Category Archives: Blog

Went out to the Perimeter Mall yesterday to buy tea and coffee at Teavana and Harry & David’s, respectively. Felt quite decadent about spending large sums of money on tea and coffee. But hey, they’re major parts of our at-home recreation. Decided to try a new flavor of tea: Genmaicha. It’s a toasted brown rice/green tea blend with bits of popcorn in it. As it turns out, I’m not really a big fan. I think they were going for a “toasted” flavor. But “toasted tea” translates to “burnt” to my taste buds. But Matthew thinks it’ll be good tea to have with food rather than just to sip.

This week is our celebration of Ostara. Going to reprise last year’s parsnip and apple soup, as well as make some beer bread. Yummy. And again, my diet plans are thwarted. I really need to exercise.

And after a couple weeks of washings, the red in my hair appears to be more prominent. I think I like it now. I still intend to stick with black in the future, but for now it’s kind of neat. As long as it doesn’t start turning orange.

Writing Stats:

2800 words on the fantasy/VR fusion piece. I got hung up on a scene, and realized I wasn’t being productive, so I skipped it and went to the next scene. I’ve only done that sort of writing a handful of times; usually I write in a very chronological fashion. But it got me out of my stew. Need to go back and write the middle section I skipped, but somehow I don’t feel blocked knowing the story will progress from point A to point C since, well there point C is. Of course if point B throws me a total curve and makes point C wrong, I shall be miffed . . .

Did a few critiques on Critters (including yours, britzkrieg). I saw that I wasn’t on the MPC list on this week’s notes. Fired off a note to Andrew. Not sure what’s up with that as I sent in eleven crits by Monday. Humph.

Heard back from the Blasphemy anthology publishers. They don’t think it’ll be out in time for Fantasm, but they’re going to try to send me some freebie promo stuff to hand out at the convention.

Also sent a note to the editor/publisher of Tales of the Paranormal anthology declining the honor of being the promo piece on her website for it. I did say she could excerpt some of “Inspirations End,” but that I didn’t want the story in its entirety up. I hope she’s not angry with me, but I’m actively trying to market reprint rights, and I’m sure having it so freely available would hurt my chances of a sale.

And, good news! The editor of the MicroSHOCKS anthology posted on the Rumor Mill that MicroSHOCKS may have found a home at Scrybe Press. (This is the anthology that had its publisher fold after accepting my flash story “Reflections in the Mirror”.) Hurray!

Went to the Shakespeare Tavern last night to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They did an excellent job. I was laughing so hard I was holding my sides to keep them from popping. They came in a close second for best production of Midsummer’s Night I’ve ever seen. The best one is still the one the Illinois Shakespeare Festival did many years ago, but these guys came closer than anyone else has since then.

I think Midsummer is one of my favorite plays to watch. There aren’t really all that many fantabulously memorable lines, but it’s just a good comedy. Can’t figure out why Hollywood hasn’t managed to produce a single decent version of it, though. But then, Hollywood hasn’t had a very impressive track record when it comes to Shakespeare.

Stepped on the scale this morning. Argh. Not only have I not lost weight, I’ve actually gained a couple pounds. Fume. Most focus on diet, dammit.

Writing stats:

Maybe 200 words on the new fantasy/VR fusion thingy. Suckitude.

Passed the first round of reading at Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine on a novelette. On to the second round.

Okay, just bought the tiara for the Ms. Fantasm pageant:

Pretty shiny.

Wing stubs hurting, so I took a Clonazepam. Euphoria setting in. Wheeee. I feel like watching cartoons . . . or having a nice naaaaapzzzzzzzzz.

Has anyone seen this PBS commercial? PBS likes skunks! Hee.

Mwa ha ha haaa. I have been initiated into the mysteries of Codex.

Actually, despite the nefarious connotations, “Codex” is an online forum for “pro-level speculative fiction writers in the early stages of their careers who are actively writing.” Aside from the forum, they’re also a critique group. I recognize some of the members already. The specfic writing world is indeed a small one.

This has the potential to be an excellent writing development opportunity. Rah!

We use premium coffee ’cause we like our coffee flavored and candy-like. Aside from the tasty aspect of expensive coffee, another benefit is that usually you can leave it out overnight in the pot and it doesn’t turn bitter. Usually. Last night I brewed a full pot o’coffee, and had about a third of it remaining after Kristin left, so this morning I took some to work with me. Yuck. I couldn’t put in enough sweetener or creamer to get rid of the bitterness. Time to put the coffee maker through a vinegar cycle, I suspect.

So, did I dump it out and eschew my caffeine fix for the day? Of course not. I drank vile coffee. And I drank it fast so I wouldn’t have to taste it. *twitch* Suffice it to say, this whole “weaning” off the caffeine isn’t working.

In better news, lo and behold, it is no longer Monday, and voila, my program ran. ‘Course it didn’t give me the output I expected it to, but it wasn’t fiery shrapnel winging through the air anymore. Progress.

Writing stuff:

Haven’t written any new words in several days. Have the urge to pummel my muse with a two-by-four for being such a flighty strumpet! No, wait, I didn’t mean that. Nice musie, sweet musie.

The Chinese zombie/afterlife concept is on hold until I can come up with a decent plot. I’ve got a vague idea for a high fantasyish/virtual reality fusion piece, sort of a cyberpunk meets Legend story. I’m giving it some time to percolate in my little head, and then I’ll see if I can scribble out an outline or synopsis. What I’ve got is too complicated and disjointed for me to just start on without more prep.

In the mail:

Form “didn’t work for me” from Alchemy and
“This story is actually too similar to one I’ve already published” from Challenging Destiny. Sigh. At least it was a personalized note.

Yup, Monday sucks.

Spent most of the day at work trying to get a test run set up. Left my cubicle at quitting time with my eyes blurring and my head throbbing, sans a clean run. Not a good day for human versus computer. Stupid data exception errors.

Sunday was productive, though. We headed out to Micro Center with our gift certificate in hand. The idea was to buy a new computer chair, as we desperately need one. But the selection was exceptionally pathetic. Fortunately, they had Epson Perfection 1260 Photo Flatbed scanners on clearance. So now we have a new Epson scanner, one that doesn’t require you to shake it to work. I installed it (Matthew helped . . . a lot) and did a couple sample scans that came out lovely. Now I have the urge to scan random stuff.

Also ordered the Ms. Fantasm 2004 sashes. This year the sash color will be red. The winning sash will be red with gold lettering and gold edging, the runner up sashes will be red with silver lettering. The Ms. Congeniality sash, will be purple with gold lettering. Still waiting to hear back on a query to see how the stockpile of tiaras is holding out, but the sashes should arrive in a timely fashion.

Writing stuff:

Received a new assignment from my editor at Tangent. As of April, I’ll be reviewing the SciFiction.com stories. Pretty excited about that. I know those reviews get read pretty frequently by subscribers, as well as by the Scifiction.com editor, Ellen Datlow.

And did eleven critiques over the weekend, earning my MPC. britzkrieg was right, there were a lot of short stories in the queue this week.

At 19 critiques on my current offering so far. Starting to form concrete thoughts on the rewrite.

Kristin’s coming over in a bit to watch more Firefly episodes.

Tomorrow will not be Monday. Hurray!