Of Adverbs and Other Things
August 7
First off, the biz:
New issue of Speculon online. There's a story by me ("Entropy's Paintbrush"), and, of course, new poetry. We've got a nice science fiction piece by Bruce Boston, a horror/fairy tale piece from Erin Donahoe, a beautiful surreal poem by April Holtom, a lovely science fiction poem by Denise Dumars, and a formal continuation of Poe's "Ligeia" by Ann K. Schwader (my TOC mate in the current issue of Weird Tales). Go, read, enjoy!
A rejection on a novella from Horror Garage. They called me a "very talented" writer, but complained about my language, of all things. I mean, I'm no pyrotechnic stylist, but many a pro writer and editor has told me that my prose is fine and competent. The eds. at H.G. objected particularly to my use of adverbs. Ah, well. I try to be picky about using those buggerly adverbs, and only put in the ones I think are really necessary. Not sure if I went overboard in this particular story on that score or not. I'll have to look at it again...
Work-wise tonight, I've just been catching up on my e-mail from the past couple of weeks. I've answered pretty much everyone, now. I'm also going to type some poems and send them to an editor who has requested some of my work (I *love* it when that happens). Also doing crits on two stories for writing group tomorrow. That's taking pretty much all my work-time tonight. The tentative start date for Rangergirl is next Monday, possibly this Sunday. That should give me time to clear my decks. Yum.
I added a thing to my main page with links to "Current Publications"-- stuff you can find online in current issues, or in bookstores, right now. I'll be updating it and keeping it current and so on. With something like this there's always the danger that I'll go months and months with no publications listed, and thus appear quite pathetic... but I've had a good year, with something appearing out there in the world almost every month, so we'll give it a try.
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I love my job. Love love love it. Today I took my boss to a doctor's appointment (he doesn't drive), so I spent much of my time sitting in waiting rooms and reading Karen Joy Fowler's Sister Noon. Then I went to lunch with my boss and talked to him about publishing and writing and so forth (and had yummy food, though my boss, like my girlfriend, reproaches my poor eating habits). Then I came back to the office, where I worked on layout and edited things and made corrections and hurray!
It's a little strange, actually, liking my job. I still have some residual resistance to the idea, you know? I get up in the morning and think "Bleah, have to go to work." But... see... I like this work. I'm interested in it. I care about the finished product. I find even the minutiae interesting. The work... it's satisfying. My brain knows that, but my more vascular and visceral responses are still figuring it out. I was singing as I came down the hill from work today (and saw that absolutely amazing view of Oakland below me, and the bay, and San Francisco on the far side-- my boss says that, on a clear day, you can see Japan. Heh)-- and I was singing from happiness and fulfillment! Because of work!
This is so amazingly cool. I mean. Wow. I could do this job (with increasing responsibilities, of course) for the foreseeable future, and write in my free time... and be perfectly content. The day-job has always been something of a thorn in my side. It isn't anymore. That's so great.
Granted, this was only my second day. So we'll see. But I have this feeling...
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You know what else is so great? My girlfriend. Not only is she, like, paying for everything for this first couple of weeks (I'm waiting to get my last paycheck from the old job, and paying rent and deposits and the cost of moving and some bills wiped out my savings almost totally) (though she is keeping track of expenditures so I can pay her back once I'm flush again, which should be soon, god willing and the river don't rise), and buying me clothes, but today she went to the grocery store, and when I came home she made me dinner. Good dinner! Boca burger and tater tots and ice cream for dessert kinda dinner! Whee! And she brought me frosted mini-wheats, which I'm eating right now. And we watched Buffy tapes and then I worked for a bit and then I took a break and we, ah, shared intimacies, which was lovely. Lovelier even than tater tots and such. Much, far lovelier.
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And that's all for now.
