How I Learned to Be Social Despite Having Introverted Parents

The other day I wrote about How Being Social Helps Me as a Writer and an Editor, and now here's my post about how I learned how to do that.

My parents are both very nice people, and they are thoroughly introverted. Their home is their restful place away from other people. They don't get the notion to invite friends over. It's just not their thing, and that's okay.

Anyone looking at me when I was a child, if they were inclined to think about introverts and extraverts, would surely have thought I'd turn out to be an introvert. I was shy and quiet. I liked to read. I played by myself, and didn't really understand other kids. I didn't smile much, and when I did it was with my lips closed. I was SERIOUS.

Anyone who saw me then and saw me now, with a gap in between, would think that the child they'd seen had been replaced by someone else. Anyone who knows me now would be SHOCKED at the quiet mini-me, if they could see her. I'm just so different. So what happened?

We moved from a small town to the suburb of a big city just a couple of weeks after I turned twelve, when I was in the middle of sixth grade. The move was a big change, and I was suddenly around a whole new set of kids who had no expectations about what I was like. I didn't transform all at once, but I was trying new things simply by having to meet new people and make new friends if I wanted any, and then over the next few years I was increasingly interested in boys, too. I had the inclination to be extraverted, but it took me a while to develop some of my social skills because I needed to be around more people to learn them. It worked well for me to learn the ways of introverts when I was younger, fitting in with my family, but as a teenager I found that I wanted to expand outward and understand how to interact with people better.

Then I went too far with that and became clingy and needy, which made people push me away. That was upsetting, so I turned to self-help books.

The best one, strangely, was called Intimate Connections, by David D. Burns, M.D. I say "strangely" because the premise of this book is that in order to develop good friendships and find love, you need to learn how to really enjoy being alone. How to treat yourself as well as someone you would date. So I was learning how to be social by learning how to be alone. It's odd that a person growing up with introverted parents would need to learn that being alone is good, given examples of people who craved alone time, but I did. This was a life-changing book for me at a time when I really needed it.

What I learned was that there's a reason for this phenomenon most people know about: when you're single and looking for someone to date, or you're lonely and looking for friends, it's often hard to find them because you have a needy vibe. People sense that you want them to fix your life, and this is off-putting. When you stop looking and start to enjoy being single and don't even want to date, instantly you meet people who want to date you. It's because you're happy with your life, and happiness is attractive. Therefore, depending on a relationship to make you happy, or friends to make you happy, will limit your ability to have relationships and friendships. It's important to find your own happiness. The trick is to like yourself.

Everything I've learned about being social since then has been layered on top of that principle. It's not about being selfish or putting myself first; it's about treating myself well, and maintaining my own stability so that I can give affection to others, and listen, and be helpful whenever possible. This means knowing my own limits so that I can say "no" when I need to. I can't help everyone all the time. I have to do my own stuff. But if I have some time and there's something I can give freely and without resentment, I give it.

Coming soon: Why Enjoying Solitude Helps Me Meet Conventions Full of People

Also coming soon: How to Say No When You Need To

Five Books for Leveling Up in Writing and Life

There are hundreds of beginner-level writing books available for someone just starting out, but it's harder to find books that help with ongoing improvement after that stage. I have a few recommendations. The nifty thing is that these books all have a lot to offer for developing general creativity. Anyone from beginner through advanced in writing could get something out of reading these. They contain useful stuff for the rest of life as well, in my opinion.

The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle. This is the most generally applicable book on my little list, because it's about the kinds of practice that lead to mastery, and what's happening in the brain as that mastery is growing. It covers deep practice, ignition, and master coaching, each of which are important in reaching high levels of success in creative work and sports, especially. My favorite thing about this book is that it gave me ideas about how learning to be an excellent writer is more like high achievement in soccer than it's like mastering the violin, because the former relies on learning to flexibly access a wide range of options, while the latter is about perfecting the one correct way to play any given note. Anyone interested in developing any kind of talent should read this!

Around the Writer's Block: Using Brain Science to Solve Writer's Resistance, by Rosanne Bane. THIS BOOK IS SO GREAT. I've increased my productivity so much since I started to follow the practices suggested in this one. The great thing is that, although it's a book specifically about writing, the information is EASILY transferable to pretty much any area of life. It's about recognizing the ways in which stress prevents creative thinking, and how to establish easy, helpful habits that will prevent the stress response from taking over and blocking you from doing what you want to do. The book explains how to establish methods of process, product, and self-care to keep yourself in the right state of mind for creative thinking. This gets my highest recommendation.

Making a Good Writer Great: A Creativity Workbook for Screenwriters, by Linda Seger. Okay, I know the title says it's for screenwriters, but really it's for everyone. Who doesn't need more creativity? This book includes chapters like "Pushing Your Mind to Another Creative Level," "Exploring Your Themes and Ideas," and "Mining the Riches from Your Dreams," as well as chapters more specifically dedicated to improving writing skills. The examples are about screenwriting, but any writer can benefit from them. I like to read books about screenwriting to learn from a different angle. They tend to give me a better appreciation of movies, too.

Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence, by Lisa Cron. Why do people enjoy stories? Our brains get interested in stories for specific, explicable reasons which are covered here. Learning what makes people curious, and what holds their attention, is useful for writing fiction. It's also crucial for giving good presentations, getting along with others, and being an interesting person. In a time when social interactions online and in person are more important than ever before, as people become increasingly adept and sophisticated in the social realm, this is valuable information.

2k to 10k: How to write faster, write better, and write more of what you love, by Rachel Aaron, has a really self-explanatory title. All right, this one is strictly about writing. It's especially good for planning and outlining novels, so that you know what you intend to write on any given day. That helps with getting started and allowing the words to flow faster.

I am always looking for good books to read, so I hope you'll comment with your own recommendations!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: None! I have not gotten and will not get any financial compensation for mentioning these books. I don't do affiliate links.

How I Get Back to Work after a Vacation

SLOWLY.

I am back from eight days away, visiting lots of people! I spent time with friends I've known for years, and I met several seriously awesome new acquaintances. The trip was fantastic. And now I must settle in, somehow, and start being a productive member of society again, and how does that work again? I forget.

Therefore, it's time to turn to my old standby, the list. Basically that's all I can do at this point. The first workday after a trip is practically another vacation day as I wander around aimlessly, poking at the keyboard now and then as if to check whether or not it still lives. Usually I get a little irritated with myself toward the end of that day. I may or may not, at that point, also be showing symptoms of the cold I will have picked up during the trip.

Day two is when the list comes in. By day two, I'm DEFINITELY showing those cold symptoms, and I'm moving kind of slowly on all things, still, so just identifying things I could possibly do next is a struggle. I have to go stream-of-consciousness on the problem first, freewriting until the guilt of having been gone comes pouring out of my mind in the form of stuff to catch up on. Then I can take all that garbled mess and arrange it into a list of priorities, and just pick a few important ones to hack away at until I'm warmed up and functioning again.

This blog post was on that list! I told myself to make it a short post so that I could say hi and then cross "blog post" off of the list. So hi! Here I am, a little achy and sneezy, but back from my time off and working my way down my list. I hope you feel as good about this as I do. I'll write something longer next time.

Things You Might Like to Read While I'm Away from the Keyboard

This evening I'm leaving town to go to Mo*Con in Indianapolis, where I expect I will have a fabulous time or get arrested trying. Disclaimer: I have actually never gotten arrested, so I'm not sure I understand the process. But you never know. You never do know.

After the weekend, I'm moving onward for a vacation next week. Since I'm not taking a computer, I don't expect to be posting in this here blog during that time, so I'm going to leave you with some links to read. BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOUR NEEDS. I'll have my phone, which means I'll be showing up on Twitter and Facebook. But here are those links!

My two most popular blog posts:

Five Things I've Learned from Reading Slush (July 11, 2011), from back in my days of reading submissions for Clarkesworld Magazine (which, by the way, has a new, free, excellent-looking issue posted for May, so in my opinion you won't be sorry if you click).

Five Great Books for New-ish Writers (July 18, 2011), all of which I still recommend, but this reminds me: Coming Soon: Five Books for Leveling Up in Writing and Life.

Other blogs I recommend:

Start here for a list of blog posts exploring depression and creativity, written by people who will be at Mo*Con. Links to the rest are at the bottom of the post. This year's theme is The Mind and Spirit of the Artist.

Inkpunks, where a bunch of fantastic writers I know post consistently thoughtful and helpful posts about writing. I'm never disappointed when I visit this blog.

Penelope Trunk's Career Blog, where Penelope expresses a huge personality with interesting things to say, bringing in stories from her personal life to illustrate her widely respected ideas about career development. Many people disagree with her conclusions, but she offers a lot to think about. I don't know her, but my cousin does! If you want to see what she's like, here's a post that includes a demo reel from when some people wanted to make a reality show about her life.

Booktrust, where author Matt Haig is the writer-in-residence. He has a blog on his own website, too.

Ferrett Steinmetz's blog, in which he writes about writing, gaming, polyamory, beekeeping, politics, and all sorts of other things. I am solidly on Team Ferrett.

That should give you plenty to choose from! I hope you have a great week. If all goes as planned, I'll be back to blogging in mid-May, which is not terribly far in the future.

Anthology Submission Strategies that Work for Me

As I've mentioned before, all of my published fiction is in invitation-only anthologies. Now, I still haven't published huge numbers of stories, but my acceptance rate for anthologies has been very good. I'm here to tell you what I did, in case it might be helpful for you. I know for a fact that as an editor, I appreciate writers doing at least some of the following things.

First thing! If you want to improve your chances of getting invited to submit stories for anthologies, it is very helpful indeed to:

Go to writing conventions focused on the genre of your choice, and meet and be friendly with as many people there as possible, regardless of whether they seem like they can help you. BE NICE TO EVERYONE. Listen to them. Don't talk about yourself all the time. Ask about their work before you talk about your work (ideally, don't even talk about your work until they ask you about it). Have a cool business card and give it to them; ask if they have a card, but give them yours even if they don't.

Find a non-obnoxious way to let the world know that you like working with guidelines to write stories. Some writers actually hate doing that. I LOVE IT (<--see what I did there?). If you're going to be obnoxious, like me, be obnoxious in the best way you can!

Have a blog in which you write about things that interest you a couple of times a week. Penelope Trunk has excellent advice about that for you. Also, her career and homeschooling blogs are both outstanding, and she is hugely influential in my life right now. As she says, blogging lets people know your ideas about working in your field, and it helps them to know when and why to hire you. MAKE SURE YOUR CONTACT INFO IS ON IT. Many writers are super-cagey about their email addresses these days, presumably because of spam and trolls, or maybe because they haven't learned how to politely say no to requests, but speaking as an editor, it's hard to send you guidelines if there's no email address to send them to. I may be a weirdo, but I don't like those email forms people have on their websites.

Okay? So next, whether you have an invitation to submit or you're taking a whack at an open-call anthology, here are my tips.

Crucial, In My Opinion

Read the guidelines at least twice before you do anything else.

Know how long it usually takes you to develop and write a story, and schedule time to do that work, plus a little padding to cover things like getting sick, dealing with emergencies, having story troubles, general stress, and wandering in beautiful meadows to clear your head.

Write the deadline down on a calendar that you will use (paper or digital). Also write a reminder on the date you need to start working on the story. Otherwise you may forget all about it and miss the opportunity and have to admit to the editor that you forgot (I'm your editorial witness to the fact that this happens).

The first idea you get for a story? Don't use it. The second idea? Don't use that, either. Push into the territory of three or more ideas, twisting things around as much as you can, before you pick one to develop. Make it as "you" as you possibly can within the framework of the guidelines. Find the idea that only you would think of, because those first two ideas are pretty much guaranteed to be the ideas everyone would think of.

Turn in your story ON TIME at the LATEST. As in, on the date of the deadline, no later. I know time is hard! But still. Really. You might get an acceptance for a late story, but you won't look good doing it.

It's much better for you and your chances if you turn in your story EARLY. As in, as much before the deadline as you can manage while still submitting a reasonably finished and clean manuscript that you've read over a couple of times, and edited.

If it's really, truly impossible to turn in your story on time, like for emergency reasons, and an editor is expecting it, then email the editor as soon as you know you're running late, and be genuinely apologetic for the inconvenience, and grateful for any extension she can give you. But really try not to be late. Don't be late because you can't miss your favorite TV shows, or whatever. Keep your commitments.

Write a story that's within the length range specified in the guidelines. That's provided for a reason. If the guidelines say to query about longer stories, then query. If the guidelines don't mention ways to work out exceptions, don't try to work out an exception. Give the editor what she asked for.

Also Helpful, Possibly

If you know of anthologies on a similar theme to the one you're writing for, read at least a handful of the stories in them if at all possible, and look at the titles. See what's already out there, and get a sense of which ideas might be different enough to get your story noticed.

If you can, take a look at the editor's previous anthologies to see what kind of stories she's accepted before. This may not be very helpful, because tastes change and you need to stay true to your own voice when writing anyway, but, for example, if you hardly ever see a first-person POV in her previous anthologies, consider not using that POV for your story. Things like that are worth considering.

Depending on the editor, it may be okay to ask questions to get more information. Be careful about this, because some editors don't like to be bothered. I'm happy to answer writers' questions about my opinions and preferences when I'm editing. If I were running a contest, I'd have to give everyone the same information and not give anyone an advantage. If I'm soliciting material for a book, I want to get the best possible stuff for the book, so I appreciate it when people are motivated enough to find out what will work for me. This is probably another area in which I'm a weirdo, but I will cheerfully accept that designation.

This is getting long! Let me know if there are other tips I've missed.

Things I've Written and Edited

Here's a list of non-blog things I've written and where you can find them.

My Original Speculative Fiction Anthologies

• What Fates Impose - edited by Nayad Monroe
• Not Our Kind - edited by Nayad Monroe

My Fiction

• "An Assessment of the Incident at Camp Righteous", in Space Grunts: Full-Throttle Space Tales #3, edited by Dayton Ward: Science Fiction. During a militaristic theocracy's invasion of an alien planet full of harsh conditions, a young soldier tries to fulfill his mission while his mind deteriorates.
• "The Emperor Everlasting", in Steampunk World, edited by Sarah Hans. An alternate history story in which the Incas were much more successful in the world than they were in the actual past you may have learned about. Intrigue unfolds as a royal Deviser is thwarted in her every effort to complete the most important job in her nation's history. Features battle llamas!
• "Quintuple-A", in Sidekicks!, edited by Sarah Hans. Science Fiction, Humor. A low-budget academy that trains sidekicks for superheroes is suddenly up for review, and Daltona Doyle has just one day to prepare an athletics-challenged student for testing.
• "Running in Wonderland", in Space Tramps: Full-Throttle Space Tales #5, edited by Jennifer Brozek. Science Fiction. An unwanted homeless woman with medical problems, and no money, has 24 hours to get in and out of a space station full of trouble that's her best option for finding a permanent place to live.
• "Three Transformations", in The Crimson Pact: Volume Two, edited by Paul Genesse. Horror. The owner of a no-kill animal shelter has her worldview and self-image broken all at once when she must cope with an intruder and an invading demon.
• "Tipping Point", in Ghost in the Cogs, edited by Scott Gable and C. Dombrowski

My Non-Fiction

• "An Interview with Tim Powers" in Writers Workshop of Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Michael Knost. A conversation about writing with award-winning author Tim Powers, who has written many extremely awesome books that everyone should read.
• "A Thousand Words You Can Hear All at Once: An Interview with Todd Lockwood" in Clarkesworld Magazine. A conversation with award-winning artist Todd Lockwood about art and writing, because he does both!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I am the author of these stories and articles, so purchasing some of the books listed above will result in me getting a tiny bit of money. They're not affiliate links, though! Use your best judgment. :)

How Being Social Helps Me as a Writer and Editor

Okay, first: TO BE A WRITER, ONE MUST WRITE.

To which I will add: TO IMPROVE AS A WRITER, ONE MUST LEARN AND PRACTICE.

However! There's a social element that has been helping to get my work published, and it's gotten me a job as an anthology editor, and I'm going to talk about that.

In a widely used and respected personality test (free to take here), I come out as an ENFJ (Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging), which clearly affects the way that I work. I'm not even the biggest extravert in the world, especially not relative to the general pool of Americans, but relative to groups of mostly-introverted writers, I end up looking super-social. This explains the number of people I'm connected with on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. I just love 'em. Bring on the people!

This might seem a little frivolous, but consider what it's brought me:

I was invited to submit a story for an anthology, when I had never been published before, on the basis of a five-minute conversation that wasn't even about writing, because I introduced myself to an author on a convention panel and complimented the awesome title of his book, and gave him my card. He put me on an invitation list. I wrote and submitted a story, and it became my first published story.

I was asked to write a book review for a magazine, which was later published in that magazine, because I spent four hours working at a convention party (and I also received an awesome t-shirt for that).

I became a slush reader for Clarkesworld Magazine partially because of a recommendation from an editor I had met at a convention, and the slush reading experience improved me as a writer and also gave me the experience to become a short-story editor.

I have evaluated a novel manuscript for an agent I know in the UK, because of work that I did for him on a book he was writing when I met him, which was before he even became an agent.

I was asked to contribute an interview for Writers Workshop of Science Fiction and Fantasy during a ten-minute conversation at a convention, which led me to interview my favorite author, Tim Powers (who, by the way, I had already met at a convention).

I've been invited to submit stories for six other anthologies as a result of meeting editors and a publisher at conventions, and three of those were accepted for the books. One of the ones that wasn't accepted for its anthology went on to make me a semi-finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest. I would not have written any of these stories, or my first published one, without the guidelines given to me for the anthologies.

Knowing that publisher I met made it easy to apply knowledge gained from an editor I had met, and turn my anthology proposal into a real project. All of the authors who have submitted stories for What Fates Impose are people I've met, or I've interacted with online, or have been recommended to me by people I've met.

Okay? So in every case listed above, I actually did the work. I wrote the stories and the review, set up and conducted the interview, read the slush, and volunteered my time and effort to help people in a variety of ways. But none of those opportunities would have been there for me if I hadn't shown up at conventions, introduced myself to people, genuinely liked those people, and continued to pay attention to what they were doing online even when I couldn't see them in person. I was doing these things before anything of mine was published, and I'll continue to do them because I would definitely do the same things just for fun, even if I didn't expect to get anything else back from it at all. But the honest truth is that I have the start of a career because of being friendly and interested in people.

Coming soon: How I Learned to Be Social Despite Having Introverted Parents

Why "Maybe" Is Way Harder than "Yes" or "No"

I'm making decisions for What Fates Impose.

I know what I hoped to get when I wrote the guidelines. I feel pretty good about the guidelines I wrote, given the stories I've received in response to them. However, for every anthology there are stories that must be rejected early on, because although they may be good in themselves, they may not be right for the book. It's sad to reject them, but it's also easy, because they just don't fit in with what I'm trying to do.

The stories that do fit are also easy to identify. A few come in that are close to perfect, both in style and content, and there are others that are close enough to be tweaked into shape with only a few changes. Everybody's happy about those. YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE HOW GOOD SOME OF THESE STORIES ARE. You know, if you read the anthology when it comes out, which I hope you will.

I'm here to tell you about the problem of the "maybe" pile.

If my reaction to a story is to think "maybe," then the author has gotten some things right. Completely broken stories are easy to dismiss. But there are so many possible combinations of right and wrong in a maybe. I could like the premise, but not the way it's written. I could like the character, but not the plot. I could like most of the story, but be confused about the timeline because of its structure. There could be too much backstory. There could be a vague ending, or an unsatisfying ending, or unclear motivations that make me wonder why a character does something. The story could have a good series of events that are summarized instead of being shown in scenes, or too much dialogue and not enough description, or too many similes and adjectives cluttering it up. There is an endless parade of possible unfortunate combinations, but if I'm thinking "maybe," there's something desirable enough about the story that I want to figure out a way that it could be fixed, if possible.

Then I have to answer some questions for myself. How much space do I have left in the anthology? How much time do I have to work out suggestions for story solutions? How much of a change would be too much to ask for a given story? How committed am I to including this one? Is the premise different enough from any other story I have that I really want to do whatever it will take to get changes made in it? Are the changes I'm considering consistent with what the author seems to be trying to accomplish with this story?

That last question is important to me. When I write stories and then receive critiques about them, I don't mind constructive criticism that will help me turn the story into what I want it to be. But it always makes me feel a bit sick to get suggestions that would turn the story into something completely different than what I wanted it to be, because then I wonder if I've messed up so badly that the reader can't see where I was trying to go. As an editor, is it better to pass on a story or to ask the author to turn it into what I want? That depends on how much of a change I'd be asking for. I have the right to want what I want for my book, but it might not always be the best thing for someone's story to be forced in that direction.

This maybe business can be agonizing. It's part of the job, though, and I'll keep at it until the job's done.

Five Important Reasons to Worry about Divination

For crucial safety reasons, here are some things you need to know about the practice and perils of predicting the future, and what seeking foreknowledge of future events might mean for you.

1. Deceit sleeps with greed. When choosing an augur, prognosticator, oracle, or prophet, remember that for every human need there is a scam artist to profit from it. Consider this before placing your hopes and fears in the hands of that palm-reader who arrived in town with the carnival. How much would you pay to know the future? Everybody knows that there's money to be made here.

2. A prophecy never lies; it is only its meaning which deceives. Do you know the motivations of that helpful person offering you a vision of your future? What if he has his own agenda? What if he's steering your life in order to get revenge, prestige, or who knows what else? Or suppose he's being completely honest: what if you misunderstand what he tells you?

3. You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it. Positive fortunes are nice, and many people get them in their readings. What about those not-so-nice predictions? Can you change things and avoid the fate that's seen for you? Classic tales of divination show the hapless fortune-seeker running from her fate, only to bring it closer with every change she tries to make.

4. Your dearest wish will come true. Suppose you have a goal. You're working your way toward it and you seem to be making progress. Then the fortune-teller says you'll get it. Then what? Must you continue working, or do you stop and wait for it to arrive? Does it somehow seem less enticing once the uncertainty is gone? Maybe now you'd rather have something else.

5. When fate throws its dagger, you may catch it by the blade or by the handle. How will you meet your fate? With grace or with awkwardness, joy or terror, acceptance or rejection? This is something to think about when you decide whether you really want to know what fate has planned for you.

Corrections and Friday Reads

Good Friday! This will be a brief post, but I will fill it with links to make it worth your time.

First, a correction: I know I said in my upcoming schedule that I would be going to Odyssey Con this weekend, but I'm not going to be there due to a need to reallocate my time. I'll miss going, but nobody would want me coughing in the con's airspace, anyway. This recent respiratory ailment has been way too tenacious.

And now for the fun stuff. Books! On Twitter there's a tradition of posting #fridayreads, and I'm bringing it to my blog. I'm currently reading Paper Cities, edited by Ekaterina Sedia (whose website is beautiful. Click!). I have a thing about fantasy set in cities, but not necessarily always the Urban Fantasy category as we know it today with the vampires and the werewolves, so what I am saying is that this anthology is very good for me, so far. I'm not even halfway through it, but I want to recommend three outstanding stories: "The Bumblety's Marble," by Cat Rambo, "Promises: A Tale of the City Imperishable," by Jay Lake, and my favorite so far, "Ghost Market," by Greg van Eekhout. The book is worth its cover price for just these three stories, as far as I'm concerned, but I'm looking forward to reading the rest, because there are amazing writers all over the table of contents.

The other book I just started to read is Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories, edited by James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka. I have to admit that I've never paid much attention to flash fiction before, but recently I've read several excellent stories under 1,000 words long, and I've become nearly what one might call "obsessed" with the category. I've developed the ambition to write some, which by all accounts is not easy to do, especially when you're writing a genre story that might need a few words to go toward how the story world is fantastical or science-fictional.

That's it for now. I hope you have whatever kind of weekend you want to have!

Coming soon: Five Important Reasons to Worry about Divination

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How Choosing Anthology Stories Is, and Is Not, Like Making a Mix Tape

The idea for this post came from the awesome Ferrett Steinmetz, who told me he thought choosing stories for an anthology was like making a mix tape. So here's what I think of that.

There are different kinds of anthologies. Reprint anthologies are made up of stories that have been published before in other places. The editor picks a theme and chooses stories to fit that theme. Making a reprint anthology is very much like making a mix tape. When I make a mix tape, I'm usually making it for someone else, to combine songs I like in a way that I hope they'll enjoy, that might create a different effect from listening to the songs as part of their albums of origin. I might include more obscure songs so that I can be a showoff about the range of my musical interests, while bringing some more popular songs to keep the mix accessible. Likewise, with a reprint anthology you look at stories that have already been chosen for publication in various places, and evaluate how well they would fit into the effect you're trying to achieve. You can select from a huge range of stories, published over a long period of time, and this gives you the opportunity to use stories written by Big Names with Big Followings, although many people will have already read at least some of those.

Then you have original anthologies, for which writers are asked to submit previously-unpublished stories to fit a theme, and that means they may be writing new stories specifically in the hope of having work published in that anthology. This process is a little bit like making a mix tape, but it's a lot more like commissioning musicians to write songs for a new album. It's about bringing something new into the world. There's collaboration involved. The editor needs to be able to write effective guidelines that will get writers to understand what kind of stories she wants, and for that to happen, she needs to have a clear idea of what she wants in the first place.

Deciding who to ask to submit a story is complicated. Do you ask everybody, making it an open call for submissions and posting about it all over the place, to bring in lots of potential material and maybe some surprising gems in the form of a huge slush pile to read through? Or do you think about which writers are already doing the kind of work you like, and invite a select list? Because that way you minimize the work and maximize the likelihood of getting the kind of stories you want, but you don't give anyone new any opportunities and you don't get major surprises. It's in your best interest to ask some well-known authors to submit stories, but they're the ones most likely to be busy or to not need to be in your little anthology because their collection of every story they ever wrote is coming out next month. But if you're paying attention, maybe you can interest some emerging writers who have been steadily writing new, awesome work and getting new, awesome fans eager to see what they'll write next.

Once the submissions come in, the editor needs to be able to evaluate them on an individual basis for: 1) how well they suit the anthology's theme, 2) how well they work as stories, and 3) if they're not quite right in either of the above areas, whether or not they can be edited into becoming right, and whether or not the amount of editing necessary will be worth the effort. It's possible that a story that doesn't work for this anthology might be perfect for another one, or might sell somewhere else without much editing.

There are decisions to be made about how well the stories will work together. Maybe some of them are too similar to each other. Maybe one is great, but so different from the others that it wouldn't make sense to keep it. Then there's the order of the stories to decide. Given the way they all go together, which one is the strongest candidate to go first? Which one will be best to finish off the book and leave the final impression? (These are considerations in a reprint anthology, too).

Another way is to combine both types and create a book with some original stories and some reprints. This may be the strongest option if you prefer the original type, combining the unknowns of novelty with the flexibility to fill gaps with known authors' work. If you don't receive enough of the kind of stories you were hoping for, you can go shopping in the store of magazines, collections, and other anthologies to find already-polished stories that have been tested and reviewed. Or if you're starting from the reprint plan, you might want to tempt readers with a few stories that have never appeared anywhere else.

In conclusion, what I'm doing with What Fates Impose--an original anthology of fantasy stories about divination, which may include a few reprints--is bigger and messier than making a mix tape, but it gives me the chance to contribute more and make more decisions than a reprint anthology would, and I love it.

What Fates Impose: Inside the Anthology

When I was on Twitter yesterday, I mentioned that I'd like to tell people about the anthology-editing process, but I wasn't sure what or how much to say about it. It would not be right to discuss details about the stories for a variety of reasons, but I think it would be good for me—and possibly for other people—if I wrote down some of what goes on behind the Veil of Editing.

My friend Beth had a few good questions about it, so I'm going to answer those in this post:

"What has been the greatest delight so far? The biggest surprise? The hardest part?'

The greatest delight so far has been receiving and reading submissions. I came up with the idea for What Fates Impose, an anthology of original stories about divination, more than a year ago. I found a publisher who was interested in the idea last September. We had to work out the details of how we were going to do the project, and then I had to get authors to agree to write stories for it, and give them enough time to write. THAT'S A LOT OF WAITING. But when I finally started to get the stories, it was like presents arriving in my email, because look: I love to read. How much of a buzz do you suppose it is to have an idea of what kind of stories I'd like to read, and then be able to simultaneously support good writers and be the instigator of a bunch of stories like that being written? BIG BUZZ. Delightful!

The biggest surprise has been seeing how each of these writers work when handed a request to submit a story on a theme. Some of them communicate with me a lot, respond to email quickly, and ask a lot of questions to clarify what I'm looking for. Others are quieter, thinking things over for themselves. Some are super enthusiastic about an idea and agree to try it immediately. Others take a while to think about it before even deciding whether they want to try, and give me a more reserved answer about being willing to see what they can come up with. Maybe they'd all respond differently if given a different topic, or maybe this is their style all the time. I'll see about that over a variety of projects, because I already want to do this again. It's also a semi-surprise, every time, to see how each person chooses to approach the theme. I have an idea of what they're like as people, and in many cases I've seen some of what they've written before, but I get a different idea of the way they think when I see where they go within the guidelines I've sent them.

The hardest part is knowing for a fact that I can't accept all of the stories. I don't want to reject anybody's work! But I have to if I want to make the book I'm trying to make. There's only so much room, and some stories match what I want better than others, and that's the way the process goes. I'm also going to have to articulate what kind of changes I'd like to see in some of the stories, and get satisfactory changes back, before I accept them. That's work for me and for the writer, and I don't know how people will react to my comments on their stories. I want to make this as easy as possible for everyone, but I also want the stories to be the best they can be for the book.

I like it, though. This is the most satisfying work I've ever done. It suits me so well!

Coming soon: How Choosing Anthology Stories Is, and Is Not, Like Making a Mix Tape

(People under a certain age: replace "Mix Tape" with "Playlist.")

On Becoming an Editor

Anthologies are awesome.

I've spent large amounts of time with short stories for the last five years. As part of learning how to write them, I worked at Clarkesworld Magazine for three years as a slush reader, evaluating over 5,000 of the stories that were submitted during that time; for each of those, I had to write a few sentences about why I liked or did not like the story, and send my recommendation about it to Neil Clarke, the editor. That's a job that wears you out because practically all of the stories aren't good enough to get into a magazine that accepts only one per month from the slush pile (as it did then), and even the ones that I loved often did not make it into the magazine.

Whenever I recommended a story and Neil rejected it, he would send me a note to explain what hadn't worked for him, and I would learn from that. Sometimes, later on in the same year, I would see that a different magazine had accepted one of those rejected stories, and that taught me that publishing fiction is not just a matter of quality, it's a matter of taste. When you're the editor what you're really doing is demonstrating your taste. The stories Neil publishes win awards and get reprinted in "year's best" anthologies all the time, but guess what? Several times, stories I loved that Neil passed on ended up winning awards and getting reprinted in "year's best" anthologies, after other editors decided to publish them. If anyone out there reads this as me attempting to criticize Neil, who is a fantastic person with excellent taste, I will give you many, many demerits. Pay attention. What I'm saying is that everybody has different taste, and that's okay. But not everybody gets to be the editor.

I have finally worked my way into being an anthology editor, so this month I get to be the one who decides on what's going into a book, and what isn't. This makes me extremely happy. Here's what I've done so far.

I've already shaped the book's outcome by choosing the people I've asked to submit stories. I decided that an open submission process would be a bad choice for my first anthology, because who knows how many submissions I would get? REMEMBER THE SLUSH PILE. So I asked writers I either knew, or was familiar with online, to send me stories. I chose people for a few reasons: 1) I already knew I liked their writing, 2) they seemed interesting because of the way they presented themselves online, and/or 3) they seemed reliable and unlikely to screw me over with flaky behavior. Not all of them fit all three criteria, but you can't have everything! Most of them said they would send me a story, but several of them said they wouldn't. That's okay; you never know what people are working on, what will interest them, or what else is going on in their lives. I ended up with a great list of writers that impressed my publisher, so yay!

Because of dealing with reality, I knew I had to ask a greater number of people to submit stories than the number of stories the book would require. I am not looking forward to having to reject stories, but when you ask a bunch of people to write for your theme, you are absolutely never going to get only stories that work for what you want. That would be literally impossible. Can't be done. Won't happen. So you need to think hard about the number of people to actually ask, realizing that some percentage of those people will say no, and some percentage of the people who say yes may actually not end up sending you a story for an astonishing variety of reasons that may or may not be respectable. And of the stories you get, some just won't work for you as stories, and others will show symptoms of "did not read the guidelines" syndrome, and others will probably overlap in some unforeseeable way, or not go together. I'm starting to freak myself out. Maybe I should have asked a hundred more people to send me stories. I'm a worrier.

The submission deadline is tomorrow. I've already received a bunch of early submissions, which is good; that's kept me from losing my mind while waiting for the majority of them, which I assume will mostly come in at 11:59 pm tomorrow night. It is FASCINATING to read stories that I've asked for. Way better than the slush pile. Do you even realize how amazing it feels to send out guidelines and get stories back that fulfill them? Editing an anthology is THE BEST. Even though I'm anxious about the outcome, every step so far has been so satisfying. I love this. I'm looking forward to seeing what other stories I get, and putting the best ones together in an order that makes sense--ideally, that creates its own overarching story through the whole book, if possible.

I'm building a fantasy anthology called What Fates Impose. Watch for updates on the process! There's going to be a Kickstarter project to make this book the best it can possibly be.

And for my next trick(s)...

I'll have a new story out in March: "Quintuple-A," in an anthology called Sidekicks!, edited by Sarah Hans. Click the link to see the full table of contents.

Aside from the coolness of the theme, I'm extra-happy to have a story of mine in a book with six people I've already met--I think that's my record! I'm also looking forward to meeting everybody else on the list if we find ourselves at the same conventions. Being in the same anthology is a fun thing to have in common. :)

What's next? In April I plan to attend Odyssey Con, which will be in Madison, Wisconsin from April 12th through the 14th. I'm also scheduled to participate in a group reading of stories from Sidekicks! on Wednesday, April 24th at 6:30 pm at A Room of One's Own, a lovely independent bookstore in Madison.

Is that not enough for you? Well, how about this? I'll be at Mo*Con in Indianapolis May 3-5, and I plan to go to WisCon in Madison during the weekend of May 24-27 (most likely I'll be there by day only). So I will be in public places, getting social, several times in the next few months.

Oh, and have I mentioned the anthology I'm editing? Oh, yes. Watch this blog for details about my original fantasy anthology and the Kickstarter drive to make it happen. There will be news by the end of April, latest.

WHAT day is it? My Best Reads of 2012

A bunch of lie-mongers are conspiring to tell me it's the day before the last day of January in the year 2013. RIDICULOUS. But just in case that might be possible, here's my list of the books I enjoyed most out of the fifty I read in 2012. Most of the books were not actually published in 2012, but I want to tell you about the ones I liked best. If I took the time to write reviews of each, you might see this list sometime next year or perhaps in 2015, so let's just keep it simple. I can stand behind these with complete confidence, so look them up if you want to read something good!

Novels

The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood

Thunderer – Felix Gilman

The Dead Zone – Stephen King

The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern

Ready Player One – Ernest Cline

Story Collections

The Universe in Miniature in Miniature – Patrick Somerville

At the Mouth of the River of Bees – Kij Johnson

After the Apocalypse – Maureen F. McHugh

Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight – Cat Rambo

In the Palace of Repose – Holly Phillips

Anthologies

(I didn't read many of these in 2012)

Dark Faith, edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon

Brave New Worlds, edited by John Joseph Adams

Non-fiction

Steal Like an Artist – Austin Kleon

To Each Their Darkness – Gary A. Braunbeck

Adventures in the Screen Trade – William Goldman

500 Ways to Be a Better Writer – Chuck Wendig

Making a Good Writer Great – Linda Seger