The Early Productivity Report Catches the Slug

[babarnett]

Since I have no idea what I'm going to be able to get done tomorrow--chorus concert at a school in the early afternoon, theater tickets in the evening--I'm gonna go ahead and post my weekly productivity report now.

Reading: Two more chapters in Bitterwood, up to chapter 23 in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and a story at Tor.com that I highly recommend for fans of the play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead: "We Haven't Got There Yet" by Harry Turtledove. I'm a little bit in love with this brief bit from the story: "Hamlet goes missing--as he must, for his place in the remaining action lies in Elsinore. Is he any freer than Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, or only better written?"

Exercise: We recently got Wii Fit, so I've been spending a good 20-30 minutes a day getting acquainted with that. No substitute for the more substantial yoga and pilates sessions I've done in the past, but definitely more of a workout than I would have thought.

Music: The usual--chorus rehearsals, piano lesson, practicing.

Writing: As I posted on Wednesday, the first draft of the zombie story is done! So that's about 1,200 new words written on that this week, and tonight I started revisions on chapter 3 of My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel.  Chapter 3's pretty short and doesn't need any major revisions, so I decided to tackle that before de-crapifying the zombie story.

Writing Business: Queries out on a couple of stragglers, one of which came back with a reply that the story got far but "looks like it's going to be rejected" and they'll be sending along comments soon. So I guess I'll wait until I get the actual commenty rejection before doing anything else with that story. On a happier note, at least, today I got notice that my quarter 1 Writers of the Future submission got an honorable mention. Considering I almost didn't send that one there, that's better than expected.

Comments

[rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the HM at WOTF. Wouldn't it be great if instead of just coming close, editors would just grab up our stories and swoon over their innate beauty?

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the congrats. And yeah, that would nice, but alas. *sigh*

[jakobdrud.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the HM. Getting your story in the top 5% is really cool, so I hope you send it out again soon.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the congrats. Unfortunately, every market I want to send the story to next is closed. Grrrr!

[justin-pilon.livejournal.com]

I so feel your pain. Good news is Apex and Weird Tales are oopening in April! I need to polish up my subs to them this week.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have one that's been impatiently waiting for Weird Tales to re-open. And once I polish up my zombie tale, I think that has a strong enough SF/horror mix to be potentially appropriate for Apex.

[justin-pilon.livejournal.com]

I have one for WT, too. I just sent Apex a zombie/sci-fi one and they seemed to like it and they said it was in line with what Apex wanted (but...). So anyway I think you're story certainly has a chance with Apex.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Cool, that's good to know.

[kannibal-kat.livejournal.com]

Hooray for the HM!

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Becky lady

[hildebabble.livejournal.com]

HM = sweet!

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Especially after being a no-show with the last two stories I sent there

[hildebabble.livejournal.com]

Yeah!

And I'll also echo the grumbling upthread about waiting for markets to open.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Seriously. I'd really like to send this particular story to Black Gate as I think it'd be a good fit, but they've been closed for about a gazillion years. Grrr!

[hildebabble.livejournal.com]

Maybe you should try Cirith Ungol instead.

A little Middle-Earth humor, there. Don't hit me.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Har har har

[justin-pilon.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the HM! Maybe the next one. I think I'll give Q3 a shot (if my story comes together).

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've got one already in for Q2, and I'm sure I'll come up with something for Q3, so here's hoping.

[justin-pilon.livejournal.com]

Wow, go you! I always think my stories are too dark or too supernatural for WOTF. So I've been waiting for a lighter one to send them.

[pea-faerie.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the honorable mention...that's awesome! I'd love to read the zombie story, btw!

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the congrats! And once the zombie story is fit for human eyes, I'd be glad to pass it along to anyone willing to give it a look.