mishaburnett

Well, I obviously didn’t publish in in time for Valentine’s Day, but here it is. (click on the pic for the link.)

Ran into a number of issues in the project, most of which were my own fault–note to self, choose an easier title next time.

But it’s live now, and I think it’s a good book. The stories are a mix of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and a few realistic Thrillers. My own contribution is a Horror story.

What they all have in common is the lead characters, who are married couples. Happy, healthy relationships, men and women supporting each other through adversity.

I like to think we are bucking the trend here, and doing it successfully. There is no infidelity, or abuse, or deep dark secrets gnawing away at the partners. These aren’t stories about the psychological torment of being trapped in a loveless marriage. The men and women in these stories love each other and are happy to be joined together for life.

How about that?

And yet, I don’t think there is a boring story in the mix.

We have werewolves and vampires and mutants, fairies and gangsters, an abandoned house that might contain a doorway to Hell, treasure and treasure hunters. Some are light-hearted, others more dark, but all of them, I think hopeful. Come Hell or high water, the bond between husband and wife gives both of them the strength to handle, well, just about anything.

And that’s what you’ll get here–just about anything. It’s a kitchen sink anthology. I deliberately left it wide open to let authors approach the theme from their own unique perspectives. The only constant is the family unit that is the bedrock of the action. I am extremely pleased with the different perspectives on display here and I think readers will find the stories exciting, and uplifting, and maybe just a little bit heartwarming.

The Kickstarter for Dracoheim Confidential: Tales From The City Of The Dragon started very strong, as most of my Kickstarters do.

It has subsequently stalled, at 90% of the goal. I don’t know what to do about that.

I am not good at promoting things or reaching out to people. I’m not a salesman. I know people who are, who can talk to strangers about things and let everyone know what they are selling and why that thing is a good deal.

I have a small but very loyal audience. I honestly believe that more people would like my work if they tried it, but I don’t know how to make that happen.

I think that to be a good salesman you have to first be able to sell yourself, and I can’t do that. If I were a product I wouldn’t buy myself. As a person I am no great shakes, and honestly, I’m okay with that.

There are two things I can do well. I can fix stuff and I can write stories. Aside from that, I’m someone you’d cross the street to avoid. I’m just not the kind of thing that people like to be around.

As far as fixing stuff, this isn’t a problem. People come looking for me when they have a light that doesn’t come on or a toilet that won’t flush. I fix the problem and then go away again, and I collect a paycheck.

Selling stories is tougher. People don’t know that they want my work because they don’t know my work even exists unless I tell them. And there are a lot of other people who are writing stories, and many of them are really good at letting people know their stories exist and why they are worth buying.

So I don’t know what to do. Those people who do like my stories are great at telling all their friends about them, which I appreciate more than I can say. I think that probably accounts for the big rush when the campaign opened.

This is me trying to sell myself. I told you that I wasn’t any good at it.

Return to the magical realm of Dracoheim! For the city at the nexus of myriad strange and sorcerous alien worlds, magic and monsters have become just another part of everyday life.  Magic, which was once a novel and mysterious force, has been systematized, standardized, and turned into a vocational science, necessary for day to day […]

Coming Soon: Dracoheim Confidential, by Misha Burnett

I am a big fan of what I have taken to calling “The World Outside Your Window” Speculative Fiction.

What I mean by that is that if the reader of the story were to look up from the book and out the window, she or he would be able to imagine the events of the story taking place in the world outside, someplace just out of sight.

There is a fair amount of wiggle room in that description, I realize. Some Urban Fantasy would qualify, but not all. Some Superhero stories would, others would not. Most Horror stories are set in a world that looks just like ours, at least to start with.

But the wiggle room is part of the charm. Including oddball news events that are likely to be overlooked or dismissed as hoaxes is a long tradition in Weird Fiction. None of us knows everything that is going on, even in our own community. Can we ever be certain that our own neighbors aren’t werewolves or aliens?

It makes willing suspension of disbelief both easier to engage and harder to maintain. If the events of the story become too strange then a reader is likely to think, “Oh, come on–somebody would have noticed that!”

The sweet spot for WOYW Weird Fiction, in my opinion, is to invoke the kind of inexplicable phenomenon that most of us see regularly. We notice a strange woman walking down the sidewalk, and when we look again, she’s not there. Office furniture, seemingly new, left on the side of the highway. A dog running down the street that doesn’t look quite like a dog. A handmade poster at the grocery store, written in a language that doesn’t look like any language you’ve seen before. Shapes glimpsed in clouds, in melting snow, in oddly colored stains on the pavement.

We’ve all seen them, those odd bits and pieces that don’t make any sense. We look, and we think, “well, there must be some rational explanation…” and then we look away, and don’t think about it again.

The kind of fiction I am talking about says, “Yes, there is a rational explanation. It’s aliens.”

Or werewolves. Or elves. Or the ghost of Emperor Norton I of California. It’s the Mad Fishmonger’s fault–he stole your car keys and ate all your crackers.

These are stories that stick with you long after you’ve finished them, that drift up in your memory late at night, when you’re alone, that make you think, “none of that could be real–

“–but what if?”

Submissions are trickling in, but there is still room for good stories. If you considered submitting, but didn’t think you had time, reconsider.

Submissions will definitely be open through the end of December, maybe longer. I will keep this open until I get enough good stories to make an anthology, or die trying.

The submissions I have received so far vary wildly in tone, from grimly serious to wildly humorous, and I think that’s a great thing.

I love the different directions that people are taking the theme.

The official guidelines are here.