Category Archives: Blog

I’ve spent the last two nights re-writing one of my favorite stories from 2000. It’s the strongest thing I wrote, thematically and characteristically, from that year, and yet it hasn’t found a home even though two others of my stories from that year, weaker ones in my opinion, have. It has received several encouraging and in one case glowing personal rejections from good, professional markets, but it’s always been passed over.

It’s at a market currently which I expect to reject it in a matter of days (deadline for final decisions looms). So I took it out, dusted off my re-writer’s hat, and took a good hard look at it.

I ended up culling nearly one thousand words and giving it a major shake-up from beginning to end. The story, theme, and characters are still the same, but I polished up the prose and really streamlined it. Hurray and ouch. On the one hand, I’m pleased because I’ve really come a long way with my writing in a couple years, but on the other I wish I’d done this earlier, before I’d sent it to so many markets. Would those markets that rejected it buy it in the shape it’s in now? Maybe, maybe not. But I think it’s much better.

I really like this story. I hope I can find a good home for it.

Had my Rheumatologist appointment yesterday. It was actually pretty confidence inspiring. My GP doesn’t seem to be inclined to do anything other than the “she’s sick, give her antibiotics” song and dance. She asks one or two questions, looks into my ears and throat, and that’s it.

But the Rheumatologist was extremely thorough. He grilled me about my past medical history–and was quite scandalized that I hadn’t been referred to him sooner–as well as all of the symptoms I’ve been experiencing. And then he ordered up a barrage of tests including a chest x-ray and eight (eight, ouch) vials of blood for a full spectrum test. And he had me scamper back with the x-ray films straight out of radiology so he could look at them immediately.

Plus, I like him. He was sort of funny in a fatherly/grandfatherly sort of way, with a definite huff and snort about him that’s both charming and intimidating. He was also quite fascinated and amused by the fact that I have a skunk, told me it was a good thing I’d gotten a skunk and not a dog (this while he was perusing my allergy test history.) And he also gave me some more pills to take. A burst and dwindle 6-day supply of steroids, just in case the chest x-ray, which was clear, didn’t catch the underlying cause of my cough. So, hurray for the Rheumatologist.

Read and critiqued the worst, most offensive story I have ever seen on Critters the other day. I re-wrote my critique three times to de-rant it and it was still pretty castigating. The story itself was really badly written, but the part that got me was how appallingly sexist and anti-gay it was. But it wasn’t sexist and anti-gay in an in-your-face, I have a point to make sort of way, but in a this-is-just-how-it-is sort of way, which freaks me more. The author seemed to just assume that women were ruled by their hormones, their brains nothing but weak little organs geared towards obsessing about clothing and other people’s fat deposits. And the anti-gay sentiments! Agh! Women who don’t wear make-up and high heels must be lesbians, and a woman isn’t attractive if they don’t wear such things, and of course a gay person going straight would obviously get accolades for doing so from her co-workers and the medical profession . . . and . . . and . . . gah! I’m just agog thinking about it again. I nearly put it down in disgust over half a dozen times. I deserve ice cream and cookies for slogging through that whole thing.

Cross posted to

This just came down from my skunkchat list. Los Angeles County is trying to keep a qualified wildlife rehabilitator, Share Bond, from renewing her permit because she works with skunks. I am familiar with this woman’s work. Among other things, Share gets rescued skunks across the California border in a sort of underground railroad. Skunks are illegal to own as pets in CA and when they are discovered, the animal control people hand them over to her to convey across state lines instead of putting them down. She will no longer be able to do this and her wildlife rehabilitation work if her request is denied.

Please sign the petition to help her get her permit.

Click HERE to sign the petition.

Been napping with Hobkin for most of the evening. I’m not sure if a seven pound fuzz creature on my chest has actually helped my bronchial clarity, but he was warm and soft. Until he stuck his nose in my ear.

Now, I’m a bit wired. I feel disjointed, like my thought processes are ricocheting around my head and colliding with each other. Bing. Maybe it’s just the fever.

I suspect I’m just going to ramble for a bit, so I’ll be merciful and put everything else behind an lj-cut.

Continue reading →

Went to work today. Shouldn’t have. Got woozy and light-headed peering at my monitor. I stuck it out for three hours, just long enough to get a little testing in order so I could hand it off to one of my team members, before throwing in the towel. Driving home was a little scary. I think I made some questionable driving decisions, but fortunately there wasn’t a lot of traffic.

In other news, I got email notification from an anthology market to inform me that they got my submission. They also said in their note:

“I will be reading it this weekend…although I must say, when I opened the story and read the first line, it certainly got my attention. Nice beginning.”

So now my hopes are soaring . . . on the basis of a complimentary sentence on my opening line. Argh.

Rejectomancy and acceptomancy are dual roads to writerly insanity.

Woke up this morning with a fever, headache, and my knees and my fingers swollen and painful. It’s official, I’m in a full-blown lupus flare-up. Whee.

So I’m staying home today. Man, I just cannot shake this sick thing. It’s been three weeks!

And further suckitude, I really needed to be at work today. Big testing, late project. Argh.

I feel like I’m fixating on the enthusiasm with which my lungs are trying to leap free of my chest, but it’s hard not to. It’s like my lungs are in a perpetual state of spasm or impending spasm. It sucks. Got an appointment to see my GP tomorrow. Although I wonder if I should see a specialist. I’ve learned more about Lupus by poking around online than I have from any of my normal run-of-the-mill doctors. It’s such an uncommon condition, I tend to think a specialist would give me better care. Then again, most medical personnel point me to a Rheumatologist when I tell them I’ve got Lupus, and joint problems aren’t my main problem (yet). I dunno.

Anyway, we went out to see Chamber of Secrets yesterday. There was quite a range of ages in the theater. And all of them were well-behaved! Not a single screaming, wailing, or talking audience member for the whole film. Neat.

I think they did a better job translating book to screenplay with this one. They followed the book pretty slavishly, but not to the point of the first movie, which I think included more side bits than it really ought to have for pacing’s sake. Very pretty, of course. Although Rupert Grint, the actor who plays Ron Weasley, looked constipated for most of the film. I tend to blame the director for that more than the actor.

But the ending was kinda . . . weird. There was a huge climactic cheering/rousing music bit for nothing all that stirring. Huh.

But it was fun. And I ate more greasy popcorn than I should have.

I’m having my first Christmas shopping anxiety fit too. What’s the perfect thing to buy for family/friends/hubby? Oh, the agony!