Happy Day of the Dead! Hope everyone had a fabu Halloween and All Saint’s Day. This is totally the time of year for goth holidays, isn’t it?
This Halloween, fosteronfilm and I didn’t stay home watching scary movies and handing out sweets. Instead, we celebrated the joyous matrimony of sruna and pleroma! Although Mapquest did us wrong, we did eventually find the venue–which is only something like fifteen minutes from our house, although it took over half an hour to get there. @#$! Mapquest. Fortunately, we arrived in time so as not to commit the faux pas of walking in after the ceremony had already started.
I had a bit of a quandary about how to manage my attire. I typically get home between 6:05 and 6:20, which didn’t allow for time to change before the 7 o’clock wedding. But Halloween is a marvelous excuse to dress weird, so I went to work at the Capitol in a black Renaissance dress, sans corset but with bunny ears (I was a pooka), and just swapped one accessory for the other when I got home.
Voila, a costume for all occasions:
The wedding was outdoors, beneath an illuminated arch, next to a river/stream/watercourse thingy. In keeping with the Halloween theme, the beautiful bride wore red, the wedding party wore black, and there was Renaissance, goth, and period garb a-plenty among the guests. The reception was a masked affair, and the bride and groom were toasted with mead and honey wine (yum!). It was a lovely and elegant occasion, and I’m so glad I got to be a part of it. And yes, I got a little sniffly as they were exchanging their vows.
I brought my camera, but it gets petulant in dim light. All of my pictures turned out either dark, blurry, or simply bad. However, a few of the blurry ones reminded me a bit of sruna and pleroma‘s engagement pictures.
Here’s the best of them:
Writing Stuff
New Words:
– 1000 on a new dark fantasy: “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.” After all the sweating and agonizing on the last story’s title, this one essentially titled itself.
I was spinning my gears on “By Oak, Bramble, and Metro” and this story hit me between the eyes. My muse, she is a fickle whore.
Received:
– Galley proofs for “Nothing of Me” in Aegri Somnia.
– Payment from Writing-World for my November column, “An Interview with Gisele LeBlanc.”
– Email from oldcharliebrown. Best New Fantasy
– 14-day “I hate to turn this down but . . .” from All Possible Worlds with invite to submit again.
– 49-day “this is one of those ones I really have trouble saying no to” no from Escape Pod on a reprint, with invite to try again.
(While tons better than a kick in the teeth, I’m not gaga about this “really didn’t want to pass on your submission, but I’m going to. Got anything else?” trend.)
– 95-day #2 form nope from Asimov’s. Urg. I’m losing ground here. The last couple rejections were personal ones from Sheila. Snartleblast.
loving the costume. very nice.
Thank you!
Killer outfit, cutie 🙂
Thanks, sweetie!
>>”Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.”
Best. Title. Ever.
I just tried Asimov’s again after many a year and many a form rejection. Now that I’ve garnered some credits and experience and I don’t, you know, completely suck. I’m glad I didn’t read this yesterday. Might’ve rattled my confidence.
“Best. Title. Ever.“
Now if I can only finish the story it goes with . . .
“I just tried Asimov’s again . . . I’m glad I didn’t read this yesterday. Might’ve rattled my confidence.“
Don’t let my rejections rattle you! I’ve yet to break into the “Big 3” digests, to my enduring frustration. I often wonder if I ever will, or if I just don’t write the kind of fiction they’re looking for. (And, of course, there’s the perpetual, “I must be writing crap” worries.) But one of the writing mottos drummed into me early on was “don’t self reject.” So even if I don’t think a story is a good fit for a market, I still submit it. Unless, of course, it’s something glaring inappropriate like a gore-fest horror novella to Highlights for Kids or suchlike.
Eugie, dear, your work is certainly as good as much of what I read in the big three “digests.” It’s all a matter of writing something that appeals to the editors that particular day when they read your submission.
Don’t use the fact you’ve never been in the digests as a measure of your talents or your success. I was on a panel with Harry Turtledove this past year (yes, that does beg the question, what was Sizemore doing on a panel with Turtledove) and he confessed frustration that he had never made it into Realms of Fantasy despite many tries.
For the curiosity of us locals, where was the ceremony? Don by the river….
Jebus, I mean “Down” by the river?
Roswell River Landing, on Azalea Drive. Along the Chattahoochee.
What said.