issue as me. Some very choice words were exchanged between the president of SFWA and a Google employee in the audience, but most of the panelists had the same opinion–that the settlement would set a terrible precedent for copyright law and should be fought tooth and nail. Interesting, timely stuff.

We heard about a party on the top floor, so we decided to check it out, and low and behold! Practically the entire convention was there. Ran into some familiar faces from LTUE and CONduit; it turns out that there are one or two dozen people from Utah at this convention, and most of us already know each other. How awesome is that?

Let me just say, I am so happy that I have friends at this convention. All that networking in Utah over the last two years is really paying off. It’s so much easier to meet new people when you’re working together as a group. I’m starting to get an idea of the editors/agents here that I should contact and how to approach them. I’m also meeting a lot of other aspiring writers, making new friends.

In short, the party was not only productive, it was lots of fun. Met new people, reconnected with old friends from the Utah scene, got the scoop on Dan Well’s Serial Killer book and the pending sequels (which I’m eagerly anticipating), and just had an overall great time.

An excellent finish to a very eventful day–and the convention has only just begun!