agilebrit: (Facepalm2)
I realize I'm in the middle of the mid-story "OH GOD I HATE THIS THING SO MUCH RIGHT NOW" doldrums, but dammit, one of my characters did not need to go from German to British midstream. It's a first draft and I'm making it work, but argh.

I have scribbled all of 34 words today. In revision. I'm nearly 4000 words in and have no bloody idea what my endgame is yet.

The pitfalls of pantsing.

I also need to go over my spreadsheet and sub the stories languishing on my hard drive right now. I did one last night. One. I've about decided to trunk Abducted Werewolf, and possibly Gargoyles as well. Abducted Werewolf is not my best work and Gargoyles has garnered 29 rejections. I had hopes for the thing, and it's passed slush a few times and got a WotF Honorable Mention, but... bleh.

Well. 500 words won't write themselves and the stories are not going to jump off my hard drive and into editors' inboxes. Back to work.
agilebrit: (That which does not kill me)
and I'll say it again.

I have a weird S&M relationship with my own writing, and half the time, I have no idea who the sub is.

Today? It's me. I should make an icon, because damn.
  • I finally got a "your story sucked" letter from Writers of the Future, which, I guess, means that I can send the thing off to the next place. I guess I should, you know, make a list.
  • The novelthing mocketh me mightily. At least my Writing Buddy (who rocketh mighily) gave me a reason why my Bad Guy would put a starving vampire in a room with a helpless werewolf, so I should be able to bang out 500 words of effortless prose tonight. I hope.
  • Whether that will bring me up to my Weekly Goal is anyone's guess; I need to Do Math again.
  • The Ghost Ship story is stalled.
  • The re-write for the Abducted!Werewolf story is ... going nowhere. Yeah, I don't even know on that one.
  • The printer is giving me fits. Again. Maybe we should just scrap the damb thing and buy a new one. *glares* I was going to have Pages for my Writing Buddy tonight. And that didn't happen.

    Feh. Feh, fie, and woe.

    ETA: And my bad mood is gone, just like that. I should have checked my gmail BEFORE starting this rant, clearly. I just got an email from the handsome and talented editor of Darwin's Evolutions, he still wants the Werewolf Fic, and he's in the process of sending me cashy money.
  • agilebrit: (That which does not kill me)
    and I'll say it again.

    I have a weird S&M relationship with my own writing, and half the time, I have no idea who the sub is.

    Today? It's me. I should make an icon, because damn.
  • I finally got a "your story sucked" letter from Writers of the Future, which, I guess, means that I can send the thing off to the next place. I guess I should, you know, make a list.
  • The novelthing mocketh me mightily. At least my Writing Buddy (who rocketh mighily) gave me a reason why my Bad Guy would put a starving vampire in a room with a helpless werewolf, so I should be able to bang out 500 words of effortless prose tonight. I hope.
  • Whether that will bring me up to my Weekly Goal is anyone's guess; I need to Do Math again.
  • The Ghost Ship story is stalled.
  • The re-write for the Abducted!Werewolf story is ... going nowhere. Yeah, I don't even know on that one.
  • The printer is giving me fits. Again. Maybe we should just scrap the damb thing and buy a new one. *glares* I was going to have Pages for my Writing Buddy tonight. And that didn't happen.

    Feh. Feh, fie, and woe.

    ETA: And my bad mood is gone, just like that. I should have checked my gmail BEFORE starting this rant, clearly. I just got an email from the handsome and talented editor of Darwin's Evolutions, he still wants the Werewolf Fic, and he's in the process of sending me cashy money.
  • agilebrit: (werewolf)
    But hey, crit from an editor, which I will duly take into consideration and possibly re-write the story a little. I have inquired as to whether they'd be interested in seeing it again if I expanded it; we'll see what he says. ETA: And he says he'd love to see the story again. *grins maniacally*

    Because, you know, I don't have enough on my writing plate as it is. But it might be a fun exercise, and hey. Werewolf fiction, so my head's still In The Game.

    I thought of a slight addendum to the scene I'm working on, a tiny detail which makes the thing just that much more horrifying. *evil laughter* I'm a bad person.
    agilebrit: (werewolf)
    But hey, crit from an editor, which I will duly take into consideration and possibly re-write the story a little. I have inquired as to whether they'd be interested in seeing it again if I expanded it; we'll see what he says. ETA: And he says he'd love to see the story again. *grins maniacally*

    Because, you know, I don't have enough on my writing plate as it is. But it might be a fun exercise, and hey. Werewolf fiction, so my head's still In The Game.

    I thought of a slight addendum to the scene I'm working on, a tiny detail which makes the thing just that much more horrifying. *evil laughter* I'm a bad person.
    agilebrit: (Default)
    I'm getting back on the horse. Giant Bugs is going to F&SF this afternoon, once I get it all formatted and printed and stuff. I still think it's one of the best things I've ever written. So there.

    I'm considering skipping the rest of the first tier publishers for the Abducted!Werewolf story and starting on the second. It's...just one of those weird things I wrote when I was in a weird mood, and my confidence level on it is low. Thinking about The Town Drunk for it. ETA: And it's sent.

    Baen's, at last glance, is still closed. Will check later. As soon as I see that they're open again, they're getting the BearFic.

    I scribbled 232 words on the Faerie Show fic yesterday. I'll do at least 250 today. Smack me if you see me wasting time by playing Text Twist or something.
    agilebrit: (Default)
    I'm getting back on the horse. Giant Bugs is going to F&SF this afternoon, once I get it all formatted and printed and stuff. I still think it's one of the best things I've ever written. So there.

    I'm considering skipping the rest of the first tier publishers for the Abducted!Werewolf story and starting on the second. It's...just one of those weird things I wrote when I was in a weird mood, and my confidence level on it is low. Thinking about The Town Drunk for it. ETA: And it's sent.

    Baen's, at last glance, is still closed. Will check later. As soon as I see that they're open again, they're getting the BearFic.

    I scribbled 232 words on the Faerie Show fic yesterday. I'll do at least 250 today. Smack me if you see me wasting time by playing Text Twist or something.

    ARGH.

    Mar. 4th, 2008 05:05 pm
    agilebrit: (Schlock Overkill)
    Okay, I'm very very happy that our fridge is once again working the way it should be. The Maytag repairman was not lonely last week. And, dude, I totally don't mean that the way it came out.

    However, I'm less than thrilled that my refrigerator is freezing my fresh veggies. I've turned it down to THREE (from nine, where we had it before). NO SALAD FOR ME today. Also, I've had to throw out two nearly full bags of fresh spinach, because freezing does bad things to it. Hopefully this third bag will stay in a non-freezy state.

    Also, I got another rejection today. Whee. I suppose I should report the response time to the Black Hole. I shipped the story (Abducted!Werewolf) off again immediately, but the whole "writing" part of me is starting to get discouraged. I opened the Books Gone Bad doc--there's some good stuff there, but whether it's actual "story" or not is an open question. The markets I'm really wanting to hear back from are being stubbornly silent.

    I feel singularly grouchy today.

    At least "New Amsterdam" premieres tonight. Of course, if it's any good, Fox will just cancel it after four episodes air. Not that I'm bitter. And there's a new American Idol. Yay. Who am I rooting for again? Oh, yeah. Aussie Dude and Utah Kid. Names? Do they have names?

    Oh, and that snow they threatened us with? Never materialized. Blue skies now. If I could have the warmer temperatures to go with those blue skies, that'd be peachy.

    Bah.

    ETA: *reads over last couple of entries* I wonder if I'm PMSing. Stupid hormones. And again I say BAH.

    ARGH.

    Mar. 4th, 2008 05:05 pm
    agilebrit: (Schlock Overkill)
    Okay, I'm very very happy that our fridge is once again working the way it should be. The Maytag repairman was not lonely last week. And, dude, I totally don't mean that the way it came out.

    However, I'm less than thrilled that my refrigerator is freezing my fresh veggies. I've turned it down to THREE (from nine, where we had it before). NO SALAD FOR ME today. Also, I've had to throw out two nearly full bags of fresh spinach, because freezing does bad things to it. Hopefully this third bag will stay in a non-freezy state.

    Also, I got another rejection today. Whee. I suppose I should report the response time to the Black Hole. I shipped the story (Abducted!Werewolf) off again immediately, but the whole "writing" part of me is starting to get discouraged. I opened the Books Gone Bad doc--there's some good stuff there, but whether it's actual "story" or not is an open question. The markets I'm really wanting to hear back from are being stubbornly silent.

    I feel singularly grouchy today.

    At least "New Amsterdam" premieres tonight. Of course, if it's any good, Fox will just cancel it after four episodes air. Not that I'm bitter. And there's a new American Idol. Yay. Who am I rooting for again? Oh, yeah. Aussie Dude and Utah Kid. Names? Do they have names?

    Oh, and that snow they threatened us with? Never materialized. Blue skies now. If I could have the warmer temperatures to go with those blue skies, that'd be peachy.

    Bah.

    ETA: *reads over last couple of entries* I wonder if I'm PMSing. Stupid hormones. And again I say BAH.
    agilebrit: (Default)
    Dark Recesses didn't want the Abducted!Werewolf fic, so it's off to Clarkesworld. I understand that this story is a hard sell for them (considering the fact that it stars a werewolf and spills intestines at the climax), but I'm not going to self-reject it, because they take all three genres this thing fits into and they pay ten cents a word and an author's gotta try, right? Also, I think the thing is funny in a dark sort of way and it might be different from what they usually get. Besides, last time they got back to me in a day with a rejection, and that sort of turnaround time is not to be sneezed at.

    I have a list of places for the CatFeet story...and none of them take esubs. Thus it will have to wait until Friday when I have funds to ship it off. I mean, I have funds now, yes. I have about $15 in change sitting in the elephant and a couple of bills in the anteater...but that money is for WorldCon and I'm loathe to break into it, even for sending things out, even if it's less than a couple of bucks.

    Yes, I realize that this makes me weird. But if I'm willing to break into it for little things, I might be tempted to break into it for big things--like Oaxacan carvings.

    That being said, I might break into it for the new Angel S6 comic that's coming out tomorrow, because I'm not sure I can wait until Friday. AUGH.
    agilebrit: (Default)
    Dark Recesses didn't want the Abducted!Werewolf fic, so it's off to Clarkesworld. I understand that this story is a hard sell for them (considering the fact that it stars a werewolf and spills intestines at the climax), but I'm not going to self-reject it, because they take all three genres this thing fits into and they pay ten cents a word and an author's gotta try, right? Also, I think the thing is funny in a dark sort of way and it might be different from what they usually get. Besides, last time they got back to me in a day with a rejection, and that sort of turnaround time is not to be sneezed at.

    I have a list of places for the CatFeet story...and none of them take esubs. Thus it will have to wait until Friday when I have funds to ship it off. I mean, I have funds now, yes. I have about $15 in change sitting in the elephant and a couple of bills in the anteater...but that money is for WorldCon and I'm loathe to break into it, even for sending things out, even if it's less than a couple of bucks.

    Yes, I realize that this makes me weird. But if I'm willing to break into it for little things, I might be tempted to break into it for big things--like Oaxacan carvings.

    That being said, I might break into it for the new Angel S6 comic that's coming out tomorrow, because I'm not sure I can wait until Friday. AUGH.

    Well...

    Oct. 15th, 2007 01:21 am
    agilebrit: (Schlock Overkill)
    Maybe I don't suck quite as much as I did about an hour ago.

    I have edited the Abducted!Werewolf fic into something resembling "good." I shall give it one more read-through tomorrow and then start sending it off into the wilds to find a home. Starting here. Although...

    *ponders* Er. No. First I shall send it to F&SF. Because they have a very shiny turnaround time. *nods* This means I should format, print, and get it ready, oh...now. Except I want to let it sit and stew overnight.

    Well. It's formatted, anyway.

    And I've done a few more sentences in the BearFic. A drabble's worth. Which puts me at nearly 2500 words. I still don't know how it's going to end. I don't see how I can make everyone happy. I'm asking myself more questions, such as:

    (1) What the hell is riding on my cave bear? Is it a pygmy marmoset, or a teeny little alien of some kind?
    (2) What exactly does this little critter want? Is it EVIL or just scared?
    (3) What will come along next to complicate the life of my crew further? Because, you know, an escaped cave bear isn't complication enough. Really.
    (4) How is the bear going to communicate with the crew? Is there telepathy involved? It's a bear, dammit; genetic engineering or no, it can't actually talk. At least, I don't think so. And why didn't it communicate with them before instead of just roaring and slapping the side of the cage with a paw the size of Charlie's chest?

    Oh, and if it would stop sucking? That'd be peachy, that would.

    And if this cold would stop kicking my ass, that'd be nice too. *goes to bed*

    Well...

    Oct. 15th, 2007 01:21 am
    agilebrit: (Schlock Overkill)
    Maybe I don't suck quite as much as I did about an hour ago.

    I have edited the Abducted!Werewolf fic into something resembling "good." I shall give it one more read-through tomorrow and then start sending it off into the wilds to find a home. Starting here. Although...

    *ponders* Er. No. First I shall send it to F&SF. Because they have a very shiny turnaround time. *nods* This means I should format, print, and get it ready, oh...now. Except I want to let it sit and stew overnight.

    Well. It's formatted, anyway.

    And I've done a few more sentences in the BearFic. A drabble's worth. Which puts me at nearly 2500 words. I still don't know how it's going to end. I don't see how I can make everyone happy. I'm asking myself more questions, such as:

    (1) What the hell is riding on my cave bear? Is it a pygmy marmoset, or a teeny little alien of some kind?
    (2) What exactly does this little critter want? Is it EVIL or just scared?
    (3) What will come along next to complicate the life of my crew further? Because, you know, an escaped cave bear isn't complication enough. Really.
    (4) How is the bear going to communicate with the crew? Is there telepathy involved? It's a bear, dammit; genetic engineering or no, it can't actually talk. At least, I don't think so. And why didn't it communicate with them before instead of just roaring and slapping the side of the cage with a paw the size of Charlie's chest?

    Oh, and if it would stop sucking? That'd be peachy, that would.

    And if this cold would stop kicking my ass, that'd be nice too. *goes to bed*
    agilebrit: (Default)
    In a manner of speaking. I think I finally got to sleep somewhere around 6:30, and then the alarm woke me up a little before 10. I'm not any closer to deciding which story to send to Writers of the Future, but I tend toward the A&tS story because it's longer. I'm poking through that one again anyway to see if there's anything egregiously bad about it--something still bugs me about it, although I can't put my finger on it. *sigh* I'm going to give the Abducted!Werewolf story to my Writing Buddy this week.

    I have four and a half hours of school per day to do with Da Boy. I need to go grocery shopping, for lo, we are nearly out of food. And I'm on three panels at MountainCon this weekend and am scrambling a bit for funds to attend the thing. I think I have the entrance fee covered, but gas to and fro and feeding myself may be...problematic. Whether I'm financially comfy at this thing is rather contingent on getting paid for...something. Hopefully the check is in the mail. *crosses fingers*

    I also need to figure out what the next thing I'm writing is. I like to have one in progress and one in the editing stages, and the Abducted!Werewolf story is in editing, so it's time to start a new story.

    In other news, I just poked around the Renard's Menagerie site and found out that the DragonFic is going to be in the October issue. Whee!
    agilebrit: (Default)
    In a manner of speaking. I think I finally got to sleep somewhere around 6:30, and then the alarm woke me up a little before 10. I'm not any closer to deciding which story to send to Writers of the Future, but I tend toward the A&tS story because it's longer. I'm poking through that one again anyway to see if there's anything egregiously bad about it--something still bugs me about it, although I can't put my finger on it. *sigh* I'm going to give the Abducted!Werewolf story to my Writing Buddy this week.

    I have four and a half hours of school per day to do with Da Boy. I need to go grocery shopping, for lo, we are nearly out of food. And I'm on three panels at MountainCon this weekend and am scrambling a bit for funds to attend the thing. I think I have the entrance fee covered, but gas to and fro and feeding myself may be...problematic. Whether I'm financially comfy at this thing is rather contingent on getting paid for...something. Hopefully the check is in the mail. *crosses fingers*

    I also need to figure out what the next thing I'm writing is. I like to have one in progress and one in the editing stages, and the Abducted!Werewolf story is in editing, so it's time to start a new story.

    In other news, I just poked around the Renard's Menagerie site and found out that the DragonFic is going to be in the October issue. Whee!

    Blargh.

    Sep. 17th, 2007 05:42 am
    agilebrit: (Schlock Overkill)
    It is now nearly 5:45am. I've been awake since 2:30am. I got up with the Hubby when he went to work at 4:20am, and I'm really not sure I'm going to be able to get back to sleep at all, but I'm going to by golly make the attempt.

    In other news, I was supposed to send the A&tS story off to the next market after we got paid on Friday, and failed to do so, because I'm dumb and forgot. And now I'm wondering if I should ship that one off to Writers of the Future, or if I should ship the Abducted!Werewolf story off to them instead.

    Decisions, decisions. At least I have something for WotF this time and I'm not scrambling around a week from the deadline.

    Who else is sending something off to them? Come on, flist, I know I'm not the only origificcer out there...

    Blargh.

    Sep. 17th, 2007 05:42 am
    agilebrit: (Schlock Overkill)
    It is now nearly 5:45am. I've been awake since 2:30am. I got up with the Hubby when he went to work at 4:20am, and I'm really not sure I'm going to be able to get back to sleep at all, but I'm going to by golly make the attempt.

    In other news, I was supposed to send the A&tS story off to the next market after we got paid on Friday, and failed to do so, because I'm dumb and forgot. And now I'm wondering if I should ship that one off to Writers of the Future, or if I should ship the Abducted!Werewolf story off to them instead.

    Decisions, decisions. At least I have something for WotF this time and I'm not scrambling around a week from the deadline.

    Who else is sending something off to them? Come on, flist, I know I'm not the only origificcer out there...
    agilebrit: (D'Argo -- Anteaters)
    I've gone from "I'm not sure I can even salvage this story anymore, dammit" to "I think I can make it work if I swap it all back to third person limited." I was able to go through it several times in between races last night (Hubby came in third! Yay!) and make editing passes. Using third person throughout seems to be my best bet.

    Of course, that doesn't change the fact that it's still an incredibly short story that swaps back and forth between the viewpoints of the werewolf and the alien--and goes out to omniscient for one sentence. And this might break some sort of rule or other about keeping it all in one POV. However, rules were made to be broken, and the story calls for it, so there. I mean, hey, bending genres anyway. Rules? Frell the rules. As long as the readers aren't confuzzled, who cares? Well, editors might. *chants to self: serve the story, not the market; serve the story, not the market*

    What I really need to do is start reading short stories and watching for things like VP switches. The problem is that I start reading for pleasure, and then I forget to try to pick up on stuff like that. I really need to work on the whole "reading for more than the story" thing.


    In drag racing, you guys know about the light tree that counts down from yellow to green, right? And if you go before it goes green, you "red-light" and that's an automatic loss. A "perfect light" is .000, which means the driver leaves the line just at the moment it goes green. Last night, the Hubby lost his last race by going -.001 at the light. That's right, folks. He red-lit by one one-thousandths of a second.

    And then his car ran too quick too, but that's neither here nor there; if he hadn't red-lit, he probably would have hit the brakes at the end and avoided that. The weather was so squirrelly last night that lots of drivers were having problems at both ends of the track.

    In other news, OJ Simpson continues to be made of LOSE and FAIL. Good lord.
    agilebrit: (D'Argo -- Anteaters)
    I've gone from "I'm not sure I can even salvage this story anymore, dammit" to "I think I can make it work if I swap it all back to third person limited." I was able to go through it several times in between races last night (Hubby came in third! Yay!) and make editing passes. Using third person throughout seems to be my best bet.

    Of course, that doesn't change the fact that it's still an incredibly short story that swaps back and forth between the viewpoints of the werewolf and the alien--and goes out to omniscient for one sentence. And this might break some sort of rule or other about keeping it all in one POV. However, rules were made to be broken, and the story calls for it, so there. I mean, hey, bending genres anyway. Rules? Frell the rules. As long as the readers aren't confuzzled, who cares? Well, editors might. *chants to self: serve the story, not the market; serve the story, not the market*

    What I really need to do is start reading short stories and watching for things like VP switches. The problem is that I start reading for pleasure, and then I forget to try to pick up on stuff like that. I really need to work on the whole "reading for more than the story" thing.


    In drag racing, you guys know about the light tree that counts down from yellow to green, right? And if you go before it goes green, you "red-light" and that's an automatic loss. A "perfect light" is .000, which means the driver leaves the line just at the moment it goes green. Last night, the Hubby lost his last race by going -.001 at the light. That's right, folks. He red-lit by one one-thousandths of a second.

    And then his car ran too quick too, but that's neither here nor there; if he hadn't red-lit, he probably would have hit the brakes at the end and avoided that. The weather was so squirrelly last night that lots of drivers were having problems at both ends of the track.

    In other news, OJ Simpson continues to be made of LOSE and FAIL. Good lord.
    agilebrit: (D'Argo -- Anteaters)
    This frelling story is giving me a headache.

    Screw it. I'm going to the races with the Hubby.

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