Watched The Big Clock last night, the 1948 noir thriller. Good flick. I’d actually seen the ending before, but not the beginning. Fortunately, I’d forgotten enough to enjoy the suspense.
Hobkin was a cuddle beast:
Feel a little twitchy today. Maybe we’ll catch a flick. Still haven’t seen Spider-Man 2 or I, Robot.
Hope to get some good, quality writing time in today.
Slept like a lump last night. Tipped over after dinner, woke up briefly at midnight to get ready for bed, and then fell back asleep. Laid down with Hobkin nestled under my chin, and woke up in the exact same position when my alarm went off. Seems like both of us got a good night’s rest.
Did a couple Critters critiques. Good stories actually, better than the usual stuff. (#9714 & #9709 if anyone is keeping track.)
Took a stab at re-working “Blind Love.” Decided to take gardenwaltz‘s suggestion and intersperse the text with stanzas from classic works to punctuate the myth. I’m uneasy about it, as I’ve never done it before, but it does frame the story nicely. And I decided that I really didn’t like the title “Blind Love” and have re-titled it “Caught Between a Twofold Way” which I like much better. Although it’ll still go up in the Critters queue as “Blind Love” since Andrew uses the title as the key field and if I changed it, I’d lose my place in the queue. I think it’s one or two more passes away from being at the first draft stage. Making progress.
Received a #2 form rejection from Asimov’s signed by Sheila Williams with an invitation to send more. Not as good as a personalized rejection, or, of course, a sale, but better than the “you can’t write, you dope!” #1 form.
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.
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.
And again my sleep was off. It was Hobkin’s turn to be restless last night. Every time I’d get settled, he’d decide he wanted down, and climb over me (waking me up in the process) before hopping to the floor. Then when I’d fallen back asleep, he’d decide he’d want snuggles and clamber up beside me, and wouldn’t settle until I pet him–forcing me to wake up again. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
My eyes feel scoured by sand. Oof. Was he getting back at me for Monday night? Now there’s a scary thought.
Ran out of herbal tea at work so grabbed some “Japanese Wild Cherry” tea from Teavana that we had lying around before heading in. Didn’t realize that it was green tea and not herbal. So I had caffeinated tea with my caffeinated coffee. *twitch* There’s a fine line between caffeine happiness and caffeine misery. I long jumped over it.
I also got Ann Crispin’s and Victoria’s Strauss’ permission to post blurbs from their critiques of “Running on Two Legs” on my website. *preen*
On the writing progress front, my imagination has been captured by Persian Mythology. Currently reading a translation of The Book of Kings. I love ancient mythos.
Slept like crap last night. Don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t sink into a deep sleep state. First I was too hot (kicked the comforter off), then too cold (frantic groping for comforter on the floor), then my neck couldn’t get comfy no matter how I punched up my pillow, and then despite all the white noise going on in my head, every time I shut my eyes, they popped back open again. Dammit.
Hobkin ran off early to sleep under his hutch, in some disgust with all my tossing and turning.
Managed to get a bit of light napping in, but eventually got up an hour before my alarm from a fitful sleep. Sleep is stupid. *grumble*
I spent the day cranky and red-eyed. Fortunately I don’t have to deal with people very much in my day-to-day work environment. I suspect I would have been quite snappish to anyone who came close enough for me to take a bite out of.
Still haven’t received a BFoD from Carina of Realms of Fantasy from this batch of slush. Could that mean my story is being sent on to Shawna? According to the website, it was read on the 7th and it’s almost two weeks later. Usually Carina sends out rejections the same day she reads a manuscript. Oh, I can’t stand it! I’m going to query her. I’m very glad Carina is so cool about queries. She’s the best first reader RoF has ever had, IMO.
Still waiting to hear from Shawna on my previous story sent on to her from the last batch too. *twitch*
Matthew finally first-readered “Blind Love.” Ugh. Okay, I knew this probably wasn’t his sort of story, but I didn’t take into account that he’d have nearly zero frame of reference for it. It’s a modern day Greek myth retelling. (Which myth I’ll not say as there are several Critters on my LJ Friends List who might read it when it bubbles up the queue.) Now my hubby is well read and quite literate, more literate than I would normally expect the average reader to be. Furthermore, our brains are typically in amazingly close sync.
And this story totally didn’t work for him. He didn’t have enough familiarity with the original myth to have any resonance with it, and so it was nearly meaningless on that front. And without the myth subtext, it’s rather deflated.
Now I don’t know what to do. I’m going to take some of his suggestions and do a rewrite, but now I’m wracked with doubt and wondering if the thing is salvageable. Guess I’ll wait to see what the folks at Critters think of it.
Matthew told me an amusing story he read on the skunkchat community. Apparently a neighbor of the president of the ADSA (American Domestic Skunk Association) was sitting on his porch when a skunk meandered up and started rubbing against his leg. Knowing that his neighbor kept skunks, he reached down and pet it for a while, and then called her up, letting her know that one of her black and white babies had gotten loose and was on his porch.
Her reply: All of her skunks were accounted for, and besides, she didn’t have any black and whites.
Turns out he’d been petting a wild, fully-loaded skunk for the last ten minutes or so. Hee!
All skunks are lap skunks:
I’m so very, very pleased. I love “Running on Two Legs.” I think it’s one of my best stories, and I’m emotionally attached to it. I was getting a bit disheartened for a while there, despite Ann Crispin, Victoria Strauss, and Kathleen O’Malley giving it wonderful comments when I sent it through Ann’s Advanced Workshop at Dragon*Con in ’02. It also won an Honorable Mention in the WotF contest, but still no buyers, although I was racking up some very nice editorial comments.
Then I found out that Andy Cox had taken over Interzone and was reading all subs for both IZ and TTA. I’d already sent “Running” to TTA via their American first reader (cheaper postage) a year or so ago, but had been shot down. Since then, the American reader has been let go. I really thought it was a TTA story and not an IZ one, but since I couldn’t re-sub to TTA (even though I highly suspected Andy had never seen it), I sent it to IZ. And voila, serendipity!
I’m tickled! TTA is a beautiful publication with a fabulous reputation. And Andy said I could send subsequent submissions to him via email, which is extremely considerate of him. Also, it ensures I’ll be sending a lot more subs his way, as I’ve been holding off on overseas submissions of late because of that whole expensive postage thing.
Delighted squeeing to commence.
Trying not to dwell on death and dying, and what comes in the mail? Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary a la Netflix.
However, it was damn fine escapism. I love ballet. I started dancing when I was three. Some of my earliest memories are of being on stage, dancing in The Nutcracker ballet at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. I’ve always loved dance as the truest, most visceral expression of beauty, power, and grace.
Before Matthew and I moved here, we went to see the Atlanta Ballet perform Dracula. It was incredible. I didn’t think a movie version of the ballet could compare to the live experience. I was wrong. Pages from a Virgin’s Diary is seductive and mesmerizing. I loved it.
Was I interested? Squeee!
So then I suggested something I’ve been dwelling on for a while now, which is compiling my fairy tales for adults into a single volume. I’ve got enough of them for a novel-length compilation. Currently, about half of them are sold and in various stages of publication, and the other half are making the rounds. So early 2006 sounds just about right to take into account the looong lead times.
Nathan’s vision was to do 50-100 limited edition, hand bound hardcovers, released simultaneously with an open edition trade paperback. This project is still in the “wouldn’t it be cool” stages. We haven’t discussed money matters (like my advance) or anything like that, but I’m totally jazzed.
So instead of generating word count, I created a spreadsheet of my fairy tales for adults, started dwelling upon chapter order, and brain stormed title ideas.
I just heard that the person in my writers group with the brain tumor died yesterday. She passed away peacefully, losing her heroic battle with cancer.
I didn’t know her very well. We’d exchanged critiques as well as supportive emails cheering each other’s successes, but never spoken in real life. She was a talented writer with wit, humor, and a distinctive worldview. I’m saddened that I’ll never get a chance to meet her in person.
Slept like crap, neck still hurts, and I had disturbing dreams involving maggots. But I’m happy!!
They asked me to lengthen the denouement as they thought it too short and abrupt, so I’m off to do that now.
Neck is still all wonky. Stupid neck.
Watched one of the new Netflix offerings last night: Terminator 3. Surprising myself, I enjoyed it. The full circle thing was actually quite satisfying, and the ending was nicely grim. Although I suspect I would have liked it even more if we’d watched it in the theater as there were many spectacular explosions and a plethora of shiny EFX. Arnold does maintain a buff physique, I’ll say that about the gov. ‘Cept they never do explain (or even try to explain) any potential paradoxes or touch upon the ramifications of time travel on the future timeline. Probably just as well. The Terminator trilogy isn’t exactly what I’d call cerebral . . .
Received a UPS package in the mail addressed to both Matthew and I. Matthew didn’t think he was expecting anything, and I didn’t think I was either. Plus it was box-shaped, and anything I expect in the mail is more magazine or book-shaped these days. So, with some perplexity, we opened it. As it turns out it wasn’t for either of us, it was for Hobkin! We’d forgotten we’d ordered his Nu-Cat vitamins a week or so ago. So I called the wee fuzzwit over, as, of course, he was totally uninterested in the package, and gave him a vitamin, at which point, he suddenly became very interested. He thinks vitamins are skunk candy.
Also wrote a review of the new Sci-Fiction story for Tangent. Still no signs of life from ye olde editor, but I emailed it to him anyway.
I checked the Story Station site and “Second Daughter” isn’t up. I guess when the editor said he would publish it “the beginning of the week if not earlier” he didn’t mean this week. No biggie, I guess. I’m accustomed to late publication schedules, but I was looking forward to it, not to mention looking forward to the paycheck!
Glad it’s the weekend. Sunny and hot. Looks to be a good one for staying in with an iced coffee, a fluffy skunk, my laptop, and my muse.
