What's New?

Forward to June 2000...

5-29-00

NEWSFLASH!

Got some good news on Friday -- call it what you will, but my first sale of the year is a reprint sale to Alexlit.com a.k.a. Alexandria Digital Literature. :-)

This is a reprint of my 3-rd pro short story sale, "The Starry King" which had originally appeared in SWORD AND SORCERESS #6.

In other things, I am still insanely busy... but I did book my flight to Chicago for Chicon 2000, with a great fare, via Flifo.com.

5-25-00

NEWSFLASH!

It's-a-my-birthday, and I'll cry if I want to.

What a rotten insane stressful day. I can't even start to describe. But it's ok, I am gonna survive it, just like the first one 34 years ago. :-)

My mom said that I was born during a wild lightning-and-thunder storm. And this is the first time since that first one, that it's been raining and overcast on my birthday. This birthday has also been the only one which made me look back on my life and just kinda think about it, all of it in a nutshell.

I remember wondering, years ago, what I would be like on my birthday in the year 2000. Would I be all "old" and grown up, and married with kids, and with my own home, etc. I remember, in high school, not even being able to imagine anything. Back then, Y2K loomed in the distant future.

Well, here I am, 34 and feeling like a kid. I am single, but yes, I do have that house!

Life is rushing by too fast.... And there's still so much to do.

Oh -- do check out some new NAWticisms...

*** A bit later...

Hey, I just learned that today is also the birthday of fellow Webrats journaler Karina Sumner-Smith and her younger brother! Happy birthday to us all! WOOHOOOOO, BAYYBEEE!!! :-)

Incidentally, today is also Buddah's birthday.

Qool. :-)

5-22-00

NEWSFLASH!

It's been so nuts that I haven't had time to even keep up with my own newsgroup, and that's saying quite a lot. The house has been taking a lot of my time and attention and $$$ since I have to have a haz-mat team remove asbestos-lined ducts to have air conditioning installed (I am financing this like a car payment), and this morning the kitchen sink drain pipe burst and flooded, so now, plumbing. I 've been also slowly organizing and cleaning my rooms... Spent all evening yesterday putting books on shelves properly (before they were just shoved in there like a bunch of crap, directly from the car, as I was moving them from one house to another).

In non-house news, this Saturday I participated in a special multi-author Nebula Signing at Dangerous Visions Bookstore in Sherman Oaks, CA. The signing was okay, but the store had more writers than customers, so I wonder about what kind of "publicity" this event had gotten that Tim Powers, Harry Turtledove, Barbara Hambly, and a bunch of other folks did not have a mob of fans there to greet them....

Congratulations to all the Nebula Award winners, by the way. Although I am very happy for Leslie What's excellent story, I am BUMMED that Bruce Holland Rogers' "The Dead Boy at Your Window" did not win this one... That was my favorite story of 1999!

I am also painting a cover for my short story collection DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE. More on that soon... :-)

Otherwise, I am busier than a lonely bee in a really BIG hive. :-) I need to live on a planet where the day has like 30 hours!

Oh, and I haven't slept for 48 hours....

Before I forget, happy belated birthday to Ron Collins and Lisa Silverthorne! Yah gotta love May! ;-)

5-5-00

NEWSFLASH!

First, allow me to grumble.

At work I got hit by the goddamn virus really bad. Yes, I opened one of the attachments and ran the ~@#$%^! thing. I should have known better -- I, of all people. *sigh* Where was my brain in that foul moment???

Lesson learned the hard way: *NEVER* open unknown attachments.

Now, some better things...

Huge congratulations to Mary Soon Lee and John Sullivan for their sales to Adventures of Sword and Sorcery! Finally, the market is waking from the glacial slumber! Woohoo! ;-)

Today, just like it happened to a number of fellow NAW members, Steve Algieri of Pulp Eternity sent me a subscription copy of PE Issue #2 -- basically a small simple chapbook -- and he also returned my story "Amarantea" which was supposed to have been published in Issue #4 (The Price of Magic).

He wrote a very sweet very apologetic letter explaining why he could not use it after all, and he was reverting the rights, and how sorry he was to have held on to it that long.

However, he did say that he will use my story "Swans" (originally scheduled for Issue #6, "Women of Empowerment") in Issue #3, which he says basically will be a selection of some of the best stories that "came across his desk" -- and places me in the highly complimentary company of writers such as Bruce Holland Rogers, Candas Jane Dorsey, and Brenda Clough.

That is actually pretty excellent news as far as I am concerned. And it only proves that every cloud has a silver lining.

You see -- I need the rights to "Amarantea" now so that I can publish it elsewhere.... *grin*

And, I want to see "Swans" in print -- it is a dark intense retelling of the "Six Swans" fairytale about the sister who makes a vow of 7 years of silence to knit shirts for her swan-brothers... You all know that story. :-)

5-2-00

NEWSFLASH!

A variety of news today...

First, the good. :-) SWORD AND SORCERESS #17 is out, featuring my Compass Rose story "Caelqua's Spring!" It is available from Amazon.com already, so go ye all and get it! A copy for yourself, a copy for your mom, your sis, your bro, your puppy... Ok, you get the picture. :-) And, if you use this link here, you get me a couple of extra pennies per book! :-)

Now, the not so good news. According to a news-blurb off the SFWA site, MZBFM is ceasing publication with issue 50. This is not too much of a surprise, but is still a stab in the heart, so soon after MZB's death....

In other news, welcome back to John Sullivan's journal! Looks sharp after that long hiatus. :-)

Today I just sent off my complete novel package to the publisher I had mentioned previously. I have a good feeling about this one, even if it comes bouncing back, folks! LOL! :-)

My next writing project is gonna be done by the end of May.... At that point I'll say more about it. *grin* But I am psyched!!!

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