Category Archives: Blog

Addicted to uppers/Late life lesson

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There was much sleeping over the weekend. My caffeine addiction appears to have re-established itself too excess without me noticing it. My occasional “extra boost” cup of coffee has become part of my daily routine, an essential ingredient in my staying-functional cocktail, and I’ve begun to add onto that a second cup of java and/or a diet cola.

That suggests to me that my tolerance to the Adderall is ramping up, even with me taking weekend holidays from it. And on weekends, when I’m not on Adderall and not having my usual first-thing-in-the-AM coffee, I’m useless–either dead-to-the-world asleep or slumped logy and apathetic on the couch. I obviously needed to catch up on some sleep this weekend, but I was also free-floating grumpy at fosteronfilm and headachy, both symptoms of withdrawal.

While on the one hand I’m glad I’ve got a workaround; I keep pumping in the uppers, and I can function like a proper human. But on the other, it’s just not healthy. And at this rate, I’m going to have to ask my doctor to increase my Adderall dosage, and I would really prefer not to be on more than I’m currently taking.

This is all so annoying, dammit. I’m going to have to wean myself off caffeine again . . . but not until after I meet the next couple hamster deadlines. Still, even while I’m fuming at the shortcomings of my human suit, I’m also somewhat awed by how chipper I remain (barring, of course, the occasional husband-oriented grumpiness). My emotional equilibrium remains pretty stable, unfazed by sundry physiological nuisances.

It’s the job. Day-to-day job satisfaction is giving me a buffer I never had before. Makes me marvel that I languished for so long at my previous day job, and makes me wish I’d had the courage to switch careers a long, LONG time ago.

Ah, well. A late life lesson is oodles better than one never learned.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– Crits continue to flow in for the Japanese fantasy up at Critters. It’s being well received (yay). I did get one crit which made me go “gah!” but not ’cause the critter didn’t like the story. On the contrary, she enjoyed it, and she singled out the title to praise–yes, the same title I’m wracking my brain over to come up with a suitable replacement. Sigh.
– 8-day glowing reject on a reprint with invite to submit again from Blood, Blade & Thruster. They loved the story, but thought its publication history made it too well known for them to reprint. Can’t argue with a rejection like that. But, but snartleblast!
– Contract from Hub for “Wanting to Want.” Signed and sent back.

New Words:
– 500 words on the MARTA-inspired urban fantasy, tentatively titled “By Oak, Bramble, and Metro.” An odd phenomenon happening with this one. I seem to need to write it on the train. I sit and stare at the file at my desk, no words, no ideas, zip, but as soon as I get on the MARTA, the words come. #$%(*!@ Stupid muse.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
2,000 / 5,000
(40.0%)

Insomnia bad.

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Got to sleep late, woke up early (as in 4:45AM). No reason. Just my sleep regulator acting wonky. I’ve had 20mg of Adderall, a big cup of coffee, and a diet coke today, and I still feel like I’m one long blink from slumping comatose at my desk.

Me and Hobkin, sluggish and sleepy.

Skunks don’t hibernate during winter, per se, but when the cold season comes, they get sort of groggy, are more inclined to snuggle (wild skunks often winter together in a single burrow), and nap all the time. Hobkin’s generally better behaved in winter also, too much of a lap lump to get into (as) much mischief, and he’s less tetchy overall. Stomp- and huff-worthy things a month ago barely get a raised tail now. This last week, he’s been particularly snoozy, likely to flop over and start snoring as soon as he crawls into my or fosteronfilm‘s lap. It’s very cute, although it pretty much immobilizes whoever he’s using as a skunk pillow.

The notion of curling up with a skunk for a long nap sounds really nice right now . . .zzzzzz.

   


Writing Stuff

I received a request a while back from the guy who runs the German Firefly fan site, firefly-universe.de, asking if it was okay for him to translate and reprint the interview that arkhamrefugee and yukinooruoni did with Summer Glau for the Daily Dragon. I gave him the A-OK, and I got a note from him the other day letting me know his translation was now up. Major snaps to arkhamrefugee and yukinooruoni!

New Words/Editing:
– Did a review and polish of the next segment of the collab. story I’m working on with mtrimm1 and lobbed it back. This has been a great, fun project to work on. I think the finished piece is going to be hella shiny.
– A once-over edit of my MARTA-inspired urban fantasy WIP to get back into the flow, and 300 new words from where I left off.

Received:
The crits are beginning to trickle in from Critters for “Hannya-Shin-Kyo.” It’s too early to draw any big picture conclusions, although I’ve received some good micro-level suggestions that I’ve already implemented.

I also got a crit that irritated me enough to complain to Andrew, ye old critter-herder, about. The critter in question only read the first 800 or so words of my 6K story, and the majority (3/4ths) of their crit was quoting large chunks of those 800 in order to pad their critique word count. Furthermore, the comments they did make showed that they hadn’t even properly read the fragment of story they did go over.

*snort* Talk about a half-assed critique.

So yah, while I’m willing to just shrug off crits that I think are totally off base, I think one this lame, where it’s obvious the critter didn’t even try, shouldn’t get credit.

Japanese fantasy at zero draft. Finally.

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Hmm. I’ve had a couple spam comments in my blog in the last couple weeks. They’re the first spam I’ve had here in LJ-land. Wonder if the spammers are getting better at circumnavigating the anti-spam protocols LJ has in place or if the anti-spam protocols went through some “upgrade” that fubarred them.

Anyhoo, on Sunday, I hung out with and assisted terracinque and donovanj99 while they conducted a photoshoot thingy. We roamed the Decatur square area whereupon I was charmed by much of the flora and architecture: the old courthouse, a lovely church, a brick alley (the one next to Eddie’s Attic) with wrought iron banisters and copper downspouts, and sweeping magnolia trees. I snapped several pix of terracinque with my point-and-shoot Nikon CoolPix and here are a few of my favs:

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Sleep is for the dead

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Muchly sleep deprived. Got to bed late and was awakened frequently and prematurely by a restless skunk. Ended up getting up at 5:30ish, so I decided to just come into work early. I noticed that it’s much quieter on the MARTA at 7:45 than it is at 8:15. The train’s still as full, but that half hour difference seems to render everyone dazed and blinking.

   


Writing Stuff

Urg. I’m so behind on Tangent work. I’m the furthest behind I’ve ever been. The reviews-to-be-published are piling up, but I’ve been making such good wordage progress that I didn’t want to stop writing. Meep.

Received:
– Payment from Realms of Fantasy for “The Devil and Mrs. Comstock’s Snickerdoodles” (slated for their Feb. ’07 issue).
– Payment from GrendelSong for “Shim Chung the Lotus Queen” (in their premiere issue).
– squirrel-monkey suggested to darinbradley that he tender me an invite to submit something for the Farrago’s Wainscot (farragoblog) project. He did, and I did, and F’sW will be reprinting “The Life and Times of Penguin.” Shiny!
– 13-day alas-o-gram from GVG of F&SF.

New Words/Editing:
– About a paragraph’s worth of words on the Pseudopod rewrite request, several editing passes, and it’s lobbed back for editorial judgment.
– 700 words on the collaboration story I’m writing with mtrimm1. Debating whether I want to finish the scene or bat it back.
– 1200 words on the Japanese fantasy, now tentatively titled “Hannya-Shin-Kyo: The Stillness Between Thoughts.” Tamed my snarling plot bunny and getting close to the home stretch.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
4,783 / 6,000
(79.7%)

Columbus Day

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I get tomorrow off! I haven’t had Columbus Day off since I was in school. My new job continues to rock my eyeballs. And how’s this for sweet, sweet icing? The Representatives and Senators left on Friday at 2:30, so us Legislative Counsel folks got to too. Half day, woot!

   


Writing Stuff

basletum interviewed me for SpecMusicMuse. Shiny!

Published:
– My October Writing for Young Readers column: “Hi/Lo Books: Writing for Reluctant Readers” is now up at Writing-World.

New Words:
– 500 on the Japanese fantasy, and I’ve come upon a plot snag. Pondering, pondering.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
3,560 / 6,000
(59.3%)

Received:
– Contract from Faeries for French reprint of “Of Two Minds in Lanais.”
– Contract from Helix.
– Contrib. copy of Grendel Song. Yay!

Circus at the state building

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So the editorial folks here at the capitol are going to the circus this morning. The nut job who’s trying to ban Harry Potter books, after being shot down at the school and then school board level, is appealing her case to the Georgia State Board of Education. The hearing is this morning at 10AM across the street in the Twin Towers State Building, and we’re all going to watch the spectacle.

On the more wholesome amusing front, britzkrieg forwarded along this link to Cute Overload which made me giggle. Baby skunkies!

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 200 on the Japanese fantasy-with-no-title. Didn’t get nearly as much done on it yesterday as I wanted to. Foo.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
3,059 / 6,000
(51.0%)

Received:
– 24-day rewrite request from Pseudopod. Squinching my brain to determine how best to implement their suggestion.
– 150-day form nope from One Story. Pfft. But this was something of a long shot anyway.

Skunk in purse

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Came out of the shower this morning to discover a skunk in my purse and the previous contents displaced and flung helter-skelter about. I made the fundamental error of thinking that when fosteronfilm talks clearly and lucidly in the early AM, that he’s actually awake.

Me: I’m gonna go shower now. Hobkin’s sleeping under the covers there, okay? You can watch him if he wakes up?
fosteronfilm: Skunk there. Yep, we’re fine.

After my shower:
Me: Aghh, my purse! You were supposed to be watching him!
Matthew: Wha? *blinks, yawns* I was?

No harm done. I keep my various medication bottles in a separate zippered bag that little paws can’t (or at least haven’t yet figured out how to) open. And I really should know better by now. My hubby is so not a morning person. Although I don’t know how I would have explained bringing a skunk to work by accident . . .

   


Writing Stuff

After lamenting about the dry spell I was having sales-wise, I made two yesterday! Woohoo!

Received:
– 1-day sale to Helix. “Addy in My Mind” is slated for their January issue.
– 114-day sale to new U.K. ‘zine, Hub. “Wanting to Want” will be in their premiere issue, which I believe is coming out in December.
And, because three sales in one day is just too much to hope for:
– 111-day “almost” from John O’Neill of Black Gate with invite to submit again. While he liked it, the ending was too much of a downer for them. Alas.

Happy October

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October, one of my favorite months. Autumn, Halloween, purple skies, and magical moons. And this one is particularly nifty in that it marks the resumption of employer-sponsored group health insurance for fosteronfilm and me. Whew.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my shout out about Apex Digest‘s financial crisis and subscribed and/or entered the raffle. Due to the huge outpouring of support, Apex LIVES! Y’all are great.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 800 on the Japanese fantasy. And a bit of editing to tighten up the beginning. I was worried that I was losing control of it and it was spiralling out of my target word count, but I managed to accomplish a lot more in the scene I just wrote than I thought I would. I’m thinking maybe two more scenes total–climax and denouement–and I’m done. Rah.

Still no title, though . . .

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
2,856 / 6,000
(47.6%)

Received:
– 143-day personal no from Shawna McCarthy (RoF) with nice things to say and helpful comments.
– 1-day “isn’t quite what I’m looking for” with invite to submit again from the new ‘zine, Spacesuits and Sixguns.
– 21-day “enjoyed this . . . very well written . . . loved the characterization, but . . .” from Firefox News.
– 1-day “the writing is well done but . . .” from Trabuco Road.

I haven’t had a sale in over a month now. I’m beginning to jones. Wah!

Procrastination bug, must stomp

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For most of today, I languished in a haze of under-motivated lethargy–randomly surfing, hopping from one editorial task to another without completing anything, and prodding various WiPs halfheartedly. That hasn’t happened in QUITE a while. I haven’t had the luxury of being able to drag my feet or putter about sighing “I don’t feel like doing this” in so long, I feel guilty, like I’ve done something wrong.

It’s not that my plate is free of hamsters or anything–on the contrary, my “Things to Do” list continues to threaten to overflow the page–but rather there are now a manageable number of the buggers swarming over it, resulting in a less panicked, frantic, and frenzied me. While most certainly a good thing, it’s also made me wonder if I need the impetus of a Damoclesian sword to keep up my level of productivity.

Or maybe I’m overthinking it and can allow myself the occasional day of wallowing in profligate indolence. Meh.

But tomorrow, I really need to get back to work . . .

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 600 on the Japanese fantasy. Still no title, dammit.

Received:
– Payment from Writing-World for next month’s Writing for Young Readers column. Zounds, that was speedy. Me likie.

Dark chocolate-related skunk guilt

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Patrick and Christie came by last night to watch School for Scoundrels, the 1960 one with Alastair Sim, not the recent abomination starring Billy Bob Thornton. Good fun and good movie, unfortunately, Hobkin was not well. He’s been doing great this whole week, ever since I started putting a few drops of Rescue Remedy in his dinner. But this was a different sort of GI unhappiness, and I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to figure out what could be causing it.

I’m wondering now if he ate a sliver of dark chocolate. I had a couple pieces of dark chocolate yesterday morning, and when I was breaking the squares off the bar, a crumb or two fell on the floor. I wiped them up with a damp paper towel, but Hobkin was at my feet when it happened, and he might’ve snarfed up a tiny sliver–and I do mean tiny, as in much, much less than chocolate frosting on a birthday candle or a single semi-sweet chocolate chip. But it’s dark chocolate, which is much more toxic to little beasties than milk chocolate or cocoa powder.

Fortunately, after a lot of Pepto-Bismol on bread, Hobkin seems to be over whatever it was.

I, however, remain guilt-stricken.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words/Editing:
– 800 or so on my next Writing for Young Readers column, several editing passes, and sent it off to ye olde editor. Anuzzer hamster out the door.