Tag Archives: writing sale

Day 32: Biba Jibun Sold to Apex and Article Reprint

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Day 32 and I’m still hanging in there…mostly by my fingernails. This almost-in-the-homestretch-but-not-quite part of the legislative session is when my nerves, sense of humor, and patience start getting frayed and frazzled. But the tunnel has a light, and I’m speeding toward it. Calmblueocean.

Writing Updates:
As I tweeted yesterday, I sold my short story “Biba Jibun” to Apex Magazine! Absolutely thrilled to have another story of mine published by these fine folks. Getting that “we want it” note from Jason Sizemore totally made my day.

I also had reprinted my “A Writer’s Resolution: I Will Submit” article in the March/April 2011 issue of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators New England newsletter, The NEWS.

And I managed another 1,400 words on Dragon Queller:

37704 / 85000 words. 44% done!

I’ve hit a bridge section that I’m not sure what to do with. I know what happens after it, but I’m uncertain how to get there from the scene I just completed. I’ve been writing this linearly thus far, and I’d like to try to keep doing that; I think it results in less cutting down the editing road. But I don’t want to just spin my wheels on a bridge scene either. Going to do a bit of an editing pass on a couple chapters and see if that joggles or jump-starts anything. Otherwise, we’re wrinkling the damn line.

Writers for Relief 3 and Crossover Day

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The fabulous Davey Beauchamp, in the tradition of Writers for Relief 1 to Benefit the Survivors of Katrina and Writers for Relief 2 to benefit the Bay Area Food Bank, is putting together a third volume of his Writers for Relief charity anthologies, this one to benefit the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. He invited me to submit a story, and I’m delighted to say that “The Snow Woman’s Daughter” will be appearing in Writers for Relief 3.

Davey is the king of big hearts. I’m so glad he’s doing this and that I can be a part of it.

In other news, today is Day 30 of the 2011 legislative session, Crossover Day. It’s not even noon, I’ve edited a slew of rush amendments, and my brain hurts. Gonna be a loooong day.

Still plugging away on Dragon Queller. 5.5K new words in the last week. Average daily word count: 800.

Shiny progress bar:

36,296 / 85,000 words. 43% done!

First Sale of 2011: Beneath the Silent Bell, the Autumn Sky Turns to Spring

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Woohoo! I just heard from the fabulous Jennifer Brozek that she’s buying my “Kiyohime” story–now titled “Beneath the Silent Bell, the Autumn Sky Turns to Spring”–for the DAW anthology Human for a Day.

First story sale of 2011!

I love deadlines. I wrote most of this one back in November, and then ended up stuck on a plot point. Meant to finish it over the holidays but I never get anything done then. (I don’t know why I keep thinking I will.) Next thing I knew, it’s the new year, the deadline’s snorting steam down my neck and striking fear in my heart, and poof, I stopped being stuck. I hadn’t worked my plot issue out, but I just started putting words down because I knew I had to, and miraculously, what I’d been spinning my gears on resolved itself. La.

Deadlines stress the heck out of me and wreak holy havoc on my sleep, but I am never so productive as when I’m sweating to meet a deadline.

Breaking Radio Silence: Refinancing and Sinner reprint sale(s)

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I know it’s been a while since I posted. Partly I was trying to avoid exacerbating my wing stubs so as to give them a chance to heal—which seems to have worked; let’s hear it for not being in perpetual pain—and partly it’s been insane-busy these last couple weeks.

The Georgia code page proofs are starting to come in at work, which curtails big chunks of my footloose and fancy freetime. Was utterly mowed down by the granddaddy of lingering sinus headaches. Days and days of “ow my head hurts, ow my arms hurt, ow ow OW.” This is also the busiest time of year for fosteronfilm. He’s making his final selections for the Dragon*Con Independent Film Festival, and he’s also still putting in hours as a census worker. And, for the evil icing on the cupcake-o-overwhelmed, we decided this was the time to refinance our mortgage. Did the math—historically low interest rates and all—and realized refinancing would go leaps and bounds towards offsetting this year’s financial hemorrhage.

So, while I was feeling pitiful and pained, and Matthew was stressing over his film festival spreadsheet and evaluating second cut (or third cut in a couple cases) film submissions, we were also filling out refinancing forms, reviewing and assembling piles of paperwork, making varied and sundry phone calls, and comparing and contrasting the bids we got. If I hadn’t already had a headache, the paperwork alone would’ve brought one on.

We ended up opting to do a short lock on our refinancing application, resulting in a much shorter time-frame between initial application to closing. We did it to lock in a lower interest rate when it looked like they were starting to creep back up, although as it turns out, they crept back down to the rate we locked in, so we didn’t really need to. However, assuming no eleventh-hour monkey wrenches, we close and finalize tomorrow. Rah.

But my head still hurts. Continue reading →

Back in Atlanta, Spanish Sale of “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest”

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Back in Atlanta after visiting the in-laws in Illinois. There’s a dead zone smack dab in the middle of Kentucky where I can get cell reception but no GPS or data connectivity, either 3G or 1X, on my Droid. Weird. I thought data and GPS rode on the cell signal, so I was rather baffled to find that I had full cell service but nothing else. My Droid found it confusing too and rebooted itself a couple times until I told it to quit already.

Didn’t get nearly as much done over the holiday as I’d hoped, of course, but in what might be a first, I did manage to get some writing done. Being able to take out my phone—and not have to boot my laptop—to write a paragraph here or there, really ups the convenience factor. Droid win.

Managed 1Kish new words on the editing pass/massive rewrite of “Rampion.” I’d say I’m in the final stretch, but I sort of feel I’ve been there for so long that I’ve lost touch with the meaning of that term.

And sold Spanish language reprint of “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” to Cuásar, slated for their special edition issue #50. Spanish is another new language that my work will appear in—making it the fourth for this story and my seventh overall. Coolio.

New Sale: “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest” Czech reprint in Pevnost

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Got a note from the foreigner rights editor of the Czech ‘zine Pevnost asking to reprint “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest.” ‘Course I said “yes.” It’s slated to appear in the Oct. or Nov. issue.

This’ll make the fifth language my fiction has been translated into—French, Hungarian, Polish, and Greek being the other four. Coolness.

Prepping for Nebula Weekend and Writing Progress

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Nebula Weekend is this weekend. Geez, it totally snuck up on me. I blame Georgia’s extended legislative session for throwing me so off. With fosteronfilm working as a census taker and not having the time to handle all the domestic stuff for the next couple months, this is a really crappy year for the legislators to have dragged session out a @#%^&! month longer. Wasn’t initially going to take tomorrow off, but I think I’m going to have to in order to pack and get assorted pre-trip stuff taken care of before heading down to Florida.

Started checking weather.com compulsively, hoping the weather holds for Friday’s scheduled shuttle launch. It looks to be a lovely weekend temperature-wise—partly cloudy and in the 70s and low 80s—but they’re predicting a 10% chance of rain on Friday and 20% chance on Saturday. Don’t know at what point the weather requires the NASA folks to postpone a launch. Continue reading →