Following up to my phenomenal success at selling “Ten Foot Tall He Was, with Eyes of Flame” to Anotherealm, I’ve begun a new round of marketing some of my short stories. I finally received a rejection slip from Cemetery Dance (”Who?” I hear you ask; “One of the top names in horror fiction today,” you hear me reply). I’d sent them “Ten Foot Tall…” back in April and they didn’t want it. Probably for the best, since I’d sold it somewhere else.

Today, “Burying Uncle Albert” when to Cemetery Dance and “Indications” went to Weird Tales. I’d lost track of Weird Tales for several years, but found just last night that they’re still printing. I like their stuff and I think I fit in with them.

So, my two stories are headed out. Godspeed, little fellas.

Writing is hard. So, so freaking hard. Hard to get myself motivated, hard to put the words on to paper. But it’s like sneezing. The stories just kind of build up in you — more and more, worse and worse, until you have no choice but to expel them out of you as quickly as possible and maybe wipe up the remnants afterwards with some Kleenex. I write because it’s better for my health than trying to keep my sneezes all bottled up.

And because there are all of these neat worlds inside of me. Well, I think that they’re neat. In my own mind I’ve managed to create a “meta-mythos” which kind of encompasses every novel idea and most of the role-playing game ideas I’ve ever had. I could write a dozen books and a hundred short stories and the poor fools who wanted to know what was going on in my head would have to read them all to figure it all out. I’m a devious little schmuck, aren’t I?

But I’m still having trouble just sitting down and writing. So. Three pages a day. That’s what I’m promising myself. I’m planning on writing ten short stories this year, and possibly finish the first draft of The Troll King’s Daughter. I think that once I have some momentum, it’ll get easier for me again.