The Gods Hate Kansas

“Finnegan’s Pig” has made it past round 1 of reading at ASIM.  They said I should be hearing from them in about three weeks - that was about three weeks ago.  They recently temporarily closed to submissions, so I’m sure they’re beyond swamped!  I’ll wait at least another couple of weeks before I inquire.  I’m excited to see whether they’ll take it.  It sounds like it’s perfect for their format.  So far, this one has been the favorite among my family members (who never pass up an opportunity to chuckle at the image of a huge pig eating Jesus - we’re a blasphemous lot, what can I say?).

Haven’t heard a peep from IGMS about “The Conductor,” which is to be expected.  They gave a 3-month turnaround time for submissions!  I’m being patient.

I wrote a very interesting flash for the annual flash contest at LH.  Other forum members and I are on pins and needles waiting to read all the submissions.  The trigger was excellent - “Schiamachy:  Fighting with a shadow or an imaginary opponent.”  Intriguing!  That should have produced some juicy tidbits from the LH crew.  Part of the fun in this challenge is that some readers for Flash Fiction Online are going to read all the entries - so we all get to bypass the slush pile.  If the FFO readers don’t bite on my story, I’ll have another to send out next week. 

In other news, I finished a 9-page working outline for my novel, jokingly working-titled Walk Like an Egyptian.  I completely redid the beginning of the story and came up with a creative twist that should entertain fiction readers and piss off every Egyptologist and Egyptology nerd on the planet.  It can’t be helped - art before truth.  Ha ha.

I’m hammering away at a minimum of 3 pages per day on the new and improved Walk Like an Egyptian.  It’s coming together fairly well so far.  Soon I’ll be sending the first couple of chapters off to Marianna, my super-excellent reader.  She gets to read everything I write before anybody else does because she’s got an amazing brain and a degree in creative writing.  And lots of time on her hands, and she gets bored frequently and needs stuff to do.  It’s a great arrangement.  Hopefully she will like the opening and I won’t have to revise the hook any more.  I hate writing hooks - I suck at it, or so I think.

I’ve started compiling lists of conferences to attend next year.  I will definitely be going to the Willamette Writers’ Conference in Portland next August.  I’m blocking off the dates on my calendar after I finish this post.  An agent, Paige Wheeler, will be there accepting pitches.  She is on the top of my list for this novel.  From what it says on her site, it should be a good fit, so as long as she likes my writing I’m hopeful that she might be interested.  Being able to pitch to her in person is appealing.  And there are other agents who are going to attend, as well.  I’ll definitely pick a few others to toss the idea at.  Somebody out there has got to think it’s interesting!