Somebody enter so I won't be too embarrassed

After an inexplicable delay, I finally have a giveaway up on Goodreads for Evil Outfitters, Ltd. I tried to list it Saturday night, but it didn't actually go 'live' until today. No one's entered yet. So please do feel free to enter, because if I get no entries I will have to crawl under a rock in embarrassment.

Update: Hurray, two people have entered! Thank you!

Staying up late

My Goodreads giveaway had 1,401 entries! My God! One of those people won, and I've shipped the book off to her. One thousand four hundred and one entries. Wow.

The cat is demolishing one of his jingle-balls (the one with the feather, I think) in the living room and I'm still up because I'm waiting for the dishwasher to finish so I can start the washing machine. Tomorrow is Easter. I think I'll walk down by the river and think about things.

I hope the weather is pleasant wherever you are. I hope everything is as good as can be expected. I hope you have a good book to read.

You could win!

I'm a little slow sometimes. I knew that Double Dragon Publishing has an option to order POD print books, but I'd never actually connected that with the ability to, you know, order a POD print book of my Double Dragon ebooks. Yesterday I made that enormous leap and ordered a copy of The Dragon Whisperer--not to keep, but to give away on Goodreads!

So anyone who's interested, you can go here and get your name in the pot. You might win!

I am astounded at how many people have signed up already, incidentally. As of this writing, it's only been listed for a few hours but there are already 55 people who think they'd like to own it. If only they think they'd like to own it so much they actually go out and buy it.

I've got another Double Dragon book coming out this summer, Evil Outfitters, Ltd, so you can bet I'll be doing another giveaway.

The fruits of my labors

It's not the first of the month, but have a picture of my peppers! These are a few varieties that have started producing. From left to right, top to bottom: the very long ones are immature cowhorns (they get really big if you let them grow), then a pair of mammoth Jalapenos, then two smallish cayennes, middle row a banana pepper, my first sort-of-ripe Habanero, two puriras, and bottom row is a Tabasco and two NuMex variety peppers--Sunrise, I think, but possibly Twilight. I planted both and failed to label them properly, but I think Twilight peppers stay purple instead of turning red. Also they sparkle.

*rimshot*

My acquisition of books continues apace as usual, faster than I can read, although I did read the one I bought today. It was one of those one-gulp books, but since I snagged it before the official release date, I've scheduled the review to run on Tuesday. Hopefully. I've also got three other books for immediate devouring sitting next to the bed, and several books coming in the mail. Dammit, why do I have to work? It's seriously cutting into my reading time!

I had planned to do a lot of writing today, but at least I got everything typed up that I'd handwritten. I'm now 31,000 words into The Trickster Society and about to ratchet up the tension a notch. Looking forward to nearly getting my heroine Ivy arrested for a very serious crime. Muahaha.

Oh, and you know the 3-day novel contest that I entered two years ago? Since I won't be able to go to DragonCon this year, dammit (I can't get off work--see, work just ruins my life), I've decided definitely to enter the contest again AND Mom agreed to collaborate with me! Since she's not really into fantasy, we're going to write a quirky middle-grade book instead. Mom's writing can be extremely funny, so I'm looking forward to working with her. It'll be an experiment for both of us, and if the book turns out good, even if it doesn't win, we can market it.

Finals week is killing me

I used to update almost every day. I used to have time to read other people's blogs too. Funny how the end of the semester still gets me even though I'm not taking classes. I guess that's the way it is when you work in a college.

(That sounded like a punchline, but it wasn't funny.)

I'm still lacking six books in my "read 50 books in 2009" challenge. I think I may have to pick up six really thin YA/MG books to make it, although after this week I'm off work until the new year! Maybe I can settle in next week and read and read and read. Er, no, wait--I have to spin and spin and spin up the nice old neighbor's dog hair and then knit and knit and knit it into a muffler to give it to him for Christmas, and at this rate that's going to take every spare minute of my time since right now I only have enough fur spun up to make a doll's muffler.

I've had this fur for an entire year, too. I have absolutely no excuse for leaving it so late.

WIP Wednesday: the end-game is nigh!

I just finished the day's 2,000 words on Bell-Men. I'm now 72,545 words in, which is a little over 10,000 words this week. That's a lot more than I thought I'd written, so I'm pretty pleased.

Tomorrow is a 10k day, which LMEighmy turned me onto. I have tomorrow off work since it's an ordinary Thursday, and I'm going to write as much as I can. I don't know if I can hit 10,000 words, but I'd be thrilled with just 5,000. I'm close enough to the end of Bell-Men that I think I can finish this week.

Let me say that again, because it's awesome to be able to write it: I THINK I CAN FINISH WRITING BELL-MEN THIS WEEK! Thank goodness!

Tuesday morning goodness

I woke up to an acceptance from Emerald Tales this morning. Yes, "Cult of the Butterfly" will appear in the first issue! Not only that, but I'll share a TOC with Catherine J. Gardner, whose story "Empty Box Motel" was also accepted. I can't wait to read her story and see what weird flights of fancy she took the "follow the butterflies" issue theme on.

Anthology Builder is running a contest that looks interesting. You pick a cover from their database (and they have hundreds) and write a story about it. There's no entry fee and the winner gets $200 and publication on Anthology Builder. Finalists get a critique by founder Nancy Fulda and a $30 gift certificate to Anthology Builder (and I've put together an anthology there and have stories listed, so I think that's a great prize). I'm definitely going to be looking through their covers sometime this week.

Two contest results

Okay, let's try this again...Blogger ate my original attempt.

I woke up this morning to a partial request from an agent, which was a great start to the day. Then I saw that my entry to Lisa Shearin's "name the bordello" contest was the winner! I'll receive acknowledgement of my mad skillz in her next book. This may be the coolest thing that's ever happened to me, although that's not hard. I mean, I may not have much else going for me, but by gum I can name a fictional bordello in someone else's world!

Then I got the results from another contest, the 3-day Novel Contest, and I did not win. Alas, my 23,000 word craptastic written-in-about-20-hours novella did not even make the honorable mention cut. But that means I can A) re-read the damn thing, which I haven't since I wrote it and I'm itching to revise it, and B) market after revisions, even if it is a novella and therefore by default unpublishable, and C) play around with other stories in that same world, which I built just for this contest. So it's all good, although dammit, I would have really liked to win. Oh well, I bet the actual winner would have been a total failure at naming Lisa Shearin's bordello.

January is awards time

The Ursa Major Awards are now accepting nominations for anthropomorphic works published in 2008. Yeah, it's furry stuff. Look, I'm sorry, I have a story eligible. Some people hope for a Nebula or Hugo, I just want my weredeer story nominated for a furry award.

You have to enroll (i.e. give your email so they can send you a key code) and then you have to give your name when you go to nominate, but that's just so people can't ballot stuff. They're taking nominations until the end of February. Voting starts in mid-March. You can see the list of recommended titles to make your choices from, but you don't have to go by that list. You also don't have to nominate in every category. I usually just nominate for movies, books, stories, and magazines, and usually only a few per category (you're allowed to choose up to five).

So make your voice heard! No one will know you had anything to do with this, I swear. You can wash your hands afterwards.

Looking forward to...

Lots of things to look forward to in January.

I should hear back from Mundania Press any day now about The Weredeer, which they have had since Dec. 1, 2006 and which was still under consideration as of a few weeks ago. I just hope the internets didn't eat their final response or anything.

Around mid-January the 3-day novel contest results should be out, and I will find out how Hilda and Justice did. If I don't win, at least I'll have a new novella to shop around--although novellas are teh piss to sell. Any suggestions for good small presses that accept fantasy novellas?

Hopefully I'll hear back from New Fables, which has had my story "Bearskin" for several months and confirmed (back in November) that I'd made the next cut and should hear back in December. Hopefully they didn't mean December of 2009. I don't mind waiting a little longer, though, since that's a long story.

Hopefully I'll hear back from the agent who requested a full of Evil Outfitters Ltd. at the end of August. I just hope she actually got the email--so many spam filters swallow attachments whole. Once I hear back from her (and I am of course assuming a rejection), I'll start querying agents with The Taste of Magic.

Hopefully I'll hear from Alienskin, which has had "Realer Than Real" for a little over two months now and seems to be responding around the three-month mark.

Yes, I will be patient in 2009.

The webpage, she buuuurns.

Since I got the Trunk Novels contract this afternoon, I went ahead and updated my pathetic webpage. I think I'm going to have to break down and actually design a real page that doesn't look like it was slapped together in 1997. I'll wait until I get the cover art for Weaver's Shroud first.

I had to move some stuff around on the page to make room, and my story "The King's Messenger" had to be demoted. I really love that story, mostly because its main character is Kristof, the weredeer from my weredeer novels. (If Carrie Harris can become a world expert on Batman Eyebrows as per Google searches, I can hit the first page when people Google "weredeer," darn it.) I am chuffed to see that the story is on the Ursa Major Awards short fiction recommended list, which sounds really impressive until you realize that the actual nominations aren't taken from that list.

Because I'm a grown-up, I washed the dishes when I got home from work. And also because I'm a grown-up and can if I want to, I ate waffles, peanut butter Captain Crunch, and ice cream for supper. For some reason, I'm craving raw meat right now.

Halloween Hello Kitty fixes everything.

I'm feeling better about life in general now, for three reasons.

1. I checked my mail this morning and my pencil roll came! It's made of Hello Kitty Halloween cloth, which is the CUTEST thing ever, and it's really well made! I ordered it last week after Leigh Dragoon posted about hers, and the second I saw it I had to have one. Leigh Dragoon publishes Byzarium and she bought one of my stories this spring, so obviously she has good taste.

2. I got an email from the 3-day novel contest, and my entry has been received. Now I don't have to worry that it was lost in post office limbo somewhere.

3. I was supposed to give the residual ACT this evening, a real drag since it takes a good three and a half hours so I wouldn't have gotten home until about 10pm, but we only had two examinees signed up and neither of them showed. So I got to leave early.

Of course, nothing short of a big juicy acceptance would fully erase the burn from this morning's shitty rejection.

What I learned in the contest.

I forgot that yesterday was the one-year anniversary of this blog. Whee!

I mailed my 3-day novel contest entry today. So that's done and I just have to wait until January to hear the results. It's funny, but all that buildup of preparing for the contest all through August, and worrying about whether I could actually finish the book in three days, etc.--and the contest turned out to be a dawdle. I finished the writing in two days without losing sleep or skipping anything important (like work on Saturday). On the third day I edited.

So what did I learn? I learned that I am actually a pretty fast writer--which I knew, but it's nice to have it proven. I'm also a very careful writer, which surprised me. I built my outline like a brick wall and wrote the story with surprisingly few deviations from the outline (and the changes I did make were mostly to improve the pacing and fix a motivation problem). Take a single character out and the whole story collapses. And I only needed to make one light editing pass, and after that I just went in and shoved in more description, which is my worst weakness. I also learned--from the super careful outlining and then the super quick writing--that when you come right down to it, writing is 99% thinking and 1% word choice.

I wrote a 1,100-word story at work this morning with a working title of "Cold Girl." It's really maudlin and overwritten. This afternoon and evening at work, because today was my long day and we were really DEAD, I wrote a scene from White Rose in an attempt to keep from dying of boredom. It worked, but boy is that scene terrible.

Complete at 22,607 words

Okay, I've finished my 3-day "novel" in two days. It's actually more of a novella, or even a novellette, not even 23,000 words long.

But considering that I wrote almost 11,000 words yesterday and almost 12,000 words today, and my previous best was 10,000 words in one day and that was way back in around 2003, I'd say I've done pretty darn good.

Besides, the story holds up well. I don't think there are any big holes, although I already know a few things I need to go back in and change. That's okay, because I have one whole day left to edit and add stuff!

And I got a request for a full this afternoon from an agent, one I'd really love to have. So it's been a pretty good weekend all in all. Now I get to go to bed and watch TV without guilt. Because I have finished my 3-day novel in two days.

1 day, 13.5 hrs in--hungry to not hungry in 5.4 minutes

The pizza came! It's surprisingly good. I was starving before it got here, and then after only one (big) piece, I was stuffed. Damn! Still, pizza and microwaves go together just fine.

I'm about to start chapter 7, and I'm 18,500 words in. I've deviated so much from my outline today that it's going to be useless pretty soon. I expected that; I just hope what I've written in place of the outlined plot will actually work.

I can actually see the light here. I basically just have the big climax and the short denoument to write and it'll be done. Go me!

1 day, 8.5 hours in--and cat food problems

I never thought I'd be interrupted by this.

On Thursday I bought a big new bag of cat food (to the tune of twenty bucks) because the cats were almost out of food. I got Nutro Max Cat as usual, indoor formula, chicken flavored. They had the fish flavored last time, so I thought I'd mix it up a little. They like that.

They ran out Friday night so I started using the new food yesterday morning. Last night Vincent kept acting like he was staaaaarving. And both the cats tried to sneak some of the dog's food from his bowl; Vincent always does, but Angel only tries dog food when I bring home a brand new bag, because I guess she wants to make sure it's okay, or that I'm not slipping Jasper the good stuff. Then this morning I went to refill the cats' bowl and they hadn't touched the food from yesterday.

So I drove out to Walmart and bought them some Purina One junk food. They're in there eating like starving refugees right now. I don't know what's wrong with the old food--it looks okay, no mealworms or anything. I even looked online to see if there's a recall out. So then I did something I hadn't done since I was a kid: I ate cat food.

First a piece of the old cat food, and I must say it was nasty. It had a really strange aftertaste. Then I had a piece of the new cat food, and it was okay. I wouldn't want to have to eat it every day, but it wasn't revolting. It just tasted like cat food, and believe me when I say I have eaten a lot of pet food--I used to really like Meow Mix when I was a kid. Yeah. Anyway, for a complete test I also tried a piece of dog food, Nutro Max High Energy Formula because poor old Jasper is so skinny these days--he's almost twelve years old, a Newfoundland dog. The dog food was the best, with a pleasant aftertaste and toothsome texture. If I had to eat pet food for the rest of my life, I'd choose that. Or Meow Mix.

Anyway, if anyone else has had problems with Nutro Max Cat chicken flavor bought recently, let me know. I hate to throw it out, but obviously there's something wrong with it. My cats aren't picky eaters.

Oh, and I'm 13,500 words in and am about to start on chapter 5!

1 day, 6 hours in

I went to bed about 10pm. I got a decent night's sleep, which I really didn't expect to do all weekend. But I met my day's goal of 10k words last night--in fact I got almost 11k. The handwritten portion (which I typed up last night) turned out to be over 2,000 words after all, which tipped me past my goal easily.

Now I'm up and ready to start chapter 4. There are ten chapters in my outline, so I'm only about 1/3 of the way through (the last chapter will be very short, so I'm not worried too much about it). Today's my big push day. I want to write at least 15k today and get as far as I can. If I can finish today, or mostly finish, that would be awesome. Tomorrow I want to keep open for some editing if I can manage it--plus I'd kind of like to relax before I have to go back to work.

19 hours in

I'm more than halfway through chapter 3, over 6,700 words typed and another maybe-thousand untyped, and the story has grabbed me by the heart and head and won't let go. Thank goodness! I was worried it would turn out soulless, nothing but a finger exercise. Now I know it's good.

I had crab rangoons for supper. I thought they were microwavable, but it turns out I had to use the oven to cook them. My oven is awful, awfulawfulawful. It's like trying to cook in a volcano. The directions said to cook the rangoons at 400 for 10 minutes. I set the oven to just under 350 and cooked them for five minutes, and they still burned a little. They were okay--not as good as the ones at Harvest Moon, my favorite cheap Chinese food place. Unfortunately, I also burned myself--just slightly--on the oven door. I have a nearly limitless capacity to hurt myself in baffling ways.

I need to take a break, but I want to finish chapter 3 first. But there's still a lot of stuff to put into this chapter--the meal with Dominick, Dominick's attempt to kiss poor messed-up Hilda, the payment of the entry fee so Justice can enter the tournament, and finally a minor info-dump about Justice's past. I'd better get to it.

14 hours in

I'm not sure how much I got written at work because I don't intend to type it up just yet, but I'd say probably 1,000 or 1,500 words. Not that much. I'm still in chapter two. But I think I've done a good job setting up Hilda's problems so far. She's met Justice, I've hinted at the real issue going on with Hilda, she's had a near panic attack in a crowd, I've hinted at Justice's issue, and they've both just met Dominick.

I'm going to eat some yogurt, then jump right back in. When I finish chapter two I'll take a break.

Two hours in

And I'm already sick of this. What was I thinking?

I've written chapter one and the first part of chapter two. I've been at it two hours and I've only written 2,300 words! I have to throw some clothes on and go to work now, and frankly I'm glad.

This is going to be a rougher weekend than I expected.