Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Waning Moon
Saturn Retrograde
Cloudy and mild

On March 2nd was the one year anniversary of the massive flood here in which I lost my old car. There’s a flood watch out tonight – my newish car is already on top of a hill in another town so that I don’t have to think about it. I’m waiting for the storm to start—I have my pre-storm headache. We’ve been lucky over the past few weeks – the flood watches have been more washes than actual floods, and I hope this one is, too.

And it’s still too quiet. The scumbags are plotting something. I can’t live on the edge of adrenalin all the time; I just have to be ready and assume it’s going to be nasty. I really hate living like this, and hope I can go back to the house hunt soon.

Someone who read my praise of Viggo Mortensen’s performance in Eastern Promises and who knows that I’m involved in equine charity work sent me a You Tube link, (which, of course, I can’t get to link, so you have to cut and paste it) to a public service announcement for the preservation of the American Mustang. Seems that corporate interests are making sure they get slaughtered, and, if they’re not protected, they will expire, permanently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc_lxpVuc1c

The PSA led me to this site.

where I signed the petition to try to help protect them. Please take a look at it. Usually, I run like hell from celebrity-promoted causes, but he’s not doing this to draw attention to himself. He’s a genuine horseman, owner, and rider, and it’s one of the best-handled PSAs I’ve seen in a long time. I encourage you, if you give a damn about keeping an American breed alive, to visit the site and, if you feel strongly enough, sign the petition.

I will talk to my editor at FemmeFan and see if perhaps I can do an article on the organization.

Lori (Words on the Page) talked about yet another fake memoir that’s been recalled by Penguin – how the woman wrote a “memoir” about all the bad things she did in her life, turned out it was false, and she was found out. In my comment on the blog, I said that, had I seen the book marketed as memoir – which is as it was – I wouldn’t have bought it, but I would have considered it as a novel. I am sick and tired of people being rewarded for being their worst selves – publishing contracts, reality television, etc. How about rewarding the people who do positive things in this world? And ignore the self-serving bastards?

Got my laundry done yesterday; worked on the assignment from Confidential Job #1, which is due tomorrow.

Had a good morning’s work on Old-Fashioned Detective Work this morning. I have to switch over to the sci-fi horror novella now, because I’ve got to break 5K on that today, or I’ll never get it out by deadline. Found some new-to-me, interesting markets, and maybe I’ll send out some submissions. Also, I’ve got to work on another ebook.

I’m untangling the story yarn in my head. This is a time where I wish I was positioned so I could sell on a synopsis and a few sample chapters for fiction, because I have a half a dozen strong ideas that could develop into saleable pieces, and I’m not sure which to pursue. I’m interested in all of them, as well, but I don’t know how to prioritize them. The pull of them is even. I have no idea in which direction to go.

Better get to work and enjoy the moments of silence before the scumbags descend again. It’s like fighting cockroaches – you think you’ve got them all, and then another crawls out of the wall somewhere, and you have to start again.

Devon

Old-Fashioned Detective Work –22,205 words out of est. 25,000

Devon’s Bookstore:

5 in 10: Create 5 Short Stories in Ten Weeks by Devon Ellington. This ebooklet takes you from inspiration to writing to revision to marketing. By the end of ten weeks, you will have either 5 short stories or a good chunk of a novella complete. And it’s only 50 cents, USD. Here.

Writing Rituals: Ideas to Support Creativity by Cerridwen Iris Shea. This ebooklet contains several rituals to help you start writing, get you through writer’s block, and help send your work on its way. It’s only 39 cents USD. (Note: Cerridwen Iris Shea is one of the six names under which I publish). Here.

Full Circle: An Ars Concordia Anthology. Edited by Colin Galbraith. This is a collection of short stories, poems, and other pieces by a writers’ group of which I am a member. My story is “Pauvre Bob”, set at Arlington Race Track in Illinois. You can download it free here: