Woke up at the ridiculously early hour of 6 o’clock this morning. So much for sleeping in on my day off. But it did give me a chance to catch up on my email correspondences and LJ Friends List.
Matthew has a touch of the flu, we think. We’ve been going through hand washing contortions to avoid passing it to either me or Hobkin.
My god, I’m glad this week is finally at an end. You’d think after being on holiday for a week I’d be all rested and raring to go back to work, especially since I have tomorrow off. But this week has been interminable! Four-day weekend, rah.
We have no big plans, though. I’ll probably try to write, maybe accomplish some much-needed unpacking.
And hey, I just discovered via the Speculations Rumor Mill that the Dragon*Con website won the 2004 Wooden Rocket Award in the “Best Convention/Society Site” category. Cheers to the designer, dire_epiphany, and the webmaster, my hubby, Matthew!
Starting into the climax with two plot/resolution directions I could take it: my original vision, or a different, slipstreamy, twisty one that occurred to me in a caffeine fugue. I’m totally dithering on where to take this, to the point of seriously considering trying to write it both ways and seeing which one turns out better. Except I’m thinking that’s just not a good idea. It’s a major struggle to finish any story even once. Writing two parallel endings seems over ambitious, not to mention profoundly wishy-washy.
On the one hand, I like my original vision–it’s very modern magic/mythology. But I also like the idea that came to me in a fit of inspiration. I’m loathe to chuck away inspiration, but this second idea will be longer and more convoluted to write. And it might actually end up harder on the ole suspension of disbelief o’meter because of the twists in it.
I don’t know. I just don’t know.
Took pictures of Hobkin the other day with our shiny, new digital camera. He doesn’t like the flash.
I took a picture of him eating dinner, and he scampered under the hutch, abandoning food even, to peer distrustfully at me until I put the camera away. Then he ventured out and went back to snarfing down his meal.
In the future, I’ll probably turn the flash off and just set the shutter speed slower when I take front-on shots of the poor, wee fuzzwit. I know I get blinded by flashbulbs at conventions, and typically the photographers there are considerate enough to ask (and therefore give me plenty of warning) before they pop them in my eyes. I can only imagine how disconcerting it must be for Hobkin.
Those little inner ear “I’m still at sea” twinges appear to have stopped. Probably just as well. I’m still all sore and groggy, though. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.
Also checked their website and saw they’ve got the cover art for issue #14 already lined up. It’s very SFey:
Pining for a Caribbean ocean view, so I loaded some more cruise pictures. The Navigator of the Seas is the one on the right. The other one is a Carnival cruise ship.
Ugh. Set my alarm clock wrong; I appear to be out of the habit. Because of that snafu, I woke up late this morning. I scrambled, disheveled and tousled, into the office, whereupon I was confronted by a staggering 737 emails, of which only thirty were not spam.
Had a difficult time coping with the lack of an ocean view. Actually, I don’t have any view whatsoever as I work in a cubicle sans window. And even if I had a window, it would only overlook the not-at-all-scenic parking lot. Pfft.
Hobkin, however, is glad we’re all home. All yesterday he clung to me, only hopping down to use the bathroom. I’m sure he enjoys his stays with his godmother at “skunk camp.” She pampers him with treats–crickets and cantaloupe!–and he gets to visit with her skunks. But he also missed us. Debbie informed us that Hobkin spent a lot of time activating his “talk” toy ball (the one that says “Good Hobkin, good Hobkin, good boy!” in my voice when jostled) over and over again. Hee! ‘Cept I can’t imagine why Debbie doesn’t absolutely hate the sound of my voice by now.
I’m so behind on reading my LJ Friends List. I suspect I’ll never get fully caught up on last week’s entries. If something magnitudinous happened while I was gone, please bring it to my attention?
Also sent my acknowledgement of their acceptance to Cricket for “Moon Lake.”
Going through the Critters critiques. I’ve got thirty-four currently and this batch is still up for another week and a half. Woof. Starting on the rewrite on one of them. Think this one will be going to Cricket next week when it finally rolls off the queue and I’ve got it polished up to my satisfaction. Iron. Hot. Bap.
My muse is pouting at the change in scenery, but I suspect it won’t be hard to cajole her out of her sulk.
Caribbean cruise overview:
Got back yesterday from a week long Caribbean cruise with the family. Wonderful time, although now I’m back on land, I keep getting inner ear tweaks that make me think the ground is moving beneath me. Details and pictures from the cruise coming soon! I’m compiling my notes and logs, and downloading pictures from our new camera.
After coming home to a week’s worth of new mail. Received:
– SALE to Cricket for my folk tale “The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake”! Good news indeed to return to!
– Rejection from Cicada. Pook. While they really liked the story, they thought it too emotionally wrenching for their teen audience, and hence not right for them.
– Rejection from Talebones – personalized. “Almost, please send more soon.”
– Rejection from Sci-Fiction – from Ellen Datlow, “not subtle enough” for her.
– Rejection from Asimov’s – form from Sheila Williams (sigh).
Oof. But I’m happy-dancing ’bout another sale to Cricket!
Also, my excerpt “Visiting Day” is up at the ELP Library with very cool cover art:
Received a postcard in the mail. It read:
“Dear Hobkin, Please tell Matthew that you are due in for your shots . . .”
Obviously, a reminder notice from our vet to bring Hobkin in for his annual exam. I found the note incredibly endearing. Of course, that’s the reason they do it like that, to appeal to pet owners. And hey, it worked! Also, I really like our vet. They’re tops when it comes to skunks.
So it looks like we’ll be scheduling an appointment for him right soon. Hobkin will be displeased. I plan to insist upon being the one to hold him when they administer his shots, as it will be far less traumatic for everyone concerned. I want to avoid another scene with him screaming bloody murder. It’s amazing the set of vocal cords that are on our normally-silent fuzzwit. And he’s absolutely untroubled by anything the vet does to him as long as I’m holding him. He’s such a momma’s boy.
Received a rejection from the Poe’s Progeny anthology. The story wasn’t quite what they were going for with their theme. They invited me to submit something else, but I’m not sure if I have anything suitable.
Had a strange night. I think the weirdness was mostly due to the Clonazepam, which is doing precious little for my wing stub pains, so I’m contemplating going off them. I’m paying too high a price in loopiness in the AM, and disturbing dreams in the PM.
Had some very vivid and unpleasant dreams of which I can only remember flashes. I seem to recall carting a baby piglet around in my arms and being very concerned that people would think he was a wild pig and wanting to take him away. And then getting caught in a dimensional rift and ending up in a universe where all these tiny Japanese schoolgirls didn’t want to share their high-tech Sony gadgets with me. Peculiar.
Woke up at 3:30 in the morning feeling like I’d just been shaken awake. Of course, I hadn’t, so I checked my email. Fired off a couple correspondences. I’m actually a little concerned that I might not have been coherent in those emails.
After my brief bout of wakefulness, I was overwhelmed by sleepies again, so picked up Hobkin and fell back asleep until my alarm went off (interesting that my alarm doesn’t seem to wake the little fuzzwit).
This morning was spent guzzling coffee in the hopes of shooing some of the cobwebs out of the noggin. Limited success on that front.
And ow. My wing stubs really hurt.
Received an email from the Blasphemy anthology editors/publishers. Progress is once more being made on getting the thing in print and out to distributors. Finally. They said it’s going to the printers in the next few weeks, so it should definitely be out in time for Dragon*Con.
Did a couple critiques on Critters. That’s sort of like being productive . . .
