I'm used to folks finding the fact that I write to be rather quaint; the only person non-writer person I know who really doesn't seem to feel this way is my mother, who will never miss an opportunity to brag to friends and relatives that I'm a writer. I had a rather interesting moment at my daughter's school today. She has the day off due to academic assessment, which is what we were there for (it was supposed to take 30 minutes but instead lasted an hour). I'd brought along the latest issue of Paradox, since I have one story left to read and I was hoping to get it read while waiting for her to do her assessment. Before she was to go in, we sat at a table in the hallway, waiting for her time to roll around, and one of her classmates came over and sat with us. I had my nose buried in my magazine. Dana was talking to her friend then suddenly she turned to me and asked, "Is that the magazine your story's in?"

"No. That was the last issue."

"Oh." But she then turned to her friend and said, "Guess what. My mom writes stories and they get put in magazines like that one."

And her friend looked at me all wide-eyed and he said, "That's so cool!" It's such a rare thing for anyone to look at a writer like he would his/her favorite basketball or football star or actor/actress. I'd never felt prouder of being a writer than at that moment.

Finally did the bits of the rewrite I was putting off doing in "The Place That Makes You Happiest" and sent it off for an opinion. Today I'll be working on another rewrite, which will involve retyping it (I think I skipped this step of my editing process with this story so I'm going to do it now) then have some minor points to think about and address. This will take a couple days.

Took the kids out to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner last night since Jeff had a business dinner to attend, and we had lots of fun. It's definitely not the cool experience I remember from my own childhood, but then we always went to Showbiz, which had better games and animatronics. And skiball used to give you the best number of tickets, but now it just sucks. Next time I'll unload ten bucks worth of tokens into the dumb bouncy ball game that seems to give the most tickets of any game (sometimes as much as 50 a ball) then maybe the kids can get better stuff than awful fake jewelry and  plastic trinkets that fall apart as soon as you play with them for the first time. But yeah, we still had fun.

Morning Star Rising

14,730 / 150,000 (9.8%)

A poor showing yesterday, so no excerpt today. I spent most of the day playing the new Grand Theft Auto game, but now that I've got the initial excitement of it out of the way, I can get back to writing.

So I've been missing for a week, and it's entirely the fault of Dana's bedroom. Removing the wallpaper border proved more difficult than I'd originally anticipated and I spent three days trying to get the nasty glue off the walls so we could paint. The room is done now though, thank goodness, after having stolen a complete week from me. Here are some pictures of me and Jeff's handiwork:
In other news, my wireless keyboard died so I'm using a lame-ass ergonomic keyboard that completely screws up my typing. I have bought a new one so I'll be installing that this morning before getting started on my edits of "The Divine Conquest of Mexico" for Arcane Whispers and "The Hearts of Men", to hopefully get that one ready to send out today. And Jeff's home for another day so that will probably mean going out to lunch this afternoon. It's good to be getting back to work though.

Also, I didn't keep up with my friendslist while I was painting, so if I missed anything important, leave me a note and I'll go check it out.

One of the things I like about being a parent is surprising the kids with gifts from Santa and the Easter Bunny. They get particularly excited about Easter baskets, coming downstairs and seeing what the Easter Bunny left for them. The EB is always very nice and leaves them cool things, like video games, sheet sets, Power Rangers. This year I had to go above and beyond, at least for Dana's EB present. As I mentioned in another post, we're decorating her room over Spring Break in Harry Potter and so I wanted the EB to bring her something for that. We used to have a WB Store here, at Cherry Creek, but it has apparently closed and I haven't any idea of where to buy HP stuff here in town. So I had to order from the WB store online. The EB has gotten her a Hogwarts banner to hang on her wall, and though I was gritting my teeth at the expedited shipping costing almost as much as the banner itself, I bit the bullet and had it shipped over night (I didn't feel I could trust the second day shipping to get it here by tomorrow and their shipper doesn't deliver on weekends, so I had to err on the side of caution, though it cost me an extra 5 dollars in shipping). And low and behold, less than 24 hours after I ordered it, it showed up on my doorstep. I probably could have ordered 2nd day and saved a little, so I'll remember that next time I order from them (I've got my eye on a t-shirt that says "I solemnly swear I am up to no good", and they sent me a five dollar coupon). The banner is now tucked away under some blankets and pillows in the basement spare room, along with all the rest of the Easter goodies, with the door locked (though that's no guarantee that they kids won't get in there. They're industrious little weasels).

I like being a parent. For as unsentimental as I claim to be, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Been quite busy the last couple of days and failed to find the time to post to the blog. Mostly I've been reading, critiquing, and working out the rewrite details for MSR, which are pretty significant. And yesterday was Dana's 9th birthday and we went to IHOP for dinner (she was intent on having the Who-cakes, which just looked nasty, but some kids just have iron stomachs). From us she got the boxed set of Spiderwick Chronicles (which I was finally able to find for a reasonable price on Amazon, which amounted to about $6 a book, which is half off the cover price) and from my mom she got a Harry Potter sheet and quilt set (my mom made the quilt herself from HP fabric she found on ebay, and it's really very nice. If I was a kid...oh, who am I kidding? I want a Harry Potter quilt too!:D). We're going to repaint and decorate Dana's room next week with Gryffindor colors and I bought a set of the movie posters to hang on the walls. It's time to change her room anyway. We'd decorated it with Winnie the Pooh when she was 2, with painted butterflies and bees on the walls and a wall paper boarder, but she's older now and her interests have changed (and thank god she's into Harry Potter because the alternative she was gunning for was to paint her room bright pink and decorate it with Barbie stuff. And the pink she was begging for would have burned out retinas with its brightness. But having gotten the sheet and quilt set from my mom, she's excited about the new plan and color scheme. I told her she could choose any of the house color schemes, except Hufflepuff--because I'm not going to paint any walls black--so she chose Gryffindor).

The plan for today is to do more reading and critiquing and continue work on the outline, if I have time. I'm quite behind on the reading over at LH and need to do at least 2 stories a day now in order to have everything done in time to vote.

Because Jeff has decided he needs to stay at work later and I can't start dinner yet....

( And since it's been a while since I've done this, I'm subjecting you all to pictures of one of my dogs (and the nose of the other). )

I actually don't have much to report, thanks to my internet connection being spotty at best yesterday (which was tremendously frustrating) and it appears to be doing the same today. I'd probably be better off just disconnecting the internet for the day and writing and stop obsessing so much over it constantly shutting off then turning back on.

Thank you everyone for their birthday wishes for Gaaron. All the presents went over well, though he's particularly enthralled with the Transformer (he was also quite impressed when I told him that I had Optimus Prime when I was a kid--and strangely enough I won it in a contest at the same Safeway that Jeff was working at at the time (I was 11 at the time, which would have made him 16).). The Indiana Jones legos were quite fun to put together, and apparently there will be a Legos Indiana Jones video game coming out in the summer. I might have to get it for the kids, since they love the Lego Star Wars ones so much (and they are pretty darn fun). Though I'm cheap and so will probably wait until it goes down to $20. The only games I pay full price for are the Grand Theft Auto games.

So I got about a page done on "The Hearts of Men." And a first happened yesterday: I got an email froma horror magazine editor asking me to send them something, even a reprint if that's all I have. It's non-paying (which I am willing to send reprints to) but I don't think I have anything that meets their guidelines so they're probably out of luck. So while I've never heard of the magazine and it's very small press (but apparently print), it's flattering to be approached like that by someone I don't know (I've been asked by at least one other editor about when I'm going to send them a story again, but that's because I've sold to them before.). Now if I could only get Ellen Datlow to send me invites to anthologies. :)

that Jeff and I didn't quite make it to the hospital in time. In fact we didn't make it anywhere close to it. We got five minutes from our house and Gaaron decided he wasn't waiting any longer. He had too many things to do and people to see. He's still the same way, except now he plays Lego Star Wars and Power Rangers, and he calls his sister a "drama-queen". Birthday gifts are Indiana Jones Legos, a Transformer (Warpath), and a Cars Playstation game. So happy birthday Gaaron!

Morning Star Rising


Progress was interrupted today by having to go out and buy a new monitor. Recently my monitor had taken to high pitched buzzing, which would stop if you cycled the power on it for thirty seconds, but over the last week, it started doing it more and more and needing to be turned off longer and longer before the buzzing would go away. I wouldn't have minded if it were a normal low-frequency sound, like the buzzing of a hard disk, but this buzzing would make a dog howl and drive me crazy. Today it started doing it right away, and after fighting with it for an hour and half and only getting three paragraphs done, I'd had enough and so went out and bought a new monitor. So that escapade munched up about half my writing day, with going out to find the best deal in town and having to drive to a second Circuit City up north to pick it up (the one nearest my house was out of stock) then go through unwinding all my cables to get the old monitor out and put the new one in and install software. It is quite beautiful though, 20 inch flat panel widescreen ViewSonic that has a nice $30 rebate with it (if I can get them pay up. Disney is about the only place that has ever honored their rebates with me). Now this had better last me at least as long as the old one (4 1/2 years).

I didn't sleep particularly well last night either and spent some time contemplating what I might be doing wrong in my short fiction that's keeping me from going the distance at professional markets. I've come to the conclusion that I tend to focus a little too much on trying for cool ideas rather than interesting characters reacting to those ideas. I think most of the fiction I've written that has gone far at pro markets have always been heavier in the character aspect than the idea. I think to make the pro sale though, both idea and character have to be flawlessly executed and play off each for power and emotional connection. This has cleared up something for me about my Aztec Zombie story that I was totally stuck on and couldn't figure out how to rework the ending. I don't have an ending yet, but I do now know that the ending I have isn't the right one because the story ceases to be an emotional story about a husband losing his wife and becomes more of a "wow, let's chop up a zombie and bring in an evil dark god to preach at my protag about honor and respecting ritual! Yeah, fun!" (though given that I wrote this originally for a history-based zombie anthology, the focus on this isn't surprising.). I think if I could get more to the core of my protag emotional conflict and feel him much better than I do and figure out how he's going to deal with his dead wife in some manner other than chopping her up with his nifty obsidian-bladed sword, then this could be a really powerful story (and also would move it out of the realm of horror and into dark fantasy, which might also make it more marketable.).

Morning Star Rising


Not much to say about it. Just making progress.

While I was getting the pot roast ready for the crock pot this morning, my son was watching Pokemon and I overheard something rather choice. One of the male characters was talking to one of the female character, about how they should declare their love for all the world to know about and she turns from him and says, "Hey, look! A beaver!" Those dirty, dirty Pokemon people. >:)

No real writing done yesterday. I realized that the beginning of part 4 is a convoluted mess that needs reordering, for I had characters hanging around who should be on the run just because I wanted my protag to go do some stuff and discover some information. I decided there needed to be more compelling reasons for them to remain behind so long and I think the problem resides with how I was ordering the action. I had it so character a shows up, talks about leaving to escape capture and execution, then my protag goes off and does some stuff and finds out some info, goes back and tells character A when he should have been gone long before, character B shows up, then guards show up and protag goes off with them to learn yet more scandalous news before returning to character A&B and saying "Hey, let's all skip town!". Instead it should be one right after the other: A shows up then B shows up then guards and then protag is taken away to learn other things and then returns and they all leave together then. This will involve some chopping up and reordering of stuff from draft 1 before I'll feel comfortable sitting down to rewrite it, so that's the plan for this morning and hopefully that won't take too long and I'll be back on track again.

In other news, my mice had a unwelcome visitor yesterday, namely a field mouse that chewed a hole in my wall and was rubbing noses with them through the cage. I'm a bit concerned it was a male mouse; I'm not sure whether domesticated house mice and field mice can interbreed or not--I've seen some people saying yes on discussion boards, but nothing authoritative. I guess I'll know if one or more of my mice have a litter. I'm also concerned about him spreading diseases to them that might kill them. I've set a trap for the little bastard and I'm hoping to catch him

Morning Star Rising

78,997 / 150,000 (52.7%)

Well, a rather pathetic day yesterday. Why is that? It came to my attention a few days ago that the city I set most of the novel in is in fact a highly-excavated site and I'd never looked at it before writing the book. The city is so rarely mentioned in history texts so I thought it was a place known only through story and myth sources, but in fact it was a real city, and I spent several hours looking at pictures of it on the internet (and man is it freakin' awesome!) and even found it on Google Earth, complete with accompanying photographs to enhance the aerials. When I finally convince Jeff to take us to Mexico, I'm demanding to go to this site (Xochicalco). I wonder if I could talk him into it before I decide to start shopping this novel, which--since I imagined the city completely wrong and so will necessitate a third draft to fix that problem--could be a while now. I'd really love to see the ruins, particularly the carvings on the Temple of Quetzalcóatl, which are absolutely beautiful. I'd love to actually stand in the city my novel takes place in and get a feel for its dimensions and layout and imagine what it might have looked like back when it was still inhabited. After much debate, I decided to not stall the 2nd draft to go back and correct the city's details and instead intend to continue plowing through. I'm going to attempt to work in the new details from here on out, to lessen the work load later, but I'm going to save most of that until the third draft.

I'm not so sure how much I'm going to get done today either. I was up quite a bit last night, regretting McDonald's for dinner, so I'm exhausted this morning. Plus, Fiona has a vet appointment in about an hour and that will probably last about 45 minutes and it will take me a good half hour to get back home. Then I'll probably want to sleep. So I'm only counting on getting in an hour or two of writing today.

Morning Star Rising

56,066 / 150,000 (37.4%)

Only a bit done yesterday. We spent the morning taking down the Christmas tree. While taking it apart, we discovered the cat had been nesting up inside of it, which was rather funny. I'm surprised she didn't knock any bulbs off the tree going in and out. Dana goes back to school tomorrow then later this week I have to take Fiona to the vet for her vaccinations and get an estimate on getting her teeth cleaned (we think her previous owners fed her nothing but canned food for she refused to eat any dry food when we got her and her teeth are seriously nasty and she's only 2 or 3 (I'm inclined more towards 2 because she's grown since we've gotten her, and the vet was basing her age on her teeth and thought she was at least 2 when we got her last year, so who knows for sure.)

Morning Star Rising

43,381 / 150,000 (29.0%)

Yesterday I went out and bought a back support for my chair and a Lightning McQueen microbead pillow, and I now find myself much more comfortable while typing. (the massage mat, while wonderful for taking care of my back aches, became nearly impossible to sit on if it wasn't running since the motor parks in such a way that I'd find myself sitting with my spine against it, and no matter how many times I'd readjust the mat, it always slipped back there, so I had to take it off the chair when I wasn't using it.). I decided to the buy the Lightening McQueen pillow because of the very fitting phrase printed on it: "Speed. I am speed." And given how quickly my crit date is approaching, I'm going to need that mojo to get done in time. I'm going to work some more today and tomorrow.

Had a good Christmas, though it seemed to last a lot longer than in most years, probably because we started on the 22nd. Jeff has a rather large family, which is only getting larger, which means working around quite a few people's schedules. I made out like a bandit. Jeff got me a Shiatsu massager for my office chair, which has inadverdently corrected my keyboard issue (namely that my chair doesn't allow me to sit close enough to it so I often have to lean forward to be able to type comfortably, which has led to issues with my knees, my shoulders, and my back. The massager mat is thick enough that I now sit quite a bit closer to the keyboard now and no longer have the strain on my shoulders, and also no enough set to sit with my legs folded. So now everything's good.). I also got three more books on Aztecs and have filled an entire bookshelf with just that subject alone in my library. It's a good thing I still have several empty shelves to work with. I got a book on writing Nahuatl, one on Aztec poetry, and another of Aztec art that came with a disk full of permission free black and white clip art. I spent some time experimenting on them with Paint and I think I'll be able to create some nice new art for my website.

We got big snow on Christmas day (a new record since records were starting to be kept back in the 1890's) and we're supposed to get another 4-8 inches today. I shall be inside all day, doing some reading and maybe some writing.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday and has a safe New Year!

Morning Star Rising

8,814 / 150,000 (5.9%)

A bit done yesterday, not too terribly much.

I discovered yesterday that I have started graying. At 31? WTF? Those weren't there six months ago when I still had short hair. They're probably from stress, and apparently I have them on both sides of my temples, but I can only see them clearly on the right side, and they're quite white. Man, and I'd been planning on having published at least one novel before I started getting gray hair. :D

Morning Star Rising

6,457 / 150,000 (4.3%)

Not a whole lot done yesterday, thanks to the need for some afternoon grocery shopping. I also bought two new mice to replace the two that died recently of tumors brought on by an ill-advised change in the bedding (never ever use the scoopable Feline Pine in a mouse cage--the pellets are fine, but avoid the saw-dust looking stuff). 3 of my mice developed tumors within a month of starting to use that crap, and one died about a month ago. The second one hung on for another month, but lost the use of a hind leg and ended up falling down one of the tubes and dying. The third one has a small tumor on her throat, but she seems to be doing okay. The fourth mouse seems healthy as a horse, though I'm wondering if she has neurological problems because she used to be a really mellow mouse but now she jumps around frantically for no apparent reason. The cage is strictly aspen now, after reading at numerous places on the internet that pine shavings of any kind should be avoided in mouse cages because they put off chemicals that are toxic to mice. We're at four again now though and I decided to name the two new ones after characters in my novel. How egotistical is that? :D

And this morning I had an idea for a new One World story, so I'm going to let that brew for a while. It's already altered quite a bit in my mind since I first started thinking about it. It involves astronauts and political/religious terrorists. It's actually shaping up to be a sequel to my other OW story "Night Bird Soaring", which some of you have read (it's on the short-list at GUD right now). I of course don't want it to rely on people having read NBS, so that could be tricky.

Also, I have a haircut appointment this afternoon. I was growing my hair out, but after really wishing I could chop it off again for about a month now, I've decided I'm going to get it cut short again. So I don't anticipate getting much rewriting done today.

I'm on page 297 and have managed to cut about 1500 words in just sloppy writing. I worked extra late today, since Jeff was doing the same, and since he'll be home on Friday, I probably won't work anymore on it until Monday (we're going to try to finish our Christmas shopping tomorrow while the kids are at school, and tomorrow's his company's Christmas party, which means getting dressed up for my one time a year in a formal, strapless dress and carry a purse. Ooow! :-) I'm more of a jeans and Hawaiian shirt kind of girl.). I'm finding myself cutting less stuff now that I'm starting into the stuff I wrote for NaNo this year, which may be a byproduct of having not read what I wrote yet, and I may need to go through it several times to get it into the shape I wanted it to be in.

For the third time in just as many days, I went into the refrigerator this morning and found that Gaaron had taken a big bite out of a stick of butter. Ick!