Murky Clarity

What is good critiquing?

I'm venting, I'm bitching. So forgive me in advance.

I really should not do it, should have learned my lesson the first time. But I still follow a lot of LP members' blogs. Mainly to know what you guys are thinking, who you are in real life.

People say that a person who knows a little does more harm than good when giving opinion, right? That's why I don't critique poetry. At all. But I know short stories and novels. I know medical stuff. I know technological stuff. I know most of the current rules of writing. And I know Asian because I'm a bloody Asian living in an Asian country. And when I give suggestions and opinions, it's generally to help make a story better. Granted, I get it wrong sometimes (as evidenced with Ben's stories), but you guys know I'm not talking crap, right?

Maybe it's because I don't have an MFA.

It Gets Better

I wanted to write a post about my birthday bash (which was airwolf, by the way), but as I was browsing the net this morning, I came across something much bigger than me, happening on the same day: Spirit Day 2010.

Spirit Day, with its theme It Gets Better, is aimed at giving support to gay youth who are bullied for what they are. A support website has listed statistics pertaining to gay teenage suicide, which can be accessed here. Homosexual teens are 3 to 4 times more likely to commit suicide compared to heterosexual ones. 8 out of 10 homosexual individuals suffer from isolation, and a significant number are subject to physical and/or psychological oppression.

Tweet, tweet!

Took me forever, but I finally joined the Twitter community. My user name is fadz_johanabas. Feel free to add me, though I may talk crap most of the time. I'll follow you like a Digi Yellow Guy in return.

Hardcover, too

This week, God has been especially kind to me. First, I found out that my most anticipated anthology, Aether Age: Helios, is coming out on November 29, to commemorate the publisher's anniversary. I've known the anthology will be out in print, ebook and audiobook, but when I checked the website, I discovered that the anthology will be printed in hardcover, too! How cool is that?

Yesterday, when I got back from Midvalley with Reza, I received an acceptance letter from Crossed Genres, for my apocalyptic Science Fiction, Equatorial Snow. It's about geoengineering gone wrong, and the world re-enters the Ice Age, and an expecting Muslim couple faces the threat of losing their precious child. The magazine comes out in print and online formats.

Just now, after attending three patients at the emergency unit (on-call today), I received another acceptance letter, this time from Northern Frights Publishing. I submitted Visions, previously published at Expanded Horizons, for their print anthology Fallen: An Anthology of Demonic Horror. The book is coming out later this year.

So. Including A Long Sigh Goodnight at CCC Press's Malaysian anthology, Act of Faith at COSMOS and Fountain of Youth at Skive, my stories will exist in print form in 6 book titles. 14 stories published or accepted for publication so far, more than enough to make an anthology of my own. And maybe I will, later, once all publication rights have reverted back to me :).