kiya

New winner for best rejection letter ever?

99% chance nothing comes of it, but.

My author interview about the cat and bicycle story is up on the Kickstarter, and we're gonna fund, so bonus all round.

For bonus points, the interview contains the best queer-vibe photo of me I have ever had taken, which makes me happy.

(I really should post something of substance but I am recovering from being sick with a head cold bad enough I got covid-tested for it even though I'm fully vaxed and really all I've done for a while is play Disco Elysium.)

ANYWAY THE ANNOUNCE.

The most weirdly specific submissions call I ever sold a story to is in pre-launch on Kickstarter; this is the only Fog and Brass story I've actually sold and of course it is about the most minor named character in the duology. ;)

Rough timeline of stuff, ish.

Sunday: Get rejection, bringing my total out subs to 17.
Monday: 17 is still good, let's see if I can get it up to 20, though CW is due to reject me real soon now.
Tuesday: Two more rejections. (15.) Neither is CW.
Wednesday: Submitted a thing! (16.)
Today: Place that previously gave me a lovely personal saying that I had sent them exactly what they wanted in theory but in practice they weren't going to buy it, to which I sent another thing in the same 'verse (half the length), closed forever and returned all subs. (... 15. Tear-face emoji.)

According to my stats on the Grinder I have made 51 submissions this year, which, since my goal was 52 submissions by the end of the year, seems pretty solid. (I am upgrading my goal to 105 submissions on the year.) One acceptance, five personals, lotta form.

I have been utterly unable to do substantial writing for about a week, it's like my brain hit some point of peak exhaustion and crashed out. I am, however, revising a story for a call and plotting a poem; I think I am not even trying to hit any of the other things with 31 May due dates because I don't have any plotbunnies to chase for them. That's fine, I put them in my to-do list mostly in case something happens and because CFSes work well as writing prompts for me.

This evening I wrote, edited, showed to first readers, and submitted a piece of flash fiction.

This is not typical given I am a card-carrying member of the "I write long things slowly" society.

(First reader comments were "Delightful", "Evocative, too", and "oof".)

Today is apparently the ninth anniversary of my Hashimoto's diagnosis.

I have feelings about this, in complex ways.

But. I have a story about it, and soon there will be TOC and then I can announce it properly.


(Also, up to 21 submissions on the year, I want to build up to 10 out.)

Resolution for the year: average one submission per week.

Weeks in the year so far: about seven and a half.

Submissions so far: 15.

Rejections so far: 5.

Holds so far: 2.

In the waiting time: 8.

Doing research for a story and IHNJ, IJ... "Jun 9 [1986] Dow Jones-index hits record 45.71 points".

It's not that things don't happen (everything happens so much) it's that I am too worn out by things happening to comment upon the happenage. Mature wisdom also apparently resembles not posting to DW.

The last of my 2020 submissions extant has come home with its rejection note, so now we are on to the grand new world composed entirely of 2021 rejections. (This is the joke; the actuality is that 2021 has also brought me now two holds, one of which I vaguely know when I'll hear back on because it's for a CFS that's still open, for which they are making no final decisions until they have seen their entire pile.)

I am probably not having a depressive episode anymore but I am existentially exhausted nonetheless, which is not assisted by having a vague and near-perpetual case of mild to moderate nausea. (Also I am nearly out of Pepto tablets.)

I am making mild progress on another story in Rory's universe, which does not involve Rory at all (but I do know where the narrator is adjacent to bits of Rory's plotline, because that is the sort of thing I like to know). It writes well except when it just bloody well doesn't, and such is life.

The younger children are in a deeply recalcitrant phase and ER in particular seems to think that all consequences are a grand lark up until she realizes that no, she does not like what is happening and what happened to her fun game? I am looking forward to her maturing out of this.

In other excitements, my toilet, which had been erratic, and then repaired some time ago, went back to erratic and then to 'would not stop running'. It was determined that the problem was not the flappy thing (as had been the previous issue) but something in the refill loop which, when artan attempted to fiddle with it, merely got more vigorous about wanting to blow water forever. It has been shut off at the valve and I need to figure out how to buy a toilet which is simultaneously 'this should be trivial it's a fucking toilet' and 'OMG how is this so complicated?!'

I may have gotten distracted by Turkish lamps instead.

Also having the least-used toilet in the house broken is hilariously complicated so I guess I'm glad it wasn't one of the other ones, but also it does not play nicely with 'vague sense of nausea all the time'.

On the absolute up side I got to play Danny tonight and it was a session about 80% driven by Danny wanting things and going and doing them and he is a very happy feral bard who now possesses a magical fiddle, a book about fairy contract law, and a plan to trade favors for a book on truth in bardic magic. He is well pleased with his world and we have had a fine time.

ETA: oh also the US Army has failed in its most recent attempt to kill my brother; his covid test came back negative. I need to figure out who to scream at.

Climbing Lightly Through Forests: A Poetry Anthology Honoring Ursula K. Le Guin is out today, about which I have many squeaky noises. My poem, "Of Winter and Other Seasons", a meditation on Le Guin, gender, neurodivergence, and identity, is in the book. (As you might guess from its title and the content there is a lot of The Left Hand of Darkness in there, but many other things as well.)

I have my fingers crossed on the thing peripherally involving horrible unicorns.

I finished a story I'm quite pleased with the other day (and submitted it to its relevant CFS) only the main characters keep talking to me and honestly the result is more fanficlike than saleable but they are very cheerful? So they can keep rattling around in the back of my head discussing the health effects of vampirism and the problems of toxic masculinity.

Wanted to play RimWorld this weekend but I didn't have a 1.2 mod setup, got one that I thought worked reasonably well and it turns out it did not so that is the current obsessive debug thing. I need to pick a story to work on, which will be one of 'there are three things with deadlines in February, I should try one of those' or the Bennie novella, or both.

I am (intermittently) a stunningly creatively productive burnout case, and that is very, very tiring.

Also I cannot a body temperature and that is also tiring.