Category Archives: LJ

Legislative Session. Eek. And free advance screening tix to Pan’s Labyrinth

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For all you Atlanta locals: fosteronfilm is giving away advance screening tickets to Pan’s Labyrinth for next Wednesday (the 17th). Check out his website for details.

And the session begineth. So far . . . on day three . . . it’s not that bad. It’s very hopping; I worked from noon ’til 6ish on Sunday and have stayed late every night this week (and expect to stay late every night until the session ends), but I haven’t felt overwhelmed or unduly stressed. Although I did make a blunder yesterday that required six bills to be re-done. The Georgia legislature has some spelling peculiarities, and I didn’t realize that we spell “statewide” with a hyphen: “state-wide.” And those six bills were all drafted using the same template I’d edited. Doh!

Won’t be forgetting that one anytime soon.

I got home last night just in time to get ready for bed, but it wasn’t that troubling. fosteronfilm was at an IMAGE salon, so he wasn’t home anyway. Although, poor Hobkin. He was a little anxious at the change in routine. I startled him when I came home–he’s not a brave beastie–and he bolted for the hutch. Unfortunately, he was in such a hurry, his aim was off. He bonked right into the hutch leg, missing the opening completely. Didn’t phase him, though. He bounced off and then scampered under it. Silly fuzzwit. I’m worried that one day he’ll concuss himself doing that.

Had some qualms about what the MARTA would be like late at night, both on the long waits front as well as the scariness one, but as it turns out, I haven’t had to wait longer than ten minutes for a nighttime train, and the stations are well lit and still pretty populated at the times I’ve been riding.

   


Writing Stuff

No writing accomplished. No surprise there.

Published:
– My January Writing for Young Readers column, “A Writer’s Resolution: I Will Submit.” (With thanks to n_decisive for the inspiration on the subject matter.)

Received:
– Personal pass plus invite to try again from Escape Pod on a reprint. Snartleblast.
– Contract from Aberrant Dreams for “Living With a Shoulder Monster.” Signed and sent back.
– Payment from Hub for “Wanting to Want.” And I’m delighted the American dollar is so weak against the pound right now. I got a very favorable exchange rate.

Miss Potter

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fosteronfilm and I went to see an advance screening of Miss Potter yesterday. Almost didn’t make it. Got a couple massive bills to edit plopped in my intray late yesterday afternoon, and it looked pretty likely that I’d have to stay overtime*, but the edits didn’t take as long as I’d thought. I rushed home, Matthew handed me a sandwich, fed Hobkin, and we were off to the Tara Theater.

The movie was an absolute delight; I was charmed by it from minute one. It’s the story of Beatrix Potter, the author and illustrator of the Peter Rabbit books, her life, how her books came to be the best selling children’s series ever, and her romance with her publisher. Renee Zellweger plays Beatrix, and Ewan McGregor plays her publisher–which is a great pairing, even if there were several Down With Love déjà vu moments and Zellweger’s accent sounded more Bridget Jones’s Diary than Jane Austen. The movie is punctuated by charming Ally McBeal-esque animations of her illustrated characters, whom Beatrix calls “her friends,” coming to life. And the countryside, where chunks of the movie is set, is a lush and gorgeous backdrop. And yes, as I demanded of Matthew, there were bunnies. The only complaint I have is that it’s going to totally perpetuate the belief that children’s writers need to illustrate their own stories, but I’ll just sweep that gripe into the “irrelevant industry minutiae” cubbyhole and pretend that I can’t see it.

I suspect it’s not going to be particularly appreciated by a male audience. My husband’s as whimsical as I could ask, and even so, the movie wasn’t to his taste, although he appreciated the beauty of the cinematography and animations. We’ve probably hit the “chick flick” barrier with this one, but I happen to like good chick flicks, and Miss Potter is one of the best. I highly recommend it.

* And so the legislative rush begins. The pace has been nonstop here all day. I expect that Miss Potter was probably the last time I’ll get to spend quality time with my husband until after the session ends.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– Contrib. copies of issue #23 of Faeries with the French translation of “Of Two Minds in Lanais” in it.
– A Nice review in SF UK Review for my story, “Wanting to Want,” in Hub:

“It’s quite a brutal description of the life of a junkie. . .The narrative really gets inside the characters head. . .A very well written piece.”
— Gareth D Jones

Brain on the fritz

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I think I’m a little discombobulated this week. Yesterday morning, as I was driving to the MARTA station, the moon was this huge, swollen silver saucer in the predawn sky. It didn’t look like a wan morning moon, but a night sky full moon, and I had a moment of disorientation, wondering if I’d somehow mixed up my AM and PM, and I was driving into work at 7PM instead of 7AM. Obviously, I shook that off and got on my train, and by the time it had reached the Capitol, the sun had risen, dispersing that fantastical whimsy. This morning, I left my computer bag at home. It’s the hand-sewn felt-and-broadcloth sheath I made that I stick my VAIO into before I put it into my backpack to protect it from scratches and give it a little travel buffering. Putting my computer into it is a basic part of my morning ritual. I mean, how can I not notice that my computer isn’t in its bag? I’ve never done that before. So when I pulled out my VAIO on the train to work on, I had a “huh?” moment, wondering whether I’d lost a few seconds of memory and already unsheathed it. But as I couldn’t find the bag, I realized I’d somehow left it at home.

Seems my brain’s on the fritz.

Wonder if it’s because I haven’t had any coffee this week? Although I had a lot of assam yesterday, and that’s still got a healthy dose of caffeine, being a black tea. I’m switching to green tea today. My IngenuiTEA teapot that n_decisive gave me doth rawketh. And I got an “awesome” from elemess and a “where’d you get that?” from terracinque.

   


Writing Stuff

So yeah, I missed the deadline for squirrel_monkey‘s anthology. But she said I can have an extension until the end of this month. Hurray! And *gulp*. That means trying to write during session. Well, sometimes having other deadlines that prevent me from writing kicks my muse into perverse mode, and she pours on the juice. Aggrevating, but in the end, I find I can find (or make) the time to get words on the page. We’ll see . . .

Published:
– “A Parade of Taylups” is now up at Aberrant Dreams. It’s another story inspired by Hobkin. The skunk-influence is pretty blatant with this one.

Received:
– 230-day SALE of “Living With a Shoulder Monster” to Aberrant Dreams. My fourth sale to these fine folks and the first sale of 2007! Woohoo!
– Contrib. copy of Hub. It’s so shiiiny. I’m just in awe of the production values. Every page is glossy and thick, and, and . . . *droooool*.
– An invitation to once again participate in the nomination process for the Sturgeon Award. I don’t really have the time to read the accumulated short fiction from 2006 that I’ve been wanting to before the February deadline, but it’s such an honor to be asked to be a part of this outstanding award that I simply couldn’t bear to turn it down. So I figure I’ll just bury myself away in the library this weekend and inhale all the ‘zines and anthologies that I wasn’t able to get to yet. Eh, it’ll give me a head start on what to expect during the upcoming legislative session. No sleep. Many words.

Happy New Year!

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fosteronfilm and I rang in the new year at sfeley‘s with a crew of similar-minded SF/F geeks and geekettes. There was pizza, delicious homemade chambord and grand marnier chocolate truffles, Doctor Who watching, booze (some impressive bottles of single malt scotch . . . which I didn’t partake of as I wanted to remain conscious through midnight), and Arkham Horror, a board game based on Lovecraft’s Cthluhu Mythos.

Is there a better way to celebrate the end of the year than with elder gods?

Steve also had a copy of Hub #1 since Escape Pod and Pseudopod have ads in it. As I haven’t received my contrib. copy yet, I grasped upon it eagerly. “Wanting to Want” is the last story, which is way cool, and the magazine itself is an absolutely gorgeous thing. Each page is glossy and thick, and the fiction is lavishly illustrated with full color photos. The production values are awesome. And, of course, they had the impeccable taste to publish one of my stories.

Great fun, great people.

And so I bid 2006 a fond farewell and welcome 2007 with eager anticipation, newfound peace, and hope.

Happy New Year!

   


Writing Stuff

2006 was quite a year, both writing-wise and life-wise, filled with uncertainty and stress, new opportunities, gladful accomplishments, and some humbling disappointments.

Looking over 2006’s Writing Resolutions, I determined to:

–Write 500 words a day, every day, barring weekends and holidays, to total 115K words (or more) for the year.

When I first compiled my numbers, I was quite chagrined as I normally only include my fiction word counts, and I’m clocking around 47.5K words of fiction this year, which is not only missing my resolution goal but is also a huge drop from last year’s 106.5K. But thinking back over 2006, I find that it’s not accurate for me not to include all the nonfiction I did as it was the first year I decided to try my hand at cranking out vasty gobs of nonfiction for pay. So, on the nonfiction front, I did about 42K words of “for hire” work and 14.5K words in articles and for my Writing for Young Readers column. Counting on my fingers and toes, that comes to 104K.

Not the 115K I was aiming for, but a much more respectable total.

– Stick with the working during the day holed up in the library strategy.

That worked out dandy for most of the year, but now I’ve got a fabu day job which effectively makes this one null and void.

– finish a @#!$ novel. Any of the several that I’ve started.

Well, this one was a dismal failure. Sigh. I think with everything else going on in my life–most notably the financial stressors of not having a reliable income a la day job–I just wasn’t in a good mindset to be able to devote so much of myself to this task. I’m hoping that I’ll have the balance and discipline in 2007 to finally accomplish this.

Moving on to 2006’s highlights and accomplishments, I:
– Became The Town Drunk‘s Assistant Managing Editor and saw its first issue and subsequent stories published.
– Survived another year as Tangent‘s Managing Editor and The Daily Dragon‘s Editor/Director.
– Made 28 sales including one to a closed DAW Books anthology, repeat sales to Realms of Fantasy and Paradox, and broke into Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show.
– Was invited to and began writing a regular column, Writing for Young Readers, for Writing-World.com.
– Saw 33 works published including two stories in “Best of” collections, a Hungarian reprint, two French reprints, a Greek reprint, and four audio podcasts.
– Received three Honorable Mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 19 (edited by Ellen Datlow, et al.): “The Bunny of Vengeance and the Bear of Death,” “Returning My Sister’s Face,” and “The Tiger Fortune Princess.”
– Received another HM in The Year’s Best Science Fiction 23 (edited by Gardner Dozois) for “The Bunny of Vengeance and the Bear of Death.”
– Received a thumb’s up from Publishers Weekly for “Returning My Sister’s Face” in their starred review of Best New Fantasy.

2006 wasn’t too shabby, all-in-all.

And herein my Writing Resolutions for 2007:

– Finish a novel. Once session ends, I want to really focus on this.
– Write 500 words a day, every day, barring weekends, holidays, and the legislative session. I think my annual word count is going to have to go down as I’m effectively crossing out three months of the year to write during, but it’s a reasonable trade-off, all things considered.
– Don’t stress the hamsters and don’t be afraid to turn some away. I need to realize that I’ve pretty much taken on as much writing work (or more) that I can cope with. Now that I’ve got the shiny, new day job, I’ve got the leisure of picking and choosing new projects I accept and embark upon rather than feeling obligated to take on anything and everything that crosses my plate.

Happy New Year’s Eve!

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Thanks to everyone who swung by to wish me Happy Birthday yesterday!

After opening my prezzies*, fosteronfilm and I roamed the aisles of Barnes & Noble for a bit. One of the attorneys I work with gave me a gift certificate there for my b-day**. And then we tried out a little sushi restaurant near our house for dinner–good sushi, but their vegetarian menu options were somewhat limited. I really love sushi, but ever since the excellent restaurant down the road closed down a few years back, we haven’t been able to find a suitable replacement for yummy, inexpensive, and relatively nearby vegetarian sushi. Then we came home for cake and ice cream, a soak in the hot tub, and watched Monsters Inc.

It was a low-key but gratifying way to observe my annual increment of age indicator.

*The hubby got me two pairs of sexy boots! He knows me well, he do. I’ve been putting off buying any new shoes for the last year+ while our finances were in such dire straits, and while they’ve healthied up with my new job, I haven’t given in to the siren call of new shoe splurges. Seems that Matthew hadn’t missed my furtive-but-longing looks at shoe displays while we were out Christmas shopping .
**She’s way cool, and I’m not just saying that because she got me a prezzie. She does art photography on the side, and is an interesting and impressive person all around . . . much like the rest of the people I work with.

   


Writing Stuff

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I got very little writing accomplished these last couple days. Sigh.

It seems unlikely that I’ll make an end-of-year, last minute, final sale, but I’m content closing out on 2006 with the one earlier this month to OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show.

Farewell 2006, welcome 2007.

Received:
– Note from The Edge of Propinquity that my submission passed the first round of readings and is being more seriously considered for publication. Coolness.

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It’s my birthday today! Happy birthday to me. As I was telling terracinque, I still love having birthdays, but I’ve reached the point where I find the numerical increment in age indicator something of a downer. Yeah, I’m conflicted by my birthday. But at least there’s cake.

fosteronfilm and I got back to Atlanta yesterday after a grueling 14+ hour drive, retrieved Hobkin, who has been a fuzzy lump attached to my hip (or haunting my ankles–which has made walking something of a chancy affair), from his godmother, and have made a dent in unpacking. We discovered several packages on our doorstep, and the mail person brought another one when she made her rounds. After resting and having our traditional Christmas feast (we always have our own, private Christmas after we get back from Illinois)–faux roast beast, mashed potatoes and onion gravy, and cranberry sauce–we opened the prezzies from our friends and the remainder of the ones to each other, and took a long soak in the hot tub. The perfect way to cap off the holiday.

This morning, I’m sipping some delicious Adagio apricot green tea which I brewed from the IngenuiTea infuser/pot, all part of the gift set that n_decisive gave me, while I peruse L’amber by Tanith Lee from teflaime as Loreena McKennitt’s new CD, An Ancient Muse, courtesy dean13, plays in the background. I’ve got on the new Victoria’s Secret sleep shirt the hubby gave me and am using the cordless, optical mouse that my mom-in-law got me to post this LJ entry, while Hobkin snoozes beside me.

It was a good Christmas, with periodic flashes of sadness as something remembered or said triggered memories of my dad-in-law. But I managed to keep from having a total meltdown and only got teary eyed a couple times. He is sorely missed, and his absence was a compelling but quiet presence–much like he was.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words/Editing:
– Cranked out another 600 words for my January Writing for Young Readers column, did several editing passes, and sent it off to my editor. And I got a confirm from her that it made it to her without problem this time. Whew.

Received:
– 92-day personal and complimentary pass from Paradox with invite to submit again. Also, by way of apology for the delay in response (I didn’t think it was that long, actually), an explanation that a bunch of submissions seem to have gotten delayed en route by the USPS. My manuscript, although mailed (First Class) in late September, didn’t arrive until mid-December. It seems other manuscripts were likewise delayed. Eep.
– Payment for my January column. Huzzah!

Published:
– The audio podcast of “Oranges, Lemons, and Thou Beside Me” is now up at Pseudopod, read by Paul S. Jenkins who, ye verily, has a sexy voice. Go listen, yo!
– “Addy in My Mind” is now up at Helix. This story is a stand-alone sequel to my Phobos-award-winning “All in My Mind.” Enjoy!

Merry Christmas

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Merry Christmas! I hope Santa brought everyone what they asked for and y’all are surrounded by loved ones.

They let us out of work at noon on Friday; the legislators scampered out to get an early start on their holidays, freeing us legislative counsel to as well. This week has been a delight at work–although the workload has been steadily ramping up (a foretaste of what’s to come), which has nudged me a bit behind on my December “Things to Do”/”Hamsters to Fling” list. Nearly every morning, I’d come in to find a little Christmas surprise on my desk: festive cards, a bag with gloves and candy, a tin of chocolate goodies, a lovely journal tied with a golden bow. Or one of my co-workers would come round that day with a thoughtful gift: Christmas socks, a platter of cookies. And we had a food day on Wednesday: cheesecake, cookies, cake, humus, stuffed olives. I’m so very fortunate to be able to work with such wonderful people.

fosteronfilm and I dropped Hobkin off with his godmother yesterday for Skunk Christmas Camp and made the grueling, 14-hour drive to Illinois to spend Christmas with his family. I expected there to be snow, but it’s been unseasonably warm. We drove through some rolling fog banks, and it’s rather cloudy here, but no snow. Hoping it stays that way, at least for the week.

Today we feast, and tonight we open prezzies. May everyone’s holiday be joyous and warm.

   


Writing Stuff

This is something of a working holiday for me. I’ve got much to wrap up before next week and the New Year as I prep for the beginning of the Legislative Session.

New Words:
– 900 words on my Writing for Young Readers column. The plan is to finish and email it off to my editor tomorrow.

Received:
– 7-day “nice writing but no grabbie” from JJA of F&SF. Alas, not the Christmas present I would’ve wished for from Hoboken, NJ.

Magic, fairy lights, and the warmth of family

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Had a lovely weekend. fosteronfilm and I had intended to go see one of the many movies that’re out that we’ve been interested in, but we had a very slow and therefore late start on Saturday. After completing our final bits of Christmas shopping, we decided we’d prefer having a Christmas evening at home with Hobkin–who was looking a bit anxious and peeved at being abandoned for so long. So we stowed away our purchases–including a plush pooch with winter scarf and hat clutching a fleece blanket for Hobkin–and made cinnamon-glazed roasted almonds, had (faux) roast beast and onion gravy, cranberry sauce, and white chocolate & cranberry Harry & David’s coffee while watching White Christmas.

Vera-Ellen is one of my favorite dancers of that era. It’s sad that she never received the sort of accolades and acclaim that others did. She was so charismatic and effervescent. I remember the first time I saw White Christmas on the big screen. It was at the Normal Theater, the renovated art theater back in my old Midwestern stomping grounds. The first Danny Kaye/Vera-Ellen dance number had me utterly spellbound. Seeing them spinning and leaping together took my breath away and transported me to a simpler time where happiness was measured in graceful movement and sentimental songs.

Yep. I really love the holiday season. Magic, fairy lights, and the warmth of family snuggled close.

   


Writing Stuff

Editing:
– Did a couple final editing/rewrite passes on “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist etc.” and stuck a fork in it. And it’s off. Fly, little story, fly! Be brave and valiant, and come back with your shield or on it!

Received:
– Payment from Pseudopod for “Oranges, Lemons, and Thou Beside Me.” Very excited about hearing their podcast production of it.
– The autograph plates for the special hard cover edition of Aegri Somnia, which I spent a couple hours on Sunday applying my John Hancock to. There’s one plate which I think will make whoever gets it extremely amused. Three writers (myself included) drew self-portraits on it next to our signatures. Sending those back to jasonbsizemore in today’s mail . . .

Tin Girl no go

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The charity calendar that the Dragon*Con folks are putting together to benefit the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer research foundation now has a forum so that people can make suggestions or offer advice on the enterprise, courtesy Dean, one of the photographers.

Still don’t have anything but a ray gun for my pulp space girl costume, but we’ve been browsing through the shops to see if there wasn’t something pre-made that could be modified. We found a nearly perfect one, a Tin Girl Costume (except without the hat). I tried it on, and it’s way cute. The skirt’s a little shorter than I was wanting, also it’s not flared and flowy but tight and clingy, but otherwise, it’s pretty near ideal.

And it’s also $51.00. Sigh. Not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but a bit much for our current budget for an outfit I’d only wear once.

I remember having piles of disposable income once-upon-a-time. Alas, those times have passed.

Back to the sewing machine.

   


Writing Stuff

Editing:
– An editing pass on “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest, etc.” After a perusal of all the crits that came in, I’ve come to the conclusion that there wasn’t a consensus on whether it was too confusing, too explainy, or just right. Snartleblast. So I’m going with my gut instincts.

Shopping and writing

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And lo, there was much holiday-related consumer activity. Our Christmas shopping is almost done, although I still don’t know what to get Hobkin.

   


Writing Stuff

The crits are in; tomorrow I start on my rewrite of “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest etc.” Hoping to have it out the door by the end of this week.

Published:
– “Wanting to Want” is now out in the premiere issue of the new U.K. ‘zine, Hub. Yay!

Received:
– An invitation to submit to an anthology put out by a new publishing outfit. I recognize the name of one of the editors; I’m sharing a ToC with him in an upcoming issue of GrendelSong, and he dropped me a very nice email letting me know he enjoyed my story in GS#1. Pondering whether I’ll have time to put together a story by the deadline, since the first three months of next year are dedicated to the legislative session, and I wanted to try to do that whole novel thing again afterward. But I hate turning down an invite to submit anywhere.

New Words:
– 100 on “By Oak, Bramble, and Metro.” At least they were constructive words. I think I’ve got a direction now for the ending. I think.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
3,878 / 4,500
(86.2%)