Category Archives: Blog

I just sold “An Evening, a Gameshow, and Praxis” and “My Friend is a Lesbian Zombie” to Here & Now. They’re due out in issues 7 and 8 respectively. Woohoo!

Two sales in one day!!

Well, I’m still straight-jacket and padded-cell free. And day one of my mother’s visit is over. So far, it’s actually going pretty well. I think her marriage has mellowed her.

Finally figured out her husband’s last name. Still don’t know if she took it as her last name too. Also found out a little about him. He’s a professor of electrical engineering at Beijing University. Quite a prestigious background from what I can make out. He seems really nice actually. He didn’t talk much at first, but he started talking more towards the end of the evening. I was worried he didn’t speak English, but of course, he does. And quite well. And he seems to have a sense of humor, which I hope he imparts some of to my mother.

Amusing how they know each other. They were elementary school chums. Yep, they met in elementary school in China way back when. That’s actually rather sweet. I also discovered that my mother used to play professional basketball for China. I’m totally stunned by that revelation. But apparently she did the pro-basketball circuit for two years. Huh. She never told me. But then, what else is new? She didn’t tell me anything when I was a kid, under the misapprehension I was “too young to understand.” *snort*

Went out to eat at Satay House. They’d never had Thai food before. There was a lot of dithering over the menu, but when the food came, they commented that it was a lot like Chinese food. Heh. Then we brought them back to our place and showed them our home and Hobkin. My mother poked Hobkin in the face, which I now remember is her way of introducing herself to animals. She jabs them in the nose. For some reason, most animals don’t mind this and think she’s great. Hobkin was totally “WTF is this woman poking me in the face for? Mommmm, make her stop!” He didn’t snap at her, which surprised the hell out of me, because if any other stranger had poked him in the nose he would’ve at least huffed or growled at them, but there was some definite tail raising. I told her to stop poking him in the face. Hobkin seems to have forgiven her, although he was a bit freaked at having strangers in “his territory” again.

My mother brought a photo album with her of me when I was around ten years old. Aside from amusing Matthew to no end (he thinks I was an adorable little girl; I think I was a total dork.) It had a lot of pictures of me with my guinea pig. I really loved that piggy. I’m glad to have the pictures.

I gave her and my step-father (that still feels weird to type) a copy of Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown and the issue of Leading Edge that “Second Daughter”‘s in.

Also discovered that macular degeneration runs in my family. Good to know. I’ll tell my ophthalmologist the next time I see her.

So far, this isn’t so bad. But now we gotta figure out what to do with them today.

My mother and her new husband are due to fly in this evening. But I’m not dwelling on that. Ohhhmmmm. Ohhhhmm.

I was having problems breathing again last night, so I thought “screw this” and took a clonazepam, something I haven’t done in quite some time. Knocked me right out and I slept the sleep of the totally drugged. I feel much better now. Nothing like a benzodizepine to put stress in its place. Just have to remember not to make a habit of that. And as tempting as it sounds, I am going to refrain from popping one right before my mother’s due in.

We did a lot of last-minute cleaning yesterday, including me finally putting the last bits of Dragon*Con attire away. Yeah, yeah, I suck at housework. We were going to give Hobkin a bath, but the opportunity never presented itself. We might still try to give him one later today, but if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. He smells like celery and bell peppers. And his coat’s all soft and fluffy. He doesn’t really look like he needs a bath. Right now he’s slumped on my lap, being a total fuzzalump, which has soothing properties all by itself.

10 crits so far on Critters on my dark fantasy offering. And they’ve all been pretty positive. Huh. Well, good.

Also got a glowing reject from Black Gate. The editor said the story was terrific and exciting, but lagged in the middle. And he didn’t get the final line. Sigh. I keep getting really nice rejects from these guys, but I don’t think I’m getting any closer to selling to them. And he didn’t ask to see more this time. I suspect I’m deep into rejectomancy now, but still. Oh well. Out it goes again on Monday, err Tuesday. Monday’s Columbus Day, isn’t it? No mail service. Drat.

I feel like I’ve lost my weekend to this mother visiting business. I’m looking forward to going back to work on Monday. How sad is that?

So, okay, I’m pretty happy about my recent sale to the ELP Library, but my mother’s going to be arriving for her visit in a couple days. My chest feels tight and I’m having a hard time sucking a full breath of air in, and earlier today I had a grandmother of a headache. Ain’t stress grand?

It’s so frustrating. I thought I was past the point where she could affect me like this. Apparently not.

Calmblueocean, damn it.

Glad this is my short week. If I had to be at work tomorrow, I’d probably implode. As is, I needed sugar (Skittles from the vending machine at work), caffeine (two large cups of French Vanilla coffee), and drugs (Aleve) to get me through this afternoon.

Writing stats:

Finished a flash piece I started a long time ago. Figured flash-length was about what my attention span could handle. I’d forgotten about it and found it lying around my hard drive, waiting for a spit polish and shine. Out into the world it goes.

Also compiled a couple more submissions to the ELP Library and sent them to Raechel. I just love that venue! It’s such a perfect way to showcase excerpts.

About 100 words on the magic realism piece, and some of those were anti-words. I can’t focus. I can edit and re-write, but I’m having a hard time coming up with new word countage. Maybe the floodgates will open after my mother leaves.

Also, my dark fantasy piece is up on Critters this week. Not the best week to be getting critical feedback. Oh well. “What’s another straw?” said the overburdened donkey.

2003 seems to be the year of extremely short fiction for me. I’ve written and sold a lot of flash and short-shorts. Ironic because I was telling my father-in-law (who is also a writer) last Christmas that I just couldn’t write anything shorter than 2K and still have it be a complete story, and now I’m just cranking them out. Go figure.

Wonder if next year will be the year of the novel. That would be nice. Although I’m not giving up on the prospect of completing The Novel this year. Except I’ve put it down again, and it seems unlikely that I’ll be picking it up again any time soon.

Think I’ll go cling to Hobkin and Matthew while I stress about my mother’s impending visit.

After being massively bummed by the MicroShocks news, I got a major upper email from the editor of the Eggplant Literary Productions Library. She’s buying my excerpt “Visiting Day”! Woohoo!

Well, I’ve hit another writing milestone, officially. A market that I had a story accepted to bit it. 3F Publications/Demonic Books the publisher of the MicroSHOCKS anthology announced that they’re effectively folding. The editor said that he will continue to look for another publisher. But still . . .

Damn.

Writing stats for the weekend:

700 words on the magic realism piece. I just can’t seem to hit “flow” on this one, although I like what I’ve got so far. I even know how I want it to end, but I’m struggling with the getting there part. If I ever finish this story, I think it’ll be a good one. Big if, though.

Five queries to markets that have held manuscripts of mine for 16 months (query #3 to this one), 10 months, 7 months, 6 months, and 5 months, respectively. I’ve been putting these off because I hate querying, but once I started, I got all of them out of the way.

And I did a lot of reorganizing and clean-up of my writing files, both virtual and hard-copy. Had a lot of duplicate files with different names, previous drafts in my final draft folders, and other clutter and messiness. Neatened everything up, made back-ups, and filed away all my USPS receipts.

So, despite the rather piddly word countage, I was productive. But I would have liked to have cranked out more words this weekend.

Yesterday was fun. Fairly mundane and domestic, but nice and a bit silly. We decided that we should get out of the house for a bit, but weren’t sure what to do. Office Max had sent us a coupon ($10 off on a purchase of $20 or more), so we decided to make that our entertainment. In the hallowed halls of the office supply store, we giggled like children and tickled each other, made silly noises, and overall had a blast. And we ended up buying a box of #10 envelopes (’cause I was running low for SASEs), 250 sheets of heavy matte paper, an 8-pack of AAA batteries, and a large container of gummy bears. Then we went to the grocery store and bought some frozen pizzas and chips, and came home and vegged in front of the television with Hobkin, snacking on junk food and watching Fierce Creatures and Blood: the Last Vampire (because it is Halloween season, after all).

Matthew’s re-filled the hot tub, and it’s all primed for use. Think we’ll a nice, long soak in it today. I do love Fall in Georgia.