In which our heroine encounters a stormcrow

A guy stopped me in the grocery store today just as I picked up one of those Chef Boyardee pizza kits. I only picked it up to look at the calorie count, which I knew would make me put it back. Before I could remember that my oven also burns everything it touches, I was distracted by learning that I'd gone to high school with the guy.

First he asked if he remembered me from somewhere, so I went through the litany of relationships in a tiny town (starting with "I'm Elizabeth Jones's granddaughter"). Then we established I was a high school chum of sorts, whereupon he said, "You look good. Are you married?" From there he proceeded to tell me about every single person from our high school, teachers and students alike, who had died in the last two decades. Every one. In a curiously affectless manner, let me add. With details such as "she was eating lunch and she dropped dead." I didn't know anyone he mentioned, although I did keep saying, "He sounds familiar, but I don't think I knew him." Then he asked me where I go to church. *shudder* I told him I live two doors down from our old elementary school librarian, which I thought might lighten the mood. He didn't react, but it apparently jogged his memory because he came up with another name--someone I knew!--who is alive but "drinking himself to death."

I only extricated myself from this odd conversation by saying, "I gotta go, my dog's waiting for me" and loping away. Otherwise I feel certain I would still be standing there in the dry goods aisle, listening to the recital of death and self-destruction, because my earlier, subtler attempts to end the conversation didn't work. Apparently in addition to everyone from my high school dying and drinking, at least one of us has skidded down the slope to "overmedicated."

I bought the pizza kit. The next to last thing I wanted to do tonight was make pizza from a box. The last thing I wanted to do tonight was contemplate mortality.

I won't change for you, editor

I got a story back (FINALLY) this morning, and I did a little tinkering with it and it's ready to send out again. It's a strange little quirky thing, not quite fantasy, not quite SF, and too long for the flash fiction markets. And because I have so many freaking stories out right now, the list of markets I can sub this one to is even narrower. So I've been looking at small online zines I've never really considered before.

And here's the deal. I, the author, will rewrite to suit no matter how freaking STUPID I think your suggestion is. I am not proud. I will go so far as to change the entire meaning of the story if you think it's necessary. And I will adapt my formatting to suit your weird-ass submission requirements--UNLESS you want me to put my paragraphs into block form, without indentions and with two hard returns between paragraphs. This, I will not do. There is some shit I will not eat.

Dare I say, it's only the clueless noobs that ask for that format. I saw one market that claimed it was standard formatting for online submissions, which is news to me. Look, I know it's not all that hard to do in Word, if you know what you're doing, but my laptop is Linux-based and Open Office (at least my version of it) will not let me search and replace by formatting. I am not going to manually go through and delete tab indents and put in hard returns just because you, editor, are too farking lazy (or incompetent) to reformat the four stories you epub a year. Not for five bucks or half a cent a word.

No, this is not directed at any one market. It's directed to all of you and you know who you are.

Acute lack of sleep

I was already running a sleep deficit when I went to bed last night, but I figured I could sleep late this morning. HA HA HA. I forgot I had plans to go shopping and then to a movie with my mom, and that we wanted to leave no later than 9:30. So staying up until 1am to finish writing that scene was a mistake.

I am zombie lady. I am zonked. I am other words beginning with Z. My dog got me up this morning at 7:45 after also getting me up two or three times during the night to go out (he has kidney disease and can't help that, though). I'm a morning person, so if you get me up when it's light out--say, you are a big dog who can't wait any longer for breakfast--I'm up. I can't get back to sleep.

So I'm zombified. Even watching the movie "21," which was moderately entertaining and fairly suspenseful, didn't wake me up. And eating too much bland, overpriced Chinese food from the (crappy) Stir Fry Cafe this evening made things worse. I had planned to do some writing this evening, but no. I think I had better go to bed early, by which I mean, you know, now.

IRONY

I has it.

Two rejections today, one of them from the editor who was holding my story for an undetermined length of time. That story is not my favorite and it's very old, so I think it's time to retire it anyway. The other rejection was the next-to-last print submission I sent before I moved, so I was relieved that I even received it.

So apparently, if I complain enough in my blog about not getting responses, I get rejections. I wonder what would happen if I don't complain at all? Hmm. I suspect magical thinking.

Oh, and I got my contract today from Big Pulp. My story "Trompe L'Oeil" will appear on June 2, 2008. I like the stories I've read over there so far very much. "Trompe L'Oeil," of course, originally appeared in Staffs & Starships #1, so a big shout-out to them too.

P&E charity anthology

I'm, you know, terminally behind the times, so I just now found out about the lawsuit that "publisher" PublishAmerica has started against Preditors & Editors. It's a laughable lawsuit, and P&E will absolutely win, but it's going to be an expensive fight. To that end, some folks are putting together a charity anthology to raise money for the cause. You can read the thread on the Absolute Write forums for more information. They're accepting subs until April 5.

I'm going to have to write something new for them, because all my stories are currently tied up with other editors at the moment. *grumbles* Seriously tied up--I have three emails from editors telling me they're holding my respective stories for further consideration: one should respond by May, another by June, and the third isn't sayin but she emailed me two months ago. And those are just the editors who've bothered to respond rather than just sitting on my submissions for months and months and months and months and months--

Oh, wait. I promised myself I wouldn't complain about this any more.

There's an interesting interview with Nancy Fulda, the creator of AnthologyBuilder.com, up on Bloggasm. I hope I do not need to remind you, dear reader, that I have stories available at AnthologyBuilder myself. I do really like the service. Not only do I have those stories available, but I've bought one anthology already and have discovered lots of great stories I wouldn't otherwise have read.

J.M. McDermott sent me an awesome prize for being the first to review his book Last Dragon on Amazon. I am now the proud owner of a Last Dragon button. I got all excited in the post office when I realized it had arrived. I'm such a fangirl. Anyway, I meant to review Last Dragon in the blog and forgot, so you'll have to make do with my Amazon review. I'm terrible at Amazon reviews, but I mean well. You definitely should buy the book and read it!

In other news, I totally smushed one of my cats in the door by accident this evening. I didn't even realize she was there when I closed the door, and it went thump on the cat instead of closing. So I had to coax her out from under a chair, where she had retreated with a shocked and betrayed expression on her face, and cuddle her and make sure nothing was broken. She's okay, but I feel terrible, especially since just last week I was walking into a room just as she was running out, and she ran into my foot and did the retreat-under-a-chair-looking-shocked-and-betrayed thing. Apparently she thought I'd kicked her on purpose. Angel, I swear it was an accident! You can sleep on the feather pillow tonight, and I won't complain if you decide to lie down on my arm while I'm typing!

Incidentally, if this post has no paragraphs, it's not my fault! It looks fine in preview!

Almost perfect isn't enough

I have absolutely nothing to blog about. I think this is because I have hardly written a word since last week. Blah blah blah, no excuse. I need to write.

I had a job interview this morning for an almost-perfect job. It's five minutes from my house, a very worthy nonprofit organization on a beautiful piece of land, friendly and intelligent people, would use both my degrees and much of my background and skills, and I would be working outside at least part of the time. Unfortunately, it's only a part-time job and it doesn't pay well. One or the other I could scrape by with--either FT and low pay or PT and high pay. But I can't afford to take a job that would pay me under $200 a week before taxes. If they offer me the job, I'll have to turn them down.

This has made me feel low. Even coming up with a rather clever idea for a story didn't cheer me up, particularly since I have a billion ideas--it's getting them on paper that's a chore at the moment.

I need a story acceptance to make me feel better. *hits refresh on email 10,000 times*