Good for What Ails Ya Check-in

Drew was sick this week, and he lovingly passed his illness on to me. And on to my mom. And on to Daddy. We've all been sniffling snot factories. Lotsa fun. The only good thing to say about Drew getting sick is that he's been sleeping through the night and taking long naps, thus letting eveyrone else get much needed sleep.

We got the official notice of our closing date this week. Come January 11, we'll have the keys to our house and can start painting and moving in. This last push at my mother's house should go quickly with the holidays. I think the cats are the most eager to move in. Poor things have been cooped up in our bedroom the entire time on account of they can't get along with my mother's pets.

On the writing front, I'm still coming to terms with my big SoZ revelations. I've finished the new chapter one, which included a good four or five pages of the original. Now I'm working on chapter two and taking the time to do some proper world building for a part of the culture I never got around to in the first 80K. It'll help establish the world and the problems a bit better.

As for my other writing, I submitted the rejected-from-F&SF story elsewhere electronically. They boast a very quick turnaround (no longer than a week), but my story's been with them for a week and a half and the neurotic side of me is starting to twitch. This explains why I had a dream about an agent the other night. I dreamt that I had the personal home number of an agent that I've actually met at a conference. So, desperate to sell anything, I called her up and pitched a novel to her on the friggin' phone while she's eating dinner with family. She politely ends the conversation, but I'm so worked up about selling something that I call her back and try again, and this time the agent, still polite, tells me how much I suck. Then, in my dream, I wake up and spend a good deal of time convincing myself that it wasn't real, that I didn't really just friggin' call an agent and harrass her. When I wake up for real, I still have to spend a good couple of minutes bringing my heart rate down and assuring myself that it was just a dream and I didn't do something so completely insane and wrong.

And the last piece of writing news is that I got the final word on my writing laptop: it's toast. Somehow I'll work in a new laptop purchase in and around all the home stuff we've got to do this year. Actually, it'll probably end up being delayed until next Christmas. Sigh.