Building a Better Flytrap

August 28

I've been working on the Frog novel -- not as much as I'd hoped, but I did 2,000 words this week so far, and I think I've got my momentum entirely back now. I would have done more on it, but Heather and I have been working to finalize our plans for Flytrap #2. We finally settled on a reading period (September 1 - October 31), and figured out subscription stuff, and wrote guidelines, and put together some web pages. Ready to begin your Flytrap experience? Go here: www.sff.net/people/timpratt/flytrap.html. From there you can find guidelines, subscription info, general info about the magazine, etc. It's a bit skeletal at this point, but more content will be added gradually. We're looking forward to seeing submissions from many of you (the writer-types, that is).

I'm lousy at HTML, and I hand-coded those pages with my feeble knowledge of tables, so let me know if they look like crap (not that I promise to be able to fix the problem, but I'd like to know). They look good on my PC in Explorer, and they look decent on Heather's Mac (also in Explorer), but as for other platforms/operating systems/browsers, who knows? My approach to making web pages is to screw around with the code until it looks okay in my browser window, so if someone wants to go into our source and streamline the (doubtless many) redundancies and kludge work-arounds, feel free!

Back to writing news: not much to report except a rejection from Space and Time. Said it was a great story, and went to the final round of consideration, and they hope they have the opportunity to publish me in the future. Better than a steel-toed-boot to the teeth. But, of course, not as good as a sale. I've been reading lots of short fiction, especially Paul Park and Aimee Bender, and enjoying it (or else I wouldn't be reading so much of it, hmm?).

No travel for Heather and I this weekend -- everyone have fun at Worldcon and Burning Man! Raise a beer and/or piece of flaming conceptual art for us! We're going into the city on Saturday to see the Chagall exhibit at SF MOMA, and will probably go to Golden Gate Park so I can scout around a bit on locations for the Frog novel, since the scenes will be better if the place is fresher in my mind. Otherwise, we're going to hang pictures, and dance about, and make meals together, and enjoy our three-day-weekend. And write a bit, probably. But you knew that.

Words written since February 1, 2003: 86,000

Words written since last entry:
2,000

Help us build a better Flytrap.