This is my second and last year to be eligible for the Campbell Award. I suspect it’s a long shot, but herein my plug:
If you’re going to WorldCon this year, Nippon 2007, or went to L.A.con IV and are a supporting member, Nominate me? Pleeeease?
Okay, now I flop. Was at work past 10PM last night. My eyes are having trouble focusing. And the General Assembly is back in session today after their recess. Oog.
So President’s Day is one of the few governmental holidays we don’t get off. I suspect mostly because it falls right smack dab in the middle of session. But also because we do get Washington’s Birthday, Robert E. Lee’s Birthday, and Confederate Memorial Day off–although the first two are floating holidays that pad out Christmas and Thanksgiving, respectively. But it meant the traffic coming in today was beautiful. Wish every day was like that. I was tempted to eschew MARTA and drive in, but I wasn’t sure what traffic would be like in-town. I probably could’ve driven.
It was a working weekend. I spent most of Saturday trying to get caught up on outstanding Tangent and The Town Drunk matters. And I came into work yesterday. I did have a little time on Saturday to hang with the hubby, and we made parsnip and apple soup and beer bread. Snippets of relaxation masquerading as a weekend.
I’ve become accustomed to this being par for session, but I slept like crap last night, leaving me bleary-eyed this morning. Not a good way to start the week. Well, there’s always Adderall and caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine. The Java Monkey has, once again, become my constant companion.
Received:
– Email from jasonbsizemore that the Aegri Somnia anthology is on the final ballot of the Bram Stoker award! *Squee! Squee! Squee!*
Happy belated Valentine’s Day to everyone. Yesterday was . . . insane at work. Got slammed with one rush bill after another, and when I had a chance to look up and catch my breath, most of the day was over.
Oof.
I did manage to get home in time to have dinner with husband and skunk. First time this week. And I saw sunlight this morning, again first time this week.
Had problems sleeping last night even though I was dog tired. I’d shut my eyes, but they’d pop open again, and my mind wouldn’t quit churning. It wasn’t churning on anything, it just kept flitting from one disjointed thought to another. Finally, Hobkin came trundling up and crawled under the covers to snuggle, and then I could finally fall asleep. There’s a very soothing and soporific effect to hugging his soft, warm fuzziness. Not so great when I’m trying to get work done, but most welcome when I’m fighting insomnia. Skunk sleep aid. Yup.
I can’t seem to stop editing. When I close my eyes, I see words scrolling along my eyelids. Legalese words. And while I had the urge to fix egregious typos and insert missing serial commas before, now my compulsion has gone into overdrive.
While taking my shoes off in the mudroom yesterday, my eyes fell upon the bleach bottle: “Kroger’s Ultra Regular Bleach.” I was twitching to get out my red pen and draw a transpose line between “Ultra” and “Regular” to make it “Kroger’s Regular Ultra Bleach.”
fosteronfilm rightly mocked me.
But yes, I do continue to love working here, even in the midst and madness of session. Yesterday, we editors all came in to find little Valentine’s Day gift bags on our desks from one of the attorneys. Mine had in it a flashlight/LED pointer combo pen, one of those magnetic desk sculpture thingies, a purple mechanical pencil with squishy grip, and a four-color ballpoint pen along with a card. Another attorney came by with chocolate, and one of the secretaries/computer operators brought me a candy bar along with the rush job she handed me. And finally, there were two cakes to celebrate Valentine’s Day and Session Midpoint–a tradition here. Working in this kind of environment makes even the most grueling days a little easier, it do.
The rest of this week promises to be more laid back. The legislators will be gone for most of today for the Charlie Norwood funeral, and then they’re adjourned until next Tuesday.
Maybe I can get some other editing and *gasp* writing work done.
I’d gotten a note from the editor back in September letting me know this story was in her final consideration pile, and she’d get back to me in a week or so. After not hearing anything for a couple months, I queried, and upon receiving no response a couple months after that, I queried again. And finally, I queried one last time earlier this week. But this time, I used a different email address, wondering if previous communications–coming or going–were getting lost in an Internet black hole.
And yes, they were. I received a perplexed (but polite) email to my new address from the editor letting me know she’d sent a note several times now, both way back as a follow-up and in response to my queries.
Gah! I thought my email troubles had been resolved. Apparently not.
The editor was most patient and understanding about my repeated queries, a consummate professional. And I’m so glad that I was never tempted to get miffed or surly with her in my queries either. Definitely validates my conviction that a courteous demeanor and tone is both the mark of a professional and prudent.
Still something of a bummer that the story languished for so long only to be rejected. Poor lil story.
Stumbled through the door a bit after 9:30 last night. Got out of the office earlier than everyone else, slightly after 8:30, but the travel time tacks on another hour. These commutes are murder during session. I didn’t mind them so much during off-session, but at 9ish on the train, my brain’s too slagged to get anything done, so I end up staring blankly at my laptop screen, tabulating all the hamsters I should be juggling, but without enough energy to so much as lob one in the air. It’s disheartening it is.
On the heartening cuteness front, wordswoman forwarded this Cute Overload link to me yesterday which totally made me squee. Baby skunk being fostered by a mama cat!
Thanks again, Jaye. Adorable skunk baby pictures make even the longest Monday better.
New Words:
Not so much new words as compiling an outline for my “Worldbuilding” workshop. Also, the organizers encouraged me to come up with a catchy title. “Worldbuilding for Writers” probably doesn’t qualify as “catchy.” Grmpf.
Received:
– A personal invite from the editors of the new YA ‘zine, Shiny, to submit something. I pored over my logs, but couldn’t find something that was suitable and that wasn’t currently out at a “no simsubs!” market. But, hmm, now I’ve got a story freed up from H&N‘s folding. Gonna read it over and see if I think it’s got enough of a YA tone . . .
Spent most of yesterday trying to get caught up on Tangent work. There is no such thing as “caught up.”
There’s an irony that the midpoint of session, Day 20, is slated to fall on Valentine’s Day this year.
New Words/Editing:
– Did a final edit and read-through of my March Writing for Young Readers column, “The ABCs of Writing for Kids: Active, Brief, and Cut Cut Cut,” and sent it to ye olde editor.
– Compiled my interview with Andrea Kail for Fantasy Magazine and sent it off. Under the deadline, even. Rah!
Received:
– Payment for both February and March’s Writing for Young Readers column. Huzzah.
So yah, “Family Day” at the Capitol. Whee. Because of this brilliant legislative concept, I had to be at work bright and early this morning and had to work late yesterday. It’s almost like not having a weekend, except without the “almost.”
Meh, at least the traffic was nonexistent. I made the drive from house to parking deck in under 40 minutes.
Happily, Hobkin seems less logy. And he climbed up to cuddle with me last night and Thursday night, so he’s back to being his cuddlesome, winter self. Although his tummy was unsettled on Thursday. I’m wondering if he’s distressed at how absent I’ve been of late. Wish I could’ve taken him to work for “Family Day.”
Received:
– An email from the senior editor of Highlights for Children in response to my request for an interview for my Writing for Young Readers column. She’s happy to oblige. Huzzah! That means my column is set through the end of session.
Quite a relief, there. While I’d intended to put a moratorium on agreeing to or taking on any new requests or responsibilities while the General Assembly was in session, I can’t seem to hold to that.
– A pretty-please-please plea from a friend of ours who’s a Biology professor for Emory & Henry College in VA to proofread the paper he’s submitting to a journal. He’s reporting on the discovery of a new species (he’s an icthyo-paleontologist), and publication was already assured. But his initial proofreader was unavailable, and he’d added fresh content to his ms. and couldn’t find someone to proofread it.
O where’s o where is an editor when you need one?
So, of course, I sez I would, and I spent the free bits of time I had on Wednesday and Thursday poring over it. After I got over my bug-eyed “WHA?” at all the unknown scientific names and terms and settled into the text, it was actually kind of interesting. He’s giving me an acknowledgement nod, and I told him to feel free to pretty-please-please me again. Just hopefully not during session.
– Note from oldcharliebrown asking if I was interested in doing an interview gig for Fantasy Magazine. So yah, I said I was game for that too, session be damned. But really, it’s not a biggie. The interview slot in question is a small one–one page–so there’s not a huge time sink with the work involved. Assembled my Q’s for that and sent if off last night, right before falling comatose.
Today was not one of my favorite mornings. A water main broke over by Nesbit Ferry* so we had low-unto-zero water pressure when I got up. I could barely coax enough of a dribble out to brush my teeth, and I had to skip my shower. The traffic on Holcomb Bridge Rd and 400 was so slow I could’ve limped it faster, and there were MARTA delays. It took me two hours to get to the capitol, and to top it off, the temperature was in the mid 20s, so I couldn’t feel my toes by the time I finally got in.
Feh.
The GGA is adjourned until Thursday (Day 15), giving a bit of a breather. There’s still bills and resolutions coming through, but the pace has slackened. I’m still amazed we had the whole weekend off. I didn’t have to miss out on any part of dude_the‘s traditional Superbowl at chez Foster’s! Woo! yukinooruoni and Patrick-of-no-LJ joined us on Sunday, whereupon we cheered for the losing team. Alas.
In fuzzy animal news, fosteronfilm and I are wondering whether Hobkin might be trying for the sluggish, not-hibernation that skunks sometimes get into during winter. He needs to be prodded in order to wake up for meals, which is utterly unlike him, and he’s only having two meals a day. He’s also acting antisocial, which is odd in winter when he normally becomes particularly snugglesome.
*As of 2 P.M., it had been fixed, and they say it’s not necessary to boil drinking water, unlike a similar recent water main break down in Buckhead.
Published:
– My February Writing for Young Readers column, “An Interview with Johnny D. Boggs of Boys’ Life,” is now up.
Received:
– A request from one of my DC2K Writers buds on behalf of her RWA chapter for me to present an online workshop on worldbuilding. I had a half-second of heart-in-throat panic until I re-read her email and saw the salient “online” part. No public speaking required. *whew* Of course, I said “yes,” although I mentioned it’d be better if I could do it in April or later so it’s not during session.
Been busier than God at work.
I think it might be making me a bit distracted. I did something last week which I’ve never, ever done before, and I fervently hope I never do anything remotely like again. I came in late, stumbled into the house, and it wasn’t until about an hour later that fosteronfilm went into the mudroom* to check on some laundry and discovered that my car was still going! I’d left the key in the ignition (I’ve never even locked myself out of a car before!) and left the engine running.
In a closed garage.
Zounds. I didn’t notice I didn’t have my keys ’cause the hubby had left the door unlocked for me, as he sometimes does so I don’t have to fumble with keys and backpack when I’m already dog tired. I’m just glad he had laundry going and that he noticed. There’s much badness that could’ve happened there. Meep.
MARTA was evil this morning. Major mechanical difficulties on the sorthbound line stranded me (and a train full of commuters) on 400 for half an hour. Eventually, the MARTA folks got the train limping again and took us to Lindburgh station, whereupon they took the poor thing out of service. Huddled with disgruntled commuters in sub-zero weather on a metro platform designed to let the wind in is not my idea of a good way to spend the morning. The next sorthbound train was, of course, jam-packed, but we shuffled onboard anyway. Squished sardines. Not just plain ole packed sardines, but squished.
*The mudroom is the room between our garage and the rest of the house where our washer and dryer live.
New Words:
Amazingly, I managed to hammer out 1300 words for my February Writing for Young Readers column between Friday and Saturday, but then I got an 11th hour postponement. Earlier this month, I sent a couple queries to editors, asking for an interview for my column, and I included the questions (and, of course, an SASE). I didn’t expect to hear back from them, ’cause I sort of assume that unless an editor knows and has worked with someone in the past, the odds of such a request getting their attention and not being circular binned is pretty slim. Editors, after all, are uber busy people. But the one from the Fiction Editor of Boys’ Life, Johnny D. Boggs, came back! So I typed the answers in and sent it off to my column editor, making me, for the first time, ahead of the game, column-wise. I’ve got March’s done and ready to go, and maybe I’ll get the second interview back, which will take care of April, by which time session will be over. Maybe.
Published:
– My interview with mroctober is now up at Strange Horizons.
Received:
– 8-day “no GUD” from GUD.
– 4-day sale to Murky Depths. Woot! “Cyberevenge Inc.” is slated for their premiere issue. And a big thanks to matt_wallace for inviting me to submit.
– A sneak peek of the cover image by Theo Black of the So Fey anthology edited by mroctober (which will have my story, “Year of the Fox” in it). It’s slated for release this October. Shiny:
The Georgia General Assembly reconvened yesterday. And yes indeedy, the workload ramped up. My hours so far this week:
Sunday – 11:45AM to 6PM
Monday – 8:30AM to 10PM
Tuesday – Came in early to finish up the bill I was editing until 10 last night so: 7:00AM to ?
Matthew came and drove me home from work last night. While I’m sure I would’ve been fine on MARTA, I just wanted to get home as soon as possible so I could get to sleep, and the fastest way (without the rush hour traffic and all) was sans train. But we had a bit of confusion with the meet-up. He got to the capitol okay, but then while I was wandering around the first floor at the security entrance, my co-workers had let him in and they were wandering with him in our office on the third floor/mezzanine, looking for me. Whoops! But with the aid of a helpful, late-night security guy, we managed to hook up. Finally.
Think today’ll be a 30mg Adderall day. This is muchly reminiscent of Dragon*Con and editing the Daily Dragon while suffering from insufficient sleep and weird food. I can do this . . . for two and a half more months.
If you’re waiting on something for me, expect to wait a little longer.
Published:
– “The Snow Woman’s Daughter” in the Feb. ’07 issue of Cricket. And it’s the opening story! Woot! I had just enough time before falling comatose last night to beam delightedly at the illustrations. Shiny.
Received:
– After a mail snafu, payment, at last, from Her Circle eZine for “Second Daughter.” For some reason, the first time the editor tried mailing me payment, the USPS couldn’t find my house and sent the letter (w/check) back undeliverable. WTF? So I asked her to mail it to me at my work address this time, and it arrived yesterday.
– 88-day personal pass with invite to submit again to The Edge of Propinquity.
terracinque and I managed to get off work early enough to catch the advance screening of Pan’s Labyrinth with fosteronfilm on Wednesday. I’ve never been to the Midtown Art before. It’s a very nice theater, although I think I like the Tara–where we saw Miss Potter–better. Had a chance to gab with sfeley, who was also there to catch Pan’s Labyrinth, while the hubby was off buying popcorn, and chatted briefly with lord_darkseid while waiting for terracinque to park.
The movie was gorgeous. Words like “lush” and “evocative” spill off the tongue when describing the cinematography. It was also gritty and dark, the non-fantasy parts particularly, but the fantasy elements were also darker than the typical treatment given to such subject matter by Hollywood. While I quite enjoyed the fantasy part–the faun and the Pale Man as well as the flitting EFX fairies were phenomenal–the real world brutality left me wide-eyed and in need of a fuzzy animal to squeeze. Honestly, I felt somewhat traumatized by movie’s end; my ability to handle gore and squick is pretty unimpressive, and there was much violence. Fortunately, we’ve got a very squeezable fuzzy animal at home, so it’s all good.
On the fuzzy animal front, Hobkin’s been getting the hiccups a lot recently. It’s rather dramatic when a critter as small as he is gets the hiccups. His whole body jounces with each one. Wish I knew what was causing them and if there was something we could do to decrease their frequency. Right now, all we can do is hold and pet him while he hics. At least they don’t seem to trouble him all that much. Probably distresses me more than him.
Session is going great, so far. I’ve even gotten a couple kudos from the attorneys and secretaries on my work, which makes me inordinantly warm-and-glowy. It has been busy, and I’ve had to stay late every night since it began, but I continue not to feel unduly stressed or overwhelmed. ‘Course the General Assembly has been out of session this last week as it hammers out the budget; I fully expect the scary-busy-stress to ramp up next week.
I continue to stay off the java. I’m drinking tons of tea, but I’ve only had one mug of coffee since session began. The coffee monkey is still hovering about, waiting in the wings, but at least it’s not on my shoulder anymore.
