ugh. That's pretty much all I have to say about the current book-to-be-reviewed on my desk.

In other news, got a short story nearly ready to go out (it's an old one, never satisfactorily finished, never sent out, but Real Soon Now it should be ready), sent 10 queries via email and got 4 positive responses so far--"positive" means, 'yes, we'll look at your CV and clips and keep you on file', not 'we've got a job for you'. Not yet, at least.

So overall, it's been an 'up' kind of day.

But I'd like some fireworks.

Okay, I just saved myself $2 in postage. Thank you, internet. Playgirl's gone out of business.

Actually, this is no surprise.

Now, back to work.

is the first day for urchin of a week-long day camp at the Rochester Museum & Science Center ("Amusement Park Science", during which they will spend one day up at Sea Breeze, one of the last independent, not-a-chain parks around, so far as I know).

And spouse is back to work tomorrow. So once I make those lunches and drop urchin off at the RMSC, the day is MINE!

Going off tomorrow in the mail/email: pitches for Popular Science, Boys Life, and some smut for Playgirl.

Also, a big batch of queries to the Scholastic magazine universe, building on my work for their "Science World" magazine over the last couple of years.

That is all.

Researching markets, that is.

I shoulda been a professional researcher (anyone need one?) because some days it's SO hard to STOP collecting data and start USING it.

It has not been a smooth transition to summer vacation here. Having urchin home all day is...trying. Having spouse suddenly home this week during GM's "Here, you must take a week off NOW" enforced vacation has also not helped. This is off-schedule and we keep bouncing off each other. Spouse says, why can't you take a couple days off. I point to pile of things on to-do list, plus drs appts made 6 mo ago, plus very possible looming unemployment situation, plus It's a whole lot easier to schedule a break when I have some bloody advance warning.... (Besides, I'd planned my break to be Readercon, NOT NOW. And since I can't go to Readecon, I've piled more on the To-Do. Of course.)

And there you have my week. So far.

Remind me again why I don't just sit down and write the bloody reviews as soon as I've finished the book? Because even if I had to do it at 11:00pm, it would go much, much, faster than trying to recreate that initial momentum a day later.

Two magazines that buy fiction:

Action Pursuit Games and Fencers Quarterly Magazine.

Granted, neither claims to buy a lot of it, and it's got to be pretty short, and neither pays a lot, but still... Look around in the old trunk and see if something might fit.

--and maybe I just don't grasp the timeline here, but has serious paintball sport been around long enough to have a "history"? I can clearly recall it being pretty new in the early 1980s--but then my brain still thinks "oldies" music is what my parents listened to.

Actual overheard dialogue:
"Do you know who Billy Idol is?"
"ummmm.....wasn't he a country western singer?"

Happy (Belated) SF & Fantasy day.

(also, welcome to summer vacation with an active almost 8 yr old, but that is a whole 'nuther story...)

Forget the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. Just click for behind ( the cut )

That is all.

-- my plan to go to Readercon, that is. With a lay-off (likely with minimal severance pay) looming in a month, I'm going to error on the side of caution and save the money. I haven't been able to find anyone in the area to share a ride with (lots of blank stares when I ask, "Hey, are you going to Readercon?"), so I'm just going to wave goodbye to that dream and go back to hunting for affordable medical insurance.

The accounting of last week's work: three reviews completed and 12 queries & pitches off for consideration. I borrowed the Writer's Market from the local library and have been skimming it for likely targets.

Back to work now.

Ulf. Finally a morning to myself again: 10-11am Wed was "Authors" reception at school for urchin's class (when kids read from something they wrote during the year) and yesterday morning was the (quite rain-drenched) Pittsford Village walk around the neighborhood, navigating with maps the kids had made. Strangely, myself and urchin were the only ones who knew the streets at all.

Enjoy, enjoy today, for starting next Wed. summer vacation will be putting an end to those blissful hours.

Two reviews to write today. Then walk the dog, go to the Y, then make lunch, and by then urchin will be home from school. My day. Sigh.

Must: write the paying work, turn it in, write some more. Excelsior!!

Sent off two queries yesterday. Two out today so far, and four (maybe five) more should go out before bedtime tonight.

Did not go to the Y to exercise.

But still -- Yay me!

when you can celebrate holidays any bloody time you please?

This month, our household has apparently moved Father's Day up by a week. We've done it today (because my calendar here on the wall beside my desk is a school-events calendar and doesn't have Father's Day on it)-- Which, when I think about it, is actually a good thing, because it means I _haven't_ forgotten my own dad and I still have time to send off a card or something before the official, actual, government-approved date. Huzzah.

Finally figured out the reason chap 4 wasn't working was because I had something broken in the last scene in chap 3. D'oh. This kind of thing has happened before; I don't know why I'm always so slow to figure it out. But now, (I think) it's fixed. I have a better grip on the pov of the Other Major Character, who isn't the POV char, but must be taken into account as the story moves forward---yes, moves forward. Any second now. Thanks, El.

It's because the spouse may be out of a job come August 1st.
Yes, GM is laying people off. Spouse is probably going be one of them.

We do not live in MA any more. I haven't been able to find anything in NY remotely similar to the group health insurance I found available to self-employed people in MA. I am looking at joining some national writing org. just to get a piece of their health insurance plan.

I did not worry so much about health insurance until: 1) we had a kid; and 2) Spouse had a blood clot that nearly killed him.

Last time he was laid off, I managed to pay for the family insurance and groceries by nearly carpal-tunneling myself with freelance editing for Grolier's on-line encyclopedias, and writing 4-5 reviews a week for PW. (I also ended up with high-blood pressure from the stress and lack of sleep, but that's small potatoes compared to the rest.) That editing project dried up half-way through that year. It has not come back. And since April 08, PW now pays 1/2 what it used to for reviews. Yet I am lucky to have a paying review gig at all, since so many venues have completely eliminated their review sections.

I have been writing science articles for kids magazines. It's been hard to get enough work, and so far only one market pays $1/word. Yes, I know freelancers should hold out for more. I'm trying to find more.

So, as far as getting any serious fiction writing time...well, that's my excuse. I SHOULD be setting aside that hour/day to work on fiction, in the midst of everything else. Instead, I have been scouring magazine guidelines and writing pitches. And losing sleep, and losing track of papers and notes, and kind of going crazy.

Bah. Time to walk the dog, and then I have to go do the bike/weights thing at the Y, because it's supposed to be good for me. It's also supposed to lower stress, but I will spend the entire 1.5 hrs there gritting my teeth and telling myself I should be here working.

That is all.

I was cleaning out my poetry-group folder and found this to add to my "keeper" file. And liked seeing it so much again this morning that I can't resist raising the flag here (especially when I really need to get myself to work!)


"Report of the Fourteenth Subcommittee on Convening a Discussion Group"
by Marge Piercy

This is how things begin to tilt into change,
how coalitions are knit from strands of hair,
of barbed wire, twine, knitting wool and gut,
how people ease into action arguing each inch,
but the tedium of it is watching granite erode.

Let us meet to debate meeting, the day, the time
the length. Let us discuss whether we will sit
or stand, or hang from the ceiling, or take it lying
down. Let us argue about the chair and the table and
the chairperson and the motion to table the chair.

In the room fog gathers under the ceiling and thickens
in every brain. Let us form committees spawning
subcommittees all laying little moldy eggs of reports.
Under the grey flourescent sun they will crack
to hatch into scuttling lizards of more committees.

The Pliocene gathers momentum and fades.
The earth tilts on its axis. More and more snows
fall each winter and less melt each spring.
A new ice age is pressing the glaciers forward
over the floor. We watch the wall of ice advance.

We are evolving into mollusks, barnacles
clinging to wood and plastic, metal and smoke
while the stale and flotsam-laden tide of rhetoric
inches up the shingles and dawdles back.
This is true virtue: to sit here and stay awake,

to listen, to argue, to wade on through the muck
wrestling to some momentary small argeement
like a pinhead pearl prized from a dragon oyster.
I believe in this democracy as I believe
there is blood in my veins, but oh, oh, in me

lurks a tyrant with a double-bladed ax who longs
to swing it wide and shining, who longs to stand
and shriek, You Shall Do as I Say, pig-bastards.
No more committees but only picnics and orgies
and dances. I have spoken. So be it forever.

I have made a schedule of work etc for the coming week (because there are also several elementary school things I've promised to help with, on top of Getting Some Writing Done). I have already cleared off a review copy request list that has been sitting on my desk for far too long.

Still to do today; finish a review that's due tomorrow. More stuff is incoming later this week, so time to clear the decks. Also, REALLY, REALLY must finish chap 4.

Excelsior!

Ok-a-a-y. So that's one article rewrite finished, one book review, one crit for one of the local folks, another semi-long list of places I should really consider querying, and a complete lack of time to get Real stuff done. I'm feeling moderately disgusted with myself right now. I went looking for some more detailed guidelines for Popular Science besides the completely generic thing in the obvious spot on their website, and spent far, far too long chasing my tail around the web. Idiot.

So. One review due Monday. Another crit to write. A chapter to finish for submission--perhaps we can coordinate and exchange some subs, dear fellow Rosleyians infinitehotel and zanzjan? I've got to get this bit of Glenkillian ready to go by 6/13 or so.

Okay,I finished a small project yesterday that took longer than I'd expected--but now I can cross it off the list.

And this morning I even forced myself to go to the Y and do the bikes-and-weighs thing. Hurray, me. Now I have no reason to feel guilty and should reward myself with some Glenkillian, which I will go and start right after this sentence.

I can stop browbeating myself, for the nonce, at least. Got the Fear article rewrite in, got some other stuff that had been sitting around for far too long done. Tomorrow I've got a short list of "must do"s and hopefully some decent chap 4 finishing-up will get done. Also have to start prepping an Adventure run for this weekend, but must not let that get in the way of the W-o-r-k. Or else.

So, on the whole, things ain't so bad right now.

(willfully willing myself not to think of car and how it is now consistently not-starting without much patience, gritting of teeth, and multiple attempts. Spouse says maybe it's finally time to get a new one. Yes, I think so. The stress is not worth it.
In other news, the truck is starting to sound like it wants a new muffler....)

This was not a good week for getting work done. Left brain couldn't overwhelm the reptilian brain. Or something.

On the other hand, I made it to the Y to exercise twice.

I'm thinking this is not the best of trade-offs. I do not care what the President's Council for Physical Fitness, or even my doctor, has to say about it.

Also on the complaint boards: the Monroe county library system has redesigned its website and now I can't log in to check my account, renew books, look up references, or check the card catalog. This is making me inordinately perturbed, and no one at the local library can help. Because they've proved I can log in on _their_ computer, at the library, of course. Which doesn't use the server that refuses to respond when I try to log in remotely. Arghhhhhh.

The library is only two blocks away. It's not like reverting to the Pleistocene, but it sure feels like it.

Back for a round of tweaking: the "fear" article. My editor gives me many brownie points for explaining stuff without using amygdala or hippocampus, though I still miss them greatly. But now I'm rebalancing the "fight or flight" section (which didn't used to be its own section, but looks like now it will be....)
Which reminds me, the contract for this thing is finally here, sitting in my envelope full of receipts to be Quickened and correspondence to be dealt with.

Today was also 'buy groceries' day etc, since spouse played Neverwinter Nights most of yesterday instead of getting the provender, etc., as requested. Which means chap 4 has not progressed. Sigh.

I have amassed a pile of things that need to be filed or added to the calendar or stuffed into the tickler file or otherwise processed. Some of that will get done today. Have nearly used up another pencil; this one is red. I'm in the middle of reading a pretty dull space fantasy novel for review, and a much more interesting history about the bad old "Bone Wars" days of American fossil hunting focusing on Marsh and Cope--much fun and characters to be enjoyed here. Glenkillian chap 4 still limping, but will hopefully be fixed by the weekend.

Time to walk the dog.

This is my son's cold, which I assume he got at the Adventure Center at the YMCA last Saturday while I was at my tai chi class. Now it's my cold, which means, because I am nominally an old fart, that I have a much worse version of it. I would whimper, but I have far too much gumption to do it out loud.

Still...Writer-Roach...must get....pitch...out today.

Don't know why I'm thinking of Wolver-roach, but there it is. I should really be quoting "The Tick vs the Common Cold".

Come to think of it, I always did like Mickey Dolenz best on "The Monkees"; and he's such an excellent Arthur, too.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave, Arthur. You're making the other accountants...nervous."

"And isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean, all you get is one trick, rational thinking. But when you're good and crazy...ohh ooh ooh ooh ohh...the sky's the limit!"



free association sponsored by my cold virus. Thank yew very much.