Category Archives: LJ

Feeling a bit moody. Think it’s Post I-Made-a-Sale Blues. All that adrenalin and excitement hits hard and happy, but when it seeps away, it leaves me feeling sort of disjointed and morose. Had a half a cup of coffee again today to try to dispel it. It didn’t really work, but it gave me a little energy.

Having a hard time staying focused on things I should be doing at work and at home but just don’t feel like. I’m prone to procrastinating in general and now I’ve got the procrastination bug bad. Fortunately, most things I put off do tend to get done before it gets scary, and the things that get dropped by the wayside tend not to be that important in the first place. But the very act of procrastinating also makes me twitchy.

Blah. So I’m either doing something I don’t particularly want to and feeling dissatisfied about it, or I’m antsy because I’m not doing something I don’t want to do but really ought to be. Damnit. It’s that exact feeling that burned me out in graduate school and why I turned away from continuing on with my Ph.D plans so easily. I hate the sensation that there’s something always hovering over me that I should be doing all the time–weekends, evenings, and holidays–like reading that next textbook chapter, writing that paper, or studying for that exam. Even though I usually found the subject matter fascinating, there’s only so much “whoopee!” I can get about studying for a test.

In the end, I retired from academia and joined the work-a-day crowd. I found it to be such a relief to be able to come home after a day’s work and not feel like I have to be doing anything.

‘Course that resulted in planting myself in front of the television and vegging my evenings away, but after a while of that I got restless and fidgety so started writing seriously. Now I get that restless sensation when I feel like I ought to be writing.

Stupid brain. I think it’s just plain wired bad.

Cover art for The Asylum Volume 3: The Quiet Ward is up!

I always get a thrill to see the artwork . . .

Took a Clonazepam last night to deal with the shooting pains in my arms. Results of drugging:

1. A certain wooziness for most of the morning.
2. Less pain.
3. Weird dreams that I don’t remember.

I sleep the sleep of the soporifically drugged on this med, which is sort of the point, I guess. Matthew frequently comments that I don’t move very often when I’m in this sleep state, and occasionally I talk.

Now I’ve talked in my sleep since I was little, on and off. It’s been a source of amusement for various people who’ve been in my vicinity when I’ve been asleep and who’ve listened to me babble about my strange, apparently psychedelic dreams. They inform me I even have conversations with them where I give every indication of being wide-awake, with my eyes open and everything. The only difference between holding a conversation with an awake me and a sleep talking me is that my responses are often a bit odd, and I have a tendency of closing my eyes and falling into a dead sleep mid-conversation. I, of course, never remember any of it.

Apparently, last night, I opened my eyes, pointed at something ceiling-ward, giggled and said “oh, my” several times. When Matthew came over and asked me what it was I was giggling at, I said, quite mischievously: “It’s best that you don’t know” and flopped back asleep. He was hoping that I’d be able to enlighten him in the morning what I’d been hallucinating, I mean dreaming. Unfortunately, I can’t remember.

What is my subconscious coming up with when my consciousness is doped goofy?

Did the final pass on the second Cricket rewrite and mailed it off.

Broke down and had a half a cup of coffee to stoke my muse. Made a little progress on some new word countage, maybe 900 words on a new Dark Fantasy story in the last couple days. Except I’m not sure it’s worth continuing on. I started writing it on a whim, just to be writing, and it’s on a theme and subject matter I’ve visited twice before. The first incarnation sold and the second is making rounds. But there’s only so much I can say on the topic, really. I dunno. The other stories I’ve started aren’t really singing to me either. Guess I should just write whatever’s in my system to be written.

Still floating on clouds ’bout my recent sale to Paradox.

Dancing in the streets! I just sold “The Tiger Fortune Princess” to PARADOX Magazine!! “Tiger Fortune” is another fairy tale, a Chinese re-telling of Snow White. At this rate, I’m beginning to seriously think about compiling a collection of my fairy tales and seeing if I can’t get an agent to tout them around to publishing houses.

Dwell upon that later. For now: Another pro sale! Woo!

The editor gave me two publication options. “Tiger Fortune” can either be in the PDF issue that prints in January (#4), or I can wait until July or September of next year and be in a print one (#6 or #7). With this mag, they do three print issues and one PDF. Normally I much prefer print to any electronic medium, but September is a long time to wait. Plus I get paid on publication.

Hmm. Ponder ponder ponder.

First off:

Does anyone have an LJ join code they wouldn’t mind giving up? One of our visiting friends expressed an interest in starting his very own blog and I’ve used up my “one to a customer” free account code already. Thanks!

Next, the weekend:

Had a fantastic one. Made it hard to get up for work this morning. Went to visit the kangaroos with Dean and Chris on Saturday and that evening Matthew ran a fabu one-shot tabletop game. Interestingly, both Dean and Chris are enough out of the gaming loop that they were both all “huh?” when we were discussing tabletop RPGs versus live-action. They’d never heard of LARPs before.

Jumped off the caffeine wagon with both feet on Saturday. Same with the Clonazepam one. There’s a relationship. Did a lot of work on the Cricket rewrites over the weekend. Finished one and sent it off. Still want to do a few more passes on the other before mailing it, but it’s mostly done. Then it’s all nail biting and cross-fingered waiting.

But somehow, the ergonomic situation of our home computer isn’t good for me. After spending a bunch of hours working on it, I ended up in a lot of pain come late Friday, so I took a Clonazepam. This resulted in me being in a zombie fugue state on Saturday, so had some coffee to dig myself out my brain fog.

But I went back to taking neither for the rest of the weekend with no repercussions. Perhaps I’ve kicked the physiological dependency and can go back to a judicious use of both. We’ll see. But I think cutting out my obligatory cup of java in the morning is a good thing.

Still very jazzed about the Cricket rewrites. Not as jazzed as two sales would’ve made me, but almost.

Eee! Just checked the mail and got TWO rewrite requests. One from Cricket and one from Cicada!

Actually, no wait, it’s two rewrite requests from Cricket! I’d subbed a story to both markets but they’re run by the same folks, same editor, and she thinks the story I subbed for Cicada would work better for Cricket if I toned a little of the harsh edges down.

Eee! The last time they asked me to do a rewrite it resulted in a sale. Hopehopehopehopehope. Two (more) sales to Cricket would really make my year.

A couple of Matthew’s college chums are visiting over the weekend. There’s been much housecleaning. I’m not sure what we’ll be doing for these next few days, but I expect a shopping trip and a gaming night will be in there. It’ll be fun seeing old friends getting back together again, even if it is a second hand sort of reunion for me, being the stray spousal type and all.

Coincidentally, I got an invite to my 15-year high school reunion in the mail the other day. I even gave it passing consideration, but I couldn’t justify paying the admission costs, airfare, and whatever accommodations we’d end up with. I do wonder, though, who will show and what they’re doing now.

My high school is a pretty unique institution. For admission, prospective students have to go through a rigorous application process, sort of a pre-college experience where you take an aptitude test, write an entrance essay, list your extra-curricular activities, and get academic references, all during sixth grade. Subsequently, the first year in that school isn’t “freshmen” year, but “subfreshmen,” which is a melding of seventh and eighth grade. This also bumps most of the student body up another year in acceleration. The majority of students there graduate a year or two ahead of their peers, as a good number of them have been accelerated in previous grades (raises hand). Hence, I graduated from high school when I was sixteen.

It’s an excellent school. When I was a student there, the whole student body numbered at two hundred and fifty heads, with fifty per graduating class. I think they’ve increased that to sixty since then, but the overall numbers are quite intimate. Students there really do know everyone in their class, and to a lesser extent, everyone in the school. It offers(ed) a wide range of languages like Russian, Japanese, and Latin, as well as the more traditional French and German. And their math and sciences department is unparalleled. My old school has often achieved the honor of being the highest scoring in the nation on the ACTs and SATs.

And yet even with such an illustrious achievement record, one still has to take into account that the kids who attend(ed) my school are and were still just that. Kids. Precocious and clever, yes. But there was still a lot of cliquish behavior, and bullies. Can’t forget the bullies. It was a bastion of insecurity and petty cruelties, like high schools everywhere, perhaps made worse by the highly competitive nature of the place. I look back on those years with a blend of dismay and fondness. I really did learn a lot back then–both academically and socially. I grew into the person I am now, learned to question and doubt, and learned the very important lesson that what I did had consequences. I also learned that some people’s preferred method of feeling better about themselves is by stepping on other people. In other words, I grew up. In many ways I’m very much the same person I was then–my beliefs, my outlook on life, my proclivities–but in others I’ve changed; I’ve come into myself. But, really, I mean, how can someone not change in fifteen years? I’m very curious to see how my classmates have also changed, and I wonder how much of the young people I remember remain.

If we still lived in the Midwest, I might consider going back for it. But I can’t rationalize the expense of flying to a section of America that is truly ugly, flat, and dull, for my high school reunion.

I hope whoever covers the event for the Alumni Newsletter takes lots of pictures.

Went back to work today. Still feeling rather fragile. I think going cold turkey on both the caffeine and the Clonazepam at the same time was probably a questionable executive decision on my part. Perhaps ironically, it’s the caffeine’s absence that I’m feeling most acutely. I got a lot of clarity back when I went off the Clonazepam. Lost it when I went off the java. But I assume that’s temporary and will lift when the withdrawal headache/fatigue does. My head feels like it’s been mushed over by a steamroller.

I don’t plan for this abstemious phase to be permanent. I still want to take the Clonazepam since I tolerate it reasonably well and it works on my TOS. And I like caffeine too much to just give up. But I’m tired of being dependant on either. So I’m giving them up for a couple weeks to reset my tolerance levels. Again, probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done to quit both at the same time.

Ouch.

Did a couple more passes on the Horror story. Matthew’s reluctant to first-reader it because I told him what my inspiration was. He’ll still do it, but I’m going to have to poke and prod him to it.

It’s interesting; his squick factor is so much lower than mine when it comes to reading gore and blood, but it’s so much higher when it comes to watching it on the big screen. Or even the not-so-big screen. He refers to “Wintergod,” the story I sold to The Quiet Ward as the “yicky one.” Got another story he responds to that way that’s currently short-listed at an anthology I subbed it to. Apparently, gore appeals to some editors.

On one level I’m pleased to have been able to affect his emotions with my writing. After all, I think the hallmark of really excellent writing is something that gets the reader emotionally involved. On another level I’m dismayed that he’s so yucked-out by something I created. I’m the first to admit that these stories are graphic and blood-smeared, but I tend to think of Matthew as having a stronger stomach than me. After all, he can watch people being flayed alive (i.e. Hellraiser I, II, etc.) without flinching, while I go scampering out of the room with my hands over my ears, eyes averted. It took me three full viewings of Sixth Sense before I’d seen the whole thing through without shutting my eyes through parts of it. I am that much of a wimp.

So I guess I’m left with the question: Is writing fiction with content in it that makes grown men recoil a good thing?

Maybe I should write something fluffy next. With cute, fuzzy animals.

Woke up this morning feeling light-headed and woozy. Thought briefly about getting up, showering, and driving to work. Decided against it.

Going back to bed. But first:

Available for pre-order at Shocklines.com: Asylum Volume 3: The Quiet Ward! There’d be more jumping up and down and hurraying except I’m afraid my head would tumble off my shoulders if I did that. So, I’ll just quietly whisper a “yay.”