Category Archives: LJ

Two Bests. I am mighty, hear me meep.

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Feeling a bit overwhelmed, but this made me grin. If you need some validation or a pick-me-up, stick in your name and clickie. And don’t forget to turn up your speakers!

   


Writing Stuff

Too. Many. Hamsters.

New Words:
– 150 on the rewrite of “Beauty’s Folly,” several editing passes for continuity, clarity, and cleanliness, and I lobbed it back to the IGMS editor for perusal. Nail biting to commenceth.
– 100 in and 100 (different ones) out on the rewrite for lynnejamneck‘s Supernatural Sleuths anthology. Think I’m close to wrap-up on this one. Editing passes up next.
– 300 on “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.” I feel better about this being a novelette after getting the solidly-tentative rewrite request/probably-want-it from IGMS. “Beauty’s Folly” clocked in at over 10K, and this one’s probably not going to top 9K. Probably.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
8,335 / 9,000
(92.6%)


Received:
– 126-day YFoP from RoF with a personal scribble from Shawna at the bottom. Good writing, but no.
– 9-day personal “liked it but . . . ” from Trabuco Road with invite to send more.
– 1-day whiplash-inducing “not what we’re looking for” from Spacesuits and Sixguns with invite to keep trying.
– Note from jasonbsizemore that the two Best of Apex 2005 chapbooks are being combined into a gorgeous, perfect bound edition. If you haven’t picked up the chapbooks, here’s your chance to get all eight stories for only $7.95:


Contents:
“Accountant: Life on the Streets” by Bryn Sparks
“Crucifixation” by Lavie Tidhar
“Erasure” by Jennifer Pelland
“Trees of Bone” by Daliso Chaponda
“Big Sister/Little Sister” by Jennifer Pelland
“Layers” by Mike Simon
“An Odd Day in I-Forgot” by Athea Workman
“Oranges, Lemons, and Thou Beside Me” by Eugie Foster

– Contrib. copies of Best New Fantasy. Keep an eye out for these beauties at your local Barnes & Nobles. Makes a great gift!


Contents:
“My Father’s Mask” by Joe Hill
“Pip and the Fairies” by Theodora Goss
“The Language of Moths” by Christopher Barzak
“At the End of the Hall” by Nick Mamatas
“Heads Down, Thumbs Up” by Gavin Grant
“Monster” by Kelly Link
“The Dybbuk in Love” by Sonya Taaffe
“Gulls” by Tim Pratt
“Summer Ice” by Holly Phillips
“The Maiden Tree” by Catherynne M. Valente
“The Farmer’s Cat” by Jeff VanderMeer
“A Little Madness Goes a Long Way” by M. Rickert
“Proboscis” by Laird Barron
“Dancing in the Light of Giants” by Jay Lake
“Eating Hearts” by Yoon Ha Lee
“Returning My Sister’s Face” by Eugie Foster

Weekend working on rewrites

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Friday, I got my first taste of editing a 32-page city charter. Oof. elemess informs me that we can look forward to around a dozen or so of them a session. Did I menion “oof”? But, as much as my eyes crossed and my brain twitched, still better than being an IT cubicle monkey.

fosteronfilm and I started our first foray into Christmas shopping yesterday on the “getting a head start on the manic merriness this year” effort. Not much progress was made, but we discovered that there’s a new Teavana branch at North Points mall. Mmmm, tea. We ended up buying some for us. Yah, it’s what it’s about: shiny malls and consumeristic avarice.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– 30-day rewrite request from Intergalactic Medicine Show, of the “I want this, but can you make some changes?” variety. Pending final editorial approval and the cooperation of my muse, “Beauty’s Folly” should be in the Jan. 2007 issue. (Tentative) woohoo!
– 23-day nope from Clarkesworld Magazine.
– Note from Richard Freeborn, editor of Oceans of the Mind, letting me know that they’re ceasing publication. And another pro-paying SF market bites the dust. Damn.

New Words/Editing:
– 400 on the rewrite of “Beauty’s Folly” for IGMS. A bridging paragraph or two and some smoothing and polishing, and I think I’ve got this one bagged.
– 100 on the rewrite request for lynnejamneck‘s Supernatural Sleuths anthology. Tweaking, tweaking, and some ideas that I need to dwell on–the trick being how best to implement them to keep the “sleuth” part sleuthy rather than sledgehammery. Hmmm.

Published:
– “Of Two Minds in Lanais” reprinted in French in the Winter 2006 issue (#23) of Faeries. Thanks to lisamantchev for the heads up, as my French wasn’t up to the task. And also, we’re sharing a ToC!

November frenzyness

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The Great Caffeine Weaning didn’t happen. I’m weak and addicted, and I don’t want to talk about it.

Now that the election’s over, things have started to ramp up at work as legislators gear up for the session in January. Something that made me go *squee* as I was driving to the MARTA station this morning: our local NPR news was reporting on some of the Georgia bills that have been pre-filled for this upcoming session, and one of the ones they mentioned is one I edited. Made me feel all official.

   


Writing Stuff

I’ve lost reviewers this month to NaNoWriMo (argh), and it seems like every publisher and his brother is sending me review copies of their anthology now and that every single ‘zine out there puts out an issue in October or November, so things are a wee bit swamped-like on the Tangent front. Also, the brief detour my muse dragged me off to write has exploded into a novelette, I still have to finish the urban fantasy I committed to do before the December deadline, and I haven’t even begun pondering what to write for my Writing for Young Readers column next month. (I’d welcome suggestions!)

I thought this month would be more laid back compared to the others in 2006. I was mistaken. A lot. I’m beginning to think I’m deluding myself, and that there will be no more laid back months for me. Ever.

I need me some hamster-stomping boots.

New Words:
– 3100 on “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.”

Yup, it’s a novelette. Sigh. Worse, it’s not done yet, although I’ve only got one more scene to go. But it’s a doozie of one: the reveal and climax. I’ve already got down the denouement and conclusion, so I know what needs to happen, but the set-up is quasi-stream of consciousness. The trick will be to keep it coherent without muffing the pacing and ending up with a big ole gob of infodump. If I can pull it off, it should be good.

I’m rather excited about this one. It’s my very first dystopia.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
7,948 / 7,000
(113.5%)


Received:
– 22-day SALE of “The Tears of My Mother, the Shell of My Father” to oldcharliebrown‘s anthology, Japanese Dreams. Woohoo!
– 52-day rewrite request from lynnejamneck on my submission to her Supernatural Sleuths anthology.
– Also a note from her that the interview she did with me is going to be published in Strange Horizons. Yay! At this rate, it’s looking like that interview might be the only way I’ll get to appear within their hallowed virtual pages.
– Note from W.H. Horner that the Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy anthology now has cover art and is slated for publication April of ’07. It promises to be big with the fun:

Blue blue blue . . . and a bit of red

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And lo there was much clapping and cheering, although Georgia is a blight of red in the swath of post-election-day blueness. Still, add no more Rumsfeld as secretary of defense to the pot, and it’s definitely time to break out the confetti!

To celebrate, actually, more like to see if it was better than the ever-increasing amount of caffeine I’ve been slamming, I took an extra 10mg of Adderall today and skipped my morning coffee. The higher dose ye verily gave me a kick–caught up on some outstanding Tangent work and cranked out 1700 new words on the WiP–but now I’ve got a caffeine withdrawal headache. Agh.

I get Veteran’s Day off from work (!) this Friday. Think I’ll do some cold turkey/intensive caffeine weaning this long, holiday weekend. Also, woohoo, I get Veteran’s Day off!

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 1700 on “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.” I think my original estimate of 5K might’ve been somewhat . . . low. Trying now to keep this under novelette-sized, but it looks to be tight. Another hard-to-sell-length story. Sigh.

What’s with the novelettes, musie? Gimme short or gimme a novel, but this novelette thing we’ve been doing blows goats.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
4,852 / 7,000
(69.3%)

Vote today!

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Remember to vote, yo! I am cautiously optimistic this election, but I have had my hopes dashed before, so I’m waiting to do any clapping or cheering until/if the ballot tallies come back favorably.

I’ll be doing my civic duty after work, although I’m underwhelmed by my choices, especially the ones for the new John’s Creek council. They all seem like right-wing nut jobs, but then, what sane person would want to be on a city council? Meh. Oftentimes, doing my civic duty comes down to selecting the least of many evils.

terracinque seduced me with shiny comic books. She introduced me to the Fables series put out by Vertigo. Fairy tales in modern day and pretty pictures, ooo. So yah, I’ve been reading them when I should’ve been writing . . . or editing . . . or reviewing. (I need another whole brain just to do all the reading I want to, dammit.) But I’ve read all the issues from years one through four now, so I’m hoping to get caught up on the work I’ve let slide.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 2300 on “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.” Good progress, but it could’ve been better. The muse is willing, but the writer is weak. Bad writer, no cookie.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
3,135 / 5,000
(62.7%)

Published:
– My November Writing for Young Readers column is now up: “An Interview with Gisele LeBlanc of Dragonfly Spirit“.

Although there’s one inaccuracy. It says that Dragonfly Spirit is closed to poetry submission until 2008. That’s supposed to be 2007. Oops. I’ve got a note in with the editor to have that rectified.

Day of the Dead

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Happy Day of the Dead! Hope everyone had a fabu Halloween and All Saint’s Day. This is totally the time of year for goth holidays, isn’t it?

This Halloween, fosteronfilm and I didn’t stay home watching scary movies and handing out sweets. Instead, we celebrated the joyous matrimony of sruna and pleroma! Although Mapquest did us wrong, we did eventually find the venue–which is only something like fifteen minutes from our house, although it took over half an hour to get there. @#$! Mapquest. Fortunately, we arrived in time so as not to commit the faux pas of walking in after the ceremony had already started.

I had a bit of a quandary about how to manage my attire. I typically get home between 6:05 and 6:20, which didn’t allow for time to change before the 7 o’clock wedding. But Halloween is a marvelous excuse to dress weird, so I went to work at the Capitol in a black Renaissance dress, sans corset but with bunny ears (I was a pooka), and just swapped one accessory for the other when I got home.

Voila, a costume for all occasions:


The wedding was outdoors, beneath an illuminated arch, next to a river/stream/watercourse thingy. In keeping with the Halloween theme, the beautiful bride wore red, the wedding party wore black, and there was Renaissance, goth, and period garb a-plenty among the guests. The reception was a masked affair, and the bride and groom were toasted with mead and honey wine (yum!). It was a lovely and elegant occasion, and I’m so glad I got to be a part of it. And yes, I got a little sniffly as they were exchanging their vows.

I brought my camera, but it gets petulant in dim light. All of my pictures turned out either dark, blurry, or simply bad. However, a few of the blurry ones reminded me a bit of sruna and pleroma‘s engagement pictures.

Here’s the best of them:

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 1000 on a new dark fantasy: “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.” After all the sweating and agonizing on the last story’s title, this one essentially titled itself.

I was spinning my gears on “By Oak, Bramble, and Metro” and this story hit me between the eyes. My muse, she is a fickle whore.

Received:
– Galley proofs for “Nothing of Me” in Aegri Somnia.
– Payment from Writing-World for my November column, “An Interview with Gisele LeBlanc.”
– Email from oldcharliebrown. Best New Fantasy is back from the printer, and I can expect to have my contrib. copy in my hot little hands soon.
– 14-day “I hate to turn this down but . . .” from All Possible Worlds with invite to submit again.
– 49-day “this is one of those ones I really have trouble saying no to” no from Escape Pod on a reprint, with invite to try again.
(While tons better than a kick in the teeth, I’m not gaga about this “really didn’t want to pass on your submission, but I’m going to. Got anything else?” trend.)
– 95-day #2 form nope from Asimov’s. Urg. I’m losing ground here. The last couple rejections were personal ones from Sheila. Snartleblast.

Pulp pulp pulp

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Saw Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! for the first time. And it was . . . wow. Fast cars, ultra violence, and go-go dancers.

I feel the same way I did after the first time I saw Pulp Fiction: surprised-unto-astonished that the quality of the writing, well the dialogue, exceeded my expectations, dazed at the blood-splattered brutality, and uncertain as to whether I liked it or not. It’s obvious that Quentin Tarantino was greatly inspired by Russ Meyer.

I was verily impressed by the shape of the actresses too. With the movie coming out in 1965 and the development of the silicone breast implant only in 1961, I’m assuming that the actresses were all au naturale. Perhaps I’m being overly cynical, but I’d sort of forgotten that women were capable of those sorts of dimensions without surgical enhancement. Meyer liked his actresses curvy, he did.

On a related pinup and anatomical curves topic, some Dragon*Con folks are putting together a calendar to benefit the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer research foundation and have asked me to be one of the months. Of course I said “yes” (I’ll be August). Each month will have an appropriate D*C fandom theme such as goth, anime, etc.

I think pulp and camp were on my mind when the coordinator asked me to pick a theme for my month. I suggested doing a science fiction spacegirl a la the pulp ‘zines, which also appeals to me on a writerly front. She loved the idea, so yah, that’s what we’re going with.

Problem: I don’t have a spacegirl costume. I have . . . a ray gun.

Erm. I’ve never constructed an outfit from the accessory up before. Amber, the calendar coordinatrix, assures me there are seamstresses onboard who are willing to apply their skills to the effort, as long as it’s not too ornate. So I’ve been surfing around, trying to get costuming ideas.

Can anyone recommend a good science fiction pulp art gallery I can peruse?

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– 217-day (after a query or two) “Excellent story . . . may we see another?” pass from Weird Tales. The supernatural element wasn’t strong enough, alas.
– 10-day “Nice . . . but didn’t hold” from JJA of F&SF.
– 27-day form nope from Coyote Wild. Might be time to trunk this one.

New Words/Editing:
– Several polish-and-tweak editing passes on the Japanese fantasy, and the fork is stuck in and quivering. I’ve launched that hamster out, out and away. Rah! Also, thanks to one critter’s suggestion, it’s also got a better title: “The Tears of My Mother, The Shell of My Father.” Well, I think it’s a better title, anyway . . .
– 100 words on “By Oak, Bramble, and Metro.” Hoping to make better progress on it after Halloween.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
2,129 / 5,000
(42.6%)

Addicted to uppers/Late life lesson

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There was much sleeping over the weekend. My caffeine addiction appears to have re-established itself too excess without me noticing it. My occasional “extra boost” cup of coffee has become part of my daily routine, an essential ingredient in my staying-functional cocktail, and I’ve begun to add onto that a second cup of java and/or a diet cola.

That suggests to me that my tolerance to the Adderall is ramping up, even with me taking weekend holidays from it. And on weekends, when I’m not on Adderall and not having my usual first-thing-in-the-AM coffee, I’m useless–either dead-to-the-world asleep or slumped logy and apathetic on the couch. I obviously needed to catch up on some sleep this weekend, but I was also free-floating grumpy at fosteronfilm and headachy, both symptoms of withdrawal.

While on the one hand I’m glad I’ve got a workaround; I keep pumping in the uppers, and I can function like a proper human. But on the other, it’s just not healthy. And at this rate, I’m going to have to ask my doctor to increase my Adderall dosage, and I would really prefer not to be on more than I’m currently taking.

This is all so annoying, dammit. I’m going to have to wean myself off caffeine again . . . but not until after I meet the next couple hamster deadlines. Still, even while I’m fuming at the shortcomings of my human suit, I’m also somewhat awed by how chipper I remain (barring, of course, the occasional husband-oriented grumpiness). My emotional equilibrium remains pretty stable, unfazed by sundry physiological nuisances.

It’s the job. Day-to-day job satisfaction is giving me a buffer I never had before. Makes me marvel that I languished for so long at my previous day job, and makes me wish I’d had the courage to switch careers a long, LONG time ago.

Ah, well. A late life lesson is oodles better than one never learned.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– Crits continue to flow in for the Japanese fantasy up at Critters. It’s being well received (yay). I did get one crit which made me go “gah!” but not ’cause the critter didn’t like the story. On the contrary, she enjoyed it, and she singled out the title to praise–yes, the same title I’m wracking my brain over to come up with a suitable replacement. Sigh.
– 8-day glowing reject on a reprint with invite to submit again from Blood, Blade & Thruster. They loved the story, but thought its publication history made it too well known for them to reprint. Can’t argue with a rejection like that. But, but snartleblast!
– Contract from Hub for “Wanting to Want.” Signed and sent back.

New Words:
– 500 words on the MARTA-inspired urban fantasy, tentatively titled “By Oak, Bramble, and Metro.” An odd phenomenon happening with this one. I seem to need to write it on the train. I sit and stare at the file at my desk, no words, no ideas, zip, but as soon as I get on the MARTA, the words come. #$%(*!@ Stupid muse.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
2,000 / 5,000
(40.0%)

Insomnia bad.

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Got to sleep late, woke up early (as in 4:45AM). No reason. Just my sleep regulator acting wonky. I’ve had 20mg of Adderall, a big cup of coffee, and a diet coke today, and I still feel like I’m one long blink from slumping comatose at my desk.

Me and Hobkin, sluggish and sleepy.

Skunks don’t hibernate during winter, per se, but when the cold season comes, they get sort of groggy, are more inclined to snuggle (wild skunks often winter together in a single burrow), and nap all the time. Hobkin’s generally better behaved in winter also, too much of a lap lump to get into (as) much mischief, and he’s less tetchy overall. Stomp- and huff-worthy things a month ago barely get a raised tail now. This last week, he’s been particularly snoozy, likely to flop over and start snoring as soon as he crawls into my or fosteronfilm‘s lap. It’s very cute, although it pretty much immobilizes whoever he’s using as a skunk pillow.

The notion of curling up with a skunk for a long nap sounds really nice right now . . .zzzzzz.

   


Writing Stuff

I received a request a while back from the guy who runs the German Firefly fan site, firefly-universe.de, asking if it was okay for him to translate and reprint the interview that arkhamrefugee and yukinooruoni did with Summer Glau for the Daily Dragon. I gave him the A-OK, and I got a note from him the other day letting me know his translation was now up. Major snaps to arkhamrefugee and yukinooruoni!

New Words/Editing:
– Did a review and polish of the next segment of the collab. story I’m working on with mtrimm1 and lobbed it back. This has been a great, fun project to work on. I think the finished piece is going to be hella shiny.
– A once-over edit of my MARTA-inspired urban fantasy WIP to get back into the flow, and 300 new words from where I left off.

Received:
The crits are beginning to trickle in from Critters for “Hannya-Shin-Kyo.” It’s too early to draw any big picture conclusions, although I’ve received some good micro-level suggestions that I’ve already implemented.

I also got a crit that irritated me enough to complain to Andrew, ye old critter-herder, about. The critter in question only read the first 800 or so words of my 6K story, and the majority (3/4ths) of their crit was quoting large chunks of those 800 in order to pad their critique word count. Furthermore, the comments they did make showed that they hadn’t even properly read the fragment of story they did go over.

*snort* Talk about a half-assed critique.

So yah, while I’m willing to just shrug off crits that I think are totally off base, I think one this lame, where it’s obvious the critter didn’t even try, shouldn’t get credit.