While walking my dog this morning, I listened to the latest episode of the Writing Excuses podcast. In addition to valuable advice on pre-writing tools, Brandon Sanderson also announced that they are releasing an anthology, SHADOWS BENEATH.
Anthologies come out quite frequently, and many of them are exciting for any number of reasons. Heck, I have a copy of ROGUES sitting here, just begging to be read. But what sets this anthology apart, in my opinion, is the inclusion not just of stories by Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler, but also the inclusion of their brainstorming sessions, critique groups, and personal line edits.
One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to read 100 stories this year (You can track my progress either on my Twitter account or by searching for the hashtag #100ShortStoriesIn2014) because I wanted to write more of them. But when I started writing a short story, it quickly exploded into a potential novel.
Although my interest in writing short stories has diminished, I am still incredibly interested in learning from published authors–how they create, how they write, and how they edit. For $25 for the hardback version or $10 for the e-book version (you get the e-book free when you buy the hardback), I get new stories and useful lessons? That’s a heckuva bargain.