Still alive.

Sorry for the extended blackout period. The last few weeks have been far too exciting. This excitement has included:

- Gallbladder FAIL. Little bastard is still installed, but I'm seeing a service tech in a few days.
- A week of teaching some awesome kids to sew. They did a great job, and much fun was had.
- Deciding that I'm just about ready to start dating again. There are some interesting people out there. That's not always a compliment.
- Not enough writing, though I've got my FINAL EVER Writers of the Future entry ready to be mailed. Final, that is, unless my RoF publication date is pushed back again.
- Neil Gaiman is off the market. This seems to be huge news on the Internets. Eh, I'm just happy for him and Miss AFP, and I hope my luck is as good as theirs was.
- A neck rash. Yes, a neck rash. I tried to see if shorts + sunblock = jeans in the coverage department, and, yeah. WTF, immune system?

Gotta jet in a minute. Things to do tonight, and I need to start getting them done. Will post again soon, promise!

This is the greatest thing ever seen upon the Internets.

Gorramit.

I got caught up in reading and forgot I'm supposed to be editing and making notes. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or not.

Out with the old, in with the headache.

It's time for me to write two-page synopses of Books 2 and 3. Book 1 is nearly ready to stop around, and I've got to get my ass in gear on the other that I finished (in my bull-headed way--common sense does not compute). I'm going through with major changes needed to make the books fall in line with the revised Book 1, and I'm doing something actually fairly clever: at the end of each chapter, I'm rewriting the whole thing in one sentence. That lets me keep note of the important bits. Hence, I won't have to boil down any more 16-page synopses.

What? My fingers don't know when to shut up.

In other news, I have today off. Tomorrow is moving, Tuesday will involve taking my Conestoga costume to work so I can finish sewing it before going shopping for the last piece I need, Wednesday and Thursday are work and packing, and Friday starts the con. Going to be a VERY busy week, so I'm doing nothing today but editing, laundry, and hopefully a little exercise. (Believe it or not, all of these things are relaxing.) I should probably find room for food in there, too, but that's not such an issue. Worst case scenario, I have tofu and stir-fry frozen veggies. And frozen edamame. Mmm, edamame.

Okay, off to do some chores, take a shower, and get back to work! My life is so exciting. Indeed.

Amazon clusterfuck

Unless you're living under a rock, you've heard all about the Amazon clusterfuck, in which pretty much every GLBT book they sell has been declared "adult" material (ie, explicit) and been stripped of ranking AND availability on Amazon searches. To give an indication of what's considered explicit, Heather Has Two Mommies was included. Amazon says it was a glitch, but this is one hell of a glitch. It's more on level of a site hack.

In any case, I'm pissed off. On the off chance that this thing stays put, that's my bread and butter they're fucking with (to quote Metalocalypse). Most of my writing has GLBT characters and deals with GLBT issues. The main character in the series Colleen is working with me on? Gay as a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide (to quote Good Omens). The novel I started for fun a couple of weeks ago? MC is a 6'2" muscular bull dyke.

Me? I'm a 5'4" pudgy lipstick bi chick. (Why can't I have a cool term like "lipstick lesbian?") I don't appreciate being told--whether by glitch, hack, or executive decision--that I'm offensive, and I'm sure no-one else on the queer spectrum does, either. It's not exactly fun to grow up this way, and a lot of the books currently being censored are intended to help kids through the horrible "why am I this way, and how do I fix it?" phase that so commonly hits about the time you realise the captain of the girls' basketball team is way hotter than the guys' captain. That this could, if not fixed, impact my future income adds injury to insult.

In short, I'm angry. If it's deliberate, I'm angry that anyone could stoop to such a level. If it's accidental, I'm angry that Amazon's systems were so vulnerable to such a glitch. Whatever it is, they need to fix it. If nothing else, the amount of business they'll lose for the sake of alienating the queer community and its straight allies is far greater than what they'd bring in from opposing groups.

Aldous, the cat in my icon, died today. He was four years old. I found his body. We don't know what happened, but he's going to the animal hospital at Stillwater for autopsy, just in case it's something that might affect the other cats.

I loved him more than anyone or anything.

That time of year again.

I've been dreading this event: the first bout of my biannual allergy-induced insomnia. The trees are mating left and right, and the mould spore is skyrocketing. It's not as bad as most years, but I'm putting that down to my lovely, lovely chemo. (No, seriously. Apart from a few side effects, I don't know how I ever lived without it.) I'd take a Lunesta, but they tend to just make me hallucinate.

On the writing front, I'm about 50 pages into a new novel. It's only being written for fun, so I don't know if it'll ever see print. Time and Colleen will probably determine that, though. I'm really enjoying it--I actually remember, for the first time in months, why I started writing in the first place. (It's been a rough few months, in case you couldn't tell. That's what happens when an undeserving oaf breathes down your neck, demanding to know why you haven't sold any books yet.) I'm at a point where I need to just go back and re-read from the start to figure out what happens next. I should probably do some actual plotting, too. Like I said, I'm writing it for fun. I love plotting by the seat of my pants.

I'm going to stick Neil Gaiman on for a while and see if it helps me sleep. Let's hear it for The Graveyard Book!

Writing Romance

I'm working on a Just For Fun novel to clear my mind of Larger Things. It's reminding me of why I never got into Romance. A lot of my writing includes romances, some of which could be described as epic. However, the romance novels I've read tend to focus on the sappy parts of epic love.

I'm more interested in the body count.

Maybe it's a good thing I'm going to be single for at least a while. When your ideal romantic movie is Bram Stoker's Dracula simply because (not enough) people die and there's blood everywhere, it might be best to keep to oneself in that respect.

"Well, fuck" has now become "WTF?"

Not in a bad way, mind. I've just found out (late, as usual) that RoF is coming back, hopefully starting in May, which means that "Nell and the Devil" will make an appearance at, um, some point. This is a very, very good thing, not only for the sake of my fledgling pro status (woo, SFWA membership qualification!), but for my pocketbook. I'm not getting a hell of a lot of money, according to the real world, but I'll be damned if I forget about it.

Three cheers for RoF! Huzzah! =)

This totally selfish post has been brought to you by My Feet Hurt And I Want Sleep.

ETA: Make that July. I don't mind. That's another period or two of WotF qualification.

RAR!

Why do I have so much more difficulty with short stories than novels? Short stories feel like diet cheesecake: I know it's supposed to be good for me (or at least better than the real stuff), but, c'mon. Really?

This post brought to you by a story that's been through at least three versions in as many years, and writing on a shitty mattress because my desk and fancy ergonomic chair are still at the house.