Why should I express my rage and horror about the war when Peter Freundlich says it so much better HERE?
Thanks to mouseferatu for the setting-it-down-on-LJ-so-people-can-link-to-it part.
I’m not dwelling on the war. Refusing to dwell on the war. I have a friend who’s in the air force reserves. They haven’t called him for active duty, but it’s hanging there, the possibility that they might.
Agh. Not dwelling on the war!
So . . . this week has seen several important holidays:
Hob Day/St. Patrick’s day on Monday
Feast of the Lady on Tuesday
The Vernal Equinox yesterday
And Ostara on Saturday
To celebrate, Matthew and I put up our Spring decorations. We bought a topiary bush and adorned it with berry sprigs and a string of butterfly lights, and have hung a pair of light strings over the fireplace encased in these little wicker balls so the resultant shadow gives the room a forest glade ambiance.
And, since Spring is all about renewal and feasting, we’ve feasted.
On the menu this week: fresh baked beer bread, homemade bourbon balls (actually, we didn’t have any bourbon so substituted scotch and when my back was turned, Matthew sploshed a little extra in than the recipe called for, so there’s a definite kick to these), delicious apple and parsnip soup, Matthew’s amazing eggplant parmesan, parsnip cakes, and fresh asparagus and plum tomatoes sautéed in olive oil over pasta. Yummy.
Happy Spring everyone.
It’s officially a novelette now. 9600 words at end-of-day yesterday (Ack! That’s 11,000 by manuscript count.) and still going strong. It does indeed look likely that I’m going to hit “novella” with this one. But I sincerely doubt there’s enough story to make it to bona fide novel.
Fuck.
I did decide to introduce a new POV character. I think I can get away with it in a work of this length, although all my short story instincts are railing at me. I’ll assess how successful and necessary the POV switch is when the thing’s done.
I find it interesting that once I decided (with resignation) that this work was going to be a novella, I didn’t balk the way I usually do when I neared the 7.5K mark. I just kept plunking along. There’s a barrier in the writing part of my brain that disheartens me when I start creeping into the “longer than a short story” range. It’s just that it’s so hard to sell longer works. Hell, bucketfuls of markets dry up at the greater-than-5K-marker, much less the novelette/novella range.
But with this one, I don’t care. I want to write this story to completion, dammit.
I’m almost over the climax, soon to be edging into the denouement. Wonder how far I’ll get this weekend.
Not that I’ll have all that much free time between the Dragon*Con staff meeting and the Fantasm shindig . . .
Received the draft proofs of my story from Phobos yesterday. Caught one error and I noticed that the editor (I assume Keith, the Phobos editor, and not OSC) de-contracted a few of my contractions. It’s not a biggie and only occured a handful of times, so I didn’t raise a stink, but it doesn’t sit completely well with me. I think my original prose reads better, but obviously Keith didn’t agree. Oh well. He’s the editor. And I doubt it’ll affect the readability one way or the other. It’s just a couple incidences of “she’d” to “she had” and suchlike. I suspect only I’d notice the difference. Hrmph.
The whole Phobos anthology project is moving along at a good clip. In his note, Keith said that he’d like to get the approved proofs to the production people by Friday of this week, or maybe Monday.
In other news, Hobkin is shedding his winter undercoat. Except, unlike other animals that poof their fur all over the furniture and their human’s clothing, he’s getting all snarled and matted. I’m having to brush the dead fur out. I think I need to get a better brush. The bristles on the one I’m using aren’t long enough to reach the really deep mats, and every time he sees it, he gets all tail-up and defensive. I feel like I’m torturing him. Last night I had Matthew help me hold him so I could brush him, and Hobkin struggled and wiggled, and tried to bite the brush out of my hand. When we finally let him go, he zipped under his hutch and sulked there for most of the evening. I felt terrible.
I just got an acceptance email from a newish British magazine called Here & Now. They’re buying my short story “When the Lights Go Out.” Two fiction sales in a row in the same weekend!
They’re paying me in pounds. I’m not quite sure how to manage the exhange from pounds to dollars, but I’ll figure something out.
The issue my story is slated for is the August 2003 one.
In other news, Hobkin has learned a new trick. And apparently he’s still growing, even if it’s just a wee, little bit. Usually, things placed on top of the coffee table are (were) fairly safe from his grasping paws if put close to the middle of the table. Last night, we had Kristen, a wonderful person Matthew met on the Buffy Board he frequents who lives in Athens, over for gabbing and various Buffy/Angel viewing. I had just poured everyone a round of soft drinks, and I stepped back into the kitchen for a moment when Hobkin took that opportunity to latch his paws on the edge of my glass full of pink lemonade, and dump it. Fortunately, he didn’t pull the glass down on top of himself, but he did manage to drench himself and the carpet. And then he began happily helping Matthew and I clean it up. He was quite miffed when I wiped him down and locked him away. Silly, lemonade-flavored skunk. Fortunately, it was diet, so everything isn’t all sticky now.
Hobkin’s asleep in my lap making little skunkie snoring sounds. It’s terribly cute. Last night I fell asleep on the couch and he crawled up on the cushion I was using as a pillow and slowly edged his way into my arms. He and I slept with him playing teddy skunk for hours, until he suddenly rolled over and fell off the couch. Poor little guy. He landed on his feet and was totally unhurt, but I looked down to see him standing there with a dazed, perplexed look about him. I reached down to pick him back up, but he squiggled away and ran off to sulk under his hutch. I think he blamed me for his plummet. Silly beastie. But apparently he’s forgiven me this morning.
Yesterday we went out after dinner to pick up some more Ostara decorations (doesn’t everyone celebrate Ostara?). Our timing couldn’t be worse. Apparently a tanker truck overturned on I-85 across all lanes in one direction, and the overflow bottlenecked the roads for miles around. A twenty-five-minute drive turned into two hours. Gah.
I just noticed on the Phobos site that there’s links set up for a “signing tour” for the anthology (that go to a “coming soon” sort of message when clicked). That implies that they’re planning such a thing for this release. They had one for the first anthology, so I shouldn’t be surprised. But I’ve never been on a signing tour. What if I sit down to sign and no one shows up?
Phobos just updated their website with cover art and info on the anthology: Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown! In addition to it being edited by Orson Scott Card, Larry Niven’s short story, “The Coldest Place,” will be included as a bonus story. I’m going to be published alongside Larry Niven!
And, unless there’s another cyberpunk tale in amongst the winners, one of the stories highlighted in the write-up is mine:
“. . . From a gritty cyber-noir tale of dangerous technology to a parable for peace in the distant future, the stories in Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown continue the Phobos mission of bringing devoted SF readers the best brave-new fiction by emerging authors . . .”
I’m pretty sure mine is the “gritty cyber-noir tale”!
So apparently I’m in sporadic LJ mode. But let’s see if I can’t get a little more caught up:
News and updates:
I just sold an excerpt of a story titled “Troubadour and the Moon” to the Eggplant Literary Productions Library. Woo!
I don’t usually submit to online markets (with a few notable exceptions) but this one caught my imagination. Here’s a blurb from their guidelines:
“Inspired by such fantasy libraries as those found in Robin McKinley’s Beauty and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Eggplant Literary Productions has decided to open its own library. The shelves will be filled with books of the other: books that have never existed and that haven’t been written yet. What I am looking for are excerpts from such books.”
People have asked me about seeing my work online, and I’ve always had to “alas” them. So when I heard of this new market, I thought “what better way to put examples of my work in an online arena than to a paying market that publishes excerpts?” So, hurray! A sale, and more online exposure. Writerly goodness.
Also, I got an email from the publicity person from Phobos:
“ . . . I will be working on a publicity campaign for your work with Phobos. I’ll be contacting various media outlets in your hometown as well as throughout the nation (we’re gonna make you famous!). . . .”
Woo! I’m part of a publicity campaign!
We also bought a new, big screen TV. Okay, the deal was that we weren’t going to upgrade our downstairs set until I’d made enough off my writing to pay for it. Well, then Best Buy had this amazing sale paired with a great financing deal. Same as cash for two years. And, since I’d already earned half of the cost from my sale to Phobos, I’m thinking that I really OUGHT to be able to earn the second half in two years. So we now have this TV in our house! I can point to it and say “my writing paid for that.” And Matthew has stopped making “the TV’s too small” noises, and is instead making “ooo, shiiiny” ones.
We also got tickets to Varekai the new Cirque de Soleil show during its tour through Atlanta. We’re total Cirque de Soleil heads. We’ve seen Saltimbanco, Quidam, Alegria, O, and Mystere (several times). They put on an amazing show.
In less good news, our ISP, AT&T broadband, is being bought/merging with Comcast. That means my email address and our homepage URL will be changing. AT&T claims that they’ll give us 90 days overlap between when the new account goes up and the old one dies, but markets routinely take more than 90 days to respond. I foresee much anxiety and lost email. Not to mention the annoyance of having to republish our website again. Fuckwad.
On the health front, I’m doing okay. The Prednisone is still doing a roller coaster job on my emotional equilibrium, but I’m more or less dealing with it.
Had an appointment with a neurosurgeon yesterday to discuss my Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. He’s referring me to a neurologist who specializes in it. But he didn’t recommend surgery to remove my wing spurs/tentacle stubs (thankfully, as I wouldn’t want to undergo it), so that’s all good.
Yesterday, we had a fire drill at my place of business. No biggie as I’m in lovely, warm Georgia, it was beautiful outside and I didn’t mind standing in the shade of the huge pine trees that surround the office building. But then, as we were walking back, I stepped on some lawn area that looked flat and even, but wasn’t. Down I went. Thump. Didn’t hurt anything but my dignity, but that got dinged pretty good.
Then I discovered that I’m allergic to the new meds my Rheumatologist put me on. My hands and fingers are swelling and I’m all blotchy. Lovely. I’m off the stupid meds and taking Benadryl (which knocks me out in nothing flat) to ease my system past the allergic freak out it’s having. But I swear, I think I’m getting worse. This med lingers in the system for a long time. And just for more laughs and giggles, I don’t know when I’ll be able to get off the Prednisone now. ARGH.
Stupid physiology.
I got my very first official fan mail today! Bounce!
Dear Eugie,
I missed the announcement of your story’s publication, but recognized your name in the current issue of The Leading Edge, and read your story first. With much pleasure. Keep them coming, and help maintain print SF/F.
The sender is someone from Critters who critiqued my last submission, but not one of my regulars. Someone who isn’t a close friend or family member read something I had published!
