Third-time charm: Friday Update

News:

We were in the path of totality. Above is my eclipse kit. We ate mini Moon Pies while we stared up at the moon-covered sun. It was edge of twilight all around. I’m used to the light getting disquietingly thinner during a partial, but never bad-storm dark like that. And the sight of the corona around the moon is just like the pictures, but there’s a difference between looking at pictures—which look like a black circle Photoshopped over the sun–and seeing it in person. It still looks fake, but you know no one has manipulated the sky, which makes it so unreal and cool to see.

In industry news, Pleasure in Pain is getting mixed early reviews on Goodreads (through NetGalley), but “Graphite” is proving to be a standout in the collection, which feeds my ego just fine, thank you. Don’t worry, my ego is underfed and only gets healthy with the occasional meal.

Also, I never made it public because no contract was signed, but Bathroom Omens, my bathroom horror prose/poetry collection, received some publication interest. After a bit of upheaval, though, I decided to withdraw it from consideration for now and start submitting the individual pieces instead. In theory, this should allow the collection to do some work for me first, since collections are a harder sell to audiences. I’d like these stories to be read, because they’re some of my best, even if word counts mean that some of those best are hard to place in the short story markets.

Go forth, my filthy little pretties.

Works in Progress:

This seventh Meridian book has been a job of work, to borrow from Buffy. Two previous versions, false starts, finally resorting to an outline (not a bad thing, just atypical). After two more false starts, I finally managed to get a good opening to Tooth & Claw. I am much more confident in this version than the last two, and the outline proves I have a whole story. It also takes some of the long-term lifting off my shoulders, because I don’t have to remember everywhere I’m going, just the scene I’m in and the next. With my memory issues, that’s really been helpful.

In addition to putting my collection to work, these last two days has involved handfuls of submissions and handfuls of rejections, but I’m still getting holds and personalized rejections, so it’s not all negative.

In the coming week, I’d like to push my daily word counts, if possible, and hit 50K words, because I have a job interview on Wednesday, and should I have good luck there, I’d like to get as far into the book as possible before heading into a new job. But I also want to take a short break at 20K or 25K words to edit a short story for sub and finish out my poetry for the month.

Books I’m Reading:

Killing Time by Russell C. Connor
Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire (finished)
Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire

Things I’m Listening To:

YouTube playlists
Singer-songwriter playlists

Things I’m Watching:

Train to Busan
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (finally first time watching; Netflix has all but one NOES movie streaming)
Angel series (watchalong, finished)
White Collar series
NCIS series
NCIS: Hawai’i series
CSI: Miami series
Will Trent series
American Idol series
Spring Baking Championship series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to April 2022)

The placid white clouds
have all turned gray.
The streets of pearl
have shattered away.
What happened to
these Elysian fields
to fade to brown
from the final seals?
Feathers floating
down from above.
Send in the crows
instead of the dove.