Category Archives: LJ

Handy hubby, NPR interview, Agent fretting

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Matthew displayed he was handy yesterday. Two out of three of our bathrooms had ailing plumbing. The flapper chain thingy in one of the bowls had broken, and the flush handle thingy on the other had cracked apart and would no longer do its job. And to top everything off, the light switch in our master bath had been possessed by some evil spirit that got its jollies from flickering the lights off and on at random intervals.

My intrepid hubby went to Home Depot, picked out the correct replacement parts, and installed them all by himself! (Well, I held the flashlight and was in charge of tool acquisition.) So now we don’t need to call either an electrician or a plumber! I’m so proud of Matthew.

And in Cool Happenings Out of the Blue, we got an email from an NPR reporter who was doing a story on Mount Airy Lodge in the Poconos (where Matthew and I honeymooned). Apparently it’s closing down and auctioning off all its fixtures and stuff. She’d come across my write-up on our experience and wanted to do a phone interview with us. So we emailed her back, and she called us shortly afterward. Interview happened, story slated for Friday’s Market Place. Neat! I spoke little, as this triggered my speaking in front of people phobia, but Matthew was great. I hope they got a few good sound bytes from us. Going to tune into NPR’s Market Place on Friday for sure!


Writing Stuff

Sent out eight queries to agents yesterday (yes, mroctober, one of those was to bgliterary). I think I figured out why this whole query/agent thing is freaking me out. With queries especially, agents gauge whether or not you get bumped up the slush to the next tier of consideration solely on the basis of an introduction letter–not the first page of a manuscript, not even the first paragraph. The letter.

I’m pretty confident about my prose. I can tell when something really sings, and when something really sucks. Can’t always get the sucking bits to sing, and certainly can’t coax forth much more than a warble most days, but I trust myself to know. Not so with queries. Totally new ground there. I mean, I’ve read fiction for most of my life and I know what I like and what works. I haven’t read very many query letters. What’s a masterful query? What’s the equivalent of the Eye of Argon?

Also, I’m fine with having a story judged by its merits, but I’m freaked out by the idea of having me and the future of my writing career evaluated solely on the caliber of my introductory letter. Glah.

To top off my anxiety, I received a rejection from Surreal yesterday. It was a nice one, as they went; they invited me to submit again, but I’m not in a good headspace for rejction right now.

However, in the taketh and giveth front, arkhamrefugee contacted me about a paying writing gig. It’s always sweet to get solicited.

Words: 700 – The Chinese fairy tale continues apace. ‘Bout halfway, and I’m pleased with how it’s turning out.

Club 100 For Writers
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500/day
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Writing. Agents agents agents.

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Writing Stuff

Okay, I think it’s time I started getting serious about acquiring an agent. I consulted my market listing spreadsheet for more places to submit my middle-grade novel, and discovered that several markets that used to accept unsolicited submissions will now only look at agented works. Suddenly, I find myself in circumstances where my submission options are seriously constrained by my lack of a literary agent. Going to send off a few queries today, and I dropped a note to my mentor, Ann Crispin, to see if she’d pass on a good word about me to her agent.

This is totally new territory to me. I’ve made one or two forays into agent-land, but have been haphazard and unenthusiastic about it. Time to start being systematic and efficient. There’s much anxiety here, and I’m not sure why. Why is submitting to an agent harder than submitting to an editor? It really shouldn’t be.

Stupid brain.

Started on a new Chinese folktale to go into my Cricket queue. Made good headway into it. The virtue of 2K children’s works: gratification is fast, and I tend not to get bogged down dealing with plot pitfalls.

Words: 700 – the first day in a while where I’ve been able to hit my 500 goal. Rah.

Club 100 For Writers
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500/day
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The Commonly Confused Words Test

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I am procrastinating, ergo I took The Commonly Confused Words Test that I’ve seen floating around. My score:

Advanced
You scored 100% Beginner, 93% Intermediate, 93% Advanced, and 61% Expert!

You have an extremly good understanding of beginner, intermediate, and advanced level commonly confused English words, getting at least 75% of each of these three levels’s questions correct. This is an exceptional score. Remember, these are commonly confused English words, which means most people don’t use them properly. You got an extremely respectable score.

Ironically, the quiz creator spelled “extremely” incorrectly.

It’s all about the ergonomics

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I’m getting antsy, waiting for my new laptop to arrive. Our desktop machine is just not ergonomic for me. The monitor’s too high. If the seat is adjusted such that I’m comfortable, I crane my neck having to peer up at it. If I raise the seat high enough so I’m at a good eye level, my feet are off the floor and my back hurts. It is simply a wretched working setup. It’s great for Matthew, but he’s got seven inches of height on me–eight when he doesn’t slouch.

Want my laptop now, dammit. I see from the order summary that it might be another week before it arrives. Crap.


Writing Stuff

Received a 20-day “passing on this” from Chizine and the proofs of “The Life and Times of Penguin” (slated for issue #18 of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine) from my editor, benpayne.

Going to see about sending out a few more queries + 3 to publishers for my middle-grade book today.

Giving up on the Egyptian mythos research for now. Returning to the tried and true: Chinese folktales.

Words: 100. Rattled off just to get them out. I’m under no delusions they were any good.

Club 100 For Writers
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Fulton County Cats in Need of Home!

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From britzkrieg:

On February 1, 2005, Fulton County Animal Services was called to a home in Alpharetta [Georgia] where we found 160 cats. Unfortunately, 134 of the cats were dead on the scene. The remaining cats were rushed to a veterinary clinic and all are expected to eventually recover from their ordeal, though as you can tell from the pictures some are still not feeling well.

Once the cats are healthy enough and available for release, FCAS will be adopting them into new homes… If you are interested in adopting one of these cats from FCAS (probably mid-March), please make note of the cat’s name and animal ID number and fill out the online application located next to the picture of the cat.

The full article on the Fulton County Animal Services website: Cruelty Case Cats

If you’re an Atlanta local or a Georgian, or even if you don’t mind a bit of a drive, please, please consider adopting one of these babies. They deserve loving homes, every one of them!

Hobkin pix and horror flix

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Matthew’s been watching a lot of movies, even more so than usual, trying to get his Movie Review website in shape. As such, I have been subjected to such classics as Child’s Play 2, Species II, and Pet Cemetery. Just this weekend we watched Ghost in the Shell, Event Horizon, and Rosemary’s Baby. I need my brain scrubbed free of horrific imagery.

So, I took skunk pictures:


Hobkin under his hutch, lounging on his new, ultra fluffy blankie

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Hobkin’s good day

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Hobkin had a Very Good Day today. The little fuzz beast adores corn muffins, but he doesn’t get them very often because they’re quite fattening. Well, today I was baking a batch and apparently didn’t use enough non-stick spray. As I was trying to shake them out, I lost control of the baking tin, and a muffin top tore off to go tumbling to the floor, where an opportunistic skunk–waiting for just such a serendipitous occurrence–gleefully pounced on it. I didn’t have the heart to take it away from him, plus he inhaled it so fast I would have been hard pressed to get it anyway. Wish I’d thought to grab the camera . . .


Writing Stuff

Researching Egyptian mythology, although I’m not finding anything that really sparks my interest to explore deeper for Cricket. I think folklore is typically a better source of inspiration for Cricket stories than mythology, although, of course, there’s a substantial overlap between them.

Words: 270

Club 100 For Writers
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Movies and writing

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In a fit of escapist zeal, Matthew and I went to see Constantine, then came home and watched Alien vs Predator and Garden State to round things out.

Constantine was pretty. It actually had an engaging storyline, and Keanu Reeve’s *ahem* “acting” didn’t detract from the film. The CGI wings were swoofy too–best done wings I’ve seen. I do think the writerly/directing influences from both Exorcist and Prophecy were exceedingly blatant. There was also a rather pronounced sense of “short shrift” given to even a suggestion of character development, making it difficult to become emotionally vested in the life-and-death activities happening to both good guys and bad. That, paired with some slow moments in the middle, made for a flawed production. But overall, Constantine gets Eugie’s gold star of shiny fun. And, alerted by various and sundry, we knew to stay until the end of the credits. If you see Constantine, don’t leave the theater until after the credits are over!

Alien vs Predator was much better than I expected. Yes, the first half of it didn’t have space monsters duking it out, but once past that bit, it was full of acid blood splashes, tail spikes through chests, and dread-locked predators being all fierce and Klingon-esque. More shiny fun. As Matthew pointed out, the gestation and development cycle of aliens appears to have been significantly accelerated compared to how long it took in Alien, but I was willing to overlook silly details like that. I mean it’s supposed to be all about the monster carnage, right?

And Garden State was the meaningful film of the trio. I suspect Natalie Portman’s character was described in the screenplay as “spaz.” But she pulls off “spaz” enchantingly. There were quirky bits; I like quirk, and some very good writing. I thought it sagged in the middle, but generally was satisfying.


Writing Stuff

Wrote a Tangent review for Strange Horizons, for a two-parter novelette and flash piece.

And I’m getting myself back on track on the writing front. Not launching back into the Novel™ just yet, as I haven’t produced new wordage in ages and I don’t want to embark on it until I’m sure I’ve got my writing legs (should that be fingers?) back. So I’ve started doing fairy tale research as I’ve actually exhausted my backlog of Cricket manuscripts. That last sale of “The Tanuki-Kettle” came a lot faster than I’ve become accustomed to them responding–not that I’m complaining. And I’ve started a new short story from some imagery that popped into existence out of the ether–courtesy muse-o-mine.

Words: 150

Club 100 For Writers
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Sigh. Starting over.

The countdown is upon me

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So, for those of you who didn’t know (old news for some of you), I’m a telecommuter, and my place of employment decided to recall me to the home office. The home office is in Illinois; I’m happily situated in Georgia, ergo, I’m terminating from the company. My last day is Monday. I’ve been with this company for nearly eleven years, but I knew this possibility was looming as they’ve been re-evaluating their telecommuter program. Remote workers across the country have been dropping like those plastic ducks at shooting galleries. Yep. I have joined the ranks of plastic duckhood.

It’s been a stressful week. I’ve been packing up and carting off over a decade’s worth of desk detritus in measured increments. There was some catharsis and glee, dumping out thick binders full of documentation and specs that I will no longer have to look at or lug around with me ever again. But I felt far more distressed, punctuated by surreal, than I thought I was going to. It’s not like I loved my job or anything. It was a soul-sucking, occasionally-distracting foray into corporate America that paid me well. I got no joy, no true sense of accomplishment or satisfaction from it; which is a pretty sad statement to make about ten-plus years of servitude.

I’m looking forward to having the chance to focus more on my writing and publishing efforts. Hoping I can find a way to make a living from it before our savings and/or health coverage runs out. If not (I fully realize how stacked the odds are against me), I suspect I can go back into IT or find something else.

The thing is, I didn’t realize how stressed I was about this until I started experiencing a slew of minor aches and pains–persistent headache, soreness across my shoulders and back, fatigue. You’d think someone with a Master’s in Psychology would have figured it out sooner, wouldn’t you? So yeah, though I hadn’t expected to be dismayed by the situation since I’ve had so much time (over a year) to come to grips with it, I’m wide-eyed and trembly about this major life change.

Once I realized this, of course, I felt better immediately. Matthew and I went out to see Constantine and I’ve been downing the caffeine and OTC analgesics–therapy and meds for under $20. I feel better, optimistic again. I’ll see about applying for unemployment next week, and getting my COBRA ducks in a row (oh no, more ducks!).

And best of all, I think my muse may be ready to emerge from her extended absence.

So, I’m okay.