Ah, snap.

Apparently I am going to be working on RunStarGirl alllllllll day, because I haven’t had the chance to get to it.  I’ve been swamped.  I’m still swamped.  I’m more than swamped, but I need to see this through.

It isn’t that I hate to lose as much as I hate to give up on something.  It’s tempting to say, “Hey, what are a few sock puppets?  I’ll just let this baby slide!” because, really, what would the consequences be? 

It’ll be putting off my goals, for one thing.  Shifting the dream to the back seat while I concentrate on other things.  And if I let it slide once, then I have officially cracked the door into letting it happen again.  Laziness creeps up on you like evil and the ocean tide, and I don’t like being crept up on.  Take that, laziness, evil, and the ocean tide!  I’m on to you and your shenanigans!

Okay!  So I’ll be working furiously today.  Tomorrow I want to reward myself by starting on some new pieces.  Something different and sprightly, perhaps. 

End Procrastination.

Zombie Poetry and Interdimensional Wombats

I just had a poem accepted for A. P. Fuchs’  ”Poems of the Dead” anthology.  I’m pretty excited about it.  I noticed that my little paper stack of “I’ve been published in this!” is getting a bit thicker.  It really makes me happy.

I only have a few days left to get RunStarGirl into the interdimensional wombat’s inbox or I’m totally going to be up to my eyeballs in sock puppets.  (That sentence makes total sense to me. )  And we’re going out of town tomorrow!  Will the wiley Miss Mercedes pull it off?  Or will she be tied to the railroad tracks?  Stay tuned!

Too many irons in the fire of late.  I’m doing a million things, and none of them well.  I’m slowly taking an axe to my To Do list, and soon my schedule will be cleared for writing and submitting.  Ahhhh, how lovely!  I’m all giggly just thinking about it.  I also need to get on the ball and decide once and for all if I’m interesting in pimping out Cup of Comfort for Parents of Children with Special Needs.  It’s a great opportunity for a beginner like me, quite honestly.  I need to learn how to hold signings and that sort of thing.  And naturally it’s something that’s close to my heart.  But then reality sets in, and I’m all, “Who is going to watch my kids while I’m at these things?  We’re a one car family, so how is that going to work.  Arg, setting stuff up sounds like work.”  But honestly?  I can totally figure all of that out.  I’m just balking. 

Okay!  A few more swings of the axe and my evening will free itself up nicely.  To war!

 

Pieces out: 35

Goal: 40

I Made This Dress.

 

With my new sewing machine.  Bought with writing contest prize money.  Booya!

That is all.

 

Pieces out: 37

Goal: 40

Bradley. And I Am Refined.

I have a poem up in Kill Poet.  It’s called “Bradley”, and I submitted it back when I was very, very, very new at submissions.  Like, July of last year.  Now I’m just very, very new at submissions.  I read my bio and shuddered, for now I am wise and worldly.  I don’t scream when I get published.  I do a very refined happy dance. 

But it’s true that I never steal. 

http://www.killpoet.com/issue_6/articles/2.html

I was lamenting this incredibly long dry spell that I’ve suffered lately.  If I have 35 pieces out, don’t you think that some of them would be accepted?  Somewhere?  Anywhere?!  But my husband pointed out that I’ve been distracted by other things (sewing skirts, sock puppets) and I haven’t been writing.  Wha-?!  He’s right!  So right, in fact, that I’m outta here.  I have a story to work on.

 

Pieces out: 35

Goal: 40

And I Ran, I Ran So Far Away

Did I really call upon the power of A Flock of Seagulls to make my point?  Why, yes, yes I did.  I hope that this demonstrates the gravity of the situation.

Yesterday I fled (FLED!) to the writer’s group.  My children had been demonically scuttling across the ceiling for the last two hours, and I was ready to spend time with somebody whose head wasn’t spinning.  Steve Coonts spoke, and he was both entertaining and informative, which always rocks.  Then we got to “network”, which means that we all shoot the breeze.  I saw my friend Coffee that I haven’t seen in two months, and I met fellow blog stalker Babyface Jeremy D. Brooks.  Seriously, he looks like he’s about 15!  And we all decided that our idea of Hell on earth would have to do with –what else–ghosts.  Particularly being haunted by a textspeak ghost that left dire messages on the walls and mirror.  “u di.  LOL”  I laughed so hard that I was literally wiping away tears.  Being killed by ghosts would be the epic fail.  Babyface Brooks, what did you think of the meeting?

Today was the NCAA tournament.  This means that my husband is a zombie and doesn’t know if I’m alive or dead, so I am free to roam.  He watched the kids and I ran, I ran so far away.  For hours.  I scored a new pair of boots for a steal, and came home a much nicer and less frightening woman.

So I hope.

My demon story is sailing along nicely, and it’s about friggin’ time!  I mean, uh, yay!  I’m so happy!  The best thing that I read today?  Was Jameson T. Caine’s shark encounter.  It made my day.  And you know what else has been on my mind?  Rainbow Brite.  She worked her way into at least three conversations this week.

 

Pieces out:  Don’t know, don’t care.  Rainbow Brite, man!  Rainbow Brite! 

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts.

You know what has been popping up a lot lately?  Ghosts.  Not literally.  But I’ve been stumbling upon ghost stories.  A friend has become a ghost hunter.  I was watching the Travel Channel (go…basic cable?) and it was The World’s Creepiest Places, bwa ha ha!  I’ve been to most of them, and didn’t find them all that creepy, but my definition of creepy tends to entail the acts of the living, not the acts of the dead.  But it’s fun.  The idea that maybe there’s something more out there?  Is awesome.  The mystery of the unanswered is the fun part.

So, your opinion on things unseen.  Yay?  Nay?  But perhaps, more importantly, do you want to believe?  Who ya gonna call.

I’m excited for a writer’s group meeting tonight.  I haven’t gone in the last two months, and it’s time that I blend into the crowd and spy on the other writers…er, I mean, listen to the speaker.  They have some great speakers, but I really like to see all of the people who show up.  Long time writers, new writers.  People who think that every word they say is golden and deserves to be published.  Talentless people, people who will make millions one day, if there’s any justice in the world.  It’s this mix of optimism and despair, and that’s my kind of scene.

 Google history: thresher sharks, autistic head bonk, mint julep, eggplant, blood poisoning red streak, transatlantic, kachina dolls, stained glass

 

Pieces out: 35

Goal: I’m cool with 35

Rewarded For Reading?

Kind of.  In a way.  But more truthfully, this is because I really like to make things.  Different, weird, and slightly bizarre things.  I did this on my personal blog, as well, so in reality I’m going to be coming up with ten different creative items.  Rock on!

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some limitations:

1. You will not know what it’s going to be, and there are no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2. I have until December to send it to you. Anticipation is part of the game, isn’t it?  Of course it is.

3. Most importantly, you must offer the same deal on your blog – the first 5 people to comment on your blog (or Facebook or whatever, if you don’t have a blog) get something made by YOU!

“Oh, but I’m not crafty,” you politely demure.  “I can’t possibly make anything.”  Most of you are writers, right?  Right.  Buck up and go create.

UPDATE:  Oh, all right, my whiny, whiny friends!  I’ll make you something even if you don’t do it for somebody else.  Just make the creative, laugh-out-loud and tearful emails stop!  

Friday the 13th! And it Rocks!

As Friday the 13th usually does.  13 is my lucky number, which is no surprise since my birthday is on the 13th.  Today, actually, so hooray.  I’m officially 30.  Does that still make me a young writer?  I hope so!  I know that I write more and with a little more finesse than I did ten years ago.  I also know that writing, unlike construction or dancing, is something that you can do for the rest of your life regardless of how your body holds up.  My goal?  Is to be agented and have a novel out by the time I’m 33.  Naturally I’d like to shave a year or so off of that, but we’ll see how it goes.  Conquer the world and all of that, rawr!

You know me and challenges.  I was floundering until a friend said, “I challenge you to finish your rewrites!”  So here’s the breaks:  If I complete all of my rewrites and have it in his inbox by the end of March, he has to wear a funny hat and do a huge song and dance routine in the middle of a public cafe.  If I don’t finish, I have to make sock puppets of our entire writer’s group.  I was walking past Borders the other day and they had the book “How To Make Sock Puppets” on display.  How my friend managed to sneak that book on the display rack, I”ll never know.  I shook my fist and swore, “I shall not lose!” which caused benign book readers to flee.

Do things like this motivate me?  Yes.  Yes, they do.  I’ll report on my rewriting success later.  Hopefully I’ll get a video of his song and will post it here.  Bwa ha.

I’ve had this reoccurring dream.  Actually, I dreamed it about two or three years ago, and bits and pieces of the original dream incorporate itself into my current dreams.  This is telling me that I need to write this dream down, thus exorcising it forever.  I balk at this because it was horrifying, and I tend to pull up my collar and duck past horrifying if at all possible, but apparently this is what I need to do.  I’ll bite the bullet when I need to.

Happy day, all!  Eat some cake for me.

Things in my Google history:  death penalty for child rape, Glass Woman, i hate dolls, Dick Blick, retro skirt patterns, Williams Syndrome and autism, Dios des la Muertos, Popples

Pieces out:  37

Goal:  40

The ABC’s of Murder

“The ABC’s of Murder” is up.  It’s a happy little story about death and relentless murder and despair and…uh…anyway.  It’s one that I’m quite fond of.  One day I thought of the line, “I got really tired of murdering Billy Cords,” and the rest was history.

http://www.onthepremises.com/issue_07/contents_07.html

A Brief Lesson About Monarchs

 

A lot of you have seen this before.  It’s one of my very favorite pictures.  This was a male monarch that hatched out a year or so ago.  You can tell it’s a male because of the black spots on his hind wings, which releases a chemical used in courtship, so I hear.   He was a lovely butterfly that hung around for a bit before learning to fly from my hand.  Two more hatched out a few days later, within half an hour of each other.  I submitted a photo of them to The Writer’s Eye, along with a poem that I liked, but I would change in a million ways now.  They hatched out the same day that my two best friends from Seattle were here.  That same morning, I found the ugliest, loudest newborn kitten in our backyard.  He still pops by every now and then.  It was a spectacular day!

http://www.thewriterseye.com/thewriterseye007novdec2008/thewriterseye_poetry_007_5.html

I’m on the old broken laptop (see my header!) and it’s a pleasure to go through the pictures that I haven’t transferred to Ruby Soho, the new red computer.  I also found a few written pieces that I had forgotten about.  I might finish an essay that I started about mundania in Finland.  I had titled it “Lavender”, so apparently I’ve been putting together my flower collection for longer than I realized.

I sewed my first project last night, and made my daughter a dress.  While I was working on that, I had an epiphany about a short story that has been giving me fits.  Two birds with one stone, woo! 

 

Pieces out: 39

Goal: 40