A Day in My Life

To my new followers, thank you! Hopefully I'll be entertaining enough to keep you around. If not, you can leave. Promise I'll only cry a little. :-)

In personal news: Evan and I found an apartment! We're signing the lease tomorrow. Funny enough, it's actually an apartment that some friends of ours lived in while we were all in college there; I really liked it then, and I'm thrilled to be moving in to it now. It's probably twice the size of where we currently live and within walking distance to work/school for Evan, which means we're going to be saving a ton of money once he's not commuting 80 miles a day.

I'm going to have an office!

Well, technically I have to share it with Evan, but still. We've had our desks shoved into corners in our living room for 2 years now. I can't imagine what it'll be like to have our very own room dedicated to our computering ways. We even bought a 17-inch TV at Goodwill yesterday to go in there (for 18 bucks!) because Evan can't function without a TV while he plays on his computer. :-)

First month's rent is free, which means that we can start moving now. Evan has Spring Break next week; I think we're going to get the moving truck and do the monster move then, and in the meantime he's going to shuttle boxes up every day when he goes to work.

Of course, this means I'm going to be here packing. Ugh.


In writing news:

Well, not much to report here. Ever since I finished my short story, I haven't written a thing.
I've had 3 people give me feedback, including our very own DL, from Cruising Altitude. His critique was insightful, thoughtful, and very helpful! I'm sure you all follow him already, but if for some reason you don't, you need to! He's a great addition to the blogosphere.

I'm still researching magazines that I might want to submit the story to once it's all pretty and polished up. I've been taking notes from Duotrope and am getting a good idea of where I want to start. Just for kicks and giggles, I wrote down the acceptance/rejection rates of the ones I'm interested in. And yes, most of these are speculative fiction mags, because that's what I figure my story is closest in genre to, so some of the names are pretty funky! all following stats are from Duotrope

• Kaleidotrope: 18.52% acceptance, 74.07% rejection 
• On Spec: 6.25% acceptance, 90.63 rejection
• Three-Lobed Burning Eye: 2.99% acceptance, 89.5% rejection
• GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator: 1.35% acceptance, 95.18% rejection
• Shimmer: 1.07% acceptance, 97.38% rejection 
• Weird Tales*: 0.94% acceptance, 94.38% rejection
• Strange Horizons: 0.75% acceptance, 97.01% rejection

I forgot which one this was, but I think the lowest acceptance rate I saw was 0.28%. Pretty encouraging, huh?

*Weird Tales is my #1 pick, kinda like submitting to The New Yorker or Harper's for spec fiction. Mostly because my fantasy idol Ray Bradbury got his start there. :-)

Anyway, the lower the acceptance rate, the more I want to submit. Is that totally masochistic or what? I'm excited about starting the submitting process, even though I still have some revision to go.


Simon's post yesterday mentions writing erotica for $$. I checked out the website and was instantly intrigued! Especially by the link called Smutters Lounge! I doubt I'd share any of this with my mom, but I have no problem writing erotica. Maybe it's my calling...

EDIT: I was looking around on the ERWA website and ran across this article. It may be in an erotica forum, but trust me--it has meaning for all of us.


Blogging might be touch-and-go for a couple weeks, but let's be serious: I really doubt it. Just covering my butt either way.

Ciao, February! Aloha, March!

No Country for Old Men/Scooby Doo Mashup

My brother passed this along my way.

It's a preview for No Country for Old Men, told through a mashup of Scooby Doo scenes. Love it.

Short Story continued

Keeping it quick today, folks--had a rough morning at PT and the right hand fingers are rebelling.

In good news, I think hubby found us an apartment! Driving up there to see later this afternoon, but need to take a nap first. :-)

And now for the rest of this Hugo-winning masterpiece from the annals of my youth (if you didn't read the first part, check it out) ...

(Danielle) “Come on you numbskulls, fight before I take your turdy butts and kick 'em myself” I screamed at the dozen men I had. It wasn't my problem if they shoot like girls. Besides, they'll be nothing, but pussy, rotting corpses in a few secs, I'm leaving!

(Tricia) “Colonel Dras!”

I turned around to see one of the cowardly Adventure club call hiding.

“Soldier, get your worthless butt out here.”

The soldier slowly came out of his hiding space.

“Your fellow men are dying while you hide.” I stared coldly into his eyes.

(Jeremy) The men who fell to the ground were not really dead, their personal sheilds easily deflected the sniper shots. The act only served to make sure the enemy did not know about the persona sheild. The warriors butchered the army. Their defense was pathetic. Only two soldiers were left. Out of ammo, the soldiers were using their gun buts (as) clubs, swingging them wildly.

Warlord Carthen stepped up to the men, seizing their guns. He snapped the heavy wooden stocks over his knee easily.

“You have courage,” said Carthen in his deep voice. “You shall both be put to the test. Against me.”

The warriors made a circle of rocks on the desert floor.

“Step out of the circle and you will die,” Carthen handed the Colonel a sword, and similarly armed the other soldier. He shoved them into the ring.

“Defend yourselves!”

(Summer) Dross leaped to the side as Carthen lunged at him. He turned to kick the Warlord, but he was too fast. Carthen slammed Dross into the ground. The general rolled out of the way as Carthen's blade plunged into the ground where he had been laying moments before. Dross, although middle-aged, was a hard-bitten warrior who never gave up. He was outmatched by the younger Warlord, but that didn't matter. He would fight this fight, and if he died, then he died. Carthen lunged at the general again. Dross met the blade with his own and pushed hard. But the genetically enhanced man was like a solid rock wall. He faked to the left, then shot his leg behind Carthen's and kicked forward.

(Danielle) Carthen collapsed into a heap. Laughing the whole way.

“I'm sorry Dras I just couldn't keep a straight face anymore!” he said. Dras chuckled and helped Carthen up giving a slap on the back.

“Well, I always knew you were a wimp, Carthen!”

The two men laughed.

(Tricia) Suddenly they heard a barbaric yell coming toward them. It was the soldier who had coward behind the rocks. He was coming towards them with a sword. He had a crazy look in his eyes.

(Jeremy) “End situation!” yelled Carthen forcefully. The real Carthen. The holo equipment must have been exposed to a slight magnetic field. He had simulated the test merely to see what he could learn. Now the equipment was useless. But he did not care. He lifted his heavy sword and faced the ring. The magnetic field had distorted the simulation. The result was the strange fight. Simulated fight. He tightened his grip on the sword and slowly stepped into the ring. He faced his two opponents.

“Defend yourselves or die!” 

NOTE: I remember this ending caused a big fight among us; my brother was irritated that the cousins tried to change the "serious tone" of the story, and they in turn got pissed that he turned it around on them like that...Haha...

Egghead, Blasts from the Past (little bit long)

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a real egghead when it comes to literature. Just felt like I should put that out there.

I commented on someone's blog earlier (can't remember whose) about crit groups and told the tale of my favorite group of like-minded eggheads. It started before I went to college, when my brother and some of his English and Theatre major friends decided it would be fun to get together, read great works of literature out loud, get rip-roaring drunk, and generally have a good time. A picture was drawn. A gong was rung. A chant envoked (which I can't remember), and thus the first Cult Meeting was begun.

When I came to the same private, liberal-arts college as they, I was inducted into the Cult Meeting society. We even had special invitations.

A Cult Meeting could have as many as 8 people, or as few as 3. One of my most memorable was me, my brother, and his friend; we got together one fall evening at the ramshackle house my brother was renting from said friend and had a great cult meeting. Brother has a chimnea he lovingly nicknamed Odin, and we made many a sacrifice to the chimnea that night. In closing we usually have timed haiku writings, then burn them all to close the meeting.

Told you I was an egghead! And I had great company! Another wonderful Cult Meeting I remember was at the same friend's house with just me and the bro. I stuck to beer, but they knocked back a bottle of Jack, we listened to a lot of music and watched Trainspotting. We may have deviated from the purpose, but it was still quite fun, especially when they decided to smoke pipes at 3am.

Anyway...I just got distracted for like 30 minutes looking at the pictures I took the summer my brother and his roommate moved into the Ramshackle House. If you were all my Facebook friends, I would make it required viewing.

Ever seen A Love Song for Bobby Long? It's kinda like that. (And if you haven't, you should.)

Moving On... seriously, enough already, right? 

I pulled out my most ancient and revered of childhood notebooks yesterday. It was given to me in 1994, after my family home was destroyed by a tornado...I think the grief counselor gave it to me, maybe? To record my feelings? Well anyway, in true Summer fashion, I used it to write stories in instead. Strangely, though my inscription in the front clearly states I received it on June 14th, 1994, I didn't actually write anything in it until 1998. Actually, on second perusal, I see that there are some pages torn out of the front. Man, wish I knew what those said! 

Anyway, the first attempt at one of my oldest on-going story ideas is in this book, which is why I revere it so much. I was flipping through later pages yesterday and found a letter I wrote to my friend, and in that letter were TWO POEMS! 


You have to understand, I didn't write poetry. My angst was all handled through fiction. I purposefully wrote my first poem when I was a freshman in college and my grandfather, who had been suffering from severe dementia for about 6 years, was about to die. Both poems I wrote that night were read at his funeral. I ended up taking a Creative Writing Poetry class my sophomore year and discovered an interest, but all that is beside the story. 

So, here are the 2 poems I wrote when I was ELEVEN:


The silvery glint of your razor claw
Is marred only by the spreading stain
Of blood. The smell is overwhelming,
Like the scent of fresh-cut straw. 


&

Tell me, darling, of a summer's breeze
Or a lover's caress. The taste of 
Wine sliding down your throat, its
Feel like silk, the silk that
Covers our bed at night.
Tell me, darling.


Umm....wow! I couldn't believe it when I found those yesterday. But what made it even funnier was this little note after second one: "I need to stop having these poetic flashes. I'm not a poet! I'm a writer, for crying out loud!" Ohhh, 11-year-old me, if you only knew...


But the best part of all this comes from the same year, a bit later in the summer, when Brother and I were heading to Houston to spend the summer with my aunt and uncle and cousins. We drove from Georgia to Texas, so we had some time to kill. We decided to jointly write a short story, each writing a little section then passing it off to the next person. 

The result was so hilarious that I had to share it. I'm going to break it up into segments, because it's almost 1,000 words long!


About the authors:

Me (Summer): 12
Cousin 1 (Danielle): 12
Cousin 2 (Tricia): 16? 
Brother (Jeremy): 14

(Summer)The hot sun beat down on the scorched landscape. Lan Dross looked at his exhausted troops. The young men stood at attention but he could read their faces like books. The Riverview Academy were more than ready to be heading back to camp. The retired general looked at the red ball of the sun, which was high overhead.

"Alright men. Time to head back. Forward march!"

(Danielle) Groans arose as well as cheers. Colonel Das knew who the groans had come from. None other than the Adventure Club. He thought to himself with a chuckle.

(Tricia) They were a bunch of wimps, terds waiting for his instruction to whip them into shape. And the (wealth? weany?) Adventure Club will know what a real man is made of when I get through.

(Jeremy) Their armaments clanked together softly. All the warriors were anxious for combat. Ready to feel their lances ram through their enemies body, and watch the ground be purified by their crimson blood. He flexed his genetically engineered muscles against his battle armour. His scanners indicated the group ahead. He lowered his lance and armed his deflector sheild. They relished personal combat. Guns were unhonorable. With his enhanced vision he could see the group ahead. He gave the signal to charge.

(Summer) One of the more attentive troopers saw the attacking army and shouted a warning. Dross turned as the first shots cut into his troop. He shouted for the young men to take cover, then dived behind a mound of dirt. He heard the anguished screams of his troops as he unslung his D9854 Blast-Rifle. He got to his elbows and began taking sniper shots at the attacking men. A few fell; nothing compared to the 30 plus young men laying in bloody pools on the desert floor. Dissapointed in them, he shot a couple more attackers, then quickly counted the number of his troops that were actually retaliating.

Creepy Morning, Blogfest and More!

You may have noticed I added my Twitter feed to the blog. Follow me at your own risk: I'm one of those who likes to randomly tweet about my coffee and the state of nature outside my window and that's about it. I also tweet in bursts, but I'm going to try to improve that.

So! My friends at physical therapy had quite the creepy morning! Here's the story:

Elizabeth, an OT student who interns on Wednesdays, was on her way to work this morning when she stopped at the CVS down the street. Before getting out, she noticed a creepy-looking dude standing outside the doors staring at her. Dude had his hand under his shirt with something obviously under there, and he kept looking back and forth between her and inside the store. She decided not to get out of the car, and drove across the street to the Kroger grocery store instead.

After running her errand, she drove the half mile to the PT office, where she sat outside in her car for a minute finishing up her phone call. Then she goes inside and is talking with Krisi, the CHT, when...

MEANWHILE...as Elizabeth is out in her car...

Creepy dude comes inside the office! He asks the receptionist for a paper clip. She gives one to him. Then he asks if he can use the bathroom. She says yes, and he goes into the bathroom for about 15 minutes.

SO...Creepy Dude comes out of the bathroom, and Elizabeth just about falls on the floor when she recognizes him. He stares at her as he walks back outside.

THEN he gets in his car and drives AROUND the building, where he sits in his car behind HER car for about five minutes before finally driving off.

I got there about 15 minutes after all this went down. They ended up calling the sheriff's office, who sent out an officer to take statements, etc.

Isn't that freakin' creepy?!?! Poor Elizabeth was scared to leave!

Who knew that going to PT could be so scary? Yeah.


Anyway! Moving on...

John Paul is having a Drunk At First Sight blogfest! Check out the deets! 
I think I'm actually going to enter this one; I haven't really had much to contribute, since I missed the Kissing one, plus drunkenness is something all my characters seem to share. :-) Hope to see some of you there!


So, I let my husband read "A Tender Touch" last night. Reviews were mixed. He likes to give me constructive feedback, but he's not always the best at softening it with positive aspects. :-) Still waiting to hear back from the others, but if any of you would be interested in giving me feedback on a literary-ish short story that's a little over 3700 words long, you can email me at dream.traveling (at) gmail (dot) com. 

Not sure what my plans are for the day. This may be a reading day, may be a writing day, may be a planning day, may be a baking day. Whatever day it turns out to be, let's just hope I don't have any Creepy Dudes knocking at MY door, and that you don't either! 

Ciao, pretties! 

In Which I Take Precious Editing Time to Kvetch

I'm beginning to understand all the hair-pulling, *headdesk* frenzy over editing.

Sure, I've edited and revised stuff before, but nothing like I'm going through with "A Tender Touch."

I know "they" say to leave something alone for a while after you've written it, but I already had a lot of thoughts on what to add and subtract while I was finishing it up yesterday, and I figured I'd go ahead and do some of them before I forgot.

Then I decided I'd go ahead and tweak some more. And some more...

And now I have a raging headache, several hundred new words on the story, several hundred less old words, and still feel like I'm swimming upstream.

I've always enjoyed revision in the past, but this is tough! I'm guessing it's because it's a short story, not a novel, and all the emotion and plot-arcing and such that I'd normally have 200 pages to lay out are all being condensed into 6 pages.

I've only written one other short story, and it came out about 89% how I wanted it to look in the end. The editing process was minor and not painful.

This story came out about 60% where I want it.

NOTE: I just realized that it's 2:30 and I haven't eaten since 8:30. I'm thinking my headache may be hunger-related. I forgot food in favor of writing? Whoa! Does this make me a real writer? Maybe only if I'd been drinking gin instead...

Anyway. Another problem that I'm seeing is that usually in my short stories/microfictions, I'm just writing about ONE scene. In fact, most people suggest that for a short story, you write about the scene containing the climax, and only that.

Well. That just doesn't work for my story. I'm doing my best to keep it to just two scenes before the climax, but for the emotional development that's pivotal to the story, it's pretty tough.

Enough kvetching for now. I ate while typing this, and my head feels better already, so hopefully I'll finish banging out some edits, then let it rest for a while...

Look, Ma! I Did It!!!

Today is turning into an uber-awesome productive day.

I woke up early, went on a nice, brisk walk while listening to a Sherman Alexie short story on my iPod (if you're into that kind of thing, I would recommend NPR's Selected Shorts podcast--it's wonderful!), then came home and tackled my horribly disgusting pig-stye house.

Okay, it wasn't really a pig stye, but it was all cluttered and in need of some TLC. Which I gave gladly.

I can think so much better with a clean house!

In fact, I thought so well that I FINISHED my short story, "A Tender Touch."

Turned out to be 6 pages, 3,428 words long.
I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, though it will definitely need some tinkering before I try to submit it anywhere.

Oh yes, I'm still planning on submitting it.

It feels really nice to finish something, even if it's just a short story.

I'm going to go finish this book on my Kindle that I've had lingering half-way for weeks now.

And a teaser from "A Tender Touch"! :

I move outside the circle, and something pings on my radar. Malevolence.
I follow the current, slipping in and out of thought, in and out of the physical world, dimly hoping I can keep a hold of reality this time and not fall away into Time's current. This malevolence gnaws at my senses, urges me faster.
The town flashes around me, then darkness. I stop short. The presence is everywhere, swallowing up this forest. Rage and fear envelop me, nearly blinding out my sense of self.
Like stumbling through a dark room, I claw to the surface of the spirit's emotion, enough to navigate through these woods. The epicenter pulses. I could find it from half-way across the country, it radiates such exquisite torture.
The spirit's pain becomes indistinguishable from the world around me. Only when a mournful cry shivers the night do I realize that I've passed the source of trouble. I backtrack and see what I missed.
Children, a boy and a girl, squatting in the leaves. The boy holds a flashlight and keeps turning it off, making the girl squeal in fright.
I move closer, until I can smell powder and jam.
“We better get Mommy.”
“We didn't do anything.”
The boy flashes on the light and points it at the ground. I see dirt-streaked white and realize the children are solemnly regarding a human skull.
“I wanna go home.” The girl sounds on the verge of tears. The boy flicks off the light.
“Fine. But I'm keeping the flashlight.”
A whine wells up, then the nasal sound of half-sincere sobs. The boy turns on the light and holds it under his chin, his sneer casting fractal shadows on his thin face.
“You're such a baby.”
The sobs turn into tears. Wind stirs the leaves at their feet, scuttling a twig across the skull. It falls into the eye socket, and the girl shrieks and flies to her feet. The boy looks mildly alarmed, stabs the stream of light into the woods around them. I feel the spirit's anger growing and its consuming desire to get these children away from its pitiful grave.
The wind picks up and the dead forest floor rattles, leaves and twigs swirling into miniature whirlwinds, beating against the children's feet and legs. The boy loses his bravado, but not his wits, and grabs his sister's hand, pulling her along behind him as he tears away from the skeleton.
I imagine these children will not take many more adventures into the woods at night.