A rant. I'm sorry.
Those very nice folks at Third Flatiron are currently throwing their digital doors open to submissions to their next anthology. They've taken a story of mine before and have been utterly professional in their dealings. So what could I possibly have to complain about?
Well, the pitch for Gotta Wear Eclipse Glasses is positive sci-fi, "The future we all want... climate mitigation and adaptation, new opportunities to boldly go where none have gone before".
And that's where I have a problem. I keep a spreadsheet to record and manage my stories, alongside and in parallel with my account on The Submissions Grinder. Old school, but it works for me. Scanning some of my sold stories, they can be pitched roughly as follows:
Those very nice folks at Third Flatiron are currently throwing their digital doors open to submissions to their next anthology. They've taken a story of mine before and have been utterly professional in their dealings. So what could I possibly have to complain about?
Well, the pitch for Gotta Wear Eclipse Glasses is positive sci-fi, "The future we all want... climate mitigation and adaptation, new opportunities to boldly go where none have gone before".
And that's where I have a problem. I keep a spreadsheet to record and manage my stories, alongside and in parallel with my account on The Submissions Grinder. Old school, but it works for me. Scanning some of my sold stories, they can be pitched roughly as follows:
- a grumpy magician sends an annoying artist into a parallel dimension to scream into the void for eternity
- an android inadvertently causes its own destruction, thus finally understanding the meaning of irony
- a pensioner causes offence by mistaking a well-wisher for an app
- a paranoid rejects society, causing the death of Alan Alda
- a gullible drone on Ernst Stavro Bloefeld's floating island is conned out of an inheritance
- unbeknownst to each other, a couple have themselves replaced by androids to escape their failing marriage
- an inventor pitches a water additive, only to find out that the water company has been using something far more pernicious for the last fifty years
- an idiot second husband turns tries to hide his idiocy, turning over evidence of how his beloved came to be available in the first place
Do I need to go on? There's nothing positive in any of these. There's death. There's a couple of fates worse than death. There's being left feeling foolish and bereft, a couple of times being left foolish and bereft without realising, which seems somehow worse - and makes a nice story arc harder, to boot.
Why do I do it to myself?
I think the simple answer is I don't know any other way. If I wrote a story where everyone ended up grinning, there’d have to be some sinister catch. I’m not sure I want to write, read or watch something that tells me everything is happy without some sort of unintended consequence lurking under the floorboards. Sci-fi isn't made for happy endings, in the same way that chocolate sauce isn't made for meatballs and linguini. Give me the Parmesan of misery any time. At least it goes.
Why do I do it to myself?
I think the simple answer is I don't know any other way. If I wrote a story where everyone ended up grinning, there’d have to be some sinister catch. I’m not sure I want to write, read or watch something that tells me everything is happy without some sort of unintended consequence lurking under the floorboards. Sci-fi isn't made for happy endings, in the same way that chocolate sauce isn't made for meatballs and linguini. Give me the Parmesan of misery any time. At least it goes.
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