Genre Pirate

August 2

A few online things to mention:

First, the esteemed Jay Lake has written a Story Word in honor of my recent mugging, "Flowerpot". He's a good man, is our Jay.

Second, as I discovered via Nick, I'm a multiple-choice! Yes, in this Which SF Wavelet Are You? quiz, the question "Which Newer Authors Do You Most Admire?" has "Tim Pratt" as a possible answer! (Actually the answer is "Tim Pratt or Kelly Link", which is pretty damned flattering, and I don't mean for Kelly! Speaking of whom, I just read her new story "The Hortlak" in a galley of Datlow's upcoming anthology The Dark, and it's my favorite story of hers since "The Specialist's Hat"! Look for it!). When I took the quiz, however, I didn't actually choose the answer with my name. I chose the "Jay Lake or Ben Rosenbaum" option, because I admire what they do more than I admire what I do. (According to the quiz I'm a "genre pirate," plundering material for my stories from any and all genres -- I rather like that characterization, actually.)

Third, I completely forgot to mention that my poem "Ammut in Her Later Years" was online at Strange Horizons a while ago. Forgive me; I was deep into The Move at the time. Anyway, I think it's a nice piece, so read, and enjoy.

Fourth, my Featured Author stint at Ideomancer continues, this month with that perennial favorite "Annabelle's Alphabet" (that's the one that got into a couple of Year's Best anthos, you might recall). So if you haven't read it before, do! In other Ideo-related news, Greg van Eekhout is interviewing me for that 'zine. I just answered the first question this morning, so look forward to Greg's inspired questions and my cryptic replies.

The move is over. We did our walkthrough at the old place Friday evening, and got almost all of our deposit back. And we never need go back there again! Hurrah! Now all we have to do is unpack at the new place, which is far nicer than cleaning and lugging things upstairs and choking on a decade's worth of attic dust. I've already been somewhat productive, since getting my life back -- I finally sent Mike Jasper edits on mine & Heather's Intracities story; actually proofread/critiqued a story for someone; answered a bit of e-mail; worked on Flytrap, including both doing some layout and querying a printer for a quote on production costs; and wrote a review of new anthology 13 Horrors.

This morning Heather and I ran various errands. I bought new sandals, since my old ones were utterly destroyed during the move. We finally checked the PO Box (much Star*Liney goodness!). We bought a laundry basket. I deposited some money into my starving bank account. We took some garden stuff to Urban Ore, which is a simply miraculous place, a vast warehouse full of stuff -- books, lamps, knick-knacks, rugs, picture frames, albums, CDs, toys, old arcade games, stereo equipment, computer components, chunks of drywall, window frames, lamps (including one of my cherub lamps; yes, we broke up the set, because we only have room for one at the new apartment) -- just every imaginable kind of junk. I'll have to put that place into a story.

Now, we're home, into our lazy afternoon. Mmm. Lazy. It's been so long since we've been able to just relax!

Words written since February 1, 2003: 77,500

Words written since last entry:
600

Flytrap hungers for you. Submission guidelines and reading period for Flytrap 2 will be announced soon. Watch this and other similar spaces.