The Gods Hate Kansas

Finnegan’s Pig, a folk-taley kind of thing, is off to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.  So far, my goal of submitting one short story per week is holding out (over the course of two weeks, ha ha!).  If I am able to maintain this momentum during the fall and winter, I’m sure I won’t be able to once my work picks back up again in the spring so I’ll try to get as much written and sent out as is humanly possible over the next several weeks.

Well, it’s NaNo time again.  I think I’ll give it a whirl this year.  I tried last year but ended up getting pretty nastily sick, which put me behind by a week and with a wedding in November I couldn’t catch up.  Oh, well!  The idea I hatched for last year’s NaNo needed another year to mature anyway.  But now I’ve got a rockin’ outline for that story and I’m ready to give it another shot at coming to life.  Or perhaps I’ll work on Walk Like an Egyptian for NaNo.  I’ve got a few chapters written already but I sort of hate them passionately and would like to completely re-do them.  This would be non-cheating, I suppose.

Today is our three-year anniversary.  We’re not going to do much today, but last night we went out to dinner at Palisade.  It was great, as always.  I love Palisade.  <3

We got a new car last night!  We got just an unbelievable deal on it…really way too good to pass up.  It only added $60/month to our expenditures and it’s SO much safer than our last car.  It’s even slightly more fuel efficient.  We’re considering this our anniversary gift to each other.

I’ve got to get back on my writing! I’ve been so busy the last couple of days cleaning the apartment and fiddling around learning about small SUVs to buy.  :P  Now I’m shutting off the ‘puter since we’ve got a two-day windstorm coming in.  I’m going to go clean and organize my studio, then paint some model horses while I watch Star Trek.  Hopefully the power won’t go out. 

I wrote a flash challenge story for LH this morning.  I really dig it.  It needs a ton of work, as all flash does before it’s ready to send anywhere, but I am pretty pleased with the premise.  I used an idea I’ve had brewing ever since I listened to an interview with a writer on NPR.  This was just a few days ago, so I’m surprised that I had an opportunity to use it so quickly!

That’s all I’ll say for now, since some LH people might be reading this blog.  I don’t want to give away which story is mine before all the critiquing and voting. 

I had a busy, busy day so I think I will be write-less for the 2nd of October.  Darn.  I’ve been trying to squeak in at least an hour per day, preferably more like four or five hours now that wedding season has run its course and I should, in theory, have a lot of free time on my hands.  Except that I don’t so far.

I went to the glasses store today to take advantage of the “buy one, get one free” sale.  I ended up with a new pair of Dolce-Gabbanas for my regular-use glasses and some nice Versace frames that will be holding my sunglass lenses.  This is pretty sweet because I finally have some prescription sunglasses.  Previously, I was using those drop-behind-your-regular-glasses plastic dealies that you get when you go get your eyes dilated for your eye exam.  Not kidding.  I drove around in the sun with those stupid things hanging from my glasses for almost two years, just waiting for a glasses sale to happen at a time when I actually had money.  I probably could have achieved both sets of glasses for much less than the $425.00 I spent if I didn’t have such expensive taste, though.  What can I say?  DGs and Versaces look great on me.

Immediately afterward, I went and blew the remainder of my most recent income (a retainer fee for a wedding next year) on an iPod nano.  This was, as I look at it, a necessary expense.  I’m trying really hard to get in super-awesome shape so I don’t end up with the high blood pressure and heart disease issues that plague my family tree, and I’ve kind of hit a plateau with my regular exercise routine.  I’m still doing it faithfully, but now my heart rate just doesn’t get up where it used to in the 20 - 30 minutes I spend daily.  The iPod is meant to distract me so that I continue exercising for 2-3 times longer.  Looking back, I probably should have spent the money on jeans that fit me better and don’t have to be hiked up every few seconds, but an iPod is way more fun than new pants.

So on top of my eye doc visit and my mad shopping spree, I had to replace the microwave, which gave up the ghost during a power surge the other day.  I’ve also still got to clean the apartment, make copies of contracts and mail them out to clients, drop a model horse in the “out” bin at the post office, and return some business calls.

Why am I writing in this blog right now?

So yeah - Will and I will probably spend some serious snuggle time together tonight once he’s home from work - he’s been having really rough days lately with dumb sales meetings and other tedium - so working on story-polishing or the novel seem unlikely.  But you never know when insomnia will strike, so I might just get some writing done yet today.

So right now there’s not much here, but thanks for coming and checking it out anyway.  I’m going to try to make daily updates to this blog because it serves a very special purpose.  I’ve got my Myspace blog, which is pretty much dedicated to ranting and also my general thoughts on atheism and philosophy.  I’ve got my LiveJournal, which is mostly for my actual, meat-world friends to keep in touch with me.  I’ve got another wordpress blog, under a slightly different name, which is dedicated to my photography business and to keeping in touch with my clients.  However, this one is for my longest-lived passion and my lifelong love:  Writing!

As I am just about ready to start collecting rejection letters submitting my stories and novels,  I thought it might be fun for my online friends to track my progress.  I don’t really want to do it in any of my other blogs for various reasons.  Also, I wanted an excuse to name a blog after the best sci-fi pulp novel of all time.

So, enjoy the journey through time and space and editors’ and agents’ slushpiles.  And thanks for being interested in what I do.  I love you.  Seriously, I do.