Everybody has some sort of talent. We don’t usually think of these skills as superpowers, but maybe our expectations are set a little too high.

That’s the idea behind  today’s cool story, a little gem by Leslie A. Dow called, “My Superpower,” featured at Flash Fiction Online. I guarantee it will leave you smiling.

For your shopping convenience, The Muse is now available for purchase through both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

The fastest way to find the listing online is to do an “advanced search” by ISBN number 9780986451713.

You can also do a normal search for “fred warren, the muse“

Or, you can click on the handy links I’ve provided here:

Order The Muse from Amazon.com

Order The Muse from Barnes & Noble

Right now, Amazon is listing the book for $9.95, plus free shipping if your order totals $25 or more. Barnes & Noble is selling it for $8.95 plus shipping.

I’ll also throw in a signed bookplate, if you like. Just send an e-mail to sffwarren<at>gmail.com with your snailmail address. Tell me if you’d like it personalized (and to whom) or just signed.

As always, you can find more information about the book at my publisher’s website, Splashdown Books.

Two American guys, Piro and Largo, travel to Tokyo and run themselves out of money. They’re forced to look for odd jobs to keep from starving and to earn enough to pay their plane fare back to the U.S. Sounds simple enough.

This Tokyo is a little askew from our own, however.  Piro and Largo soon find themselves emmeshed in a world where all the tropes of Japanese anime, manga, and gaming are reality. Before they know it, they’re mixed up with ninjas, zombies, guardian angels, magical girls, a mecha-driving police force, and ‘zilla monsters; caught in the crossfire of a corporate shooting war between Sony and Nintendo; and falling in love with a couple of pop-culture idols, one retired from public life, the other up-and-coming. Add to that a mysterious young lady who might have hacked the world’s biggest computer role-playing game–from a hospital room–and you’ve only scratched the surface of Megatokyo, Fred Gallagher’s tour-de-force webcomic and manga.

I stumbled on Megatokyo a couple of years ago and was quickly hooked, first by the quirky, fun characters, then by the surprisingly deep storyline (which occupies a loyal and populous forum community 24/7, interpreting and re-interpreting each installment), and finally, by Gallagher’s steadily-improving and ever-more-intricate artwork. The man can draw.

Even better, he recently began drawing the comic live online, which is a hypnotizing way to spend an hour or three as a few simple lines evolve into incredibly detailed backgrounds and character images. Gallagher’s spent some time living in Japan, speaking the language, and it shows in many of the settings that are drawn from real life and in the multitude of cultural references and in-jokes.

The story may or may not be nearing its climax. It’s hard to tell–it’s taken several eventful years to chronicle two or three weeks in the lives of Piro, Largo, and their friends. Happily, every comic from day one is archived on the Megatokyo website, and I recommend starting from the beginning and working your way up-to-date, or it will make no sense at all. You could just come for the cool pictures, but you’ll miss much of what makes Megatokyo the phenomenon it is.

Compendiums of Megatokyo are available as a manga at some bookstores and comic shops (I’ve seen them at Books A Million and Barnes & Noble) as well as online from Amazon, etc, or at the Megatokyo store. Five volumes have been published so far, and the sixth is coming in December, I think.

If you want to watch Mr. Gallagher draw the comic live online, there’s no set schedule, but if you follow the Megatokyo Twitter, he’ll make an announcement when he’s about to start. The video feed is interactive, but keep any comments or questions brief and respectful. The community doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

I’d rate the material at a PG-13 for some violence, occasional mature themes, and some language (usually masked in l33t-speak). No explicit content. Most of the story is funny and lighthearted, but there is evil lurking in the dark corners of Megatokyo, and our heroes ultimately must confront it. The final showdown is coming.

Interesting discussion on the Lost Genre Guild Yahoogroup this week. Topic: ”cussing” (probably of little concern to secular readers, but a hot-button issue for readers/writers of Christian and Christian-friendly fiction). Positions staked out by the membership include:

1. Christian writers shouldn’t employ profanity in their stories under any circumstances.

2. Profanity is a fact of life and a symptom of the fallen world in which we live. To omit it would be naive and/or dishonest.

3. Christian readers seek out Christian fiction in part as a refuge from the barrage of coarse language and behavior prevalent in the entertainment media. Christian writers should respect this need and support it by providing “clean” fiction.

4. I don’t like profanity, so I won’t write profanity. End of discussion.

5. Profanity is okay if it’s judiciously and thoughtfully employed. If the story requires it, use it. If it doesn’t, don’t.

6. Amend #5 to read “…judiciously, thoughtfully, and prayerfully employed…” (Hmm.)

7. You can talk around profanity or use innocuous euphemisms that communicate the intent without actually employing an offensive word.

8. Talking around profanity is, at best, dishonest and at worst, lame. Use it or don’t use it, but you’ll look like a yokel if you try to sit on the fence.

9. Don’t worry about it. It’s the character talking, not you. If the character would talk that way, that’s how you ought to write it.

As is often the case, I have mixed emotions about profanity in fiction, Christian or otherwise. Here are some of my thoughts on the topic:

A. I dislike profanity. I grew up in a household where it wasn’t tolerated, I agreed with my parents, and I instruct my children accordingly…it isn’t Christian behavior (that is, it isn’t loving, constructive, forgiving, or redeeming), it’s a symptom of an inadequate vocabulary, it’s a cheap way to get attention, it contributes nothing of value to society in general or conversation in particular, and it has the aesthetic and tonal quality of nails on a chalkboard.

B. People use profanity. A lot. Yes, it’s been around since the dawn of time, but I do blame the modern entertainment media for fostering a social environment where profanity is considered a normal, acceptable, and even desirable communication feature. It provides a convenient verbal shorthand for intense negative emotional reactions, offers entertaining and humiliating putdowns of one’s enemies, and can terminate a lost argument while simultaneously denying defeat. There’s also a sort of glee at tossing out a naughty word and watching with an idiotic grin as the grownups freak out. You may get spanked, but it was so worth it. It’s the toddler-level foundation of all stand-up comedy.

C. Since profanity is so ingrained in human culture, it is unrealistic to expect that it won’t pop up as an issue in my writing. It already has. Point A being the case, when I find myself writing about real people, I quickly run smack-dab into Point B, and it hurts. I worry that readers will be offended or doubt my commitment to my faith. I may try to write around it, but it’s extremely difficult to avoid looking self-conscious. It’s like planting a big stop sign in the middle of the story: “Attention: Writer Avoids Swearing Here.” Euphemisms are worse, unless I’m writing a character who consciously avoids profanity and uses euphemisms to cope, dagnabbit.

I could rave on about this for a long, long time, but I’ll conclude with something that always comes to mind when swearing in fiction or the other entertainment media comes up in discussion. It’s from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore.

The Captain of the Pinafore asserts clean speaking is one of his many captainly virtues, but his crew knows him well, and they call him on it:

CAPT.   Bad language or abuse, I never, never use, Whatever the emergency; Though “Bother it” I may Occasionally say,  I never use a big, big D—

ALL.  What, never?

CAPT.  No, never!

ALL.  What, never?

CAPT.  Hardly ever!

ALL.   Hardly ever swears a big, big D—Then give three cheers, and one cheer more, For the well-bred Captain of the Pinafore!

Like the Captain, I never use the big, big D. Well, hardly ever.

Finally, after about a year of work from conception to publication, the official release date for my novel, The Muse, has arrived!

It will be listed on Amazon.com soon, but in the meantime, there are three ways to get a copy:

1. Order from the Splashdown Books website.

2. Find a local bookstore that has access to the Ingram ipage database (most do), and search for ISBN 978-0-9864517-1-3. They’ll be able to order you a copy.

3. I think this is pretty cool–If you happen to have an Espresso book machine in your neighborhood, you can watch as it manufactures your book in a few minutes. You get the same quality as any other commerical paperback, and you’re on the cutting edge of publishing technology! See the machine in action here.

So, check it out! Order a copy, and if you enjoy it, tell your friends. I’ll be posting news about the book, interviews, signings, etc, so watch this space for more!

In honor of Armistice Day, and the heroic sacrifices of American military personnel in The Great War, November’s banner features a troop train in France, transporting some valiant doughboys from the U.S. Army’s Fourth Division to the front. They may be about to enter action at Aisne-Marne, St. Mihiel, or Meuse-Argonne.

10660 members of this unit will be wounded in action. 2160 will not return home again.

This train, like all trains featured on this blog, runs on subjective time, but it won’t come back ’til it’s over, over there.

The photo comes from the Military History Institute archives at Ft. Carlisle, PA, and can be found at http://warchronicle.com/units/US/4th/combat.htm , along with more information about the exploits of 4th Division.

October was hectic–two back-to-back work trips seriously messed up my schedule but  provided some extra writing time. Wrote about one third of the first draft of my next novel, fleshed out more of a possible sequel to The Muse, wrote a new short story, made some progress on an incomplete story I’d shelved for a while, and polished/revised another.

A lot of good news this month. Three short stories published! ”One Smile at a Time” in Mindflights, “Of All Things, Seen and Unseen” in Residential Aliens, and “Flashback” in Everyday Weirdness. A previously-published story, “Little Piece of Cloth,” was selected for the 2009 Best of Every Day Fiction Anthology. I’ve also got a confirmed feature and an interview upcoming in the December issue of Digital Dragon online magazine. No submissions this month, but I’ll be resubbing a couple of stories in November.

Next month will be huge. The Muse finally reaches publication, and the big marketing and publicity push will begin. Lots of blogs, interviews, visits to bookstores, conventions, and more to come. I just hope I’m up to the challenge.

The October Scoreboard:

8 Oct: 70-day acceptance from Everyday Weirdness for “Flashback”

11 Oct: 44-day rejection from Brain Harvest for “The Preserve” (contest entry)

14 Oct: 74-day rejection from A Fly in Amber for “An Eternal, Unbroken Chain”

Still waiting on a response from Books for Monsters for “Come You Back to Mandalay.”

About two-thirds of the way through my latest work trip, so it’s time to score it against my list of things that consistently go wrong when I’m on the road:

1. Ouch. Two vehicle failures, one at home, one with my son in Chicago. (2)

2. Surprisingly, I’ve had the best internet connectivity in recent memory on this trip. (0)

3. Near miss here–thought we’d mislaid a bill, but found it. (0)

4. Didn’t forget anything, but did have to replace a few items of my working wardrobe. (.25)

5. Another surprise–my travel voucher from the trip immediately preceeding this one went through without a hiccup. Took a couple of days to find a fax machine, though. (0)

6. Quadruple-play on the illness. My lovely wife was sick a couple of days with a “flu-like” illness, the gridiron hero had (successful) knee surgery, and the delightful daughter contracted strep, then Zuckerman’s Famous Pig, aka H1-N1, but recovered quickly. (4)

7. A couple of irritating meetings at work for my lovely wife, but no crises. (.25)

8. One dog probably needed to go to the vet, but we let nature take its course, and the situation resolved itself. (0)

9. Headed off a recurring problem with the furnace airflow before I left home. (0)

10. One case of total drama action. Life goes on. (1)

11. N/A – Didn’t go to Florida this time. (0)

So, counting multiple hits, I score this one 7.5 out of 11, where zero is heaven and 11 is, well, the other place. Not great, but it’s been worse.

Okay, this is weird, but I suppose that makes sense.  I was checking my outstanding submissions today and discovered that my story, “Flashback,” was, unbeknownst to me, published at Everyday Weirdness back on October 10th. I was expecting an e-mail notification, but Everyday Weirdness has a unique status tracking system on its website that apparently serves that function. I’ve been checking my mail and spam folders religiously since the submission, so I don’t think any notice got lost in the mail. I’ll know better next time, assuming there is a next time.

Anyhow, the story is online, a brief descent into madness that reminds us that for every panacea, there’s a side effect:

I lacked inspiration. Now, I have bucketfuls. Vast cauldrons of innovative profundity, pouring down upon my head like anointing oil. It tastes like pink lemonade and chews like salt-water taffy, all day long.

Like many of my stories, this one emerged from a Flash Challenge at Liberty Hall Writers’ Forum.

If bad news comes in threes, good news for me lately seems to come in twos. I received two nice e-mails last night, the first notifying me that one of my stories (title TBD) will be featured in the December issue of Digital Dragon Magazine. Digital Dragon will also present a review of my novel, The Muse, on November 15, plus an interview with yours truly about the book. Digital Dragon is a new-ish e-zine featuring family-friendly and faith-based fantasy and speculative fiction.

It’s also got one of the coolest logos ever.

The second e-mail, from the editors of Every Day Fiction, informed me that one of my flash stories published there in December 2008, “Little Piece of Cloth,” was selected for inclusion in their annual print anthology, due out in January of next year. You can check out (and still order) last year’s here. They’re having a roll-out event for the anthology in Vancouver, BC–I’m not sure if I can muster the shekels necessary to attend, but it gives me an excuse to think about taking a trip to British Columbia.

Happy? Yes.