D*C 2004 directors staff meeting

My early AM insomnia seems to have reared its head. Woke up at 5ish and then couldn’t get back to sleep. Dammit.

The first Dragon*Con directors meeting was yesterday. They fed us again. Yum. We traded small animal adventures with dire_epiphany, astralfire, and tk0667 whereupon we learned that tk0667‘s nemesis is gerbil-kind. Laughed so hard my side still aches, and I had tears coming from my eyes.

Also swiped a whole bell pepper from the buffet table to bring home for Hobkin. A peace offering for abandoning the fuzzbump for so long.

A few announced guests for this year at the meeting:

Harlan Ellison (!)
Peter Jurasik
Peter David
Storm Constantine (she’s actually going to direct a new track this year!)
Emerald Rose
Cruxshadows (yes!)

I’m jazzed.

It was also officially announced that Matthew will no longer be co-director of the Daily Dragon with me as he is now going to be the director of a new film track as well as taking over webmaster duties for the main site. Sigh. I knew I’d lose him from the DD, but I didn’t think it’d be so soon! But he’s bouncy about the film track, so that’s cool. Less bouncy about the webmaster position . . .

Magic TEA!

After a whole pot of tea, I am zingy and ecstatic. It must be magic tea.

And . . . *drum roll please* I made my first sale of the year! And it’s also the shortest response time I’ve ever gotten. Under three hours to an acceptance email from the editor of H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, the new sister magazine to Weird Tales. I sold them “Within Your Soul I Sightless See.” Very, very happy now!

Hobkin and Writing

Last night, Hobkin decided it was “pull and bite Mommy’s clothing” day. Scorecard: new holes in sweatpants, a strand of yarn pulled out of the sleeve of my brand new sweater, several pinches to my flesh that are showing blue and purple when he went deeper than cloth.

Also, he just wouldn’t settle and ran amok for most of the evening while I was trying to work on the computer. But apparently what he wanted was a couch mommy to snuggle against. A computer mommy wasn’t good enough, oh no. I tried to pick him up and settle him on my lap several times, but he would scramble away as soon as I stopped using two hands to pet and cuddle him (i.e. to type or mouse). But as soon as I left the computer and went to go sit on the couch, he hopped up beside me and flopped asleep. Silly fuzzwit was cranky because he needed a nap.

Then, when I was getting ready to sleep, he couldn’t make up his mind where he wanted to be. He’d hop up (waking me up) and cuddle beside me for an hour or so, then hop down (thereby waking me up again) to roam around. This happened many times throughout the night until he finally decided he wanted to sleep under his hutch. Needless to say, I was rather sleep deprived and fuddle-headed this morning.

Writing stats:

200 words on the new fantasy piece. Sheesh. 200. That’s barely enough to count. Suckitude.

Pleased at the Preditors and Editors Readers’ Poll award thingy. I don’t expect to win, but it’d be nice if I made it to the top ten in one of the categories.

{* shameless vote-whoring: Vote for Reign of the Wintergod for Horror Story and All in My Mind for SF/F Story}

Beginning to twitch for another sale. I think it’s a new year sort of thing. I seem to recall feeling similarly at the turn of last year. It doesn’t help that I’ve got several “strong maybe”s dangling:

– Got a finalist story in this year’s Phobos contest. When, oh when, will the judging be finalized?
– Still waiting to hear from On Spec. Coming up on 300 days soon. Should I query again? Eep.
– Waiting to hear the senior editor’s verdict from Scrybe Press.
– Passed the 2nd reader level at Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Will it get picked up for an issue? I think they said one in three submissions who make it to this stage do.

And then, of course, there’s the slew of other submissions that aren’t in the “strong maybe” category that are out and about. *twitch* I’m just not very good at waiting.

All the writer folk I’ve talked to say the only way to combat the black-abyss-of-nothing mailbox blues is to write the next story/novel. Unfortunately, see above, re: sucking.

Only thing left to do is to attempt to beguile my absentee muse by slamming a lot of caffeine . . .

Preditors & Editors Poll! VOTEVOTEVOTEVOTE!

I’ve got story nominations in two categories of the annual “Preditors & Editors Readers’ Poll” for 2003! It’s a little Internet award sponsored by the same guy who is the moderator of Critters.org. But it’s a nice feather-in-the-cap sort of thing since it’s popular especially among the small-press venues.

Voting ends next week. It’d make me very, very happy if my stuff made a decent showing. Vote for me? Pleeeeease? Pretty please?

Best SF/F Story published in 2003 (All in My Mind):
VOTE

Best Horror Story published in 2003 (Reign of the Wintergod):
VOTE

Onward . . .

Felt like a lump for most of this week. It’s cold, and I keep getting headaches. I suspect they’re sinus headaches. But finally (finally!), my muse popped in. Her visit feels fleeting, but I’m sitting on her as she tries to squiggle away.

Writing stats:
800+ words on a new fantasy story inspired by Hobkin’s foray against the lizard people. Not sure where it’s going. Don’t have anything in mind plot-wise or character-wise, but the words started coming. Who am I but a story’s channel, after all? I suspect I’ll have to engage some sort of concept before too long, but I’m pleased to be making progress on something.

Tried to pick up the novel. Re-read the first few chapters, and then put it down. I wonder if I should stop fighting with this and call it quits, dammit. Maybe I would be better off starting another novel concept rather than trying to force this one. I dunno.

I’m at seventy-one critiques of my current offering at Critters. Glurk. I don’t think I can do my usual statistical analysis with that many. I think instead I’m just going to read each critique over again, and apply suggestions as they “feel” right to me. I’ve started on the rewrite. Most people thought the opening was weak, so I redid it. I was dwelling upon tightening it before the tale went up for critique, so that just cemented it. Also, there was a general consensus that my antagonists were a little too heavily drawn. Going to dwell on how to rectify that.

Finished reading Mortal Suns by Tanith Lee. It was beautiful and powerful, but it felt unconcluded. Wonder if she intends for it to be the beginning of a series?

Sunday AM . . . ALREADY??

Is it already Sunday? Where did my long weekend go? I have to go back to work tomorrow. Wah!

Going to try to jam as much “fun” into today as we can. Didn’t watch Zorro yesterday after all, so we’ll do it today. Instead we watched the rest of the Firefly commentary episodes and went shopping. Picked up a new bathroom scale. I know, not very exciting, but I needed it to help out with my “lose weight” New Year’s resolution. We had one of those fancy digital ones with the “lifetime lithium battery.” The battery died, and the company wanted us to mail the thing back to them in order to fix it. Since it would cost a good portion of the cost of a new scale to USPS it, we decided “no.” And we got an analog scale this time with no batteries, and obviously from a different company. Bastards.

Writing stats:

Currently at sixty-one critiques of my Critters offering. Wow. And I’m still up for three more days. (I got yours, britzkrieg, thanks as always for the excellent feedback!)

One of the writers in my DC2K writers group won the 2003 Wahmpreneur Books/LughnassadhBooks.com Annual Fiction Manuscript Contest! Her book is being published! I’m so excited for her!

Definitely gets the fire lit under me to get cracking on that novel . . . again.

Also got a note from the first reader of Scrybe Press on a submission I sent them last month:

“This story was absolutely incredible! The first words from my mouth as I finished it (after reading subs ALL day long) were ‘Now THAT was a good story’

I’ve passed it on to the senior editor… should have a conclusive decision for you in a day or two.”

And the twitching and nail biting commenceth.

LotR: The Return of the King

Matthew and I went to see Return of the King yesterday:

(Spoilerless . . . I think.) My God that’s a long movie. Three hours is a looong time to be sitting without a break. They should have an intermission when they show that. I’m sure theaters’ sales of concessions would go way up if they did. I was starving by the end of it.

But, physical discomforts aside, it was also the best of the the trilogy. Beautiful and epic. An excellent battle scene. Loved the Nazgul. Although I left the theater feeling sort of melancholy. Normally at the end of an epic series I expect to feel up–exulted, energized, peppy even. But I didn’t. I still enjoyed it, though. Except I don’t understand people who want to go back over and over again to see it. Maybe it was the conspicuous lack of stadium seating in the theater, but sitting for that long with my neck cricked back makes me disinclined to repeat the experience anytime soon.

Went home and watched the 90’s remake of Godzilla versus Mothra (which was truly awful) and some of the commentaries from the Firefly DVDs. Today: Zorro.

EWWW!!! Mangled lizard!

AGH! Matthew’s laughing at me, but I’m still coming down from a freaked out adrenalin high. Hobkin caught, killed, and chewed up a lizard in the house. I heard Hobkin crunching something near the front door so I came to investigate what he’d found. I shooed him away from whatever it was. At first, I thought he’d discovered a bit of string or yarn, until I picked it up and realized what I was holding was a tail with attached mangled body. I screamed. I can’t believe I screamed. I can deal with all types of traditional creepy crawlies–snakes, spiders, bats, rats–in fact I like them. But finding that ruined mass of tissue attached to a tail totally unglued me.

Couldn’t even tell it was a lizard at first. Thought it was a mouse until Matthew and I got the flashlight out to examine it closer. It was a small lizard. Quite mangled. When I thought it was a mouse, I thought Hobkin had eaten about half the body, but after we figured out it was a lizard, it looks like he just chewed it up a bit. I believe the majority of the body was still there. Readjusting my body mass expectations from “mouse” to “lizard,” I think I could identify a head and midsection. It would appear I stopped Hobkin within a couple seconds of him nabbing it or else he probably would have polished it off.

Ew ew ew eww ewww! I scrubbed my hands three times, feeling downright obsessive-compulsive about it, and I had the urge to make Hobkin gargle with mouthwash or something . . .

On the verge of panic, I made Matthew call his godmother to consult with her, but she wasn’t home, so then made him call the head of the ADSA (American Domestic Skunk Association). She basically said we were very silly and that we didn’t have anything to worry about. After all, skunks eat mice and lizards naturally.

So now I’m trying to get my heart rate under control. My plump fuzzbump is a hunter after all. It can’t have been a very challenging hunt. I mean its winter (and how the hell did it get in the house in the first place?). The lizard was probably very slow moving. But I guess my darling does still have hunting instincts.

But now he’s in my lap, all sweet and cuddly, and probably wondering why Mommy was screaming earlier. Sigh.

Cake for Breakfast, Computers, Firefly, and Writing

At my excited prompting, we had the rest of my birthday cake for breakfast yesterday. Couple things of note from that:
1. I really like having cake for breakfast. It’s yummy and the kick of that much sugar so early in my day really does zippy thing to my overall world outlook.
2. Matthew really does not like having cake for breakfast. It makes him a bit sick to his stomach for most of the day.

Dammit. Back to muffins or toast or cereal. Probably for the best . . .

Meant to go see The Return of the King, but the showing was sold out that we wanted to go to. So we postponed our plans by a day and instead went browsing at Best Buy.

As it turns out, our shiny new Sony VAIO computer is no long shiny or new (being classified now as “old, slow, and clunky” in the PC world–@#$&!^%), and is thereby incapable of functioning with the DVD burner I got Matthew for Christmas. Crap.

However the positive side of this is that we might get a new computer. There were a couple very nice models, including a new-and-improved VAIO at Best Buy with a mind-boggling amount of space and speed. We’re shopping around, waiting to see what sort of shape our finances are in for 2004. But considering the cost of a new system versus the cost of possibly upgrading our poor old VAIO, it makes more sense to buy a new system than to attempt an upgrade surgery.

When we got back home, we popped in the first of the Firefly DVDs. Eight hours and eleven episodes (plus the pilot) later we finish watching “The Message” and my eyes burn and I’m beginning to make funny comments that consist of more random syllables than recognizable words. Definitely short school bus funny rather than ha-ha funny. My stamina is ended; time for me to go comatose. But that means we’ve got two more episodes to watch as soon as Matthew wakes up!

I hope the movie gets green-lighted. IhopeIhopeIhope. Such an excellent show with amazing writing and characters. And so many unanswered questions! Damn Fox for screwing Firefly up. Damn them for canceling it! And their little dog too! Pffft.

Writing stats:

No new words on the page this year. Yet. But I’ve received fifty-four critiques on Critters so far for my current offering (which will remain up for five more days!). Gurgle. Scribbling “thank-you” notes as fast as I can. My mind’s spinning with all the feedback, but I’m getting a big picture on some things I want to work on in the rewrite. Wonder if I’ll crack sixty crits . . .

Also submitted my urban fantasy with MPC. It’ll go up when this one comes down. I foresee much rewriting in my future.