And here is another try to resurrect my blog. Today I try it with participating in another flash fiction challenge from Chuck Wendig.

The task was to find 3 random photos on Flickr, and incorporate them into a story. Somehow I ended up with these 3:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30007914@N08/5489982470/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16934514@N08/4747530523/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51254849@N06/4708570083/

So I rummaged around in my head for a few minutes and then banged out this piece. Its 994 words. Enjoy.

Very slowly, Sam took the lid off the glass casing. He held his breath for a second and waited for any alarms to go off. Nothing. Apparently he had cut off the right wire.

Now he put the lid down, careful not to trip one of the lasers down there...

There was a panel at the recent Science Fiction Worldcon in Reno, where a few notable figures from known short fiction markets discussed how technology changed or will change short fiction.

You can read the whole article over on io9.com … http://io9.com/5833833/how-technology-has-transformed-short-science-fiction-and-fantasy

I agree with a lot of points. Especially with the paragraphs about novellas and adventure fiction. I like the pulp stories of the 30s and 40s a lot, and I’d love to see those stories and formats rise again. Over here in Germany we still have those novellas, which were called “Groschenroman” back in the day. “Groschenroman” is a quite literal translation of the term “dime novel”...

One of my earlier posts was titled “Procrastination is a bitch” … and that is still true. I still haven’t managed to make it my bitch, so here goes another try.

Lots has happened in the meantime in publishing. Self publishing gets more and more press. More and more writers try it. Another major ebook dealer opened a shop in Germany – Sprechen Sie Kobo?.

I wrote very little in the past few month, but now I am trying to get back into it and get some words down on the page.

I have also expanded a little in the social media field, since Google+ opened its doors a few weeks back.

Google+

You can read my Twitter stream here on this blog (right side) … if you want to follow me go here:

Twitter

And of course there is the blog. But you already know that, since you are reading it right now...

Shocker … I know. But I just read this list:

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/866031/95_movie_sequels_currently_in_the_works.html

And it is sad, really. Anything that made halfway decent money the past few years is getting a sequel. Why, Hollywood? Why? Some movies really, really don’t need a sequel. The Matrix is a prime example. Perfect standalone movie, yet after it became a hit, the Wachovskys were quick to tell everyone who didn’t wanna hear it “yeah, we planned it as a trilogy”. Bullshit.

And there are movies on this list, which never should have been put in front of an audience in the first place, let alone get a sequel.  “Clash of the Titans” for instance. It has been a while since I got out of a movie so angry I wanted to punch someone...

So its been a month since I managed to blog about something. Back then I wanted to do a post about how Amazon should finally open their Kindle store to the rest of the world … or at least to my neck of the woods, which happens to be Germany. There had been rumors for weeks that the opening was imminent.

And now, just before the Easter weekend, Amazon finally did it. They opened the Kindle Store to German users. 650,000 titles are now available to download, including 25,000 German titles … which is a number bound to increase. The majority of German book titles is not yet available in ebook format, but that will change if and when publishers convert their massive backlists.

Until now the German ebook market is just a footnote in the overall publishing industry...

Wow … what a week so far. Let’s recap the 2 major news I want to a adress in this post.

1) Barry Eisler, an NYT bestselling author turns down a $500,000 deal from St. Martin’s Press in order to self publish his next novel.

2) Amanda Hocking, the ebook-self-publishing shooting star of the past few month signs a $2,000,000 deal with … wait for it … St. Martin’s Press.

So basically St. Martin’s went “We don’t care about you leaving Barry … we’ll just give your money and way more to Amanda Hocking. Take that!”

Until a couple of weeks ago, when he announced on JA Konrath’ blog that he’d be publishing a short story on Kindle, I never heard of Barry Eisler, let alone that he was an NYT bestselling author...

I have a dream!

It is nothing as grand as what Martin Luther King Jr. dreamt about when he made that speech nearly 50 years ago … but it is a dream nonetheless.

I want to be a writer and I want to get published. Part one I have already achieved. I write, therefore I am … or rather, therefore I am a writer. That second part though is the tricky one. Because in order to get published, I first need to finish a novel. I am not even talking about having something publishable, or doing edits, drafts and what not. I am talking about sitting on my ass and just writing the damn thing.

Because I am not only a writer, but also a master procrastinator. Give me something to do and I’ll find you something I’d much rather do instead.

Getting published is easy these days … just slap something together, th...

Today Chuck Wendigs Flash Fiction challenge ended and here are the results:

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/02/25/it-goes-down-smooth-the-shackletons-scotch-flash-fiction-results/

Nearly 30 writers responded to Wendigs challenge and submitted stories. You can find my entry here:

http://pulpdogg.wordpress.com/flash/the-time-capsule/

But also check out the other stories. There is some great stuff there!

Chuck Wendig over on TerribleMinds.com issued a challenge for authors to write a piece of flash fiction inspired by the discovery of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s whiskey, which he left there over a hundred years ago.

This is what I came up with. Bear in mind, that this is fresh off the printing presses, with no editing whatsoever:

When I read about the case of Scotch they found in the ice, I immediately thought of that box my brother and I buried in the backyard over twenty years ago. There is nothing fancy like really old whiskey in it, but it is just as valuable to us as those bottles are.

I was 5 and he was 8 when we buried it, under the old apple tree in the farthest corner of the yard...

So I am trying this blogging thing again. And since I am a writer, I might as well start with writing about … writing.

Right now it seems, that there is a bit of a revolution going on in the US publishing industry. Just a few facts:

• Borders just filed for Chapter 11
• Amazon sold more Ebooks than Paperbacks in Q4 of 2010
• more and more authors are going into self publishing

If you believe the likes of JA Konrath, it won’t be long before the big 6 publishing houses in New York will go belly up or at least see a dramatic change in their business model. It is probably akin to the music industry 10 years ago, what with that whole napster / mp3 debacle.

Indie authors are making money hand over fist right now self publishing through Amazon, CreateSpace, SmashWords, Barnes & Noble and other outlet...