The weekend seemed very long, though I went to the flee market on Sunday and bought a Mayan mask. I'll probably go back again in a few weeks and see about buying some statuary since apparently the vendor's there all the time. I'm probably actually going to be reading most of today, since I have some stuff to get critiquing and we'll be camping over Memorial Day weekend and I'll likely not have time to do any for four days. I've been doing some more thinking about my new One World story and it's finally starting to take shape (I cut off on Friday with two of my characters nearly coming to blows and I think my original imaginings of the roles are reversed). Hope to work on it some more today though.

Interestingly, I've been mentioned over the WotF forum as someone who's "been successful with stories based on folklore and mythology of Central or South America", which I find rather tickling but I really do have to wonder what I've done to deserve that distinction. Sure, I've published quite a few Aztec-based stories (no SA fiction, though I have written one and it's currently still in the revision stage), but I have only one semi-pro sale in the genre, the rest are all token (the Black Gate reprint would make it two semi-pro, if that pans out). Perhaps token markets are a little more influential than I tend to give them credit for? I'm skeptical, but who knows.... Anyway, being mentioned gave me a smile. And maybe some day I'll actually feel I qualify. :)

Yesterday we went to Borders to see about buying a couple of The Spiderwick Chronicles books, and I can't believe they cost $12 a piece, for like 50 pages of text. What a rip-off! The trade paperback book of almost 400 pages I bought cost less than that. So I told Dana if she wants to read them, she'll have to check them out from the library. I hate to do that, but that's just outrageously expensive for a tiny hardcover that's a fraction of the size of one of the Series of Unfortunate Events books.

So today's plan is to start working on the rewrite of "The Hearts of Men" for the polish challenge over at LH, and get at least one story back out to market after a couple rejections over the weekend (the other two I'm waiting for markets to open up again.). I also saw that my editor over at Sorcererous Signals has nominated my story she published for the Million Writers Award this year, which is cool (and the second year in a row that I've had something nominated).

I did lots and lots of reading yesterday, and should finish up my read-through today. Started the morning off doing a critique.

Yesterday, I received word from my editor at Sorcerous Signals that my story "The Divine Conquest of Mexico" has been selected for their print best of year anthology called Arcane Whispers, which will available from Lulu.com come May. And I get paid again, twice as much as before, so that's a nice touch. I love making reprint sales that don't require me to go submit and deal with rejections.

It's always nice to start the new year off with good news. I just heard back from the editor of the new historical fiction magazine Tales of Moreauvia and he's buying my story "Ancient Artifacts" for either the premiere issue or the 2nd. I'm naturally excited about this magazine because, aside from Paradox, there's really no historical mags out there that specialize in historical speculative fiction, which is a genre dear to my heart, and so I hope TOM enjoys as much success as Paradox does and will be around for a long time. I intend to subscribe once the first issue comes out (and yes, I'd intended to even before I found out they wanted to buy my story. One must support the markets that publish the brands of fiction one enjoys most.).

This will be the third stories in my Sixth Sun Rising series that I've sold (the other two being "The Divine Conquest of Mexico" and "Love, Blood and Octli".)

Both The Fix and Firebrand Fiction Reviews over at SFReader.com reviewed issue 11 of Paradox, in which my novelette "Love, Blood and Octli" appears, and I'm jumping for joy at how good the reviews of my story are. Sherwood Smith of The Fix had this to say:

The issue gets off to an excellent start with T. L. Morganfield’s “Love, Blood and Octli,”...Morganfield does a beautiful job of weaving myth and verisimilitude, imbuing the characters with passion as well as personality. The magic is nicely done, with just the right details that evoke the symbols of Aztec artwork, adding a rich overlay.

And Rob Santa of Firebrand had this to say:

Even without the magnificent Mesoamerican art covering the first page, I knew this would be a subject matter dear to my heart: the Aztec Empire. My favorite novel is Aztec by Gary Jennings, an historical fiction epic I've read twenty times at least, where I was first introduced to octli (a tequila-like spirit, though that is an inferior description). It is unfair to compare Morganfield's short story with Jennings' masterpiece, and I won't. "Love, Blood and Octli" stands on its own as a fable about the rise of the Aztecs as a people...I found Morganfield's storytelling outstanding, and her piece deserves the spotlight of first on the table of contents.

I left out the bits describing plot, so if you'd like to read the full review, just click on the links above. What a nice Christmas present from the folks at the Fix and SFReader.com!

Hope everyone's having a lovely holiday!

Oh, and my One World (Aztec alternate history) story "Dedication" is now available at AnthologyBuilder. After the New Year I'll submit "The Last Arabian Prince" too. I'm planning on buying an anthology too, after the holidays, get some stories from folks I've never read.

While Googling my name tonight, I discovered the first "review" of Paradox #11, from SFRevu. It's kind of a non-specific review, mostly summarizing the contents of the issue, but he did say that all the stories scored a Very Good for him.

I managed to make effective use of my 3 hours in the morning. I did a once over of "The Jade Bones" and sent it out to Realms of Fantasy. That's a big improvement for me in the progress department. I have today off, so I'm planning on doing a critique, updating the novel outline for NaNo, and maybe doing some work on another novel I've been working on off and on the last couple of months. Or maybe I'll try to finish up the first draft of the Egyptian fantasy story before that. I am only pages away from finishing it. After dropping Gaaron off at school, I"m going to make one last trip to the newstand and see if they've gotten in Interzone 212 (they did say they might still get it) and if they don't have it, I'm going to find somewhere on the internet to buy it from. As I understand it, Interzone's website doesn't sell individual issues.

 Zero writing done today, but I think I've figured out what I need to do to get back to it. My usual routine is to spend the morning cruising the internet and doing email and generally goofing off. However, I've discovered that the baby sleeps best and consistently until 10am and so that's when I should be doing my writing. I generally don't consider myself awake enough to do much productive writing that early, but it's the only consistent timeframe I've found so far with him and so I'm going to have to adapt. I'm going to make sure I get to bed at a decent time tonight, so I get enough sleep, and give it a try tomorrow.

I read my story in Paradox today, just to do so, and I'm horrified that I missed 4 really dumbass typos. I must have read and reread the galley a half dozen times, and not a single time did I catch any of these glaring mistakes. I wonder if I should try printing out electronic galleys for now on and reading them that way, because I do seem to have a better time of locating typos after I print something up. I spent this morning going over the galley for "What Makes Us Strong", so my day wasn't a complete abyss of non-production. I also got back an honorable mention from WotF for "The Jade Bones", arriving a startlingly quick 49 days (the new low response time at Duotrope.). I'm going to reread it and tomorrow or Thursday I'll ship it off to Realms of Fantasy. I don't have anything lined up to send for Q1so maybe I'll think of trying to write something new for it.

My Quetzalcóatl story "The Divine Conquest of Mexico" is now available to read at Sorcerous Signals. It's accompanied by a really nice illustration done by Lee Kuruganti (who is a fellow Metro State College alumni). The story is part of a series called Sixth Sun Rising, though this is the only one of that series I've sold so far. The series started off as a novel, but this particular story was the first short story I wrote when I started writing shorts in earnest two years ago.

My first new sale of the year! I just received word today that my Quetzalcóatl story "The Divine Conquest of Mexico" has been accepted by Sorcerous Signals for the August-October issue. I'm quite excited about this one because it's been making the rounds for about a year and a half and went through numerous drafts during that time, far more than any other story I've written. It feels very good to have finally placed it, and I'm glad that I never gave up on it. It's the first sale in my Aztec fantasy series Sixth Sun Rising.

ETA: I almost forgot this: this morning I got an email from my editor at Atomjack telling me that he's nominated my story "The Last Arabian Prince" for the Million Writer's Award from StorySouth. Each editor is only allowed to nominate three stories, so I feel pretty special to be considered one of the top three stories he published last year.