June 26, 2009
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!
June 24, 2009
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…
June 21, 2009
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”!
June 18, 2009
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: (more…)
June 18, 2009
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!
June 15, 2009
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.
June 15, 2009
…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.
June 14, 2009
It’s been one of those drifting kind of weekends. You know the kind: you’ve got a to-do list of ordinary things, you get most of the list done, but by Sunday evening you still don’t feel like you’ve accomplished much. It’s probably just that I haven’t accomplished much I feel that excited about. I cleaned. I did some work. Did grocery shopping. Made dinner. All things I needed to do, but not things I wouldn’t have done anyway.
In fact, the one thing I actually *do* feel pretty jazzed about is the EPIC PIZZA OF AWESOMENESS which I made (and Andy put on the pizza-stone: not a small task with this one) on Saturday night. Picture this: almost perfectly round crust, like the almost-round curve of the Earth or the nearly-perfect-circle of our orbit around the sun; one half is loaded with pepperoni; the other half, piled with green peppers, red peppers, and onion, so when you bite it, it still crunches with juice; the crust–perfectly crispy on the bottom, enough to form a solid structure for the delicious goodies on top of it…. My mouth is watering just REMEMBERING it. *le sigh* It was by far the best pizza I’ve made to date, and I’m not ashamed to brag about it. Hey, I’ve done my time: I’ve sloughed the pizza over itself on the stone so half of it is cheese-down, had half tear off because of an unrealized hole in the crust, realized too late we didn’t have any cheese, forgot to put the salt in the dough, mixed up half a teaspoon of garlic salt with half a TABLESPOON in the sauce.
This last pizza made all those miserable, snorting-laugh or grumpy-teared miserable failures worth it.
We watched A.I. with Kaku this weekend, too. I’m not going to lie: I cry at almost every Haley Joel Osment film. I try not to, but I just can’t help it! And I like to think I’m not an overly teary individual, though I’ve got a few that almost always get me (Sixth Sense is on that list). I’d seen the end of A.I. before, just not the whole beginning part; I think I caught from the Flesh Fair on on TV one time. But anyway, I liked it. It’s a Spielberg, but I don’t think he actually over-Spielberg’d it. The aliens were definitely familiar for him, but it was still interesting.
(Note: HOLY CRAP! I just looked up HJO to make sure I spelled his last name right, and I had no idea he was only three years younger than me. Dang. That makes me feel really young. XD!)
June 13, 2009
If only it were this easy. ^_^
For the record: I do not look this evil when editing… I do, however, wear glasses…
Note: I wish I could post it larger, but wordpress is stupid like that. Click here to see it in full.
June 12, 2009
I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think I added anything to my schedule, except actually *keeping* a schedule. GAH.
I haven’t even had time to paint!
Oh, did I mention Andy got hit by a car yesterday? DON’T FREAK OUT. He’s fine. His shoulder is a little scraped up, but he didn’t hit his head or his neck or any other vital organs. He was a little shaken up, but not enough to stop him from jumping to his feet and shouting at the guy. The idiot in a BMW pulled out right in front of him without checking the bike lane, which just affirms our suspicion that all BMW owners drive like ***holes. If you drive a BMW–I’m not going to apologize to you, I’m going to give you this bit of information: people may assume you’re an ***hole because you drive a BMW. They are great cars, but drive nice. People need more positive examples. ^_-
Writing Stuff:
Got 1,061 words written on the “UNTITLED DYSTOPIC SF SHORT STORY” today at lunch. MORE THAN 1000 WORDS! That does not happen every day. Or almost ever. My typical speed, when things are going well is about 500 words per 1/2 hour. That means, when I’m in a REAL zone and don’t notice, I can punch out about 1000 words an hour. AT MY SMOOTHEST, FASTEST SPEED. I rarely beat that. So this was good! Actually, I didn’t even realize it was 1000+ until I just looked at it a second ago to get the new word count. Neat! ^_^
Also, finished Chapter 2 of the “UNTITLED NOVEL PROJECT” which is a nice hurdle to be past. I actually chopped it off a little earlier than I was thinking I would, but I figure it’ll work out better this way. On to Chapter 3!
