"Preferred Reality" -- short story published in The Potomac Journal

The Spring 2011 issue of The Potomac, an on-line "journal of poetry and politics," contains a short-short story I wrote titled "Preferred Reality."  The Potomac features non-fiction pieces on current social themes, as well as poetry and fiction.

SKY FULL OF DREAMS Now Published

For the past five years, I've been working on an aviation biography of my late father, Bruce K. Hallock. Now I'm happy to report that SKY FULL OF DREAMS is finally published and for sale on line. My publishing Web site, ElevonBooks.com, contains a direct link to the Amazon sales page plus some additional information about the book, including a photo gallery.

Maybe the matter-of-fact way I've stated this makes it sound like no big deal. Well it is -- to me, anyway. Writing the book was only half the job. In order to publish this book, I formed my own publishing company, learned about print-on-demand publishing, and set up the distribution scheme. Each of these tasks involved myriad subtasks and lots of learning. I'm very happy with the result -- the book as well as the publishing company, which I can now use as an outlet for other projects.

POD Publishing

At OryCon, I attended several panels and presentations on publishing. My interest in this topic has a couple of sources. First, I want to sell stories and novels to existing publishers. Second, I want to publish a few things myself, i.e., be a publisher.

Print-on-demand (POD) technology and internet marketing now make it easier than ever for anyone to be a publisher, but that's not news. What was news to me was the extent to which many commercially viable small presses (as opposed to home-based, hobby-style entities) and even large publishers are relying on POD. The quality of the physical product is now practically indistinguishable from books printed by the traditional offset method, and for small print runs of trade paperbacks, POD makes economic sense. Of course the quality of the editing and the layout is another matter. I saw some beautiful POD books, and a saw some sloppy ones.

I attended a presentation by Robert Plamondon, who runs a one-man publishing company called Norton Creek Press. Most of his titles are nonfiction on the topic of caring for chickens. Some are authored by him and some are old titles now in the public domain. He's also published his own science fiction novel and a formerly out-of-print role-playing-game book that he'd authored, which was originally published by a traditional press. His chicken books sell best. I think he said he'd sold four copies of his novel to people other than relatives and friends (they were readers who liked his chicken books). Nonfiction is always easier to sell.

I found Plamondon's presentation especially interesting because his publishing business is similar to what I've envisioned for myself -- not hugely ambitious, but not amateurish either. He also uses Lightning Source (LSI) as his printer. My aviation biography of my dad is just now ready to publish, and I'd already decided to use LSI. So I was gratified to learn from Plamondon and other small and mid-size press people at OryCon that I'm on the right track with LSI.

More on OryCon>>>

Flash Fiction

At OryCon 31, I attended a panel on "flash fiction." The panelists were writers and publishers of flash fiction. I didn't know what to expect. I supposed flash fiction might be fiction that's produced rapidly -- in a flash. But it turns out flash fiction refers to stories of extreme brevity -- typically under 1,000 words, although there is no widely accepted length limit. There are lots of markets for flash fiction now -- some paying, most not. A few are print publications, but most are on the internet. Some actually offer their readers a daily e-mail containing a complete flash story.

Of course short-short fiction has been around as since Aesop's Fables, but it seems the form has taken on new life (fits right in with our busy lifestyles and short attention spans). People are even doing Twitter fiction now, which is limited to 140 characters (that's characters, not words!). Someone commented that short fiction in general (not just flash) is currently undergoing a sort of resurgence. I heard a lot about flash and short fiction in general at the convention. Lou Anders (editor guest of honor) said that the cutting edge belongs to the short form. He foresees something like the iTunes model for short fiction.

Anyway I found the idea of flash fiction exciting, as I've been doing my own form of it for some time. Every day I try to turn out a complete piece -- usually fiction -- usually not presentable, trash-ready. My form of flash fiction is indeed produced in a flash. It's a practice, just something to keep my juices flowing, but once in a while I turn out something that, after some polishing, might be acceptable for a flash-fiction market. So I was rapt; I wrote down a dozen or more markets mentioned during the panel. I haven't checked them all out yet.

On to the next OryCon post>>>

Retirement of a Sort

So I had this job as a technical writer for the Texas Department of Transportation. I didn't plan to stay with it for 19 years, but they treated me well, and the pay was good, and it was kind of interesting -- so... Before that I had been doing freelance work -- technical writing, ad copy, video scripts. It was pretty much a hand-to-mouth existence. The competition started getting fierce. My daughter was getting ready for college, and I decided I needed a regular paycheck. I told myself I'd just stay with the Department until she got through college. She got through college in four years and took off. I stayed on and on at TxDOT. One thing led to another, and pretty soon it was 2007 -- time to move on.

Under the arcane rules of state employment, I was able to retire at age 60+ with a decent pension and benefits. I consider myself a lucky man. I'm healthy, happy, in love with my wife, debt free, living where I want to live, and writing what I want to write.

I had an odd career as a technical writer. I call it odd because it was unlikely for a person of my abilities and education -- slow reader, poor speller, and only three years of college. But I've always had a knack for grammar and syntax. Even the shapes of letters and sounds of words captivate me. And I loved stories and the process of their unfolding -- still do. Somehow by my late 20s, I had decided to be a writer. I'd done lots of writing before that -- comics, movie scripts, short stories, poetry -- so maybe it was natural, or maybe it wasn't. Everyone probably has a peculiar story.