A lot of questions have been coming in. It’s time I began answering them. Eschewing the usual FAQ format, here’s what has been going on around here lately.
The recovery from my open heart surgery in March has been going… strangely. The people in cardiac rehab tell me I’m making remarkable progress and in no time at all will be back to normal, or at least to whatever it is that will pass for normal for me for the rest of my life. I was extremely fortunate in that they went in and did the surgery before I’d had a full and proper heart attack, so there has been little to no permanent damage to my heart. With careful attention to diet and exercise, I should continue to improve and have many years of life still ahead.
[Given that much time, I’m sure I’ll be able to find some way to make this fat-free, sugar-free, salt-free, caffeine-free, red meat-free, low carbohydrate, flavor-free diet interesting. There is only so much one can do when one must begin with extra lean ground turkey.]
The people in my cardiologist’s office, on the other hand, seem to be considering me to be a laboratory research animal. “You’re feeling better? Your health is improving? Great! Let’s change your medications again!” Two weeks ago I was doing so well they quadrupled the dosage of one of my medications, and produced exactly the results the Possible Side Effects sheet warned against: dizziness, chronic fatigue, painfully dry eyes and vision problems (Oh, that’s what caused that!), cold hands and feet, a slow resting heart rate, and a blood pressure so low the people in cardiac rehab began to panic when they first saw it. Thankfully, the effects reversed once we backed-off the dosage.
I will admit, I am not fully appreciative of this experience. I just want to get back to living something like a normal life—except that every morning, even before the fistful of pills I need to choke down before I can have my first cup of (decaf, bleah) coffee, I wake up in my bed, acutely aware of this mass of metal I now have in my chest where most people have a sternum. They didn’t even install a miniature reactor or give me superpowers or anything cool like that. I just have this numb area where they severed and cauterized nerves and then put my rib cage back together with baling wire.
[Strewth, every time I look at that scar in the mirror, I think of the Sergeant’s speech at the beginning of Act 1, Scene 2 of Macbeth. After they unseamed me from nave to chaps, they at least saved the pieces and put me back together again, and my head did not wind up decorating anyone’s battlements.]
There are things—many things—I’m glad I didn’t know before going into surgery, and maybe we can talk about them another time, when we get into a discussion of the difference between terror and horror. Right now I want to move onto the BIG question, which so many people have asked: “What’s going on with Stupefying Stories?” (Or as one person stated it in a particularly memorable way: “Is your brain functional enough to write or publish?”)
Yes, I think so. Of course, I thought that in April, too, then in May, and then in the first weeks of June. I was eager to get back to work then; impatient, even. It’s probably for the best that I didn’t, as when I did try to write, everything I did was badly unfocused and going off in all directions simultaneously.
I seem to be past that now, though. Mostly. I’m ready to get back to work. I am, almost quite literally, back from the dead—and we can talk about that another time, too—and the experience was not what you may have been led to expect. I didn’t see Heaven; didn’t meet any dead relatives; didn’t come back with any profound insights or feelings of enlightenment. What I’ve mostly come away with is an acute awareness that life is short, and I want to do more of the things I find to be fun in the time I have left.
Fortunately, one of those things I find to be fun is running Stupefying Stories.
Why? Pete Wood was trying to cheer me up, and he found this, somewhere:
Stupefying Stories is widely considered a great, quirky speculative fiction magazine. Founded by cyberpunk pioneer Bruce Bethke, it is highly regarded in the writing community for its hands-on editing, its focus on compelling characters, and its success at launching new authors. The magazine is published by Rampant Loon Press, and is particularly known for a few distinct traits: [...list truncated for length...]
Overall, if you are looking for fresh, accessible science fiction, fantasy, and horror that prioritizes pacing and character development over literary pretension, it is an excellent publication.
Okay, I like that. I’ll take it. So I suppose that means I’d best try to live up to it.
Therefore…
The plan du jour is to get a new book out as quickly as possible; preferably as close to August 1st as I can. Of course, this depends on my being able to scrape together enough stories to make a full issue. So far I have a few authors committed to this, and I plan to spend the rest of this week reaching out to as many more authors as I can, to see who is still on-board, who has given up and moved on, and who has placed their story somewhere else but has another story I might be able to use.
I know. It’s ambitious. It’s ridiculous. It’s probably impossible.
But then, that’s me, isn’t it?
Per aspera ad astra,
Bruce
1 comments:
Cool!
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