Another overdue update

So apparently I’m in sporadic LJ mode. But let’s see if I can’t get a little more caught up:

News and updates:

I just sold an excerpt of a story titled “Troubadour and the Moon” to the Eggplant Literary Productions Library. Woo!

I don’t usually submit to online markets (with a few notable exceptions) but this one caught my imagination. Here’s a blurb from their guidelines:

“Inspired by such fantasy libraries as those found in Robin McKinley’s Beauty and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Eggplant Literary Productions has decided to open its own library. The shelves will be filled with books of the other: books that have never existed and that haven’t been written yet. What I am looking for are excerpts from such books.”

People have asked me about seeing my work online, and I’ve always had to “alas” them. So when I heard of this new market, I thought “what better way to put examples of my work in an online arena than to a paying market that publishes excerpts?” So, hurray! A sale, and more online exposure. Writerly goodness.

Also, I got an email from the publicity person from Phobos:

“ . . . I will be working on a publicity campaign for your work with Phobos. I’ll be contacting various media outlets in your hometown as well as throughout the nation (we’re gonna make you famous!). . . .”

Woo! I’m part of a publicity campaign!

We also bought a new, big screen TV. Okay, the deal was that we weren’t going to upgrade our downstairs set until I’d made enough off my writing to pay for it. Well, then Best Buy had this amazing sale paired with a great financing deal. Same as cash for two years. And, since I’d already earned half of the cost from my sale to Phobos, I’m thinking that I really OUGHT to be able to earn the second half in two years. So we now have this TV in our house! I can point to it and say “my writing paid for that.” And Matthew has stopped making “the TV’s too small” noises, and is instead making “ooo, shiiiny” ones.

We also got tickets to Varekai the new Cirque de Soleil show during its tour through Atlanta. We’re total Cirque de Soleil heads. We’ve seen Saltimbanco, Quidam, Alegria, O, and Mystere (several times). They put on an amazing show.

In less good news, our ISP, AT&T broadband, is being bought/merging with Comcast. That means my email address and our homepage URL will be changing. AT&T claims that they’ll give us 90 days overlap between when the new account goes up and the old one dies, but markets routinely take more than 90 days to respond. I foresee much anxiety and lost email. Not to mention the annoyance of having to republish our website again. Fuckwad.

On the health front, I’m doing okay. The Prednisone is still doing a roller coaster job on my emotional equilibrium, but I’m more or less dealing with it.

Had an appointment with a neurosurgeon yesterday to discuss my Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. He’s referring me to a neurologist who specializes in it. But he didn’t recommend surgery to remove my wing spurs/tentacle stubs (thankfully, as I wouldn’t want to undergo it), so that’s all good.