Photograph: Stop.

Stop., originally uploaded by aswiebe.

I've had enough with the snow.

Dream: Vacation

I dreamed we were on vacation. It was only a snippet of a dream, but it made me happy and nostalgic. I wish I was on vacation somewhere tropical and green, somewhere that I had nothing to do and could just lean back and sleep in a hammock or go out and see the local sights.

We were lying in woven hammocks underneath a rough shelter. Phil was asleep. Green stretched out as far as I could see. There were some low hills and some jungle-like trees in the distance, but there was nobody else there. Half-buried in the sand beside the hammock was a pipe or tube-shaped thing that looked kind of like these:



I got out of the hammock because I wasn't sleepy. When I looked behind us, I saw that there was a huge freeway just on the other side of a loose thorn bush fence. It was loud and noisy, but only when I looked at it. When I looked away, everything was quiet and peaceful. So I just didn't look.

Then a chestnut horse trotted across the grass and nuzzled my hand and let me ride it across the grass.

I know, I know. Such a girl dream, isn't it?

Writing Log: My, I feel accomplished!

I had no work today, and I finished taxes yesterday, so I was actually able to stick to The Big Plan and use Sunday to work on submitting manuscripts out and various other miscellaneous writing-related-but-not-writing tasks.

* penthius freewriting - high potential "mystery job" idea
* Read FundsforWriters newsletter
* Read FFWSmallMarkets newsletter--had a great article about query letters
* Updated Markets spreadsheet from Ralan.com newsletter--*such* a great resource.
* Submitted "The Radiator Burped" to Darwin's Evolutions (http://www.darwinsevolutions.com)
* Submitted "A Phoenix By Any Other Name" to Renard's Menagerie (http://www.renardsmenagerie.com), a furry publication, but one not in search of explicit stories. Ah, the strange places that a writer ends up submitting her work to!
* Submitted "Waiting" to PodCastle (http://podcastle.org). Cross your fingers!
* Submitted "Warmth in the Cold Time" to OG's Speculative Fiction (http://theopinionguy.com/page4.html)
* Submitted "Passings" to Flash Me Magazine (http://www.wingedhalo.com). I find submitting literary (non-genre) short stories somewhat traumatic. I'm really comfortable with and up on science fiction, fantasy, and horror markets, but when it comes to literary fiction, I haven't a clue! I don't even establish all the possible markets and then submit to the most profitable/best fit ones. I just find *something* that will take it, I submit the story out, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I don't have to worry about it for another x weeks/months.
* Submitted "Charity From a Thief" to L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest (http://www.writersofthefuture.com/rules.htm), a quarterly must-do for any writer who qualifies.

P.S. If the fact that I didn't make all these links clickable bugs you, there's a Firefox extension that will fix all that.

Twittered Today

• 23:58 Note to self: Don't read horrible news before bed. Especially not if somebody else linked to it by saying it was the most terrible thing ... #
• 10:32 Good Lord. Phil claims to still be drunk from last night, & I believe him. #
• 11:55 French toast for brunch, coconut chai for working on writing stuff. Not usually a fan of coconut, but it's not bad. #
• 12:27 Updating my SF/F market listings spreadsheet. #
• 13:58 Looks like they're finally cleaning out the abandoned house next door. Neighbors soon? #
• 14:24 Just submitted a story to a furry publication. Ah, the strange places writers go to sell a story. #
• 16:39 Dear editors, Only responding if you want something, not if you don't? Not cool. <3 Me & all other writers. #
• 16:52 Now the unfun of figuring out where to submit a literary short story. I'm grounded in spec-fic markets--got no clue otherwise. #
• 18:42 Whew! All ready-for-submission short stories are now OUT. #
• 19:04 Writing work done, now for knee exercises while watching Deadwood. #

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