Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

I sold my first non-fiction piece today! I'd written up an article on copyright based on a presentation given to MinnSpec (my writing group), and it's been bought by Writing-World.com! Apparently, the key to selling this article was--get this--actually submitting it. Finally. She responded the same day saying that she'd buy it, which is pretty fantastic.

Sold! Non-fiction! Me! Whee! Other things ending in eeee!

01/14/2010, Thursday, afternoon at day job
* Processed Thaumatrope's acceptance of "The Key to His Heart" and turned around and submitted "Where Dinosaurs Roam."
* Started redmarking Vicesteed ch. 24.

01/13/2010, Wednesday, afternoon at day job
* Posted writing log, freewriting, NanoWriMo

"Missing You In Pieces" Writing Log



New words: 674
Total words: 1,839
Overused word: mother
Gratuitous food: samosas, muttar paneer, and lamb curry
Type of scene: a date, and after the apocalypse
Challenge(s): keeping the build-up interesting
Which line is it anyways?A single fly buzzed around in the car, then landed on the old man's mouth and crawled inside. (What? It's a horror story!)
Added to spellchecker: muttar paneer, waitressing
Notes: More than usual, while writing this story I keep getting compelling ideas about scenes further ahead. So I go and write that out and then go back to where I was and--I've got about three (very short) scenes being written at once. I'm usually much more linear.
Other writingy stuff:
* Heard the sad news that Jim Baen's Universe is closing. http://baens-universe.com/articles/Universe_Closing says that they've responded to all submissions, but I haven't heard any further word, so I queried the assistant editor I've been working with. Updated the market list.
* Posted writing log.
* Great (not-quite-official-yet) news! Jim Baen's Universe *will* be publishing "Salvaging Scottwell"! It's bittersweet, since they are closing their doors soon. We'll be losing a great SF/F publication. But this will be my first pro-level sale, so I'm very excited!

I'm working all weekend at Job #1, as well as likely the next week and a half. I've hired two new people that I'm training in, trying to coordinate four people, and interviewing three more on Tuesday--I probably won't bring anyone else in on this project, but it would be nice to have more coders available. Narf. Really, I want to get to the point where I can point a group of people at a project, say, "Sic it!" and then work on my writing in between answering their questions. That would be acceptable (for me).

Still haven't unpacked entirely from Christmas vacation. I'm trying to squeeze in a bit of cleaning around the edges, but....

"Periwinkle Eyes," my short story about a blind artist, had been accepted at Art Times. It will be my first paid publication in a print literary journal, so that's pretty exciting! On the other hand, they are currently accepting short stories for an expected print date three years in the future. Eeep.

Tomorrow is the last day that you can read my short story, "Blood for Oil," at Allegory Ezine.

We have practically no food in the fridge, but the Mad Scientist says he likes the challenge to his creativity and says he'll delay food purchasing until next Tuesday. This would be more acceptable to me if we had things like milk and bread.

The Catholic wedding of Donny and Anne, good friends currently living in California but planning on maybe moving back at some point, was beautiful. The reception and after-party were fantastic. And I think/hope I got some very good photographs.

I'll be at gunn's New Years Eve party, of course. Between starvation, overscheduling, working too much, and not getting enough sleep, I may not make much sense in conversation, but I'll be there.