So, I finally finished the edits on "Jetsam", and sent it off. It's at "Strange Horizons", which was my first pick of what few pro markets are (I think) suitable for the story. However, SH's famous list of stories we've seen too often has got me so paranoid, I'm already convinced they won't take it. "Jetsam" could quite easily fall under the "surprise twist endings", "warnings are ignored with unfortunate consequences", or "horrible things happen to person in the end either as punishment or irony" categories, just to name a few.

Oh well. As of now, I have all of three submissions out: "Jetsam", my entry to "Surreal Botany Field Guide", and an erotic dark fantasy piece to an anthology (that I probably won't hear anything on until sometime in 2007). It's not that much, but for someone who supposedly doesn't write short stories, it's not that bad.

Now I get to start working on the last story I wrote at Clarion - a science fiction piece called "The Four Hundred Thousand". Working on it is my gift to myself, for getting the other stories dusted off and sent off. Seriously - I can't wait to start revising it. What can I say? It's a boring life I lead.

Last week ended up as something of a waste, time-wise. I keep putting off finishing revisions of "Jetsam", for a variety of reasons. For one, I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for the story. It's the first story I wrote after all my novels, and I'm a bit tired of it. I've lived with a long time, and I guess familiarity does indeed breed contempt. Also, even with the suggestions of a few Clarion instructors, I still have my doubts that the story works well enough to sell.

I've also come to realize that I don't have much of a writing space set up in my apartment. Writing at the kitchen table isn't working - I get too distracted, and I don't feel like it's "the writing area". When I sit down and open up the laptop, I don't get that sense that it's time to write, time to work. It's not just a sense of space, it's the mental space I can't get into. This isn't a post-Clarion thing, it's coming to realize that I'm not the kind of person who can flop onto the couch or the bed with the laptop, or drag it to the local cafe - I was never that kind of person. Writing is my evening "work", and I need an appropriate work area for it, otherwise I don't take it as seriously as I should.

So: this weekend I bought a desk. My check from the novella will cover it, so despite my precarious finances, I'll still be ok. This is a necessary item, in my opinion. If I'm going to start writing novels again, I need the routine to support the high word count that I'll require of myself every evening, and part of the routine is the desk and the lamp and the dictionaries and all the research books, and knowing that when I sit down and surround myself with those things, I have to write, whether I'm in the mood or not. I don't believe in "the writing muse". I do, however, believe in coffee and a cup of red pencils and a big-ass wooden desk.

"Brimstone Orange" was given an honorable mention by editors Ellen Datlow/Kelly Link/Gavin Grant in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2006: 19th Annual Collection. Ok, so maybe in the long run it's no big deal, and will have no effect on my writing career whatsoever. However, it's nice to know that Ellen Datlow liked the story. For a writer of horror, I think that's significant.

Kelly, however, didn't really like it that much. I know, because she told me that while at Clarion. Heh.

During the last week of Clarion, I shipped two huge boxes of manuscripts and books to my workplace, with the intention of taking a few things home every day once I got back. While it's still easier than trying to find a way to schlep them home from the post office, it's still been a tremendous bother. I'm surrounded by mounds of paper at work, and my apartment is beginning to look much the same. I'm only so much into the "books/manuscripts as decoration" thing - I'd prefer to have at least some small part of my private life book-free. Just for contrast, you know?

In other news: I'm poor! Thanks to Clarion, I'll be eating Top Raman till next July, when I (hopefully) get my annual bonus and salary raise. Good thing I have so many books - I can't afford to buy any more. I'm without internet at home, and the last bit of spending money I have will go toward high speed cable. I can justify that because 1) blogging at work is a bit dicey right now, and I'd rather not use the work computer for that kind of thing; 2) I need weekend and evening access so I can email submissions; 3) I need weekend and evening access to the rest of the human race. I feel very alone right now. I mean, I'm always alone - I just like having the eavesdropping powers of the internet. It takes the edge off the state of spinsterhood I know I'll be wallowing in for the next - oh, say, forty years?

I was going to talk about writing, but now I'm too depressed.

I'd write about the KGB reading with Elizabeth Bear and William Shunn, but it's just easier to point you to the two best entries, by Sean Manseau and Nick Kaufmann. Evidently I missed the most interesting parts of the evening, both before and after. But it was nice to meet up with the NYC-area Clarionites and Kelly Link beforehand, even if no shambling zombies were involved. I met some old friends, was introduced to a few new people, and got a free beer (thanks, Sean!). And sometime in the near future, I and a few others will be taken on a tour (thanks to Chris Cevasco) of the sooper-sekrit nooks and crannys of the Museum of Natural History. YAY! So the evening was a success.

Revisions of my second Clarion submission story, "Jetsam", are almost finished. I'll send it out next week, as soon as I can find a suitable market. It's not quite dark fantasy and not quite horror, so it's not going to be an easy sale. Next up is the major revision of my last Clarion-written story , a science fiction piece that I'll be able to send to Analog or Asimov's (it's not F&SF material, as it's very female-oriented both in subject matter and character POV). I'm taking a little longer to get back to writing original material than many of my fellow Clarionites, but I'm not concerned. "Jetsam" may prove unsalable, but "Take Your Daughters" certainly wasn't (it sold to Subterranean Magazine, btw), and I'm fairly confident that the sf story will sell. However, by the end of the month I should be back to working on something new, even if I'm continuing to revise old projects.

I leave you with this set of photos to look at this weekend: Will Self's writing room. Stupendous!

"Take Your Daughters To Work" - the story I was going to trunk until Kelly Link and Holly Black changed my mind, lol - has been bought for publication. It's a professional sale, and the magazine is one of my favorites. Market to be named later, when I get the go-ahead.

Go me!

I think it's more of the latter.

I sent out a query this morning for my first post-Clarion, submission-ready story. I sent out the query rather than the actual story only because the market in question doesn't accept unsolicited submissions of any kind. An instructor at Clarion gave me the name of the market and told me to use their name in my query, but still... I'm a bit nervous about what I just did. I've never used a "big name" to get my foot in the door before, and using the name is no assurance that I won't be blackballed in perpetuity from the market. Using the name doesn't make it a solicited query - it's still very much unsolicited by the magazine. For all I know I've just shot said foot, and fucked up a good chunk of my future career to boot.

But the email's been sent, and there's no getting it back. If I think about it anymore, I'll drive myself crazy. On to the next task - I'll be making small edits and revisions on one of my Clarion submission stories, "Jetsam", this week. I have no idea where I'll send it. Well, I know where I won't be sending it.

::headdesk::

Well, I survived. I only wrote three stories clocking in at about 20,000 words, but considering that the class as a whole produced 600,000 words that I had to read and critique in only six weeks, I certainly can't say I slacked off. And while two of my stories will need major revisions, the last of the bunch, a science fiction piece called "The Four Hundred Thousand", is much closer to being submission-ready. I'll start working on it next week, with the intentions of sending it out in early September.

This week I'm concentrating on getting back into the swing of things at work, and rearranging my apartment so I have a better workspace for writing. I'm also making a very few changes to one of my Clarion stories, the Mythos piece "Take Your Daughters To Work", and sending it out next week. I've got a number of other stories in the queue, either to be revised or rewritten - and I'm going to finalize the outlines I made for my erotic novella trilogy. While I don't think that erotica will be the primary genre I write in, I still want very much to finish the novellas, and to write the occasional story whenever an idea crops up.

I'm also going to be taking a look at a novelette I wrote almost two years ago, called "The Girls of the World" - it's a steampunk horror piece with giant biomechanical spiders, prissy robot women, and deformed children. I want to expand it into a much longer novella, hopefully something I can sell as a stand-alone piece. Hopefully. We'll see.