Archive for March, 2011

A bit of good news.

Still slowly working at the novel and restarting my short story submission process. And of course time is still being fickle. It’s hard to find enough to work my money-job, read for shimmer, write, submit and make time for all the social opportunities around me (I guess it’s a pretty high class problem that there’s too many fun things to do.) :-P

Oh, and I need to find time to exercise. And do yoga. And relax. And eat. And sleep …

Anyway, before I sleep, I wanted to note that I’m feeling better and better about my writing progress, though I’m still aware of blowing out a year’s worth of cobwebs in my writer brain.

Anyway anyway, I was falling asleep when I was woken up by a notice of a nice review from Nathaniel Katz.

Of the fuller stories, most are quite successful. In his introduction to The Exit to San Breta (in Dreamsongs), George R.R. Martin says that he wanted to update the ghost story, taking the traumatized undead from gothic mansions and putting them in the middle of where modern tragedy occurred: the expressways. Taking Martin’s 1972 logic and bringing it to the 21st century, Grá Linnaea and Sarah Dunn explore death through facebook in Messages from Valerie Polichar. Over the course of the story, Valerie becomes a sympathetic character, and the way that she becomes obsessed and then is taken over by her obsession is chilling.

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Standouts [of issue 2]: Sweepers, The Rat Burner, Messages from Valerie Polichar

Yay. Thanks, Nathaniel

You can read the whole review here. And of course you can still purchase a copy of Shock Totem.

Somehow, I’d missed this earlier review by Sheila Merritt, who also seemed to really like the story.

The outstanding story in the volume is Message From Valerie Polichar.

I never thought folks would go for such a quirky little story. When I read it out loud at Orycon, all I could hear was how … unstorylike its structure was. I was pleasantly shocked when “Messages from Valerie Polichar” was recommended for a Stoker Award. I guess I’ll just have to admit that some people like it.

All of which is to say it’s nice to be reminded that I can write.

Anyway, off to bed.

Visual representation of what’s left to do on my novel

250 words (one page) per chip

Finally back on track with my novel.

After getting derailed last week, I started to wonder if I even had time to finish this book by the deadline. After some outlining, plotting, math and calendar fu, I’ve figured out that I have just enough time to finish the first draft by the deadline for the first 50 pages. I’ll hopefully polish the rest of it by the second deadline.

I was thinking about something Neil told me about how he writes his books long-hand. He numbers ahead on blank pages and when he finishes a page he circles the number. He says, “There is little in the world that gives me more pleasure than circling one of those numbers.”

I still need to post about my awesome new “get shit done” game, but for the time being I’m excited about having a visual representation of every page I write.

Anyway, expect updates as the stacks shrink!

I think I will grow to love and hate these chips.

Grá