Howard Andrew Jones

Black Gate 12 on the Way

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:39:20 GMT

Black Gate 12 is in the mail to all subscribers; bookstores should have it on their shelves by the 18th!

More soon...

Black Gate 12

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:43:27 GMT

A final onceover of Black Gate 12 has kept me from finishing up the lengthy sword-and-sorcery examination I've been conducting in my recent essays. I hope to get back to it next week.

In the meantime, here's a nifty recent essay from Charles Saunders on the origin of his sword-and-sorcery character, Imaro:

http://www.charlessaunderswriter.com/

And here's a sneak peek* at the blurbs from the Table of Contents in Black Gate 12. Writing those blurbs is a fun perk to the magazine, and is done in combination with John. John usually writes really nifty ones like "If you like stories with verbs, then this one's got plenty!" Okay, not really; he was writing catchy blurbs long before I came on staff. It's good fun to be involved in writing them, though. It's the pulpiest thing I get to do.

"Oblivion is the Sweetest Wine" -- John R. Fultz
The spider haunted towers held untold riches - and a terrifying secret.

"Payment in Full" -- James Enge
In which Morlock the Maker faces slavers, golems, sandboys... and the Byzantine trap of an old nemesis.

"Houses of the Dead" -- Martha Wells
There were no bodies. Only the empty village, the rumors of wizardry... and, of course, the ghouls.

"The Wily Thing" -- Constance Cooper
A desperate client, an unusual bayou town, and a far more unusual object... a tale of things better left undisturbed.

"The Soldiers of Serenity" -- Todd McAulty
He had 24 hours to save his entire team from corporate "downsizing" and far less to discover why he was being stalked by a ghost.

"Knives Under the Spring Moon" -- Ed Carmien
Kris found herself amongst the outlaws, and in a deadly fight for her life with her oldest enemy.

"Whispers from the Stone" -- Howard Andrew Jones
The ruins of Assyria held many secrets - but none so deadly as that which Dabir and Asim discovered amongst the stones.

Black Gate Fantasy Classic "Tumithak and the Ancient World" -- Charles R. Tanner
The thrilling conclusioin to the epic saga of Tumithak! Tumithak races to rescue his kidnapped wife and son, only to become embroiled in a fiendish scheme to drive humanity back to the tunnels under the earth...

Plus book and game reviews, Knights of the Dinner Table, John's editorial, and a solitaire role-playing game from Dark City Games!

Howard

*I have absolutely got to stop using the expression "sneak peek" because I always spell "peek" "peak" the first go around. This time I caught it within twenty minutes of the post and fixed it. Sometimes it languishes there for days. And, honest to God, I've been a professional editor for more than a dozen years. Sheesh.

Revisiting the New Edge

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:29:39 GMT

Honing the New Edge, Part 2

When I first wrote about the New Edge back in an editorial for the Flashing Swords e-zine, there were a number of bloggers who LOUDLY misinterpreted what the crafters of the manifesto and I were after. One proclaimed that we must not be in touch with modern fiction; after all, writer A had just written a novel with some sword-and-sorcery in it a few years back, so, see, the genre was alive and well!

Anyone who’s been trying to get sword-and-sorcery published knows better. First, there’s really not much sword-and-sorcery in long form. Write me with examples if you want, but those examples are the exception, not the rule. And short fiction markets, well, those have been unwelcoming and hostile to sword-and-sorcery for a very, very long time. Ask anyone who’s been trying to get it published. I’m not talking about the bad stuff, either; I’m talking about talented authors. Take James Enge, whose Morlock stories were routinely bounced before John O’Neill pulled him out of Black Gate’s submission pile. Those of us who write sword-and-sorcery have been duking it out in the trenches, fighting for a place in the small press and dreaming that the larger magazines that claimed to accept sword-and-sorcery on their guidelines pages really would.

Sword-and-sorcery has been down and out for so long that it has often survived in a bastardized form by parodying itself. Writers who claim to craft it have had to do so with sly winks and nods, looking the while straight into the camera to let the audience know it's all just a giggle. The parodies, the mocking irony, the humorous send-ups… they have all the charm and finesse of a man who chuckles as he sneaks up to kick a sleeping dog.

To be new, to be fresh, we must throw off the shackles of those who have tried to remold the genre to be respectable, and we must step past those who hoped to de-fang it to apologize for the genre's faults and bad practitioners. That is not to advocate being humorless. Fritz Leiber and Clark Ashton Smith and Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny (and others) all employ both humor and irony in their works. And lest we forget, no matter the stereotype, Robert E. Howard’s Conan could crack a smile. These writers, though, wove the humor, the irony, through their work. The story was still paramount. They were trying to please the same sort of audience who gathered at the foot of ancient storytellers, not the young critic who lurked on the edges of the campfire, sneering at the conceits of the story, or the notion that anyone would really want to hear about heroes and brave deeds.

It might be that those critics were sneering for a reason, of course; it might be that they wanted to spread their wings and try new things and were angry that they had no forum that would take them. Once upon a time, they were the minority. They were the rebels yearning to break old forms. Once upon a time, when the short fiction magazines offered nothing but adventure fiction, I might have joined them, or at least experimented a little bit along with them. Maybe you would have tried it too.

Those rebels overthrew the evil empire, drove out its adherents, and assumed the throne. But the rebellious work that daringly flew in the face of all the sword-slinging, raygun-blasting adventure fiction has transformed into the kind of intractable behemoth it fought so hard to overcome. Now, all too often, it is only those flavors that we find in short fiction markets. It might be that this change in featured fiction has something to do with declining magazine readership, but there are so many other factors involved in declining readership that this point would be difficult to prove. No matter: you will never convince me that the shift in publishing preferences and decline in readership are unrelated.

For quite some time now, poets and artists and musicians and writers have been struggling against the crushing judgment that art that resembles things, poetry that scans and rhymes and tells stories, music that’s actually melodic, and stories about heroism are unrefined, staid, and unworthy of notice. Despite the weight of all prior human artistic achievement, despite basic common sense, we’ve sheepishly bowed our heads and gone along with it.

Maybe a lot of human behavior is petty and small. Maybe a lot of people and events leave us bemused and saddened and feeling powerless. But even if that’s true it doesn’t mean that we need to drown in tales of powerless people emoting their woes, or that it is good for us to subsist only upon that fiction (or that we are childish if we don’t find satisfaction reading it!). No; if those things are true then we have all the more reason to need stories of heroes – stories of men and women who stood up when the odds and the gods and even their dearest friends and family seemed against them and did the right thing anyway.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that there aren’t any real heroes and that everyone’s in it for themselves; we’ve been trained to be skeptical and ironic and detached and sarcastic and hip. Yet even as we sneer and laugh with our friends, we know it’s a lie. Heroes really are out there. They’ve lived and breathed and sacrificed right here on this very Earth, and some of them are still at it. Students of history know them. Sometimes we can even find them covered by our local news stations. Stories of heroes, not of dejected mopers, have inspired us since the dawn of humanity, and we should not be embarrassed if they continue to fire our imagination.

I do not say that turnabout is fair play; I do not advocate overthrowing the current mindset with an older one. But I do say that all short fiction has a place. Sword-and-sorcery and other tales of high adventure should no longer be cast out from the camp fire, or given only grudging room there, like a crazy uncle with fleas. We have not outgrown these stories, no matter what some would have you think. You know in your hearts we need them still.

Coming Soon: Part 3

Howard

Revisiting the New Edge

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:37:52 GMT

Honing the New Edge, Part 1

Black Gate 12 is off to the printer, and when it returns, I think no further evidence need be presented that this is the truest home for sword-and-sorcery in a modern print magazine. With that in mind, I thought it high time to revisit The New Edge manifesto.

When I helmed Flashing Swords I sat down with William King and John C. Hocking, and, later, Tom Floyd and C.L. Werner, and together we hashed out an outline for what we thought ought to be the paradigms for new sword-and-sorcery fiction (or, if you want to cast the net a little wider, for heroic fiction). A tremendous amount of support flooded in, but so to did some vitriol. Some of those bad reactions came from purposeful misreads, and some from a knee-jerk reaction to our use of the term sword-and-sorcery. And some people out there just delight in being snarky.

I’ve been meaning to take another look at those paradigms for months and was inspired to expand the manifesto after I saw an essay from Martin Zornhau. This time I won’t be as shocked by the barbs.

Before I venture into the manifesto, though, I want to briefly revisit the tenets of sword-and-sorcery, and what makes it different from other fantasy, by looking at the environment, the protagonists, the obstacles, and story structure. These bullet points and the following paragraphs are how I define the genre, with a little help from John Hocking, William King, Robert Rhodes, and John "The Gneech" Robey.

The Environment: Sword-and-sorcery fiction takes place in lands different from our own, where technology is relatively primitive, allowing the protagonists to overcome their martial obstacles face-to-face. Magic works, but seldom at the behest of the heroes. More often sorcery is just one more obstacle used against them and is usually wielded by villains or monsters. The landscape is exotic; either a different world, or far corners of our own.
The Protagonists: The heroes live by their cunning or brawn, frequently both. They are usually strangers or outcasts, rebels imposing their own justice on the wilds or the strange and decadent civilizations which they encounter. They are usually commoners or barbarians; should they hail from the higher ranks of society then they are discredited, disinherited, or come from the lower ranks of nobility (the lowest of the high).
Obstacles: Sword-and-sorcery’s protagonists must best fantastic dangers, monstrous horrors, and dark sorcery to earn riches, astonishing treasure, the love of dazzling members of the opposite sex, or the right to live another day.
Structure: Sword-and-sorcery is usually crafted with traditional structure. Stream-of-consciousness, slice-of-life, or any sort of experimental narrative effects, when they appear, are methods used to advance the plot, rather than ends in themselves. A tale of sword-and-sorcery has a beginning, middle, and end; a problem and solution; a climax and resolution. Most important of all, sword-and-sorcery moves at a headlong pace and overflows with action and thrilling adventure.

The protagonists in sword-and-sorcery fiction are most often thieves, mercenaries, or barbarians struggling not for worlds or kingdoms, but for their own gain or mere survival. They are rebels against authority, skeptical of civilization and its rulers and adherents. While the strengths and skills of sword-and-sorcery heroes are romanticized, their exploits take place on a very different stage from one where lovely princesses, dashing nobles, and prophesied saviors are cast as the leads. Sword-and-sorcery heroes face more immediate problems than those of questing kings. They are cousins of the lone gunslingers of American westerns and the wandering samurai of Japanese folklore, traveling through the wilderness to right wrongs or simply to earn food, shelter, and coin. Unknown or hazardous lands are an essential ingredient of the genre, and if its protagonists should chance upon inhabited lands, they are often strangers to either the culture or civilization itself.

Sword-and-sorcery distances itself further from high or epic fantasy by adopting a gritty, realistic tone that creates an intense, often grim, sense of realism seemingly at odds with a fantasy setting. This vein of hardboiled realism casts the genre’s fantastic elements in an entirely new light, while rendering characters and conflict in a much more immediate fashion. Sword-and-sorcery at times veers into dark, fatalistic territory reminiscent of the grimmer examples of noir-crime fiction. This takes the fantasy genre, the most popular examples of which might be characterized as bucolic fairy tales with pre-ordained happy endings, and transposes a bleak, essentially urban style upon it with often startling effect.

Part 2 Coming Soon

Howard

Get Out the Vote

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:44:37 GMT

I may be addressing a small number of folk here, but I wanted to call attention to a few folks who I think deserve some credit. So... if you happen to have attended the 2006 or 2007 World Fantasy Convention and are in the mood to vote for such categories as Life Achievement, I hope you'll lend me your ears.

Here's who I'll be voting for, Life Achievement wise -- Glenn Lord. Who's that, and why should we care? Well, Glenn Lord's the man who tracked down, on his own initiative, hundreds of Robert E. Howard stories and texts in the 1950s. He then safeguarded those texts for many decades and eventually became the agent for the Howard heirs -- not because of any desire for self-aggrandizement, but because he cared deeply for the stories. Without what has been a lifetime of work on Lord's part, numerous stories would now be lost, and outlines, alternate takes, correspondance, and other matters would not be available to scholars. Fantasy fans owe him a big thanks, and the least we can do is vote him this award.

You can't just drop by and vote for one category, though. So allow me to make another suggestion -- I'll be voting for Leo Grin in Special Award, non-professional. Leo runs the Black Gate web site, but he's up for nomination again this year (third year!) because of his sterling work on The Cimmerian, the journal of Robert E. Howard studies. If you want some small idea of the quality work he does, drop by The Cimmerian web site.

Here's where to find a ballot (read the fine-print on the ballot -- you can e-mail it once you know the categegories). Don't delay, though. I believe votes can only be made through the end of June!

I've got a stack of interesting things to post -- I hope to upload more things later this week.

best,
Howard

Black Gate 12, Morlock, and Other Musings

Tue, 27 May 2008 14:44:55 GMT

1. I finished proofing Black Gate 12 and will be dropping the pages with corrections in the mail around noon. You'd probably expect me to say this, but it's my favorite issue yet. All but one of the entries is a fantasy adventure piece, which is about the perfect ratio. Those of you who want to see Black Gate as the home for exciting sword-and-sorcery and heroic fiction should rejoice. If you don't want to see that, don't hold it against me. There's plenty of magazines NOT offering adventure stories. Really. Some are pretty good, too. Don't complain to me; go read those and point your friends who DO like adventure our way.

2. John will make the corrections and ship it to the printer, and launch promptly into prep work for number 13. In the meantime, yours truly is going to take a whack at layout of number 14. It will speed everything up if both John and myself can be relied upon to lay out the magazine, and if I'm working on 14 it gives me more time to learn the program.

3. I've been reading more and more Morlock these days. James Enge has a new Morlock tale in this issue of Black Gate, and I had two more in my in box that I read last night, so I've had three more Morlock tales this week than almost anyone else. I feel like a guy who got let into the kitchens of some posh restaurant to sample the finest meals before they were introduced to the rest of the world.

4. I've been re-reading some texts for historical research on the Abbassid Caliphate. You know, Thousand and One Nights era Baghdad. What to do when one source says ALL men were wearing turbans, and another that says turbans were optional? What to do when one calls the outer layer of clothing a diraa and the other calls it a jubba? More cross referencing, of course. Sources on the period in English are scarce. Perhaps I should get back to learning French beyond counting exercises and tourist information.

5. I have a novel out making the rounds. I grew accustomed some years back to the fact that publishing moves at the speed of slow, so I don't think too much about a manuscript out there until at least three months have gone by. I figure a year with an agent or publisher probably means it's time for a query. If anyone else has opinions out there on that, I'd love to hear it. Unfortunately, I'm not even at the six months spot with either the agent or the publisher considering the book, so I shouldn't have my curiosity up. But I do. No news is good news, right?

6. Work continues apace on my Dabir and Asim novel. The break away from mist novel 2 has gotten me liking the whole mist world again (I needed either a pat on the back or a breath of fresh air) but in absence of any movement with mist novel 1 I'm going to keep cranking on the Dabir and Asim novel, which I'm really enjoying. If someone comes knocking about mist world 1, I have an outline and over 30 k of text roughed out on mist 2, so I'm in what I think is respectable shape. I must admit, however, to giving some thought to "branding." As I've said, I consistently sell Dabir and Asim, and the stories helped land me this Black Gate gig. If those stories are a wedge in to publishing, maybe I should keep hammering away with them, hence the novel. Maybe writing of other characters and settings, much as I like them, isn't as smart as creating a "brand" and honing that and getting it out there until it's established. I would say if rather than until, but I would tell myself and other writers to practice craft and believe in yourself. Not because I'm promoting arrogance, but because we need to believe in our work if it's going to shine, and because the world, honestly, doesn't really care that much and a writer has to learn that and live with it and find support from within. We also have to work hard on our craft, but that's a whole separate post.

7. We have a huge number of reviews in the queue. I'm not sure about the monthly game column now, as I'd like these book reviews to come out sooner rather than later. Maybe I'll take a vote. How many of you want a monthly game column? Maybe bi-monthly is the way to go.

Howard

10,000

Fri, 23 May 2008 16:12:42 GMT

The new WIP feels real this morning, as I have just crossed over the 10 k mark. Not bad for a month's work, expecially since this last month I usually got less than an hour to write on writing days, and usually only managed about four writing days a week. I'm hoping I can improve that over the next three months, as I'm not teaching. Or editing anything but Black Gate.

My goal will be to write between 500 - 1000 k a day, and to manage 5000 k a week. Will I make it? I don' t know. I'd like to have a 68 k historcial mystery/fantasy piece drafted by the end of August. 10 k down, 58 k to go.

Howard

Movie Musings

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:11:46 GMT

First, I'm almost through with my onceover of Black Gate 12, which I'll be sending back to John this weekend.

I've been looking forward to Indy IV for a while, but as reviews come in I'm less excited. Don't get me wrong; I'll probably go see it. Reviews have been fairly positive; the problem is that the descriptions make it sound like the things that bugged me in Last Crusade are to be found in Crystal Skull. My kids just turned old enough to watch the movies, so I borrowed the trilogy from my friend Brad. Crusade ended up being better than I remembered; Temple much worse. Raiders was nearly as good as I remembered it being when I was, what, 10, 12, and that's saying something. Some of what I liked when I was 12 seems pretty execrable now.

For me, Raiders inspires a willing suspension of disbelief; Crusade only a grudging suspension of disbelief. Temple of Doom didn't inspire much of anything at all except groans this time through. It was painful. I had remembered later parts of it being better, and while watching it with my kids I kept thinking, ah, well, after this groaner part is a good bit – but, really, not so much.

Temple and Crusade both seem to have lost their footing. Everything is more cartoonish. Take Marcus Brody. In Raiders, while Indy is packing to go after the Ark, Brody says something like "You know, five years ago I would have gone after it myself" and you believe him. He seems competent and seasoned and is played with gravitas. Come Crusade, he's a goofy absent-minded professor and is scripted only for laughs. Contrast the ridiculous relationship between Indy and the Austrian beauty in Crusade -- which is truly awful to watch -- and the dialogue between him and Marion in almost any part of Raiders. It's almost as though they got Raiders right by accident and never figured out how to do it again. The writing is several degrees sharper in Raiders. There’s no villain in the rest of the series who is scripted to be even half as interesting as Belloq, and even the "infodump" scene in Raiders, when Indy and Marcus are telling the American Agents about the Ark, is good. Rather than sounding like an infodump, it's revealing of character AND builds interest and suspense. That's just good writing. And acting. In the next two it's almost as if they got the script to a certain point and said "ah, it's good enough, let's go."

On the whole, I'd rather watch the first of the Brendan Frazer Mummy movies than either Crusade or Temple. It has a bad infodump scene early on, but after that it fires on all cylinders like Raiders, and unlike Temple and Crusade. To my mind, even a movie that is supposed to be "light" has to take itself seriously rather than going in with a wink and a nod at its own cleverness and the audience. I didn't make it through the second Mummy movie, which seemed to have lost sight of what worked about the first one, but I saw a preview for the third that actually has my interest up. More fool me, probably, but I do love a pulpy romp done properly, and my hope springs eternal.

Now, though, the wife and I are heading out to see Iron Man this weekend. Almost every one of my friends has called or e-mailed to say that I MUST go see it. So we will.

Howard

Black Gate 12

Fri, 16 May 2008 02:16:09 GMT

Black Gate 12 appeared on my doorstep today. As someone who was a fan of the mag before I joined the staff, it's still a fanboy thrill to get to see the issue before anyone else. Next issue I'll start seeing some of the stories I was involved in selecting -- these last few, though, have been complete surprises.

12 will be in my hands for just a short while as I perform a proof pass, then the layout zombies will take another crack at it, then off it goes to the printer.

And issue 13 will follow close on its heels.

More news on other things soon. I need to figure out how to set up that "poll taking" feature I see on other people's blogs so I can finally offer folks a choice on the title of the new Black Gate web column. Maybe I'll take a crack at that Friday.

Howard

Webcast Appearance

Thu, 01 May 2008 11:42:58 GMT

I Get Interviewed Tonight

I'll be on Late Night Jenga Jam tonight at 10:30 PM Eastern. I hope you'll tune in to listen, and that you'll be sending me good karmic vibrations or what have you. I'll be talking about Black Gate, and knowing me, some writing thoughts, opinions on sword-and-sorcery, Robert E. Howard, and Harold Lamb are likely to come up.

You can call in live to the show to ask questions of me or listen to the discussion by calling Talkshoe at (724) 444-7444 then entering the Talkcast ID of 6478

http://jengajam.ning.com/

http://www.talkshoe.com/blog/index.php/help/ for information on joining the chat or phone conversation.

I hope a few of you will tune in!

Howard

Writing Thoughts

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:32:07 GMT

So today I stole a half hour to write from what I should have used as lunch time. I ended up writing for 45 minutes and getting quite hungry later, but the prose result left me feeling both satisfied and muddled.

Here's the thing. On the novel WIP I am lucky to get a few hundred words every time I sit down to write, be it for an hour or two hours or three. Every sentence or so I stop to look at e-mail, or check up something pointless on Wikipedia, or what have you. But when I sat down to write today, I did none of that. I was in the zone. It was like taking dictation from my first person narrator. In that 45 minutes I wrote 1421 words, which I have just caculated up to be something like 31.6 words a minute. I was pleased. I can't keep all of those words; some must be replaced and others must be expanded upon, but I will keep most of them. It's a solid first draft, seven pages, and I am eager to write more.

This is what writing is supposed to feel like. I remember this. I had forgotten. So my experience begs the question -- am I writing the right thing, or should I switch over to this? Working with certain characters, for me, is just like taking dictation. Should I stick with them? See, I'm muddled, but pleased.

I keep not having time to post my final thoughts on Universe R.

Hey, looks like I'm going to be interviewed Thursday night on a radio show! I'll post on that Wednesday. Just finished some paper grading, now I must kitchen clean.

What are your thoughts on this whole writing quandry I find myself in? Might it be that I'm just weary of a long process (novel 2 in a sequence) or that I really am writing the wrong thing? How many of you find yourselves in the same or similar place? Life is short, no one's jumping up and down to buy these mist novels, perhaps I should simply write about Dabir and Asim in novel form. They're the only thing I write that sells to multiple markets...

Howard

Parallel Universe

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:57:28 GMT

When it comes to the parallel universes we visit in speculative fiction, some of my personal favorites are the ones where Rome never fell, the one where Spock has a goatee, and Universe R. I don’t know if anyone’s written about Parallel Universe R, or named it before, but I imagine a lot of you have thought about it. It’s that other place where great artistic works were never lost. It's the land where overlooked, forgotten, or underappreciated poets, playwrights, authors, and artists were encouraged and celebrated and lived on to craft more work. I don’t mean the Egoverse where you’re the top of the charts or have written a chain of bestsellers – this one is for the artists you wish had gotten a better deal. Universe R can’t be completely logical, of course. For instance, if the Library of Alexandria had survived, then we’d probably be further along with a lot of developments and some of the later artists might not ever have been born. When I think about Universe R I don’t worry about it making that kind of sense.

I dropped by my counterpart’s home in Universe R to look around his shelves: The work of Aeschylus, Sophlocles, and Euripides came to us complete in Universe R, rather than just a few plays from each, and the works of Menander and Sappho reached us whole, rather than just a few tantalizing fragments. Jumping ahead a bit, Chaucer finished The Canterbury Tales, though he had to live to 90 to pull it off, and it takes up a huge chunk of a shelf. There’s no confusion over Shakespeare folios and I see one fine copy of his Cardenio and other tantalizing things lost to history. On the music rack, Bach’s work was better preserved so that some of his music wasn’t lost because it was sold as fish wrappers. Mozart lived to a ripe old age, cranking out more and more astonishing and varied works.

On my fiction shelf in Parallel Universe R I can find all the great historical swashbuckling novels Harold Lamb wrote when he almost gave up fiction in the 1930s, just as his prose was at its peak. Near it is a complete run of all of Robert E. Howard’s fiction. He went back to writing fantasy a few times after the 1930s, but he turned also to westerns and teamed up with Hollywood producers to create some western film masterpieces. His DVDs are over there on the other shelf, next to the run of the original Star Trek. Here in Universe R the dogs of Star Trek’s second season never got made and the show didn’t get thrown to the wolves in the third season – thanks to the diligent work of the story editors and producers, the final three years of the show built upon the promise of early episodes. When a sequel series finally came out, Captain Sulu was also a resounding success. (Sure, I dare to discuss Bach and Sophocles and Robert E. Howard and Star Trek and Shakespeare in the same entry.) In Universe R The Beatles realized that they were greater together than the sum of their individual parts, and regrouped every few years to make amazing music, even while experimenting with their side projects.

I could go on, but this post is long enough already. I’ll save one more entry for later: The 27^th of this month is the birthday of one of my favorite musicians, the guy who prompted this post because in April I always think about how things should have turned out for him. He was a Beatles contemporary who soared to acclaim in Universe R. I’ll post about him closer to his birthday.

So what works are on your shelf in Universe R?

Howard

Writing Thoughts

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:52:24 GMT

It is much easier for me to do this thing called NOT writing than it is to actually write. I imagine it's easier for all writers to NOT write, except that when we're NOT writing the NOT part eats away at us. Me, when I'm NOT, I feel more and more like a failure, or simply a wuss. Yet if I sit down and write 500 words I'm not satisfied. I say to myself, well, if I'd actually had two or three hours to write, I could have written a few thousand words, why didn't I get it together? Wuss. On those extremely rare days when I actually have time to crank out a couple of thousand words I do feel a small sense of satisfaction, then plan to magically find time to make it happen the next day, and the next, so that whatever I'm writing will get done much faster than it ever really can. For me at least, writing is a continual act of self deception. The funny thing is that I'm not at all that unforgiving or unreasonable with other writers. Just with me.

For the last six months I have been concentrating solely on novel writing. One novel is making the rounds and I am trying to have a second, related novel finished should someone come calling. I'm enjoying the process, but it comes with different challenges. Maybe they're all obvious, but I'll go ahead and talk about them. Since a novel is a lot longer than a short story and I have limited time, it takes a long time to finish. I don't like sharing my rough roughs, so I don't show the work in progess to anyone for feedback until I've had a chance to finish and go over it at least once. I don't need adulation, but I do like a pat on the back, even if it comes with someone pointing out the flaws (too, there is always a sense of satisfaction when you reach a conclusion). When I write short stories, I can finish one, then talk about it with the group of writers I exchange stories with. When I publish a short story, I can go talk about short stories with other writers and we can congratulate each other and trade notes. I miss that sense of community.

I'm not writing short stories right now, though. I love writing short stories and I have scads of ideas. But let's face it. There are few markets out there that accept what I like to write, and cracking the short story markets doesn't really establish you as a novelist. It is extremely difficult to make a living as a writer these days, but if you're going to do it, you'd best be writing novels, not short stories. I tell myself that if the novels sell, maybe I'll have time again for the short works. Maybe I'm deceiving myself about writing. It wouldn't be the first time.

Whatever I do, I have resolved to write what makes me happy, because who knows what, if anything, will come of it. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Robert E. Howard, who made a living writing in the 30s by writing for a variety of markets, and I have made attempts to try that myself. In retrospect, me trying multiple markets was probably silly. In Howard's day there were many, many more markets. And THAT Howard was writing full-time. I barely squeeze in a few hours for writing every week. Rather than trying a scattershot approach with market and style, I decided that I would use that small amount of time to hone my craft and get as good as I could writing the kind of stories I liked to write. When not typing, my fingers are still crossed that something will come of it. I mostly enjoy writing, except when I'm NOT , or when I feel like I should be writing MORE, which is, honestly, most of the time. I think writers are a little crazy. I know I am...

Howard

New Column

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:29:30 GMT

My thanks to everyone who wrote in with suggestions. Monday's a pretty busy day, or I'd try to set up a reader poll and have folks vote on their favorites. Well, I'd select five or so and then see which ones garnered the most votes.

The first column is up, over at www.blackgate.com, but it is without title for now. Next month, it will have a title, likely chosen from some of the excellent ones suggested here.

Howard

New Column

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:01:26 GMT

I'm starting a new monthly column over at the Black Gate web site, dedicated to pencil and dice role-playing games. The point will be to highlight overlooked games or supplements. In other words, I won't be reviewing any and all things, but only affordable items I think are worth a look, especially items that might be missed. The items have to be obtainable, i.e., in print.

I've got months and months worth of ideas already; what I don't have is a column title. Does anyone have a suggestion? Preferably a serious suggestion?

Howard

Black Gate 12

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:24:14 GMT

Black Gate 12 Sneak Peek

I've heard from a few regular blog visitors wondering where I've been. I wish I could say that I was off digging through Black Gate stuff, or that I was in the throes of a creative muse, but the truth is I just haven't been very good company lately and I haven't felt like subjecting myself on anyone, much less recording any compaints or whines for posterity. Fortunately, friends seem to have radar about such things. One of my very best called yesterday and lifted my spirits without even knowing I needed it.

On to some good stuff. I am excited about the cover of issue 12. Here it is, from the masterful Bruce Pennington.

John is just about done cramming in the stories, and I'm pretty excited about those as well. We'll have 7000 more words than we had even last issue. Here's what you can expect:

More Morlock from James Enge.
More Giliead and Elias from Martha Wells.
More adventures from Ed Carmien.
We dragged Todd McCaulty out of his cave and got him to finish another story, and you'll find it within as well.
And hey, there I am, with another story John bought from me before I joined the staff.
John Fultz and Constance Cooper haven't appeared in Black Gate before, and we're excited to be introducing you to their work.
We have a classic reprint, as well, the final Tumithak story from Charles R. Tanner, which completes Tumithak's entire run. "Reprint" is a bit of a stretch here, because this one never actually appeared in a magazine before.

As usual, we'll have articles, book reviews, and game reviews. I hope you'll pick up a copy (and read it!) and that when you do so you can spread the word!

Lastly, I've been meaning to point visitors here to James Van Pelt's latest series of posts on writing, if you haven't yet seen them. Really good stuff. My link starts you on the first one. There's three or four, interspersed with other entries that, while NOT about writing, are still worth reading.

I'll get back here in a few days.

Warm Regards,
Howard

Return of The Sword

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:36:43 GMT

Today I want to give a shout out for a book from the minds at the new Flashing Swords E-zine.

Return of the Sword is a multi-author collection of adventure stories. If you're looking for sword-slinging, action-packed mayhem then you ought to be pretty happy with what you'll find within. (If you're more into lit fantasy or urban women who sleep with vampires, then you should probably wander elsewhere, but I won't be wandering with you.)

In addition to featuring a Morlock story by Black Gate stalwart James Enge, the book contains a thrilling Cossack short from Harold Lamb, tales from authors who've sold stories to future issues of Black Gate, like S.C. Bryce and Robert Rhodes, and fiction from numerous friends and colleagues now working with Black Gate or dating back to my own tenure at Flashing Swords, like Bruce Durham, Nathan Meyer, Steve Goble, Thomas MacKay, Allen Lloyd and Bill Clunie, and many others. RotS editor Jason Waltz asked me to introduce both the Harold Lamb story and an in-depth (and interesting, and helpful) essay on fiction writing by E.E. Knight, so my name's on the table of contents as well.

If heroic fiction and sword-and-sorcery are your thing, or maybe just an occasional guilty pleasure, I urge you to pick up this book. Jason and the rest of the crew at the new Flashing Swords are out fighting the good fight trying to give folks another market for adventure fantasy. They need your support.

For even more details, Eric has covered the book in great depth. Click on the picture above for more information.

Howard

Game Day

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:31:58 GMT

Warning -- there's RPG-heavy talk in this post. Non gamers will probably pass out from boredom...

Our role-playing group gets together almost every Friday, and we decided to work our way through an old 1st edition D&D module to remember the passing of the father of role-playing games. We didn't know it was Gary Con until I visited The Lair of the Evil DM today (I usually visit once a week or so). The idea of Gary Con was that everyone get together to play a game this weekend. A fine idea, and I'm sure we're not the only gamers who decided on a tribute without even knowing there was something of an official movement.

I divested myself of almost all my D&D modules at some point in the 80s. There were a few I couldn't sell off -- not because of sentimental value, but because everyone in my group then, and in other groups in the area, thought Shrine of the Kuo-Toa was dull and that Tomb of Horrors was impossible. For those not in the know, Tomb of Horrors is an expedition into the tomb of an undead wizard and is infamous for its difficult, nay, ludicrous challenges. Because I didn't want to kill off my players or try to work the dungeon into the existing fantasy campaign, where it had no place, I just told them they were having a shared dream.

This time, what had seemed impossible and annoying proved a laugh-riot. The traps WERE impossible. "Why would anyone DO that?" we found ourselves asking. Instead of grinding our teeth in frustration when something went amiss, though, we dissolved into laughter. All the characters got blasted into smithereens when someone touched an exploding altar, so I ruled that they woke up from their dream, had a little trouble returning to sleep, then reappeared in the tomb in the same spot...

We didn't quite finish the whole thing, but we had fun, and afterward we all reminisced about early campaigns and looked over copies of the 1st edition books one of our players had retained. All of us had come from different groups, but we'd all started with AD&D. It's funny, but I hadn't ever thought about how MANY of my friends come from role-playing, and for most of us, that started with AD&D. One little game had a huge, long-lasting, extremely positive impact on my life.

Friday I played part of a module from Dark City Games with my kids, and another part of it with them today. They loved it, and so did I.

Some say that tabletop RPGs are on their way out. I sure hope not. I'm a little too tired to wax too philosophical about it, but I sure hope not. Here at the southern outpost of Black Gate, on the shores of the Sea of Terror, we'll be playng for many a year to come.

Here are two more links I wanted to share. The first is to a nice RPG celebration my good friend Eric Knight put up over the weekend.

The other is a nice cartoon from Order of the Stick.

Next time I post I'll finally put up that small Black Gate 12 sneak preview I mentioned.

Howard

A Good Run

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:10:44 GMT

Well.... Damn. My cat's dead.

I'm not really a cat person: I like medium to large-sized dogs that you can play frisbee with or hike with or wrestle with... but this little yellow longhair tabby has been part of the family for 18 years and when I came home and found her lying there all still I got a lump in my throat.

Damn, she could be annoying as hell. But she liked to sit next to me while I was working at my desk, and she greeted me every morning (and sometimes in the night for no good reason) with that meow that sounded increasingly like a rusty hinge these last few years. She was a good mouser, and she liked my kids. She was the queen of the house, a grumpy old lady who liked sleeping in the sunbeams and grew increasingly brazen the last few years -- standing on the table top while we were clearing it off after dinner, for instance. Maybe we all get more stubborn and determined when we're older.

I'm going to miss little Camilla. Hell, she's been our cat since before we were married, back when we had a dive apartment and a sequence of crummy first jobs. Even though mostly she's been sleeping for the last three years, in retrospect it was nice knowing she was somewhere around. The house will seem a lot more lonely without her.

Now I've got to tell the kids, and pick out a nice spot in the yard to bury her. Near a tree, maybe, where the sunbeams will fall in the afternoon.

Howard

He Will Be Missed

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:12:25 GMT

Some people light a candle or two in the house of imagination; Gary Gygax fired an immense bonfire, and one which has sparked countless other fires as well.

I know I'm not the only one who called up old gamer friends yesterday to mourn the passing of an age. Even if you haven't played the game in a dog's age, or a couple of dog's ages, if you've gamed, you've been influenced by Gygax. And I don't mean just pencil and paper gaming -- the mindset behind D&D permeated electronic fantasy games and the newer online worlds. I haven't used D&D mechanics for years (mostly because I, as the game master, can't keep all those numbers and charts straight) -- but D&D was the first role-playing game I ever played. Like countless others, if I hadn't played THAT one, and if it had never existed, I would never have played the others. Countless hours of entertainment and inspiration can be traced back to the game Gygax helped create.

Lest we forget, Gygax also introduced gamers to fantasy literature. Those of you who had that first hardback Dungeon Master's Guide may well remember the suggested reading list, mentioning such names as Howard and Leiber and Moorcock and Vance and so on. I remember heading to the library with that list. Gygax led me to Fritz Leiber's Swords Against Death, which has remained one of my all-time favorite fantasy collections. I was talking with Black Gate's Ryan Harvey just last night, and he told me that list had introduced him to one of his very favorite writers, Clark Ashton Smith.

I never had the opportunity to meet the man, but his friends and family are in my thoughts. E. Gary Gygax was an opener of the ways. He will be missed.

An especially thoughtful remembrance can be found here at the Paizo blog.

Howard Andrew Jones

Interests

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:56:11 GMT

Getting that Profile Going

I mostly blame this blog on Harry Connolly, who had once suggested to John that a Black Gate blog would be of interest. John and I discussed a blog as I was first coming on board the magazine, and I decided to put one together once I'd made deeper inroads into the slush. Here it is, for better or worse.

I set it up as "bg_editor" so that either John or myself could post, but John has his hands quite full with sundry Black Gate duties, so I've finally just realized I'm stuck with this thing and decided to fill out the profile or user info or whatever it's called with my interests and my bio. In an odd way, it feels like I've finally acknowledged that yes, I do have a blog. Mostly it's about Black Gate, but I've let other stuff that's of interest to me creep in. I'd get bored if all I did was report on slush status and what not.

Coming soon -- a sneak peek at the contents of issue 12.

Howard

Nebula Nomination

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:43:13 GMT

In case you haven't heard yet, Black Gate author Judith Berman's been nominated for a Nebula award for her story from issue 10, "Awakening." Here's a hearty congratulations to her!

I don't know whether those who nominated her were excited by one of the very best openings I've seen in a short story for a long time, or the compelling narrative that follows (or maybe it's their well-known preference for tales featuring necromancers) but you can certainly check it out yourself by visiting the Black Gate web site, where we've made the story accessible to all comers. There you will also find links to Judith's web page as well as the SFWA announcement about all nominees.

In addition to the congratulations to Judith, I'd like to thank our web site editor, the talented Leo Grin, for his tireless, dependable, and extremely polished work on the Black Gate web site.

Howard

Catching Up

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:57:29 GMT

A friend e-mailed today wondering why I've been laying so low on live journal. I'd been contemplating an entry on that very subject for days. That sound you don't hear is me working, or trying to work, on way too many things.

Black Gate 12 is being readied for the printer, but not by me -- layout remains John's job. Here I'm trying to round up the final reviews and hurriedly finish reading up some last minute additions for our book reviews section. The gaming articles have been in and completed and edited for weeks now thanks to a big push right after Christmas. I'm also making some editorial suggestions to the long-delayed Todd McCaulty reprise. We still get fan letters for Todd's earlier stories from people wanting more, and they're finally going to get it.

In other news I've been grading papers for the day job, trying to find the time to teach my children piano, or just be a good dad and husband, struggling to fit in time to get to the karate studio to work out, and, because I'm also a writer, wrestling in time for fiction. Some weeks I just run from fire to fire. The things getting the shortest shrift are karate and piano teaching, although I'm doing better with the latter. I actually had a dream last night that I was all dressed up in my karate gear for sparring and couldn't find the room where the karate class was being held. I manage to attend a few times a month, but it's been a long time since I've learned enough to advance, and the goal of second degree black belt isn't getting any closer.

Writing has been progressing steadily but not well. I reached chapter 4, or about 16,000 words, of my mist novel sequel and I've been trying to tackle it for most of the month. I'd write a thousand words, scrap them, then write again, and scrap those. Sometimes I'd make it as far as two thousand words into the chapter before tossing those and starting over. The odd thing is that my rough outline never changed much -- even now, today, when I finally got through the chapter and got the thing roughly presentable, the events within match the outline. I'm trying to figure out what I've learned from this rough draft experience, and I think it may be that when I'm too scattered it's hard to focus and be in touch with what I'm writing. And that's bad news, because I'm likely to continue to be scattered for, well, a really long time.

Anyway, that's what's happening here. I hope soon to talk about what you'll actually see in Black Gate 12, and I'd intended to discuss rejections -- both the giving of them and the receiving of them, because I've been on both ends of the equation lately, but I'll save those for another post, which I'll try to get loaded sooner rather than later.

Best,
Howard

Black Gate PDF

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:35:46 GMT

I want to thank everyone who wrote in to comment on the question about whether or not they were interested in seeing a PDF version of Black Gate as well as a print version. John and I are now talking seriously about making an issue available as a free PDF so that people could see what the magazine looks like, possibly even the upcoming issue 12.

Has anyone out there heard of another magazine trying this, or been involved with that kind of effort? If so, we'd like to hear about it.

Howard

Sundry

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:15:42 GMT

Black Gate Update

I have almost all of the book reviews in now for issue 12, and almost all of the game reviews as well. The cover is excellent, one of my favorites. I need to get John to post it. Need it be said, then, that issue 12 should soon be ready? If it weren't for the required delay between layout and printer, I think we'd have a version ready by the end of this month. John's been working at it for a while now.

Which brings up an interesting point -- is anyone out there interested in a PDF version of Black Gate (in addition to the printed version, of course)?

Writing Thoughts

In the past I would stick with the writing of a scene as I'd planned it, doggedly persisting even if it felt like it wasn't going well. I suppose I used to do this because, well, NOT writing is easier than writing, as any writer can tell you, and this writer at least has to be constantly on guard about making excuses to NOT write.. I realized the other day, though, after I was about 1000 words into a new chapter, that the scene was boring me. I polished it up and re-read it and walked away, thinking I was being lazy for not writing on... But I'm glad I walked off. I realized that I needed to ditch the scene and write one that was interesting to write -- after all, if I'm not enjoying writing the scene, how much fun will it be to read?

So my tip to myself for the day was to learn to trust my instincts. If there'sa reason I don't feel like writing the scene, maybe the answer isn't laziness, but that the scene isn't working. The odd thing about this tip, though, is that I couldn't have told this to young Howard and have had any affect on him. It's all fine and well to trust your instincts, but my epiphany this time was that I should learn when I've developed the instincts to trust.

Howard