I am either going to get pizza from Pontillo's for lunch ($5 for 2 slices of evil pepperoni and a can of Coke) or a gyro (also about $5, but no drink) from Aladdin's across the canal in Schoen Place. Someone is going to cook for me, for a change.

"Bushido" -- haven't worked on it since Tuesday. Still not pulled together.

I've got 2 book reviews to churn out by Monday.

Also have gathered my notes and done some basic research for pitches to write up and send to ASK magazine. note to self: can not get writing job if you don't query first. This is life.

Started one short piece for Playgirl that should be ready to go out by next Tuesday.

Theoretically we're supposed to be playing Adventure tomorrow night. Must call host and confirm this, or I'm wasting my time on prep.

Sundry household needs still left undone, but at least there's clean laundry and dishes. Must buy new pants; down to two pair of jeans now.

Next Tuesday is the last day of school here. Allow me to say, "Arghhhhhh!"

Quote from last Thursday's family AD&D game:

John (urchin) to Bjorn (daddy): "You have ten hit points. You go first."

Didn't make the deadline for subbing to the R-SPEC anthology. The story lies here in chunks (again) and I'm trying to figure out what to throw out and how to get the remaining pieces in the right order, and what new stuff I absolutely have to add. A story's a story; it'll get sent elsewhere, and it's not like there's any pressure to do PW reviews now.

I _think_ I figured out what to do with "Bushido"--but this will make it yet another grim story for the files, rather than the nice little redemptive piece it was (and which didn't really work quite right). If I can pull this off, it will definitely work, but it won't be a nice story anymore.

I have to do BAD things to my characters. Not that I find it hard to do this, usually. I think it's because this story has been in its "nice" redemptive form for so bloody long, I find it hard to steal away the characters' happy ending.

So I've changed the "hero's" name, and may have to change the "heroine" (the MC) too. That should psych me into it more easily. And after all, having a character named "Connor" (which shortens almost too nicely to "Con") works, in a thematic sense. The female lead began as "Crystal", which still works overall. Strange that I have to change _his_name and not hers. Guess my female characters are just more naturally psychotic than the males....

So there's a local SF group of fans and writers ( R-SPEC ) that meets at the B&N up the road once a month. And they're taking subs for an anthology about life in Rochester in 2034. Which doesn't sound all that far away, but then earlier today I happened on an article about how everyday life changed when people shifted from horses to engines, so...the pt is, things do change. That's the whole reason behind the "What If?" story, right?

Anyway, the deadline is June 15 and I'm thinking, well, that's great but I can't possibly figure out a story set in Rochester and make it work in that time span--except I already do have one in the trunk. Some 15 years ago (give or take) "Bushido" garnered "like it, but not enough to buy it" rejections from everywhere. Methinks it's time to pull it out and try to massage it into shape for a new phase of rejections.

Of course, by "massage" I mean rip out all the crap that doesn't work and nail in the new, improved bits without losing what made me want to tell this story in the first place.

Just finished an unnecessary hour digging through google images for decent art showing the structure of fish fins, horse hooves (Far too many photos of damaged and diseased hooves; not nearly enough healthy ones!) bird wings, and the human arm. Obviously, the arm was the simplest to cover.

Time to stop avoiding getting words down. I started expanding from the outline yesterday. I only really have to have 600 or so words (or even a few more; I've got a 600-1000 wd range to play with. Think of the time I'll save by not having to write tight!)

Maybe I'll start with one of the sidebars, on the Tiktaalik" fossil....

STarted the ASK article. Editor assures me the rough due by Monday morning can be quite "rough", so I'm trying to focus without fretting. At least the intended audience is a little older and more sophisticated than the other place I've been writing for. Ex: I don't have to slow down to explain what a fossil is.

I've already flagged a couple of topics for sidebars. Still having a little trouble with the opening, but I can always jump around and work on other parts now that I'm happy with the outline. Word-length is flexible, though I'm one of those compulsive word-counters, always checking the length as I type.

This one will pay $425, which is good because I just had to write a check for about $600 of paint for a house I don't even live in anymore!

Readercon was an excellent break from house junk. Heard some good readings and interesting panels, got to hang out with the Tachyon Newlyweds and other good folks, had some chocolate, probably too much caffeine, and sold enough ARCs to cover my con registration and provisions.

Couldn't find a copy of Jo Walton's Farthing for love or money in the Dealers Room, so I broke down and ordered it from someone at Amazon. Why, oh why, does Tor persist in sending me stuff I don't ever intend to read (eg: Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, et al) and ignore every request for books I would love to read and review??

Ego-boo #1 -- Someone 'way more famous than me told me they remembered one of my stories and really liked it.

Ego-boo #2 -- An editor invited me to submit something, even though the market is officially closed to subs. Now if only I had something appropriate to send.

Right now I have 4 short stories that need serious goings-over before they go off again. I actually did some real work over the weekend, having gotten my daily "social" quotient maxed out on Saturday by 6pm, which is why Glenkillian is mid-way though chapter 4 and moving, and I am caught up on my PW book reviews rota.

I can tell Glenkillian is finally starting to come alive because at least two of the characters are creating their own agendas, which should make things nicely complicated for my protagonists. Devlen is solid, but I still need to get a firmer seat in Cialinn's head. Maddie is definitely going to make life difficult for her. But what the heck is Lord Vyden up to? -- as well as assorted other characters who've been mentioned but are still very much behind the scenes right now. Also need to work out Tane's track; she's not going to be very happy with it, I fear. And guess who she'll blame. Heh.

I'm off to Readercon this afternoon, and away for the weekend--once a few things get done around here. I have a bag of review copies which will be, hopefully, be sold and pay for my con registration. I have pens and paper, and I plan (unless the latest package of review copies from PW shows up before I leave home) on getting chap 4 done and hopefully bits of chap 5 in the Glenkillian story. I'll see Tachyon's newlyweds, Jacob & Rina (a trip to San Francisco just wasn't in the cards this summer) and catch up with folks and get bombarded with more ideas in a few hours than I find in a week around here.

I always come back from Readercon energized and wanting to work. Now as long as I don't get sick, the spouse doesn't throw another blood clot (yesterday he was feeling 'funny'....), and my vehicle doesn't break down en route, things should be just dandy.

The first official day of summer vacation was yesterday. Between bouts of entertaining the urchin while spouse did phone interviews and head hunter stuff, I managed to read a book, write two book reviews, and discover something I didn't know before about my druemash.

I don't "build" characters, per se; I kind of 'channel' them. They sort of flow out from my subconscious, I guess. The process reminds me of something I read by a theoretical mathematician, who said, basically, "All the proofs are already out there floating around. I spend all my time trying to catch them and write them down."

My standard method for getting characters down is to pick up a pen, grab some paper, and just let them talk. So I write down a starting idea, a short sentence about something that's bugging Cialinn, and by the middle of the next sentence, I've got a picture in my head full of a bunch of things I didn't know before about her, and about the druemash. Boy, did that feel good.

Then it was time to go do RL stuff again.

Whoa.

I just ran into something from way, way back in my writing career; back when it was hardly a career. I hadn't sold anything, but one of my stories (mind you, I had only finished 3 at the time) made it into a (very) local literary mag called The Pearl, out of Lowell, MA. Then I met Rita Rouvalis, who'd fallen in with the EFF and was editor of their online zine called CORE. And she asked me if she could reprint it. What the heck, I thought. And now, lo and behold, that old story --first real SF story I ever finished as an adult who was actually trying to write, for real-- still exists out there in faded phosphors, as brittle and flaky as it always was: "Ground Zero Arcade"

Gosh, do you think anyone could tell, reading this, that Gibson is one of my PWDs? (Personal Writing Dieties) I must've been mainlining "Burning Chrome"....

I actually got a short story out in the mail yesterday--- Thank you, John, for the market tip. Poor old "Petrella" has been sitting on top of the trunk pile for at least six months, and lately I have not been very good at checking market listings for new victims- I mean, new markets to submit to. Got to make that a more regular habit.

I have a list of places I've got to send queries off to, begging (respectfully) for some freelance work. And the list of topics I need to write some spec kids science articles for (for 6-10 yr olds, since all my previous clips are for high school age+ readers). But first the Plum article needs to be framed and written. All the notes are together; time to actually write the darned thing.

re: the novel....I need more hrs in the day. That, and more self-discipline, of course.