Writing Science Fiction

I've been making my way (slowly) through the massive missal, The Year's Best Science Fiction, 26th annual edition, edited by Garner Dozois. I have a shelf full of these babies, dating all the way back to the 16th annual edition (guess I'll have to find the first 15 in a used bookstore).

Many people may not know that I have written quite a bit of science fiction myself over the past five years or so . . . and published a fair number of stories, too. A couple of years ago I placed a short story entitled, "Passover" in the little magazine, Alpha Centauri, and three years ago Amazon accepted one of my short stories, "The Word Master" as an Amazon short publication. Three of my best science fiction stories, "The Sea and All That Is In It", "Triple's Blog" and "Sentience" have made the rounds through most of the major markets, and now I'm saving them for a collection that I hope to have in a few years.

Science Fiction is one of the genres I write late, late at night (when I'm between major projects) or early, early in the morning, when my brain is fried and I'm hopped up on Starbucks Verona and begin to combine elements of my Sunday sermon with bizarre thoughts about the last dolphin on earth ("The Sea and All That Is in It") or a guy who lives in a future age when conversation, and not sex, is the commodity men purchase from prostitutes ("Triple's Blog") or a future age when people live for centuries and a lawyer is someone who handles cases to decide if other life forms are sentient beings, or not ("Sentience").

Yeah, I write this stuff. I think it up. All flows out of my little brain. And I write hundreds of other pages, too. In fact, just writing this blog is giving me more ideas. Lots more. Might be a very late night! Perhaps a story about an artist who paints the moon? Or how about a story about a priest who, in some future age, is the last remaining in his order, and must hear the confessions of the entire planet? Or how about a story about an average guy who writes himself to death, only to discover that he is resurrected through the pages of a book?

Could happen. Could.