Author Archives: Keith West

Happy Birthday, Farnsworth

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Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940) was born on this date, July 29.

He was the editor of Weird Tales during what is regarded as the best years of the magazine. He was the greatest fantasy editor of the first half of the Twentieth Century, if not the whole century. The only other editor who even came close was John W. Campbell, Jr., who was the editor of Unknown/Unknown Worlds. And  as a general rule, Campbell didn’t publish the same type of fantasy as Wright.

One can argue that Dorothy McIlwraith, who tooks Farnsworth Wright’s place at the helm of Weird Tales was a more significant editor than Campbell. But that’s an argument for another post. Continue reading →

Remembering Scudamore Jarvis

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Scudamore Jarvis (1879-1953) was born today, July 20.

And no, I’m not making this up. If I were going to do something like that, I would pick a more conventional name, such as, say, Carolynn Catherine O’Shea or something along those lines. With a name like that, I couldn’t pass up writing a post about him.

Claude Scudamore Jarvis was a member of the British colonial governor in the Middle East. He wrote a number of works of naturual history, history, and farming. As far as I know, “The Tomtom Clue” was his only work of fiction. This story was cowritten with Cecil Morgan. I haven’t been able to find out anything about him. Continue reading →

Jacobi and Others

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Today is July 10 as I’m writing this. It’s late, though, so most of you probably won’t see it for a day or two. But there are half a dozen birthdays I want to highlight. I’m going to start with the person who was probably the most significant in terms of the coverage of this blog. That’s Carl Jacobi. Continue reading →

Robert Anson Heinlein

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Today, Julyl 7, is the birthday of Robert Heinlein (1907-1988). Heinlein when I was growing up was considered one of the top science fiction writers working. As in the top two or three writers, if not holding the number one spot.

In the years since his death, his star has faded a good deal. Some of this is natural after an author dies, especially if there isn’t a perdon or organization that works to keep that author’s works in print.

You can still find his work in bookstores, although there are only a few titles on the shelf. Stragner in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mitsress, Time Enough for Love, and I Will Fear No Evil. That list is based on memory. I don’t live near a bookstore anymore, so it’s been more than a month since I looked. Continue reading →

June Writing Update

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I was behind on my 2024 words per day in June for all but three days. Those days would be June 1, 29, and 30. Those last two days were marathon days, both over five thousand words. I finished a novella and two shourt stories last weekend. It was exhilarating but exhausting.

So I managed to end the month with an average of 2185 words per day.

I’m still behind on the year, but that will help me catch up. I need to add a apge in the spreadsheet where I’m tracking all of this that will calculate the average for the year in addition to the individual pages for each month.

I also finished three ot her short stories.  All of the stories have been submitted to an anthology project I mentioned in a previous post. The anthology themes ahve been ghosts and taverns, cozy mystery, military science fiction, and Regency fantasy. I’ve got a mystery science fiction storyo to write this week. Next week will be a Halloween themed anthology.

The two challenging stories were the cozy mystery because I don’t read  any of them. It had to be set at a beach of some sort, which made it a little more challenging.

The big challenge, though, was the Regency fantasy. Regency is a huge subgenre of romance, although the editor’s video said rmonace didn’t have to be present as long as the focus was on relationships. I did my best, but I cheated a little. I had my protagonist being taken from our world to a Regency that never existed.

We’ll see what the editor said.

I did enjoy writing outside my comfort zone. It was fun. Stressful, but fun. If nothing else, if forced me to stretch myself as a writer, and to do it under deadline.