Ghostwise

October 31

Happy Hallowe'en! I'm feeling somewhat under-the-weather (underweathered?), so I'm being boring and staying in tonight... Heather and Holly are off in the Castro for a bit, then Heather will come home, and we'll watch ostensibly scary movies (I Know What You Did Last Summer, since we've never seen it, and Phantasm, because I'm feeling old school, and I don't remember anything about the movie except the old guy and the lethal flying spheres, since I haven't seen it since I was 12 or so), and maybe read some scary stories, and say "Boo!" to one another with great frequency.

Hope you're all dismembering zombies, exorcising ghosts, and running afoul of only the sexy variety of vampire, rather than the rat-faced sewer-dwelling sort...

***

It's PovertyFest '02! Heather and I are staying home nights, not buying lattes, not ordering pizza, not buying sammitches, not buying beers, and basically being frugalmonkeys for a while. We've got teeth and grad school applications to pay for and a new 'zine to finance, so we're tightening our stylish leather belts. It's not bad, actually... I'm rather enjoying the simplicity, and I'm getting a lot done. Both of us have been feeling very domestic lately anyway. I've definitely had worse PovertyFests.

***

Last night, watching Cast Away (what a long Fed Ex commercial!), I was feeling fine; a bit headachy, perhaps, but that was all. Then I began sneezing. I continued sneezing, with brief intervals to suck in air and wipe my streaming eyes, for several minutes. At the end of this sneezing fit, my throat hurt, my voice was raspy, my chest throbbed, and phlegm filled every nook and cranny in my head. I don't remember when I've felt worse -- I was nearly in tears, with a horrible fibrous tickling in my lungs, and a thudding headache.

It was a remarkable and sudden transformation.

I drank tea, and bundled in my winter robe, and grumbled for quite some time, and went to bed miserable.

I'm better, today, fortunately.

You're not supposed to taste blood when you sneeze, you know?

***

I got a rejection from The Third Alternative (which is still my favorite magazine, despite the rejection) after only two weeks. I have no idea where to send this story, now, though -- it's been to all the obvious places, they mostly say nice things, no one wants to buy it. Sigh, sigh, sigh. I'll have to poke around Ralan's and see if I missed any possibilities. I think it's one of my best stories, and I want it to find a good home... Ah. I suppose I can send it to Brutarian. It's worth a try...

Got a six-week bounce today from Ellen at Sci Fiction; she liked the story a lot, but didn't think it was right for her magazine. So it goes. This story, at least, still has lots of good markets to which it can be sent.

And so the wheels turn, and the grind grinds on...

***

Driving down the highway earlier this week, running errands for work, I saw what I first took to be fragments of roadkill, scattered across two lanes; on closer inspection, it proved to be about a score of beanie babies, spread over about a quarter mile. Very strange, and I think I ran over a cat-shaped one.

***

As you might imagine, it's been an uneventful, but pleasant, week so far. Tuesday night Holly made this bean-and-sausage soup that was to-die-for. I ate two bowls and wanted more. Monday, Heather and Susan Marie and I all sat around the kitchen table, drinking white russians (Susan provided the vanilla Stoli). Heather worked on a diorama/shadowbox/collage, I started working on the contents of the next issue of Star*Line, and Susan knitted. Quite pleasant, a rare social Monday. Last night I made mushroom lasagna. Mmm.

I like eating. Also drinking. The whole spectrum of imbibing, really.

(Don't you just love the profundity of my journal entries?)

***

Today, walking down the sidewalk in Montclair, I saw a father taking photographs of his costumed children. One girl, a bear; one boy, a pack of chewing gum (I've never understood these product-placement costumes); and a younger girl, dressed rather adorably as a ladybug. The father was annoyed, because the littlest girl wouldn't turn around to face the camera like her siblings did, no matter how he harangued her.

It was obvious, to me, that she was simply showing off her wings.

***

I read "Lull", Kelly Link's new short story (in Conjunctions, guest-edited by Peter Straub) on my lunch break today. It's a glorious story, and I wish it could have gone on and on and on... I heard Kelly read the beginning of the story at Other Change of Hobbit a while back, so I'd been anticipating finishing it, and it exceeded my hopes. It's one of my favorite of her stories. I must get a copy of this issue for myself -- it's full of marvelous treasures, and illustrations by Gahan Wilson, too! And then there's the new issue of McSweeney's edited by Michael Chabon, which I'm sure will also prove very interesting...

***

I got my first issue of Electric Velocipede today, and it looks good, very good. Now that we're putting out a 'zine of our own, I'm very interested in seeing how other people do it...

***

I saw a copy of Best of the Rest 3 today (we got it at work; no sign of my contributor's copy yet), and I'm looking forward to reading it. "Annabelle's" is in it, of course, and "Straight Trade", from Speculon, got an honorable mention -- which is nice, it's not a very long list of honorable mentions, so I'm pleased to be so noted. Good bookishness abounds.

***

Go eat some candy, you wee monsters.

Words written since February 1, 2002: 176,100

Words written since last entry:
Move along. Nothing to see here. I've been working on Star*Line, mostly.

Send truffles in the shape of demonic skulls.

Tim Pratt
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222

Treat or treat.