Did I Say Write?

What I meant was complete. In my 52 in 2010 post (I'd link to it here, but shit, just scroll down!) I said my goal was to write 52 stories in 2010. What I meant was complete 52 stories. Because I'll gladly pick up half finished things from months and years gone by, rework them and send them out. I'm not changing my goal, I just misstated my goal. I knew what I meant, if no one else did.

So, we're one week in, how's it going so far? Not as well as I'd hoped. I submitted one story yesterday and haven't quite finished my first story of the year, even though it was one of those three-quarters finished stories from last year. Oh, well. We fight on. It'll be done within twenty-four hours. I also have to figure out what I'm going to write next. I've taken on way too much stuff. Not the goal, but the goal plus everything else, meaning other writing things I've sort of promised to do. But it's cool. What the hell else was I doing with my life anyway?

Hey, the Sofa rocks! First off, the winners of this year's Sofanaut Awards have been announced. I'm actually lifting this from the always excellent SF Signal because it was actually written there and only on audio at the Sofa itself.

• Best Main Fiction: "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang (ep #66)


• Best Flash & Short Fiction: "Then, Just a Dream" by Lawerence Santoro (ep #84)


• Best Poetry or Song Contributor: Neil Gaiman


• Best Narrator: (Tie) Lawrence Santoro and Spider Robinson


• Best Fact Article Contributor: Jim Campanella (Science News)


• Best Artwork: StarShipSofa Stories Volume 1 - Skeet

Larry won twice! Way to go! Speaking of Larry, I'm happy to report that the Sofa raised $5,353 (US) for Spider and Jeanne Robinson. When you figure most of the donations were $5 a pop, that's pretty incredible. Thank you, to all of you who donated and all of you who helped get the word out!

On top of all that, StarShipSofa has a really cool show out this week with Amy talking about Trollope (Who shares a birthday with me) and a story by one of my favorite authors, Paul Di Filippo

Aural Delights No 115 Paul Di Filippo

Editorial: Lord Dicken’s Final Tally by Tony C Smith 04:00

Fact Article: Looking Back At SF History by Amy H Sturgis 16:20

Main Fiction: iCity by Paul Di Filippo 30:00

Fact Article: The Winners: The Sofanaut Awards 57:30

Narrator: Jeff Lane

Cossmass Productions

Lastly, I haven't yet read Kick-Ass (though a friend is loaning me his issues in a couple of days (Thank you, Jim)), but this trailer wowed me. It's not to be watched when the kids are around. Even if the kids are in their mid-thirties. Saw this on SF Signal as well. Maybe you should just go over there. I can't post the damned thing here, but go see for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zLsdBEsr90

Thanks And The Sofa

Hey, you guys, It's time once again to nominate your favorite contributors to StarShipSofa's wonderful Aural Delights show for The Sofanaut Awards. These are nominations so you can pick as many favorites as you like. I'm eligible in three categories. Just sayin'.

Best Main Fiction: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diplomat
Best Flash/Short Fiction: A Hard Rain and Brothers and Sisters All
Best Fact Article Contributor: Fiction Crawler, Movie Talk Special - Watchmen

Thanks a bunch for listening! You can vote here:

http://sofanauts2010.questionpro.com/

Next, I want to wish all you Americans and ex-pats out there a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow and you know, I've had a shit year (debt, divorce and death, among other plagues), but I still have a lot to be thankful for. Family and friends like you guys, chief among them. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Lastly, I have totally sucked at plugging the Sofa lately, so let's remedy that right now:

Aural Delights No 110 Cory Doctorow

Editorial: by StarShipSofa Stories by Sean Keough

Fact Article: The Sofanaut Awards by Mark Bormann

Fact Article: With A Little Help by Cory Doctorow

Main Fiction: To Go Boldly by Cory Doctorow

Fact: Film Talk by Rod Barnett

New Titles by Tony C Smith

Narrators: JJ Campanella, Paul Caggige

Art Cover by Skeet

The Sofanauts Awards 2010 VOTE NOW!

I've Been A Wiener

But what's new? It's been what? Like a couple of weeks since the Sofanauts Awards, and I haven't mentioned the winners, which I would have had I won. Sorry. Amy won in my category and I'm happy, because although I told people to vote for me, I voted for her. For the simple reason that I think her articles are better than mine. Here are all the winners:

Best Flash Fiction: Spider Robinson - "In The Olden Days"

Best Main Fiction: Ted Chiang - "The Merchant & the Alchemists Gate"

Best Poetry Contributor: Laurel Winter

Best Fact Article Contributor: Amy H Sturgis

Best Narrator: Spider Robinson

Pretty much anybody who was nominated could have won and I would have been happy with the results because the Sofa is just that good.

Andrew Wyeth And Stuff

I just found out that Andrew Wyeth died a couple of days ago. Raise a glass to a master. I chose to post his Trodden Weed because I love the boots. You can imagine Solomon Kane wearing these, marching off to kill a witch.

I finally moved on a bit with The Inner Workings of the Artificial Mind. I finished a draft of Chapter 9 and I'll shortly ship it off to its readers. You may or may not recall that the book is a bit of an experiment. Normally I won't send anything on to a reader until I think it's as good as it can get. With this novel, I'm sending it out less than perfect, partly because some people were curious about the writing process and partly to get myself into gear and work on the thing. I sent out Chapter 8 in September, so I'm a little behind.

Only a few days left to vote in The Sofanauts Awards: http://www.micropoll.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=1118390

And finally, I think I post way too much eighties music here, so I want to put on some newer stuff. Here's a tune I like from Ellie Lawson. It comes with a homework assignment. I need you guys to comment and tell me if you can play the entire three minutes and forty-two seconds of song or if you get an abbreviated bit from it. I ask, because when I ran the Iron Maiden song the other day, I could hear the whole thing on my MacBook, from where I posted it, but only heard thirty seconds from my desktop PC. I used Firefox on both computers, but I wasn't signed into the blog as me on the PC. It was posted on imeem by the imeem jukebox, maybe that had something to do with it. Anywho, let me know, and here you go:

Gotta get up from here - Ellie Lawson

Other Stuff Today

Because it seemed awkward and tasteless to stick any of this in the last post . . .

Welcome Ms. Mona, follower number 5! I think she may be Homer Simpson's Reno wife, though I'm not sure

Market listings for you spec fiction writers out there. Do you use Duotrope? I hear Ralan mentioned a lot and I don't use Duotrope exclusively, but there are a lot of things I like about this market listing. You can seek out markets by genre and story length, sort by payscale, see how long a magazine's average response is and its acceptance rate. I like to use a few different market lists because if you stick to just one, you'll definitely miss out on some. I also use StoryPilot and of course I bookmark pages of mags that I don't find through any of these sites.

The link for voting for the Sofanauts Awards is up again, for the moment. Please vote if you haven't yet done so.

And speaking of the Sofa . . .

This week the StarShipSofa is pleased to present Aural Delights No. 58. Blast off!

Aural Delights No 58 Ian Watson

Editorial: Tony C Smith

Poem: Again The Night by O G Clark

Fact: Early Utopia by Amy H Sturgis

Main Fiction: Looking Down On You by Ian Watson

Sofanuts Update: Mark Bormann

New Titles: Tony C Smith

Serial Part 2 of 3: Temptation by David Brin Contrary Brin

Narrators: Julie Davis, Kenny Park

www.starshipsofa.com

FINALLY!

I finally finished Fiction Crawler 4! I sent it in a week ago, but one of the stories I mentioned was The Film-makers of Mars. Little did I know Film-makers was going to run last week. So I had to find another story, rewrite and re-record. I really hope this one runs before any of the stories on it do.

Speaking of that, I never mentioned last week's show. Oops! Here we go: This week, the StarShipSofa is pleased to present Aural Delights no. 57. Blast off!

Aural Delights No 57 Geoff Ryman/David Brin special!

Poem: Fifty Cents by Mark Rich

Blinded By The Light: Part 1 Jetes de Vries

Fact: Science News by JJ Campanella

Main Fiction: Film-Makers of Mars by Geoff Ryman

Beardie Book Review: Sean Keogh

Serial Part 1 of 3: Temptation by David Brin Contrary Brin

Narrators: Julie Davis, Diane Severson Geoff Ryman

www.starshipsofa.com

Film-makers is awesome by the by. I'm also a huge fan of Brin's Uplift books and the serial is an Uplift story. Yay! If you haven't read Startide Rising yet, what in the hell are you waiting for? It's been out for like 25 years now.

As a reminder, you still have time to vote for your Sofa favorites in The Sofanauts Awards. I checked the link a couple of weeks ago and it was down. I just checked it now and it's down. Crappo. Well, you can still vote by joining the StarShipSofa forums and voting on the Awards topic. Do it now!

StarShipSofa - Aural Delights No. 55

Nominations are over and the finalists are in! It's time for listeners to vote for their favorites for the first annual Sofanauts Awards! Voting is open until January 23rd. By the by, I'm a big fat finalist in the Best Fact Article Contributor category. Honestly, it won't bother me a bit if Amy or Jim wins, their stuff is great, but if you do like my goods the best, give me a vote. My "Sorry you didn't get in there"'s go out to all my fellow Sofa-sitters who didn't get in there. Sorry.


This Week, the StarShipSofa is proud to present a story by Ben Bova on Aural Delights No. 55. Blast Off!

Aural Delights No 55 Ben Bova

Editorial: Tony C Smith

Poetry: How I will Outwit the Time Thieves by Mike Allen

Flash Fiction: Magician by Jeff VanderMeer

Fact: Singularity by Cory Doctorow

The Process Diary by Paul Caggegi

The Sofanauts Awards: by Mark Bormann

Main Fiction: Inspiration by Ben Bova

Narrators: Chrispy, Mark Nelson, Annette Bowman

This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Download a free audiobook of your choice today at audiblepodcast.com/sofa

www.starshipsofa.com

A Hard Rain On The Sofa

Woo-hoo! I've got a flash fiction story on the Sofa this week! A Hard Rain, as you might remember, first appeared on this very blog. Once again, if you haven't voted for The Sofanauts Awards nominations, do so now. There's less then a week to go.

This Week, StarShipSofa is pleased to present Aural Delights No. 54. Blast off!

Aural Delights No 54 Joan D Vinge

Editorial: Tony C Smith

Poetry: Light Across An Impossible Lake by Mark Rich

Flash Fiction: Hard Rain by Matthew Sanborn Smith

Fact: Arthur Gordon by Amy H Sturgis

The Sofanauts Awards: by Mark Bormann

Main Fiction: A View From A Height by Joan D Vinge

Narrators: Kate Baker, Julio Flavio, Diane Severson

Advertisement: This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Download a free audiobook of your choice today at audiblepodcast.com/sofa

www.starshipsofa.com

I Wanted You To Read It Here First

Thanks to Diane, for being follower number three and all the nice things she's said in my direction over the past year (including her comments here). If you haven't yet voted in the Sofanaut Awards nominations (and why haven't you?), then give Diane your love for "Best Narrator." Yes, we are a big mutual admiration society over at the Sofa. That's why we need your votes, so that it doesn't end in a fifty person tie for first place. Voting only lasts about twelve more days, so please have at it!

Tomorrow, I'm heading to the wife's school early on to help her with a Breakfast with Santa, the cooking and the clean-up. Then we're off to a parenting class which is a condition of the forthcoming divorce. That's at least twelve hours of my day between the two, so I'm not certain I'll be posting tomorrow, but I'll sure as heck try to get you your daily dose of Mattitude.

Oo. I just forgot. The class is near our good friend(Joel Kilmer, who first coined the word Mattitude)'s shop, Big Dog Comics. We'll have to stop by there for the latest issues of The Boys if we possibly can. Over the past month I've enjoyed the twentieth anniversary of meeting both Joel and my wife. Both meetings occured shortly after I moved to Florida. And I thought I wouldn't make new friends.

Of course, if Joel reads this, he might say, "What in the hell? I didn't know they were getting a divorce!" Well, all I can say, Joel, is that these things are best broken online, where I don't have to answer any questions!

Okay, Now Vote For Me

I don't know what I was thinking in that last post. Maybe I was trying to be self-effacing.

VOTE FOR ME!

The Sofanauts Awards

That's better. My name is in the hat for "Best Flash Fiction" (That would be for my story, Sunday Dinner) and "Best Fact Article Contributor" (For my regular Fiction Crawler series and my article, Jim Sawgrass and the Family Bulbs).

And by all means, whether you like my stuff or not, give a vote under "Best Narrator" for Kenny Park, my man over in "followers" to the left, for his FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC narration on the Adam Roberts story Remorse. You can listen to it on episode 30 (about three minutes in) here:
http://tinyurl.com/5w74up

StarShipSofa - Aural Delights No. 53

The StarShipSofa is pleased to present Aural Delights No. 53. On this week's show notes there's a link to The Sofanauts Awards nominations, a listener poll for the best of the first year of Aural Delights. So click it and nominate all of your favorites from the past year. Blast off!

Aural Delights No 53 Ted Kosmatka

Editorial: Tony C Smith

Poetry: An Eccentric In Orbit by Laurel Winter

Flash Fiction: Conspiracy Of Dentists by Jay Lake

Fact: Movie Talk by Rod Barnett

The Sofanauts Awards: by Mark Bormann

Main Fiction: Deadnauts by Ted Kosmatka

Narrators: Kate Baker, Diane Severson, Paul Caggegi

THE SOFANAUTS: Click to vote!

www.starshipsofa.com