Bitter Bathrobe Boy
March 6
Tra la. Merry Wednesday. Heather wasn't feeling well, so we didn't work out, though we're going to tomorrow. I made dinner tonight, a pasta-and-cheese casserole, thus impressing Heather, who views any act of cooking that doesn't involve a recipe as something akin to sorcery. We had dinner, and then I foolishly took a nap, which is always a bad idea; I generally wake from naps feeling ill-tempered and groggy. So I woke in that state around 9:00 p.m., and stumbled around, glaring, unshaven, in my robe; I was Bitter Bathrobe Boy. I retreated to my room and printed out some stories and wrote some cover letters, so I can send out a few stories tomorrow. La. Then I read for a bit, and took a shower with Heather (actually got into the shower shortly before she finished, then showered myself, so it was sort of a tag-team shower, or a relay-race-shower...). After that I came upstairs and wrote 750 words on the Frog story, finishing a scene (which will have to be fleshed out a bit later, but the important bits are there). I butted up against the first logical problem with the plot... nothing insurmountable, but I have to figure it out. Any time I have a reasonably complicated story, there are unforeseen problems of this sort... working them out is part of the fun.
Otherwise... I finished The Spike; it's good. I think I'm going to be reading a lot of short stories now... I'm in the mood for that. I have several anthologies in the house that I've dipped into but haven't exhausted (Year's Best Fantasy, Dreaming Down Under, Alien Sex, and there are even several I haven't read in the last Year's Best Fantasy & Horror). Today I read "Sea Change" at Strange Horizons; it's a charming piece of surrealism, very nice. I wish I'd written it. The illustration is cool, too, very quirky and appropriate. The story is one of my favorite pieces ever published at SH.
Not much else to say. Work was work, messing with the issue and entering poll & survey responses. Which reminds me, if you haven't done so, go fill out the poll & survey. You've got until May 1st. Make your opinions known!
I'm being forced to re-evaluate my opinion of Michael Swanwick. I really despised In the Drift, since I dislike fix-up novels in general, and his started with a pretty good story and then degenerated, which only disappointed me further... but that was his early work. "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" is a good story, and I read "The Raggle Taggle Gypsy-O" tonight and liked it as well... so he's good. Not my favorite, but good.
And that's all for now.
Words written since February 1, 2002: 23,000
Words written today: 750
If you can find, like, a Buddha statuette, only instead of the Buddha it's a frog, but kinda Buddha-looking, if you see what I mean, then send me that.
Tim Pratt Read about my current publications.
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