Category Archives: Blog

The sandman giveth and he drags me on my head through slumberland

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Got my application to be a guest at Dragon*Con approved. It was only a formality as I’m already eyeball deep in working for the convention, so all my soul is belong to them. But it’s nice to have that little detail taken care of.

Got back into job hunt mode yesterday and sent my resume winging out to various companies. Broadened my search once again. Started targeting Developer/Programming positions in addition to Systems Analyst ones. I’d prefer not to be relegated to a total code warrior position, as I think I outgrew that several years ago, but if that’s what it takes to bring home the health insurance, then that’s what I’ll do. Programming is easy, and occasionally fun, so if that’s how the cards fall, at least it would mean a decrease in stress. Well, theoretically.

Woke up this morning with my brain feeling squishy and vague. And the way my neck feels, I think I was sleeping while doing a headstand. I can barely turn my head, it’s so stiff. Could this be the delayed post effects of Tramadol and Sudafed? Or maybe I just slept bad.


Writing Stuff

On an up note, Morpheus gifted me with a thoughtful surprise, the next plot event in the WIP short story. That was nice of him. Now if I can just get my brain de-fogged, I might be able to get some words down.

New Words: 450. 150 culled. The short story progesseth.

Club 100 For Writers
3

500/day
46

Too many drugs

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Oof. I ODed on a cocktail of stimulants last night: one Tramadol, two Sudafed, and two mugs of coffee. The peppy results were excellent, got a lot of writing done . . . for about two and a half hours. Then my stomach informed me that it was not amused by the corrosive substances I had dumped into it and proceeded to make me miserable for the rest of the night. I thought I had stumbled upon a really good productivity combination–I was clear-headed, wonderfully pain free, and energetic, with no shakes or twitches to boot–but nausea is not a price I’m willing to pay for a few good writing hours. So it’s back to being headachey, wing stubby, and logy for me.

Probably just as well. I wrestle quite enough with my caffeine addiction. I don’t need to add to it.

Stupid human shell.

This morning Matthew’s going to a staff meeting of the Atlanta film festival folks. I slept poorly, so I expect I shall do some napping while he is gone. Hoping to get cracking on some writing when I recover from my up-and-down night. Definitely want to pick up where I left off yesterday.


Writing Stuff

New Words: 1100 on a short story I began last month. I need to finish something that isn’t a folk tale and that isn’t the novel. I think my muse has been feeling cramped and needs to stretch. I opened up the file, read through what I started, and hit flow nearly as soon as I set fingers to keyboard. I’ve missed that. This story’s a light little ditty of a tale, nothing deep, no meaningful themes. But it’s fun to write, and I hope it’ll be fun to read.

Club 100 For Writers
2

500/day
45

Troy

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Watched Troy, courtesy Netflix, last night. Pretty, pretty men (in skirts). I’m not a huge Brad Pitt fan, although I liked him well enough in Interview with the Vampire, but I found him quite yummy in Troy. There were some rather egregious liberties taken with the Iliad story, and I missed the mystical element of the Greek gods, but I knew the movie had those shortcomings going into it. To tell the truth, I was pleasantly surprised. It was better than I expected, and it was a stunningly gorgeous production. Not much visceral, emotional connection to any of the characters, and of course no surprises (gosh, are they going to burn the big horsie statue or bring it in? Hmmm, I wonder.) but lovely to watch.


Writing Stuff

Received: 18-day “Your work was well received, but . . .” from Lenox Avenue on a submission for their “Mechanical Oddities” issue. Wah. This is the longest rejection string I’ve had in a while. Most disheartening.

Today would be a fantastic day to get a phone call from my agent letting me know that a publisher wants to pick up my middle-grade novel. *deafening claxon of crickets chirping* Well, it would.

A Harmony of Foxes
New words: 384
Back to work on the novel.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
15,875 / 45,000
(35.0%)

Club 100 For Writers
1
(Sigh. I suck.)

Whiling away time

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It has been a spectacularly uneventful and unproductive couple of days. The most exciting thing from yesterday: geekfantasies.com. (<--therein be babes in bikinis, but I'd consider it cool-granny safe.) I showed it to fosteronfilm and we giggled at the video shorts.


Writing Stuff

Saw that the Summer 2005 issue of Paradox with my story, “The Tiger Fortune Princess,” in it is now available. Yay! I’ve always liked the artwork I’ve seen for this magazine. The cover image they’ve got up is fairly small so I can’t make out details:


But it looks pretty lush. And the editor chose a classic painting by Wu Guxiang to illustrate my story:


Looking forward to seeing the full-size artwork when I get my contrib copies. Larger images to be posted when I get them.

Brewing up some green tea, pouring myself some Cocoa Puffs (my new indulgence), and getting ready for a day chock full of writing. That’s the plan, at least.

Skunk go poof

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Hobkin’s blowing his coat. I’d forgotten what a shedding skunk was like. I pet him and there’s a cloud of fuzz in the air. After a nap, there’s long, white strands of tail on the couch and blanket. Skunk fur. Everywhere I look there’s skunk fur!

I see that LiveJournal is having a 24-hour permanent account sale. Ooo! But I really can’t rationalize spending $150 on my blog. Damn.


Writing Stuff

I found out that “Running on Two Legs,” which appeared in #40 of The Third Alternative, was nominated for the 2005 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story! It’s terribly unlikely it’ll win, or hell, even make the short list, considering the competition (I’m up against Neil Gaiman for starters), but I’m tickled neon fuchsia to be nominated. Squee!

Any BFS members who haven’t read “Running on Two Legs” are welcome to drop me an email. I’ll forward on a .PDF for your reading pleasure.

Also received the contracts from Cricket for “Li T’ien and the Demon Nian” and “Cuhiya’s Husband.” Signed and mailed them back. “Li T’ien” is slated for the Jan. 2006 issue. Yay! Eagerly looking forward to seeing it, as well as getting word of when the others stories Cricket‘s bought will be scheduled for publication.

And got a 242-day reject from the Damned Nation anthology. A near miss: “We are especially sorry to have to send this after sitting on [your story] for so long, but we had a number of excellent stories we remained undecided about until the last minute, and yours was one of them . . . Please know that this was a very close call.”

Fooie. I would like a sale now.

When you’re unemployed, every day is a Saturday

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At this point, I figure the company I interviewed with doesn’t want me. Pook. I’ll send them a query tomorrow to verify, but as I haven’t heard from them in the prescribed time, I think it’s safe to assume they were underwhelmed by me. Damn. On the positive side, it means I’m still footloose and fancy free, living the life of leisure. At least until my unemployment runs out . . . and my COBRA coverage. Gleep.


Writing Stuff

Okay. On the quest of researching some non-Asian folk tale/myths to tempt my muse, I trooped upstairs to the library and broke out the source material: Edith Hamilton and Thomas Bulfinch for the Greek (and Roman) myths, and E.A. Wallis Budge for the Egyptian.

I really love Greek myths–I’m a purist, I much prefer the Greek ones to the Roman. But every re-telling/re-imagining concept I come up with is for an adult audience, not a younger one. I’ve done a couple Greek stories in the past, and they’re dark. Very, very dark. Not saying that kids can’t handle dark, after all, I read Oedipus Rex when I was twelve, but still . . .

So I closed the Bulfinch’s and started in on the Budge’s. The Egyptian myths just aren’t gelling. They don’t suck me in the way a story needs to in order for it to tempt me to recreate it, to give it my own voice and spin. It could be Budge’s tone, which is very true to the translation and extremely dry. On one side of the text are the actual hieroglyphics, and on the other is the literal English translation. Not the best storytelling format, although can’t fault his rigid adherence to academic accuracy.

So I went back to the Asian myths. Yup. Within moments, I found myself snagged by the concept of the Kitchen God and his story. That sent me off on another research branch, and my imagination started fizzing.

I’m also starting to itch to get back to the novel. Hope that bodes good things for this week.

Decadent Sunday Morning

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Eating Cocoa Puffs for breakfast, got a warm skunk curled at my side, and am watching a trashy made-for-TV movie on TNT about a heroic librarian. Life is good.

Went out without fosteronfilm to run a couple errands yesterday–bank, post office, and grocery store–because the first two places close before noon, and my hubby doesn’t typically stir before mid-day. I didn’t think I was all that dolled up–hadn’t bothered to put in my contacts and just tossed on some comfy pants and a black shirt–but I got several compliments out of the blue from fellow grocery story/bank goers. One guy started flirting with me in the produce section, and a sweet little old lady came up to me and told me how pretty I was. It made me happy. Puzzled, but happy. Apparently I need to venture out of the house, without Matthew to scare off admirers, more often .

However, I confused the bank teller to no end when I presented him my check from ‘9‘ to deposit. It being in euros confounded him. And I am less than impressed by the exchange rate I got. When he finally figured it out (after calling in another bank person to consult), the whole situation so discombobulated him that he forgot to deposit the other two checks I’d given him (in US Dollars even). When I saw the HUGE discrepancy in the receipt he gave me, I made a beeline back to his window. He was properly apologetic, but still, it was a really big mistake, as in over $400 big. Going to keep a close eye on our balance until that transaction clears to make sure everything totals up properly. I’m rather worried that the concept of foreign currency is so perplexing to my bank.


Writing Stuff

My Cricket queue is once again empty and I find I’m still in a good mindset for folk tales. I keep wanting to dabble in something Egyptian, but every time I start doing research on Egyptian myths and legends, I get side tracked and end up doing something Chinese again as a default. Chinese is easier, dammit. It’s like remembering something I already know rather than learning something totally from scratch. Maybe I’ll compromise and do something Japanese again, or Indian. Or wackiest of wackies, Greek! I love Greek mythology, but it’s so done. It’s so much harder coming up with a fresh spin or a unique voice on it. *ponder ponder ponder* O beauteous (and pernicious) muse of writing, talk to me!

Hobkin’s Third Anniversary

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It’s the three-year adoption anniversary of our skunk. Three years ago today we drove cross-country to Iowa to pick out a baby ball of fuzz to bring home. He slept in my arms for the whole drive back, and continues to sleep in my arms every night. Hobkin makes me laugh, helps put things into perspective when the world threatens to spiral out of control, and wedges his nose under my chin when I need someone soft and warm to hug.

To celebrate the occasion, I bought a carton of blueberries, fed him his favorite veggies along with the berry treats, and gave him a teeny taste of cherry pie. And when he got all tuckered out, I took pictures:

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Summer sickies

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Experiencing early AM insomnia. Blah.

I think fosteronfilm is coming down with a cold. We’ve been feeding him many zinc lozenges, and so far he hasn’t descended into the misery of sniffles and coughing, but he’s not well, the poor thing. We’ve also been taking the precaution of not letting him handle Hobkin’s food, because what we really don’t need is for everyone to start passing some summer bug around. Crossing my fingers that it doesn’t turn into a family-wide plague.

Hobkin’s also tearing around the house, demanding his breakfast. Probably just as glad I woke up on my own or he would’ve gotten me up.


Writing Stuff

After going through all the Critters suggestions and reading through my current draft of the folk tale, I felt a great wave of despair. So much to do! I could not possibly be up to the task. Realizing I wasn’t in a productive head space, I took a break. There was much iced coffee, and we baked a cherry pie for dessert. I hugged husband and skunk, and lo, the magic of caffeine and huggins made the world all better. I hammered out a big ole rewrite, addressing every point I was concerned about, did a final hard copy editing pass, and stuck a fork into it, well pleased with my efforts. Packaged up my submissions package and am going to swing by the post office (and bank) this morning before closing time. Fly little folk tale!

New words: Editing/rewriting. Many, many passes.

Club 100 For Writers
2

Our own personal gateway to Faerie

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Our neighbors are very Steppford Wives when it comes to the ornamental horticulture in the subdivision. They get upset if people don’t edge their lawns and water them during dry spells; everything’s very homogeneously landscaped and tamed within an inch of its photosynthesized life. I prefer a more wilderness approach to flora. I suspect if our neighbors ever looked into our backyard, they’d be scandalized. fosteronfilm keeps the front and sides scrupulously mowed, and the walking bits of the back likewise sheered, but we have a section of our backyard that we let grow as it will. It’s hidden by a six foot privacy fence, so it shouldn’t bother any of our neighbors unless they’re being nosy (which I suspect happens). We love the secluded view it gives from our kitchen windows. The sylvan glade-esque ambiance makes it feel like we’re nestled in the middle of a deep forest. It’s a soothing vista that has inspired a number of my stories.

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