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Posts tagged as “Doorways to Extra Time”

“The Doorway to Extra Time” in Beta Draft

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I've just finished the beta draft of "The Doorway to Extra Time," my own contribution to my own anthology DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME (see what I did there?) forthcoming from Spencer Hill Press. It ran a bit long, but that's why I have a co-editor. (Or maybe I should stick to my plan of letting the stories in the anthology be the length they should be). Regardless, here's an excerpt:

“I know what you’re going to do,” the old woman said, “because I’ve done it.”

Jackson flinched from the sparkling deranger that threatened her. It was as yellowed with time as the crone who held it: twin chambers of glass cracked like the woman’s bared teeth, gas capsule as battered as her top hat, glass sights as dented as her spectracles.

“I—I have no idea what you mean,” Jackson said, voice quavering less from fear the gun would addle her tubes than from the fact her statement was ridiculous: the old woman had barred Jackson’s path just as she was about to step one hour into the past through the Riemann Gate.

The Gate was a thing of beauty, a four meter brass ring as fresh as the century, its Art Nouveau outer hull intricately filligreed, its elaborate Tiffany-style service windows hinting at the movement of the original escapement, eternally spinning within a ring of Tesla magnets.

The shimmering plane of its opening swam with possibilities, tiny fluctuations in the shape of space itself. When it was dark, the doorway sparkled like a sky of twinkling stars—but even though it was night, the view through the Riemann Gate was not dark.

Fading sunlight flickered through the Gate, filtering down through the glass roof of the Curie Center’s containment dome from the surface of Fresh Lake above—because, on the other side of the Gate, almost a full hour in the past, the sun had not yet set.

"The Doorway to Extra Time" is set in the universe of THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE, forthcoming from Bell Bridge Books, and while The Machine doesn't make an appearance, it does star Doctor Jackson Truthsayer, one of the characters of the related short story "Steampunk Fairy Chick" published earlier in the year in the UNCONVENTIONAL anthology also by Spencer Hill Press.

This was a fun story, though the stack of books you see in the picture is only the thinnest slice of the immense number of time travel, gravitation and wormhole books I read while doing it. Most of that reading ended up on the cutting room floor, or, sometimes, an immense amount of reading changed only one word of my writing. But it's as accurate as I could make it.

Perhaps I'll do The Science of the Doorway to Extra Time someday...

Anyway, it's off to my loyal betas now ... may they be insightful!

-the Centaur

First Steps Through The Doorway to Extra Time

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We now have 3 entries to the DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME anthology! The due date is still October 15th, so there's plenty of time to get in your entries ... of course, if you already have a doorway to extra time, you might not need so much time to get your entry in! For those who need a reminder ...

In our busy world of meetings and microwaves, car radios and cellphones, people always wish they could get an extra hour in the day. But what if they could?

Doorways to Extra Time is an anthology that explores ways to get extra time (be it an hour, a day, or a decade) and the impact it would have (whether upon a single life, a family or an entire world). We’re looking for stories with a touch of the fantastic--whether mystical, magical, mechanical, or just plain mysterious--but they can be set in any time or any genre: contemporary or historical, science fiction or fantasy, horror or magic realism. We could even find a place for a nonfiction essay if it was truly exceptional. In short, show us something showstopping, and we’ll make time for you.

Suggested Length: full stories (from 3,000 to 7,000 words) and flash fiction (preferred under 1,000 words). We will accept good stories up to 10,000 words but longer lengths are a harder sell.

Due Date: October 15th, 2012

Editors: Anthony Francis and Trisha J. Wooldridge

Submission Guidelines: Please email your submissions to anthology@spencerhillpress.com. Put your story in the BODY of the email (no attachments) and put “DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME” in the subject line along with the title.

Looking forward to reading your entries ... because I sure could use a doorway to extra time myself.

-the Centaur

DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME

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Don't you wish you could get an extra hour in the day? Well, what if you could?

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With Trisha Wooldridge, I'm co-editing a new short story anthology titled DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME forthcoming from Spencer Hill Press. From the call for submissions:

http://www.site.spencerhillpress.com/Doorways_to_Extra_Time.html

In our busy world of meetings and microwaves, car radios and cellphones, people always wish they could get an extra hour in the day. But what if they could? Doorways to Extra Time is an anthology that explores ways to get extra time (be it an hour, a day, or a decade) and the impact it would have (whether upon a single life, a family or an entire world). We’re looking for stories with a touch of the fantastic--whether mystical, magical, mechanical, or just plain mysterious--but they can be set in any time or any genre: contemporary or historical, science fiction or fantasy, horror or magic realism. We could even find a place for a nonfiction essay if it was truly exceptional. In short, show us something showstopping, and we’ll make time for you.

Suggested Length: full stories (from 3,000 to 7,000 words) and flash fiction (preferred under 1,000 words). We will accept good stories up to 10,000 words but longer lengths are a harder sell.

Due Date: October 15th, 2012  

Be sure to click through to the Spencer Hill site for the details on how to submit, and for all the legal boring bits. (And as a side note, this isn't likely to be the cover; this is just a cover I whipped up for this blog post).

The anthology came out of an offhand conversation at the Write to the End writing group about how the way to get more time is to make time - a tweak of a line from the Merovingian in the Matrix Reloaded, but something I find to be very true. But my thoughts in fiction always turn to the fantastic and the supernatural, so I asked ... what if you really could make time?

And it really does seem to be true. Already this idea has sparked two or three short stories among my very busy collaborators, even before the call to submissions was fully complete. Now that Spencer Hill has put it on its schedule, it's time for all the rest of you to get cracking on your own stories about finding extra time ... by October 15th.

On my end ... wow. October 15th. It seems so close. Fortunately ... I have THE DOORWAY...

-the Centaur


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