Category Archives: Blog

This Saturday was the first all-staff Dragon*Con 2007 meeting, whereupon I discovered that I’m losing from my Daily Dragon staff. Sigh. So now I need a new reporter.

I was so tired, the meeting was something of a blur, but it was good seeing folks like dire_epiphany, sara1221, arkhamrefugee, and bevlovesbooks. Of note, the Cruxshadows were having a concert at the Masquerade that night and offered to let D*C directors in gratis, but I was so logy, I just didn’t have it in me to go dancing. Sad, ain’t it? I’m feeling old.

   

Writing Stuff

Published:
– My March Writing for Young Readers column: “The ABCs of Writing for Kids: Active, Brief, and Cut Cut Cut”

Received:
– Fan mail, this time for “The devil and Mrs. Comstock’s Snickerdoodles” in RoF! Happy writer Eugie.
– Note with contract from paul_m_jessup for “The Goddess Queen’s Battlefield,” which will be the lead story in issue #2 of GrendelSong. Sweet!
– An invite to submit to a ghost story anthology which, ultimately, I turned down. I hate saying “no” to an editor asking to buy my work, but I didn’t have anything suitable on hand, and I simply don’t have the time crank out something new. Maybe next time.
– 6-day “no GUD” from GUD. I’m actually a bit chagrined about this one. I think I might’ve subbed this same story to them before. My spreadsheet burped when I was coming up with a new market, and I may have accidentally deleted my records from that submission. Urg. I’m getting scatterbrained.
– Invite from Rob J. Santa to submit to two anthologies he’s putting together. Rob and me are writing buddies through Critters.org. Exchanged crits turned to mutual appreciation and friendly back-and-forth. He’s starting up a new small press outfit, Ricasso Press, which I give him many snaps for. Going to try to come up with something appropriate for his anthos. Not sure if I’ll be able to, but not only do I hate saying “no” to an editor, but Rob’s an amigo.

This is my second and last year to be eligible for the Campbell Award. I suspect it’s a long shot, but herein my plug:

If you’re going to WorldCon this year, Nippon 2007, or went to L.A.con IV and are a supporting member, Nominate me? Pleeeease?

Okay, now I flop. Was at work past 10PM last night. My eyes are having trouble focusing. And the General Assembly is back in session today after their recess. Oog.

So President’s Day is one of the few governmental holidays we don’t get off. I suspect mostly because it falls right smack dab in the middle of session. But also because we do get Washington’s Birthday, Robert E. Lee’s Birthday, and Confederate Memorial Day off–although the first two are floating holidays that pad out Christmas and Thanksgiving, respectively. But it meant the traffic coming in today was beautiful. Wish every day was like that. I was tempted to eschew MARTA and drive in, but I wasn’t sure what traffic would be like in-town. I probably could’ve driven.

It was a working weekend. I spent most of Saturday trying to get caught up on outstanding Tangent and The Town Drunk matters. And I came into work yesterday. I did have a little time on Saturday to hang with the hubby, and we made parsnip and apple soup and beer bread. Snippets of relaxation masquerading as a weekend.

I’ve become accustomed to this being par for session, but I slept like crap last night, leaving me bleary-eyed this morning. Not a good way to start the week. Well, there’s always Adderall and caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine. The Java Monkey has, once again, become my constant companion.

   

Writing Stuff
Tangent moved servers on Friday, so it was down for a bit. The move itself should’ve only taken a couple hours, but it may have taken a bit longer for the DNS information to propagate throughout the Interweb.

Received:
– Email from jasonbsizemore that the Aegri Somnia anthology is on the final ballot of the Bram Stoker award! *Squee! Squee! Squee!*

Stumbled through the door a bit after 9:30 last night. Got out of the office earlier than everyone else, slightly after 8:30, but the travel time tacks on another hour. These commutes are murder during session. I didn’t mind them so much during off-session, but at 9ish on the train, my brain’s too slagged to get anything done, so I end up staring blankly at my laptop screen, tabulating all the hamsters I should be juggling, but without enough energy to so much as lob one in the air. It’s disheartening it is.

On the heartening cuteness front, wordswoman forwarded this Cute Overload link to me yesterday which totally made me squee. Baby skunk being fostered by a mama cat!

Thanks again, Jaye. Adorable skunk baby pictures make even the longest Monday better.

   

Writing Stuff
So I saw on Ralan.com that Here & Now is well and truly dead, as declared by the editor. No surprise there, what with their interminable delays and erratic publication schedule, but it does orphan a story I sold them in . . . 2003. Agh. Yah, I should’ve pulled that one a loooong time ago. But they published two of my other stories in ’05, which kept me hoping. It’s awfully hard pulling a story from a sale.

New Words:
Not so much new words as compiling an outline for my “Worldbuilding” workshop. Also, the organizers encouraged me to come up with a catchy title. “Worldbuilding for Writers” probably doesn’t qualify as “catchy.” Grmpf.

Received:
– A personal invite from the editors of the new YA ‘zine, Shiny, to submit something. I pored over my logs, but couldn’t find something that was suitable and that wasn’t currently out at a “no simsubs!” market. But, hmm, now I’ve got a story freed up from H&N‘s folding. Gonna read it over and see if I think it’s got enough of a YA tone . . .

So yah, “Family Day” at the Capitol. Whee. Because of this brilliant legislative concept, I had to be at work bright and early this morning and had to work late yesterday. It’s almost like not having a weekend, except without the “almost.”

Meh, at least the traffic was nonexistent. I made the drive from house to parking deck in under 40 minutes.

Happily, Hobkin seems less logy. And he climbed up to cuddle with me last night and Thursday night, so he’s back to being his cuddlesome, winter self. Although his tummy was unsettled on Thursday. I’m wondering if he’s distressed at how absent I’ve been of late. Wish I could’ve taken him to work for “Family Day.”

   

Writing Stuff

Received:
– An email from the senior editor of Highlights for Children in response to my request for an interview for my Writing for Young Readers column. She’s happy to oblige. Huzzah! That means my column is set through the end of session.

Quite a relief, there. While I’d intended to put a moratorium on agreeing to or taking on any new requests or responsibilities while the General Assembly was in session, I can’t seem to hold to that.

– A pretty-please-please plea from a friend of ours who’s a Biology professor for Emory & Henry College in VA to proofread the paper he’s submitting to a journal. He’s reporting on the discovery of a new species (he’s an icthyo-paleontologist), and publication was already assured. But his initial proofreader was unavailable, and he’d added fresh content to his ms. and couldn’t find someone to proofread it.

O where’s o where is an editor when you need one?

So, of course, I sez I would, and I spent the free bits of time I had on Wednesday and Thursday poring over it. After I got over my bug-eyed “WHA?” at all the unknown scientific names and terms and settled into the text, it was actually kind of interesting. He’s giving me an acknowledgement nod, and I told him to feel free to pretty-please-please me again. Just hopefully not during session.

– Note from oldcharliebrown asking if I was interested in doing an interview gig for Fantasy Magazine. So yah, I said I was game for that too, session be damned. But really, it’s not a biggie. The interview slot in question is a small one–one page–so there’s not a huge time sink with the work involved. Assembled my Q’s for that and sent if off last night, right before falling comatose.

Today was not one of my favorite mornings. A water main broke over by Nesbit Ferry* so we had low-unto-zero water pressure when I got up. I could barely coax enough of a dribble out to brush my teeth, and I had to skip my shower. The traffic on Holcomb Bridge Rd and 400 was so slow I could’ve limped it faster, and there were MARTA delays. It took me two hours to get to the capitol, and to top it off, the temperature was in the mid 20s, so I couldn’t feel my toes by the time I finally got in.

Feh.

The GGA is adjourned until Thursday (Day 15), giving a bit of a breather. There’s still bills and resolutions coming through, but the pace has slackened. I’m still amazed we had the whole weekend off. I didn’t have to miss out on any part of dude_the‘s traditional Superbowl at chez Foster’s! Woo! yukinooruoni and Patrick-of-no-LJ joined us on Sunday, whereupon we cheered for the losing team. Alas.

In fuzzy animal news, fosteronfilm and I are wondering whether Hobkin might be trying for the sluggish, not-hibernation that skunks sometimes get into during winter. He needs to be prodded in order to wake up for meals, which is utterly unlike him, and he’s only having two meals a day. He’s also acting antisocial, which is odd in winter when he normally becomes particularly snugglesome.

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*As of 2 P.M., it had been fixed, and they say it’s not necessary to boil drinking water, unlike a similar recent water main break down in Buckhead.
   

Writing Stuff
I was browsing at Barnes & Nobles on Saturday, flipping through the Writer’s Digest 2007 special supplement issue, and I saw that Writing-world.com was listed as one of the “101 Best Websites for Writers.” Coolness!

Published:
– My February Writing for Young Readers column, “An Interview with Johnny D. Boggs of Boys’ Life,” is now up.

Received:
– A request from one of my DC2K Writers buds on behalf of her RWA chapter for me to present an online workshop on worldbuilding. I had a half-second of heart-in-throat panic until I re-read her email and saw the salient “online” part. No public speaking required. *whew* Of course, I said “yes,” although I mentioned it’d be better if I could do it in April or later so it’s not during session.

Been busier than God at work.

I think it might be making me a bit distracted. I did something last week which I’ve never, ever done before, and I fervently hope I never do anything remotely like again. I came in late, stumbled into the house, and it wasn’t until about an hour later that fosteronfilm went into the mudroom* to check on some laundry and discovered that my car was still going! I’d left the key in the ignition (I’ve never even locked myself out of a car before!) and left the engine running.

In a closed garage.

Zounds. I didn’t notice I didn’t have my keys ’cause the hubby had left the door unlocked for me, as he sometimes does so I don’t have to fumble with keys and backpack when I’m already dog tired. I’m just glad he had laundry going and that he noticed. There’s much badness that could’ve happened there. Meep.

MARTA was evil this morning. Major mechanical difficulties on the sorthbound line stranded me (and a train full of commuters) on 400 for half an hour. Eventually, the MARTA folks got the train limping again and took us to Lindburgh station, whereupon they took the poor thing out of service. Huddled with disgruntled commuters in sub-zero weather on a metro platform designed to let the wind in is not my idea of a good way to spend the morning. The next sorthbound train was, of course, jam-packed, but we shuffled onboard anyway. Squished sardines. Not just plain ole packed sardines, but squished.

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*The mudroom is the room between our garage and the rest of the house where our washer and dryer live.

   

Writing Stuff

New Words:
Amazingly, I managed to hammer out 1300 words for my February Writing for Young Readers column between Friday and Saturday, but then I got an 11th hour postponement. Earlier this month, I sent a couple queries to editors, asking for an interview for my column, and I included the questions (and, of course, an SASE). I didn’t expect to hear back from them, ’cause I sort of assume that unless an editor knows and has worked with someone in the past, the odds of such a request getting their attention and not being circular binned is pretty slim. Editors, after all, are uber busy people. But the one from the Fiction Editor of Boys’ Life, Johnny D. Boggs, came back! So I typed the answers in and sent it off to my column editor, making me, for the first time, ahead of the game, column-wise. I’ve got March’s done and ready to go, and maybe I’ll get the second interview back, which will take care of April, by which time session will be over. Maybe.

Published:
– My interview with mroctober is now up at Strange Horizons.

Received:
– 8-day “no GUD” from GUD.
– 4-day sale to Murky Depths. Woot! “Cyberevenge Inc.” is slated for their premiere issue. And a big thanks to matt_wallace for inviting me to submit.
– A sneak peek of the cover image by Theo Black of the So Fey anthology edited by mroctober (which will have my story, “Year of the Fox” in it). It’s slated for release this October. Shiny: