Mwa ha ha haaa. I have been initiated into the mysteries of Codex. 
Actually, despite the nefarious connotations, “Codex” is an online forum for “pro-level speculative fiction writers in the early stages of their careers who are actively writing.” Aside from the forum, they’re also a critique group. I recognize some of the members already. The specfic writing world is indeed a small one.
This has the potential to be an excellent writing development opportunity. Rah!
We use premium coffee ’cause we like our coffee flavored and candy-like. Aside from the tasty aspect of expensive coffee, another benefit is that usually you can leave it out overnight in the pot and it doesn’t turn bitter. Usually. Last night I brewed a full pot o’coffee, and had about a third of it remaining after Kristin left, so this morning I took some to work with me. Yuck. I couldn’t put in enough sweetener or creamer to get rid of the bitterness. Time to put the coffee maker through a vinegar cycle, I suspect.
So, did I dump it out and eschew my caffeine fix for the day? Of course not. I drank vile coffee. And I drank it fast so I wouldn’t have to taste it. *twitch* Suffice it to say, this whole “weaning” off the caffeine isn’t working.
In better news, lo and behold, it is no longer Monday, and voila, my program ran. ‘Course it didn’t give me the output I expected it to, but it wasn’t fiery shrapnel winging through the air anymore. Progress.
Writing stuff:
Haven’t written any new words in several days. Have the urge to pummel my muse with a two-by-four for being such a flighty strumpet! No, wait, I didn’t mean that. Nice musie, sweet musie.
The Chinese zombie/afterlife concept is on hold until I can come up with a decent plot. I’ve got a vague idea for a high fantasyish/virtual reality fusion piece, sort of a cyberpunk meets Legend story. I’m giving it some time to percolate in my little head, and then I’ll see if I can scribble out an outline or synopsis. What I’ve got is too complicated and disjointed for me to just start on without more prep.
In the mail:
Form “didn’t work for me” from Alchemy and
“This story is actually too similar to one I’ve already published” from Challenging Destiny. Sigh. At least it was a personalized note.
Yup, Monday sucks.
Spent most of the day at work trying to get a test run set up. Left my cubicle at quitting time with my eyes blurring and my head throbbing, sans a clean run. Not a good day for human versus computer. Stupid data exception errors.
Sunday was productive, though. We headed out to Micro Center with our gift certificate in hand. The idea was to buy a new computer chair, as we desperately need one. But the selection was exceptionally pathetic. Fortunately, they had Epson Perfection 1260 Photo Flatbed scanners on clearance. So now we have a new Epson scanner, one that doesn’t require you to shake it to work. I installed it (Matthew helped . . . a lot) and did a couple sample scans that came out lovely. Now I have the urge to scan random stuff.
Also ordered the Ms. Fantasm 2004 sashes. This year the sash color will be red. The winning sash will be red with gold lettering and gold edging, the runner up sashes will be red with silver lettering. The Ms. Congeniality sash, will be purple with gold lettering. Still waiting to hear back on a query to see how the stockpile of tiaras is holding out, but the sashes should arrive in a timely fashion.
Writing stuff:
Received a new assignment from my editor at Tangent. As of April, I’ll be reviewing the SciFiction.com stories. Pretty excited about that. I know those reviews get read pretty frequently by subscribers, as well as by the Scifiction.com editor, Ellen Datlow.
And did eleven critiques over the weekend, earning my MPC. britzkrieg was right, there were a lot of short stories in the queue this week.
At 19 critiques on my current offering so far. Starting to form concrete thoughts on the rewrite.
Kristin’s coming over in a bit to watch more Firefly episodes.
Tomorrow will not be Monday. Hurray!
Decided to re-color my hair yesterday before the Dragon*Con staff meeting, as the last tinting had faded. There was a sale on the brand of hair coloring I like, but they didn’t have black, so I decided to try something different: dark brown. That’s close enough, I figured. Well, hmm. Apparently the brown was actually more of a medium brown, and it had a reddish undertone to it. As my hair is, well, black, usually such coloring treatments don’t have much effect (when in my younger days, I tried dying a couple locks of my hair platinum blonde–I got a sort of brownish orange after much peroxide and bleaching, and I also tried blue, which resulted in . . . black, with a bluish sheen). But this time I seem to have ended up with a sort of brownish copper at my roots. The ends are still quite black, but the roots took the color. I’ve never had copperish hair before. It’s . . . different.
Decided to run with it and shifted to a brown color scheme in makeup and clothes for the D*C meeting. No one commented upon it, so either they were too polite to decry my hair coloring fiasco, or it just wasn’t that noticeable. Matthew assures me it’s the latter. Debating now whether to just let it grow out, or buy some proper black and fix the color discrepancy.
Had an excellent Dragon*Con staff meeting yesterday. And, yes, seeing all those friendly faces did indeed cheer me up. *waves to dire_epiphany, astralfire, tk0667, and ghostgrrl*
Fingerman shamelessly plugged Fantasm to the extent that it looks like several D*C buddies are now going to work and/or attend.
And, despite the tremors of “eek” I had when I had to shout my staffing needs to the crowd, I think I filled all my staff vacancies. I think. I still need to get my staff numbers sorted out, but when I declared a need for folks who can do HTML and layout work, I got a slew of people stampeding up. Neat. Fingers crossed that I’ve got a good balance of reporters and technical folks this year. Last year I was too heavy on reporters, but I had my technical needs covered with a few key people. But I’m losing two of those (one to photography and the other to his own track) so now I’m scrambling to up my “tech” know-how so I don’t have to try and do it all myself. I’m not coherent at 3AM; I’m just not!
Hobkin was very upset with us for abandoning him for so long, but we plied him with bell peppers and parsnips, and he eventually forgave us. He slept with me all night, and he’s still curled up under the covers, the fuzzy bum.
Watched Loony Toons Back in Action and Chicken Run. Guess it’s an animation entertainment sort of week. I also feel the urge to watch Finding Nemo which we might do today, after we bop out to Micro Center.
Writing stats:
14 critiques so far on my current offering. This one isn’t going over so well. Will need to do some major overhauling in my rewrite, I fear.
Also received a “no thanks” from Neo-opsis, the new Canadian mag, on a submission. Suck.
Well, F&B didn’t chuck my story back at me for being too long, but I got a “going to pass on this” from one of the assistant editors. Suck.
Got a $25 gift certificate from Micro Center and took off an hour and a half from work to go with Matthew to spend it. Two hours later, we’re still stuck in traffic, and haven’t even gotten onto 85 yet. So we turned around and came back home. We’ll go out again later this weekend, not during rush hour, but it was a frustrating and disappointing Friday afternoon.
Also, my lab results came back. I’m not one of the folks who can’t tolerate Imuran, so have the a-ok from my Rheumatologist to go ahead and fill the prescription and start taking it. But I’m finding I’m quite reluctant to. I like being on fewer meds. Plus, there’s a slew of side effects to this one, par for these sorts of meds, I guess. They include: nausea/vomiting, increased frequency of infections, easy bruising and bleeding, and risk of developing cancer or leukemia. 
Yes, I realize I should be taking something to keep me from having a MCTD/Lupus flare-up, but these drugs are scary.
Dragon*Con staff meeting today. I feel exceptionally blah. Hoping seeing some friendly faces will give me a pick-me-up.
My sleep cycles continue to be royally messed up.
Had nightmare after nightmare last night. I even cried out once, bringing Matthew rushing up to me to see if I was okay. And I remember many of them. I think I’d rather be dreaming of Geong Si Chinese zombies.
I’m not a big proponent of either Freud of Jung, but I also tend to believe that sometimes dreams are a good indicator of a psyche’s general state of being. For quite a long time, I didn’t dream, or I dreamed infrequently, and the dreams were pretty innocuous–surreal, Dada-esque settings and situations that were interesting but not all that troublesome, or the occasional bad dream, the roots of which were crystalline clear. Wasn’t undergoing much stressful at that time. Generally, things were pretty unexciting in waking and sleep.
This last bout of dreams were all about fear of going back. I dreamed I found out I had to return to my middle school (middle school of all things!) to finish two more hours that were listed as “incomplete.” No matter how much I protested that I’d graduated from college, had a fucking Master’s degree and everything, they still made me sit in that hell pit with some of the same evil cretins that populated it then. And then I was living back in my mother’s house. Or Matthew and I were living back in our old apartment in the Midwest. Etc. ad nauseum.
The theme was pretty consistent. Obviously I’m having some concerns about my future and I’m experiencing fears that I might be forced to go backward, and it scares me.
Great. So I’m not under enough stress during my waking hours, my subconscious wants to get involved?
So I’m awake and feeling not-terribly-rested. And unsettled. Stupid brain.
Brushed up the latest folk tale. Hell, I don’t know whether to call something a folk or a fairy tale anymore. I suspect prosewitch could give me a textbook definition . . .
Everything’s at first draft and ready to go up on Critters, and I’ve got a terrible backlog. My story inspired by Suzanne Vega’s “The Queen and the Soldier” is up this week, and behind it, I’ve got no fewer than four stories waiting to go in the queue. And no MPCs left. Need more MPCs. Guess that’s something for me to do this weekend.
Already at ten critiques of my current offering. No one except britzkrieg picked up on the religious symbolism. Dammit. My “Goddess Queen” is bleeding from wounds at her hands and from a sharp crown. I thought I was being ham fisted. Dammitdammitdammit. I don’t usually do this, but I think I might be wallowing in “it’s my art!” Too many folks just aren’t getting it. Obviously, I’m doing something wrong. But still, pfft.
Also, I’ve been researching Chinese afterlife/undead traditions and mythologies for a story concept. Nothing all that grisly or intense, but wouldn’t you know it, I had nightmares involving Chinese zombies, the Geong Si, last night.
So, 750 words on this new, nightmare-inducing story. Don’t know where I’m going with it. It seems to want to be some sort of paranormal mystery thingy.
Also risked sending a 6100 word story to Jack Fisher, the editor of Flesh & Blood. That’s 100 words more than the max. stated in his guidelines, but I was upfront about the word count in my cover letter. And he did invite me to send more. Sent him that surreal Kurt Vonnegut-inspired piece that I’ve labeled my “weird” story. Man, I really want to break into F&B. It’s a great ‘zine and I keep feeling like I’m getting closer. And yet, I remain sans cigars.
I said I was jonesing, and I’ve just had my fix!
I just sold “The Life and Times of Penguin” to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. It’s slated for issue #17. I’m quite pleased. I’ve been trying to break into them for ages. Woohoo!
Makes up for the rejection I also got from Flesh & Blood although the editor was very encouraging and invited me to submit more.
Matthew’s re-caulking the shower in the master bath so we can’t use it for a day or so. Had to trudge upstairs to the guest bathroom to shower this morning, and there was much juggling of shampoo and other sundries en route. I’m also a little frightened at the idea of my hubby fiddling with caulk. I’ve got this image of coming home to find Matthew and Hobkin caulked together, stuck to the shower wall. Eep.
I appear to be on a writing roll. Polished up the Horror story and the two folk/fairy tales. All three are at first draft. Going to bundle up the two folk tales together when I send them up to Critters, as together they’re only around 3000 words.
I also started and completed another folk tale, around 2000 words, which bumps my record up to four completed stories in a week. Neat.
Now I’m starting to jones for another sale. *twitch*
Did another 1100 words on the Japanese Horror story, bringing it to zero draft. Also started and completed another folk tale–around 1600 words on that. That’s three stories in less than a week. Apparently I really was stewing too much on the whole novel thing. As soon as I decided to rattle off some shorts, my writing gear went into overdrive.
Writing in fits and starts, that’s me. I wish there were a way for me to maintain my highest level of productivity consistently.
Matthew first-readered the Japanese Horror piece. Shaved off 500 words in the rewrite. Up to Critters it goes. Except Matthew said it read more like a fairy tale, which isn’t that surprising as it’s a very traditionally-styled piece, but I’m not sure if I should label it “H” or “F” for the queue. It seems I run into that conundrum rather frequently. Humph.
Also, my Tangent review of the March 2003 issue of Oceans of the Mind is now open to the public. And I got a nice email from Chris Nakashima-Brown for my review of his story “Script-Doctoring the Apocalypse” in Infinite Matrix. Guess that means at least one person read it.
Rejections over the weekend:
“Nice writing but . . . ” from JJA at F&SF.
“Good stuff here but . . . ” from Strange Horizons.
“We won’t be publishing this but look forward to seeing more” from Glimmer Train.
Ouch.
In better news, I’ve just passed the 100-day mark on a fairy tale I sent to Cricket. In my experience, everything they’ve kept for consideration for over a hundred days, they’ve either bought, or requested a rewrite of and then bought. So my hopes are climbing.
Also, it’ll be exactly one year in a few days since I sent a sub to The Strand. Might be time to query them again.
