Today is very up and down. Or, rather, down and up. I woke to find my eye very red, and secreting some kind of yellow gunk. I showed Lime, who told me that pinkeye is going around. This scared me, but I went to my noon class knowing I would be going to the hospital for a short appointment anyway, and could probably get a little time with the opthamologist as well. The doctor looked at my eye, and them got one of the nurses to put something in it to dilate the pupil and then looked in it again …
Category: WRITING
‘Nother Story Accepted
I’m waiting to say where, but it’ll be online sometime next month. And it’s a story close to my heart, being one of the most autobiographical (in a transreal way) things I’ve ever written. More when it’s online, but it’s so nice to get the news the day before WorldCon began. (I found out yesterday.) This is my 5th story accepted this year. I originally set my goal to 3, but revised it to 6 when I achieved that first goal by about mid-year. My next big goal will involve selling something to the Big 3 (Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF) …
Writing and Obsessions
Reading scififanatic’s blog, I came across an interesting post about writing and obsessions, actually linking back to velourmane’s post on the subject. (You can find the link there.) I personally am obsessed with all kinds of things, and also develop minor obsessions all the time, just long enough to really get into something and research it like crazy so I can write about it. (Like my obsession with Soviet Russia, which is about to commence; I have tons of books waiting now.) The obsessions that come up time and time again in my writing, as far as I can tell, …
Pulling Your Feet Up
So one of the things I’m planning to do in Japan, mostly on trains, is proofread some of the writing I’ve done in the past year. I have a good stack of stories that need editing and proofing before they can be sent out, and it’s the kind of thing I’m more likely to do when I don’t have a PC with me. Since I’m leaving my laptop at home this trip — carrying it about for three weeks feels just ever so slightly too cumbersome — I will be bringing a portable hard drive (with my most recently forked …
Now What, Deprived of All Reprieve…
… is to Be Done by the Likes of Me Us? Yeah, crazy title. One of the short-story anthologies I’ve been dipping into is Tiptree’s, and I like her titling. New short story on the go, while I remain daunted of finishing Burma (for the energy, not the ideas, I suppose). Mid-rant about banking service charges and the desire for revenge, I began thinking of the very scary [to me, since now I know so little about it] subject of “peak oil” (and possible solutions we haven’t necessarily not imagined yet, but which aren’t set up yet anyway). The two …
Story Online!
That’s right. Go and read my story, Junk (PDF | text) , which is online at Nature. Though it’s not my first sale, it is my first story to appear in print, and it couldn’t have a better home!
Random Bits From a Long Day
So, today I: was reassured not to worry about tinnitus that I wasn’t worrying about. had, I will actually admit, a song by a J-Rock band used in a mobile telephone commercial stuck in my head, enough even to download it. (5 points to the first person who can name the song.) got a (somewhat unsurprising, since it was a long shot) rejection letter from the Very Good Zine which is called Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet realized (horrors!) that I have exactly one story out at a market at the moment, and that one’s on hold. Must have a look …
A Day of…
A day of worthy things: Go read Tina Connolly’s Growing Days, which is a poem up at Strange Horizons Go check out The Grand Narrative, which is the best new(ish) blog about Korea that I’ve seen in ages. Were I not so full-steam-ahead on the writing-SF thing, this is the blog and the kind of self-directed study I’d be embarking on. I even found a great book recommendation or two on there. Equally worthy, but less fun, I now know full well I need to cut back on my writing production as all the sitting is once again having the …
“A Killing in Burma” Still Truckin’
I’m having a dreadully good time drafting “A Killing in Burma,” and while there are bits that will probably need some serious trimming later on, the process right now is a downright blast. One of the things I’m experimenting consciously with here is writing a longer story without a single consistent POV character. This is something I’ve long been interested in, but I moved away from it because I used to use it mostly as a kind of obscurantist thing, like, “What, you can’t tell which character is the focus now?” It just made my stories harder to read. The …
Clarion West 2007 Write-a-thon Wrap-up
I’ve fulfilled my write-a-thon goals! (Sort of.) “A Killing in Burma”: 2,545 words Weekly Total: 15,924 words Write-a-thon Total: 95,164 words That’s right, I’ve drafted a minimum of 15,000 words per week, and beaten my overall minimum quota of 90,000 words in six weeks by 5,164 words and one full day. I did this despite one cold, one (slightly) partially collapse lung, a new and apparently persistent case of tinnitus, a smushed toe, and a brief case of what I think was food poisoning. If you’re impressed — come on, a partially collapsed lung? — go here and donate a little money. It’ll help fund more crazy …