It’s been an eventful few days for me, writing-wise. I completed the requested rewrite, and received an almost immediate acceptance: “Aggro Radius” will be appearing in Gamer Fantastic, edited by Martin Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes. I also received my contract and check for “Midnight at the Center Court” from Witch Way to the Mall and my contract for “Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven” from Realms of Fantasy. And today’s mail brought a pleasant surprise: a package from F&SF with a copy of its French edition, containing “Titanium Mike à la rescousse!”

The French edition of F&SF is confusingly entitled Fiction and claims to be edited by “les moutons électriques.” According to its web page, “Fiction présente chaque semestre le meilleur de la science-fiction et du merveilleux. Tout simplement.” So I’m honored my story was selected for translation. And, even better, “tome 7” of this fine magazine features zeppelins on the cover.

I also took half an hour to whomp off a 500-word vignette for a nonprofit project. This was an educational experience. I remember at Clarion I protested mightily when Candas Jane Dorsey asked us to write a 500-word writing exercise as well as our weekly story. It was work! Eight years later it’s like rolling off a log, and not only that I think the resulting piece is pretty darn good. (Admittedly it’s funny and fanfic-ish, which made it easier.) Ever watch a professional jeweler replace a watch battery or watchband? It’s like that. Do something often enough, even something fairly complex, and it becomes almost automatic. Which only goes to show the value of writing more.

As I was adding the Gamer Fantastic story to my spreadsheet I took a moment to tot up some figures. I’ve written 45 stories since I started getting serious in 1998 (wow, that’s 10 years ago). Of those, 4 are in submission, 4 have been critiqued and are awaiting revision, 1 is awaiting critique, 5 have been trunked, and 31 have sold (some of them multiple times). That’s a pretty decent sell-through rate, if I do say so myself.