Tuesday,
March 5, 2002

Huzzah!

Well, pinch my nipples and call me Bertie. The clouds have parted, the sun is shining, and Ross Perot is doing a tapdance down Beltline Road singing "Happy Days Are Here Again." Why all this celebrating, you ask? Because one Nicholas Grinder, Esq. (famous journaler, curmudgeon and the inspiration for the main character in my story "I Play Dead," (which just got another rejection letter, dammit -- but I got it back in the mail to an anthology, so we'll have to see how that goes)) has finally gotten off his saucy butt and back on the journaling hobbyhorse.

Which is a goodness, because I've missed reading his grumpy yet accurate takes on life in Western Civilization, interspersed with moments of heartwarming sweetness about his lovely wife. He took a breather, as I suspect a lot of on-line journalers did, after 9/11 to re-examine his reasons for posting snippets and commentary in HTML format, and quite possibly just for a breather from the entire journaling thing. Considering that he'd been doing it for well on four years, a vacation was probably long overdue.

But something persuaded him that it was time to resume the mantle of elder web statesman and start posting entries again, and I for one am not going to argue over the reasons for his re-emergence. Especially since it looks like we'll be neighbors in a couple of months (well, he's moving to Austin, but in Texas anything within a 2-hour radius qualifies as a neighbor). I look forward to slightly bemused reports from Our Man in the Austin City Limits.

And speaking of that whole writing dodge

FutureClassics met again tonight, and I do believe we achieved a group first -- there was only one story to critique. Well, a number of us are working on novels or novel proposals, so I suspect the short story muse (whose name is Boom-Boom, by the way), must have slouched off to a nearby taquiera to drown her sorrows in salty beer and guacamole while she waits for us to get fed up with long fiction.

Not that she's going to have that long of a wait. I already have the first quarter of "True Confessions of the Queen of Hearts" on my Palm and ready for more, and I've been jotting down ideas for my story on bickering bards ala "The Thin Man" (taking Cynthia Heimel's advice that when in doubt, channel Myrna Loy). Both stories are in response to invitations to specific anthologies, so I need to nail my butt to a chair and get them cranked out toot sweet. Besides, come hell or high water I AM making a pro-level sale this year so that I can get bumped up to Active status in SFWA. I'm really tired of peers giving me pitying looks when they find out I'm a lowly Associate -- I want to have a voice, dammit!