5 Days Later

March 25

Long time, no update...

In writerly news, my poem "Poor Bahamut" has been nominated for a Rhysling. Whoo! While I'm saddened that none of my stories were chosen for any of the various Year's Best anthologies this year, that's nicely offset by the Nebula nomination, the story on the preliminary Stoker ballot, and now the Rhysling nom... things are going well. Also got a contract for "Blue Chuck Does Thrilltown", the collab I did with Heather that's going to be in The Urban Bizarre. Today someone sent me very sweet fan mail about "Little Gods" -- the second piece of fan mail I've received in which the writer mentioned a dream they'd had about Heather & I. (Neither dream was erotic, in case you were wondering...)

Willpower crumbled a bit last week. Thursday and Friday Heather and I slept in instead of working out and writing, respectively. Not sure why -- we just had a hard time getting motivated. On Friday I did make notes toward the next chunk of the Frog novel, so when I actually got around to writing it, it went pretty easily.

Friday night I worked on Flytrap layouts, because that's what I felt the urge to do. Heather has some really marvelous photographs (she's a gifted photographer) that we're going to use as interior artwork (and probably one of them for the cover). She sat up here with me and we talked about fonts, marginalia, how to arrange things on the page... it was a lot of fun. I love this stuff. And it's starting to look like a real magazine, here on my computer screen. I've got some great poetry, by Daphne Gottlieb, Maria Tabor, Tracina Jackson-Adams, Jay Wentworth, Alan De Niro, Jen Larsen, and Sonya Taaffe. I have room for maybe one more, so I'm not closing submissions, but I wouldn't be unhappy if this was the final line-up. Heather's accepted some fabulous fiction, too. And I'm actually groping my way toward an understanding of distribution possibilities. I have no doubt, now, that the 'zine will look beautiful (I have great faith in my own layout abilities), and will be filled with wonderful content (which is demonstrably true); the effort will be getting it out to readers, so that's what we're trying to figure out now.

Um. Saturday, we went to Berkeley rather early, so Heather could do a yoga class. I bought issues 3 & 4 of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (resolutely not referred to as "LXG", bleah), and read those in a café. I tried to write and failed, but managed to make a to-do list, at least. After she yoga'd, Heather and I went shopping for groceries. Got lots of good stuff, including 6 bottles of wine, at Trader Joe's. I took photos of the bulimic lion fountain in the shopping center (it's the classic "lion head, vomiting water" style, but the lions' chins are covered in green algae, a rather fascinating and disgusting effect).

Then home. We watched a few episodes of My So-Called Life, and had pasta with a marvelous creamy vodka marinara for dinner. We frolicked. An immensely pleasant Saturday night.

I rose around 11:00 Sunday and got to work right away, writing a review of Nalo Hopkinson's new anthology Mojo: Conjure Stories. It's quite good. The anthology, I mean, though I think the review came out well, too. I also reviewed Guy Gavriel Kay's poetry collection, Beyond this Dark House. Recreationally, we watched 8 Mile, which I enjoyed a lot -- I'm glad it didn't follow the rags-to-riches arc, but rather the dissolute-to-resolute arc. Much more satisfying.

I got up early Monday morning and worked on my book. Whee! And went to work, which was not especially stressful. That night we had salmon and fried rice for dinner, quite yummy, and watched The Good Girl, which had charming moments.

This morning we decided to snuggle in instead of getting up (v. bad, but decadently pleasant). At work I got copies of three books -- Shadows Bite by Dedman (sequel to The Art of Arrow Cutting, which I enjoyed), O'Leary's The Impossible Bird, and Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon. I've read many rave reviews of the latter two...

I wrote 1300 words when I got home, to make up for my slackness this morning, then made an extremely garlicky casserole for dinner, and Heather and I ate it up with some nice wine, and watched Buffy, and some My So-Called Life.

And here I am. It's been a nice few days, in my insular little world...

Words written since February 1, 2003: 24,700

Words written since last entry:
3,700

Buy Floodwater via PayPal! $5, includes shipping. Or send a check payable to Heather Shaw to the PO Box below.