… and yet I manage to fall off it.
It’s a kind of gift.
At any rate, I’m back from my unannounced hiatus with all kind of news.
Writing related: my agent writes to tell me that my last round of revisions were good and there are just a few more things to work on she’s ready to talk to some publishers! I’m… actually a little shocked, to be honest. Not that she is happy with the story or anything, it’s just that… I’ve never been at a place with Hidden Things where I wasn’t working on a revision of some kind for someone. It’s new and dangerously alluring territory for me, this “someone else is working on it” place. It’s a good place — I might try to get back here more often.
Wedding: Twelve short days to the BIG DAY. I will not be cliche and say “I’d just like for it to all be over,” because frankly that’s not the case. However, I *would* very much for it all to be going. Started. In process, if you see what I’m saying. Let’s have us a wedding.
The next two weeks, I’m off go-into-work work and am instead working on stay-home-and-work work. This includes two editing jobs on roleplaying games that I’m frankly pretty excited to get started on, but also involves thing like last minute wedding tasks and fun additions to my daily schedule such as being able to catch up on my Google Reader while at the gym in the middle of the day — there’s something very satisfying about doing “real work” on your own personal projects — it’s virtuous and decadent at the same time.
When was you’re last work from home day? What did you do that had nothing at all to do with work?
Updates
(not the same as revisions, but we have some of those too)
I’ll be in NYC this weekend for various reasons, the most writerly of which include a weekend lunch with my agent to go over the last round of revisions and meeting up with Matt Cody, author of the upcoming Powerless, to coo over his newborn son. I’m told his amazing wife will be around as well, so that’s a bonus.
The primary reason for the trip is, of course, to finish packing up the last of my fiance’s things in anticipation of her move out to Denver next week. I can’t describe how happy I am that we’re finally at that dream-like future place that was always there and never here, and describing things is what I do for a living.
Agent of change
Some of you have already heard the barest whisper of this, but it’s (much) more official now, so I thought I’d share.
I have a literary agent. I may or may not link to some kind of
website for the agency in question at some later date, but for now, I
think I’ll say only that they come highly (and often) recommended by a
number of folks in the industry.
She uses words like “delighted” and “thrilled” and “formal
representation” and “series.” I like these words. I particularly like
when they’re pointed at me.
So… yeah. A big step.
I think I will let is count as my ‘third sold story’ of the year.
Subtle editor compliment
One of the book series editors that Kate and I have sold stories to in the past has, it seems, added us to the list of writers they solicit directly for upcoming anthologies.
It’s a bit like being asked in for a reading by the studio rather than having to stand in line for the open auditions; definitely feels nice, but doesn’t actually confer any assurance of a role.
Still, it’s nice.
Reviewed
As Kate mentions here, the most recent anthology from Wicked Words finally hit the US shelves this week, and reviewers have been very friendly to the story we had in the book.
Very cool to be reviewed, positively OR negatively. Believe that’s a first for me.
2 of 3
After almost five months SIXTEEN months without so much as a confirmation that they got the submission (the mag’s new editor has mentioned a number of times that the slush pile she inherited is “mammoth”), fishnetmag.com sent us back a glowing letter of acceptance for “The Scarf.”
“Your Linux is ready.”
Two great spoofs of Mac’s anti-PC ads, featuring the introduction of the third character, Linux. I thought it was funny, until Kate asked me in all honesty “there’s another operating system out there, called Linux? Really?” *
Really.
In fact, as SEB reports, Dell is going to start offering the OS on even more of their PCs and Laptops (they already offer it for Servers and their “work” line of desktops).
Based on customer feedback Dell began soliciting last month, Dell said that top of mind among customers was that the company should begin offering Linux as an alternative to Windows on its personal computers, according to a posting on a company blog. Dell said it “has heard” what customers said and will act accordingly.
“We will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line,” the company said on its IdeaStorm blog. “Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems.”
This may very well induce my next computer purchase.
(* – And that’s not to poke fun at Kate — it’s to register my surprise at the relatively low amount of presence that Linux has achieved in the public awareness.)
Writing News
So back in early February, I wrote:
One deadline done — the short piece is off to the editor — here’s hoping that taking the path less traveled for this anthology will pay off. One thing I really like about this one over the others that Kate and I have done for these anthologies: this one is funny. I don’t say that without some small amount of hubris, maybe, but it’s not wrong, either — there’s a lot of stuff in this one that makes me laugh.
Well, I don’t know if it made the editor laugh, but he did pick it for the anthology. It’s a ‘supernatural’ collection of shorts, and we decided to do a superhero story instead of a predictable Hamilton rip-off with vampires or witches or werewolves or whatever — that choice definitely paid off — the editor was very happy to have something different to balance out all the more predictable stories, and some very nice things to say both about that choice and about the story itself. After a few editor-requested tweaks (name change, et cetera), it’s a done deal — check off one third of one of my New Year’s Resolutions.
In other writing news, the Revision Death March is going along like a millstone in a muddy field. Which is, sadly, an improvement.