Okay, so I figured I might as well write a whole long thing about what I've been doing and why I haven't posted in so long.
But then I got tired, and decided to do a truncated version instead.
So here it is, what I've been doing and/or what's gone on in my life over the past month.
1. Writing. And rewriting and rewriting Chapter 4 of my novel. Not that it's gotten me anywhere. The damn thing still sucks. Of course, I think everything I write sucks, so make of that what you will.
2. Hung the chandelier that I bought in January and that's been taking up way too much floor space in my living room, forcing my husband to threaten to leave me unless I do something about it. It's nice, huh? Totally worth a divorce, I think. And it matches the sconces I bought about 2 years ago. Yay, mission style. Those ivory silk shades are gonna be a bitch to clean, though.
3. My father came home from the hospital at the beginning of the month, which is great news. He's still a bit frail, has to use a walker, won't do his strengthening exercises, doesn't take his medication, and is generally cranky, pugnacious and rude, so, yeah, everything's pretty much back to normal over there at my parent's house.
4. Mike and I got into a car accident. Well, actually, a jackass rear-ended us so hard that we smashed into the car in front of us. I got some nice whiplash and our front and back bumpers got messed up, and boy am I real happy about that. As an added piece of comedy, according to the police report, the driver who hit us told the cop he "didn't even feel the collision." Right. That's why you immediately jumped out of your car and started yelling "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Well, thanks a lot lying car service driver dude who hit us. Way to go paying attention to traffic. You know it's only your stinking job.
5. Found out from a friend in the NBC gym locker room (which is how all info is passed in television) that they're going to be redoing our control room this summer. My initial reaction to this was "Are you fucking kidding me?!" (Actually, that was all my subsequent reactions, as well.) You see, back in 2002, the switcher in our control room caught fire and instead of replacing it, they decided to redo the whole control room in digital HD. Of course, they had to relocate us for several months. Well, a large part of my job is running back and forth from rehearsal in the studio to my computer in the control room with script changes. Back and forth, back and forth. Our studio is on 6. The control room they relocated us to was on 3. You do the math. And now, god help me, they're redoing the place again--well, apparently just the monitors. They're saying only 4 production weeks, but I'll believe that when I see it. Anyway, this time they're relocating the control room to the 8th floor, not as bad as last time, but still, just the thought of all that running up and down stairs made me want to cry, so I asked the producers to find a place on 6 near the studio and, thank you Jesus, they took pity on me and they're putting me in the copy room in the airlock outside the studio. It should be a better situation, but, still, there goes my easy summer, right down the crapper.
6. Got final confirmation that the Writers of the Future event is going to be in Pasadena the week of August 19th through the 25th. The awards ceremony is the night of the 24th. There's also going to be a book signing the following day and rumor has it it's going to be at Vroman's Bookstore, though they don't list it on their website, so I can't really vouch for this piece of information. In any case, if you're going to be in LA on the 24th or 25th, I'd love to see you. You can come to the awards ceremony by making reservations at contests@authorservicesinc.com. Come on, don't you want to watch a bunch of geeks like me make long, boring speeches? You know that you do.
In the days before the ceremony I'm going to be attending the WOTF workshop, which, as I've read in past winner's blogs consists of a writing exercise where you interview a random stranger and then write a story in a day. Damn, how did they manage to pick the two things in the whole world I really hate doing and/or totally suck at? Well, you know what they say: if you're afraid to do something, then you should definitely go do it. Actually, I don't know if they say it or if it's just me saying it, but in either case that's the sunny attitude I'm approaching this situation with, goddamn it.
Another cool thing about the WOTF week is we're getting a tour of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. I know nothing about space or science or NASA or anything, and I don't really consider myself a science fiction writer--which is kind of ironic since my winning story is science fiction--but I'm really looking forward to the tour.
7. Went to Cru last night. Holy Crap, that was good. Worth every penny, I'm not kidding.
8. I'm on hiatus for two weeks and Mike is away at a programmer's conference until Saturday, so I have the house to myself. PARTY! No, not really. I have a pile of manuscripts to critique and a story I want to finish before I leave next week (see #9.)
9. Going to Readercon on the 5th, and I'm driving up and sharing a room with the fabulous E! That should be a fun road trip. I'll take pictures.
And that's it. Not exactly as truncated as I thought, but I think that brings us all up to date, now, right?
Questions? Comments?
Nightshade Books has just posted this cover for the forthcoming anthology "Wastelands" edited by my friend John Joseph Adams. Wow, is all I've got to say. And another wow when you look at the TOC:
