Mabfan's Musings

To begin with, consider this an official notification that I am done writing and providing stories for the GISHWHES 2014 scavenger hunt. I know the hunt is still going on, but I've been up late many nights this week writing stories, and I need to reconnect with my family. :-)

In the end, I provided stories to 63 teams. In addition, I published one story that the team decided not to use ("Ashley and the Moon") and ended up with one other story for which the team that requested it never got back to me. (Actually, a few teams requested stories and then told my assistant that they managed to secure a story from another writer; I wished them well, rewrote those stories, and provided them to other teams.) So, 65 flash stories written in the space of a week, 63 being used for GISHWHES. Not bad.

I am delighted by how many of these stories I managed to churn out and I am frankly hoping that I provided more stories than any other writer. Will someone let me know if I set that record once the hunt is over?

And now for the thank-yous...

My first thank-you goes to my sister-in-law Rachel, who is very involved with GISHWHES and has done this before. I provided her with the first story I wrote for this madness, and she generously gave me permission to provide stories for other teams, even though that would make it harder for her team to win. So, thank you Rachel, for all that.

My second thank-you goes to all the teams who were willing to buy my story collection I Remember the Future as a condition of having me write you a story. When I saw that so many teams needed stories and weren't going to get them from Neil Gaiman, I realized that this gave me an opportunity to expose more people to my work. Some writers mentioned online that they were approached by people in a rude way; I am very pleased to say that not a single person who contacted me was rude about my own request, or complained about it. I'm hoping that those of you who bought the book will actually enjoy the stories contained within; and that fact is that every single story in that book save one was either a Hugo nominee, a Nebula nominee, or both. So at least one of those stories has to have been worth your $5. So thanks to all of you for your own random act of kindness to me. I hope you all win.

Finally, thanks to Annie Houston and especially Misha Collins. I must admit that I do not watch Supernatural, although it is exactly the sort of show I would watch. My wife and I did watch the first season, but then had to give it up for other things. (See The Brookline Parent for an example of what occupies our time.) Making item #78 one that required the teams to find a previously published science-fiction writer was a stroke of genius on your part. I hope you'll do something similar next year. I stand ready to serve.