ANNOUNCING: Beneath the Twin Suns

Okay, if you want the shorthand version of this blog post, all you have to do is follow this link to my special episode of 4 Cents a Podcast from this past Monday, and you'll get the gist of it. I won't blame you if you do. You've got things to do.

(Okay, as for those of you still with me, here it goes.)

In the system of Capavan, on the planet of Calpahee,

the lives of many have played out across time. 

Each of those lives contains a myriad of experiences,

some plunging valleys, some skyward peaks.

The stories within this volume are only a sampling of many snapshots 

throughout the planet's long history. 

These are the stories of lives lived 

Beneath the Twin Suns.

On August 31st, 2020--a week from tomorrow--a new book will be appearing in Amazon's bookstore. The book in question is (as the gorgeous cover art you can see to the right states), an anthology of romantic fantasy and science fiction stories titled Beneath the Twin Suns. 

In about mid-May this year, our fearless leader, Renee Gendron put out a notice through the Twitter #WritingCommunity. She wanted about 40 or so writers to come together to collaborate on an anthology of original short stories, based around an established set of guidelines that Rene set forth from the beginning. In the end, 33 authors--including yours truly--used those guidelines to create 33 original pieces of short fiction, soon to be available the world over.

If you've been following the blog for the last several months, you'll know about this project. As far back as my piece on How to Write a Good Short Story (According to Me), you'll have a clue as to what guidelines to which I'm referring. 

In order to be part of this anthology, each author had to adhere to five different rules:

1. All the stories had to take place in the same shared world.

2. All the stories had to in some way relate to the theme of time.

3. All the stories had to contain an element, overt or covert, of romance.

4. All the stories had to have happy-for-now or happy endings.

5 (and finally). All the stories had to be 1500 words or less. 

Now, with such guidelines, you might think that an editor might well end up with nothing but cookie-cutter, carbon copy short stories, each pale imitations of each other. But, as the old adage goes, ideas are cheap. Creativity is a liquid; no matter what kind of space you give it, if you can it will fill it. When you give 33 different creative people the same set of guidelines, you're going to end up getting 33 different takes, and that's what we ended up with in the case of Beneath the Twin Suns. 

For me, this opportunity came at a time when I needed something. This past April was not a good month for me (mental-health wise). I was depressed, anxious, and fearful that I was never going to write anything worth reading in my life. That I'd gotten several rejections that month from various periodicals did not help things. Renee's blast was a lifeline for me. I saw it as a challenge. As a writer with a propensity to write long, even when I'm supposed to be doing short fiction, the idea of telling a whole story in 1500 words or less interested me. Could I do it or was it beyond me?

Once I read over the guidelines, I started hunting for a story. When I write short fiction these days (in part thanks to my astonishingly good education at the James Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction's Writing Workshop), I rarely do more than begin with a sentence. 

In my case, that sentence was this:

            "The arrow whizzed towards Lopi-cor’s head, but it bounced away before landing."

(Not bad, right?) The sentence permutated in revision, but that's where I began. From there, I wrote on trying to find answer to the question that opening sentence elicited from me. Who was "Lopi-cor?" Why were people firing arrows at him? Where was he? Why was he there? And, most importantly, what does he want?

In the first week of June, I ended up writing about the first 1000-1200 words of the story. It was at that point that I froze. I realized that if I kept writing, i was going to end up going over the word limit. So, I out of fear of doing that, I set the story aside for almost a month. Then, July rolled around and Renee (now communicating through both email and a Twitter group chat), sent us a reminder that our stories were due by July 31st.

Still wanting to be part of this, I picked up the story and finished it. When I did, it was exactly (exactly), 157 words over the word count limit. However, it was a first draft, which meant it didn't need to be anything except existent. I then showed it to my good friends Diane Callahan (the voice and mind behind the Quotidian Writer YouTube Channel), Serema Storm, a fellow BlogSpot Blogger, and Sarah Worrell (a fellow Young Gunn), along with Renee, each of whom made some great suggestions about stuff I could cut and polish. Serema even gave me a wonderful little detail to add to the very end of the story, which you can read if you buy the book.

In the end, I managed to polish and shave the story down to decently below the word count so that my story "What Lopi-cor Did to Save His Love," is one of the 33 tales you can find in this book. It might not be the best of the bunch (I think many of the others are far better), but it is a story I'm proud of having written. 

As much of this anthology was Renee's brainchild, it's completion was nonetheless a joint-effort. The group collaborated on everything from the world-building, to the final cover design, the marketing and promotion, to the very title. 

The greatest point of collaboration, however, was what we would do with the proceeds. Given that we'd have to divide any residuals 34 ways if we elected to collect royalties, the group finally decide that all proceeds from the sales of Beneath the Twin Suns would go to a charity. But which one? After a bit of debate and a group wide vote, we selected the International Red Cross as our charity of voice.

So even if the idea of getting 33 original short stories of romantic science fiction and fantasy doesn't appeal to you, maybe the idea of all the money going toward humanitarian aid will.

Beneath the Twin Suns will be available for purchase, first as an eBook and later as a trade paperback, Monday, August 31st, 2020. It's the kind of book we need in a time like this: hopeful and uplifting.