Observations made this morning during my commute: The prevalence of cell phones, and especially itty-bitty Bluetooth phone headsets, makes it tricky telling who’s nutters and who’s actually talking to a real person these days.
Then again, who hasn’t mumbled to themselves on the train for giggles and guffaws?
Got up extra early this morning to vote. I voted. A less exciting undertaking in practice than theory.
So, yeah, my life = blurred frenetic haze of legislative editing punctuated by non-legislative editing for The Fix.
I’m finding the editing mindset a bit hard to break out of…in an OCD sort of way. dude_the was here* for our annual Superbowl shindig (the only football game I watch), and we were out doing the Saturday beer run at the Wine Shop. Not being much of an alcohol drinker (or buyer), I amused myself by reading the wine descriptions. Three sentences in, I found myself with pen in hand, busily adding in the missing serial commas. fosteronfilm dragged me away before I could finish (or attract the ire of the shopkeeps). *twitch*
But we’re now on Day 11, over one-quarter of the way through Session 2008. Rah.
*Actually, dude_the is still here, as his flight was cancelled last night, but I’m not sure if I’ll get to see him off from his extended stay—or at all—as I’ll probably have to work late again tonight. A bummer, as he got back from his wranglings with Hartsfield-Jackson airport last night after my bedtime.
Received:
• 23-day reprint SALE of “The Life and Times of Penguin” to the Triangulation: Taking flight anthology. My first sale of the year! And it came with an exceedingly complimentary acceptance letter from the editor, Pete Butler. It was his first acceptance letter (written) of the year, too. Hee!
• 44-day personal “not right for us” from Weird Tales with an invite to submit again. The sale gods giveth and they smacketh. Sigh.
• Payment from Llewellyn for “A Nose for Magic” after a bit of worrisome email straying. Seems they sent me a request for a W-9 for tax purposes which they wanted me to send back before they could cut my check, but I never got the email—I suspect an overzealous spam filter, paired with the lack of a subject in the original email, was the culprit, as I do check my spam folder regularly for misfiled correspondences. It was purely by luck that I saw the follow-up, recognized the “Llewellyn” in the return email addy, and fished it out.
• Note from palmerwriter letting me know that Voices for the Cure (the charity anthology to benefit the American Diabetes Association with my story, “An Interesting Week for Emmy,” in it) is now available through White Rocket Books, which means it’ll soon be available at Amazon.com and B&N.com, too. Yay!
Paper cuts = occupational hazard. Stupid resolution got me right between the fingers in the webbing, too. Grumpf.
Had to work on Monday on the MLK, Jr., holiday. Spent over five hours on one bill. Head spinny foomp, but overtimey goodness.
Got a (group) email from the Magic in the Mirrorstone anthology publicity folks (Mirrorstone is an imprint of Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, hence they have publicity folks . . .ooo). They’re wanting to hold a book signing in May or April. Alas, in New York, so I can’t make it.
Actually, I was surprised to see how many writers responded who thought they’d be able to attend. I thought that the time of New York-as-writing-nexus had passed such that it wasn’t particularly important for writers to be located in New York anymore (unlike, say, actors, who really need to be in L.A. in order to get work) but I guess New York is still an undisputed hub of publishing activity. And folks still gravitate to where the moving and shaking happens.
Received:
• 15-day cordial pass with brief comments and invite to submit again from a new market, Wrong World. They’ve got an interesting point-based submission/rejection system. An attempt to quantify a qualitatively subjective process. . .
And I have yet to make my first sale of 2008. Snargleblast.
And so it begins. The Georgia Legislative Session 2008 has convened. Cue ominous music.
The gods of transportation and commuting doth smiteth me. I languished for over an hour getting to the MARTA station yesterday morning due to an accident on 400, then experienced further delays as the eastbound rail line dealt with some technical difficulties, making me late to work. And after the not-quite-as-nightmarish-but-still-awful drive down 400 this morning, I’m speculating as to whether I will need to set my alarm an extra 15 minutes earlier in order to get to work on time due to the increased congestion on 400. Glargh.
Joined up with anthologybuilder.com this weekend. The site is a new concept (masterminded by Nancy Fulda) where writers can market their previously published work. In a nutshell, readers can construct and buy their own, customized hard copy (trade paperback) anthology by selecting from the offered short stories on the site. Writers earn royalties and get a chance to get out-of-print stories back into circulation. Shiny, huh?
I sent over a quartet of vampire stories: “The Few, the Proud, the Leech Corps,” originally published in the now-defunct Oceans of the Mind; “Ascendancy of Blood,” my first Scrybe Press chapbook; and “Still My Beating Heart” and “Inspirations End,” my second Scrybe Press chapbook–both chapbooks now being officially out of print as I’ve severed my contract with Scrybe.
Dwelling on what other stories I might want to send to anthologybuilder.com, but if anyone wants a hard copy collection of those four vampire tales, they’re available.
The legislature convenes on the 14th, but work’s been ramping up already, even had to do some overtime last week. And I expect to have to work next weekend. It means I haven’t had as much time to write as I’d hoped.
Still, I’m looking forward to session starting. There’s a certain single-mindedness about it that’s restful, even while the work is stressful and exhausting. I mean, while session is incredibly intense, it’s also simple. The only thing I’m able to worry about during session is getting through it. I haven’t the time or energy to do anything else but throw myself into the work, so I can’t dwell on or fret about anything else.
Makes me realize that I always have a lot on my mind: that WiP I should be working on, the @#%$^% novel I haven’t written, various deadlines, projects, professional correspondences, submissions and markets, and other hamsters I’m perpetually juggling. During session, all of that has to take a distant second place, and it’s . . . liberating.
Yep, the workings of my psyche are weird and contradictory.
Rich Horton (ecbatan), regular reviewer for Locus and Year’s Best editor, is doing a year-end summary on his LJ of many of the publications from 2007, and I was delighted to see that he gave snaps to several of my stories that were published last year: “Beauty’s Folly” in OSC’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, “End of the Universe” in Darker Matter, and particularly “Close to Death” in Shiny, of which he says:
From the first issue my favorite was Eugie Foster’s “Close to Death”, a lighthearted piece about a literal encounter with Death on an Atlanta freeway.
Happy squeeage!
Received:
• Payment for “Beautiful Summer” in forthcoming anthology, Killers.
New Words:
• An editing pass and around 100 words on “Morozko.” Going to try to finish the final scene this week and put a fork in this one.
*Shameless pimping and self-promotion alert!*
A little bird told me (thanks, basletum!) that The Fix has been nominated for Best Review Site in the P&E Readers’ Poll.
If you like what The Fix is doing, it’d be greatly appreciated if you would vote for us.
/Shameless pimping and self-promotion
I’ve been feeding a couple feral cats. Actually, at first I thought it was just one, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was two (which explains the amount of food being eaten, as I couldn’t fathom how a single kitty, even a single starving kitty, could snarf that much down). In my defense, they look pretty similar, both gray tabbies with white feet:
Kitty 1 (pictured) seems to have hurt her (his?) paw, favoring the right front one. Don’t know if it’s an old wound or a recent one. You might be able to see that she’s holding it to her chest above. She was limping a couple weeks ago, but appears to be able to walk on it now.
Kitty 2 looks almost exactly like Kitty 1 except her tail is less fluffy, and her white feet are shoes only, lacking a white sock up to her elbow that Kitty 1 has.
They’re both extremely skittish and won’t come to the bowl if either I or fosteronfilm are on the porch, although Kitty 1 will crouch beside it on the edge of the porch—just out of reach—while we’re filling it, waiting for us to go back inside before coming to eat. I’ve tried to make friends with her, but she’s not inclined to have our relationship grow any closer than it is, meowing plaintively at me if I linger, talking to her, as though asking me (politely) to please leave so she can get on with her breakfast.
My plan was to trap them both and take them into a vet’s to be fixed (and looked over) and then releasing them. They’re both very feral, and I can’t imagine either of them becoming tame enough to make the transition to being an adoptable housecat. But now I’m rethinking whether I ought to trap them or not. britzkrieg informed me that she recently trapped a feral just a few blocks away from our place (in j_hotlanta‘s yard) which ended up testing positive for FIV. It was too feral to be adoptable, and a FIV-positive kitty can’t be released back into the wild, so she had no choice but to have it put to sleep.
The odds are higher than I like contemplating that any feral in such close proximity could also have FIV, and I don’t want to have to euthanize these kitties. I know it’d be more responsible to bring them in and have them evaluated (assuming I could trap them), but the thought of my well-meaning action resulting in tragedy gives me the shudders.
Pointy-sharp quandary.
Received:
• 13-day SALE of “Beautiful Summer” to the Killers anthology (edited by Colin Harvey, to be published by Swimming Kangaroo Books). This came last month, actually, so it’s an end-of-year hurray rather than a first-sale-of-the-year ring-in.
• Contracts for “A Thread of Silk” from Baen’s Universe and “Daughter of Bótù” from Realms of Fantasy.
• 22-day (or so) rejection from Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling for the story I submitted for their next anthology. Sigh. Disheartening and disappointing is an understatement, but I’ve been clinging to my “it was an honor to be invited” mantra.
Published:
• “When Shakko Did Not Lie” in the Jan. 2008 issue of Cricket, and it’s the lead story. Yay! “Shakko” has been awaiting an issue to be slated in for some time, and it’s been a while since I read it. Getting the contrib. copies and reading my story over was a little like seeing an old friend you’ve not heard from in ages, familiar but also new. Very pleased that it’s out now.
Shiny cover:
Back from Christmas with the fam-in-laws. Managed to miss the truly icky weather, although driving up, the winds were fierce. When I stepped out of the car at a rest stop, it almost blew me over. I think we actually got better mileage from the tailwind.
Got much shiny stuff, including this awesome Shakespeare action figure from my brother-in-law and his wife:
A pair of fairy doors from fosteronfilm—they’re both 10″ high, the perfect size for fairy folk. (I think we’ll install the red one in Hobkin’s area so his fey visitors will have a convenient entrance):
And gadgety goodness, my hubby got me a GPS!
Aside from the convoluted, tesseract-esque confusion which are the Atlanta streets, my direction sense (or rather the lack thereof) borders on the tragic. It’s a regular occurrence for me to call home ’cause I’ve managed to get myself lost or turned around and can’t figure out where I am. Hee! Having this gizmo is downright liberating. Now if I can only figure out how to install it directly into my brain . . .
2007 Writing Year in Review and 2008 Resolutions
2007 was a bit of a mixed year for me. Good stuff and not-so-good, encouraging successes and disheartening rejections, and a worrisome drop in productivity overall.
Looking over 2007’s Writing Resolutions, I determined to:
• Finish a novel.
Sigh. I made good progress at the beginning of the year but then was derailed when I got invited to submit to a couple anthologies.
• Write 500 words a day, every day, barring weekends, holidays, and the legislative session.
Nope here as well. Again, I made a good start after session, but . . . see above re: derailed. Fooie.
• Don’t stress the hamsters and don’t be afraid to turn some away.
Hamsters hamsters hamsters. Lessee, I resigned from my assistant editor position with The Town Drunk, went on hiatus at Critters, and my monthly Writing for Young Readers column ended with 2007. Tangent fell apart (much stupidity there), but within hours of that debacle, I agreed to helm and re-launch The Fix. The Fix is now to the point of taking up about the same amount of time that Tangent did, but for a couple months, it took up all my free (i.e., writing) time. And, of course, I’m still the director and editor of The Daily Dragon, which takes out about a month for prep and organizing.
So my hamsters are still a juggling act in progress.
2007’s highlights and accomplishments, I:
• Agreed to re-launch and helm TTA Press’s The Fix which went live in mid-October.
• Survived another year as The Daily Dragon‘s Editor/Director.
• Made 22 fiction sales, including repeat sales to Realms of Fantasy, Cricket, and Escape Pod, and broke into Interzone and Jim Baen’s Universe.
• Saw 24 works published, including stories in Best New Romantic Fantasy 2, OSC’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Magic in the Mirrorstone, and 3 stories in Cricket.
• Conducted an online workshop on Worldbuilding for the Carolina Romance Writers.
And herein my Writing Resolutions for 2008:
• Finish the ^#$!@# novel.
• Write 500 words a day, every day, barring weekends, holidays, and the legislative session. I really want to focus on this as my word count went way down this year. I only managed to write four new stories (although I plan to complete a 5th before session starts) and 15K words on the novel. 2007 was my least productive year since I started writing professionally. Badness badness badness!
• Be more willing to say “no” when new hamsters come a’beggin’.
Happy 2008 to all!
Agh! This month is zipping by too quickly! I can’t believe Christmas is next week! Haven’t sent out any Christmas cards (and I think it’s past time to concede that I’m not going to this year), and hardly anything is wrapped. Also, things are ramping up at work. Had a few days last week that felt like session was already upon us. (Eek!) And I definitely want to finish the WiP before session begins.
But, in the flurry of December, fosteronfilm and I have managed to catch a couple of fun flicks. We attended the Sweeny Todd advance screening on the 5th as well as Enchanted last week. Delightful pair of movies…in totally different ways—although the idea of a Sweeny Todd/Enchanted double feature appeals to me in a twisted fashion, and hey, they’re both musicals!
But between them, I liked Sweeny Todd best. Tim Burton’s just got a macabre gift for lushly beautiful cinematography, and with a stellar cast of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alan Rickman, it was gruesome, lurid, and decadent—a gothic fantasy of a movie. Check out fosteronfilm‘s review.
After the final scene, I leaned over to Matthew and giggled: “Everybody die. Die die die”—my favorite mantra when I’m stressed out, overwhelmed, and being attacked on every side by hamsters. (I’ve found it works much better for lowering the blood pressure than “om mani padme hum.”) Matthew’s heard me mutter it under my breath on several occasions, and it happens to also be the perfect synopsis of the movie’s plot as well as its theme. Hee!
Received:
• 240-day SALE of “The Tortoise Bride” to Cricket. This makes my 13th sale to the Cricket Magazine Group and my 11th to Cricket magazine. Woot! I hadn’t sold anything to the Cricket folks in over a year, and I was beginning to fear I’d lost my appeal to them. So I was verily ecstatic to get their stamp of approval on this one.
‘Course now I don’t have anything in their slush pile. Wonder if there’s any chance I can get my current WiP and a new folktale written before session starts…not very likely, but I know I’m capable of producing that amount of wordage in that timeframe; I’ve done it before—although I think that was before I agreed to helm Tangent and now The Fix. Hmmm.
• 95-day pass from IGMS. A bit dismayed at this one. I’ve sold to them before, and this was a form rejection from the assistant editor. Trying not to engage in rejectomancy…
• 147-day complimentary and personal “not for us” from Spacesuits & Sixguns with invite to submit more.
• 139-day kindly no on a reprint from Rachel at Podcastle after holding it for a second round.
New Words:
• 1500 words on “Morozko.” (4272/3500) And, yep, my word-count-fu is totally on the fritz. I’m just hitting the last scene. Undoubtedly there’ll be room for culling when I start into my rewrite/editing, but at 1K+ over my original estimate, I don’t think I should be trying to gauge story lengths until I recalibrate my story-length-o-meter.
So I got an email this morning from fosteronfilm with the subject “Famous last words” reading:
The Germans can never attack through the Arden.
The Hindenburg will work fine on hydrogen.
The Christmas tree will be perfectly safe from Hobkin on the lower speaker.
The last sentence being, of course, foolishly uttered by me this weekend as we were putting up our Xmas decorations. Seems this morning, while I was at work and Matthew was asleep, the fuzzwit pulled some ornaments down, turning one into so much Styrofoam confetti, and terrorized a wooden mouse.
We’ll be moving that tree higher . . .
Received:
• 619-day SALE of “A Thread of Silk” to Baen’s Universe. Woohoo! This one was definitely worth the wait! I’ve been dying to break into these folks.
New Words:
• 500 words on WiP, “Morozko.” (2785/3500)
