Midsummer Night’s Dream

Went to the Shakespeare Tavern last night to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They did an excellent job. I was laughing so hard I was holding my sides to keep them from popping. They came in a close second for best production of Midsummer’s Night I’ve ever seen. The best one is still the one the Illinois Shakespeare Festival did many years ago, but these guys came closer than anyone else has since then.

I think Midsummer is one of my favorite plays to watch. There aren’t really all that many fantabulously memorable lines, but it’s just a good comedy. Can’t figure out why Hollywood hasn’t managed to produce a single decent version of it, though. But then, Hollywood hasn’t had a very impressive track record when it comes to Shakespeare.

Stepped on the scale this morning. Argh. Not only have I not lost weight, I’ve actually gained a couple pounds. Fume. Most focus on diet, dammit.

Writing stats:

Maybe 200 words on the new fantasy/VR fusion thingy. Suckitude.

Passed the first round of reading at Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine on a novelette. On to the second round.

Skunk-in-armpit, Big Fat Greek Wedding, Writing stats

Hobkin was quite snugglesome last night. Actually, he was so snugglesome this morning he woke me up before my alarm. He kept burrowing into my armpit. As most people reading this (excluding puskunk and alijt) probably don’t have a frame of reference for sleeping with an attention-mongering skunk, lemme say it’s a bit like having a stuffed animal insistently trying to imbed itself into your body. There are many much worse things than having a living plush creature trying to fuse into one’s armpit, but it still proves a little difficult to sleep through. I think he was either cold or wanted to be hugged. As soon as I gathered him up in my arms (and out of my armpit) and cuddled him, he quit trying to burrow into me. But then, of course, I was wide-awake and totally pinned. Typical.

Saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding for the first time last night. I quite enjoyed it. I see why it did so well. It’s charming and funny, despite being predictable.

Writing stats:

The editor/publisher of the Tales of the Paranormal anthology sent me an email requesting to use my story “Inspirations End” on her website to promote the anthology. She said it was one of her favorites, which I’m well pleased by, but I’m not sure if I’m fond of the idea of having it online as I’m trying to sell reprint rights to it, and having it so readily available might make that difficult. Hmm.

And what the hell is the deal with the Blasphemy anthology? I was counting on bringing it and Tales of the Paranormal to Fantasm but I have still yet to hear of a publication date or see edits to approve. Grumble. Launching another query . . .

Also scribbled out a synopsis/outline and cranked out 800 words on the new high fantasy/virtual reality fusion piece.

Codex

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!

Bad coffee day

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.

Monday sucks

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!

Dragon*Con staff meeting and other stuff

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.

This and that

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.