Hello,
Well, just when I thought I couldn't get any busier, I've been invited as of August 7, to do a short story for an anthology called Imaginary Friends, from DAW Books, editors John Helfers and John Marco. The kicker is that the deadline is August 25. I'm going to have to get going fast to make this one, but I'm going to do it. I have Gen Con next week, August 15-19, but I'll make time and get it done somehow.
The description for the anthology is this: Many people have had them as a child--or perhaps even into their teen years or adulthood. This collection about those "real" imaginary friends would run the gamut from light and funny children's tales to dark fantasy and horror. The "friend" could be a ghost, a pet, a machine, something existing completely in the mind of the protagonist, maybe even a twisted take on something like a snowman, who only comes alive when a certain person is nearby.
So, my task is to get going and get a lot done in the next two weeks. I need a rough draft done soon. I have a rough story outline at this point, but the story is far from done. I've been prepping for the convention I'm going to in a few days. I'm on six panels on writing, and will be doing a signing and a reading. I'll be hanging out with three of my editors as well as a bunch of writing buddies, plus meeting the publisher of my Pirate Witch story. It's going to be great, but I need to write the Imaginary Friend story!!! So far, my idea involves a set of twin boys, hence the picture above. I don't want to write any more, but suffice it to say that something terrible might happen . . .
If any of you have had imaginary friends, send along your memories of them.
Oh, here's a writing update: I got two critiques back on my newest story, The Queen's Ransom. The second one came from my buddy Brad tonight. I've got to implement the corrections, but it's looking good. Then I have to send off the story tomorrow. The deadline is August 15, so I'm okay. Three deadlines in August. August 1 was my God Pays story for the Dimension Next Door anthology, then August 15 for The Queen's Ransom, now August 25 for Imaginary Friends. Ouch! Wish me luck.
Best wishes,
Paul Genesse
Author of The Pirate Witch
in Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms
www.popcornpress.com
Author of The Golden Cord
Book One of the Iron Dragon Series
Five Star Books, April 2008
3 comments:
Congrats! on all the writing projects. Kevin Anderson says each book on the shelves with your name on it or in it is an ad that you -get paid- for, rather than -paying- for. I can see you ad campaign is working jsut fine.
You'll do great, Paul. Being busy with writing deadlines is way better than wishing you were busy with writing deadlines, right! You're on the cusp of greatness, I just know it. :)
As for imaginary friends, I had one as a kid. For one thing, we lived in the country, and I was pretty isolated. For another, when I was three, my mom had a miscarriage when she was nine months along with my little sister Kerry. Not so coincidently, my imaginary friend popped up right around then. I ingeniously named her "Friend." (My creativeness knew no bounds.) The only thing I remember about it was I wanted "Friend" to have her own snacks and kool-aid and such but Mom made me share.
When I talk to folks now, I think it's pretty common for only kids to have had an imaginary friend at one point or another.
Ken Rand pointed out that you had a book coming out next April, so I mentioned it in the UtahSF Community Info blog.
Post a Comment