Tag Archives: newly published

Bend It

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Slept well, despite some strange dreams. Took some Rooibos Lemon Twist to work, herbal tea instead of green. Feeling much better today. I’m such a creature of habit.

Watched Bend It Like Beckham courtesy of Netflix last night. Enjoyable, but nothing to rave about. I liked listening to the commentary. Gave me more insight into Indian family culture.



Writing Stuff:

“Second Daughter” is now up at Story Station. Hurray! I quite like this little folk tale. I’m glad it’s been so positively received by so many editors. And as soon as the Story Station folks pay me, it’ll have earned $.03/word, total. Not too shabby.

Write a review for Tangent of the new Sci-Fiction story “Jumpers” by Mary Rosenblum and sent it to my editor.

Queried Abyss & Apex on a story of mine they’ve had for two months now. Normally I’d wait longer, but their response times are usually so quick, plus they’ve been having email issues, so I wanted to make sure a reply hadn’t gotten lost into the virtual ether.

Also sent a reprint story for consideration to 9, my first submission to them. They’re the biggest Greek language paper, a weekly, and they print one SF story in each issue. They translate English language stories to Greek and are receptive to reprints, although they buy all rights to their translation. And so I stick a tentative toe into the non-English language publication pool. Hope the water’s nice.

And, holy moly, I saw on the Wildside Press bulletin Board that H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror is in the process of getting a new distribution deal which will put an extra 15,000 copies out on the newsstands starting with issue #2. Now I’m getting all excited about when “Within Your Soul I Sightless See” will appear in it! That’s some nice circulation figures.

Back from the Caribbean, Cricket sale, and various rejections

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Got back yesterday from a week long Caribbean cruise with the family. Wonderful time, although now I’m back on land, I keep getting inner ear tweaks that make me think the ground is moving beneath me. Details and pictures from the cruise coming soon! I’m compiling my notes and logs, and downloading pictures from our new camera.



Writing Stuff:

Going through the various Critters critiques I’ve received last week. Email was crap on the ship so I didn’t read them while onboard.

After coming home to a week’s worth of new mail. Received:
– SALE to Cricket for my folk tale “The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake”! Good news indeed to return to!
– Rejection from Cicada. Pook. While they really liked the story, they thought it too emotionally wrenching for their teen audience, and hence not right for them.
– Rejection from Talebones – personalized. “Almost, please send more soon.”
– Rejection from Sci-Fiction – from Ellen Datlow, “not subtle enough” for her.
– Rejection from Asimov’s – form from Sheila Williams (sigh).

Oof. But I’m happy-dancing ’bout another sale to Cricket!

Also, my excerpt “Visiting Day” is up at the ELP Library with very cool cover art:

All’s well on the bronchial front, Witch’s Oven up

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The bronchoscopy happened. According to my doctor, everything looked fine–nothing worrisome or abnormal. So it seems even more likely that stress is the culprit of my breathing difficulties. Why does that not make me feel better?

On the whole, the procedure experience was unmemorable. Literally. They gave me anesthesia and sedatives both locally and intravenously. There’s a bruise forming on the top of my hand from the IV. I wish they wouldn’t put the things there. I much prefer the inside elbow location for an IV. Hurts less. Anyway, one of the effects of the anesthesia is short-term memory loss. I remember breathing the lidocaine gas and my tongue and throat going numb. And I remember the anesthesiologist injecting something into my IV. Then nothing until I opened my eyes in recovery to see Matthew grinning down at me.

Apparently, though, I was awake and responsive throughout the whole thing. Matthew assures me that my eyes were wide open when they wheeled me into recovery. And I was speaking and responding to questions. But the interesting thing is, I kept asking the same questions over and over again, as though I’d forgotten that I’d asked the question and what the answer was. Which I had. Things like “what time is it?” and “when will the anesthesia wear off so I can eat?” I remember the last time I asked those questions . . . at which point I stopped asking. But couldn’t figure out why Matthew kept chuckling at me. Appears he’d been answering me in something of a loop for a while there.

Weird drug that. It basically zapped my extremely short-term memory so I couldn’t retain anything. Before I went in, the nurse told me that amnesia was one of the effects, and I determined to try to hang in there as long as I could, try to see what I could remember. Nope. Out like a light. Or rather, not out, but insensibly awake like a light.

Also interesting that my brain works in such a predictable fashion that I ask the exact same questions over and over again, coming out of a medical procedure.

Aside from an odd sensation in one of my sinuses, that was a wholly unpainful procedure. Don’t even have a sore throat.

But I do wonder if I was in any pain or discomfort during the bronchoscopy–considering they stuck a tube up my nose–but I simply can’t remember it. ‘Course I also had a lot of numbing agent, so the odds of me feeling anything even if I could remember it are slim to none.

Weird.

First thing I did as soon as I could swallow and therefore eat/drink again, was have a big cup of coffee. Tube-in-nose notwithstanding, I was hurting for my caffeine fix.


Writing Stuff:

Obviously, not much writing got done yesterday. I was loopy for hours after I got home, quite incapable of putting written words in any semblance of decent order.

But I did check the Abyss & Apex site and while it seems that part ii of issue #9 is still in the process of being published, “Inside the Witch’s Oven” is up, as is a poem by Tim Myers. The link to the short by Bruce Boston, however, is still not functional. I’ll be sharing a TOC with Bruce Boston! Eventually.

I’m also amused that “Witch’s Oven” is the opening story of part ii. Very cool.