A Sad Time

Per an e-mail I received from the trustee, the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust is officially shutting down on December 31, 2025. By shutting down, I mean the trustee is pulling every single copy, both electronic and paper from all retailers.

The Trust lasted for twenty-six years, but the folks working for the Trust have reached their own twilight years. I don't blame them one bit for wanting to spend their last years working on their own projects.

What does this means in regards to me? My first trad publishing contract was with the Trust for a short story called "Justice" in Sword and Sorceress 28. I sold three more stories to editor Elisabeth Waters that appeared in Volumes 30, 31, and 32. I'm proud of those stories. Back in 2013, I wasn't prepared for the popularity of the main characters of "Justice". Life's funny though, and I just released the tenth novel in the Justice series, A Cup of Conflict.

If you'd like paperback copies of Sword and Sorceress Volumes 27 through 34, or e-books of the currently available volumes, please get your copies before 2026 rolls around.

An Odd Afternoon

I stayed up until four a.m. working on A Twist of Love. I'm at the difficult state where it's done in my mind, but not on paper. At this point, I feel like it's old so I have to force myself to get the words down.

Therefore, I didn't wake up until after two this afternoon. And one of the first things I saw was that Susan Ellison had passed away. It unnerved me because she's only a couple of years older than me. But considering she passed a couple of years after Harlan's death, part of me is not surprised.

And ironically, I was thinking about Harlan Ellison last night when I saw this article from Bleeding Cool.

I love the pulp sword and sorcery stories. It was that feeling I tried to capture when I wrote "Justice" seven years ago. Flashing Swords #6 should have been an awesome revival.

But people read fantasy to escape from the real world and their real world problems just for a little while. Hell, I can see that just in the little uptick in my fantasy sales over the last couple of months.

The preaching hateful screed that was presented as the introduction would have been wrong no matter which side of the political divide it came from. And as a writer, you put your trust in your editor not to do something stupid when joining an anthology, just like the editor trusts you to deliver a story that fits their image for the collection.

What you don't want as a writer is an introduction that will alienate over half of your potential readership whether it clicks with your own sensibilities or not.

In my experience with Elisabeth Waters, I was sent the entire galley of the Sword and Sorceress volumes my stories appeared in. So I saw and read Lisa's introduction even though I was only require to proof my own story. And she always delivered a lovely ode to the genre.

From the chatter of those who withdrew their stories from Flashing Swords #6, none of them saw Price's introduction until the Look Inside feature went live on Amazon. The publisher has since withdrawn the book, but if you want to read the full introduction, it's out there on the interwebs.

So hopefully, both the writers and the publisher chalk this up to a learning experience on who to trust as an editor.

So what does this have to do with Harlan Ellison? He was a person who didn't tolerate stupidity from anyone: publishers, editors, fans or other writers. In the back of my head, I could hear him cussing up a storm over this kind of stupidity. It's one thing to make a stand on your own words. It's another thing to use other people's words as a launching pad for your beliefs.

This situation will make me be even more careful about which anthologies I submit to.

No, there's more to it than me submitting. It makes me want to start my own anthology because there's lots of awesome stories I want to read out there in the world, and I would guard and treasure those stories the way I would my own.

The Last of the Jonathan Moeller S&S 28 Interviews

After Thanksgiving, I plain out forgot to post links to the rest of Jonathan's interviews of the contributing authors of Sword and Sorceress 28.

I know.

Bad Suzan.

Anyway, here's the links:

Elisabeth Waters (our esteemed editor) and Michael Spence

Steve Chapman

Jessie Eaker

Speed and First Drafts Are Not Your Enemy. Fear Is.

The reason this post is late today is I'm reticent to stir the controversy pot.

I can hear what thinking. Since when, Suzan?

It's the issue of speed when it comes to drafting a story.

Please understand that I'm not talking about physical limitations. And before anyone goes off on me in comments, yes, I do understand certain impediments. I'm in the early stages of arthritis thanks to the self-destructing chemical soup that is my body, and I'm losing my eyesight, even though my doctor has been running an a battery of tests since March, he can't figure out what the problem is, and he's more frustrated about the situation than I am.

Maybe it's my own impending problems that spurs my need for speed. I've got so many ideas in my head that demand to be told. I started watching how many books were put out per year by my favorite authors. The only one who really talks about his process is Dean Wesley Smith.

When I started writing with the intent to publish back in 2004, I was doing great to get down 250 per hour. At the beginning of the year, I could do 500 words per hour. Dean's 7500 words per day seemed an impossible thing to achieve unless I went without sleep, food or potty breaks.

So instead of the impossible, I went for the possible. I'd done NaNoWriMo before. 50K words in 30 days comes out to 1,667 words per day. What if I bumped that up to 2K per day?

And it worked! Despite the craziness of homeschooling and packing, it worked. I finished five novellas, three short stories and the infamous novel Blood Sacrifice since January 1, 2013.

Which brings me to the other problem--rewriting. Maybe it's the flippant answer I gave in a recent interview. Maybe it's something Dean said in his blog, but I've given up on rewriting pieces ad nauseum.

Why? Because when I do, the book doesn't sound like me anymore. It reads like every piece of pablum coming out of New York these days. Oh, there's definitely times when I, my editor or beta readers say, "Hey! This piece here doesn't match the rest!"

But to me, that's content editing, not a complete rewrite. And I'm not saying a rewrite is never necessary.

Blood Sacrifice is a prime example. I started it in 2009, and I had to scrap it after seeing Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull because Steven Spielberg and I had the same frickin' plot. In 2010, I tried again, but I realized I had a problem with who the Big Bad was. It needed to be someone worthy of Alex and Phil.

I sat down for a brainstorming session over pumpkin lattes with my friend Jody in 2011. "The Aztecs and Mayans are overdone right now," she said. "Go farther south."

She had lived in Peru during the 1968 military coup. (I really think she needs to write about her life, but she thinks she's boring. Goddess, she so is not!)  She had a ton of books (most of which I couldn't read because they were in Spanish) and native music recordings she let me borrow, but it was her photos and recounting of the the Day of the Dead festivals that caught my warped attention.

Again, I started Blood Sacrifice. Again, I ran into a problem. I set it aside and concentrated on Alter Ego's career. This year, as I was wrapping breakables for packing, the solution popped into my head.

The only other time I rewrote a novel was to satisfy the bizarre whims of agents. (Zombie Love if you're curious. The published version is very close to the original version once I gave up trying to please a bunch of strangers who didn't give a shit about my story.) It's one thing when my perfectionistic streak comes into play. It's another when someone arbitrarily dictates changes.

Anything else I've written and published is the first draft. Including the short story "Justice" which I sold to Elisabeth Waters, the editor of Sword and Sorceress 28.

I can go into all the psychology of why writers think slow drafting and multiple drafts are a good thing, but I won't since Dean covers it pretty well in his Killing the Sacred Cows series on his blog.

It all comes down to one word--fear.

It's amazing how good writing feels once you let go of that fear.

So I challenge all of you to write FAST, write FEARLESSLY and have FUN!

My First Time Doing Proofs

Like I said back in May, I sold a story to Sword and Sorceress 28. On Friday, July 5th, I got the proofs from editor Elisabeth Waters. For the whole damn book, not just my story.

You have no idea how hard it's been NOT to read the other authors' stories. Mainly, because I want to order the volume and devour it in a weekend like I normally do. Then there's the added joy that my story is right next to Deborah J. Ross (aka Deborah Wheeler). Fan girl *squeeeeeeeeee*

In a way, it's unsettling seeing how my writing will look in a print book. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I need to tackle putting my indie books in print, and I'm slightly intimidated. Maybe because I didn't think this day would ever come with the tightening of the trad market.

I tried to relay my concerns to DH that evening. He pointed out that maybe it would be more time efficient for me to hire people to do the formatting and covers for the print editions. When I showed him some of the designers and artists and laid out their costs, he surprised me by saying, "That's it? We need to start hiring people to help you, so you can get more writing done."

I keep forgetting that he deals with five- and six-figure contracts as a matter of business, so my piddly three-figure costs are nothing to him.

But for now, I need to keep my attention on my business, which means returning my proofs to my editor on time.

By the way, have I said how excited I am about being in Sword and Sorceress 28?