Category Archives: Writing

Book Stuff

I got free books in the mail today!

Okay, I have to write reviews on them, but they’re free books! I love this job! (Freelance writing, that is.)

Friends are at the Toronto WorldCon this weekend (affectionately known as TorCon), revelling in the total immersion of things speculative. The irony of the situation is that I, too, will be in Toronto this weekend. Just not at TorCon. Alas.

(I should get Ceri back for being In The Presence of Neil Gaiman Without Me by writing a single story for her which contains all four assigned story points I haven’t yet addressed. Ha.)

To The Moon, Lepidopterae!

Eeeeeee!

Today is the day I mail my press packet to the U.S. publisher. There’s a confidentiality agreement on its way, so they must be serious enough about wanting me. The butterflies in my tummy today, however, are almost worse — no, they are worse — than the day I sent off my CV and cover letter. I’m currently running on nervous-excited adrenaline.

No, I’m good. I’m fine. I have a black folder, my business cards, a small photo, and I’ve selected excellent samples of my writing. It’s a good cross-section of first-person, academic, analytical, and educational styles. I have my colour services pamphlet that I drew up some time back. The writing will be printed out professionally tonight, then into the folder it will go, along with a hard copy of my CV, a one-page summary of my experience (I’ll just rewrite my awesome cover letter!), and a hand-written note telling my contact that I�m actually ten years older than my photo makes me look. (Seriously. Well, no; the picture makes me look twenty-four. I’m thirty-two. So eight years older.)

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I’m excited!

If I could harness these butterflies, I could probably reach the moon.

Status Check

Since my mother addressed an e-mail to her Darling Lost Daughter this morning, methinks ’tis time for another Update.

Status: Warm. I think I have pulse, too. That’s good, right?

Detailed Status: I lost my sense of humour somewhere along the way a couple of days ago. If found, please return it; it’s lonely. Also, I am moving into An Anti-Social Phase (TM). It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s just that after two weeks of a wonderful high, I’m cocooning.

Good Things: My hair is behaving. The humidity has broken.

Bad Things: My cats are insane and pains in the neck. Especially the one who thinks the waterbowl is her personal playground.

Synchronicitous Events: I had a wonderful history of the qabala class on Saturday afternoon led by one of my students. While I know the basics of the qabala, I knew nothing about the history of the thing. A day later, I was reading a book which took a side trip and addressed qabala history, both mystical and factual. It was nice to (a) refresh the info I learned on Saturday, and (b) feel smug because I already knew it.

Irritating Events: You may remember the day over a month ago when my radiators were finally torn from their moorings after an earlier false start. Guess what? The electric heaters were scheduled to go in a couple of weeks ago; the electrician never showed up. Today, he was scheduled to show up first thing in the morning. If you check the time stamp, it’s just past eleven. I’m staying home today instead of going in to work just so that the electrician can do his thing. If he does not show up again, I Will Have Blood For This.

Something You Ought To Have Guessed: I picked up The Two Towers DVD yesterday. I know, I know; we’ll own the extended edition too. But not for another three months or so, and we only saw this one twice in the theatres.

More Something You Ought To Have Guessed: I will so be in attendance for the nine-hour LOTR extended marathon in theatres this December. Join me?

Overheard on the Radio News: Mars is “just 56 million miles away.” It’s all relative, you know?

I’m immersed in writing stories and reviews for the next three days. Then I’m in Toronto for Labour Day weekend, visiting my parents. Combined with my Anti-Social Phase (TM), this means you won’t hear a lot from me. Unless, of course, something happens for which I must rant or rejoice.

Studio!

My husband has finally moved into his studio space, and while I’m grateful, I’m sure he’s even more relieved. We got to unpack a couple of his boxes that hadn’t been opened since our move six months ago, and lo and behold, in one of them I found a tiny box of my things too. It held copies of press releases I’d written, articles, things like that. In amongst them, though, I found an old file box of business cards left over from my F/SF bookselling days, and I opened them and sorted through them, just for kicks. I found some odd stuff.

Like William Gibson’s fax number scribbled on a slip of paper.

And Cory Doctorow’s Charles Atlas-style business card.

And Forrest J Ackerman’s full-color photocard.

All in all, it was an interesting trip down memory lane. Besides, it was a terrific lesson on how-not-to-design-a-business-card. The majority of them were disastrous from a marketing point of view – no charisma whatsoever.

I’m thrilled, thrilled, thrilled that my husband is now officially Set Up in his artist space. I’m equally overjoyed that he’s decided to spend at least an hour every other day working there to relax. I love being there too, so this might be an answer to those restless evenings were we can’t settle down but have no real idea of what we want to do. I’ll grab my laptop, he’ll grab his sketchbook, and off we’ll go.

Make no mistake – we know exactly how lucky we are.

Status Check

A couple of individuals have written inquiring as to my dead-or-alive status. Wow – I take a couple of days off and my public misses me. I feel all warm inside.

Status: Alive.

Detailed status: I burned my left thumb in the steam from a boiling kettle this morning. I’m such an idiot. Then I thought my tea would be too hot to drink and forgot about it. Nice to see that some things just don’t change, isn’t it.

Events of the past two days: Work, work, work.

Career update: Talked to that US publisher yesterday. They want me to write an editorial letter on two book proposals with my opinion on changes and improvements, and submit it tomorrow morning as a sort of test run. They also want (gulp) a press packet: a folder with a pretty CV, some writing samples, a one-page detailing my expertise (think an in-depth bio), and a photograph.

Freelance update: Work, work, work. My original source that went on hiatus at the beginning of the summer has revived, hurrah!

The Great Canadian Novel update: Touched up the penultimate chapter, and rewrote the last chapter to keep my protagonist where she was instead of sending her to Europe. Europe is definitely the end of the novel. Now that barrier has been removed, I feel much more optimistic. Next step: coming up with an outline for the three chapters between now and Europe. Writing without an outline to this point has been fun, discovering what was happening in my protagonist’s life and all, but now I have to think about what’s gone before and handle all my plot threads deftly. I think I’ve done a good job doing so on the fly (hmm – now that I think about it, my attitude concerning the unfolding of this novel has been very serial-like: no retreat, no revision, no regret!) but at the end I have to be cautious as well as inventive, or the whole thing will fall flat.

Story exercises I have been given which I have completed: Two.

Story exercises that I have been given which are incomplete: Three. (None exist in any sort of typed form. They’re all in pencil notes in a notebook.)

Story exercises that I have been given which I haven’t touched at all: One.

Plans for the next two days: Work, work, work.

So you’ve been warned: I’m likely to not be terribly communicative for the rest of the week. It’s nothing personal. It has to do with making money to feed my cats and myself (oh, fine, yes, and buying books and new music which I haven’t done in oh so long), and securing a glorious tailored-for-me-and-no-one-else career. I’m sure you understand.

Furniture Love

Hurrah! I’m coming at you from three inches lower than usual!

No, our apartment building didn’t sink. My husband finally took three inches off the legs of my desk. This will, I hope, reduce shoulder strain, wrist strain, and back problems.

I freely admit that most people will find this work surface too low. I, however, am not most people. With a short torso, I usually find my shoulders hunched up in an effort to get my arms into a manageable position to work on the desk surface. Sure, I could raise the chair, but then my knees bump into the keyboard shelf, and my feet dangle, creating – yes – more back strain. For a few years I’ve been struggling to balance between the two issues, raising or lowering the chair just to get some short-term relief from the previous position.

I love my new desk.

And there was a message on my machine Friday from that US publishing company saying that they had a ton of news and updates for me, and they were hoping I’d like them and still feel like coming aboard the project.

Are they kidding? I spent the rest of the day chanting, “They still want me, they still want me!”