Blogs

This Thursday, April 29 at 7:00-8:30pm, I will be giving a webinar on marketing and selling short fiction, jointly sponsored by the Canadian Authors Association and SF Canada.

Drawing from my writer's guide, PLAYING THE SHORT GAME: HOW TO MARKET & SELL SHORT FICTION, I'll cover rights and licensing, finding short fiction markets, a strategy for selecting markets, submission advice, key contract clauses, and leveraging second rights for such things like reprints, foreign language rights, audio markets, and publishing a collection.

This webinar is free due to COVID-19’s impact on the writing community, but space is limited to the first 100 attendees. You can register for free here. Hope you'll be able to join me.

BookBub is currently offering a great deal on The Wolf at the End of the World, my urban fantasy novel set in my Heroka universe.

Up until March 16, you can pick up the ebook edition of the novel for only $0.99 (or the equivalent in your country).

The deal is available here and is offered in Canada, US, UK, Australia, and India, via Amazon, Apple, B&N, Kobo, and Google Play.

But it only runs until Tuesday March 16, so don't miss it!

I'll be giving a free webinar on marketing and selling short fiction on Thursday, March 25 from 1:00-2:00 pm, as part of the Indie Author Project's "Expert Session" series. You can register for free here.

The Indie Author Project's mandate is to encourage strong relationships between indie authors, local libraries, and readers by partnering with curators and libraries across the U.S. and Canada to find the best indie-published books.

My presentation will be drawn from my writer's guide, Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction, and will focus on rights and licensing, finding short fiction markets, a strategy for selecting markets, submission advice, key contract clauses, and all the ways to leverage second rights (reprints) to keep selliing your fiction.

Here's the webinar summary:

Take your first step to becoming a professional short fiction writer, join best-selling author, Douglas Smith, for this Expert Session on how to leverage short fiction in your writing career. In an engaging and conversational style, multi-award-winning author Douglas Smith will share how to market and sell short stories—and much, much more. Even experienced writers will find value here as Smith takes you from your first sale to using your stories to build a writing career.

Again, the webinar is free, so if you're a short story writer or always wanted to be, I hope you'll tune in! You can register here.

I was recently interviewed via Zoom by Taipei-based writer, Todd Sullivan, about plot development, specifically in my short story, "Symphony," and in my writing in general. The interview is on YouTube here, as part of Todd's "Plotting in Fiction" series.

In his series, Todd uses voice-only interviews then adds supporting visuals. I think he did an amazing job with his selection of images for this one.

I wrote "Symphony" for a science-fiction short story contest the Canadian literary magazine, Prairie Fire, was running at the time. Prairie Fire is based in Manitoba, Canada, and the contest was to commemorate Manitoba-born "Golden Age" SF writer, A. E. Van Vogt. Appropriately enough, Canadian SF writing great, Robert J. Sawyer, was the judge.

"Symphony" took second place in the contest and was also a finalist for the Aurora Award for best short fiction the following year. I read the opening few paragraphs to start the interview, but if you'd like to read the whole story, you can purchase it as an ebook from my online store or from your favourite ebook retailer.

I mentioned in last month's newsletter that I would be the guest presenter on September 17 on ProWritingAid's regular free webinar series on the craft and business of writing. ProWritiingAid is the best automated editing tool I've found and is a regular part of my editing routine for all my fiction. And no, I'm not an affiliate nor am I in any way compensated by them. I just love their software. I've tried many grammar checkers and editing tools, and ProWritingAid is by far the best I've used.

My seminar was based on my writer's guide, Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. These sessions are supposed to be 40 minutes (max) of presentation, and 20 minutes of Q&A. That meant I had the challenge of condensing my three two-hour workshops based on the book, which themselves only cover portions of the guide, down to 40 minutes.

To do that, I focused on how a solid understanding of rights and licensing should drive every phase of a short story writer's career: from selecting where to send your stories first to negotiating a fair contract, and, assuming you've protected your rights, being able to leverage your short stories far beyond that first sale—for reprints, selling to foreign language markets, publishing collections, and much more.

If you're a short fiction writer and missed the Sept 17 session, you can still watch it. The webinar is archived and available to watch on Facebook.

My short story, "The Red Bird," has been reprinted in the just-published anthology, The Phantom Games. I'm thrilled that "The Red Bird" has the coveted spot of lead story.

I'd mentioned this anthology last month. At that point, the book had the working title Excalibur 2020. The re-titled antho features stories about the Olympics or Japan (or both).

Its release originally was to coincide with the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics (hence the theme), but after the games were cancelled due to the pandemic, the book's release was delayed until the fall.

The anthology is now available as an ebook on Amazon. A print edition will be coming soon. I love how the cover uses five phases of the moon to echo the five Olympic rings.

"The Red Bird" is a martial arts fantasy romance story set in 15th century Japan and was a finalist for the Aurora Award.

 

On Thursday, September 17 at 2:00pm EDT, I will be giving a free, online workshop on "How to Leverage Short Fiction in Your Writing Career" as part of ProWritingAid's free webinar series for writers.

Here's a summary of the workshop:

Learn how short stories can form a crucial part of any fiction writer's career. This session will help you understand the basics of licensing rights for short fiction, why you should always target the top markets, key clauses to look for in short fiction contracts, and much more.

Most importantly, you will learn the many ways a successful short fiction writer can leverage their backlist of published stories far beyond that first sale, including reprints, foreign language sales, audio markets, and collections.

Again, it takes place Thursday, September 17 at 2pm EDT. If you're interested, you can register here.

My short story, "The Red Bird," a martial arts fantasy romance story set in 15th century Japan, will be reprinted in the upcoming anthology, Excalibur 2020. "The Red Bird" was a finalist for Canada's Aurora Award when it appeared in 2001.

The antho will feature stories about the Olympics or Japan (or both). Originally planned for release to coincide with the now deferred Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, the book will come out this fall.

John Paul Catton, editor for the anthology, kindly interviewed me about my writing projects, my approach to writing and research, and my urban fantasy novel, The Wolf at the End of the World. You can read the interview here.

Watching writers practice their craft would not rank high on anyone's list of spectator sports. Writer stares at screen. Screen stares back. Writer hits some keys. Stares at screen again. Hits backspace ever so many times and starts over. Rinse and repeat.

That's what I first thought when a San Diego writer friend, Tone Milazzo, reached out to the authors in the current (but soon-to-be-gone) exclusive Dark Fantasy & SF bundle, asking if anyone would like to collaborate on outlining an entire novel online in real time for his YouTube channel, Cyclops Road.

But Tone assured us it would be both fun to do and fun to watch. So I and another writer friend, Ottawa-based Matt Moore, raised our hands, and together with Tone, we started to outline an urban fantasy novel about what happens when magic suddenly disappears from a fantastical Toronto (yeah, I got to pick the city).

I'm not sure if it's fun to watch (I think so but you can be the judge), but it was fun to do. We make use of very cool software designed specifically to support this type of collaboration. Matt described the experience as combining breaking a story with D&D-like rules plus that 'Yes, and...' type of cooperation essential to performing improv. We obviously enjoyed the experience, because we came back for more, with more sessions planned.

You can watch the first two sessions here and here. Feel free to post comments there, as we are all interested in the viewer's experience. And a reminder: the exclusive Dark Fantasy & SF bundle ends this Thursday, September 10 at midnight EDT. Don't miss your chance to get eleven incredible books for an incredible price.

This is the final interview in my series on the authors included in the soon-to-be-gone *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle I'm curating for StoryBundle.com. The bundle is the culmination of a nine-month project to help authors whose excellent books were orphaned by the sudden collapse of ChiZine Publications in 2019.

Plus you can direct a portion of your bundle purchase to Black Lives Matter (Canada). So here's your chance to help out a critical social cause and to help authors recover from this derailment.

Today's interview is with Derryl Murphy. I've known Derryl since shortly after I started writing in the late 90's, and am proud to call this talented writer a friend. Derryl has two titles in the bundle. Both are collections of short stories that showcase the breadth of his writing talent: Wasps at the Speed of Sound and Over the Darkened Landscape.

The stories in Wasps at the Speed of Sound are, in this era of human-driven climate change, even more relevant today than when first written. They show us, to quote Peter Watts in the introduction, "eleven ways for the planet to die." I read the title story of this powerful collection almost two decades ago when Derryl and I each had tales in the now defunct magazine Oceans of the Mind. Two decades—and I still remember that story. That is the kind of writer he is. Here's your chance to read these wonderfully crafted and thought-provoking tales.

The stories in Over the Darkened Landscape, which include an award nominee, span Derryl's short fiction career, from fantasy to science fiction, all written in his tight clean prose. This collection also collects for the first time all four of his "Magic Canada" stories, which look at key events in Canada's past through a fantastical lens.

And now for that interview…

Doug: Regardless of whether you write stand-alone books or series, what themes do you think recur in your work or connect the stories you tell? How do those themes appear in this book?

Derryl: I have a solid lack of faith in humanity, which is certainly more prevalent in the ecoSF of Wasps at the Speed of Sound. As of late, though, I've noticed I tend to lean hard into ghosts, spirits, resurrection and body change, even in my science fiction. I think of the story "Summer's Humans" in Wasps, or "Ancients of the Earth" in Over the Darkened Landscape, and how they, along with others, explore how our nature can shift and how those changes can, in some cases literally, haunt us.

Doug: If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Derryl: It won't get easier. Keep those sights low and sensible.

Doug: How has your writing process changed over the years?

Derryl: It adjusts depending on the needs of my family, my job, and my personal mental health. I long ago realized that, unless lightning struck, I wasn't going to be a full-time author, and I made peace with that.

Doug: What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

Derryl: Being so engrossed in a book at age 8 that, when I went to pee after wiggling around for ages trying to put it off, I instead found my way to the kitchen garbage and relieved myself there, only realizing what was happening when it was too late. Happily, Mom thought this was hilarious. Also, happily, I was a boy and therefore, this was an easier mistake to follow through on.

Doug: As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal, and why?

Derryl: Well, I'm a dog person, and while at first that seems the easy answer, it takes a bit of thinking to agree that it's the right one. Indeed, probably I should narrow it down and say a beagle or any other dog that lets its nose get the better of it. Research can be a (figurative) bear for me, sniffing out one thing and suddenly chasing off after another. But I enjoy these trips, even if they lead me places where the research will not give up what I want or need for the story.

Doug: What's the most difficult thing for you about writing characters from the opposite sex?

Derryl: Avoid the male gaze. I've lived long enough with a wonderful woman to know much about her approach to the world (and I am old enough to know her approach is not part of a generic female take on things), but the 57-year-old me has to remember to NOT take lessons from older books I've read, life "lessons" that set in place when I was much younger, and think of my female characters as objects for men, either within the story or for those reading it. It's something I take very seriously these days.

Doug: If you couldn't write, what form of creativity would you pursue?