Painting Progress

Haven’t had a whole lot of time to paint lately, so today I snuck in a little oil on canvas.

Yay for progress! ^_^ I forgot how much I enjoy painting.

Yesterday, when Andy and I went to the Boeing Museum of Flight up in Seattle, I saw the small oil-paint gallery they have of specifically spectacular World War II dogfights. O.O I was in heaven. And also shocked by the amount of detail on even relatively small canvases! It was intense, and inspiring. Can’t help but love that! ^_^

I need to work on backgrounds soooooooooo much. >.< But doing any kind of still life just doesn’t interest me. Maybe I should take a class sometime that will *make* me do still life for practice. I sure could use it.

 

The New List

*Ahem.* Chapter 17 of Thief Dilemma is now OFFICIALLY finished and posted. I ended up reworking the last half of the last scene again today, and I’m so glad I did. MUCH better. Now my inner gut isn’t writhing in pain thinking about it. ^_^

And subsequently, it’s time for July’s WRITING TO DO LIST OF DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM:

1. Finish and submit “UNTITLED DYSTOPIC SF SHORT STORY”
2. Write Chapter 4-10 of “UNTITLED NOVEL PROJECT”
3. (Optional) Thief Dilemma Chapter 18. (I say optional, since I’ve never actually been able to turn a chapter around in a month, and this month is going to be particularly orig-novel-heavy, but I’m leaving it on the table for something I’d like to do, but won’t guilt-trip myself about if it doesn’t quite happen. This story is particularly susceptible to my gut-meter, and it’s a hard meter to please sometimes. I need to play thief more often…)

Extra orig-novel-heavy this month. I want to make serious progress on it, and the only way I’m going to do that is to really focus my attention on it. At the same time, I *really* need to finish and get out the “Dystopic SF story* ASAP, so it’s going out to its first reader tonight for the first run of an edit. I could also stand to give it a proper title, since the one it’s got now is boooooooooooring. >.O

Happy side note: I love Apex! Apex is great! ^_^

 

Apex is BACK, baby!

And thus begins the re-life of Apex Magazine! Got my first few submissions to go through today in my inbox. Ah, what a delightful sight to see! ^_^

Writing Stuff:

It’s also the first of the month, which means a re-cap of my writing goals from last month. I would normally post the new-and-improved! list for this month also, but I haven’t actually had a chance to think about it! O.O

JUNE’S LIST:
1. Finish Chapter 17 of the Thief Dilemma – [I'll comment on this below]
2. Finish Chapter 3 of the “UNTITLED NOVEL PROJECT” – DONE!
3. Query about “Mimicry” – DONE!
4. Get an editable draft of the “Untitled Dystopic SF short story” – DONE!

Okay, so Chapter 17 of The Thief Dilemma is *technically* done, rounding out at about 6,200 words. I like some of it, maybe most of it. It came out in a rush and I had a blast writing it, but now I’m not so sure. I think it’s all so fresh in my mind still that I can’t tell if it’s what I want or not. What this means, of course, is that I’m going to sit on it for a day or two. I’m not going to think about it. Not going to touch it. Maybe once I get away from it a little, I’ll be a better judge of whether or not it’s good to go.

I hope it is. I want it to be done. Not just for those patient saints who still read it–chapter by chapter–but because I’m ready to move forward, to dig in my heels to the next phase.

But I don’t want to rush it. And I’m just not sure…

*sigh* If only it screamed “I’M READY!”, I’d post it and get it out of my mind, but yet it lingers, asking “Is this what you want?” Once it goes down, it goes down, and I’ll have to work with it from then on. ARG. I’m frustrating myself. >.<

 

APEX APEX APEX AAAAAAAAPEX!!

APEX MAGAZINE is coming out of haitus! YAY! I’m so excited about this. It’s a great magazine, and there is such a need for them right now. From what I’m hearing, we’re also going to be offering the magazine in a print POD form as well, for those who prefer the sweet whisper of paper between their fingers. Read more about Apex’s triumphant return here!

Submissions are opening up again for short fiction on July 1st! Check out the guidelines here!

YAY!

 

It’s so pretteh, I don’t want to take it down!

So… I’ve been avoiding posting since I posted about FANTASTICAL VISIONS IV last post. I’m still so excited! ^_^ But ah well, the time has come to push it down a level.

This week of work–while still pretty busy–seems to have lost the angst and negative energy of last week, which is a much appreciated change. And strangely enough, I felt really productive today! I got some serious work done on the “DYSTOPIC SF SHORT STORY” which was definitely needed.

*still glowing about FV IV*

Writing Stuff:

Figured I’d put the writing to-do list here for now, since it’s so short, and I need to be able to carry it around with me. Yesterday did some word-parring on the “DYSTOPIC SF SHORT STORY” and re-planned most of the later scenes after realizing I had a few more words to work with than I’d previously thought. Still, I’m trying to stay way under that limit if possible.

So here’s where I stand for June’s To-Do List:

- “The Thief Dilemma” – Chapter 17
- UNTITLED NOVEL PROJECT – Chapter 3  - DONE!
- Query about “Mimicry” / Resubmit
- Finish critique-able draft of “UNTITLED DYSTOPIC SF STORY”

I’ve got some work to do…

 

Fantastical Visions IV now available for pre-order!

Yay! The anthology I’ve got a story in is coming out in July! It’s a collection of eighteen fantasy stories by various authors, all compiled in the fourth installment of the Fantastical Visions anthology  series. The anthology is illustrated by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, who has done illustrations for Realms of Fantasy, as well as a huge variety of other publications.

For those who are familiar, my story “Imaginix”, which appears in this anthology, was sold to Fantasist Enterprises back in 2005. It was the first story I ever sold. I wrote the opening scene when I was a junior in high school, and then came back to finish it my freshman year of college. Selling it was and still is one of the most exciting moments I can remember.

It’s been a long time since I wrote “Imaginix”, but I think it captures a lot of my own insecurities about being creative and about coming of age while in the midst of trying to produce creative works. It’s been given several really great edits by the editor W. H. Horner, though I think the main character’s inexperience is mirrored in my own style of writing.

Feel free to check out the promo-site and read the excerpt from “Imaginix”!

 

The WTDL Update

So I’ve decided to rework my initial Writing To-Do List plan.

THE WAY IT WAS
PROS: I had a visual list of everything I needed to get done at some point from planning to writing to editing to submitting. Excellent. I need that big-picture mentality to see that I’m not wasting time. Plus, speaking of not wasting time, it was convenient that when I wasn’t in the mood to work on one project, I could pick up another item on the list and still be productive. Marvellous!

CONS: No due dates. No pressure. Some of the projects were so much BIGGER than others, that it was easier to cross off short projects, but that meant that even three or four days’ work on a larger one amounted to no sign of progress via the list. It also made it much easier to drift around without committing to any end-dates for certain projects. Not good.

THE WAY IT IS NOW:

 

One Year

Yesterday was Andy’s and my one year anniversary! A whole year of being married! It’s sort of weird, actually, because on the one hand, it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long at all, and on the other, our stay at the Wentworth by the Sea seems like ages ago!

A lot has changed in that one year, too. We graduated. Andy’s father passed away. We honeymooned in Reuti, Switzerland right amid the alps. Andy’s family moved to Texas. I got a job as a slush surfer and marketing fairy with Apex Magazine. My sister started college in California. We moved to Portland, OR, and saw Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, and Yellowstone National Park on the way. Andy started chiropractic college and almost passed out his first day of gross lab (*ALMOST* is the operative word–he didn’t actually do any passing out). I got a job–first temporary then full-time–with NCA. We got our kitties, Oz and Mei. Andy visited his family in Texas over his winter break. I *finally* got my name officially changed. Emily came up to visit on her spring break! I started painting. Now Andy’s almost done his third quarter at WSCC, which is his last quarter of gross labs. I’m still sluggin’ away at the writing during my lunch breaks.

I guess when you break it down like that, it doesn’t seem like a lot has happened, but it *feels* like a lot more. I mean, we’re paying our bills, making our own food, making our own money, taking care of our own pets. All the furniture in our house is ours. We bought it, mostly with the money we either saved up from working at Tyco before our Senior year in college, or with gifts from friends and relatives from the elopement, or with money I’ve made working since we got here. Sometimes I just stop and realize that that this apartment and everything in it really is ours. Not our parents’ that we just call ours by default. Not roommates’ stuff we share. It’s a cool feeling. ^_^

Hooray for One Year!

Guess I should get working on that honeymoon scrapbook, huh? XD!

 

The APEX Lottery: Like Shirley Jackson’s, but with more prizes!

The APEX Lottery: Like Shirley Jackson’s, but with more prizes!

When APEX GLOBAL DOMINATOR Jason Sizemore suggested a lottery to me, I immediately thought of Ms. Jackson’s deadly tale and relished the idea of a human bloodfest. However, as an overzealous invader and naïve in the ways of the human legal system, it was up to AGD Sizemore to explain to me that what human beings like more than gruesome death is a pile of free stuff which involves gruesome death! Lucky for us, we’ve positioned our minions in such a way as to give us an abundance of deliciously dark things to lure in unsuspecting human prey.

For those humans with a taste for the beautiful, yet deadly, we have a collection of Jennifer Pelland treats: UNWELCOME BODIES, AEGRI SOMNIA, and APEX DIGEST #8. If a human is looking for something particularly other-worldly, we’ve got a web of Lavie Tidhar delights: THE APEX BOOK OF WORLD SF, HEBREWPUNK, and a feast of APEX DIGESTS featuring Tidhar’s talents. Humans who can’t be satiated by the typical—nay, TAME—venues, we have an orgy of Wrath James White’s work: ORGY OF SOULS, HERO, and SUCCULENT PREY. Mmm, succulent prey. That’s just what was on my mind.

And while this may not involve as much human carnage as I might have originally liked, I am beginning to see the brilliant subtly of AGD Sizemore’s plans for world domination.

Dare to try your luck?

 

I’m starting to read Dilbert…

…and GET it.

Not just “understand” in an intellectual “ha ha” kind of way, but in an “I suddenly understand what my father was saying when he told me he couldn’t read Dilbert because it was too real” ROFL kind of way.