Category Archives: LJ

Hobkin doesn’t like the flash

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Took pictures of Hobkin the other day with our shiny, new digital camera. He doesn’t like the flash.

I took a picture of him eating dinner, and he scampered under the hutch, abandoning food even, to peer distrustfully at me until I put the camera away. Then he ventured out and went back to snarfing down his meal.

In the future, I’ll probably turn the flash off and just set the shutter speed slower when I take front-on shots of the poor, wee fuzzwit. I know I get blinded by flashbulbs at conventions, and typically the photographers there are considerate enough to ask (and therefore give me plenty of warning) before they pop them in my eyes. I can only imagine how disconcerting it must be for Hobkin.

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I’ve stopped swaying

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Those little inner ear “I’m still at sea” twinges appear to have stopped. Probably just as well. I’m still all sore and groggy, though. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.



Writing Stuff:

Received the contract and proofs of “Body and Soul Art” from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. They put little snaky pen and ink drawings at my section breaks. I love them! I’m right pleased with how these people conduct business. Not sure how the Aussie dollars to U.S. dollars transition is going to work, though, but that’s no fault of theirs.

Also checked their website and saw they’ve got the cover art for issue #14 already lined up. It’s very SFey:

Back ashore. It’s a Monday.

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Ugh. Set my alarm clock wrong; I appear to be out of the habit. Because of that snafu, I woke up late this morning. I scrambled, disheveled and tousled, into the office, whereupon I was confronted by a staggering 737 emails, of which only thirty were not spam.

Had a difficult time coping with the lack of an ocean view. Actually, I don’t have any view whatsoever as I work in a cubicle sans window. And even if I had a window, it would only overlook the not-at-all-scenic parking lot. Pfft.

Hobkin, however, is glad we’re all home. All yesterday he clung to me, only hopping down to use the bathroom. I’m sure he enjoys his stays with his godmother at “skunk camp.” She pampers him with treats–crickets and cantaloupe!–and he gets to visit with her skunks. But he also missed us. Debbie informed us that Hobkin spent a lot of time activating his “talk” toy ball (the one that says “Good Hobkin, good Hobkin, good boy!” in my voice when jostled) over and over again. Hee! ‘Cept I can’t imagine why Debbie doesn’t absolutely hate the sound of my voice by now.

I’m so behind on reading my LJ Friends List. I suspect I’ll never get fully caught up on last week’s entries. If something magnitudinous happened while I was gone, please bring it to my attention?



Writing Stuff:

Assembled the rejected stories from last week into submission packets and mailed them out. All of them were longer works (7-8K) too. My printer gave me a dirty look and chewed up an SASE envelope in protest. Plus, sending the batch cost me $9.24 in postage. Ouch. Granted, the majority of that is the one I sent to the U.K. Overseas postage is not my friend. I think I’m going to have to seriously reconsider sending anything hardcopy across any oceanic ponds, especially to Australian markets. I’ve been going over my USPS expenses and it’s outrageously expensive to send snail mail to the Aussies.

Also sent my acknowledgement of their acceptance to Cricket for “Moon Lake.”

Going through the Critters critiques. I’ve got thirty-four currently and this batch is still up for another week and a half. Woof. Starting on the rewrite on one of them. Think this one will be going to Cricket next week when it finally rolls off the queue and I’ve got it polished up to my satisfaction. Iron. Hot. Bap.

My muse is pouting at the change in scenery, but I suspect it won’t be hard to cajole her out of her sulk.

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:

Dear Hobkin . . .

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Received a postcard in the mail. It read:

“Dear Hobkin, Please tell Matthew that you are due in for your shots . . .”

Obviously, a reminder notice from our vet to bring Hobkin in for his annual exam. I found the note incredibly endearing. Of course, that’s the reason they do it like that, to appeal to pet owners. And hey, it worked! Also, I really like our vet. They’re tops when it comes to skunks.

So it looks like we’ll be scheduling an appointment for him right soon. Hobkin will be displeased. I plan to insist upon being the one to hold him when they administer his shots, as it will be far less traumatic for everyone concerned. I want to avoid another scene with him screaming bloody murder. It’s amazing the set of vocal cords that are on our normally-silent fuzzwit. And he’s absolutely untroubled by anything the vet does to him as long as I’m holding him. He’s such a momma’s boy.



Writing Stuff:

Received a perfectly lovely crit from azhure on my current Critters offering. Thanks, sweetie! I greatly appreciate the supportive comments and suggestions! But I’m falling way behind on my thank you notes. Eep. Seems like I’m looking at another deluge as I’m already at eighteen and it’s only the second week of four. *gulp*

Received a rejection from the Poe’s Progeny anthology. The story wasn’t quite what they were going for with their theme. They invited me to submit something else, but I’m not sure if I have anything suitable.

Weird Night

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Had a strange night. I think the weirdness was mostly due to the Clonazepam, which is doing precious little for my wing stub pains, so I’m contemplating going off them. I’m paying too high a price in loopiness in the AM, and disturbing dreams in the PM.

Had some very vivid and unpleasant dreams of which I can only remember flashes. I seem to recall carting a baby piglet around in my arms and being very concerned that people would think he was a wild pig and wanting to take him away. And then getting caught in a dimensional rift and ending up in a universe where all these tiny Japanese schoolgirls didn’t want to share their high-tech Sony gadgets with me. Peculiar.

Woke up at 3:30 in the morning feeling like I’d just been shaken awake. Of course, I hadn’t, so I checked my email. Fired off a couple correspondences. I’m actually a little concerned that I might not have been coherent in those emails.

After my brief bout of wakefulness, I was overwhelmed by sleepies again, so picked up Hobkin and fell back asleep until my alarm went off (interesting that my alarm doesn’t seem to wake the little fuzzwit).

This morning was spent guzzling coffee in the hopes of shooing some of the cobwebs out of the noggin. Limited success on that front.

And ow. My wing stubs really hurt.



Writing Stuff:

Heard from the Writers of the Future contest people. “Gifts Not Asked For” was a semi-finalist, a.k.a. Honorable Mention. That’s my second semi-finalist story with them, so now I’ve got a matched set to go with my quarter-finalist kudos. I just can’t seem to get any further with these people, and as soon as Cricket publishes the stories they’ve got of mine, I’m knocked out of eligibility. I think I should just resign myself to the fact that I’m never going to make it to the money rounds.

Received an email from the Blasphemy anthology editors/publishers. Progress is once more being made on getting the thing in print and out to distributors. Finally. They said it’s going to the printers in the next few weeks, so it should definitely be out in time for Dragon*Con.

Did a couple critiques on Critters. That’s sort of like being productive . . .

Day of Annoyances

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I’m just in a pissy mood today. It seems like little things are all conspiring to irritate me.

My wing stubs hurt so I’ve been taking Clonazepam every night for the last several nights. Wonder if that could be contributing to my overall state of irritation?

The day started out poorly. My security clearance to READ from a database table I’ve been testing on at work disappeared, poof. I had it yesterday. When I came in this morning, it was gone (as it was from all of my project team members). So instead of finishing up my testing, I spent the morning getting my stupid clearance restored. God, it wasn’t even UPDATE access! I just wanted to perform SELECTs off the stupid table.

Then I had to go to a doctor’s appointment, a worker’s comp. related one for my TOS so I couldn’t skip it or reschedule it. It was in town. There was much rush-hour traffic fighting. I hate driving in rush-hour. And I got totally turned around in town and had to doubleback several times.



Writing Stuff:

I read today’s critiques from Critters. To be fair, most of the critiques I’m getting are both positive and respect my author’s notes comments.

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Clonazepam and Reprints

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Took a Clonazepam last night for the first time in many weeks. Decided to try to nip the TOS pains early, before it gets excruciating. Stupid wing stubs. Now, I am most loopy. It should wear off in a bit, but considering helping it along with some nice coffee. Coffee . . . mmmmm.


Writing Stuff:

Received a rejection for a reprint of “Reign of the Wintergod,” my second reprint rejection for this story. The annoying thing is that both times the editors said they loved it and definitely want to see more from me, but they didn’t want “Wintergod” since “seeing as how it appeared in Victor’s Asylum in 2003, we feel the massive exposure from that release” keeps them from buying it.

But the problem I have is, if the Asylum 3 was so popular, where the hell are my royalty payments? I have yet to see a penny for this story. And I think it’s a good one, deserving of payment.

I think that pretty much cements it. I am no longer submitting to anthologies that pay only in a “cut of royalties” anymore. That seems to translate to “no pay.”