Podcasts And Goals

Episode 2 of the Cossmass Infinities podcast is live and waiting for you to consume it. I haven't listened yet, but it's waiting in line on my iPod. The Strange Affair of the Martian Engine by Joshua Reynolds can be found here: http://cossmass.co.uk/infinities/2. Good title! Cossmass Infinities, as you might recall, are the fine people who did an audio version of my Teddy Bear story last month. Subscribe if you haven't already.

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I've got about twenty-three slots filled right now for my 52 in 2010 goal. Right now I'm mining old ideas that have been lounging around on my hard drive for years and not pulling their own weight. I don't know about you other writers out there, but I've got literally hundreds of ideas sitting on my computer at any given time. Many of them are crap, but there are stories that can be coaxed out of some of them. I'm going through my old Wordperfect files, converting them through Zamzar. It's a bit of a hassle, but it's free and it gets the job done. If I could find my Wordperfect disc which is hiding somewhere under the many piles of stuff in my home, I'd pop it in and run it right now, because I love Wordperfect. If any of you know how I could convert my Pages files (from Apple's iWork suite) on the cheap to Word documents or even .rtf, I'd appreciate it if you would share the knowledge.

I think I'll come up with more than fifty-two potential stories in case some of them become unworkable. Also, I'm going to need lots of ideas for next year and the years to come, because if I'm going to reach The One-Thousand by fifty, I'm going to have to average over one-hundred stories a year after this year. Holy crap!

Anyway, I'm going to be coming up with lots of new ideas as well as refurbishing old ones. The best way I've found to come up with story ideas is to write flash-fiction stories of about 250 words. If an idea isn't workable as a proper short story, you haven't wasted much time with it. If it is, you just expand it. Some of my favorite stories grew this way. Try it.

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The latest StarShipSofa features Tony's new monthly interview segment, this time with Lucius Shepard.

Aural Delights No 119 John W Campbell Jr vs Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Editorial: StarShipSofa Interrogation by Tony C Smith

SF Weekly News: Tony C Smith

Main Fiction: The Last Evolution by John W Campbell Jr

StarShipSofa Interrogation: Lucius Shepard

Main Fiction: Knotwork by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Narrators: J.J. Campanella Christie Yant