Category Archives: Blog

Still stoked about yesterday’s good tidings.

Writing Stats:
The Creative Loafing story is currently winging its way to the editorial offices. I was feeling masochistic, so I went over the story after mailing it off. Nothing like finding errors or edits you’d like to make but can’t anymore. As it turns out, I only found one thing I wanted to tweak, and it was a small, sentence-level decision, so I’m not feeling too badly about it.

Also had to try to find new places to send the two stories that didn’t make it to the Phobos finalists round. The market I was planning on sending the first of them to is closed to submissions until next week. I guess I’ll have to sit it out until they reopen. The other story is fairly new, but I’m unsure of its market niche. I’ll send it to F&SF while I dwell on other options. It’s a long shot, but then isn’t everything in the publishing biz?

Did about 100 words of polishing and fine-tuning on the SF piece. It’s in better shape now, but I’m still dissatisfied with it. It’s due to go up at Critters next week. Hoping other eyes will be able to see how to fix it or at least what’s wrong with it that’s bothering me so much.

And dude_the sent the pictures he took:
Hobkin all curled up, asleep on the couch:

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I just heard from Phobos! My story “Tried as an Adult” made it to this year’s finalist round of their fiction contest. I’m totally stoked!

Nail biting to commence. I believe they hope to have final judging completed in time for Christmas. Winning again would be a truly fantastic Christmas present. Judges this year include Orson Scott Card again, David Brin, and Stanley Schmidt.

Just got an email from the editor of Song of the Siren. She wants to buy second print rights to “Second Daughter” (which initially appeared in Leading Edge). Hurray! My first reprint sale!

Patrick left on Sunday after muffins and as much coffee as I could get into him and dude_the left yesterday evening on the late-night flight out of Hartsfield. I hate goodbyes.

dude_the took many pictures, mostly of Hobkin, with his new digicam. He’s promised to email them to me.

Spent my writing time yesterday looking for my muse. I think she stepped out for a cigarette and maybe a tall latte, and someone hijacked her. Or she bailed on me, the strumpet. I tried caffeine to lure her back. Then I tried more caffeine. Then I tried sugar to go with the caffeine (and we bid fond adieu to the last of the Halloween Pixie Stix). Result: No muse, but a profound case of the twitches.

So I said: “Screw the harlot. I can write just fine without her.”

Writing stats from yesterday:
100-words, all of them crappy, and all of them blood drenched from my bleeding fingertips.

*whimper*

Hey, I’m not proud. I begged. “Muse? I didn’t mean what I said. Please come back. I’ll make you a brimful pot of Harry & David’s Moose Munch coffee. And we’ll have chocolate and pie. Muse?”

Fortunately, today she took pity on me, assisted by a clever idea brainstormed by Matthew.

Writing stats for today:
2500 words to the theme of “dirt” as per the Creative Loafing Fiction contest (thanks for the head’s up britzkrieg!) and the story is completed. I’m under a very tight deadline as the hardcopy manuscript needs to be with the editors by 5pm Friday. “No exceptions,” they say. So I had Matthew first-reader it as my only reader feedback, eschewing my usual route through Critters. I’ll send it out tomorrow, hoping it’s not too raw. If (when) it comes back, tail between its legs, I’ll send it through the Critters queue for fine-tuning before tossing it out to the usual ravening hoards.

So I hit writing flow, with a few snags here and there. I think I work well with a deadline. Or maybe it was all the coffee.

dude_the and our good friend Patrick from New Orleans are here. I’m so happy to see both of them again!

Friday was excellent fun. britzkrieg joined us for a costumed post-Halloween get-together. Bummed that her SO couldn’t make it, but he’s suffering from crutch-necessitating pain and badness and bowed out. We didn’t watch any of the movies we had been going to, instead putting on Dracula 2000 and Queen of the Damned as background so we could all chat. And then I discover that britzkrieg really doesn’t like vampire flicks. Ooops. But at least they were only background. Lots of excellent conversation and britzkrieg had brought a fabulous selection of fermented hops-related beverages. We did eventually sit down to watch The Uninvited, so there was actual movie watching at our movie-viewing shindig.

Saturday we lounged around the house, getting up-to-date with dude_the and Patrick. And last night we played in one of Matthew’s traditional Halloween RPG games. There was death, there was mayhem, and there were goblins. And we beat the bad guys and solved the puzzle . . . after a painful injury and a nasty limb-rending incident. Rah!

The boys are still sleeping now. Late night gaming followed by later night gabbing, and I’m the only one who the morning calls to, so everyone else is zoned. But I assume people will start stirring soon. Patrick has to take off back for New Orleans in a few hours and I want to make sure he’s well fed and caffinated before he sets off on his long drive.

Hobkin’s been very well behaved for having all these new people invading his territory. We’ve also been dosing him with Rescue Remedy, so that might account for some of it. But he’s been very snuggly and fairly minimal with the amok skunk/stomping behavior.

So this gets my vote for a very good weekend. Zero writing accomplished, but masses of fun had.

Since the skunk show was last weekend, we didn’t celebrate Halloween properly. This weekend we’re having some folks by to make merry and scary to observe the occasion as it should be feted.

Waiting for dude_the to call now. He was supposed to have arrived last night, but he got bounced from his flight so had to reschedule to the early AM flight this morning. He should be calling any minute now to let us know to go fetch him from the Marta station.

Writing stats:
Started on the rewrite of the SF piece. Made some inroads, but I’m still dissatisfied with it.

Not much else to report. Got a couple encouraging rejections from the usual suspects, but a nice “no” is still a “no.” Onward!

Just got word from Cricket. They liked my rewrite and are buying “Winter’s Daughter,” my re-telling of the Japanese Snow Woman folktale! WOOHOO!!

The editor also said that “Razi” is still floating through their editorial. Eee!

Raided the Halloween candy and swiped a few Pixie Stix to take to work with me this morning. Had five of them with my coffee. The morning went by in a blur of buzzy, bright, shiny, pinpoint-prick of consciousness. Whee! But oh, ouch, my head hurts now.

Got the contract for Blasphemy at last. The whole U.K. versus U.S. thing had me a little perplexed, but the publishers/editors are good at communicating. They wanted more rights than I realized they were asking for initially (exclusive worldwide print rights versus first U.K. print rights, or even first anthology rights), which seemed to exclude reprint marketing for the duration of the contract (2 years). This would be problematic if I wanted to submit “In Suffering Lies Salvation” to an annual “best of” anthology or even to include it in a collection of my own works (pipe dreams, yes, but still . . . ), but upon discussion, the editors/publishers are fine with that sort of reprint. They just don’t want the stories mass reprinted for the first six months to a year that Blasphemy is first published and if it’s reprinted in a “best of” antho, they want credit for where it first appeared. Fair ’nuff. So, that clarified, I dotted my I’s and crossed my T’s, and the contract is winging its way to Scotland.

I still don’t know how I’m going to handle the whole pounds to dollars exchange, but I’ll deal with that later. Soon, soon, I shall have something published overseas! *cackle*

I’ve started checking my mailbox for my contributor’s copy of and check for In the Outposts of Beyond. The publisher’s website has been updated, and it’s officially available. Rah!

Also got a chance to see the artwork for the cover more clearly. Couldn’t really make it out before. I see now that it’s a cat peering into a fishbowl that has mermaids swimming around in it. And there are marbles (or perhaps they’re planets or maybe bubbles?) spinning around everywhere, including the cat’s eyes. I guess I can sort of see the connection to an otherworldly tavern theme in that. No, wait, I really can’t. Oh well, it’s colorful and cool. And the editor said he’s going to try to get the title on specialty bookshelves as well as available online with the regular players (Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc.).

Also got to see the full TOC listing. I’m sharing pages with Bruce Boston, Ralan Conley, and fellow writer email buddies Terrie Relf and Justin Staunchfield. I recognized a bunch of other names on the TOC as well, although I’m not as familiar with their works.

Shiny, anthology goodness!