Writerly Wackiness

On the publication (or lack thereof) front...

Unfortunately, the magazine that accepted my post-apocalyptic zombie story last year appears to be a little on the dead side.  Duotrope's declared them so some time back (website not updated in some time, no reply to their inquiries...the usual).  I waited it out a bit longer, wanting to give the benefit of the doubt, but it's been over a year with no sign of any future issues surfacing.  I never received any kind of contract, so I finally sent an email officially withdrawing my story from the publication (on the off-chance there's ever any further activity there). The perils of trying a new publication, alas.  [And editing this entry to add: I heard back from the submissions editor who had accepted my story, and she confirmed that things aren't moving forward at this point and that I should try the story elsewhere.]  I've since sent the story off shambling in search of a new home, so here's hoping. 

And on the My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel front...

Between Sirens and sniffling, not a lot of progress lately, but what little progress I've made has been good progress.  At first the chapter 2 rewrite was laying some serious hurt on my brain.  It was an unfortunate case of conflicting critique comments knocking my internal compass off-kilter, with comments like "The characterization is great but the pacing is a bit too slow" followed by "I think you should slow things down and spend more time letting us get to know the characters."  But I managed to find my footing again, figure out what felt right to me, and get the rewrite off to a good start.

My brain and priorities were all over the place today, so I won't pretend to have tried to stick to the slug-fighting schedule. But I wasn't entirely unproductive.  Actually, I got everything done except the exercise and the writing, and I spent a hefty chunk of time going over a grant proposal I had volunteered to help with for the chorus I sing with. So I guess that counts for something.

On a sucktastic note, Realms of Fantasy closing is a major bummer.

On a pleasant note, I saw that I was among the "Other nice work came from..." folks mentioned in Rich Horton's yearly summary of Hub.

On a random note, AsYouKnowBob told me that I was singing in my sleep last night--the night after reading the chapter on music and dreams in Musicophilia.

On another random note, I need to see if I have anything in Ye Olde Costume Trunk with which I can steampunk myself up a bit.