X-Static

May 6

I should've done an update this weekend -- now it's all dust and haze. The A Certain Magazine 35th anniversary party was great fun. They roasted my boss (he thought it was going to be a Liar's Panel), highlight of the roast being Connie Willis and her slide-show (for a slide projector she had her charming daughter, Cordelia, shuffling through large posters), "Travels with Charlie". I resisted the urge to buy large quantities of small-press horror from Borderlands. Afterward, we went to dinner at a tapas place that double-booked the private room we'd reserved, forcing us to squeeze in together, coach-class airline-seat style. Apart from the fact that I had to flail around like a stubby-armed T-rex (with my elbows digging into my own stomach) in order to eat my food, it was pretty marvelous -- Heather and I sat across from Connie and Cordelia Willis. Connie is, of course, hilarious, and Cordelia (who is a forensic scientist) told some fascinating stories. The food was great, too. Terry Bisson, Stan Robinson, and Lisa Goldstein were all there as well -- it's so strange, having a nice dinner with these people, when I would've been utterly starstruck by them two years ago (and I am, occasionally, still dazzled, when I really think about what these people wrote -- Lincoln's Dreams! "Bears Discover Fire"! The "Mars" trilogy! A Mask for the General!) And they're all even nice! My job is sometimes so very cool.

Saturday morning, before the magazine-anniversary-festivities, Heather and I test-drove a car. We liked it. Our trusty mechanic Reco told us it needed about $1,000 worth of repairs to be safe to drive (brakes are totally shot), and that another $1,000 worth in repairs would need to be made eventually. But then it would be in very good shape indeed, and the problems are normal wear-and-tear things, and it'd be a good car for years after that, and it's still a wonderful deal, and... we're torn. It's a lot of money. We might make the guy an offer -- he wants to sell, and he didn't realize how many things were wrong with the vehicle, so he might cut us a deal...

My darling Heather has announced her good news -- she sold her wonderful, wrenching story "Restoration" to Polyphony 3! We're uproariously happy in the PrattShaw house. And in related news, Polyphony rejected my skank-ass story. I was going to send it off somewhere else, but I made the mistake of re-reading it, and now I want to revise it, but who knows when I'll get around to that? I see a way to combine exposition with action in one of the sections, though, and cut its length by a quarter or so -- guess I should do it. It'll be a leaner, meaner story then. It's a good one -- it'll sell somewhere. Even in its somewhat-bloated state, it was cool enough to make it to the last round at Polyphony.

Sunday Heather and I went to see X-Men 2, and despite the enormous gaping plotholes and the fact that Kelly Hu was totally wasted in her tiny tiny role, I greatly enjoyed it. Great effects, lots of good cameos, Magneto was given more interesting stuff to do than he had in the first movie, and Nightcrawler's bampfs were marvelous. Though I didn't like what they did with his character -- he was so painfully sincere! Where was the joyful arrogance of the Nightcrawler I know and love? Still, well worth paying for my $5.50 Sunday-matinee ticket (well, Heather paid for it, actually, which makes it even more worth it). Over the weekend I also caught up on e-mail Star*Line submissions, but I really need to put the next issue together. It's not hard, it just takes a few hours, and hours are in notoriously short supply...

I've been writing steadily. Only about 600 words yesterday morning, but I did 1400 this morning, so it all evens out. I'm about to do an absolutely kick-ass scene, and to even describe it in the vaguest terms would be to stun you into unconsciousness with the splendor of my inventiveness, so I'll spare you the pain. (I'm clearly in the arrogant part of my novel-writing cycle just now; the crushing self-doubt will follow shortly, if past experience is any indication.)

So, the agent. She read the first hundred pages of Rangergirl over the weekend, and said she likes it very much. I sent her the rest of the book yesterday, and she says she'll read it and get back to me Monday. All of you, send me positive mental emanations. I'd like to have an agent. I love writing books, but marketing them exhausts me, and I'm happy to cough up 15% of the gross to have someone else do all that work for me. Not to mention the fact that a decent agent more than pays for herself by getting you better deals...

Not much else to report. Heather and I went grocery shopping last night and bought many a yummy thing, including three jars of vodka marinara sauce, still the contender for the Best New Crack of 2003; tonight Susan and Heather's old boyfriend Todd came over to watch Buffy and 24, and we talked and drank wine and so forth (Susan brought my prize money for the Strange Horizons reader's choice awards! Hurray!). I'm reading Singularity Sky by Charles Stross (they were giving away galleys at the Nebulas), and it's good.

Good night, sweet princes, princesses, and royal others.

Words written since February 1, 2003: 43,700

Words written since last entry:
2,000

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Charles de Lint says it's worth reading! Are you calling him a liar? Huh?