The breathtaking thing that is anthology production
There's fun moments along the route to anthology production that stand out in your memory of the experience. These tend to be the only bits you recall (conveniently forgetting the painful ones) when you decide to go through the process all over again.
I'm currently at perhaps the most exciting part of the process for Sprawl. Submissions for the anthology close on Sunday. They've been trickling in for months and have started to really pick up pace now. Interest has been pretty strong and I'll admit that I've been peeking at the stories - partly because I can't resist and partly to avoid a massive task of having to sit down to a huge pile of reading after Sunday. I've read over half of the submissions, I've accepted one story and earmarked a couple more. At this stage, I'll wait until all the stories have come in before I start making any definite decisions.
But as I stood back yesterday and looked at the stories I had earmarked so far, I realised how breathtaking this part of the process is - months ago I put together the idea for Sprawl, bounced the idea round with some friends, knocked up the guidelines and put them out there, hoping they would capture the imagination of writers and readers. I have a very clear idea about the tone I am looking for and the kind of story that, to me, is "suburban fantasy". And I'm slowly sifting through the submissions pile and pulling out the ones that are the reality of this vision. And as I looked at what I'm thinking of taking, I was blown away by how cool it is to get to watch this process. You put something out there that writers riff off, they throw in their own version and ideas and commentary and send it back to you. And all you had was just an idea, an amorphous cloud of a thing, and slowly, as you buy stories, you start to turn that idea into an object - a table of contents, internal content of a book that other people will hopefully want to read. And it's never really what you thought it would be - and hopefully it's much much better than that.
Right now I'm excited to open each submission and read it and see which I fall in love with. I try to take stories that I love, that demand my attention, that absorb me, emotionally engage me or make me think in ways I hadn't before. Stories that leave me buzzing. But at about now in the process, I'm also looking at what I'm picking up, across the board - what will interplay, what riffs off what, what kind of a feel the whole is starting to have. Will it be themetically linked or will it be a collection of strong stoies in a common genre?
I love watching books happen. This is the bit about editing for me that's really addictive - getting to read the stories before everyone else and seeing what everyone did with the challenge!
I'm currently at perhaps the most exciting part of the process for Sprawl. Submissions for the anthology close on Sunday. They've been trickling in for months and have started to really pick up pace now. Interest has been pretty strong and I'll admit that I've been peeking at the stories - partly because I can't resist and partly to avoid a massive task of having to sit down to a huge pile of reading after Sunday. I've read over half of the submissions, I've accepted one story and earmarked a couple more. At this stage, I'll wait until all the stories have come in before I start making any definite decisions.
But as I stood back yesterday and looked at the stories I had earmarked so far, I realised how breathtaking this part of the process is - months ago I put together the idea for Sprawl, bounced the idea round with some friends, knocked up the guidelines and put them out there, hoping they would capture the imagination of writers and readers. I have a very clear idea about the tone I am looking for and the kind of story that, to me, is "suburban fantasy". And I'm slowly sifting through the submissions pile and pulling out the ones that are the reality of this vision. And as I looked at what I'm thinking of taking, I was blown away by how cool it is to get to watch this process. You put something out there that writers riff off, they throw in their own version and ideas and commentary and send it back to you. And all you had was just an idea, an amorphous cloud of a thing, and slowly, as you buy stories, you start to turn that idea into an object - a table of contents, internal content of a book that other people will hopefully want to read. And it's never really what you thought it would be - and hopefully it's much much better than that.
Right now I'm excited to open each submission and read it and see which I fall in love with. I try to take stories that I love, that demand my attention, that absorb me, emotionally engage me or make me think in ways I hadn't before. Stories that leave me buzzing. But at about now in the process, I'm also looking at what I'm picking up, across the board - what will interplay, what riffs off what, what kind of a feel the whole is starting to have. Will it be themetically linked or will it be a collection of strong stoies in a common genre?
I love watching books happen. This is the bit about editing for me that's really addictive - getting to read the stories before everyone else and seeing what everyone did with the challenge!