Category Archives: Blog

Monday kicked my ass at work again. Tipped over on the couch early last night and woke up to Matthew handing the phone to me. It was my mother calling from China. Between the wretched overseas connection and me being dazed from waking from a sound sleep, I don’t remember much of the conversation. Except she wants us to make hotel arrangements for her visit.

Not sure if that triggered it or if it was just not my night for peaceful slumber, but when I went back to sleep, my nightscape was filled with really disturbing, really vivid dreams. Nothing horrifying or nightmarish, just unpleasant. Yuck. I hate that unsettled, surreal feeling in the morning after a night of freaky dreams. Morning is when the dreams go away, dammit.

In better news, my muse has returneth–with a vengeance even. Did about 3500 words on the novel. Yes, the novel. I’ve got the whole thing outlined, but I can’t gauge how long it’s going to be. I’m into chapter ten out of twenty-five, which would seem to indicate about halfway with 20K words solidly in the bag, but the major plot complications are yet to come. It feels more like I’m a third or even a quarter of the way into it. I dunno. It’s going to be shortish as novels go in any case, unless I’m really underestimating chapters eleven through twenty-five, which I probably am.

I need less speculation on the novel’s structure and more writing, dammit. This is very different from writing short stories. 3.5K words would be the bulk of a short story and this was just a bitty-teeny plot/character development portion. It doesn’t help that I suspect the new word countage is mostly crap. I hit flow so didn’t bother going over my initial words-on-page, which are usually extremely raw. I need several passes of my internal editor before my prose even approaches zero draft status. I’m a bit anxious about how bad it probably is since I haven’t produced anything new since Dragon*Con. But, at least I got words on the page.

Also finished the rewrite of my “squicky” story and it’s out. Cut about two hundred words and added in a touch more dialogue for clarity. Let’s see if I can sell this baby. Fly, my little one! Fly!

I’m making writing progress. Rah.

Finally! The listing on Shocklines.com for Asylum 3: The Quiet Ward is no longer listed as “out of stock” and now says “usually ships within 2-3 business days.” I don’t know what sort of shipping situation Prime Books had with their printer, but I’m glad it’s working itself out now.

‘Cept it’s still listed as “unavailable” on Amazon.com.

And I have yet to receive my contrib copy. Grumble.

Got an email from my mother today. She and I don’t exactly have a close relationship. She lives in China; I live in Georgia. We send each other birthday cards once a year. Recently she re-married and the first I heard she was seeing anyone, much less engaged, was the wedding announcement.

She and her new husband are planning to swing by America in October and they’re thinking of spending a couple days in Atlanta. She wants to know if Matthew and I are free then to entertain. I can deal with a couple days of my mother’s company. Really I can. And I am curious to meet her husband. Apparently he has a couple sons. I have a pair of step-brothers. Huh.

I haven’t seen my mother in years. I’m not sure how many. Less than ten, more than five, I guess. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see her again and I was okay with that.

Weirdness.

The three-weeker on Critters ended Wednesday and I’ve got . . . fifty-one critiques of my “squicky” story. GLAH! Too. Much. Information. I think my “gore and violence” warning at the top of my manuscript attracted people instead of scaring them away. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. But now I’d like to start on my rewrite, but before I can do that I face the daunting task of trying to run my usual stats and review of all the critiques. My God. Fifty-one opinions is a lot of opinions to wade through.

At the beginning of the first week, I was pretty caught up. I’d already logged and broken down sixteen of the critiques. Normally, that’d be the majority of them, leaving room for maybe five or ten more to trickle in. But the tri-week and Dragon*Con increased my crit number and decreased my attention-paid-to-crits, respectively.

There’s a limited returns factor to this. When I’m procrastinating on doing actual writing because I don’t want to go through the sheer mass of critiques, that’s just plain counterproductive.

Hmm. I’m complaining about getting too many critiques. That’s just wrong. Gurgle. Okay. This weekend I’ll sort through the critiques and hammer out my rewrite. I will send this story out on Monday. Dammit.

In totally unrelated news, our 2nd season Angel DVD set arrived yesterday. Hurray! Angel-viewing marathon to commence. Rah!

On Spec has had one of favorite stories since late March. I finally got my courage up to query them on Monday–after all if I’ve been biting my nails and obsessively checking my mailbox for six months, I’d really like to know if it even got to them–and they inform me that yes they got it, and yes it’s still under consideration. The general editor even said that “no news was good news” and apologized for the long wait.

Gleep. Trying desperately hard to keep my hopes reined in. On Spec has quarterly reading periods and a sort of committee editorial process, although according to their website, consensus isn’t necessary to buy a story. But what that means is the longer a story is held by them, the more seriously it’s being considered as it makes the rounds from editor to editor.

I would LOVE for On Spec to buy this story. Aside from the obvious “woohoo, another sale” thing, I’m extremely fond of this one, and On Spec is the premiere Canadian Spec Fic magazine. They’re a wonderful publication with a prestigious history. It’d be such a wonderful home for my little tale. My fingers are so tightly crossed they’re turning blue.

Gulp.

My day job kicked my ass today. How dare my project folks heap gobs of work on me on a MONDAY? One rewritten module, two updated JCL jobs, and a brand new process (still in development) later, I looked up from my monitor, stunned to realize it was still Monday. Wasn’t that enough work to take me through the whole week already?

On the night job front, after my brief burst of writerly success, I’m slapped back to earth. Got a BFoD from RoF in the mail for one of my very favorite stories. I love this piece but can’t seem to place it. Out it goes again, but I’m quite bummed. It didn’t even make it past Carina, RoF‘s first reader. Damn.

I just don’t understand what sells and what doesn’t. I know I’ve said this before, but the marketing/editorial mindset is just a big ole mystery to me. Stories that I consider light, rattled-off pieces have sold, sometime to pro-markets their first time out, while my favorite, really polished, really meaningful works languish, piling up the rejection slips. It’s enough to make a writer seek a pointy edge to head-thump in frustration. Although I guess I would be more distraught if nothing of mine sold at all, so on that note I’m pretty grateful for the vagaries of the editorial world. Still puzzled as all hell.

Still no muse sightings, although I think I scented her perfume today. She’s skittish, so I’ve put some coffee out to lure her back. Waiting . . . waiting . . .

And it appears I’m back on the caffeine wagon. Not a surprise. I expected to be after Dragon*Con. Just wanted to make sure the big C worked during the convention itself. Now I need it to get me through the aftermath.

I need another holiday.

Went to Robert Walker’s son’s art opening last night. It was way cool. I’d never been to the Dragon & Phoenix before. It’s a huge new-agey bookstore with candles and incense and neat crafty stuff in it. Aside from re-meeting Robert Walker (and having him take my picture), I also had a chance to gab with renowned author Mitchell Graham and his lovely fiancée. They live just fifteen minutes or so away in Marietta! Hope to get a chance to chat with them again sometime soon.

I was rather in awe of the august company I was in, what with Robert having so many books out and Michell talking about his book deal with Spielberg and how he was being courted by Putnam or Harper-Collins and whatnot. Sigh. One day I too will have a mega book deal with a major publishing house . . . yeah, right.

So, to bolster my ego, afterward we drove to Barnes & Noble where I zipped to the SF shelves to hunt for Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown. And there it was! Nestled between Orson Scott Card’s Wyrms and Enchantment! Of course, I did what any writer would do and pulled it from its spine-showing configuration and turned it face-out so I could admire it properly. It really does have a beautiful cover.

My first book presence at a major brick-n-mortar bookstore. I feel like I should’ve brought a camera. Warm-glowyness.

Went home then and watched one of Matthew’s birthday DVDs: Casablanca. That movie really is amazing. It gets better and better each time I see it and find something new to admire.

A very nice Saturday. Today, I think there will be vegging on the couch. I baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies yesterday and we ate half of them. I believe that makes us obligated to eat the other half today.

It’s turning out to be a very nice weekend. Too short, of course, but aren’t they always?

My writing muse, as expected, is still holed up. Probably shell-shocked. She should recover in a week or so, I suspect. I’m eying that magic-realism piece I started before D*C. I’d really like to finish it. Hope when musie perks back up she’s inclined to help me out.

My “squicky” story is still up at Critters. Three weeks is a really, really long time for a story to be up for review. As of this morning, I’ve got thirty-seven critiques of it. Glah! That’s a bit much to assimilate. And there’s still half a week to go! Overall, I’m getting that there’s too much exposition at the end, but aside from that it’s been quite well received. Hurrah.

I did get a critique from one reader who apparently subscribes to Cicada. She replied to my thank-you note of her critique that she didn’t realize I was the author of “The Adventures of Manny the Mailmobile” until she checked out my homepage. She says she really liked “Manny” and even read it two times. It is an utter thrill to discover total strangers who have read and enjoyed stories I’ve written. A very nice happy-glow moment.

I’m very, very glad the weekend’s here. I expect it’ll be a nice, quiet one. Full of skunk snuggles and long naps on the couch. Hobkin seems to have missed me during his time at Dragon*Con skunk camp. He’s been extremely affectionate all week, very clingy and huggy. What a sweetie.

(Edit: After predicting a quiet weekend, I get an out-of-the-blue invite to an art show opening for tonight. One of the authors (Robert W. Walker) I met at D*C’s son is having an exhibit at the Phoenix & Dragon. Robert and I exchanged cards and he sent me an email inviting me attend the opening where he says that he “found me extraordinary.” Now, I ask you, what girl can resist words like that? Matthew was amused. Hmm, what to wear . . .)

Saw the first foreign-language translation of something I wrote today. It’s the Daily Dragon article “Q&A with James Marsters” I wrote about Marster’s Friday panel at Dragon*Con, at this Italian fan site: Bloody Love. My article’s about halfway down the page. Do a FIND on my name and it’ll pop up.

Okay, I’m amused. Yes, they violated my copyright, but they did credit me with the article (and spelled my name right), which significantly defuses any indignation I might otherwise be experiencing. And it’s in Italian. I’ve never had something of mine translated before. Another milestone, even if it is without my explicit approval.

It’s also not the first time an article of mine has been pirated. The Andrew Hallett article I wrote two years ago for the Daily Dragon (“What is it About the Green Ones?”) was also swiped by another fan site. These folks also credited me as the writer, so again, I’m not particularly upset. And they also provided the URL to the Daily Dragon even if they didn’t have the courtesy to link to it. Although they appear to have renamed “Dragon*Con” to the “Daily Dragon Con.” Heh.

I should probably fire off a note to both places and ask that they please request permission next time, and ask the Italian place to provide a link back to the DD–assuming they’ll be able to understand me since I don’t write Italian. Is there anyone on my Friend’s List who can do a quickie translation from English to Italian?

I just can’t bring myself to feeling too hard-assed about this. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be hopping mad and talking legal action if someone stole some of my fiction and posted it in violation of my copyright, but I’m just not as attached to my non-fiction. It sets a bad precedence if I don’t follow up with such incidents, I suppose. But I’m not angry at all. In fact I’m quite amused. Silly ravening Buffy/Angel fans.