Tara Maya's Tales

Sorry for the long silence. I had numerous obligations in November, and then on top of it all, I entered NaNoWriMo with three or four days to go. Sadly, I didn't win... ;) I'm doing the edits for a novel under another pen name right now. In addition, I have yet another name and career, as a visual artist. That career is taking an interesting turn: I'm opening a eBay store. Up until now my sales were all commissioned work (wedding portraits, mostly). Ebay has less certainty than commissions, because I paint first and sell next. Portraits, I sell first and paint later. It's a different kind of stress. With portraits, I am always worried that the client will look at the final product with that expression you sometimes see on Trading Spaces. The couple comes home to their new living room, which has been painted pepto bismo pink with hay glued to the walls, and they have this expression that says, "Oh god, this is so aweful it deserves to be burned, but I don't dare...

"Small numbers of pigs are easy to keep. They run free during the day and return home at night to receive their ration of garbage and substandard tubers, particularly sweet potatoes. Supplying the latter requires little extra work, for ths substandard tubers are taken from the ground in the course of the harvesting the daily ration for humans. Daily consumption records kept over a period of some months show that the ration of tubers received by the pigs approximates in weight that consumed by adult humans, i.e., a little less than three pounds per day per pig. "If the pig herd grows large, however, the substandard tubers incidentally obtained in the course of harvesting for human needs become insufficient, and it becomes necessary to harvest especially for pigs. "...The work involved in caring for a large pig herd can be extremely burdensome. The Tsembaga herd just prior to the pig festival of 1962-63, when it numbered 169 animals, was receiving 54 per cent of all the sw...

Some authors prefer writing short stories. Some prefer novels. I'm a novel girl myself. I tend to ramble too much for shorts (although writing flash fiction is excellent discipline for me). And besides, once I create a world sufficiently interesting that I want to spend the time of a short story there, I'm inclined to stay long enough for a novel to unfold. Unfortunately, it's difficult to convince an agent or a publisher to take a chance on a novel if the author has no previous publishing record. Thus having a few short stories published first is a good career move. This created a conundrum for me. I peeked at what other authors had done. Take Mercedes Lackey. She had a series of loosely connected stories set in her Valdemar universe. This allowed her to publish shorts in anthologies such as Sword & Sorceress. The same characters reappeared in each story, using the same world as her novels. Or how about Phillip Dick. Many of his short stories later turn up bundled toge...

“You were always a moody one, Othy,” said Forthia. “Even as a child. A stray child, mother called you, last born, when she thought her time for bearing past. You were born the same year Arnthom married Tulthana, and during all the years they tried and failed to conceive a babe of their own, Arnthom would pat you on the head and promise you his throne. It was a blow to you when Drajorian was born. Suddenly you went from heir apparent to being packed off to a lonely school on a distant moor.” “It was a relief to me, not a burden, to be spared the throne, Forthia,” Othmordian said. “And as for the school, that was my request as well. I wanted to study magic. And I first went when I was thirteen, three years after Drajorian’s birth.” “Yes,” Forthia said, “I know. After you tried to kill him.” Othmordian frowned. “No one told me,” she said. “I have my ways of knowing.” “So I have discovered,” he said dryly. “If you were willing to kill your nephew when he was but a toddler, how much more so...

Amazon does the cover design for the Shorts, but here is a hypothetical cover for "Portait of a Pretender."

I belong to a writer's discussion and critique group, the Online Writing Workshop . (Long ago, when I first joined, it was the Dell Rey Online Writing Workshop, but that's a story for another time.) I've added the link to my sidebar for your edification. To any aspiring sf/f/h writers out there--I highly recommend it. The discussion on the OWW list today concerned anti-heroes. What distinguishes an anti-hero from a villian? Is an anti-hero just a hero with a few flaws (boastfulness, bashfulness, bad acne)? Or does he do truly reprehensible things (lie, cheat, steal, kill, rape), but somehow is redeemed by other aspects of his character or actions in the plot? Because of our love affair with rebels and the glamour of rebellion, I think we often mistakenly call a hero with flaws an "anti-hero" to increase his mystique. A regular old hero sounds stuffy. What, a person who tries their best to be good all the time? Yawn. I think that comes from a mistaken impression a...

I applied to the Amazon Shorts program, and was pleased to receive this response from one of their editors: [Tara], fantastic story -- apologies for the length of time it took to respond, but I hope I can make it up to you by letting you know that I am thrilled to admit you to the program. So I'm in! I sent off the paperwork this morning. Whatever is the deal with Amazon Shorts? It's a fairly new program. According to SFWA, the list of authors who have given it a shot is fairly impressive.