Update on “The Enchanted Bean”

Sorry for not posting recently. If you follow Alternate History Weekly Update you would have read my announcement on Monday on why I have been so busy. Good news, however, on my short story “The Enchanted Bean”, scheduled to be published next year in Once Upon a Clockwork Tale. My editor at Echelon Press, Karen L. Syed, is moving ahead to the next round of edits. I just submitted my bio and brief description of the story for the jacket copy. Check out the first drafts below:

Bio:

Matt Mitrovich is a misplaced refugee from the multiverse. As he tries to find his home timeline, he passes the time by editing Alternate History Weekly Update, a group blog he founded dedicated to news and reviews on alternate history, and contributing as a blogger to new electronic version of the classic SF magazine, Amazing Stories. Sometimes he writes fiction about the worlds he visits, like “A Perfect Hell on Earth” from Jake’s Monthly Anthology, which is based on a diary Matt found in a France torn apart by a century long war. Regrettably this Earth requires you to be a “productive citizen”, so Matt became an attorney to fulfill this social obligation while his search continues. He was lucky enough to take a native of this timeline as a wife and believes she is most beautiful when she becomes frustrated trying to convince him there is no such thing as parallel universes.

Jacket copy:

How do you reach a fabled land of giants without any magic beans? Build an airship, of course. In “The Enchanted Bean” a British adventurer takes to the skies to find unimaginable wealth and glory, but instead finds ancient gods ruling an oppressive flying kingdom. With the help of their Russian allies, these former masters of men want to replant the World Tree and rebuild their war machines. To stop the sky from falling, our hero will have to do more than just chopping down a bean stalk. He will need to get over his own fears and accept help from an eccentric American inventor and an unladylike noblewoman. Who would have though finding a golden goose could be so hard?

Writing Update 6/28/12

Right now it is close to 100 degrees in Orland Park and it is raining.  Time to stay inside and write.

My editor at Echelon Press, Karen Syed, has returned my manuscript of “The Enchanted Bean” with the corrections she would like me to make.  Thankfully she gave me a handy editorial guide and her critique on my writing brought up some good points.  Of course, I am just happy she did not change her mind altogether about accepting my story!  I have started going over the manuscript and hope to have a new draft sent to her soon.

I am finding it difficult to start new stories or finish old ones.  Along with double posting at Alternate History Weekly Update, I am also training for the Beach Dash.  A 5K obstacle course, I am going to be running in it with my family on July 14.  It will be tough, but after losing 40 lbs since 2010, it is time I start toning up.  I plan to be alive for a long time so I can bug my friends and family to read my most recent finished manuscript.

Speaking of writing, I just picked up On Writing by Stephen King.  James Gunn was interviewed on the Nerdist Podcast and said that he learned a lot about writing from King and since I have been a fan for several years I decided to buy the e-book.  An excellent, if short, book with tales from his own life to show what helped and what did not help him in his writing.  I hope to do a short review of it on this blog when I finish.

One thing I was pleased to learn was that King had grown up watching the same science fiction/horror films as a kid…that I watched get skewered on Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Funny how movies that mesmerized us as children became laughable as the decades came and went.  I just hope I do not see some of my favorites get torn apart by the next generation of riffers.

The sun is now out and yet it is still raining.  I love sun storms.