I just sold my horror story “The Reign of the Wintergod” to The Asylum Volume 3: The Quiet Ward anthology! Two sales in two days! Yowza 
The Quiet Ward will debut at the Horrorfind convention in Maryland this August!
May this be indication of more floodgates opening. Pleasepleaseplease.
Woohoo!
WOOHOO! 
I just sold “Inspirations End” to the anthology Erotic Fantasies: Tales of the Paranormal.
Hurray!
Color me absolutely, utterly, completely amazed. The transition to Comcast broadband from AT&T went totally smoothly. Our email is forwarding cleanly, and our webpages have been transitioned and even the image links are re-routing correctly. The only stumbling point is that Comcast said that our new homepage URL would be: mywebpages.comcast.net/eugienmatt and it turns out that it’s http://home.comcast.net/~eugienmatt, which I actually prefer, tilda notwithstanding. It’s a lot more similar to our previous address: http://home.attbi.com/~eugienmatt.
So this whole merger thing wasn’t a total fiasco for us after all. Zounds. The switch from Mediaone to AT&T was a lot rockier. I’m not pissed at Comcast when I fully expected to be today. Coolness.
Feeling a bit woozy. I’ve been in so much pain with my TOS this week that I was willing to put up with the allergic symptoms of the Clonazepam in order to get a bit of relief. As it turns out, I don’t think I’m allergic to it after all. I took it on Friday and last night, and I don’t appear to be reacting badly to it. Coolness. The pain’s better too. Although I feel it still there, waiting in the wings.
Our Buffy Season 4 DVDs came on Friday! Yesterday was a huge Buffy vid fest. Watched episodes one through thirteen straight through, only pausing to make dinner and chase Hobkin around the house. Tonight: episodes fourteen through twenty-two. Season four really rocked. When I compare it to season six or seven, I’m left scratching my head wondering what the hell happened. Was Joss just stretched too thin to give Buffy the quality attention it needed?
Haven’t done any writing this weekend. Trying to give my hands and arms a rest. But there’s a story beginning to percolate in my head. I’m waiting for it to coalesce a little more before trying to get it out. Right now I’ve got a character, a mood, and a world, and bits and pieces of plot. But the bits of plot are really fragmented. And I think there’s a theme I want to explore, but I’m not sure how it ties in.
I don’t usually write like that, but for some reason, that’s how the story is taking shape. Maybe it’s because of what I’m reading. Right now I’m in the middle of Greg Bear’s Slant. Bear has a very dense style that is both off-putting and intriguing. I like his world building but I’m not all that ga ga about his characters. It’s a strange read for me. I, like most readers I imagine, prefer to fall in love with a character and then experience their world and adventures from their POV. I feel like I (or Bear) am (is) going about this completely backwards. I don’t care that much about the characters, but the world and what’s happening is way cool. Whatever works, I guess.
We’ve been picking a bumper crop of wild blackberries from the sprawling brambles in our backyard. I don’t know how many we’ve harvested–enough for three desserts of vanilla ice cream and blackberries, plus the first bowl with just sugar. Am amazing amount of berries for plants that sprang up veritably overnight and that we haven’t watered, weeded, or fertilized. I love having wild blackberries growing in our backyard!
And Comcast’s “merger” with AT&T’s broadband Internet service impacts us on Monday. That’s the day when they’re switching all our email from @attbi.com to @comcast.net and our homepage URL to http://mywebpages.comcast.net/eugienmatt. They say they’ll be moving our web pages for us and will automatically redirect from our attbi URL. I’m more than a little anxious about how smooth this transition will be. Crossed fingers that this will buck the norm of being a lunatic fiasco.
From The Write Hemisphere (6/27/2003):
The press release from 3F Publications and Catalyst Press regarding their merger into deMoNic Books:
Nicole Thomas (owner, 3FPublications), and Monica O’Rourke (owner, Catalyst Press) completed the merger of their respective publishing companies, under the new name of deMoNic Books, earlier this week. The new management have completely re-evaluated their publication schedules, as well as the titles each imprint has slated for publication. Several anthologies have already been cut from the line- up, which include the cancellations of: Spirits & Sleuths, Cockroach Suckers, Fresh Blood, Obscure Visions and Lingering Dementia.
With financial hardships extending from residential to commercial, a small press stands little chance of lasting a year. O’Rourke and Thomas hope to beat that by uniting their companies under the parent company of deMoNic Books. The focus is now on just novels and short story collections, with less emphasis on anthologies. It is hoped that the restructuring of both companies under deMoNic Books will result in a stronger business entity and be in a better and stronger position to serve the horror community.
Further updates on publication schedules will follow.
reudaly didn’t you have something at Cockroach Suckers? It looks like that title’s going the way of the dodo.
Dang but news like this makes me really worried about the state of the publishing industry. Monica is a members of one of my writers groups. She hasn’t mentioned this merger yet, but grapevine sounds indicate it was pretty sudden. Hope DeMoNic Books works out. We need more quality, professionally-run publishers, not less.
dude_the has this to say about pre-ordering Blasphemy:
“Pre-ordering the Blasphemy anthology changed my life. Besides the warm glow it gave me for purchasing something that would make my small town pastor blush, it finally gave a sense of purpose to my life, something to look forward to. Lord knows, there is precious little else to look forward to in this world. You know, I think it also may have helped me keep the hairline I had when I was 26.”
–Paul from the Midwest, a qualified expert
Thanks, dude_the! I giggled right out loud.
Hurray! My excerpt of Troubadour and the Moon is finally up at the Eggplant Literary Productions’ Library.
I’ve heard that the editor/publisher of Eggplant is having some problems. I hope she manages to pull out of them and can keep Eggplant going strong. Eggplant has been a major player in the semi-pro scene for years now. And the way they treat writers and conduct business is way more professional than a lot of pro-paying markets out there.
Got my SFWA 2003-2004 Dues Renewal in the mail today. The form has in big all caps at the bottom of the page (past all the remit $50, blah blah blah stuff) “TURN THIS PAGE OVER – MORE ON THE BACK.” I obediently turned the page over . . . and the back was blank.
Hmm. Am I missing some important information or is this some strange writerly joke?
Just got word from the Writers of the Future contest. Been seeing the responses popping up at the Rumor Mill from this last quarter. Only started getting hopeful this morning. Sigh. In the mail today:
“Your entry was a quarter-finalist though it did not place in the final selections for the 2nd quarter 2003 (January 1 – March 31, 2003).”
So, hurray. I once again made it past the first round. But I didn’t make it as far as before. Quarter-finalists are under semi-finalists so I don’t even get a shiny certificate.
Overall prognosis: hurray, but still, dagnabit!
I need ice cream.
Hobkin woke me up this AM demanding his breakfast. After snarfing up his bell peppers, cucumbers, and broccoli, and gnawing on his carrot slices but not eating them (finicky skunk, sigh), he went rampaging around the house, digging up the carpet in the guest bathroom (don’t get me started on the foolishness of having a carpeted bathroom), pulling down anything he could reach on the coffee table, and attacking my feet when he thought I wasn’t watching him. After that exhausting morning’s activity, he’s all tuckered out. Now he’s sound asleep making the occasional snuffling noise in my lap. So now I’m pinned at the computer by a skunk. Typical.
Haven’t done any writing all weekend. Part of it is that I’m trying to rest my arms. I think my TOS is beginning to get better. Trying not to overdo it so that it continues to do so. The rest of it is that I cranked out several stories in quick succession and they’re all in the re-write/critique process right now. For some reason, my muse stays pretty quiescent when I’m in re-write mode. Probably just as well. Although I feel like I’m slacking when I’m not cranking out new word countage.
