Hilary Moon Murphy

The Rebirth of a Web Journal

Some of you might have noticed that this web page went into deep dormancy this last year. There have been a number of reasons for this.

First and foremost, I had a baby on December 21st, 1999. For those of you not in the know, Cassie is the cherub in the upper left corner of this page. Parenthood is an amazing adventure, but an exhausting one. I was learning to be a Mom, holding a full-time job, maintaining the Ultimate Clarion Web Resource Guide and continuing to work on my fiction writing. Something had to give, and it was this journal.

Why am I coming back to it? Well, Cassie is a bit older and her schedule has become more predictable. I'm finding that I have a bit more time to do things nowadays. But there are more selfish reasons as well.

Selfish reason number one is that I'm just plain jealous of my fellow journalists. I've been reading the journal of my friend Trey for quite some time now and have always been struck by how cool his pages are. (In fact, I liked his journal so much that I blatantly ripped off his web design and used it here.)

Likewise, I drop in on the web pages of a number of my fellow Clarionites and have noticed that they have continued to maintain their journals while mine lay fallow. It's really nice to see regular updates, and to know what your friends are doing. Occasionally, I send them e-mails from time to time on what I see there, whether it's new publications or, in the case of Karen, an upcoming baby.

I realized that my online friends had no way of getting regular updates on me. And I admit that I began to get tired of people asking me why I never update my web page anymore.

Selfish reason number two is that I want some accountability on my writing. I sold my first pro story this year, but I don't want to rest on my laurels. I like the idea of the online storyboard and regular word count reports to keep me on track. A good portion of this journal is going to be devoted to what I'm writing and where I'm sending it. I now have a bunch of stories in circulation, and hope to get out lots more in the upcoming year.

Furthermore, I will state that I have two outrageous goals for the upcoming year. My first outrageous goal is that I will sell enough pro stories to qualify for SFWA membership. Why do I want to join SFWA? The primary reason is that I want the validation. I want to look people in the eye and say that I am a pro writer. Secondly, the perks are nice. Free web pages on SFF.net (a much nicer location than Geocities!) Free books when Nebula fever hits. Hey, the ability to vote in the Nebulas would be nice, too.

My second outrageous goal is to finish both the novels that I have pending and get them out to agents. It is ridiculous that I have not finished them yet.

The key to these outrageous goals is that I will keep writing at least 200 words a day every day that I can after Cassie goes to sleep. No matter what, I can do 200 words. And often once I've started writing 200 words, I am inspired to do more. And hey, I now have this journal to keep me accountable again.

What else? Well, I'll have to include regular Cassie updates, including baby pictures! And I'll probably talk about other things that I've observed, too. I've always had a tendacy to ramble and go off on fun tangents. Anyway, it's good to be back.

The question is, can I stick to it? All I can say is that I will give it my best shot.

And now back to the purpose of this journal. I mailed off two more stories today, "Nine-Fingered Maria" to Ellen Datlow at Sci-Fi.com and my brand new story "Run of the Fiery Horse" to Gordon Van Gelder at F&SF. I feel that I have been getting closer and closer to selling (my rejections have been actually getting encouraging of late) but I have no idea when lightning will strike. Wish me luck, okay?

And if you like my new journal, let me know.

Hmm