Stories

I write short Science Fiction and Fantasy stories because there are certain stories I’ve always wanted to read and I’m not rich enough to pay someone to write them for me.  Hence, writing.  I love the result, but I don’t necessarily enjoy the process.

My goal is to either win the Writer’s of the Future contest one day, or to make myself ineligible to compete by virtue of having sold three professional short stories elsewhere.

So far, one short story (almost!) sold, and one short story having won an “Honorable Mention” from the Writer’s of the Future.  I typically submit a story a quarter, more as a forcing function than anything else.

In order of publication:

Stories for Jessica (containing Waiting for My Return, Biking in Westwood, and Station Keeping).  These were the very first stories I ever wrote as an adult, created as a Christmas gift for my wife.

Grimoire.  fantasy and magic.

Dane, swords and castles.

Sasha, youth and politics.

Caldorac, assassins and magic.

Cata’s First Date, the future and youth.

Vampire’s Children, technology and myths.

Note that Grimoire, Dane, Caldorac and Sasha were written as a single story arc that I broke up into parts to make short stories out of them.  I also wanted to try writing in different styles for the hell of it, so they are fairly different.

Grimoire is far and away the crowd favorite, so if you’re only going to read one short story this year, read Winterfair by Lois McMaster Bujold.  But if you read two! read Grimoire.

Vampire’s Children is dedicated to my very good friend Jamie Bristol, because I know she likes vampire stories and she’s always taken the time to critique and proofread first drafts of my stories.  Thankee kindly.

Lastly, in perhaps my least thoughtful gesture ever, I had decided that a good wedding gift for Taron Lexton and Marisol Nichols would be a gift of creativity, as they are both artists.  So I wrote a story in their honor, my wife provided some damned fine sketches and we had the whole thing beautifully bound.  The thoughtless part came when I realized I had given a pair of newlyweds a story about an assassin finding a savior.  Not exactly ‘awwww’ material.  I believe they got to page 4, a murder scene, before her stomach turned… and that was the end of that.  DOH!  But they said pages one to three were smoking good, so that’s good to hear.

As always, share/distribute etc., but don’t call them your own unless you’re really famous.  In which case it’s cool.