Disgruntled But Fun

June 27

10:30 a.m.

So! Yesterday I slaved away at work (actually doing work, y'all, no foolin'). Then I came home and wandered under the gray clouds for a while, walking to the post office, going into Bookshop Santa Cruz and buying American Gods by Gaiman. He's doing a reading in the City tonight; long ago I had to make the choice between Radiohead and Neil Gaiman. I think I made the right decision. I can see Gaiman another time; Radiohead could implode or break up or turn their back on pop music at any moment.

I knew that if I started reading American Gods I would be sucked in, but I couldn't resist. I'm about 150 pages into it now, and it's lovely. Just exactly the kind of book I'd like to write-- he's so good with this mythic stuff! The prose is really nice, too. I'm usually disappointed with Gaiman's straight fiction-- I prefer his work in comics and teleplays-- but A.G. is first-rate.

Real-work-wise, I did some market research (mostly utilizing Ralan's Market List) and got a few stories ready to go out in the mail. I have several stories just sitting around, waiting to go back into the world. I have several more stories that need revision before I can send them out... Hell, here's the list of those:

• "Birch Stakes," a darkish science-fiction story that needs a few scenes expanded and a good polish
• "The Witch's Bicycle," a dark-fantasy novella that needs a few hundred words trimmed off and a polish
• "Romanticore," a novella that needs to be a short story; it needs to be drastically revised
• "Fable From a Cage," a fantasy novella, needs a polish
• "Meranhu's Gifts," a fantasy short story that needs a polish

Some of these stories have been on my desk since, like, February. This is not good. At least I got "Little Gods" and "Rowboats, Sacks of Gold" out in the mail, even if the latter is so weird that I suspect no one will ever buy it...

I'm a bit disgruntled about my fiction writing. I'm really ambivalent about what to do next. I want to get all my short stories revised and out the door-- clear the decks, you know? That'll take several nights of work. I want to rewrite "Captain Fantasy," which will probably take a couple of nights. I want to type my edits to Genius and send it to Tor-- that will take one night, and I think it's going to be my next priority. First of all, I want to finish my Mr. Li story. I will do that this weekend. Heather's coming to visit, and we're planning to devote some time to writing. I want to get more of my speculative poetry in the mail. I have a roughly 50% acceptance rate with my poetry, so I should be taking more advantage of the fact that editors seem to like my poems. I'm excited about doing all this stuff, but it just seems like a lot-- sometimes an insurmountable lot, though it isn't, really. Most of all, I want to dive into writing Rangergirl. I know that's an investment of at least a month's work, though, probably two months, and during that time I won't get any other writing stuff done. I'm not willing to let these other projects hang for that long. This is all leading to some annoyance on my part. If I just had a week of no job, time to devote entirely to writing, I could get everything squared away and start my novel. Ah, well. It'll get done. It'll all get done.

I'm also worried about money, but shit, that's just weather these days. I'm not in serious trouble-- I'm just worried. Sometimes my head likes to worry.

Editors! One of you buy something of mine, and cheer me up! This Neil Gaiman novel will only keep me happy for a few more days!

Actually, Radiohead tonight will cheer me up. And then a very Heatherful weekend. And then an Ani Difranco concert next week (oh, yeah-- Heather and I are going to see Ani Difranco next week). So there's fun in my world.