Monday, April 1st, 2002 - Macaroni & Cheese
Got up on time, for once, and took a shower, and shaved, and thus felt more human than usual for a Monday morning. I went to work and did lots of work all the livelong day, laying out the next issue, putting in columns, etc. Great fun was had by all, I assure you. I stood in line at the post office and listened to a pretty girl curse like the proverbial stevedore because they wouldn't accept her out-of-state check. I checked my e-mail and found, to my surprise and delight, an invitation to submit to an anthology for up-and-coming horror writers, called Fresh Blood. So I sent them one of my newer stories, which I'd planned to send to Weird Tales this week; we'll see if the antho wants it. If not, perhaps I can come up with something else... I have a couple of horrificish ideas, and I wrote a couple of horror stories last month that could be revised into usability, perhaps. I came home, read my mangled-by-the-post-office copy of The Santa Cruz Comic News (that subscription is perhaps the best $25 I've spent all year, and that includes meals involving cheeseburgers). I did dishes, because I've been promising I would, and because we were out of silverware, so otherwise I would've had to eat my macaroni and cheese with a potato masher. Because that's what I had for dinner; macaroni and cheese. Oh, yes. The poor writer's friend, the bachelor's solace, the college-student's treat. Heather is in the city this evening, attending her sister's flamenco class, leaving me alone to desperately scramble for productivity. I managed to answer some small fraction of my e-mail. And, as you've noticed (unless you're reading this through a text-only interface, in which case, nyeah nyeah!), I spent a little more time than usual working on this journal entry... So. So so so. Got rejected by F&SF. Life is pain. We endure. "Romanticore" is inexplicably shorter than I thought. It's about 13,700 words long, not 15,500 as I previously reported. I'm sorta happy that it's shorter, but I don't understand why I thought it was longer. It's not like it's difficult to run the word count function on my computer, you know? But anyway. I'm reading The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson, last year's Crawford Award Winner (I wanna Crawford Award, yo). Goood book. For no particular reason I'd expected it to be heavy going, but it's a wonderfully fast and elegant read. I am not as good a novelist as this woman. I am not as good a novelist as many people, but it particularly strikes me when it's someone's first novel (or first published novel; I don't know about Kij Johnson, but this year's Crawford winner, Jasper Fforde, wrote 5 books before selling The Eyre Affair). I mean, I sincerely hope I'm a long way from the height of my powers, but it would be nice to be able to write an amazingly kick-ass fantasy, you know? Rangergirl might well be that book. I think my last novel is pretty good, but Rangergirl could potentially be a cut above. I s'pose I'll sign off here now, perhaps read some slush (since I didn't do so this weekend, what with all the socializing), or write some fiction. Whatever the muse and my amusement dictate. Happy April 1st, y'all.	Exercise log: I peed standing up. I made my own dinner. I got the mail. Writing log: Got a rejection from F&SF. Got invited to submit something to an anthology for new horror writers. Haven't done any actual writing yet, but hey, the month is young. Eating log: Mac & Cheese. Some tortilla chips. Some chocolate-covered raisins at work. Hungering for more. Always more. Listening log: Various Agent Ink, currently Fractured Sonic Hyper Fuzz; perhaps later I'll listen to a live show on tape. Ooh. Smelling log: Not much. Nose is stuffed up. Snort. Snurff. Snorgle. Ah. That's better. I'm smelling weeds and pollen. Itch log: My back, lower left quadrant. Scratching is effective. Current Publications: Modesty forbids. I'm currently reading: The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson Assorted poetry type things.
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