This is me babbling.
June 10
After all this time away from the journal, you'd think I'd have more to say, but there's precious little that's update-worthy. I got a rejection from Weird Tales for a story that I have no record of sending to them (and which, in fact, I've already sold somewhere else!); I hate it when lapses in my record-keeping become so apparent. Also a rejection from F&SF for one of my very favorite new stories; he just plain old didn't like it. I'm pretty sure it'll find a good home somewhere, though...
I've been writing, a bit, mostly on Rangergirl, and pecking away at a story in my spare moments. The weekend was largely spent frivolously, however. There's so much Buffy to watch! And Heather and I went to a big party on Saturday night, in a very nice house... I had a good time, but I got quite unsocial near the end, and retreated to a darkish corner of the garden to sit on a bench and have a conversation with my novel's protagonist... we do that, from time to time, I visualize us sitting in a coffee shop somewhere in a couple of cozy chairs, sipping something, chatting. I learn a lot about my protagonists that way. They reveal their depths to me. Sunday Heather and I checked out a new coffee shop that opened fairly close by. The place has terrible hours (closes at 8 on weeknights, and at 3 p.m. on Sunday -- clearly they're not after my camp-out-all-evening business), but a really lovely atmosphere. Nice hardwood floors, good seating, cushy leather armchairs, decent music, and they serve the best iced chai I've ever had (and I've had many).
Ooh, and there's a contender for Best New Crack! We went to the local juice-smoothie place this weekend, which has a special seasonal treat -- a cherry smoothie! It's sooo good. Jamba Juice had a similar beverage, which I drank on a daily basis during its brief "special flavor" tenure, but the one from this little indie juice place is far superior.
(Freely free-associating now) I also bought Top Ten, Book Two; man, what a great comic. It's rare to find a comic that really rewards close study, but there's cool, funny stuff going on in the background on almost every page... we rented the Unbreakable DVD last week, and there's a neat little documentary about comics with people like Frank Miller and Will Eisner, and a few minutes of Michael Chabon talking about comics as immigrant-stories... fascinating stuff. And Chabon is so much the man. I'm looking forward to his new one, Summerland.
I finished reading Skin (loved it; it's my favorite Koja novel; my favorite story of hers is "At Eventide", if you're wondering), which freed me up to read Meet Me in the Moon Room by Ray V., which is super-good, and also to read Archangel Protocol, which has some pretty cool stuff in it, and I've mostly read Carol Emshwiller's new collection, and I'm not sure what I'm reading next...
I'm amazed I've managed to say this much, as I thought I had nothing at all to say. Huh.
Oh, Stoker winners were announced, and, alas, Nick didn't win... I've read both Northern Gothic and In These Final Days of Sales, and I gotta tell you, Nick was robbed... I can only assume that the voters hadn't actually read Nick's book, or I believe they would've agreed. (Tem's story is good, don't get me wrong, but I think Nick's was better).
I'm so random tonight. We bought some cherries. They're delicious. People were screaming outside for a long time tonight. Kinda scary. We were afraid they'd frighten off the pizza-delivery guy, but they didn't. We've been drinking, like, a gallon of ice tea every day and a half lately. This is not a good thing. I don't mind the caffeine, but I'm Southern, so there's too much sugar. I did 300 sit-ups (or ab crunches or whatever you want to call them) tonight, and it was pretty easy. I've been listening to old school REM lately. My room is ludicrously hot all the time. I read the other stories in the issue of Realms of Fantasy that I'm in, and you know? They're pretty good. Especially Liz Williams's. I'm in good company. That's nice. And I really like the fact that every story has a different layout, different design, watermarks and borders and weird ways of doing pullquotes and such. It's neat and playful. Even if the magazine does have more than its share of typos (they spelled my name wrong in the "Contributors" bit on the masthead! but correctly everywhere else, so I'm not too annoyed).
Oh, heavens, I've gotta stop. Good night.
Words written since February 1, 2002: 82,770
Words written since last entry: 2,000
Send me cherry squishees! One time in Arkansas of all places I had this "white cherry" squishy, which was basically a cherry squishy that didn't have the grotesque artificial red coloring, so it looked like shaved ice but tasted like cherry squishee! Astonishing!
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