Aim High October 23, 2011
Posted by Tom Wells in News, Submissions, Tom's Posts.add a comment
Quick update: I have been working on two project deadlines that have kept me from writing. My last writing push was Friday, September 30th when I took a day off from work to polish up my 4th quarter entry for the Writer’s of the Future contest. Since that story has gone out, I’ve had to work weekends at my day job trying to get things ready for end of the year submittals to the Division of the State Architect (the CA building review agency for school projects). I have managed to outline some new stories and have a promising flash story in the works.
I have also submitted my 3rd quarter Honorable Mention entry to Asimov’s. I did tweak the ending a little more to go from the open-ended one used in the contest to a more summed up ending that I think works better. I know Asimov’s is a notoriously picky editor, but I think this story is their kind of story so I may have a shot. Anyway aim high.
Mother Now available at Smashwords.com October 8, 2011
Posted by Tom Wells in Publications.add a comment
Do you have an e-reader other than Kindle or no e-reader at all. Then Smashwords.com is for you. You can pick up my story, Mother there in the format of your choice.
Jakes Monthly Is Out With Two Stories October 4, 2011
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Link to Jake's Monthly on Smashwords
Jake’s Monthly- Science Fiction Anthology has come out including two of my own stories. It’s a bargain at just 99¢. Please thank Jake Johnson for accepting my stories by ordering your copy in the electronic format of your choice.
Mother Is Up For Sale September 27, 2011
Posted by Tom Wells in Introductions, Publications, Tom's Posts.add a comment
My novella, Mother, is now up for sale at amazon.com. Publishing is a fast changing and fractured business these days. Novellas are hard sales to publishers. They seem to be too long for traditional anthologies who want long-established writers for this story length, and they are too short to shop as a novel. So, I wanted to try self publishing this story to see if it gains even a little traction.
For someone reading this post, you are either a returning guest, or you have come here either from another website or from picking Mother to read from the Kindle bookstore. If you have come here from another website, welcome, and please give Mother a read if you can.
If you have come to my blog after purchasing Mother at Amazon, I want to hear from you. I have questions I’d love to have answers to such as:
- Was the story enjoyable?
- How did the narrative and dialog flow for you?
- Did you come to Wellswriting.com from a link in the kindle?
- Did you see that there was a link in the story that opened up my page explaining the technology of signal accelerating buoys?
- Has this story peaked your interest in the larger concept of an Encyclopedia of the Future?
For anyone who has read my story and liked it, please go back to Amazon , and rate it if you haven’t done so already.
Also, because you may be here after reading Mother, you will hopefully be happy to learn that Fall of the Faithful is another story you can read here on wellswriting.com. Together, Fall of the Faithful and Mother make up the first two chapters of a novel I have written called, The Way of the Leaving. If you read both stories separately, you may be left wondering how those two stories tie together. If enough people show interest, you will soon be able to find out how.
Turning To The Back Page Of A Series September 24, 2011
Posted by Tom Wells in Introductions.add a comment
Why would I want readers to turn to the back pages of my series I call the Encyclopedia of the Future? Well, it’s because sometimes, knowing what is to come can peak a person’s interest. My series starts hundreds of years from the ultimate outcome of the anthology, and the early connection is not obvious from the early stories. I hope this in itself is an intriguing premise. You can turn now to this peek into the Encyclopedia of the Future.
Short Story, Hylo, joins Firstfather at Jakesmonthly September 13, 2011
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Hylo is a story about colonists who are changed by the planet they have come to populate. Will they still be human? Look for the story to appear in Jakesmonthly Anthology available in e-format soon.
Firstfather Accepted September 9, 2011
Posted by Tom Wells in News, Publications, Submissions.1 comment so far
My short story, Firstfather, has been accepted for publication in the inaugural September Science Fiction issue of the Jakesmonthly Anthology. I will post where and how to buy the anthology when it hits the e-market later this year.
Firstfather is a story about one of the often overlooked dilemmas humankind will face if we manage to extend our short lifetimes indefinitely someday.
Another Honorable Mention Award September 2, 2011
Posted by Tom Wells in News, Story Awards.add a comment
My third quarter entry in this year’s Writers of the Future Contest has won Honorable Mention. That makes 3 high finishes in 3 consecutive entries. I would still like to see one of my stories place higher, but it is good to see a consistency in my rankings with this highly competitive contest.
This quarter my story was called, “Spacewalk,” featuring honeymooners who pursue the very futuristic pastime of spacewalking on an old abandoned battle site adrift in deep space.
The story will now be sent out to the various Science Fiction Markets.
Meet The Neighbors August 23, 2011
Posted by Tom Wells in Introductions.add a comment
Statistically, the likelihood that there are other intelligent races beyond our own on Earth is a near certainty. So you gotta wonder; where are the aliens? It’s my guess that they are out there somewhere and that they either don’t know about us here on Earth, or we are too remote and/or technologically insignificant to bother. There were pockets of humanity who went uncovered right up until a century ago. There are some places like Papua New Guinea where the native population still practiced ritual cannibalism until modern times.
We humans could be the forgotten tribe of intelligentspecies in our corner of the galaxy. There might even be alien anthropologists
studying us in our native setting on Earth. Given our proclivity towards war with each other, I imagine that if there were one or more alien races who are aware of our existence, they probably put no more thought to us than our modern society has put towards the isolated tribes in New Guinea.
When will we finally meet our neighbors? The hill people of New Guinea 
no longer practice cannibalism for the same reasons the native people of the Andes no longer practice ritual sacrifices of children. Modern civilization finally expanded to their corner of the world. As vast as the galaxy is, it is unlikely that any more advanced civilization will need to expand so far as to overrun our own, but it stands to reason that someday, humans will venture out beyond our solar system and that will certainly be when we discover we are not alone.
This is the foundation for the universe in my stories. What will happen when the people of Earth finally step off of our porch and into the galactic neighborhood? Keep reading the stories from a collection I call the Encyclopedia Of The Future and you will find out.
About What I Write August 19, 2011
Posted by Tom Wells in Tom's Posts.add a comment
If you haven’t explored my stories or website yet, I’ll save you the mystery. I write science fiction stories. Like any red-blooded American boy, I loved rockets and astronauts from the start. I was only seven or eight when I remember seeing the last Apollo mission to the moon. In 1976, Star Wars fever gripped the United States. I didn’t get to go see the movie until it made it to the little local one screen theater in my small home-town. I read the book first, and I was fully hooked. I read books that I didn’t realize were classics then like Stranger in a Strange Land, Ringworld, and more books that I remember the stories from vividly even though I’ve long forgotten their titles.
In junior highschool I started handwriting my first story about Mars. I never finished it and twenty years later my mother gave me the manuscript. With six children, it was a rarity for her to save something like that, but now I have it for myself. My first non-science fiction story was written in highschool as a class assignment. The teacher had declared that she would never read a horror story, and my rebellious streak came out when I wrote one such story just to make her read one (I think I got a B).
I have some other stories that have been started with outlines which are not science fiction, but for now I am writing what I love to write while trying to break into the published category. There’s something about the possibilities of the future, not only for settings that can be whatever your imagination conjures up, but also in the way this genre allows you to write into the future a reflection of present or past events and trends.
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