On Her Honor

August 5

Heather updated! Wowza! And she has good news -- she just found out that "Wetting the Bed", her story in Floodwater, got an honorable mention in the new The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror!

The big news for me is that I finally got over myself and got back to work on Rangergirl revisions. It took me until 11 p.m. tonight, but I finally just sat down, put on some music, and started typing, not worrying about the individual sentences much at all, just trying to get the scene going. And I fell into it pretty quickly, and did that eyes-closed-while-rocking-to-and-fro thing I do when the writing is going well, and the individual sentences are all pretty okay, actually, once you get past the first few awkward ones. I'm pleased. I did 700 words tonight, and will do more tomorrow, and repeat until completion! Then I'll try to spackle this scene seamlessly into the existing manuscript, while cutting out the bad stuff. The book should get a bit shorter and leaner in the process. After that, I'll do another editing pass to tweak a few things and clean up any awkwardness, and I'll be done! Should be able to get this back to the agent by the end of the month. (The song I was listening to when I stopped writing tonight was "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" by Counting Crows, which has lots of Rangergirl-type things in it, oddly, from lying down in the desert just to stare up at this bowl of stars, to dreams being like memories and memories being like films about ghosts, and that stuff about the tilt-a-whirl, which is especially appropriate since I'm writing a scene on the beach boardwalk now...)

Not much else happening, writing-wise. No acceptances or rejections. Work is work, but a bit busier than usual, since we're trying to finish the September issue in time for Worldcon. Heather is sickish as can be, unfortunately -- she has two, count 'em, two infections! She's on super strong medicine for it, and can't go out into sunlight, because the drugs make her burn very easily. She's taken a couple of days off work, mostly to sleep. Zanzibar is sick, too, and she's taking him to the vet tomorrow. We were going to have dinner with Jed and Tempest last night, but Heather wasn't feeling well, and so we reluctantly canceled. Too bad -- would've been very nice to see them. Instead, we ordered food! Heather got Indian, and I got Chinese, because our food preferences so rarely meet... I'm pleased to discover that there's a very good Chinese place nearby. I felt kinda bad about spending $20 on a meal, until I actually got the food, and realized there was enough for two and a half meals, easily! So that was dinner today, too.

Let's see, flotsam... we watched the first Zatoichi movie the other night, and while it wasn't as good as the one I saw at Rio Hondo, it was still pretty great. From Rio Hondo I free-associate to Michaela Roessner, who says she should have her introduction to Little Gods ready for me this week -- it sounds like she's having a good time with it! Hmm. Other stuff... we got our proof of "Broken Branches" from Mike, and will read that soon. Heather wrote a bio for us. I got a quote from a printer for Flytrap, and it sounds pretty great, rather less than I'd expected to pay, and for better quality (shiny coated cover, anyone?).

The inimitable Jen, the only person with a story and a poem in Flytrap #1, has a great entry about writing. Made me feel better yesterday, when I was bashing my head painfully against Rangergirl.

And now -- you asked for it, or at least, some of you did -- more cat pictures.

Words written since February 1, 2003: 78,200

Words written since last entry:
700

Flytrap! Sure, we could use some extra money, if you want to help out. Maybe we could even do a color cover!