Category Archives: LJ

Launch Pad: I’m going to Laramie, Wyoming, in July!

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I got notice that I’ve been accepted into the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop! It’s a one-week “NASA-funded workshop for established writers held in beautiful high-altitude Laramie, Wyoming. Launch Pad aims to provide a ‘crash course’ for twelve attendees in modern astronomy science through workshops, guest lectures, and observation through the University of Wyoming’s two large telescopes.”

It’s in mid-July, and in addition to NASA covering my room and meals (and tuition), they’re also giving me a travel stipend to cover my roundtrip flight! I’m verily jazzed, although also somewhat anxious. I don’t travel well alone, tending to get lost and thereby flustered. May there be many large signs to point my way.

teflaime is a Wyoming native, and he’s informed me that I should bring cold weather clothes and also that the air is thin, so I should take it easy. Both sage pieces of advice that I will be most diligent about adhering to. Although I don’t think there’ll be that many opportunities to exert myself. I anticipate much sitting, listening, and looking up.

I’m taking my camera and laptop, of course. Hope I’ll have WiFi access . . .

   


Writing Stuff

I checked the Mobicon website and saw that they’ve got their panel schedule up. I’m slotted to do three panels, all on Saturday:

– 10:30AM – Writers for Relief II with Davey Beauchamp in Magnolia 1.
– 4PM – Worldbuilding in Sci-Fi and Fantasy with Davey Beauchamp, Sharon Green, Chris Jackson, Debbora Wiles, & Linda Baker in Magnolia 1 & 2.
– 6PM – Editors: The Other Side of Writing with Davey Beauchamp in Panel Room 5.

I’m especially jazzed about the editors panel; I’ve never been on the talking side of the table for one of those before.

Received:
– Payment from French ‘zine, Faeries, for “Of Two Minds in Lanais.” Hurray!

New Words:
– 1750 on the Fox Princess novel in the last couple days after losing the beginning of the week to that freelance gig. I somehow managed not to fall behind this week, assuming I can crank out 500 words between today and Monday.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
7,100 / 40,000
(17.8%)

I did, however, lose my Club 100 place. Sigh.

Club 100 for Writers: 2

Movie and 3M Sticky Bears

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fosteronfilm and I have a date tonight. We’re going to an advance screening of Knocked Up (not either of our first choice of movies, but free passes are free passes). And I overextended myself on the time commitment front (again!), so I’ve been a bit hectic these last couple days.

Therefore, here’s linkie goodness of the “what were they thinking??” variety, with attribution to dude_the for forwarding it: 3M’s Sticky Bear is VERY Pleased to See You.

It’s mostly work safe if your co-workers and boss have a sense of humor and/or whimsy.

   


Writing Stuff

A freelance editing gig sort of plopped in my lap. Even though I don’t really have the time for it, I took it on, ’cause, I mean, freelance editing jobs are pretty rare. But it’s taking a bit more time than I expected, and as such, I didn’t get any writing done. Argh. I should be able to finish it by today, at least.

Received:
– 40-day reprint SALE of “Wanting to Want” to Pseudopod. I lubs these folks. This’ll be my third sale to Pseudopod and my sixth to the Escape Artists Inc. podcast mags. Hurray! I love hearing my stories read aloud.
– 2-day SALE of “The Conviction of Praxis” to Spacesuits & Sixguns. This and my recent sale to Shiny does greatly mitigate the near miss ouches from two weeks ago. And also, it further reinforces the principle that when an editor says “please try us again,” to TRY THEM AGAIN.

Adventures in being a skunk mommy: Metoclopramide

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Hobkin’s tummy has been iffy this week. He sicked up his dinner on Wednesday and exhibited troubled tummy symptoms on Thursday. Last night, he sort of coughed-gagged before dinner, so we dosed him with his anti-nausea med, Metoclopramide, before feeding him.

Dinner gobbled, Hobkin crawled up beside me and was out, skunkie snores and all-four-paws-in-the-air out, and fosteronfilm and I put on a DVD to watch. Hobkin woke up in the middle of it to hop down to use the litter box. I kept an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t going to sick up–I continue to be VERY thankful that our little one is obliging enough to sick up in his area and not on me, the carpet, or the furniture–and noticed that he was staggering as he exited his bathroom. He couldn’t seem to walk a straight line, wobbling and stumbling drunkenly. He headed back to me and the couch, but he couldn’t seem to make it, flopping instead on the floor in “flat skunk” mode. So I went and picked him up and set him on the couch beside me, whereupon he rolled onto his back and began snoring again.

Now, I freely admit that I’m an overprotective skunk mommy, and the staggering, wobbling, and stumbling were worrisome. Skunks are prone to seizures, a concern perpetually at the back of my mind, so I checked him over:

– Rigid limbs? Nope, limp as a rag skunk.
– Irregular breathing patterns? No, he’s snoring regularly.
– Body or muscle twisting, spasming, shaking, or thrashing? Nope, see above re: rag skunk.
– Pupil dilation? Hard to tell since his eyes are burgundy-black. But probably not.
– Any prior odd activity like drooling, uncontrollable bodily fluids, trembling? Nope, nope, and nope. Plus he got up to use the bathroom on his own.
– Any post seizure activity like temporary blindness, disorientation, pacing, restlessness? Nope again. After his bathroom break, he knew he was coming back to the couch and where the couch was, but he just sort of ran out of pep halfway.

Okay, probably not a seizure. But as I was looking him over, I also noticed how extremely out of it he was. I could pull back his lips and rub his gums (no excess salivation or tongue twitches, check) without waking him. Normally the fastest way to get him up and scampering away in a huff is to try to mess with his teeth or gums. Very unusual.

It was like he was . . . drugged!

Scrambling to get his anti-nausea medicine bottle revealed there, on the side, the warning sticker: “MEDICATION MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS OR DIZZINESS.”

Ah hah!

Yep, our skunk was drugged. We’ve never observed this degree of side effect before, but it’s also possible that he wasn’t actually sicking up before dinner, that he just had fur in his throat (since it is shedding season), and without symptoms to mitigate, the side effects were more pronounced.

So, after reassuring myself as to the cause of Hobkin’s extreme sleepies, I took advantage of it and used a q-tip to brush his teeth and gums. La!

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 355 on the Fox Princess novel. Didn’t get as much writing done yesterday as I wanted. Still, progress is progress.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
5,350 / 40,000
(13.4%)

Club 100 for Writers: 9

Adventures in Health Care

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Yesterday’s doctor visit was . . . vexing.

The drive took far less time than I’d expected, resulting in me showing up forty-five minutes early. Initially, I stood around in reception for a few minutes, thinking I’d get checked in and then I could plunk down in the waiting room and spend the rest of the time writing, as I had my VAIO with me. But the desk was deserted.

So okay, the receptionist is off doing something and will be back in a bit. I’m due for my routine bloodwork in a few days; I’ll go down to the lab and have them poke me and save myself another trip. Alas, the phlebotomist I got wasn’t as skilled or gentle as the one at the Alpharetta location–how I miss her–and I’ve got the bruise in the crook of my elbow to prove it. Owch.

Pricked and bleeding, I headed back to the reception area. Still no one at the desk. So I stood there. And stood there. And stood there. Half an hour later, a doctor comes through and asks, “have you been helped?” After my emphatic “No!” she went off to find someone. Then the receptionist comes out. Did she apologize for making me wait or express regret for my wasted time? Course not. She snapped, “we break between 12:30 and 1:30.” (A fact which is not indicated by any signage, let me add.)

At my appointment, the nurse checks my blood pressure. “Hmm,” she says, “your blood pressure is a little higher than usual.” She checks my wrist. “And your pulse is kind of fast.”

“. . . yes, I know.”

However, the doctor, as always, was great. He’s the sole reason I’m still with this HMO, which is the most expensive one my employer offers. My rheumatologist got me out of a two-month long flare-up and has kept my lupus/MCTD stable for years.

But, when I went down to the pharmacy to fill my Imuran prescription, they didn’t have enough for my three-month supply. However, I could come back for the remainder, if I liked. Bloody effing no, I don’t like. So I asked them to transfer it to the Alpharetta pharmacy where I was going next anyway to pick up my Adderall refill from last week. It occurs to me to ask them to make sure Alpharetta has the hard copy of my prescription–since it’s a controlled substance, they can’t just fax it or enter it in the computer; they need the paper.

Glad I thought to verify, because Alpharetta doesn’t have it.

You’d think I would be inured to their bungling by this point. And yet.

No one knows where it is, so off I go to Behavioral Health to talk to the nurse from last week. She’s not there, nor is the doctor who signed my ‘scrip; they’re both in another office. But the receptionist sends the nurse an email. Would I like to wait for her reply?

If this can get taken care of now, I think, I can be off to the Alpharetta pharmacy, pick up both my meds, and the world will be shiny again. So I sit. Twenty minutes later, I realize that traffic is building on 285 with every passing second, and that I’m thoroughly fed up with my adventures in health care. I tell the receptionist I’m leaving and ask her to call me at home when she hears back from nurse or doctor. Thus, I do not depart for the Alpharetta pharmacy, nor do I pass Go or do anything else that would have resulted in some minor sense of accomplishment yesterday.

And, she didn’t called back. I’m relieved I decided to leave when I did.

The ultimate irony: Peppered throughout the medical center are framed “Our commitment to excellent service for you” signs.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– Galley proofs from DAW for “Honor is a Game Mortals Play” and a sample of the cover sheet of the Heroes In Training anthology. Yay!


– Hold request from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. My last submission passed their second round of reading and is shortlisted. Waiting is.

New Words:
– 700 on the Fox Princess novel.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
4,995 / 40,000
(12.5%)

Club 100 for Writers: 8

Politics, photoshopping, and panda porn

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Woke up early this morning (5AM!) due to a restless skunk. Since I have a follow-up doctor’s appointment this afternoon, I decided to go ahead and head on in to work so I could beat the rush hour traffic, have my car, and drive to my appointment instead of having to go through the work–>MARTA–>car–>doctor’s office headache that I went through last week. But I’m verily muzzy-headed and heavy-eyed now.

Therefore, linkage:

– The Pew Research Center conducted a recent national survey to determine how well informed on politics/current events Americans are today versus in 1989. (You can take the quiz yourself.) And here’s an interesting breakdown of the poll results.

– A freaky website elemess found on photo touch-ups (click on the “More Samples” link towards the bottom of the page to see further examples of the scariness). Children’s beauty pageants squick me out.

– And finally, panda porn. And it’s even work safe–unless your co-workers/boss are particularly offended by mating pandas . . .

   


Writing Stuff

Published:
– “The End of the Universe” in issue #3 of Darker Matter. Free fiction. Go read, yo!

New Words:
– 600 on the Fox Princess novel.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
4,288 / 40,000
(10.7%)

Club 100 for Writers: 7

Dragon*Con all staff meeting on mother’s day

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It’s been brought to my attention that the next Dragon*Con all staff meeting falls on Mother’s Day. Whoops. It’s not a biggie for my area. I’ll still be there, but I don’t usually have many of my Daily Dragon staffers show for these, and I do all of my information dissemination via email anyway. But still, whoops.

Wonder if anyone will bring their mom?

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 900 on The Novel. Slack picked up. Chugging away.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
3,688 / 40,000
(9.2%)

Club 100 for Writers: 6

Absent minded morning

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Had a minor MARTA adventure this morning. I don’t feel all that tired or out of it, but I was going over my “things to do” list in my head during my commute to work, going over my agenda for today, and I somehow managed to get turned around and disembarked on the wrong side of the Southbound MARTA train. I ended up on the Westbound platform instead of the Eastbound one (realizing this just in time to see the Eastbound train I should’ve been on whiz by). So then I went back down to the N/S level so I could get to the Eastbound platform and realized there wasn’t a way to get to it from that side of the track. I needed to go all the way up and over on the street level.

While I stood there, exasperated and dumbfounded, I had a good bit of fortune. Another Southbound train came in, so I hopped through it to get to the other side of the track, whereupon I made my way to the Eastbound platform.

Urg. I seem to be losing my mind. If anyone finds it, could you please email it back to me?

   


Writing Stuff

Published:
– My May Writing for Young Readers column, “Writing for Children’s Magazines”

Received:
– An email this morning from Jason J. Marchi, editor (with co-editor Jackson T. Ellis) of the proposed Scissor Press anthologies Deadly Dolls, Trains, Machine Mayhem, and Automobilia:

“The anthologies are on HOLD since two different publishers, one after the other, have backed out, saying short story anthologies aren’t selling now. I’ll contact you again should I be able to find another publisher willing to take on these books. I’m very much in love with the concepts for these books I have devised: AUTOMOBILIA. TRAIN STORIES, DEADLY DOLLS, and MACHINE MAYHEM. So I will be working behind the scenes to find a respected publisher for these titles. Meanwhile, please market your work to anyplace that will publish it. Writers have a shrinking audience as it is, so avail yourself of every opportunity to market your work to get it sold.”

I had a couple submissions out to these anthologies from 2005, but after not hearing back from a query in October last year, I assumed they had folded without fanfare or notice and sent my manuscripts out elsewhere . . .

New Words:
– 1000 on The Novel. I’m a little behind the pace of 2500 words a week that I set initially. Spent some words-on-page time researching over the weekend, but I think I found what I need. Going to try to pick up the slack this week.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
2,783 / 40,000
(7.0%)

Club 100 for Writers: 5

All about the writing

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Writing Stuff

I saw that the USPS is raising postage rates, effective May 14. Sigh. This directly impacts my bottom line as a writer. Not as much as publishers and distributors, of course, but it’s still a slice out of my little pie o’proceeds.

Also they’re doing something to make calculating postage more complicated. Haven’t studied the changes in-depth, but my initial glance over them was mightily perplexing. I use a home postal scale and buy stamps in bulk to decrease the number of trips to the post office (and their interminable lines) I have to make. In addition to submitting manuscripts, I also mail a lot of magazines and books on behalf of Tangent, so being able to mail things from home is a great time saver. As such, them making the mailing process more obtuse is verily grump-making. Even the forthcoming Star Wars postage stamp doesn’t mitigate the grrr. Hmpf.

Received:
– Got a call from Ann Crispin. It’s always a pleasure hearing from her. She asked me to reprise my “Marketing Short Fiction” guest lecture for her Beginners Writers Workshop at Dragon*Con this year. Of course, I said I would. I’m still brimful with the terror of public speaking, but I think it gets better every year. And I genuinely enjoy doing it once I get past the shakes.
– Invite/request from palmerwriter to contribute a story to a charity anthology he’s editing to benefit the American Diabetes Association. I think I have a reprint that might suit, so uber coolness.
– Payment for “Mistress Fortune Favors the Unlucky” in the Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy anthology. It should be coming out any day now . . .
– Email from the editor of Faeries, letting me know that the electronic transfer of payment for “Of Two Minds in Lanais” has been made. After not hearing anything from my query in March, there’s much relief to finally get an update. He included a scan of the “Ordre de transfert de fonds international,” which my rusty-unto-iron-shavings French was mostly able to get the gist of. Waiting now with bated breath for the Show Me the Money part.
– Payment from Moira for my Writing for Young Readers May column.

Friday musings

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Got a doctor’s appointment in a couple hours. It’s way overdue, postponed initially for session and then again when session was extended, so I’m glad to get it out of the way. But getting there is going to blow goat chunks. I’m having to take the MARTA train from work back to the North Springs station to get my car, then drive back into town through Friday afternoon rush hour traffic to Cumberland. Yuck.

fosteronfilm won’t even be there to rant to and commiserate with about my drive when I get home. He’s working the Atlanta Film Festival tonight (as he did last night). Sigh. So the home plan is to tank up on caffeine and hammer some wordage out.

Alternatively, I could put on a DVD of vacuous entertainment and veg with Hobkin. Decisions decision.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words/Editing:
– 750 words on my May Writing for Young Readers column. Several editing passes done, stuck a fork in, and mailed it off to my editor. Huzzah.
– 760 on The Novel.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
1,779 / 40,000
(4.4%)

Club 100 For Writers: 4

Jamie Bishop Memorial Fund

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Got a note from Gerald Page, an awesome and distinguished writer who I had the opportunity and pleasure to meet at the Aberrant Dreams signing last year. Christopher James (“Jamie”) Bishop was one of the victims at the Virginia Tech shooting, the German professor. He was also a member of our small, close-knit SF community. His father, a fellow Georgian, is Michael Bishop, the Nebula, Rhysling, and Locus award-winning SF writer, and Jamie designed the cover art for a number of books as well as issue #9 of Aberrant Dreams. Virginia Tech is putting together a memorial fund to honor Jamie and the other foreign language instructor who was killed, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, and Jerry asked me to pass the word along.

From the Virginia Tech website:

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak and Jamie Bishop shared the conviction that learning a foreign language and culture is not just a joy, but is fundamental to our civilization–if we are to be civilized. To honor the memory of our colleagues and students, the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures has established two memorial scholarships for French and German majors at Virginia Tech.

Donations may be made payable to the Virginia Tech Foundation, for the Jocelyne Couture-Nowak Scholarship (French) or the Jamie Bishop Scholarship (German). If you give online, please be sure to indicate which scholarship you would like to support.

University Development
902 Prices Fork Road
Blacksburg, VA 24061