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He’s become Dr. Fantomas, for Dr. Fantastik seemed too superhero-ish for a Tabat story. Final story came to 6650 words, and I’m pleased with it. Recent reading that may have influenced it include Anthony Trollope’s Can You Forgive Her?, John Hawkes’ The Blood Oranges, and Mary Roberts Rinehart’s Dangerous Days (free on the Kindle!).

The title of the story has become “The Ghost-Eater” as well.

Something in Liam’s demeanor had told him already, but the Doctor pretended to be surprised both times the waitresses told him of the relationship between the cook and Ellie.

“They was to marry, come next year, Ellie said”¦”

“She kept it from her mother ““ Efora wanted her to marry her third cousin Lark Nittlescent. Nice favored boy, and well pocketed, but bland as custard”¦”

That interested him.

Or if you celebrate some other holiday at this time of year, happy that. Maybe your days be merry and bright, and may there be many more of them to come!

And if you just got a Kindle or e-reader, may I remind you that you can get my collection for it for a mere $2.99?

Tabita interrupted. She was a classic old crone of Tabat, her skin darkened from exposure to the salt wind, her hair cut short in the manner of sailors, which older women affected due to its easiness, if they had retained enough hair to make the style dignified.

Doctor Fantastik fixed her with a portentous eye. No particular amount of ghost energy clung to her, other than the growth that covered them all, the ectoplasmic snail ooze that ghosts could not help but exude and which grew throughout this building, shaggy and slimy as rotting moss.

Enjoy this sample of Cat’s writing and want more of it on a weekly basis, along with insights into process, recipes, photos of Taco Cat, chances to ask Cat (or Taco) questions, discounts on and news of new classes, and more? Support her on Patreon.

Overall, 2010’s been a much better year than 2009, although it’s had its less pleasant moments, such as special assessment convulsions in my condo complex, my Grandmother’s death in November, and the usual array of rejections implicit in being a writer and sending stuff out. 🙂

On the bright side, my collection was a 2010 Endeavour Award finalist and I had fourteen stories published in 2010. Here’s the list, with a notable reprint and two podcasts to boot:

1. 2020 VISIONS, edited by Rick Novy. Therapy Buddha.

A dark story of data herds and contraband foods, edited by a fellow Codex writer.

2. CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 3, 2010, edited by Mike Allen. Surrogates.

An R-rated absurdist story telling of Belinda and Bingo’s love.

3. TRIANGULATION: END OF THE RAINBOW, 2010, edited by Bill Moran. In Order to Conserve.

A reprint from the collection, which also appeared as a podcast on Podcastle. A slim little political fable.

4. M-BRANE, January, 2010. Fire on the Water’s Heart.

Far flung tragedy of alien species interacting and sparking a doomed romance.

5. MOOT MAGAZINE, April 2010. Biosapiens.

Who is V-man, what does he want, and why does he glow under certain conditions?

6. MOOT MAGAZINE, April, 2010. The Strange Case of Maya Andaluz.

Graduate student and artist Maya is abducted by a strange alien light, leaving behind a fishbowl filled with desiccated fish and half-melted glass pebbles.

7. EXPANDED HORIZONS, June, 2010. Coyote Barbie.

Contains a favorite line of mine, “Barbies who run with the wolves”.

8. EXPANDED HORIZONS, July, 2010. Swamp Gas.

This was originally written for the Apex magazine contest asking writers to combine urban legends with UFOs – it’s my version of the vanishing hitchhiker.

9. EVERY DAY FICTION, August, 2010. The Investigation.

Flash fiction detailing events in a mythical location that I think of as vaguely French.

10. PODCASTLE, August, 2010. Sugar.

A Tabat story that originally appeared in the first Fantasy Magazine sampler and was later reprinted in my collection.

11. LIGHTSPEED, September, 2010. Amid the Words of War. (Kindle version)

One of my Clarion West stories, the first set at the brothel The Little Teacup of the Soul.

12. DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, September, 2010. Seeking Nothing.

2010 was a year for dark SF, and here’s another example of that.

13. CROSSED GENRES, September, 2010. Centzon Totochin.

Horror set in a small Mexican town.

14. EVERY DAY FICTION, September, 2010. Love Affair.

Written during my grad student days at Indiana University.

15. TOR.COM, October, 2010. Clockwork Fairies

Perhaps my favorite of the 2010 publications, this is my attempt to talk about some of the problems implicit in the steampunk genre. I -love- the accompanying artwork by Gregory Manchess.

16. REDSTONE SCIENCE FICTION, November, 2010. Not Waving, Drowning

A final dark story of a marriage between telepath and non-telepath to finish out the year.

In 2011, I have stories coming out from ABYSS & APEX (Bots d’Amor), BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES (Love, Resurrected), BULL SPEC (The Coffeemaker’s Passion), GIGANOTOSAURUS (Karaluvian Fale, which Armageddon players should note is set in Allanak), DAILY SCIENCE FICTION (Pippa’s Smiles), LIGHTSPEED (Long Enough And Just So Long), SHADOWS AND LIGHT II (Aquila’s Ring, another story that Armageddon players will be interested in, since it takes place in Allanak and Tuluk). Podcastle will be doing an audio version of my collaboration with Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon’s Tale.

I got a Kindle and discovered the joys of e-readers, and even converted my collection, EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT, into a Kindle version, as well as one for other e-readers.

“Twin daughters,” Doctor Fantastik said. “That’s very sad. A friend of yours?”
“I bring him spices from the Southern Isles when I come up from there. Saves him on the merchanting mark-up.”
“And the duty, no doubt,” Doctor Fantastik said.
The sailor shrugged. “I’ll give you the address, and you tell ’em Cyril sent ya. They’ll see to my fee. They’re right desperate.”
“How so?”
“At least one of the girls been turned poltergeist,” Cyril said.

When I’m teaching, I do bring some books to class in order to point students toward them. I don’t think books are a substitute for the act of writing, but they can help focus and direct your practice and give you a list of things to work on that might not otherwise occur to you. Here’s a list of my top ten for speculative fiction writers focusing on their craft. I was sad to find some not available on the Kindle, but where possible, I’ve pointed to the e-version.

1. The 10% Solution by Ken Rand from Fairwood Press. I love this slim little book, I recommend it above all others for both fiction and nonfiction writers, and I think you cannot get more bang for your buck than buying this book and applying its methods. I use it on all my pieces — the process becomes less mechanical and more automatic as time goes by.
2. The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Kindle version. You get this when you go off to college but no one ever reads it. It is well worth sitting down and working your way through.
3. Steering the Craft by Ursula K. LeGuin. Thoughtful and poetic writing instruction. I often use the Expository Lump exercise in my Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction class, and learn something new from it every time.
4. Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress. Useful and practical, Kress goes over the basics, putting them together in a coherent and easily understandable fashion that includes plenty of exercises to work through.
5. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. Kindle version. While this book will prove too new-agey hippie for some (I’d advise those to turn to Strunk & White or the Kress), it’s a useful and exciting kick in the butt to write for others. I appreciate Goldberg, whose book taught me the habit of doing timed writings, a mainstay of my process.
6. About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, and Five Interviews by Samuel R. Delany. Delany is one of the greatest voices of the 20th/21st century, and his writing advice is practical and elegant and deep. One of the things he says is that you can’t write anything better than the quality of what you’re reading and that seems like great, inspirational advice to me.
7. Surrealist Games by Alastair Brotchie. If you want to enliven your writing, play some of the games enclosed here, which inspired some of the greats of the Surrealist movement.
8. The Passionate Accurate Story: Making Your Heart’s Truth Into Literature by Carol Bly. Some great stuff on writing here, and interesting exercises, including writing a scene that doesn’t actually appear in the story.
9. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams. I originally ran across this book while teaching composition at Johns Hopkins, and I think it’s just fabulous for focusing on the sentence level. I’ve found it often hard to find over the years, so I’m happy to see it in print again.
10. On Writing by Stephen King. (Kindle version) The first part is raw autobiography that is a useful insight into how a writer can be off the rails and still productive. The second part, which focuses on writing, is full of terrific stuff that shows what a craftsman King is.

2016 addendum! I still stand by all these, but here are five more:

Million Dollar Outlines

Storyteller by Kate Wilhelm

talk the Talk: A Dialogue Workshop for Scriptwriters by Penny Penniston

The Three Jaguars: A Comic about Art, Business, Life by M.C.A. Hogarth

Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer. Worth it just for the pretty illustrations and marvelous charts produced by Jeremy Zerfoss in collaboration with VanderMeer, but also jam-packed with good and interesting writing advice that I have found best absorbed in small chunks, dipping into the book now and again for inspiration.

(from the current story in progress, which is set in Tabat)

“This craze for exorcisms is a harmful fad,” Dr. Fantastik said to the man at his left. His tone was severe in a way that seemed at odds with the addressed man’s mien, for the lefthand man was wholely engaged in his newspaper, turning over the yellow sheets with an attention utterly untouched by Dr. Fantastik’s presence.

“A harmful fad!” Doctor Fantastik said, a trifle louder, and this time the man looked up, then left and right, as though trying to determine who the Doctor might be speaking to. Seeing an empty seat to his left and the Doctor to his right, he raised his eyebrows in a gently interrogatory fashion.

The Doctor nodded, and continued speaking as though the question of who his interlocutor was had never been in question. “It is a result of inflammatory and showy performers, whose “patients” are often accomplices and actors.”

This time the man outright shrugged. His attention dropped back to his newspaper, whose headline read (something clever to come).

Doctor Fantastik considered him. The Doctor himself was dressed in an out of heels velvet coat, of a style popular a decade or so ago. Although in neat repair, the hems were worn and shabby, and a darn spidered its way up one side. He wore ivory-framed spectacles that glinted in the tavern’s light. Like his vestments, his hair was neatly kept but had seen better days. Spots of wear shone on his scalp, uncloaked by the wisps of white hair that remained.

He seemed about to speak when his attention was caught by a young woman entering. He watched as she paused to cast an appraising glance over the clientele, which was sparse for an afternoon in Tabat, when most took to tea-shops and taverns to drink the spiced fish-tea that was the city’s favorite drink. Doctor Fantastik was not himself drinking such a thing; rather a mug of lemon and water sat before him as she picked her way across the uneven planking of the floor to sit down on his right side.

The newspaper man at first barely spared her a glance, but then he took her in more fully and began stealing admiring looks. She was worthy of such, her skin as fashionably pale as that of any upper-class maiden, her hair immaculate and well-brushed, shining as it fell over her slightly antiquated but quality silk clothes. Her doe-soft eyes were dark and lustrous, but they did not return the newspaper reader’s glance, but rather remained fixed upon Doctor Fantastik.

Enjoy this sample of Cat’s writing and want more of it on a weekly basis, along with insights into process, recipes, photos of Taco Cat, chances to ask Cat (or Taco) questions, discounts on and news of new classes, and more? Support her on Patreon.

I just sent my scheduler in to Bellevue College last week – I’ll be teaching the Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction class again this spring as well as the Blogging 101 class. I’ll post the dates for that when I have them in hand.

With both classes, I’ve gone through my notes, getting them together. With the blogging class I’ve been using a new online tool I saw mentioned during the great “Yahoo is getting rid of Delicious!” flak, Trailmeme.

WIth Trailmeme, the central metaphor is “trails” of links, which you can annotate. So I’ve used the outline from my Blogging class to collect my Delicious links on the topic. Here is the Blogging 101 “trail”. A cool feature of Trailmeme is the ability to discuss links – please feel free to make suggestions and/or forward the link to the trail along to people who might find it useful. I know a lot of those links are ones I’ve frequently referred to and often continue to use.

One of the reasons I’ve gone to that trouble is that I’m pushing a couple of consulting services next year, and one of them is a critique of your blog or website talking about its current structure and organization, its search ranking and strategy, how you might use it more effectively, how you might be using social networks, and directions you might want to take it in, based on what a student gets out of that class. For $100, you get a 500 word write-up. If you want to go more in-depth, contact me and I’ll give you an estimate.