Monday,
January 6, 2003
ORTHODOX CHRISTMAS
Life as a jobbing writer
Two
more stories are in the mail as of this morning, bringing my "In Circulation"
total up to 5. I also have a story that I'll be submitting tonight to FutureClassics
for the meeting tomorrow, which will click my "Stories Written" counter for
this year up to 1 -- yay! Now I just have to have a reason for turning over
the counter in the "Sales" column, and life will be a good and happy place indeed.
The interesting thing about the story is that I started it in 1999, and never finished it because, well, I was pretty miserable over there and it made writing difficult, to be honest. It's also my first novelette (a story between 7,500 and 17,500 words, according to the SFWA Nebula requirements) -- part of the length has to do with its somewhat dreamy, fairy tale-ish tone, much like "Bartok and the Unicorn." I don't know if the gang is going to slam it for the length or what, but I reread it again before sending it off, and I actually think I need to add a bit more here and there to completely round out the story (as well as rewrite a major confrontation scene).
In other news, Lyndon is still suffering from the Cold from Hell. Poor pumpkin -- I ran around getting him cough syrup and orange juice, and getting him settled comfortably on the couch so that he could sleep propped up and not drown in his own mucus. He seemed a bit improved this morning, and since he has the day off anyway he's going to spend it sleeping, which is an excellent idea. Of course, I'm now waiting to see how long it takes until I start showing symptoms myself.
Whee. . .not.