Aphelion Editorial 060

Hello and welcome!

Its been a busy month for me, folks. In my never-ending battle against entropy and kudzu, I've lost a few yards. I'm having to perform an undue amount of vehicle repairs these days. But on the plus side, my dune buggy is running again and the search for an affordable Honda Gold Wing motorcycle to replace the broken-down engine in the Tri-Magnum still continues. I do have a new Mare Inebrium story ready for this issue. If you enjoy reading it, you need to thank Jeff Williams, Bill Wolfe, and Wishbone for inspiring me with the idea for the story. They, Cary Semar, and Rob Wynne also commented heavily as they were "reading over my shoulder" during the months it took me to write. Ralph and Cary both return to the fold of our writers this month, after having taken on the editor's mantle and being very busy with that and life in general.

The Chat room is also beginning to see some increase in traffic. There are now several Aphelion writers who make regular visits, as well as most of the Editorial Mafia. The ony bad thing is that some people pop into the chatroom and don't say anything. I'm off on another window on my computer reading a web page and not looking at the window the visitor is on, and they leave because no one is talking in the chat room. I find out later that they've come and gone when I next look at that window. The moral of that story is that if you come into the chat room, say hello to someone. Then the computer will flash and beep at me to let me know that someone is there.

Big doings this issue. This month we're reaching a record of 50 Mare Inebrium stories! Last month in the Lettercol I posted a request for someone to please write #49 so that my own new story could be #50. Selfish of me, I know. But I wanted it for sentimental reasons. Several people e-mailed me back and announced that they had begun new Mare stories or poems. Bill Wolfe was the first to finish his submission, so he got the #49 slot. We will see the others in future issues of Aphelion, rest assured.

I've begun to believe that it's time for me to come up with a 3rd Writer's Challenge. I have a couple of ideas, but they need to be ironed out further before I would feel right about the project. I'll have to be careful in composing the explanation or I'll confuse everyone. In the past, the 1st Writer's Challenge was a series of paintings to look at for story ideas. The 2nd Challenge was a list of narrative hooks to read for story ideas. My favorite idea for the 3rd Challenge is for me to write a short story featuring few main characters and a host of background characters, then other writers would pick out some of these background characters and tell their story. How did all these characters come to be in the scene? Sort of like the Mare series, but concentrating on sharing one story rather than a shared universe.

As you can see, that is going to take a lot more work before its ready to present. But it will be fun when I finish and open it up to the writers.

In other good news, our hit counter tripped #100,000 recently. Simon Owen appears to be the lucky reader, but he didn't do a {Alt + Print Screen} to save the image for my records. And still, the counter keeps climbing apace. Either a lot of readers have shifted to visiting Aphelion several times a month rather than visiting once and reading everything right then, or Aphelion has gained a flock of new readers. Quite probably it's both. Whatever the reason, it makes me feel good to know that I've managed to reach a lot of people all over the world. And hopefully, Aphelion is making their lives a little more enjoyable than they would have otherwise been. I know that I enjoy reading the stories and poetry here. Everyone seems to be sending us their best stuff.

Thanks for your time.

Dan

THE END

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