Rock me, baby

Two more rejections, one for a solo story and one for a Sophie story, both from the same best-of anthology. Sounds like editors are cleaning off their desks in preparation for the holiday!

I’m feeling a little confused this evening, since I took most of the day off—thus it feels like it’s Saturday, and I don’t understand why the rest of the world doesn’t agree with me.

After my chiropractor appointment and a fruitless trip to a local fabric store, I trotted over to Morgana’s and she and Brian and Tomi and I headed to downtown LA where the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising was showing “Aesthetes, Bohemians & Craftsmen: Artistic Dress, 1880s-1920s.” Traffic was horrendous (how do people drive in that crap every day?) but we had no set time to be there, so we were still in good spirits. The exhibit was gorgeous, but they didn’t have a book about it nor postcards, which made us pouty.

On the way home, we stopped at Cho Cho San and now I’m stuffed full of sushi. I had, among other things, my absolute favorite: a Rock-and-Roll Handroll (scallops, avocado, and rice with their mayo sauce, wrapped in soy paper), which Tomi also had a pronounced tasty. I tried something new and very nummy, although also not very good for me: the Hot and Creamy Jalapeño Bomb (crab and cream cheese in a jalapeño covered in fried crunchy goodness, in a spicy sauce). Oof. Too much food in the end!

So now I have to somehow wake up enough to work on Ghosted and write a shiny new synopsis for Waking the Witch. There’s a fresh-cut rose in my writing office waiting to inspire me. Wish me luck!

There is no "try"

On the heels of the latest sale, a few rejections:

• “What Price Beauty?” almost made it in to the Terrible Beauty anthology, but didn’t make the final cut.
  
• I’d also sent solo story “The Queen of Christmas” and Sophie story “Don’t Move” to Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Vol. 8 (both as reprints), and neither of those made the cut. But since they’re reprints, it doesn’t sting nearly as much!
  

And so I sent three stories out today

• “Giving to the Night” to Love Stories Magazine
  
• “What Price Beauty?” to Fantasy
  
• “Heaven Has Eyes” to Baen’s Universe
  

I am nothing if not stubborn.

Mouthwateringly good news!

And another sale! The Sophie story "Behind the Masque" will be in The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Vol. 8! It first appeared in the Wicked Words anthology Sex With Strangers.

Oh, it was such a fun story to write. How can you go wrong with jewel thieves?

The Lucchese Star. Sixty carats of sapphire, as big as your fist. Makes your mouth water just looking at it. Makes you think of Caribbean seas, the summer you were ten, the eyes of the lover that got away.

Inside my turquoise doeskin gloves, my palms itched. They didn’t sweat, not a drop; I wasn’t nervous. It was all about the anticipation, baby. The lead-up. The foreplay….

Fly away home

I had the neatest random encounter yesterday.

Despite the fact that the hotel restaurant advertised, on its door and on in-room paperwork, that they were open from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., when I went there at 1:30 p.m. for lunch I was told that no, they were closed. Another woman had stopped there for lunch and was also dismayed, and got directions to the nearby IHOP because she wanted eggs, etc. As she headed to her van, she offered me a ride. Yeah, she could’ve been a serial killer. But I listened to my gut, and my gut didn’t give me any warnings. I knew the IHOP was close enough to walk back from if I needed to, too. So I went.

Kelly turned out to be a delightful, fascinating person and we ended up eating lunch together. She was from Colorado, but in the summer works as a commercial fisherperson, and was on her way to Astoria, OR, to do just that. When I said I was from southern California, north of LA, she hesitated and said, “Oxnard?” Turns out that’s the only place she’s been to in CA (she’d been there for fishing work).

We had such a great conversation. She’s someone I never really would’ve encountered and chatted with in any other circumstance, you know? But we talked about travel and life and writing and motorcycles, and it was just lovely. There are so many horrible, mean, depressing, nasty people in the world. It was a joy to spend time with a random stranger who made the world a more positive place.

Plus I walked nearly a mile back to the hotel, getting my exercise for the day. :-)

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accomplished yesterday:

• good chunk written on Ghosted
  
• all e-mail (work and personal) answered or deferred to Après Trip folder
  
• new sale info logged in spreadsheet and website updated (had to install Firefox on Afalwen to do it…)
  

~ ~ ~

I’m trying to not be depressed about heading home and missing Ken. I’m just going to focus on hoping he’ll get the time off to come home next week for the Styx/Boston show! So there.

~ ~ ~

Home safe, although I had a particularly horrid homecoming with a dead rat in the garage (which was not the problem—I can deal with a small dead furry thing in a trap) that was infested with maggots (and that was the problem—I cannot deal with maggots, especially giant maggots who squirmed their way back towards the garage after oozing out of the dead rat’s eye sockets when I flung the rat out onto the sidewalk). Thanks to our tenant (who joined me in spraying every household cleaner possible at the maggots as well as bashing them with a shovel) and most especially Morgana (who had no problem picking up the maggot-infested rat carcass and bagging it and depositing it in the garbage), the world is a safer place. Although I took a very, very, very long shower after the incident.

Really, it’s all okay. There are fuzzy cats who want to curl up with me, and all sorts of possibilities awaiting me tomorrow. G'night!

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Currently Reading: Circle of the Moon, Barbara Hambly
Lately Listened To: I couldn’t decide
Recently Watched: Doctor Who (augh!)

And with a kiss I pass the key

Celebrate! “The Heist” has been approved by Cleis Press and will appear in the anthology Frenzy (formerly entitled Flash Fucking). Oh, I’m so chuffed. I love this fun little story. “And with a kiss I passed the key…”

So, to celebrate, I’m spending the day writing whilst Ken’s off at work. Writing, as well as hitting the gym and doing a few business-related things that writers must do.

(Note to self: Always bring cordless mouse on trips. You will thank me later.)

Yesterday and today

Yesterday we had a leisurely morning in the hotel, then finally dragged ourselves out into the world…straight to The Old Spaghetti Factory, home of pasta with mizithra cheese and browned butter. Oh, they have other dishes, too, but they’re just not worth mentioning.

After that we went to the Pittock Mansion, which we tried to see in late November last year, but they’d closed that day to decorate for the holidays, despite no mention of this closure (on a Saturday, no less) on their website. The place is tremendously wonderful, and I would’ve loved to stay longer and wander the extensive grounds, but (a) it had become hot and muggy outside and I was wearing riding pants that don’t breath, and (b) we had somewhere else to be.

That was visiting Ernie & Pauline, some motorcycle friends. We four went out to dinner at the Stone Cliff Inn, where I had the most amazing salad with assorted baby greens, medium rare steak, locally made bleu cheese, and a vinaigrette good enough to make one moan aloud. We also celebrated Pauline’s first time on a bike after her hip surgery a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, I’d been fighting off a low-grade headache for most of the afternoon, so we said our farewells and headed back to the hotel for an early night.

I still had a headache this morning (it went away and came back), so I fought it off with Ibuprofen and Drenamin and PG Tipps. I was so successful that I went off to the hotel gym. Half an hour on the elliptical flew by since I was listening to last year’s RWA Nationals session with Nora Roberts, and she’s really funny. On the downside, I saw three spiders in the tiny gym room, and it was stuffy and humid and smelled a wee bit funny. But hey, I worked out, and it chased away my headache for good.

The ride to Lincoln City was gorgeous as usual, and it was fantastic to hang out with everyone at the regular Sunday lunch. Got some good advice from Kris and Dean, and was reminded that I often don’t celebrate the successes nearly enough (not something they said; something I figured out on my own. I love these cosmic two-by-fours!)—I mean, I got a request for a full manuscript, and why did I not jump up and down and eat a nice little square of Green & Blacks? Damned if I know. Anyway. Had some nice little epiphanies on the way home, too (long bike rides are good for that sort of thing).

Back in town, we saw Iron Man because it’s fabulous and Ken absolutely had to see it, and then, because it was just across the street, ate at The Old Spaghetti Factory again. You get one guess what I ate. Only one. Use it wisely.

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Currently Reading: Circle of the Moon, Barbara Hambly
Lately Listened To: various Styx
Recently Watched: There’s no DVR here. How can I watch live TV? I don’t know when anything is on!