Enchantments

Busy couple of days there. Not that I remember much of Monday already, other than a chiropractic appointment and a walk to the post office with Ken to mail all our overseas Yule presents. (Yes, you may resent me now, if you must.)

Today we threw ingredients for coq au vin into the crockpot, and then I toddled off to the gym for the first of 12 sessions with my trainer. She kicked my butt, and it felt great. I really want to end the year feeling like I’ve made serious progress where my health is concerned. Anyway, came home, showered, and Ken and I went through aaaaaalllll our posters and unframed artwork (the stuff that we’re keeping, anyway. We purged a lot of it on Sunday, and a few more things today.) and measured it, so as we find cool frames and whatnot we’ll be set to go. Morgana has a mat cutter, so we’ll be able to do a lot of the framing ourselves. We also did a quick grocery shopping to replenish some staples we’d run out of. (At one point in the store, Ken asked what was left on the list and I said “Pickles, pastrami, and fish. Sounds like I’m pregnant!” Hee. I ended the day (up ‘til now) with a great massage (she also beat me up, and it hurt so good), and dinner and Heroes with my beloved.

Tomorrow there will be the chiropractor and a trip to the shelter to check if a friend’s cat is there, and then much more sewing room organization—measuring each piece of fabric we’re keeping, stapling a swatch into a notebook with a description of it, and sorting it into bins.

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I brainstormed my next two short stories today, for Paper Blossoms, Sharpened Steel and Kama Sutra, the latter with able assistance from Teresa, because it’s sort of backstory to the novel we’re writing next (the short story will be about the heroine’s mother, the goddess Budhi Pallien, and our heroine’s conception, so I wanted to make sure Teresa was cool with the concept so I didn’t mess up something in the novel-to-come).

But I also have to get back into High Spirits and really crank on it. I want my trophy, dammit! To that end, I’ve stepped back and looked at my career goals and made some revisions. I did this two years ago, and it was time to do it again.

Basically, it’s like this: I’d been fighting and fighting with an anthology story, and finally I stepped back and realized that even if I finished it (that would be finishing the third attempt at a beginning), what I’d make for my time was pitiful. My hourly rate would be something like a buck fifty. And that just makes no sense. A couple of years ago I said “No more submitting to places that pay less than $X,” and now I’m again saying that, but I’m raising $X. I may occasionally submit if I know/like the editor—it’s not a rule set in stone—but the bottom line is, novels are my bread and butter. Stories sales are little gifts, as well as major warm fuzzies, but they can’t keep taking away from the novels.

So, the stories I brainstormed today fall into the new pay category. There are two more on the list that don’t fall into the category, but I like the editor, so I may try for them if I feel like I have the time. If not, no problem.

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So our DVD player, which we bought for like £100 in Tesco’s (UK supermarket) with the idea that we’d use it for a year in Wales and then buy a better one when we moved back here, and has mostly worked since? Died. Taking a Hex disk with it (although I suspect we can rip it open to retrieve the disk.) It would die during the WGA strike… We’re currently debating whether to buy another cheap one to get us through, or to step up the research on multiregion DVD recorders and buy ourselves a joint Yule present. I’m currently voting for the former, as it will be much faster and the Netflix DVDs on the coffee table won’t look so forlorn…

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Currently Reading: Melancholy Baby, Robert B. Parker—I finished it in less than a day, whoosh! I’ll probably read another Jenny Crusie next.
Lately Listened To: RWA session while working out
Recently Watched: Heroes