Huh. It's tomorrow already.

So I'm sitting here at my desk, coding up the next batch of fiction for RevolutionSF and suddenly realize that it's past midnight already. Granted, that's not all I've been doing--there was some housekeeping and cleanup necessary over at an old website I used to webmaster for, but that mostly involved deleting a bunch of obsolete pages and graphics files. That stuff was finished hours ago. RevSF is what's kept me up. And I won't be doing any fiction writing tonight because of it. I won't tackle any of those reviews I've committed to but keep putting off, even though the books have all been read. I'm not going to be doing much-needed updating of my own personal website, which you can peruse by clicking here. All because of the time I spend on RevSF.

Why do I do it? The question is relevant all of the sudden because of the ongoing musings and hypotheticals regarding Amazing Stories. I select, edit and format one short story a week, plus chapters from two ongoing, serialized novels. That comes out to be the equivalent of a dozen short stories a month on average--16 in five-week months, and nine in months where we fall behind the schedule. I don't deal with the reviews or other features at RevSF, other than contributing the odd review, article or interview on occasion. GOrdon Van Gelder and Stanley Schmidt do a lot more for their respective zines than simply edit fiction, and I'm not trying to set myself up in a 1:1 comparison with them. Even so, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say I edit the rough equivalent of one of the traditional fiction zines every month.

Wow. When I put it that way, I run the risk of impressing even myself. What's not so impressive is the fact that I've never earned one red cent from my work at RevSF. Nada. Neither have any of the other editors working here. No telling how much money Shane Ivey, the publisher, has sunk into RevSF over the years--all the ad revenue and other income the site generates doesn't cover operating expenses. But hey, it's a webzine. That's like some unwritten law. Webzines lose money: what else is new?

I edit fiction at RevSF because I enjoy it. It's not as important to me as writing, so you'll never see me hang up my writing career for a red pen, but as a sideline it's nice. I also edit because I can. I think I'm moderately good at it. I have a pretty free hand here--Shane's never reined me in on anything I've run (of course, I say this knowing he hasn't seen the Joe Lansdale piece I have coming in October. I still have nightmares). I want to edit anthologies--there's no money in editing them, but I have scads of theme ideas, most of which are somewhat more daring and flexible than Fantastic Mystery-Solving Pets. I've got a strong editing background from my day job, and for some crazy reason I've begun to believe I can see a story's strengths and weaknesses and convey those to the writer in a useful manner. Editing RevSF gives me a chance to utilize those tools in a spec fic manner. And it helps raise my profile among the other editors and publishers in the business. So, while I may not be earning any hard cash for this work, I am getting something of value: A track record.

And it never ceases to amaze me that I've managed to get enough quality stories to publish RevSF on a weekly basis. Our generous pay rate includes "all the prestige you can eat," after all. Even so, I've published works from Gene Wolfe and Paul di Filippo, Stephen Dedman and K.D. Wentworth. Sure, there are some weeks where the fiction is a little wobbly. I won't deny that. But overall it's amazing what consistency I've managed to coax out of this endeavour. The last couple of years have seen six RevSF stories cited with Honorable Mentions in Gardner Dozois' Year's Best collection, and it's my goal to break through and have a story reprinted there before too long. I think we're close this year. Real close. I look at what's been accomplished here, with few resources and no outside support, and shudder to think what kind of fiction wonderland I could achieve were I given access to an actual budget!

By its very nature, RevSF is quite eclectic in its fiction selection. My version of Amazing Stories would be very different. My Analog would be more different still. I have no great, burning desire to helm one of the traditional monthly markets, because I've edited monthlies before and know how much hard work is involved, but if the opportunity can knocking, and the logistics were acceptable, I don't see how I could say no. For now, though, I'll be sticking with RevSF for a bit longer.

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